Page 69 of Iron Shield
Now all she could think about was a man in a dark coat leaning against a car outside Antonio’s. The black baseball cap hid a face she didn’t look at for long because she told herself she imagined that she’d seen him before.
Then an epiphany hit, and her stomach bottomed out. Even though she supposedly had an undercover agent guarding her, this guy had still managed to follow her. Had that man killed her bodyguard?
Her stomach rolled, and she pushed away from the counter. The cookbook remained open behind her, but the words blurred too much to matter. She didn’t know whether she was more rattled by the memory or by the look on Rome’s face when she’d told him.
She hated that she’d wanted him to stay when his phone went off, because she’d put the days of wanting to chase after a man behind her.
Stina snatched the towel from the counter and wiped her hands even though they weren’t dirty. Then she walked out of the kitchen with no idea where she was going, only that standing still felt impossible.
She made it as far as the common room when Jolie looked up from her laptop.
“Oh no.”
Stina stopped. “What?”
“That face.”
“I don’t have a face.”
“You have several faces.” Jolie closed the laptop and set it beside her on the couch. “That one says something happened.”
Stina wanted to deny it, but Jolie would see right through it.
“Rome was asking me questions.”
Jolie’s expression sharpened. “About what?”
“Chicago. Before all this. Before the photo and the agent and all the things keeping me here.” She dragged a hand through her curls and started pacing in front of the coffee table. “He asked if I ever felt watched and talked myself out of it.”
Jolie didn’t interrupt, but alarm flooded over her face.
“I remembered a guy outside Antonio’s.”
“What?”
“Maybe the same guy near my apartment. Or maybe not. I don’tknow. That’s the problem.” Stina turned and faced her. “I can’t tell what’s real anymore. I don’t know if I noticed something important or if my brain is rewriting normal behavior into a threat because everything going on is insane.”
Jolie crossed the room to her. She caught both her hands before she could start pacing again. “Your gut picked up something. That matters. You were busy surviving your actual life. Rent. Work. Bad shifts. All of it. You didn’t fail some imaginary test because you didn’t turn into a federal investigator overnight.”
The words helped.
Not enough.
Her friend tugged Stina toward the sofa, but she resisted.
“I can’t sit down. If I sit, I’m going to think.”
Jolie squeezed her hands and looked around the common room. “So we won’t sit.”
Stina narrowed her eyes. “That sounds suspicious.”
“We can do things around the base.”
“Like what?”
“Home improvements.”
The word struck her hard—home. This was home to Jolie now.
