Casing the Copycat by Nicole Helm

Author:Nicole Helm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-01-25T16:58:01+00:00

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DUNNE HAD TO remind himself, time and time again, to slow down. This was not a rush-in situation. He had to be quick, but he had to be stealthy.

He had to trust Quinn could handle whatever idiocy she’d thrown herself into. Eyes wide open. She knew what she needed to know to protect herself.

He repeated that over and over in his mind. She’d survived a dangerous, insane cult. She’d stepped in front of a bullet for Jessie and survived. She’d put together pieces of this puzzle in days that he hadn’t in months.

She was a fighter. A marvel.

Who could barely read. Who was afraid of thunderstorms.

It mixed too many things up inside of him. That trust, that deeply ingrained need to protect. He didn’t know how to deal, and it was the most uncomfortable mantle he’d ever worn.

But he followed her tracks, her rubber bands, her torn-off branches. When he heard the cadence of voices in the distance, he stopped and oriented himself. Because he needed not just to save her, but to get them out of here when he did.

He’d spent his entire adult life saving. It was what he did, who he was, even in this last year on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming, with a bum leg, he’d done that. So, he had to believe in himself to keep it going.

He still couldn’t see them, but he moved in the direction of the voices, careful to keep as much cover as he could.

He kept his own footfalls utterly silent. He allowed himself—far enough away where he couldn’t see Quinn or make out the words she was saying—to fall away from Dunne Thompson and back into the soldier he’d been. Dunne Wilks. Soldier, sniper, combat medic.

What hadn’t he done? And a hike through a wildlife refuge, tracking enemies not fully known, that was old hat and not worth worrying about.

It took a while. Time ceased to matter in these moments of tracking. It was only the target. Only the endgame.

But then he saw it. The slightly off color—a tent through the trees. Movement, human, around said tent.

He breathed in a slow, near-silent rhythm, moving closer and more carefully.

The campsite had clearly been there for a while. Tent, fire, all manner of supplies.

And then he saw her, and he was back to his current self because everything in him nearly sagged with the relief that she was there. Right there. Quinn standing just a foot or two outside the little circle the campsite made, while a man crouched next to the fire, tending it.

His head was bowed so Dunne couldn’t really make out any features. He couldn’t discern if he knew this man or if it was a stranger. On some level, he understood that Quinn’s theory this person was related to him and his grandfather was the only possible answer, but there was a deep, resonating refusal inside of him.

If it was genetic, what did that make him? If the urge to kill and

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