Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel by Emily March Page B

you’ll be able to get around by yourself?”
    “I’ll be fine. I have a lot of work to do to get ready to go. I can only do it from my office.”
    Cam gave him a sidelong glance. “Go? Go where? You can’t put weight on your leg and you think you’re gonna put your James Bond suit on? Where are they sending you this time?”
    It must have been the combination of pain and painkillers and the fact that Cam was family that loosened his tongue, because for the second time in two days, Jack opened up about his job. He not only opened up, he began to blab. “They’re not sending me anywhere. I’ve had it with the suits. Damned politicians and political hacks and bureaucratasses.”
    “Bureaucratasses?” Cam repeated.
    “I’m going off the reservation, going rogue.”
    Cam braked a little too hard as they approached a stop sign. “Want to explain that, cousin?”
    “I have the money to do whatever I want. This time, it’ll be my agenda, my rules of engagement. I’ll play just as mean and dirty as th-th-they do.”
    “You sound drunk. Just how many of those pills did Rose give you? Did you eat anything this morning?”
    “I’m fine,” Jack said, rubbing his aching head. “I’m alive, aren’t I? Tony isn’t.”
    And Jack told him about Tony Martinez, spilling gritty details he’d never shared with anyone—not even during his other blabfest with Cat last night. Speaking the facts and his thoughts aloud served to dissolve his drug-induced mellow, but even as his mood blackened, his resolve strengthened. “I’m going after their asses. For Tony. For all the other lives they’re ruining. If the suits won’t do it, I will.”
    Cam waited until he’d negotiated one of the hairpin turns on the road between Eternity Springs and Eagle’s Way to ask, “You’re gonna run an operation off the books? You hiring mercs for this?”
    “I’m gonna hire a whole damned army. What’s the sense in having more money than the Queen of England if I don’t put it to good use? Why shouldn’t I do this? How many times have I’ve risked my life to rescue politicians and their wives and their mistresses and other Very Important Pricks? This time I’m gonna do it for a friend. For my partner. Why not rescue Tony’s memory?”
    “He took his own life, Jack. That’s not on you.”
    Jack ignored him. “I’m gonna hire an army and we’re gonna infiltrate that godforsaken land and its depraved cartels and take ’em out one by one. Hell, maybe I’ll get myself a uniform to wear. Get some shoulder epaulets. Every banana republic leader needs some of those. Wonder if Armani could whip me up a set.”
    “I think Rose must have made a mistake with her drug dosages. You’re talking crazy.”
    “Why is it crazy? Answer me that? I’ve spent my entire adult life fighting these sons o’ bitches. I came to the job thinking it was good and noble work. You know what? It was. Back then, it was. I’m proud of the work we did, the things we accomplished, the people I helped. It was an important job that needed to be done. But it cost me. It cost me my family. Cost me Cat. And now the politicians have gotten in the way. Somehow the good guys have become the bad guys and vice versa. Where’s the justice in that, Cam?” Jack dropped his head back against the headrest, closed his eyes, and repeated, “Where’s the justice?”
    Cam didn’t respond, and Jack let the movement of the car and the effects of the painkillers lull him into sleep. When he awoke, he realized the car had stopped. Camwas no longer behind the wheel. Assuming they’d arrived at Eagle’s Way, he opened the car door and reached around to the backseat for his crutches … and stopped. This wasn’t Eagle’s Way. “What the hell?”
    Cam’s truck was parked in the main lot at Angel’s Rest. What had he missed?
    Jack took stock of his situation. He ached all over and his mind was still fuzzy from the drugs, but he could get around by himself. He hauled