I turned up my music as loud as I could stand it and settled back in my seat, determined to get some sleep.
This was a job. Plain and simple. I had to think of it that way. And since it would be easy for the next ten hours or so, I should rest now while I could. The real job would begin when we landed in the Ukraine.
I closed my eyes, glad at least that the Marines had taught me how to sleep just about anywhere. This was a mission. Just like all the rest. And it was a hell of a lot easier than any of the others I’d had over the years.
IT DIDN’T TAKE long after landing for me to realize that this job wouldn’t be nearly as easy as I had anticipated.
I’d thought it was kind of ridiculous when Mr. Summers gave me a phone with a GPS tracker linked to Kelsey’s. I had assumed I’d just get up early, watch for her to leave, and then follow. She’d go back to her hotel. I’d wait for her to go to sleep, then snag some rest of my own.
Oh, how very wrong I’d been.
I checked into an inn across the street from her hostel in Kiev, specifically requesting a room that faced the street and would give me a good view of her coming and going.
I got my key and climbed the narrow stairs to the room, pulling my phone out of my pocket on the way. I dialed the number Kelsey’s father had given me, and a woman answered.
“Mr. Summer’s office.”
I cleared my throat. “Yes, um, this is Jackson Hunt.” I wasn’t sure how much further to identify myself. Daughter Stalker wasn’t exactly a title I was ready to throw around in public.
“Yes, Mr. Hunt. Mr. Summers is in a meeting, but he was expecting your call. You arrived safely?”
“Yes, we both did.”
“Excellent. He’ll be in touch.”
The line went dead. I stood still in front of my door for a few moments.
That was somehow less . . . dramatic than I thought it would be. I was glad I wasn’t the only one handling this matter-of-factly.
I fit the old-fashioned key into the lock and entered the room. I deposited my stuff on a simple bed with spindly legs and a thin mattress, then glanced out the window—just in time to glimpse Kelsey fleeing the hostel on the back of some guy’s moped.
“Oh, f**k me.”
I grabbed a few key items and powered up the app that linked me to her phone. Cursing, I took the stairs two at a time, as fast I could, down to the lobby. I ran out into the street, but she was long gone.
“Goddamn it.”
A tourist couple with fanny packs (yes, actual fanny packs) jumped in response to my swear.
Easy, Hunt. Blend in.
That’s what this mission required. I needed to get good at it, and fast. My heart beat loudly in my ears as I waited for the app to finish loading. I was trained to operate under pressure. Panic should not have been a problem, but this was different.
First, it’s a lot easier to fight a person than to protect one. And when I did protect someone, it was usually a guy in combat gear who had a gun of his own. And I knew those guys. I knew their tendencies, their strengths, and their weaknesses.
I was beginning to realize just how little I knew about Kelsey Summers.
The phone pinged, and I watched a moving blue dot that I guessed was her. She was already a couple miles away. I jogged down to a busier corner and flagged down a taxi. It wasn’t until I slid across the cracked leather seat that I realized I couldn’t tell him where I was going because I had no f**king clue.
His dark eyes met mine expectantly through the rearview mirror, and I held up a finger to buy some time. I’d bought a Ukrainian phrasebook in the airport on a whim while Kelsey was in the bathroom. I felt a trickle of sweat run down the back of my neck as I dug it out of my bag and flipped through the first few pages frantically.
One look at the letters that I didn’t recognize (or have any idea how to pronounce), and I knew the phrasebook was going to do jack shit for me.
“English?” I asked the driver.
He didn’t need to reply. I got the giant, resounding no just from the slant of his thick eyebrows.
I tried showing him the app, hoping maybe he would recognize the interface of a GPS or be able to recognize what part of the city that blue dot was currently moving through, but his eyebrows only furrowed further.
Defeated, I smiled, threw him a couple coins for his trouble, and then climbed out of the cab, now even farther away from Kelsey and with no idea how I was going to get to her.
It took me exactly ten minutes to figure out that my Ukrainian phrasebook was largely useless (not just because I was useless when it came to using it, but because most of the people I ran across spoke Russian instead).
Did Kelsey speak Russian? I may not have gone to college, but I didn’t think the average rich girl from Texas would be fluent in the language. Then again, given the chance to go to Europe, the average girl would have probably chosen London or Paris or Rome.
Maybe she knew that guy on the moped. Except, her father didn’t mention anything about Kelsey visiting friends (or a boyfriend) overseas. But then again, he ran in the same circles as my father, who made it a point to be as oblivious as possible, so perhaps he just didn’t know.
Or maybe that boyfriend was why he sent me. Maybe he was dangerous.
Frustrated, I rubbed my hand across the top of my shorn head, not for the first time, missing the longer hair I’d had before enlisting. You’d think after two tours, I would be used to it, but I wasn’t. Groaning, I decided that I wasn’t getting any closer to her by standing around. And the idea of her being God-knows-where with that guy had my insides clenching uncomfortably.
I set off on foot, too annoyed and worried to actually look around me at the city. I could only stare at that dot and know that I was f**king this up as badly as everything else in my life.
Finally, after another ten minutes, the dot stopped moving. I walked for a little longer, and when I was certain that Kelsey wasn’t going to take off again, I worked on finding someone who could help me figure out where she was and how to get there.
There was a moment when I assumed the worst about her unmoving dot. Maybe it was because I’d lived amidst war for more than a fourth of my life. But I shook that off. The Ukraine wasn’t war torn, not right now anyway. She was probably sitting down in a café or on a park bench.
My deliverance came in the form of a cute little girl with scuffed shoes, curly hair, and a gap-toothed smile. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, but she understood me. My words anyway. She directed her big brown doe eyes at my phone, but she was a little too young to help me figure out how the map translated to the city of Kiev.