“A distinguishing mark.” Archer’s voice took on an edge.
She nodded. “It looked like the kind restaurant workers get on pizza ovens.” She pulled up the sleeve of her sweater that Rivers hadn’t cut off to reveal a faint white scar of her own.
“So I tried to get him talking about pizza ovens. I asked what model he got burned on.”
The room went still.
Archer shook his head. “You turned the tables on your kidnapper. Made him answer your questions.”
The men looked at each another with a kind of startled respect that would have been flattering if Jolie wasn’t so wiped out.
“That’s an advanced strategy,” Cannon noted. “How did you think of it?”
She blinked. “Are you kidding me? I raised three kids. I know how to keep changing what I say to find a tactic that works best. For instance, I could ground Jake from basketball. Tanner? Make him do yard work and he’d act like the country had fallen. But if I tried to ground Lara, she would be like, ‘Oh no. I have to stay inside and read? Boohoo. How will I ever survive it?’”
Townie snorted.
“So I learned to pivot. I removed lip gloss privileges.”
Rome leaned forward. “Excuse me, did you say lip gloss privileges?”
O was laughing openly, and several guys flashed grins at her, including Archer.
“Every person has a lever, as I’m sure all of you know. You just have to find it. Some respond to praise. Some to guilt. Some to snacks. Some to shame. Some to making them think an idea was theirs in the first place, which frankly works on men more than you’d think—”
“Jolie.” Cannon said her name once.
She looked at him. “Yes?”
“I think I know why the guy shot you.” He smiled, and she felt the warmth of it sink into her.
It felt so good to be here. In a short time, Sierra team had become family to her—an odd ragtag crew she still didn’t know nearly enough about, yet they had come to her rescue twice. If any one of them ever needed her, she would be first in line to fight for them.
And Archer…
She felt his warm stare on her. For now, that was enough.
Cannon nodded at her as if he heard her thoughts and agreed with them. “You were controlling the situation.”
Archer squeezed her hand. “She gave away nothing.”
Jolie turned her head to see the pride in his face, and it made her insides shaky with emotion.
Cannon asked more questions about the timeline and the kidnapper’s appearance. She answered the best she could, considering the haze of the drug still lingering in her system and the fear that kept trying to claw its way back in.
Then she told them about Stina—how the man had known both of their names. How he said he’d been inside the restaurant in Chicago. How it sounded like he had watched them there for some time.
The room changed at once. Archer’s entire body went rigid. O jerked his head to look at her.
Cannon’s questions came sharper now. “Did you recognize him?”
“No.”
“Ever wait on him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. He made it sound like he saw me training Stina.” She hated how weak her voice sounded. “We saw hundreds of customers. Some days it felt like a thousand faces blurred together.”
“Did he say how often he came in?”
