Page 67 of Deadly Target (Rocky Mountain Courage 2)

TWENTY-EIGHT

On the early morning flight from Boston, Erin sat next to the window and Nathan on the aisle. Erin wanted to sleep, but her mind wouldn’t stop reliving the events of the last couple of days, even as she was still reeling from the week before when she and Carissa had nearly been killed. She made a mental note to contact Carissa to find out how she was doing. She simply hadn’t had a decent moment to contact her friend.

In the meantime, though, she rested her eyes and prayed. And hoped Nathan wouldn’t make her tell him about Seattle. Not yet.

God, I don’t know what’s going on. I thought I was finally getting some kind of stability. I’ve worked so hard to climb out from under the dark cloud that seemed to hover over me for so long.

Erin took a few slow breaths to calm her heart. She couldn’t lose it now in front of Nathan. Her deepest, darkest secrets had kept them apart to begin with. Nathan had confronted her, sensing that she held back a part of herself, and that’s when she knew she had to break things off with him. He would never be happy with her inability to tell him the burden she carried—and she’d told him as much.

She’d thought ... she’d thought that he was going to propose to her, but he held back until he knew everything there was to know about her. And she simply couldn’t share that with him, so instead she’d ended their relationship.

Keeping her secret had cost her, and too late she realized that price had been much too high.

But now certainly wasn’t the moment to finally come clean.

A relationship had to be founded on truth as well as trust, and Erin wasn’t sure she could ever share her true self with him. She’d worked hard to create a new identity for herself. Being Dr. Erin Larson, PhD, went a long way in hiding the scared little girl she remained on the inside. By wearing this disguise, was she living a lie?

She thought she’d wanted to understand what caused men to commit evil acts, to become wicked, but in the end, it didn’t start with their minds, but stemmed from the heart first. Even Scripture said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Could she even know her own heart, her own motivations? Even if she couldn’t ... I know to trust you, Lord, no matter what. Even in the midst of all the chaos, you’re with me.

Tears welled behind her lids. If only she could feel that God was with her, but doubt warred with the truth in her heart.

The flight attendant appeared and offered them both drinks, a welcome distraction from her thoughts. After she took a few sips, she felt relaxed enough to hopefully grab some sleep on the flight to Montana.

Except Nathan had other ideas. He flipped on the overhead light above the empty seat between them and pulled out the three-by-five manila envelope Holly had given them and set it on the pulled-out tray table.

Nathan eyed her, excitement and fear evident in his gaze.

Had their trip to Boston been worth it? It seemed they had only put their lives in more danger. Holly’s too, though clearly, she had already been on the edge, given she believed both her mother and brother were murdered.

The flight was nearly empty, and the few other passengers were rows in front or back of them and likely sleeping.

Nathan leaned closer. “You ready?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

She nodded.

Nathan carefully lifted the clasps, then opened the unsealed end. He tipped the envelope and out slid a photograph of a silver-haired man.

He sighed. “Well, I can’t say that I’m not disappointed. I had hoped for something more. This tells us all of nothing.”

Erin sat up. “Or everything. He could be your father’s shooter. We can cross-reference it with the names we pulled from the whiteboard. I don’t think you ever called RISS, did you?”

He shook his head. “I will in the morning.”

She’d wanted to catch some rest, but they might as well work until they got a few answers. She leaned forward to pull her bag from under the seat in front of her and got her iPad. She compared the names they had retrieved with the images she could find, coming up empty on that front. Who was the man in the picture? By the time her iPad died, her eyes burned, but she tugged out her cell instead.

He pressed his hand over hers. “Don’t.”

“What? I’m trying to see if I can identify this person.”

“We’ll find out who he is. Don’t worry. You need to rest. I’m going to talk to Trevor West—Henry too—and share what we learned and what Chief Hadlow told me.” His gaze drifted past her to the darkness outside the window, then back to her. “I mean, now that people know we’re looking, I see no point in hiding what Dad told me.”

She nodded. “That makes sense, but it could be more that he was about to tell you what he’d learned and he didn’t want you to share that with anyone. The intel could be what got him in trouble. I’m just saying to be cautious.”

“Or he was afraid of losing more people. Dad was ... scared. By looking into the case, he believed he had lost a woman he loved and then her son.”

Erin nodded again. “I hadn’t thought of that, but I should have. I think you could be right.”

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