by Cynthia Eden
“Check the story if you don’t believe me.” Cale was way too confident. “Dr. Paul Lyland lost his license a few months back. Seems someone got evidence on him, and the not-so-good doctor had to go before the review board. Pity his nose never healed properly,” Cale muttered, as if the words were an afterthought. “But maybe that will serve as a reminder for the shrink. A reminder that plenty of folks are watching him now.”
Watching and waiting for their pound of flesh? “Do you like delivering your own justice?” Jasper asked Cale, trying to figure him out.
Cale shrugged. “Somebody has to deliver it.”
“Why not let that somebody be you?” They’d check the story on the shrink, but Jasper’s instincts were telling him it was true. Hell, what else had they missed?
“Did those agents do something wrong, too?” Jasper asked because it had to be asked. “If we go digging in their pasts, are we gonna see that they did something to make them land on your punishment list?”
“I don’t have a list.”
“Don’t you?” Jasper threw right back.
Cale’s stillness seemed to be his only answer, but, after a tense moment, Cale said, “Guess who just got added?”
Me.
Cale leaned forward. “Now, I’ve played nice. And if you want me to keep playing nice, you’ll bring my sister to me.”
“I don’t think so,” Logan began.
Cale surged to his feet, seeming to completely ignore the gun that was inches from his face. “If I don’t see Veronica, then I don’t say another word. I know how this game works. Hell, you two think you can get to me? After the nightmare I survived in Syria? Think again.”
Jasper pushed back his chair and slowly stood. “We’ll see if Veronica wants to talk to you.” He turned his back on Cale, a deliberate risk.
“If?” Cale snarled.
Jasper glanced over his shoulder, keeping his expression blank. He was as good at wearing an unfeeling mask as Cale was. Maybe I’m better. “Now that she knows just what you really are, do you still think she’s gonna be the adoring little sister? Maybe it’s time you think again.”
He marched past Gunner, rage burning in his veins, the fire simmering just beneath his controlled exterior. Cale had once been his closest friend, but he sat across from him as an enemy.
And Veronica? What was she? Not an adoring little sister to Cale, and to him—
He rounded the corner and came face-to-face with her. She stood in the middle of the hallway, with Wyatt right by her. Sydney waited close by them.
Veronica gazed into Jasper’s eyes, and her expression was cold. She’d never been cold before. She’d burned red-hot for him.
Now she seemed to look right through him.
Chapter Nine
Stay in control. Don’t let him see your anger. Don’t let him see your hurt.
Veronica kept her chin up and her back ramrod straight. Wyatt had told her that the agents needed her at their headquarters. The EOD “headquarters” had turned out to be the abandoned building at the end of Black Bear Road.
Jasper was staring at her with blazing eyes. The female agent—the woman had finally introduced herself as Sydney Sloan—had sympathy on her pretty face as she edged closer. It was all Veronica could do not to start screaming at them.
But she was trying to follow another one of Cale’s rules. Never break in front of the enemy. Never show your pain. Others will just use that pain against you.
Jasper had sure caused her plenty of pain.
“They’re not FBI, you know that, right?” Veronica said to Wyatt. He’d been with her, pretty much from the moment since the agents had taken her brother into custody. At the crash scene, he’d appeared with Logan Quinn. Wyatt’s face had looked grim, the faint lines around his face much deeper.
“Not FBI,” Wyatt agreed quietly, “but they’ve got high clearance.”
“How high?” Veronica asked. She wasn’t staring Jasper in the eye. She couldn’t. And he was just staring at her.
“High enough that the governor called and told me to do whatever Logan Quinn said.”
When the governor said jump...
She swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d been a fool, and now she had to pay a price for her blind trust.
Talk to Jasper. Because he was still just staring at her, waiting. “You’re not a mercenary,” she said, and risked the briefest of stares into his eyes.
“No, ma’am.”
She flinched at that drawl. Her gaze dropped to his chin.
His jaw clenched.
“What are you?” she asked him.
“I’m a federal agent.”
“You’re not with the FBI.”
“No, ma’am.”
Her eyes slit as they lifted back to meet his gaze. “What’s the EOD?”
He glanced at the sheriff. Yes, she knew that Wyatt could tell her, especially since it seemed that he, Logan and the governor were all suddenly tight, but she wanted to hear this information straight from Jasper. It would be interesting to see what the truth sounded like from him.
“It’s the Elite Operations Division. We’re a hybrid group, mostly ex-military.”
Like her brother. “Why were you hunting Cale?”
He reached for her. She flinched back. He was bleeding. There was blood on his forehead, and she’d noticed that his shoulder looked padded—probably because of a bandage under his shirt.
His hand dropped.
“Why?” she repeated.
“Because Cale is wanted in connection with the murders of three EOD agents.”
She shook her head instantly. “He wouldn’t do that,” she whispered, but she cleared her throat and spoke again, her voice stronger. “Cale rescues people. He doesn’t kill them. He doesn’t—”
“We also think he’s tied to the fire and explosion at the police station, and the murder of the two men who were shot outside the station—the men who attempted to abduct you.” A clipped voice.
She wanted to rage at him, but her voice stayed controlled. Mostly. “I was outside that station. Do you seriously think my brother was trying to kill me, too?”
“No, ma’am.”
Veronica hated that drawling “ma’am” bit.
“I think your brother is one fine shot,” Jasper continued quietly. “Actually, I know he is. That’s why you weren’t hurt that day. He took out his targets, just like this morning, when he aimed only at me, not you.”
Her cheeks felt icy. “I was inside the station when the fire started, the explosion—”
“Your brother had demolitions training when he was in the military.”
She didn’t want to hear this.
“He would have known how to stage that scene. Sydney talked to an arson investigator. The initial flames were set to alert folks in the station. To give us time to get out. But the explosion that followed, that was designed for a specific type of destruction. A bomb was placed, then triggered so that the back of the station would be hit hardest. The bomber knew exactly what he was doing. Hell, we even think the guy used a cell phone to start the explosion in the back.”
The back of the station. She’d been in the front, so...
“Your brother made sure you were clear in that explosion. He protected you, but still went after the men he wanted.”
This couldn’t be true. “I want to see him.” Because Jasper was wrong.
“Good, because he wants to see you, too.”
Her heartbeat wouldn’t slow down. It was racing too hard in her chest, and her hands were trembling.
Jasper motioned toward the far end of the hallway. “Come this way.”
Fine. She stepped forward. Instantly, Wyatt moved with her. He’d been silent during the exchange with Jasper. Watching, weighing every word. Did everyone but her think that Cale was a monster? A cold-blooded killer?
Soldier...or sociopath.
Jasper slammed his hand into the sheriff’s chest. “Sorry, Wyatt, for now, it’s just her.”
>
Wyatt frowned at him. “That’s my friend in there. If he’s gone rogue, I can get him to talk.”
He hasn’t gone rogue.
But Jasper shook his head. “For now, I’m only taking Veronica back to interrogation.”
Wyatt’s gaze cut to Veronica. Frustration etched hard lines on his face. “You going to be okay in there?”
She nodded. She wasn’t about to break apart. Yes, Jasper’s betrayal made it feel as if he had tried to carve out her heart, but she wouldn’t break. Jasper wrapped his hand around her elbow and guided her down the hall. She didn’t need his guidance. She didn’t need anything from him anymore.
“In here.” He pushed open a door to the left. She entered, rushing in her eagerness to see Cale, only...Cale wasn’t there. The room was empty.
She spun around just as Jasper shut the door behind him, sealing them inside.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Her hands were fisted so hard that her knuckles hurt. “I want to see my brother. You told me—”
“You will see him.” The words were rough. “But first, you’re going to talk to me.”
He started to close in on her. Instinctively, Veronica backed up a step, but then she froze. He wasn’t going to intimidate her, not anymore. “You should wipe that blood away,” she muttered, her gaze rising to his forehead. “It really messes up that whole intense, scary vibe that you’re trying to give me.”
He stopped and frowned at her.
And she was lying. The blood just made him look more dangerous and scary. But so what if she was lying? He’d lied; she could do it, too. Maybe it was childish, but she didn’t care.
“The blood’s a little gift from your brother,” Jasper murmured. “Seems he doesn’t like the fact that we’re involved.”
Her brows shot up. “We’re not.” What had he told her brother? Oh, no, did Cale think that she’d been setting him up, too?
Jasper resumed his stalking moves toward her. “We most definitely are.” The last word was bit out. “Or did you forget that you gave me your virginity just a few hours ago?”
He had not just said that to her.
“You waited,” he continued, voice thickening, “because you wanted to be with the right man.”
“You aren’t the right man.” She could barely force the words past her suddenly desert-dry throat. “What you are... You’re a man who lied to me. From the first moment I saw you in that bar, everything has been a lie.”
“Not everything.” He was less than a foot away from her. Not touching. She didn’t want him to touch her. It was hard enough to keep her wall of ice in place. She didn’t want him touching her again and trying to shatter that wall.
“You’re EOD.” She threw that out at him.
He nodded.
“You think my brother is a killer.”
“I know he is.”
“Just like you are.” Her breath heaved out. “He was following mission orders, saving lives. You said yourself that a soldier—”
“I’m not talking about lives taken during battle. I’m talking about murder. About going right up to a man and slitting his throat or stabbing him in the heart.”
She remembered Reed Montgomery’s body. The brutality. The blood. “Y-you’re wrong.”
“I want to be.”
Her eyes met his in surprise. She held his stare. It was the first time she’d looked deeply into his eyes since realizing the truth.
Jasper shook his head. “I want to be wrong about Cale, but the evidence says I’m not.”
“M-maybe the evidence is wrong.” It had to be wrong.
“There’s a lot of evidence, and every bit of it points to your brother.”
Nails in his coffin. Or hers. She forced her hands to unclench. “Why were you sent in?”
“I belong to a special unit at the EOD, a unit some call the Shadow Agents. When the other EOD agents were murdered, the cases didn’t go public. Our boss wanted us to handle this in-house. He wanted my team to find and apprehend the killer.” Jasper’s hand lifted, as if he’d touch her. But when she tensed, his hand fell back to his side. “When we realized exactly who we were after, it was decided that’d I’d be point on the mission because of my past relationship with Cale.”
“And using me, that was just part of the plan, too, right?”
His green gaze glinted. “I knew Cale. I knew how he felt about you—”
“So you knew you could use me.” She tried to walk around him. He grabbed her shoulders. Spun her back to face him.
The ice began to crack.
“I knew that your brother wasn’t just going to cut and run and leave you behind.” His fingers curled around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “I knew that he’d have to come back for you, sooner or later.”
“So all you had to do was wait. Wait, and he’d be here.” Sooner or later. She swallowed to try to ease that dang dryness in her throat. “Why did you have to go so far?” Her voice came out too soft. “Why did you have to make love to me?”
“Because I wanted you, wanted you more than I wanted anything else.”
She wanted to believe him.
“There’s the mission.” His head lowered toward her. “There’s the job that I have to do and then there’s you and me. There’s what we feel.”
He was going to kiss her. The ice was too weak around her. She couldn’t handle this. Him.
Her hand slammed into his chest. “You lied to me.”
His muscles were rock-hard beneath her hand.
I was falling for you, and now I think everything was a lie. “I don’t get close to people easily. I—I can’t.” She’d always held back, was too shy, too cautious. “With you, everything seemed easy.” She’d been too trusting. So ridiculously grateful to have someone finally on her side.
“It can be that way again,” he growled. “Veronica...”
“Are you still working me?”
He frowned at her.
“Because I think you are. I think you and the other agents... I think you’re about to take me in there to see my brother, and you’re going to try and use me to get a confession from him.”
She might be trusting, might be too naive, but she wasn’t stupid.
And Jasper wasn’t denying her charge.
“There’s you and me,” she said, pushing his words back at him, “and there’s my brother. There’s his case. It’s all mixed together, and no matter what we might both want...” Because she did wish things were different. “They can’t ever be separate.”
Because touching him burned through her ice, she pulled her hand away from him. “Now, if you aren’t taking me to see my brother, then I’ll go find someone else who will.”
He growled. No other word for it.
Fine. She started walking for the door.
“This isn’t over,” he warned.
Veronica didn’t look back at him, but she did say, “You’re right. It’s not over. It won’t be over until I prove my brother’s innocence.”
The floor creaked behind her. Then he was there, pulling open the door, leaning toward her. His lips brushed over the curve of her ear as he whispered, “I meant between us. You and I aren’t close to being done.”
The words were a threat. Swallowing, she lifted her chin and forced herself to walk slowly, calmly, down the hallway and toward her brother’s holding room.
* * *
“I’M GUESSING THAT didn’t go so well,” Logan muttered as Jasper followed Veronica out of the room. Logan offered Jasper a white cloth. “For the blood,” Logan said, giving a nod of his head.
Jasper swiped the blood away.
“Focus on the case,” Logan said. “Then go after the girl.”
Because of the case, he was losing the girl. He tossed the cloth into the garbage and followed Veronica down the hallway. She’d stopped in front of Gunner. He was still guarding the door to Cale’s room.
“Is he in there?” Veronica asked Gunner.
Jasper hated the flat tone of her voice. That wasn’t Veronica. There was always emotion bubbling in her voice and eyes.
Not now.
Gunner glanced over at Jasper. He nodded. They had to do this. Logan wouldn’t follow them in this time. He’d hang back, and Jasper knew he would be entering the surveillance room that Sydney had set up. The better to watch and see what was happening. The better to record any confessions that Cale might make.
Jasper saw Veronica suck in a deep breath right before Gunner opened the door and waved her inside.
“Ronnie!” Cale was instantly on his feet.
Veronica ran toward him with her arms open.
Jasper grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her waist and hauling her back. It was protocol, especially after Cale’s attack on him. No touching. But when Veronica started twisting and fighting in his arms, she broke his heart.
Since when do I have one of those?
“Let her go!” Cale snarled. But he wasn’t advancing on Jasper. Probably because an armed Gunner was blocking his path.
“I’ll let her go,” Jasper snarled right back, then bent to whisper in Veronica’s ears, “I’ll let you go.” He cleared his throat, then said loud enough for everyone to hear, “But you can’t touch him, Veronica. He’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not dangerous to my own sister!” Cale yelled.
She stopped fighting in Jasper’s arms.
Slowly, carefully, Jasper released her.
Gunner put his hand on Cale’s shoulder and forced him back into his seat. Jasper pulled out a chair for Veronica. She sat down and tucked her hands in her lap. She looked so vulnerable and sad, and he wanted to punch someone.
Me. Because he was the one who’d done this to her. She wasn’t even looking at him the same way any longer. Before, her eyes had seemed to light up when she looked at him. He hadn’t even noticed that light, not until it was gone.
I want it back.
He yanked a chair close to her. Made sure that his shoulder rubbed against hers. Cale’s narrowed stare said he noted the move. His clenched jaw said it infuriated him.
“I missed you,” Veronica told her brother, voice soft.