I think I’m right.

He set down her shirt and removed her jeans. He slid the folded drawing of Violet out of her pocket along with the Darth Vader PEZ dispenser. He froze for a second and then looked at her with wide eyes as he flipped back the plastic head.

“Is it there?” she asked.

“How did you know?” Chris shook the Star Wars figure and a slim silver USB drive slipped into his hand.

“I didn’t. I grabbed it because it was the only thing in that whole apartment that represented the man I remembered. He’d collected all sorts of Star Wars memorabilia. At some point during the night, I realized that it was the right size and wondered if he could have hidden it in there.”

Chris closed his fist around the small drive and handed the dispenser to Gianna. “There’s probably another one in the other dispenser. I’ll tell Hawes to check.”

Gianna stared at the small plastic figure. “Hiding in plain sight. That sounds like something my father would have done.”

He died for this device.

She smiled and looked at Chris, who was eyeing her with a bit of awe.

Her heart filled as she spotted a smudge of ash at his jawline. He’d washed his face and hands, but hadn’t taken the time to do much else. She imagined the nurses had urged him to go home and change while she was unconscious, but she knew he hadn’t listened. She knew.

His expression changed to bewilderment. “What is it?”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “That’s twice you’ve saved Violet and me.”

He held her gaze. “I guess someone’s trying to tell me something. I’ve tried my hardest to stay away from people for the past two decades. It took both my sister and Michael to yank me into their lives, and I’ve never regretted it. Now someone has forcibly placed you and Violet where I have to practically trip over you to get me to open my eyes again. I think it’s a sign.”

Her lips curved up. “A sign? Do you remember asking me if I believed in fate on that first night in your cabin?”

“I do.” His expression was deadly serious. He reached out and gripped her closest hand.

“You said you thought you were sent to help Violet and me.”

“I’ve changed my thoughts on that,” he said.

“Oh?”

“I wasn’t sent to help you two. You were sent to save me.”

Gianna couldn’t breathe.

“The last two years of my life have been a series of small steps. Learning how to live in the real world. Being human again. I think someone felt I was ready to take a huge leap. I’ve never felt more alive than in the last few days. I feel like . . . something has settled into its rightful place inside of me. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t put a name or description to it. There was an empty spot and I couldn’t figure out how to fill it.”

“It’s better now?” Gianna asked. Her mind spun as he spoke, knowing the exact sensation he was talking about. Violet’s father had left a hole when he’d died. It’d healed over, but she’d never felt the same. A constant nagging empty sensation had followed her for years. She’d tried to fill it with work and her daughter, but it had been like placing a paper patch on a fabric hole. It protected the spot, but never felt right.

“It’s like it was never there.” He paused. “It’s you, Gianna. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, but I don’t think I was ready until recently.”

Tears streaked down her cheeks. “I feel the same way,” she whispered. “I don’t want it to go away.”

“Hell. I’m not going anywhere.” The familiar stubbornness settled on his face. “We’ve got all the time in the world. And I know what I want to do first.”

“What’s that?”

“Introduce you to my son.”

She couldn’t wait.

One month later

Chris sat on the rocky wall and stared out at the Caribbean at five in the morning. Even in the early hours, the Kool-Aid shade of blue was stunning. White sand under his toes. Palm trees overhead. The beach on the Yucatán Peninsula was straight out of heaven. He’d never visited this part of the world before. It was an odd mix of Mayan ruins, sleepy towns, tourist traps, and poverty.

The sweat under his bulletproof vest ran down his back.

“The local girl said it’s the second tent,” Michael said softly. He crouched on top of the wall, his gun balanced lightly on his knee. Weeks of searching, digging, and payoffs were about to come to fruition. They’d tracked Reid Kruger south into Mexico and east to Cancún and then south again. Twice they’d been hours behind the man, finding dirty dishes and angry women who said he’d promised them money.

Reid Kruger was out of money.

The USB drives in the Darth Vader PEZ dispensers contained information that’d brought Kruger’s father’s company to its knees. War crimes, hate crimes, international crimes. His father had been a part of all of it, and he no longer had money to send to his son on the run. Evidence of Reid Kruger’s brutality in his home country of South Africa was also on the thumb drives, but it paled in comparison to the crimes of his father. Hawes and Becker had been stunned by the amount of information and passed it to the right international authorities.

Chris didn’t care. He simply wanted Reid Kruger to pay for shooting Jamie and Gianna. The women had spent the last month looking over their shoulders, wondering if the blond giant would reappear. Michael and Chris were determined to give their women peace of mind. Their latest lead had brought them to a camp on a quiet beach where young international travelers gathered. College dropouts who wanted to see the world on a budget. Young people in their twenties who wanted to live by the water this week and climb a mountain in Tibet next week. A transient group, constantly changing and evolving. Their most recent addition included a very tall and large blond man.