And she could see the time Landon walked up the stairs of that porch and into the house after Kari married Tim… a million years ago. Ashley breathed deep. Of course she painted what she felt. The memories were a part of her life here at the old Baxter house.
When her dad and Elaine decided to sell, Ashley and Landon were the only adult kids interested in buying it. The only ones willing to live on the ten acres and take care of the place. Of course, the two of them had jumped at the chance.
Ashley would never grow tired of looking at the old house, the white wood siding and pretty gables, the dark roof and white wraparound porch. The solid double mahogany front doors. Their home had gone up in value in recent years, but she and Landon would never sell it. The memories inside those walls and windows were simply priceless.
Ashley took her time walking across the expansive front yard and up the porch steps. She and Landon would be home from Paris before she knew it, back here in Bloomington, where her work came to life. There was nothing to fear in Paris. Those shadowy dark days were decades ago.
CHAPTER FOUR
At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.
—Job 14:7
Jack Ryder didn’t care if he died.
That was why he was the best special agent in the San Antonio FBI. Jack took chances where other agents were careful. He was bold where the rest shrank back. He lived for the mission. At twenty-six, his superiors all told him the same thing.
They’d never had an agent like him.
Jack was a chameleon. He could grow out his beard and get intel on a Middle Eastern weapons cache. Cut his hair and shave and work undercover drug busts at a high school. Wear tennis shoes and ripped-up jeans and fit in on any college campus.
Since his twenty-third birthday, Jack had been working for the FBI, and in the past few years he’d moved to undercover missions, one after another. Oliver had told him that agents who joined the bureau younger than age twenty-five rarely lasted, and that typically an agent had to be at least thirty to succeed at undercover work.
At every point, Jack was the exception.
Lately his missions were focused on international drug and sex-trafficking rings that also did business in the United States. The missions were getting more dangerous. That was okay with Jack. If there was a God, He had intended Jack for this job alone.
He gripped the wheel of his black Ford Explorer and stared at the road. To get to the FBI office in San Antonio, Jack had to drive past a cemetery. He made it a practice not to look. Better to keep his attention on the living, the ones who needed rescuing.
Cemeteries made him feel. And according to his personal rules, feelings were a sign of weakness, a waste of constructive time and energy, forbidden. Period.
It was Thursday, the first of July, and his meeting was on the fourth floor, where the most sensitive missions came together. Jack wore dark pants and a black belt, the white button-down shirt and navy tie and jacket—a size up to conceal his pistol.
FBI standard fare when Jack wasn’t on a mission.
Martha Lou Henderson sat at the desk by the elevator. She’d worked there a hundred years at least, and trustworthy didn’t begin to describe her. The woman didn’t blink as Jack swept his badge beneath the sensor. Only when the light flashed blue did she smile. “Morning, Jack.”
“You’re still not sure it’s me.”
“Nope.” She grinned. “And I feel that way about your boss. And his boss.” She pressed four buttons on the control panel and the elevator door opened. “Have a good day, Jack.”
“You, too, Martha Lou.” He chuckled as he got on the elevator.
Everyone had to be kept accountable. Agents had turned against the FBI in the past, succumbing to the lure of drug money, bribes and the promise of power. Accountability was necessary even for those who, like Jack, would give their lives for the job, agents who embodied the FBI motto—Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.
Jack passed through two additional security clearances before entering the meeting room. The walls on the fourth floor were solid glass and always clean. The view of San Antonio’s Hill Country never got old. He looked around and smiled. Never mind that he was early, his boss was already there, talking with two of the bureau’s other top undercover agents.
Jack took a seat at a desk in the front row and spread his legs in front of him. He had topped out at six-three, tall enough to play college football if he’d wanted to.
But after Shane died, football lost its allure. Like life itself.
Until Oliver Layton found him.