“What’s the name?”
“Thompson. Daniel Thompson.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, feeling like I’d walked into an ambush. It took Ash a second to realize I wasn’t with him anymore. He turned around, impatience on his face.
“What is it, soldier?”
I shook my head, not at his term of address, but at my disbelief that this was actually happening.
“Are you sure about the name?”
“Of course.”
I shook my head again, all these memories flying through my head. Ash grabbed my arm, shook me a little.
“What is it?” he asked again, his tone a little kinder this time.
“Joshua.”
Understanding washed over Ash’s face. He knew me. We’d spent far too many nights in the desert together to not know everything there was to know about each other. So he knew why this was not an ideal situation for me.
“Can you put Joss on it?” I asked, hating that I could even consider backing out of an assignment. But this was the only assignment that I knew I simply could not do.
“No,” Ash said, glancing over his shoulder as if he was afraid someone would catch us loitering here, in this public corridor. “Joss is on a plane headed to Washington with her target.” He chewed his bottom lip for a second. “I could call Kirkland. Put him on this.”
“No. She’d tear him to shreds.”
Ash’s eyebrows rose because we both knew what a charmer he was with women. But he had no idea what Kate Thompson was like. I did.
“It has to be Joss.”
“There’s not enough time to bring her back. The target gets released from the hospital in an hour.”
Ash pushed me back a little, out of the center of the corridor, laying both hands heavily on my shoulders. “If you tell me you honestly cannot take this case, I will handle it myself.”
And I knew he would. Ash would do whatever it took to protect his people. It was that military mentality, that inability to leave a single man behind. A part of me was willing to let him do it, but the idea of going back to the office—like a child afraid of the dark—didn’t sit well with me.
“No, sir. I can do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Ash studied my face a moment longer, then he slapped my shoulder and nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s do this.”
He pushed past me and led the way down the corridor again. I hesitated only a second before I rushed to catch up.
Daniel was waiting out in the corridor when we turned the corner. He stepped forward immediately and held out his hand to Ash.
“Mr. Grayson,” he said.
“Mr. Thompson.”
And then he turned his eyes on me, and I saw nothing but pleasure in them.
“Donny,” he said with something like a sigh. “It’s so great to see you again.”
He offered me a hug, and I accepted it, closing my eyes briefly as I remembered the last time I saw him. He’d hugged me then, too, but then he was sobbing like a child on my shoulder.
He pushed me back and looked at me, assessing the entire length of me. Then he shook his head with something like disbelief.
“You’re so grown up. The last time I saw you…” And then he choked a little, swallowing tears he didn’t want to shed. “I often wonder what Joshua would look like now.”
“If we could focus on the case,” Ash broke in, much to my relief.
Daniel stepped back, clearing his throat as he did.
“We’re not real clear on what’s going on. All I know is that Kate was at the bank late. She does that a lot on Monday nights, clearing out the loan applications that come in on their website over the weekends. And then we get this call that there had been a shooting, and she was found unconscious at the site.”
He glanced at me, and I could see what he was thinking. It was too much like the phone call he’d gotten ten years ago—on graduation night. The night Joshua was killed. The phone call I made.
“Everyone assumed she’d been shot, but the doctors could only find a lump on the back of her head. They think someone hit her, or she fell. She has a concussion, but it’s fairly minor. Physically, they say she’ll be alright.”
“But…?” Ash asked.
“She has no memory of the last twenty-four hours. The doctors think it could either be a temporary side effect of the bump on her head, or it could be from the trauma of watching the security guard get shot.”
“She doesn’t remember what happened?” I asked.
“Not a thing. Her last memory is of getting out of the car at the bank yesterday morning.”
“What about security cameras?”
Daniel shrugged. “There are a couple at the front of the bank and a few along the side, but whatever happened, it happened down the block, in front of a closed storefront.” He shook his head. “The cops are confused, too. They really would like for her to remember what happened.”
I glanced at Ash, but he already had his cell phone out.
I touched Daniel’s arm. “I’m sure Rose or Ash has already explained to you what we do. We don’t investigate, we simply protect the client.”