Good, perfectly understandable questions that didn’t undermine or condescend. Things like…
“Where did you see him?”
“At a gas station, believe it or not,” she responded to Brody directly. “I’d stopped to fill up on my way home from work, and the bastard was just finishing pumping gas into a newer, white, nondescript panel van two spaces down.”
Jagger’s shoulders bounced with a huff of a breath. “Kind of makes you think about who’s fueling up down the line from you, doesn’t it?”
Not giving her a chance to respond to Jagger’s rhetorical question, Christian asked, “How can you be so sure it was him?”
That one was easy.
“Are there any tangos from your time in service you’ve never forgotten?” she asked a question of her own. “Ones whose eyes still keep you up some nights?”
“Pretty sure we all do.” Christian looked around the room and nodded.
The others either nodded or muttered their agreements, as well.
“Samer Ali’s eyes…” Raegan ignored the painful knot growing at the base of her throat. “I’ll never forget them for as long as I live. And believe me, I’ve tried.”
Jagger dropped the arm that had been resting on the fireplace and shoved his hands into his front pockets. “Did he see you?”
“He did, but only for a split second as he passed by my pump on his way out of the station. And I looked away, using my hair as cover to keep him from getting a good look.
A few seconds of silence passed before Liam asked, “What did you do next?”
“I followed him to the house down the street.”
Understanding filtered behind the man’s brown stare. “That’s why you rented the house next door to Rocky.”
Score one for the tech genius.
“The day I saw Samer, he drove to that house and went inside. There were a few other men there, too, and they were carrying in boxes and some of those plastic storage tubs.”
“What about the cops?” Jagger asked the obvious. “You think maybe they could?—”
“I went to them,” she cut him short. “The police and the Army.”
“And?” Brody stared back at her expectantly.
Aaaandthiswas the part where she’d lost the military’s interest.
Rocky looked down at her from where he stood by her side. Without a word, he reached down, took her hand in his, and gave it a supportive squeeze.
There was no way for him to know just how much that simple show of support meant. But she curled her hand around his and pulled from his strength to finish the rest of what needed to be said.
“I didn’t exactly have a choice when I left the Army.”Damn this is hard.“It was more of a…suggestion.”
Christian’s gaze slid to her and Rocky’s joined hands, but rather than comment on that, he asked, “By whom?”
“My shrink, my new unit head…everyone I tried talking to about Samer when I was recovered enough to look into his whereabouts.” Raegan let out a humorless chuckle. “The man led a raid that resulted in the loss of multiple American lives, and they acted like it was just another day at the office.”
“That’s the government for ya.” Jagger nodded as if he truly understood. Putting his palms up in a dramatic showing, he acted like a shady politician when he announced, “Nothing to see here, folks. Nothing at all to see.”
I think I could be friends with a man like him.
“That kind of comes with the territory when you’re working a covert op, though,” Brody pointed out.
“I get the need for classified intel and plausible deniability,” she quickly explained. “And it wasn’t like I was asking them to go against the public story.”