“You got me back on my computer, so I’m hardly going to say no. But seriously. Someone should have taught these rednecks to take care of their PC. It’s like they were living in the Stone Age with this thing.”

  “Will you be able to get anything from it?”

  “Looks like they were off the grid for the most part. No internet connection here,” Talia said. “They might’ve used it for record keeping, but it’s so old it’s taking forever to get into the files. Someone had a healthy appreciation for Minesweeper though.”

  Dakota laughed. “I don’t know why they would. That game is boring.”

  Talia chuckled. “I’m sending you images for the cabin, but it’s just Google Earth. There isn’t time to hack a satellite, and I try to only do that when they owe me a favor, so—heads up—there could be an army there and I wouldn’t be able to see them.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Better start saving for Christmas, chickie.”

  The call ended with Dakota laughing.

  . . .

  Humor changed everything about Dakota’s face. Josh didn’t pull out of the parking lot. He just wanted to look at her. She’d brightened. Her eyes wide and gleaming. Her cheeks with more color than he’d seen since he met her.

  “Are you gonna go, or will we sit here all day admiring the scenery?”

  A semi passed them on the highway, spraying gray muck on the front of the SUV. Josh pulled out behind it and ran his windshield wipers. “Are you going to try and nap again?”

  “Probably not.” She shifted to face him more. “Did you want to sleep? I could drive.”

  He shook his head. “It’s distracting me from how much my shoulder hurts.”

  She looked at the images on her phone. “There’s a hole in the roof. Though this image could be from months ago, so it might have been fixed.”

  “Months?”

  “Like when you look up your house on Google Earth and the car in the driveway is someone you haven’t dated in weeks.”

  He felt his eyebrows rise. “That happen to you a lot?”

  “I mean…” She shifted again.

  “I’m just teasing.” Mostly. “Unless you want to share. I wouldn’t say no to learning more about you.”

  She shrugged one shoulder as he drove the winding highway. “Not much to know.”

  “Pretty quick on that reply. If you keep repeating it often enough, then even you will start to believe it.” He pressed his lips together. “You could just tell me you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m not currently dating anyone.” She said it like he’d forced a terrible confession from her.

  “Neither am I. And I haven’t for a while now. Between DEA training and my first post, there hasn’t been much time. Before that I was deployed.” It had been him and Neema.

  Maybe that was why he’d fought so hard to get her back after he’d been accepted as a federal agent. She was all he had that truly belonged to him. A big part of what made him the man he was.

  “The job takes up a lot of time,” Dakota said. “Most guys don’t understand that. Or they do similar jobs, which makes scheduling a date next to impossible.”

  “Favorite date of all time.”

  She chuckled again, a flash of that lightness he’d seen on her face when she’d been talking to Talia. “Gosh. The county fair…maybe, what? Twelve years ago?”

  She had to have been in high school then. “He hit all the targets and won you a big prize?”

  “As I recall,” she said, “I’m the one who hit the targets and won the giant panda. So cute. I think I still have it in my closet. He got pissy and took off, met up with some friends. Only he’d given me a bunch of dollar bills. So I paid for all the other attractions with his money and then rode the Ferris wheel with Mr. Fluffy.”

  Josh nearly choked on his laughter. “I’m glad you made the most of him ditching you for his friends.”

  “Oh, I did.”

  “And the rest of your dates?”

  She made a noise that sounded like a snort. “Not all that much different when I think about it.” She was quiet for a second, then said, “Huh.”

  “That sounds like an epiphany about your dating life.

  “Maybe.”

  “I had one of those.”

  “Yeah?”

  He was heading them out of humorous-life-story territory, and firmly into things that were honest. Real. But maybe that was a good thing. “I’ve dated a few women. I’m twenty-eight, so that was bound to have happened.”

  When he glanced over, he saw her nod. He didn’t want her to think he’d been alone, but it wasn’t like he’d had a flourishing romantic life either.

  “But it never lasted that long. It seemed like I was giving everything I could, but it wasn’t enough. You know?” Maybe she didn’t know. “Like I couldn’t do enough, or be enough, to make them stick around. It wasn’t like they were waiting for me to ask them to marry me, more like they just…got bored.”

  It hurt to admit it, though he figured it was also a good thing. Josh understood the value of sharing things that made him vulnerable, even painful. It was part of what he’d learned. No one could be stoic and unfeeling forever. Eventually you had to let someone into your life and hope they would stick around.

  No one had so far. Except Neema, and maybe Eden. Would he get there one day with a woman? Find someone who stayed long enough to build a family—and make it a forever thing?

  He didn’t want to hope that was going to be what happened with him and Dakota. Life didn’t work out that way. Or at least, it hadn’t so far. Hope only gave him a side of heartache to go along with being alone. Neither was fun. Both together were seriously painful.

  She was facing him. He could see her study him out the corner of his eye. “You ever think…maybe it’s you?”

  Josh swallowed against the lump in his throat. “I did what I could. But sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t enough.”

  “That’s not it.” She shook her head. “I just wonder if…maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m what’s wrong. Like there’s something broken in me.”

  “There’s nothing broken in you, Dakota.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. He desperately wanted her to hear him. To take his words on board. “You might be different than any other woman I’ve ever met in my life, but that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.”

  And maybe that difference was going to be the thing that made this—whatever relationship they could have—unlike any other relationship he’d had so far.

  Maybe she didn’t want that with him. But that thought wasn’t enough to stop hope from birthing in him. Warm, glorious hope that saw no problems. Just promise.

  He sighed. The pain would come later.

  It always did.

  “Okay.” Her voice was soft.

  They drove in silence for a while, and then she needed to direct him from her phone. He followed the turns and they ascended the mountainside up a thin dirt track that was mostly sharp corners and switchbacks. Anyone not familiar with the area probably got lost pretty frequently.

  “Thank God for GPS.”

  Dakota nodded. “Right? This place is a maze.”

  Houses and cabins were scattered up the hillside. Their destination was the farthest end of the dirt “road.” When he pulled up outside, he grimaced. “Mud.”

  The car was covered with it.

  “No smoke from the chimney.” Dakota motioned to it with her finger. “Could be laying low, or no one is here.”

  Josh climbed out and angled left, seeing something around the side. His boots quickly got caked in mud. “His truck is here. Looks like he pulled it around back.” He glanced at the ground in front of the cabin. “Must’ve rained since.”

  Dakota shivered.

  “Not a fan of rain?”

  “Not when I’m anywhere except on my couch with a book and a mug of hot water.”

  “Hot water?”

  “Don’t knock it till you try it.”

  He smiled, one hand still braced on his holstered gun just in case. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  She glanced up at the overcast sky. “I don’t like getting caught out in the rain.”

  Josh climbed up the porch steps and knocked on the front door. When no one opened it, Dakota said, “See if it’s locked.”

  He turned the handle and pushed it open without entering. He’d already been shot once this weekend.

  Dakota gasped. “Austin.” She rushed across the cabin’s bare wood floor.

  The inside was threadbare, not much more than a bed, one chair, and a tiny circular table with two chairs. Austin lay on the floor like he’d been trying to drag himself to the bed.

  Pale. Sweat-stained shirt.

  Another victim of whatever killed the Johnson’s? “Is he…”

  She pressed two fingers to his throat and blew out a breath.

  “He’s alive, but only barely.”

  Chapter 17

  Dakota leaned forward in the hospital chair. Austin’s hair was matted to his forehead with sweat. His eyes were glassy, but they were open and he was coherent.

  The teen shook his head. Those glassy eyes were wide with fear. Of dying, or what would happen if he talked? Whichever one it was, she had to figure out a way to use it. To leverage his fear in order to get him to talk.

  Might not make her an especially nice person, but it made her a good agent.

  “You’re gonna make it,” she said. “You’re gonna live, but the quality of that life is up to you. If you wanna spend it doing twenty-five years in federal prison, that’s up to you. Or you want to go to college. Get a job, maybe meet a girl and have a family? That’s up to you as well. The rest of your life is entirely up to you, Austin.”

  She heard Josh shift behind her, but didn’t break the connection she had with Austin.

  “It’s about the choices you make right now.” She paused. “The rest of your life starts right now.”

  His gaze shifted to Josh, then the TV. A local channel was playing a rerun and she’d muted the volume as soon as she came in, just before one-thirty. The day was marching on.

  Tomorrow Josh would be gone—back to his desk. The alternative wasn’t something she had time to entertain right now.

  Dakota was pretty sure they hadn’t been exposed to anything. They would have been showing symptoms by now. But what was it? What did Clare and her posse have?

  And what did they intend to do with it?

  “You went to that cabin to hide out. To get away from them.”

  Austin said nothing.

  Josh said, “Didn’t know it was too late, and you’d already been exposed.”

  Austin scrunched up his nose.

  She said, “Where did they go?”

  “Does it matter when you can’t stop them?” Austin’s voice was quiet. Broken. A single tear rolled from the corner of his eye.

  “They got their hands on something. A drug, a virus. You could be dead right now, but you’re not.” She did think things happened for a reason. That he was still alive for a purpose. “It’s my job to stop them, and you get to help me.”

  It wasn’t an invitation. She wasn’t going to waste her own time, appealing to whatever sense of nobility or duty he might have. That would take too long.

  She said, “Means you tell me where they are, what it is, what they’re going to do with it and who sold it to them. And you’re going to tell me right now.”

  He had to know this was time sensitive. But a teen who had been screwed up in more ways than one probably wasn’t going to think logically about any of this.

  “I left. They didn’t tell me where they were going.”

  “In the lab it looks like they were conducting a science experiment.”

  He nodded stiffly. “It has to be doctored. They have like…a concentrate. It’s in a tiny vial, with instructions on how to mix it to make more.”

  “What are they going to do with it? Is it a virus?”

  “They’re gonna make a statement.” Fear washed over his face. “That’s all I know.”

  “So you’ll trade your ignorance for a life in jail? Because I can have charges brought up on you. Accessory to kidnapping, assault, the attempted murder of my friend here.” She motioned to Josh with her finger, but didn’t turn around. “Because you’re telling me you’re so honorable you never eavesdropped. Maybe you heard something you weren’t supposed to have.”

  Austin sniffed. Pressed his lips together.

  “Where did it come from?”

  “Terry picked it up.”

  “Why was Maggie killed?”

  “She was going to leave. I heard them arguing. She said they were going too far.”

  “You dumped the body.” She let that statement hang in the air for a second, then said, “Who told you to do that?”

  He swallowed.

  “Who?”

  “Aunt Clare.”

  “Did your aunt kill Maggie?”

  Austin nodded.

  She sat back and breathed against the persistent ache in almost every part of her body. Her head was the worst. “You want to be dragged down with them? They’re your family. I get that. More than you’ll ever know, I understand the pressure you’re under to be part of who they are. How they get in your head and twist everything you think about yourself and the world. But maybe that’s not you.”

  “They’re good people.”

  “Are they? Or do you just not think you’re any better than them.”

  He sniffed and scrunched up his nose.

  “I get that you want to belong. You feel like you’re supposed to be part of it, because it’s what you were born to do—to be part of that legacy, right? But you know what? That thing they’re building—”

  He said nothing.

  “—they’re going to hurt a lot of people. Good people who didn’t ask to be dragged into your family’s war. People trying to live their lives right and honest. And your family is going to destroy what they’re building. That’s what they are set to do. Destroy.”

  “Maybe those people deserve it.”

  Dakota shook her head. “They don’t. They never do. Just like you don’t deserve jail time just because you were born into their family. That’s why you’ve got to choose. Like I had to choose when I walked away to live the life I wanted. Not the one I was told I should have.”

  Talking about it made a lump stick in her throat. She had to swallow it back down while she ran through those opening lines of the Declaration of Independence, just to get the past to dissipate. This case was dragging so much garbage back up in her head. Stuff she’d buried and laid to rest. Stuff she had no interest in dragging out to deal with again.

  The door to the hospital room opened. Dakota saw a flash of uniform—the state police officer stationed outside—before the doctor stepped in. “Your chat is over. You’ve had long enough.”

  Dakota stood, and the gray haired MD moved past her. At the door, she turned back to Austin. “Think about what I said, okay? The choice is yours.”

  Josh followed her out. She glanced at her phone but didn’t have anything new from Talia, who had swung by and picked up Austin’s phone. Hopefully their tech would get something from it, and it wouldn’t be a wasted trip.

  In the hallway, Josh said, “It’s not really a choice, is it?”

  Dakota shrugged. “Jail or betrayal.”

  “You really think it’s betrayal.”

  “I think he’ll see it as that.” She blew out a breath and ran her hands through her hair, wishing for a hairband so she could secure it in a ponytail. Get it out of her face.

  “What did you have to walk away from?”

  The question was quiet, but jarred her out of her head as though he’d shouted it at her. Dakota lowered her hands.

  “There’s something, isn’t there?”

  “We all have past experiences we wish we’d never lived through, right?” She shrugged, trying to pretend it wasn’t a big deal. “Mine is no different.”

  “What did you survive?”

  Everything inside her wrenched. Contorted. Like a blow to the stomach. She wanted to bend over and succumb to it, but forced herself to stay upright. “Who says I survived it?”

  . . .

  Josh had never in his life been more tempted to run his own background check on someone. The desire to learn about Dakota’s past, that thing she’d lived through but hadn’t necessarily survived, ate at him the whole way down to the morgue.

  They exited the elevator and he shivered. “Whoa. Cold.”

  “Brr.” She glanced at him before she wrapped her jacket tighter around her. Not exactly happy, but at least the trace of sadness was gone. He didn’t want her to be swallowed up by things she refused to tell him.

  The urge to hug her was still there. Plus the nap. The almost-kiss from Friday night. He sighed as they strode down to where the music was coming from. Some kind of soft rock, but it sounded like the kind you’d hear on a street corner in New Orleans.

  “Why are you being weird?”

  He glanced at her. “Long day?”

  “Long weekend.” She smiled ruefully. “I swear you’re not meeting me at my best.”

  “You think I care about that?” He tugged on her elbow before she stepped inside the room where Doctor Stevens was performing an examination on Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. “I’m just glad we’re both okay.”

  “Define, ‘okay.’”

  “Point taken.” She’d been beaten, and he’d been shot. “Maybe we’ll just have to meet up after this is over, get to know each other when things return to normal.”

  She eyed him. “Not sure my life is ever actually normal, to be honest.”

  “True.”

  “And if this case turns into another case? If we end up working together for a while?”

  Josh frowned. He had repeatedly felt like they were testing him. Was this whole thing, him being here, some kind of interview? Was this how Victoria scouted out new team members?

  “We’re a team member down since we had a guy get injured and retire before Christmas.” She made a face, like she didn’t approve of anyone quitting. For any reason. “Now he’s licking his wounds in Alaska.”

 

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