More Than a Mission - Caridad Pineiro [52]
She tied up her hair with the pink scarf once more and slipped down the stairs barefoot, pausing at the door a moment to glance around her living room. She held her breath as she listened for the sounds of someone else, since the hairs on the back of her neck tingled as if she was being watched.
Only the susurrus of the ocean. It called to her and she listened.
She was on the move again, Aidan realized from the video feed on his PDA. He had been watching her for at least an hour or more. For the better part of that time, she had been standing by her bedroom window, looking out to sea. One arm wrapped around her midsection while the other hung down at her side. Occasionally she would reach up, rake back her shoulder-length hair or rest her hand at her mouth pensively.
Lizzy was clearly troubled. He wondered if he had even made the list of what she was worried about. He had tried to be distant tonight and it had worked. He had noticed her watching him, possibly interested in approaching, but it had not been possible. Too many restaurant patrons far too late into the night. And he couldn’t just hang out and wait for her. It would be too obvious. So he had left. Tuned into the broadcast on his PDA of Elizabeth in her room.
Despite the late hour she’d returned home, Lizzy had obviously not been tired. She puttered around the cottage and then her room. After, she went to the window to stand until she abruptly sprang into action, changing into the black clothes and moving downstairs.
She waited at the door and cautiously looked around.
Aidan stood, yanked on his jacket as he watched her. Did she sense the surveillance? Was her assassin’s radar that acute?
When she walked out the door, he rushed out of his room and nearly collided with Lucia.
“I was on my way to get you,” she explained and he held up his PDA.
“I’ve been monitoring her.”
She shot him a condemning look, apparently convinced that his interest had been anything but work-related.
“It’s not what you think,” he defended, even as he grabbed the binoculars and hurried to the windows.
Lucia said nothing, but instead joined him at the windows with her own set of binoculars. “She’s headed for the beach again.”
Aidan tracked Elizabeth’s flight down the cottage path and along the rocky trail to the shoreline. “I’m going after her,” he said and turned, but as he did so, some other activity on one of the monitors caught his eye.
He raced back to the table, certain he’d seen someone in black in the cellar of Lizzy’s restaurant, but when he reached the monitor, nothing. It must have been his imagination.
“I thought you were leaving?” Lucia asked and craned her head over his shoulder while he kept his eyes trained on the feed from the cellar.
“Thought I saw something here.” He pointed to the screen.
Lucia shook her head. “Not possible. We both know the Sparrow’s on the beach.”
“Right,” he answered and yet his instinct told him something was off. Straightening, he motioned to the monitor as he hurried toward the door. “Keep an eye on that one,” he said.
Lucia looked from him to the monitor, but, realizing he was serious, she confirmed, “Whatever you say, Blender Boy.”
With a nod, he rushed out the door to chase the elusive Sparrow.
The sea at night could be so many things.
On some nights she sat and watched its movement and thought about how big it was. It made her feel insignificant and yet connected to it and the multitude of life deep within. It brought peace when she was troubled, as she was tonight.
On other nights, when a storm would kick up the waves, she would revel in its wildness and energy, imagining that buried within her there was more still to be explored. That she had the strength to do whatever was necessary.
As she walked along the moonlit water’s edge tonight, the ocean was relatively calm, although there was the hint of a storm on the breeze blowing into shore. It matched the maelstrom of her emotions, seemingly calm on the outside, but within, restless.
She strolled for a bit further and was almost at the edge of town when she