It didn’t take her long to fill in the blanks. “And that someone used my search to track me to the location of the house.”
He met her eye to eye. “Yes.”
Caroline groaned and pressed her fists against each side of her head. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“You didn’t know,” he simply said, and it was layered with sympathy. Something she didn’t want. Didn’t deserve. What she’d done was more than just stupid, though. It had nearly gotten them killed. “God, Jack. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t,” he warned her, and he went to her, pulling her into his arms. “This isn’t your fault. It’s the fault of the person who put the tracker on the site.”
There was something else in his voice now. Anger. And she didn’t think it was directed at her—even though it should have been.
Think, she demanded, fighting her way through the emotions that were flooding her mind.Think. Had the Geo-Trace been put on the site specifically to find her?
Possibly.
If so, she didn’t have to guess why that’d happened. The person wanted her dead, and it almost certainly went back to the night Eric had taken her hostage. Either someone thought Eric had told her something or that she’d overheard or seen it. Something that her attacker wanted to keep hidden, and the way to do that was to silence her permanently. Jack would just be collateral damage.
“There’s more,” Jack went on. “I asked the computer guys to do a reverse search to try to find out who put Geo-Trace on the site. And they found the source.”
The relief came, but it didn’t last. That was because Caroline knew that this wasn’t good news.
“Zeller,” he said, his voice clipped. “Geo-Trace was loaded on the site from Zeller’s office computer.”
Chapter Eleven
While Jack slogged his way through the list of calls he had to make, he kept his eye on Caroline. She was at a small table that he’d moved into Kellan’s office specifically for her, working on the borrowed laptop. Trying to track down Grace.
He also suspected she was trying to deal with her feelings.
Even though she wasn’t talking about it, Caroline was probably still burdened with guilt over the whole Geo-Trace problem. And yeah, she was blaming herself. Jack certainly wasn’t. He was putting the blame right where it belonged.
On Zeller.
Well, if Zeller was actually responsible, that is. Jack was trying to sort through his own feelings and questions about that.
It would have been incredibly stupid for a marshal to use his computer to install a tracking device like that. Something that could be traced right back to him. So, unless Zeller had gotten careless, it meant someone had perhaps set him up. And that was a question Jack intended to ask Zeller as soon as he arrived.
Jack checked his watch. One o’clock already. Which meant Zeller should get to the sheriff’s office anytime now. Jack hadn’t given the man a heads-up on what the visit was about, but it was possible that Zeller had gotten word about what had been found on his computer. It was hard to keep something like that quiet when others in the office would have known that the techs were running checks.
Still, it didn’t matter if Zeller knew or if he’d had time to come up with a story to cover his tracks. A face-to-face meeting wouldallow Jack to look into his eyes and maybe see if he was telling the truth.
Jack gave Caroline another glance before he went into the squad room to refill his coffee. Kellan was there, doing the same, and he’d no doubt take that fresh cup to the interview room where he’d been working for the past couple hours. His choice, not Jack’s. Jack had offered to move Caroline and himself into that room, but Kellan had insisted they stay in his office.
“How’s she doing?” Kellan asked, tipping his head to Caroline.
She didn’t look up at them. She kept her attention nailed to the laptop screen while her fingers seemingly flew over the keyboard. Next to it was the untouched sandwich that Jack had had delivered for her from the diner. Soon, he’d try to coax her again into eating.
Jack didn’t sugarcoat the truth when he answered Kellan. “She’s not doing that well. Way too much has happened in the past twenty-four hours, and it’s a lot to take on.”
Kellan gave a grunt of agreement and sipped his coffee. “Does ‘way too much’ include you two sleeping together?”
Jack nearly snapped that it was none of Kellan’s business, but he knew his brother hadn’t meant to pry into his personal life. The bottom line was that sex had complicated things. It had made Jack less objective—though he couldn’t remember a time when objectivity had played into his feelings for Caroline.
“It does include that,” Jack admitted. He rubbed his forehead, where a dull ache throbbed. “I love her and I want to protect her. If you can figure out a way to stay objective about that, I’d like to hear it.”
Maybe because Kellan knew that Jack was dealing with as much emotion as Caroline, he wisely held back any judgment or advice. Kellan just patted his brother on the back and headed toward the interview room. Jack went the other direction. He got Caroline a cup of coffee and brought it to her in the office.
“Thanks,” she muttered, not looking up at him, but then she stopped, her fingers still poised over the keyboard.
