“She’s not ready.” Eyes snapping back to Grant’s, he continued with more force than necessary. “She can barely walk to the bathroom, never mind defend herself against the Matthews.”
Going by his reaction, Grant suspected there might be more than one reason his boss had a difficult time coming to grips with Eve’s imminent departure. But since he still required the use of his internal organs, he took his inquiries along a safer route. “Any word on the housekeeper?”
Adam shook his head. “Petrova’s team found a surveillance video of Yolande and Carlos Aguiar crossing into Mexico. He has cousins working for the federales near Culiacán. We think he’s gone to them for protection. Dax O’Reilly flew down yesterday to check it out. We should know more soon.”
“What about Eve?” Grant asked, zipping his Carhartt and jamming his hands in the pockets to protect against the cold.
“What about her?” Adam replied, a warning note creeping into his tone.
“How much have you told her?”
“About what?”
If Grant’s eyeballs weren’t frozen in their sockets, they would have rolled right out of his head. “About O’Reilly. Yolande. The investigation into the Matthews? All that shit.”
“Nothing.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Caught off guard by the unusual level of Adam’s stupidity, Grant let loose. “You can’t keep her in the dark. No wonder she wants to go icebreaker on your mansicles. She probably feels like she escaped one prison and landed in another.”
“She’s not a fucking prisoner, asshole. The door isn’t locked. She can leave anytime she wants to.”
“Really?” Grant huffed. “And go where?” He waved his hand at the thousand acres of snow-covered forest surrounding the cabin.
“She doesn’t have a plan,” Adam argued. “If she leaves now, she won’t make it three days on her own. She’ll either end up back with the Matthews or dead.”
“And you can’t let that happen.”
“Can you?”
Grant didn’t need to respond to concede the point. While he might disagree with Adam’s methods, letting Eve drive away without a strategy in place to keep her alive wasn’t an option. “Okay, so? What’s your diabolical plan?”
“A hot shower, a cheeseburger, and a bottle of pinot noir.”
If Grant’s jaw could have fallen off his face, it would have landed in the snow at his feet. A fucking genius in the kitchen, if Adam planned on cooking, he’d decided to pull out the big guns. And yeah, there was way more to this Eve thing than he’d willingly admit.
“Then what?” Grant asked.
“Hopefully, she decides to stay long enough for us to come up with a decent plan to keep her safe.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
Adam shrugged. “Then I leave her with you and stop in LA before I hit Washington.”
Grant shook his head. No surprise there. Adam had always been single minded when it came to protecting the people he cared about, and apparently, Eve had been added to the top of the list. Whether she liked it or not, her enemies were now his. “Offing a federal judge is about as risky as going after Johnson. You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“I’m doing what needs doing.” Shoving his hip off the front quarter panel, Adam signaled the discussion had ended by changing the subject. “Did you bring the colonel’s laptop?”
“Back seat.”
“Jay look at it?”
“Yeah, he’s already copied the hard drive and has decryption software running.”
“And the knife I asked you to purchase for me?”
“In with the computer.”
“Good.” Military-grade case in hand, Adam shut the truck door. “Coming in?” Already on the move, he looked over his shoulder when Grant didn’t fall into step. “What?”
