Maggie frowned. “But then I’d have a ton of logins. How would I remember all those passwords?”

  “Get a good password keeper app on your computer and lock them in there. Or write them down so that they are not on your computer at all. Looking up a password each time you log into an account takes one more step, but keeping your money and information safe is worth it.”

  “Thank you.” Maggie smiled at Eryn. “I’ll take care of that tonight.”

  “There are many other security safeguards I can teach you,” Wallace offered. “Perhaps we can get together tonight.”

  “Umm…I…well…” Maggie’s gaze wavered.

  “Maggie will be busy with us tonight,” Jackson said and didn’t feel the least bit guilty when Wallace frowned.

  “Okay, so moving on,” Eryn said. “Let’s try the password Scott’s dad helped us figure out.”

  Eryn plugged in his dog’s name plus the date he died, and the screen opened. “Bingo. He has a membership and placed a custom fabrication order.” She clicked on the order to open it.

  Jackson leaned forward. “What in the world? He fabricated four Glock 19 slides and receivers and had them shipped to his PO Box.”

  Eryn looked up at him with an incredulous stare. “Most interesting.”

  “So those are parts of a gun, right?” Maggie asked. “Why would he want them?”

  Jackson looked at Eryn. “Ghost guns?”

  “Could be.”

  “What in the world are ghost guns?” Wallace asked.

  Jackson turned to the professor. “It’s a slang term for guns that don’t have a serial number. These guns aren’t built in a factory, but are fabricated in a shop like this or a person’s home.”

  Wallace’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “But why?”

  “These guns don’t require a background check, and without a serial number they can’t be traced.”

  “I worked an investigation involving ghost guns a few years ago,” Maggie said. “But it would be far-fetched to believe it’s related to Scott, right?”

  Jackson nodded. “But we should still consider it.”

  “Look.” Eryn tapped the screen. “The slides and receivers were just shipped. Maybe they’re at the mailbox place waiting for pickup.”

  “We need to get into his mailbox account to figure out a way to gain access to the parts and any mail he might have.”

  “I’m on it.” Eryn surfed to the mailbox place’s address. “Odds are good he used the same email and password.”

  She plugged them in, and his account opened. “Just like you thought. He has two packages waiting.”

  “Can we pick them up?” Maggie asked.

  “I would expect that he has some security in place to prevent that.” Eryn stabbed a finger at the menu. “Looks like there’s a field to add people authorized to pick up packages.” She opened the screen. “I can add someone. Want me to add you, Jackson?”

  He faced Maggie. “Mind if we put your name here?”

  “I don’t mind, but why?”

  “Two reasons. The mailbox staff is less likely to question a woman. And, if the killer knows we’re investigating Scott’s murder, connecting my name to the mailbox might tip them off.”

  Maggie gave a resolved nod. “Okay, my name it is.”

  Eryn typed in Maggie’s name. “I’ll need your driver’s license number.”

  Maggie fished her wallet from her purse, and Jackson sat back waiting for Eryn to finish.

  “Done,” she said. “Maggie can now retrieve these packages.”

  9

  Maggie didn’t know if she could do this. Her hands were shaking and her palms moist. She was so not cut out for espionage or doing anything even the least bit questionable. She had her parents to thank for that. Honesty at all costs. That’s what they’d taught her, and it was rarely a problem. But now, at the mailbox place…man, she couldn’t even make herself open the door.

  But the team needed her to accomplish this task. They’d also tried to find any address for homes Scott may have broken into but struck out. Getting a win here could buoy everyone’s spirits. Wallace promised to keep working on searching their computer histories, but Eryn said if she didn’t find anything, there was nothing to be found. And Maggie believed her. Even Wallace seemed to be impressed with Eryn’s computer skills.

  Okay, Maggie. Go. You’ve put this off long enough.

  She took a deep breath and pulled open the door. A wall of mailboxes sat to her right and a large counter with packing supplies behind it took up the back of the space. A young guy in his early twenties with blond hair and a neatly trimmed goatee stood behind it pouring packing peanuts into a box.

  She stepped up to the desk.

  He looked up. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m here to pick up two packages and the mail for one of my students.” She quickly laid the package pickup form on the counter and slid it to him.

  As he looked at the form, she lowered her hands to her sides so he didn’t see they were shaking.

  “Scott Dawson, huh,” he said.

  Please don’t let him know Scott or watch the news to know that he was murdered.

  The guy caught her gaze. “Haven’t seen him in a while. He doing okay?”

  She couldn’t lie. She’d never pull it off and had to change the subject. “This is the form I need to pick up his packages, right?”

  The young man nodded. “Let me get ’em.”

  “Hey, could you give me his mail, too? I don’t have his key, but I’d like to help if I could.”

  He eyed her, and she concentrated on not looking guilty, but she felt exactly the way she’d felt when she was six and tried to steal a candy bar. Her parents stopped her dead in her tracks and grounded her for a week. This, however, held much bigger consequences.

  Guilt gnawed at her stomach, but she forced a smile to her mouth.

  “Why not,” he said. “But I’m not s’posed to do it, so you can’t tell anyone.”

  She mimicked zipping her lips.

  He chuckled and stepped through a doorway in the back.

  The moment he was gone, she let out a gush of air and sagged against the counter. Jackson thought it was a good idea to send her in here, but he was wrong. Way wrong.

  She heard the guy’s footsteps plodding toward her. She drew in a deep breath. Blew it out and flexed her fingers. Her hands were still shaking. What should she do? He was sure to notice them trembling when she took the packages. She quickly rested them on the counter, clamped them together, and feigned a relaxed pose.

  He set two boxes in front of her. “I’ll just grab the mail.”

  He moved to the right where the boxes were located and returned with three envelopes. “Not much here, but then Scott never gets much mail.”

  “It’s interesting how you know the mailbox customers so well,” she said to distract him.

  “You work in a place like this long enough and you get to know them.” He laid the envelopes on top of the boxes.

  “Thank you so much.” She didn’t have to fake her appreciation for his cooperation.

  He nodded. “Say hi to Scott for me.”

  She grabbed the packages and mail and fled the building. It felt as if his gaze was lasering into her back, and any moment he would realize she shouldn’t have the mail and come after her. She hurried down the street and slipped into the old pickup truck where Jackson sat behind the wheel. Letting out a long breath of relief, she nearly tossed the items at him. She half expected him to have the truck running like a getaway vehicle, but he sat there calmly, the engine silent.

  “I’m not cut out for this undercover thing.” She held out her shaking hands. “My parents raised me to be far too honest to do things like this well.”

  “Hmm, so what does that make me?” Jackson laughed.

  “Someone who’s good at investigating, I guess.” She tried to laugh it off but wondered if the emotions he displayed since they’d reconnected were all fake, too. He sure had motives to want to gain her cooperation, and what better way to do that than sweep her off her feet a second time.

  He didn’t seem to notice her ongoing unease, or at least he didn’t say anything about it, but glanced at the envelopes. “Junk mail.”

  She nearly started laughing hysterically. She risked getting caught for junk mail? Priceless.

  Jackson pulled a knife from his pocket and sliced into the larger of the two boxes. He lifted out four grips for a handgun.

  “Receivers for a Glock 19.” He put the pieces back into the box and opened the other one and took out a long narrow metal piece. “Same thing except for a Sig Sauer.” He shook his head. “So we have parts for eight guns here. Why does Scott need eight unregistered guns?”

  “He doesn’t, right?”

  “Right. Unless he’s a big-time criminal with flunkies working for him. Or I suppose he could be selling them.”

  “Is it legal to do that?”

  Jackson shook his head. “He’d be breaking the law for sure.”

  “It’s crazy to me that you can even have parts like these made.” She shook her head. “I’ve thought that since ghost gun investigation I worked on. In that case, a guy killed his mother with a ghost gun. If companies like the do-it-yourself place didn’t make the parts, that wouldn’t have happened.”

  Jackson’s forehead furrowed. “I don’t know about that. Most likely he would’ve found another gun or killed her another way.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Do you have records on this investigation that we can review?”

  “At my place.”

  “Then let’s review them tonight.” Jackson closed the box and ran his finger over the return address label. “Did you see the company’s located in Rugged Point?”

  She shook her head as she hadn’t noticed anything while in the store other than her heart pounding in her head.

  “It’s just up the coast from Cold Harbor. Might be a good idea to talk to the owners about Scott.”

  “Sounds good. A company who makes gun parts is your thing, and you can schmooze them, right? Especially if we run into any females.” She hated that she felt a need to add that last comment, but she did.

  “Hey,” he said. “You were doing your own schmoozing with Wallace back there.”

  “True.”

  “You know he’s half in love with you.”

  Boy, did she. “It’s not really a secret. But honestly, it’s really not me. I think he’d be infatuated with any female who paid attention to him.”

  “He does seem a little socially awkward.”

  “And that’s putting it nicely.” She thought about her many stilted conversations with Wallace in the past, and his clumsy attempts to ask her out. “Still, he came through for us today so I owe him.”

  A hint of frustration shadowed Jackson’s eyes. “Well don’t make the repayment a date.”

  “Why not?”

  He watched her for a very long time, his gaze heating up, and she felt like squirming under his intense focus. He suddenly looked away.

  “I just don’t want you dating him, okay?” he muttered barely loud enough to hear.

  She didn’t know what to make of his comment. Could he be jealous? It certainly would explain his behavior in Wallace’s office. She thought of him dating another woman, and Maggie didn’t like the thought. Not at all.

  “We could get Riley to fly us there right now.”

  She shook her head. “As much as I want to help find Scott’s killer, I need to work at Summit this afternoon. Nate’s people are waiting for us to turn it over. Plus I need to catch up on the other work there.”

  Jackson returned his attention to her. “Let me make sure the team is in place at Summit before we head over there. Then tonight after you do your morgue thing, we can take the chopper to Cold Harbor. We can spend the night at the compound and be at You Can Do It’s door when they open in the morning. Does that work for you?”

  Locked in a helicopter with him so she couldn’t walk away if things got personal? She didn’t know if she was up for that, but she did want to visit this company and move the investigation forward.

  “Maggie?” he asked.

  “I’ve never been in a helicopter,” she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

  He watched her. “Does that worry you?”

  “No way. It sounds fun.”

  He patted her knee. “That’s my girl.”

  She wasn’t his girl. His woman. His anything except maybe his expert anthropologist and the woman under his protection. She was about to argue when he took his hand away to start texting. But his behavior—this closeness and touching—was exactly what she was worried about in the helicopter. Sure, Riley would be with them, but he would be busy flying the chopper.

  “Will the whole team come with us?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’m sure they’d like to spend a night at home,” he said not looking up from his phone. “Especially, Eryn. I’m sure she misses her daughter.”

  “She has a daughter?” Maggie was surprised Eryn hadn’t mentioned the child.

  “A four-year-old.” He tapped the screen a few more times then looked up. “I’ll get us on the road. If you take my phone, you can read the team’s responses to me.”

  She took his phone, and he started the old truck. It huffed and sputtered but then finally caught with a big plume of smoke shooting out the tailpipe. He got them on the road and it was only moments before the first response came from his team.

  “Eryn says she’s back at Summit and everything is fine.”

  The phone dinged two more times in succession. “Alex, too, and Riley’s still on overwatch—whatever that means.”

  “He’s a former police sniper, and it’s his job to keep an eye on things through his rifle scope and report anything suspicious. He’s taken a stand up in the hills and has been watching the property all morning. Also, in the event of an overt assault, he’ll take out the attacker.”

  Craziness. Pure craziness. “Just the thought of needing a sniper to keep an eye out for me is totally weird. And especially if he needed to shoot.”

  Jackson held her gaze for a moment. “I’m sure all of this is odd to you, but trust me—it’s necessary.”

  “I trust you.” With keeping me alive, at least, but not messing with my emotions? Not so much.

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “Oh, I am. You’re like this fierce warrior. If I didn’t know you were extremely capable before, I do now. And so is the team. I’m in good hands.”

  He pulled his shoulders back but didn’t respond.

  If she didn’t know better, she’d think her opinion of his skills was still important to him, and he was preening under her compliment. But she doubted he really cared about what she thought of his skills.

  You do, though.

  Right, she liked it when he complimented her at the morgue, so maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched to think he respected her opinion as well. Maybe these sparks flying between them weren’t all physical. Maybe it ran deeper.

  Not something she was even willing to contemplate and surely wouldn’t discuss.

  “You really like working with this team, don’t you?” she asked to change the subject back to business.

  “Yeah, I mean it’s the closest thing to the Berets that I could hope to find. It’s amazing and challenging at the same time. People are depending on you, so you show up and get tested every day. No other day or other mission matters. It’s what you do today. Everyone on the team gets that, and it makes for a good working situation.”

  His body suddenly stiffened, and his breath seemed to catch.

  Something was wrong. Really wrong, and a heavy feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He took a shaky breath and blew it out. “Here I am feeling guilty over letting you down, but it just hit me that behavior goes against who I am as a team member. It’s about what you do today, not the past. I need to let all of that go. The blame. The regret. Focus on today.”

  Wow. What a realization. One she wished she could have, too. But he left out one really important thing. “You didn’t mention Alison. It applies to losing her, too, right?”

  “That’s a different thing all together.” He sent a glowering look her way, and the open expression closed down.

  She knew that look. He didn’t want to talk about it. Would refuse to talk about it. Just when she thought they could be making headway, he clammed up. She was such a fool. When would she learn to avoid personal issues and stick with talking about his job and his protection services?

  Now. She’d start now and move them back to a safe topic. “Everyone on the team seems to like each other.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “We have our moments, but yeah, we get along. You learn pretty soon in special forces if you aren't liked in the teams, your career will most likely be cut short. I saw guys dropped for that. You can't just be tough and give it your all, you have to perform and gain the trust of your teammates, too.”

  She could imagine teamwork, but when your very life depended on it? That was a whole other story. “When you were deployed, your career seemed so foreign to me. I couldn’t even fathom what you did. But this…um…this situation…has helped me see more of your work and get to know more about you.”

  He nodded but didn’t respond. He likely didn’t want her to know more about him—just as she shouldn’t want to know more about him.

  She started to sigh, but when he glanced at her, she turned to watch out the window for the rest of the drive. The closer they came to Summit, the destruction increased. She didn’t like seeing it, but at least working would occupy her mind.

  When Jackson parked and switched off the ignition, she removed her seat belt.

  From the console, he grabbed a microphone, hung it around his neck, and put an earbud in his ear. “For communicating with the team. As you know they’ve already cleared the property and there aren’t any visible threats, but we still need to be on alert.”