Alcohol was flammable. That thought lodged in his brain as he picked up the water nozzle from the bar and shot it toward the opening to the back.
The smoke cleared, turned white, and he plunged into the kitchen.
The fire had slowed as it hit the tile, the stainless steel, but beyond it, in the back that led to his stairs, the fire roared, an inferno.
“Jethro!”
The office door was closed. Mack kicked it and it slammed open.
Jethro lay on the sofa, his eyes closed.
Please—
Mack pressed his hand on his chest. Still breathing, but barely.
“Jethro—wake up!”
Nothing. Mack put the wet cloth over Jethro’s head, leaned over, and pulled him up, hoisted him onto his shoulder, fireman style.
Please God—give us a way out.
And the fact that he even thought to lift a prayer rooted inside him.
So maybe he was a man of faith.
Before his criminal ways, of course.
The flames licked at the door.
Mack took off into the hallway, running hard through the kitchen, out into the dining area.
Flames blurred the ceiling, roiling over each other.
He set Jethro down behind the bar, picked up the water hose, and sprayed him down. Then grabbed another towel and sprayed himself.
“We’re not dying today, old man.”
Then Mack again lugged Jethro onto his back, stood up, and fled for the door.
“I am not in over my head.” RJ stalked to her picture window, looking out into the darkness, her own reflection staring back at her. She’d lost weight over the past few weeks, circles hanging in shadows under her eyes.
Behind her, on one of her high top chairs, Scarlett sat, her leg crossed, paging through Sophia’s journal.
Ford wasn’t so calm. “Are you kidding me?” He held a bottle of water and stood up from where he’d been leaning against the wall of RJ’s kitchen, following her into the family room of her tiny condo. “And get away from that window.”
The words jerked at RJ, mostly because it sounded exactly like something York would say.
She pulled the curtains. Not quite the palatial townhome of her boss, RJ still had nice digs. On the second floor of a walk-up just off the Beltway. She’d had to pull some strings to get into the rent-controlled building.
She missed her life, the one where she wasn’t accused of a terrible crime.
Then again, her old life hadn’t included a man who’d made her feel brave and smart and beautiful.
She wrapped her arms around her waist and turned to face Ford. He was still dressed in black but had taken off his hat, his gloves, and looked mostly like a normal guy with his short dark hair, pale-green eyes. Except for the fact that Ford never seemed to completely relax, a coiled energy always buzzing off him.
She got that. Felt it. Possessed the same restlessness. “No, I’m not kidding you. You seem to forget that I can fend for myself.”
“What part of you nearly getting killed in Russia, a couple times, and being hunted by an international assassin says fending for yourself?”
“Ford!” Scarlett looked up from the journal, and he shut his mouth.
Just in time because RJ had never slapped her twin in her entire life, but…oh—shoot. Tears bit her eyes and she swallowed them back. “Fine. Okay. But the last thing I want is someone I care about getting hurt trying to save me. Besides, I was ten seconds away from getting away on my own.”
He considered her. Took a breath.
Fraternal twins, of course, but he still seemed to be the other half of her soul, possessing the same desire to prove himself.
Or maybe that just came with the territory of being a Marshall.
Nevertheless, he nodded and took another drink of his water. Wiped his upper lip. “Sorry, sis. You probably were. Just about took out my heart to see you go over that balcony.”
Hers too, but she just shrugged as if she was exactly the action hero she had attempted to be.
“How did you find me? Seriously—what, do you have a tracker on me? A drone following me?” She shot a look at Scarlett, who glanced up at the word drone.
Scarlett had manned the drone for Ford’s SEAL team during many of their ops. “I think you’d notice a drone,” she said, smiling.
“I know. But it’s still creepy—you showing up out of the bushes.”
“It’s what I do,” Ford said, draining the water. “Slink around the bushes.”
“Hardly,” Scarlett said, her gaze on him, warmth in it.
An ache went through RJ.
Wow, she missed York.
She looked away.
“Listen,” Ford said. “All I got was a text from Tate who told me to get over to that particular address. That you were in trouble.”
“And you just happened to be in town, out of everywhere in the world.”
“Jones, Inc. is in town for a fundraiser,” Scarlett said. “Ford and Trini flew in for the weekend. I think Ham is trying to recruit Trini.”
Hamilton Jones, the owner of the private global SAR team and a multimillionaire of GoSports Gyms, had also been the guy who’d accompanied Ford on his field trip to Russia to “save” her.
“How is Ham?” RJ asked.
Scarlett looked again at Ford, drew in a breath.
“What?” RJ said.
“Nothing. Just…well, apparently Ham has a life nobody knew about. And someone from his past he’d very much like to find.”
RJ walked past him, into the kitchen. “Don’t we all.”
Silence. She opened the fridge and pulled out an orange. Late-night crimes always made her hungry. For a second she had a memory of sharing tea with York in his safe house in Moscow.
She had to stop thinking about him.
Or not. Because someone had to obsess enough about his disappearance to find him.
She closed the door and walked to the counter, digging her thumb into the center of the orange to work off the rind. Ford was leaning forward, his hands on his knees, tapping the empty bottle on his leg.
Scarlett was still paging through the book.
“What?” RJ put a long peel on the counter.
Ford sighed. Looked over at her. “You need to accept it.”
She froze. Looked at her orange.
“Don’t—”
“He’s gone, RJ.”
Her hand tightened around the orange. “He’s not—”
“His body was found in the crash.”
“It wasn’t him!” She looked up at him, very close to hurling the orange at his head. But his eyes were glistening as if he might be in real pain for her, and it made her draw in her breath. Swallow. Her eyes, too, filled. “It wasn’t him. They couldn’t identify the remains.”
Ford’s mouth clenched around the edges.
Her voice cut low. “Besides. I’d know.” A tear dripped down her cheek, hung at the edge of her jaw. She met Ford’s eyes. “I’d know. I’d feel it.”
Ford drew in a breath.
Scarlett pressed her hand over RJ’s. Nodded. “I felt the same way when Ford went missing. I just knew he was out there.”
Oh. Scarlett was referring to the horrible night she and his team and RJ and her brothers searched for Ford after a storm. While he’d been fighting not to drown.