Forged in Ash (5 page)

Cosky glanced in the review mirror and punched the accelerator, bracing his elbow against the door handle as his pickup shot forward. From behind him, a car backfired. The explosive sound echoed in the air, as staccato as a gunshot. A rusted two-door sedan, the same one that had been riding his ass for the last mile, took the corner on a greasy plume of exhaust and settled in behind his bumper, tailing him so closely he could clearly see the driver—a thin, jaundiced woman with ratty brown hair.

There was no question. He’d picked up a tail.

She was of European descent, which didn’t mean shit these days with domestic terrorists giving the foreign ones some serious competition for murder and mayhem. Although he doubted she was a Tango. Terrorists trained their cell members better. The woman was a complete amateur. Or an idiot. Or both. Only a moron would tail him so closely he could see her face. He glanced in the review mirror as the sedan backfired again. Black exhaust slicked the street behind him. At the very least a professional would choose a less conspicuous ride.

“Unbelievable.”

He’d noticed her the moment she’d pulled onto Silver Strand Boulevard behind him. She’d been impossible to miss. If the backfiring hadn’t caught his attention, the jet-engine muffler would have. The damn thing was noisier than a Black Hawk on liftoff, which was why he hadn’t realized at first that she was following him. Sure she’d mirrored him turn for turn, but coincidences happened. By the fourth turn he’d started to wonder, so he’d tested her by taking sudden random corners, by speeding up and slowing down, by sailing through yellow lights and stopping at green. She’d matched every maneuver.

Yep, he was being tailed—by an idiot.

It would have been laughable if his knee weren’t howling and his life clinging to the edge of an abyss.

She was probably a reporter, another vulture eager to pick over the carcass of his naval career. He scowled, that familiar python of frustration wrapping around his chest and squeezing the air from his lungs.

Damn it!

The media shitfest was finally settling down. They were able to step off base without being mobbed by the press. Yeah, this hiatus
would disappear if the DOJ decided to launch a criminal investigation, but for the moment they’d been given some breathing room. The last thing they needed was another opinionated piece hitting the papers, or airing across the networks.

A molten ice pick stabbed through his knee and he exhaled a tight curse, shifting to take the pressure off his leg. When the pain didn’t lessen, he dug his fingers into the protesting joint. He should have eased back on the bike, but he’d wanted to work his body to the point of exhaustion.

His mind shifted to Kait Winchester, to long aristocratic fingers and a waterfall of sleek, pale hair. With luck his body wouldn’t have the energy to react to the hour of torture he’d signed it up for.

Grimacing, he groaned. Christ, this visit was a bad idea. There was a reason he’d avoided Kait for the past five years. But he didn’t turn the truck around. Apparently his need for a miracle overrode his sense of self-preservation.

The last thing he wanted, though, was to bring the press down on Kait’s door, so when he arrived at her apartment complex he drove past. He’d dump his tail and circle back to keep his appointment. Of course, his tail would just attach herself to him again, later. Or maybe she’d fixate on Rawls, or Zane, or heaven help them—Beth. Zane would blow a gasket if some whack job started tailing Beth. He might as well put an end to this woman’s game and send her on her noisy way.

With that in mind, he pulled into the restaurant parking lot for Coronado Ferry Landing Shopping. His tail had to wait for several cars to pass before she could follow. He cruised around the center parking aisle and picked a space on the far left. The woman pulled into a slot in front of the sidewalk, which ran the length of
the restaurant strip. Perfect, she’d have to cross the entire parking lot to reach him, giving him plenty of time to assess her approach.

He hit the latch to the glove box and the compartment fell open, exposing his Glock. After stashing the weapon in the waistband of his jeans, he slid out of the truck, doing his best to ignore the slivers of ice piercing his kneecap. The hot breeze brought a whiff of barbeque and his stomach growled. Too bad all this unwelcome attention had made him late for his appointment, that barbeque smelled damn good.

He doubted the woman was dangerous, but it never paid to trust one’s life to assumptions, so he tucked his T-shirt behind the Glock for easier access, and watched her slam the rusted door of the sedan and start toward him.

Marcus Simcosky was better looking in person than he’d been in the newspapers or on the television. There was a cold intensity to the flesh-and-blood man that the digital and print images lacked.

Jillian Michaels shoved her hands into the pockets of the poncho she’d liberated from a clothesline south of Portland, Oregon. Even with the summer sun overhead and the heavy wool shielding her, she couldn’t seem to warm up. She’d been freezing for months.

She studied the man she’d come thousands of miles to kill—or at least, one of the men—as she headed across the parking lot. His face was guarded, watchful. It had been a miracle she’d recognized him when his truck passed her stakeout point along Silver Strand Boulevard. She’d been parked along that stretch of road for days, hoping one of the men she’d come to kill would cruise past. Praying
she’d recognize them, trying, without success, to think of another way to track them down.

The newspapers hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with addresses, and they were unlisted in the yellow pages. Googling their names hadn’t produced any results, either.

Her steps slowed as she stared at him. She hadn’t expected him to be so tall or tanned or muscular. She hadn’t expected the confidence and strength he exuded, or the subtle sense of threat. She hadn’t expected him to look so damn…capable.

He’d hovered near death for days. Spent weeks in the hospital. But he didn’t look sick. Not like she did. But then he’d had the luxury of recovering in the hospital, or in the homes of family and friends. Nor was he on the run, sleeping in stolen cars, scrounging out of trash cans, ransacking empty houses in the hope of finding enough cash to fill his gas tank or enough food to fill his belly.

A horn blared. The squeal of brakes followed. Jillian jumped back, realizing she’d stepped in front of an oncoming car. Not that the car could do any damage. She was already dead. A lifeless husk held together by vengeance and determination. She glanced across the pavement and found her soon-to-be victim watching her with cold detachment. He must have seen the car headed directly for her, but he hadn’t bothered to shout a warning.

Bastard.

Had he hoped the car would finish the job, kill her where bullets and icy water had failed? He wasn’t one of the men who’d kicked down her door, kidnapped her family, and stolen her life from her; nor one of the men who’d come after her in the hospital, after she’d reported what happened to the police. But he was involved. He was one of the bastards who’d killed her brother, and spread those lies about him.

A flush of rage warmed her. Her fingers curled into claws. She shoved them deeper into the pockets of her poncho. When her hand bumped against the cold steel of the revolver she’d stolen from a house in San Diego, she forced her fingers to unfurl and take hold. The voluptuous folds of the poncho hid the bulge of the gun. She wouldn’t have to pull it out; she’d just point and fire through the cotton.

And while he lay there, the parking lot filling with his lying, murderous blood, she’d shoot him again and again. One shot for each of her babies and another for her brother.

He’d be the first to pay for what they’d taken from her, but they were all going to pay. Every last one of them. She was going to make sure of it.

Her muscles tensed in determination and she took another step forward, the gun warming in her tense grip. She’d start with him, this murderous SEAL, and then she’d go after his friends. And before she killed the last of them, she’d force him to tell her how to find the others. Those bastards who’d broken into her house and kidnapped her family and taken her life from her.

The rage swelled with each step, liquefying her frozen chest, warming arms and legs that never shed the chill picked up in that icy lake all those months ago.

As her hand tightened around the gun, a cry rose behind her. A thick, sobbing wail. The sound stopped her in her tracks. Her fingers lost their grip on the gun. The cry came again. So familiar. So beloved.

Time and space warped in and out, surrounding her like ripples on sunbaked asphalt. She turned in slow motion, the sun spinning dizzy and brilliant overhead. She stopped breathing, waiting for that familiar, beloved cry.

A stroller rattled down the sidewalk. Her gaze locked on the fragile blond head that bounced slightly with each rotation of the wheels. On the lift and flop of wheat-gold hair.

Blond curls, a dimpled smile, bluer-than-blue eyes.

Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry. Mommy’s here. Mommy’s coming.

Jillian turned.

Smile for me, sweetie. Smile for Mommy. Let Mommy see those dimples.

She stepped onto the sidewalk and fell in behind the stroller, her vision tunneled on that beacon of a blond head. Her heart stuttered as chubby, denim-clad legs kicked in time to those hiccupping sobs.

Chubby little legs, stocky little body. Round arms giving sticky hugs.

In the distance a woman wept. Broken gasps of grief. Jillian blocked the sound and focused on the stroller.

Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry. Mommy’s here. Mommy’s coming.

What the hell?

Cosky watched the woman who’d been tailing him turn and head in the opposite direction. Maybe she hadn’t been following him after all. Coronado Ferry Landing was a popular shopping and eating area; maybe the whole thing had been a weird coincidence. But that many turns, for that long? An unlikely coincidence.

It was more likely she’d thought he was someone else and hadn’t realized her mistake until she’d climbed out of her car and gotten a good look at him. Maybe she’d been too embarrassed to approach.

He frowned and shook his head slightly. He could have sworn there’d been recognition on her face, a fixed, frozen expression, as though she knew him—or thought she did.

Relaxing, he watched her head down the sidewalk. She never looked back. When his knee locked up and his thigh started to spasm, he climbed back in the truck and fired the engine.

Before exiting the parking lot, he shot another glance toward his stalker. Some terrorist she’d turned out to be. The whole thing was weird though. And not just the tailing, but the coat she was wearing too. Wool was too heavy for Coronado in the summer. It was in the mid-eighties. She should have been sweltering. He shook the questions aside and headed back the way he’d come.