Locked, Loaded And Sealed. Carol Ericson

you think I was just dropping in on my old friend Dr. Fazal?”

      Her nose stung with tears and she squeezed her eyes shut. “He was my friend...and so much more.”

      He dropped his hand where it lay like a weight on her shoulder. “Do you want me to take you home?”

      “Will I be safe there?”

      “I’m staying with you—for now.”

      She studied his strong, handsome face, and the question echoed in her head. Will I be safe there?

      He blinked. “I’ll keep watch over you.”

      Sighing, she hoisted herself off the car. “I suppose I don’t have much choice. I have to go home at some point, might as well be now.”

      When they got back into the car, Austin turned to her. “You can call the Boston PD right now and let them know you feel threatened—that you think you’re being followed. They might step up patrols around your house.”

      She chewed her bottom lip and traced the scratches on her palm. Have this navy SEAL, who’d already taken out a guy with a gun, watching over her or the Boston PD, who’d made her life a living hell when she was a teen—easy choice.

      “Let’s see how it goes before I call in the big guns.”

      Austin started the car. “Where to? I know you live in Jamaica Plain, but I don’t know how to get there without a GPS.”

      “Back across the bridge. I’ll be the GPS.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Should I look out for a tail?”

      “I think I solved the problem, but it’s not a bad idea.”

      She called out directions as she shifted her attention between the side mirror and the mirror on the visor, watching for headlights and suspicious cars.

      Her life growing up had hardly been rainbows and unicorns, but it had just shifted into a strange kind of nightmare that didn’t quite seem real. And the man next to her? The most unreal part of it all. He’d literally popped up in the backseat of her car, spouting crazy theories and scaring the spit out of her.

      She slid a gaze at his profile. Pretty much everything that had happened tonight, except for Dr. Fazal’s murder, had originated with this man.

      Yes, she’d seen the stranger with the gun, but had never seen that gun pointed at her. Maybe he was a cop trying to rescue her from Austin. Of course, he had run away, too.

      The tracking device on her car? That could’ve been anything. What did she know about tracking devices?

      If Austin had never appeared in her rearview mirror, would she be home snug in her bed, oblivious of gun-wielding assailants and bugged cars? She scooted closer to the door and leaned her head against the cool glass of the window.

      With or without Austin, she still couldn’t escape the reality of Dr. Fazal’s death. He’d seen so much in his life but had gotten to a place where he could appreciate the simple pleasures...and he’d been teaching her to do the same.

      A sob escaped her lips and fogged the glass of the window.

      Austin touched her knee. “Are you thinking about Dr. Fazal? He was a good man—honorable, courageous. We were both lucky to have known him.”

      The sincere tone of Austin’s voice washed over her like a soothing balm, and a tear welled up in one eye. Only Dr. Fazal had been able to make her cry. Now if she let herself go, she’d never stop—and she already knew tears did nothing but signal your weakness to the world.

      She clenched her teeth and dragged in a breath through her nose. Rubbing the condensation from the window with her fist, she said, “He was a great guy...and I’m going to have to find another job.”

      She could feel Austin’s gaze boring into her, and then he removed his hand from her knee.

      She tossed back her hair. Let him think she was a cold bitch. She’d opened herself to Dr. Fazal and he’d left her...just like everyone else had. Not that it was his fault. He never would’ve abandoned her.

      “Next?”

      “What?”

      “Right or left?”

      She jerked her head up. She hadn’t even been checking the mirrors. She bolted up and grabbed the visor.

      “It’s okay. I’ve been watching.”

      “Left.”

      She trapped her cold hands between her knees and took a deep breath. “Why are you here? You were responsible for getting Dr. Fazal out of Pakistan and, what? You kept tabs on him?”

      “Me personally? No.” He cranked up the heat in the car. “US intelligence? Yes.”

      “CIA?”

      “Sort of. There are intelligence organizations under the umbrella of the CIA that are deep undercover.”

      “You work for one of these organizations?”

      “I’m a United States Navy SEAL.”

      “But one of these organizations contacted you, right?”

      He nodded once.

      She hunched forward, stretching her fingers out toward the warm air seeping from the vent. “Are you revealing too much? You’re not going to have to kill me now, are you?”

      He raised one eyebrow without cracking a smile at her clichéd joke. “You’re in the middle of this. You deserve to know.”

      “Am I? In the middle of this?”

      “Fazal’s killers put a tracking device on your car and tried to pull a gun on you. What do you think?”

      The warm air blowing from the vent couldn’t melt the chill stealing across her body. She snuggled into Austin’s jacket and the comforting scent from its folds. “I think I’m in the middle of it. These intelligence agencies must’ve known Dr. Fazal was in danger since you showed up at the precise time he was murdered.”

      Austin’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I failed him.”

      “Had you been watching him?”

      “I just got to Boston this morning. I read the file on the plane. I read about you, your job, your car, even your address.”

      Checking the mirrors again, she slumped in her seat. “So much for privacy.”

      Her paranoia about authority hadn’t been misplaced all those years. They really were out to get her. Did Austin also know about her messed-up past?

      He snorted. “There is no privacy.”

      “You knew all that, but you hadn’t seen Dr. Fazal yet?”

      “I showed up at the office building minutes after the first responders did. Then I located your car in the parking structure and waited for you.”

      “You were supposed to protect Dr. Fazal?”

      “I was.” His jaw formed a hard line.

      “Those intelligence organizations don’t sound very intelligent. They should’ve called you in sooner. You could’ve done something then.”

      She didn’t know why she wanted to make this supremely confident man feel better. Maybe it was the clenched jaw showing that he was human after all. He clearly felt as if he’d failed Dr. Fazal—and she knew all too well what failure felt like.

      “Maybe. Or maybe his killers made their move today because they knew we were on to them.”

      “Who are they? Who killed Dr. Fazal?” She tapped on the window. “Turn right.”

      “It depends on the motive. If it was revenge for working with us to capture the terrorist we’d been tracking, then we know