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Something about his tone was off.
Stirring the scrambled eggs, I glanced over my shoulder and studied the former sniper.
“It’s fine,” Emma said, waving his apology away.
The affable smile he sent her didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Something was wrong. Staring at him a minute longer, Mack never looked my way. His focus was pinned on Emma. Alarms and buzzers blared in my brain.
The day after Emma had finally come clean, I told Mack about Wesley’s bribery and threats. He promised to stay hyper-vigilant and note anything suspicious.
My gut told me he had.
Tamping down the angst rising inside me, I finished cooking the eggs, then poured them into a bowl. As usual, Emma was standing beside me, waiting to carry them to the table. The thought of having to identify her body, like I had Aubrey’s, sent waves of panic rolling through me. Slamming a lid on the urge to fly to New York and put a bullet between Wesley’s eyes, I handed her the bowl. Then I cupped her elbow and pressed a soft kiss to her lush lips before following her to the table.
Like he did every morning, Mack commented on how good the food looked and smelled while we loaded our plates. But unlike every morning, he didn’t once look my way.
Instead of allowing the plethora of ball-shrinking scenarios of losing Emma to continue running wild in my head, I set my fork down and turned to him. “So, whydidyou?”
“Why’d I what?” Mack asked, finally looking at me.
“Whydidyou come over so early?”
“Grant,” Emma gasped. “That’s…rude.”
“No, it’s not,” I replied, holding Mack with a penetrating stare. “Spill it. What’s happened?”
“You still got it, don’t you?” A humorless scoff slid off Mack’s lips as he reached inside the pocket of his shirt.
“Got what?” Emma asked, clearly confused.
“A sixth sense. He always knows when something’s not right. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Lord knows, it kept us guys in his unit from coming home in body bags, but it’s unnerving as fuck sometimes,” Mack explained, handing me a small piece of paper. “It’s a license plate number.”
“I can see that. Start talking.”
“It’s probably nothing,” Mack said, glancing at Emma. “But I was up late last night…couldn’t sleep.” Because he, like most of the other guys in our unit, struggled with bouts of PTSD from time to time. “I was sitting out by the side of the barn when I saw a car creeping down the road…way under the speed limit. I darted inside the bunkhouse, grabbed my Glock, and stepped outside to find the car stopped on the side of the road, near the driveway.”
My heart rate tripled, and my mouth went dry. Making a mental note to install some motion sensor alarms and cameras around the perimeter of the ranch, I arched a brow at him.
“And you didn’t call and wake me up?”
“So you could what...use a set of bolt cutters on him like you did that—”
“Shut up,” I growled, pinning him with a glare.
“Sorry,” Mack muttered. “I didn’t want to wake you until I did some recon to find out if we had a problem. Sticking to the hedgerow beside the barn, I snuck in behind the car. After memorizing the license plate, I hunkered down and crept to the open window of the driver’s side door. Then I popped up and pointed my gun in the guy’s face behind the wheel and told him to step out of the car when he was done shitting himself.”
Emma softly gasped and clasped her hands together.
“You get a name?” I growled, blood boiling.
“I got better than that. I have a picture of his driver’s license on my phone.”
After opening the app and tapping the image, Mack slid the device across the table to me.
Emma stood and peered over my shoulder at the photo of Matthew Carter, a surfer looking dude, from Hollywood, Florida.
“Have you ever seen this guy before?” I asked her.
