you were in my shoes, Luke, you’d ask. You’d need to know.”
“Fair enough,” he said, glancing at her. “The FDS sent me here to establish a small satellite office for gathering Pacific Rim intelligence, specifically on Asian criminal networks that collude with terrorists.”
“I thought you said your company was a private military company.”
“It is. PMCs are moving increasingly into the intelligence field. Clients demand this service.”
“Why Vancouver?”
“That should be obvious—it’s a major port city on the Pacific Rim with a significant Asian population and it’s an easy entry point to the United States.”
“You’re gathering this intelligence yourself?”
“My job is—was,” he corrected, “to get a handle on the key players behind the local tongs and triads and to determine what sort of new businesses they’re moving into. Traditionally it’s been heroin, gambling, extortion, black-market weapons, human trafficking and business and banking fraud. However, the syndicates are moving into increasingly sophisticated corporate espionage and, along with military hardware components, they’re now trafficking in biological and chemical components. I was supposed to assess which groups have the potential to become real political problems.”
“Are the Dragon Heads part of this?”
“The Dragon Heads Triad is at the top of my list. They’re one of the primary reasons I’m here. They’ve been aggressively acquiring territory around the world by usurping long-established gangs and networks. They infiltrate the rival tong or triad, then assassinate the leaders and govern by a code of terror. Anyone who steps out of line is killed as a warning.”
“You say this was your job?”
He snorted. “I suspect I’m going to have trouble fulfilling those functions now that I’m on the Dragon Heads hit list.”
Jessica’s stomach twisted. This just kept getting worse. “What makes you a specialist in this area, Luke?”
“Let’s just say I’ve had some…personal experience with triads.”
She thought about the scars on his back. “Is that why they sent you to pick me up?”
“No, Jess. I was the only mutt available. I just happen to also have significant close-protection experience.”
“Luke?”
He glanced at her again. “What?”
“I heard you say on the phone that you’d refused to do bodyguard gigs for this company of yours.”
“Yes.”
“Did…something happen on a job? Back in Australia?”
His energy shifted perceptibly. “Does this kind of interrogation come naturally from being an investigative journalist, Jessica, or were you just born nosy?”
She smiled in spite of herself. “I get the message. You don’t want to talk about yourself.”
“Right.”
She leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes, fatigue starting to consume her again as the adrenaline wore off. “But I will tell you one thing about me, Luke Stone,” she said softly through closed eyes. “In the end I always get the information I want.”
Luke felt a smile tug at his lips. She’d just issued him a challenge, almost playful in spite of the situation. It awakened something in him. Something that felt very, very foreign.
“That dogged curiosity is exactly what got you in trouble in the first place, Jessica Chan,” he said. “A lesser person would have given up after what you’d been through.”
Like he had.
She opened one eye. “Was that a compliment, Stone?”
“Just a statement of fact, Jess.”
“You do realize you’ve been calling me ‘Jess’ from the moment I met you? Is that an Australian thing or were you just born irreverent?”
He chuckled softly, caught off guard. He liked this woman. She had a way of opening him up. But that was exactly the problem with her. It made her dangerous to him, because Luke didn’t want to go back to being the man he once was. He didn’t want to open himself to emotion.
She closed her eyes again. “Your laugh almost makes you sound friendly,” she murmured.
“Me?”
“Comes as a shock, does it, Stone?”
It did, actually. He didn’t think of himself that way—as nice. Mostly he tried to avoid people. A bluntness bordering on rude usually did the job. His aggressive physical appearance took care of the rest.
He stole a quick look at her.
She’d fallen asleep, lashes dark on pale cheeks, her exhalations soft. An odd feeling quirked through his chest as he looked at her.
Luke returned his focus to the road. The wind was increasing, small flakes of snow were once again hitting the windshield as they drove into the brunt of the new storm.
But while the weather was foul outside, listening to her sleeping next to him felt warm, intimate, and Luke couldn’t help thinking about what she’d just said.
Friendly? Him?
He felt his lips twitching into a smile. The idea was amusing, strange, like the taste of something new.
Didn’t taste too hellish, either.
As they neared Furry Creek, driving snow was settling alarmingly fast on the road. A sedan in front of them skidded sideways, slumping nose first into a ditch at the base of a rock face held back with wire, red taillights upended. Luke glanced at Jessica. She was still fast asleep.
He looked up into the rearview mirror. A vehicle behind him was stopping to aid the driver. Luke kept driving. It was safer to avoid stopping. Stopping might mean engaging police.
But less than one minute later, he saw it was futile. Up ahead lay a police roadblock, luminous pink flares lining the road where Mounties in reflective gear waved certain vehicles off the road with flashlights.
He cursed, wondering what they were looking for. They shouldn’t have an ID on him personally, and he’d changed plates. The RCMP out here also would not likely know about Jessica’s link to the murder of Stephanie Ward—that was Vancouver P.D. jurisdiction.
As they hit a bump, Jessica woke, rubbed her face, then sat bolt upright. “A roadblock? They’re looking for us. Turn around, Luke.”
“We can’t. Not without being obvious.” His brain ticked over fast as they approached. “Jess,” he said urgently. “You never told me how the Triad knew you had taken those photos in the first place.”
“I don’t know! I told only the RCMP. That very
