Chapter 138: Safe House
*Bury her deep in the safe house network. I don’t want anyone to be able to find her, even if they know where to look. – Werewolf*
It had been June when Nessie reached out to Siobhan. It was now Boxing Day and she discovered that she was back in Australia. Her minders had brought her here once before, shortly after they snatched her off the street in Germany.
The big hairy guy who had introduced himself as Werewolf said that it would be a few months before she could go to her aunt in America. She needed time to heal and disappear.
Time to heal, her soul and body.
She had been in a hospital style room that she later discovered was in a basement of a castle turned hotel. They had performed surgery to set her broken arm with pins and removed the small tracking device. Once her doctor, an Italian employed by Werewolf and his company, had cleared her for travel, they moved her. Often.
Nessie had objected to decoys, afraid that someone would get hurt because of her. Havi, her decoy, told her that it was no longer her choice. And as they had given the woman a necklace with the tracking device inside, Havi reminded her that eventually Nessie would be able to return to her life. Most of their clients never see their lives or families again.
Yesterday she had gone to a private beach and spent the day with her mother and youngest siblings. The story back home was that they had won a Christmas getaway. Her minders made it very clear that there were to be no pictures taken of her. None whatsoever. No matter what.
And her family could not even mention her in any social media posts. Not even her sister trying to be cheeky saying that they wished Nessie was with them. The tall blonde with the Austrian accent, she had taken to calling him The Terminator, had made Anna take it out before posting it.
But now, her family was at the hotel and she was packing up her duffle bag again. She had seen the world in the last six months.
South Africa. Hong Kong. Chechnya. Peru. Australia. Egypt. They had even spent a week in Israel. Two days in Antarctica. She was pretty sure that the only place she had not been was Northern Canada.
Lapland had been cool. In fact, down right cold. But learning that all the reindeer in the Christmas pictures were female made it worth it.
And the food. Under assumed names, wigs and heavy makeup, she had taken cooking classes as a private chef. Hong Kong. Paris. Milan. Rio. Wichita. Sydney. St. Petersburg.
If it wasn’t for the minders and the occasional rush to hide her, this would have been the best vacation ever. In fact, the best in history of the everything.
There was a knock on her door and she said for them to enter. It was the one she called Khan. He was Asian and big and muscular and scary and made her think of Genghis Khan.
“What’s up, Khan?” She asked zipping up the nondescript bag.
“We’re flying to Hawaii. You’ll get new guards there. In two days, you board a private yacht and sail to San Francisco. I’m not privy to your actions after that. It has been an honor to be your guard.”
Nessie smiled at one of the two constants in her life for the past six months. “Thank yeh, Khan. Yeh and Terminator have been great friends through my journey of self preservation.”
“It’s been our pleasure, Vanessa.” He offered her a hand. “Carl.”
She took his hand in her much smaller one. “Nessie.”
“The boss asked me to give you this.” He handed her a simple flip phone. “Our numbers are already in it. Along with some other guards. If you ever need us, or if you just need to talk to a friend, feel free to call.”
“Thank yeh, Carl.”
“Anytime, Vanessa.”
