“What?”
“He didn’t say. Just that I could use it to stop a war.”
Connor removed his hand and stood. “Did he give you the antidote?”
Lisa’s eyes filled with tears, as much from the pain as from the memory of what it had cost Shen Yu. “I don’t know. I never saw what was on it.”
“On what?”
Her thoughts were becoming more jumbled as another bout of pain swept through her. “A thumb drive.”
“What happened to it?”
“When they arrested me, they took it.” She swallowed against the bile creeping upward. “Then they executed Shen Yu in front of me.”
Connor sagged in defeat as the doctor stepped forward and inserted a needle into her IV injection port. “She needs something for the pain.”
This time, Lisa didn’t argue and welcomed the warm sensation spreading up her arm. “But I copied its contents onto a laptop.”
“Whose?” Connor asked.
Lisa’s eyes sagged closed as the opioids the doctor had injected attached to receptors in her brain to block the pain. She tried visualizing the other flight attendant and could see her clearly, but her name remained just beyond reach. She replayed the events of the flight in her mind, fast-forwarding through the mind-numbing boredom of serving drinks and food over the Pacific Ocean. She recalled their conversation in the van on the way to the hotel and how she had brushed her off to make her scheduled meeting with Shen Yu.
“Lisa?” Connor asked, gently encouraging her to find the answer to his question.
Her eyes still closed, she recalled the girl calling to invite her to drink wine and watch the sunset. She thought about transferring the contents to her computer before sitting in the chairs overlooking the milky Shanghai skyline. The sunset had been truly magnificent, and she suddenly realized it had been the last sunset she had seen.
She had Jenn to thank for that.
Jenn.
Lisa opened her eyes and looked up at Connor with a triumphant look on her face. “Jenn,” she said.
“Jenn Evers?”
Her eyes closed again, and she gave in to the drug’s warm embrace.
Connor rubbed her arm. “You did good,” he said.
51
Jax poured himself another cup of coffee, then rinsed the carafe and filled it with water to make a second pot. He let his cup cool on the kitchen counter as he went through the routine process of dumping the used grounds and preparing for another round. Though he and Margaret had been the only ones drinking coffee so far that morning, he suspected the others would appreciate a fresh pot when they surfaced.
The soft plodding of feet drew his attention to the hall, where Cher walked into the room ahead of Margaret. One of the cur’s ears drooped low, but both eyes were fixed intently on Jax as he poured the water into the coffeemaker.
“How long do we expect the danger to last?” Margaret asked.
Jax stabbed at the button to begin the brewing process, then scooped up his mug and took a sip. “I don’t know,” he said. “Punky is looking into the Chinese operative who we believe is after her, but I think the threat will be gone once we’ve recovered our officer.”
Margaret leaned against the counter, and Cher sat at her feet and looked up at them. “How much longer until that happens?”
He looked at his watch and tried doing the mental gymnastics to convert the time. He might have been off by an hour, but even so, he should have already heard from Connor. “Any time,” he said.
Margaret nodded but remained silent, letting the sound of the percolating coffeemaker fill the kitchen. Jax looked down at Cher, who only stared back. It was going to be a long day if he had to wait much longer.
As if someone had heard his plea, his cell phone vibrated with an incoming call. He saw Connor’s name on the caller ID and quickly answered. “What’s the word?”
“We got her,” he said. “We’re on our way back to California now.”
Jax exhaled, and he saw both Margaret and Cher relax at his change in posture. It was as if somebody had cut the tension in the room, and they could finally breathe. “Good. That’s good. Have you debriefed her? Has she revealed anything about an attack?”
There was a long pause while Jax waited for his question to bounce across satellites to reach his partner somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. “She’s banged up pretty bad, but I did get a chance to question her.” There was another pause.
“What did—”
Connor continued, speaking over Jax. “She copied the contents of the thumb drive Shen Yu gave her onto a computer belonging to Jenn Evers.”
“The other flight attendant?” Jax felt himself deflate. It had been too much to hope that Lisa would have been privy to the details of a looming attack, but that didn’t mean Jax hadn’t hoped anyway.
“How far are you from Escondido?”
“Escondido?” Jax furrowed his brow. “Maybe twenty minutes. Why?”
It was obvious Margaret was interested in the conversation, but she passed the time by pouring herself a cup of coffee and leaning over to scratch Cher on the head. The dog never took her eyes off Jax.
“That’s where she lives.”
He closed his eyes and groaned. Not that they wouldn’t have sent a team in to rescue Lisa if they had known, but they could have long since had the intelligence with only a short drive down the interstate. “I’m going to retrieve it,” he said. “How long until you land?”
“Not for another twelve hours,” Connor replied. “But Jax?”
“Yeah?”
“Does the word yaoshi mean anything to you?”
“Not really. Why?”
There was a pause on the other end. “Lisa told me it was the last thing Shen Yu said to her.”
Why would he say that?
“That doesn’t make any sense, but I’ll let you know what I find on the computer.” He ended the call and turned to Margaret, who waited patiently for him to fill her in. “Lisa copied the intelligence onto another flight attendant’s computer before she was kidnapped.”
“And this other flight attendant lives in Escondido?”
Jax nodded, but he hesitated.
“Go,” Margaret said. “Cher and I will take care of the doctor and her little girl.”
He started to protest, but she stopped him.
“Just go. We know what we’re doing.”
“Thank you.” Jax set his coffee cup down and turned for the door.
Only twenty minutes away.
Jenn kicked off her tennis shoes and flopped down on the worn sofa, still wearing a pair of sweatpants and a loose-fitting tank top. She had left with the intention of going for a short morning run, but it had been more walking and less running. The pregnancy had sapped her of her strength far more than she expected, and she was looking forward to a relaxing day of watching a few episodes of her favorite show on Netflix.
She pressed play on the next episode of Outlander, hoping the supernatural love story of Jamie and Claire would help her forget her real-world problems. But before the opening sequence even began, her phone rang. With a groan, she pressed pause.
“This better be good,” she muttered, then leaned over to pick up her phone from the coffee table. She didn’t recognize the number, but it had a San Diego area code, and her heart jumped in her throat.
“Hello?”