Page 15 of Deadly Deception

At the sight of the shotgun, Navarre’s eyebrows nudged up a fraction. He didn’t utter a word, just got up off the couch and disappeared down the hallway leading to his room.

“In that case,” Essie said, “I should be there in five.”

“Great. You want me to have a drink ready for you?” That was the question they asked to see if the other person was alone. No drink meant she was by herself, beer meant one person was with her, wine equaled two people, and hard liquor meant a shit storm was coming his way.

“No, I’m good, but thanks,” she said, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll be there in a few.”

Jackson moved to the front window and peered through the blinds, looking for signs of her silver…was it a Civic or an Accord? He couldn’t remember, and that was the point. Spies rarely drove flashy sports cars like they did in the movies. They preferred vehicles you saw on the road all the time, in colors that didn’t attract attention, because the last thing an operative wanted was to be easily identified.

“What’s up?” Navarre asked when he returned to the room, an assault rifle in his grip. He had that faraway look in his eyes, the one he always got when mentally preparing to kill. He’d had that look almost every single day while they served overseas in the Army.

That was one of the things he appreciated the most about his buddy. No matter what, Navarre always had his back, with zero judgments made until after the dust had settled.

“Essie’s in trouble,” Jackson said. “She should be here in a few.”

It wasn’t clear whether Navarre’s frown was because of the potential for violence or Essie’s involvement. Most likely, it was the latter. “What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough.”

For minutes that felt like hours, Jackson stood sentinel by the window, the shotgun tight in his grip. At last, a pair of headlights pierced the dark rural road, and the perimeter sensor sounded seconds before a car turned in to the driveway.

As expected, she was alone, but unless something had changed recently, the black Ford sedan she drove didn’t belong to her. She pulled onto the grass by the front door, and now that he got a good look at her through the windshield, he noticed the strain on her beautiful face.

Jackson was out of the house before the car’s engine shut off. Essie opened the door, and when he saw the bloom of blood on her shirt, each and every one of his protective instincts soared into the stratosphere.

“Jesus, what happened?” Shotgun in hand and his heart in his throat, he closed the distance between them. “How bad is it? Are you shot?”

Face pale, Essie shook her head as she pushed the car door closed. “Cut. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Like hell it’s not.” She wouldn’t have come if it was only a cut. From experience, he knew she had a tendency to downplay the severity of her injuries. A bump was actually a concussion, a scratch was a cut, and a cut could be anything from a stab wound to a severed artery. Over the course of their marriage, he’d lost track of the number of times she’d come home from an assignment looking half past dead but claimed her injuries were no big deal for him to get worked up about.

Ignoring her objections, Jackson scooped her up and carried her into the house. It never ceased to amaze him, how such a strong, tough woman could feel so soft and feminine in his arms. He hadn’t held her like this since the day they got married, when he’d carried her over the threshold of their oceanfront hotel suite in Nassau. Back then, he’d taken her straight to the bedroom, where they’d spent the night doing all sorts of things that were inappropriate for him to be thinking about right now.

He crossed the living room in a half dozen strides and gently placed her on the couch. Navarre closed and locked the door behind them, and then assumed Jackson’s spot by the window.

“Did anyone follow you here?” Jackson asked as he knelt beside her.

The expression on her face made it clear what she thought of the question. “You know me better than that. I wouldn’t bring that kind of trouble to your door. Once I was sure I didn’t have a tail, I ditched my car at the Walmart and picked up another one, just in case mine has a tracker on it somewhere.”

“You stole a car,” Navarre said, judgment plain in his voice.

Essie rolled her eyes as she pushed up to a sitting position. There were lines in the sand that he knew she’d never cross, but the rest of her moral code came equipped with a fair degree of flexibility. In her line of work, it was a necessity. “It’s a ’94 Taurus with 420,000 miles on it. I practically did the owner a favor by taking it. But don’t worry; I’ll bring it back first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll even top off the tank and leave fifty bucks in the ashtray.”

Afraid of what he might find, Jackson carefully peeled away the layers of duct tape wrapped around her shirt. He assumed she’d done it to maintain pressure on a wound to stop it from bleeding.

Bracing for the worst, he lifted the hem of her shirt and removed the small bloody towel beneath it, and he almost popped a vein at the sight of the wound to her abdomen. The cut was straight, three to four inches long, and now that the bandaging had been removed, fresh blood welled to the surface.

A simple cut he could handle. This was beyond his pay grade. He dug into his pocket for his keys. “We’re taking you to the hospital.”

Essie tugged the shirt back down. “No hospital. A few butterfly bandages and a good night’s rest and I’ll be fine.”

“Are you crazy? You’ve been stabbed.”

“It’s a slice, not a stab. Big difference. It didn’t go deep enough to puncture anything I can’t live without.” She shifted a little and sucked air through her teeth. “If I go to the hospital, they’ll call the police, and the cops will ask a whole bunch of questions I’d rather not answer right now.”

That meant she’d been doing something of questionable legality. Jackson cursed. “Did somebody get dead?”

Face blank, she didn’t answer right away, but the silence spoke volumes. “It’s probably best if you don’t know the answer to that question.”

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