AJ squeezed her hand, and that’s when she realized he was holding it.
She slid her hand away, saw concern on his face. “This is all part of plan B. Make me the criminal. Connect me to my father, who made many enemies who may find taking a piece of me worth their while.”
“I don’t like this,” AJ muttered.
“Claire, didn’t you say you saw Pohl lingering in the gun range after I left?”
Neil tensed. Sasha knew his mind went where hers was stuck.
“Yeah. You’d turned his assassin job down, and he beelined to the range. Made me think he was picking out a replacement.”
Neil turned to Sasha. “Did you use the range?”
Her skin crawled. “Yeah.”
“Was anyone with you?” Neil asked.
The face of her friendly martial arts instructor surfaced in her brain. “Brigitte. She challenged me after I beat her on the obstacle course.” Sasha stood and moved to the window, where the protective fog started to lift. “How do you force someone to take a job they don’t want?” She asked the rhetorical question to everyone in the room.
It was Claire who came to the conclusion first. “Pohl has your fingerprints on a gun. He’s going to blackmail you . . . or worse, kill someone and say you did it.”
Sasha turned first to Claire, who looked like she was going to get sick.
AJ appeared pissed.
And Neil. His head was already spinning to fix this before it happened.
“Who would he shoot?” Claire asked.
“Pohl won’t shoot anyone. He’ll give the gun to someone more skilled to assure a kill.”
“But who?”
Sasha forced a smile onto her face. The last thing she wanted to do was scare Claire any more than she already was.
Neil straightened his shoulders and started barking orders. “You,” he pointed at Sasha. “Assume protective custody until we are out of Europe. We can better control this situation with a larger detail.”
“I don’t take orders.”
“You do now.” And to make his point, he turned his attention to Claire. “You are inside, away from the windows, no contact with anyone that isn’t in this house.”
“You think he’s gonna kill me?”
Sasha moved to Claire, glared at Neil.
AJ ran his hands through his hair.
“So far, AJ is the only one not mentioned. Either Pohl knows nothing about you, or you’re a trump card.”
Sasha thought of the night they’d met. “Brigitte was in the bar when we met. You spoke with her.”
“Yeah, but she didn’t know who I was.”
“You told me you knew who she was . . . what makes you think she didn’t know who you were the whole time? She called my attention to you before you sat down to flirt.”
“That’s a long shot.”
“A long shot we’re going to assume is right until proven otherwise,” Neil told them. “Eat breakfast and ready your bags. We’re pulling out as soon as I can arrange pilots.”
Neil left the room without looking back.
“What armed service was he in?” AJ asked, deadpan.
Sasha sighed. “Marines.”
Chapter Seventeen
Private jets, private pilots, and a small airport only the elite flew in and out of made for an easy exit when leaving the United Kingdom.
AJ walked behind Sasha and Claire as they had stepped into the airplane, and suddenly found himself lacking in his financial confidence.
The jet belonged to the same man who owned the manor house they’d just left. Like the home, the plane wasn’t a budget model by any stretch of the imagination. Sasha had told him en route to the airfield that Mr. Harrison and his family traveled back and forth to the UK from California often. In order to avoid having to stop on the East Coast for fuel, they needed a larger plane.
So while AJ stood in the doorway of the aircraft with his mouth half-open at the pure opulence of the jet, Claire flopped into one of the many deluxe recliner chairs and said exactly what AJ was thinking. “This is the shit!”
“You’re not kidding, kid.”
Neil moved AJ aside and stepped into the cockpit to speak with the pilots.
Sasha spoke to the flight attendant while AJ walked through the jet, taking it all in. “I think I need to go back to school and step up my game,” he said to no one in particular.
Claire caught his comment. “What do you do?”
“Nothing that can afford this,” he told her. Not legally, anyway.
“Might I take your bag, sir?” The flight attendant reached for AJ’s duffel.
He handed it over and she gathered Claire’s before disappearing behind a galley wall.
Claire jumped up and moved to a closed door. “What’s in here?” she asked Sasha.
“A bedroom.”
“No way. That’s awesome.” The girl bounced in to check it out.
“You’ve obviously been on this plane before,” AJ said to her.
“A couple of times.”
“Back and forth to Europe?” he asked.
Sasha looked at him as if she wasn’t going to answer.
He shook his head. “Just curious, Stick. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“Stick?”
AJ leaned in. “Sex on a Stick might make Claire uncomfortable.”
He could see her pinching her lips together to keep from smiling.
AJ took advantage of the fact that Neil was busy talking with the pilots, the attendant was taking care of their luggage, and Claire had disappeared in the bedroom. His eyes traveled the length of her. Always the same look. Black leggings or spandex . . . or leather-looking pants with a tight cotton top and a black leather jacket to cover her arms in the cold. “I bet even your pajamas are black and clingy.”
This time she whispered, “Who said I wore pajamas?”
Oh, yeah . . . his mind went there, and he once again looked her up and down. “That’s just mean.”
Now she was smiling.
“I never said I was nice.”
His dick twitched in his pants.
Claire walked back into the main cabin. “When are we taking—”
Sasha and AJ took a step apart.
“I can go back in the bedroom if you two need to be alone,” Claire said, grinning.
“We’re good, right?” Sasha asked AJ, her eyes sparkling.
He didn’t trust himself to speak.
Claire chuckled and seated herself in a recliner.
The flight attendant returned. “Would you like something to drink before we take off?”
“Oh, yeah. I want a beer,” Claire said faster than AJ could open his mouth.
He and Sasha looked at the teenage girl.
“What?” Claire asked. “It’s legal in Europe.”
The flight attendant looked to Sasha for approval.
She did with a nod.
Neil walked back into the cabin, placed his bag under one of the seats. “We’ll be in the air in ten minutes.”
The flight attendant handed Claire the beer and replaced Neil’s spot with the pilots.
Once the door to the plane was closed, the pilots put the aircraft in motion.
AJ sat in a rear-facing seat across from Sasha, who didn’t appear to relax until they were in the air and leveling out.
Claire had found a pair of headphones and was watching a movie on the large television on one of the cabin walls.
Sasha unclenched her hands and pulled her stare away from the window. She glanced over at the distracted teen.
“You’ve taken on the role as her protector rather seriously,” he said.
“Until we clear her name and runaway status, she’s going to need it.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
Sasha turned to him. “Secure location. Have our lawyers find her original birth certificate. Get ahold of Linette and threaten the woman to pull her head out of her ass and stop playing pawn to Pohl.”
“From what I could tell, Linette doesn’t threaten easily.”
“Depends on who she’s scared of. Once I finish our conversation, it will be me.”
Neil made his own observation. “You threaten the head of the school and Pohl pops one off in her head. Who do you think the authorities are going to blame?”
Sasha closed her lips together.
“Hard to frame Sasha for a murder in Europe when she’s in the States,” AJ pointed out.
“You mean if she has an alibi. An eyewitness that would keep her from the scene of whatever crime Pohl is planning on using to try and blackmail her.”
“That, too,” AJ said.
Neil and Sasha exchanged glances.
“You need a shadow, Sasha.” His eyes slid to AJ.
Slowly, she started to shake her head. “No.”
“Yes.”
AJ wasn’t completely sure what the yes and no were about.
“It’s simple. Whatever you plan to do, take AJ with you.”
He looked at Sasha. “What are you planning?”
“Nothing . . . yet.”
Neil leaned forward, rested his arms on his knees. “Sasha won’t sit idle. It’s not in her DNA. As soon as we find anything on Pohl, she’ll be right back out there, working on taking the man down.”
“You’re talking about me as if I’m not sitting right here,” she said with a glare.
“Am I wrong?” Neil asked.
She kept silent.
“Keep AJ by your side or I put a detail on you.”
“I’ll lose your detail within an hour.”
Neil released a rare smile. “If that detail is me?”
“You’re too big to go unnoticed.”
AJ smiled at Neil. “She has a point.”
“You know I’m right on this one.”
She unbuckled her seat belt and stood. “I’m going to get some sleep while I can.” Without another word, she went into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.
“She’s not going to sleep,” AJ said.
“No. She’s pissed. Knows I’m right. I’m not sure if you have any influence over her, but now would be the time to use it. She’d drop my detail in thirty minutes, and they’re all damn good. We need more time to learn who this Pohl is. We need boots on the ground for every possible victim tied to Richter. She’s going to want to be one of them.”
“So we go to DC and investigate my sister.”
Neil shook his head. “You’re too close. I’ll have someone else on your sister.”
“That’s ridiculous. I can be objective.”
He laughed. “No. You can’t. What if my man finds out your sister took a job with Pohl—”
“She would never have . . .”
Neil stopped him with a look.
“You admitted that you and your sister weren’t close. She had a UN job that put her in contact with untold diplomats and lobbyists . . . people in power. No one would suspect your sister was anything but what she said she was. Did she travel for work?”
“Of course. She worked alongside other analysts in foreign countries who had poor water regulations.”
“Did anyone of importance die in those countries when she was there?”
AJ’s jaw clenched. “What the hell are you suggesting?”
Neil looked him dead in the eye. “That you’re not objective.” Neil sat back. “Now, go in there and convince Sasha to keep you by her side. That way I have one less person to worry about.” He glanced at Claire, who was riveted in whatever movie she was watching.
“Sasha is much more qualified to keep herself safe than I am to protect her.” Much as he hated to admit it.
“I’m aware of that. I need her to keep you safe. And if you’re with her, I won’t question if she’s going off playing vigilante. She has no problem putting herself in danger, but I’ve yet to see her put anyone else in the crossfire. The bonus is if Pohl tries to put her in a place and a crime that you can say she wasn’t in . . . even better.”
AJ glanced toward the closed bedroom door. “Vigilante?”
Neil paused. “She’s had a hard life. Now that she’s trying to find her place, someone is trying to take that from her. She won’t go down without a fight.”
“How can you be so sure?”
His eyes glazed over, as if lost in thought. “Because she and I are a lot alike. Now, you take that one, I’ll see this one is taken care of until this is over,” he said, nodding toward the teenager.
AJ blew out a breath, stood. “What makes you think I have any influence over her?”
Was that a laugh? Yeah, Neil just laughed . . . something AJ had yet to see. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
She knew she should have locked the door.
Sasha had kicked her shoes off and lain out on the queen bed. She’d been watching the clouds when they allowed the ocean below them to peek through. Now that they had clustered together, she had closed her eyes to make good on her threat of resting.
Her eyes popped open the second the door opened and AJ snuck inside. Not bothering to move, she closed her eyes again. “What do you want?”
“Wow, this is really nice.”
She peeked long enough to see him walking around the room. A sofa for two sat along the wall dividing the bedroom from the main cabin. And behind the bed was another bathroom, this one equipped with a shower.
“What does your friend Harrison do for a living?”
AJ was not in the room to talk about the plane or the man who owned it. She answered him anyway. “Shipping.”
“What does he ship? Cocaine from Colombia?”
She cracked an eye, saw AJ looking out the window.
Fine, she could play possum. Sasha closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and willed her shoulders to relax.
He was staring. She felt his eyes and heard his breathing change.
Sasha counted her breaths, made it to five before she heard movement and felt a dip on the bed.
AJ had his back to her and he was toeing off his shoes.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Once the second shoe hit the floor, he spread out next to her, his back resting against the headboard. “Resting. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“You thought wrong.”
“I had no idea a queen-size bed fit in the back of a plane.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Sasha pushed herself upright and stared at him.
Her outburst had him smiling.
That grin irritated the hell out of her. “What’s so funny?”
“You’re so damn adorable.”
“Adorable?” She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them to find him still staring. “No one has ever called me adorable.”
“Well, you are. Probably not very healthy of me to say this, but I like getting you riled up just to see all the adorbs oozing out.”
“Oozing adorbs? Is that even a thing?”
His smile was all teeth. “It is with you.”
The man was pleased with himself.
Sasha started to push herself off the bed. AJ captured her arm. “Okay, I’ll stop teasing. Don’t go.”
“I’m not leaving because you’re teasing, I’m leaving because you’re sucking up all my air.”
He stopped laughing. “Please.” He released her arm and pulled the pillow she’d had her head on up farther on the bed and patted the space beside him. “Let’s talk.”
“If Neil sent you in here to change my mind . . .”
“Oh, he did.”
Of course he did.
“But that’s not what I came in here for.”
Sasha crossed her legs on the bed and leaned against the wall of windows.
“Do you think there is a link between my sister and the people Pohl hires?”
Yes. She kept her answer to herself. “Define link.”
“Maybe someone like Pohl approached her to work for them. Maybe she kept in contact with someone who did work for Pohl.”
> “The people Pohl hires are going to be loners. People who don’t have family or friends as connections. Your sister doesn’t fit the profile.” Not at all. She and Claire, on the other hand, fit it perfectly.
“You clearly have friends,” AJ said.
Could she say that about Neil and the rest of the crew? “He obviously didn’t consider him a friend.” It wasn’t like she took Sunday dinners with the man and his family.
“His mistake.”
She agreed. “Your sister didn’t fit Pohl’s agenda with her personal relationships or her physical attributes. She needed help on the obstacle courses and wasn’t known for her hand-to-hand combat or marksmanship.”
“I take it you looked up her grades.”
“I didn’t have to. I told you, I remember Amelia. She was smart, diplomatic, but not the top physical performer. Once the names are crunched, I’m sure we’re going to find students in much better overall performance on Pohl’s list of recruits.”
“What if he didn’t always recruit hired guns? What if he started out in areas of special agents for the various governments? Would she have been a recruit then?” Strain started to show on AJ’s face.
“Why are you going down this road, AJ? Do you think your sister was part of something more than what she told you?”
He glanced at the door. “Neil suggested I wasn’t objective enough to see what’s right in front of me. You’ve known me a little longer, and I want to know your opinion.”
The fact her opinion mattered to him was as foreign as her desire to put him at ease but not bullshit the man. “I think people are capable of doing just about anything to get what they want. Parents are capable of killing to keep their children safe. Men and women alike are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. Those examples are the easy ones. Things you and I can nod and agree with. Then there’s the other kind of thieves or murderers. The kind that has no regard for life, their own or anyone else’s. Add drugs to this person, take away anyone who cares about them, and they become desperate.” She placed a hand on AJ’s knee. “My point is, do I think your sister was capable of working for someone like Pohl? The answer is yes. Is it likely . . . no.”
AJ stared absently across the room. She could tell by his expression he was contemplating that reality for the first time.
Say It Again (First Wives) Page 14