She found the bag almost immediately. He’d left it on the passenger’s floorboard. Her heart skipped as she pulled the bag onto the seat. It was light, maybe a pound or two. The bag itself wasn’t dark, as she’d first thought. It was a clear ziplock bag—the contents were dark.
She reached in and grabbed what felt like rigid booklets. Dragging one out, she tipped the dark cover toward the overhead light. The gold embossing flashed back at her with the word PASSPORT and the seal of an eagle.
Savannah grabbed a few more booklets. All pa
ssports. She opened one to the identification page and found a photo of Benjamin Reiz. Confused, she pulled out another, this one for Omar Sarak. And a third for Martin Clark.
“What the hell?” she murmured. Her mind was still spinning while she dragged out her phone and took quick pictures of the three passports, then the bag filled with them. She had no idea what this meant, but her gut told her it was wrong.
She scrambled to put everything back the way she’d found it. She needed to get back to the car before—
The passenger’s door flew wide, and cold air washed her back. Savannah gasped just before a hand clamped over her mouth. Panic broke open, spilling through her chest. Her captor pulled her back against a body like steel and dropped to a crouch. Her fight response was automatic, and she twisted and pushed to get the man off her.
“Shh,” he whispered at her ear. “It’s me, Ian.”
Savannah’s fear receded, but uncertainty lingered. Her heart kicked in her chest and hammered in her ears. She tried to tell him to let her go, but her demand came out a garbled nothing behind his hand.
“He’s coming,” Ian murmured at her ear, releasing the hand around her waist to shut the car door quietly. “Be quiet, or we’ll both end up in jail tonight.”
The sound of Hank’s boots clomped on the asphalt. A surge of fear cut through her body like ice. Instead of pushing against Ian, she curled into herself, and his weight pushed her closer to the sidewalk.
Her breath came in short pants. She tilted her head toward the ground to conceal the telltale billows in the air. She swore she felt every heartbeat kick her ribs as Hank got into the cruiser. Swore time slowed as she waited for the engine to start. Then for him to pull away from the curb.
Once he was gone, relief swamped her. She would have crumpled to the ground if Ian wasn’t there to pull her to her feet.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
She glanced that direction. “There.”
“I don’t see—”
“It’s Misty’s.”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and started that direction. “What in the fuck are you trying to do? Get yourself hurt?”
She didn’t answer, her mind a jumble of thoughts in the wake of the adrenaline rush.
Ian walked her to the driver’s side and pushed her in with “Don’t go anywhere” before rounding the car and climbing in the passenger’s side.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I was at the grocery store,” he told her. “A better question is what the hell were you doing?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to get—”
“Involved? Too late. Why would you take a risk like that? You have to know he’d jump at the opportunity to throw you in jail.”
“I… I…” How to explain? She took a breath. “I overheard him fighting with Lyle about something Hank was supposed to do tonight at eight. I thought I could catch him doing something I could use against him in a custody hearing.”
Ian exhaled hard. “Well, did you?”
She shook her head and gave a shrug. “I don’t know. He had a bag of passports in his car. He picked them up at the church on Ninth and Main. I can’t see how I would use that against him.”
Ian’s expression shifted, and the intensity of his focus shivered down her spine. “Passports? Are you sure?”
She dragged her phone from her pocket and pulled up the images she’d taken. “You tell me.”
He took her phone and inspected the images, enlarging them to view the photos and names, asking, “How many were there?”