The guard’s head bent with one determined nod.
Jasper ran from the gatehouse and Dwight ran beside him.
“If I wasn’t going to suggest the same, I would have given the orders,” Dwight said.
“This is no time for a contest of egos.” Ignoring the other man’s pinching mouth, Jasper ran toward the northwest fence and cluster of trees with an attractive walking or biking path meandering beneath the canopy. He stayed close to the stone wall and out of sight in dark shadows. Near the first shot-out light, he stopped.
Dwight stopped beside him, using two fingers to point from his eyes toward the house.
Jasper spotted the other two guards near the corner, giving an arm up sign that Dwight returned. Silent language no one had shared with Jasper, something that tweaked his ire but would have to wait until later to reprimand. Sadie’s safety could be compromised with each piece of information they kept from him. They had to operate as a team.
The two guards disappeared behind some shrubs.
Jasper resumed his trek along the fence. Near the edge of trees, he stopped and listened. No sound from the other side alerted him, but that gave him no ease. The enemy could have already cleared the fence.
Dwight elbowed him and pointed. Jasper followed the aim and spotted an area of barbed wire that had been cut. The enemy had cleared the fence.
“Team twenty-two,” Dwight said low into the comms. “The coyote is in the yard. Move out.”
“Roger twenty-one.”
Team twenty-one and twenty-two? They must have decided early on to use that code in the event of an attack.
Dwight used his hand to indicate to Jasper that twenty-two would flank the trees opposite from where they stood and they’d take this end.
Jasper nodded once and used his night vision to scan the trees. Nothing moved.
He ran to the first trunk and took cover, Dwight taking cover behind another. Night vision revealed no threat. Jasper moved along with Dwight deeper into the trees.
An explosion thundered and the pressure sent Jasper flying. He landed on his back on the ground, narrowly missing a fallen log. He scrambled on a backward crawl to take cover behind a tree. Searching for Dwight, he saw him the same instant he spotted darkly clad men armed with high-powered rifles rushing through a gaping hole in the rock wall. Some grass and a tree started on fire.
The cut barbed wire had been a diversion.
Dwight was slow to regain coherency.
Seeing a man storm toward Dwight with his weapon ready to fire, Jasper used his rifle scope and found the man through the high-tech optics. The man took two more steps with his rifle aimed, enough time for Jasper to find him in the crosshairs and fire. The man went airborne and fell to the ground, lifeless.
Jasper counted two, three, four more men scattering when they realized Dwight was covered. Jasper continued firing while Dwight regained his wits and scrambled to a tree trunk. Then Dwight began firing along with Jasper.
The other guards reached them, going to the opposite side of the gap in the wall. All four of them fired on the intruders. Bark flew off trees. Rapid gunfire exploded against the mountainsides.
The first of the four remaining attackers fled through the opening in the fence, leaping over the grass fire. The rest returned fire, forcing Jasper to duck for cover.
“Move!” Dwight shouted.
Jasper welcomed his vigilance. The enemy was getting away. He saw three figures jumping the fire and vanishing behind the fence.
He joined Dwight in running after them, seeing the other two guards close behind. Jasper jumped over the fire and took cover at the first tree he came to. Dwight and the other guards fanned out and they all searched with night vision. But there was no sign of the enemy.
Seeing movement in the trees, Jasper broke into a run. He heard an engine start. As he broke from the stand of trees, he stopped on the side of the dirt road leading to Sadie’s house and saw the last of the remaining men get into a big SUV. The driver began racing away before the doors were all shut.
He ran out of bullets but Dwight and the other two fired at the disappearing vehicle. It had no rear plate.
When the SUV taillights disappeared, Jasper lowered his weapon.
Dwight leaned his upright against his shoulder and said to the two other guards, “Check the perimeter again and get someone out here to repair the fence. All of you stand guard tonight. We’ve got to make sure that opening stays secure.”
“Roger that,” one of them said and they both ran back into the woods.
“There were five of them,” Jasper said.
“Yeah.”
Jasper turned to have a look at the man’s face. Stubborn silence met him, at least on that matter. Even now, after what had just transpired, he’d say nothing. Offer nothing in the way of an explanation, even if speculated. While that frustrated Jasper to irritation, he’d wait to get his answers. Right now all he wanted to do was get back to Sadie.
He started walking up the road toward the gatehouse.
Dwight walked beside him. “I owe you a thank-you. You saved my life. That man was going to shoot me.”
He sure was. “No need to thank me.” He wouldn’t have done nothing. But Dwight might mean Jasper had kept a close, keen eye and had experience with this kind of violence.
“Why were there five of them?” Jasper asked.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s strange, don’t you think?” He hadn’t expected an answer. Not yet.
“Yes. For a homeless man’s murder, Sadie is attracting a lot of attention. More than she should.”
Dwight sounded as though he’d said that on purpose, perhaps to throw Jasper off or keep him from asking any more prying questions. Jasper didn’t operate that way. He’d ask the prying questions. “This has nothing to do with Bernie King’s murder. Someone who murdered a homeless man wouldn’t assemble a team of professional assassins to go after a woman for meddling in the crime investigation.”
“Who do you think attacked?” Dwight asked, feigning innocence.
“I don’t know, but I suspect you have a better idea than I do.”
Dwight looked ahead. “That will have to come from Sadie.” As if she’d be any freer with her information. Jasper was beginning to wonder why anyone had thought asking him here would help when no one gave him what he needed to do his job. Dwight had flippantly said maybe Bernie’s murder was related, but Jasper hadn’t ruled out that it wasn’t.
* * *
Jasper found Sadie in the library on the second level, standing near a settee, arms folded and face sober, a lot different than her flirty looks when they’d talked on the turret patio. He had to subdue a rush of hungry attraction that fueled his gladness over seeing her just as he’d left her. Untouched. Beautiful. And safe. The guard walking along the window turned, the other at the door raised his gun as Jasper appeared with Dwight in tow.
“They got away,” Dwight said.
Sadie’s somberness intensified into worry.
Jasper put aside baser instinct that would have him going to her and taking her into his arms. “I’d like word with you in private.” He needed to see what she had to say about the number of professionals who’d attacked.
She looked at Dwight and then him. “Anything you have to say Dwight can and should hear.”
Dwight nodded to the two guards and they left the room without question. Jasper watched them incredulously. Everyone seemed rehearsed or trained on what could and couldn’t be said and to do whatever Dwight ordered.
Sadie, it appeared, counted heavily on her security man. What about Steven? Jasper thought he was the top dog, but where was he in a crisis? In San Francisco?
“There were five men who attacked,” Jasper said by way of introduction to what he was really af
ter.
“Five?” Sadie’s head jerked toward Dwight, who nodded once, grimly. “Oh, my God.”
She didn’t exclaim. But her shock defused a lot of his darker suspicion.
“Why are you really living in Wyoming?” Jasper demanded.
She stared at him, dumbstruck, for several seconds until she regained composure. “I...I told you.” She moved to a chair and sat, leaving her hand on the armrest and staring across the room, still overcome by residual shock.
When he stepped toward her, Dwight moved to stand behind the chair, a protective measure.
“You like reclusiveness,” Jasper said, glowering down at her. “Try again, Sadie.”
Her eyes rose up, taking in his legs and torso before meeting his. “I feel safe here.”
He had to work around a very male attraction to her caused by the touch of her gaze before he could find his voice. “You aren’t telling me the truth. And I don’t believe you feel safe here anymore. Why do you have an entire security staff?”
She clasped her hands in her lap.
“There’s a room in the gatehouse stocked with weapons,” he said.
“How many rich people do you know who don’t have security?” Dwight asked, defensive.
Jasper saw how he put his hands on the back of the chair on each side of Sadie. “I’m not saying it’s unusual to have security. But this feels like crime boss security.”
Sadie eyed him wryly. “I’m not a criminal if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“What are you, then? Your company headquarters are in San Francisco. You live in a remote area with extreme security. What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You’re keeping something from me and after tonight, I think I should know what that is.”
She stared at him awhile. Was she thinking of possible lies or would she finally tell him the truth?
“I’m exactly what you see.”
“Why do you think five men attacked?” He couldn’t keep his frustration out of his tone.
“I don’t know.”
He didn’t believe her. “You must have an idea.”
“She said she doesn’t know,” Dwight said.
Sadie averted her face. Unable to meet his eyes or something else?
At last she looked up at him again. “What if Bernie saw something?”
He had entertained that possibility but wouldn’t tell her yet. The location of Bernie’s body made him suspicious. Evidence proved the body had been transported there. The murder had taken place somewhere else. “Professionals attacked you tonight.”
“Maybe professionals killed Bernie,” Sadie said.
He saw her hope that she was right. She was reaching. Coming up with excuses. But nothing would deter him from his certainty that she was withholding something from him.
He knelt before her and put his hand over her now tightly clasped hands. “I can see you’re scared, Sadie. You say you aren’t but you are. Who are you afraid of?”
She blinked a few times and glanced back and up at Dwight.
He put a comforting hand on her shoulder and then glowered at Jasper. “Ease off on her. She’s been through enough for one day.”
Jasper ignored him. “If there’s something you aren’t telling me, don’t keep it from me.”
She only met his eyes again.
“You can trust me,” he said.
After long seconds where she blinked some more and bit her lower lip, he thought she’d relent and start talking. But then she brushed his hand off hers and stood, forcing him to move back and Dwight to remove his hand from her shoulder.
She turned to face Jasper, a guarded mask now, hands at her sides, chin lifted, eyes fierce with determination. “I hired you to solve Bernie King’s murder. Beyond that, nothing else about me is any of your business. Let Steven and Dwight take care of the attack if you don’t think it’s related to Bernie’s murder.”
He half admired and half cursed her. She stuck to her objective and didn’t trust easily. She didn’t know him very well and had hired him only to help with the murder investigation. She didn’t argue that the attack could be unrelated. She didn’t deny there might be more she wasn’t saying. And he couldn’t come down too hard on her since she did have a capable security team protecting her.
“Police are here,” Dwight said, still with the earpiece in place. The gatehouse guard must have just told him. He started for the door.
Dread made her eyes and mouth droop a little more. The notion of talking to the police must not enthuse her. And all Jasper had accomplished was to provide her with a rehearsal. Now she’d know what to say to the police.
Chapter 4
After one of his outer perimeter patrols, Jasper entered the kitchen and went to the refrigerator for a cold bottle of water. The back door slid open. With bottle in hand, he turned to see Sadie come in. She stopped as though startled, not planning on running into anyone, least of all him. Her face wore a slightly startled look.
“It’s a little chilly tonight,” he said, twisting off the bottle cap and taking a long swig.
She relaxed, albeit a subtle change in her expression. “Yes.”
Lowering the bottle of water, he saw she wore jeans and a red-and-black flannel shirt. He lingered on the shirt, unbuttoned in front to the top of a white T-shirt, low enough to reveal the first sign of cleavage. He didn’t think even the modest exposure was intentional, just impossible to avoid at times.
To divert his attention elsewhere, he lowered his gaze and caught sight of her slippers. She’d worn slippers outside?
He didn’t reveal he’d noticed. “No jacket?”
“The flannel is lined, and I was only out for a few minutes.” She shrugged. “Breath of fresh air.”
“Alone?”
She walked toward the kitchen entrance. “I was just outside the door.”
He’d just come in that way and hadn’t seen her. Why was she lying?
He put his hand on her upper arm to stop her. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes.” She nodded and swallowed, hints to inner tension.
“Why did you need fresh air?”
“It’s been an eventful day.”
She thought going outside alone would help? Her attackers had blown up a good portion of her fence and she felt safe doing so?
He searched her eyes until she lowered them. As he dropped his hand, he saw a phone in the front pocket of her shirt.
“You get cell service up here?” he asked.
“I’ve got an external antenna and signal amplifier for that and internet. Coverage extends to the garage.”
“Who did you call?”
“They called me. Business.”
She was a terrible liar. If he wanted answers he was going to have to get them himself.
“I think I’ll go up to my room.”
She obviously was trying to escape him. “It’s still early. Have you eaten dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Sure you don’t want to keep me company?” While he used the invitation as a deliberate enticement, he couldn’t deny the sincerity, as well. He’d like to sit with her, to have her near and for a period of time when he could look at her.
He began to do that now, watching her eyes warm and become less tense. But the fleeting delight passed quickly and she seemed to gather defenses.
“I’m tired. Thanks, though. Maybe tomorrow night. We could have dinner together.”
“It’s a date.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.” He watched her pass, trying not to enjoy her butt but failing completely. She had a really nice rear end.
Jasper went to the glass door and peered outside. The ligh
ts were on in the detached garage. There was a courtyard in the back with a flower garden. The driveway ran along its edge.
* * *
Sadie closed her bedroom door and kicked off her slippers, still cooling from Jasper’s invitation. Had he invited her to buy more time to question her or did he want to spend more time with her? Wiggling her toes, looking down at the slippers, she realized why he had questioned her. And why had he been in the kitchen? He’d gotten a bottle of water, but had he just come in from outside? If so, he wouldn’t have seen her near the door because she hadn’t been there. She’d been in the garage.
Going into her closet, she found a pair of shoes and put them on. Grabbing a sweatshirt, she slipped that on and left the closet. She didn’t see anyone in the hall and made her way to the end, opposite the direction of the curving stone stairs. She opened a door there and quietly closed it behind her. Narrow stairs led to the main level and a work room off the kitchen.
She peered into the kitchen. No one was there. Crossing the floor, she went to the back door and went outside. The garage light was still on. She ran to the open door and saw the guard she’d spoken with earlier. He was alone.
“Is everything set?” she asked.
“Yes. No one but me knows.” He opened the back door of a black sedan with dark tinted windows.
She got in and he closed the door.
The guard sat behind the wheel and started the engine. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes. Let’s go. We’ll be back before anyone misses me.” And she felt safe going with one of her guards. He’d come on board shortly after Dwight, another down-on-his-luck man who’d lost his job as a security guard at a big corporation. He’d had a run-in with one of the executives, failed to handle a visitor according to the arrogant man’s wishes and was fired. Sadie trusted him with her life.
“Jasper might. I saw him walking the grounds before you came to talk to me.” The guard backed out of the garage and turned the vehicle toward the driveway.
“Yes, I saw him, too.” She was a little concerned about that but she had to make this meeting.
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