Will was on his feet before the words were fully out of Sean’s mouth. One hand reached for his pistol while the other motioned for Jasmine to stay seated. Until he knew the full story, he needed her to stay in place. “We’ve been found?”
With a quick nod, Sean dropped the dogs’ leashes and reached for his backpack by the door. “I had the K-9s at the side of the building, around the corner from the back parking lot and figured we’d check on the vehicles while we were out there. When we rounded the building, there was a dark blue coupe circling the lot. It stopped near your vehicle. The driver started to get out, but then he spotted me and took off.”
“License plate?” Will pulled his hand away from his sidearm, but he didn’t let his guard down. While the danger wasn’t imminent, it could flare at any moment.
“Negative. He was headed in the wrong direction. The person’s tall and built, but glare and angle kept me from getting much detail on them.”
“Male or female?” Sean’s hesitation to name a gender redirected Will’s suspicions. They’d thought of the shooter as a male all along, but that was a dangerous game to play. He’d heard of very few female killers for hire, but they were out there.
“I’m not sure. Like I said, there was a lot working against me, but there’s enough doubt for me to think we could possibly be dealing with a woman.”
Jasmine cleared her throat. “Or someone who was just looking for a place to stay.” Her voice was shallow, as though even she didn’t believe that was the case.
It was a valiant effort at keeping her sanity in place, and Will didn’t argue with her.
But he didn’t believe in coincidence. Cold hard facts were what helped him and his team solve cases. It’s what kept them alive. The similarity to the shooter’s vehicle, the interest in their patrol SUVs and the flight at Sean’s appearance all said their secret location was no longer a secret.
As the lead guy on the investigation, what happened next was his call. Sean stood by the door waiting for an order, his backpack gripped tightly in his left hand.
Like it or not, they had to move. And it was risky, but he knew the exact place they needed to go. He spoke to Jasmine first. “Pack your things. Be ready to go in five minutes.”
She opened her mouth as if she was either going to argue or refuse, but then she got up and left the room, her shoulders a hard line. Rather than speak of determination or defiance, that posture spoke of false bravado, of trying to hold it together until she could safely fall apart.
Will had never wanted anything more than to follow her and to pull her into his arms. To reassure her that he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.
But he couldn’t. There were no promises to make. And Sean would surely question his motives if he did.
Without having to be asked, the other man started emptying the dogs’ water bowls. “I radioed it in. Fairbanks PD is going to patrol nearby, keeping an eye out for the vehicle. I don’t know how far we’re going to get with the description ‘dark blue coupe,’ but at least it’s something.”
“Yeah, and even if they pull the driver over, there’s little cause to hold them unless they have the weapon they fired at us still in the vehicle.” Will kept his voice low, hoping his words didn’t reach Jasmine in the next room. He took Scout’s bowl from Sean and shoved it into his backpack, along with the remains of a small bag of dog food. “The best we can do if we spot them is put a tail on them and see if they try to pull anything. Worst case scenario, they do nothing to incriminate themselves. However, if they think we’re onto them, they may lie low for a bit and take some of the heat off Jasmine.”
Sean tossed his backpack on the bed and grabbed his duffel, shoving his shaving kit into it. “Or this is a ploy. A distraction. An attempt to flush us out.”
That was the thing nagging at the back of Will’s mind. There could be more than one person on the hunt for Jasmine and for the troopers leading the charge on the smuggling investigation. Or there could be a lone wolf who was operating for Anton Rogers and looking for a quick payday.
There was no consistency to the would-be killer’s tactics. They were savvy enough to rig a plane’s engine on the fly, but foolish and reckless enough to take potshots in broad daylight from the same position twice. They were either overly confident and brazen, or they were a careless newbie out to make a buck and to buy themselves some street cred.
Will wasn’t sure which one was more dangerous. “Whoever this is was able to sabotage Jasmine’s plane, either at the airfield or while she was unloading at one of her stops. We have to assume we’re dealing with a professional.”
“Which means they could have rigged one of our vehicles while we were inside.” Sean was already headed for the door. “Maya’s six hours away, so we can’t get her here with Sarge in time to sniff for explosives. A tracking device might be hard to spot. I’ll see if I can spot anything out of the ordinary. We’ll have to pray for the best beyond that.” He reached down, grabbed Grace’s leash and was gone before Will could stop him.
As soon as the door closed behind Sean, Jasmine stepped in carrying her backpack and a gym bag. “Where are we going?”
“I’ll tell you when we get in the car and we’re on the way.” He couldn’t risk the room having been bugged in their absence. The only safe house he could think of at the moment belonged to a former army buddy who’d been stationed at Fort Wainwright. He was deployed at the moment, but Will had crashed at his place before and knew where there was a spare key. While he hadn’t wanted to risk using a buddy’s home as a safe house before, they were running out of options now.
The trick would be getting to the house undetected, which would be tough given how conspicuous their SUVs were. But, if he remembered correctly, Kelvin had a garage. That would help. And he’d have a washer and dryer, and a yard for the dogs.
Although, hopefully, they would bring down their killer and their smuggler and they wouldn’t have to stay for very long.
He started to tell Jasmine they’d leave as soon as Sean returned, but as he opened his mouth, he really saw her for the first time since she’d stepped into the room. Her face was pale. Her mouth was tight.
This time, he couldn’t stop himself from going to her and offering comfort. Everything about her situation tugged at his heart. Dropping his backpack onto the bed, he closed the space between them and pulled her to him. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Is it? Because it doesn’t feel that way.” Her mouth moved against his shoulder, her words so low he wouldn’t have caught them if they’d been spoken any farther from his ear.
He wanted to tell her he was doing the best he could. That he’d put himself between a bullet and her if he had to. Of course, he’d do that for any civilian, wouldn’t he?
Adrenaline shot through his heart and quaked into his veins. He’d protect anyone who needed him, but he’d rather die than know he’d failed Jasmine. If he failed her, he wouldn’t be able to take it, not just because he’d allowed something to happen to her on his watch...
But because he couldn’t imagine a world without her.
Involuntarily, his arms tightened around her, and he laid his cheek against her hair. Somehow, without his permission, she’d found her way into his heart.
The emotion ached from the inside out. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t feel this. It went against everything he knew to be true. She’d use him. Hurt him. Turn her back on him.
Yet despite everything, he couldn’t believe any of that was true about Jasmine. It made no sense he’d feel this way. He’d known her for only a few days.
But he’d handed her pieces of himself and of his story that he’d never offered to another living soul.
And she’d protected them, even seemed to cherish them.
She saw him. Really saw him. And she treated him in ways Beth never had. In ways no one else ever had.
And now, he—
Running footsteps outside shattered his emotional rambling. Dropping his arms, he backed away from Jasmine and stood between her and the door, hand near his weapon, ready to draw if danger came knocking.
But it was Sean and Grace who entered, and his face was even grimmer than before.
He tossed his keys to Will, who caught them overhanded. “Take my car. Go.” He glanced at Jasmine and winced. “There’s an explosive device under the passenger seat of your vehicle on the exterior. I’ve called EOD here in Fairbanks. Get her to safety. Now.”
This was the thing Jasmine feared the most.
She sat on the sofa with her head in her hands, staring down at the beige carpet in a duplex that belonged to Will’s army friend. The blinds were closed. The door was locked. In the neighborhood around the duplex, plainclothes state troopers stood watch. She didn’t know how many.
Will had taken her laptop when they arrived here and had wired it into a secure router he produced from that infinitely deep backpack of his.
If things weren’t so serious, she’d call him Mary Poppins.
From some remote location far away, his teammate Eli was scanning her hard drive, searching for clues to what she might know. If her brain couldn’t reveal it, maybe her computer’s storage could.
Or maybe she didn’t know anything. Maybe Anton Rogers had managed to find her and exact his revenge.
It was so much like when she’d been asked to testify. Everything was upside down and out of control. Her life was no longer hers...again. Someone was definitely trying to kill her...again. She would likely have to change her name...again.
It had been a vague fear before, but now the horror had come to fruition. Bullets flying toward her at the airfield were one thing. They could be attributed to local drug smugglers simply trying to take her out for knowing something she honestly didn’t know she knew.
But a bomb? Under a state trooper’s SUV? That was the exact reason she’d been offered protection in the first place, a bomb wired to her beloved Ford Bronco.
It felt like Rogers was sending her a message, one that said she’d better enjoy every breath, because each one might be her last.
Now her worst nightmares were really coming true. She wouldn’t even be able to fly as scheduled tomorrow, not with her life and the lives of everyone around her in danger.
Worse, once the federal marshals took over her protection, Will would likely be off duty.
The one person she trusted, the one person she counted as a real friend who truly knew her, would be gone, never to be seen again.
Jasmine wrapped her arms around her stomach. That pain might be the worst of all. She’d allowed herself to settle into a friendship with Will. Had allowed herself to open up and to be herself with someone, and now she was going to lose him.
It shouldn’t hurt as bad as it did, but this was a whole new kind of pain. One that dug into her gut and tore at her heart.
Because somewhere along the way, she’d started seeing Will Stryker not only as a friend, but as someone she could trust with her heart. Someone she could walk beside and share life with if things were different.
How had that happened?
A soft rustle came from the kitchen door to her right, and then the couch cushion beside her sank. “With Kelvin deployed, the pickings in the kitchen are slim, but I did find some coffee. One of the other troopers is picking up some of the basics so we’ll have food for a few days.” Will set a coffee mug on the table and rested a hand on her back. “I can’t promise the cuisine will be fabulous, but it will be something.”
His hand was warm between her shoulder blades, the sensation seeming to soak its way through her until it lodged around her heart, settling her disturbed emotions. She couldn’t begin to guess how much longer he would be by her side, but he was here now, and she’d take his presence for as long as he offered it.
Without considering the action, she leaned toward him. Right now, she just wanted to feel safe, and Will was the only safe place she had left.
Her shoulder rested against his chest, and he slipped his arm from her back to her waist, pulling her closer. “I know this isn’t easy, Jas. It’s terrifying. But I’m here. I’ve got this.”
“For how long?” As much as she didn’t want to know, she needed to be prepared.
Will rested his chin on the top of her head. “I’m not sure. Technically, my assignment is to bust up the smugglers running out of this area into the frontier, but I kind of dragged you into it, so you’re part of that now.” He pulled in a deep breath and tightened his arm around her waist. “But I also can’t stay locked inside forever with you, no matter how much I want to. I have to get back out there and figure this out. And if the marshals do determine that this has more to do with you than with my investigation...”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. “I don’t want that.” While her mind spun, her heart wrapped around his earlier words, the ones that said he wanted to stay here with her, to be beside her. That spoke of more, of some of the same emotions that were twisting her own emotions into knots.
“Neither of us want that. I’m sorry I got you involved. I should have told you no when you offered to let me fly with you.”
She couldn’t let him take the blame. Jasmine sat up and pulled away from his touch. Pivoting so that one foot rested on the floor and her other leg was bent between them, she reached for his hand. “Don’t. I volunteered. I’m the one who talked you into it. And I’d do it again. I’d do it for the people, and I’d do it for...you. And, otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten to know you. And I needed to know you.”
She did. Because of his willingness to listen to her heart and to encourage her, she had begun to find pieces of her real self that she’d thought were lost forever. She had begun to realize her identity was not her name or her job, but who she was inside. No matter what happened with WITSEC, she would always be herself inside. And she’d have Jesus. She would always be who He said she was, no matter what the world thought.
And she’d also always have the memory of this man, who could have been so much more to her if life had been different.
When she’d left her family behind and been told to avoid contact, her heart had been torn in two. She was left without her loved ones, without her support system. Jasmine would never know her brother’s children or get to be with her parents as they aged. That was a grief she still carried every day.
But the idea of leaving Will behind and never being able to contact him again was a different kind of pain. It was a ripping tear that threatened to steal her breath. How could it be that a man she’d met only a few days ago had lodged himself so deeply inside of her that it felt like her heart would be left in tatters when he was gone?
“Jas?” Will’s voice was low, barely a whisper and ragged with an emotion her soul recognized and gravitated toward.
She realized she’d been staring at him as her thoughts ran wild. That somehow, she’d locked eyes with him without even realizing it. He was bound to be able to see every whirling, spinning thought she was thinking.
And she didn’t care.
Narrowing his eyes as though he was trying to make sense of what he saw, Will tightened his fingers around hers. He brushed her hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. His thumb lingered against her cheek, then dropped to trace her lower lip. His eyes followed, then lifted to look into hers, asking for permission.
Jasmine gave a slight nod and met him halfway.
It had been years since she’d kissed a man. Since she’d dated. Or simply allowed herself to let go. And in this moment, all the joy and wonder that she hadn’t been able to feel for so long unlocked and exploded in her chest, flowing between her and Will. Her free hand grabbed the front of his shirt and held on, not wanting him to leave. Not wanting to lose him.
Not wanting to retreat into the emptiness that had engulfed her for too long.