Fatal Pursuit (The Aegis Series) (24 page)

She was right. He needed to remodel the damn place. Get every memory of his father out once and for all so he could breathe. He just prayed he wouldn’t be doing it without her.

“Don’t tell me you can’t find the file. I know it’s in there!”

The male voice coming from Marley’s office drew Jake toward her door. Mick Hedley sat behind her desk, his surfer blond hair falling in his eyes as his big hands hacked at her keyboard. “What are you doing here, Hedley?”

Mick glanced up, frowned, then refocused on the screen and hit another key. “Trying to get my flight information. I’m heading to Canada to meet with a client. Marley was supposed to send it to me, but didn’t.”

Jake’s heart pinched, but he ignored it. Moving around behind Marley’s desk, he eyed the folders on the screen. “Try that one. AU.”

Mick moved the cursor and clicked. Sure enough, all his information came up—personnel files, itineraries, health information. “What the hell?”

“You’re Australian. Sometimes she files shit by where you guys come from.”

“What if she’s got two guys from the same place? How does she keep that straight?”

“Hell if I know.” Jake shrugged into his coat, fighting back a small smile. Yes, her filing system aggravated the hell out of him most days, but he liked depending on her. Liked that she’d made this company part hers. Liked that every morning he could look forward to seeing her, and that he knew she’d always be there.

His smile faded. And that ache re-formed. What if she wasn’t?

He needed to get out of here. Needed to clear his head. Couldn’t sit around waiting. If he did, he’d just go mad. “Listen, I need to run out. Since you’re here, if Marley calls, give me a ring.”

Mick glanced up at him. “Where is she anyway? She’s always here.”

“She’s taking the day off.”
Please let it just be today
.

Turning out of the offices, Jake jogged down the curved staircase and moved through the reception area. Johanna, the twenty-something girl Marley had hired to man the front desk, waved at him from behind the tall counter. Voices and laughter echoed from the back room, and Jake knew Eve and Archer were in there with
Raleigh Stone
, but he didn’t stop in to say hi. Didn’t feel like shooting the shit. He just needed air. Needed space. Needed to chill the hell down before he did something that would make things worse.

Crisp air slapped him in the face as he pushed one side of the wide double doors open. Snow littered the ground but the temperature was already warming up, which meant in a few days it would be gone, and he was glad. He was ready for spring, ready for new beginnings, ready to put the last week, especially, behind him for good.

He tugged his keys out of his pocket and hit the lock button on his Tahoe twice so he could start the ignition remotely. His thoughts automatically drifted to Marley once more, and he hoped like hell she hadn’t run to McKnight. He could handle a lot of things, but he wasn’t sure he could handle that.

His thumb slid to the remote ignition on his fob. He pressed down on the button as he crossed the slippery parking lot toward his rig parked fifty feet away. A roar sounded, and then the vehicle erupted into a giant fireball that lifted the car off the ground and hurled Jake back through the air.

M
arley’s phone buzzed for the third time in a row. Glancing over her shoulder at it on the floor outside the closet in her bedroom, she eyed the thing like it was a two-headed dragon.

She didn’t want to talk to Gray. She was already dealing with enough emotional turmoil over her night and morning with Jake. She didn’t need to add in Gray’s baggage as well.

Tossing a pair of shoes she hadn’t worn in over a year into the pile she’d started for charity, she clenched her jaw and told herself at some point physical exhaustion would set in and she’d pass out. But she was starting to think maybe she was fooling herself. She’d already organized her panty, and the counter under the bathroom sink, and the storage closet in her guest room. The master closet was her last hope.

Her phone buzzed again before she could even reach for the next set of hideous shoes she didn’t remember buying, rattling the gray matter against her skull.

“Goddammit.” She snatched the phone, sat back on her heels, and hit Answer before she looked at the number. “Look, Gray. I—”

“Marley, it’s Eve. Jake’s on his way to the hospital.”

“What?” The blood rushed from Marley’s cheeks, and fear burst inside her chest. Pushing to her feet, she let go of the ugly clog and stood. “What happened?”

“His Tahoe exploded. We think it was a bomb. Paramedics just left for the ER.”

Her heart lurched into her throat, and the conversation she and Jake had last night in his living room rushed through her mind. “Which hospital?” She ran for the entry closet, where she yanked out her snow boots and tugged her jacket from the hanger. “Is he okay?”

“Norton Suburban. I don’t know. He’s pretty banged up.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God. Please be okay
. “I’m on my way.”

She bolted out the front door and slid behind the wheel of her Audi, which she’d picked up earlier in the day from the mechanic, and backed out of her drive. Her heart pounded hard as she maneuvered through traffic and found a parking space outside the ER.

Jogging into the building, she rushed up to the counter. “Jake Ryder. The ambulance just brought him in.”

“Hold on while I check.” The nurse fiddled on her computer, and Marley only barely held back from climbing over the counter and shaking the info out of the woman. “Ah, here he is. Are you family?”

“Yes.”

“Bay fourteen. Go through the double—”

Marley didn’t wait to hear the rest of the woman’s words. She hurried toward the double doors and pressed the button on the wall to open them. The doors slid back way too slowly. Her adrenaline spiked. As soon as the doors parted, she sprinted through the opening and scanned numbers along the curtained rooms on each side of the hall.

“I don’t need stitches. I just want to get the hell out of here.”

Jake’s voice echoed in her ears, and she stopped, turned, realized she’d passed his bay, and rushed back. Grasping the curtain, she jerked it open. He was sitting on the bed, his chest bare, his eyes red, his hair and face covered in a thin layer of soot from the explosion. A nurse stood next to him, rubbing an alcohol pad over a gash in his arm with gloved hands.

The nurse looked over. “Miss, you can’t be in he—”

“Marley,” Jake said, swiveling his head her way.

She stepped into the room, swallowed hard to keep the contents of her stomach from shooting up, and eyed the blood rushing down his arm and smeared across his chest. “Eve called. Oh my God. Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He glared at the dark-haired thirty-something nurse wearing blue hospital scrubs. “Nurse Ratchet over here was just going to slap some butterfly bandages on my arm and call it good.”

The nurse shot him an irritated look and then glanced toward Marley. “He needs stitches, and he’s being difficult.” She grabbed a gauze pad from the bed at his side and slapped it against the wound on his arm. Jake winced in pain, but it didn’t even faze the nurse. “Hold this here.” She tugged her gloves off and dropped them in a bin, then stepped past Marley. “I’m getting the doctor. Don’t let him leave.”

The nurse disappeared around the corner, and, holding the pad against his arm, Jake turned his scowling expression Marley’s way. “Did Eve tell you what happened?”

“Yes. Oh my God.” She took a step toward him. “Jake—”

“I told you he was up to no good. But you didn’t listen.”

Her feet stilled before she reached him, and her brow wrinkled. “He who?”

“McKnight.”

It took a second to realize what he was saying, and then her eyes flew wide. “You think Gray did this?”

“I know he did. He’s got you on the radar, and he’s been shooting daggers at me ever since we rescued his ass. I saw how many times he called your damn cell phone last night. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together and figure out where you were. And he’s been checking out my background and properties.”

“You said that was the Red Brotherhood.”

“No,
you
said it was the Red Brotherhood. I had a hunch it was McKnight. I just didn’t say so to keep from pissing you off.”

Frustration and disbelief rolled through her stomach, pushing aside whatever compassion she’d been feeling about his injury. “You’ve crossed paths with plenty of bad guys in your life, Jake. There are a thousand people who probably want to see you dead. You are seriously losing it if you think Gray had anything to do with this. I know him. For all his faults, he’s not a murderer.”

Jake’s jaw clenched down hard, and he looked toward the white board on the wall. “Then fine. Get back to the office and help me figure out who did this to me.”

Her mouth opened, and the word “yes” dangled on her tongue. But then she remembered his blank eyes this morning and the way he’d brushed her off like their night together hadn’t meant anything.

She couldn’t go back to that. Not when she knew for sure that she did love him, and that he didn’t love her back.

“I’m not going back with you. I can’t. You’ll have to figure this one out on your own.”

His gaze snapped to hers. “Mar—”

“I’m done with Aegis. I left my resignation letter on your kitchen table this morning.” Oh God, this hurt more than she’d thought it would, but she pulled up her strength and didn’t let that stop her. “And considering everything that’s happened between us, I think it’s smarter all around if we both bypass the two-week notice and call things quits right here.”

She turned for the door. At her back, she heard him scramble off the bed. “Marley, hold on.”

Every muscle in her wanted turn back, to go to him, but her battered heart wouldn’t let her give in. She stepped through the doorway, desperate now to escape. To her luck, the nurse moved into the room just after her and held up both hands. “Whoa. Where do you think you’re going? Get back on that bed.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Not like that you aren’t,” the nurse said.

Marley slipped around the nurse. A young doctor in blue scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck stepped into the room as well.

“Goddammit, Marley,” Jake said behind them. “Please. Just wait.”

She couldn’t. Without looking back, she headed down the hall for reception, her hands shaking, her body vibrating with a heartache that came out of nowhere and stabbed at every inch of her skin. But as much as it hurt, she knew she was doing the right thing. The only thing she could do. She just hated every moment of it.

Jake lowered the Glock in his hand, grabbed the second magazine from the counter in front of him, lifted his arms, and fired toward the target in rapid succession. A burn lit up his biceps where he’d been injured by flying debris in the explosion four days ago, but he ignored it.

On the range around him, gunshots echoed through the shooting earmuffs protecting his eardrums. He lowered his weapon and set it on the counter. Gunfire in the next booth halted. Jake pulled the muffs off his ears, then hit the button on the wall to draw his target toward him.

Mick Hedley chuckled as he hit his own target return. “That time I know I beat you.”

Jake wasn’t feeling particularly competitive at the moment. Or friendly. But he’d let Hedley drag him to the range when the man had walked into the office after returning from his assignment in Canada because he knew he was being a bear to anyone who walked by. He also knew if he didn’t do something to release the pent-up frustrations inside him, someone else might try to take him out, and he didn’t want it to be one of his own employees.

He eyed the target as it drew close. One shot dead between the eyes, a series of holes right through the heart, exactly where he’d aimed. But he barely saw the outline of a body on the paper. All he could see was Marley’s face in the hallway of the ER days ago, when she’d stood behind that doctor and told him she was done with Aegis for good.

That sinking feeling grabbed on to his stomach and pulled hard. The same one he’d felt when he’d gone home and found her ankle bracelet on his kitchen table and read her letter of resignation.

“Shit,” Hedley said in the booth at his side. “That’s not fair. You’re fucking ticked and you still shoot like that. It’s not right, man. It’s just not right.”

Jake reloaded his magazine, desperate for something—anything—to take his mind off Marley. “When I’m drunk I don’t shoot so well.”

“I’ll remember that.” Hedley rolled up his target. “So the party starts at seven. A few of us are going over around eight. Don’t want to get there too early, don’t want to be too late, you know?”

Jake slid his weapon into the holster at his side, then tugged his target from the clips. He didn’t normally carry a weapon unless he was in the field, but his car exploding hadn’t just rattled him, it had pissed him the hell off. “What party?”

“Addison’s big shindig. You are going, aren’t you?”

Confusion clouding his mind, Jake stepped out from behind the wall separating the two booths and looked toward Hedley. The Aussie was wearing jeans, a black button-down, and boots, and, standing on the range with a gun in his hand, the former Special Air Service Regiment of Australia soldier looked every bit the badass Jake knew him to be. He was also looking at Jake as if Jake had grown a second head.

“Dude,” Hedley said. “Tell me you know about this. Eve left the invite on your desk two days ago. Marley’s dad’s throwing a big welcome home celebration for McKnight.”

A roiling anger brewed in the pit of Jake’s stomach. He grabbed his stuff and turned for the door. “I didn’t know about it, and I’m definitely not going.”

“You have to go,” Hedley said at his back. “You helped rescue the guy.”

Jake pushed the door to the parking lot open and stepped out into the crisp March air and fading light of late afternoon. “He blew up my fucking rig.”

Hedley sighed. “You don’t have any proof of that. Cops haven’t found anything that points to him, and your own team hasn’t been able to prove it. You could be wrong about the guy, you know.”

He could be. But in his gut, Jake knew he wasn’t. “It was him.”

“So that’s why you won’t go? Because you think he did something he probably didn’t do?”

“Yes.” Jake opened the door of his Explorer.

“Bullshit.”

He glared over his shoulder toward Hedley. “Excuse me?”

“Excuse nothing. You’re being a pussy and we both know it. This isn’t about McKnight, it’s about Marley. Whatever shit’s going on between you two, you need to suck it up and get over it. I don’t care if you think he’s a douchebag or a fucking idiot or even if he did blow up your truck. You need to be there for her. You owe her that much after the years she’s invested in you. And if you can’t do that for her, then she’s not the only one you’re gonna have to replace.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”

Hedley slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans in a very nonthreatening way and rocked back on his heels. “No. I’m just saying plainly that you’re no peach on a good day, but ever since Marley left you’ve been a complete pain in the ass. I’m not the only one who’s noticed. If you don’t trust McKnight and you don’t want Marley anywhere near him, then don’t stand here pouting like a little bitch. And don’t take it out on the rest of us. Go get her back.”

Jake’s stomach tightened. He did want her back. Wanted her back at Aegis and wanted her back with him. Like they’d been that night at his house. That was all he’d thought about for the last four days. But he was scared. Scared he’d mess things up again. Scared he’d never be what she really needed. Scared of taking a chance and failing with her like he’d failed with everyone else he’d ever cared about.