Page 11 of Dark ’N’ Deadly

“No,” Jesse said.

The boy didn’t look at Tess, but Eric did. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap. Then something else occurred to him. “Do you?” he asked her.

Her green gaze was steady. “No. I don’t.”

He hadn’t expected her to. The question had been a shot in the dark.

Jesse and Tess McTavish might not know Harley Gant, but he didn’t believe in coincidence. Not where Gant was concerned. Statistically speaking, anything involving Alabama and explosives probably had Gant’s fingerprints all over it. That sonofabitch lived to blow shit—and people—up. Eric’s friends had never seen it coming. They’d died in an instant.

God may have just given him another chance at the revenge he’d been craving for three years, and now Tess’s little brother could be the key to getting it. Every brain cell in his head knew this was the link he’d been waiting for. He just had to make the connection.

Chapter Four

Tess’s throat tightened. This is a nightmare.

She’d do anything to help Jesse, but now there was something else to consider.

A bomb.

When she’d walked into the courthouse, protecting Jesse was her only priority, but not at the expense of other people’s lives. She stared at Eric’s hard profile, then shoved her hand in her pocket, sliding her index finger along the long facet of the Herkimer diamond. As much as she believed in the good luck associated with crystals, it would never be enough to get Jesse out of this mess.

“Start talking.” When Eric leaned back and crossed his arms over his broad chest, the muscles in his biceps and forearms rippled and flexed. “And don’t leave anything out.”

“Okay.” Jesse nodded, his expression at hearing he may have been transporting bomb ingredients only slightly less shocked now. “A guy gave me five hundred dollars to drive the drums to New Jersey. That’s all I know.”

Dayne moved closer. “What guy?” he asked, his deep voice resonating from over her shoulder.

The man was just as big and imposing as Eric, but he didn’t have nearly the same effect on her that Eric did. Like the shivers shooting up her spine, or the never-ending heart palpitations when she looked at Eric’s handsome face.

“Dunno,” Jesse said. “I never met him before, and he didn’t give me a name. He had cash and I needed the money, so I said yes. The truck is his.”

Don’t say too much, Jesse. It was all she could do not to twist her hair in both hands.

“What did he look like?” Eric took notes as her brother provided a description that could have been anyone. Five-ten, brown hair and eyes, wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt.

Jesse was smart. His answers were a mixture of truths and half truths, but she worried that by withholding anything about their actual Alabama roots, they would somehow undermine Eric’s ability to stop whoever was trying to build a bomb.

She quickly reviewed everything she and Jesse had—and hadn’t—divulged. Nothing stuck out as critical. The feds had the drums, and her brother really didn’t know the identity of the man who’d paid him to transport them. Surely, they could pull information from the truck’s license plates and registration.

“The license plate on the pickup you were driving is bogus.” Eric stared at Jesse, his clear blue eyes as cold as ice. “But I’m thinking you already know that. And I’m thinking you already know the VIN number comes back to a truck sold to a junkyard for scrap metal. Am I right in thinking you already know these things?”

“Not exactly.” Jesse swallowed. “I know a lotta people who don’t have the money for a car or a truck, but they know how to fix one. If it’s on the scrap pile, it can’t be worth much, so who really cares what happens to it?”

When Eric rested his forearms on the table and leaned in, Tess inhaled his crisp, clean aftershave, along with a hefty dose of freshly oiled leather. The black holster on his belt held a .40 caliber Glock. She’d seen so many guns while growing up, she knew most of them by make and model.

“Did you know the tag was bogus?” Eric asked.

“I, uh, never really looked at it.”

Eric’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe her brother’s last answer, and she was grateful when he didn’t pursue that line of questioning.

“Where are you supposed to deliver the drums?” Eric asked.

“I was supposed to go to a truck stop right off the highway, then wait for a call. I was almost there when you pulled me over.”

“The one on I-78 just before crossing into Pennsylvania?” Jesse nodded. “When are you supposed to get the call?”

“This morning. I musta missed it.”