Cold Case

by Susan Sleeman

  Her head shot up. She eyed him and took a sudden step back as if planning to flee. “Who are you anyway?”

  Coop held up his hands. “No need to worry about me. I’m not some perv waiting to attack. Name’s Cooper Ashcroft, but everyone calls me Coop. I’m on assignment for Blackwell Tactical. Saw the vehicle headed for you and reacted.”

  The moon broke through the clouds. He could see her face clearly now, and a lovely face it was. Big eyes, deep brown like the stock on his favorite hunting rifle. Petite nose. High cheeks. She also had wavy russet-brown hair falling a few inches below her shoulders and stood a head shorter than Coop.

  “Thank you for the rescue.” She held his gaze. “Seems like it might not have been necessary since he ended up veering off.”

  Coop didn’t think it was quite that simple. “I tried to take the brunt of the fall, but did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head and looked a bit dazed. Not unusual. Someone almost ran her over and a strange male had tackled her. He waited for her to offer her name, but she didn’t. Not a problem. Coop had known who she was the moment she’d stepped onto the property. One Kiera Underwood, sister to the missing chemist his team had been hired to find, and a chemist herself. Perhaps one who was involved in the theft of a deadly biotoxin that her brother was believed to have stolen.

  “What kind of assignment are you here on?” she finally asked, that wary bent lingering in her tone.

  “Sorry. Can’t divulge that information.” He offered his best charming smile that had always been effective with the opposite sex, but she frowned. “So who would want to run you down?”

  She shot a look down the road. “You think that was on purpose?”

  “If not, the driver likely would have hung around to make sure you were okay, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe, or maybe he has a hit-and-run kind of personality. You know, not someone who would take responsibility for his actions.” She bit down on her full lower lip, her eyes now darkening with fear.

  “Something else you’re afraid of, Ma’am? Other than that ATV.”

  She eyed him for a long moment. “My brother. Kevin. I got a call…a horrible call saying something was wrong with him. I searched for him all day. He’s missing.”

  “You received a phone call about your brother?” He made sure to keep his tone casual when he wanted to give her the third degree about the missing chemist.

  She watched him again. He’d have no problem getting lost in those eyes for a year or two, but she could be involved in the theft and made her the last woman on earth that he should connect with.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Do you know my brother?”

  Coop shook his head. He’d never met the guy, but Coop could spout the background data retrieved by his team the second they’d signed the contract with Oceanic.

  Name: Kevin Wilson Underwood II. Middle name came from his father. Kevin was thirty years old. Five-nine, thin with cropped brown hair. Clean shaven and brown eyes. His parents wealthy. Old money from a logging empire and they sat on boards for philanthropic causes. The kind of family Coop couldn’t understand. Not when he came from a lower income area of Portland. They weren’t just on the other side of the tracks, they were in a whole other world.

  Still, it wasn’t like her parents got everything they wanted. An older couple, they had to turn to in vitro fertilization. Conceived fraternal twins, Kiera and Kevin. They were born and resided in Portland until they got their PhDs in chemistry from the University of California in Berkley. Kevin moved to Cold Harbor after graduating. Kiera lived in Portland and worked for a pharmaceutical lab.

  Her eyebrow arched. “If you don’t know Kevin, why are you interested in the call I received?”

  “You sounded upset. I believe I can help.” He wasn’t lying. She did seem upset, and he was quite able to help her find her brother.

  She frowned. “You’re a stranger. How on earth can you help?”

  “My team finds missing people. One of the many services we offer.”

  “Then I want to hire you,” she said decisively.

  Right. Like she could hire him. Not when the team had already contracted with the lab to find her brother and recover the toxin, but he wouldn’t share this information. That would shut things down right off the bat when he needed to keep the lines of communication open with her. Figure out if she was involved. Like faking this hunt for her brother to throw people off his trail.

  Coop forced a smile to his lips. “The best thing is for you to come out to Blackwell Tactical where we can discuss the options.”

  Her wary watch turned downright skeptical.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not making this up to lure you into some out-of-the-way place and have my way with you.” He took out his phone and opened the Internet. “Go ahead and look us up. You’ll see we’re legit.”

  She tapped on the screen and focused intently, occasionally scrolling down the page to read. “You were being modest. You have quite the operation, including training law enforcement.” She handed the phone back to him. “And you’re all former military special operations or law enforcement.”

  “Army Ranger,” he replied, as he was proud of his service.

  “I guess if anyone can find Kevin, it would be a group of people like you.”

  “Let me make a quick phone call, and then I’ll lead the way to the compound.”

  She nodded and shivered.

  “Why don’t you wait in your car where it’s warmer,” he suggested.

  “Good idea.” She hurried across the road to a small white Honda, and he had to admit enjoying watching the sway of her hips.

  Duty, Coop. Duty. Keep your mind on that.

  He dialed Gage Blackwell, owner of Blackwell Technical. “I need someone to relieve me.”

  “Can’t handle standing a little surveillance duty at your old age?” Gage joked, as Coop was only thirty-one.

  “I can handle it just fine. But isn’t it more important to bring Kevin Underwood’s twin to meet with you so she can hire us?”

  “Hire us?” Gage’s voice shot up. “Are you crazy? She can’t hire us.”

  “I know that, but she doesn’t. Not yet.” Coop explained the situation.

  “Alex and Riley are still training. Eryn’s running computer support for them. I’ll get Jackson out there on the double.”

  “Understood.” Coop disconnected his phone and started for Kiera’s car. After the call with Gage, Coop couldn’t help but think about his fellow teammates.

  A year ago, he’d joined three other men and one woman on Gage’s team. All of them had suffered serious on-the-job injuries that prohibited them from continuing in their chosen professions. They’d also experienced a sense of hopelessness over the loss of the work they loved, and in a sense, their identity. Then Gage gave them their lives back by allowing them to join a team where they could not only use their skills, but their skills were esteemed.

  Coop would do anything for his teammates, including taking a bullet for them and especially so for Gage. That meant doing what was best for their current assignment and bringing Kiera to the compound to question her.

  He crossed the road, watching for other wayward vehicles. Not that he thought there would be another attempt on her life tonight. If the speeding ATV even was an attempt to kill her.

  When he approached her car, she lowered her window. “Everything okay?”

  “We’re good to go once my associate arrives.”

  “Thank you,” she said sincerity flowing through her words. “I’m so glad you were here.”

  A quick smile flashed across her face, and his heart tripped. Oh, man. Even white teeth revealed at the parting of her lips. High apple cheeks going higher. Sparkling eyes with only a hint of worry at the moment. Yeah, she was a beauty all right.

  “My brother is everything to me,” she added, her vehemence taking Coop aback. “I’d be lost without him.”

  Great. Now he felt like a real heel. Here he was suspecting her
of colluding with her brother, and she seemed genuinely upset by his absence. Coop would love to give her the benefit of the doubt, believe she really didn’t know where Kevin had disappeared to, but he couldn’t. Not with a missing toxin, that—if weaponized—could kill millions.

  No matter how much the despair in those tantalizing eyes made him want to offer comfort, he had to stick to doing his job at all costs. If that meant grilling her to learn if she was involved, so be it. Lives were depending on him.

  BUY COLD TRUTH!

  Missed Book Three in the Cold Harbor Series? Get Jackson and Maggie’s story in COLD FURY!

  BUY COLD FURY!

  Keep reading on the next page for a sneak peek of COLD FURY …

  Six years ago tragedy tore them apart…

  Maggie Turner happily works as an assistant professor in the Criminal Justice Department and lives a quiet life near campus. That is until Jackson Lockhart bursts into her life unexpectedly. Then a cyclone of emotions erupt as she remembers the tragedy that once tore them apart. She'd often thought of him, but they'd agreed never to see each other again, and so far, they'd kept their promise. But today…Jackson has a good reason for breaking his promise. Maggie's life depends on it.

  Will it now bring them back together?

  In an ongoing investigation, Jackson has learned that university officials secretly photographed her classroom in a study on attendance. The recorder was supposed to run only during the class session, but it malfunctioned and recorded an entire week, which includes a shocking murder that has now put Maggie’s life in danger. Can Jackson unravel the lies surrounding this incident before the killer unleashes his fury on Maggie and takes her life?

  Chapter One

  “A killer’s on the loose, and Maggie will be dead by then!” Jackson Lockhart didn’t bother hiding his irritation as he looked up from the video to find his Blackwell Tactical teammates watching him instead of the footage.

  The recording of the college lecture hall continued to run in the background, but Jackson had played it like a hundred times, and he was more interested in his team’s take on the video. Or maybe their take on his outburst. That was more likely the reason for the skeptical looks.

  “We have to think about our client’s best interest here.” Company owner Gage Blackwell planted his hands on the long conference room table. “No matter what you uncovered in this video, Martin hired us to find his son’s killer, not to protect Maggie Turner.”

  “So, what you’re saying is we leave Maggie to fend off this killer by herself?” Jackson’s heart beat hard at the thought of the woman he once loved in danger. “How can you even think that when the video clearly shows her bumping into the killer? Now that this video is public, he has to know she can ID him. He’ll want to take her out before she can. And you want to let her work that out on her own?”

  Jackson took a breath and met his boss’s gaze. “Unbelievable, Gage. Just unbelievable.”

  Gage came to his feet and stretched to his full height. Six two like Jackson, his boss glowered at him. As a former Navy SEAL, his intensity was always over the top, and the guy was downright intimidating, but Jackson wouldn’t back down. Couldn’t back down when it came to keeping Maggie safe.

  “If you’d just listen,” Gage said, his tone low and intense. “You’d know I didn’t say that. I’d no more leave this woman to die than I would my own wife. All I’m saying is it’s going to be tricky to find Scott’s killer and protect Maggie at the same time. There’s bound to be a conflict in your priorities.”

  Jackson sighed out his relief. Priorities. Right. That was Scott Dawson until an hour ago. He was strangled on his college campus in the last month, and his father Martin hired Blackwell Tactical to find the killer. The murder occurred in a lecture hall where Maggie taught anthropology. And now, the video showing she bumped into the killer on her way out of that classroom had become public. The camera didn’t catch the killer’s face, but Maggie looked him in the eye, and he could be gunning for her.

  Jackson couldn’t—wouldn’t—leave her unprotected. Sure, they’d broken up six years ago under difficult circumstances. So what? He would always care for her, and she had to be his priority right now. Trouble was, his team was also counting on him to take charge on the job they were hired to do.

  He would balance both aspects. He had no choice.

  He drew back his shoulders, making sure he conveyed confidence. “You can count on me to do what Martin needs and protect Maggie at the same time. Won’t be the first time I’ve walked a tightrope on one of our investigations. I’ll manage just fine.”

  “But it will be the first time you’ve done it when you’re emotionally connected to one of the players.” Cooper Ashcroft’s dark brown, almost black eyes locked on Jackson, giving him a moment’s pause. “And trust me. Gage and I both know how hard that’s gonna be for you.”

  The pair shared a knowing look. Both men recently headed up investigations involving a woman in danger. Everything turned out just fine. Gage had since married Hannah, and Coop was engaged to Kiera.

  Not that their situations related to Jackson’s circumstances at all. This was different. Totally different. He and Maggie might’ve once been in love, but there was no way he’d wind up engaged or married to her. Even interested in her again. Not with the tragedy they’d suffered together. No way.

  Like he said. He could handle it. “So, I have the green light to offer protection services to Maggie?”

  “You’re good to go.” Gage ran a hand over dark hair, not as deep as Jackson’s coloring, and Jackson preferred a shorter military cut. “But don’t let your personal connection take over and make me sorry I’m not sending one of your teammates instead.”

  “Anyone have a problem with this plan?” Jackson surveyed the team, starting with Eryn Calloway who shook her head sending her jet-black ponytail swinging.

  The only woman on the team, she was once a cyber security professional and agent with the FBI. She might only be five seven or so, but she was as fierce as the men. Still, it was obvious she was touched by his desire to warn Maggie.

  He moved his focus one seat over to Riley Glenn.

  “I’m good.” He leaned back and placed his hands behind his head. His surfer blond hair and reddish beard gave him a more laid-back look than you’d expect from a former sniper for the Portland Police Bureau, but Jackson had worked alongside Riley long enough that it wasn’t hard to imagine him perched behind a sniper rifle, target locked in.

  “You wouldn’t be my first choice, but let’s see how it plays out,” Alex Hamilton weighed in. As a former Recon Marine, he likely thought he could do a better job scouting out the situation at the college.

  Shoot, everyone on the team probably thought the same thing. They all frequently believed they were the best person for the job. Jackson honestly didn’t know how Gage kept their egos in check, but he did.

  “Just don’t screw it up,” Coop added.

  Jackson rolled his eyes but didn’t respond.

  “We’re a go, then,” Gage said. “Report in on a regular basis, and whatever you do, be mindful of Martin Dawson in every action.”

  Jackson nodded, his thoughts already going to the logistics of getting from Cold Harbor to Maggie’s place in Ashland in the shortest possible time. “I’ll need the helo. Who’s gonna take me?”

  He waited for Gage to veto the resource due to fuel cost, but Gage didn’t say a word. He would do everything necessary to protect the innocent, and Jackson was just being touchy because this involved Maggie. He shouldn’t have even questioned Gage’s motivations.

  Jackson glanced from Coop to Riley, both pilots, but Riley only recently received his license.

  “I’m always glad for more air time.” Riley lowered his arms and snapped his chair forward. “Plus, I have a buddy from the police force in Medford whose dad owns a nearby logging company. I’m sure he’ll let us put down at their helipad and lend us a vehicle to make the short drive to Ashland."
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br />   “Then let’s get after it.” Jackson headed for the door and assumed Riley would follow.

  Outside, he paused to wait for Riley to join him in the unusually steamy evening for the end of June. The ocean breeze whisked inland from the Pacific, cooling everything in its path, thankfully keeping the temps bearable today.

  Riley lifted his hand to a gust of wind. “Gonna be a bumpy ride.”

  Jackson nodded, but he didn’t care. He would take a helo up in a tornado if it got him to Maggie before the killer figured out she knew about him and came looking for her.

  Jackson strode to the utility vehicle and climbed behind the wheel, his knee aching in protest as he folded his leg to settle inside. He’d taken a bullet to his right leg in his last skirmish as a Green Beret and was given the choice of riding a desk or leaving the army. Yeah, right, like he was desk-rider material. No way. He wouldn’t choose desk duty any more than the rest of his teammates would. They’d all suffered on-the-job injuries. Some in the service. Some in law enforcement. All losing their chosen professions as a result. The loss united them all in a way nothing else could.

  Jackson got the vehicle headed down a winding road lined with soaring pine trees, thankfulness for Gage’s rescue from that desk job always at the top of his mind. After a serious injury to his arm, Gage was forced to leave the SEALs and had the brilliant idea to start Blackwell Tactical. The team was devoted to training law enforcement officers, investigating any manner of situations, and providing private protection services for people in distress.

  Near the compound’s property line, Riley pressed a remote mounted on the visor to turn on in-ground lights circling the concrete helipad. The helo sat in the middle of the pad, a boot on each rotor tip strapping the helo down to an aluminum securing point sunk into the concrete.

  Jackson shoved the gearshift into park and left the keys so one of his teammates could retrieve the vehicle while he was gone. He was jonesing to get into the air and get to Maggie before the killer did, but a preflight check was necessary to be sure they were safe. Wouldn’t help Maggie in the least if they crashed along the way.