Page 93 of Present Danger (Rocky Mountain Courage 1)

“What’s that?”

He hesitated. Should he bring it up? Or wait for her to think of it on her own? He saw in her eyes that she had already thought of it, but she wasn’t willing to put that on the table. Should he just bide his time and only bring it up if it came to that? “Never mind.”

Terra’s hand shot across the table to grab his again, and he savored the softness of her skin. “Don’t do that. I want to know what you’re thinking. Don’t hold out on me.”

He sensed the desperation in her. The fear of losing the connection they’d found. “I’m not holding out, Terra.” He squeezed her hand. “You are.”

“What ... what are you talking about?” She eased her hand from his grip.

He wanted to snatch it back. Instead, he toyed with his napkin and blew out a breath. They’d been walking a fine line—growing closer, maybe reaching across the distance their tumultuous past had created—and crossing that professional line in the midst of what was becoming a high-profile investigation.

Jack couldn’t deny he had feelings for this woman.

But this conversation could serve as the detonator to a possible future with her. Still, he wouldn’t hold back. “We both know what I’m talking about. I’m trying to catch a murderer here. Those murders are somehow linked to artifact trafficking. Unless we’re off track. I’m willing to look at all the possibilities. Are you?”

Terra closed her eyes for a few breaths, then opened them. “You’re talking about my brother who served in the Army in a Middle Eastern country. And his friend Leif. There are a lot of soldiers from Montana, a lot of veterans who make their home here, Jack. But I...”

“Yes?”

“Well, Saturday night I browsed through a few photographs. Not digital. Actual photographs that Owen had left out. Leif was in the photos with him.”

Terra shut her eyes again. When she opened them, she stared right through him. “Leif was wearing a nose ring in the picture.”

“You mean like the small black wire in Jim’s hand?”

“Exactly like it,” she said.

Jack dropped his napkin onto his plate. “Then we’re onto something. I’ll get people to dig into his background. See what we can come up with.”

Terra shoved her hair behind her ears, then hung her head. “I don’t want it to be Leif.”

Jack understood why Terra didn’t want to bring the investigation close to her brother. Her family was everything.

“Yet he suddenly shows up,” she added as she glanced up. “We need to know when he got to town.”

She took a bite of bacon.

“We’ll look into that. In the meantime, Montana State Lab will work on DNA from the nose ring. But we both know that could take months,” he said. “There’s something else. I found out more about Neva Bolz. You were right to suggest we search far and wide. She was a world traveler in her job as an oil consultant.”

Terra stopped chewing and stared at him. She swallowed. “Are you going to make me pull it out of you? Where exactly?”

“Algiers.”

“That could be the connection we’re looking for.” Terra sounded relieved to shift the conversation away from Leif and her brother. “Star Oil Company stumbles across an archaeological site during exploratory drilling. Neva somehow gets her hands on something of value and sells it on the black market. She gets connected, and since she travels to Algiers, her reach and her clients and connections grow.”

“It’s one theory,” he said.

“Jack, she was murdered. She’s definitely part of this.”

“We know she’s connected, and now we have an idea why,” he said. “Still, the only thing we know about her murderer is that he’s about six feet tall and sometimes wears a gray hoodie.”

Terra stared into her coffee. She had to be thinking what he was thinking.

Leif was also about six feet tall.