Page 86 of Dark ’N’ Deadly

“All done.” Matt pressed a clean gauze to her arm. “Just hold that there for a minute.”

“That’s it?” Can’t be. She’d barely felt a thing. “You did it already?”

He nodded. “When this is over, I’ll remove it just as easily.”

“Wow.” She lifted the gauze for a second to inspect the injection site, but it was barely visible. To her dismay, Eric’s hands left her shoulders and he quickly returned to the other side of the table. He probably can’t stand being near me.

Dayne chuckled, sharing a conspiratorial look with Eric. Only then did she understand. Eric hadn’t been touching her because he wanted to. He’d only been distracting her while Matt stuck her with that needle. Doing her best not to dwell on the truth, she narrowed her eyes on Dayne. “You don’t really eat tofu, do you?”

Dayne laughed openly. “Not a chance.”

She laughed with him, releasing some of her tension. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

“How does something so tiny transmit?” Kade asked. “What’s the power source?”

“Radiation,” Matt answered matter-of-factly.

“Are you serious?” she practically shouted. “You did not just inject me with something radioactive.”

“Relax.” He tucked the dastardly injector-gun back into the case. “It’s a minuscule amount from a non-harmful isotope. But it has limitations.”

“Such as?” Eric narrowed his eyes.

“A small radius—about half a mile—and it won’t last more than four hours.”

Resigned, she gave Matt a weak smile. “Will I at least glow in the dark so you can find me?”

“I doubt it.” He winked. “Remember, Cinderella, you’ve only got four hours. After that, the tracker goes dead.”

“Got it.” In more ways than one.

Her stomach rumbled again, but not from lack of food. This time, it was from outright fear. If the tracker went dead, no one would know where to find her. If they couldn’t find her, they didn’t stand a chance of rescuing Jesse. Which meant they would both be dead.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Eric turned off Main Street onto the rural road that would take them to the mansion. Behind them, his friends and their K-9s followed at a safe distance. A few other marked and unmarked units were already staged near the house to back them up, if needed, and to secure the location if they got PC to search the house.

Tess sat beside him, occasionally chewing on her bottom lip and fingering the beaded fringe of the scarf around her neck. It was the one he’d bought her in town. For someone about to walk into an F5 shitstorm that would make the average hurricane seem like an inconsequential blip on the radar, she was relatively calm. Scary calm.

Dayne had hit the mark when he’d said she had a serious pair, for a woman or a man. She might be only five-two and about a hundred and ten pounds, but she had the heart of a lioness.

Tiger’s muzzle rested on his right shoulder, the dog’s warm breath tickling his neck. They often drove that way, particularly when Tiger sensed Eric was tense.

Tense?

It was a joke to use that word to describe what he was feeling because it barely skimmed the surface.

When they arrived at the house, he’d be mere feet away from Harley Gant without being able to lay so much as a hand on him. As he imagined snapping cuffs on the man, his fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Given what he was thinking, he could only imagine the turmoil in Tess’s mind. Facing that bastard again after all these years wasn’t going to be easy.

Damn, I’ve been a fool. An insensitive idiot for not understanding what she’d been through. For not forgiving.

To keep from punching out the window, he gripped the wheel tighter.

Tiger’s intelligent gaze met his in the rearview mirror. His dog watched him expectantly, as if he understood what was in Eric’s head and was waiting for him to act on it.

A deer leaped onto the road, and he slowed the Interceptor. There was so much he wanted to say, but this was hardly the time. Besides, he didn’t know exactly what he would say. For starters, how ’bout sorry I was a total dickhead?