Page 38 of Sniper's Pride

There were no further attempts on Mariah when he was methodically making his way through Juneau. Nothing happened to her when he was out of the country, receiving updates while he was navigating crumblinginfrastructure to usher their client to safety. And when he was back in Grizzly Harbor again, taking his turn on the watch rotation that had functioned smoothly in his absence, everything remained peaceful.

Nothing pinged on her phone. If anyone was tracking her, they were doing a piss-poor job of it.

Griffin had been forced to reassess his take on the situation even before Isaac, after turning down three separate celebrity muscle jobs at the evening briefing, had asked for alternate theories on Mariah’s situation.

“You know how wasted Ben McCreedie gets when he’s on dry land,” Isaac pointed out.

“You think he’d show up at a stranger’s hotel room and try to break in?” Griffin was skeptical. They all knew Ben McCreedie, an older fisherman who lived in town and kept to himself when he wasn’t in the Fairweather.

“Irene Scola claims she ran him off with a shotgun a few years back when they were living together, but the judge gave him the restraining order when they broke up.” Isaac’s expression had gone contemplative. “I can tell you that whatever happened between them, Ben wouldn’t hurt a fly when he’s sober. But there’s a demon in him when he drinks.”

There were any number of men Griffin could say the same about. It was one of the many reasons he didn’t drink. He had enough on his hands with the personality he could remember and control every day. He couldn’t imagine why people found it entertaining to turn into someone else for an evening.

But he couldn’t deny the fact that no one else had come after Mariah. Had it been a drunk local at her door that night?

Alaska Force kept eyes on her all the time, whether Griffin was in town or not. Sometimes subtly, sometimes not, to confuse anyone who might be watching. Meanwhile, Mariah had made herself a part of life in the town. She never repeated her Fairweather performance with Caradine. Once she’d adjusted to the time zone change, she woke early. She liked to take walks down to the water in the blustery mornings, then up along the ridge that led out past the hot springs.

He wouldn’t call her a hiker, necessarily, but she liked to follow the first part of the trail high above the water. She usually spent a lot of time gazing out from the trees over the waves until she reached the point that marked the edge of the protected harbor, then turned back. After her walk, she picked up her laptop from the inn and either settled in the breakfast room there or went over to Caradine’s. Most days, Everly joined her, hitching a ride on whatever skiff was headed into town from Fool’s Cove. Everly worked remotely for an ad agency back in Chicago and was always in the middle of a campaign, but could handle her work anywhere. Griffin figured that Everly would get tired of actually working when all Mariah was doing was surfing around on the internet. But like everything else with Mariah, there was more to it.

“Have you gotten bored yet?” he asked her the following afternoon, stopping into Caradine’s for a cup of coffee. That morning, he’d consulted on operation prep for a mission overseas, then spent some time keeping watch on Mariah himself. He stood over her table and did his best to keep from scowling at her, because it wasn’therfault no one was coming for her. “Grizzly Harbor must seem backward after Atlanta.”

Mariah smiled up at him in that way other people probably believed was polite. Warm, even. Maybe he was the only one who could see the challenge in it. “I’m perfectly capable of entertaining myself, Griffin. Under any circumstances.”

“I don’t understand spending all day on the internet.” Griffin shook his head in distaste. “Or any time at all. It’s all liars and self-aggrandizers pretending to care about something other than themselves. Propaganda and the fools who believe every word of it.”

“You’re talking about social media.” Mariah’s smile took on that edge he wasn’t going to snap and taste one of these days. He absolutely was not. “I don’t do much of that. I prefer the stock market.”

At first he thought she was kidding. But she gazed up at him steadily, and it occurred to him that she wasn’t kidding at all.

“You play the stock market?”

“I told you that David likes to cut me off. And I told you that I knew how to make a handful of change last longer than you’d imagine possible. If you think about it, the stock market is nothing but a natural extension of that.”

“You play the stock market,” Griffin said again, wondering how Oz hadn’t found this out already. What kind of computer whiz missed a hidden investment portfolio?

“It’s all a big secret, of course,” Mariah said, as if she were the one who’d been trained to read him instead of the other way around. “I add to it when I can and move things around, mostly for fun. I’ve never taken anything out. I couldn’t let David know that I wasn’t afraid of his favorite threat. That might have inspired him to come up with a different one.”

“So what you’re telling me is that you have money. Your own money, having nothing to do with David Lanier or his family.”

“I’m doing just fine. I plan to hand David all the money he ever gave me, with interest, in the divorce—a message I feel he’ll understand as it’s intended. And when I do, I’ll still be more than fine.” She tipped her head to one side, her blue eyes too bright for Griffin’s peace of mind. Making him question if he’d really needed a cup of coffee... or if he’d wanted this. Her. He gritted his teeth against the surge of his own temper. “Do you think that’s relevant?”

Griffin wanted it to be relevant. He wanted it to matter. He wanted something—anything—to shake free so he could figure out what was happening here, fight it into submission, and send her on her way.

Griffin fired off an email to Oz as he stood there, mulling over the new piece of information. Mariah didn’t simply save her money. If he wasn’t mistaken, she made her own. He imagined that was the kind of thing a man like David might find offensive.

David, who had gone through with his threat two weeks ago and closed down Mariah’s access to his bank accounts and credit cards because he must have thought that would harm her. He clearly didn’t know about her stock market adventures. And he hadn’t left Atlanta.

They’d kept eyes on him since they’d agreed to take Mariah’s case. They also monitored his phone, yet could find no evidence that he was in contact with anyone outside Georgia, and certainly not someone who might have followed Mariah all the way to Alaska.

Still, there was the lock on her door and the fact that someone had clearly gone at it. And there was thatuneasy tickle that Griffin kept feeling in his gut, telling him there was more here than met the eye—and it probably wasn’t her finances.

“I’ll let you know what’s relevant,” he told her.

“It’s a hobby,” she said lightly. Her head tipped to one side. “You must have some of those.”

“I have missions.”

“That’s your job.”

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