by Rachel Lee
One always cleared the battlefield of as many complications as possible, especially unpredictable ones. That’s why they had snipers and covert teams.
Clear the complications. That woman fit the description. She had to leave.
He could just make out her shadow in the back of the police car, not that it really mattered. Maybe he needed to find out something about her. She had to appear in McGregor’s past somewhere. She didn’t just materialize out of thin air.
Leaving the officials to their fruitless work, he made his way back across rocky terrain, hammered by the wind but turning occasionally to be certain his tracks vanished. They did.
So the law wouldn’t be able to consider the dud a serious threat. What bomber warned his victims first? None. So they’d probably conclude it was some kind of game someone was playing, true insofar as it went, and wouldn’t devote much in the way of resources to it.
But McGregor was apt to be more suspicious, not that it would save him. He might make the woman move on to protect her. Or she might bail after being so scared tonight.
He’d settle for either one. But just in case, he needed to be ready to deal with both of them, not that either was much of a threat.
He was patient, but his patience was starting to wear on him. The confrontation he’d wanted for so long was just beyond his reach.
But close, he reminded himself. Very close.
He’d figure it out. He was brilliant. Everyone had said so...until that last mission.
Chapter 11
The woodstove was roaring, its thermometer registering over five hundred degrees, flames leaping behind the window like a view on hell. The house was warming again, but slowly. At least the living room had gotten comfortable enough for everyone to doff their outer wear.
Lacy sat curled in a corner of the couch, a big mug of hot chocolate in her hands. Jess perched at the other end while the sheriff occupied the rocker.
The front door opened and two deputies came in bearing armloads of cut and split wood. “Where do you want it?” one asked.
Jess pointed to the wood box near the stove. “Anywhere over there. Thanks.”
“Get some more, guys,” Gage said absently.
Jess felt his face flush a little. He wasn’t an invalid; he could take care of himself. But he understood, too, the impulse to do something to help, however minor.
Almost as if Gage heard his thoughts, he looked up from the notes he was scanning and remarked, “I don’t want you going back outside tonight. I’m going to leave someone at the end of your drive, but there are a whole lot of other approaches to this place.”
Jess nodded shortly.
When the last load of wood had been piled inside, the front door closed, leaving just the three of them.
“Now we talk,” Gage said. “You heard what Seth and Micah said. This is an old special ops trick.”
“How so?” Lacy asked.
Jess looked at her. “Place the bomb so it’ll fall when the bomber is long gone, theoretically triggering it, I guess.”
“Oh.” She jerked as if slapped.
“Military background,” Gage continued. “Which means next to nothing about who the target is, but in my experience, anyone associated with a drug gang who might be coming after Lacy wouldn’t do something like this. It’s too soon to hear back from my DEA contacts on her case, but judging by my own outdated experience, none of them would have wasted time on this. Or on sending cute little notes.”
“Notes?” Lacy asked.
Gage held out the bag. Before Lacy could move, Jess rose and reached for it to show her.
“‘Your move’?” She read the words aloud, incredulously. “Like this is some kind of game?”
“Someone’s toying with one of you. I know that’s not especially comforting, but it’s inescapable.”
Jess nodded, taking the bag from Lacy to look at the note again. “Looks like white marker on black card stock.”
“Or a piece of poster board. We’ll check it for cut marks and everything else, but frankly, I don’t expect to find anything. Whoever did this has some training.”
* * *
Lacy didn’t miss the way Gage zeroed in on Jess as he spoke. So Gage believed Jess was the target, not she. For some reason, that didn’t comfort her at all.
Gage rocked a little, reaching for his own cup of hot chocolate and taking a few long sips. “We’re going to put our heads together, Jess, but a lot of this is going to depend on you. I hate to ask it.”
Jess’s face turned rigid. He gave the barest of nods. “I know.”
Lacy pivoted her entire body, understanding. Gage was asking Jess to pry into his past, to go places he probably tried to avoid going in his memory. Things he undoubtedly wished he could erase forever.
“And,” said Gage, after draining his mug, “I could take Lacy to stay with my family.”
“No!” The word burst from her. “Absolutely not. I’m not leaving Jess alone with this creep. And besides, you can’t be sure this guy isn’t after me. I’m not exposing anyone else.”
Gage smiled faintly. “Kinda reckoned,” he drawled. “Okay, then. I’ll keep you updated on what the team can figure out...which probably isn’t going to be much without some input.” Again a look at Jess. “I’ll let myself out.”
He paused and turned, giving Jess a card before he picked up the evidence bag. “That’s my personal number. Use it.”
Then, with a blast of icy air, he left the house.
Neither Jess nor Lacy spoke for a while. The only sound was the ticking of hot metal from the stove. After a bit, Jess rose and adjusted the damper. The flames softened into a glow from the logs. When he finally spoke, he was standing with his back to the stove.
“I’m surprised you didn’t get any frostbite.”
“My blood was probably pumping too hard.” She didn’t want to look at him, fearing some justifiable anger from him, but unable to look away. God, he looked exhausted. This night had been endless. She felt her energy seeping away, except for a nagging nervousness and fright. They wouldn’t quit.
“Lacy...why? Are you crazy? Suicidal? What?”
She resented the question, even though she knew he had every right to ask. She’d had plenty of time to contemplate her folly sitting in the car outside, and plenty of time to realize that she could have put Jess in a whole lot of danger, too. But an answer was beginning to form.
“I did it for the same reason you scooped me up and used your back to protect me.”
He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. When he spoke, his tone was even. “I took a calculated risk.”
“Bull,” she said. “It was about as calculated as what I did. No, I’m not suicidal. But I saw that thing and all I cared about was that it not hurt you.”
“Running to the back...”
“Didn’t occur to me. I didn’t know how much damage it could do, or when it would go off. I did the only thing I could. It’s irrelevant anyway. It was a dud.”
She felt his gaze stapled to her, but she looked down at the blanket that still lay across her lap. Frustrated, truly upset at last, she tossed it aside. “I guess adrenaline wears off sooner or later.”
“You’re feeling it?” he asked.
“You better believe it. I don’t get why anyone would do something like that. And what makes it worse, as far as I’m concerned, was if that bomb had been real and gone off, it would have created another horrific nightmare for you. I would have been past caring, but not you.”
He made a muffled sound. At last he took a couple of steps and settled in the rocking chair, as far from her as he could get in this small room. That hurt.
Thoughts were crawling around in her mind, none settling, nothing she could truly get a grip on. Probably an aftereffect.
Clarity had escaped her entirely, except for that one moment when she had thrown herself on that “bomb.” Then there had been clarity so clear and pure that it would linger forever in her mind.
“I’ve seen it,” Jess said heavily. “A guy in my unit. He did what you did. I don’t want to ever see that again. Ever.”
Her imagination tossed up enough images to make her stomach turn over. “I’m sorry.”
“You did it for Sara, didn’t you?”
At that she looked at him. “That’s what you think? Well, I guess so, if that’s what you want to believe. You sure picked me up and ran, saying I wasn’t going to die alone.”
The corners of his mouth drew down into a tight frown. “This is all about Sara?”
“No!” She’d had enough. “I loved Sara. You know that. But she’s gone, Jess. Dead. Who would I be saving you for? A ghost?”
“Then what, damn it? For what?”
“For you,” she said simply.
“I’m not worth that, Lacy.”
“Then who is?” she demanded. “Just who the hell is? You’ve been hurt enough. Quite enough.”
“And you haven’t? We both lost Sara.”
“So? She wasn’t my wife. She wasn’t my life and my future. No, I tossed that on the trash heap all by myself. God, I can just imagine her watching the two of us right now and wondering what the devil we’re fighting about.”
“You scared the hell out of me,” he said tautly. “That’s what we’re fighting about. You say I’ve been hurt enough? Then don’t add to it by risking yourself.”
“I’m just someone you know because of Sara.”
He rose from the rocker. “Is that what you think? Is that really what you think? That you’re just a piece left over from my past like an old photograph?”
“Aren’t I? You shut me out after you were wounded. I get it. But like you’ve said, we’re strangers but not strangers. Occasional phone calls didn’t make us more than that.”
“I invited you into my home. I didn’t do that because you were flotsam left over from Sara.”
“No? Then what am I?”
He clenched and unclenched his hands, his jaw working. “I’m sorry I cut you off for a while. But I cut everyone off.”
She knew that; he’d told her. She drew a long breath, trying to calm herself. She was acting a bit crazy, maybe because of what had happened this night, maybe because dawn was approaching and neither of them had slept. Or maybe it was something else. How would she know? She felt awash in thoughts and feelings that wouldn’t connect in any sensible way, and she was picking a fight with a man she cared about. What in the world did she hope to accomplish with this?
“Sorry, Jess,” she said finally.
“No.” He shook his head. “No. Maybe I cut you off for a while, but that was because I was unfit to deal with anything but my anger, my guilt, my pain. But when we started talking again... Lacy, you became my lifeline.”
Her head snapped up. “What?” she asked faintly.
“My lifeline,” he repeated. “When you fall into a pit and there seems to be no way out, sometimes you don’t care. And then, all of a sudden, there’s a lifeline. Do you grab it?”
“Jess...” But she didn’t know what to say. Her eyes suddenly felt hot, her chest tight.
“Your voice. Your calls. They came from outside that pit. They reminded me there was a world, a different world than the one I’d become trapped in. Not fair to you, maybe, but essential to me.”
Her throat grew so tight it hurt. She had never dreamed that those simple phone calls might have meant so much. “I’m glad I helped,” she said thickly.
“You did more than help. You were light in a tunnel when I couldn’t see the end. What did I have to live for, anyway? Nothing. Sara was gone, my leg was gone...oh, I visited the utter depths of self-pity.”
“Who could blame you?”
He looked away. “They almost didn’t send me back to Afghanistan after Sara died. You wouldn’t believe how many stamps they had to put on me, saying that I wasn’t going to do something stupid. I never would have, Lacy, but it’s God’s honest truth that I hoped I wouldn’t come back.”
“Oh, Jess...” She ached so for him that everything inside her felt squeezed in a vise. It became painful to even breathe.
“I should have died, but I didn’t. I think that was most of my anger. That I survived. I couldn’t tell you that.”
She nodded, saying nothing because nothing could possibly help. She stood there, buffeted by the storm of his anguish, and would have given anything to erase his suffering.
“Anyway, when I finally decided to take one of your calls, it was because I realized something. Like it or not, I was still here, and I had to make something of what was left. You were about the best thing that was left.”
She grabbed the blanket and pulled it over her lap again, mainly because it gave her a way to occupy her hands. They knotted around it. “I was a link to Sara,” she suggested finally when he fell quiet.
“No. I knew to the very depths of my being that Sara was gone, that she’d never be part of my life again. My God, how many deaths do you have to experience before you understand its finality? I’d seen plenty before, and plenty after.”
She tried to swallow, waiting, afraid the tearing, squeezing pain inside her might emerge and cause him to fall silent. He was baring his soul to her, and she didn’t want, in any way, to make him feel he must stop. He needed to let this out.
“No,” he said presently. “You were a reminder that there was still a life out here. A reminder of good things. That not everything in this world is colored by pain and ugliness.”
She drew a slow breath. “That’s what you meant about innocence.”
“Partly. I’ll never be innocent again. I’ve seen too much. But I can appreciate yours. I did. I do. And I’m sorry as hell about tonight because it exposed you to my ugly world.”
“How do you know it’s your ugly world? And what makes you think I’m such an innocent? I dealt with some pretty ugly guys just recently. Ones who considered money more important than human life, frankly. Oh, they thought their hands were clean since they were just moving the money, but they were making those drug sales possible, making it possible for killers and criminals to enjoy it. That’s pretty revolting. Just because I didn’t see the blood didn’t mean I didn’t feel the crime. Those millions and millions of dollars represented wrecked lives and murdered people. And with every day I dug into it and began to understand what was going on, I felt as if my own hands were covered with blood. Drenched in it. Hell, these guys are fighting a war in Mexico that’s killing thousands of innocent people. No way was handling that money clean.”
He’d grown still. She couldn’t tell if what she said had reached him or if it had turned him off like a tap. Desperation began to rise in her. “Jess?”
“I hear you. I’m thinking about what you just said, and you’re right. I keep wanting to see you as a pristine daisy in the sunlight, but you’ve walked on the dark side, too.”
“I wish I were pristine,” she said, everything inside her wrenching, her voice drawn tight with pain. “I wish I’d never stumbled into that stuff, never realized what I learned while working with the forensic accountants. Do you think they spared me? Yeah, they were nice to me for coming to them, but they didn’t hide me from all the hideous acts that generated that money.”
“They should have.”
“But why? Any time I seemed to be flagging or dubious, or question my own conclusions, I heard about the things the people who owned that money did to get it. About all the lives ruined and laid to waste to make some filthy scum into rich men. They tied it to the Mexican cartels, and before long I was doing my own research, educating myself. I’d had some idea, obviously, because it was the blood on that
money, not just the illegality of the transactions, that sent me to the US Attorney. But, my God, Jess, I had no idea just how much blood was on it. Just numbers on my computer screen usually, with orders to disburse it among accounts. Occasionally to send it to the investment people. Once cash landed on my desk. A huge amount. I had to verify the amount, then have a courier take it. By then I’d begun to put the pieces together, and maybe it was that cash that pushed me over the edge. Blood money, that’s how I saw it by then.”
He sounded astonished. “They had you handling cash?
“Only once. I’m a CPA, not a teller.”
He shook his head sharply. “I don’t get it.”
“I don’t know why for sure, but I suspect it was actually an under-the-table payment to someone in my firm. But that’s just an assumption. The money never went on the books, and I could never verify I’d seen it and counted it. It was there, I tallied it, then it was gone. Maybe they were testing me.”
“My God, you were in it up to your neck. I never guessed.”
Her eyes felt like hollow holes as she looked at him. “I’m not supposed to talk about this. You’re the first person I ever told outside the investigation about that money. Sometimes I look back at that case full of cash and wonder if it was a test, not from my firm, but from the Feds. Maybe they were already watching us. They never told me. But right after that, I went to the US Attorney.”
“Maybe they had someone on the inside,” he mused, continuing to rock. “Maybe they needed an ally.”
“I don’t know. I’ll never know. What I did learn as we investigated was that I was working on a separate set of books, not tied into the overall firm’s accounting. If I hadn’t made copies and smuggled them out, those books would probably have vanished. Someone was using me. At least one person, maybe more.”
Jess shoved himself out of the rocker and came to sit beside her, wrapping her into his arms, against his side. “No wonder they wanted you dead. And maybe still do.”
She lifted her eyes. “I’m not crazy?”