A tiny red light blinked slowly on the top. It was a minuscule distress signal. But it would go unanswered. Using the tip of his gloved finger, he pressed and held the power button until the light blinked out. With a groan, he straightened and walked over to where Max sat impatiently waiting.
“We need to run this up to the boss,” Jake said, shifting the drone and evidence bag of parts into one hand. He let loose with another grunt as he swooped down to take up the dog’s lead. His muscles were sore from walking the fairgrounds. The tension of the situation didn’t help. Nor did laying eyes on Cass for the first time in years.
Jake rolled up to his full height and tilted his chin to the sky, giving every aching muscle a big stretch as he focused on breathing deep. No matter how hard he stretched, a part of him was still doubled over from the gut punch of recognition when her eyes had first met his.
Recognition and wariness.
As if he posed as much of a threat to her as the bomber targeting her.
This time, Max had to quick-step to keep pace with him. As they wove past the wreckage of the duck pond stall, Jake kept his jaw clenched tight. He didn’t dare glance in the direction of the carousel. If he did, he’d get caught up in her gravitational pull.
And he couldn’t go there. Not when he could see Colonel Aronson charging down the hill, headed in their direction. He’d almost made it past the mangled corn dog stand when he heard her call out.
“Jake?”
He kept walking.
“Jake, I need to talk to you,” she shouted.
He gave his head a sharp shake but stayed the course.
“Jacob Michael Donovan!”
She escalated to the use of his full name at the exact same time Aronson bellowed, “Donovan!”
Their voices melded in a strange sort of angry harmony on the three syllables of his last name. It drew him up short. Glancing from Aronson’s stormy expression to Cass’s high-colored outrage, he shook his head in bewilderment.
He held up the broken surveillance equipment as if the fruit of his prowess might be enough to ward them off any reprimand. “Someone was flying a drone over the scene. I think it may be long to our guy.”
But even as the words left his lips, the triumph he’d felt in downing the drone shriveled into a tight ball and lodged in his throat. For some reason, neither of them was celebrating.
Jake got the feeling he’d done something very, very wrong.
Chapter Eleven
Cassidy stood at the edge of the platform, one hand wrapped around a pole, the other resting on the seahorse’s head. She pressed the phone to her ear, but she couldn’t concentrate on what the woman on the other end of the call was saying. Not when Jake was stuck between her and a hard-faced superior.
She ended the call she’d been on without another word. She wouldn’t have to worry about getting a call back. Within minutes, every news outlet in the region would be blowing up her phone. She smiled, thankful for the new phone she was using.
Craning her neck to look back, she caught Jake looking down at the hunk of smashed electronics in his hand as if he wasn’t exactly certain how it came to be in his possession.
“What the— What were you thinking?” Colonel Aronson shouted as he closed the distance to Jake.
Cassidy ached to leap from the carousel and run up to join them.
“Sir, I—”
But Jake didn’t get a chance to utter another word of explanation. The colonel thrust a cell phone into Jake’s face. Cassidy’s own cheeks burned as he took a step back. He tilted his head as if trying to get the screen to come into focus, but she knew exactly what he was watching.
Because Emma Parker had forwarded the same video sent to her phone mere minutes before.
Sinking back down onto the bench, she caught snippets of the man’s shouts as he dressed Jake down for endangering himself and everyone around him by acting so impulsively.
Every so often, Jake would attempt to interject and explain, but it was clear the commander was having none of it. Words like “payload” and “clearance” and “renegade” were sprinkled with some mild expletives and served cold. Though she’d planned to give him a piece of her mind for acting in such a reckless, impulsive way, she didn’t like hearing him take it from someone else.
Drawing a deep breath, she focused on the toes of her shoes as she waited for the colonel to wind down. Oddly enough, the increased speed of the ride helped with the nausea she’d suffered earlier. She eyed the balled-up wrapper containing the remnants of the sandwich she and Jake had attempted to share, and wondered if she could get the fire department trainee to bring her another.
Colonel Aronson’s decibel level dropped significantly by the time she made her next trip around to the concourse. Now the two men stood examining the remains of the drone and what appeared to be a collection of parts contained in a plastic evidence bag. The next time she saw them, she noticed Jake was still wearing bright blue latex gloves.
