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“I want you to use me as bait,” Sam announced at dinner that night, sitting around the big table in Stone’s minimalistic dining room. They were eating spaghetti alfredo, courtesy of a recipe handed down from Kelby’s Italian grandmother. The men were all on their second helping while Sam had yet to eat a third of hers. She was the only female at the table, Seth’s fiancée, Leah, was on a plane to South Africa to spend some time with her brother, Jed, and his growing family.
Jett looked at her plate and frowned. “You’ve barely touched your food,” he said, his voice a low growl.
Yeah, well, dropping bombshells tended to kill her appetite.
When nobody replied to her comment, or even looked at her, Sam pushed her plate away and scowled. “What, are you just going to pretend that I didn’t say that?”
“Pretty much,” Stone said, not bothering to lift his eyes off his plate.
Jett did look up but he also lifted his fork to point it at her. “No. Eat.”
Sam ignored their negative response and started to speak. “We could go on like this for days, weeks. That’s simply ridiculous and not something I’m prepared to do. Wire me up and send me home and let’s lure the serial killer and The Recruiter in.”
“No.”
“No.”
“Maybe.”
Sam’s eyes swiveled to Seth who uttered the only marginally encouraging word. He placed his fork on his plate and tapped his finger against the bowl of his wineglass, ignoring the super-heated looks he received from both Jett and Stone.
“If it was anyone else but Sam, would you be hesitating?” Seth asked.
Sam could see both Jett and Stone wanted to argue but she knew, as well as they did, that last year Seth had to make the hard decision to allow Leah to be a pawn in another game The Recruiter played with them, and it had nearly ripped him apart. But he’d pushed aside his worry and concern and decided to trust his, and Jett’s, ability to keep her safe.
“It worked out with Leah,” Seth said and took a sip of wine.
It was a powerful argument, Sam realized. Seth loved and adored Leah but he’d still made the tough call to put her in the line of fire, knowing that he could protect her, just as Sam knew that Jett could protect her.
She wasn’t scared of what would happen, she was more scared that she would go nuts in this house with nothing to do. And she wanted to start living again, whether that life had Jett in it or not. She wanted to go back to her house, sleep in her own bed, wallow in her bath with bubbles, a book and a glass of bubbly.
Or with Jett.
She wanted to live and not exist.
Jett pushed his plate away and leaned back, his eyes shuttered and his face blank. Sam now knew him well enough to realize that was his resting bastard face. He wasn’t a happy camper.
“I don’t like the idea of using Sam, using anyone for bait, and not knowing who we might catch,” Jett stated, his voice suggesting that they not disagree.
Seth wasn’t intimidated. “Does it matter? Is it not better to get one of the sharks out of the tank?”
Jett drained his glass of club soda and gripped the vessel so hard Sam was concerned it might shatter in his hand. She reached across the table to tug the glass away and was rewarded with a blistering glare.
Jett was not happy with her. Again.
“I was going to raise the possibility but Sam’s bald statement beat me to it,” Seth said. “Unlike Sam, I have a plan.”
Sam grinned at his gentle teasing.
“Can’t wait to hear this,” Jett muttered, crossing his arms.
Seth nailed Jett with a hard glance. “Can you try and remember that you do, actually, work for me?”
“Fighting a losing battle there, Boss,” Kelby said.
Seth tossed a hard look at Kelby. “You’re not a Boy Scout either, Marrow, and I’m certain that you also have the tendency to go rogue.”
Kelby grinned. “Yeah, but you like that about us.”
“Can we get on with it?” Stone asked, impatient.
Seth nodded, his expression now contemplative. “I suggest we get Will to do a press release, that she announces the NYPD have arrested a person who they think is the serial killer, that he’s in custody and charges are being drawn up. Sam and Jett, still acting as lovers, head back to Sam’s place and act like lovers would. Life is back to normal.”
So far, so good. They were at least discussing a plan. “I pull Jett back to work on the guise of an assignment and Sam stays behind. Hopefully, that will make either The Recruiter or the serial killer relax enough to go after Sam.”
And there, that was the part she wasn’t that excited about. She hated feeling trapped and she wanted her life back but it was the part in between the two she wasn’t looking forward to.
“It sounds too damn simple.”
“Simple isn’t bad, Sam, it just means there is less to go wrong,” Seth said. “We’ll wire her house, with audio and cameras, and we’ll have eyes on the house all the time, we’ll be close.”
“How close?” Jett demanded. “Close enough to stop someone slitting her throat?”
Ack. She’d momentarily forgotten about that.
Seth ignored Jett’s sarcastic statement and looked at Sam. “Do you feel comfortable with a weapon? Have you spent any time on the firing range lately?”
Sam winced. “Not for a couple of months. But I’d know what to do.”
“We’ll stash numerous weapons all over the house. She won’t be two steps from a weapon wherever she moves, or is taken,” Seth said.
“It’s a simple, clean solution, Jett,” Kelby said. “We’ve done this a hundred times before and we’ve never lost anyone.”
Jett locked eyes with Kelby, allowing his worry to show. “It’s Sam, Kels.”
Sam bit down on her bottom lip, looking down so the men couldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
“That just means we all have an added incentive to be better, work harder, act sharper. She’ll be okay, Jett.”
It’s Sam, Kels. Three words, simple words, but they wrapped around her soul, from the inside out. Sam pushed her chair back and hurried around the table to wrap her arms around Jett’s broad shoulders.
She rested her temple on his and spoke in his ear, “I’ll be okay, Jett. I can do this. You guys are legends. You won’t let anything happen to me. I need to put this behind me, we need to. We need to move on, to find a way forward.”
Jett pulled her onto his lap and buried his face into her neck, his other hand on her butt. After a minute, he lifted his head to look at Stone, who was scowling at their unusual display of affection.
“What’s this?” Stone asked. “And since when?”
“We’re still working it out,” Jett replied, his voice suggesting her brother park his questions. “Are you going to authorize this madness or not?”
Sam knew Jett was hoping that Stone would say no, that they’d be off the hook and he’d have to find another way to resolve this situation. But Stone hadn’t made Pytheon into one of the world’s premier security services by not being able to make tough decisions.
Stone looked straight at her. “Are you 100 percent on board with this? Do you trust that these guys will keep you safe?”
“So convinced,” Sam nodded and immediately felt Jett’s tension.
His fingers dug into her thigh and he seemed to stop breathing. Then he tipped her off his lap, making sure she had her balance before standing up himself.
Jett stared down at her, shook his head, and gave the three other men a death-ray stare. “I am not happy about this.”
Sam understood that; she wanted to walk away, to be safe, to not take any chances. But she also knew she had to do something, they had to move on.
These men weren’t the only ones who could make tough choices.
“Noted,” she said. “But we’re doing it with or without you. So, are you in or out?”
“Fuck!” Jett shouted. He stormed across the room and slammed the door to the room closed behind him.
Seth looked at Kelby. “Was that a yes or no?”
“It’s a reluctant yes. If Sam is involved then he will be all over this like a rash, checking and double-checking every detail.” Kelby smiled. “He’ll calm down and be back to his professional self in ten minutes or so.” Kelby looked at Sam and winced. “Heads up, he’s going to be mad at you for a while.”
“Yay,” Sam muttered, slapping her hands on her hips. Then she shrugged. “I can’t help that. But I’ll console myself with a big bowl of choc-caramel ice cream. Anyone in?”
Sam and Jett stood in the kitchen of her house in Boerum Hill, and Sam, once again was blindfolded. And not in a good, see-if-you-like-this way. They were doing another drill and Sam, Jett could tell, was frustrated as hell.
He didn’t care. If they were going to go through with the crazy-ass plan, then she was going to be as prepared as he could get her.
Jett silently approached her from behind and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet. Sam lunged forward and grabbed the gun he’d taped under the kitchen counter and swung in backward over her shoulder, her finger off the trigger and waving the barrel around like a drunken sailor.
Jett dropped her back to her feet and Sam immediately pulled the bandana off her eyes. “What did I do wrong this time?” she demanded, oozing sarcasm. “Because, hell, I’m always doing something wrong.”
Jett ignored her irritation. “Don’t swing the weapon up and over your shoulder, you’re giving your opponent too much time to take it from you. Grab it, get your finger on the trigger, swing it backward and behind you, angle it, and fire. You might hit his thigh or his stomach but I guarantee it will be enough for you to get free. And that’s the objective. You need to get away from him.”
Sam sighed and stared at her feet. She looked around her kitchen and, defiantly, walked over to the window and pulled up the shade to allow the weak winter sun to chase away the shadows in the room. “I’m done.”
Sam ignored Jett’s annoyed snort and headed for the coffee machine, hit a button to power it up, and pulled a cup from the cupboard.
“You’re done when I say you are and we haven’t practiced in the bedroom or the study yet,” Jett replied, shaking his head when she held up a cup. “Have your coffee and we’ll go again.”
Sam shook her head. “No, I’m done. We’ve been doing this for two days solid and I’m over it. It’s time to deal the deck and let the cards fall as they will.”
“I like to stack that deck, and I like knowing where those cards will land, Samantha,” Jett stated, hearing the annoyance in his voice. Calling her Samantha was also a pretty big clue that he was pissed. “That means preparation. I need to know that you can handle yourself for a few minutes until I get here.”
Sam whirled around, her red hair flying. “Bedroom, gun under both pillows, under the bed, taped to the side of the bedside table. Another on the wall as I enter the bathroom, taped to the far side of the cistern. Study, under the desk, taped to the wall as I enter, on the bookshelf. Living room, coffee table, mantel, wall. Should I continue?”
Fuck. But it was one thing knowing where the guns were but he needed her to instinctively reach for one and that took practice. And if she could do it without sight, all the better. Jett decided arguing was a waste of time and tapped the face of his watch. “Five minutes in the study. We’ll go again.”
“No.”
Jett lifted his eyebrows at her flat refusal. “No?”
“After I finish my coffee, I am only interested in doing one of two things,” Sam said, pushing her mug under the spout of her machine and jabbing the button. “I would like you to take me to bed where we don’t talk at all but still end up having some fun.” Sam cocked her head to the side, her mouth flattening. “No? What a surprise. You haven’t touched me since that afternoon we made love in Stone’s guest bedroom.”
Jett, thinking silence was the best response, just widened his stance and folded his arms, hoping she’d soon run out of steam.
“No response? Then I’m going to my study to work.”
“That room is the most exposed in your house,” Jett said.
God, he’d told her, at least twenty times, to stay out of her study. There was a window in there with a broken lock, and they’d left it as it was, knowing it would provide an easy access for the killer.
“I need to do something other than play GI Jane with you, Jett!” Sam shouted.
“Losing your temper isn’t going to help the situation,” Jett replied, hearing the heat in his voice. “Why don’t we watch TV, or something?”
“Two options, Legend, that wasn’t one of them,” Sam retorted. She threw up her hands and turned back to the coffee machine, her slim back taut with tension. “Just leave me alone, okay? You have no problem with that, generally, so why don’t you try it now?”
Jett rubbed the back of his neck. So now they were getting to the heart of why she was upset. Yeah, for the past two days he’d been distant and preoccupied but he was trying to imagine every scenario, to consider every variable to ensure she didn’t end up in a fucking coffin because she was fucking dead.
“This is a dangerous situation, Samantha, I can’t afford to be distracted.”
“So, is that all I am to you? A distraction?” Sam demanded, turning around, her face porcelain hard.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” Jett muttered, frustrated they were having this stupid conversation—a conversation he simply had no chance of winning—and immediately regretted the words. He held up his hands, seeking peace. “Sorry, I’m just—”
“No.” Sam smiled and it was one of those smiles that dictators used to visually cut off the balls of the minions who displeased them. “Don’t apologize. I’m just the pain in the ass toward whom you blow hot and cold, who you bang senseless and then ignore. Well, you can take your passive-aggressive idiot behavior and shove it!”
“I am trying to keep you safe!” Jett yelled, feeling his temper slip away from him. “This is serious shit and we make one wrong move, you could die! Horribly!”
Did she not get that? Could she not tell he felt like he was walking a tightrope made of fraying cords over an alligator-infested river? So much could go wrong and he was determined to have a plan for each eventuality. God, his friggin’ head was about to explode.
“You are in danger and you are whining about not getting enough of my attention?”
“Whining? You didn’t just say that!”
Judging by her face, it was the wrong word to use again. Yay, he was on a roll.
“This is childish. I’ve got better shit to do than argue with you,” Jett muttered, turning to leave the kitchen. At the door, he turned around and gave her a long look, knowing his expression radiated boredom and dismissal. “When you’re done being a child, I’ll be in the living room working on my laptop, going over plans to keep you alive.”
Jett watched the anger die in her eyes, to be washed away by flat-out fear. Unlike him, she wasn’t used to being in dangerous situations. She didn’t know how to channel her fear into a productive force, to push it away to focus on what she needed to do. It wouldn’t have hurt to give her some reassurance, a few kind words, a hug.
But if he touched her, they’d end up in bed and after they rocked each other into oblivion, he’d beg her to ditch this plan, to let him take her back into protective custody. She’d see he was bone-deep shit scared and he was a fraction from losing it. This was her life they were talking about, and his. Her death would take all the meaning from his life...
If he cracked, if he gave her anything of what she needed—reassurance, affection—she’d see he was head over ass in love with her, that he’d do anything to love her on a permanent basis, that his heart was hers. That he’d give her everything he had, except the promise to give up his job, to walk away from what he did. He couldn’t, his job was too much a part of who he was.
Sam didn’t want his heart, couldn’t love—or wasn’t prepared to love—anyone who had even the slightest or occasional brush with danger. He’d offer his love and she might accept it, but with conditions: give up your job, be home by five, be safe. He’d have to save no, that he couldn’t live like that and she’d feel like she was unworthy. They would both end up feeling miserable.
So, better not to go there, say anything, do anything. It was better to nip whatever they had in the bud.
Oh, and not forgetting he had a mission to plan for, her life to protect.
5:03.
5:04.
5:05.
Through gritty eyes Sam watched the minutes tick over on her bedside clock. Like she’d had for the last three nights, she’d dozed on and off—for some strange reason she couldn’t sleep soundly when she was alone in her house waiting for a killer to call—and wished Jett was lying next to her, that she could roll over and burrow into his arms.
“Miss you,” Sam muttered, pulling her pillow into her arms and burying her face in it, wishing she could, at the very least smell Jett’s unique scent on the fabric.
“What was that, Sam?” Jett’s voice flowed into her ear and Sam closed her eyes, a wave of longing drowning her.
“Nothing, I’m good,” Sam replied.
“Then why aren’t you sleeping, honey?” Jett’s voice drifted into her ear via the Bluetooth earpiece he’d placed there. “We have motion sensors set up everywhere, it’s safe for you to sleep. No one is coming near you without us knowing about it.”
“Not going to happen,” Sam murmured, pushing back the covers and swinging her legs over the bed. “I’m going to get up, make some coffee.”
“Pick up your gun and disengage the alarm,” Jett ordered her, in his officer commanding voice. “And, maybe you should put on some clothes, Red.”
Sam glanced down. She wore what she normally did to bed, a tank top and low-slung pajamas shorts and no underwear.
“I’m good,” Sam said, just to irritate him. There were cameras all over the house but she had no idea where they were.
“Put. On. A. Robe,” Jett reiterated.
“Don’t bother on our account, we’re enjoying the view... ouch, dammit, that hurt!”
Sam smiled at Kelby’s yelp and walked to the easy chair by the door, picking up the flannel robe she’d tossed there earlier. She pulled it on but left it open, before frowning at the alarm pad that was blinking at her.
“What’s the code again?” she asked, knowing her question would irritate Jett.
He’d made her practice turning the alarm on and off numerous times and she knew her forgetting the code would annoy him.
She was bored, she had to get her kicks some way.
“For fuck’s sake... seven, two—”
Sam punched in the code before he could finish and heard Jett’s irritated sigh in her ear.
“Stop trying to wind me up, Red,” Jett warned.
“Yeah, it’s like someone crawled up his butt and died,” Kelby agreed.
Neither Jett nor Kelby spoke again so Sam, yawning, walked into her hallway and started jogging down the steps. Coffee and bagel and then, killer or not, she had to do some profiling on a serial rapist targeting tweens in Chicago. They needed to get that asswipe off the streets as soon as possible. Asswipe? She’d been hanging around Jett too long, her vocabulary was getting saltier by the day.
“Sam.”
Something about Jett’s voice made Sam stop in her tracks, her foot hovering over the last stair. This was it, this what they’d been waiting for. “He’s here?”
“Yeah. Climbing in the study window. He looks fit. Take the safety off your weapon, we’re on our way.”
Sam looked down at her empty hands and cursed. She’d forgotten to pick up a weapon when she left her bedroom, a stupid move because she’d been more interested in baiting Jett. She either had to run back upstairs to her room or run past her study to reach the weapons in the kitchen and lounge.
“Negative on the weapon,” Sam quietly said, “forgot to pick it up. Can you hurry the hell up?”
“Fuck-fuck-fuck,” Jett shouted and she lifted her fingers to her ear and winced at his roar.
Knowing she didn’t have any time to spend placating Jett, Sam whirled around and started to run up the steps when she heard a sharp “pffft” and the plaster flew out of the wall two inches next to her head.
Sam threw her arms over her head and bent down into a crouch and screamed. “Please, don’t shoot.”
“I won’t, as long as you do as I say, when I say it.”
She knew the voice. Lifting her head, she looked down and saw the bright blue eyes first and underneath the balaclava he ripped off his head, the well-styled hair was fashionably messy. He wore a tight black sweater and midnight colored jeans and Sam thought that this was, possibly, the only time she hadn’t seen him in a designer suit. She’d spent many nights reviewing evidence with him, talking about crime scenes, blood splatter, gunshot wounds, motive. They argued about guilt and innocence but she’d always believed Ross Knox was one of the good guys, that he had her back.
Incensed, Sam stood up, keeping her hands up. She stared into his wild blue eyes and saw his shaking hand. “What the hell have you done, Ross?”
“Stay calm, Red,” Jett said in her ear.
“Don’t move,” Ross cried.
When Sam kept walking, he steadied his gun and released another bullet that skimmed past her head. Okay, so that first bullet wasn’t a mistake, he’d meant to fire at her.
“Please, please tell me that you are not a serial killer, that you didn’t kill all those people.”
“Of course I did,” Ross replied, sounding bored.
Horror snaked down Sam’s back. Keep calm and talk to the serial killer. God, that was a twisted version of the popular saying. “I still don’t understand. And I need to understand, Ross.”
“Two years ago, I kissed you. Do you remember, Sam?”
Oh, God, vaguely. They’d come off a bad case and they’d gone out for drinks and Ross brought her home. She’d invited him in for coffee and they’d made out for a little while. She remembered waiting for the attraction to kick in, to start enjoying his lips on hers, his damp hands on her skin. She’d pulled away, told him she was drunk, that they were friends.
Ross never made any reference to the incident, so Sam assumed he regretted his words and the awkward incident was behind them.
“I remember holding your neck, wondering what it would feel like to strangle you while I was kissing you, fucking you. I came so close to killing you that night, the same night I fell in love with you.”
Holy, holy, holy crap.
“Had you killed anyone before that?” Sam asked, wondering where the hell Jett was.
“No, but I wanted to.” Ross pushed his spare hand through his hair. “I’ve always been two people, Sam. Normal me and abnormal me, who loves the adrenalin high that killing brings.”
“So why did you kill those people, Ross?”
“I love you and no one is allowed to hurt you, to malign you,” Ross stated, his dreamy voice a complete contrast to his feral eyes. “Except me.”
Sam, seeing he was miles away—that he’d gone to another place—slowly lifted a hand. This wasn’t about her, not really. This wasn’t about a kiss they shared; she’d just given him the excuse to do what he’d always wanted to do. “Who hurt and maligned you, Ross? Who are you really punishing?”
Ross stepped forward and his hand connected with the side of her cheek, the force spinning her to the floor. Her ear piece fell out and she cried out, partly in pain but mostly because she’d lost her connection to Jett.
Ross loomed over her, his lips lifted up into a snarl. “Psychoanalysing me, bitch?”
So that was a button she should avoid if she wanted to survive this encounter. Dammit, Jett, where the hell are you?
Ross grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her to her feet. He stood an inch from her and pushed his hips into hers and Sam felt his excitement, tasted the sour stench of perversion emanating from him.
“There’s no point in trawling through my background, Samantha, there was no bed-wetting, no fire-setting, no cruelty to animals. My mom wasn’t dominating; my father didn’t abuse me. I was a normal kid. Well, apart from the fantasies...”
Ross giggled when she stepped back and Sam saw, and heard, the evil little boy behind his intellectual facade. “I was always interested in crime and I’d look at all those photos of crime scenes and I’d get excited, you know? I wanted to taste the blood, feel how warm it was. I wanted to watch the light fade from someone’s eyes. Fuck them while they died. Best feeling ever. I’m going to do that to you, by the way. We’re going to go upstairs and you’re going to make it so damn good for me that I’m going to forgive you for sleeping with that Neanderthal.”
Sam made herself meet his eyes. “And then?”
“Then I’m going to take you away and keep you for a while. It’ll be good, Sam. I’ll have fun and you’ll make me happy.”
He was living in nutso land. “And then?” she pushed, wanting to keep him talking and delay the walk upstairs.
Ross gestured for her to start walking and Sam, reluctantly, turned her back on him and obeyed his instructions. “Well, when it stops being fun, I’m going to kill you. And take my time over it because I’ve been fantasizing about loving you and then killing you for a very long time, Samantha.”
Where the hell was Jett?
“I have to make it good with you, make some really good memories, because, after you, I’m going to have to stop for a while.”
“Please don’t do this, Ross. If you love me, then please, let me go,” Sam said, hearing his footsteps behind her and judging by the heat she felt pouring off him, his gun was inches from her spine.
“If I didn’t love you then I’d kill you tonight, right after I had my fun with you.”
She wanted to whimper she couldn’t, she wanted to run into her bedroom and lunge for a gun but he would be on her before she moved a foot. No, her best hope of survival was to play for time, to wait for Jett to get into a position so that she could grab one of the many weapons Jett had stashed for her.
Ross propelled her into her bedroom with a hard shove between her shoulder blades and Sam hit her knees, releasing a loud cry. Sam felt the hard, cold barrel of his pistol on the back of her head and closed her eyes.
“You are so beautiful, Samantha. Those nights we spent together, working? I spent most of that time fantasizing about how many times I could take you to the edge of death before pulling you back. I want to watch your blood flow, your body shake with pain. I know a lot of ways to hurt you without killing you. It’s going to be slow and it’s going to be painful.” Ross giggled. “Just the way I’ve come to like it.”
“Anytime, boys, seriously,” Sam muttered as Ross grabbed a hank of her hair and lifted her to her feet. Sam whimpered but as she regained her footing, she turned to head to look directly at him.
Excitement brightened his eyes, put heat in his cheeks. She couldn’t help but notice his stiff erection. She was his fantasy, his twisted, dark, blood-filled fantasy.
Ross’s hand left her hair and he pulled a hunting knife from a sheath on his hip. Sam opened her mouth to scream but, before she could articulate the sound, she felt the heat, heard the swish and Ross sank to his knees, his mouth half open and his eyes wide with surprise. A perfectly round, almost clinical bullet hole appeared between his eyes, a tiny ribbon of blood trickling down his nose.
Sam screamed, stumbled backward, and ran smack bang into a hard chest. Swept away by horror, she started to punch and kick, unaware of who was friend or foe. She just had to get away, immediately. Sam screamed again as hard arms held her tight and her head swam. She was going to pass out or her heart was, judging by the pain she felt in her chest, about to stop.
This was just a bad dream; it couldn’t be happening to her. There was a dead man lying on her bedroom floor but maybe he wasn’t dead, maybe she was just imagining it and any minute that knife would slice her neck...
Sam kicked and punched, twisting and turning to get free of her captor. It was no use, he was too strong, wrapping his arms around her to keep her arms tucked into her sides, his leg wrapping around her calves to keep her from kicking.
She was dead, oh, she was so dead...
“Sam, honey, come back to me.”
Jett’s voice, sounding like it was coming down a tube, penetrated the black, noxious cloud in her mind and she latched onto it, wondering if she was starting to hallucinate.
“Sam, baby? You’re safe. He’s dead. I’ve got you.”
I’ve got you, you’re safe.
Sam registered the words but it took another minute for them to sink in, for her to push back the fear. She pulled in a breath and inhaled Jett’s spicy scent, allowing it to ground her. She pushed the black cloud away and with every inch it retreated, sanity returned. Jett held her and knowing that, she climbed him like a monkey, needing to get as close as possible. Her legs encircled his hips and she pressed her nose into his neck, unaware that her tears were rolling underneath his collar and making his shirt damp. Jett held her against him, anchoring him to her.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
“Clear. The perp has checked out.”
They were words but she didn’t understand any of them.
“I should damn well hope so since I plugged him between the eyes,” Jett said.
Jett patted her butt. He carried her across the room and out of the corner of her eye saw him placing his weapon on the chest of drawers by the door, the barrel pointed to the wall.
“My weapon is going to have to go into evidence,” Jett said, utterly calm. “Kels, can you clear it for me? My hands are a bit full.”
Kelby moved to stand next to Jett and placed a hand on her back. “Glad you’re safe, Red.”
Sam just tightened her grip around Jett’s neck and inhaled another series of deep breaths as that persistent, evil cloud of panic and fear threatened to roll back in. Yeah, she was pretty glad that she was okay too.
