Page 40 of Critical Doubt

"I don't want to do anything official yet. I'll have more latitude if I don't. In the meantime, you can be my backup."

He immediately shook his head. "You shouldn't count on me, Savannah. That would be a mistake. I could be one second away from losing my mind completely."

She saw the somber gleam in his eyes and felt the need to reassure him. "You already saved my life once. I'm not worried."

"You should be worried. You don't know what's going on in my head. I'm not the man you were with five years ago. I barely remember him."

"Really? Because I was with him less than an hour ago, when he instinctively sprang into action. When he covered my body with his. When he kissed me."

"For a moment, I forgot where I was…who I was… You have a tendency to drive all rational thought from my mind, Savannah."

"You tend to do that to me, too."

"But I have some real problems. The attacks can be overwhelming. You saw what I did to the clock."

"I did, and while I don't know what's going on in your head, Ryker, I trust you. When it counts, you'll be there."

"Putting your trust in me is a big risk."

"I like risk." She just wished she didn't also like him, because that was only going to make everything more complicated.

Chapter Ten

They tookRyker's rental car on the three-hour drive to Atlanta. It was one o'clock when they got on the road after Savannah had showered and they'd had a quick lunch. It was nice to be driving. He felt comfortable behind the wheel, although he had no doubt that could change in an instant if the bells decided to go off. Since the explosion, they'd been remarkably quiet. He had a desperate, futile hope, that maybe the blast had knocked them out of his head for good. But that was probably just a dream. They'd come back. Until then, he would appreciate the quiet.

Savannah seemed to be caught up in her own thoughts. That was fine with him. It had been a crazy day so far and he had a feeling there was more insanity to come, so it was nice to have a reprieve.

Unfortunately, without conversation to distract him, his mind drifted back to the explosion, to the fire, to waking up with her mouth on his. Out of those three events, the kiss shouldn't have been the one thing sticking in his head, but it was.

For a minute there, he'd felt like he had turned back time. It was just him and Savannah, tangled up in each other. He'd been himself again. And he'd felt an intense attraction to her, the same one that had almost knocked him off his feet five years ago. She'd kissed him like she was feeling the same thing.

But there was nowhere to go from here. He wasn't the man he used to be, and the longer they were together, the clearer that would become. He needed to keep his hands off her. He needed to focus on Todd and the mission at hand, which was to get answers, find the truth, figure out if someone had tried to kill Todd, or if they had in fact succeeded. He also wanted to know if Paul's death was really an accident. Or if it was suicide as Tanner had implied.

The deaths of two more members of his team within days of each other was too much of a coincidence. And the fire raised even more questions.

Why burn Todd's house down? What had they been trying to cover up? And why take such a drastic step?A burglary, vandalism, could have been written off as a crime of opportunity, but not an explosion.

He glanced at Savannah. "I keep adding two plus two and coming up with five."

"I know what you mean. Hopefully, we'll find some answers in Atlanta. What do you know about the company Todd has been working for?"

"Carmack Securities is a private security firm run by Colton Carmack and his younger brother Trent. They specialize in providing personal security for high-level executives and celebrities as well as corporate security. Colton was a Marine. Trent apparently has a lot of cyber-hacking skills." He paused. "I looked the company up online when you were taking a shower."

"Good job. I was going to do that on this drive, but you saved me the trouble."

"I'm sure there's more to learn."

"Probably. I can do more research on the way."

"Can you access your FBI resources from your phone?"

"No. I can, however, call someone to get whatever information we need."

"What's it like being an FBI agent?" he asked curiously.

"It's not all that different from Army Intelligence. There's a lot of fact gathering, puzzle working. But since I joined Flynn's team, I have more opportunities to be in the field, on the front line, and that's something I rarely had the opportunity to do in the army. When I left five years ago, there were still a lot of restrictions on women."

"You wanted to be in combat?"

---