Jasper, page 9
“It was nothing,” she murmured. He just nodded and didn’t say anything. “It would sure be nice if you believed me.”
“I won’t believe anything until I have proof,” he replied coolly, lifting his head from the laptop he was working on.
“Is that what you’ve been doing here?”
“It sure is,” he said, with a smile. “You were sleeping, so what would I do? Nothing?”
She frowned and then shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking you would be doing anything,” she murmured. “I was hoping this was just an accident and it would all go away.”
“What do you think now?”
“I still think that,” she replied, wincing at his tone.
“You think or you hope?”
“Hope,” she admitted, “and, until I know otherwise, I’ll stay with that theory.”
“You do that,” he said, “and, until I know otherwise, I’ll be staying with my supposition.”
“Which is?”
“That you’re in danger, so I won’t be letting you out of my sight.”
Chapter 7
‡
Amber settled down after that last minor dispute about who would stay and who would be allowed to go back to work, unclear at this point. She hadn’t thought through the consequences of going back to work, and Jasper knew for a fact that no way she was capable for a few days. She’d taken a hard hit, and her body would be very sore and stiff for several days.
At the very least, she needed to spend the next two days and the weekend looking after herself. Jasper would arrange somebody else to come and relieve him, so he could carry on the battle he was waging to figure all this out.
He picked up the phone, while she was sipping tea, and called the hospital. As soon as he got through, he asked for an update on Mason’s condition. With that relayed to him, he hung up and smiled with satisfaction. “Mason is still holding his own.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he comes out of this in great condition,” she shared. When Jasper frowned at her, she shrugged. “He’s young. He’s strong. He has everything to live for.”
He contemplated that for a long moment and agreed with her on every point. “That he does.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re so worked up about it though,” she began. “I get that you are part of the investigation team, but—”
“No but about it. He’s also family.”
She stared at him skeptically. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Why does that surprise you?”
“I don’t know. I guess Telsa mentioned that you are family, but I put it down to … I don’t know, in my line of work, lots of people claim family relationships that turn out to be more sentimental than blood based. I guess I hadn’t thought it through, and, if you did tell me, I don’t remember,” she admitted, with a headshake. “Some days at work are just like that.”
“Some days are like that. Plus things don’t always need to be separated by work.”
“No, that’s true too,” she admitted, with half a smile. “It always seems so much is going on in life that it’s hard to keep track of people’s relationships.”
He nodded and didn’t say anything more and kept clicking away on the keyboard.
“How come you didn’t phone Tesla?”
“I did earlier, but it went to voice mail. I don’t want to wake her if she’s sleeping.” Almost as if on cue, his phone rang. He smiled as he looked at the number and said in a proud tone, “That’s her now. Hey, Tesla. How are you doing, sweetie?”
“I’m doing better,” she replied, her voice low and dragging. “Exhausted, but Mason is holding on, so I can’t ask for anything more than that, right?”
“Sure, you can,” he replied. “You can ask for the world, and you know that I’ll do everything I can to give it to you. And, in this case, we’ve also got the whole base wanting to help.”
He heard the smile in her voice when she said, “You’ve always been like that, haven’t you?”
“If there’s anything I could have done to prevent this, I would have done it. However, for the moment, we’re stuck in whatever nightmare this is.”
“And that’s why I’m calling,” she stated. “Is there any update? Do you have any news?”
“No, I don’t, and now we have a different development we’re sorting out.” Then he quickly explained about Amber’s hit-and-run.
“Oh my God,” Tesla cried out. “Is she okay?”
“She is. In fact, I’m at her apartment, keeping an eye on her, and she is glaring at me right now because she doesn’t want to believe any of this is connected or that she is in any trouble.”
Tesla went quiet for a moment. “But how could we not think it’s connected?” she asked in a businesslike tone. “She was there when Mason came in and took such good care of me and was back and forth, checking up on me and Mason. … It has to be connected.”
“Exactly. So, you stay put. If you need anything, let me know, and I’ll run by the house and get it for you—unless you want to go get it yourself.”
“One thing I was wondering about,” she said, “is my father is taking care of Sebastian. They might need some support, and I’m not sure they can get through this without me.”
“Well, they will,” he said, “and eventually we can bring Sebastian in to see you and his dad, but I think it’s better if we wait a little bit longer, just from a security point of view. Also, it would probably be best if we waited, you know, with Mason in his condition. … Let’s have him wake up first before Sebastian sees his dad.”
“Oh, absolutely,” she said quietly, “I would love to see him though.”
“Do you want to visit Sebastian and leave Mason?”
“Leave Mason? No,” she snapped. “That’s not an option.”
“Then the status quo holds,” he confirmed. “I can go visit with him, if you want, and maybe give your dad an update.”
“Yes, please do. And if you would do that maybe in person …” She let it trail off because she knew that was asking a lot of him.
“Yeah, I’m working on that. I’ve spoken to them a couple times already.”
“Oh good,” she said. “I never know what everybody else is doing. My world is narrowed down to Mason’s recovery, and that’s it.”
“That is your world right now,” Jasper agreed. “Mason’s recovery is everything. So just hold tight, and let’s keep everything focused, so we don’t have anything go haywire at this point. I will let you know if anything develops. I also still need that list of suspects from you.”
“I’ve thought about it over and over,” she explained, “and I’m not at all sure anybody would know anything. … You would have to talk to his team.”
“I’ve got members of the investigative team on base talking with his team right now, seeing if anything new came up, but we have nothing for now.”
“Check his emails,” she suggested suddenly.
“I’ll check on it,” Jasper said because something rang true. “Did he tell you anything about a problem while he was up north?”
“There were lots of problems while he was up north,” she stated. “He went up there himself because some of the issues just needed an extra set of eyes and a fresh perspective. He couldn’t do that while he was down here. He was there for a few weeks, but I know he figured that everything was solved. He was sad too because he knew a bunch of the people involved.”
“It’s always sad when we know the people involved,” Jasper concurred.
“You know about that too, don’t you?” she asked, with a groan. “Sometimes, the world, well, … you know, people suck.” Having just heard that from Amber, his gaze flicked over in her direction to see her smiling.
“That is quite right. Amber just mentioned something very similar,” he shared, with a gentle chuckle. “All you need to focus on right now is Mason and you and that baby,” Jasper reiterated. “I’ll handle the rest. Now, go take a nap.”
“Yes, sir,” Tesla replied, and then she laughed. “I am tired, so maybe that is what I need. I might need some clothes at some point too.”
“Tell me what you need,” he said. “I told you that I’ll get it.”
“I’ll text you a list, after my nap.” And, with that, she was gone.
He looked over at Amber. “Tesla appears to be holding up okay.”
“She’s good people,” she noted, “and she’s been to hell and back already.”
“Isn’t that the truth, but she is very good at sorting through the priorities. I’ve known her through thick and thin. Our families were estranged for a while, but we kept in touch. When she married Mason, we got a whole lot closer.”
“Sounds like you and Mason had more in common than you had with your family.”
“Yeah, well, that is an understatement. It’s one of the reasons that I was coming here to work with Mason. I was about to walk away from the work completely,” he admitted, shaking his head. “I was sick to the soul, but they convinced me to go back, which is why I was just starting again at this location.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine the work you do.”
“It can be stressful,” he said, keeping his gaze steady. “It can be debilitating mentally and emotionally. Then, when you discover good friends are involved in the crimes you’ve been investigating,” he shared, his lips twitching, “it can be beyond debilitating.”
“That sounds awful,” Amber muttered, with a sad smile. “The worst thing I ever had along that line, and it certainly hurt, … but I came into the ER, started my shift, and an ambulance rolled in with my best friend.” She looked directly at him.
As her head twisted away, he saw the glint of tears. “What happened?”
“We did everything we could, and we couldn’t save her,” she whispered. “There’s nothing, nothing like finding out somebody you cared about, somebody you deal with, … day in, day out, is …”
“Was it an accident?”
She looked over at him and shook her head. “She committed suicide, and everybody at the ER knew her. We were absolutely horrified, and the fact that we couldn’t do anything for her just made it that much worse.”
He winced. “Of course then I would guess the next level is wondering how it got to that point, and why you couldn’t have saved her before it even came to being in the ER.”
She nodded. “That’s the next thing that happened. You question how is it that you didn’t know she was so troubled, how is it that you didn’t know that she needed you, if you were such good friends.” She took a moment to hold back the tears. “The guilt is crippling, and yet that’s not why the person does it, of course. It’s not why they’re in the situation, but it doesn’t help you to stop feeling as if you could have and should have done more,” she murmured.
“Yes,” he noted in a calm tone. “In my situation, I was on a case, looking for somebody running a lot of drugs through the military.” He shook his head, and, when she gasped in shock, he nodded. “Whenever you get people together, people have a way of being people, no matter where they end up.”
“So, what happened?”
“It just got out of control and wasn’t what I thought. I got chumped in a big way, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just that, after something like that, I don’t even want to deal with people anymore.”
“Sounds horrible,” she muttered, not fully understanding, but, since he was skirting around the edges, she knew there must have been a lot more to it.
“What a mess,” he said, “but that’s life.”
She nodded. “I can’t say I’ve been through anything quite like that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied, with a wave of his hand. “It’s not a contest. It’s just one of those things that you realize is part of it all. We all have histories. We all have relationships that go bad. We all have childhoods that had trauma. We all have these things that we should deal with but haven’t yet, and they come back and hit you in the face, time and time again. You hope that you can deal with them. You hope that you can get out of them, but there’s no guarantee, even if you do, that life will be any better.”
“That’s a pessimistic view.”
“Not at all,” he argued, shaking his head. As he opened his mouth to speak again, the doorbell rang.
She jolted, looking over at him.
“Are you expecting anybody?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. Not only that, … I never get people here. I deliberately keep this address private.”
He frowned. “No deliveries? Particularly after COVID and all? … So many people went for online ordering.”
“I haven’t ordered anything in a very long time,” she shared.
He nodded. “Stay there.”
“As if I’ll move much anyway,” she muttered, as he got up. She watched as he silently moved to the front door. She had no little window in the door or even a peephole to look out. The only way to look outside and see who was at her door was through the nearby window.
*
Jasper shifted the curtains slightly, just in time to see a vehicle pulling away. Frowning, he opened the curtain wider to take a better look to see if somebody was still at the door. Seeing nothing, he stepped forward and opened the door just a hair and looked around. Still nothing he could see. As he pulled open the door wider, he found a piece of paper on the ground.
He picked it up, took one look, and read the message. His jaw firmed up, as he stared down at the warning message, before he stepped out into the hallway and looked around.
Amber shrunk into the couch, as he walked back into the living room and handed her the note. “Just in case you have any more doubts,” he stated.
She looked at the warning note and read it out loud. “Keep your nose out of other people’s business, bitch.”
“Says something, huh?”
“And yet,” she replied, staring at it in shock, “it still doesn’t confirm anything.”
“No, it doesn’t confirm anything,” he agreed calmly, “but it doesn’t exactly give us clarity either.”
She stared at him and shrugged. “Maybe my instincts picked up on how they were up to something, and now they want to ensure I don’t say anything,” she suggested, raising both hands. “The more disconcerting thought for me is how did they know where I live?”
“Knowing where you live could simply involve following us, hacking into computer systems, or just asking people where you work,” he said. “It isn’t all that hard, if you have any skills, and, in this case, we have people with skills.”
She cried out in exasperation, “But sniper skills are a long way from hunting down people, by hacking and finding addresses.”
He gave her a wry look. “They have your name, and they know what vehicle you drive, and the DMV would most likely give them an address.”
She swallowed. “But—”
He shook his head. “No buts,” he said, raising his voice. “This is no longer an accident. You’ve already been attacked, now threatened, and you need to accept that. Obviously we have a bigger problem than we were hoping, and, while it would be nice to think it’s not connected to the shooting of Mason, I have to assume that it is.”
She sat here and glared at him, clearly disgruntled.
His lips quirked at the pouty little child in front of him. “I get it,” he said, with a chuckle. “You don’t want it to be connected. You don’t want anything to do with any of this.”
“No, I don’t,” she exclaimed, “and I thought I was in the clear.”
“I know you did, but, once you got run over, all bets were off.” When she winced at that, he nodded. “No other way to put it,” he declared. “Obviously somebody was out to get you, and they made their first attempt with a car, and now they know where you live.”
Her face paled at that, and she looked around the room. “I must admit how that part concerns me. I’m nobody, but they have my address. That scares me.”
“It should,” he agreed, “because we don’t want anybody coming back here, thinking that you live alone.”
“Would they have stayed around?”
“Maybe not with me here, but thinking you have a boyfriend still doesn’t fully protect you. … I can’t be here all the time, and they may very well have somebody outside, who saw me pick up the note. You don’t know who these people are or what they’re up to.”
“I don’t want to either,” she declared, glaring at him.
He loved the fact that she had shifted from angry to scared and was back to angry again. “Keep up the anger,” he stated. “It’s a whole lot better than the fear of being a victim.”
“Yet, that’s what I am, isn’t it?” she asked, staring at him, her eyes widening at the thought.
“No, I won’t say that,” he clarified. “It’s not healthy to be a victim, so let’s not go that route. You need to think this through for now. Stay angry, stay in control, and realize that somebody is pushing your buttons and is scaring you into doing something. The trouble is, that note doesn’t tell us what they want you to do.”
“He wants my nose out apparently,” she stated, with a snort. “Like what the hell do they think I even did?”
“I suspect they know you took that video. They just don’t know what you captured on that video. And they are obviously worried about something captured on film.”
“But people take videos all the time,” she said impatiently. “If they didn’t want people to know what they were up to, they shouldn’t have been talking in that location.” He shot her a sideways glance, and she flushed. “Fine, all right, so it wasn’t the smartest idea, and I get it. At the same time, I don’t want it thrown in my face until I’m old and gray.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he replied cheerfully. “I just want to know what this is about. If it has nothing to do with the assassination attempt on Mason, then the last thing I want to do is waste time investigating the wrong matter.”
