Fatal Response

by Jodie Bailey

  “I sleep.” Jason didn’t take his eyes off the road. As the threat wore on without an end in sight, he’d grown increasingly quiet, his typical sense of humor waning. He glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the road.

  “You sent Wyatt home to sleep. Maybe you should take some of your own advice.”

  “There’s more going on with Wyatt right now than you know.”

  “Overton Road?” Whatever was going on, Wyatt had spent more and more time out there at the edge of the county line, where there was nothing but fields and a couple of old barns. “How bad is it?”

  “Apparently, it’s bad.” His face shadowed, and a deep V furrowed between his eyes. “He hasn’t filled me in on it, but he did say it’s something he never thought we’d have to deal with here.”

  If Wyatt could say more, he would have already told her. His silence was more frightening than any tale he could spin. They’d had drug dealers and meth labs before, so whatever was going on, it had to be worse.

  At the moment, Erin didn’t even want to consider what could be worse. She’d heard rumors of human traffickers trying to get a toehold in the region, had been trained about warning signs. The thought of it turned her stomach. And if that was what Wyatt was dealing with, then he didn’t need her on his plate too.

  Both men needed her off their minds. They had lives. They were human. They needed rest and downtime or they’d both implode. It would be her fault when that happened. “Maybe it’s time for me to move into a safe house, let somebody else do the watching. This has got to be hard for you and—”

  “And I’m happy to be there.” Jason kneaded the steering wheel with both hands, his knuckles white from his tight grip. “I know I pushed the safe-house thing earlier, but I’m not so sure it’s the right call now. It isolates everybody in one place. Stop worrying. Neither Wyatt nor I have any problem with keeping an eye on you.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “A lot in life isn’t fair.” Flicking the blinker to turn onto the dirt road winding back to her house, Jason said, “Have you heard from your dad?”

  “I tried to call him a few times, let him know I was in the hospital. Left a few messages, but he was scheduled for two days of appointments in Durham. He could still be at Duke with his phone off. Or he’s not getting the messages. He has trouble with—”

  “Stop making excuses for him, Erin.” Jason jammed on the brakes and shifted the truck into Park at the edge of the driveway, an uncharacteristic anger darkening his features as he turned toward her. “You’ve been doing it for too long.”

  Erin drew her head back, the motion bringing a throbbing pain to the spot where someone had hit her. “What?”

  “You want to know what’s hard for me? Hard for Wyatt?” Jason jammed his hand into his hair and ran his fingers through it, standing it on end before he scrubbed it back into place. “It’s not keeping you safe from a murderer. It’s watching you kill yourself. Slowly.”

  Wait. Whoa. This was as left field as it got. “Nobody’s suicidal here.” Jason needed sleep. He was talking out of his head. “Maybe you need to—”

  “Nobody said anything about suicide. You know, I always knew it was bad, but either my memory dulled it or everything has gotten worse.”

  “What’s gotten worse?”

  “Your father. He’s destroying you from the inside out.”

  Seriously? With everything else going on, he was going to question her loyalty to her father? Had he and Jenna had a conversation about her? Because there was no other reason everyone would suddenly be coming at her this way. She was the daughter of an ailing father. He needed her.

  And Jason Barnes was the absolute last person who needed to come at her about this. He knew better than anyone why things couldn’t change. The man who’d abandoned her had no right to burst back into her life and question her now.

  “All I know is this.” Jason aimed a finger out the front window of the car. “He’s home from Duke. He’s been home since about nine last night. Joe heard what happened from Chief Kelliher and told your father, but he insisted on coming home instead of going to the hospital to be with you, with his daughter. Who nearly died. You tell me what kind of man does those things. You tell me how that says he loves you, and I’ll back off and never say another word about it.”

  Erin stared at the front of the house, where the TV flickered through the open curtains in the living room window. She swallowed twice, an ache shoving into her throat. “He...he’s not really there, right? I left the TV on?” Except she knew she hadn’t. She’d never turned it on the night before, had closed and locked the door behind her when she left.

  Her father was home and he hadn’t bothered to check on her, even though he knew where she was, knew what had happened.

  The world slowed, like time was slogging through creek mud. All of Jenna’s words this week, all of Wyatt’s over the years, all of Jason’s just now... They all crashed in at once, clogging her thoughts and muddying the waters.

  Her phone buzzed and she pulled it from the pocket of the jacket Wyatt had loaned her since her sweatshirt was covered in smoke and soot. That you out there? Time you got in here and watched out for someone besides yourself.

  Erin let the phone fall against her leg and stared at the house. They were right. They were all right. She’d given her father everything she had, including her marriage to Jason, and none of it was enough. None of it had made him care.

  None of it had made him love her.

  Reaching across the console, Jason pulled Erin’s phone from her numb fingers and read the screen before he slipped it into his jacket pocket. “We’re done here.” His voice was low and quiet. “Let’s go.” He shifted the truck into Reverse and backed out of the driveway as Erin stared straight ahead, not comprehending anything past the noise in her head.

  He made a quick call to someone, but the words didn’t compute past the buzz in her ears. They were almost back to town before he spoke to her. “You okay?”

  “No.” How could she be? Her entire life flashed by on fast-forward in her mind. Those days she’d been left standing on the curb at school, waiting until the teacher called Wyatt’s parents. The way he belittled her job, her skills. The friends he’d driven away until she had none left.

  Only Wyatt and Jenna had stuck by her.

  And Jason...until she’d run him away. She sniffed and chewed on her bottom lip until it ached. For years she’d projected her father onto Jason, assuming he was selfish and needy and demanding. But he’d hung on, had stood by her until she’d crushed him. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  There was too much. The words wouldn’t come. She’d done so much to hurt him that no words seemed adequate. Erin simply shrugged and turned her face toward the window, numb to everything but the pain she’d caused Jason.

  “Look, you need to get your head on straight and you need a shower and a change of clothes in a safe place.” Jason wheeled the truck into a parking space in front of the small Mountain Springs Police Station. “I talked to Wyatt and he said to bring you here. This is about as safe as it gets for now. He’s going to grab one of the on-duty officers and they’ll go back to your house to get you some clothes so you can get a shower here and catch some rest where there’s always somebody keeping watch. He said he’ll talk to you later about what to do permanently.”

  What he didn’t say caved in Erin’s chest. Wyatt was taking another officer with him because her father wasn’t going to like it when she didn’t come home, and there was no telling what he’d do. “You think Dad is—”

  “Your phone hasn’t stopped buzzing since I put it in my pocket. I can promise you he’s not happy.” Jason shoved the door open and put one foot on the ground before he turned to look over his shoulder at Erin. He started to speak, but then he pulled his phone from his pocket and read the screen.

 
“Get inside. Now.” He rounded the car and jerked her door open, then pulled her out by her bicep, urging her toward the building, his hand on his hip where his pistol likely rested.

  Erin stumbled but kept her footing. “What’s going on?” She couldn’t keep the panic out of her voice. If he was acting this way, something was crazy wrong.

  Jason opened the station door and practically shoved her inside. “Someone tried to kill Caroline Augustus.”

  * * *

  Positioning himself between Erin and the road, Jason kept his hand on the Sig at his hip and urged her closer to the door. His ears strained for the sound of gunshots and his spine tensed against the smack of a bullet. Though the threat wasn’t immediate, he could feel it deep inside. This was escalating, quickly. While the killer had never used direct tactics like gunfire before, anything was in the realm of possibility now.

  He didn’t get a deep breath until they were inside the station. Two police officers approached, one eyeing Erin with concern and the other eyeing him with suspicion.

  The one closest to Erin addressed her. Officer Eaton, according to the name on his uniform. “Wyatt called and told us you guys were headed this way. Everything okay?”

  Jason removed his hand from his pistol and held it out to the side. “In the immediate moment, yes. But we’re going to have to camp out here with you guys for a bit until we figure out what’s going on.”

  The other officer, Owens, stepped aside and pointed to a short hallway, as brightly lit as the front lobby area was. “There’s a break room two doors up the hallway.”

  Jason thanked him, then turned toward Erin. She was rooted to the floor, staring at him as though she couldn’t quite piece together everything that was happening.

  He couldn’t blame her. Things were moving too fast. The fire. Her father. Caroline. He needed to set the brakes and give them both a second to recover.

  Erin opened her mouth, breathed in deeply, then exhaled. “Is Caroline okay?”

  “For now. Someone tried to suffocate her, but the nurses came in when her alarms went off. No one was there.” Reaching out to Erin, he laid a hand on the curve of her lower back and urged her toward the hallway, farther into the building and away from the glass front windows. They couldn’t stand here in the open and dialogue. “Come on.” He kept his voice low, hoping it would calm whatever was raging inside her. “We’ll sit down. Grab some coffee. I can smell it from here.”

  She nodded once and let him guide her up the hall and into the room, where he pulled a metal folding chair away from a white plastic round table. Erin sat and stared at her hands. “Who texted you?”

  Sliding into the chair next to hers, he reached for her hands and held them on the table, needing the connection to her. As out of control as her life was, his was spinning just as fast. He needed something to ground him and, as usual, Erin was the constant. She’d always been the constant. Even after their marriage fell to pieces and he was overseas fighting battles both physical and mental, she’d never been far from his mind.

  Everything he’d done had been for her.

  The thought drove his world to a grinding halt. He jerked his hands from hers and balled them in his lap. He’d joined the army for her. Worked his way up through the ranks to make more money to send to her. He’d never admitted it to himself, and he could never tell her.

  Erin Taylor was the driving force of his life. And when the smoke cleared, he’d have to find a way to move forward, with or without her.

  “Jason?” Her voice had steadied, seeming to come from a new place of strength. She ducked her head and caught his eye. “Who texted you?”

  He’d forgotten she’d asked. Pulling his phone from his pocket to give him something to look at besides her, he pressed the screen. “Lisa. She’s a nurse at the hospital and one of the nurses told her after she was released.”

  “I don’t understand.” The tortured look on Erin’s face almost drove him around the table to pull her into his arms. He’d done this to her, had brought this mess down on her head. Now there was nothing he could do to stop it. “Why would someone do something so out in the open like that? There are video cameras everywhere.”

  “I think the attack on you proved that video cameras don’t scare this guy.”

  She nodded once, then pulled a napkin from the holder in the center of the table and began shredding the edges. This was not the Erin he was used to. She was crumbling, her emotions finally exposed.

  That was either a very good thing or a very, very bad thing.

  He laid a hand on hers, trying to let her know without words that he was here for her, but she pulled away and went back to tearing the napkin. “Call her. See what she knows. Make sure she’s okay. Because if somebody came after Caroline, then Lisa isn’t safe either. And she doesn’t have you watching her back the way I do.”

  True. Caroline had Caesar. Erin had Jason and Wyatt. Lisa had no one. He dialed her number and waited through the rings until the call went to voice mail, pressed End, then tried again.

  Three tries and no answer.

  Jason’s jaw hurt from the tension. Caroline had been attacked. Lisa wasn’t responding.

  Something was very wrong.

  This time, Erin reached for him, wrapping her fingers around his and squeezing tight. “She’s not answering?”

  “No.”

  “Call Wyatt. Have him call—”

  His phone vibrated in his hand and shot relief through him. “Maybe she was talking to someone at the hospital.”

  But when he glanced at the screen, the name that flashed across was from Caesar. At my apartment. Everything’s sideways. Don’t know what to do. Don’t know how to fix this.

  Pulling away from Erin, Jason rocketed to his feet, dialing Caesar’s number as he did. The call went to voice mail, and as he scrolled through his contacts to find Caesar’s landline number, another text popped up on the screen.

  Help me.

  Jason paced to the door and gripped the frame until his knuckles ached, his eyes fixed on Caesar’s two-word plea. Caesar needed him.

  He raised his head and stared at the ceiling in the hallway. Erin needed him.

  As though she’d heard his thoughts, she was behind him, one hand on his back, the other reaching for his phone. She read the screen, shut her eyes for a moment, then handed it back to him. “Go.”

  “I can’t take you with me.” For all he knew, Caesar was behind all of this and the entire thing was a giant trap. But even with all of the evidence, Jason couldn’t bring himself to believe one of his brothers was behind the murders.

  “I’ll be fine here. I seriously doubt anybody is going to storm the police station. And even if they did, I happen to know that Rand Webster is the best shot in three counties.”

  Jason reached for her and pulled her to his chest, resting his chin on the top of her head. The world was rarely divided into a strict right-or-wrong decision, but this one was too much. It was tearing him apart. Protect Erin? Or go to his buddy?

  Erin planted her hands on his chest and eased away from him. “You have to go. I’ll be fine. Really. Just let me know what’s going on. And be careful.”

  The urge to kiss her nearly overwhelmed him, but if he did, he’d never let her go. Instead, he pressed his lips briefly to her forehead. Even that was almost enough to make him stay. “You’re the bravest person I know.”

  “I learned it from you.”

  “Don’t leave here. Not for anything.” If something happened to her while he was gone...

  He couldn’t even consider that.

  “I won’t.” She backed away from him, almost dismissing him. “Get going.”

  With one last look at her, Jason turned and sprinted up the hallway. Whatever was happening on the other end of his cell phone, he had no doubt the endgame was in sight and the bloodshed was likely going t
o get worse.

  SIXTEEN

  Jason paced the parking lot of Caesar’s apartment complex. Two buildings away, police cars barricaded the way to Caesar’s apartment. Someone had called 911 from Caesar’s apartment and they’d been there when he arrived. The officers had barred him from going any farther. No amount of begging or showing them Caesar’s texts had helped. He was blocked. Barred from helping Caesar. Nearly an hour away from Erin.

  Helpless.

  He’d hoped for a break after last night. Had prayed for a resolution, prayed the women would be safe and whoever was doing this would realize they’d been made and stop.

  Far from it. Things were escalating, which meant Erin was in even more danger, and he was putting her at greater risk.

  Now Caroline had nearly been killed. Lisa wasn’t answering her phone. Caesar’s apartment was filled with police and paramedics.

  And Jason was torn into pieces. He needed to be with Erin to watch over her. He needed to be here with Caesar.

  Leaving Erin in the safety of the police station had nearly torn him in two. Right now, she was better off there than out here in the open with him. Better off with men who could actually protect her instead of constantly failing her. Instead of losing the guard on their mouths and spewing out the truth about her father in a way that left her shell-shocked.

  Just like when Fitz was killed, Jason was in the center of the action, helpless, no matter what the outside world thought. The newspaper this morning had called Erin and him both heroes.

  But only one of them was. The other was someone who’d wrecked everything he touched, who let people die when he could save them.

  Tires rolled on the pavement behind him, as Wyatt arrived in a police cruiser, lights off, siren silent. He climbed out of the car and scanned the area. “Any news?”