Jack cursed, not just because he was pissed about the hacking but because this could crush Caroline. This could put her on the fast track to a panic attack and a guilt trip. Hell, she’d want to be offering to take a bullet for him because she would see this as having put him in danger.
“If it works the way the geeks think it does,” Teagan explained, “Geo-Trace would have allowed someone to track the computer without getting a warrant. And Caroline wouldn’t have known about the risk. Like I said, Geo-Trace is still in the experimental stages. Whoever put it on the sites was probably looking for her.”
And had found her.
“See if the geeks can figure out who put Geo-Trace on the sites,” he suggested. “Maybe try a reverse hacking maneuver.” Ironically, it was something Caroline might be able to do, but he didn’t want to go to her with this just yet.
“I’ll try, but the Geo-Trace program corrupted itself when our techs tried to examine it. They got portions of it, but it was as if it had an encoded virus to stop someone from digging into it too much.”
A fail-safe. One that would have required some serious computer skills. That still didn’t convince him to bring this to Caroline. Even if he caught flak for it later, which he was certain he would.
“Don’t mention this to Caroline,” he added to Teagan.
Teagan rattled off a string of profanities before she said, “You’re not going to question her about it?”
“Not right now. I need to ease her into it so that it doesn’t send her into a tailspin.”
Teagan groaned. “What part of your body are you thinking with right now?”
“Probably the wrong one,” he admitted and ended the call just as Caroline hurried into the room.
She was dressed, mostly, but still adjusting the above-the-knee denim skirt and snug red top. Clothes that hugged curves on Caroline that he wished he couldn’t see right now.
Yeah, the wrong part of his body was doing the thinking, and that had to stop. With the breach of the WITSEC location, it wasn’t a stretch for someone to figure out that she would have gone with him. That was why he hurried when he got her out of the house and into the cruiser. He had to concentrate on who had attacked them and stop the person from coming after them again.
Jack frowned when he looked up at the sky. The iron gray clouds were already moving on, indicating a storm was on the way. He didn’t mind bad weather, but he didn’t like the idea of it happening when he was trying to get Caroline back and forth from the sheriff’s office.
Gunnar flashed Caroline a grin that he seemed to cut short when Jack scowled at him. He knew that Gunnar didn’t have any romantic interest in Caroline. He was just being friendly, but Jack wanted the deputy in concentration mode, too.
“Did they find the shooter?” Caroline asked.
“No. The CSI team processed the car, and all the prints, fibers and trace they collected were sent to the lab. They might find something,” Jack tried to assure her.
Since she’d been a criminal profiler and had dealt with investigations for years, Caroline probably knew that was a long shot. Anything collected from a rental car wouldn’t necessarily belong to the last person who’d been inside it. Plus, a would-be killer had likely made sure not to leave any evidence behind.
Caroline shifted in the seat and studied him. “Is something wrong? I mean, something other than the obvious?”
There were two kinds of obvious here. The investigation and the personal. Jack had filled her in on everything about the case except for the likelihood that her laptop had been the reason her location was compromised. He still intended to hold off on asking her about that, which left them with the personal. And yes, there were things about that they also hadn’t touched on yet.
Since Gunnar was only a few feet away, Jack reminded himself to keep his voice low. “I’m worried I messed up things last night.”
Caroline stared at him, her expression flat. “I’m guessing you’re not talking about the sex itself but rather the distraction it caused.”
He nodded. Neither of them was going to dispute that the sex had been good. Darn good. Heck, they couldn’t even try to pretend that it wouldn’t happen again. But in this case, there could be a price to pay.
“You’re on fragile ground,” he said. “I know that. You’re recovering from a nightmare that hasn’t ended yet.” And now he had to pause and figure out how to sort out the jumble of thoughts and emotions going through his mind. It’d been too long without her, and the need had been too much to overcome. “I’m sorry if this is messing with your head.”
Her eyebrow rose, and for a moment he saw the flash of humor. Jack almost expected her to make a joke, something along the lines of it hadn’t been her head he’d been messing with. But the humor faded as quickly as it had come.
“I suspect it messed with your head, too,” she said. “What I don’t want it to do is make you feel that you have to shelter me.” But Caroline immediately waved that off. “I’m not talking about protective custody here. I’m not stupid. I need that. I need you.”
Jack hated that the needing-him part made him feel a lot better than it should have.
She huffed and moved closer, the side of her arm sliding against his chest as she shifted in the seat. Caroline looked him straight in the eyes. “I want you to treat me the way you did in bed,” she whispered. “I didn’t feel damaged or broken then. And even if I am both of those things, I don’t want you to make me feel as if I am. Understand?”
Oh, yeah. He understood all right. It’d been the heat that had caused him to take her hard and fast. No kid gloves. But the bottom line was that while she was healing, she was indeed still broken, and Jack had no intentions of adding to that. It meant he’d walk a fine line between his feelings for her and his need to protect her. Thankfully, he didn’t have to get into the details of how he’d manage that, because Gunnar pulled to a stop in front of the sheriff’s office.
Caroline’s eyes met his again as if she wanted to delay getting out until he gave her some kind of assurance, but Gunnar remedied that, as well, by hurrying to open the door to the building for them. Clearly, the deputy was standing guard and waiting for them to go inside. On Caroline’s huff and Jack’s sigh of relief, that was exactly what they did.
