Operation Hero's Watch. Justine Davis

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t already know what they did, you’d never know what they did.

      “It doesn’t really say what they do,” she said, echoing his thought.

      “Rafe said they work mostly by word of mouth. And the dog.” She laughed again. He looked at her. “It’s good to hear you laugh.”

      “I wasn’t,” she said ruefully, “until you got here. But I feel much better now.”

      “Worth the trip, then,” he said, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t at all sure he was going to be able to help. But he was fairly sure Rafe knew what he was doing, so maybe he had helped, indirectly. Or the dog had.

      “That’s so sad, about the guy’s parents dying in that terrorist attack.”

      “What inspired the whole thing, Rafe said. They turned it into something good. Kind of like you keeping the family business going.”

      She sighed. “Not what I’d pictured myself doing, but I couldn’t just let it go.”

      He remembered what she’d told him with heartfelt earnestness when she’d been about fourteen. “You wanted to travel the country, see all the places you’d read about.”

      She looked startled. “You remember that?”

      “Sure.” I understood. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

      Then, it had only been the desire to escape. But now running off with Cassidy Grant took on an entirely different meaning.

      Whoa. He almost took a step back. This sudden awareness of her, as not his best friend’s little sister, but of the woman she was now, had him completely off-kilter.

      “I guess we don’t always get what we want,” she said, and she gave him a sideways glance.

      He had the strangest feeling she was talking about him, or at least the kid she’d once had a crush on. Then he told himself he was only thinking that because of the crazy direction his own thoughts had veered into.

      “Could I borrow your washing machine?” he asked, rather abruptly, trying to snap his weird train of thought.

      “Of course. If you need something to wear while you wash your things, Cory has some stuff in the closet in his room.” She wrinkled her nose. “If you can get to it past all the other stuff in there.”

      “I climbed two-thirds of Mount Rainier once. I’ll manage.”

      She stared at him. “You did?”

      He nodded. “When I was sixteen. Made it to Camp Muir at ten thousand feet.”

      “Wait, I remember Cory talking about that. It was a school trip, wasn’t it? I can’t remember why he didn’t go.”

      “He did, he just didn’t make the upper climb.”

      He didn’t mention that they’d had to qualify to go beyond the easier reaches, and Cory had skipped the training classes. Jace hadn’t missed one, because it got him out of the house and away from his father on the weekends.

      “I wanted to do that, but I was too young,” she said with a sigh.

      “You would have, too.” He meant it. Even then she had had that kind of spirit and the drive that her brother lacked.

      He went back to the bedroom to empty dirty clothes out of his backpack. He was nearly done when he heard a noise from outside. His first thought was Rafe, but he dismissed it immediately; the guy never made noise, and he’d be willing to bet—if he ever bet—that Cutter didn’t, either. He could hear Cassie in the kitchen, and he knew the door there was locked. And the noise he’d heard had come from the side nearest this room.

      He edged over to the window, trying to see outside without moving the curtain. He waited, listening intently. Heard it again—the faintest of scrapes, like something over concrete. Not close to the house, but no farther than the fence, he guessed.

      His mind raced. He could go out into the dark and try to catch whoever—or possibly whatever—it was. Or he could flip on the outside lights and let him know he’d been heard.

       Keep Cassie safe.

       Catch him.

      Their simultaneous answers echoed in his head. And his decision still held; keeping Cassie safe was paramount.

      He dropped everything on the bed, spun and headed for the bedroom door. Cassie looked up, startled, as he belted through the dining room to the back door. He hit the light switch with one hand and unlocked and yanked open the door with the other. He was outside before a second ticked down.

      The backyard and patio were empty. Looked exactly as they had before. He wondered if his imagination had been playing tricks on him. But he did a careful walk around anyway.

      “Jace?” Cassie’s voice sounded worried as she called out from the back door.

      “Go back in. I’ll be there in a minute.”

      She hesitated, and he hoped she wasn’t going to argue, not this moment. Because he’d just spotted something. “Hurry,” she said and went back inside.

      Breathing again, he walked toward the corner of the house where Cassie’s old room was. Everything looked fine. Except for that one oddity he’d spotted: a branch of the small maple tree next to the fence, now bare of the fall-bright leaves it had likely had just a couple of weeks ago, was now caught at an unnatural angle over the top of the fence.

      The light from the patio cast everything into stark relief, making the shadows seem even darker. Nothing else looked amiss. He searched the ground around the tree and saw nothing unexpected. He crossed the last couple of feet to the fence, reached up to grasp the top and hoisted himself up for a look over.

      He hadn’t been imagining it. Because out in the alley, up against the fence, was a stack of wooden pallets. Pallets he’d noticed earlier behind her neighbor’s garage. Now placed on top of each other in exactly the spot where he’d heard the noise. And right where somebody trying to see or even climb over that fence might get tangled up with that maple branch.

      Cassie hadn’t been imagining things, either. And that sent his stomach into a plummeting free fall.

      It was real.

      * * *

      They were nearly through the meal that Jace thought was the best thing he’d had in weeks. Cassie had eaten, but not much, and he thought she was much more rattled by the proof he’d found that her suspicions were true than she was letting show. And he couldn’t think of anything to say to her that was reassuring. “You were right but we’ll catch him” didn’t seem quite right.

      The cell phone Rafe had given him let out a buzz. It was clearly different from a normal ring, so he picked it up and pressed the red intercom button.

      “I’ve got it outside now,” the man said without preamble. “Get some sleep.”

      Jace glanced at the time readout on the oven across from him. It was 9:00 p.m. now, so he did some quick math. “When СКАЧАТЬ