key to proving these laptop thefts were related, that the thieves weren’t petty criminals. They’d been mentioned in terrorist chatter, but his unit still felt this was a low-level priority. That’s why they’d sent Sean.
He tapped the phone through his pocket. His last mission had brought him into the unit as a consultant, an operative when a desperate situation called for one. As the man who’d uncovered terrorist activity among their contractors, he’d already been in the know about classified intel. He’d just uncovered everything they needed and shipped it back to his best friend, Ashley, in the States when the terror cell blew his cover and took him. Took him and tortured him, trying to discern what he knew.
When the bad guys went after Ashley, his lifelong best friend... That was almost more than he could handle, though it had helped knowing his buddy Ethan Kincaid was protecting her.
His actions overseas had brought him into the unit full-time. But after what he’d been through, sending him out to investigate this mission was proof his superiors thought he wasn’t back up to speed, not operating at full capacity. If he were in their boots, he’d probably want him to prove himself, as well. He’d been tortured but not broken, though that last part was debatable. His sleep was still sporadic and restless, peppered with nightmares when it came.
He had to be successful here if they were ever going to trust him with his own team, ever stop thinking of him as the poor sap who’d made a key mistake and found himself taken hostage. He had to prove to them and to himself he was fit for this assignment.
Footsteps pounded on the stairs, and Sean straightened and prepared to fight, but it was Jessica who appeared around the corner. She held out the key to Specialist Channing’s room as she got closer. “Captain Alexander said the military police and Criminal Investigations spent a large chunk of yesterday in there, but we’re clear to go in now. We probably won’t find anything. I’m guessing they took every piece of evidence that even looked like it had any bearing on her thievery.”
“Yeah, but they’re not looking for the same things I am.” He held out his palm for her to lay the key in it, her warm fingers brushing his skin.
The touch telegraphed straight up his arm. There was no doubt Jessica Dylan was a beautiful woman. Her brown eyes were as warm as hot chocolate, and the way that one stubborn length of dark hair kept escaping the bun she’d tried to tame it in made him itch to tuck it back.
Sean shook his head and tightened his fingers around the key, running his thumb down the jagged edge... All things he shouldn’t be noticing about her or any other female. She was a witness in need of his protection, his only ally on this investigation. Nothing more. Getting involved with her was against his personal protocol, and he had more than enough to worry about without dragging another woman into his life. He’d almost killed the last one.
Slipping the key into the lock, Sean eased the door open, muscles tensed for action in case someone had beaten them into the room.
There was no intruder, but the room was a disaster. Clothes strewed the floor. Several pizza boxes balanced precariously on the small desk and soda cans overflowed the trash.
Jessica followed, grimacing at the chaos. “Did our guys make this mess, or was Channing this disorganized all along? I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve never seen a room in as sad a shape as this one.” She fingered a pizza box and watched it slide to the floor. “I mean, I’ve seen messy soldiers before, but this? There are too many inspections for a soldier to leave a room as trashed as this one. And I’m not sure she was here long enough to merit this kind of disaster.”
“You can fault the investigators for part of it.” Sean pulled open a duffel bag and dragged a hand through wads of drab olive T-shirts. “But not all of it.”
“Maybe because this was her temporary housing, she didn’t bother to worry about inspections. She was supposed to ship out in a few days. She just in-processed from Fort Carson a week ago.”
“Still, something’s not right in here.” Sean stopped in the middle of the room and swept the small space. It was a good thing it took more than overflowing garbage to turn his stomach. “What was her rank again?”
“Channing’s a Specialist.” She’d been in a couple of years and was just above a Private in rank.
Sean pulled the duffel open again, sifting through it and a smaller bag on the floor beside it, giving in to a growing suspicion as he did. Shoving a heap of detritus from the twin bed, he dropped the clothes onto it, then went to the closet and pulled out all the uniforms there, adding them to the pile.
Jessica stepped back and watched. “What exactly are you doing?”
“Thinking.” He pulled random articles of clothing from the bottom of the closet. “At any point in your career, especially when you were a young soldier, did you throw out every single one of your uniforms and start over with used ones?” Sean dumped the clothes onto the bed, then pulled a pair of jump boots from the floor of the closet and tossed them into the mix.
“I’d turn in old uniforms to central issue and get new ones, but usually not all at once. Some of it was used, but not much of it. We got new stuff before deployment, but I kept that back home and wore my old gear overseas. Less I had to buy later. Why?”
Sean swept a hand at the clothes on the bed, waiting to see if he was right or simply thinking sideways. “Tell me what you see.”
“A mess.” Jessica twisted her lips, but she didn’t step back and call him crazy the way she had at the food court. Maybe she was warming up to him.
She’d better. It would make this job a whole lot easier if he didn’t have to fight for her trust every step of the way.
After surveying the heap of uniforms for a minute, Jessica lifted an undershirt, then a pair of pants. One by one, she inspected tops and bottoms, setting them to the side and growing more thoughtful with each piece.
She had to see what he saw.
“Sean.” She stepped back, stopping spare inches before she backed straight into his chest.
Her warmth eased through his uniform top, forcing him to open up the space between them before he decided he liked the feeling. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she’d used his first name. It also hadn’t escaped his notice that he liked the sound of it when she did.
Jessica didn’t seem aware of his thoughts. “The gear is right, but the clothes... None of them are new. And none of them are Channing’s.” She turned on her heel, realized how close she stood to him and slid to the side, clearing her throat. “It’s all used, even has other people’s names on some of them, like she picked up every single bit of it at one of those surplus stores right off post. None of it has been issued to her by the Army.” She picked up a patrol cap and ran her index finger along the brim. “This is more than a soldier would need just to travel overseas.”
“Exactly.” Sean nodded. Her observation skills rivaled some of the best he’d worked with. “Something’s going on with your missing soldier, and I’m starting to think we’re right that it’s a whole lot bigger than the data on your laptop.”
* * *
Tossing Channing’s patrol cap back onto the bed, Jessica walked toward the window that overlooked the parking lot. “I don’t know. It seems like a leap to me.”
“A leap?” Sean stepped up behind her but kept
