Present Danger by Elizabeth Goddard (shoe dog free ebook .txt) 📗

she wasn’t willing to put that on the table. Should he just bide his time and only bring it up if it came to that? “Never mind.”

Terra’s hand shot across the table to grab his again, and he savored the softness of her skin. “Don’t do that. I want to know what you’re thinking. Don’t hold out on me.”

He sensed the desperation in her. The fear of losing the connection they’d found. “I’m not holding out, Terra.” He squeezed her hand. “You are.”

“What . . . what are you talking about?” She eased her hand from his grip.

He wanted to snatch it back. Instead, he toyed with his napkin and blew out a breath. They’d been walking a fine line—growing closer, maybe reaching across the distance their tumultuous past had created—and crossing that professional line in the midst of what was becoming a high-profile investigation.

Jack couldn’t deny he had feelings for this woman.

But this conversation could serve as the detonator to a possible future with her. Still, he wouldn’t hold back. “We both know what I’m talking about. I’m trying to catch a murderer here. Those murders are somehow linked to artifact trafficking. Unless we’re off track. I’m willing to look at all the possibilities. Are you?”

Terra closed her eyes for a few breaths, then opened them. “You’re talking about my brother who served in the Army in a Middle Eastern country. And his friend Leif. There are a lot of soldiers from Montana, a lot of veterans who make their home here, Jack. But I . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, Saturday night I browsed through a few photographs. Not digital. Actual photographs that Owen had left out. Leif was in the photos with him.”

Terra shut her eyes again. When she opened them, she stared right through him. “Leif was wearing a nose ring in the picture.”

“You mean like the small black wire in Jim’s hand?”

“Exactly like it,” she said.

Jack dropped his napkin onto his plate. “Then we’re onto something. I’ll get people to dig into his background. See what we can come up with.”

Terra shoved her hair behind her ears, then hung her head. “I don’t want it to be Leif.”

Jack understood why Terra didn’t want to bring the investigation close to her brother. Her family was everything.

“Yet he suddenly shows up,” she added as she glanced up. “We need to know when he got to town.”

She took a bite of bacon.

“We’ll look into that. In the meantime, Montana State Lab will work on DNA from the nose ring. But we both know that could take months,” he said. “There’s something else. I found out more about Neva Bolz. You were right to suggest we search far and wide. She was a world traveler in her job as an oil consultant.”

Terra stopped chewing and stared at him. She swallowed. “Are you going to make me pull it out of you? Where exactly?”

“Algiers.”

“That could be the connection we’re looking for.” Terra sounded relieved to shift the conversation away from Leif and her brother. “Star Oil Company stumbles across an archaeological site during exploratory drilling. Neva somehow gets her hands on something of value and sells it on the black market. She gets connected, and since she travels to Algiers, her reach and her clients and connections grow.”

“It’s one theory,” he said.

“Jack, she was murdered. She’s definitely part of this.”

“We know she’s connected, and now we have an idea why,” he said. “Still, the only thing we know about her murderer is that he’s about six feet tall and sometimes wears a gray hoodie.”

Terra stared into her coffee. She had to be thinking what he was thinking.

Leif was also about six feet tall.

FORTY-THREE

Terra wished she wasn’t following Jack’s thinking, but how could she not?

If Leif was involved, then it logically followed that Owen could be as well. But she refused to believe that her brother could be part of this. And she held on to hope that Leif wasn’t their murderer. Because if he was, that would be too destabilizing for Owen. Terra rubbed her eyes as nausea rippled through her stomach. Time to move on to the next topic. “I’m going to talk to the curator myself today about the murder weapon found at his museum. I feel like there are some inconsistencies after reading the reports.”

“We can go together. But I think it’s a priority that we should shadow Leif. See where he goes while he’s here.”

“You mean in addition to meeting with my grandfather in his office.” Looked like the day and her teamwork with Jack were getting off to a bad start. Terra resented the shards of offense jabbing through her. “I already explained that. I’m glad Gramps asked Leif about how Owen was really doing.” As if Leif would know better than she and Gramps, who’d been with Owen since he got home.

Maybe they were only seeing what Owen wanted them to see. She thought of his late night on the laptop and how he tried to get rid of her.

Nausea again.

Oh, Owen. He couldn’t be trying to raise funds for his equestrian project by selling artifacts, could he? No. He wasn’t involved. She knew Owen. Or at least she had known him before he left when she was a teenager, and he’d spent his life on the other side of the world, experiencing God knew what.

“Yes, I do mean in addition to your grandfather’s office.” Jack arched an eyebrow, a questioning look in his eyes.

What kind of investigator would she be if she tried to steer them away from Leif because of her brother?

Her throat constricted. “I agree we should shadow Leif.”

Terra pushed down the rising bile. God, please let Owen be innocent here.

She admitted to herself—but not to Jack—that the Owen who had come home to them was not the same Owen who had left. But everyone changed. She certainly wasn’t the same person she was when she’d moved to Colorado.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Jack’s voice broke through her thoughts.

“I’m here. Sorry.”

“Any idea how much money can be