Monroe nodded. “All of it.”
“Okay. I’m trusting you on this. As I go through your evidence, if I have questions, I’m going to call on that phone. If there’s any malware on those drives, tell me now.”
Crunching gravel outside drew their attention to the window. Lynée and Skye returned from the grocery store, and the trunk popped open.
The pair of them stood to go help unload. Jace stopped him. “I’ll help them. You write down every single username and password on those drives. Also, give me the address to that cabin.”
Jace scooped the bags out of Lynée’s hands. “I’ve got these.”
Her eyes went wide, and a flush crept across her cheeks. “'Kay. Thanks.”
In the kitchen, the three of them unpacked and put everything away. By the number of bags, they should have enough food to last them for a couple weeks. Jace also noticed they also hadn’t returned with any change, either.
Figures.
Skye pulled a box from one of the bags and waved it for her boyfriend to see. “I thought you’d like these, Reed.”
Jace spotted the jumbo box of hot pockets.
He nearly burst out laughing.
Monroe shot him a death look. “Shut up.”
The broody, rude special agent was silent for the first half of the drive back to Cascade Creek. Which Lynée was grateful for since her patience for his rough-handed, cocky attitude was wearing out. He spent the whole time checking the side mirror and studying the mountainside.
Twilight crept between the hills, and light rain started on the other side of the pass. She flipped on the windshield wipers, along with the defroster. She wasn’t that cold with her oversized sweater, though the oversized, sack of muscles beside her did more than a well enough job heating up the car.
A thousand questions swirled in her mind. But if she opened her mouth to ask any of them, that meant listening to his sarcasm and condescending response. That is if he answered any of her questions. He seemed determined to keep everyone in the dark as much as possible. Which Lynée deduced was more power-hungry than safety-focused.
The headlights flashed against the bright green sign displaying Cascade Creek only five miles away. She couldn’t bear to wait any longer. “How long do you think it will take to solve this?”
“Why?” he asked gruffly without looking at her.
“I don’t want them to be stuck up there any longer than required. How long will your job take?”
“I’ve already finished my job.”
Lynée stared at him, the car veering a bit too close to the edge of the road, where the cliff dropped off a good hundred feet. She swerved back into her lane.
“Eyes on the road, Tinkerbell.” He finally looked at her. “Do you want me to drive?”
It took her several seconds to calm her heart rate. “No.” She didn’t even know where to start, the offensive nickname he’d just coined for her or his first statement. “What do you mean you already finished?”
“My orders were to find and arrest Reed Monroe. I did that.”
“Then what are we doing now?”
“We? Nothing. I’m following a lead on a different crime. You’re driving me back, and that’s where your involvement ends.” He kept his serious gaze on hers, a little too intensive for her tastes.
“Not a chance, bub. And don’t call me Tinkerbell.”
From the side of her eyes, she spotted the edge of his mouth lift.
Good Lord, she needed to keep her attention on the road.
“Did Reed or Skye give you anything to hold for them? Or hide?”
She blinked. Where did that come from? “Of course not.”
“You sure? Your best friend you’ve known your whole life didn’t trust you to hold something for her, just in case she needed it later?”
“Like what?”
He turned his body to face her a little more. “You tell me. Because if you don’t, it’s obstruction of justice. People do time for that.”
Lynée huffed. Wow, this guy was a piece of work. Her knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “Do you insult every person whom you ask for a favor or just the ones in this town? Skye is not a criminal. If she had something or gave something to me to hold, she would’ve told you about it herself. She doesn’t have a dishonest bone in her body. Nor do I. Your assumption otherwise is offensive.”
He started to chuckle. Like he’d been staring at something amusing or something worth mocking. “My assumptions over the years have rarely been wrong. You’d be stunned at the things I’ve seen when someone wants to escape the law. Including hiding things for best friends. Sometimes in very…interesting places.”
She felt her eyes nearly bug out of their sockets at that comment. The man’s smile only widened from the passenger seat, infuriating her further.
Stop reacting, Lynée. He’s only saying these things to get a rise out of you.
She forced herself to calm down, and instead focused on the road and pretending that nothing more than a sack of rotten groceries sat beside her.
“You are so cute when you seethe.”
Lynée adjusted the rearview mirror. Anything to keep her hands from strangling him. She didn’t have any violent tendencies in her personality, but the urge to slap him itched in her fingers. Being around this man had tilted her whole world sideways in less than a day, and then he had the audacity to heckle her.
Skye and Reed needed her help. She needed to stay close to whatever Jace Ivy was going to uncover so she could get her best friend back. After all, she was the one who’d urged Skye to help Reed in the first place. Her friend was in this position because of Lynée’s advice.
“I’ll drop you off at the hotel in Cascade Creek. Keep insulting people, and see how far your investigation gets around here.”
She flipped on the radio, anything to drown out the man’s irritating voice.
In less than two seconds, he turned it back off. “No.”
“No, what?”
“Drive me to Reed’s cabin first.” He held out a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it.
She chewed on the side of her cheek. This man’s tone was getting worse. Hired chauffeurs were treated better than her.
“Please,” he added with a sigh. “I have to secure any evidence there before I call it a night.”
Lynée rolled her eyes and tried to quiet the voice in her mind that told her putting up with this guy wasn’t worth it. She should just pull over and drop him off on the side of the road. Cascade Creek was only a thirty-minute-walk from this point. But it was getting darker by the minute, and the rain only increased. She didn’t have the heart to leave someone outside in those conditions. Not even the insufferable Jace Ivy.
Jace climbed out of Lynée’s car on the gravel drive, his instincts on high alert. Reed’s cabin door was open, with unmistakable bullet holes in the side of the residence. The hairs on the back of his neck were screaming at him.
In a swift move, he pulled his gun from his shoulder holster inside his jacket, double-checked the bullet count in the clip, and turned to his driver.
“Stay here.”
She nodded, her lips now thin and pale, much like the rest of her face. He was grateful she didn’t fight him on that instruction, like she had with everything else between them.
Only a few steps toward the porch steps and Jace clearly saw an expansive dark brown stain across the rocks. Dried blood. He’d seen enough of that in his career to identify it. The gunman could still be inside, there was no way of telling how old that stain was. Then again, if someone had been shot and died there and their body already cleared away, it was unlikely the culprit had stuck around.
Jace wasn’t taking any chances. Not with the cartel involved.
He slowly approached the door, standing against the side and peering in furtively. Clearing houses was something he was glad he didn’t do as often anymore. But the instincts and training were still ingrained in his soul. Slowly he moved through th
e rooms, making sure no one was still inside. The cabin’s disheveled state and upturned furniture showed some kind of altercation had happened here. The bullet holes seemed to be limited to the exterior.
Nevertheless, someone had left this place in a violent rush.
A scratching noise pulled him to a small room in the back. His heart rate escalated. With quiet steps down the hallway, the sound intensified.
Someone was back there.
He stopped at the doorframe, tightened his grip on the pistol, then peered his head inside.
A culprit skittered across the floorboards and zoomed past his feet.
He jumped out of the way and sent a curse to the ceiling. “Fucking raccoon.”
Inside the laundry room, Jace spotted the trashcan the rodent had been rummaging through, with litter scattered across the floor. He returned just in time to see the rodent scurrying down the porch steps and into the bushes.
When he was certain the cabin was empty, he returned to the front and waved Lynée inside.
She hugged herself as she walked through the front door. “No need to call the cavalry?”
“I am the cavalry.” He stood in the center of the living room, making a slow circle to spot any obvious hiding places for evidence. His gaze stopped on the blonde in the open doorway.
The porchlight framed her head in a heavenly glow, making her oversized cream sweater look more like an angel’s robe. Her golden-y hair might as well have been the halo; the only thing missing was fairy wings. The image made his heart swell in a strange way.
“Where do we start?” she asked.
He shook his head. “This has to be done by me. You can sit over here, away from the windows. I’ll be a few minutes.”
“I can’t help?”
He forced himself to tear his gaze off her. “Please don’t touch anything.” He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his back pocket. “This place can’t be compromised with your prints.”
Lynée’s lips pursed. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want to contaminate the raccoon’s paw prints.”
He smirked as he searched the rest of the kitchen, looking in every drawer, under the cabinets, inside the fridge and freezer, and any other tiny spot he could think of. Thankfully, the place wasn’t that big. However, by the time he was finished, he was surprised nearly an hour had passed.
“All finished.” He stripped the gloves from his hands and tossed them in the trash. “Sorry, that took longer than I expected.”
The woman stared out the front window from her spot on the tiny couch, while nibbling on her lower lip. Those full, pink lips that had stolen his sole attention. She had no idea how adorable she was.
“I’m all wrapped up here. Do you want to get something to eat?”
She stopped fumbling with her car keys. The way her eyes widened at his request had him looking down at his shirt. Maybe he’d dropped something on it or had left his pants’ zipper down.
“Don’t act all stunned,” he urged again. “I’m hungry, and since you’ve driven me around today, I thought I’d thank you by paying for dinner. Unless…you’re not hungry?”
Her expression cleared. “I’m not, actually.”
His hopes dashed, and disappointment surprisingly crept in to replace them. He hid it with a lazy sigh. “Well, you’re my ride to the motel, since the police lot is closed by now. The least I can do is pay for a meal. How hard is that?”
She stood, raised her chin, and looked him squarely in the eye. “I’ll drive you to the motel, but I’m not interested in dinner with you.”
The floorboards creaked with her every determined step on her way out.
Jace almost chuckled. Was I just rejected?
He followed her outside. “But I’m hungry.”
“Then order takeout.” She yanked on the car’s door handle and climbed inside.
When he was in the passenger seat, he studied her hard expression. “Did I tick you off at some point?”
She gave him an exaggerated surprised look. “What amazing investigative skills you have. My tax dollars hard at work.” Sarcasm laced every word.
“All right, enough. What did I do?”
“You’re the detective.” She turned the ignition, and the engine rumbled to life. “Or is that not what a Special Investigations Agent does?”
“Whatever I did,” he sighed. “I apologize. You’ve been very helpful and accommodating. I know this has disrupted your normal routine, and that can be difficult. I assure you I will do everything I can to finish up this whole thing as quickly as possible so you can return to your regular life.”
As Lynée pulled onto the main road, she licked her top lip. Her profile was even more angelic in the moonlight than earlier, and her long lashes were amplified by her glasses.
“If you hadn’t started your apology with ‘whatever I did,’” she began, keeping her gaze on the road, “I would’ve considered it as sincere, and not as just some line you memorized from sensitivity training.”
He scoffed. Damn. Those were things he’d learned to say in his required sensitivity training. Normally they’d worked on the few other occasions he’d had to use them. This time, with her…they backfired.
“What is so offensive to you about me paying for dinner? Are you really out of practice at accepting simple thank yous?”
She chuckled, the kind that didn’t sound genuine. “You’re clearly out of practice at giving thank yous.”
“Fine. Don’t accept it then.” He forced himself to look out the side window. Drumming his fingers on the dash. The sooner he got to the motel and unloaded all the evidence, the sooner he could get out of this car and do his damn job. This librarian had turned so aggravating in record time.
They rode in silence the rest of the way to the motel. Which was far too long for his liking. When she pulled into the parking lot and stopped by the lobby, he practically jumped out of the car to escape her.
The place was small, simple, and lacking the luxuries of larger hotels in major cities he was used to. An older lady with silver hair tied back with an orange scrunchie manned the check-in desk. Who was pleasant, but didn’t move nearly fast enough for Jace’s liking. Finally, with his room key in hand, he returned to Lynée’s car. In the trunk were more bags and boxes of evidence than he could carry at once. But dammit, he’d sure try anyway.
The car switched off, and Lynée joined him at the trunk. She asked softly, “Do you really want to offer a genuine thank you?”
He stopped pulling bags from the trunk. “If it won’t get my head bitten off.”
“Then I’ll meet you back here at eight a.m. tomorrow.”
He narrowed his gaze at her, waiting for the punchline. “Why?”
“We have a case to solve.”
Jace scrubbed his teeth a little harsher than normal the next morning. That Lynée woman had driven away so fast the previous evening, he didn’t have time to ask her what she meant by ‘we have a case to solve.’
Who turns down dinner so brusquely, but then wants to help investigate a case?
In his experience, it was always the other way around. From how adamant she’d been about not eating with him, it didn’t make sense that she’d want to spend any additional time with him going through mountains of evidence.
Evidence that technically wasn’t even his job to go through. None of this was part of his job description. He was just brought in to track and apprehend Reed Monroe. All the following hours of torture perusing this stuff was going to be self-inflicted. Without extra pay either.
Not that he was in this job for the paycheck.
He splashed cold water on his face to help wake him up. He wasn’t sure how much help she’d be. She wouldn’t be allowed to see most of this evidence, and the rest would be so monotonous and tedious, it would make most people’s eyes cross within twenty minutes. But whatever. If she insisted on being a part of this, she could knock herself out.
He’d give her thirty minutes before she would quit and run screaming
out the front door.
He dreaded this day, further interaction with this blonde fireball. Hopefully, she didn’t expect him to start walking on eggshells because she felt the need to interject herself in his case. Because he didn’t give a damn about eggshells. This woman just seemed to have more than most people. Nothing he did was right. Fine, he was rough around the edges, but who turns down dinner?
A knock pounded his door at precisely eight o’clock.
He opened it to a bright and bubbly Lynée Clark. Wrapped in a huge gray coat with a white furry hood and matching boots. She looked more like she was ready to go skiing. A tray of steaming coffees in one hand and a bag of something that smelled like sausage biscuits in the other had him mystified.
“Mornin’. I assumed you hadn’t had breakfast yet. Please tell me you’re a coffee man.”
“Thank you. Most law enforcement is.” He pushed the door open wider for her to come through.
Three feet inside, she stopped and stared.
He followed her gaze around the room. Boxes and bags of equipment were stacked on the available desk and counter space around his tiny hotel room. He’d spread out as much as he could last night trying to find some organization, though most of what he needed was on Monroe’s hard drives.
“You’ve been busy.”
“I’m not here on vacation.”
Her smile widened. “Excellent.”
He cocked his head. “Why, does that impress you?”
“You’re all about business here. Which means we should be able to solve it faster, and Skye and Reed can return sooner.”
He scoffed. “Don’t get your hopes up. I work fast and don’t linger on anything, but there’s a lot involved in this one. Won’t be a quickie case by any definition.”
She slipped out of her coat and draped it over his pillow.
Suddenly, this was too invasive for him. “Don’t you have a day job to go to?”
“I took some time off. Wanted to put my whole effort behind this.”
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