Sophia draped the dishcloth over the faucet to dry before reaching for the hand towel Blayze held out for her. “Thanks,” she mumbled.

The place had gone from loud and buzzing to crickets chirping as soon as their chef-for-the-day took his exit. Roman, who —in his words—took pride in feeding the tribe— had marched off to the pond again, fishing pole and tackle in hand, hoping to score a few more fish for tonight’s dinner. Leaving she and Blayze to themselves once more.

They’d done the dishes without even the appearance of small talk. Sophia had been wrapped too deeply in her own head. Recalling the kiss they’d shared in that very spot the other night. Only this time she looked back on it differently. Scrutinizing each move for a distinction between lust and love.

Which was foolish. Could love really be an option so soon?

“About those leads,” Blayze said, breaking into the quiet. “I can go over those with you now, if you’d like.”

Sophia hung the hand towel back in its place at the oven. “Sure,” she said. “That’d be great.”

Blayze snatched the iPad off the counter and headed into the family room, taking a seat on the couch by the fireplace.

Instead of snuggling up beside Blayze, Sophia opted to sit across from him on the coffee table.

“Okay,” he started, “we were able to narrow it down to half-a-dozen suspects who had three things in common.

“One, they lost all their money due to their conviction. And two, they expressed a specific frustration that your father let their case go to trial. In other words, they blamed him. Most people are angry at witnesses, judges, heck—even their own lawyer for not defending them well enough. So, this was a pretty small field, which is a good thing.”

“Okay,” Sophia urged.

“The third is timeframe. Anywhere from the time your father got into the DA’s office and the day of your mother’s death.”

Sophia nodded, already trying to picture what the half-dozen faces might look like.

“I flushed out some important details on each,” Blayze continued, “and cut that number in half, leaving us with what I believe are the three most likely suspects.”

“How’d you do that?” she asked. “Let me guess… your mind maps?”

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Yep. Fail-proof method. I’ve already asked our tracking team to find out where they are now, and what they’ve been doing over the last few years.” He tapped at the iPad screen until an image came up. A mug shot of an older man with thinning hair. “This guy’s name is Leo Smalls. He was prosecuted for insurance fraud.”

Sophia tested the sound of his name in her mind. Could he be the one who ran her mother off the road that day?

“What stands out most about this guy are the dates,” Blayze said. “Mr. Smalls was sentenced to twenty-four months in prison shortly after your father got put into office. Smalls ended up serving a little over seventeen months, which put him out of jail two days before your mother’s death. We can’t find any other connection between him and your father, besides the letter of complaint, but the dates are just too suspicious to ignore. Also, the guy’s kind of a loner. No wife or kids. I imagine he lost some of his rich friends in everything. People are more likely to do crazy things when they don’t have someone in their lives to ground them, you know?”

“That makes sense,” she said with a nod. “So, Leo Smalls. Who else?” Sophia didn’t know what she expected to feel, but she couldn’t help but think she’d have some sort of inner reaction to seeing her mother’s killer. As if she’d know him when she saw him.

“Next we have Dr. Shawn Hernandez. He’s a plastic surgeon who was convicted of malpractice following a class action lawsuit. The women claimed he’d left scarring during an assortment of surgeries. It was too small a group to allow for a class action, but your father reviewed it, determined it should go to trial, and the doctor was later found guilty.

“Hernandez lost everything, including his right to practice. The time frame fits with this guy, but what makes him more suspect is the fact that his wife, who’s a good twenty years younger, later wrote a seething letter to your father. She said she expected your father to protect someone of similar heritage, and that a case like his should never have made it past the DA. In this case, I suspect the wife as much as I do the doctor himself.”

The idea of the hostile being a woman didn’t sit right with Sophia. She studied Dr. Hernandez’s photo. Kind eyes, round face, and a bulbous nose that made the man—though he was most likely in his fifties—look childlike.

“Okay,” Sophia said, her stomach growing sick. “So, who’s the last guy?”

Blayze swiped the screen and turned to her, a determined look in his eyes. “This guy raises more red flags than all of them.”

Sophia leaned her elbows on her thighs to close the gap, taking in the face on the screen. A man in his early forties, maybe. Pale skin. Dark hair. Clean shaven. Light green eyes. Eyes that almost looked familiar.

“Charles Locklear. This guy was filthy rich. He had a massive home in L.A., in addition to several elite cars, a private helicopter with a license to fly, and a dozen vacation homes. He was found guilty of fraud.

“Basically, he would create false hype over a specific stock. The value would rise with the artificial demand, and then Charles would hurry and sell his stock while the value was high. At some point, the new stockholder would find out they hadn’t made a good investment after all. Anyway—here’s the kicker—he was a big supporter of your father.”

Sophia lifted a brow. The photo, though it was obviously a mug shot, looked like the face of a man she’d seen at one of her father’s parties. “Does he have a family?”

Blayze nodded. “A wife and two sons. He made a practice of rubbing shoulders with the wealthy. When people in his circle lost big on the stock he suggested, he’d say he had an error in judgment and that he lost too. They were rich, they liked the guy, and he was big on donating to their causes. That’s why he pulled it off for so long.”

“Huh,” she said, giving that some thought. “So, do you think he and my father were friends?”

“Your dad said they weren’t any closer than a lot of his supporters. The guy was a real schmoozer, the friends-with-everyone type.”

“But if he invested in my father in order to get him in the district attorney’s office,” Sophia said as it linked together, “then he might have sensed somebody was on to him. He was probably counting on my father to repay a favor by dismissing his case before it got to trial.”

Blayze nodded. “Exactly. But here’s the most chilling part. His parole date was set for a week before your mother’s death.”

Sophia threw a hand over her mouth, her heart pounding out a sickened beat as she took in the man’s face on the screen. “That’s got to be him.”

“A lot of times prisoners are released prior to their parole dates, so we’ll have to investigate that further. But at this point he’s my prime suspect. My guys are trying to locate these men now, get an update on where they’re living, working, that type of thing. That alone could narrow this down even further. If all three leads go cold we’ll go back to the other three and take a closer look at them.”

“Wow,” she said, her head getting light suddenly. “Sounds like you’ve really got some solid leads then… that’s good.” A thick bout of nausea rolled through her stomach as she stood up from her spot at the coffee table. “Thanks for going over those with me,” she managed.

“Wait, are you okay?” Blayze’s voice, though drenched in concern, sounded a million miles away as she circled the couch. He was at her side in a blink, one arm around her back, the other cradling an elbow.

“I’m fine,” she assured. “I’m just… going to take a bath now.” She hurried toward the hallway with numb legs and tingly, half-asleep feet. Perhaps the warm water would counter the chill in her blood. Thoughts of a man out for revenge. Driving her mother off the road. Something she still hadn’t let herself accept was hitting her in the gut like a sucker punch. Perhaps she was a sucker for thinking that—maybe, despite the threats—it’d only been an accident after all. But seeing those faces, hearing Blayze talk about each guy and their past… all of it made the situation more real than it’d been the day before.

That, coupled with the new doubts in her head about Blayze’s feelings for her, and Sophia suddenly felt very far from solid ground.

Once the water was running, loud enough to cover up the sound, Sophia dropped to her knees and let the tears flow too, giving in to the longing ache in her heart. I miss you so much, Mom.

* * *

Dread. Blayze couldn’t remember being gripped by such an overwhelming amount of it. And he’d had a lot to dread over his lifetime. Everything from torturous training, firefights, and even his mother’s prognosis. But there was something about this situation that wrecked him in an entirely new way. Perhaps he thought—before this case came along—that he’d made it through the more difficult parts of his life. That he could exhale for a while. But as he thought of Sophia Vasco, the sensational woman she was, he couldn’t take the idea of seeing her harmed.

He pulled his elbows onto the railing along the deck where he faced the great span of redwoods. Mighty and tall, like an army of its own. Managing to shade the bulk of the patio, despite the sun’s best efforts to peek through the thick leaves and woven, bark-covered branches. He breathed in the crisp aroma, hoping to distract himself if only for a moment.

If he looked over his shoulder, he’d see Sophia sitting up to the table, practicing her speech on Roman. As it was he could hear her, combatting all the things her father’s opponent had claimed.

Blayze didn’t dare speak it aloud yet, but he wanted to put his foot down about the upcoming speech. The one he’d promised to not interfere with back on day one. He’d have to be sneaky about it, talk to her father and Roman and get them on board, something he’d been contemplating from the moment she’d started rehearsing her speech that morning. Eight hours later and Blayze was still chomping at the bit.

A buzz came to his phone, filling his mind with ideas of what new tidbit awaited them. Part of Blayze hoped it was another threat. Something over the top. Something that made Sophia want to stay under cover until they found this guy. Yet, even as he thought it, a rash of guilt struck him. Selfish. That’s what he was. No better than Emily when she’d tried to get him to stay behind. But who could blame her? More than any time in his life he understood where the woman was coming from.

Blayze shook off the thought and looked down at the phone in his hand. Let’s see what we’ve got. Just one text from Zane. Not only was Zane Sutton’s lead investigator, he’d served with him in the Navy SEALs. Deskwork wasn’t at the top of his list, but the guy could track details down like a bloodhound.

Bad news. Charles Locklear has been dead for over three years. He hung himself in prison the night he arrived. My guy didn’t spot it at first since the man’s got the same name as his father who’s still living. Don’t give me crap for it —I’ve been on another job. Hate to say back to the drawing board, but…

A curse fell from his lips. Blayze wanted to take the phone, crush it against the log railing, and watch it shatter into a million tiny pieces. Instead, he gave a nearby cooler a good hard kick. The thing tumbled over the porch with a loud clatter before slamming into a stack of chopped logs.

“What’s going on out there?” Roman appeared at the doorway, shock on his face as he drew his gun.

“Nothing,” Blayze mumbled, heading back to the house. “I just… got some crummy news.”

Roman stepped aside, allowing Blayze to enter first as he eyed the upturned cooler.

Sophia had come to a stand, a stack of papers resting before her on the table. “What’s wrong?”

Blayze handed over the phone, too frustrated to even speak it. Roman hurried over to Sophia’s side while she read it aloud. “…has been dead for three years?” she mumbled through the rest, shaking her head in frustration. “I really felt like it was him.”

She pressed the phone back into his hand, a foreign look of hopelessness falling over her face. “I just want to know who we’re dealing with,” she said.

“Me too,” Blayze assured, walking around the table. Inwardly, he was hoping to steal away for some quality time with the punching bag downstairs. He had more steam to blow off than he knew what to do with. “I hate to ask this…” he dared himself to say, but Sophia was quick to catch on.

“Nope,” she blurted. “I’m not even considering it, Blayze, so you can just stop it right there.”

Another curse tore from his lips, this one not as quiet as the first. “Sophia, I’m trying to keep you alive here.”

“And I’m trying to do something important!” She shoved her chair back, eyes flaring. “You didn’t like it when your ex-girlfriend tried to stop you from going overseas, did you?”

They stayed in a heated lock, the statement bringing something very real to the table. Something they hadn’t spoken about since the other night. But her comparison to his past romantic relationship assured him that those kisses meant more to her than just a fling to curb the loneliness. He and Sophia had something much deeper, and they both knew it.

He glanced at Roman. “Can I get a little help here?”

“Don’t look to him on this one. He respects me. He knows that this matters. The way your service for our country matters. This is my way of serving. Of exercising my freedom to making this country an even better place.” Light glistened in her brown eyes as they filled with tears, but still she kept them fixed on him.

Blayze remained frozen under her gaze, his heart thundering as she aimed a pointed finger at him, her bottom lip quivering. “If you talk to my father behind my back and try to take this from me…” She shook her head, turned to Roman, and then darted toward the open French doors.

Roman followed after her. “I’ve got this.”

Blayze checked through the blinds to see that he’d caught up with her, rage and fear clashing within him like angry ring horned rams. If he had that hostile in the room with him right then, Blayze couldn’t assure he’d do his duty of turning him over to the authorities. He’d likely beat the guy to death instead. A thought that pained him even more.

In two days he and Roman would have to take Sophia back to the city, walk her up to a bomb-ridden pulpit and let her leave her mark on the world. He barreled down the stairs, made his way to the punching bag after all, and went off on it. One hit after the next.

He was getting out of control, like his father. Tempted to give in to his passions. Heck, it had taken everything in him to stop what he’d started with Sophia by the kitchen sink the other day. He’d been almost positive—for just a moment—that Sophia would suggest they take things into the bedroom. If she had, Blayze would’ve likely done that very thing. His urges were becoming harder to resist, and the temptation to get Mr. Vasco on his side about the upcoming speech was pushing him to new limits.

But he’d resist. He had to. He respected Sophia too much to do otherwise. The resolution caused his fists to tighten as he pounded the bag.

It was no secret that Sophia would show up at this final event. Her father had made prior arrangements, asked the event planner to keep her name off the agenda so others wouldn’t know she’d be there. But he would likely know. The one who’d been threatening her since her father announced his second candidacy.

That thought planted something in his mind. A seed so sliver-small, he couldn’t exactly grasp onto it. But as he pounded the hefty, leather-coated bag, one angry fist after the next, Blayze sensed another piece of the puzzle starting to surface.