And the station had exploded.
Sydney yanked out her phone. Dialed fast. Then, “Gunner, listen, the ranch has just—” She broke off, inhaling sharply. Her stare was on Jasper and he saw the horror in her eyes. Saw the faintest tremble of her lower lip, and he knew the news she’d gotten had been bad.
Veronica.
“But...but you’re all right?” Sydney whispered uncertainly.
Sydney was never uncertain.
Jasper took a step forward. Logan was on his feet now and they were both closing in on Sydney even as the house burned. “We’ll be right there,” she said. “But—what? What has Cale done?”
He wouldn’t hurt Veronica. Cale would never...
Sydney lowered her phone. “Logan, use your pull. Call D.C. and get them to send some county backup over to us now. The deputy’s still missing, and Veronica...” Her gaze cut back to Jasper. “She’s been taken.”
Jasper was already shaking his head because that just wasn’t an option. She couldn’t be taken by anyone. She couldn’t be hurt. He needed her too much and—
“It was the sheriff,” Sydney said. “Gunner told me the guy shot Cale and then Wyatt forced Veronica into the back of a patrol car. He took off, going hell fast, but Cale’s following him. I guess a bullet can’t slow him down for long.”
Everything seemed to slow down for Jasper. Even the heat of the flames seemed to die away.
Wyatt forced Veronica into the back of a patrol car.
“He’s dead,” Jasper whispered.
Sydney flinched. She put the phone back to her ear. “Gunner, do you have Cale within sight? I know he took the motorcycle but...” Her worried stare wasn’t leaving Jasper.
Only he could barely see her. In his mind, he just saw Veronica. Scared. He didn’t want her to be scared.
He’d said that he would keep her safe.
And he was damn well gonna do it.
Sydney was off the phone now, but Logan had yanked out his phone to call for backup. Jasper wasn’t about to let any more time waste. “Tell me that you can track Cale,” he said to Sydney. Sometimes the EOD would put tracking chips under the skin of certain witnesses, witnesses who were in danger of being abducted or killed. Logan’s Juliana had been one of those witnesses. That tracking device had saved her life. Maybe—
Sydney shook her head.
No.
“The sheriff took her,” Jasper gritted out. The man had been right there, with them every step of the way. He should have known. He should have suspected.
But he’d been focused on the mission, on capturing Cale. Then he’d been blindsided by Veronica.
I’m coming, Veronica. I won’t let you down.
“The sheriff knows every inch of this county,” Logan said, coming back to them. Flames crackled behind them. “He’s gonna have the advantage on us.” The guy could just disappear. Or just dump Veronica’s body someplace and then vanish.
Jasper turned away, began walking at first, then flat-out running toward the car.
“Jasper!” Logan called out.
Jasper didn’t stop. He jumped in the vehicle. Sydney had another car. He wasn’t abandoning the other agents. He just wasn’t waiting. Veronica needs me. Jasper jerked the keys in the ignition, and the engine snarled to life.
Logan’s hand slammed against the driver’s-side door. “You don’t even know where to look,” Logan snapped. “Let us get some intel together and—”
“You get your intel. Get Sydney to run all those phone searches and GPS hunts like she does.” His fingers clenched around the wheel. “I’ll go back to town and tear every building down if I have to. I won’t let her—”
His phone rang. He grabbed it instantly. “Veronica!”
A faint laugh rolled into his ear. “No, but she’s close,” Jasper was told.
Then he heard Veronica scream.
He almost crushed the phone in his hands.
“Want to see her, Ranger? Then you ditch those other EOD jerks,” Wyatt told him, voice grating. “You lose every single one of them, and you get yourself out to the old ranch at the end of Derby Road.”
Derby Road? He had no idea where that road was, but he’d load the name into the GPS and find that ranch.
“You’ve got twenty minutes to get there, or I’ll put a bullet into Veronica.”
Jaw clenching, Jasper looked back up at Logan. Logan was his friend, his team leader. He knew the way situations like this were supposed to go down.
Except this wasn’t just a case. Not a normal mission. It was Veronica.
“I love her,” he said, the only thing that he could say. Logan would know who’d just made that call.
Logan’s gaze told him that he understood, but Logan shook his head. “Give us the location. You need some backup. We can help!”
Jasper shook his head. “Get away from the car.”
Logan’s jaw clenched. But he jumped back.
Jasper raced away from that burning ranch house. He couldn’t think of anything, anyone else just now...only Veronica.
* * *
“HE’S GOING AFTER her?” Sydney asked softly as she watched the car rush down the narrow highway. The flames burned behind them, the heat seeming to scorch her flesh.
“Wyatt called him. I’m betting the SOB told him that if he brought backup, the girl would die.”
Wasn’t that always the way it was.
Sydney pulled out her phone. Scrolled through the carefully designed apps she had in her system—applications that she’d designed herself. “How long of a head start do you think Jasper wants?”
Because Jasper would know that the EOD would be able to follow him. As long as his phone was still on, they could track him.
Maybe Jasper was worried that Wyatt had a partner—that missing deputy—who might be watching them right now. So he wanted to make it look as if he were going in alone. Or maybe he just was thinking with his heart and not his head. Either way, the EOD never left a teammate on his own.
Never.
“Ten minutes,” Logan said with a nod. His gaze was still on Jasper’s fleeing vehicle. “That’ll give him time to get to his destination, go in and take out the sheriff.”
Ten minutes. Plenty of time for an EOD agent to complete a mission. Only...
It was also plenty of time for a man to die.
“The sheriff got the drop on three other agents,” she reminded Logan, trying to keep her voice calm. “He’s not your average killer.” That fact should have turned up in her search. Where had the guy gotten all of his training?