Say It Again (First Wives, #5)(35)

“Baggage,” Sasha said without humor.

“Hey!” The girl elbowed Sasha and turned to him. “I’m Claire,” she said, pleased with herself.

“Sasha?”

She pushed past him and headed downstairs to the trains. “I’ll explain later.”

AJ had no choice but to follow.

Claire fell into step behind Sasha.

A train pulled in as they reached the bottom steps. They pushed into the crowded car and held on to steel poles to keep from falling into the people standing next to them. He had a hundred questions but held each one in.

Claire, on the other hand, didn’t. “So, are you the boyfriend?”

AJ laughed, looked up to see if Sasha heard Claire’s question. Her blank expression said she’d missed it.

“No.”

Claire glanced at their mutual companion. “Huh.”

They rode in silence; the noise of the crowd around them filled the air. On the third stop, Sasha motioned for them to follow.

She immediately dragged them toward the bathrooms and stopped him at the door. “Wait for us.”

“Again with the orders.”

Only he did.

When they stepped back out, Claire was wearing Sasha’s jacket and a baseball cap. Sasha had tucked her hair into a red pixie cut wig, and a long light gray sweater went all the way to her knees.

He took one look at her and grinned. “I like the red better than the blonde.”

She muttered something in a language he didn’t speak.

Claire laughed.

“Should I change?” he asked.

Sasha looked him up and down. “No one is looking for you.”

Claire shrugged, and once again they followed Sasha out of the station.

“Now where?” AJ asked.

Sasha marched as if on a mission. Her long strides ate up the sidewalk; her head was buried in her phone. AJ looked over to see her on some kind of airline app.

“Sasha?”

She lifted the phone to her ear and hushed him with a finger in the air. “It’s me.”

AJ listened to one side of the conversation while Sasha took care of whatever agenda she was on.

“Is Blake’s still an option? Great. I’ll need a passport . . . no. I’ll send you a picture. American. I’ll make it easy, Amsterdam, Victoria Station.” She stopped and looked between both him and Claire. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have so much extra help.”

Claire leaned in. “At least I’m no longer baggage.”

Sasha turned and started walking again. “Precautionary. I’ll fill you in when we get there.”

She disconnected the call and stopped in front of them. She directed her phone at Claire and pointed toward the side of a white building. After making the girl remove her baseball cap, she snapped two pictures and sent them into cyberspace.

“I take it the papers are for her,” AJ said.

Sasha stared at Claire. “Even if she had hers on her, we couldn’t use it.”

“Linette keeps all of them.”

“I remember.”

She started walking again, this time close to the side of the busy road. At an intersection, she waited. As a bus pulled around a corner, AJ watched as she dropped her cell phone into the road.

“What the?” Claire said.

A double stomp later, and Sasha bent down to pick up what remained.

Someone on the street said something AJ assumed was a gesture of sympathy for the loss of an expensive phone.

Sasha shrugged, turned the device over in the palm of her hand, and removed a SIM card.

On the move again, she tossed the phone in a nearby trash can, the SIM card made it into a city drain.

They worked their way to the Hauptbahnhof station and Sasha told him to purchase three tickets.

“Let me guess . . . Amsterdam.”

“You pay attention, Junior. I like that in a man.”

Claire’s amused laugh reminded him of his sister when they were kids and he’d been busted by their parents for some offense or another.

“How long before we have what we need for our baggage?”

“Hey . . . I’m the help.”

AJ ignored the girl.

“Before the last train leaves.”

“You’re kidding.” He knew illegal passports could be bought, but that quickly?

Sasha stepped closer, tapped a finger to her chest. “Professional.”

That same finger tapped his sternum. “Amateur.”

The purr in her voice shouldn’t be a turn-on.

He stepped farther into her personal space. “I’m going to find something I’m better at than you and turn the tables.”

“I look forward to it.” She slid past him, her shoulder grazing his as she marched into a convenience store.

Claire laughed and followed her.

AJ was reduced to jockeying tickets on the next train to Amsterdam.





Chapter Fourteen



So many things could go wrong.

By now, Linette would realize Claire was gone and probably started a search. How far would she reach? How long would it take before the girl’s roommates sang and the boiler room was found? Would they reveal the information? Or was that smoke blown by Claire to make her cooperate?

Sasha watched Claire from across the aisle in the coach car on a westbound train. She took in the world around her like someone who’d been cooped up in boarding school for most of her life, with wide eyes and open ears.