Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
“Already asking,” Rae says. “Jax?”
Jaxson’s voice slides in. “Grabbing MAC addresses from the lounge access points. If he touched Wi-Fi, I’ll shake him out. Also scraping the boarding-pass feed that shouldn’t be public but is because people love convenience. We’ll know if he’s booked to Denver within ten.”
I ease the secure phone toward Vanessa with my free hand. “No posts until we’re in the air,” I remind her.
She nods. “Delayed. With an extra dollop of unbothered.”
“Good.” I lower my voice because the thing is growing in my chest and I can’t fix it with a wedge. “You’re safe.”
Her brown eyes lift. Something eases behind them. “Because you’re here.”
“Because of the plan,” I correct, and she smiles like she knows which part I’m lying about.
Boarding. We move with the first wave—hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. Rae sends the gate manifest to my screen as we pass the scanner. A name leaps. K. Stevens — B group. Jaxson murmurs, “He bought late. Aisle seat, mid-cabin. If he boards, I’ll know the exact minute. Turner’s team is also rolling to his last card hit.”
“Copy,” I say. My voice feels thicker than usual. I put Vanessa in the window, take the aisle, plant my boots and my body where they belong. Passengers stream. Mothers, suits, a guy who smells like oranges, a girl with a ukulele I pray she won’t play.
B group starts. I sit forward, blocking the row, looking bored. A man with a ball cap and the kind of beard that tries to hide pretty comes down the aisle, scanning numbers like he’s owned this cabin before. Not Kellan. He sits. People shift bags. I watch a hundred hands without letting my eyes look like they’re working.
Jaxson: “No show so far.” Rae: “Card just pinged at a newsstand on Concourse D. He’s not at your gate.”
I breathe out and keep the hypervigilance laced, not cinched.
We lift into the clouds. Vanessa’s fingers find mine under the armrest and stay. I shouldn’t let them, but I do. We count the beats of the wheels clunking up and the way the plane puts its shoulder into the weather and wins. When the cabin evens, I let go first and regret it. She doesn’t make it weird.
Two hours in, turbulence glances off us. She sips ginger ale. I look at the wing and the storm and think about a man who thinks he’s getting closer and how wrong he is.
She turns her head, voice low enough to be just mine. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
I consider giving her the safe version. But for some reason, I don’t. “I know how to braid hair,” I say. “Field hospital. Scared kid. No scissors.”
Her smile is slow and devastating. “God, you’re lethal.”
“Eat your pretzels,” I say, because if I don’t, I’ll kiss her in row 14 and we’ll have a different set of problems.
She eats two pretzels and puts the bag in my hand with streaks of her salt on my knuckles. And it feels like the most natural thing in the world. I don’t date. Not since I returned from the service. Never felt I deserved anyone, but Vanessa is making me change my mind about things.
And that’s dangerous.
Denver comes up brown and flat and full of angles. As we taxi, my phone buzzes.
Rae: Kellan’s phone just went dark on the D concourse. Turner’s team picked him up on camera buying the same brand of glue Hayes flagged. He’s wearing a cap and carrying a messenger bag. We’re pulling plates from the curb. He’s here.
“Good,” I say out loud. Vanessa doesn’t ask me to translate. She settles into the seat, the tension sliding off her in layers. I put my hand on her knee, brief, grounding. “We’re getting closer. Soon this will all be over.”
Her face falls a fraction, and mine does too. The thought of this being over does something to my chest I wasn’t prepared for. “Good,” is all she says in a hushed whisper, but I have to wonder if she thinks it’s good at all.
I know I sure fucking don’t.
“Remember, don’t act scared. Act light,” I say. “He hates that. That’s his problem.”
We disembark hand in hand. People stare. Some whisper. A kid in a BRONCOS hoodie points and grins. I steer her with two fingers at the small of her back, a touch that does things it shouldn’t. She tilts her face up without breaking stride.
“Boyfriend lesson number two,” she says, eyes dancing. “Carry my bag so I can take selfies.”
“I’ll carry your bag,” I say, grabbing her carry-on and slipping it over my shoulder. “But no selfies.”
She laughs, bright enough to make three strangers smile without knowing why. “Worth a shot.”
Outside the jet bridge, Brice and Lina slot in, bright and prepared. The driver texts the code for the side lane. Jaxson pings me a route that dodges three clusters of cameras and two billboards that reflect too well. Rae sends a still of Kellan from the concourse—cropped, grainy, smug. It makes a clean target.