“Fine. Get your stuff—you’re coming with me. But—” he fixed her with a hard stare hoping she caught his drift “—if you so much as take one single step away from my side or do one single thing that puts your life in more danger, I swear to God, I will make you regret it. Don’t push me on this. Am I clear?” This was no idle threat. He’d do whatever it took to keep her safe, even if it meant humiliating her. “Am I clear?” he asked, his tone sharp. At her slow nod and quick disappearance into the bedroom he knew he’d gotten his point across. If there was one thing Jaci needed to remember about him it was that he never took unnecessary chances, particularly with the lives of the ones he loved the most.
Jaci reappeared fully dressed and quickly came down the stairs. “Where we going?” she asked. “Or am I not supposed to know?”
“I’ve got a friend on the inside of the organization I work for. We’re going to meet him and see if we can figure out what the hell’s going on.”
Jaci nodded, surprising him with her easy acceptance. Either she was privately formulating an escape plan or she was actually starting to trust him. Ha. Yeah, nothing was that easy. Chances were she was simply pretending to acquiesce when in truth she was going to sprint like a rabbit in a clearing the minute she was able.
Jaci climbed into the big four-wheel-drive truck required to reach this secluded location deep in the mountains and while she may not have said anything, he could see the appreciation for the vehicle in her eyes. “What happened to the Mustang?” she asked, buckling up. “I thought that car was your baby.”
“It is. And that’s why it’s still parked safely in a garage. There’s no way the Mustang would’ve made it up the roads in this area.” He cast her a sideways glance. “Besides, I thought you liked big trucks.”
“I used to like a lot of things.”
He didn’t buy her cool answer but didn’t see the value in pushing. “It gets the job done,” he said, putting the truck into gear and rumbling down the pocked and rutted service road. “Have you noticed anything unusual happening lately?”
“Such as?”
“Have you felt as if someone was watching you, or maybe sensed that you were being followed?” he asked.
“No, of course not.” Jaci gasped as the truck hit a particularly deep rut and sent her bouncing in her seat. She quickly grasped the handle above the door and held on for dear life. “If I’d noticed any of those things I would’ve called the police. I’m not stupid. My life has been normal. I go to work, go to the gym, go to the grocery store and do all of those normal things that normal people do. I don’t know what the hell is going on and why I’m in the middle of it. Of course, you seem to have some inkling as to why this is going on but you won’t tell me so I am left to wonder why my life is imploding for no particular reason.”
“If I knew why this was happening, I’d already have taken care of the situation,” he corrected her tersely, irritated by her comment. As if he were withholding information simply to mess with her. “C’mon, Jase...you’re smarter than that.”
“Well, that remains to be seen,” she muttered. “Besides, if someone was trying to kill me why did they kill Sonia instead?”
“She was a witness. No loose ends. If you recall, you were seconds away from sharing the same fate as your friend.”
He hated to be so blunt but he didn’t see the value in sugarcoating the truth, as much as he could tell her, anyway. “Have you been dating?” he asked, steeling himself for her answer. It was important information, he told himself, not for personal reasons but because he needed to eliminate suspects. Well, it was a plausible justification, but when Jaci shrugged and admitted to a few dates his blood percolated. “Who? I need names.”
She shot him a dark look. “No one serious. I wasn’t interested in getting in a serious relationship after what’d happened with you and me. But Sonia convinced me that I couldn’t live like a hermit and I thought the best way to get over you would be to see other people.”
“Did it work?” Why the hell did he ask that? “Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked. It doesn’t matter. Tell me about your dates. I need to run them through a background check.”
She scowled. “They were normal people. Bankers, a doctor, I think a lawyer or two, I don’t know. But they sure as hell weren’t spies. And none of them worked for the government in any capacity.”
“Jaci, people lie. And you are a very trusting person so your doctors and lawyers, unless you do a full background check on them, may not have been who they said they were. I told you I worked for the FBI. You never thought to look any deeper.”
He detested to throw in her face how he’d duped her but the pain was necessary to get through her head that people were unscrupulous at best, and dangerous at their worst. Jaci looked away and remained quiet for a long moment. Finally she said, “I met them through an online dating service. If I can get to a computer I can log on to my site and show you who I was matched up with. Would that help?”
Nathan did a double take. “An online dating service? Why would you go through one of those sites? It’s not like you couldn’t find a date on your own. Don’t you know those places are ripe for liars? Why would you take such a risk?”
“You don’t get to criticize how I lead my life after you left me. For your information, online dating is something that everybody does. It’s not just for the sad, lonely, pathetic losers that you’re making it sound like. Most people have careers and don’t have time to hang out in bars to meet someone. And frankly, why would I want to meet someone to build a life with in a bar?” She didn’t have to remind him that they’d met in a bar. He remembered quite clearly. He also caught her subtle dig. “Besides, I wasn’t looking for Mr. Right. I was just looking for someone to spend a little time with.”
“So you were just taking home random guys for sex?”
Jaci lifted her chin. “Yes, that’s right. I have needs, too. Are you saying that when we broke up you became celibate?”
How did they end up talking about their sex lives? He hated knowing that Jaci had been with other men after their breakup, but what had he expected? Hell, he’d tried to tell himself that letting her go was a noble gesture on his part so that she could meet someone normal and get married and have a family. He couldn’t have it both ways—let her go, plus expect her to live like a nun.
“Of course not,” he said, answering her question. “I saw other people,” he lied. Nathan didn’t want to admit to her that when he’d become accustomed to steak, the prospect of hamburger simply hadn’t appealed. “My point is, there’s a possibility that someone you dated may be trying to kill you. I can’t discount the possibility. And as uncomfortable as it may be for the both of us to talk about the people who came after us I can’t simply ignore the possible lead just because it hurts to talk about it.”
“Why would it hurt you? You were the one who left me, remember?”
“Yes, Jaci, I remember.” He gritted his teeth, pausing a moment to withstand the surge of defensive anger that followed her pointed reminder. “Very clearly. And leaving you hurt like a son of a bitch.”
“I don’t believe you,” she shot back heatedly. “You can’t rewrite history just because you suddenly don’t like the part you played. I was in love with you. I wanted to get married and have kids and build a life together. I thought we were on the same page but you corrected my assumptions, didn’t you? So, no, I don’t believe you when you say that it hurt you to leave me. And I find it insulting that you would even try to make me believe that lie.”
What could he say? He understood where she was coming from. If the shoe had been on the other foot—if she had done