“Kaida, pull over,” Jada said.
Kaida glanced in the rearview mirror from Jada to Ken’Ichi and back.
“Pull over!” Jada demanded.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ken’Ichi said. Then, he casually opened his laptop and started typing.
“I hate you,” Jada whispered.
He didn’t even acknowledge it.
My skin crawled from the entire scene. From Jada’s emotions. From Ken’Ichi’s creepy calm. From the fact that I was witnessing it all as I had at the penthouse, and yet, neither of them seemed to care.
I tugged Jada’s arm through mine. “Show me the designs Yuriko texted you.”
She’d gotten the message from the designer just as we’d gotten to the yacht club. These sketches weren’t for the costumes. They were for the theater-like sets she’d been arranging for the party.
Jada’s body was brittle next to me, tense and strung so tight I thought a mere breath might break her. For a moment, it was like she hadn’t even heard me, but then she pulled her phone out with shaking hands, unlocking it.
We spent the trip back to New London discussing the food and the decorations. Fountains and flowers. A truly decadent expense resembling Gatsby’s in many ways. His twisted life seemed to reflect in hers more than I’d ever imagined, especially if you threw in a bit ofRomeo and Juliet, because Jada was throwing the party for Dax even knowing they couldn’t have each other.
By the time Kaida pulled into the driveway of Books and Beds by the Sea, Jada was more herself, all but ignoring the dark figure in the corner of the vehicle as much as he’d ignored us. She got out of the car with me while Kaida took my bag from the back.
I hugged her. “Do you want to stay with me?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Why not?”
She swallowed, and I wondered if she was afraid, like Dawson had been, that something would blow back on me from all of this—whatever “this” was they were mixed up in. While I hadn’t wanted to believe my friend or Dawson could be involved in something criminal, it was easy to expect it of the calm man in the SUV.
“I have things to do at the house,” she said.
“Can’t they be done from here?”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine. WithOtosanhere, he won’t bother me as much.”
“You’re welcome at the B&B whenever. Mandy and Leena would never forgive me if I didn’t make sure you knew that.”
She looked up at the Victorian almost wistfully.
“Go make history with your experiments, Vi. Let me worry about my messed-up life.”
She got back in the back seat and didn’t even look my way as they drove off.
My heart broke a little because I didn’t know how to help her, and I wondered if Dawson was making things better or worse for her. I wondered if she was caught in the middle of a spider web with no way out because the strands were sticking to her from every direction.
I went inside, stopping at the desk in the front parlor. I looked at the registry to see how many guests we had. It was only one couple for the next two nights, followed by three couples checking in for the weekend.
If Dawson and Dax made it to Tarifa in under fifty-eight hours, they’d spend a day refueling, checking the engine and equipment, and restocking their meager supplies before heading back to New York. They’d be home on Saturday or Sunday. My world would be full of day-to-day normal bed and breakfast chores while Dawson was racing across the water, doing undercover work, and Jada was fighting off a villain.
I felt small and useless.
I ran upstairs, threw my bag into my room, and then headed down the hall toward the vacuum humming in one of the guest suites.
Tami was there, headphones in, running the machine over the area rug.
I tapped her, and she jumped as if I’d electrocuted her.
