Jeff took the phone off speaker and crossed the room to talk with Tate. Savannah was gone? Toni squeezed her eyes shut. Her hand throbbed, but her emotions and the tattered state of her mind were so much worse.
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
Words that were supposed to comfort her.
She had told him how much those words meant to her during one of their lengthy phone conversations, where they’d connected so deeply while waiting around for the powers-that-be in their lives to rescue them. Little had Jeff known that the government of the UK wasn’t going to come for her. They hadn’t even known she was there. She’d gone rogue and others had paid the price.
Including Jeff.
Toni had rested on those scriptural words in her stand against everything that came against her. Two years later, and she’d lost her hold on the truth of the verses Jeff now had tattooed on his arm.
She’d given up.
She’d lost faith in God, believing that He couldn’t possibly be working for her when things had gone so horribly wrong. Now she could see her actions for what they were—foolish and reckless. She’d given in to her emotions and jumped at the chance to save her cousin from the life she had living under the thumb of a monster.
They’d let her believe Amala was dead. The same way she’d let the world—including her brother—think she’d died.
Jeff had chosen his lot in life because he was a good person who made the right choices. While on the other hand, she had done what she’d wanted and had to pick up the pieces when it all fell apart.
Finding Annabelle’s body was supposed to have been a peace offering. Proof she was willing to do whatever it took to make things right. A way to fix things so she could move on, knowing she’d repaired some of the damage she’d done.
Instead, they’d met each other as strangers, and now she didn’t want to leave.
“No. Don’t do that.” Jeff paced, still on the phone. “Come here. We’ll figure this out. You know Toni knows this guy better than anyone, and all her memories have come back.” He glanced at her then.
She nodded.
“She can tell you what you need to know to get Savannah back.”
Toni couldn’t help the wince. Just thinking about the killer made her shudder, and she flashed back to when he’d been on top of her, asking what she’d done with “his” Kristine. None of her training had kicked in, as though she’d had no muscle memory to draw from.
She had just laid there, completely useless while panicked thoughts swirled around in her mind. He could have killed before. Kristine might not have been his first victim. It rendered her even more helpless.
Jeff hung up the phone.
Before he could say anything, she jumped in, “She knew he was watching her. Following her.”
“Savannah?”
“Kristine.” She wanted to know now. “What happened to the detective?”
“They found her car. Some blood. They think she was ambushed and taken about an hour ago, but the chief isn’t letting Tate anywhere near the investigation.”
“How will they find her?”
“Tate doesn’t think they have any leads. I’m hoping you do.”
Toni blew out a long breath. “My head is all mixed up. The dam burst on my memories and they all rushed out. Now it’s like a swirling mass I have to catalogue and put in the right place. And I need to call my brother.”
“You have a brother?”
“He works for Zander.” She shook her head. “It’s so weird. I can’t wrap my brain around that, and yet at the same time, it feels like perfectly normal information.”
“He was probably the one on that video call, wanting to see you.”
Her heart ached for the only family she had left. And yet she’d come here because she needed to make things right with Jeff. “I’m really sorry I lied to you. I should’ve told you I was rogue on that mission.”
“You couldn’t know a bomb would go off in the refugee camp.”
“I manipulated everything else to get my cousin back. I was just too blind to see anything other than what I wanted. Like always.” She’d been so stubborn; so bullheaded. If she didn’t acknowledge it, then it didn’t exist. “And you paid the price.” She motioned to his arm.
Right then, she knew she couldn’t stay.
The consequences of her actions would always be between them. His mission for the US military, authorized by the state department. If things had gone her way, she would have circumvented it, grabbed her cousin from Zander and taken off. They would have been hunted by her uncle and most likely killed.
A stupid plan concocted by a silly girl who believed she could do whatever she wanted. And get away with it.
Jeff sat on the coffee table in front of her. “We all make unwise choices. Making them for the right reasons is at least understandable.”
She started to argue.
“Do you honestly expect perfection of yourself? That everything you do should never go wrong in any way?”
“I thought it would be fine if God was with me. He was supposed to be.”
“He was. But that doesn’t mean everything is automatically hunky-dory.”
She had to grin, hearing a grown man use that expression. Especially one as formidable as him.
“We’re good. Okay? I’m glad you’re here, and I don’t blame you because I lost my arm. I blame the person who set that bomb I got caught up in.”
The elevator doors opened. Jeff had a gun in his hand before she even realized Tate had arrived. He looked haggard and older than he had the last time she saw him.
Toni and Jeff met him by the kitchen. “How are you doing?” She knew her question was dumb, but she didn’t know what else to say.
“Do you know where he would’ve taken Kristine?”
She started to shake her head but didn’t want to dismiss the question. Maybe she did know, and it was jumbled up with everything else in her head.
Toni went to the kitchen and got more water from the fridge. Savannah’s life could be riding on her remembering something the police would never find through investigation. “He doesn’t have a cabin that belongs to his family, or some kind of vacation house? A business that closed in town. Somewhere no one would look.”
“Nothing came up in a background check and a look at his financials. We can search every building in town, but that will take too long.” The grief on his face was agony. “I need specific ideas.”
He needed her to remember.
Toni drank water with a shaky hand while the plastic of the bottle cracked in her grip.
“I need anything you can give me, Toni.”
She lowered the bottle. “Do what you did at the gym.”
Jeff said, “What?”
Tate knew what she was talking about. “The thing where you passed out?”
She nodded.
“That didn’t work before,” Jeff said. “Why would it now? You didn’t remember everything. You just got overwhelmed and your system shut down.”
“I remember now. It could jog something loose.” She moved to Tate. “Don’t worry about me. Just do it.”
“If this is penance for—”
Before Jeff could finish, Tate had her by the shoulders. He backed her up to the wall and got in her face. “You were there when Kristine was cut up. When he sliced into her, and you saw the blood dripping down onto the tile. So much blood. You saw it.”
“Yes.” She’d been there. She would never forget it.
His hands pressed her shoulders against the wall. A desperate man scared out of his mind for the woman he loved. His wife. The one he was going to adopt children with.
His breath wafted over her face. All she could see was the other man, in the dark where Kristine’s body lay.
“Where does he take them?”
She gasped. He had done this to more women than just Kristine.
“Where is he?” Tate all but slammed her against the wall.
“Dude—”
She held up a hand to ward off Jeff.
“Where did he take my wife?”
She felt the edges of unconsciousness creep in and pushed at the sensation, determined not to pass out.
“You watched Kristine die and you did nothing.”
She fought for air.
“You might as well have killed her.”
Toni couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. She’d done this. Where is my Kristine? His hot breath brushed over her face. No muscle memory. No training to recall. No way to fight him off. He’d won. She was dead. The way it had been when she walked in on her uncle.
And her mother.
Tears rolled down her face, and she let out a cry.
His voice came again. “You killed Savannah.”
The blonde, smiling detective who had been so nice at the hospital. Once again, Toni’s actions meant someone else was hurt. Hiding here as though they were the only ones in danger when a killer was out there. And now he’d targeted Savannah.
Kristine, who’d hired her to clean with no questions asked. Bleeding to death on the shower tiles.
Jeff shoved Tate back. She couldn’t hold herself up.
Toni slid to the floor and put her head on her bent knees while she sucked in harsh breaths. They were both gone. Because of her choices.
Her mind insisted on replaying the moment her mother had fallen to the floor. Dead by her uncle’s hand. Her life was a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions. No wonder her mind wanted to forget.
You couldn’t keep your mouth shut, and now we have to leave. You couldn’t leave it alone, could you Toni?
Her father had been furious. No matter that his brother had murdered her mother. No, her father hadn’t cared about that when what was important was the family name. Saving face. Maintaining their position on the world’s stage. The first family of their country.
She’d thrown it all away, because she couldn’t stop screaming.
Jeff moved toward her. She lifted her hand while her mind replayed the killer, dropping Kristine on the floor. Her body slammed the tile, and she didn’t move.
Toni stared at them.
Fear. Desperation. The image had been so shocking. He’d held Kristine and that knife, a gleeful smile on his face while he cut into her, and she couldn’t do anything to fight him off. She’d been tied up.
The way Toni’s mother had been.
“He killed my mother.”
Jeff frowned, crouched in front of her.
“General Wambuso.” She took a breath. “He killed my mother. My father sent Maya and Judah and me to London to live with our grandmother. But he wouldn’t let Amala come with us.”
Jeff nodded slowly. “You told me that was the worst day of your life, and then your sister died on the boat.”
Her father hadn’t even been there with them, while Maya thrashed in the water and people around them screamed for someone to help. But no one had. Her father had stayed at home because he couldn’t bear to look at her. She’d ruined their whole family.
Her father had ruled after the general was kicked out by the people. By then she’d been a British agent. For two years, he’d been in charge of it all. “And his brother killed him,” she said. “After everything he did to protect the general’s name and all he did for the country.”
“Toni—”
“I know he’s the one who killed my father.” All so he could get the power back. That thing he loved most in the world—the power he had over others. Including her mother.
“This isn’t working.” Tate sounded so broken. “She isn’t remembering anything about Savannah.”
“I do remember.”
Tate spun back to them. “What?”
“I remember what he said to her in the showers.”
Jeff took her hand. “What was it?”
“Soon we’ll be at the airport. And then we’ll fly away together.”