Page 47 of Delta Force Defender

“Someone found you?” Isaac tried not to jump all over that. Or ask why she hadn’t led with that. “Who was it?”

Caradine regarded him in that cool way that made his jaw flex. In case he’d forgotten who he was talking to.

“Walking away from a life is hard.” She sounded almost philosophical, which got his hackles up. “We were young. Kids, really, and remarkably sheltered. In the sense that we only really knew what life was when my father was controlling it. Sometimes, especially if there was some drinking, we got... indiscreet.”

“Since when are you indiscreet?” Isaac asked softly.

Caradine’s mouth curved slightly, and once again, he wished they were alone. He wished he could fix whatever needed fixing so they could sit together, him and her, and talk about that curve awhile.

Even now, with everything that had already changed, that seemed impossible.

He shoved that aside, because she was still telling her story.

“Not me. But that didn’t matter. We were a team.” She shoved a hand through her hair, and maybe only Isaac could see how agitated she was beneath her cool exterior. How the faint tremor in her hand betrayed her. “We’d been in Phoenix for a while. Maybe eight months, which was an eternity for us. Lindsay had gotten close to this other bartender we worked with and thought she was our friend.”

“Did you?” Everly asked.

Caradine’s mouth curved again. “Whatever she was, she liked meth a whole lot more than us. So when she ran out of things to sell, she thought she’d tell some folks the story about a pair of sisters. Who escaped from back East after a bomb went off.”

Again, the tension in the room ratcheted up as everyone filtered in that new detail.

“Sisters, a bomb, and back East.” Templeton sounded disgusted. “Why not draw a map?”

“I had a similar response, and it’s as unhelpful now as it was then,” Caradine said crisply. “It happened. Our friend told us, which was the saving grace. She said her dealer knew a guy who knew a guy. And we all know what kind of guys those are. Lindsay and I took off in the middle of the night, as always. Possibly we also learned some valuable lessons about trusting people.”

“When you say ‘we,’ I’m guessing you mean your sister,” Mariah said then. “Because you trust people even less than I do, and I come from some notoriously suspicious country people.”

“We’d gone to ground in Sioux City,” Caradine said, without replying to Mariah. Though her gaze gleamed a little brighter. “Picked out new names, and were gearing up to do the usual dance. Bad bars, under-the-table tips, new temporary lives.” Isaac watched her entire body tense. “But Lindsay was hung up on the betrayal aspect. She couldn’t let it go. That was how she stumbled across a post on social media that our friend had died.”

“Meth?” Jonas asked.

“Not meth.” Caradine didn’t get any less tense. “The news suggested she was a casualty in a drug deal gone wrong. Her dealer, his dealer, and two others. Plus her. All shot execution style. Some with evidence that there was strenuous questioning first.”

“What did you do?” Kate asked, sounding all trooper.

Caradine stared right back at her. “We took off again.But it was clear to both of us that staying together was a liability. I’m sure there are tons of girls who might shoot their mouths off or tell a friend in a bar about how they’re connected back East. It’s the sisters part that makes it more interesting. Clearly someone else agreed.”

No one spoke. Oz typed in the corner, the keys making the only noise in the room.

“Jacinda Hall,” Oz said after a moment. “Twenty-two years old. Her murder remains unsolved.”

“No one’s looking for her killer,” Caradine said, her voice tinged with bitterness. “Remember what I told you about drug addicts. No one cares if they disappear. In most cases, whoever loved them said good-bye to them long ago.”

Oz kept typing. Caradine was still too tense.

“Lindsay and I spent what was left of the summer figuring out what to do. How to split up, where we would go.”

“Did she want to go off by herself?” Isaac asked.

Caradine did that thing that looked like a smile but was far too sharp. “We’d been living on top of each other for five years by then. And here’s the funny thing about growing up with a sociopath. You’re aligned against him when convenient, but that doesn’t make you best friends. We were very different people.” She blew out a breath. “I love my sister. I would die for her. But having almost died for her in Phoenix, I was also interested in a break. So was she. She got a fake ID and a plane ticket to Hawaii. I came to Alaska. That brings us to five years ago, when I arrived in Grizzly Harbor.”

She didn’t look at him, but Isaac felt it swell between them anyway. That first look. That first night. And everything that came after.

“You don’t keep in touch?” Griffin asked.

“Too dangerous.” Caradine glanced at Isaac. “But we do have a system.”

“Let me guess,” Isaac said. “You don’t call herdirectly. You get a burner phone and call into a voice mail. That’s what you were doing in Texas.”

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