Deadly Cargo

by Jodie Bailey

  “I just need a location.”

  “I can give you the lat and long, if you want a helicopter to pick you up.” She couldn’t leave. The plane was hers to protect, but there was nothing to keep him here.

  “I’m not leaving you alone. I’m fine rocking the wilderness life.” Will grinned and walked away, Scout close at his heels.

  Jasmine leaned against the plane and crossed her arms, watching the trooper reach down to pet the collie as he spoke into the phone. His deep voice drifted back to her, though she couldn’t make out the words.

  Something about him drew her, but that made no sense. Could be because he knew her secret and she was free to talk openly for the first time in two years, something she hadn’t realized she longed to do until now.

  It didn’t matter. Her life wasn’t her own, and it never would be. When Will moved to his next case, there was a possibility she could move, too. Forced into a new life, one that prevented her from touching an airplane again.

  Deep inside, where her soul connected with her God, she knew this was what she was meant to do. Flying planes, helping others... It was a solid truth in her life, a calling she’d never questioned. How could it be that in helping Will, she could possibly lose that calling?

  At the moment, however, they had more pressing problems. The least she could do was peek at the engine and electronics. While her knowledge involved a basic working understanding of the parts “under the hood,” she could provide Jerry with a starting spot before he arrived.

  She hauled out the ladder and popped the hatch over the engine. Immediately the smell of fuel overwhelmed everything else. Jasmine leaned away to let it dissipate, then eased closer. That was definitely not right. Her eyes trailed the fuel line and stopped at a gash in the hose. A straight, clean gash that hadn’t happened naturally and that had caused a fuel leak that should have registered in her gauges.

  Jasmine gripped the ladder, her palms growing clammy.

  “What’s wrong?” Will’s voice came from below.

  She didn’t turn from the plane. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.

  “Jasmine?”

  Pulling in a deep breath, she gripped the ladder. It didn’t matter if she helped Will or not. She was already in danger. And she was staring at the proof. “Someone tried to kill us.”

  * * *

  Will punched the rolled jacket under his head and wished for the hundredth time it was his pillow on his bed. Beside him, Scout tucked closer, his back pressed against the sleeping bag over Will’s stomach.

  At least one of them was getting some rest tonight.

  After a dinner of emergency rations from a stash in the plane, Jasmine had produced two sleeping bags and had unrolled hers near the rear of the cargo area while he tried to bed down near the front.

  Sleep had proven elusive, though. For one thing, it had taken until almost eleven for the sky to grow dark. For a guy who slept with blackout curtains, that had made things tough enough.

  But Jasmine’s insistence that the plane had been tampered with added a whole new level to this insomnia. If she was right, then was she the target? Or was he...? And when had the plane been hit? Things could have gone south before she even left Fairbanks. Or, after he’d accepted the invitation to fly with her, someone could have targeted him at either of the two airfields where the plane spent time on the ground.

  Will exhaled loudly. It would be nice to roll over to his other side, but he really didn’t want to wake Scout. The dog needed sleep as much as he did.

  “Are you still awake, too?” From the back of the plane, Jasmine’s whisper drifted forward as though she didn’t want to disturb him.

  “Am I keeping you up?” All of his restlessness and worry had likely reached her ears. “Sorry.”

  “It’s not you. My backpack makes a terrible pillow. Couldn’t sleep, so I’ve been praying about Casey Bell’s overdose. About catching the traffickers. About a lot of things.”

  She said it so easily. Will hadn’t even considered praying his sleepless night through. His Bible time was at six every morning, like clockwork. An appointment with God that he never missed.

  There was a rustle in the darkness and the plane rocked slightly. “You were talking about the aurora earlier. Since we’re both awake, we could open the door and see what’s out there. I can’t see out the front windows from here, but it seems like the light is shifting.” This time, her voice was closer, somewhere near the middle of the plane where the cargo door was firmly closed against the night creatures that roamed the frontier.

  He sat up quickly, and Scout was just as fast, rising before Will even reached the zipper for the sleeping bag. He’d been fascinated by the northern lights since his move to Alaska. Seeing them out here on the frontier was a long-held dream. While he’d been in the wilderness many times, those visits had never coincided with a night when the aurora was active. “Think there will be a show tonight?”

  The plane rocked again, then the door slid open. “I think you’re blessed to see this season’s premier.” Jasmine’s silhouette darkened the doorway.

  Beyond her lay a whole other world.

  Will scrambled out of the sleeping bag with Scout close beside. At the doorway, he settled in next to Jasmine, who sat with her legs dangling over the side. The sky undulated and waved slowly in a green-curtained dance at once otherworldly eerie and God-created beautiful. His heart tugged toward the sight, proof of the creativity of the Creator who knew no limits. Something inside him reacted in a way that reading his Bible each morning had never produced. Something intimate and personal toward his Maker.

  “Wild, isn’t it?” Jasmine’s voice was barely a whisper. Her shoulder brushed his in the narrow door space before she angled slightly away. “That this exists. That the sky can do this incredible thing.”

  “Yet people still don’t believe in God.” He kept his voice low, somehow lost in the holy reverence of the moment.

  “There’s a lot of ugly in the world. So many reasons to be afraid and angry. Then you see this, and you realize it dances on whether we’re here or not. We can’t change it. Only God can. And somehow—”

  “It makes the ugly seem less ugly.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  They watched in silence. The frontier sat before them in total stillness. The motion of the sky was so vast, it almost seemed as though there should be some noise along with it. Some unearthly music. “It’s so quiet.”

  “The aurora actually has a sound.” Jasmine braced her hands by her hips, so close to Will’s leg that he could feel the warmth, and leaned forward into the openness around them. “It pops and crackles, but you really have to be listening.”

  Will mimicked her posture, and their fingers brushed. If he wanted, he could wrap his fingers around hers and—

  But why would he do that? He drew back quickly and sat up straighter, resting his hands on his knees. Behind him, Scout snored softly, his back against Will’s, oblivious to the beauty before them. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Jasmine chuckled, unaware of his wayward thoughts, then she grew quiet. “So, you know why I’m here in Alaska. What ugly I’m running from in the world.” She nudged his elbow with hers. “What brought you here?”

  Will stiffened. How did she know he’d been running when he came to this wild land? “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been here a few years, but this is your first frontier aurora viewing. That seems a little off. From everything you say, your job is your life. Then there’s the way you talk, like you didn’t come to Alaska to experience Alaska. To live in a land rougher than any other. You came here for another reason. And in my experience?” She eased away from him, leaning against the door frame, though her silhouette said she still watched the beauty before her. “People either come to Alaska because they’re drawn to its uniqueness or because they’re running from som
ething in the lower forty-eight.”

  How had she done that? Hit so close to the truth after knowing him only twelve hours? He cleared his throat. “Maybe God called me here.”

  “The way you got all tight and sat up straighter when I asked the question says something different.” She chuckled softly. “I taught second graders, remember? They are the world’s worst at hiding their body language. Teachers know how to read their students. Besides, if we’re going to work together and you know my truth, shouldn’t I know yours?”

  Her truth. Will had started this day convinced he’d close it out with the arrest of a hard-core drug smuggler. He’d convicted Jasmine in his heart and mind before his helicopter ever landed at Nemeti.

  It was still possible she was guilty, though. Just because her plane had been clean today, that didn’t mean it always was. She could simply be a very good con artist.

  He knew all about very good con artists.

  Still, the tip implicating her had been wrong, and he wasn’t sure what that meant when it came to his job or to God.

  Or to Jasmine. Cynicism was a part of his nature, but Jasmine had challenged that today. And she challenged him even more so now as they shared this incredible moment when the sky danced to a tune only God could orchestrate.

  Even though it made no sense to his head, his heart wanted to trust her. For the first time in his life, he wanted to talk. To unburden himself to another human being. Maybe because she was a stranger. Or perhaps because the setting was so, well, intimate.

  But he’d never even told God these things. How could he confide in Jasmine, who he still wasn’t certain was an innocent woman, the darkest secrets of his heart?

  FIVE

  Pressing her shoulder tighter against the door frame, Jasmine kept her gaze on the shimmering green and purple lights that painted the sky in an unnervingly beautiful, motion-filled work of art.

  Inwardly, her stomach seemed to shrink. What was she thinking, asking Trooper Will Stryker such a thing? They weren’t friends. They were on brand-new speaking terms after the fiasco of the day. Yet, sitting here, dependent on each other’s company to pass the time, she genuinely wanted to know who this man was. She’d confessed her secret—at least in part—and part of her wanted to level the playing field, to restore balance by hearing his as well.

  But Will was silent. Tension radiated from him as he pressed his hands against the floor and leaned into the night to see past the plane’s door, which opened over their heads like a porch roof. Even in the darkness lit only by the aurora and the stars, it was clear his jaw was clenched. His eyes were fixed on the sky, but Jasmine had to wonder if he saw the ethereal beauty.

  There was nothing to do but sit in awkward silence. Her prying had wrecked a peaceful moment they’d both sorely needed. For the first time since she’d looked at her engine, she’d forgotten the plane had likely been tampered with. Had forgotten her life in Alaska might be cut short. Had forgotten—

  “Minnesota and Alaska are both cold.” Will’s words stalled her thoughts. It seemed the words came from deep inside him, pulled to the surface slowly and laboriously. “When I was twelve, my mom was involved in an accident at work. She got hooked on Oxy. It happened fast. Really fast. Me being a kid, I didn’t notice. Maybe if I had...” He shrugged. “Maybe it would have been different.”

  “You were twelve. No kid is going to see those kinds of signs or, if they do, know what to do about them.”

  “Maybe. I mean, looking back now that I’m thirty, it all makes sense. But I wish I’d seen it then.”

  The urge to reach for him nearly swamped Jasmine. The teacher in her wanted to comfort that twelve-year-old and to tell him it would all be okay. But this was no middle schooler. This was a man wrestling with a past he was still trying to make sense of. There was little she could—or should—do about that.

  Except listen.

  “Naturally, she burned her bridges with all of the doctors and the pharmacies, so she went the illegal route. At some point, she got in over her head with her dealer, so she started selling for him. I’m not clear on the timeline, but when I was about fifteen or sixteen, she almost seemed less tense for a while.” He shook his head and leaned back, stretching his arms and shoulders before he sat forward again. “It was a weird combo of less stressed but more anxious. Maybe because she had a steady supply of drugs but knew what she was doing was wrong. I’m sure watching her back for the police every day wore on her. And worrying what would happen to me probably did, too. Eventually, she tried to turn on her dealer. She went to the cops and offered to turn him over.” Will shook his head and looked Jasmine in the eye. “She was trying to get clean and to make everything right.”

  His voice was the same level it had always been, but a raw anguish made the edges jagged. She probably would have missed it in any other situation, but the silence of the night magnified the sound of his pain. She couldn’t help but reach out to him.

  Her hand found his and held on, trying to give him some comfort, praying for his pain to be healed by the only One who could.

  Will started to pull away, but then he curled his fingers around hers and looked into the night again. “It was two months after I left for college. She waited until I was out of the house to make her move against the guy. Figured it was safer for me, I guess. Later, when I became a cop and could get into the records, I found out exactly what happened, but I didn’t know for years.” His grip tightened. “The detectives wired her and sent her in to pick up a stash to sell, but Mom was always a terrible liar.” He laughed, sharp and bitter. “They figured her out, and murdered her. You can kill an average man with pure fentanyl equal to four grains of salt, but they shot her up with enough to kill thirty men twice her size. The dealers were angry she turned on them, and they made an example out of her.”

  Emotion almost closed Jasmine’s throat, but she held it in. He needed her to carry his pain, not to express it in a way that would force him to comfort her.

  “They caught a couple of the lower-level guys in the operation, but their leader evaded arrest. He died about five years ago in a power grab. He was drowned in his bathtub.”

  Jasmine’s eyes drifted closed. The man whose murder she’d witnessed had been killed because he crossed a drug cartel. Will’s story intersected with hers in a way that lacerated her system. They were mirrors reflecting two sides of evil. “That’s why you came to Alaska.” It made sense. They’d both had a drive for justice, and it had changed the course of both of their lives.

  “No. That’s why I became a cop.” He pulled his hand from hers and stretched his arms out in front of him, fingers laced together. Then he pressed his back against the door frame, one leg dangling into space and the other bent, his knee barely brushing her thigh.

  She tried to ignore the contact. After holding his hand, his touch evoked more emotion than it should. She cleared her throat to sweep it away. “So...Alaska?”

  He laughed, but it didn’t sound as though it was born out of humor. More out of bitterness. “Alaska was because of a woman.”

  “Ah.” Jasmine mimicked his posture. Their knees touched in the narrow space. Maybe this would make the mood lighter. “You followed her here?”

  “I ran from her here.” He tipped his head back and rested it against the plane. “You really want to hear my life story?”

  “Neither of us is sleeping. And it’s preferable to wondering who sabotaged my plane. Or if it was really sabotaged at all.” Because maybe she was so paranoid that she was imagining things. But too many things had happened at once and that cut was too perfect for it all to be accidental.

  “I get your point.” This time, when he chuckled, it sounded like he was genuinely amused. “So my past gets sacrificed for your present comfort?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Okay, but you’re going to owe me more stories about Jasmine Jefferson. I
want embarrassing stuff. Like how you tripped in front of your high school crush. Something ridiculously lighthearted.”

  “Your definition of lighthearted is kind of mean.” Jasmine smiled anyway. She understood what he was going for. Distraction, the same as she was. “And my real name is...” No. It was too much to tell him now. “Let’s just say she would be the one with the embarrassing high school stories.” Because Yasmine wasn’t Jasmine Jefferson. She was a different person who no longer existed, even though she still lived in Jasmine.

  The thought always brought a shudder. How could someone be dead and yet still live?

  Seeming to sense her discomfort, Will pressed his knee against hers briefly and changed the subject. “I really did come to Alaska because of the K-9 unit, but I was looking for a way out of Minnesota. It does something to a guy when he finds out that his girlfriend, the one he was certain he was going to marry, is only using him for protection.”

  “Protection?” Because she was afraid of the world and thought being married to a cop would keep her safe?

  “She was a midlevel dealer. Heroin. Beth never used the stuff herself so I never saw the signs. She thought having me in her pocket would protect her if she ever got caught.”

  “Will, no. That’s awful.” The words poured out in a gasp. That explained his readiness to believe Jasmine was guilty before he even met her.

  “When she finally got arrested, she found out real fast that I wouldn’t turn my back on the badge for her.” His voice grew tight and somber. “It’s embarrassing, really. I can’t believe I told you.”

  She couldn’t believe it either. It was such a painful, personal story. His life was full of so much that she couldn’t even fathom. There had to be something she could say, something she could give him, to ease some of the hurt. “I’m sorry about what your girlfriend did. You’re too good of a person to have been treated that way, and I hope someday you realize that.”

  Will froze and, when he spoke, his voice was ice. “I hope I never forget what she did.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m never getting betrayed like that again. I’m fine the way I am. Keeps me focused on the job.”