Sniper's Pride

by Megan Crane

  By the time she came out of the hot water she was warm and pink, and still couldn’t stop smiling.

  She left her hair to dry as it liked, made herself a cup of the inferior coffee she could produce in her tiny microwave—because she needed some caffeine before she let anyone see her in public, even someone as uninterested in her nonsense as Caradine—and settled back in her bed with her laptop.

  She felt dreamy. Sated all the way through.

  Happy, a voice in her supplied, and goose bumps rose up and down her arms in a kind of alarm.

  Because that was a magical word. And one she hadn’t ever used before about her own life.

  She went through her email, deleting all the usual junk, then took a quick glance at the news before catching up with the New York Stock Exchange. It was while she was scanning the Atlanta Journal-Constitution online that her email pinged. She clicked over automatically.

  Then stopped, frowning.

  It was a weird email address she would have deleted as junk, but the subject line caught at her.

  Blood always tells, it read.

  Her pulse was hammering and she hadn’t even opened the thing.

  Mariah couldn’t help herself. She clicked on the message, frowning even harder when it opened to show her an embedded video clip.

  She knew better than to play random videos that were sent to her as spam. But there was something about this one. The still screen was blurry, so she couldn’t make out the image. She could only see the faintest hint of a deep, reddish brown, and the play button.

  Of course she shouldn’t click on anything sent to her by someone she didn’t know. She ran it through her antivirus software and it came up clean. She told herself that didn’t matter, that she should delete it and move on with her life, but there was something about that blurry image—

  She clicked on it.

  The video opened with a view of a dirt road with lush green trees all around, and even as she identified the fact that the blurry red-brown she’d seen was a road, Mariah also knew where it was.

  She knew every inch of that dirt road. She’d walked it. In bare feet, some summers, for the sheer pleasure of the cool patches of mud between her toes. She’d driven it in later years, each and every turn stamped deep into her, like her own breath.

  Here, sitting on her bed in an inn in Alaska, Mariah could do nothing but watch, a terrible dread making her feel weighted down and heavy all the way through.

  She clicked another button, trying to turn the sound up, but there wasn’t any.

  That made it worse.

  Soon enough, the camera went around the final curve. Mariah found herself with her hands over her mouth once she saw the farmhouse.

  Home.

  It looked exactly the same. Peeling paint, weeds, and too many cars in the yard—very few of them in decent condition. She saw that old tractor her brother Justin had claimed he’d build back up but clearly never had. She was holding her breath, creeped out and panicked and scared straight through, afraid to draw the conclusions that were sitting there, right out of reach.

  There was some kind of cut in the video, and then they were right outside the farmhouse, moving around the side to peek in the kitchen windows.

  The kitchen was also the same as she remembered it, with clutter on the counters and pots and pans piled high in the sink. Mariah knew every nook and cranny. She’d cooked there, eaten there, yelled at her siblings and ordered her cousins around on that same old cracked linoleum. She and Rose Ellen had fought there, cried there, and sorted themselves out again as best they could at the ancient kitchen table.

  It wasn’t until water splashed down on her hands, clenched in place over her keyboard again, that she realized she was crying.

  The video cut again. It was darker now, and the filming was more confused. It took Mariah a moment to realize that they were back in the front yard, out in the kind of Georgia twilight that she knew would be loud with the usual backwoods symphony. There were lights on in the house, and then, worst of all, a figure at the screen door.

  Then the screen opened and Mariah’s mother walked out.

  Mariah sat frozen, tears making her cheeks slick, not sure if she was capable of breathing.

  She watched Rose Ellen walk toward the camera, a quizzical look on her face, even a hint of her rare company smile that she usually only pulled out in town—never in her own yard.

  Mariah hadn’t seen her mother in nearly five years, and she hadn’t talked to her for months now. And she accepted that she had no one to blame for that but herself.

  She had no one to blame for any of this but herself.

  She stared at the screen. She watched her mother come closer. The almost-smile turned more confused, then tipped over into a frown.

  “Mama . . .” Mariah whispered.

  On screen, her mother recoiled.

  Then everything went blank.

  And for a moment, Mariah felt just as blank.

  But when her heart kicked at her again, she leaped into action.

  She shot off the bed, clutching her laptop to her chest, and hurtled toward her door. She flung it open, and almost slammed into the chest of the man standing there.

  “Griffin—” she began.

  But it wasn’t Griffin.

  It was a stranger. A man with a black beard, a dark green flannel shirt, and merciless eyes.

  Mariah had a flash, suddenly, of walking off the ferry and getting jostled.

  By a man who looked exactly like this.

  “Can I help you?” she managed to get out, but the man didn’t answer her.

  His hand shot out, catching her just below her jugular and shoving her.

  Hard.

  Mariah staggered back, somehow keeping her feet beneath her and her laptop from flying out of her grip.

  And then watched in horror as the man stepped inside her room and closed the door behind him.

  Thirteen

  Griffin’s phone chimed once with the alert he knew meant trouble, now, and he was already moving before the sound of it faded away in Mariah’s quiet hotel room.

  He was swift, dressed in seconds and heading for the door, and if there was a part of him that was relieved that there was some action—if he was grateful that he was being called in the middle of the night so he couldn’t betray himself further with a woman he’d never meant to touch—well.

  That was between him and those parts of him that should have stayed in their own damn compartments.

  “Preacher’s coming in hot,” Isaac clipped at him when he shoved his comm unit into his ear, maybe forty-five seconds after his alert had sounded. “Blue picked him up three miles out and gaining. We need you in position.”

  Griffin swore, stepping into his boots in the hall outside Mariah’s room. Then he took the stairs two at a time, as silently as if he’d walked down them in his bare feet. “Where do you want me?”

  He was already in the inn’s lobby, retrieving his rifle from its place behind the stuffed grizzly, where it would have been in arm’s reach if he’d been keeping watch the way he should have been. He gritted his teeth at his own weakness, swung his rifle over his shoulder, and pushed his way outside.

  Isaac was belting out orders in his ear, and Griffin grunted his assent to each one.

  He waited for his eyes to adjust to the night air, scanning the quiet little town as he did. He was looking for potential plants. If a so-called holy man bent on revenge could hide in the sounds and inlets that made up so much of Southeast Alaska, it stood to reason he could also have friends stashed in strategic places in Grizzly Harbor, waiting for his signal. Like a boat loaded high with potential explosives. But he didn’t see anything that looked out of place.

  He could pick up the faint sound of footsteps and braced himself, but in the next instant, the new guy melted out from bet
ween two buildings.

  Griffin nodded his greeting. Rory Lockwood, former Green Beret, nodded back.

  “Reporting for watch,” he said, and Griffin was impressed, despite himself, that the other man didn’t look or sound the least bit pissed that he was being relegated to what was basically a tame stakeout when there was real action going down. He wasn’t sure he’d manage it if the positions were reversed.

  But then he was moving again, sharpening as he went. Focusing.

  Forgetting.

  Following Isaac’s commands, he ran along the street and then, instead of following it down the hill, jumped onto the slanted roof of the Fairweather, which was nearly scraping higher ground on its back side. He scaled it easily, and quietly, concentrating on nothing but achieving his vantage point.

  He got to the highest part of the old roof and set up there, assembling his rifle in moments.

  “Ready,” he said into the comm unit.

  “Hold position,” Isaac replied.

  And Griffin sank into the quiet, the cold. His steady grip.

  He was Plan B. Plan A was Templeton out there on the water with Blue, moving the chase boat into position.

  “It’s an army of one,” Templeton confirmed when they had eyes on the preacher. “We’re going in.”

  When the wind changed, Griffin could hear the faint sounds of engines in the distance, out on the open water, but the bay directly in front of him stayed smooth. Empty.

  The very second that changed, he would fire. That was the backup plan.

  He was ready.

  He was always ready. The whole point of his life was this, here.

  He trained to be ready. To be still.

  And he needed his life—and his head—to be clean and neat and empty of everything but his skill. His aim. His willingness to take the necessary shot.

  His willingness to do what needed to be done so that others might live.

  If he wore a mask, if he hid himself, that was for other—normal—people’s protection.

  He’d worked himself up into a righteous fury when there was an explosion in his ear and a flare of light on the horizon.

  Then nothing but silence on the comm.

  “Report,” Isaac snapped out.

  And Griffin waited. Tense, and bright with shame that while his brothers were out there doing their jobs—and possibly paying for it—he was up on this roof thinking about a woman.

  He hardly recognized himself.

  “He blew up his own boat,” came Blue’s disbelieving voice after the longest sixty seconds in Griffin’s memory. “Jumped in the water and blew it up on the way down.”

  Templeton’s laughter was too loud, the way it always was. “He’s an idiot but not a martyr, in case you thought he believed his own crap. We have him.”

  “Call the police in Juneau,” Isaac ordered a moment later, no sign in his voice that he’d been worried about that explosion—unless you knew him. “I think they’re going to want to talk to him.”

  And that was one more situation handled while the oblivious residents of Grizzly Harbor slept.

  Griffin disassembled his weapon, then climbed off the Fairweather’s roof. He jogged back to Blue Bear Inn, nodding at Rory, who was standing watch outside the front door.

  “I left my jacket here,” Griffin said.

  That was true enough. But was that why he was here?

  The other man only nodded. “I have this covered.”

  Griffin let himself in to the quiet inn and found his jacket where he’d left it. But he also found that ridiculous cape of Mariah’s, crumpled in a heap on the floor of the lobby.

  And he didn’t think while he moved from the lobby to her room, but there he was. Letting himself in with the key he should have given back to Madeleine weeks ago. Folding up the cape and putting it where she could find it.

  Then standing beside her bed.

  And he didn’t want to think about how long he stood there, watching her sleep.

  But he knew when he finally tore himself away and pushed his way out of the inn into the cold remains of the night that this had to stop.

  Mariah had to go. This had to end.

  His unhealthy fascination with this woman had to stop.

  Griffin had trained himself to knife’s-edge precision because he was a weapon, not a person, no matter what she said. And weapons did not cuddle—because if they did, they would find themselves on a rooftop daydreaming when they should have been focused and ready to strike.

  He stood out there on the frigid street in front of the inn while his heart kicked at him, betraying him all over again.

  Griffin did not panic. Ever. That was not what this was.

  Even if it sure felt a whole lot like it.

  “I’m headed back to Fool’s Cove,” he told Rory shortly. “Someone will relieve you tomorrow.”

  “I’m on it,” Rory replied, as if keeping watch over a woman no one appeared to be chasing was his idea of a rocking good time.

  Grizzly Harbor wasn’t entirely quiet this close to dawn. Fishermen were making their way down to the docks and heading out to sea. Or maybe toward the flames in the distance. On the comm unit, Isaac was outlining the cover story he wanted Blue and Templeton to tell the authorities when they arrived, because admitting they were running any kind of op here could turn into a logistical nightmare.

  Out fishing, officers, might not convince anyone, but it wasn’t like they could prove otherwise.

  Griffin took his own boat back, navigating along the rocky shore where the moody northern sea swelled and surged as he found his way to the entrance to Fool’s Cove. And when he moored the boat at the dock below the lodge, then climbed out, he had every intention of hiking the mile to his cabin. At a punishing pace, because he needed to get back in control of himself. Now.

  He was cold. He was furious—if only at himself. And he needed solutions, not more problems.

  Maybe that was why he decided to add suicidal to the mix.

  A man took his life in his hands sneaking up on any member of Alaska Force at any time, for any reason, but particularly one like Isaac, who spent so much of his time and energy hiding right there in plain sight.

  Griffin might have lost it tonight, because apparently he was nothing but some hound dog incapable of resisting a woman—but he wasn’t an idiot.

  Not entirely.

  Isaac’s cabin was set down near the water, accessible from the lodge along a makeshift hanging boardwalk Griffin and Isaac had spent a whole summer painstakingly replacing so it was walkable.

  Though the fact it was walkable didn’t mean anyone was dumb enough to actually walk on it without an invitation. Griffin made as much noise as he could, broadcasting his footsteps so that Isaac—who would have heard him coming even if he’d been attempting stealth—understood it was a friendly, nonemergency approach.

  When Griffin got to Isaac’s door, he didn’t have to knock.

  Isaac was already standing there, fully dressed in his usual cargo pants and a T-shirt, in front of his door. Horatio at his side.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be back on watch duty in town?”

  “The new guy’s got it. And I think it’s time to pull the watch.”

  Griffin threw that out there. Then he squared his shoulders as he stood in the cold, the light over the door in his face, and waited for Isaac’s response.

  Isaac was his boss. But he was also Griffin’s chosen leader and friend, and Griffin hated the fact that he was standing straighter, like a guilty recruit. He hoped like hell Isaac couldn’t read what he’d been up to tonight all over his face.

  “Why?” Isaac asked, with no particular inflection.

  “She’s been here for weeks and there’s been no credible threat in all this time. It’s time to dial back our response here and focus on strat
egies going forward. The ex and the anaphylaxis appear to be contained in Atlanta.”

  “Why now?” Isaac asked in the same mild tone, which Griffin didn’t mistake for anything soft. “Why right now, this early in the morning after a round of excitement on the high seas, when you’re supposed to be propping up a wall in Blue Bear Inn’s lobby? Why couldn’t this wait for the morning briefing?”

  “I’m making a tactical call.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, brother,” Isaac said, an affable smile on his face, but it only made Griffin brace himself. Like the beard Isaac wore to disguise the true, hard lines of his jaw, that smile was nothing but misdirection. “Tactical calls I appreciate. What’s funny, though, is that this has all the markings of a personal decision.”

  “I don’t make personal decisions.”

  “You didn’t used to, no.”

  It was a relief to focus all his fury on Isaac rather than on himself. Griffin jumped into it with both feet. “Are you accusing me of something?”

  Isaac leaned back against his front door like he was settling in for a cozy chat, leveling his gray gaze at Griffin. “What would you do if I told you a story about a woman who turned up one day bearing more than a passing resemblance to a fiancée I lost way back because my best friend took her?”

  “I told you my past isn’t a factor. And the only thing Gabrielle and Mariah have in common is blond hair.”

  “I know what you told me. Now I’m telling you a story. Let’s say this woman turns up, suddenly my ghosts are everywhere, and I start acting unlike myself. I start dragging this woman out of bars, let’s say. Acting like a boyfriend, not a bodyguard.”

  “Is this supposed to be a story about me?” Griffin asked, his voice like a blade. “Because this sounds a lot like the Isaac and Caradine story.”

  Isaac didn’t move. He even held onto that grin, but only a fool would look at him and see anything but the potential for his own imminent death, out here where no one would ever find his body. Or dare to look for it.