Conceal, Protect

by Carol Ericson

  “I can give you a ride back to your ranch in my truck. When’s yours going to be ready?”

  “Zach said he could have it for me tomorrow.” Tara curled one leg beneath her. “In all the excitement back at the sheriff’s station, I didn’t get a chance to tell you how sorry I am about your friend. Ted told me about Bruce.”

  “It’s terrible. I hope his family can get some answers.”

  Tara propped a boot on the table between the two chairs. “I’m not comparing what happened to me today to what happened to your friend, but there’s a lot of bad stuff going on right now. The air is heavy with...portent.”

  Noelle nodded as she slipped her hand through the crook of J.D.’s arm.

  Tara’s eyes popped. “No clicking tongues or rolling eyes?”

  J.D. asked, “What does that mean?”

  “I have feelings sometimes. I think it’s my Native American heritage. I’m highly attuned to the universe.” She tapped her chest with a fist. “Usually, Noelle laughs at me, snorts or rolls her eyes, and sometimes she does all three at once. Now you’re agreeing with me?”

  “Even I can’t deny there’s something in the air. I can’t feel it like you can, but I can see it happening with my own eyes—J.D.’s accident with the truck, your holdup and, of course, Bruce’s death. I hope it ends soon.” She just might get her wish if Zendaris found the plans on her laptop.

  Tara clapped her mittened hands together. “Finally—acknowledgment.”

  “Unless you ladies want to eat here or get something to drink, I think we’d better head out before the next storm moves in.”

  “Yeah, we’d better get moving.” Tara yawned. “I told Mom I was hung up, didn’t mention a word about the masked gunmen. She’d freak out.”

  J.D. eased out of the chair, and Noelle immediately missed the press of his body against hers. How was she going to feel when he walked out of her life forever?

  Noelle grabbed her jacket and shook it out. “Did you park by the sheriff’s substation?”

  “Yeah. Are you parked there, too?”

  “Uh-huh.” Noelle held out her hand. “Keys? I’ll drive.”

  Tara hugged her purse to her chest. “Are you sure? Aren’t you still recovering from your concussion and that bump on your head?”

  “I’m going to have to drive it from your place to mine anyway, and it’s not like I’m going to go out and play football. I had a concussion. It’s over. Now give me the keys.”

  “Is she a hard taskmaster at the ranch, too?” Tara jabbed J.D. with her elbow.

  “At the ranch?”

  Narrowing her eyes, Tara said, “You know, at the ranch where you’re working?”

  “Yeah. Oh, yeah. She keeps me on my toes.”

  Tara dropped her gaze to J.D.’s cowboy boots. “Yeah, right.”

  “Would you stop grilling J.D. and start walking toward the parking lot?”

  Once they hit the parking lot by the sheriff’s substation, Noelle grabbed her friend’s arm and pulled her toward the truck parked five spaces from J.D.’s rental SUV.

  “I’ll be right behind you all the way,” J.D. called as he slipped into his car.

  When they got in the truck and Noelle turned the ignition, Tara turned to her. “What’s really going on between you and J.D.?”

  “What do you mean?” Noelle idled at the exit, waiting for J.D.’s headlights to pull up behind them.

  “He doesn’t seem like your average ranch hand. Why is he by your side every minute of the day like some kind of protective pit bull?”

  “You think he’s being protective?” Noelle pulled onto the road with J.D. trailing after her—just the way she liked it—her pit bull.

  “Well, yeah. The way he hovers over you, touches your hand. The way he looks at you, for goodness’ sakes.”

  “Maybe he’s just madly in love with me. I have that effect on men.”

  “The effect you’ve had on men is as their caretaker. Let’s face it—Alex hitched his star to yours because he knew a good thing when he saw it. But that J.D. is different.”

  Was he ever. “In what way?”

  Noelle already knew the answer. She just wanted to hear Tara say it. She just wanted someone else to confirm it for her, so she’d know she wasn’t dreaming.

  “He’s the caretaker. That man doesn’t need looking after. I think it’s good for you. Maybe you can let go a little bit now.”

  “He’s just a hired hand, Tara. We’re not having a relationship.”

  “If you say so.” She dug into her purse and pulled out a bag from the pharmacy. “At least I picked up your prescription.”

  Tara dropped the bag on the console, and then she zipped her lip for the rest of the ride home, resting her head against the back of her seat and closing her eyes.

  Thank God Zendaris’s thugs had been interested in the computer only and hadn’t harmed Tara. Noelle couldn’t take being the cause of one more person’s injuries—or death.

  She turned onto Tara’s property and pulled up to the house with J.D. idling behind her. “Are you going to be okay?”

  Tara opened the door of the truck and swung around so that her legs dangled toward the running board. “I’m going to hit the tub and soak in some hot water with a glass of wine. You?”

  “I just might do the same.”

  “Then let J.D. scrub your back.”

  “Is that metaphorically speaking?”

  “No. I mean let him scrub your back.” She hopped down from the truck and waved.

  Noelle watched Tara slip into her house before making a wide turn and leaving the property. J.D.’s headlights burned brightly behind her.

  Of course she wouldn’t be asking him to scrub her back. She couldn’t get any more involved with him than she already was. If she came to depend on him in any way, once he left she’d be scrambling to pick up the pieces. And she knew what that meant for her mental well-being.

  She turned into her ranch and fear fluttered in her belly. The men who’d been tracking her for over two weeks now had felt comfortable enough coming onto her property and holding her friend at gunpoint. What would stop them from coming back if they wanted to?

  Throwing the truck into Park, she glanced in her rearview mirror. J.D. would stop them. J.D. and the fact that they had her laptop and possibly those plans they’d been searching for.

  The idea that there were enemies in the world who were actively seeking to destroy America’s capability to strike at them terrified her. Even living in D.C., she didn’t want to know about such things. People like her trusted men and women like J.D. to keep them safe. People like her just didn’t want to know the details of what that involved.

  J.D. was by her side when she hit the bottom step of her dismantled porch. She pointed to the plywood. “When are you going to fix this? I should start paying you by the hour, you know.”

  “You should start paying me.”

  “Did you sweep the SUV for bugs?”

  “I didn’t find anything. My guess is they saw your truck with a woman climbing inside, made their move, realized their mistake and then got lucky by noticing the laptop. Now maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be nothing on that laptop but the notes of an artist.”

  “Then we’ll all be back to square one—Zendaris believing I know something about the plans and me running from him. When will we all be safe?”

  “When Zendaris and every man like him is dead.”

  She shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on the hook. “Are you hungry? I can make something simple.”

  “Let me do it. You go relax.”

  The hot bath beckoned. Maybe she should try a glass of wine with it. She didn’t plan on taking any medication. She just wanted it for insurance in case the OCD flared up again.

  “Maybe I’ll soak in the tub.”

  “Good idea. I have a few phone calls to make. I have to give my boss the bad news that I may have lost the plans to Zendaris again.”

  “We still don’t kno
w if the plans were even on my laptop. And if they are, will Zendaris’s guys be able to figure out how to locate them? I’m sure Abby didn’t call the file Top Secret Anti-Drone Plans.”

  “Believe me, Zendaris may have sent a couple of killers after you to take care of business, but one or both of those killers will also have computer skills, weapons skills, electronics skills. He hires only the best.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe there are that many people out there in the world with the skills and the motivation to do such harm.”

  “Hate to burst your bubble, darlin’, but there are.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “You go take that bath, and I’ll make my calls. I’ll have some eggs or pasta ready for you when you come out. And, Noelle?”

  “Yes?”

  “Leave your phone here. If you don’t mind, I’m going to attach a GPS tracking device to it. I don’t want to lose you again.”

  She froze. Alex had kept tabs on her, too, but his motivations had been a lot different from J.D.’s. She shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

  She closed the bathroom door and cranked on the faucets in the tub. She dumped some bath salts into the steaming water and then shed her clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor.

  She dipped a toe in the water first and swirled it around before easing her entire body into the tub. The hot water lapped around her legs, and she slumped farther down to allow the shallow water to warm her chilled skin.

  Now that Zendaris had her laptop and possibly the plans he’d been seeking, would Prospero give J.D. orders to find a way to get to Zendaris and retrieve the plans? Was J.D.’s boss giving him those orders right now?

  Tomorrow this could all be a bad memory. Both Zendaris and J.D. would be out of her life, and she could get back to the business of sprucing up the ranch.

  Maybe now that the dark threat hanging over her no longer existed, she could return to D.C. and leave the ranch to Ted. If he really was clean and sober, he could make a life here, and she could give him that chance. She wanted to give him that chance.

  The water had crept up to her shoulders, and she drew her knees up to her chest to cool off. She closed her eyes and cupped puddles of the silky liquid in her hands and dumped them on her knees.

  If J.D. disappeared from her life tomorrow, she wanted one night with him before he left—one night to remind her that she was alive and could continue to live without all the guilt weighing her down and restricting her.

  If she could make love one night with abandon, she could vanquish all the ghosts that haunted her and the memory of that night in the art gallery when Alex had tried to sacrifice her to save his own life.

  She shuddered and slid farther into the warm embrace of the lavender-scented water. She’d never told anyone the details of that night except Dr. Eliason, although the cops had seen it all on the security video.

  She’d joined Alex in the gallery at closing time to give him a ride home since they had just one car between them. He’d been running late, as usual, so she’d parked and gone into the gallery. He should’ve secured the back door.

  But he hadn’t.

  The masked men came through the back, surprising both of them. One of them ordered Alex to open the safe. Instead, Alex got the bright idea of escaping. As he ran for the front doors, the thieves ordered him to stop and trained their guns on him.

  Instead of stopping, Alex had grabbed her and held her in front of him as a shield. The gunman killed Alex anyway. As he fell to the ground, he took her with him.

  The robbers left her alive—probably figured she’d suffered enough that night since her own husband had tried to use her to protect himself.

  So why did the guilt follow her around? Dr. Eliason had told her she’d rationalized Alex’s behavior that night because she’d been the one who’d wanted out of the marriage. As if endangering someone’s life to save your own was just punishment for wanting a divorce.

  Sighing, she sat up and the water sluiced off her body. She’d been going over the same stuff for two years—time to put it behind her and move forward. What better way to do that than with a new man—even if that man was hers for only one more day?

  She toweled off and slipped into some flannel pajamas. Not the sexiest getup for a seduction, but she didn’t want any game playing between her and J.D. tonight. She wanted him because she wanted him, because she’d missed her chance earlier that day.

  She stuck her head out of the bathroom and sniffed the air. The lavender steam mingled with the smell of garlic coming from the kitchen.

  She scooped up her clothes from the bathroom and dumped them on the floor of her bedroom. There—she was starting already. She didn’t need to hang up the clothes right away. They’d still be there when she went to bed.

  “Something smells good in here.” She joined J.D. in the kitchen, where he had garlic and tomatoes sizzling in a pan of olive oil.

  “Nothing fancy. The spaghetti’s almost done.” He tapped a bottle of wine on the counter. “Thought we could use a glass of wine or two if you have a corkscrew.”

  “You must’ve read my mind.” She reached around him for the utensil drawer and pulled out a corkscrew.

  While she opened the wine, he took the boiling spaghetti off the stove and dumped it into a colander in the sink. They loaded up their plates, grabbed a couple of bowls for salad and headed for the kitchen table.

  “Sorry, no time to set the table.”

  She poured him a glass of red wine. “Did you talk to Prospero?”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “I guess we’ll know soon enough if the plans were on the laptop—not that Zendaris will send us an email or anything. So we still need to remain vigilant until we know one way or the other.”

  Noelle’s heart did a somersault. Did this mean J.D. would be sticking around?

  “If the plans are on my laptop, then I apologize for not thinking of that possibility sooner.”

  “Not. Your. Fault.” He clinked his wineglass with hers. “We should’ve figured out that one ourselves. We’re supposed to be the professionals, not you. Abby was a computer whiz. It would make sense she’d hide the plans on a computer. We just never figured she’d relinquish control over those plans by putting them on someone else’s computer. It’s like you said before. You could’ve done anything with that laptop.”

  “Yeah, I lost it.” Noelle twirled some spaghetti around her fork, picking up bits of garlic and tomato in the process.

  “Bad timing all around. Once it’s safe, are you going to go back to D.C. or hang around here?”

  Where will you be?

  She stuffed the forkful of spaghetti in her mouth and chewed to keep from blurting out something she’d regret. She swallowed, dabbed her mouth with a napkin and took a sip of wine.

  “I might stay here since I took a leave of absence from my job. I’m thinking about turning the ranch over to Ted.”

  “Do you really think that’s a good idea? He seems kind of unstable.”

  “Well, hopefully that’s in the past. Maybe he just needs something and someplace to get stable.”

  Her cell phone buzzed beside her on the table, and she glanced at the display. “Speak of the devil, and I mean that in the nicest way.”

  She slid the phone toward her and pressed the button to read Ted’s text. “He sent me a picture.”

  She brought the phone closer to her face to peer at the image. Blood pounded against the wound on her head and she gripped the edge of the table with one hand as the room spun out of control.

  J.D. reached out a hand, knocking over her glass. The wine spread on the white tablecloth like blood.

  “Noelle, what is it?”

  “They got Ted...and this time they have the right guy.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  J.D. lunged across the table and knocked over his own wine, the spreading stain matching the one from Noelle’s glass. He plucked the phone from Noelle’s hand.

  The
image on the screen showed Ted, bound and gagged.

  Clutching the phone in his hand, he knelt beside Noelle’s chair. Her face had gone as white as the tablecloth had been before the twin blotches had marred it.

  “There’s no message attached to the picture. We don’t know what this is.”

  She turned wide violet eyes on him that seemed to take up half her face. “What else could it possibly mean? Ted would not send me a picture of himself tied up and gagged. This isn’t a joke.”

  “What does it mean? Why would they want your brother when they have the laptop?” The cell phone vibrated in his hand.

  They were about to find out.

  He pushed the button to open the text and read it out loud. “‘We have your brother. We need you.’”

  Noelle choked.

  “They’re not getting you. Do you understand me?” He grabbed her hands, now stiff and cold.

  Noelle stared at the buzzing phone.

  “Answer it,” J.D. whispered.

  Her hand trembled as she took it from his palm.

  He encircled her wrist. “Put it on speaker.”

  She answered the phone and thumbed the button for the speaker. “H-hello?”

  “Are you alone?”

  Her gaze shifted to J.D.’s face and he gave a slight nod.

  “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t matter anyway. If anyone helps you, your brother is dead. Did you like the picture?”

  The voice, slightly accented, didn’t mock, didn’t tease, which almost made the question more chilling.

  “Is he hurt? Did you hurt him?”

  “No. His companion for the evening slipped something in his drink. As your brother faded out, he assumed he was going to wake up in the arms of the lovely Pia. He woke up, just in different circumstances. He’s fine.”

  The woman at the Buck Ridge Lodge?

  J.D. circled his finger in the air to get Noelle talking again. They had to find out as much as they could while they had this guy on the line.

  “What do you want from me? You have my laptop. I swear I don’t know anything.”

  “I think we’ve come to that realization, but now we need to get into the file Abby put on your computer—and you’re going to help us.”