Cover Me - By Catherine Mann Page 0,41

which will be in an email.”

“And if the money’s not already there this morning?”

Her hold tightened around her dog’s neck. “I don’t want to borrow trouble. Let’s wait and see.”

Frustration chewed through him, damn near buzzing in his ears, louder and louder. Until he realized his cell phone was vibrating on the kitchen table. Ignoring the call wasn’t an option. It could be work, and if he had to leave, she wouldn’t even be here when he returned.

Damn it all. For once he didn’t look forward to the rush of a new mission. He shoved to his feet and padded barefoot and naked across the room. He couldn’t even take heart in the fact he felt Sunny’s eyes following him every step of the way.

He snatched his phone from the table, and sure enough, a number with a prefix from the base flashed across the screen. “Sergeant Rocha speaking.”

“Wade, my friend.” Major McCabe’s voice filled the earpiece with none of his normal lighthearted humor. “You’d better sit down. The National Guard just checked in after retrieving those two bodies.”

“And?”

“There weren’t just two bodies.”

His gut clenched. His eyes shot to Sunny. “How many?”

“Thirteen, for now, including the pair you found. But there could be more. They’re still scouring the site. And every one of them was murdered, throat slashed.”

The memory of Ted and Madison staring up sightlessly through the ice slammed through his brain. He plowed a hand through his hair and wondered how to break this news to the woman staring at him intently from across the room. The woman who would be devastated when she found out the news. “Thanks for letting me know.”

So he could make damn sure Sunny didn’t take off on her own once that cash transfer came through.

“This isn’t just a courtesy call,” McCabe continued. “Since you’re involved, Special Agent Lasky with our OSI is working with local cops. We need for you both to come to base to look at some pictures, see if she recognizes any of the faces.”

His eyes raked over her protectively and he balked at the notion of exposing her to more violence, putting those images in her brain forever. She stared back at him curiously, her arms still around her dog’s neck, the blanket draped over her. He wanted to freeze this moment, because without a doubt, he knew in his gut that life was about to go to hell hard and fast.

And while he couldn’t protect her from she was about to see, no way was he letting her out of his sight.

Chapter 8

Misty tugged the zipper on her backpack as slowly as she could. Not that it made any difference. Her sister wasn’t going to walk through that kitchen door this morning. Sunny wasn’t going to insist she eat some whole grain tofu crap for breakfast so that Misty could fake fits of gagging.

It was time to leave. She had an appointment set up with a specialist. She couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

Her brother would take her. Still, she hated being a burden on her family, an adult woman still living with her brother and his family in their perfect house with gingham curtains and cast iron cookie molds decorating the walls.

Hugging the pack tightly to her empty stomach, she forced her eyes to stay well off the old upright piano against the far wall.

The floor vibrated under her feet, signaling the approach of someone entering through the mudroom, and for a second her heart sped up with optimism. A heartbeat later, before even turning, she realized the steps were too heavy, the vibrations too strong for someone her sister’s size. She only knew one person with just that gait.

Pivoting slowly—she still battled problems with inner-ear problems affecting her balance—she found exactly who she expected. Flynn Everett. The older of the Everett twins. The single one.

The one who’d had a crush on her since the ninth grade, when the teacher made them lab partners.

Silently—duh, when was anything in her life anything but silent anymore?—Flynn filled the doorway from the mudroom, wearing jeans and a yellow cable-knit sweater, his parka hanging open. His hair was a darker shade of blond these days, but just as thick.

Her fingers fisted at her side with the memory of the coarse strands gliding over her frantic hands while they made out in his truck. Sometimes he’d climbed inside her lilac purple bedroom in the middle of the night and they would make out. A couple of times they’d come so close