He smiled faintly. “Then I guess we'd better make it one hell of a week.”
I laughed softly, and before I knew it, his hand brushed mine. Warm. Steady.
For the first time in a long time, I didn’t pull away.
9
Hawk
The storm rolled in just after midnight, crawling over Copper Cove like it had a score to settle. Rain hammered the cabin roof, wind rattled the windows, and inside, the place hummed with low voices and glowing screens.
Logan and Boone were hunched over the dining table, the old wood buried under maps, printouts, and Boone’s laptop. Russ had staked out the big recliner, flipping through property files the county clerk had “accidentally” emailed him.
I pretended to be interested in whatever Boone was muttering about heat signatures and access tunnels, but my mind kept drifting back to Julia. The way she’d stood on my dad’s porch earlier, hands in her pockets, shoulders tight, staring out at the woods like they were staring back.
She’d gone home to her place by the lake after that. Alone.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
Unknown secure line. Washington D.C.
Logan glanced up. “You gonna get that?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed the phone and stepped out onto theback porch, into the pouring rain. The screen door groaned shut behind me.
I answered. “Jensen.”
“About time you picked up,” a familiar voice said, dry as dust. “Starting to think you’d forgotten how to charge your phone.”
I exhaled. “Aaron Cole. I didn’t realize you were the one pulling strings in D.C. these days.”
“Delta Five pulls the strings,” he corrected. “I just answer when the President calls.”
Of course he did.
“What’ve you got?” I asked.
A beat of silence, just the hiss of rain in the background on both ends. “You were right about Copper Ridge Mine,” Aaron said. “It’s not just cartel real estate. It’s owned through a shell company tied to a defense contractor in Virginia. That contractor’s been laundering money overseas for years.”
My grip tightened on the phone. “You’re telling me some beltway suit is loaning out American dirt to the Cali Cartel?”
“I’m telling you someone with access and clearance signed off on that land transfer,” Aaron said. “And they’re moving more than powder through those tunnels.”
I thought of the crates we’d seen earlier that day. Guns. Enough to arm a small war.
“Military-grade weapons,” I said.
“That’s the rumor,” Aaron replied. “And that’s why the President is officially very interested in your little mountain town.”
Rain dripped off the porch roof in thick ropes. Mom would’ve said it was good for the pines. Right now it just felt like the sky was closing in.
“So what’s the play?” I asked.
“Quiet,” Aaron said. “This doesn’t go through standard channels. DEA, FBI, half the alphabet soup is compromisedon this. The order from the top is simple: find out who’s backing the cartel stateside, shut them down, and keep it off the front page.”
I let out a low whistle. “No pressure.”
“Pressure’s why they called us,” he said. “And why I’m calling you. We traced a series of encrypted calls that bounced through a government server and landed in Colombia. Copper Cove’s sheriff’s department is on that chain.”
