by Evelyn Glass
“Sophie, the trunk,” Zeke said in her direction.
“Oh man, not the trunk. I’m not a danger to you,” the guy whined.
“You nearly got me killed,” Zeke barked. “Get in.”
There was silence from the trunk the whole way through town to Madison Avenue. Zeke was careful to take only quieter streets, just in case he decided to make a noise and alert suspicion.
Just around the corner, they parked. Zeke and Stephan exchanged glances as if passing power to each other. Sophie watched from the back seat of the car as they moved around to the trunk and let their prisoner go. He scuttled off like a desperate rat searching for a way back into the sewer. Zeke went one way, and Stephan went another, making their way to the corner of the street so whichever way Troy went, one of them could move on him quickly.
Their dealer stood at the corner, met by some flunkies who patted his back, but he stayed silent, looking around nervously.
Zeke and Stephan waited on opposite sides of the street within view of each other, but no one approached.
Twenty minutes passed, as Sophie watched their figures from a distance from her viewpoint in the car. She sighed.
Just then, a car sped past, and she saw Zeke signal to Stephan, and they ran back to the car.
As Zeke bounced into the driver seat, he said breathlessly, “That was him! That was Troy. He knew something was up so avoided his druggie helper.”
Stephan leaped into the passenger seat, and Zeke started up the car immediately and sped off in the direction they’d seen the dark red Volvo Estate pass. They took a few different turns, desperately searching for signs of the car.
Eventually, Zeke gave up. “Shit,” he said, slamming his hands down on the steering wheel and bowing his head to rest his forehead on it. “Shit, shit, shit.”
He looked at Stephan, who was pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head.
“Our only hope now is Nathan,” Zeke said with a sigh.
Chapter Sixteen
Sophie
One week after the chase, Sophie was a bag of nerves. Sleep wasn’t coming easy, but luckily, she’d been so busy at Stephan’s shop she was exhausted every night, which helped her shake the investigation from her mind... enough to sleep anyway.
She groaned and slapped her hand clumsily on the nightstand until her finger eventually hit the alarm button and silenced the buzzing gadget.
She turned on her back and sighed, staring at the ceiling. They had to solve this nightmare soon. Zeke was picking her up at nine a.m. to head to Nathan’s. She’d had to bite her tongue and not ask too many times why it was all taking so long. Nathan was entitled to his vacation, but Sophie couldn’t help but hold a grudge over the fact that the whole time he was sunning himself in the Florida Keys, Zeke’s life was at risk – and hers and Stephan’s by proxy. Still, he was home now, they could get on with their plans.
She drank an extra strong coffee to try and summon some energy, but it didn’t taste right. Damn, even my taste buds must be stressed, she thought.
She was still drying her hair when Zeke arrived. When she answered the door, her breath caught at the sight of him. His thick, black hair was ruffled on top, his white T-shirt was just tight enough to give a hint of his muscular chest, and his eyes sparkled even more than usual.
“You ready?” he asked, plunging his hands into his pockets.
“Do I look ready?” she asked sarcastically, pointing to her head of half wet hair. “I’ll just be two minutes. Come in. You can grab some coffee while you wait for me.”
She made her way back to the bedroom and began blow-drying her hair again. A minute later she nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand slipped around her waist from behind.
“Jesus,” she shrieked, turning to face Zeke. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“Couldn’t resist,” he said, placing his arms around her waist with a mischievous grin. He planted a kiss on her lips, and her body instantly buzzed in anticipation.
He kissed her lips gently as she stood still on the spot, her head spinning with lust. His sandalwood scent encased her in his masculinity.
“Stop,” she said, letting out a deep breath and placing one hand on his chest. “We’re getting distracted. We need to keep focused for today. We’ve waited ages for this next chance to dig for information. Let’s not mess it up like a pair of horny teens.”
Zeke took a step back, the smile still lingering on his lips. Damn, that look was sexy. His eyes were full of danger – the good kind. Sex and passion. She cursed herself inwardly for turning down the chance of more sex with this amazing guy. But truth be told, she felt far from sexy in her tiredness, and she didn’t want to give him anything less than one hundred percent. Not at this stage anyway. He was so unbelievably hot, she didn’t want him to be disappointed in the cold morning light. For the kind of lust they shared, her apartment at nine a.m. just wasn’t enough. Besides, it was never a bad thing to make a man wait, she thought.
“You’re right,” he said, clasping his hands together. “Let’s get this over with. Plenty of time for... all that jazz after the case is solved.”
“Jazz,” she said, rolling her eyes and laughing. Yet secretly delighted he’d revealed his intentions to keep seeing her after they’d caught their man.
***
The journey was only forty minutes along quiet, leafy roads. It was actually quite pleasant. The breezed danced through Sophie’s hair as she shut her eyes and clicked her passenger seat window down to enjoy the fresh air. When she opened her eyes again, she caught Zeke’s just before he looked back at the road and smiled to herself. Tina was right, this flirtatious uncertainty was fantastic. Getting to know him was more and more fun with each encounter. And when she was with him, the whole bomb scare was less daunting. She even felt safe.
“We’re nearly there,” he said, swallowing hard.
“Are you nervous?” she asked gently, noticing him licking his dry lips.
He smiled at her and sighed. “A bit. I haven’t seen him since I was in hospital. I suppose I’m worried it’ll bring it all back... for him too. It’s hard putting it all behind you, you know? And to have to bring it all to the surface again... it’s not ideal.”
“You’re only doing this because you have to,” she reassured him. “Your life depends on it.”
When they eventually pulled up at Nathan’s house – a large, white wood house with a perfectly cut lawn – Zeke and Sophie looked at each other and nodded. No words were needed. They spoke a silent language of reassurance.
As they made their way up the path, the door opened, and a large man in beige shorts and a mint green short-sleeved shirt opened the door and said, “Zeke Draper. It’s good to see you, son. You look a lot better than when I last saw you.”
Zeke smiled and held out his hand for an enthusiastic shake from Nathan.
“And this must be your wife,” he said turning to Sophie with a huge smile. “Beautiful.”
Sophie laughed. “Definitely not the wife.”
“You asshole, Zeke,” Nathan said, giving him a playful shove on the shoulder. “Get on it. Consider that an order.”
Zeke laughed and rolled his eyes. “Good to see you’re still as full of yourself as ever.”
Nathan turned to Sophie. “This here’s the nicest son of a bitch I ever worked with. Stick with him. He’s a good ‘un. Anyway, come on in, cool off with a soda.”
They followed him into the house. His wife, Tracy, was in the kitchen and greeted them with drinks before disappearing to the summer house to work on a patchwork blanket.
“Should I go with her?” Sophie whispered to Zeke.
He shook his head. “I need you here in case we find out anything important. It’s better than me having to relay it all to you later. You’re as much a part of it as me now.”
They sat at the large kitchen table in front of two huge open windows looking out over the garden.
Nathan took a slow sip of soda and sigh
ed. “So, what really brought you kids out here? You didn’t really just want to see an old fart like me. What’s going on?”
Zeke explained everything, right down to the man he’d pinned to the ground last week. Nathan nodded along calmly, which Sophie found interesting. These guys had been trained to act with dignity in the face of the worst situations. It stayed with them for life. Here they were in this sunny, domestic setting, explaining a bomb attempt and ongoing threats as if it was a discussion about a baseball match. She admired their strength.
When Zeke finished talking and slumped back in his chair – a sign of the strain this was taking on him – Nathan leaned forward.
“Well, young Zeke. I’m glad you came to me.”
Zeke raised an eyebrow. “You know something?”
Nathan rose to his feet and began pacing the room while he spoke. “A year after the explosion, I received a letter. All it said was that there was blood on your hands, Zeke. It also said that as your commander, the overall responsibility was on my shoulders. The crazy thing is, it was signed by Gary. I knew that couldn’t be possible. I identified his body, for God’s sake. I can still picture his messed up remains.” He paused to take a drink, his face twisted momentarily in anguish. “I tried to ignore it, but something like that tugs at your mind. For a while I worried about who could be out there, brooding over the tragedies and pointing the finger in the wrong places. You know as well as I do that there was nothing we could’ve done to prevent that IED going off. We did our jobs as best we could. Hell, I wasn’t even on the base at the time. Everything went quiet, so I just put it down to a sick hoax. The interesting thing is, I had no idea until now that Gary had a brother.” He stroked his chin in thought with his arms folded across his chest. “This could be significant. It could be him. Twins are connected in ways normal siblings would never understand. The death of one twin must be devastating. It could send someone over the edge. It’s perfectly plausible it could be that this Troy guy has gone mad and wants to take his anger out on us.”
Suddenly, a loud smash tore through the conversation as a brick came soaring in through the back window, landing just inches away from Nathan’s feet.
Sophie screamed and bounced backward, causing her chair to skid across the tiled floor. Zeke had instinctively thrust his arms out in front of her for protection, but on realizing it was just a brick, he got up and moved forward, his shoes crunching on broken glass, to grab a piece of paper strapped to the brick with a rubber band.
He unrolled the paper, tiny shards of glass falling like rain drops to the floor as he did.
“Careful,” Sophie whispered in a shaking voice. She could see his fingers were trembling ever so slightly.
He read it silently and looked up at Nathan, with panic in his eyes. He glanced at Sophie with a pained expression.
“What? What does it say?” she asked, stepping forward. She looked over his shoulders and read the words – All three of you will pay. She gasped, and as her knees weakened, she steadied herself with one hand on Zeke’s shoulder.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” he said, staring into her eyes intensely. “I won’t.”
Chapter Seventeen
Zeke
As soon as the note was revealed, Nathan ran out the back door saying, “Let’s catch this son of a bitch,” through gritted teeth. As he disappeared around the corner to make a loop of the house, Zeke spotted something hurtling in through the smashed window. He instinctively leaped forward, pulling Sophie to the ground and covering her body with his. She let out an involuntary shriek on the way down but lay still underneath his strong frame, her breath labored with shock.
Two small, metal canisters rolled along the tiled floor towards them, hissing as gas spewed out and began to cloud their vision. Zeke kicked the nearest one away as far as he could, but the second one was just a little too far to reach.
Suddenly someone scooped Sophie up by the underarms and began to drag her outside.
“Zeke!” she called out.
“I’ll go back for him,” Nathan grunted.
Zeke was so glad to hear his old commander’s voice in the smoky haze, and that he’d helped Sophie first. Within seconds, Nathan was back and pulling him to safety.
Zeke coughed and wiped at the stinging gas, attempting to clear his lungs with the fresh summer air outside. Sophie and Nathan sat on the grass nearby, their eyes pink and streaming with tears.
“Did you see him?” Zeke asked Nathan between coughs.
“No. He’s a little cleverer than we thought. I did a circuit of the house, and by the time I got back here, he’d launched these and disappeared.”
Sophie stepped forward with her hand stretched out towards Zeke. He took hold of it gently and pulled her in towards him, wrapping the other arm around her. “You OK?”
She sniffed and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Let’s get in the car. Do a few blocks. I know the area so let’s take mine,” Nathan said, holding up a ring full of keys. He then quickly dashed off to the summer house to tell his wife, Tracy, to head to her sister’s place and stay there until she heard from him.
Zeke, Sophie, and Nathan ran to the older man’s Chrysler parked in the drive and hopped in. Nathan pulled away at full speed just seconds after the doors were shut. He swerved and looped the neighborhood’s streets as all three of them kept their eyes on different sides, looking for anyone running or just acting weird.
Zeke and Sophie were both in the back. Zeke grabbed Sophie’s arm and flipped it over to see a web of little cuts all bleeding into one little trickle. He looked deep into her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. It hurt to see her hurt.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered back.
He turned away to look out the window. He couldn’t let her get much deeper in this. If anything happened to her through association with him... well, he just couldn’t handle the thought. That would finish him. He’d found it hard enough to deal with losing so many colleagues, but to lose the first woman he’d cared about in so long, it would be too much. He didn’t want to be her downfall.
She must have sensed his anguish, as her hand squeezed his knee as if to tell his thoughts to shut up.
There was no sign of anything to follow up on.
“Shit,” Nathan said, slamming his hand on the steering wheel. “He’s outsmarted us. “Just then, a car drove so close behind them it caused Nathan to tilt his head to peer into the rearview mirror. “Zeke, can you make out the person in that car?”
Zeke turned. “No, he’s wearing a hood and a scarf over his nose and mouth. That has to be him. We need to find a way to stop him.”
Before Nathan could respond, the car behind them rammed into Nathan’s hood, causing it to swing open and block his view of behind. Sophie gasped and held onto the seat in front of her, her fingers gripping it so tightly that they were turning white.
“Brace yourselves,” Nathan warned before slamming on the brakes. The car behind crunched right into the back of the Chrysler – it was like two soda cans had slammed together. As soon as both cars ground to a halt, Nathan and Zeke leaped out, but before they could even lay a hand on the other car, it reversed, turned, and speed away.
Zeke kicked a stone, shouting, “Fuck! Shit!” He leaned over and rested his hands on his knees and breathed deeply.
Nathan held his head in his hands – looking like a statue of defeat.
After a minute, they jumped back into the car, and Nathan put his foot on the gas, causing a few wheel spins, but then Zeke heard a grinding sound and could smell burning rubber.
“Shit, I think we’ve got a flat,” he said, shaking his head in frustration.
***
The mood in the car while they waited for one of Zeke’s motorcycle club guys was heavy with despair. Every now and then Zeke punched the seat in front of him.
“We’re professionals,” he said through stiff lips. “How is he managing to get the better of us? We should be able to kick his ass.”
Nathan sighed. “It’s the element of surprise. It’s half the battle. You know that.”
Zeke nodded.
Their lift eventually arrived. Toby from the club asked no questions. He made small talk, but it was clear he could tell from the mood in the car to keep it easy.
Back at Nathan’s house, Zeke followed him up the path, giving him a piece of paper. “This is the number of a guy who’s been helping us so far – Sophie’s boss. He’s good. He knows everything so far. If you need anything, call him straight away. I’m going to get her out of town for a couple days while we plan our next move. Stay safe. I’ll call you.”
As he walked back to the car, a pang of guilt tugged at his gut as he caught sight of Sophie’s large, frightened eyes. She looked so innocent sitting in the back of that car, the fear oozing from her.
