Page 69 of Near Miss

That one word, spoken by a ghost, stopped time. Sophia’s heartbeat seemed to pause before it started again at a gallop.

It can’t be.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She’d seen his car.

It wasn’t possible.

Wild, untamed hope flooded her, one she strangled with a ruthless mental grip. If she turned around and Lachlan wasn’t there, she’d break all over again.

Pivoting slowly, she kept her gaze directed at the floor until it collided with a pair of black boots. She stopped, inhaled a ragged breath, then continued up legs encased in crisp blue jeans, over a flat stomach and molded chest covered by a black, long-sleeved shirt, before coming to a stop on a familiar chiseled face. A face covered in cuts, scrapes, black stubble, and white bandages. Piercing emerald eyes stared back at her.

“You’re dead,” she whispered. “I saw—”

The room swayed.

Lachlan lunged and grabbed her by the elbows before her knees gave out. “Not yet.”

She flattened her palms on his chest—soft cotton over warm, hard flesh—not a figment of her imagination. Sobs formed at the base of her spine and broke free, constricting her lungs. She threw her arms around him, clung to his muscular frame, and wrapped herself in his warm, familiar scent. His heart pounded a robust and steady rhythm beneath her cheek. “Oh, thank God.”

Without warning, rage, visceral and hot, erupted like a volcano and flowed into her fingertips. She pushed against Lachlan’s chest and stepped back, swinging.

Before it could make contact with his cheek, his hand captured hers in a firm grip. Regret shadowed his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t deserve it, but my face canna take any more damage at the moment.”

“You let me think you were dead. Imournedyou.” Tears formed, spilling down her cheeks, of grief or anger, she wasn’t sure.

Surprise flared in his eyes, fueling her anger. Did he not believe she’d be devastated by his death?

“I needed to regroup, figure out who to trust.” He dropped her hand and left her to go to the kitchen. The hitch in his gait, noticeable when he grew fatigued, now was hard to ignore.

“And you didn’t think you could trust me?” Pain bloomed in her chest.

Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t have waited almost two days to tell her he was alive if he had. Dread unfurled in her stomach. And, thinking he was dead, she’d told Admiral Dane all of Lachlan’s secrets.

She’d figure out how to tell Lachlan that news later. “The car. The police said it was yours. Someone was in it.”

Lachlan fetched two glasses from an upper cabinet. He filled each glass with water from a pitcher in the fridge and shuffled back to her, handing her one. “Aye, it was my car. I was a lucky bastard. Jeremy Powell wasn’t.”

She gasped.Poor Jeremy. She’d just seen him when he returned her car to her.

Lachlan nodded, his expression carved in granite. She wanted to hold him, feel the life flowing through him, but his body language forbade it. The few inches separating them felt like miles.

“You must go to the police and tell them you’re alive.”

“And what do you think will happen?” His accent thickened on a tide of fury, his r’s rolling like cresting waves. “They’ll want tae ken why, and inevitably, the weapons shipments will come up. I have no way tae prove I’m no’ an arms trafficker. I need to stop the shipment arriving in Kabul this week from getting ta Khan, and I canna do it if I’m in jail.”

“I can help.” She swallowed past a throat gone tight. Admiral Dane was Lachlan’s only hope at this point. He couldn’t expose himself. She had to find a way into LAI’s computers and send the admiral everything she could find that might help exonerate Lachlan.

“Sophia,” Nathan spoke up, and she shifted her focus to the other dangerous man in the room. “Tell me about the documents you found in Fred Biller’s office.”

She frowned and glanced at Lachlan.

“They were in my car.” He answered her unspoken question before gesturing toward the dining nook. “Go ahead.”

Nathan grabbed a chair and held it out. She dropped onto the seat and gave him a smile of thanks. “I don’t know anything more than what I already gave to Lachlan. And I looked, this morning, in fact.” She bit her lip and sent Lachlan a hesitant glance. “In both Fred’s and Lachlan’s offices.”

Nathan gave her an encouraging smile. “That’s all right. I’d like to hear it from your perspective.”

Her lips pursed.Where to begin?She leaned forward and braced her elbows on the table. “Fred Biller was responsible for the reports we submit to the government on our contracts in Afghanistan. He asked me to help gather data for the upcoming report, which I did, for both Lachlan’s division and Christian Meier’s Global Development division. Fred called me into his office to tell me there was missing documentation for Lachlan’s division involving additional weapons shipments to Afghanistan. Before I could get more information regarding the discrepancy, Fred was killed.” Her throat closed up. The more she thought about it, the more Fred’s untimely death seemed like too much of a coincidence.

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