Page 18 of Oliver

She frowned, thinking. “I went there because it was private, and I was told there were no photographers or anyone else. There was a guy… tall, bald, wore aviators indoors. He didn’t talk to anyone, but he continued to hang around. I thought he was maybe security. I would see security around often.”

“Do you remember his face?”

“Not really. But he had this scar above his eye, high up on his forehead. I noticed it because he once stopped in front of me like he was going to say something. But he ended up walking around me, and he watched everything. Not just me—the whole facility. I was taken the next day.”

That set off every alarm in my gut.

I stood. “I need to run that past the team.”

“Do you think he was the one?”

“I think someone was watching you,” I said. “And it might not be about ransom at all. It might be about whatever you saw—and forgot.”

Her expression changed. Eyes sharpening. “Then I need to remember.”

Emery rose from her chair, her entire body tense as if she had just heard the sound of a starter pistol firing.

“I want to go back to the gym,” she said. “Retrace my steps.”

I shook my head. “Too risky. If someone was watching you there, they might be watching still.”

“I’ll wear a disguise.”

I stepped in front of her. “No.”

She crossed her arms. “You don’t get to make that call.”

“Yes, I do,” I said, quieter now. “Because I’m the one who dragged you out of hell, and I’m not about to let you walk back into it.”

Her jaw flexed, eyes burning. “I’m not a porcelain doll, Oliver. I was taken. I survived. I need answers.”

“You think I don’t want them too?”

We stood there, staring each other down, frustration tangled with something fiercer—something hotter.

She looked away first. “If I don’t remember, then I’ll always be waiting for the next time. The next cell. I can’t live like that.”

I let out a slow breath. She was right. But we had to be smart.

“I’ll take you to a gym, where I know the owner,” I said. “At night. Quiet. You don’t go in alone.”

Her lips parted in surprise, then softened into a look of relief. “Okay.” She smiled. You’re a softy.”

“Don’t ever tell anyone I’m a softy, I’ll deny it.”

Since the trainingfacility was in another country, we went to a gym in town to see if her memory could be jogged. So later that night, just after the sun dipped below the horizon, we parked twoblocks from the private training facility in La Jolla. Emery wore a hoodie, baseball cap, and black joggers. She looked like any other athlete slipping in for a late swim session.

But her hands trembled.

I rested mine over hers. “You’re not alone.”

She nodded, swallowed hard, and stepped out of the SUV.

The facility had already closed for the day, but I had access through the back gate. I led us inside with a keycard, passing empty locker rooms and long glass windows that overlooked the pool.

I could tell the smell hit her first—chlorine, sweat, old leather. She looked at home.

She stopped cold, like her body remembered something her brain hadn’t caught up to yet.

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