Chapter One

Jaxon

I’m six and a half miles into a ten mile run when the car pulls up alongside me, the window already lowered. Experience has taught me to be cautious in situations like this, and even though I hate to break stride, I’ve made enough enemies over the years to justify it. I pull up to make a rapid assessment of exactly what’s going on, before picking the pace up again and pushing on. From the old guy in the driver’s seat, I hear my name being called into the wind.

A moment later he’s alongside me again.

“What do you want?” I ask, glancing him over again. Everything about him shouts money, from the immaculate car to the expensive suit. He looks like government, but they usually come in twos.

“I came to talk to you about Ruby Anderson”, he says, and the name makes my heart skip a beat. I haven’t heard that name come from anyone else’s mouth but my own for almost five years. “I’m her father”, he says, and I pull up so sharply I almost twist my ankle.

***

“How did you find me?”

The photo he’s brought of Ruby stares out at me from the coffee table. The same incredible smile, those eyes I lost myself in when I promised I wouldn’t, that knockout body. A little older, taken at a time when we were no longer together, but the same image I’ve got indelibly marked on the inside of my brain whenever I close my eyes. I want to stare at her picture for hours and remember that incredible time we had together, and I want to forget all about her at the same time, because I’ve spent the last five years trying to do just that. I look at the photo one last time and hand it back to him.

“I’m police”, Ruby’s dad explains, sliding the photo into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Or I was. I still have contacts in a lot of places. Some people owed me favors, here I am.”

“I haven’t seen Ruby for almost five years”, I say. “If you’re trying to find her, I don’t know where she is.”

“Ruby’s in trouble”, he says solemnly. “Serious trouble.”

Why doesn’t that statement surprise me? Ruby Anderson could never stay away from it, as though trouble sucked her in like a magnet. What I mistook for the clothes of a corporate professional, turned out to be the wardrobe of an investigative journalist hell bent on changing the world. My job was dangerous, but at least I got to carry a gun I was trained to use, Ruby went into battle with a pen and a moleskine notebook.

“I don’t know how I can...”, I begin. I don’t even know how he knew how to come to me. Ruby and I were together for less than two months, and she never introduced me to her parents.

“You have a special set of skills, Jaxon”, he says.

“Had”, I point out. “I don’t do that anymore.”

I don’t like the way this is going.

He takes out another photo, this one a lot more blurry. It’s hard to make anything out, beyond what looks like a heavily guarded vehicle, perhaps someone being bundled into it. “She’s in Mexico”, he says, jabbing the photo. “They’re holding her hostage.”

I look up to him and back to the photo. Eventually I hand it back to him. “Go to the police again”, I suggest, ignoring that pull of guilt in my gut. “I can’t help you.”

“The police won’t do anything”, he says. “You know that as well as I do.”

“This isn’t my job anymore”, I say. “You need to find someone else.”

“There’s no one else like you”, he says, “anywhere. Plus, you know Ruby.”

“I knew Ruby”, I correct him, “and that’s all the more reason why I’m not going to do it. You’re wasting your time here.”

“They told me about what happened”, he says, as though admitting to a secret he shouldn’t be in charge of in the first place. “It wasn’t your fault.”

The last thing I need is a complete stranger telling me I’ve got no reason to feel guilty because two people died and I did nothing wrong. “I think we’re done here”, I say, making it clear I want him to leave.

“Please, Jaxon”, he says, his hand on my arm briefly. “I can pay you. There’s no one else who can do this.”

I could do without the tears rolling down his cheek, and I could do without this being Ruby. I don’t care about the money, I do care about what it might mean seeing her again. After that fucked up extraction in Iran, that I’ve spent the last two years trying to deal with, there’s hardly anything in the world that could make me put other people’s lives at risk again, no matter how capable I am of doing the job. The problem is Ruby might be the only girl who’s worth that kind of risk, and I might be the only person who can get her back to the States. Getting her back into my bed would be a bonus, but that would have to qualify as the world’s most unusual pick up tactic.

“They’ll kill her if we don’t pull her out”, he goes on somberly, as if I need the ultimatum.

I promised I’d never set foot on another mission again, either government or privately contracted. I’m as sharp as ever and arguably in the shape of my life, but I’m still nowhere near getting over what happened and after two years out of the game I’m not exactly bursting over with recent experience. This is Ruby as well, the one girl who somehow got away, and the last person in the world I’d want to lose twice, which makes this whole thing even more impossible to walk away from.

“What intel do you have anyway?” I ask. “What makes you think this is a legitimate kidnapping?” I don’t want to say it, but the professional, emotionless, trained to compartmentalize part of me is thinking, how do you know she’s not already dead?

“Thank you”, he says sincerely while he wipes tears away from his cheek.

“Just tell me what you know”, I say, settling back down into the couch again, nothing about any of where this is going giving me a good feeling. “Tell me everything you know, and I’ll see what I can do to help you.”