Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  “Maybe we can leave out the back before he gets here,” I suggested. “Or just… hide. We could take Einstein and take cover in the bedroom until Sally gets rid of him.”

  To my profound shock, Diggs shook his head. “No.”

  “I’m sorry—what? No?”

  Keira looked at Sally, since neither Diggs nor I were any help. “What do you want me to do?”

  Sally looked at us. “Well?”

  “Diggs—” I began. He held up his hand, his jaw tightening.

  “We can’t do this alone. You may be in denial about this, but I’m not. You almost died. They have your mother, your father’s vanished without a trace, and…” He looked at me pleadingly. Sally and Keira not-so-subtly vamoosed, leaving us alone. Diggs pulled his chair closer to mine and looked at me intently. “This is what we’ve been fighting about ever since this whole thing started: you have to trust somebody. And I don’t know who else it can be. Jack is already in this, somehow. We know that. Please… because I can’t go through losing you like that again, Sol. I won’t.”

  It took some time before I worked up to a nod. Diggs hurried out to give Sally our decision. I sat at the kitchen table trying not to have a nuclear meltdown over this latest curve ball. Jenny had known about the standoff in Tennessee; she’d known we were at Sally’s…

  What would happen to Kat, if Jenny found out Juarez was here?

  There wasn’t even a tiny part of me that wanted to find that out.

  Diggs was by my side again by the time Jamie and Juarez reached the front door, holding onto my hand like he was afraid I might run off otherwise.

  The man knows me well.

  When Sally led them into the kitchen, Juarez just stood at the door for as much as a minute, his eyes locked on us both. He looked like shit.

  “Jesus, Jack,” Diggs said. “You look like the wolves have been gnawing at your entrails.” Diggs got up and went to him, since Juarez seemed to have lost the ability to move. Jack pulled him into a bear hug, almost sagging against him with relief.

  “We’re okay,” I heard Diggs say quietly as he pulled back. Jamie smiled at me, looking a little shy and very much out of place.

  “I’m glad you’re all right,” she said to me. “Sounds like it was a close call.”

  “You could say that, yeah. But I’m okay—just a little sore. I’ll be good as new before long.”

  “That’s good to hear.” She nodded to Juarez, still deep in conversation with Diggs. “It’ll be a big relief to him.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that, and Jamie didn’t have any gems on hand to follow it up with. She busied herself with Einstein, who could have cared less that Juarez was in the building. Jamie was a whole other kettle of fish, though.

  The fact that Juarez had crashed our party again was hard enough to take, but I wasn’t sure how to take the fact that Jamie was with him. It wasn’t like she had anything to do with any of this, beyond a passing interest in Juarez. The thought crossed my mind that she could be a mole sent in by J-932... Or maybe Willett.

  Juarez refocused on me, thankfully cutting off this train of thought before I went off the rails completely. “I would have gotten here sooner, but the high-ups got wind that I was sniffing around the investigation. I had to assure them I had no interest in the case.”

  “And then he got suspended,” Jamie interjected, still kneeling by Einstein.

  I looked at Juarez in surprise. No wonder he looked like shit. “You shouldn’t have come. We’re all right. You shouldn’t be putting your career on the line for this.”

  “Don’t worry about that. It doesn’t matter.” He eyed my mummified side. “You’re hurt.”

  I attempted a devil-may-care shrug. “I’m okay. It wasn’t serious.”

  “Except for the bucket of blood in our backseat,” Diggs said. He’s such a drama queen.

  “What the hell happened?” Juarez asked.

  “You have to answer something first,” I said. “Who knows you’re here?”

  “No one,” he said promptly. “Like Jamie said, I’m suspended from the job—so I don’t have to check in with them. I made sure I wasn’t followed. I’m just here to help, Erin. This has nothing to do with the job. I just want to make sure you two make it out of this alive. Now… what the hell happened?”

  “They took Kat,” Diggs said before I could stop him. “Cameron showed up that night when we were all on Raven’s Ledge.”

  “I know,” Juarez said, pointing to a bruise at his temple. “We had a close encounter—a brief one. I didn’t put up much of a fight. I’m sorry about that.”

  He looked miserable.

  “Give yourself a break, huh?” I said. “Cheyenne told you guys she roofie’d us all, I’m assuming? And Diggs and I have already decided Cameron’s some kind of genetically engineered robot assassin, so it’s not like you didn’t have the odds stacked against you. I’m just sorry we couldn’t have let you know what happened.”

  “Where is he now? Cameron, I mean.”

  “That’s where it gets tricky,” Diggs said. “He left with Kat, but Jenny caught up with them.”

  “And now she says she’ll only let Kat go if I bring her the memory card Diggs got in Kentucky.”

  Jamie shook her head. “Jesus. Does this story come with CliffsNotes?”

  “Sorry,” Juarez said. “It’s a little... tangled. This memory card—I assume we’re talking about the one you assured me had been destroyed when Kat’s house was bombed?” The edge in his voice suggested he’d already figured out I was full of shit on that count.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We weren’t sure who to trust. But… yeah—we have the card. And the information that was on it.”

  Juarez shook his head. He turned and walked away, running a hand through his hair. Jamie straightened and went to him.

  “You already knew this,” she said, her back to the rest of us. Though her voice was lowered, I had no qualms about eavesdropping. I rarely do. “Brooding might look good on you, but it doesn’t help anything. What happens next?”

  “All right,” he agreed after a minute. He turned to face Diggs and me again. “Jamie’s right—let’s move on. What’s the status now?”

  “We’re meeting Jenny,” I said. “I’ll give her the card. She’ll let Kat go. Then, she said we can disappear. She’ll let us go, as long as we don’t go after them.”

  “And you believe that?” Juarez asked. “Because we didn’t break up that long ago... The last I remember, you didn’t believe in fairy tales.”

  “I don’t know what choice I have,” I said, tensing. “She already warned us about going to the police—and she seems to know every move we make. Which, incidentally, is why I’m not jumping up and down to see you right now,” I pointed out. “If Jenny finds out…”

  “She won’t,” Juarez said, without a smidge of self-doubt. It was the kind of confidence I’d admired from him in the past. I couldn’t deny it was a relief to see it again now. “I swept for bugs, switched vehicles... If someone finds you, it won’t be because I led them here.”

  He sat down beside me at the table. I glanced at Diggs.

  “Would you mind leaving us alone for a couple of minutes?” I asked him, nodding toward Juarez.

  “You know, a lesser man might have a problem with you wanting all this time alone with your ex,” he said.

  “Good thing you’re so evolved then, huh?” I said.

  He shot me a deadly little grin. “Good thing,” he agreed. He turned his attention to Jamie. “What do you say, James? We could go out back, make out in the barn for a while.”

  “Or we could take the dog for a walk and you could show me those kennels I noticed out front,” she said.

  He muttered something about goddamn women and their goddamn dogs, but I didn’t miss the glance of concern he sent my way. I caught his arm and pulled him back to me, while Juarez and Jamie did their best to pretend they weren’t listening.

  “I’m all right, Diggs.”<
br />
  “I’ll just be out back.”

  “Making out with the hot blonde—yeah, I caught that. Just a couple minutes.”

  He kissed my forehead and left without another word.

  “That’s why we’re not together,” Juarez said when they were gone. “Those were the moments we were missing.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly uncomfortable. “He’s just...”

  “Worried,” he finished for me. “And head over heels. That’s all right—it’s the way things should be.”

  “You and Jamie seem pretty cozy yourselves.”

  He shook his head. “What is it with you people? Jamie and I are none of your business, is what we are. I assume you had a reason for tossing your boyfriend out on his ear so we could be alone?”

  I did. “You asked if I was remembering things, the other day when we were out on Raven’s’ Ledge,” I began, wasting no more time. “Did you ask because things have started coming back to you? Have you remembered something?”

  “What kind of something?”

  “Cut the shit, Jack. You know what I’m talking about. Something about your childhood.”

  He hesitated, scrubbing his hand over his face. “Nothing that makes any sense—a lot of fragments, no complete memories.”

  “How long have you been remembering?”

  “A few months.”

  “A few months, as in…”

  “I had the first one just after Black Falls,” he admitted. “They’re like dreams most of the time—I’m just awake when I have them. It’s like I just... go somewhere else. Something triggers it, usually: a song on the radio, the smell of a woman’s perfume... But then it’s just a tangle of images and impressions that make no sense.”

  “And you were seeing these... images, when we were dating?”

  “Not often. But sometimes, yes.”

  “Did you know then that they might have something to do with me? Or my father, somehow?”

  He looked at me, surprised. “We dated because I care about you. There was no other reason—no ulterior motive, Erin.”

  I waved him off. “That doesn’t matter—forget it, that’s the last thing we need to get into right now. But these images you’ve been seeing... You do think they’re related somehow to my father, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know what J. Enterprises is?” I asked, switching gears.

  “Do you?” he asked warily.

  I didn’t have it in me to play coy anymore. “I know that J was a government-funded operation, short for Project J-932, experimenting on U.S. citizens without their knowledge. And my father was one of those citizens. But you already know that, don’t you?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes sliding from mine. That old suspicion crept back again. “I just found out myself. I would have lost my job if I’d said something. I could have been brought up on charges.”

  “So, why are you here now?” He didn’t say anything, clearly torn. My pain meds were wearing off, my patience stretched thin. “Goddamn it, Jack. The truth, please. Maybe you really are worried about me, or maybe you’re just covering your own ass. Whatever the reason might be, you’re a shitty liar. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I am worried about you,” he insisted. “I’m worried about both you and Diggs.”

  “But that isn’t the only reason, is it? Tell me what you’re remembering. This project: J-932. What do you know about it? What does it have to do with you?”

  “I…” He stood there for as much as a minute, a man at the edge of a cliff with no net in sight. Rubbed his eyes, the exhaustion wearing through. “I don’t know. But… something. When I realized what the project was, the pieces started to come together—everything I can’t remember, these flashes I keep getting…”

  “Is it possible that you were one of the subjects?” I asked. “That maybe the reason you can’t remember is because they don’t want you to?”

  He sat down—half-collapsed, really, into a chair across the table from me. Hands clenched, jaw tight, eyes distant. Whatever he was seeing just then, it wasn’t me. “It’s possible. But I don’t know what that means—how that changes things. How it’s changed me. I need to know that.”

  “So, you’re not just here for my welfare after all, then.”

  “Not completely,” he admitted. “I should have told you sooner, I know, but this is beyond classified. I wasn’t lying about that. If they found out I was talking to a civilian—not just a civilian, but a reporter—then losing my job would be the least of my worries.”

  “Then why are you telling me now?” I pressed.

  “I checked into Trent Willett—the bastard who shot you. Something’s not right there. This is personal for him. I don’t understand why he didn’t have backup with him in Tennessee. You said he was just there with a few of the local police…”

  “I thought of that,” I said with a nod. “If this is a huge government operation or whatever, why is he stumbling around the backwoods of Tennessee shooting at my goddamn dog?”

  “And you,” Juarez pointed out, in much the same way Diggs had. They just couldn’t let that go. “He also shot you. But, yeah: I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t have an answer for any of this, really. I just know that I got word from very high up that I was to leave this alone.”

  “And yet, here you are.”

  He frowned, his hands tightening into fists again. I could feel the conflict running through him, something pulling at him that, for whatever reason, he seemed incapable of talking about.

  “Jack,” I said, as gently as I could.

  “I don’t care about my job,” he finally said, his eyes meeting mine. “I have to find out what all this means. I was thinking about everything that’s happened over the years. And I started to wonder if…” he trailed off, looking more haunted than I’d ever seen him.

  It clicked, then. The few stories he’d told me about his past: the woman he’d been in love with from the time he was fifteen. The woman he’d married. The woman brutally murdered a few years ago.

  Lucia.

  “You’re wondering about your wife?” I asked.

  He ran a shaking hand through his hair. For the first time, I really thought about what this meant for him—A man who had lived most of his life knowing nothing about where he’d come from, who his parents were, what his childhood had been. And now, to find out that he may have sprung from something like J-932…

  No wonder he looked like hell.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But the police never found the men who killed her. It was in Nicaragua, so they just chalked it up to random violence. Closed the case. Refused to let me investigate, saying I was too close to it. I pursued it anyway, for a long time. Then, when it started eating away at everything, when I knew I had to make a choice between her death or my life, I thought maybe they were right. I was too close. There were things that never made sense about the case, though. And now, I can’t stop thinking that maybe…”

  I reached across the table and took his hand. “We’ll figure it out,” I said. “We’ll figure all this out, Jack. I just have to get Kat back safely first. I can’t risk her life, no matter how much I want to finish the puzzle—and make these bastards pay for everything they’ve done.”

  The back door opened then and Einstein charged inside, followed closely by Diggs and Jamie. Diggs eyed Juarez’s hand clasped in mine with a bit of a raised eyebrow, but otherwise made no comment.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, far too casually, as Juarez pulled his hand away. Diggs took a seat beside me, Jamie next to Jack. A dinner party for the psychically scarred. Awesome.

  “I want to help,” Juarez said firmly. “Whatever you two need.”

  Diggs looked at me. “I’d rather not go to Mexico on our own. If we could have just a little backup…”

  “If Jenny found out—” I began, whistling the same old tune.

  “What if we traveled separately?” Jamie as
ked.

  “I thought this was supposed to be a quiet, clean drop,” I said. “If we’re bringing other people in on this, we need to be clear on what the goal is: Namely, getting Kat and ourselves out of this alive. It’s not like we’re even remotely equipped to take out the higher-ups with the Project at this point. Especially since we don’t know who the hell they are.”

  “Or how far their reach is,” Juarez added. “I agree. Right now, our goal is the same as yours: Get everyone out safely. Once that’s done, I’d like to find out… more,” he finished lamely, clearly not ready to share the details of our conversation with the others.

  “If we meet in Coba…” Diggs began. I tensed, waiting for the phone to ring or the sky to fall; for some indication that Jenny had heard everything, and Kat would pay accordingly.

  “At the very least, I could be there to cover you when you make the exchange,” Juarez said. “Jamie and I can travel under the radar—I won’t tell anyone at the Bureau.”

  “And as far as my team knows, I’m off having sex with Jack for the week,” Jamie said. Juarez’s eyebrows shot skyward. She grinned at him, but I noticed just a tinge of pink to her cheeks. “I had to tell them something. That was the most innocuous thing I could think of.”

  “You couldn’t have told them you were helping with a case? I don’t know, official business of some kind?” Juarez asked.

  “The only business I do is with my dogs, none of whom are with me this time out. Sorry, kitten. Trust me—this was the only way Bear wouldn’t be up in my grill demanding details. He’s nosy, but the kid thankfully draws the line at my sex life.”

  “Well,” Juarez said, determinedly casual. “If that’s the way it has to be played. You better tell them I was good, though.”

  That endearing pink flush deepened in Jamie’s cheeks, but she held Jack’s gaze. “Naturally.”

  I watched the way their eyes caught, tension sparking between them. A tiny, exceedingly petty twinge of jealousy flared.

  “Now that you two have your stories straight,” Diggs said, “maybe we could move onto strategizing this operation.”