“I normally park closer, but that was the nearest spot when I arrived this morning.”
Convinced the screens had nothing more to show him, Jason turned to face the wedding planner. Her tone might have been icy, but her eyes were round with fear.
As well they should be. Among the many questions that vied for his attention, the foremost was whether the woman had been specifically targeted, or if her car had been randomly chosen for its position near the palace, but beyond the range of his cameras. Until he could answer with confidence that she had no more to fear than anyone else, he needed to take steps to keep her safe.
“Stay here and review the footage,” he told her. “I have some phone calls to make.”
Jason strode to his office, thinking quickly. There were apartments built into the rear wall of the palace grounds. Once used to house servants of the royal family, they continued to provide lodging for long-term guests and staff, even some of his guards. If he could secure a vacancy, the wedding planner could stay inside the safety of the palace walls, under the watchful eyes of his guards.
“Where are you going?” Ava’s demanding tone carried down the hall after him.
Jason mustered up his patience as he called back to her, “To my office to make some phone calls.”
“So you’re just leaving me? That’s it? I don’t have a car anymore. What am I supposed—”
He raised a hand to shush her. “The phone calls are for your benefit. I’m trying to find you a place to stay.”
“It was my car that blew up, not my apartment.”
“You don’t need a car.” Jason reached his office and hurried inside, wishing he could close the door and keep her out.
“Yes, I do! I have a business to run.” She stomped into the office after him. “I’ve got a wedding in eight days and another in less than four months. I have work to do.”
“The guards can drive you.”
“Guards? I don’t want—”
“I don’t care what you want. It’s for your safety. I’m going to find you a place to stay near the guards.”
“I don’t want to stay near your guards! They want to throw me in the river like a sack of kittens.” A note of despair carried through her bossy tone.
“No, that was me, as I recall.” Jason hoped his admission might deflate her anger. For a moment, as he glanced at her to gauge the effect of his words, he thought he caught a glimmer of gratitude in her eyes—as though she understood the effort he’d put into his gracious words and appreciated the gesture.
But in an instant, cold fury snapped into her eyes again. “You wish I’d made it to my car before the bomb went off, don’t you?”
Jason glared at her, wondering if he’d imagined the gratitude in her eyes. Why would she be so mean to him if she understood he was trying to assuage her concerns? He’d wondered before, while arguing with her, if she wasn’t actually trying to pick a fight with him, to egg him on instead of making peace.
But why would she do that?
Really, for all he’d done for her that morning, bandaging her cuts and dropping everything else on his morning schedule, she ought to have shown him a little appreciation. “I wish the bomb hadn’t gone off at all. I wish there’d been no bomb. But since there was, and since you were the recipient, intended or not, we’ve got to put you under guard.”
“I don’t see why.”
“Someone may be trying to kill you. That car that pulled away may have been the bomber, waiting to see if his efforts worked. If so, he knows you’re still alive. Given the risks he’s taken so far, there’s no reason to think he isn’t going to try again.”
Ava blinked at him. “I don’t have time for this. I have work to do.”
“So do I. The longer I argue with you, the further I fall behind. Let me make some phone calls and we’ll see what we can do to keep you safe until we sort this out.”
Theresa Covington, the palace household manager, answered his phone call. He inquired about an available room among the palace-wall apartments and was relieved that Theresa was able to reserve an apartment for Ava. “Thank you, Theresa. Have a lovely day.” He closed the call with the household manager and smiled at Ava.
She scowled at him. “What?”
“I’ll drive you to your apartment so you can pack a bag.”
“I’m not staying among your guards.”
“You’ll have your own apartment. There are guards also staying in the palace-wall apartments. Theresa told me you stayed in one when you first arrived in Lydia, before you found your own place.” Jason stepped past her down the hall, poking his head into the switchboard room to tell Oliver where he was going.
Ava followed him, still frowning. “I don’t appreciate this loss of my freedom. I have an important job to do.”
In spite of her protests, she followed him to the royal garages.
Jason chose a bulletproof vehicle. Only the new limousines, ordered since the insurgent ambush the previous summer, had armor plating, and he couldn’t justify driving the wedding planner in a limo. The bulletproof sedan should be more than adequate for a quick trip to Ava’s apartment.
Fortunately Ava’s place wasn’t far from the palace complex, and the drive passed in silence. Jason would have fumed at the woman’s rudeness, except that he’d seen that glimmer of fear in her eyes, that wounded little girl who’d peeked out when she thought no one was looking, and he began to wonder if she wasn’t picking fights with him on purpose. Perhaps her anger was a ruse to distract him from something deeper. But what?
Jason parked in front of Ava’s building, just across the street from her door. “Wait for me to walk you in,” he told her as he put the car in Park and turned off the engine.
But to his chagrin, the woman ignored him, stepping out as he pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the driver’s side door. Ava quickly rounded the front of the vehicle and glanced up and down the empty street before darting across toward her door.
Jason saw it all in a single glance—Ava’s unsteady, injured trot across the two empty traffic lanes; the charcoal-gray Volkswagen Jetta that pulled out from the curb just over a block away the moment Ava turned her attention from looking both ways to walking; and the squeal of tires that betrayed the VW’s sudden acceleration.
Jason leaped into action, shouting at Ava to hurry as he ran toward her. She was already in progress crossing the street. The car approached in the same lane he’d been driving in, on the side of the street opposite her apartment. If she hurried, she’d be out of the way in time.
But even as Jason bounded toward her, he glimpsed the car swerving toward them, into the other lane. Ava was hobbling far too slowly in her three-inch heels. She’d never make it.
With only half a second to act, Jason scooped an arm around Ava’s waist and leaped with her toward the curb. He had her nearly to the sidewalk when the Jetta, oblivious of the curb or the neat little flower patch in front of Ava’s apartment, swerved onto the sidewalk, knocking his legs out from under him and sending his back smashing into the windshield and side mirror.
It was a glancing blow, but the force was enough to send them both airborne for several feet. Jason tightened his arms around Ava, tucking her head into the relative safety of his chest as they hit the sidewalk and rolled.
He looked for the car, fearful the vehicle might swing around and take a second pass. The two of them were high up on the sidewalk now, nearly against the steps of Ava’s building, but the curb hadn’t stopped the car before, and if it decided to pin them to the concrete steps, not even his embrace would shield the wedding planner from injury.