So what should she do? She tripped on an exposed tree root, struggling to remain upright in the steep terrain. She couldn’t stay with Rafe, she knew that much. He was a wild card in this fiasco, uncontrollable. She couldn’t take the chance that he would expose her—or discover the truth about the past.
But Ortiz had seen her at the reception. He now knew she’d returned to País Vell. And if he guessed that she knew about his secret activities, he’d stop at nothing to hunt her down.
Rafe came to a halt. “Hold up.”
She bumped against him, then craned her neck to see. “What is it?”
“We’ve reached the road.”
She peered through the thick foliage. A blue LED light flashed below them, illuminating the two-lane road that switchbacked down the mountain into the town. “The police.”
“It looks like they’ve set up a roadblock.” Rafe’s low voice rumbled through the dark. “Stay here. I’ll see what I can find out.”
Without waiting for an answer, he crept off. Car doors slammed nearby. A radio squawked from the road. Gabi shivered and rubbed her arms, the night chill settling into her bones.
And the horror of her predicament spun through her mind. She’d bungled her mission badly. She’d somehow tipped off Ortiz, a man with unlimited power. But she couldn’t give up. She had to find that proof. No matter what else happened, she had to destroy her father’s murderer. This was her only chance.
A twig snapped close by. She spun around, alarmed, as a shadow materialized at her side. “It’s me,” Rafe murmured, and she pressed her palm to her rioting heart.
“What’s going on?” she whispered, her eyes searching his in the dark.
“They’re looking for us, all right.”
“Both of us?” She frowned. “Did you hear why?”
“Yeah.” He paused. His eyes turned even more grim. “They think we’ve committed a murder.”
“Murder?” she gasped.
He nodded, his mouth hardening into a slit. “The diplomat is dead.”
Chapter 3
“I didn’t kill him.” Gabi trailed Rafe through the woods in the darkness, still struggling to wrap her mind around the diplomat’s death. “That drug I gave him … it only made him drowsy. It couldn’t have caused a reaction. And I know he didn’t have allergies because I had his medical records checked.”
Rafe didn’t answer. He continued to push through the bushes, using his tiny penlight to illuminate the rocky ground.
“I mean it, Rafe.” She slid on a pinecone, nearly falling in her awkward designer heels. “There’s no way that drug could have killed him.”
“I believe you.” He stopped, then waited for her to catch up. “The police said he was shot.”
“Shot?” She stumbled to a halt. “But who … Ortiz?”
Rafe’s mouth tightened, his face barely visible in the night. “Who else?”
Her heart took a nosedive. This was so much worse than she’d thought. But why would Ortiz kill the diplomat? Why not simply steal the flash drive while he slept? None of this made sense.
Then even more horror dawned, and she pressed her hand to her throat. “They’ve got evidence against me. I left the reception with him. I’m on the security tapes. I left that note.”
Then another realization slammed into the first one, making her head spin even more. “Oh, God. It was my fault. I drugged him. He couldn’t even defend himself. I left him there to die.”
She hugged her arms, guilt crashing through her, a terrible tightness welling up in her throat. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.” All she’d wanted was justice for her father’s death. Instead, she’d condemned an innocent man to die.
Stricken, she shook her head. “I shouldn’t have left. I should have stayed there and protected him.”
“Then Ortiz would have killed you, too.”
But why? What did Ortiz have to gain from their deaths, aside from silencing her?
“What a mess,” she whispered, dazed. The evening had turned into a nightmare, and it just kept getting worse. She’d taken a chance by returning to País Vell. Certain she would find that flash drive, she’d planned to confiscate the evidence and turn it over to the prime minister before Ortiz could do her harm. But everything had gone wrong. And now she would never escape Ortiz. He had too much power—aircraft and weapons at his disposal, a police force at his command. He would launch a massive manhunt and scour the surrounding hills.
And then, yet another bolt of awareness struck home. She didn’t only need to elude Ortiz. The Americans would hunt for her, too. They would search the globe to find their diplomat’s supposed killer—leaving her no safe place to hide.
Panic rising inside her, she shot a furtive glance around the inky woods. She couldn’t waste time. She had to stay on the move, get farther away from the castle before Ortiz and his men caught up—and then figure out what to do.
“Come on. We need to keep moving,” Rafe said, echoing her thoughts. “There’s an old shepherd’s hut near here. We can rest there for a while and make plans.”
“You think it’s safe?”
“For tonight. I scouted it out earlier. It’s been abandoned for decades, probably since the Spanish civil war. The vegetation is overgrown, and there’s nothing else nearby. I doubt anyone remembers it’s there.”
He resumed hiking. She followed more slowly, her reservations growing as she picked her way through the brush—but she didn’t have much choice. She needed to stick with Rafe until she formed an alternate plan.
But Rafe presented dangers of his own. He was too clever, too suspicious. He knew her far too well, making it hard to hide the truth.
Which meant before he figured out what she was up to, she had to get away from him.
Several exhausting miles later, they reached the abandoned hut. Gabi huddled on a stool by the rustic fireplace, watching Rafe feed scraps of kindling into the sparks. The tiny flames licked the wood, casting firelight over his arms. The scent of wood smoke snaked through the air.
She shivered and rubbed her feet, her open sandals no protection against the bone-shuddering chill seeping through the dirt floor. Adding to her misery, the night breeze gusted through holes in the old tile roof, raising goose bumps along her skin.
Rafe leaned back on his heels and cut her a brooding look. Suddenly he peeled off his black turtleneck sweater, leaving on a short-sleeved T-shirt, and tossed the sweater to her. “Put that on before you freeze to death,” he said.
Too cold to argue, she tugged it over her head. The soft cotton sweater smelled faintly of Rafe’s aftershave, a sandalwood blend she’d always loved. She hugged her arms, the familiar scent giving her comfort, grateful for the added warmth.
For a minute they didn’t speak. Rafe stared at the fire, his rough-hewn, masculine profile illuminated by the flickering light. She scanned the width of his bulging shoulders, the curve of his iron biceps, the sinews in his strong neck.
Then his eyes returned to hers, the impact changing the rhythm of her pulse. “All right. Let’s hear it.”
“Hear what?”
His mouth flattened in a sign of impatience.