Page 100 of Jameson’s Salvation

I made it to my truck and added a stop to the hardware store to make him a copy. I opened the door, excited to watch Jameson’s face when I gave him the key to his very first house. He’d love it. I knew he would. His eyes would go soft and he’d grunt my name before he’d kiss me.

There was a pinch on the side of my neck and I swatted away whatever had bitten me.

Damn, that stung.

I braced myself on my open door and tried to stay upright as my vision blurred and I started to sway.

What the hell was happening?

I vaguely felt my knees scrape the asphalt as my eyes closed.

* * *

What the hell was going on? Why was I moving? I cracked my eyes open and all I could see was the back of a car seat. My stomach churned and all I could think was that I’d had some sort of an allergic reaction to whatever had stung me. Thank God, someone had seen me pass out and was taking me to the hospital.

“Thank you,” I murmured to the good Samaritan and closed my eyes. The pain the light caused was unbearable.

“Oh, it’s my pleasure.”

I knew that voice. My eyes flew open and I fought to sit up but I couldn’t move my hands. Tied. Why hadn’t I noticed that? Because I was a naïve idiot, always thinking the best of people.

“Let me out,” I demanded.

“Not yet.”

I rolled the best I could, trying to sit up, when my cellphone dug into my hip.

Yes! Please God let McKenna find me before I lose service or my battery dies. How long before Jameson figures out I’m missing?

Hours, and I could very easily be dead by then.

Why was I so damn stupid, always living in a bubble of sunshine? Hadn’t I learned my lesson? People were assholes. Jameson had it right all along. Why couldn’t I have been more like him—always on the lookout for trouble, never putting anything past anyone.

People fucking sucked! And I was going to learn the hard way what Jameson had tried to warn me about. You can’t trust anyone, not even when you’re walking across a fucking parking lot. I should’ve been paying attention.

31

Jameson

Jameson pushed away the thick file Alec Hall had prepared for the team. Months of Coast Guard surveillance and intel wrapped up in one tidy brief. Their newest contract with the Department of Homeland Security wouldn’t officially start until next month, but Alec had asked the team to be prepared at any time—drug smugglers didn’t follow a precise schedule. Though the traffickers had stuck to the same route and Jameson had to admire their ingenuity.

The waterways—some small, some larger, from New York to Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, then straight to the Atlantic—offered the criminals a clear, mostly unpoliced avenue to move their drugs, with plenty of places to stop and make deliveries, pick up product, and swap vessels.

The flaw in their plan had been the Delaware River.

Jameson glanced at the clock on the wall in his office and frowned. It was well past the time Kennedy should’ve called him. He’d lost track of time, maybe so had she.

He glanced at the file thinking he’d work another couple of minutes while he waited for her, but something felt off. Kennedy always checked in, even though she’d warned him when she was working she had no sense of time, she’d never not called when she said she would.

Jameson grabbed his cell, and with a sense of urgency, he scrolled to her number and tapped the call icon. Seven rings later, Kennedy’s voice came on the line and asked him to leave a message.

Voicemail.

He sat back in his chair and tossed his phone from hand to hand. Jameson weighed his options and didn’t care what it said about him or that he was probably overreacting. He made his way to Nixon and McKenna’s office and knocked on the frame of the open door.

“Gotta second?”

Both McKenna and Nix glanced up from their laptops but it was Nix who answered, “What’s up?”