Guardian Ranger (Shadow Agents #2)(7)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Her heart had slammed into her chest. I’m glad, too.

“I want to talk with these prisoners,” Gunner suddenly said. “Alone.”

Wyatt tensed, then glanced over at the deputy who was on duty that night, a young guy with pale skin and wide eyes. She knew the deputy well, as well as she knew Wyatt. Deputy Jimmy Jones had lived in Whiskey Ridge his whole life. Quiet, shy, but the twenty-two-year-old was fierce about protecting those in his county.

When she’d first met Jimmy, she’d felt much sympathy for him because the boy he’d been…well, his life had been a nightmare. But Jimmy had pulled himself out of that darkness, and now he was fighting to be better, stronger.

“Why are you wanting to talk to my prisoners without me present?” Wyatt asked. “That’s not what I’d call regular—”

Gunner lifted out his ID again. “I want to talk to them because I think they might fit it on my case.” A brief pause, then, “They fit the profile of some men I’ve been tracking with the FBI.”

They did? That was news to Veronica.

Jasper’s fingers tightened around hers.

“Let me talk to them and see if we need to take over jurisdiction here.” Gunner shrugged and walked toward the glaring men in the cell. “If I can tie them to the other abductions…” He said this part loudly, deliberately so, or at least that was what Veronica thought.

The injured man, a wiry guy with light blue eyes and sandy hair, seemed to pale even more. Then, for the first time, he spoke, shouting, “We didn’t take anyone!”

“Anyone else, you mean,” Gunner corrected. Then he glanced over his shoulder at Wyatt. “Give me some time with them, alone. I’ll find out everything I need to know in my interrogation.”

Jasper nodded, as if granting his permission. Veronica frowned, but Jasper said, “You take care of them, Gunner, and I’ll take Veronica home.”

Home?

But Wyatt was nodding now, too. Well, wasn’t it great that they were all in agreement? She was breaking apart on the inside, and they’d formed some sort of guys’ club.

“You do need to head home, Veronica,” Wyatt told her. “We’ll take care of these men.”

She didn’t move. Her gaze had turned back to the two men. Their faces were now etched in her memory. They were young, younger than she’d suspected when their car had first slammed into hers. They barely looked twenty. One still had acne.

And they were sweating. More so than Wyatt. They looked afraid and as she swept a fast glance at the man called Gunner, she realized that they should be afraid.

Jasper was danger wrapped up in a handsome package. Gunner…he was just lethal. An icy intensity burned in his dark eyes, and his hard features hinted at the hell he must have seen over the years. This was a man well acquainted with death and darkness. This was a man who scared her.

Her breath eased out slowly. Despite the fact that both Jasper and Wyatt wanted her to head home, Veronica wanted to stay. She wanted to face these men and find out just why they’d tried to take her.

“You can’t hide from the dark.” Another rule from her brother. “The night comes whether you want it to or not.” He’d first spouted that one when she was seven and terrified of monsters. She’d wanted to hide in her closet.

Now she knew that hiding did no good. The monsters, the real ones, could find you no matter where you went.

She took a deep breath and headed toward that cell. Jasper tensed and gritted, “Veronica.”

She kept walking and only stopped when she was a foot away from the bars. “Why?”

The injured man flinched.

“Why did you hit my car? Why did you try to take me?” They’d both had knives. Both had threatened her with them, but the blades had never sliced her skin.

Wyatt grabbed her arm. “You can’t do this.”

Um, she was doing this. Because she wasn’t a coward. These men wouldn’t make her cower in the dark. The night comes…

Wyatt tried to pull her toward him. “There are rules about questioning suspects. They have rights. You can’t just—”

“I have rights, too,” she snapped back at him as a sharp burst of anger filled her chest, driving right past the chilling fear that she’d known for the past few hours. “I think I have the right not to be stuffed in the back of a trunk on a Saturday night.”

“She does have that right,” Gunner murmured.

Her gaze cut to his. It almost looked as if he was about to smile.

“Do you want these bozos getting released on some technicality that a lawyer tosses up at us? Some B.S. about them not having counsel?” Wyatt’s tension had doubled.

As far as she knew, the men hadn’t asked for lawyers. They hadn’t asked for anything.

“I’ve got this,” Wyatt told her, voice deepening. “Let me do my job, okay? Trust me.”

But he hadn’t done his job before. When her brother had vanished, he’d done nothing.

She pulled away from him, stared once more at the men. Jasper wasn’t saying anything. He’d just come up to stand behind her. Silent. Strong.

When her brother hadn’t come back after a few weeks, she’d started digging. Pushing. Pushing as hard as she could as she dug into his life and the faint trail that he’d left behind.

Had someone tried to push back?

“Is this about Cale?” she asked softly.

She saw the injured man’s eyelids flicker.

Her heart seemed to stop. Then it raced, faster and faster with each second that ticked by. “Do you know where he is?” Veronica demanded, and she lunged for the bars.

Jasper grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her stomach and hauling her back against him.

The men in the cell were smirking now. The taller one, the one with dark brown hair, took a step toward her. “Don’t know your brother.”

Jasper’s hands squeezed her tighter.

Through numb lips, she managed to say, “I never said Cale was my brother.”

That made the smirk vanish. The guy’s eyes cut to Wyatt and blazed a wild blue. “We want a lawyer, now.”

“Tell me about my brother!” Veronica yelled back.

Jasper pulled her even closer against him. She could feel the rock-hard muscles of his abs against her back. His head lowered. “Easy,” he whispered in her ear.

Did it look as if she could take this easy? The guy had just admitted to knowing her brother. Random abduction? No way. No. Way.

Wyatt slammed his hand against the bars. “Veronica.”