Page 117 of Her Selfless Warrior (Omega Sky)
“They were foreign. They spoke the same, Arabic. This time I saw them. They were big, like your guy.” Candy started panting for breath again. “Your guy, Barona, he can keep you safe, right?”
Lark’s mind was buzzing wildly. She could think of three or four Middle Eastern terrorist organizations who would love to get their hands on the United States missile defense plans because once they knew the US defense plan, it was easy enough to figure out ways to get around those defenses.
“Lark, I promise, I wouldn’t have told them your name. But I thought I could save Dawn.” She started to cry. “Please tell me that SEAL can protect you. He can, can’t he?”
“Are you sure they came to your apartment two or three nights ago? Monday night?”
“What day is it today?” Candy asked.
“It’s Wednesday.”
“Oh God, this happened on Saturday. They came on Saturday.”
A chill ran up Lark’s spine.
I need to call Kostya.
“Candy, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you soon.” Lark hung up and called Kostya. She got his voicemail. She hung up. She keyed in a text.
BAD GUYS GOT TO CANDY.KILLED DAWN. WE NEED A PLAN. CALL ME.
Lark lookedin the mirror and studied her pale face and red-rimmed eyes. Thinking about the tiny red-headed firecracker, she wanted to scream. How dare someone kill her! She had been so fiercely protective of Candy. Lark shut her eyes and took a deep breath and wondered if it was her fault that Dawn had been killed and Candy had nearly died. Maybe it was. She probably should have told Trevor about Candy’s involvement with Rick.
Lark clenched her hands into fists and dropped her towel before heading to the bedroom. Not even seeing Amy’s pretty silver dress spread out on the bed could make her feel better. She took a deep breath.
Get it together.
First things first, she needed to get dressed. It was time for the Wild Bunch to circle up and go out for a ride.
Lark’s lips tipped up at the thought. Gideon with his computer and her with her electronic pencil sharpener probably didn’t fit in with the Wild Bunch analogy, but what the hell? She shrugged. She went to the drawer that Kostya had insisted she use. Actually, he wanted her to take over half of his dresser, but at the time that had made her feel kind of hinky, so she had limited it to one drawer. She pulled out underwear, jeans, and a long-sleeved Henley then threw it on. She’d forgo the vanilla lotion. The lotion and make-up would be for later when they weren’t in investigative mode.
When she was clothed and her boots were on, she went into the kitchen to make herself a protein drink and think about the next steps. The only saving grace in all of this was that the men who’d hurt Candy and killed Dawn wouldn’t know to find Lark here in Virginia Beach. She rested her elbows against the granite countertop as she sipped her drink and stared out the windows into the horizon.
“Shit!”
She slammed down the glass and picked up her phone. She scrolled through her recent calls, found Trevor’s number, and called it.
Voicemail!
“Jesus, isn’t anybody answering their phone today?”
“Trevor, call me. It’s Lark. It’s urgent! I mean now!”
As soon as she hung up, she texted the same message to him. Who in the hell actually listened to their voicemails these days? But they sure as hell reacted to their goddamn texts. Lark ignored her protein shake as she pulled up Gideon’s contact and tried him.
“Of course,” she muttered. She left a voicemail for him to call her as soon as he could, then she texted him the same damn thing.
“Where are you guys? Soaping up each other in the shower?”
Of course, the same thing happened when she called Ryker, so she texted him too. She was too hyped up to sit on her hands and do nothing. It wasn’t in her DNA. She grabbed her computer bag, carefully pulled out her laptop, and rested it on the kitchen table, then upended all of her papers onto the table.
“Time to get to work.”
If she could figure out who these assholes were, then maybe they could backtrack and huntthemdown, instead of always being hunted by them.
Lark tidied up her notepads into two piles, the 9x11 in one pile and the 5x8 in another. She went to the last page on each of the purple pads.
Her phone rang, and she answered it, “Kostya?”
