by Amy Gamet
Hawk nodded and Jax turned back down the hallway toward the master suite, the only bedroom remaining. He knew Red was behind him, his weapon trained behind them in case more tangos emerged.
Jax inched toward the room and lightly pushed in the door.
Their hostage was tied to the bed, fully dressed, and Jax felt a moment’s relief that it appeared she hadn’t been sexually assaulted. A look of utter panic was on Mrs. Baldwin’s face as her gaze shifted from Jax to a corner of the room he couldn’t see from the doorway.
A string of shots was fired in the room, one after the other, splintering the wood door between Jax and his attacker. He stepped back so he could see through the crack at the door’s hinges and returned fire, landing a shot clear into the tango’s head.
The man fell to the ground.
Cowboy ran into the room and untied Mrs. Baldwin, who was screaming. Jax could hear him trying to calm her down as he and Hawk cleared the closets and bathroom off the master bedroom.
She continued to scream.
“I’ll take her. You go with Hawk and clear the house,” said Jax.
Cowboy nodded.
Jax sat on the bed next to Mrs. Baldwin and saw blood seeping out of the man he’d shot, the spreading stain like red paint spilling onto a carpet. He stood and covered the man with a towel, then came back to Mrs. Baldwin, whose screams had transformed into sobs.
Safe now.
Rescue.
Husband waiting.
“All clear,” said Cowboy in Jax’s earpiece.
When Mrs. Baldwin was quiet, Jax held out his hand for her to stand up, but she didn’t move, so he picked her up and carried her out of the house.
They made their way back to the chopper, closed the door, and were back in the sky in twenty-two and a half minutes.
The woman cuddled in Jax’s lap, clinging to him like a koala bear. But it was Jessa he imagined as he stroked her back, Jessa he saw as they flew back to reality.
Hours later when he fell into bed, Jax would remember the Baldwins reunited, clutching each other as love and horror spilled out onto the floor around them like the kidnapper’s blood onto the carpet.
That was the part Jax would never have.
The reunion.
He cursed violently, punched his pillow, and rolled over.
5
Jessa awoke with a start, her eyes wandering around the room and trying to make sense of where she was. It took her a minute to remember this was her home now, the large apartment in the second-story walk-up of an old Victorian house.
She looked down at her outfit. Scrubs.
Ugh.
She’d walked in the door from working second shift at Mercy and flopped down on the couch. Judging by the sunlight shining in the windows, she’d slept here all night, the second time in the past week she’d done so.
The first trimester of her last pregnancy, she was crazy sleepy, too. She laid her hand on her flat lower abdomen and joy filled her heart. Just a week ago, a home pregnancy test confirmed what she suspected. She was going to have a baby.
She thought of the nursery she and Ralph had decorated together between his trips with HERO Force. They’d known they were having a boy, and everything was done up in blue and green.
Maybe this time, I won’t find out the sex.
Why? So you can protect yourself from loving this child in case something happens?
“I already love you more than anyone in the world,” she whispered.
Today was Friday, her day off, and she desperately wanted to spend the whole thing in bed with some fuzzy slippers and a book. But as her stare slipped guiltily to the boxes stacked three and four high along the dining room wall, she knew what she’d be doing instead. She’d already been here almost a month, and those boxes weren’t going to get any easier to unpack as she got further along.
Resigned to the task ahead, she walked into the kitchen, started some decaf brewing and checked her cell phone.
One new message.
She hit the speaker button and opened the fridge, grabbing the orange juice.
“Jessa, it’s Jax.”
She spun around so fast she dropped the juice to the floor, where it sprayed everywhere. She crouched down after it, trying to find the hole while her body responded viscerally to Jax’s voice. An image of them making love flashed through her mind.
“I want to take you out to dinner sometime,” he said. “I know you moved to Savannah, but if you’d like to get together, I don’t mind the drive.”
She found the leak and covered it with her finger, then closed her eyes tightly.
“I’d really like to see you again, Jess.”
The message ended, and she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. Four weeks and three days she’d been gone, and he found her. Hell, he probably knew where she was even before that and just didn’t pick up the phone. She stood up and dumped the juice container in the sink. She looked at her arms and hands and clothes. “Aaagh!” she yelled, so frustrated she couldn’t see straight.
She hadn’t counted on this in her quickly laid plans to get pregnant. Right now it wasn’t such a big deal, but what if he looked her up six months from now, or a year? If he found out he had a child, he’d want to be part of its life, and that was definitely not part of her plan.
But what could she do? With the technology at his disposal, he’d be able to find her anywhere she went. All he had to do was type her name into his damn computers, and there she’d be.
Forever.
It might even tell him when she had a dependent.
There had to be a way to stop him, a way to keep her whereabouts from popping up on a screen just by typing in her name.
My name.
A horrible idea came to her mind.
She’d chosen Savannah because her extended family was here, both her mother’s upper-middle-class contribution and her father’s shadier side of the family tree. Since her parents passed away, she was desperate to forge some deeper kind of connections with her living relatives.
Now that would never happen. She had closer family she needed to protect.
Two of her cousins had served time, one for stealing cars and the other for forgery. She grabbed her cell phone with shaking fingers. If memory served her correctly, her cousin Ricky’s crime had been making fake IDs and selling them on the Internet.
Before that, they’d been friends. Long before. When her father was alive and well and trying to make a difference in the lives of his sister’s children, who always seemed a little too far gone to be pulled back to safety. Ricky had certainly acted like he remembered her when she ran into him at her uncle’s birthday party recently.
She opened her contacts, scrolling for her cousin’s name, praying he would trust her enough to help her. “Ricky, it’s your cousin, Jessa McConnell.”
He sounded pleased to hear from her, and she exhaled a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “I’m in trouble, really bad trouble.” She bit her lip to keep her emotions from erupting. “I’m hoping you can help me.”
6
Jax hated the office.
They usually had a few days between missions to get caught up on the bullshit that needed to be done at a desk, and this time, each hour felt longer than the last. He had nothing to do but check email and think about Jessa.
He had to let it go.
She obviously had.
He turned the news on a small TV in the corner of the room and leaned back in his chair, remembering.
He’d gone to her house the day after they spent the night together, only to find a for sale sign in the yard and her cell phone disconnected.
She’d claimed she’d been tired of packing, when really she’d been finished. He’d tried to take that as the message it was no doubt meant to be.
I’ve moved on.
So should you.
He’d made the mistake of using the HERO Force computers to find out where she was. A little town just outside of Savannah,
where she probably planted flowers outside her door and found a nursing job at the local hospital.
Of course he’d gotten her number and had to call her again, his pulse hammering at the sound of her voice on her greeting. He’d left a message.
She disconnected that cell phone the very same day.
He was two for two, and he couldn’t help but wonder why she’d gone to such lengths rather than tell him she wasn’t interested.
Overnight, he’d gone from a solitary man who enjoyed more than his share of female company to a goddamn loser who was stalking a one-night stand.
He might have been okay if he could have gotten her out of his mind, but the night they’d shared together was like a recording his memory played over and over again whenever he didn’t have one hundred percent of his brain occupied. Like when he was checking email. Or — God forbid — trying to sleep.
That was the worst — whiskey and longing forming some kind of vortex that sucked him inside and refused to let go. There was only Jessa, her body and their lovemaking, her laughter and the spark in her eyes that had first drawn him to her.
I want you to come inside me, Jax.
He could hear her voice, see her face as she said the words.
Cowboy walked into Jax’s office and sat down. “Hey, chief.”
Irritation was instantaneous. “You know how to knock, Leo?”
Cowboy stood up, walked back outside, and knocked.
“Go the fuck away,” said Jax.
“That’s why I didn’t knock.” Cowboy closed the door and sat down again. “You want to tell me what’s going on with you, man?”
“Paperwork. Office bullshit.”
“You seem a little…what’s the word? Bastardly. Some of the guys think you’ve just become a total jackass, but I think there’s more to it.”
“Are we having a heart-to-heart?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
“Get the hell out of my office.”
“Is it Linda?”
The mention of his ex’s name was like a shock collar on an errant dog. “Jesus, no.”
“But it is a woman.”
Jax scowled. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Cowboy shrugged and smiled. “Not really.”
“Go to the range and shoot something. We got some new assault rifles I want you fully trained on before we go wheels up again.”
“Already on it, chief. Red thinks they’re too heavy, but I got the kill shot down.”
“Then go do something else.”
“Who is she? That hot little secretary who hit on you in the diner? Or the chick who lives downstairs and always wants you to give her a ride?” Cowboy pumped his hips.
“We’re done here.”
Cowboy was quiet for a minute. “What else could it be? Ever since you killed Steele, you’ve been acting like an asshole.”
“Go find something to do, Cowboy.”
“Wait a second…”
Jax glared at him, then picked up his coffee cup and moved to leave the room. He got so far as to put his hand on the knob.
“Is it Jessa?” asked Cowboy.
Jax froze, his eyes focusing on the shiny metal of the door in front of him. He’d been so close to getting away from this conversation.
Not close enough.
“Jax, what happened when you went to her house to tell her about Steele?”
Jax walked back to his desk. There was no point in denying it. “What do you want, Leo?”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Cowboy leaned back in his chair, holding on to the desk and balancing on the back two legs. “’Cause, you know, you don’t talk damn near enough. You should share with your friends. Get it off your chest.”
“Fuck you.”
“And your vocabulary could use a little work. You seem to keep using the same words over and over…”
“I can’t find her,” said Jax. Why not tell Cowboy? What difference would it make? He tapped his pen on the desk and sighed. “She moved away and she’s not showing up in the system.”
Cowboy slammed his chair down and stood, moving behind Jax’s desk. “Let me try. I’m good at this.”
Jax stood reluctantly. “I know how to do it.”
Cowboy was on the computer less than a minute. “Apparently not. She’s in Savannah.”
“Not anymore.”
Cowboy spun around in the chair to face him. “Come again?”
Jesus. He’d never felt like such an idiot. “She was in Savannah, then I called her and left a message…”
“And?”
Jax shrugged. “And she disconnected the phone. Landlord said she left the next day.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she move again just because you called her?” He raised his eyebrows. “Are you that bad in bed?”
“Shut the fuck up, Leo.”
Cowboy saluted. “Yes sir, mister commander man.”
“Where the hell is she now?”
“It might take a week or two for her to show up. She needs to register with DMV, sign up for utilities, that sort of thing.”
“It’s already been over a month since she left Savannah.”
“No wonder you’ve been such a dick.” Cowboy’s brows drew together. “She should be in here by now.”
“She’s not. There’s no record of her anywhere in the country. It’s like she doesn’t exist anymore.”
The news anchor on television filled the silence. “An identity scandal has rocked the Savannah, Georgia, morgue. Ricky Kingfisher, a clerk in the morgue records office who previously served time for forging documents, is accused of selling the identities of unclaimed bodies from the morgue and allowing the victims to be buried as John and Jane Does.”
Jax’s eyes shot to the screen. “Jessa’s maiden name is Kingfisher.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was at the damn wedding.”
Cowboy stood up next to Jax. “So, Jessa Kingfisher disappeared from Savannah right before Ricky Kingfisher got busted for selling new identities in the same town.”
Jax’s spine was tingling. “No. She wouldn’t do it. She has no reason to take on a new identity.”
“She had reason enough to move twice in two months. How do you explain that?”
Jax cursed under his breath. He’d foolishly assumed it was because of him. “She must be in some kind of trouble.”
“It would explain why she’s not showing up in our system.”
“Contact the morgue,” said Jax. “Find out the names that were stolen, and we can cross-reference them in our computer. Any women in their late twenties or early thirties, we check out.”
“Will do.” Cowboy turned to leave.
“And Leo, thanks.”
“You got it, chief.”
7
Only one of Ricky Kingfisher’s stolen identities could possibly be Jessa, and Jax was on a flight to New Jersey within hours of his talk with Cowboy to investigate the lead.
It’s not going to be her.
She wouldn’t do such a thing.
He parked his rental car on the street. A few hundred feet ahead was a tiny bungalow that was rented to Maria Elena Cortez, who grew up in the Bronx, went to college at Clemson University, and recently relocated to New Jersey from Georgia.
Trouble was, Maria Elena was dead weeks before her most recent move.
Jessa wouldn’t do it. Some other woman will answer the door.
He got out of his car, the tangy smell of saltwater on the air. According to the morgue records confiscated by police, Maria Elena had been killed by an attacker in her apartment. With no next of kin, thieves in the Savannah morgue sold her identity to someone else and buried Maria in Potter’s Field as a Jane Doe.
Jessa is not a criminal. She has no reason to buy someone else’s identity.
Acid churned in Jax’s stomach. He’d looked up Ricky Kingfisher and confirmed he was Jessa’s first c
ousin. That was when his ulcer flared up. It was more than a coincidence that Jessa was missing and her cousin—who lived in the same town—was in the business of making people disappear.
Doubting Jessa made him think of his ex-wife. Jax knew what it felt like to find the person you thought you knew was actually a deceitful liar. He mentally chastised himself for grouping Jessa and Linda together and sincerely hoped the association was unjustified.
The white bungalow was nestled between a larger beach house on one side and a condominium complex on the other. The bungalow didn’t belong here, standing out like Cinderella would have at the ball without the help of her fairy godmother, but parts of the Jersey Shore were like that.
He squinted against the sun to get a better view. There, along the edges of a small porch, were planters full of pink and purple flowers.
He cursed colorfully, even as a trace of excitement laced his fury.
Jessa was in there.
She was in trouble. She must be.
What could be so bad that she would take on another woman’s identity?
He knocked on the door, chastising the part of himself that was excited and raw. He was here because she was in trouble. He would not make this about the two of them and one night of mind-bending sex unless it was clear that was what she wanted, too.
8
He peered inside. She didn’t appear to be home.
The squawk of a seagull made him turn his head. There, just a few hundred feet away, was the public beach access point, and he was drawn to it — whether to look for Jessa or for his own peace of mind, he didn’t know.
The first thing he saw as he crested the dunes was her long black hair blowing in the breeze.
His gut clenched.
Even from this distance he knew it was her. The surf grew louder as he approached its boundaries, the smell of the ocean heavy on the cool air. A smattering of people roamed the edge of the water, but his eyes were trained on Jessa as she stretched toward the sky with languid grace. She was a goddess, Venus herself, and he was drawn to her even as he hated himself for it.