“I called you right away, just as you told me to do,” Lucille added. “And I made sure Caroline stayed away from the windows.” Again, that was as Jack had instructed.
Jack made a sound of approval, and while continuing to volley his attention out the window, he reached out to take the knife from Caroline. Her hand went stiff when his fingers brushed over hers. Actually, every part of her seemed to stiffen as her gaze collided with his. Her intense stare held a few long moments before she finally let go of the knife.
“Sorry, Marshal Slater,” she muttered. “I’m a little spooked.”
Marshal Slater. It wasn’t a surprise that she called him that. In fact, it was the only thing Caroline had called him since she’d turned up in Longview Ridge three months ago with that head injury and the amnesia. She said his name with the same edgy suspicion that was in her eyes.
Before the memory loss, she had called him Jack. And there’d sure as hell been no suspicion then. Only the heat from the scalding hot fire that he no longer saw or felt in any part of her.
I love you, Jack.
Those were the last words Caroline had said to him before she was taken hostage, before this nightmare had begun. Words she’d said when they thought it would be an ordinary, short goodbye. When Jack had thought there’d be plenty of other times for him to sayI love youright back—and that was why he hadn’t said it to her then. Now he might never get the chance.
He was a stranger to her now. He wasMarshal Slater.
Jack tried not to let that eat away at him, especially since Lucille had insisted on calling him by his title and surname, too. But in Lucille’s case, it just sounded as if she’d wanted to remind herself that he was there to protect Caroline and her. Which he was.
“You think it was a false alarm?” Lucille asked, joining him at the window.
Jack lifted his shoulder. “The sensors weren’t tripped.”
If they had been, Jack would have gotten the alert on his phone. Of course, the guy would have had to get closer to the house for that to happen, since the sensors were arranged around the perimeter of the yard and on the dirt road that led to the house.
There were also some cameras, and Jack fired off a text to his partner, Marshal Teagan Randolph. He asked her to cull out the video feed from all the cameras for the past hour and send it to him ASAP.
“I’ll wait around for a while and keep watch,” he assured Lucille and Caroline when he was done with the text.
A whilewas going to mean staying for the night. Or longer. He didn’t intend to take any risks with Caroline, because somewhere in those lost memories in her head was a piece of information he needed as much as the next breath he took.
She knew who’d murdered his father.
The images came. They always did whenever he thought of his dad, Sheriff Buck Slater. Buck had been the law in Longview Ridge, but that had ended one night in a hail of bullets and blood when someone had gunned him down. Caroline was the only person alive who could tell him what’d happened.
Other than the killer, of course.
And Jack suspected he wouldn’t be getting any answers from him or her on that. Especially since he had a mile-long suspect list that he hadn’t managed to whittle down much since his father’s murder a little over a year ago.
He was betting Caroline was eager to uncover those memories, too. Well, maybe she was. She had to want to know what’d happened not just to his father but also to her. She would want to know how she got that head injury. But the doctors had said the amnesia could be a way of protecting herself from a nightmare that was too traumatic for her to face. Still, Jack hadto hold on to hope that one day she would push the trauma aside and help him catch a killer.
“I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee,” Lucille volunteered, and she got busy doing that after she gave Caroline the once-over.
It was the kind of quick exam a nurse would take of her patient, probably to make sure Caroline wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack. Jack hadn’t witnessed one of the attacks, but he’d heard from Lucille and then Caroline’s doctors that she’d had several in the three months that she’d been in WITSEC. It was the reason the US Marshals—and Jack himself—had wanted a nurse to be with her. Normally, when someone was placed in WITSEC, that didn’t happen. The person merely started a new life with a new identity and no past.
But nothing about this situation was normal.
Jack had also had to convince his agency that this wouldn’t be a conflict of interest for him, that he could do his job as Caroline’s handler despite their prior personal relationship. And that it would be all right for him to place her in the local area where he could keep a close eye on her. Maybe some of his fellow marshals did know of his personal interest in the case. But none had doubted that he would do whatever it took to make sure Caroline was not only safe but that she also made a full recovery. Emphasis on thefull.
When Lucille had moved from the kitchen window, Caroline had came closer to him. But not too close. She always gave him a wide berth, making sure they didn’t accidentally bump into each other. Maybe that’s why his merely touching her hand earlier had caused every muscle in her body to turn to iron.
“You think that man by the pond came here to kill me?” she asked.
If he hadn’t thought that was possible, she wouldn’t need to be in WITSEC. But the truth was, he just didn’t know. Maybe there was no killer after Caroline, but he wasn’t willing to takethat chance. Because if there was someone after her, it would likely be the same person who’d murdered his father. The person could want to silence her permanently so she could never reveal his or her identity.
“We don’t know who we’re dealing with,” he settled for saying. He usually gave her a variation of that whenever the subject of her safety came up. Which was often. No need to alarm her and spur one of those panic attacks by spelling out worst-case scenarios. “Was there anything about this man you recognized?”
“No. Like I said, I only got a glimpse.” Caroline didn’t hesitate, but she did huff. “Has my location been compromised? Will I have to move to another safe house?”
Possibly, but Jack decided to put a softer spin on that. “Let’s just wait and see. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He looked at her as the last of those words were leaving his mouth, and for just a split second he saw something more than distrust on her face.
