Page 38 of Critical Mass
“He was probably tracking your phone,” Colton said. “That’s likely how those men found you at the marina. They knew you were following Hudson because your father was monitoring your location.”
“No.” Natalie shook her head. “My father tracks my phone for safety. He’s always done that. It’s not—he wouldn’t use it to?—”
“To send armed men after you?” Hudson’s voice was quiet but firm. “Natalie, think about tonight. How did those operatives know exactly where to find us? How did they arrive at that exact marina at that exact time?”
The phone continued to buzz in her hand, insistent. Demanding.
“My father would never hurt me.” Even as the words left Natalie’s mouth, she wasn’t sure she believed them anymore. “He’s probably terrified. I disappeared, I’m not answering my phone. He just wants to know I’m safe.”
“Or he wants to know where you are so he can send more men to retrieve you,” Ty said, “before you tell us anything else that could compromise his operations.”
The phone stopped buzzing. Went silent.
Then the buzzing immediately started again.
Natalie stared at the device.
“What are you going to do?” Hudson asked.
That was the question, wasn’t it? Whatwasshe going to do?
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Natalie could answer the phone.Tell her father everything—about Hudson’s real identity, about Blackout, about where she was right now.
Her father would rescue her. She knew he would.
But if these people were telling the truth, she’d be warning a terrorist that his operation was compromised.
If they were lying, she’d be saving herself from kidnappers.
Or she could not answer. Could stay here with Hudson and his team. Could look at more evidence, hear more recordings, try to figure out if the father she’d trusted and loved all her life was really the monster they claimed he was.
And if Hudson and his colleagues were telling the truth, she’d be helping stop whatever Critical Mass was.
If they were lying, she’d be trapped with people who’d already proven they were willing to deceive her.
She waffled back and forth.
There was no good choice. No safe option.
Either way, she was betraying someone.
The phone buzzed again. And again.
Her father wasn’t giving up.
She thought about the phrase “Critical Mass” that her father had used in his phone calls. Business jargon, she’d assumed.
But what if it wasn’t?
And those men at the marina. They’d appeared so quickly. How had they known exactly where to find them?
They’d been shooting to kill.
But her father would never hurt her. She knew that.
