Coco’s mouth made a tight, solemn line.
“And that Gustov will come after me.”
Coco lifted a shoulder. “Gustov’s gone dark. I’ve been looking for him all over the internet—even that dating site he’s hooked into. Nothing. No activity. He’s vanished.”
And yes, that put a wrinkle of fear under RJ’s skin. But she wasn’t going to live her life looking over her shoulder.
Or having her brothers come to her rescue. “Listen, Coco. I get it—but you gotta turn that thing off. I don’t need to be babysat.”
Coco drew in a breath.
“Now. I’m not asking.”
“Wyatt is going to throw a conniption.”
“I’ll deal with Wyatt and Ford and Tate and Knox and even Reuben.”
“Speaking of Tate, he’s back in town. Glo is on vacation in Cannon Beach. He’s staying at Wyatt’s flat. Says he’s planning on talking with Vicktor in the morning about the shooting.”
“Any news on the wedding? Maybe something small, and soon?”
“I don’t know how. The election is only a month away. Senator Jackson is going to make sure her only daughter’s wedding is the event of the season at the estate in Nashville.”
“I meant yours, silly.”
“Oh.” Coco lifted a shoulder. “It’s hard to think about that with Mikka being sick.”
Sure, RJ understood that.
“But according to Tate, Glo has been pestering him to set a date. I’m not sure why.”
RJ knew why—because the man she loved tended to get into trouble and she didn’t want to waste one more day waiting for the rest of their lives to start.
In case it didn’t.
The thought thickened her throat. RJ swallowed, looked away as her microwave beeped. “I’ll be right back.”
She’d probably nabbed four hours of sleep, at best, given her late hour last night. Doctoring her coffee, she then returned to the sofa. “Coco, I actually need your help. I found Sophia’s journal, and in it, a phone number that might lead to her contact in Seattle. Can you run a trace on her number and match it to the one I found? And then see if you can connect the number to a name?”
“Of course.” Coco’s secret abilities—and her job when she lived in Russia—were her black hat hacking skills.
RJ read off the number. Coco leaned over her computer, clearly working her magic. “By the way, did you ever verify the information Kobie gave us about Jackson?”
Alan Kobie. The bomber who’d kidnapped Coco, strapped a bomb to her, and used her as leverage to try to tell the world some crazy story about VP candidate Reba Jackson and her involvement with a Chechen warlord, maybe even some collusion with Russia.
The fact that Coco said his name without a tremble in her voice spoke to how she’d managed to free herself and triumph over evil.
Evil seemed to keep winning, however.
“Kobie said she took a covert trip to Chechnya two years ago, but I scoured her travel history. She did take a humanitarian trip to Chechnya ten years ago, when she was a freshman senator, to tour refugee camps, but…nothing recently.”
“He probably lied,” Coco said. “He just had a vendetta against the government for abandoning his brother to the jihad camps. He said his brother was a POW there.”
“His brother was one of the bombers who tried to kill Glo and later her mother, the VP candidate in San Diego,” RJ said. “So, apparently some of his jihadist conditioning took.”
Coco nodded. “I got something. Sophia Randall called this number twice. Once for a minute, then a week later for three minutes. The number called her back five days later for four minutes, then again two days later for forty-nine seconds.”
“When was the first call?”
“The day before you went to Russia.”
“She went missing right about then.”
“Maybe she was under the radar. It looks like all her calls took place while you were escaping Russia, but the return calls came shortly after you returned. Maybe around the same time.”
“Except Damien Gustov was still in Russia, trying to find you, for at least another month.”
“And you never heard from her after you got back?”
“My calls always went to voice mail.”
Coco looked up and RJ heard Wyatt’s voice at the door. “Just a few more minutes. We’re looking into something.”
Wyatt settled down next to her, half his face appearing on the screen. “You’re not staying out of trouble, sis.”
“I had everything under control, Wy.”
His mouth pinched.
“I don’t need you guys hovering.”
“Says the woman who was accused of an international crime, had to escape a foreign country, and walked in on a dead body.”
“I was cleared of any crime, and the dead body was planted so I’d walk in and find it.”
“Which just sends warm fuzzies through me.” Wyatt ran a hand around the back of his neck, his brown hair growing longer in anticipation of hockey season. And his many photo shoots, probably.
“You guys completely overreact.”
“Overreacting would be making you wear an ankle monitor. Maybe confining you to house arrest,” Wyatt said.
“I’m a trained analyst!”
“You’re our only sister! And the youngest, and we’re only trying to do what Dad would want us to do—”
“Leave Dad out of this.”
“Hardly. We all know you’ve always tried to keep up with us because you didn’t want Dad to see you as weaker, someone to be rescued.”
She drew in a breath. “I’m not weaker. And I don’t have to be rescued—”
“Yet. Or should I say again?”
“Wyatt!” Coco said.
He looked at Coco. Back to the screen. “Sorry. I’m clearly tired. And edgy and—”
“Being a jerk,” RJ said. “Just because you went to Russia and saved Coco’s life doesn’t make you the only one who can save the people you love.”
He drew in a breath. Swallowed. “Sorry. I know. I’m just…I’m—we all—are worried about you.”
“Clearly. But I’m fine.” Her throat tightened, and she clamped down against the lie. “Just fine.”
He nodded. “Okay. Just promise me not to do anything crazy.”
“Oh, like running off to a foreign country to save—oh wait, I did that. And so did Ford. And you—”
“I’m going back to bed.”
Coco was grinning as he kissed her on the cheek.
“I love you, sis,” Wyatt said. He got up and walked out of the shot.
Coco reached out with her leg, and RJ imagined her toeing the door closed. “He means well. And he wants to do what he thinks your dad would do. He’s been reading your dad’s Bible, and it’s made him want to be more connected to your family.”
“He did miss out on a lot with his hockey career.”
“I’m searching the GPS on both phones.”
“How long has my mom been there?”
“A couple days. Got a hit—both phones were in Seattle three months ago, near the same cell tower. And there are no more calls from Sophia’s phone after that.”