Hidden Impact (Safeguard #1)(36)
Oh, no way.
“Not likely.” Maylin took a step forward, but Gabe’s arm blocked her momentum. Anger burned away thought process and Maylin only wanted to get right up into Jewel’s face.
Jewel laughed, a short bark. “Remember to look both ways before you cross the street, then.”
Maylin opened her mouth to say something. A hundred questions crowded, jostling to be the first out. But Gabe was herding her to one side and into his rental car.
“Stay down,” Gabe muttered before shutting the passenger-side door and striding around to the driver’s side. Once inside, he kept his attention on Jewel as he started up the car and pulled away from the curb.
Scrunched up in the seat, Maylin fought a nasty internal battle with the part of her most likely to tell him where to shove his orders and jump out of the car. She could assert herself. Prove she was her own woman and go confront this Jewel person, try to make the woman tell her how to find her sister. But Gabe was a professional and obviously knew Jewel. The comments they’d tossed back and forth had too many layers of meaning, too many references to things unspoken. Too much history.
Besides, Jewel had wanted Maylin to go with her. Reason enough to follow Gabe’s instructions. Call it intuition or instinct or questionable survival skill. Maylin didn’t trust Jewel in any way, shape or form.
So she wasn’t going to ditch Gabe to go with the woman. But she wasn’t going to follow along blindly either. It’d been several long minutes and she was done with waiting for him to speak to her. “Are we far enough away for you to tell me why you stuffed me in the car instead of making that woman tell you where my sister is?”
“No.” Gabe sighed. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
A little of the resentment loosened inside Maylin’s chest. He sounded sincere. It was hard to let someone else make the decisions, but Gabe kept proving he wasn’t taking her acquiescence for granted. “Apology accepted.”
And to be fair, frequent traffic light stops meant they hadn’t traveled more than a few miles as yet. Washington, DC, and the surrounding areas were much more confusing to her than Seattle. The street layout didn’t make it easy for her to picture a map of the area in her mind or get her bearings.
“You’re lucky I got there when I did.” Gabe’s grip on the driving wheel tightened. “You weren’t supposed to step outside the embassy.”
Maylin shook her head. If he could apologize, so could she. “I’m sorry too. Could she have taken me off embassy grounds?”
Gabe took in a deep breath. “She was trying to coax you, get you to walk with her. Then, it wouldn’t take much to snatch you off the street.”
True. Maylin could picture it pretty readily. She closed her eyes and recalled several cars on the street. No black minivans or windowless work vans, but more than one had been an SUV or similar larger vehicle. Not hard to shove someone into one of those and drive away. She needed to take these things in more at the moment instead of in hindsight.
“But why?” The question burst from her and she took a moment to slow down, try not to sound panicked. “Why do they want me at all? If they were trying to silence me, stop me from looking for An-mei, I understand why they would try to run me over. But these other things that have been happening. They’re trying to take me alive and I don’t understand.”
It didn’t make any sense. And she needed for it to make sense or she was going to go crazy.
“You’d be leverage. Your sister is capable of conducting valuable research. But they can’t beat her into doing what they want. They need her in reasonably good condition and able to think. That’s where having you in custody makes sense. They can threaten you to gain her cooperation. It’s a good sign because it could mean your sister is alive and resisting. As long as you’re loose, we’ve got a better chance of getting to her before she fulfills their use for her. And you’re turning out to be valuable.” Despite his positive words, Gabe’s tone remained serious. “They’re going to try harder and harder to get to you. I want to say as long as you do what I tell you to, you’ll be fine, but my team and I can’t anticipate every move. We’ll do our best, but your chances increase exponentially if you keep your calm and think clearly on your own too.”
“That’s both scary and sort of encouraging,” Maylin admitted. She very much hoped he was right about An-mei, though. Her sister was tougher than she looked. An-mei could hold on.
“It should be. You’ve got good instincts. We call it ‘situational awareness.’ You had a good distance between you and her. You knew where other people were around the two of you. Very good.” His praise warmed her. “I was also glad to see you holding your ground, not taking the bait.”
And Jewel had been baiting her. But why? Things had been happening so quickly and she’d been so focused on getting the Centurion Corporation team’s help...she hadn’t considered what value she had to anyone out there.
“I can’t imagine what it’d be like to live this way all the time.” Maylin gave in to honesty and the release of tension had her babbling. “You live in this state of constant vigilance. It’s exhausting to watch. There’s news articles about PTSD and how people live in a state of hyperawareness. I always tried to imagine what it was like, but until all of this, it never sank in. It’s all the time. Everywhere. How do you not go insane?”