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Except for Tracie. She still looked at him warily and had that chip on her shoulder he couldn’t yet account for. Did that mean Tracie was connected to Trevor’s diamond-smuggling friends, or involved in some way in Trevor’s death? If he’d read about her attitude in a report, he might have reached that conclusion. But having met her, he wasn’t so sure.
No, her eyes had gone a little too wide at the sight of blood, for one thing. She’d jumped a little too high when the bullets started flying. And she’d only been wearing a lightweight bulletproof vest when the tip of the rifle had peeked through the window curtains at Trevor’s. If she’d had inside knowledge, she’d have gone in prepared. But as it was, if he’d grabbed her a split-second later, Tracie would have been dead.
Heath replayed the scene through his mind in slow motion. He’d sensed something was wrong, but the gun had still taken him by surprise. His reaction had been pure training and instinct, no time to stop and think things through. Tracie had felt so light in his arms, and so delicate. He’d been surprised by the overwhelming need he’d felt to protect her.
He glanced over at her now, sitting quietly with her head bowed as the minister prayed, her bulky fisherman-style sweater doing little to disguise her slender frame. Underneath her tough exterior, he sensed that she was fragile—frightened, even. But she’d put up a thick wall to keep him out.
In order to find out what she knew, he’d have to break through that wall somehow. In the four days he’d known her, he’d figured out it wouldn’t fall easily. But if he could get inside to the timid woman underneath, he might be able to convince her to lean on him.
And then? Well, then he’d have his answers, which was the whole point of this assignment. His mission would be accomplished. So why did the idea of getting close to Tracie Crandall frighten him so much?
Tracie followed Tim to the fellowship hall after the final song. She wasn’t sure how to tell him what had happened at his brother’s house the day before. Fortunately, she didn’t have to. Tim had already heard.
“I’m so glad you weren’t injured. The first I heard, nobody knew which Coasties had been involved in the shooting, but I had a sense you were one of them. I even called your house, but you weren’t home yet.”
“You could have left a message.” Tracie wouldn’t have minded the excuse to call and talk to him sooner.
“I didn’t want to bother you.” Tim clutched a cup of coffee without drinking from it.
“Don’t worry about bothering me,” she patted his free arm. “You’re my friend.”
“Right.” His eyes darted about the room. Though he’d been off drugs for weeks, he still had a jumpy, disjointed manner about him. He leaned a little closer and lowered the volume of his voice. “I’ve been asking some questions.”
“Questions?”
“Some of Trevor’s old buddies. Somebody has to have heard something.”
Though part of her didn’t want Tim doing any investigative work on his own, Tracie felt partly relieved he’d taken the initiative. Tim had contacts she had no other way of reaching, but she’d never feel comfortable asking him to get in touch with them for her. “And?” she prompted.
“Hello, Tracie.” Heath had snuck up on her.
Tim pinched his mouth shut.
Tracie could have kicked her new partner. “Hello, Heath.” She knew she needed to introduce Heath to Tim, but she didn’t know how to break it to Tim that Heath had replaced his older brother. “Tim, have you met—?”
“No,” Tim shifted his coffee to his other hand. “You’re Heath, right?”
“Heath Gerlach,” her new partner shook Tim’s hand. “And you’re Tim Price.”
“Yes. Trevor’s little brother.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your loss.”
“Thank you.”
The men maintained eye contact, and Tracie tried hard to read what passed between them. Animosity? No, Tim was too pure of heart since his conversion to sink to that. She didn’t even sense a competitive spirit. In fact, they almost seemed to share understanding. Sympathy. Tracie felt herself softening ever so slightly toward Heath. She didn’t nearly trust him, but he’d demonstrated a rare sensitivity toward her grieving friend. It was far more than she’d expected.
Now she just had to figure out how to get rid of Heath so Tim would finish telling her what he’d learned.
“You’re filling my brother’s slot on the force, hmm?” Tim raised his cup to his lips, his face curious, his tone without guile.
“He’s left me some pretty big shoes to fill,” Heath offered.
“Size fourteen, to be exact,” Tim offered.
Tracie chuckled along with them, her mind immediately latching on to Trevor’s shoe size. The same as the footprints they’d found at his house. But he’d been dead for over a month. Could the footprints have been that old? Impossible—far too much snow had fallen since then. Could their gunman have slipped on a pair of Trevor’s boots to throw them off his trail? It was certainly a possibility.
She was so intrigued by the idea, she didn’t pay attention to what the men were discussing until she heard Tim saying, “As I was just telling Tracie, I’ve been in contact with some of Trevor’s friends.”
“But I thought everyone involved in the diamond smuggling had been caught,” Heath said, his words taking Tracie back to the final showdown on Devil’s Island six weeks before—right after Trevor’s death.
“Everyone involved,” Tim repeated, his eyes darting around the room. He lowered his voice and leaned in closer to the two of them. “You must not realize how deep this thing goes.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me?” Heath’s quiet voice remained casual.
Tim shrugged. “I’m meeting with some guys tonight. I don’t know if I’ll learn anything, but if you guys to stop by my place tomorrow, say around noon, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“Tomorrow at noon then.” Heath graciously raised his coffee cup to Tim, then took a sip and walked away.
Tracie watched him go, her insides roiling with a mixture of frustration and distrust.
Tim’s words pulled her from her thoughts. “He seems nice.”
“Yes.” Tracie admitted. “He does.” Almost too nice.
Heath called Jonas Goodman as soon as he got back to his apartment.
“Tim Price is talking.”
“Really?” his FBI supervisor actually sounded impressed for once. “And what’s he saying?”
“I don’t know yet. We’re meeting him tomorrow at noon. I’ll call you afterward.”
“Are you sure you’re up to this? I received your medical report last night. Those bruises on your back look ugly.”
“They’re even uglier today, but that’s not going to stop me. This case is cracking, and that gunman yesterday has me convinced whatever’s going down here is big. You don’t pull out an assault rifle unless you’re pretty desperate.”
“Or pretty stupid.” Jonas noted. “Remember, we are working with crooks here.”
“Crooks who successfully imported synthetic diamonds and passed them off as the real thing for over a decade,” Heath reminded his boss. “Hardly the work of a jumpy amateur.”
Jonas let the remark slide. “What about the girl? Got any dirt on her?”
“Tracie?” Heath bristled at his boss’s choice of words. “She’s clean so far.”
“Then dig deeper. She was way too tight with Trevor not to be involved with his business. We need to catch the remaining smugglers who are still out there. She has to know something.”
Heath’s hand tightened on his phone. “How do you know that? Do you have information you haven’t passed on to me?”
“Of course not. But everything points to her.”
Heath wanted to defend Tracie, but he checked his emotions. Why did he feel so strongly about her? He couldn’t give a solid reason. “Okay,” he relented. “I’m on it.”
“Good. If you’re going to crack this case, you’ll need to crack her first. But I don’t think that will be too difficult for you.”
Heath hesitated. “Could you clarify that statement?”
The insinuation in Jonas’s voice carried clearly over the phone. “She’s a young woman working a lonely job. You’re an attractive man.” He cleared his throat. “Don’t worry about fallout. You do what you have to do. We’ll clean up afterward.”
Heath’s throat tightened as he realized what his boss was openly hinting at. He’d always enjoyed working under Jonas Goodman, who had a reputation as a maverick, and whose unorthodox tactics never failed to make his job more interesting. But a sick pit churned in his stomach as he realized how much more complicated his job description now was. He’d killed before. In his line of work, it was a given. But he’d never broken a woman’s heart.
“Heath?” Jonas spoke into the silence. “Do we have an understanding?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I expect a full report tomorrow. And I don’t like disappointment.”
“Yes, sir.” Heath’s throat felt dry. He ended the call and pinched his eyes shut, one single image filling his mind.
Tracie. He’d saved her life the day before, and still felt a lingering need to protect her from harm, to find out what had caused fear to haunt her eyes and to save her from whatever troubled her. And now Jonas wanted him to intentionally hurt her.
Clenching his jaw, Heath stood and paced the room. Tracie was his target. He had to break through her defenses, find out what she knew, and report back to Jonas in less than twenty-four hours. He’d never had an assignment like this one, and he already knew Tracie wouldn’t open up to him easily. Still, he had a sense that getting close to her wouldn’t be the most difficult part of his new mission.
No, the hardest part would be forgiving himself afterward.
TWO
Tracie had her head in the cupboard and was evaluating her dinner choices when the phone rang. She held a box of cereal in one hand and a can of ravioli in the other, and set down the pasta to answer. “Hello?”
Heath’s voice caught her off guard. “Have you had dinner yet?”
She looked at the box of cereal. “Not quite.”
“Care to join me? I’m sorry for the late notice, I just…” he paused. She waited.
“I’ve eaten every meal by myself since I’ve been here, and I thought it might be nice not to have to do that, for a change.”
His words struck a chord, and Tracie felt an emptiness inside that was more than just her stomach growling. She couldn’t remember when she’d last shared a meal with another person. But she didn’t know Heath very well, and memories of her previous partner’s unprofessional behavior toward her set off warning bells. “I make it a personal policy not to fraternize with my coworkers when I’m off duty.” She was glad she’d established that before Trevor had gotten out of hand.
“Oh.” Disappointment resonated over the phone. “You wouldn’t make an exception for my sake?”
She hesitated. The man had saved her life. But her policy had saved her skin before, too. “No exceptions.”
“Right. Sorry to bother you. Goodbye then.”
“’Bye.” Tracie hung up the phone and leaned back against the cupboard. Gunnar, her German shepherd mix, whimpered in concern at her feet, and she realized she was clutching the cereal box so tightly to her chest that she’d crumpled it.
She looked at the box, then down at her dog. “It’s okay. I’m fine.” She forced a smile for Gunnar’s benefit, but he didn’t look any more convinced than she felt. Shaking off her doubts, she nodded resolutely and proceeded to pour herself a bowl of cereal. “That was the right answer. I’m pretty sure it was.”
Tracie pulled up at the Coast Guard station the next morning just as Heath was getting out of his truck. Her insides knotted at the sight of him.
“Medical leave,” she said with a pointed look at the bandage on his arm.
He grinned at her, and she felt her heart give a dip. “Not for me, thanks. How was your dinner?”
It had been horribly dissatisfying, and she’d ended up feeling so bad about turning him away that she hadn’t even been able to finish her cereal, which had seemed to stick halfway down her throat every time she tried to swallow. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. “It’s really none of your business,” she reminded him as she stepped through the door he held open for her.
“Mine too,” he agreed.
“What?” She spun and looked at him, meeting his eyes, where flickering sadness didn’t match the smile he’d pasted on his lips.
“Dinner,” he explained, letting the fake smile drop. “Lonely and disappointing.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Tracie’s heart thumped hard against her rib cage and she hurried to the office that housed her cubicle, hoping he’d disappear into his own. Instead, he followed her.
“Look, I don’t mean to be rude,” she stared him down, “but I have work to do.”
“We have work to do.”
“I don’t need your help completing my paperwork.”
“The paperwork can wait, Princess. Somebody tried to kill us on Saturday, and I intend to catch whoever it was before they get a chance to finish the job.”
Tracie bristled. She was no princess. Princesses didn’t work for the Coast Guard. “Look, Heath, I’d love to catch our gunman, but we have no idea who it is, and no leads right now to go on.” She sat at her desk and picked up a sheaf of papers.
“And we’re not going to find any leads sitting around doing paperwork.” Heath plucked the papers from her hands and set them out of her reach on top of her file cabinets.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Then what do you propose?”
“Have you had breakfast?”
“No,” Tracie stood. “Not that it’s any of your business.” She gestured for him to leave. “I have work to do.”
Heath smiled as he stepped out of the office. “I’ll be back.”
Twenty minutes later, Heath stepped, uninvited, into Tracie’s cubicle and plunked a fresh apple fritter on her desk, then slid a steaming cup of coffee next to it. “Half cream, no sugar,” he smiled triumphantly. “Jake ratted you out.”
“I had no idea Jake cared so much,” Tracie slid the coffee toward her, lifted the lid, and inhaled a deep breath of steam.
“From the Egg Toss Café,” Heath explained, hoping he’d earn points for fetching her favorite brew.
“I can see that.” She speared an icy eyebrow his way, but took a small swallow and reached for the fritter. “Have a seat,” she said, nodding toward the spare chair as she took a big bite of the pastry. “Tell me what I have to do to make you go away.”
Inwardly congratulating himself on his small victory, Heath took the chair and opened a white sack, pulling out another fritter for himself. “I want to know everything you know about Trevor.”
