Chapter 4
Four
Jenner’s teeth clenched as they made their way around the bend leading to the little house that Sam said she was staying at.
He had noticed it when they’d parked, but his focus had been on threats.
He never knew what was going to pop up around Ian.
The damned spies were a pain in his ass, but then, he trusted them.
At least he trusted Ian. Maybe that was a mistake, but he had to at least trust someone again. Maybe.
“You said Sam was okay?”
He glanced over at the insane driver who’d almost killed him three times as they’d made their way over. Apparently speed limits were just a suggestion to El. Also stop signs and yield signs. He was always a wild card, but there was something in his voice. It hinted at a relationship with Sam.
“Do you know her?”
There was a long pause, as if he were trying to figure out if he could trust Jenner. He got it. They didn’t know each other. Jenner had yet to work a case with him. He knew too well what happened when you trusted someone who didn’t deserve it.
“Yeah. Eden and I worked with her at the Agency.”
Fuck. Yeah, the twins had been at the CIA. Surrounded by fucking spies. This whole situation was heavy with spies, and he really didn’t like that. Anyone who lied for a living was hard to trust.
“Do you know why she’s here?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t talked to her in about a month. More than likely, she’s here because of Ian.”
Yeah, everyone knew that the two of them had some weird connection. “Let’s check out this house.”
They both slipped out of the SUV. They kept their guard up as they walked to the house.
Nothing seemed to be disturbed outside of it.
It was small, barely taking up any space at all, but there was a lot of land around it.
After being on Oahu for a few months, he had moved over to Kauai.
He liked the vibe, and homes tended to have more land around them than on Oahu.
As he studied the house, he realized that it would work as a safe house.
From first look, it was at a dead end. But being next to a wooded area gave you at least a chance at hiding from whatever was coming.
With no other houses on the street, she didn’t have to worry about every car that drove by.
It had been a really good choice for safety.
In fact, Jenner was pretty sure Sam was alive thanks to this house.
El knocked on the front door, which creaked open.
“That’s not a good sign. I’ll go high, you go low,” Jenner said.
El nodded. They pulled out their guns and made their way into the house. There wasn’t much to it, just a living area, a very small kitchen, and one bedroom and bath. But there was nothing, no man, no blood, no signs of a struggle.
One thing, though, were the post it notes. There was an insane number of little pieces of paper all over the wall in the kitchen. A blond wig sat on the table along with a discarded pair of mirrored glasses.
“This has my ass twitching,” El said, his mouth pulling down into a frown. The Texan always had the strangest sayings.
“Is she confused? Maybe she went for a walk? Did she get attacked on the trail?”
El shook his head. “Sam would never leave her door unlocked. When we worked at the CIA, she would lock her office even if she was just stepping out in the hallway for a few minutes.”
“Hyper vigilance?”
He nodded. “Her parents and brother were killed when she was young. I think twelve, thirteen. I always figured it had to do with that.”
It would make sense. Something that profound happening at that age would affect behaviors later on. Hell, he had to fight locking doors, checking mirrors…just everything, and he had been an adult when his world had been blown apart.
“So, if Sam said it happened here, it happened here,” El said.
He was probably right. “Who would have been able to get here, clean up this mess, and make it look like no one was ever here?”
“A few people, and unfortunately, that could mean the CIA was involved. They have really good cleaners. And since they burned her, they could have been behind it.”
“Shit. She’s burned?”
He sighed. “Yeah. I thought that was all cleared up, but apparently not. Let’s look around.”
“I thought you said they had good cleaners?”
“They do, but none of them are perfect. I’ll take the kitchen.”
Jenner nodded and headed to the living area. The coffee table looked a little off, so he moved it back to align with the couch, and that’s when he saw it. A drop of blood.
“Found some blood.”
“That’s probably all we’ll find, but we should still search her bedroom and then the grounds outside. If they missed a drop of blood, that could mean they missed something else.” El rolled his shoulders. “This is starting to feel like something really big.”
“How long since she was burned?”
“A couple of years.”
“What do you think all this is?” he asked motioning toward all the post it notes. There were names on them that he didn’t know, but he did see Ian’s. It was in the center of everything with all the other post it notes circling.
“Hmm. Not sure. But Sam works this way. She’s visual, from what I remember. When we were trying to figure out who set me up at the CIA, she was the one who suggested Ed and I make up what she called the snowflake method.”
Jenner motioned with his gun. “All these people have something to do with Ian?”
“Not sure. Like I said, she’s hyper vigilant, so there is a good chance she used his name to throw off anyone who could see this.”
He started down the short hallway to the bedroom area. “You know this Sam—”
“You should know that’s not her real name.”
He stopped and looked over his shoulder at El. “What?”
El studied him for a second. “The truth is, I don’t know if I know her real name.”
“Is this woman a threat?”
He shook his head. “Not to you and I.”
Jenner cocked his head. “Explain.”
There was a long beat of silence. “Listen, I know that probably worked in the Army, but there’s one thing the CIA found out about me. I don’t like orders.”
God save him from spies. “So sorry to upset your delicate sensibilities. Please explain.”
El’s mouth twitched. “She’s an analyst. Or was for the CIA. There wasn’t a site she couldn’t hack, and she was put in charge of very big investigations pretty early on.”
“She looks like she isn’t even thirty.”
He nodded. “She started working for them before the age of twenty-one. The woman is a genius.”
“But for some reason she’s on the run, and the CIA could have sent in cleaners after some man attempted to kill her.”
“First, we don’t know that. It might have been an abduction attempt. Second, as I said, she was burned.”
He started off down the hallway again. “You said that before. Is it really like in that show a few years ago?”
When he didn’t say anything, he turned around. Guilt stamped El’s features.
“Ed and I are part of the reason. She helped us out of a bad situation. Then, all of a sudden, she disappeared. I thought that maybe she had moved back home, but apparently, that wasn’t the case. And it is like that show to an extent.”
None of that made him feel any better, and sooner or later, they would have to at least call Luc.
El might not like orders, but Jenner knew their boss, and their boss’s boss, were sticklers for it.
When you had a former SEAL and former FBI running the show, they liked to keep everything moving smoothly.
For that to happen, the chain of command had to be followed.
“Let’s look around her bedroom, also grab some clothes and lock the place up,” El said.
“Did Ian say to grab her clothes?”
El smiled. “No, but I know she’ll need some clothes. I know women.”
“You do? Because I never see you keep one around, brother.”
El shook his head. “Having a twin sister has taught me enough to know Sam will want her own clothes. If she had a stomach wound, you probably had to get rid of her clothes.”
He had. The whole time Ian had been muttering about her being without a shirt.
The guy definitely had some kind of attachment to this Sam.
It didn’t seem like a good thing since the woman had been attacked in her own home.
He could smell the trouble coming for both Sam and now Ian since he was somehow involved with her.
“I’m gonna scout around out back to make sure there’s nothing out there to help us with who attacked her.”
El nodded as he opened the closet to look through her clothes. As Jenner headed out back, his stomach knotted and his head started to pound. His gut was telling him something bad was coming down the pike and all of them had been drawn into it. One thing was for sure. This wasn’t going to end well.
It only took about five minutes before Sam was deep asleep. Her fingers had gone limp against his hand, so he let it go. He didn’t want to and that was odd for him. What was it about this woman?
Shaking his head, he grabbed up his phone and texted his sister.
Ian: I’ve had an incident.
Autumn: Jesus, you are uptight. What is the incident? Did someone not make your tea the right way?
Americans never made tea the right way.
Ian: Sam was hurt.
Three dots appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again. Then his phone rang. He glanced at Sam. Seeing that her chest was rising and falling, he slipped out of the room.
“Why are you calling?”
Of course, his sister didn’t acknowledge his question. “What do you mean hurt and what did you do to her?”
“I did nothing to her. Why would you think that?”
“Come on, Mix. You two have been at it for months. Why do you get so pissed off at her anyway?”
Because every time he had talked to her had left him slightly aroused. It was going to be worse now that he knew exactly what she looked like.
“No reason.”
The hum she made told him his sister knew he was lying, but for once, she concentrated on the problem at hand. “Tell me what happened.”
“She called me after she was attacked. Em helped me find her.”
“She’s there? On Kauai? And she called you?”
“Yeah.”