Rebecca was rolling. Bouncing. Tossed against the pavement like a rag doll. She could hear the screech of tires coming toward her and smell the stench of hot metal and gasoline. Then she felt a warm body land on top of hers, holding her down, protecting her from the equipment and debris as it rained down around them. She curled into a ball, felt the rush of wind over their bodies and heard the sound of tires screeching in the distance. Then she felt the slow, steady beat of Zack’s heart.
He rolled off her. “You’re okay.”
She pulled herself up onto her hands and knees and stared down the road ahead. The tail end of the camper swerved wildly, fishtailing out from behind the speeding truck.
Then it was gone.
Her camper. Her truck. Her business. Her equipment. Her life.
Stolen by her arrogant bully of a stepbrother.
Her fists clenched and for a moment she didn’t know whether to scream or cry.
“You’re okay,” Zack said again. He crouched beside her. His hand lightly touched the small of her back. “You’re strong. You’re tough. You’re going to get through this. I promise.”
She glanced up at him and blinked back the tears threatening to spill down her cheek. How did he still know the exact right thing to say? He’d remembered that whenever she’d been tossed and thrown and felt like a failure the last thing she wanted was sympathy, and the first thing she needed was the reminder she was strong enough to get up and keep fighting—even as she could see worry for her well-being echoing in the depths of his eyes.
She wiped her hand across her face. Then she reached for his hand and let him help her up. “Thank you.”
“You took that roll well. Kept your head tucked in. Any injuries I should be aware of?”
Now he sounded exactly like her old sparring partner.
“Thank you,” she said again. They stood. For a moment she let her hand linger in his. Thanks for handling it this way. Like we’re equals. Two warriors. Two fighters. Instead of reminding me that you’re a special ops sergeant, and I’m the fool who just got her truck stolen. “I’m okay. More bumps and bruises to add to the last set. But I’m okay.”
She pulled her hand away. He was standing there, his arms apart like he was waiting for her to fall into his chest for a hug. But they weren’t sparring partners anymore. They weren’t even friends. He was nothing but a man she used to know, who’d kept something from her, and it had just cost her everything she owned.
“You knew about Seth from the very beginning. You knew he was the one who’d blown up the road.”
Zack held her gaze and didn’t look away. “I did.”
“So, what did he do?”
“It might be unwise to tell you as it could jeopardize the police investigation when they question you.”
“I don’t care!” She waved both hands through the air. “I’ve been attacked by gangsters. I’ve nearly been kidnapped. Seth just lied to my face and stole everything I own, leaving me stranded.” She reached for his hands and held them in both of hers. “Leaving us stranded, and I’m guessing that our lives are still in danger. So you can’t have this both ways, Zack. Not anymore. You can’t be my old best friend who I trust implicitly one moment, and then Mister Secret Ops keeping me in the dark the next. I don’t know if ‘on a need-to-know basis’ is a thing you guys actually say, but this is a need-to-know basis. And I need to know.”
He stared at her for a long moment, like he didn’t know if he wanted to kiss her or throw both his hands up in exasperation again. Either way, she could feel a flush creep into her cheeks. She dropped his hands.
He ran his hand over his jaw. A grin spread across his face.
“Need-to-know basis,” he muttered. Then he slid his hands into his pockets. “Well, then, let’s walk and talk. Because if we have any hope of flagging down help it won’t be on this road. I still have my wallet and handcuffs, but no phone and no gun. How about you? Is there anything useful in the stuff that just got tossed off the back of your camper?”
She shook her head. “No. Sadly. It’s all heavy-duty winter gear, and I don’t even have my wallet.”
“I left my bag under the passenger seat in your truck,” he said, “and your minilaptop in the glove compartment. I’m presuming they’re still there?”
“As far as I know,” she said. He frowned. “I presume that’s a bad thing?”
“Yup, pretty bad.”
They started walking. Zack didn’t seem in much of a hurry to start talking. Or maybe he just didn’t know where to start.
“Seth showed up at the camper as I was busy packing it up,” she said. “Stupidly I let him get to my truck.”
“He knocked me out while I was on the phone with my CO,” Zack said. “We were both caught off guard, and you didn’t know to distrust him.”
True, but it was nice to hear him say it.
“Seth told me some big lie about how the General, Arthur Miles, my former stepfather, was up for a seat in the Senate and someone had anonymously posted this big blog about him online, accusing him of cheating on both of our mothers.”
“That’s true,” Zack said.
She blinked. “What part of it?”
“All of it,” Zack said. “General Miles is expected to be appointed to the Senate this fall. Somebody did create a pretty distasteful blog about him recently, accusing him of philandering. It was disappointing. Our military is under enough pressure without someone stirring up twenty-or thirty-year-old gossip about the marital life of one of our top generals. Nobody likes it when somebody tries to drag down a hero. In my opinion, we need more people in the Senate like General Miles. Not fewer.”
“Seth was telling the truth? Criminals want to kidnap me because someone is muckraking gossip about a man who was briefly my stepfather?”
Zack didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The answer was in the cut of his jaw and the set of his shoulders.
No, that wasn’t why police wanted to question her at all.
“Please, Zack.” Her hand slid onto his arm. “We’re alone in the middle of nowhere. My life’s been threatened. Your life’s been threatened. Seth fed me some ridiculous sideshow story to distract me. I don’t see how keeping me in the dark is going to make either of us any safer. You used to be the one guy I trusted more than anyone else on the planet. So please, tell me straight, what’s really going on?”
Zack stopped walking.
“Do you think it’s easy for me to trust someone who won’t trust me?” he asked. His tone was gentle and somehow that made his words even harder to hear. “You know what we call people who refuse to let us help them? Liabilities. You make it sound like this is all one-sided, Becs. Like I’m the bad guy here. But you don’t listen to me when I try to have your back. You don’t let me protect you. You ran from me, more than once. You throw yourself into danger like you don’t have any other choice. You eavesdropped on my conversation and when you heard something that upset you, instead of asking me about it, you attacked me with bug spray—which was really clever, I’ll admit. You’re brave and I respect that. But that trust we used to have? We built it. Through every time you let me toss you on the mat and every time you let me aim a sparring blow at your face. You trusted I wouldn’t hurt you. You trusted I’d protect you. And now?” He shrugged. “Now, I wouldn’t spar with you, because you’d be so busy running around in circles and tossing wild punches it wouldn’t be safe. For either of us.”
There was a sharp pain in her chest. But not like Zack’s words had pierced her. More like there’d already been something jagged caught deep inside her, and she’d gotten used to the feel of it, and now, it was being pulled out.
“You’re right.” She let out a long breath. “And I’m sorry. But I don’t know what to do about it or how to fix it.”
“Me, neither.”
She stared at his face for a moment and tried to imagine all the days in his life that she’d missed. His first time in uniform. The mornings he’d gone running with his unit. The evenings he’d spent alone in the gym lifting weights. The moment he’d found out he’d been selected for special ops. The bullets and explosions he’d run through. The helicopters he’d jumped out of. The people he’d carried to safety.
All the nights he’d lain awake, under foreign skies, praying to the God he believed in.
She stepped toward him. His arms opened. And suddenly she felt her hands sliding up around his neck. His arms slid around her waist and settled into the small of her back. Then he lifted her up off the ground, just like he used to, and they held each other tightly for one long moment, as if they were trying to squeeze a thousand missing hugs into one. Then he set her back down. They kept walking.
“Seth worked for a civilian computer firm that was updating government computers,” Zack said. “He stole something from one of the military computers he had access to. I honestly don’t know what it was, because whatever it was is above my pay grade. But it might be the computer program I took off him that’s currently sitting on your laptop. But sadly, we lost that when Seth stole the truck.”
Suddenly the way Seth had been eyeing her equipment made sense. While they weren’t as high-grade as he was probably used to, he’d essentially just stolen a computer lab and video studio on wheels. A whole bunch of questions leaped to the tip of her tongue. She didn’t ask any of them. It was more that she was too numb to be angry or shocked.
“It’s all over the news, as you can imagine,” he went on. “The son of a military hero and soon-to-be senator potentially stealing government secrets is a pretty huge deal. Like I told you, I was camping while on leave, saw it on the news and so drove straight up to make sure you were okay. I never imagined Seth would be up here. The news said it looked like he was heading southwest to a big city center like Seattle or Los Angeles.”
He was quiet again for a moment, as if he was weighing words in his head and trying to decide whether or not to say them.
“Your brother is also accused of shooting an unidentified woman in an Ottawa park,” Zack said finally. “She was shot in the stomach and is currently in critical condition.”
Now the dull feeling inside her started to shift like an earthquake. “Seth’s not a killer.”
“He’s wanted for attempted murder,” Zack said. “He’s also wanted for theft and suspicion of treason.”
Hot tears pushed their way into the corners of her eyes. Seth was arrogant, rude and a bully. She still didn’t know what to make of the odd claim that he’d tried to protect her, and she could easily believe he was guilty of stealing something from a military computer. But killing a woman in cold blood? Seth’s eyes flashed through her memory, filled with both defiance and pain.
The sun beat down on their limbs. The pavement felt heavy under her feet. After a while they left a small road and turned onto a larger rural highway. Very few vehicles passed them and even fewer slowed. She let Zack take the lead in flagging down anyone for help. Not surprisingly, Zack was incredibly cautious. He positioned himself between her and the road, and more than once at the sound of an engine stepped in front of her and urged her to step back into the trees.
Finally, he flagged down a transport truck hauling cattle. The northern Quebecois driver didn’t speak much English, and Rebecca’s French was shaky beyond what she could remember from reading the sides of cereal boxes, so she had no choice but to let Zack take the lead in negotiating passage. Finally they climbed into the cab with a cheerful, white-haired driver, who introduced himself as “Bon Jacques.”
“It’s a joke,” Zack explained, as he squeezed his large frame in between Rebecca and the passenger door. “See, ‘un bon jack’ in Quebecois French is like how we’d say in English, ‘He’s a good guy.’”
She smiled at the driver, extended her hand and used the only French she could remember besides the words for “many” and “cornflakes.” “Merci.”
Jacques nodded, his grin wide. “Welcome.”
Then he pulled out a bottle of water and offered it to them. Rebecca took a long sip and handed it to Zack. They drove. The comforting smell of barnyard animals and hay filled the air. Zack slid his arm along the back of the seat. His fingers brushed her shoulder.
“What did you tell him?” she asked.
“That I’m a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, our vehicle was stolen and we need a ride. He’s not heading to Timmins, but has agreed to drop us off at the first gas station we pass.”
Right. So that would make everything else “need to know.” The radio played music in French. Zack borrowed a phone from Jacques and when he got a cell signal placed a quick call to 911 to report that her vehicle had been stolen and that Seth Miles had taken it. No doubt that would send Ontario police scrambling. He also put in a quick call to his commanding officer and left a brief message: Seth had attacked them. Seth had the laptop. He’d check in again soon.
Zack hung up, then opened a map-based website and entered some coordinates. The truck rumbled down a narrow highway. The seats bounced beneath them. Jacques started humming along to the radio under his breath.
Then Zack placed another call. The phone display read “Shield Trust.”
The overseas technical charity? She’d heard of them. In fact, their name was on the list of the documentary projects she hoped to tackle one day. Mark Shields had come from a very wealthy background and given it up to found a technology-based charity that helped local groups in developing countries with innovative technical solutions.
Sounded as if Zack had gotten his friend’s voice mail.
“Hey, Mark. Long story, but I’m in Canada. Your neighborhood actually. Sorry for the short notice, but is there anyone at the island house now? I’ve hit a major snag and might need a place to regroup for a couple of hours. Love to Katie.” He hung up.
Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Regroup?”
Zack sighed. Then he leaned his head in toward her. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I was really hoping I’d get through to Jeff. He was really upset during our last phone call and I couldn’t make out half of what he was saying. Considering we’re not that far from my friend Mark’s house, and everything that’s gone on in the past twenty-four hours, I thought it might not be the worst idea to head there and call Jeff. It was just a thought. But Mark might not even be in the country and it probably makes more sense to go straight to the closest police station.”
She nodded slowly. “I saw the company name on your phone. I’ve heard of them.”
“Mark’s an old friend of mine. I used to be his bodyguard a very, very long time ago. My grandmother knew his grandmother and set it up. Back then, Mark was just an angry kid who needed someone to run away from. And I was that someone. We became tight. Hang on—”
He sat up straight and held out the phone. A faint red dot was blipping at the corner of an unmarked lake. “I think we’ve found your truck.”
* * *
Zack stared at the blinking dot and traced the route in his mind. Looked like Seth had taken an unmarked, unpaved dirt road that was maybe twenty minutes ahead on their left. Jacques’s truck would never be able to make it and Zack wasn’t about to ask. But Jacques should be able to drop him off within hiking distance.
Rebecca leaned into him and stared down at the phone. Her body nestled into his shoulder. Dark hair fell over her face. Even lost and bedraggled and after everything she’d been through, there was something captivating about her.
It was terribly distracting.
“You put a tracker in my truck?” she asked.
“No, there’s a GPS tracker in my bag, which I left under the front seat of your truck, and another in my cell phone. The fact they’re both showing the same location is a very good sign.” He leaned past her, showed the screen to Jacques and explained the situation in French. Then he leaned back. “Okay, I’m going to get Jacques to drop me off there, hike in and retrieve our stuff. Hopefully I’ll even stop Seth while I’m at it. I’ve asked Jacques to drop you off at the first town he drives through. There’s about fifty dollars cash in my wallet, which you can have. Plus a credit card for emergencies—”
“No.” She shook her head. “You’re not just leaving me alone in a truck with a stranger who I can’t even talk the same language as.”
“Jacques is a good man.” Zack’s voice dropped. His arm slipped down Rebecca’s back. He pulled her in closer. “I trust him. He’ll get you there safely.”
“But what if Black Talon or someone else attacks us on the road?” she asked. “What if I’m grabbed in whatever small town he drops me off in?”
Did she think she’d be any safer tracking Seth down?
The last thing he needed right now was a distraction and a spare person to worry about. Retrieving the stolen material and stopping potential terrorists had to be the top priority.
“That’s not very likely.” He pulled his arm away, then crossed his arms in front of his chest. “This is small-town Ontario. It’s hardly a foreign war zone.”
Her lips were set. Her head was shaking. Was he going to have to force her to stay here in the truck?
The phone began to ring. He glanced at the screen. Blocked number. He glanced at Jacques, who shrugged as if giving Zack permission to answer it. “Hello?”
“Name, rank and service number?” The voice belonged to Jeff.
Zack rattled them off. The major sighed. “Location?”
“Highway Eleven. About twenty-five minutes from South Porcupine. Thirty from the presumed target and the cache.”
“The target and cache have been located?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you on a secure line?”
“No, sir. But there are some things I do need to brief you on that can’t wait. I’ve got a good idea where we can find both Seth and the laptop containing whatever he stole.”
Another sigh. This one sounded far less relieved. “There’s been a lot of pressure coming down from the higher-ups, even more than you’d expect under the circumstances. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s been suggested I get you back at base and soon.”
“Are you revoking my leave?” Zack’s eyes glanced back at the screen. The flashing dot disappeared.
“I haven’t received that order, yet,” he said. “But, the media is now reporting that the woman Seth Miles shot is dead. They’re still not reporting her name. But unofficially, she’s probably a member of the same organization as the unpleasant criminal duo you ran into earlier today. Not a new one, either. Looks like she’s been working as a member of the Ontario Provincial Police for over two years. Uncertain how she gained that access or where her immigration papers even came from. Her police academy qualifications were fake.”
Seth’s victim was a Black Talon operative? He didn’t know what was more alarming, that Black Talon might have recruited Seth, or that a member of Black Talon could’ve been hiding inside the Ontario Provincial Police. Either way, that made it slightly more plausible that Seth hadn’t been the one who’d actually shot her.
“The media is now reporting that a warrant has been issued for Rebecca’s arrest,” Jeff went on. “But I haven’t been able to get external confirmation of that. Seems there’s equal doses of news and misinformation on the airwaves right now, thanks to some anonymous sources. I recommend you take her to a safe location and I’ll arrange transport for the both of you back to base.”
“Copy that.” Zack’s eyes glanced back at the screen. Still no flashing dot. They were over eight hours’ drive from his base and there weren’t many places for a helicopter to land in forest this dense. But if the dot on the phone had meant what he thought it had, he was so incredibly close to the stolen computer program he could have it safely retrieved within the hour.
“Until the source of the internal breach is isolated,” Jeff said, “it’s best to assume that no lines are secure, and that no one can be trusted.”
Which was code for: And I know even more I’m not telling you.
So, Northern Ontario really was a hostile environment until all this was settled. Anyone with sufficient technical know-how could be monitoring cell phone calls, and the police had already been infiltrated by at least one Black Talon mercenary. Could he really just leave Rebecca in the care of Jacques, have him drop her off at the closest town and expect her to be all right? Zack ran his palm over his eyes. Lord, I don’t know what’s going on. But I could really use Your wisdom.
“So basically trust absolutely no one, is that what you’re saying?” Zack asked.
The phone line went dead. Zack couldn’t tell if it was from the cell signal dying or if his commanding officer had hung up. He glanced at Rebecca. “Well, looks like we’re sticking together for now.”
“Did you just say, ‘Trust no one’?”
Ah. He probably shouldn’t have said that within her earshot. “Basically. But don’t worry about it. What matters is that we’re heading to your truck together. But you’ve got to let me take the lead here. I don’t want you running at Seth the moment we find him. We know he’s armed. We don’t know if he’s alone. We don’t even know what he’s capable of. Got it?”
“Got it,” Rebecca said. She leaned forward and tightened her laces. “Although, if you really are trusting no one, are you even sure you can trust your CO? How do you know he isn’t part of this? How do you know he hasn’t been feeding you misinformation or trying to lead you into a trap?”
Zack could feel his jaw drop. What kind of question was that? A retort flew to the tip of his tongue, but when he glanced at her face, he could tell she was serious. “Because I trust him. There are some people I trust without question. He’s one of them. It’s as simple as that.”
Jacques dropped them off at the side of the road beside an unmarked dirt track and refused to take the money Zack offered him. Zack’s chest ached to realize Jacques would probably see Rebecca’s picture flashed across the news later in the day and realize he’d given a ride to a criminal suspect, but as he looked into the older man’s kindly, smiling eyes Zack realized he didn’t know what to say to reassure him.
The truck left. A sigh left his body.
“He went out of his way to help us,” Zack said, “but he doesn’t know who we are and what we’re in the middle of. If we recover what Seth stole right now, Jacques might’ve just helped save countless lives and thwart an international criminal plot, and he’ll never know it.”
They started walking through the woods.
“Am I right in gathering that General Miles kept a lot of secrets from your mother?” he asked, after a long moment. If he was honest the fact that Rebecca had questioned his trust in Jeff rattled him just a bit. “Is that part of why secrets bother you so much?”
“Yeah,” she said. “General Miles was definitely very hard to get to know or feel close to. Maybe that’s just a side effect of the job. But it didn’t help that my mother’s relationship with my biological father was shrouded in secrecy. I wasn’t even allowed to ask who he was or where he’d gone, even though she spent my whole childhood anxiously waiting to hear from him. Then suddenly she’d given up waiting for him, married General Miles instead and things got even worse. She never knew where in the world my stepfather was or what he was doing. It’s part of why she got so hooked on the prescription pills that eventually killed her. The uncertainty drove her crazy. She couldn’t handle the secrets. I lived with the General for about five years, my mother lived with him for seven, and still, I don’t know who he really was.”
That might’ve been the most he’d ever heard her say about General Miles. As teenagers, she’d always changed the topic or just gone quiet whenever he’d babbled enthusiastically about the General’s war record or the operations he could be deployed on. The idea anyone would be anything other than thrilled about living with a decorated military hero hadn’t really occurred to him back then, and he definitely wouldn’t have tolerated hearing anyone bad-mouth someone in the Armed Forces, which was probably part of what’d driven his tensions with Seth. With two parents who’d died in the service, and both an uncle and aunt who’d served, teenage Zack had had a pretty idealized, almost naive view of the men and women in uniform, instead of realizing they were just as human as everybody else.
Certainly none of the men or women he served with now were perfect.
“I know you hate that I’m keeping things from you,” he said, including the fact that there was a warrant out for her arrest and that police had been infiltrated by Black Talon. “And honestly, I don’t blame you. Nobody likes it when somebody is keeping secrets. I sure don’t. It still irks me whenever I can tell there’s something going on in my unit that I don’t know about. Because I see all the signs—the glances, the closed doors, the way people hide the screen when checking their cell phones—and I wonder about it just like anyone else. Are we about to be deployed? Is there a new terrorist threat? Is someone planning a surprise party? Remember, I still don’t know what Seth stole.
“But I’ve accepted that part of my job. I’ve accepted that in this gossip-filled, knowledge-driven culture, I don’t get to know everything. Some things are still private. Some secrets aren’t mine to know.”
They kept walking. He was thankful she was listening, even if he wasn’t sure how to put his thoughts into words. He’d never actually talked to anyone about this before.
“Go on,” she said.
“I just kept a pretty big secret from Jacques, while he might’ve helped me achieve my goals,” he added. “That happens more often than you’d think. There are men and women all over the world who gave me a ride, or offered me a drink of water, or bartered with me for a piece of equipment I needed, or walked with me into enemy territory, or tipped me off to where hostiles were hiding—risked their lives—but who are never going to know the difference they made and what they were a part of. Because I’m the only person who knows, and it would put them in danger if I told them. That’s the part of keeping secrets that gets to me. Not the fact that my superiors can’t tell me everything—like I said, I’ve accepted that—but the fact that I can’t ever tell people how incredibly grateful I am for the huge difference they’ve made.”
Rebecca didn’t answer and he felt foolish almost immediately for admitting what he had. That what he, Sergeant Zack Keats of special forces, found hardest about his job wasn’t hostile elements, dangerous conditions or the physical toll the job took on his body. No, it was the fact that when he was safely home, after an operation, he couldn’t go back to find some random man on a hillside or woman from a market to give them whatever money he had in his wallet to thank them. Rebecca’s fingers brushed his arm.
“They know,” she said. He looked down into her eyes. “Even if they don’t speak English. Even if you don’t tell them a thing about who you are or what you’re doing. It shows on your face exactly the kind of man you are and exactly how you feel.”
There was an odd lump building in the back of his throat and for a moment he had trouble swallowing. And what feelings does she see in my eyes when she looks in my face?
“Just like I’m sure you know the difference you’ve made in the life of people you’ve rescued,” she added, “even when you don’t know the whole story or what happens to them next.”
True enough. Like the young, frightened woman he’d extracted from Black Talon’s grip months ago. In her early twenties, with hair the color of corn silk, he’d never learned her real name or what had happened to her once she’d reached Canada, but he’d never doubted the difference he’d made in her life.
He’d just never thought of it that way before.
They kept walking down the thin dirt track as it cut back and forth through the woods. Her footsteps moved every bit as silently as his. His ears strained for the sound of danger ahead but heard nothing but the rustle of wind in the trees. The ground sloped steeply beneath them.
The dirt road turned hard to the right. But a path of broken trees and tire tracks continued straight down the hill ahead of them. It seemed someone had driven the truck off the road and straight through the trees. And not willingly, judging by the spent bullets and shell casings littering the ground.
They made their way down the hill without speaking. Finally, he could see a break in the trees ahead. There was the faint sound of water lapping and insects humming.
Nothing that sounded human.
He stopped walking and held his arm out in front of her.
“Hold up,” he whispered. “Let me go ahead, okay? Keep me in your line of sight if you can. Stay behind me but don’t come out of the trees until I give you the all clear. If hostiles attack and you hear major weapon fire, make it back to the highway and hide near the spot Jacques dropped us off. I’ll come find you.”
He half expected her to argue or at least ask questions. Instead, she stood on her tiptoes. Her mouth brushed his ear.
“Okay,” she whispered.
He stepped through the woods. The trees parted. A huge, abandoned granite quarry cut deep into the ground, filled with dark green water. The camper was parked near the edge of the quarry lake. Bullet holes riddled the aluminum siding. The camper door hung open on its hinges. Glass and spent bullet casings littered the ground. He couldn’t see the truck.
He crept forward, his hands unconsciously clenching for the weapon he didn’t have. Inside the camper, he found boxes torn open, their contents strewn. Plastic dishes spilled from cupboards. Computer equipment lay smashed on the floor.
He stepped back and crossed around to the other side of the camper.
Then he saw her truck.
It was submerged and sinking nose first into the quarry, with only the tailgate still peaking above the water’s edge.
His bag. His phone. Her laptop containing whatever it was Seth had stolen.
Were they all still in the cab of her truck, now sinking underwater?