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“Go,mo chridhe. Everything will be all right.“ He brushed his lips over hers before gently setting her away from him, leaving her bereft of his warmth.
The detective pointed at Lachlan and Nathan. “You two are under arrest.” He glared at Lucas Caldwell. “The crime scene techs and the guy from the coroner’s office need to get in here.”
“Wait!” Sophia objected. “Why are they under arrest?” Lachlan and Nathan had come to save her. Now they stood with their hands behind their backs while an officer handcuffed them and read them their rights. She wanted to scream at the injustice of it all.
The detective ignored her and continued down the hall.
“How did you know to come here?” Lachlan’s question to AD Caldwell turned her attention back to the men in the room.
The man gave Sophia a measured look before responding. “Admiral Dane’s daughter called him and told him Jared Landry had abducted Sophia.” His face twisted in a look of disgust. “I’m almost surprised a SEAL team didn’t beat us to the scene. When the admiral says jump, everyone in this town asks how high.”
Sophia’s heart stopped, then started again, pounding a furious rhythm. Lachlan’s face had turned to stone.Look at me, please, she begged him silently.
“Miss.” Sophia glanced into the face of a young dark-haired police officer, not much older than her. “We need to go.”
“Lachlan.”I love you. I was trying to help.She wanted to scream the words.
He stood there, handcuffed, grim-faced. When he met her eyes, he’d tucked his emotions back into himself. “Go.” His gaze hardened as he directed it to the officer gripping her arm. “Make sure she gets home safely.”
That was it?
After everything they’d been through, that was all he was going to say?
Her body went numb, her mind finally reacting to the trauma she’d just experienced by wrapping itself in a cocoon of protection, dulling her emotions.
Nathan sent her a sympathetic glance as the policeman ushered her from the room.
Raindrops began to fall, gently at first, then with greater intensity as the officer assisted Sophia into the back seat of one of the squad cars. Leaning her head against the window, she watched through fogging glass as Lachlan and Nathan were escorted from Jared’s home amidst a growing swarm of law enforcement and placed into the back of another vehicle.
She shut her eyes and pictured Lachlan’s face when he’d decided to trust her before she launched herself at Jared. The emotion in his eyes had been real.
It had given her hope.
If this was the last time she ever saw him, that was what she wanted to remember.
Chapter Thirty-Three
TwoWeeksLater
The deep-throated roar of a passenger jet taking off from Dulles rattled the windows of Nathan’s pickup as Lachlan climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door. “You don’t understand.”
“Don’t understand what, amigo.” Nathan backed out of the space in daily parking and headed for the ticket booth. “That you haven’t bothered to contact Sophia since we were arrested?” He scowled at Lachlan. “Two fucking weeks ago?”
He lowered his window and jammed the parking ticket into the machine. “She helped save your sorry ass and almost died because of it.” The bar lifted, and he exited airport parking toward Dulles Toll Road.
“Exactly.” Lachlan’s temper ignited, as did his guilt. “She almost died because of me and my past. And it’s no’ like I’ve been lounging around. I haven’t even had the chance to get a new phone.” He’d been held in detention, then sent to Kabul to help the FBI uncover and dismantle Landry’s trafficking operation along with Ryder.
Once Burkette learned Landry was dead, he’d spilled his guts in return for leniency on the trafficking and kidnapping charges. It hadn’t stopped the Metropolitan Police in London from taking a hard look at his time in the UK, and it was likely they would charge him with Haider’s murder.
Even with Josh’s confession, Lachlan wasn’t sure he would walk away with his freedom. Jared had done a damn good job stacking evidence against him.
He might have succeeded if it hadn’t been for Sophia and the files she’d turned over to Admiral Dane. A sharp-eyed forensic accountant at the FBI identified minute discrepancies between the financial spreadsheet on Fred Biller’s computer and the one from Jared’s. They were able to piece together the money trail and locate the accounts where Jared laundered his dirty money.
Then there was the encrypted folder with Lachlan’s name on it.
Landry had been gathering information on him since before he left the SAS, tracking his movements even after he came to work at LAI. All circumstantial evidence, but with Jared’s connection to Nadia, enough to lend credibility to Lachlan’s claim he’d been framed and wasn’t a co-conspirator.
Sophia had told him she loved him, but after everything that had happened, what if she’d decided he carried too much baggage? With Jared’s death and LAI under federal investigation, he was unemployed.