by Mary Alford
His cell phone chirped to life from where it rested on the nightstand next to his bed.
“I think we have a big problem.” His partner Travis didn’t joke around when it came to work. Especially at this time of the morning.
Jase knew something was up. He clicked on the light and sat on the bed. “What do you mean?” He hoped no one had found out about his screw up with Hannah Sandoval. The woman had gotten under his skin. Everything about her reaction to him, her answers to his questions seemed to prove that she indeed had retained some of Kate’s memories. But there was something else about her that bugged him. He found himself attracted to her, and that bothered the daylights out of him. Maybe it was simply the circumstances, or everything she’d been through. She’d faced life and death on a different scale.
Or maybe it was as simple as who she was. A civilian. A schoolteacher. She had nothing to do with the life. She represented normal, and he desperately needed normal in his own life. Since Kate’s death, he’d craved nothing more. If he were being honest, it started way before Kate went out into the desert that night. It was the reason he’d bought the ranch in New Zealand.
“I picked up something disturbing earlier while monitoring some of the terrorist chatter.”
Jase reached for the pack of cigarettes on the nearby table, regretting the broken promise he’d made to Kate about giving up the habit.
“Go on.”
“Something’s going on. Someone found out about what the Sandoval woman said while she was in a coma. About the night Kate died. There’s worried talk she might have some insight into Kate’s last mission.”
“How’d that happen? The hospital is supposed to have some of the best security in the nation. Are you sure they mentioned her name specifically?”
“I don’t know how it happened, but yes, they mentioned her name. It won’t be long before they have her location as well. There’s a bounty on her head and someone will want to make a name for themselves by taking her out. I’d say we have a major security breech somewhere. And Hannah Sandoval’s time is running out.”
This was the last thing they needed.
“There’s something else,” Travis said after a short pause.
Jase closed his eyes. He’d guessed Travis had more to say. “Yeah, I figured.”
“I did some checking on our schoolteacher.”
Jase sat up straighter. God he hoped Travis had uncovered something to explain Hannah Sandoval away.
“Please tell me you found something substantial.”
“I’m not sure. At first blush, she appeared clean, but no one’s that clean. So, I dug a little deeper and found out our Ms. Sandoval was in Kabul the summer after she graduated from high school.”
“What was she doing in Afghanistan?”
“It appears to be part of a normal post high school trip abroad. Sandoval and a couple of her friends went together. They did the usual hot spots in Europe then did a side trip to Israel and Egypt, but listen to this—”
“Don’t tell me, Sandoval was the only one who went to Afghanistan.”
“Yep. I spoke to the friends. They claim they were too frightened to go there, but not Sandoval. Apparently, she told them she’d always wanted to go to Kabul. They said she was there less than a day.”
What interest did a schoolteacher have in a war zone? “What’d she do while she was there?” Jase asked.
“Still checking on that one. I have her record of entry. I know when she left the country as well. All in all, she’s unaccounted for during about five hours.”
Jase took a long draw of the cigarette and felt the nicotine begin to work its magic. “Plenty of time to schedule a meet with an operative. We need to know what happened during that time. I’m on my way in. Have you spoken to Aaron yet?”
“Yes…”
There was more, Jase could feel it. “What did he say?” He closed his eyes. This was bad in so many ways.
“He sounded desperate. Looks like you’re going on babysitting duty.”
Before Jase could ask what Travis meant, the call waiting signal beeped in. “Hang on, Travis.”
Jase checked the caller ID. Aaron. “I’m on the other line with Travis. I heard.”
“Good. I need you over at the Sandoval woman’s place now. Take her someplace safe until we can fully access the threat.”
Jase understood the need to protect the woman until they could decipher her part in Kate’s death, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be the one to protect her. “I’m not the right person for this job. Besides, you ordered me to stay away from her.”
“That was before,” Aaron said in a terse voice. “I need you on this now, Jase. I think you may be the only one who can find out what she’s got hidden away in her head. She obviously thinks you and her have some connection because of Kate—”
“There is no connection.”
“There is, even if it’s only in her head. Look, Jase, we need answers and we need them fast. This woman thinks she has some insight into Kate’s life and death. Use it. Do whatever it takes to force her to talk. Find out what she knows.”
After their last encounter, Jase doubted his ability to get anything out of Hannah, much less anything useful. He didn’t want to do this.
“All right, I’m on my way.”
“I have a team watching her place. She’s safe … for now. That won’t last.”
Jase ended the call and then remembered he’d left Travis holding.
“Sorry, that was Aaron. I’m on my way to Sandoval’s place to take her to a safe house. You’ll call if you have anything?” He started to disconnect the call when he remembered something he’d wanted to ask. “Wait, any news on Kate’s operative yet?”
Kate’s contact, an operative known only as The Foreigner, had been missing since the night of Kate’s death.
“Nothing. It’s as if he’s disappeared into thin air. I don’t like it.”
“No, me either.” Jase hesitated. “What’d you think of Sandoval?” he asked because he desperately needed Travis’ insight.
“To tell you the truth, she freaked me out,” Travis said in a hushed tone.
“In what way?” Jase asked while his gut coiled into a knot.
A handful of tense-filled seconds passed and then Travis said, “She knew I wasn’t you, man. Right from the start. You know I realize she isn’t Kate, but when I looked into her eyes I almost swear I saw her there. It was creepy to say the least.”
Jase shook his head. Travis was still spooked by what happened to Kate. It was the only explanation. He couldn’t go there. Hannah Sandoval had nothing to do with his Kate. “I’d better go,” he said quietly. “Call when you know something.”
Chapter Five
Jase checked in with the agents watching the apartment first.
He leaned into the driver’s window. “Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Nope,” Martin Albie, the senior agent responded. “No movement inside the place in hours.”
Jase didn’t bother to tell him there’d been plenty they had missed. Instead, he nodded. “Good. I’ll take it from here.” Jase straightened and prepared to leave when Albie stopped him.
“Sorry, McCoy, but our orders are to stand pat until you have the woman and are in route.”
Jase tossed the senior agent a mock salute. “No problem. I’ll be right back.”
He climbed the steps to her apartment without a clue as to what he planned to say to her. He’d left her without so much as a goodbye and under the worst possible circumstances. He doubted she’d be happy to see him again.
She’d left the curtains open, revealing the entire living room. An amateur mistake. One Kate would never make.
She’s not Kate.
Jase didn’t see any sign of her. The lights were on. He knocked and when she didn’t answer he knocked louder.
Still no response.
He tried the door. It was unlocked. Jase charged inside. “Hannah! Hannah, its Jase. We need to t
alk.”
Still no answer. He raced through the tiny apartment and searched every room. She wasn’t there. Was he too late? Had they not reacted to the threat soon enough?
He went back into the living room and looked around. There was no sign of her purse or her apartment keys. His gut told him she’d gone on her own accord. Her iPad was on the sofa. He brought up her last few Internet searches. She’d been searching for information about him and Kate, but it was her last inquiry that might have been the one that brought her to the attention of the chatter sites. She’d been looking into the CIA’s involvement in Kate’s death.
“Dammit.” If he didn’t find her soon, she wouldn’t survive out there on her on for long.
He went back down to the agents waiting. “She’s gone. You sure you didn’t see anything?”
“No. There’s been no one near the place.” The no name rookie answered this time.
“She left on her own accord,” Jase assured him.
“This is bad. What do we do now?” Albie appeared genuinely worried.
Jase’s thoughts went into overtime. He had no idea where Hannah Sandoval might go at this late hour, but if she believed she was Kate then…“Nothing. I think I know where to find her. Stay here in case she returns. I’ll call you when I have her.”
* * * *
Instinct told her someone new had entered the coffee shop. When a single set of footsteps stopped next to her table, she glanced up. Jase. She didn’t know how to face him again after the all the new dreams. The memories of him. Her hands shook.
“Thought I’d find you here.” He sounded partly amused, somewhat disbelieving still.
“How did you know where I’d be?” she asked without looking at him.
“I was following a hunch. Kate and I used to come here after we’d argued.”
Her gaze flew to his. She caught her breath. She wasn’t dreaming, yet she remembered … something.
They’d argued about the usual. Jase didn’t like her taking some of the risks required to complete a mission. He didn’t like her in the field for that matter. He’d be happy if she’d stay home and worked behind a desk, pushing papers. Jase could be a real chauvinist at times. As usual, after they fought, she came here to cool off. Jase found her sitting there drinking the same drink as now.
They’d ended their argument the good way.
Color crept up her face at the memory. “What do you want?”
He sighed audibly, then scraped back a chair and sat down across from her, facing the door. The action sparked a memory of something he used to say. “Never have your back to the door. Give yourself a fighting chance.” She shoved that aside.
He pointed to her cup. “Probably not exactly the wisest idea considering.”
His comment annoyed her. She of all people knew the foolishness of her behavior tonight, yet she was desperately trying to understand what was happening to her. She was petrified by the frightening dreams of Kate’s last hours and overwhelmed by the memories of Jase.
When she didn’t answer, he took the cup from her hand and downed the remaining coffee. At any other time, she’d have thought Jase McCoy made for the perfect hero in any of those spy novels she loved to read.
“We need to leave here. Now, Hannah.”
He looked good. Too good. He wore his grief well. The details of those very vivid dreams of him and Kate took her to places she didn’t want to go with him sitting in front of her.
The past few weeks, the illness hadn’t dulled her ability to feel things. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Something shifted in his eyes. Speculation replaced the distance in which he’d been treating her. He was reading her thoughts. She looked away. Jase was right. She’d had way too much coffee. Her nerves were jittery. She wanted things best left alone.
Still, the cocky way he spoke made it seem more like an order than a request. It also made her want to do the opposite of what he asked.
“And why is that?” she challenged. “Why do we need to go anywhere together? I thought you’d said all you wanted to say to me. Put me in my place and all.” Hannah held up the now empty cup and motioned to the barista who’d begun watching their exchange with a mild amount of interest.
“It’s not my choice, believe me. Information concerning you and your ʻdreams’ have gotten out. Your location has been compromised. Your life might be in danger, so, I repeat, we need to go. Now.”
The barista stopped next to the table with coffee pot in hand. He glanced at Jase and then her, uncertain what to do.
Jase got to his feet. “Thanks for your trouble. But we’re done here.”
The barista stared at Hannah and then Jase before turning on his heel and leaving.
Jase grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet, pulling her close. “Don’t make a scene. You won’t like the outcome. Let’s go.”
Suddenly, she was too tired to fight anymore. She yanked her arm free. “All right. I’m coming.”
She walked ahead of him out the door and watched as Jase took a second look around the bar before leaving. The gesture sparked another vague memory. Had Kate seen him do it in the past? No doubt, it came with the territory.
He’d parked his truck across the street. He unlocked the door and waited while she slipped into the passenger’s side, all the while his gaze panned around the parameter. A chill ran up her spine. This was serious.
Jase slid behind the wheel and started the truck with only a brief glance her way. He drove through the familiar streets of D.C. without a word until they reached her neighborhood.
A little ways down from her apartment, Jase stopped the truck behind a sedan. Her watchdogs.
“Wait here. I need to check in with them first. Make sure it’s safe and then we’ll pick up some of your things and get out of here.”
Hannah didn’t answer. Her attention was on the men in the sedan. Something about the way they hadn’t moved when Jase pulled up behind them and flashed his lights didn’t sit well.
He’d seen it too. He drew his weapon and slipped out of the truck. For a second he didn’t move. He was doing what she was. Taking in their surroundings, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
He advanced toward the vehicle with caution. The driver’s window had been rolled down. Jase leaned in and examined the driver and then the passenger. Even before he ran back to the truck, jumped inside, threw the vehicle in drive, and floored it, she knew. The two men were dead.
Hannah braced her hand against the door to keep from bouncing around the truck. “Stop! We have to go back. We have to check on Beverly and Andrew. They could be hurt or…” She couldn’t say the word “dead.”
Jase didn’t answer. He drove at breakneck speed through the empty streets until they headed out of the city. Then he grabbed his cell phone and spoke to someone. “I have her. She’s safe. Albie and his partner are dead. Yes…dead. They were shot at close range. They never stood a chance. Send someone to the sister’s house right away.” Jase spared her a look. “Let me know what you find.”
She couldn’t think about what might have happened to Beverly and Andy. Father, please let them be okay.
“Those two men … who did this to them?”
He glanced her way. “Who do you think?”
The people responsible for Kate’s death. The same people who wanted her dead. They’d come after her to accomplish that.
She couldn’t stop shaking. If she’d been home, she might be dead herself. Or worse, tortured within in an inch of her life for whatever information Kate had taken to her grave. Whoever was doing this didn’t know that she hadn’t been able to remember the killer’s face yet.
Hannah didn’t know it that was a good thing or not?
Jase’s phone rang and he answered it without speaking. He listened for a second then said, “Good. I’ll tell her. Thanks.”
“Your sister and husband are fine. We’ll have people with them twenty-four-seven until this is over. They’ll be safe.”
As grateful as she was to hear Bev and Andy were safe, Jase’s answer did little to calm her fears. Someone believed what she knew about Kate’s death might be damming enough for them to kill two people to find her. Until the Agency knew who, would anyone close to her ever be safe?
“Do you believe me now?” she asked and her voice actually shook with fear.
Jase looked her in square in the eye. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not convinced you know anything at all, but the people responsible for killing those two men back there think you know enough to put them away for a very long time. They’re willing to do whatever it takes to silence you. They won’t stop until your dead, and they’ll take out anyone standing in their way. For your sake, I hope you do know something because this isn’t just some game anymore. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been, and I’m not so sure I can keep you alive.”
Hannah shuddered at those ominous words. She leaned back in the seat and stared out the side window as the lights of the Capital disappeared and the rolling hills of Virginia took their place. The reality of what he’d said washed over her. Jase was the best of the best. If he was worried about their chances of surviving then she was terrified at the possibility of what might lay ahead. Yet she wondered what danger she could possibly face that was worse than what she’d gone through thus far.
Chapter Six
Outside the kitchen window, a foot of fresh snow glistened in the morning sunlight, untouched by the world. It reminded her of her grandmother’s farm when she was a little girl. She’d loved playing in the snow.
She stroked the locket her grandmother had given her a few years before she passed away, then turned to him and smiled.
“Babe, I love this place.” She loved him. “And I love this cabin,” she said instead because she couldn’t work up the nerve to tell him what was in her heart.