At the door, Chad glanced back at her, flashed a Hollywood smile—dazzling, polished, perfected—and brushed imaginary dust from his shoulder, radiating arrogance and superiority.
Her stomach roiled.
Chad pushed through the door, whistling as if he didn’t have a care in the world, and got into his car.
Isabel deflated with relief that he was gone, but she was too far in the deep swell of a panic attack to stave it off. Digging in her bag, she grabbed her bottle of Ativan. She fumbled to remove the lid.
“I’m so sorry,” John said, helping her to the water fountain.
She threw the pill in her mouth and washed it down with a swig of water. Shivering, she gripped the edge of the fountain and tried to breathe.
“I had no idea that was him,” John said. “Chad has been so friendly, helpful in class. A great student. A fast learner. I can’t believe I went bowling with him.”
A sinking feeling slid down her throat like cold sludge, pooling in her belly. “How long has he been coming?”
“Well,” John said, scratching his head. “He started around the same time as you. Maybe a week or two after.”
She put away her meds. “Then we’re at the same level, know the same moves.”
John’s gaze dropped. “No, Isabel. He’s been coming twice as often as you. Four days a week. He’s far more advanced. Just earned his orange belt.”
Isabel was at the most basic level. White belt. She might be ready to test for yellow next month. But Chad had made it to orange?
Dread bubbled inside her. “What does he know that I don’t?”
“A heck of a lot.” John rattled off a mind-boggling list of moves, from choke holds, kicks and punches to body-defense postures. “He’s getting really good at disarming an attacker.”
“Get me ready,” Isabel said. “Prepare me to defend against what he knows.”
A grave look fell across John’s face, and she wanted to vomit. “That’ll take months, not days.” He clasped her shoulder. “You don’t want to engage in a physical confrontation with him. If you see him again, don’t talk to him, don’t go near him. Call 911.”
* * *
THE LINES HAD blurred for Dutch. Over the past two days, he’d gone from marshal on a mission to legit boyfriend. Damn. What was he thinking?
But that was the problem. He hadn’t been thinking or even trying to say the right thing. It was so easy with Isabel, talking to her, spending hours cuddled up in their little bubble while she recuperated, like they were two pieces of a puzzle fitting together. Caring about her was as natural as breathing. Every night when he left her condo something in his chest had ached and didn’t subside until he saw her again.
He pushed through the door of the second-floor satellite hub.
“There’s something I found out while you were off getting closer to the asset,” Allison said as a greeting, cutting straight to it. “I dug deeper into Chad Ellis. Nothing concrete came up, but a woman did file a complaint with the police against him two years ago.”
“Stalking and harassment?” Dutch asked.
“No. Virginia Campbell claimed that Ellis was behind the disappearance of her sister Patricia. Police investigated and couldn’t find anything. Patricia had dated Ellis for a few months and broken up with him. Ellis dropped off the radar and Patricia started seeing someone new. Then she started getting strange phone calls and weird gifts in the mail. But when Patricia disappeared, her new boyfriend was the top suspect. Not Ellis. She was never found. It’s a cold case now.”
The news only exacerbated Dutch’s concerns. Ellis was slippery and careful. Methodical. The more Dutch thought about it, the more he believed the guy was behind Isabel’s allergic reaction though they didn’t have a shred of evidence to prove it. He hadn’t pushed her to share the nightmare of what she’d been through in her relationship with Ellis. Survivors of trauma tended to keep their secrets, ashamed to share. No matter what happened with his assignment, Dutch wasn’t going to abandon Isabel.
One way or another, something would have to be done about Ellis.
“We heard from the FBI,” Draper said. “Their undercover agent passed along another message. The auction is going to happen this Sunday. The data is onsite at Vargas’s compound, possibly in his biometric fingerprint safe.”
“Can’t they intercede?” Dutch asked, wanting to be done with this. To sit Isabel down and come clean. “Arrest Vargas for being in possession of classified data?”