her dark eyes even though she’d known he was going to make the call.
“I know, Gina, but Jason’s okay. He’s not part of that unit anymore. He was gone before Mario died.”
She wilted back onto the bed. “I didn’t mean any offense by my reaction, Jase. It’s nice to see you again.”
His lips quirked as he nodded his bald head in Gina’s direction. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nice to see some things don’t change,” he teased softly. Gina never had been very good at hiding her feelings, and Jase had gotten to know her pretty well. She flushed and looked away only to appreciate it when Jase said, “Mario was a good guy. I’ve got some contacts I can ask to put out some feelers about him, if you like.”
“Thanks.” She bit her lip, then seemed to make up her mind. “Do you know anything he might have been involved in? Anything that he might have had that someone would be after?”
Jase shrugged. “No. There’s no telling. We go undercover all the time. Sometimes as a whole unit, sometimes as a partial. And we don’t always get filled in on what the others are doing unless there’s a need. There’s just no way to know. I saw him several times over a period of a few weeks before he died and thought he was acting strange. But when I asked him about it, he shrugged it off and never let on he was having a problem.”
“Strange how?”
Jase shook his head. “Nothing I can really put my finger on. Withdrawn, moody, quick to anger—and late to a lot of meetings. Just—stuff that was unlike Mario.”
She nodded, and Ian wanted to put his arms around her; then he caught the sheen of tears in her eyes and decided he might need to offer her his shoulder to cry on.
Instead of doing either one, he held a hand out to Jason. The man looked at it for a moment, then slowly reached out to shake it. Ian couldn’t read Jase’s expression but thought he saw something soften in the other man’s eyes. Jase offered, “Call me if you need anything else. I’ll keep after the other guys in the unit to talk to me and see if any of them know what Mario was doing right before he died.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Jase’s eyes flicked to Gina, then back to Ian. “Take care of her.”
Then he was gone like smoke on a breeze.
“He’s a little different than I remember,” Gina murmured.
Ian turned to Gina, who sat on the bed. “What do you mean? Different how?”
She shrugged. “Of course I never saw him in the field, just when we would all get together and have cookouts or eat out or whatever. But I seem to remember that he was always the life of the party, the prankster.”
“Yeah. I remember that. But you’re right. In the field, he’s like a different person, rarely cracking a smile unless the situation calls for it. Total professional.”
“So, what did he bring?” She gestured to the backpack.
Ian looked inside. “A high-security laptop, night-vision goggles, an assortment of weapons, a GPS and—” he reached in and pulled out a device “—an encrypted cell phone.”
“We’re going to need all of that?”
“I sure hope not.”
“Huh.”
She seemed to lose interest in the topic. He lowered himself into the chair across from her. “Are you okay?”
She blinked. “No, but that doesn’t matter. I want to go back to the beach house and search it. I got interrupted before I had a chance to do anything. I…didn’t exactly start searching the minute I got there.”
“Was that the first time you’d been there since Mario died?”
Lips tight, she nodded. “Yes. I just walked on the beach for a long time, remembering the good times, the fun we’d had. By the time I got back to the house, I was hungry. I fixed a sandwich and went back into Mario’s little home office. I’d just opened the desk drawer to start searching when I heard the front door squeak. It only took a moment to realize it wasn’t you.” She closed her eyes at the memory, and Ian clenched a fist, wanting to pound those responsible for her fear.
Opening her eyes, she said, “So, I climbed out the window and took off down the beach. I must have made some kind of noise—I think I knocked something over—and they were after me pretty quick. Luckily, it was dark. I think that’s the only thing that slowed them down. That and the fact that I knew the beach and where to cut through to get to the diner.”
Regret filled him. “I’m sorry I was so late. I should have been there to…”
“It’s all right.” She stood. “But now, I’m going back to the house to see what I missed—and what damage those goons no doubt did to it. Mario willed it to me, you know. I was his beneficiary for his estate. Everything.”
“He didn’t have any other family?”
“Just a mother out there somewhere. He hadn’t seen or talked to her in years. He finally decided she was dead.”
“That’s a shame.”
“I know.”
Ian rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You know, they may have found what they wanted back at the house. If they found it, you may be safe and they won’t have any reason to come after you again.”
She looked up at him, then said slowly, “Or they found it, think I know about it and will want to make sure I don’t live to tell anyone about it.”
Ian blew out a breath. He’d thought about that but hadn’t wanted to mention it.
But Gina had already analyzed this from every possible angle and come up with some of her own answers.
He stood and pulled a pair of shoes from the bag Jase had brought. Handing them to her, he said, “They look a little big, but I guess they’re better than nothing. Come on—let’s go see what we can find out.”
Going back to the beach house was fine, but Ian wasn’t going back blind. Grabbing his phone, he punched in Jase’s number. “Hey, you offered to help, so I’m going to take you up on it. I need you to do one more thing for me.”
They drove in silence, Gina keeping her eyes on the rearview mirror and the road behind them, although she couldn’t see much in the early morning darkness. “Do you think this is a good idea?”
“Probably not, but I think it’s our only option right now. As much as Mario loved that house, it’s probably where he’d stash something important.”
“You knew him so well. He loved you like a brother. How could you…” She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence that had his fingers curling around the steering wheel and turning his knuckles white.
“Gina…”
“Why’d you leave, Ian? I mean, I know people transfer to other units for reasons like Jase’s, but what was your reason? No one understood why you requested
