Kimberly Van Meter - The Sniper

Jaci blindly fumbled around her, searching for her cell phone. She had to call the police and report it. What time was it? Likely they’d already found Sonia’s body, left behind in that alley like trash. God forgive her, she’d left her best friend alone. Where the hell was her damn phone?

“If you’re looking for your cell, I tossed it,” came Nathan’s voice from the doorway, his tone matter-of-fact and brooking no argument. He held two steaming coffee mugs in his hands but even as his gesture may have appeared kind given the circumstance, Jaci didn’t know how to accept his offer considering their history.

She stared, unable to process everything at once, as Nathan walked into the room, bare to the waist, wearing faded jeans, offering a short explanation. “Your phone has a GPS and is traceable. Sorry, but I had no choice but to ditch it. Besides, you shouldn’t be contacting anyone until I know it’s safe to do so. In the meantime you are going off the grid.”

“What the hell is going on?” she whispered, scooting away from him, rejecting his offer of coffee, though she sorely needed it. She clutched a pillow to her chest, as if that would protect her from him, and glared through a sheen of tears. “Someone shot my best friend and he was going to shoot me. You show up and k-kill that man and then kidnap me for some reason when two months ago, you couldn’t stand to be near me another second. I don’t understand what is happening,” she couldn’t help but cry with a pathetic mewl that would’ve embarrassed her if she hadn’t been suffering from shock. “I’m in a nightmare and I can’t wake up. God, help me,” she said, sniffing back tears. “She’s dead. Sonia is dead.” Even as she murmured the words and knew it to be true, the reality felt forced.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Nathan said with genuine remorse that confused her. “I hadn’t realized that the two of you had slipped out the back into the alley or else I would’ve been there sooner.”

She regarded him slowly, recalling a snippet of Sonia’s bawdy comments from that night. Why hadn’t she realized it earlier? The classic jawline, the hard body built with layer upon layer of muscle... “You were the one watching us?”

He offered a curt nod but didn’t deign to explain, which only made her want to throw something at his damnably handsome face.

“Why?” The inscrutable expression etched on the hard planes of his face gave nothing away and she looked elsewhere in disgust. “Right. More secrets. That’s you, isn’t it? Always hiding something. Well, as you so clearly stated when we last met, I mean nothing to you, so please take me home. The police can protect me from whoever is trying to kill me.”

“Jaci, you’re not leaving,” he said, shooting her down without apology. “And don’t even try. We’re deep in the Los Padres Mountains. You’d never make it out alive.”

“How did...” Jaci stopped in confusion, forcing her brain to work when it remained sluggish from the night before. The last she remembered she was in Los Angeles. Now she was in the mountains? She stared at Nathan, demanding answers, but when her hand strayed to the sore spot on her neck she knew the answer and her stare narrowed in indignation. “You drugged me.” Neither a question nor a guess, he didn’t bother denying it. She nearly shook with impotent rage. “You bastard,” she swore softly under her breath. “How dare you. Who do you think you are?”

“Who am I? I’m the man who saved your life. Try to remember that fact when you’re calling me a bastard. You can thank me later. For now we need to lay low. The people who want to kill you won’t stop until they’ve achieved their objective.”

“Why?” she cried, hating all this confusion and subterfuge that had nothing to do with her. “Why is this happening? I’m a graphic designer, for crying out loud. I design advertising and T-shirts and coffee mugs. What did I ever do to deserve this?”

Her impassioned cry elicited a flicker of emotion, regret, possibly, she couldn’t be sure, but he shut it down quickly. “This isn’t about you, Jaci,” he admitted tersely before walking from the room. “It’s about me.”

* * *

Nathan cursed under his breath as he removed himself from Jaci’s accusing stare and teary eyes. He was a bastard all right, but at least she was alive and he meant to keep her that way, even if she hated him.

He shouldn’t have left the bar to do a perimeter check but he’d been sitting on that bar stool for too long, watching every jerk in the seedy club try to sleaze their way into Jaci’s panties with the copious number of drinks sent her way. Not that he blamed the sorry saps—Jaci was hotter than hell on a summer day—but he didn’t have any grace when it came to his former flame. She was a topic of discussion that was off-limits. He was like a wounded bear with something in its paw, and that something was a certain leggy redhead who sang off-key and danced in her underwear when she thought she was alone.

He scrubbed at the stubble on his chin and poured his second cup of coffee, knowing he’d need it to get through the next few hours alone with the one woman who knew him better than anyone on this planet—and who likely wanted to scratch his eyes out.

He didn’t blame her. Not one bit. He probably deserved worse.

Good God, he could still see her stricken expression, could still picture the blood draining from her face as he deliberately broke her heart in the cruelest way he could imagine.

“You suck in bed and I’m bored. I thought I could play house but it’s just not working out and I’m ready to move on. Sorry.”

“You said we were going to get a place together. I’ve already let my apartment go and we’ve put a deposit down on a house! What are you talking about?”

“What can I say.... I’ve changed my mind.”

“What am I supposed to do? Live in my car?”

“That’s not really my problem, babe.”

Nathan squeezed his eyes shut to block out the memory but it was seared into his synapses, punishment for believing that a normal life had been possible for a blackhearted son of a bitch like himself. He’d been deliberately cruel so that she would never want to see his face again.

He was a killer—not a suburban husband who held barbecues and shared beers with the neighbors.

And Nathan had been recklessly foolish to believe otherwise.

When his past had caught up to him, Nathan knew the safest place for Jaci would be far from him and the only way to ensure that she never wanted to see him again was to break her heart into so many pieces, she’d never be able to repair it for him.

So he’d done exactly that.

And it had worked.

Damn. His breath caught in his throat. It had worked.

He peered out the dusty window across the miles and miles of forest and wondered how long they’d have to hole up here before they both went stir-crazy or straight-up killed one another out of boredom.

At least here they were safe, he thought grimly, casting a short look toward the room where Jaci remained, likely in shock from seeing her best friend die a grisly death right in front of her, and wondered how he was going to protect her when he didn’t even know who wanted her dead.

He turned sharply at the soft creak of the floorboard, his hand going to the Glock tucked into his waistband. Jaci jumped at his quick and unerring movement to his gun. Her gaze communicated everything he knew she was feeling—fear, anger, grief, confusion—and he supposed he had to give her some kind of explanation, though the idea ranked really low on his Excited To Do list.

“What’s going on?” she asked, attempting to appear strong. But Nathan caught the subtle shake in her body. He stuffed his impulse to pull her into his arms and shelter her from anything that might harm her. Right. Like she’d let you anywhere near her, a voice mocked, and he grimaced at the truth of it. He watched her enter the room on unsteady feet to sit on the edge of the worn, ’70s-era sofa as if she were a bird perched on a branch. “What’s happening? Who was that man who k-killed Sonia?” she asked in a strained voice.