Echoes (12 page)

“I wondered what you'd used. Unfortunately, I doubt he stayed on the island after the attack. He was probably hired from somewhere else specifically so he wouldn't be recognized, came in by boat, and planned to take you out the same way. Unless you think you got his face, in which case he might have had to get patched up quickly.”

“No. I was hoping to, but he was too fast. I got his collarbone area, I think. My many and varied self-defense teachers would be disappointed.”

“I doubt it. You're alive and free; that's a pretty damned good job, if you ask me.” His green eyes held approval and something more, something hotter and darker that had her stumbling backward.

“Oh! Let me get my toothbrush. It will just take me a second to throw all this junk in my suitcase, and then I'll be ready to go.”

On cue, his cell phone rang, and he turned away, striding toward the window. By the time she had stuffed her toiletries into her suitcase, he'd spotted Travis's boat,
The Tramp
, out the window.

“We're on the way,” he said. “See you in a minute.” He shut the phone. “Can you carry the bag? I doubt your friend is still hanging around, but I'd like to keep my hands free just in case.”

“No problem.” Callie hoisted the bag up onto her shoulder.

Mac hustled Callie down the stairs, refusing to take the elevator. She understood his logic—in the small, blind space, they would be vulnerable the moment the doors opened—but resented it nonetheless with every throb of her hip.

Under the marina lights,
The Tramp
gleamed. Although it was clearly a working boat, and not a new one, the perfectly maintained sport cruiser close to thirty feet long bore little resemblance to the beat-up fishing charter Callie had imagined. The man piloting was little more than a shadow beneath the canvas cockpit cover until he stepped to the rear of the boat and held out his hand to help her aboard, at which point she realized her assumptions about him had missed the mark by an even wider margin than had those about his boat.

Mac's description of Travis as an old Army buddy who'd opened a charter service had prompted a mental image of an aging beach bum living out his last years on the water, but Travis Moreland couldn't have been more than thirty-five, and, in a previous age, might have posed for Michelangelo. Steel-blue eyes glinted in a sharply sculpted face softened only marginally by a mop of dirty blond hair. But if his features had been stolen from heaven, the arm Travis held out to her had reached into the fires of hell itself. The scar tissue began at his wrist and continued up to disappear beneath the sleeve of his black T-shirt.

“Firebomb,” he said as she took his hand and stepped onto the boat. “I was lucky. I had gloves on.”

What was the proper reply? Callie swallowed. “While you were in the Army?”

He nodded. “Afghanistan.”

The boat rocked slightly as Mac joined them. Travis produced a gun from the small of his back and handed it over. “I wasn't the only one at your place tonight,” Travis told Mac. “Whoever beat me there doesn't know you, didn't look for the traps, and didn't find the e-kit.”

“Traps? E-kit?” she asked.

Both men looked at her, but it was Mac who answered.

“I use markers so I know if my doors or windows have been opened. Hairs, tape, threads. Trav recognized them, saw they'd been disturbed. An e-kit is an exit kit, an emergency kit. Passports, weapons, cash, first aid. You may hear it referred to as a ‘go bag.' Things you might need to get out, and get out fast.”

“Normal people don't live that way.”

“Then I guess you're lucky Mac here isn't normal.” Travis unlooped the line holding them to the dock. “I'm going to take her around to the port and drop you two at the
Lady
. You can take her out for a few days. You should think about Miami.”

Mac nodded, and Travis ducked into the cockpit.

“Miami?”

“Trav thinks we should head for the States. The
Lady
can make Miami quick enough, and he knows a harbormaster there.”

“I can't believe he owns boats called
Lady
and
The Tramp
.”

“Believe it.
Lady
is a fifty-two-foot sedan bridge. Custom job. A real beaut. He must like you, because he'd never give her up and volunteer to sleep on
The Tramp
for however long this takes otherwise.”

“He only just met me,” Callie protested.

The engine caught and the boat jerked slightly. Mac steadied Callie with a hand on her arm and flashed her a quick grin. “Take it as a compliment. Trav doesn't like many people.”

Callie looked toward the cockpit. If
Lady
was as well maintained as
The Tramp
, Travis Moreland owned boat real estate worth millions of dollars. A twitch skittered up her spine.

“What happened to him?”

“He's never told me more than he did you. Firebomb.”

They passed a tower and Travis gave two short blasts to the horn, leaning out of the cockpit and waving to an invisible watcher. After five years, he'd know everyone on the island. Whoever tracked traffic in and out of the marina was probably used to him coming and going. Though possibly not at—she checked her watch—one in the morning. No wonder she was so tired.

“We'll be in the port in twenty minutes.” Mac shoved the gun into the waistband of his jeans and lifted her bag. “I'm going to stash the suitcase below, where it won't get wet. You want to sit out here, or below?”

“Out here.” The boat was picking up speed, and she raised her voice against the wind. “It's a beautiful night.”

Mac grinned again, his eyes darkening once more with the expression that made her stomach tighten. “That it is.”

They were pulling into a slip next to
Lady
—whose graceful lines and striking beauty suited her name—when Mac's cell phone rang. He passed the rope he'd been holding to Callie and pulled it out of his pocket.

“That can't be good news,” Travis said. He cut the engine and dropped bumper buoys over each side of
The Tramp
, then jumped lightly down from the cockpit, took the rope from Callie, and tied the boat in.

“No,” Mac agreed, recognizing the Atlanta area code on the caller ID, “it can't.”

***

Mac's partner's words confirmed his fears.

“Ed Steele is dead. Took a shiv to the gut in the yard this afternoon.”

“Hell, Vince, and you're just finding out now?”

“Not my problem, as has been made abundantly clear to me by
los federales
. And not yours, either. But just in case you were thinking of maybe paying the man a social call, I figured you should know there was no point.”

Which, of course, was exactly why Steele had been killed. “They see who did it?”

“Nope. Working theory is racial. Steele was tight with the neo-Nazi set.”

“Bull. It was a hit, bought and paid for.” He felt, rather than saw, both Callie and Travis staring at him.

“No argument from me. For the record, I am calling to convince you to reach out to the feds because you're in danger. And so is the Pearson woman.” Mac understood: Vince's phone calls were being monitored.

“They know about Callie?”

“Your pal in the gendarmerie down there gave her up. If I talk to you, I'm supposed to pass along the message that he'd like a word with you. Apparently, they've been calling you and you haven't answered.”

“I must have left that cell phone at home.”

Vince coughed a laugh. “Don't you hate it when that happens? Don't they know about this one?”

“They'll get it in the morning. Vichy has the one I got when I took the job at the Paradis, but this one's old, still with a provider in the States rather than down here. I keep it around for a-holes like you to call me on. The gendarmes will have to contact the wireless companies to get the number. It was on my personnel file at the Paradis, but that has . . . um . . . probably been misplaced.”

“You know, man, I miss working with you. I really do.”

“Yeah, yeah. You got a pen? I'll give you a dispose-a-phone number.” The prepaid cell was something else Mac kept in his e-kit. When Vince was ready, Mac read the number off to him.

“I'll pick one up myself in the morning, and call you when—if—I hear anything. In the meantime, watch your back.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

“Who's dead?” asked Callie as Mac disconnected.

“Ed Steele. Shanked in prison.”

“One less reason to go to Miami,” Travis observed. “But it does give you a clearer picture of what you're dealing with.”

“What do you mean?” Callie was fraying, and Mac could hear it. The hollow tone edged with desperation made him want to reach for her, but he held himself away, letting Travis answer.

“People kill for all kinds of reasons, Miss Pearson. When they do it for thrills or to fulfill some kind of fantasy, we call them serial killers. The FBI, they're used to that. They have their profilers to tell them all about some guys' sicknesses. But the man who's after you, he's your garden-variety murderer. No fantasy. At least, not as a compulsion, not as the thing in and of itself that drives him to kill. He may enjoy killing people, and there may be misfiring brain cells behind his actions, but he's also willing to forgo the thrill and pay a con to knife a guy in prison if that's what it takes to get the job done.”

“I see.”

Mac doubted she did. For all her talk about having lived in rough places, and for all her self-defense classes, Callie had never knowingly sat across a table from a murderer. In Narcotics, he'd done it on a regular basis.

Travis dug a set of keys out of his pocket and handed them to Mac. “Take the
Lady
. Get her out on the open water.” His cell rang, and he checked the readout. “Fuck. I wondered how long it would take.” He held out the phone. “It's not for me, buddy; it's for you.”

Mac looked at the display, which listed an unfamiliar number with a 212 area code and an all-too-familiar name: Nash. Mac backed away as if the ringing cell carried a disease.

“I had no idea you were still in touch with Nash.” Dwight “Nashville” Harper had been their XO. He'd taken four bullets during a mission gone disastrously wrong the year before Mac left the unit, lost a kidney, and taken a medical discharge. A week after the shooting, while Nash was recovering at Walter Reed, their CO, Al Thomas, had been assassinated. Two bullets to the back of his head. The timing had always bothered Mac.

Nash had called a couple of times when he'd come through Atlanta working for the Drug Enforcement Agency, but Mac had always managed to be too busy to see the man. If Nash and Travis had kept in contact, it explained how Travis had heard about the knife fight that ended Mac's career. Nash never left anything to chance. He would have kept an eye on anyone he considered useful, and cops were always useful.

“I wouldn't say we're in touch. He left the DEA four years ago, started a private firm. He's been bugging me to join up. Says I'm wasting my talents out here.” Well, on that point, Mac would have to agree. But who was he to judge? “He's still got plenty of federal contacts, though, so it was only a matter of time until he caught onto the fact that they want to chat with you.” The phone quieted momentarily as voice mail kicked in, then began to ring again. Clearly, Nash wasn't ready to talk to a machine.

“He could be useful.” Travis held out the cell once more.

“Fine.” Mac flipped the phone open and held it to his ear. “This is Brody.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Is Travis okay?”

“Yeah, Nash, he's fine. He figured you wanted me, and he didn't want to play middleman.”

Another quiet period, then Nash's twangy drawl, still familiar after so many years. “He was right. I have some information. I'd have given it to him if I had to, but I'd rather pass it straight to you.”

“What do you want in return?”

“Nothing. No, I take that back. I want you to promise to call if I can help.”

Mac wanted to make a different promise, that it would be a cold day in hell before he asked his former XO for anything. But he couldn't. Travis was right about Nash having resources, and Callie might need them.

“I'll think about it.”

The man had the nerve to laugh. “Good enough. When your . . . situation . . . came across my desk earlier today, I did some digging. Called in some favors. Did you know that your wife was in a car wreck when she was sixteen?”

“She was?”

“Indeed. Broke her left arm in two places. I had a lovely chat with a source who tells me the body the gendarmes found on the shore there had no healed fractures.”

“Its not Nikki.”

“No.”

“Christ.” He'd considered the possibility, but only as a theoretical. He glanced at Callie, watching him with a concerned frown. “I wonder why her brother didn't mention anything about it.”

“Now, I found that rather curious myself, especially after I watched the man on television spouting off about his beloved sister. So I checked him out, too. It's possible—not probable, but possible—that he didn't know. Nicole Lewis was in boarding school in Switzerland at the time of the accident. It was 2002, a year John Lewis spent primarily in the US.”

“Still, I can't believe he wasn't aware his sister had been in an accident.”

“You always did rush to judgment.” Only the faintest reproof tinted the words. “But let's leave John Lewis alone for a minute. I'd rather talk about something else. Were you aware that Calliope Pearson and Edward Steele both have birth certificates signed by the same midwife, a woman named Cherie Marshall? I find that odd, especially since Cherie presided over the birth of Miss Pearson in Montauk, New York, and Mr. Steele in Miami, Florida. I haven't managed to get my hands on birth certificates for Robin Cory or Deborah or Diane Masters yet, but I am confident I will in time.”