Trigger Warning Read online

  Her jacket hung haphazardly off her petite frame, the buttons and buttonholes unmatched.

  Her blonde hair, normally framing her face in a sexy shag, looked as though it had been styled in a wind tunnel.

  Her face was drawn and lined with tension and for the first time since Jack had met her, she looked every bit her thirty-something years of age. She was trying to hold herself together but was losing the battle.

  She ran toward him and he barely had time to rise from his chair before she crashed into him like a guided missile. She nearly knocked him off his feet but he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, her entire body shivering like a bird with a broken wing.

  The moment she felt his touch she began to sob.

  “My baby’s gone,” she said in a whisper. “Why would someone take my baby?”

  He’d never felt as ineffectual as he did right now.

  He rubbed her arms, wishing he could warm her up, knowing the chill she was experiencing was unrelated to the temperature inside his house. After a moment he led her to a comfortable stuffed chair—the only truly plush chair he owned—and eased her into it. He knelt on the carpeted floor and took her hand gently.

  Edie looked into Jack’s face through bloodshot eyes brimming with tears. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly clear, considering the situation. “Who would do something like this, Jack? And why would they involve you? What the hell is going on?”

  He wanted to avert his eyes. Wanted to look anywhere but into this woman’s tortured gaze. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her, but that ship had sailed with Janie’s disappearance.

  Now he owed her the truth, and although it would undoubtedly result in the end of their relationship and the justifiable hatred of him from the woman he loved, he would make good on that debt.

  Jack cleared his throat. It felt hot. Parched.

  “I’m not who you think I am,” he said.

  11

  Edie shook her head. “What does that mean? And what does it have to do with Janie? Can’t it wait?”

  “I’m afraid it has everything to do with Janie. It’s why she was kidnapped.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not some sort of traveling businessman, as least not in the sense you think I am. I examined the kidnappers’ email while you were on your way over here, and it verified my suspicions. Janie was not a random victim. She was specifically targeted by a man or a group, and for a specific purpose.”

  “What kind of purpose?”

  “To be used as leverage against me.”

  “I’m not following you. Leverage for what? And how is sitting here having this conversation helping get my baby back? You said yourself that with every minute that goes by she could be a mile farther away.”

  Jack released her hand. He stood and met her gaze. It was terrified and hopeful and confused and impatient.

  It was heartbreaking.

  And this was all his fault.

  He cleared his throat. “I know you want to get right to work finding Janie and getting her back. That’s what I want, too, and I promise that’s exactly what’s going to happen. But the things I’m telling you now are critical. They’re things you need to know, things that will directly impact our recovery of Janie.”

  Edie stared wordlessly.

  “They’re things I should have told you before now.”

  “Then get on with it.”

  Jack breathed deeply and plunged ahead. “You already know I was in the military.”

  “Of course. You served in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  “Among other places, yes.”

  “So? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I never told you specifically what my mission was in the Middle East.”

  Edie shrugged. “And that never bothered me. I just assumed you didn’t want to talk about the things you’d seen over there.”

  “And you’re right about that, as far as it goes. But it’s not just things I saw that I didn’t want to talk about, it’s things I did.”

  Distracting Edie’s restless mind from dwelling on what might be happening to her little girl seemed to have strengthened her, at least a bit. Her voice sounded more like itself and she seemed to have stopped shaking. More or less.

  When she spoke, her tone was gentle. “Jack, I’m sure you did things you’re not proud of during your military service. But you served in wartime, and during a non-traditional war at that. My dad told me once that a soldier’s job is to kill people and break things, and while I can’t automatically condone war—certainly not all wars—I’m also not about to fault you for doing your job as a soldier.”

  God, he admired this woman. He was falling more in love with her, which made what would inevitably follow this discussion much more difficult. But it was too late to stop now, and more to the point, Edie deserved a full accounting of his failings.

  He owed it to her.

  He tore his eyes from hers and fixed them on the floor. “I haven’t told you everything yet.”

  For the first time, he was ashamed of himself and the direction his life had taken after leaving the armed forces. “I haven’t come close to telling you everything.”

  “So tell me now.”

  “When I was in the desert, I learned a lot about myself and about human nature. I discovered there are people in this world so evil, so destructive, so dangerous, so black-hearted, that eventually they forfeit their right to life. I discovered I have a peculiar talent, one that’s exceedingly rare.”

  Edie spread her hands. “Go on.”

  “I have a talent for eliminating those evil people. In fact, it was my primary mission while I was overseas.”

  “I already told you,” Edie said, still speaking softly. “I understand war is brutal. I understand people do things on the battlefield that they would never consider doing in the civilian world. I don’t blame you for your actions in the Middle East, Jack.”

  “It wasn’t just in the Middle East, and it wasn’t just during my time in the service. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Since leaving the army, I’ve made a career out of doing the same thing here in the states. It’s my talent. It’s what I know. It’s the only thing I know. I eliminate evil people.”

  Jack stared steadfastly at the floor, unable to meet her eyes as silence filled the room and then lengthened. The silence stretched on for so long that he began to think maybe she hadn’t understood what he said. It wasn’t like the words were anything she’d ever expected to hear.

  When he could no longer stand the tension, he steeled himself and raised his eyes. Edie had never looked so small or so fragile. She seemed to have shrunk into the chair and she stared back at him with wide, frightened eyes.

  He knelt beside the chair and tried to take her hand but she pulled it away.

  “And that’s why my baby is gone? Someone took her because of your…career?” The venom she put into the last word formed a jarring counterpoint to the dull monotone of the rest of the sentence. Her eyes had glazed over and she sat motionless in the big stuffed chair.

  Jack wondered if she might be going into shock. Between learning her daughter had been kidnapped and then discovering the man she thought she knew was actually a killer, it would certainly be understandable.

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  He wanted her to scream at him, to leap to her feet and pummel him, to grab a lamp off the end table and swing the heavy base at his skull. He wouldn’t stop her if she did. He deserved all that and more.

  But she didn’t scream and she didn’t jump to her feet and she didn’t hit him. She sat in the chair, seeming to grow smaller and more insubstantial by the second, and she stared at him dully as if looking at a stranger.

  Someone to be feared.

  He supposed he was.

  She shifted her gaze, her eyes meandering around a room she had seen dozens of times. When they stopped, she gazed steadfastly at something—or nothing—over Jack’s left shoulder, r
efusing to look at him. He began to think she might sit lifeless and unmoving in his living room chair forever.

  Then she spoke. The words came out in the same monotone she’d used before, slowly and without inflection.

  But she spoke. “You said you’re good at what you do. Is that true, or is that a lie, too?”

  Jack hadn’t thought his shame could get any more complete or his heart could break any further, but he was wrong. Her words were like a blade slicing through his ribs. But still they were no more than he deserved.

  He took a moment to answer, unwilling to speak for fear of breaking down. Then he swallowed heavily and said, “Yes. I’m very good at what I do. It’s what I was trained for.”

  He dropped his eyes again. “It’s who I am.”

  “Can you get my baby back?”

  “Yes, I can get Janie back. But it won’t be easy and I’ll need your help. Can you focus for me and do your part?”

  Anger flashed in Edie’s pretty eyes. The slack expression disappeared in an instant and she glared at him incredulously. “Can I do my part to get my little girl back? Can I focus on helping you when it’s your fault she’s gone? How dare you ask me that? How dare you? “

  Jack pursed his lips, stung by her words but relieved to see some of her spark return. Quiet acquiescence was not Edie Tolliver. She was a fighter through and through, and she would need every bit of that fighting spirit to get through what was coming.

  She had nearly been screaming, and now she lowered her voice. The tears brimming in her eyes finally spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get Janie back, don’t you ever doubt that.”

  “Okay,” he said, letting his rational, operative brain take command.

  When this was all over, and he’d gotten Janie back from whoever had taken her, he had some serious thinking to do, some real reassessment of his life and priorities. Obviously it would be too late to salvage any kind of relationship with Edie, but reflection would still be necessary. In fact, it was long overdue. His life would have to change, even without Edie and Janie in it.

  But for now, introspection would have to take a back seat to action, and the pain would have to be sealed away and compartmentalized. The life of an innocent seven-year-old depended on it.

  “Okay,” he repeated. “The first thing you need to understand is that Janie is unharmed. I promise you that.”

  “You can’t make that kind of promise. You have no way of knowing whether she’s safe.” Her voice was cold.

  “She’s safe, Edie. She was taken for a reason, and that reason was to establish control over me. To get me to do something the kidnappers know I would not otherwise do.”

  “To kill someone.”

  Deep breath.

  “Yes. To kill someone. But the point is until I complete the task they’ve set for me, Janie is a valuable commodity. She’s the only leverage they have, and it’s to their benefit to keep her safe and out of harm’s way. There is no sexual component to this kidnapping—” Edie winced and sobbed and Jack pressed on—“and there is no revenge component, where the perpetrators want to get back at me by hurting someone I care about.”

  “You’ve done that perfectly well on your own.”

  “Yes, I have. I know that and I’ll never forgive myself for it. But until I get Janie home safely my only concern is going to be what is best for her, and I know it will be yours as well.”

  “Of course it will. I already told you that.”

  Jack nodded. “Then take what I’m telling you to heart. Janie’s safe, and will remain so until I get to her.”

  Edie ran a hand over her face, which was normally bright and pretty and smiling but this afternoon looked haggard and worn. Ancient.

  “But she’s so little,” she whispered. “And she doesn’t know where she is or who she’s with. She’s just so little,” she repeated.

  “She’s little but she’s tough, just like her mom. She’ll be strong and she’ll get through this. You have to be strong, too, because she’s going to need you when she gets home.”

  No response.

  “You’re both going to be okay, Edie.”

  She choked out a bitter laugh that was half-sob. “I guess your definition of ‘okay’ must be different than mine. My little girl’s gone, taken hostage to be used as ‘leverage’ to force my new boyfriend, who by the way happens to be a contract killer, to murder an undoubtedly innocent person. Just what in holy hell is ‘okay’ about any of that?”

  Her voice had started to shake and crack again, and Jack feared she might descend back into the near-comatose state she’d previously exhibited. But she lifted her chin when she finished speaking and glared at Jack defiantly.

  He remained silent. What was there to say?

  “So are you going to do it?” she whispered. “Are you going to murder someone to get Janie back?”

  Jack shook his head firmly. “Killing the person they want dead wouldn’t get Janie back. All it would do is seal her fate. Remember I told you I know Janie’s safe because she’s their only leverage over me?”

  Edie nodded, her eyes now glued to Jack’s. They were wide and terrified, but they’d finally gotten into subject matter she cared about. Her child.

  “Well,” he continued, “The minute I complete the task they’ve set for me, Janie becomes a liability. Presumably she’s seen their faces, but even if not, they won’t want to take the chance that she has, or that she can identify them by voice or in some other way. If I kill the person they’ve instructed me to, we’ll never see Janie alive again.”

  Edie had closed her eyes as Jack spoke and now she moaned softly. The sound was one of utter, abject agony and it carved his broken heart up into tiny slivers.

  “I’m telling you this because you need to know the truth,” he said. “Don’t misunderstand me. I can and will get Janie back, but it won’t be by doing the bidding of these ruthless slimeballs.”

  Silence fell over the darkening room again; both occupants lost in their own private pain.

  Finally Edie spoke. “Let’s get started, then. What do we do first?”

  12

  Mike Hargus brought the car to a stop in front of a single-story white clapboard cottage. A trail of dust swirled around the car and began to settle, the product of a dirt driveway and an unseasonably dry stretch of weather.

  The cottage had been in Mike’s family for decades and was one of the few things he’d managed to retain in the divorce, which had taken place years ago but which still irked him to no end. Half his savings, gone. Half his investments, gone. Half of every goddamned thing gone with the stroke of a pen on a divorce agreement.

  He’d worked hard to build up the now-badly-depleted nest egg, doing legal as well as illegal chores for Bradley Chilcott that would turn the stomach of any ordinary man, while his bitch of a wife had sat around on her admittedly sexy ass, criticizing and critiquing until Mike just couldn’t stand it any more.

  That was what he told himself.

  Somewhere deep down inside, though, in the lonely predawn half-light following another of thousands of sleepless nights, Mike had to admit—if only to himself—that Lauren had left him, not the other way around. And on her way out the door she’d thrown around words like “controlling,” “brutal,” “paranoid,” and even “psychotic.”

  Bitch.

  The passage of time had led Mike to the conclusion that even after suffering the financial hit, as hard as it was to take, on balance he was better off with the blood-sucking leach out of his life. Fuck her if she couldn’t see how good she’d had it with him.

  And he had been permitted to keep his family’s cottage in the settlement. Technically, half the cottage belonged to Mike’s brother, but Mike couldn’t remember the last time Jimmy had driven all the way up here.

  The place was no great prize, having settled into a kind of semi-ramshackle decay after years of neglect. The siding was weathered and badly in need of a fresh coat of paint, roofing
shingles fell like giant grey snowflakes in a high wind, and a series of loose floorboards on the back deck made navigating it an iffy proposition.

  Mike’s lack of maintenance was probably what had kept the cottage in his family. Lauren had always hated it, and even in the early years of their marriage, when she’d still at least pretended to like him, she had visited just once and then steadfastly refused to return.

  Bitch.

  But the cottage was still livable, more or less, and the perfect place in which to stash his prize for a week or so. Located on the north side of New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee, on a lot carved out of extreme wilderness, the place was isolated and remote. Despite Winnipesaukee’s status as a New England tourist attraction, the lake’s one hundred eighty miles of shoreline—much of it rocky and forbidding—meant privacy was assured. An occupant of Mike’s cottage could reasonably expect to go days without seeing another human being besides the occasional water-skier far out on the lake.

  Mike typically spent a week or so up here in the summer when he could get the time off from that slave-driver Chilcott, and by the end of the vacation was inevitably itching to get away from Mother Nature and back to the land of cars and liquor, fast food and faster women.

  If he was being honest with himself, the extreme isolation kind of gave him the willies. But this week’s duty shouldn’t be too bad. His only responsibility would be to watch over one hostage, and a little kid at that.

  And he would have company. The snot-nosed little brat was so important that Chilcott had given Mike permission to recruit one of his acquaintances, a drug dealer/B-and-E man named Byron Hunt, to babysit with him. They would offer Hunt five grand and in exchange he would help keep watch over the kid, allowing them twenty-four hours a day of direct supervision without having to miss a minute of sleep.

  Once the job was complete, Hunt would find himself at the bottom of a shallow grave in the almost unlimited expanse of wilderness surrounding the cottage, and the five grand would find its way into Mike’s pocket, and no one would ever be the wiser.