of the ski gear, the duffel bag she’d grabbed, and the butt of the AR.
“She found everything,” AJ told him.
Hours later, Leo stood over her bed with the only note she’d left behind.
Thank You!
That was it. It wasn’t addressed to anyone, and yet everyone seemed to feel that was enough.
Fuck that.
It wasn’t enough for him.
He should have just fallen asleep in her bed and she’d still be there.
The others in the house gave him room.
While Leo was trying to piece together what had just happened, everyone else worked together, packing up the house, removing the cameras, microphones, sensors, and alarms.
He heard the heavy footfalls of Neil as he ascended the stairs and came to stand beside him.
“When did you get here?” Leo asked.
“Just now.”
It was hard to talk. “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you look for her?”
“I will keep an eye out for her, searching is a waste of time and resources.”
Leo shook his head and moved to her dresser. “The hell with that.” He removed every single item he found, shook it out, and moved to the next. “People don’t just disappear.”
“Sometimes they do.”
Neil’s even tone and matter-of-fact words spoken as if they were the gospel hit Leo’s last nerve.
He was right up in the man’s business, eye to eye. “Fuck that! All of this, everything done here, was nothing more than a charade. It never had anything to do with keeping someone from shooting me, or her, again, was it?”
Neil didn’t budge even with Leo shouting in the man’s face. “Partially . . . in the beginning.”
“When did you determine that there was no longer a threat?”
“Two weeks in.”
Leo’s nostrils flared with every tortured breath he drew. One where the air didn’t have Olivia in it.
“I told you Olivia was here to heal. That never changed.”
Leo searched Neil’s face. “Then why me? Why keep me here?”
There was a flicker in Neil’s eye, something that told Leo he was right to ask the question.
“You served a different purpose.”
Leo had had just about enough of Neil’s cryptic shit to last a decade. “Open your fucking mouth, MacBain. I have no problem getting bloody to help you find your words.”
Neil’s mouth didn’t open.
Leo fisted his right hand.
“To prove to Olivia she still had a heart and a reason to live.”
Leo looked over Neil’s shoulder and found Sasha standing in the hall.
“What?” Some of the fight came out of Leo’s tone.
Neil relaxed his shoulders, turned to the side.
“Olivia has been broken for years. This . . .” Sasha lifted her hands to the walls of the house. “This gave her an opportunity to experience a different life. You, and what the two of you shared . . . well, it’s not my place to label any of that. The Olivia we witnessed here is not the woman you met in Vegas. Maybe now that she has been both, she can see a different life for herself.”
“If you believe that, then why would she leave?”
“Reaction. Her normal mode of operation. What she’s always done.” Sasha’s expression said her words were obvious. “She needs to regroup. Find her center.”
He could have been that center.
Lord knew she was becoming his.
“You think she’ll be back,” Leo said.
Sasha didn’t commit. “If I were her, I’d find the shooter. I’d learn who hired them and why.”
The thought of Olivia going after the person who shot her . . . alone . . . made him want to vomit. “And then?”
“Depends on the information.”
Leo looked up at Neil, who had remained silent during the whole exchange. “You think she’ll remove the threat.”
They were both silent.
“You really believe she will kill them.”
Silence.
“Ahh, fuck.” It was one thing in the heat of a battle, yeah . . . that’s what they all trained for. But to find the shooter, or whoever hired them, and just pull the trigger. Premeditated and not within the laws of justice. “I can protect her. The FBI can take care of this.”
Neil shook his head. “The FBI will not protect her when they learn who she is.”
“Who the hell is that, MacBain?”
Sasha said something in a language Leo did not understand and stepped closer.
“Olivia and I did go to the same school.”
“Sasha,” Neil warned.
She lifted a hand, ignored him.
“The same as Claire.” Sasha looked at Neil. “Nothing you haven’t figured out.” Her eyes moved back to Leo. “Richter was . . . is . . . a boarding school. When we were in attendance, this military school operated quite differently than it does today. Some