Page 20 of Driven By Impulse

Because in the next second, the comms in both of their ears crackled to life, and Jinx’s voice came in hot, his words flying a mile a minute.

“You should head home and get some rest, guys. We figured out a way to get into Iverson’s place, and it’s much more likely we’ll find the ties between him and Ralston in his home office. According to these emails I…collected, Iverson works from home a lot.”

“And you think that’s because he’s hiding the true nature of his work?” Nicco asked. “He’s doing Ralston’s bidding without anyone watching?”

Jinx made a noise of agreement. “That’s exactly what I think. I also think it’s more likely we’ll find Grace there than anywhere else. Now, there’s a fancy gala at his office this Friday, and I spoke with Hanna. She’ll be able to get in.”

“Why do we need to go to the gala if we’re trying to break into his home office?” Ash asked. It was sometimes difficult to follow Jinx’s train of thought on a good day, but he’d gone head-to-head with close calls, and his thoughts were clouded with a potent concoction of need and pure, unmitigated fear.

“Because”—Jinx snapped his gum—“the only thing I can’t take care of on this end is getting into Iverson’s compound. It’s an offline system that requires both a smart key, like a real physical key, and a code, which is randomly generated by his phone thirty seconds before he goes inside.”

“That seems like a lot of security,” Ash muttered. “So, we need to get the key.

“You need to get the key and the phone for the code,” Jinx corrected. “One won’t work without the other.”

“Seems easy enough,” Nicco said, his tone flip. But Ash knew the truth, he knew how to recognize that weary, worn sound to Nicco’s voice, and he knew, without a doubt, that each job seemed to get a little bit harder, seemed to take a little bit more out of their stalwart captain, until one day they’d all wake up and he would have disappeared completely.

And that possibility made it very difficult for Ash to speak around the sudden tightening of his throat.

“It’ll be like old times, Captain,” he managed. “Only instead of stealing credit cards, we’re robbing a church.”

The corner of Nicco’s lips twitched up in the closest Ash would get to a smile. “You know where I come from, there are three things you can’t mess with, ever…”

Ash grinned and started his bike. “Mothers, red sauce, and the Church. You told me that one before.”

The bikes edged away from the curb, the sound of his engine, then Nicco’s, cutting through the quiet night. Ash turned back. “You can’t surprise me anymore, boss. After all this time, there’s no secrets between us.”

Except as he pushed his visor down and turned back toward the main road that would bring them to Hanna’s house, Ash could quietly admit the truth to himself.

There was one secret left between them. And if it got out, it would destroy everything.

Chapter Eight

Hanna thrummed her fingers against the steering wheel in time to the music, but then the thrumming became tapping became twitching as she pulled the truck into her designated parking spot in front of the Bitterroot County Sheriff’s office.

She hadn’t been back since the night Grace had been taken. And while so much had happened since, the reality was it had been less than two days. Less than two days and her entire life had been turned upside down.

Because she had stayed away from the office as long as she possibly could without arousing suspicion, and now she had to square her shoulders, school her features, and try to make it through the office without letting another person inside know that she was investigating them.

Ash had offered to come with her. His tone had been soft and apologetic, and she had known without either of them having to say as much that he was sorry for pushing her buttons at the Point. Both of them, it seemed, were in uncharted territory, and they needed to swim together or risk going under alone.

But as much as she’d wanted the backup, bringing Ash along would have only raised more questions. He’d been the resident bad boy in their little slice of mountain farm life, so difficult and tough to corral that the only family he could have been placed with was the sheriff himself. And if Hanna told even part of the truth, that Ash had become a champion for those who couldn’t protect themselves, well, that was sure to tip off the traitor in her office that she no longer trusted her team.

And having him close to you is a distraction. You want to stay as far away from a grown-up Ash Rhodes as you possibly can.

Hanna tried to quiet the voice in her head. Maybe that was true, but Hanna wouldn’t admit it under oath, not the way his nearness seemed to short-circuit her brain, or how desperate and wanting she’d been when he’d pinned her up against the tree and whispered dark, teasing things in her ear. No one could know that working with Ash was proving to be a minefield, most especially not the man himself.

Hanna practically had to drag herself out of the truck kicking and screaming, but by the time she reached the front door to the sheriff’s office, her mind was clear and focused. She had a job to do—retrieve the gala invitation from Bryce Iverson, which had been sent to all the most powerful people in town and beyond. And she had to put on appearances that everything was going exactly as normal. No one could know that she was sniffing around. No one.

“Morning, Sheriff!” Darcy greeted Hanna as she walked through the front door. Somewhere between fifty-five and seventy-five, Darcy Walters had been working the front desk to the Bitterroot Sheriff’s office since Hanna’s dad had been in charge. She was a kind woman, who wore her reading glasses on a beaded string around her neck that her youngest granddaughter had made—a granddaughter who had been in the same graduating class as Hanna. Every Friday, she brough in homemade pastries, and she never forgot a birthday.

Hanna’s heart squeezed. She had been so consumed by the anger of it all, that she hadn’t stopped to think about what it would feel like to look closely at the people she had been working side by side with for years. It seemed unlikely that Darcy was the one who had shared the safehouse intel, but how would Hanna feel if it turned out she was?

She swallowed back the sting of betrayal and hurt, and gave Darcy the best smile she could manage. “Good morning, Darcy. How are you today?”

Darcy returned the smile. “Better for your being back in the office. Now, you’re the last one to sign Frankie’s get-well card.” She rifled through her desk drawer, before handing a brightly colored card and a pen over to Hanna. “I was going to visit him again after my shift ends, just to check in.”

Hanna focused on writing a quick note in the card, hoping Darcy couldn’t see the range of emotions playing out on her face. More than once in her life she’d been told that she didn’t have a good poker face. Normally, Hanna took that as a sign that she was passionate, but right now it just felt like a cross to bear.