Freefall. Jodie Bailey
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last night, okay?” He pressed his lips together and exhaled through his nose. “I came here to tell you something’s going on in your unit and—”
“And you thought you’d dig through all of my stuff instead? Maybe take out some ten-year-old aggression on my file drawer?”
“No.” The word was firm enough to silence her protests and strong enough to tell her he hadn’t bothered to listen to a word she’d said. Some things never changed. “I came here to talk some sense into you and instead found the guy who torched that kid’s car in your parking lot.” When she opened her mouth to speak, he took a step closer and buried her planned protest under his words. “Short and sweet, he’s the one who was upstairs going through your stuff.”
“And I suppose you threw down a fight with him in the kitchen and that was his blood I had to scrub off my floor last night? Please.” Cassidy held up her hand to stem the flow of lies. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe that. To begin with, Anderson’s car blew up because he knows nothing about mechanical modifications. Now tell me, which movie did you steal your story from?” She rubbed her temples with her fingertips, overwhelmed by his reappearance in her orderly life. He brought up too many emotions, too many memories she didn’t need to relive. “Know what? I was thinking last night I let you off too easy. Hiding in closets, Shane? Normal people don’t do that. That’s what stalkers and murderers and guys who can’t let go do. I figured you were none of those things, but now I’m not so sure.” Well, she was sure he was neither a stalker nor a murderer, but she wasn’t so certain anymore about his ability to let her go.
Shane’s eyes stared at a spot above her head, and she knew from past experience he worked hard to keep his frustration in check. After a second, he eased the left sleeve of his T-shirt to his shoulder and tilted his upper arm toward her. A heavy white bandage peeked out at her. “It’s covering a knife wound. I got it in your kitchen, fighting off the guy who torched the car in your parking lot.”
Cassidy’s breath froze in her lungs. The blood had been real. Shane had been attacked. In her house. He could have been killed... Her hand raised to touch the bandage, but she caught herself and pulled it back. As she did, realization crept in.
Heated fear pooled at the base of her spine and softened her joints. Someone had been in her house. Someone had rifled through her things. Someone had waited for her to come home.
“There was...” Her knees refused to hold her up any longer, and she sank to the step, mind whipping through what could have happened if Shane hadn’t been there. “Somebody else was here.”
Shane knelt in front of her but didn’t try to touch her. He opened his mouth, closed it, then ran his hand through his hair. “That’s not all.”
Cassidy swallowed her fear and sat straighter. No matter what else was going on, she refused to give Shane an inroad with her emotions, refused to let him smell her fear, even if he had piqued her curiosity and possibly saved her life. “Talk.”
* * *
But he knew if he tried to touch her—especially with all of the anger simmering beneath the surface between them—he’d never get her to open her ears and listen.
He rocked forward and looked to her left, avoiding the direct confrontation contact with her hazel eyes always brought. “On my last mission in Afghanistan, we detained a guy in opium country because we believed he had intel about a Taliban leader we were trailing. He didn’t, but he kept talking about parachutes. Every one of us figured he was just babbling scared and, after we checked him out, we let him go. Sent the intel up the food chain, washed our hands of it and moved on. Honestly, I forgot all about it. We wrapped up the mission and it never crossed my mind again.”
“Okay.” Cassy slid back on the stairs as though she tried to put as much distance between them as possible.
Shane ignored the sting of her rebuff. “One of the interpreters caught up with me a couple of weeks ago, while we were gearing up to return to the States. Said he couldn’t understand what the parachute thing was all about, so he started digging. He even managed to find the guy we’d detained and asked him a few more questions.” Shane rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his fingers. “Long story short, rumor has it among the locals somebody’s been buying all of the opium they could get their hands on and working to smuggle it out of the country. Somebody associated with our military.” He waited to see if she’d make the connection. The truth would have more impact if she put it together for herself.
It took a second, but her eyes widened and her lips parted. “Parachutes and our military? So that’s why you think...”
Shane stood and jerked his neck to the side, trying to pop out some of the tension that had built across his shoulders. “The only unit handling parachutes in that area of the country at the time we detained the guy was—”
“Attached to the Eighty-Second.”
He nodded and stared at the hot water heater in the corner of the garage. If he looked at her, he might not be able to resist pulling her off the step and sheltering her the only way he knew how. Some habits never died. “I don’t have a good read on how, but the best I can figure, they’re managing to get them in with the parachutes that come back here. It all sounded pretty out there to my thinking, so I figured I’d swing by the rigger shed, get the lay of the land and try to see if I could figure out who to trust before any more shipping containers came back.”
“There are some coming in late next week. They should have come in yesterday, but they were delayed between here and Pennsylvania. One of the GPS trackers isn’t sending a signal, and the container is missing.”
Shane’s gut twisted. Everything was falling into place when he wanted it all to fall to pieces. “I was really hoping when I said that to you yesterday that you’d tell me it wasn’t yours. They’re coming from the depot in New Cumberland?”
She nodded.
If one of those containers truly had been tampered with, everything he suspected might be true. And that meant bigger trouble than he could even imagine.
Cassidy stood and brushed past him, walking toward the front of the garage. “You’re hinting that some of my soldiers are running drugs. Under my nose.” Suspicion laced her voice and stiffened her posture. “Too many people have their fingers in the pie when we ship gear to the States. And think about it. What soldier in their right mind would do such a thing? You buy drugs from those guys, you’re funneling money straight to—”
“The very same guys who are shooting at you. I know.” Shane swallowed hard, his pulse rate climbing as he studied the rough, unfinished wood of the step where she’d sat. If he couldn’t get through to her, he had no ally. “Believe me, I know. You’re giving them money for weapons and supplies and...” He balled his fists and fought the image of bloodied death as it tried to paint itself on his mind. It bled through his nightmares enough. He didn’t need day terrors to go with it. His fists shook against his thighs. “That’s the worst part. But you know guys out there have smuggled stuff back before. It makes me want to find the punk behind this and take care of it myself. Our money funding their bullets to shoot at my...at our soldiers...”
“If somebody’s really doing what you say.” Cassidy’s low voice barely registered.
Shane dragged his focus to the immediate problem of keeping Cassy out of danger. “I don’t know what else to tell you. The interpreter said they never referred to the guy by name. None of the people my man talked to had ever even seen him. And it gets worse.” Shane looked over his shoulder, then pivoted to stare at her back. “This informant? He mentioned you. Well, the Division Parachute Officer. I’m not sure what they think it’ll buy them, but...” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and prayed in a way he couldn’t quite put into words. He’d never wanted to be wrong so much in his entire life. “They’re planning to smoke the Division Parachute Officer if things get crazy.”
Cassy’s breath caught. He could see it in the way she froze, her spine rigid.
“It