The Heart of a Renegade

Luke hadn’t said a word since they’d hit this dangerous stretch of road, but Jessica could sense the anger rolling off him in waves. She felt absolutely terrible that he’d lost his house. She was especially torn by the destruction of those haunting black-and-white images that had graced his walls.

“Luke, I really am sorry for the loss of your home,” she said, unable to stop herself.

His hands tightened on the wheel. “Don’t be,” he said. “Not your fault.”

“It is my fault. If it wasn’t for me, Stephanie and Giles would be alive, you’d still have your—”

“You’re thinking like a victim, Jess.” His voice was clipped. “You did nothing to deserve this.”

“Well, neither did you. So I am sorry.”

A muscle began to pulse at his jawline. “Quit apologizing. I told you, it’s my job.”

“It was also your home, Luke.”

His eyes cut to hers. “Forget about it, okay? It was just stuff. You don’t get to put down roots in my business. You don’t get attached to stuff.” He blew out a breath. “Look, Jess, it was a mistake to accumulate what I had. Mistakes happen when you get complacent. This was simply a wake-up call. That’s all.”

Jessica had a sense Luke was anything but complacent. And something about his home told her he did care about what was in it. She trusted her instincts. They’d given her many a scoop in the past.

“How long had you been living there, Luke?” she asked quietly.

“Long enough.”

“So why did you come to Vancouver?”

He remained silent.

She shifted in her seat to face him. “Look, if you just spit it out and tell me who I’m dealing with here, then I’ll leave you alone, okay?”

Again, his silence was almost threatening.

“If you were in my shoes, Luke, you’d ask. You’d need to know.”

“Fair enough,” he said, glancing at her. “The FDS sent me here to establish a small satellite office for gathering Pacific Rim intelligence, specifically on Asian criminal networks that collude with terrorists.”

“I thought you said your company was a private military company.”

“It is. PMCs are moving increasingly into the intelligence field. Clients demand this service.”

“Why Vancouver?”

“That should be obvious—it’s a major port city on the Pacific Rim with a significant Asian population and it’s an easy entry point to the United States.”

“You’re gathering this intelligence yourself?”

“My job is—was,” he corrected, “to get a handle on the key players behind the local tongs and triads and to determine what sort of new businesses they’re moving into. Traditionally it’s been heroin, gambling, extortion, black-market weapons, human trafficking and business and banking fraud. However, the syndicates are moving into increasingly sophisticated corporate espionage and, along with military hardware components, they’re now trafficking in biological and chemical components. I was supposed to assess which groups have the potential to become real political problems.”

“Are the Dragon Heads part of this?”

“The Dragon Heads Triad is at the top of my list. They’re one of the primary reasons I’m here. They’ve been aggressively acquiring territory around the world by usurping long-established gangs and networks. They infiltrate the rival tong or triad, then assassinate the leaders and govern by a code of terror. Anyone who steps out of line is killed as a warning.”

“You say this was your job?”

He snorted. “I suspect I’m going to have trouble fulfilling those functions now that I’m on the Dragon Heads hit list.”

Jessica’s stomach twisted. This just kept getting worse. “What makes you a specialist in this area, Luke?”

“Let’s just say I’ve had some…personal experience with triads.”

She thought about the scars on his back. “Is that why they sent you to pick me up?”

“No, Jess. I was the only mutt available. I just happen to also have significant close-protection experience.”

“Luke?”

He glanced at her again. “What?”

“I heard you say on the phone that you’d refused to do bodyguard gigs for this company of yours.”

“Yes.”

“Did…something happen on a job? Back in Australia?”

His energy shifted perceptibly. “Does this kind of interrogation come naturally from being an investigative journalist, Jessica, or were you just born nosy?”

She smiled in spite of herself. “I get the message. You don’t want to talk about yourself.”

“Right.”

She leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes, fatigue starting to consume her again as the adrenaline wore off. “But I will tell you one thing about me, Luke Stone,” she said softly through closed eyes. “In the end I always get the information I want.”

Luke felt a smile tug at his lips. She’d just issued him a challenge, almost playful in spite of the situation. It awakened something in him. Something that felt very, very foreign.

“That dogged curiosity is exactly what got you in trouble in the first place, Jessica Chan,” he said. “A lesser person would have given up after what you’d been through.”

Like he had.

She opened one eye. “Was that a compliment, Stone?”

“Just a statement of fact, Jess.”

“You do realize you’ve been calling me ‘Jess’ from the moment I met you? Is that an Australian thing or were you just born irreverent?”

He chuckled softly, caught off guard. He liked this woman. She had a way of opening him up. But that was exactly the problem with her. It made her dangerous to him, because Luke didn’t want to go back to being the man he once was. He didn’t want to open himself to emotion.

She closed her eyes again. “Your laugh almost makes you sound friendly,” she murmured.

“Me?”

“Comes as a shock, does it, Stone?”

It did, actually. He didn’t think of himself that way—as nice. Mostly he tried to avoid people. A bluntness bordering on rude usually did the job. His aggressive physical appearance took care of the rest.

He stole a quick look at her.

She’d fallen asleep, lashes dark on pale cheeks, her exhalations soft. An odd feeling quirked through his chest as he looked at her.

Luke returned his focus to the road. The wind was increasing, small flakes of snow were once again hitting the windshield as they drove into the brunt of the new storm.

But while the weather was foul outside, listening to her sleeping next to him felt warm, intimate, and Luke couldn’t help thinking about what she’d just said.

Friendly? Him?

He felt his lips twitching into a smile. The idea was amusing, strange, like the taste of something new.

Didn’t taste too hellish, either.

As they neared Furry Creek, driving snow was settling alarmingly fast on the road. A sedan in front of them skidded sideways, slumping nose first into a ditch at the base of a rock face held back with wire, red taillights upended. Luke glanced at Jessica. She was still fast asleep.

He looked up into the rearview mirror. A vehicle behind him was stopping to aid the driver. Luke kept driving. It was safer to avoid stopping. Stopping might mean engaging police.

But less than one minute later, he saw it was futile. Up ahead lay a police roadblock, luminous pink flares lining the road where Mounties in reflective gear waved certain vehicles off the road with flashlights.

He cursed, wondering what they were looking for. They shouldn’t have an ID on him personally, and he’d changed plates. The RCMP out here also would not likely know about Jessica’s link to the murder of Stephanie Ward—that was Vancouver P.D. jurisdiction.

As they hit a bump, Jessica woke, rubbed her face, then sat bolt upright. “A roadblock? They’re looking for us. Turn around, Luke.”

“We can’t. Not without being obvious.” His brain ticked over fast as they approached. “Jess,” he said urgently. “You never told me how the Triad knew you had taken those photos in the first place.”

“I don’t know! I told only the RCMP. That very same night, my apartment was ransacked.” She ran a hand through her hair, then looked at him. “Luke, they must have had an informant in the police.”

He had to think fast. “Don’t say anything,” he said, eyes fixed on the roadblock ahead. “Pretend you’re still asleep, put that hat on, turn your face away.” Luke slowed the vehicle as he lowered the window. A gust of flakes swirled into the warm interior.

A cop walked over, bent down, a layer of snow thick on the peak of his hat. “Good morning, sir,” he said as he directed his flashlight at Luke, then panned over to Jessica.

Chapter 5

“Is there a problem, Officer?” Luke asked.

“We’re doing a vehicle check, sir, not permitting anyone through without proper snow tires and chains. There’s heavy weather ahead. Road north of Pemberton is closed due to an avalanche and we’re expecting worse over the next seventy-two hours.”

“We’re equipped.”

“Where are you headed, sir?”

Luke frowned inwardly. This wasn’t standard. “Only as far as Squamish,” he lied.

“Can I see your license, please?”

Luke offered one with an alias. The officer went back to his vehicle to check it.

Luke sat calmly. The false ID would hold, but he didn’t like the fact it was being checked at all. The cop returned, did a walk around the vehicle, noting tires.

“You carrying chains, sir?”

“Yes, like I said, we’re equipped.”

The cop handed the license back. “There’s no guarantee the road will stay open north of Squamish if the weather worsens.”

“As I said, officer, we’re not going that far.”

The cop nodded. “Have a good day, then, sir.” He stepped back and waved another car over behind them.

Luke edged his vehicle forward, tires slipping slightly.

“Thank God,” Jessica whispered as she sat up. “I thought they were hunting for us.”

“They are. They just haven’t connected the dots yet.”

Moisture filled her eyes and she looked away quickly. Luke’s heart punched. He placed his hand on her knee. “It’s okay, Jess. We’ll get you through this.”

He had no business making promises he might not be able to keep. But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to try and make her feel better.

“Thank you,” she whispered, barely audibly, covering his hand lightly with hers. Electricity sparked through Luke’s arm at the contact. Shocked, he withdrew his hand instantly. His tires were slipping, he needed both hands on the wheel, full attention on the road ahead.

Dawn arrived in pale monochromatic grays, a diaphanous curtain of snowflakes separating from the dark underbellies of clouds that socked low over the mountains. All around them granite cliffs were fringed with ridges of conifers that speared aggressively into the sky.

Luke pulled off the highway and turned into the village of Squamish. “Breakfast?” he asked.

She blew out a lungful of air and smiled shakily. “You have absolutely no idea how good that sounds right now.”

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