“Not so fast.” Kaylee didn’t think about it. She just went on instinct, shoving the door open and waltzing into Ted’s tiny office where she stopped, folded her arms, and stuck one foot out. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Nothing.” Stuart’s expression was flat. Not exactly dead, just completely neutral in a way that gave away precisely the word he’d just used.
She changed tactics. “Ted?”
He opened his mouth, but his attention was snagged by his computer monitor. One of them, anyway. The man had three, one turned vertical. Kaylee hadn’t even known they could do that.
“Everything okay?”
He’d been very busy lately, trying to identify all the men in an old photo from Vietnam. A group of soldiers, all local. Men who had founded Last Chance.
One of whom was his father. A man Ted had been looking for.
Ted shoved his chair back and stood, muttering a word he probably shouldn’t have said. He dove for the wall and hit the power button on the extension cord. Then ran to a shelf on the far side and unplugged the modem. Or the router. She wasn’t sure which was which, or what they did, and every time he’d tried to explain it to her, he wound up getting frustrated.
Stuart watched him. “Ted?”
“The phone we took off the guy in custody.”
“The guy who shot Conroy?” Kaylee asked.
Ted nodded. “There was a worm on the phone and when I connected, it activated.” He scrubbed his hands down his face, and then back into his hair. “I hope it didn’t get into our network.” His face had paled, and he looked like he wanted to be sick. “I have to go talk to Basuto.”
Ted squeezed past them, glancing at Stuart as he moved. “I’ll be back.”
Stuart nodded.
When Ted had gone, Kaylee said, “What was that about?”
He shrugged. “What?”
“You want to take on these guys, right?” That had to be it. “You’re shutting me out so you can go in single handedly and what…eliminate the threat?”
He said nothing.
Kaylee let out her frustration in a groan. “You were going to leave without me. Leave me here, and go put yourself in danger.”
She didn’t want to get sucked down again, mired in the past and all those fears she lived with every day. Like they were a parrot on her shoulder or something. There was no escape. No matter how she wanted to be free of it, those memories and experiences were part of her.
“Kaylee—”
“No.” She shook her head. “What did I expect? You’re a lone wolf, right? Just like Brad, you want to fix all the problems yourself and no one else needs to help. It’s how you protect people. By going off on your own.”
“Protecting people is a problem?”
“You think I can’t handle what’s happening.” Maybe she couldn’t. She didn’t know. And yeah, she’d lived her life in a way that was safe and protected. But this was as good of a time as any to face down those fears and see if she could get free of them.
To make her own choices as to what her destiny was going to be.
Right?
He studied her, his expression still giving nothing away. “Isn’t that what you want?”
“I don’t want to be afraid.” She sucked in a long breath. “I don’t like being afraid.”
Stuart shifted closer. “No one is without fear. It can keep you safe and help you make better choices. You have to use the fear.”
“Even when it’s paralyzing.”
He touched her elbow. “I know what that feels like, and I don’t like it either. My mind was so fractured. I still don’t remember exactly what happened. Sometimes, right as I wake up, my mind tricks me into thinking I’m still there. Or I wonder if all this is a dream. That I’m still there, my mind broken, living in my head in this delusion.”
“And you made up me?” She shook her head. “I’m sure you could’ve thought up someone better than me to be your friend’s sister. Someone brave and beautiful.”
“That’s how I know it’s not a dream.”
“Because I’m a hot mess?”
Stuart touched her cheek then. “Because I’d never have been able to dream up someone as beautiful as you.”
Kaylee’s mouth dropped open.
“That’s why I want this done, so you’re not in danger any longer.” He dropped his hand and took a step back. “I need you to give me the flash drive.”
She frowned.
“I want to flush out these guys first, but then I need whatever is on it.”
“Do you even know the password?”
Stuart started to speak, then hesitated. “There’s a password on it?”
“The note said if you don’t enter it within thirty seconds, the whole flash drive wipes, and everything is gone.”
He scratched his jaw.
“That’s why I haven’t looked at it. And why I’ve been waiting for the right person.” When Ted had tried to access that phone, he’d run up against a similar problem. “Do you think they’re related?” She motioned to the phone. “Is that type of security something you guys do?”
Stuart said, “You can buy whatever computer program you want online if you’re willing to pay for it. Or you hire someone to write it. But it stands up to reason that Brad would want to keep the information safe.”
He didn’t look super happy, though.
She said, “You don’t know the password, do you?”
His brow furrowed. “If Brad told me, I might’ve forgotten.”
“True.” He had said his mind was fractured. “Maybe you’ll remember.” And, in the meantime, he had plenty of things to take care of. She didn’t exactly want to be part of it. “I just don’t want to sit here doing nothing, feeling useless and being too scared to live my life.”
“So, you decide now to stand up to it?”
“I want to make my own choices.” She shrugged. “It sounds hokey, but I really should be in control of my destiny.”
“A sniper shot Conroy.”
She winced. “I know.”
He shifted closer to her. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I want you to stay here, where you’re safe.”
“A biker gang stormed in and shot the place up a few months ago,” she pointed out. “It’s not a foolproof plan.”
“Maybe Basuto was right, and you do need to be in a safe house.”
“Nowhere is safe.” Kaylee lifted her chin. “I know that better than anyone. And it means I need to learn to live with it.”
“It’s hard to say no to you.”
She waited.
He chuckled. Before he could say anything, her phone buzzed. Kaylee pulled it out. “Trina. She’s outside, in case I want to make a break for it. Get out of here.”
She shook her head and tried to figure out what on earth Trina was thinking. The woman made no sense sometimes. She’d been distraught about what had happened at the bank but still hadn’t managed to figure out Kaylee had only gone there to see what would happen if she checked her safety deposit box.
Maybe she shouldn’t expect Trina could figure that out. She wasn’t a cop, or some kind of secret agent.
“You wanna go with her?”
As he asked the question, the back door popped open. Kaylee braced. Stuart moved in front of her. Protecting her with his own body. A shield.
Trina came in. “Kaylee.” She ignored Stuart, which was odd considering how she’d thrown herself at him earlier.
“Hi.” She looked around his shoulder but didn’t come out from behind him. “I’m fine here, Trina. But thanks for thinking of me.” Kaylee worked here and was surrounded by law enforcement, so why Trina would think she wanted to “escape” and leave this building, especially when there had been a sniper on the loose…she didn’t even try to understand. “We’re waiting to hear a word about Conroy.”
Stuart shifted. “He came out of the surgery, and he’ll recover.”
Kaylee touched his arm, squeezing it for solidarity as relief rolled over her. Conroy was going to be okay.
Trina stood kind of stiff, her back very straight and her arms by her sides. Fingers flexing. Like she didn’t know what to do with her hands. “This has all been so crazy, right?”
Kaylee nodded. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt earlier?”
“No more than you, I figure.”
Wow, was Trina actually considering Kaylee first above herself for once? “I’m all right. Thank you,” Kaylee said, genuinely meaning it. “And now that I know Conroy will eventually be okay as well? That’s a relief.”
Trina smiled. Something about it was off, as though she didn’t mean it. “That’s good news.”
She blew out a breath, feeling some of the stress bleed away.
Stuart didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, any more than she wanted that to happen. That was why he was determined to protect her. Not necessarily because she couldn’t handle it. The last thing she wanted to do was face down gunmen and snipers and fake federal agents. No, thank you. She’d seen enough blood to last more than one lifetime.
“We should get going, you know?”
Kaylee said, “I think I’ll stick around here, where it’s safe. Let the cops—” and Stuart “—take care of the people responsible for shooting Conroy.”
There was someone behind the shooting, and clearly they wanted what Brad had sent her.
Trina said, “No one will suspect you didn’t already give whatever you’re hiding to the police. That means we can grab it and take it somewhere safer. Keep it under wraps so it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
Why did she suddenly want to be a part of this? “Thanks for offering to help.”
Before she could say more, Stuart cut in. “The flash drive is already safe where it is, or it would’ve been found already.” He turned to her. “Right?”
Kaylee nodded. “It’s safe where it is.”
“Okay.” Trina chuckled, though it sounded strained. “But it could be safer as well. Right?” She glanced between them.
Stuart reached out and took hold of Kaylee’s hand, so she was tucked even more securely behind him. She couldn’t even see her friend over his shoulder. She tried to move so that she could stand next to him, but he wouldn’t move aside. Realization dawned on her. He thought Trina was a threat? Her fingers stilled on the back of his shirt.
Under her fingers, she could feel ridges. Raised lines in his skin.
Scars.
He said, “Trina, thank you for offering to help but the flash drive stays where it is, and Kaylee is safer here at the police station than she would be if she left. There are too many variables to risk her being out and around town.”
“It’s not like I would take her out for ice cream or something like that!” Trina’s voice was almost a wail. “No one will expect Kaylee to be with me. That’s why it’s perfect. Let’s go, Kaylee. Dad is waiting in the car, and we can find somewhere safe to be.”
Trina wanted her to go with her, if only to have a welcome distraction. But, just as Stuart had said, she didn’t want to put anyone in unnecessary danger. Conroy was shot because he’d been standing with her. She was sure that even if he had been the sniper’s target, it was only because of Kaylee—and Stuart—that he’d been hit.
Whether it had been a miss, or a hit, by the sniper, she didn’t know. Either way, though, she’d brought this on the police chief.
It was her fault.
“As Stuart said, thank you for offering, Trina—” She shifted to look around his shoulder at her friend. Her argument died at what she saw.
Trina had a gun and her voice suddenly took on a menacing tone.
“Let’s go, Kaylee. Now.”