Jodie Bailey - Fatal Response

The quick look the chief and Wyatt exchanged made Erin brace herself against the back of the couch. The drugs were half of the issue.

“What?” Jason had seen it too.

“Mrs. Daniels’s cell phone was unlocked, and there were messages indicating she’d been running drugs for a while. But her last message was the one we’re concerned with now. It directed her to deliver the package to the firefighter on duty at the station by midnight, or someone would kill her husband.”

THREE

“What?” Erin wavered, her fingers digging into the black leather sofa she’d been leaning against.

Instinctively, Jason reached for her, but he drew back as Wyatt stepped around him and laid a hand on Erin’s shoulder.

Jason stood down. Right. He got it. Erin wasn’t his to take care of anymore.

For the first time, he took a second to really look at her. She was the same yet so different. Her dark hair was longer and pulled back in a ponytail. She was more toned, although the uniform could be creating an illusion of strength. Still, she appeared way too delicate to be the rescue hero he knew her to be.

And the drive to protect her was strong, no matter what their past might say.

“Why?” The word was soft, as though it leaked from a deflating balloon. Erin brushed Wyatt’s hand from her shoulder and stood taller, seeming to re-center herself. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do we,” Wyatt said. “Did you know her? Ever seen her before tonight?”

Erin shook her head slowly as though she were cataloging recent days as she answered. “No. Never. The sole connection is the car. I know it’s the same one that’s circled the parking lot a few times. There can’t be two identical cars like that one in a town this small.”

“Someone wanted you involved.” Jason had no doubt. There was no way all of this was a coincidence. He’d built his career on analyzing the details, and these added up a little too well. Somehow, Erin was a target too.

The why made no sense, though. No more than Angie running drugs did. It was a setup. It had to be.

“Normally, I’d say you’re reaching, but...” Arch Thompson was skeptical, and Jason couldn’t blame him. Arch had been a senior when Jason, Erin and Wyatt were freshmen, but in a small town, everyone was acquainted with everyone. The young police chief had always been a good guy, if a little bit cocky, but in Jason’s line of work, cocky could work for you.

“Jason.” Wyatt cut into the conversation and held up his cell phone. “There are some men outside asking for you. Apparently, Staff Sergeant Daniels is here. You’re free to go out and see them as long as you don’t feed them any details past this was a hit-and-run.”

Jason dug his fingers into his thighs. As much as he wanted to stay and make sure Erin was truly okay, the men outside needed him more. He had no doubt Seth had come to the station trying to get to his wife and no doubt the others had followed him. “Got it.” He hesitated as he passed Wyatt and Erin. “Call me if you need anything else.” Even he wasn’t sure which of the two he was talking to.

Wyatt nodded. Erin didn’t respond.

Not that he’d expected her to. The way the conversation had gone earlier, there was still a large gulf between them. One he had no idea how to bridge.

When he shoved through the door, the temperature was noticeably colder than it had been an hour or so earlier. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and strode toward the barriers at the road, where a handful of cars sat parked along the side of the road.

Only one person was in sight.

Jason ducked under the barrier and came up next to Staff Sergeant Alex “Rich” Richardson, who was leaning against the side of his pickup truck. Rich hardly acknowledged him as he scanned the wood line on the other side of the station. The vigilance never went away, even on home soil and especially tonight.

It might never go away again. He’d seen the woman who’d once been the love of his life for the first time in years. Had witnessed a speeding vehicle take aim at her. Had seen blood-soaked boots on pavement.

None of this should be happening here.

He stepped into Rich’s line of sight. “Where is everybody?”

“They went with Seth. A couple of local cops took him up the road a little ways, around the curve. Probably have him sitting in a patrol car. He was pretty...you know.”

Belligerent? Desperate? Scared? When they’d lost Fitz, Seth had been one of the worst wounded, nearly bleeding out from shrapnel to the neck. His fight, his determination, his will to live...everything had centered on Angie.

And now she was gone.

Jason tensed, his knee and shoulder protesting with another reminder of the ways life didn’t always make sense. As he stood beside Rich, he studied the driveway leading to the back of the fire station. Seth was going to need them all, but he had no idea what to say. If they were facing armed terrorists, he could take them down. A bomb factory? Been there, done that.

But a buddy who’d lost his wife?

He hadn’t felt this inept even in basic training. There weren’t courses for how to comfort a guy whose wife was dead. A wife who had been killed in a hit-and-run ten miles from home with an envelope full of meth in her hand.

Rich pounded the side of his fist against the truck. “I feel useless standing here. I’d rather be hunting the guy who did this, bringing him in so he can face what he’s done.”

“Same.”

“Lisa’s with him. She’ll know what Seth needs.”

Lisa Fitzgerald would definitely do a better job than any of the guys would. When they’d returned from Iraq and Lisa had come to meet them, Jason had tried to offer sympathy to Fitz’s wife. He’d watched her husband die. He owed her.

But he’d blown it. Had stammered a few clichés that had made her soak his shoulder with tears.

“I think—” Rich’s words dropped as a figure stepped around the back of the truck.

Jason’s muscles tensed, his fingers reflexively reaching for the weapon he no longer carried. People melting out of the darkness never meant anything good.

But as the shadow drew closer, the tension eased.

Sergeant First Class Tony Augustus lowered a soda can from his mouth, casting a guilty look at Jason.

“Caesar.” The nickname had been bestowed on Tony by a drill sergeant who’d called him Caesar Augustus . “You let your wife catch you downing caffeine, she’ll come after you. Then she’ll come after us for not stopping you.” After the incident that killed Fitz, the men had reacted in different ways. Caesar’s post-traumatic stress had nearly incapacitated him and, in an effort to curb his anxiety, his wife, Caroline, had talked him into cutting his caffeine intake.

“Yeah, well...” Caesar scrubbed his hand across his closely cropped dark hair. “Tension’s thick and I just needed...something.”

Jason could sympathize with the need for something . He’d found something at the bottom of a bottle after the incident , but while it had bought him temporary freedom from the pain, it had left him helpless to fight his thoughts when the nothingness wore off. Not only did he relive Fitz’s death and his own injuries, but he was thrown back to life in Mountain Springs before he took an oath to serve his country, to the what might have beens he’d left behind.

A few moments of oblivion weren’t worth the aftermath.

Rich thumped his fist lightly against the side of his truck, a rhythmic beat that was almost reassuring. A drummer when he was in high school, he was always tapping a rhythm. The habit had led to a lot of late-night impromptu bad karaoke sessions. His engagement to his fiancée, Amber Ransom, was a few days old. He was probably internalizing all of Seth’s reactions, knowing he’d do the same. He needed time. They all needed time.