Page 24 of Critical Mass
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.” Jake clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s just hope you made the right one.”
Hudson climbed into the helicopter, took the seat beside Natalie, and snapped his seatbelt on.
Natalie wouldn’t look at him. Instead, her eyes were fixed on something outside the window. Her headset framed her face, and her hands gripped the blanket like a lifeline.
The rotors spun up to full speed, and they lifted off, the marina falling away beneath them. Hudson quickly pulled on his headset.
As he looked down to the ground, his blood went cold.
Two SUVs pulled into the parking lot, their headlights cutting through the darkness.
Men poured out—four, five, six of them—and spread out across the area.
They each looked up, tracking the helicopter’s ascent.
Even from this distance Hudson saw the cold calculation in their postures.
Those guys had arrived mere minutes too late. But the message was clear in the way they watched the helicopter climb into the night sky.
This wasn’t over. These guys would find them again.
Hudson pulled his gaze away from the scene below. Natalie was no longer avoiding eye contact. Instead, she stared at him, her face pale in the helicopter’s interior lights.
“Those are the men from the marina, aren’t they?” Her voice came through his headset—and everyone else’s in the copter also.
“They’re associates of those men at least,” Hudson said.
“And they’re going to keep coming after us?”
“Most likely.” Hudson offered a solemn nod.
Something flickered across Natalie’s face—fear, yes, but also confusion.
She turned away again, pulling the blanket tighter, and Hudson was left staring at her profile as they flew through the darkness toward Lantern Beach. Toward answers she didn’t want to hear and truths that would destroy everything she’d believed about her father.
Looking at her now, broken and betrayed and terrified, Hudson wondered if he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by taking on this assignment.
He closed his eyes and began to beg God for forgiveness Hudson knew he didn’t deserve.
The helicopter banked left, and Natalie’s stomach lurched. She was still nauseous from the boat ride, and being airborne wasn’t helping.
She pressed her hand against the window, watching the lights of the marina disappear into darkness below them.
Somewhere down there, her car was still parked behind those trees at the Back Bay marina. Her purse was probably on the front passenger seat, her keys in the ignition, and her phone on the charger.
Her entire normal life, abandoned.
She wanted to talk to her father. He would know what to do.
Healwaysknew what to do.
If only she could call him right now, tell him what had happened, where she was going. He’d send help. He’d send lawyers or security or whatever she needed.
Except . . .
Except she didn’t have her phone.
