Page 17 of Dark Gambit Reliance

"Right." Eleanor glanced at the rearview mirror. "So far, it doesn't look as if anyone is following us, which is a serious setback to Turner's plan."

"He has a contingency," Marcel said. "If we can't catch a pureblood here, we will catch one in Karelia and get information out of him. We need to do that regardless, so we can get the guard to give Jade a message. The team is already on its way."

It was such a relief that they hadn't picked up a tail, but it was also tinged with disappointment. After her initial reaction to the news about the tracker, Sofia had entertained the absurd hope that maybe its purpose hadn't been to find out more about the people running Safe Haven, but for her protection, and that perhaps Valstar himself had followed her to the Oregon Coast to keep an eye on her and rescue her if she needed rescuing.

Right.Talk about delusional.

When they got to the restaurant, the hostess looked at Cecilia and smiled. "Pets are welcome, but only on the patio. Is that okay?"

"It's great." Eleanor kissed the top of the cat's head. "Cecelia was such a good girl at the doctor's office, and she deserves a reward. Do you have fish on the menu?"

"We do. She will love the tuna."

If anyone was watching them, which Sofia doubted, Eleanor had just given a great performance to reinforce their story.

"What about your friends?" Sofia asked Asher. "Shouldn't we invite them to join us?"

"It will blow their cover," the Guardian said. "They have to wait in the van."

"I hope they brought snacks," Eleanor said.

"I'm sure they did." Marcel opened the menu. "And if they didn't, they can get something at a drive-through while we are here. No one is going to attack us in a crowded restaurant."

13

MARCEL

Marcel's phone rang twenty or so minutes into the drive back to Safe Haven.

"We have a tail," Morgan said. "Two men in a gray Honda Accord. The back windows are tinted, so there might be more, but I doubt it. Two is more than enough to follow the tracker around.”

Asher, who had taken over driving, looked at Marcel through the rearview mirror. "I didn't see it, and I've been watching out for it the entire drive. I still don't see it."

"They are very subtle about it," Morgan said. "They never get close. The only reason we spotted them on the way back was that the traffic was so light they couldn’t disappear among the other cars."

"I wonder what they thought about the doctor's visit," Marcel said.

Morgan chuckled. "I'm sure that they were disappointed. They probably expected us to haul Sofia to some secret location for interrogation, and all they got was a cardiology clinic."

They had hauled her to a secret location when they had taken her to Toven, but that had been without the tracker, and the tail hadn't known that she'd left Safe Haven.

"Maybe they thought that the clinic was a cover for our headquarters," Asher said. "We are heading toward the house. You know the plan."

"We do." Morgan ended the call.

Next to Marcel, Sofia sat ramrod straight, and given her pinched expression, she was fighting tears. "I hoped…" She hesitated. "I don't know what I hoped for. It was stupid."

Marcel wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Did you hope for a rescue?"

She nodded. "It's not that I wanted to be rescued. I wanted to know that my grandfather cared enough to send someone to retrieve me."

"Maybe that's why they have been following us. When they saw that we took you to see the doctor and then to a restaurant, they probably reported to Valstar that everything you told him and Igor was true. You were on an outing with your new boyfriend, the one who you seduced to pump for information, and Eleanor and her brother were with you. You didn't need rescuing."

She let out a breath. "You are right. So it's all good. Igor got the confirmation he needed. I just hope that we don't blow the story up when we capture them."

"That depends on whether they show their hand when we execute our plan."

"What are we going to do with Cecilia?" Sofia asked.

---