“Secure Jasmine.” Will drew his pistol and barked the order to Sean.
Jasmine reached out to wrap her fingers into the back of Will’s shirt, but Sean grabbed her arm and pulled her into the corner.
Will and Scout disappeared into her condo.
Please, God... There was nothing more. Just the frantic prayer that no one was inside to hurt them.
Sean stood in front of her, weapon drawn, his K-9 at attention by his side. They watched the hallway toward the elevator, then he tilted his head toward a door to their left. “Stairwell?”
“Yes.”
“Not quite ready to risk getting trapped in there... or with leaving Will without backup.”
Will. He’d gone into her condo alone.
Maybe she’d simply forgotten to shut the door yesterday. Even though she always locked the deadbolt and checked twice.
This couldn’t be happening. This had to be a nightmare. There was no way her fuel line had been cut and her plane riddled with bullet holes and her condo broken into. Coincidence was out the window.
So was the idea that any of this was about Will’s investigation. She was clearly the target.
An eternity passed in crawling seconds before Will’s voice rang out. “Clear!” It was only a moment later when he appeared in her doorway, holstering his pistol. “No one is here.” He addressed Sean, but faced Jasmine. “There was someone inside before we arrived.” Will stepped away from the door and held out a hand for her to enter.
Sean and Grace followed.
She steeled herself as she brushed past Will, but no amount of preparation could ready her for the sight. Her backpack slipped from her fingers and crunched her toe.
She winced, the physical pain jerking her into the truth that this was no nightmare. This was an awful, shattered reality.
Nothing was in its place. Couch cushions, furniture, photos... Everything had been pulled from walls and cabinets and thrown to the floor. “Why?” Her hands shook. She wrapped them around her stomach and tried to hold herself together. “Who hates me this much?” Besides the obvious.
But something didn’t fit. If it was about the case that had landed her in WITSEC, surely whoever had broken in would have waited to kill her. Trashing her apartment was a pointless exercise for a hired killer who would want to leave as little evidence behind as possible.
Not that it mattered. Someone had destroyed her safe space. The one place she felt secure outside of an airplane. Within these walls, she’d had the freedom to be her real, authentic self. The outside world knew Jasmine Jefferson. But in here, Yasmine Carlisle still lived.
Until now.
Her entire body and mind went numb. No thoughts, no emotions, no feeling. Nothing. Just empty deadness from the outside in.
Something brushed her leg, pulling her out of her stupor, and Scout slipped past her. He sniffed the edges of the room, then roamed the floor with his nose down before he dropped into the exact middle of her living room, next to the overturned coffee table, and sat perfectly still with his nose in the air.
“What’s wrong?” Jasmine took a step back and collided with Will’s chest. Had Scout scented something? Was someone still in the apartment?
With a heavy sigh, Will laid a hand on her back for a brief second, then edged around her to Scout. He gave a command Jasmine couldn’t hear, and Scout dutifully trotted into her open kitchen, where he repeated the same actions and ended up sitting in the middle of the floor among her scattered utensils.
“Will?”
He eyed Scout before he turned to Jasmine. Hesitating, he glanced over her head at Sean, who had come inside and closed the door. “He’s alerting. There aren’t drugs present at the moment, but whoever was in here and wrecked the place either had them on him or had interacted with them recently.” The way he studied her was odd, but then he pulled in a deep breath and looked away.
Jasmine tilted her head toward the ceiling, relief and fear warring inside her. If this was about drugs, then this was about Will’s case, not about her identity.
But that didn’t let her off the hook. Someone was still targeting her, likely because she was working with Will. She tipped her chin toward Scout. “How does he do that?”
“Super sniffer.” Will flashed a grim smile. “And a lot of training.” He pulled a chew toy out of his backpack and carried it over to the border collie, whose tail thumped wildly on the floor. After a brief tug of war, Scout curled up to chew on what was clearly his favorite treat.
Jasmine almost smiled at the diversion.
Almost. All she wanted to do was sleep, but her condo was trashed and she had two state troopers and two trained canines in her space. While she wanted to go to her room, shut the door and pretend none of this was happening, she couldn’t. “Now what?”
Again, Will looked at Sean. There seemed to be a brief, silent conversation between the two of them. They’d probably worked together so long that each knew what the other was thinking.
With a brief nod, Will reached for Jasmine’s hand and led her to the couch. He set the cushions back into place then gestured for her to sit down.
This was not going to be a good conversation. Her gut and his expression confirmed it. She wanted to argue that she wasn’t going to sit, wasn’t even sure she could sit with all of the adrenaline racing in her veins, but the truth remained that she was too exhausted to fight.
She sank to the sofa, and he settled beside her, closer this time than at the airfield when they’d first met.
She was okay with that. Something in her needed him to be her friend, not just an investigator.
At the door, Sean stood as still as a guard at the queen’s palace, but his eyebrow lifted in interest as he watched the two of them.
Jasmine ignored the question on his face, the one Will either didn’t notice or didn’t care to acknowledge.
With a deep breath, he lifted her hand, staring at it as he traced the knuckle of her index finger. “You can’t stay here.”
Gently, she extracted her fingers from his grasp and gripped her knees. “It’s my home. It’s my...” She shook her head. Her voice was weak. She was too tired to argue. Weariness lay on her like a damp wool blanket. Every thought struggled to swim up from the bottom of the ocean.
She knew this feeling, this detached-from-reality feeling. It was anxiety bordering on panic. If she didn’t do something soon—get up, get moving, get out—she would be staring in the face of a full-blown panic attack marked by the irrational need to run.
Because she’d once actually had to run.
Shoving to her feet, she paced the room, shaking her hands at her sides. The last thing she needed was to blow to pieces in front of Will and his teammate, but there was nowhere to hide. Trying to regulate her breathing, she walked to the short hallway that led past the kitchen to the bedrooms. “I need a minute.”
Behind her, the sound of fabric rustling told her Will had stood. “We can’t leave you alone.”
Jasmine held up her hand and stared at her bedroom door, which hung open. Clothes and bedsheets littered the floor.
It didn’t matter what he said. She couldn’t do this anymore. “I don’t care.”
“You should.” Will’s voice shifted from friend to officer, and it held an edge. “Your home is a crime scene. You can’t be wandering around in here until our CSIs sweep it.” He stepped closer and rested his hand on her shoulder. “I want to catch who did this, Jasmine. More than you know. But if you want to apprehend these drug runners and protect the people in the villages you’re flying to, then you have to walk away now.” He gave her shoulder a brief squeeze and lowered his voice. “Pray.”
Something in his words knocked the panic down a notch. She pulled in a deep breath. This wasn’t about her. From the outside, it appeared to be, but the truth was so much deeper. This was about everyone those money-hungry drug pushers were using and abusing.
This was about a much bigger picture.
“Okay.” Will was right. She had to buck up. To find her strength in the God she trusted.
Her life had ceased to be her own the day she became a Christian. And she’d ceased to be herself the day she chose to testify against Anton Rogers.
Yasmine Carlisle was already dead.
She wouldn’t let Jasmine Jefferson die, too.
“She knows something.” Sean crossed the small hotel room and checked the door between their room and the one they’d secured for Jasmine.
Will’s head jerked up from where he was pouring food into Scout’s bowl while the collie did a happy dance at his feet. “What do you mean by that?” Was his teammate accusing Jasmine of withholding evidence? Working for the bad guys? Or what?
He ignored the fact that, for a split second when Scout had alerted in Jasmine’s living room, he’d wondered if she might be guilty after all. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d let a woman dupe him. But the K-9’s failure to alert at her presence, her plane or her car said the culprit was a faceless intruder and not her.
Besides, he wasn’t in love with Jasmine Jefferson the way he had been with Beth.
With an arched eyebrow, Sean pressed his hand, palm-side down, toward the floor. “Bring it down a notch. I’m not accusing her of anything.” His teammate grabbed his backpack off the bed and withdrew a bag of food and a bowl. He filled it and set it on the floor beside the bed he’d claimed then grabbed a second bowl, which he filled with water in the bathroom and set it beside the first.
Grace dug in.
Sean settled onto the edge of the bed and eyed Will. “All I’m saying is, if someone is this determined to come at her, Jasmine knows something. The question is, does she know what she knows?”
“Really? You’re going to talk in riddles?” Normally, his sense of humor showed up in the bleak moments. It was a known fact among law enforcement, emergency workers and the military that humor was the only way to survive the darkness. Sometimes that humor was dark itself. But this time, Will couldn’t find it in himself to joke back.
“So it’s finally happened.” The knowing tone of Sean’s voice raked across Will’s last nerve.
“What’s happened?”
“A woman managed to get your attention.”
Will laughed, but it sounded fake and harsh. He stood and grabbed Scout’s water bowl, even though it was still full, and walked into the bathroom. “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Now who’s cracking jokes?”
Walking back into the room, Will paused at Jasmine’s door. From the other side, the sound of the TV drowned out any other noise. She’d said something about grabbing a shower and a nap, so it was doubtful she could hear their conversation.
As Scout gave him a puzzled head tilt, he set the bowl down, scratched the collie behind the ears, then dropped into a chair at the table in the corner. “Nobody’s got my attention.”
“So you usually hold hands with witnesses?”
“I didn’t hold her hand.” But even as he said it, he remembered. Multiple times in her condo, he’d reached for her, touched her... And yes, held her hand.
Will dropped his head against the wall. There was no sense in arguing. Sean had eyes. “What of it?”
“It was simply an observation.”
He glanced at the door again. “I guess when you’re forced to stay up looking for bears and fighting off assailants in a busted plane in the middle of nowhere, you get to be friends.”
“Kind of like this job makes us a family? Because it’s dangerous and a little chaotic?”
“A little?” Will picked up a pen that lay on the table and began to tap it on the fake wood, trying to bring his thoughts into some sort of order. “It’s out of control right now. In addition to the dozens of usual cases we’re investigating, we’ve got an unofficial case with the Kapowskis and the reindeer ranch. A missing bride who was framed for murder by her killer fiancé and his best man. Oh, and we’re trying to find Eli’s godmother’s family, who are doing their best to stay hidden. I think chaos would be easier.”
“Speaking of Eli...”
“Last time I talked to him, he was headed to see his godmother. Hospice was a possibility.”
“We had a team video conference last night while you were camping.” Sean ducked sideways to dodge the pen Will threw. He chuckled, then sobered. “She’s not doing well. They did move her into hospice care. Time’s running out.”
“And we’re no closer to finding her family.” Will exhaled loudly. “I told him I’d focus some more on that as soon as I wrap this case up and we put this smuggler away.”
“We all said the same. The team’s committed to finding her son and his family, no matter where he’s hiding.”
Bettina Seaver’s son, Phillip—a committed survivalist—had disappeared into the wilderness outside Anchorage with his family. Locating him was proving to be tougher than some of their actual criminal cases. “When a man doesn’t want to be found, there are plenty of ways to stay hidden.”
Sean nodded. “And our missing groom and best man are a case in point. But you were talking about your smuggler. Any thoughts there?”
Pointing three fingers in a silent command for Scout to lay on his bed, Will stood and walked to the window. He peeked through the curtains at the nearly empty parking lot, then let the fabric fall. He shouldn’t risk being spotted, although he seriously doubted they’d been followed.
Still, two state trooper K-9 SUVs in one place were tough to hide from anyone who knew Jasmine was with them. They’d parked in the back but, if someone was searching, it would only be a matter of time. He swished the curtain with his index finger, then stared at the thin line of light that etched the ceiling from the window. “You want facts or my gut?”
“I know the facts. Let’s hear what your gut has to say. It’s usually a pretty good indicator of where to go next.”
Will grinned. It might sound strange to anyone on the outside, but “gut instinct” was a real thing. It was born out of training and listening to their subconscious minds. The little details in the “back rooms” of their brains were often the ones that yielded the best clues.
Then again, sometimes they were wrong. “So, I’m not a fan of Jasmine’s boss, Keith Hawkins. Something about him didn’t sit right with me.”
“Same.” When Will turned, Sean was lying with his hands laced behind his head, staring at the ceiling. “What’s bugging you could be the way he was more worried about his damaged planes than he was about the woman who was piloting them.”
“Could be.” That had definitely rubbed Will the wrong way.
“Okay, but let me play the opposite side. He did see the planes before he saw her. Maybe he’s one of those guys who can only deal with one thing at a time, and he prioritizes what’s right in front of him.”
“Could be. But it also could have been an act. He seemed a little too smooth.”
“Are you saying that because of your gut or because of the girl?”
Will’s shoulders stiffened. “What does that mean?”
Sean simply shrugged. “Let’s follow the trail with this Keith guy and see where we end up. He operates an air freight service with his brother, so he has the perfect setup for running drugs into the bush.”
“That’s one strike.” Will dropped into the chair by the window and stretched his legs out, studying the toes of his boots. He’d have to polish them tonight if he was going to wear them tomorrow. And he still needed a shower, but all of that could wait. “So let’s think about why he would put Jasmine in the crosshairs with a false tip. It brings us sniffing close to his operation if he’s involved.” He glanced at Scout and smiled. “No pun intended.”
“That was bad.” Sean chuckled but kept his focus on the ceiling. “However, if he didn’t have any drugs on the premises at the moment and he knew Jasmine’s plane was clean, then what better way to throw suspicion off himself than to call in a fake tip on one of his pilots?”
“And based on build, neither of the brothers was the one who attacked me last night. Which means we have nothing to go on except my gut.” Will groaned and, when he did, his stomach growled. “My very hungry gut. I haven’t had a decent meal in two days, and we missed lunch. Although I did have an amazing homemade ham biscuit this morning.”
His breakfast seemed like it had been days ago. He sat up in the chair and dragged his hand down his face, realizing he also needed to shave. It was early evening on a day that had technically begun the day before, and he was ready to feel human again. “Let’s get some dinner sent here for us and for Jasmine. Then after I get cleaned up we can go talk to her.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Sean sat up and pulled his phone from its holster at his hip. “It’s possible she’s seen something suspicious and doesn’t even recognize it. We have to question her.”
Jasmine wouldn’t like it, not as close as she held her personal life to her vest. But Will had to know everything about her if he was going to save her from a smuggler who was intent on silencing her.