It was easier with Kalani around, getting his game face on for whatever came his way. The urge to protect her was deeply rooted and strong, and it translated effortlessly into such simple actions as the unwavering smile that crossed his face for the officer. The way his body relaxed. His breathing, too. She had a way of settling his breathing, making him feel purposeful. Somehow, life was more understandable at her side, like he knew his role. His mission. It was there in West Virginia, to get the cop off their trail, as it was getting whoever it was at the car garage away long enough for Kalani’s escape. He could do that all day, all week, all year if he had to. But Ethan had a feeling it wouldn’t be necessary for much longer. He began his way to that by rolling down his window and then waiting for the footsteps to get closer. And then he waited for the officer’s friendly greeting, Ethan responding with his own, with his hands in clear sight for the officer.

“You got a tail light out. You know about that?”

“No, sir.”

The officer asked for and then received his license and registration. He heard the sound of sagging leather as the officer shifted his weight from one foot to the other, standing out there inspecting the documents. When Ethan glanced at his normally pretty passenger, she had a perplexed look on her face. He squinted at her as if to ask “What’s wrong?” She just shook her head.

The officer was still going on about the light. “Gonna get that fixed?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“I saw it when you hit the brakes down the hill there, only one light coming on.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll address that right away.”

The officer handed back the documents and said, “You know, we got a shop just in town there, just down the road where you came. I’m not sure if they’re still open.”

“No, sir,” he said. “They’re not open.”

Ethan smiled at Kalani, but her face looked too nervous for it to remain.

* * *

She was eager to know the story. He couldn’t blame her. It had been a compelling mystery to him all along, too.

“How far is this place?” he said.

“Come on, just tell me.”

“Just tell you?”

“How you got here, how you found me at the garage.”

The only problem was how she might take the news. He would have loved to keep up the kidding, to tease her with it. But there were some elements of the story that he knew would wipe the smile from her face faster than seeing the lights of another highway patrol car. He knew now that they were after her.

“Jackson’s worried about you guys,” he finally said, without any hint of joking.

“Because of Tucker?”

“He’s worried about him, too. We’re starting our investigation, and part of that means we need more manpower over here in Virginia. There’s too much going on. We’ve got the legal proceedings back home, the training camp here, you and Lea. It’s a nightmare.”

“It is.”

“My paper, oddly enough, sent me on a story out here to West Virginia. It tied in with something Jackson wanted me to do, tracking a shipping container across the state line from Norfolk. I found it at a truck stop, and then Sam found me there. He was waiting for me, so I guess that’s the connection. It was just a way to get to me. Or I guess this whole thing with Tucker might have made it more urgent. Right now, it seems Jackson needs all the help he can get.”

“So can we.”

“That’s what I mean,” Ethan said. “So, Sam led me to Claxtonburg.”

“Why Claxtonburg?”

“That was where Tucker last used his cell phone. We don’t know what the call was about, or who it was to. But we’re working on that second part. All we know for sure was that it was from here, so that’s our first point of interest. We hung out for a while, and it was sheer luck we saw you in that parking lot.”

“You just drove by and found me?”

“It was that easy, I guess. What happened after wasn’t easy, though. Just the way they went about locking up the place right after you walked in. And the other cars that showed up . . . We just had to try something.”

Kalani said, “You knocked on the door?”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “Why not? I know DARC likes to get all high tech. But that’s not really my specialty. I’m a writer, a reporter. An investigative reporter, which means I’m used to knocking on doors.”

“You’re a dying breed,” Kalani said.

“Let’s hope not literally. Same with you, let’s try to keep people from going missing and from dying and all that. Starting today.”

“It’s right here,” she said, pointing to just a random, run-of-the-mill private lane splitting off from the highway. “It’s still a bit of a drive through the woods, but we’re almost there. Home sweet home.”

“Yeah? How sweet has it been, really?”

“Ugh . . .” She took a deep breath as if to cleanse away the idea of it. “It’s been alright.”

“Sounds horrible,” Ethan said.

“No, it just probably sounds like a lot of different types of drama all coming together. The worst of it being family drama. I’d never thought I’d be living with my sister again. It’s been a rough transition, to say the least.”

He was expecting a drive, but it was much longer than that. The road was twisty, narrow, and dark from the trees. It seemed Jackson picked a pretty good and secluded spot for the two star witnesses.

Kalani finally asked, “Are you here because of Lea, too?”

“We’re here for both of you. We’re worried. And the fact that Tucker is gone . . . it means this place might not be as safe as we thought.”

“So, he didn’t just leave. He was kidnapped?”

“Did I say that?”

“Did Jackson say that?”

“No, no one is saying that.” The car lurched over a pothole.

“Are you staying here? You’re staying with me, right?”

He wanted to. God, did he want to. But his mission, as far as Jackson was concerned, would be day-to-day. But it was clear the girls needed someone. Sam was more of an academic type, of course, and he had his own investigation with Lea to look into. Matthias was a grunt, but had to be watching over the prospective grunts and the munitions supply at the camp. Ethan, on the other hand, had proven to Jackson that he could wield more than a pen. He’d showed that much during the rescue at Hawaii. And he showed a remembered proficiency in firearms training when Jackson took him out to his private range in the basement of his D.C. headquarters. A level far beneath the earth, under the bottom floor of the parking garage, where they went through a whole crate of ammo in a week. It was to sharpen his skills, but also for Jackson to see what kind of shot he was. Under stress too, and under all types of tests. And there he was, with a sidearm, and with Kalani at his side, on his arm. Apparently he’d passed the tests.

He had passed the one at the truck stop, too, finding that container, and finding Sam. And the test in Claxtonbug, correctly identifying a dicey situation and making the executive decision to move ahead and engage and rescue Kalani. Whatever was going on there, it clearly wasn’t good.

They rounded a bend, and emerging from the trees was a view of an old farmhouse. And two vehicles parked out front.

Ethan said, “That’s not Tucker’s car, is it?”

“No. Matthias.”

The car next to Matthias’ was Kalani’s. Empty. Her sister and Sam must have made their way inside. He wondered how far Sam would have pressed her on that first talk. Likely nothing happened. He would probably assume some extremely casual conversation, a few easy questions. Nothing stressful or accusatory yet. Sam had explained it to him on the drive, the process. It began as a way to read a person’s baseline. How their body would move and settle, and how their voice would sound under normal circumstances. The harder question that followed would be the prompts for ‘tells,” little idiosyncratic movements that were not found in the baseline. They would be a clear indication of someone’s heightened stress levels. Pressure points, as Sam would say.

“Well, it’s a nice house,” Ethan said. “Can’t see why Tucker would want to leave it. The scenery, too. Two pretty girls. It would be hard to leave.”

“You better not leave it,” Kalani said, groping his thigh. Ethan squirmed as he cut the engine, knowing he better leave the car before things progressed too far. There was still so much work to be done, and none of it included staying in the car and making out with his island beauty in broad daylight.

He glanced out to one of the large windows at the back of the house, checking for an audience. He was sure they all knew about him and Kalani. They hadn’t done much of a job of hiding the attraction and how that attraction had developed. But surely they’d need to keep at least some sort of professionalism. Admittedly, it was something he hadn’t thought much about. His thought process during the ride across the state line had been Kalani and the things he’d like to do with her. Concern about other people and their perceptions was the furthest thing from his mind. But there in the driveway, seeing the two other cars parked out front of the safe house, reinforced at least a bare minimum of conduct.

She felt it, too. He was sure. It was clear in the disappointment on her face when he reluctantly unfastened the seat belt for the freedom to leave his car, and not for some other, more fun purpose. His decision proved to be a good one as Matthias had just appeared from around the corner of the house. He would have caught them in the act, whatever that act would have likely progressed into. Ethan shook his hand and agreed to a tour while Kalani walked quickly into the house without a word to either of them.

Ethan shrugged at Matthias. “It’s starting to get complicated, huh?”

“Why? Because you’re here?”

“That’s part of it,” Ethan said. “Hopefully just a small part. How’s everything at the training camp?”

“I feel like I have no idea at this point. I’ve been pulled in so many different directions. That’s partly why you’re here, to free up my time so I can go back.”

“Jackson doesn’t want me training there?”

“No. He wants you here.”

Ethan couldn’t decide how happy he should be about that news. Part of him wanted to prove to Jackson that he could be a steadier part of the team, perhaps being accepted into DARC SWAT. That was the part of him that wanted to leave the newspaper business for something a little more challenging. But that adventurist side to him was the same one that wanted Kalani. And that meant staying out of the camp.

Maybe he could do both.

If there was one thing that was almost a certainty, he wouldn’t be doing much investigative reporting in the coming days.

“It’s in here,” Matthias said, walking up to what looked like a crumbling shack. A glorified outhouse.

“What’s in here?” he asked as he followed behind, stepping through the doorway and into the musty interior of the barn. He saw a pottery wheel.

“This pottery wheel,” Matthias said.

“What about it?”

“Nothing.” He leaned over and flipped a switch. The wheel began to turn noisily.

Ethan chuckled and said, “You’re gonna show me how to throw pots?”

“No. I just want to talk to you. The noise helps cover it up.”

“What are we covering it up from?”

“I don’t know,” Matthias said, hunkering down over a chair, sitting backward and leaning his hand above the backrest. His foot began tapping onto the dirt floor. “I don’t know. Microphones, maybe.”

“You’re about as paranoid as Kalani.”

“Is that what happened back there? Paranoia?” Matthias jerked his head toward the door.

“At the garage?”

“Sam gave me an extra-brief rundown.”

“I’m still not sure what that was, or what that cop who pulled us over was trying to do. But it seemed a little off.”

“Well, there’s nothing very normal about this house,” Matthias said.

“Tell me about it.”

“You actually want me to tell you, or was that just a figure of speech?”

“Both.”

“Okay. Well, for starters, the reason why we’re talking in here, next to this humming, is because we may have found some recording instruments in the cellar.”

“May have?”

“Probably have.”

“Shouldn’t we talk in our cars, then? Or out in that field? Or in the woods?”

“That’s another thing. While the girls were gone, I went for a walk. I found footprints all over the place back there. Big footprints with long strides, something a little more than what Kalani and Lea could do. All through the field, mostly in a path through the tall grass. It’s not like some hiking path. This is a recently used line running out into the woods. I didn’t want to go much further until you and Sam got back here. But let’s just say we’re under surveillance.”

“Okay, let’s say that. What can we say about Tucker?”

“I don’t want to say anything about Tucker. I have my worries, but until I have any evidence, they’re just worries. Fears, actually. But the less said about that, the better.”

“I have my fears, too,” Ethan said. “But we need to talk about it. What’s the latest from Jackson?”

“Nothing. No one has any idea.” A strange look came over his face. “Well, maybe someone.”

“Who? Kalani?”

Matthias shook his head.

Ethan said, “Lea. I knew it.”

“No, no, we don’t know anything. Especially you. You haven’t spent any time with her. If anything, you’ve spent time with her sister, so you might be a little . . . confused.”

“About what?”

“Let’s just say influenced.”

“Fine,” Ethan said. “That’s fair. I’m influenced. But Jackson wants me here, so it’s obviously not too much of an influence to be a problem.”

“I don’t want to be rude, but we’re running out of manpower. That’s the reason you’re here.”

“You think that bothers me? I’m the new guy, it’s fine. I mean, if it’s fine enough for Jackson.”

“He’s putting a lot of trust in the new guy.”

Ethan looked at him for a moment. “How much trust do you have?”

“I don’t know you,” Matthias said. “So . . .”

“So not much, huh?”

“You’ll prove me wrong, I’m sure.”

Ethan wasn’t sure how much he wanted to go into things between him and Kalani. He was under the impression that Jackson wanted him there for that reason. Where Matthias saw a conflict of interest, Ethan saw a hidden strength. Kalani, who was undoubtedly being pulled in two different directions, could use a friendly ear. A sounding board. She needed someone to trust. Jackson didn’t have to know about the other needs.

Just as he thought about her, Ethan heard her voice. Her footsteps had been covered up by Matthias’ noise interference. But her voice sang above it. “Hey, guys.”

Ethan saw Matthias’ reaction first, his smile came on genuinely. Ethan instantly thought about how Matthias had been training with her at the camp for the last month. It wasn’t jealousy, but something about that scenario had quickly begun to eat away at him. Matthias had spent a lot of time with her, occasionally one-on-one. It was part of their training, of course. He had no reason to suspect that their relationship went beyond work. That wasn’t the problem. Perhaps it was just that another DARC member had come to know her so well. It was crazy to think about, another DARC guy knowing her better than Ethan did. How could that even be possible?

No, it was simple: In the last few weeks, she and Matthias had actually shared the same physical space. They could have face-to-face interactions, whereas Ethan was stuck with an increasingly tortuous abstract connection. Maybe he’d feel jealous about anyone who had the luxury of spending real time with her.

Kalani’s hand on his shoulder drew Ethan away from his worries. His eyes moved off Matthias as he swung his head around to greet her. But much to his dismay, she had already moved away from him. Somehow he was expecting her to slide on over to him and perhaps curl onto his lap as if she were his official girlfriend. As if the burgeoning relationship was not marred by conflict of interest. Instead, she had walked over to the pottery wheel. He settled for the view of her bending over to turn it off.

“What are you guys doing?” she said. “Pottery lessons?”

Matthias was staring and grinning at Ethan, his eyebrows arched up as if to say, “She’s your girl. You lie to her.”

She kept going. “You wouldn’t happen to be trying to hide from us? Trying to hide your conversation, maybe?”

“I don’t know about that,” Matthias said. “Could you hear anything?”

“I heard lots,” she said, grinning back to Ethan as his mind raced back through the conversation. He tried to retrace it back to the beginning, wondering what and how much he’d let out about her.

“Did you hear anything interesting?” Matthias asked. His eyes darted back to Ethan. He was becoming a pest.

“It was just shop talk,” she said. “Wasn’t it? Just boring shop talk?”

“That’s exactly what it was,” Ethan said.

In the silence of the deactivated pottery wheel, he could hear another set of voices wafting into the barn. Matthias stood up, suddenly looking uncomfortable and out of place just after he’d seemed so calm and cool. Ethan could only presume it was the effect that Lea had on him. He wasn’t alone in the response. Even Kalani stiffened as her sister said something casual about dinner.

Food was the last thing on Ethan’s mind. And he assumed the same for the rest of the DARC team. There were so many unanswered questions floating in the air, so many worries about all the different types of reasons why Tucker would be missing dinner. And possibly missing every other dinner.

“So, what are we saying?” Lea said to her silent crowd. “Dinner? Sound good?”

Ethan knew it wouldn’t be helpful to be so biased, but he couldn’t help a certain crawly feeling at his spine when Kalani’s sister spoke. Through the silence of Matthias and Kalani, he could tell it was a shared response. Could Lea herself realize it? She must have. Maybe they’d all be better off waiting for Sam’s assessment. The human lie detector. The personality machine. He was in the barn, too, having come late and quietly, slinking around near the front. He finally spoke up to break the awkward silence: “Dinner sounds great, Lea.”

* * *

He had been attached to her at the hip. Finally, something for Ethan to properly be jealous about, since it was even more obvious than Ethan’s shadowing of Kalani. It felt somewhat ironic that Sam’s shadowing was done in the name of the mission, while Ethan’s was for the opposite reason. Their mission was not aligned with DARC objectives. Ethan was determined to change that. It would be so much simpler and easier if they could work together at the big picture—their shared interpersonal big picture, as well as the greater good: the safety of Tucker and the rest of the world from the growing threat of the Blackwoods paramilitary.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Kalani said to him, right in front of everyone at the dinner table.

Ethan concocted a lie about the architecture of the house that would have made a human lie detector out of even Matthias. A second later, the whole table groaned with palpable disgust.

“We know you’re a nerd,” Matthias said. “But come on. Be an honest nerd.”

Ethan looked at Sam, who gave him a sad little nod. He had been sufficiently called out by the whole table. He cleared his throat and said, “Well, you’d rather me bring everyone down by bringing up Tucker again?”

That was a bit of a lie, too. Though thoughts of Tucker’s disappearance were at least connected to his main chain of thoughts: making sure that Kalani wouldn’t fall victim to the same fate. That had become his goal. His story.

“I’m also worried about my paper,” he told the table. “It’ll be pretty hard to concentrate on this drug-supply story, even if it’s connected to the Khan shipping company. I’d almost rather the story just goes away at this point. Even my job, if it means that we find Tucker and we can all just safely move on.”

“No one will be moving anywhere until the trial,” Lea said. Despite asking for an early dinner, she’d barely touched her food. For some reason, she’d spent the better portion of it cross-armed at the table. “Especially me, moving from here. As you can guess, I haven’t quite adapted as well as my sister.”

“That’s because I actually try to do things outside the house,” Kalani said, scanning the faces of the DARC men. “I mean, the things I can do safely.”

“You can’t get much safer than shooting guns off with a bunch of SWAT recruits,” Matthias said.

Lea had been frowning the whole time. “I was told to stay here and keep a low profile. I was told I’d be safe.”

“You are safe,” Matthias said.

“What about Tucker?” Lea said. “Was he safe?”

An awkward hush came over the table. Ethan picked up on Kalani’s disdain, her glare searing into Lea.

“We still don’t know where he is, do we? That makes me nervous. I thought everything was supposed to be clear-cut and simple and safe. That was what Jackson promised, but instead it’s just been one giant shit-show. We’ve got disappearances, threats.”

Ethan said, “Threats? What kind of threats?”

“Yeah,” Kalani chimed in. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t feel threatened today?” she said to her sister. “At the shop. What was that? You were freaked out like I’ve never seen before.”

“I wasn’t going to bring it up,” Kalani said, looking down at her plate.

Matthias put down his cutlery. “Maybe you should.”

“It was nothing,” she said. “I think that’s obvious now.”

“Maybe not,” Ethan said.

“I just had a bad feeling about it. The way we got locked in there.”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about that,” Ethan said, looking to Matthias. “Right? I mean, I’m proposing that you don’t go anywhere alone again.”

“What?” Kalani turned to him with surprise on her face, an almost-hurt type of surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I think the DARC guys would agree with me that you need . . . that both of you need an escort from here on out.”

“I agree,” Matthias said. “I’m sure Jackson does, too.”

“Great,” Lea said. “Now we’re prisoners inside the place and out.” She finally made a move to her dinner, reaching for a drink of wine.

“It’s just temporary,” Mathias said.

“Yeah, right. For as long as this damn investigation goes. We could both be dead of natural causes by then.”

“It’s a necessary precaution that we’ll have to take, at least until we figure out what happened to Tucker. And until we know you’re safe here.”

“Why don’t you just move us?” Kalani said. “I know you’re joking about the training ground, but surely there’s somewhere else we could go.”

“I don’t see the point in that,” Lea said coldly. “It’ll just follow us wherever we go, just like it always has.”

“That’s sounding a little defeatist,” Kalani said.

“Oh? Well, this shit followed us across the Pacific Ocean, I don’t think it’ll have trouble finding us in the next county.”

The table stayed quiet until a minute later, when Lea opened her mouth again with, “More wine, anyone?”