Once Burned (Task Force Eagle)

ONCE BURNED

SUSAN VAUGHAN

“Strong characters and plenty of romance.”

 –Kat Martin, New York Times Bestselling author

TASK FORCE EAGLE -When federal agents Rick Cruz, Jake Wescott, and Holt
Donovan go after a Mexican cartel kingpin, they face unexpected hazards—to
their hearts.

ABOUT THIS BOOK:

When tortured ATF Agent Jake
Wescott, undercover in his Maine hometown, becomes the reluctant protector of
beautiful and defensive Lani Cameron, scarred in the long-ago fire that killed
her twin, intimacy ignites passion. As they uncover secrets, they face dangers
more explosive than they feared.

Published by
Gullwood Press

Copyright 2013 Susan Hofstetter Vaughan

Cover design and digital layout by
www.formatting4U.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or
by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author at
[email protected]. This book is a work of fiction. The characters,
events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s
imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the
author.

For more information on the author and her works, please see
http://www.susanvaughan.com

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the other
writers and to the law enforcement experts of Crime Scene Writers for your
advice and information.

Dedication

For my husband, who has my back. Always.

Chapter 1

May

Dragon Harbor, Maine

Jake Wescott opened the driver’s door and eased his
bad leg out of the Jeep Cherokee. The muscles had tightened up. Too damn much.
After his punishing run on the Dragon Harbor Middle School track, he should’ve
done the damn stretching exercises his physical therapist had prescribed.  

He ought to have more improvement by now. Ought to be
a hundred percent. They’d cleared him for duty—light duty, which this gig was
supposed to be. He dug his fingers into the thigh muscle and kneaded. When the
spasm eased enough, he gathered his mail and the
Bayport Chronicle
from
the passenger seat, stood, and locked up.

In the harbor, power and sailing yachts as well as
fishing craft bobbed around the three rocks that gave the town its name. At low
tide, they were a boating hazard, but now at mid tide, the massive rocks formed
the undulating back of a mythical beast.

The salt-scented air and the waves lapping against the
pilings brought back memories of carefree summers. He half expected to see his
dad, like he was back then, young and tall and strong, wave from the stern of
his lobster boat. Something about returning here gave life to the dead and
clarified what was important.

As he made his way onto the docks, Ed Pascal waved a
greeting. “How much distance you puttin’ in now, Jake?”

“Made three miles today.” He nodded to the harbormaster.

Pascal lifted his khaki ball cap and resettled it on
his dark hair. Touching a finger to his flat nose, he grinned, digging creases
around his eyes, squinty from forty-some years on the water. “Makin’ progress.
Not too shabby for a guy who could barely walk when you got here.”

Jake thanked the man as he passed the harbor office, a
one-room shingled building by the docks and floats. The finger docks took him
to the boat slip where the
Amy Jo
sat in calm water. Once Uncle Joe’s
lobster boat with the typical high bow and roomy cockpit, she’d been
retrofitted for cruising. Peeling paint and worn teak showed her age but she
was seaworthy.

Living on board was only temporary but not too tough a
lifestyle to take. Despite the reason for his return to town, life on a boat
soothed his soul. Living here supported his cover story—fixing up Gram’s house
to sell and looking out for his mom—which was truthful as far as it went.

He climbed aboard, gratified he could swing his left
leg over the toe rail with minimal strain. A check of the companionway found no
disturbance of his low-tech security—two paint chips stuck across the gap
between the padlock and the hatch frame. Probably unnecessary here but taking
no chances was good procedure. Especially if his investigation turned up
anything.

Either investigation. Hell, looking into the fire by
printing out news articles on the old Cameron fire hardly qualified. Stopping
by Gail’s grave had gotten him thinking. Probably no chance he’d find anything
new. He had skills and experience now he didn’t have twelve years ago. Maybe
that’s why he itched to have all the facts.

Below deck, he deposited the items he’d carried aboard
on the small dining table. He glanced at his watch. Overdue to check in. He
opened his lock box and moved his ATF ID and service pistol aside. He took out
his laptop, ready to take notes, before tapping the number into his phone. The
receiver clicked after three rings.

“About time, Wescott.” Holt Donovan’s western drawl
stretched out the syllables like a rubber band. “Partyin’ on that yacht instead
of working?”

Jake chuckled at his contact’s characterization of the
Amy Jo
. The DEA agent had never been Santa, but he morphed into Scrooge
when schedules fell apart. Agents in Jake’s Boston ATF office had joined with
other federal agencies in Task Force Eagle to work on a smuggling case
involving multiple jurisdictions.

“Yeah, Donovan, I just kissed the last of the girls
good-bye and threw out the empty champagne bottles.” A snort was the reply.
Ginning, Jake said, “You got anything for me?”

Muted voices and computer hums of the big office
filled a moment of silence. “I got a couple things on my end,” Donovan said. “Report
from our man inside says at least one Dragon Harbor local, maybe two, are part
of the smuggling ring. We’ve IDed one of El Águila’s men in the Northeast,
Hector Vargas. Vargas has moved explosives into Maine. Might be the C-4 you
were hunting in New Hampshire.”

“The same C-4 they used on us. You know how much I
want these guys.” Too often lowlifes murdered innocent people and destroyed
property with impunity. He knew from painful experience. The primary reason he’d
joined the ATF. He keyed in the new information before asking, “Anything else?
What about Ruiz?” ATF Special Agent Ruiz was deep undercover with the Mexican
cartel offshoot in New Hampshire.

“They seem to be waiting around for more. Ruiz said
talk is it’s AR-15s and Bushmaster assault rifles, more like the ones we
rounded up in Portland back before you— Sorry, don’t mean to keep reminding you
what happened after that.”

Jake rubbed the scar on his thigh. He didn’t need
reminding about the biggest fuck-up of his career. He had let the gang sucker
him. The same bomb that injured him also blew apart his partner. He swallowed
past the clog in his throat. “No problem. What do you know about this Hector
Vargas?”

“Not much. Vargas may be an alias. Ruiz has never seen
the man, so we’re nada on a description.”

I’ll keep an eye out, but a Mexican would stand out on
this lily-white peninsula like a cactus in a pine grove. Any progress on
tracking down the drug lord himself?”

“Inch by fucking inch,” Donovan said. “Task force’s
cutting a deal with the Federales for a joint op, some sort of a trap. I’m
itchin’ to get in on it.”

Jake balled one hand into a fist. “That could take
months. Won’t do any good to catch the sons of bitches here in Maine if El
Águila’s free to set up shop somewhere else.”

Donovan put him on hold for a call on another line.

No one else should suffer because of those Mexican
thugs. He had to connect the Dragon Harbor link to them and seal up this harbor
to the smugglers. If Donovan and the others could capture El Águila, the whole
cartel would go down. He relaxed his fisted hand as the other agent returned. “Does
Ruiz have any idea of a deadline here?”

“Hard to tell when the shipment will move. Make it
three, four weeks. They know we’re pressuring them. They could move up the
timetable.”

“Won’t Ruiz let us know?”

Donovan cleared his throat. “That was my other call.
Ruiz is dead.”

The announcement blasted through Jake like a Nor’easter.
“Dammit! How?”

“He was driving back to the compound after reporting
in. A sniper shot from an overpass. Bullet went through the windshield. Cops
found nothing. Said it was probably a hunter out of season. The SAC figures the
cartel made Ruiz. Don’t let that happen to you.”

Jake’s temples pounded. “I got this one. No problem.”

*****

June

Lani Cameron parked her car in the Birch Brook Farm
driveway. She put the house and attached small barn behind her and crossed the
pasture. As she’d done twice a day since her arrival a week ago, she stopped at
the splintered frame of the burned-out horse barn’s doorway.

She turned her face to the late-afternoon June sun,
absorbing brightness before lowering her gaze to the blackened remains. Not
much left after twelve Maine winters. She bent to pick up a scrap of pine
board. Her fingers clenched around the charred wood.

The remembered smell of creosote turned her stomach.
If she closed her eyes she could feel the searing heat. Hear the roar. But she
couldn’t see more, couldn’t see Gail’s body, limp on the floor, couldn’t— She
dropped the wood as if it scorched her hand.

The sun shining through the structure’s skeleton cast
eerie shadows over the witch grass and daisies. Cow vetch twined its way up one
of the posts. Green life amid the ashes—a mockery.

She needed to sell the farm, but without that phone
call from Nora she might not have had the courage to return to Dragon Harbor to
do it herself. When school had ended the second week of the month, she finished
her students’ final reports and booked it out of Concord. She prayed braving
the scene of the fire would end her nightmares and help her remember, but the
dreams were haunting her nightly, becoming more vivid. More real. The murderous
fire monster, bigger and more frightening, woke her up in a cold sweat. She
rubbed her arms in the sudden chill of memory.

Dammit, she would put up with a lack of sleep if her
efforts led to answers.

She strode toward the farmhouse, seeking comfort in
its white clapboards, peaked roof, and front door painted shut because everyone
used the side-porch entrance to the kitchen. Repairs had to be done before the
real estate agent would list the property.

As she reached the pasture’s edge, a blue Jeep SUV
pulled into the driveway and parked behind her car. A tall man in jeans and a
faded University of Maine T-shirt emerged.

She held up a hand to shade her eyes from the sun and
watched as he ambled toward her. Light-brown hair and strong boned features
with bold planes and angles made her pulse flutter. He stopped a few feet from
her and raised his gaze.

Her heart drummed, slamming against her ribs.
Jake
Wescott
. The same blue eyes, but older, wiser, sadder. She’d expected to
see her twin’s old boyfriend, planned on it, but not yet. She’d wanted this
first meeting on her own terms. Never mind. She would deal.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was just—” His mouth dropped open and he took a
step back as if a horse had kicked him in the gut. “
Gail.
” Shaking his
head, he blew out a breath. “Lani, is that you?”

Her throat closed. How long had it been since someone
mistook her for her twin? A cruel joke, except he wasn’t joking.

The best defense is a good offense.
She cocked
a hip and flapped a hand at the scar on the left side of her face. “Who else
would it be, Jake? Mrs. Frankenstein? And I repeat, what
are
you doing
here?”

Tension crackled in the air between them. Her heart
pounded like a kettledrum.

His face was a blank mask. Time had changed him. He
was taller and broader shouldered. Lines etched into his cheeks added more than
the three years he had on her. No familiar crooked grin, the one that used to
melt every girl in Dragon Harbor. Including her. Although she’d kept it to
herself. Back then he’d been open—funny and kind. But that wasn’t the Jake here
today. She didn’t know this Jake with the unreadable, hard eyes.

“I’m living on my boat in the harbor while I take care
of some family business. Fixing up Gram’s house to sell it, for one.”

Not what she meant but she’d get to that. “Nora told
me you’ve been here since March. That you’re in the FBI.”

“Not FBI, ATF. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms,
and Explosives. I’m on leave. You mind me looking around in the horse barn,
what’s left of it?”

“No problem. Knock yourself out.”