They all liked Jana. She was warm and smart. She did some work with them and supported them all by opening her home and never complaining. But those last few weeks before she left had been rough. She’d turned quiet, as if her spirit was broken.
Now Connor kept up the pretense but they’d all come to the conclusion Connor and Jana had separated. Maybe Connor hadn’t come to grips with it, but it seemed real. And the lack of communication from her couldn’t be a good sign.
As if sensing the tension in the room, Jocelyn switched topics. “Oh, just so you know, I pretty much hate the protect-the-girlies argument.”
Connor nodded. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
With the fight over, she slumped back in her chair. “Okay, I’ll agree to most, but I go to work tomorrow to straighten out shifts and get coverage and do a last check on my patients.”
Ben wasn’t agreeing to that one. “No.”
She didn’t concede. “This is not a negotiation.”
She was tight-lipped, her eyes flashing with fire. More than likely he’d spend every hour battling her on this one. It was a bad idea and he’d drive her insane, but if that was what it took to get her to turn in the paperwork, fine. “Then I go with you.”
The color rushed out of her face. “You know that can’t happen.”
Now, that was insulting. “Take it or leave it.”
“Where exactly do you plan to stand during surgery?” Pax asked.
Ben had forgotten they were all there, listening. Breathing so quietly they blended into the background. No one dropped a mug. None of the chairs squeaked. Complete silence was quite the feat for this noisy group.
He’d bang their heads together later. Right now he needed to make a point, even if he said it through gritted teeth and the words stung. “You’re reassessing our dating life, fine. Well, not fine but not a topic for this meeting.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Ben—”
“But no matter what, you get a bodyguard. You don’t move without me being right there.” And he would figure out how to spin that into more dates and, eventually, into an invitation to her bed.
She blinked what looked like fifty times. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s what we do. I’m good at my job and I’m the only option you get.” He said it like an order and hoped she wouldn’t come firing back at him.
After all, it was not as if he’d tie her to the chair. She could leave. He just needed her to think she shouldn’t. Because, really, she shouldn’t. Not with the danger lurking out there.
“It’s settled.” Connor reached for a muffin. “See how easy that was?”
Chapter Six
Gary walked across the small park to the slim strip of land between the overhang of trees. The path led to the bike trail and a bench. He ignored the sun burning into his back through his dress shirt and fought the urge to loosen his tie. It was like standing in front of a hair dryer on full blast. Branches swayed and leaves rustled in the warm breeze but everything grew sticky. And Gary hated being uncomfortable.
This qualified as a ridiculous meeting place, out in the open in the middle of the afternoon. But Kent Beane had insisted, and the nervous bobble in his voice and the fact that he used the phone, which he’d been explicitly instructed never to do, had Gary reluctantly agreeing.
He sat at the opposite end of the bench and folded his hands on his lap. “You run a bank. You should be there.”
“I got your message this morning.”
Ah, yes. The order to turn over Jocelyn Raine’s bank statements and any other information at Kent’s disposal for use in tracking down this mysterious boyfriend. Gary had to admit the note he had left on Kent’s desk had been...heated, what with the threats and a lengthy description of the knife work he wanted to try.
Not that Gary regretted it. They had an annoying loose end and he wanted it tied off. “About that. I would remind you time is running out.”
“We’re on schedule.”
“Yet you continue to fumble around. Makes me wonder if you really love your wife.” The woman tied up and lying in a box in a warehouse a few exits down the highway. Once Gary had her, Kent had been more than willing to unlock his bank’s door, open his records and share resources.
With a sharp intake of breath, Kent swiveled around to face Gary. Fear radiated off him. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt her.”
“I never said that.” Gary could almost smell the desperation pouring off the man.
Gary looked into the trees in the distance and focused on the job ahead. On his revenge.
They had killed his brother by failing to notify him in time and now Gary would burn it all down.
“I’ve done everything you asked.” Kent was pleading now.
The mix of panic and begging made Gary ready to end the meeting. “Except control your employees.”
“Where is Pamela?”
Dead. “You don’t really want to know.”
The teller had had the misfortune to be in the wrong place and overhear too much. She should have been home that night a week ago since the bank had long since closed. But she’d gotten locked in when she hung back to check some financial records, fishing for transactions about her friend’s cheating husband.
A privacy violation and reason to be fired for sure, but that didn’t bother Gary. Maybe it was even a decent thing for her to do, but her nosiness had proved to be her undoing when she’d been found listening at the door to his private after-hours conversation with Kent.
It was a good thing he had thought to check the bank’s security cameras. Gary hooked into Kent’s system because that was part of the deal. He checked older video files because he worried Kent might get heroic and call in law enforcement. Then Gary had seen Pamela sneaking around and overhearing things that were not her business.
He’d kept scrolling and stopped at the next morning. Not knowing what she’d done, he walked into the bank during regular office hours and went to her station. Shock rolled over her face. Panic. Then he knew she recognized his voice from the meeting the night before.
That would have been bad enough to require her to be killed, but she had compounded the problem by handing a note to Jocelyn Raine. The person behind him in line. Now both women would die.
But first Gary needed to know what the note said and how much this Jocelyn woman knew about what was really happening in the building next to the bank.
“It’s possible Pamela never tipped off the Raine woman.” Kent had made that argument many times.
Gary ignored every one. He would not take the risk after setting up the operation and being so close to pulling it off. “I saw the security tape. She handed something to Jocelyn Raine. Your Pamela saw me and panicked, which was smart on her part.”
“It could have been a receipt.”
“Then there’s the problem where Ms. Raine didn’t exist until recently.” Between the annoying detail of her lack of a history before a year ago and her ability to evade trained mercenaries, Gary needed her caught. “Put those facts together and my partner is concerned. I am concerned. That means you, Kent, need to be concerned.”
“If she was going to call the police, they’d be here.”
“Or they’d be waiting to catch us doing something illegal.” Catch them transferring the money and releasing the data.
“But—”
“So far, we’ve done nothing.” Gary remembered the dead bodies starting to litter the ground. “Well, almost nothing.”
“You killed Pamela.”
Gary once again glanced around to make sure they were alone in the secluded area running between the noisy park and the baseball field. “You should be more concerned about me killing Sharon.”
“Please, let my wife go.” Tears filled his eyes as Kent wrun
g his hands together. “I’m doing everything you want.”
“She is pretty.” Gary hadn’t bothered to notice if she was or not.
“Don’t touch her,” Kent said in an unusual burst of strength. He shifted around, crossing his legs then letting them fall down. He was a breathing bundle of nerves.
Which was why Gary had blocked cell-phone signals to the spot and carried a handy little device to pick up on listening devices. Kent was clean. An embarrassing wreck, but not taping this conversation. “You are not in a position to give orders.”
“I need a few more days.”
Not possible. “You have one. I’d work fast if I were you.”
“I’m getting everything in place.”
“That’s good because your Sharon is running out of time...and air.” Gary stood up and started walking, leaving the man sobbing behind him.
* * *
JOCELYN STOOD AT the nurses’ station, scribbling notes in a folder. This was the one cleanup day she’d been granted before the team put her in hiding...or whatever they were doing. She’d spent a year of her life not being free to do what she wanted when she wanted. She’d vowed never to go back to that place, yet here she was.
She felt a presence right behind her. The body heat. The scent she recognized and could call up in her memory without trouble.
She didn’t bother turning around because she knew who hovered. “Ben, you’re making people nervous.”
“You’re alive. That’s all that matters to me.”
This time she did peek over her shoulder. Nurses and doctors shuffled in and out of the confined space in the middle of the hallway. An older woman stood a few doors down, crying while someone who looked as if he could be her son held her.
The harsh lighting, the smells of antiseptic and floor cleaner, the constant squawk from the speakers—Jocelyn let it all fall over her. It was familiar and cleansing. She thrived on the energy and no longer broke apart at every lost soul. She’d hardened because she had to, but in private she mourned each death.
Ben scanned the floor, his gaze never stopping on one thing. Some of the nurses had the opposite problem and kept sneaking glances at him. When a male nurse dragged a cart down the hall past them, Ben crowded in closer.
She fought off a smile. “I can see we need to talk about personal space.”
“I’m not hanging back and pretending I don’t know you, so don’t ask.” He made eye contact, focusing the intensity he used to guard directly on her. “Most of these people have seen me before anyway.”
“Sitting in a chair next to a coma patient.”
Ben put a hand under her elbow and guided her to the small lounge area just down the hall. The room smelled musty and magazines spilled over every table. The television on the wall provided twenty-four-hour news coverage but no one was in there right now to watch it.
“Point is, I was on this floor on the assignment where we met. There are no surprises here,” he said.
“I wouldn’t say that.” She noticed he hadn’t let go. His touch was gentle and strangely reassuring. It also silently stated he wanted her right there.
The mix of commanding and charming continued to confuse her. Her stalker had possessed that. He could convince anyone, including his commanding officer, of his innocence while attacking her in private.
She assumed that was how it worked. The evil side was real and a guy like that could turn off the other side at will. But with Ben she hadn’t seen evil and she wondered if it lurked under there somewhere.
Some of the strain left his face as he continued to stare at her. “Look, I get that you’re scared.”
He didn’t even understand what had her emotions knocking around like Ping-Pong balls. “Which Ben is the real Ben?”
He frowned. “Excuse me?”
“The sweet-talker or the grumpy one who likes to issue orders?”
“Both.” He hadn’t even taken a second to think about it.
For some reason the answer eased some of her anxiety. “Well, at least that’s honest.”
He moved his hands to his trim hips. “Fill me in on what we’re talking about.”
She waited until the group of teenagers walking by in the hall and arguing about baseball scores moved on and then lowered her voice. “You change from one minute to the next.”
He shrugged. “It’s a job hazard.”
That was exactly her fear. “Is that really your answer?”
“Do you know anyone who’s happy all the time?”
“Are you kidding?” She threw her arms out wide and moved in a semicircle. “Do you see where you’re standing?”
“The last year pretty much sucked. I had this job...” He blew out a tortured breath. “Well, it doesn’t matter.”
“NCIS.” It was the one topic they’d always danced around. Through the getting-to-know-you talks and dinner, he had filled her in about work but only in general terms. More about older days in the navy and how he felt about service.
The light left his eyes. “I’m guessing you know the worst and have made up your mind about what happened and what I should have done.”
She treaded carefully. She knew this one stung. From everything she’d read, he had taken on a horrible situation like an expert, like everyone should want him to do—with dignity and honor—and then got clobbered for it. His father, some military bigwig, had given a ridiculous quote about how “these things” should be handled internally.
Seeing the pain etched on every line of Ben’s face made her ache for him. “Not to make things worse for you on this subject, but doesn’t everyone? But you saved people. Lara told me you saved her.”
“No, Davis and Pax did that. Pax has the bullet wound to prove it.”
“I remember Pax from the hospital.” Patients’ faces sometimes ran together, but his had triggered her memory as soon as he’d said who he was yesterday. He’d been guarded around the clock and demanded to be released almost from the minute his back hit the bed.
“That sort of thing changes you. You think you know the rules and the parameters are clear, then something shakes what you believe in.” Ben’s gaze went to the window for a second before coming back to her. “You come face-to-face with what you think is the end, with the destruction of all you’ve worked for, and you can’t walk away unscathed.”
He was finally talking, and when he stopped, she held her breath waiting for more. “You believed in your boss.”
“I believed in the system and in NCIS and lost all of it. People went to prison, but I went before an administrative board and got sanctioned for working without permission with the Corcoran Team to get the truth out. Had to listen to threats about betraying my country.”
An icy cold washed through her at his words and flat tone. “What?”
“After being so sure and being so wrong, my perspective is off.” His eyes closed for the briefest of moments before reopening with the dullness gone. “I worry I’ll mess up. Guilt eats at me and fear tears me up.”
Something in the way he held his body stiffly and his eyes drilled into her as if trying to will her to believe and accept had her resting a hand against his firm chest. “I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything.”
His hand covered hers. “Only an idiot doesn’t know fear. It’s how you work through it that matters.”
“You honestly believe that?”
“Yes.” Voices sounded in the hallway and he glanced over her shoulder to watch another group pass by.
The buzz of activity didn’t diminish. A constant stream of calls sounded over the intercom. Still, her entire focus stayed on the compelling man in front of her.
“I’ve been stationed overseas and served on ships. After putting my life on the line over and over, I walked into a room and wanted to put a bullet through
a man I once respected, a man who worked his way to the top of NCIS.” He gave her fingers a squeeze before dropping his hand. “So, yeah, I believe in a healthy dose of fear.”
The words made a difference. Him opening up, sharing and not holding back. His thoughts about danger and his honesty, even though she could see the storms inside him were ripping him apart.
She’d known fear. She had stood at her door and watched a policeman smash it down. She had listened when he told his superiors lies about how they’d been dating and had a small fight. He’d been a neighbor, then he became a nuisance when he wouldn’t leave her alone and started commenting on her dates and her clothes.
He had built this fantasy about the two of them and sold it to everyone, until she never felt safe. Then one time he had gone so far that even his loyal partner had broken his silence.
No, Ben was nothing like Ethan Reynolds. Nothing at all.
She inhaled deeply and took the plunge. “Want to buy me a cup of coffee?”
The darkness cleared from Ben’s face and that tempting grin slipped into place. “Now, there’s a change of topic.”
“Seems to me you’ve earned the right to move on from your past. A bunch of idiots on some board of review might have judged you one way. Everyone else sees you for the hero you are, or at least the ones that matter do. Me included.”
He smiled. “You know how sexy that is, right?”
The scruff, the bright smile, those shoulders. Yeah, no question she was going down for the count. “What?”
“Acceptance.”
Right answer.
To keep from jumping on him and trying another kiss right there, where people worried, prayed and mourned, she stepped back. “So, how about that coffee?”
He winked at her. “Sounds like a second date to me.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Chapter Seven
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