Page 11 of Lone Star Christmas Mission

But it was Cash who stopped it.

He took hold of her shoulders, and this time, the eye contact wasn’t a lust-filled gaze. She saw thatsomething elseagain. The bad news.

And this time, she got out the question she needed to ask. “What’s wrong?”

Cash didn’t jump to answer. Not a good sign. Added to that, he pulled in a long breath. “Ruby found something on the dark web. Live feed from a staged scene. It was Harvin,” he added a heartbeat later.

She shook her head. “But you said you didn’t know where he was.”

“We don’t. The live feed was from a concealed IP address.” Another pause. Another breath. “The feed was a message for us. Harvin wants us to surrender to him.”

A burst of air left her mouth. A laugh but not from humor. “And why does he think we’d do that?”

Cash didn’t dodge her gaze this time. “During the live feed, he shot a man wearing a Santa suit, and Harvin said he’d shoot others if you and I didn’t surrender.”

Oh, God.

Kayla’s breath vanished, and she would have staggered back if Cash hadn’t kept his grip on her shoulders. Now, the panic did come, and she had to fight to stomp it down. Had to fight, too, just to think this through.

“It could have been a hoax,” she managed to say. “Harvin could have shot the man with blanks.”

Cash was quick to shake his head. “At the end of the live feed, Harvin said where the cops could find the body. They responded right away, but by the time they got there, Harvin was gone, and they found the man dead from a single gunshot wound to the head.”

Kayla let each word of that sink in. It didn’t sink in well, and she moved out of Cash’s grip so she could sink down onto the floor. She sat, anchoring her back against the island while she tried to regain…everything.

“The dead man has been IDed,” Cash went on, “and he appears to have no direct connection to Harvin and his shitbag gene pool. The guy was heading to a costume party at a bar, and according to the security camera feed, he was abducted at gunpoint in the parking lot.”

So, he was someone out for a night of fun, and Harvin had ended his life even though the man had had nothing to do with Alvin’s and Virgil’s deaths.

“You’ve seen a recording of the shooting?” she asked.

“I have,” he confirmed. But he didn’t add more. Wouldn’t. He was trying to protect her again.

“I want to see the feed,” she muttered.

Cash gave a heavy sigh and sank down on the floor next to her. “No, you don’t. And I’m not going to show it to you. There’s no reason for you to have that in your head.”

Kayla could have said she was mentally seeing it all anyway. And she was. But viewing it wouldn’t be just a gut punch for herself but another one for Cash as well. Besides, by now Cash, Ruby, and the Maverick Ops’ techs had no doubt examined and reexamined every frame of it while the cops processed the scene for anything they could use to find Harvin.

“So, what do we do?” she came out and asked. “How do we surrender?”

His mouth went tight. “We don’t.Youdon’t,” he amended. Then, he stopped and cursed. “Right now, even if we wanted to hand ourselves over to that asshole, we wouldn’t know where to do that. Harvin hasn’t spelled out any details.”

“But he will.” Kayla was certain of that.

You didn’t murder a man in a Santa suit, someone who was perhaps even a stranger, unless you were sending a strong message. And that message was that Harvin wanted Cash and her.

“Harvin intends for us to pay for what happened to his father and uncle,” Kayla went on. “Ironic, since his father started all of this. And I’m not the least bit sorry that Virgil and Alvin are dead,” she tacked onto that.

Cash made a sound of agreement. “Now, we need to let Ruby’s team find Harvin so he’ll be stopped, too.”

That made it sound so simple. So attainable. And clearly it wasn’t or they would have already found Harvin.

“Does Harvin have the resources to hide from Maverick Ops?” she asked.

“He has resources,” Cash admitted. “His grandparents left him about a quarter of a million two years ago, and he’s had extensive firearms and combat training.”

“More training than you?” But she waved that off. She doubted anyone had more than Cash in that department.

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