Bran silently cursed. Dammit, he hadn’t intended to make her uncomfortable, and it was really none of his business. “Hey, I’m sorry. I was just kidding around. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
She fell silent and he didn’t press her, just set the nav system for the Cheyenne Mountain Resort and drove out of the parking lot.
Following GPS directions, he found US 24 East and headed for the hotel.
“Something happened three years ago,” Jessie said as the SUV rolled along. “I started corresponding with this guy I met through an online dating site. His name was Jordan Duran.”
“Why the hell would you need to go online to meet someone? Any guy with eyes in his head would want to ask you out.”
Jessie gave him the faintest smile. “I thought I might meet someone more interesting than the men I seemed to attract.”
He kind of got that. Having sex with a good-looking woman wasn’t the same as actually enjoying her company. He didn’t do relationships mostly because very few women understood him and the kind of life he led, and he rarely understood them.
Jessie leaned back in her seat. “Jordy came from a family of teachers, nice, down-to-earth sort of people. Or at least that’s what he said in his emails. He had a way of making me smile, and I really liked that. According to his bio, he was thirty-four, six feet tall, four years of college, looked good in his photo. We were going to meet for lunch but the night before, a man followed me out of the grocery store. I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.”
The muscles across Bran’s stomach clenched. “What happened?” Because it sounded as if—Jessie being Danny’s sister—it definitely was his business.
“I guess he used something to knock me out. I remember struggling, remember him pressing something over my mouth and nose, then nothing. The next morning, I woke up bound and gagged, locked in a basement somewhere. That night and the next, the guy showed up in a ski mask. He...touched me. He described in detail what he was going to do to me after we ‘got to know each other better.’”
“Christ, Jessie.”
“To make a long story short, the third day, I managed to escape. The police caught him and put him in jail. End of story.”
No way was that the end, but he didn’t say that.
“So you can see why I don’t have a boyfriend and why I don’t like to talk about it,” Jessie finished.
Oh, he saw, all right. And the fury he was feeling wasn’t going to disappear anytime soon.
He turned onto CO 115 and kept driving. “One last question.” He had a thousand but for now he’d settle for one. “Was this the same guy you met online?”
“Yes. Jordy wasn’t his real name. His real name was Ray Cummings, but it was him.”
His hands tightened around the steering wheel. “So where the fuck is this guy now?”
“That’s two questions,” she said. But his hard look convinced her to answer. “He’s serving ten years in prison—where my testimony helped put him. I wasn’t the first girl he kidnapped, but I was the last. Now can we change the subject?”
He didn’t want to. He wanted to know more about what had happened, what the bastard had done to her, wanted to be sure she’d come out of it all right. But he had upset her enough for today.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s talk about the case.”
She settled in the seat and her shoulders relaxed. She understood he was letting her off the hook. She didn’t know he was far from finished with Jordan Duran/Ray Cummings.
In time, she would figure it out.
For the moment, Cummings was in jail, and they needed to find a load of missing chemical weapons. First things first, he always said.
FIVE
The resort, nestled at the base of the Rockies, was a lovely spot, Jessie thought as they walked into the suite they had been assigned. Built on two hundred acres, it offered its guests a golf course, tennis courts, a fitness center, hiking trails, and beautiful views of the mountains.
The suite was big and roomy, with a rock fireplace, comfortable overstuffed furniture, and a wet bar with a refrigerator. A coffee maker sat on the counter. Windows wrapped around the living room, overlooking the golf course and mountains beyond.
“You take the bedroom,” Bran said. “The sofa unfolds into a bed, and I