Zach climbed out and pushed the round red HOLD button.
Beside her, Gabe unbuckled his seat belt. “We’re here.”
While Marc and Gabe took the elevator back down to the garage to park the car, Natalie followed Zach along a tiled hallway, passing an ordinary elevator meant for people. At the end of the hallway was a wide double door with the brass number 2400 on it. They must be on the top floor.
Zach pressed his thumb against a biometric pad beside the door, and it opened with a quiet click. “Welcome home.”
Natalie stepped inside—and found herself in the pages of a magazine.
Sunlight streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows on the west side, French doors open to a patio with a breathtaking view of the mountains. And she realized this wasn’t just a loft, but the penthouse. She was in the penthouse of the Glass Tower.
“This belongs to the U.S. Marshal Service?” No wonder there was a deficit.
Zach laughed. “No. I’m renting it under an alias. I want you to be safe, but also comfortable. You might be stuck here for a while.”
Being stuck here didn’t seem so bad—especially not if Zach was with her.
To her left was the living room, with wood floors and furniture in earth tones of cream, sage green, and a soft sky blue, a large painting of golden aspens in snow drawing the colors together, a gas fireplace beneath it. To her right stood an open kitchen with stainless-steel appliances, the refrigerator flush with the wall, the countertops made of white granite. Beyond that was a dining room graced by a long oak table and matching chairs, a modern take on the chandelier hanging above the table’s center.
Between the kitchen and the living room was a flight of stairs, the banister of polished oak. She took the stairs, but was hit by another wave of dizziness halfway up, her headache worse. She leaned against the rail, drew in deep breaths.
A hand rested against her back. “You okay?”
“Just a little dizzy.”
“Better take it slowly then.”
With him beside her, she took the remaining few stairs and found herself in a hallway. To her left, above the living room, was the master bedroom, a king-sized bed set on a platform against one wall and covered with a fluffy white down comforter. The bed was flanked by nightstands and surrounded by matching chairs near the windows and a chest of drawers against the far wall. In the corner was a second gas fireplace, its mantel made of polished oak. And on the mantel sat her framed photograph of Beau.
Natalie walked over to it, picked it up, turned back to look at Zach. “How . . . ?”
“We moved some of your things here last night. I thought you’d want that.”
“Thank you. That was very thoughtful of you.” She held the photo against her chest for a moment, something familiar in the chaos that had become her life.
She set the photo down, walked to the closet, found her clothes hanging neatly inside. Then she turned and saw it—the bathroom. “Oh, my stars!”
The floors, walls, and countertops were made of a gray-veined marble, the tub deep and elliptical.Big enough for two.The shower was one of those with multiple showerheads, one overhead, three on each side, all adjustable. Twin sinks sat before twin oval mirrors. Small recessed lights shined down from the ceiling like stars, fluffy white towels hung from silver towel racks.
She walked through the room, ran her fingertips over the cool marble, then looked out the single square window onto the city below. “This is unbelievable, Zach. Thank you.”
“We’re not done with the tour yet.”
He led her back out in the hallway to a small room that was her office, her laptop and files sitting on a wide oak desk. “We’re using VPN to allow you to connect with the newspaper, but I’ll explain that later. Let me show you the gym.”
He started back down the stairs, but Natalie had noticed another room upstairs. She walked over to it, saw a double bed with a duffel bag full of weapons on top of it, some shaving things set on the dresser. So he planned to sleep in here, away from her.
She hadn’t expected that. Nothing in how he’d acted toward her had given her any reason to expect that. And her spirits, which hadn’t been high to begin with, sank.
She turned to find him watching her.
“Nothing has changed between us, Natalie. We can’t be together. It will just make things harder for both of us if we sleep together. I’ve been assigned to protect you and help get the Zetas out of Colorado, and I need to stay focused. What happened in the desert—”
“Let me guess—it stays in the desert.” She walked past him and down the stairs, trying not to let him see that what was left of her world had just crumbled.
ARTURO WANTED TO laugh. He wanted to gloat. He wanted to rub it in their faces. Instead, he sent a prayer of thanks to La Santa Muerte, fighting to keep the joy out of his voice. “She is not so easy to kill, this Natalie Benoit.”
The bastard sons of whores had planted explosives in her car, but the wind had detonated the bomb, leaving her alive and almost uninjured. Even worse, she had disappeared, evading their best attempts to track her and finish the job.