The lighthouse rising above their heads had been deactivated decades earlier. The only glow to illuminate the frustration on Keplar’s face came from the landscape lighting strategically placed around the well-manicured grounds.
“What’s the plan?” JD prompted, shivering in the cool breeze blowing in off the lake. Having grown up near the ocean, he was always taken aback by the icy smell of the Great Lakes. Where were the scents of fish, salt, and seaweed? It seemed strange that a body of water so large could smell so…sterilized. “Do we continue up to Sault Ste. Marie now?”
“No way.” Agent Douglas shook his head. “I mean, I get you guys want to catch this murderous motherfucker, but that gets back-burnered until we find my partner.”
Damnit.JD worked hard to keep the irritation from his face.We wouldn't be in this situation of having our priorities divided if you’d stayed with your partner instead of following us like an over-eager puppy.
Aloud, he simply said, “I thought you had the utmost faith that Agent O’Toole could handle herself?”
The look Agent Douglas shot him would’ve had a thinner-skinned man bristling. JD only lifted a challenging eyebrow.
Knox Rollins couldn’t be allowed to escape the country. He was too valuable, too…knowledgeable. JD’s superiors needed Knox found and dealt with accordingly so that?—
“Agent Douglas is right,” Keplar said to JD’s astonishment, stopping his swirling thoughts in their tracks. “No man left behind.”
“That’s a military credo,” JD argued, studying his partner closely. Never in a million years would he have pegged Keplar as a bleeding heart, feds-before-felons type of agent. In fact, he’d always thought his partner was more of an every-man-for-himself kind of cop. The sort of guy who didn’t worry about the collateral damage along the way as long as he got the bad guy in the end. In fact, JD had beenbankingon precisely that. “Last I checked, we’re not military,” he finished with a twist of his lips.
“Doesn’t matter.” Keplar waved a hand. “We’re still all brothers in arms. We have to prioritize finding Agent O’Toole.”
A niggle of worry wormed its way through JD’s chest. It turned into a snake of alarm when Keplar continued. “You stay here with Agent Douglas and continue to organize the search. I’ll take the chopper to the upper peninsula and meet with the border authorities. No reason we can’t kill two birds.”
The snake of alarm turned into a leviathan of concern. “How about you letmego instead? Your relationship with Rollins means you’re too close to this.”
The clouds that had followed them throughout the day finally parted. Without the moon to dampen their glow, the stars shone against the black blanket of the sky. Their silver light reflected in the lake's glassy surface and showed Keplar’s color going from ruddy to fire-engine red.
“Knox ismyasset. I’ll bring him in,” the older man snarled, his lips pulling back to reveal his square, squat teeth.
Desperation had JD offering, “Agent Douglas can stay and head up the search for his partner. You and I can?—”
“Last I checked,” Keplar interrupted, “I’m still the lead agent. I call the shots.”
JD opened his mouth to continue to argue, but Keplar turned to the remaining tactical team members. “Load up.” He circled a finger in the air. “We’re headed north.”
JD had no choice but to step back as everyone climbed into the chopper—everyone but him and Agent Douglas.
When the pilot punched the ignition and the blades began to spin, he reluctantly followed the Chicago agent toward the steps leading to the lighthouse’s front door. Two minutes later, he watched the helicopter leap into the sky and chart a course out over the water.
Goosebumps rose over his arms and the back of his neck. They had nothing to do with the rotor wash or the chill in the air and everything to do with the thought of Keplar finding Knox without JD there to make sure things didn’t go awry. To make sure Knox didn’t?—
“Fuck,” he cursed, cutting off his own thoughts this time.
Douglas lifted a questioning eyebrow, but JD simply waved him off.
18
Hunter Jackson’s cabin
Britt had closely watched Julia’s face for clues to her thoughts while his brother and Sabrina repeated the tale they’d already told the Black Knights of the evening Cooper Greenlee died.
He’d seen suspicion morph into curiosity when Knox explained how the cartel had sent three of their hitmen to clip Knox and Cooper. He’d witnessed curiosity slide into horror when Sabrina recounted a bit of what happened to her and how her brother had died trying to stop her from suffering a worse fate.
Now, the only sounds to interrupt the quiet inside the little cabin were the pop of a log in the fireplace at his back—he’d grabbed a seat on the stone hearth—and the sticky noise Julia’s throat made when she took a hasty sip from the mug of hot chocolate she grabbed off of the coffee table in front of her.
“I am so sorry for your loss, Miss Greenlee,” she said quietly to the wan-looking woman seated on the opposite end of the well-worn sofa from her. “And for what you suffered at the hands of that man. I—” She stopped when her voice cracked. Her expression was similar to Britt's when a fellow soldier recounted the horrors of war. It was the face of someone whoknew.
He wondered if she’d personally suffered—the statistics said one in five women in the U.S. had experienced attempted or completed rape—or if she’d simply brushed up against the noxious subject one too many times in her line of work.
He hoped it was the second. Because if it was the first, and if he ever found out who the sonofabitch was, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself from making the asshole eat the bangy end of his sidearm.
