Aimpoint by Candace Irving (best mystery novels of all time .TXT) 📗

ago when LaCroix had interrupted that goodnight kiss with his crude crack. And now, that anger was focused on her.

She stood there and accepted it. Absorbed it.

What choice did she have?

Despite the dyed hair and green-tinted contacts she'd yet to remove, she'd thoroughly shed Rachel Pace along with her clothes onto this man's living room floor five hours earlier. She hadn't donned the woman since. Not that John would believe her. Not with that icy stare of his growing icier by the second as he took in the mist-green wrinkled sweatshirt and jeans he'd personally stripped from her limbs…along with the gold shield now firmly attached to her waist.

It was the shield that condemned her. That, and the compact, black Sig Sauer P228 at her hip. Most US Army officers carried the larger, desert-tan P320.

But then, she wasn't even a commissioned officer, was she?

Sergeant Hernandez chose that moment to remember his manners. The stocky MP came to his feet. "Sir, this is Chief Warrant Officer Two Regan Chase, CID. Special Agent Chase has been running the LaCroix investigation."

The confirmation caused a flare in that carefully banked fury, searing off the ice. Pure, molten steel roiled beneath. John felt used. It was in every inch of those rigidly clenched muscles beneath the wrinkled tee and jeans that he, too, had recently picked up off the floor of his living room.

Along with the rest.

The condemnation and worse. The anger and suspicion she could've handled. Even that palpable regret. But the betrayal and the hurt?

Those cut straight through her.

John was wrong. He hadn't had sex with some faux cover identity. He'd had it with her. But she didn't have a cherub's chance in hell of convincing him of that now. Not with Hernandez three feet away, picking up on all those simmering vibes. Not to mention the digital voice recorder on the table. The one that was still actively listening in, sucking up for posterity every single word that'd been said in here before she'd arrived—and was yet to be said.

Once they were alone.

She left the door open, nodding to the MP as she stepped all the way into the room. "I've got this, Sergeant."

Curiosity warred with duty.

Fortunately, duty conquered quickly, and with a brisk nod. "Of course, Chief. For what it's worth, we'd barely gotten started. Captain Garrison came in on his own to make an unsolicited statement regarding Sergeant LaCroix. He had some concerns about the man, but hasn't had a chance to relay the specifics. I did inform him the sergeant was recently arrested while trying to place a bomb outside a civilian house in Vilseck. The captain knows the intended victims."

John had come in on his own? What on earth had he learned about LaCroix in the last hour? It must have been significant to force a one-eighty shift regarding his views on reporting the man.

She offered the MP an equally brisk nod. "Thank you, Sergeant. Please let Special Agent Ellis know I've arrived and that I'll speak with her and the general soon."

"Yes, Chief." The MP took a moment to face the voice recorder, verbally turning over the interview to her before he stepped away to depart the room.

Regan waited for the door to close before she risked approaching the abandoned chair. Unfortunately, John still loomed over the opposing side of the table, stiff and silent as he watched her unhook her shield from her waist. She set it down next to the recorder, along with the evidence bags containing the sticky note and florist receipt.

She could feel John studying her every motion, waiting for her to finish, to look up. Daring her.

She did.

"CID." Soft, damning. The rest was in his eyes. Why?

How?

She forced a shrug as she commandeered the MP's chair. "People see what they want to see. What they expect." Given where they were—and that dutifully vigilant recorder—it was all she could offer. She could only pray he'd be willing to listen to the rest once this was done.

Though, given the thunderous pace of that telltale pulse, she doubted it.

She tipped her head toward the empty chair beside him.

John ignored it for several long moments, then finally gathered his lingering anger and resentment and pulled them in deep. Cold acceptance slid into place as he nodded curtly and sat. "I guess they do."

Regan entered her true name, rank and the relative case stats into the recorder, only to find that frosted stare still locked on her as she finished. All morning, she'd wondered what it would cost her to return to John's home. What it would cost him. And would he ever be able to forgive her when it was over?

She had her answer.

So be it.

She dove in. "So, Captain, you're here on your own. I confess, I'm surprised. When we spoke earlier this evening, you mentioned your worries regarding Sergeant First Class Evan LaCroix and his outrage with Brigadier General Ertonç, as well as your fears that the sergeant might be in danger of spiraling out of control. But you didn't have proof that LaCroix had anything specific planned, much less that he was about to follow through. I assume something changed?"

That pulse picked up. But he nodded calmly. Too calmly, given everything that was still unsaid. "Correct. As I also mentioned earlier, I asked a fellow officer to watch out for the sergeant tonight. After you…left…I received a call from Captain Trussell. LaCroix had given him the slip a couple hours earlier."

No surprise there. Not after the sergeant's parting shot following his arrest. Still, "Hours? And Trussell was just calling?"

Fire raged beneath the ice. It was quickly controlled and re-banked. "No. That was his fourth call. I'd left my phone in another room while I…slept. Given my concern for the sergeant, Truss was about to head over to see if something had happened, but he'd decided to try once more."

"I see. And then?"

"I hung up. I was worried about another…friend. So, I texted her—"

Shit.

"—and that's when I noticed a text I'd missed. It was