Operation Zulu Redemption: Out of Nowhere - Part 2 (13 page)

He hadn’t been in the cottage in over a month. The night they’d shared a plate of nachos and watched a marathon of the science-fiction flick,
Firefly
. She sat on the sofa, legs crossed and a pillow in her lap, insisting he was out of his mind to watch a show about space cowboys and demented cannibals. But she stayed, laughed, and cheered the characters on. That was the thing about Ashland—she’d give anything a chance.

Even me.

“Can you grab the glasses?” his sister, Carolyn, asked as she carried a box of linens to the back bedroom. “I want to give them to Goodwill and get a new set for the tenants.”

Lifting a glass from the cabinet, Sam frowned and looked toward the hall. “Tenants?”

His sister reappeared, her sandy blond hair pulled into a ponytail. She winced and hunched. “Yeah. . .meant to tell you. I agreed to a six-month lease for a writer who wants to come up and get his next novel written.”

“You rented the place?”

“Look, I know for you, Ashland is coming back.”

“We don’t know otherwise.”

“Sam, I know you liked her. And I know you’re trying to find her, but Paul and I must have someone paying the bills on this place. Things are too tight for us.” She touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry. We are within our legal rights to do this.”

“What if I pay?”

Carolyn sniffed, then she must’ve noticed his expression. “You’re serious.”

The thought of anyone else living here. . .

“Sammy, that’s. . .” She tucked some hair behind her ear. “What if you can’t find her? It could be months or longer. I can’t let you do that. I know you mean well, and I know you want to find her.”

“Why would she leave me?” Had those words come from his mouth? Sam pivoted and reached for another glass in the upper cabinet, knocking the one in his hand to the ground. Glass shattered across the floor.

Carolyn jumped backward.

“Crap.” Frustrated with himself and the situation over the cottage, Sam held out a hand to his sister. “Leave it. I’ll get it cleaned up.”

“I’m really sorry, Sammy.”

He nodded and retrieved the dustpan and broom from the small closet in the narrow hall. Sweeping the chunks into the dustpan, he tried to shed his sense of helplessness in with the dirt. It did about as much good. And hadn’t he learned in BUD/S that every minute was a choice?
His
choice.

He set the pan down and palmed the counter.

Leave the whole situation alone?

Or hunt her down like the SEAL he was?

His gaze hit one of the chunks of glass. A smudge caught his eye. Sam craned his neck to the side, allowing the light to hit the piece from a different angle. Not a dirty smudge. A fingerprint.

His heart backfired as the questions again plagued him—pursue or abandon?

Holding the piece as if it were directly connected to Ashland herself only heightened his sense of duty. The insane conviction that he was to protect her. He’d wanted that since she took his order at the Green Dot that first day he’d arrived.

Sam moved out onto the deck and tugged his phone out of his pocket. Dialed. Put the phone to his ear as his gaze bounced over the sparkling waters of the lake.

“ ’alo.”

“Otto, Sam.”

“You ask me to do complicated things, yet you feel the need every time you call to tell me who you are. You don’t think I know this already?”

“Otto,” Sam said, more terse this time. “Can you run fingerprints?”

Hesitation clogged the line. “I have a feeling I don’t want to know why you’re asking that, but yes—I can. And I can even read caller ID.”

“I’ll be over in ten.” Sam pocketed the phone and stepped back into the cottage. “Hey, I’ll be back in an hour.”

Explaining why he was leaving would give her the opportunity to condemn his efforts, chastise him again. He didn’t need that. When he pulled into Otto’s driveway, Sam stared at the Jeep already parked. Jeff. What was Jeff doing here?

Sam headed to the front door, which swung open as he strode up the path. Jeff gave him a nod. “What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Jeff closed the door and with it, shut off most of the natural light.

A thrum of electricity emanated from Otto’s living room, where artificial light cast from a ton of monitors glared back at him.

“Look, man,” Otto said, as he pushed up his black glasses and shifted in the oversized leather executive chair. “You just had that sound, ya know? The one like you’re on a mission, and when you’re like that. . .well, it scares me. I don’t want to go to jail—”

“Jail?” Sam scowled at the two of them. “What do you think I’m asking? I just want fingerprints.” He held up the glass. “Otto said she didn’t exist, so let’s find out who does. Running fingerprints isn’t illegal.” When neither man moved, Sam felt as if someone had tapped a det cord and he’d blow at any second. “What?”

The Green Dot owner stretched his jaw. “You know the deputies found no fingerprints of hers at the cottage.”

Sam shrugged. He didn’t know but also wasn’t surprised.

“It’s probably not hers,” Jeff said.

“Nobody else has been in that cottage since that night.”

“Except you.”

True. Sam had been inside, but he hadn’t touched anything. “The print is too small to be mine.” Sam roughed a hand over his face. Turned to Otto and held out the piece. “Just run it. Please. I won’t ask anything else of you.”

Otto glanced at Jeff.

“Since when is the sub shop guy mayor of Manson?” Sam’s anger rose and crested on a tide of roiling frustration.

“I’m not,” Jeff said. “I just don’t want you to vanish, too.”

Sam swallowed. Understood the implied threat. Ashland had vanished. “You think if I run this, I could end up just like her.” And though the itch at the back of his brain told him she was still alive somewhere, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities that she had died. He could end up in the grave, too, if they ran this. He lifted his chin. “I’m willing to take the risk.” A nod to Otto. “Run it.”

“All right then,” Otto said. “It’ll take a couple of days.”

Sam backed toward the door. “I’ll wait on your call.” And before Jeff could pepper him with more questions or doubts, Sam left. They’d long been friends, and more times than not, Jeff was right. A wise man in his own right, Jeff had counseled Sam through many dark days. But not this one. Jeff wanted to play it safe. Sam wanted to play it straight—and hit whoever took Ashland head-on.

Jeff would call it reckless.

Turning back toward the lake house, Sam spotted a brown sedan in his rearview mirror. Definitely not a car from around here. Maybe a tourist. Or a rental. He shrugged it off as he turned right.

A glint behind lured his gaze back to the mirror. Brownie was still behind him. No big surprise. Going through town, there weren’t many main roads, so it wasn’t uncommon to travel the same route. Passing the Green Dot, he kept his eye on Wapato Way Road but his periphery homed on Brownie sedan behind him. When he hit Wapato Lake and headed past the casino. . .

Brownie followed.

Sam tightened his hand on the steering wheel, eyeballing the side mirror. There was no way someone could already know about the fingerprint. So. . .who was on his tail? He had to shake them before they trailed him home.

He hit a right on Roses Avenue and slowed.

Brownie came around the corner.

Sam whipped his car around. Flung open his door. And drew his Glock. “Out of the car,” he yelled. “Get out!”

Though she was following a Navy SEAL, she had no idea Samuel Caliguari would tag her so fast. Biting back a curse, Frankie slid the car into P
ark
. Hands up, she eased out of the rental.

“Hands!”

She lifted them higher, her heart thundering as she stood beside a field of grapes. A flicker of temptation had her sprinting away from him through the vines, but that would only get her shot in the back.

“Who are you?” Even yelling at her and his face scrunched into a tight scowl, the man was get-out gorgeous. “Why are you following me?”

“I just want to talk,” Frankie said, swallowing a big ball of dread.

“Bull.” He was within a few feet of her now. Close enough for her to see the tat crawling out from under his T-shirt on a very large bicep. “Talk? That’s what phones are for.”

“Fair enough, but there are some things that need to be said face-to-face.”

“Yeah, like get in your car, turn around, and don’t come back.”

Frankie stiffened. Just like her brothers, he was dismissing her. “I just wanted to talk to you—”

“About what?”

“Trace Weston.”

His expression didn’t change. At all. Great. He didn’t know who she was talking about. He wagged the weapon toward the car. “Get in,” he said, his words carrying the very breath of anger. “Leave and don’t come back.” He kept moving forward, pressing her backward. To the car.
Into
the car.

“No, listen—”

“Leave now and you walk out of here alive. No promises if I see you again.”

“I just wanted to talk to you about Ashland Palmieri.”

This time he flinched. Seared her with a scorching glare. Yet, he remained unmoved. Undeterred in his laserlike focus on his mission: making her leave.

Or was this a chance to convince him to work with her?

He rapped on the hood, then motioned to the road.

Again, her choices split her down the middle—get out and say she wasn’t leaving, something she would’ve done to her bullheaded brothers. Or turn around and head back into town. . .and find Sam later. Maybe the second time would be the charm and he wouldn’t have that gun.

No, he’d have it. And she had a very keen awareness that he would use it.

So. Time to regroup and re-strategize. For a second, she considered spitting out that she wasn’t easily scared off and she intended to return, but no sense in warning the guy.

Perched on the edge of the bed, Trace sat with his fingers steepled and pressed to his face. Up till after three, they’d come up with exactly nothing on Spirapoulos, though the name was on Jessie’s data wall. They’d read files and articles over dinner, then a midnight eat-in with pizza and Chinese. The intensity of his desire to put Misrata to bed had swelled to a colossal peak, layered with thick coats of frustration and dead ends.

A soft flutter of movement forced his eyes open.

Annie stood on the threshold, more casual this time in jeans and a light blue sweater. “You okay?”

He straightened and nodded. “Sure.”

She slipped into the room and onto the arm chair next to the dresser. “That’s Trace speak for ‘It sucks, but I’m gutting it up,’ I believe.”

She always did know how to read him, look past what he said to what he didn’t say. Though she was nine years younger, there was a similarity of minds that had drawn him to her. But that wasn’t a conversation for now. Or ever.

Trace pushed to his feet and trudged to the window. “Christakis didn’t seem to know anything.”

“We didn’t exactly give him a chance to show us that,” Annie said.

“Three hours dropping hints and he never bit.” Greece was beautiful and yet it wasn’t. Though the early morning sun climbed into the sky, a certain gloom hovered in the distance. It contaminated the mission and his mood. “We’re wasting our time here.”

A gentle touch against his back made Trace jerk. His gaze snapped to Annie, who stood at his side. Her blue eyes so blue. Her skin so golden and soft. “I’ve never known you to give up so quickly or easily.”

It’d be so simple to touch her. To break the promise he’d made five years ago. “When one meets failure enough, he’s quick to recognize it when it’s staring him in the face.”

Annie’s eyes widened and her lips parted.

What surprised her? What had he said— “I didn’t mean
that
.” Though
that
had been a failure, too, though he did everything right. Though it was the right thing to do.

Her face flushed and she pulled her gaze away and down.

Way to screw it up again, Weston.
He turned back toward the bed and lifted his phone from the nightstand. Anything to shield himself from the hurt in her expression. But he couldn’t. Just as Annie read him, he could do the same. And there were images of her burned into his mind that he’d never be able to shake.

“Why did you do it, Trace?”

If he faced her, told her the truth. . .what would it change? Trace gritted his teeth. But he was tired of the failures. The letdowns. He felt like a punching bag.

“Commander!” Houston shouted from the main sitting area.

Coward that he was, Trace seized the escape. “Yeah?” he said, heading out of the room, but not before he heard Annie’s frustrated sigh. “What’s up?” Stepping into the living area seemed to ease the weight on his chest. The openness gave him room to breathe.

“So,” Houston said, “I’ve been running the names and faces that came up during your visit to Spirapoulos.”

Give me something. .
anything
. Please.
One hand on the guy’s chair and a palm on the desk, Trace leaned in. “Right. Last night you said there wasn’t anything there.”

“I know. There wasn’t.”

Trace’s frustration knotted his patience. He tightened his lips.

“But thanks to that handy spy-bot y’all set free, I went through and ran facial recognition over the people who have been in and out of the building.”

“Have you slept at all, Houston?” Annie asked, arms folded as she stood in front of him.

“Sleep, who needs sleep when there’s Red Bull? Anyway”—he waved a hand—“about twenty minutes ago, someone showed up at Spiro. And the software matched him almost immediately.”

“With whom?”

Houston pulled up the footage. Stopped the frame on a tall, dark-haired man who walked in confidence.

“A power player,” Trace muttered.

With a grunt, Houston produced a picture on the monitor. “You could say that.” Another click and an entire portfolio appeared. “Titus Batsakis, owner of Aegean Defense Systems.”

“ADS,” Trace said, his gaze hitting the banner with Jessie’s data. He pointed to where three bold letters shone clearly: ADS, right next to the single word
Sheba
. “She was on to them.”

“The news gets even better, ladies and gentlemen,” Houston announced and brought up another image. This of Giles Stoffel, Titus Batsakis, and a woman at a very ritzy gala. “That”—he flicked the woman’s face—“is the one and only Mercy Chandler, now-wife of”—he produced another document, this a wedding license—“one Giles Stoffel.”

Annie moved to Houston’s right shoulder. “Wait—that lists Mercy Kennedy.”

“That would be because Mercy dropped her last name when she opened HOMe,” Houston said, showing a birth certificate with the name Mercy Chandler Kennedy.

Trace let out a long whistle, scanning the document. “Guess that’s why we couldn’t find her, but you’d think the government could figure out something like that.”

“I wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t been using this new program a friend and I put together. It’s wicked cool—takes the face in question then zips through online photo and shows the matches.”

Trace patted Houston’s shoulder. “Nice work.”

The beep of a key card swiping the electronic lock box drew Trace around. He set his hand on the weapon holstered at his back as Boone thrust open the door, holding two large bags. Téya and Nuala also carried bags. “Not as good as gyros,” Boone said with a laugh, but maybe they’ll convince the natives to talk.”

Trace frowned.

“Bread and cheese,” Téya explained. “We needed some ammo to get them to talk.”

Maybe that gloom hovering on the horizon was starting to break up. “Good thinking.”

“What?” Téya wrinkled her lightly freckled nose at him. “Praise from the commander?” She brushed hair from her face. “I might faint.” Her hand bore a red, angry mark.

“What happened to your hand?”

He’d rarely seen it happen, but Téya blanched. Then gave him a weak smile. “Flat-iron fight.” She turned to the bags. “The smell of this stuff is making me hungry.” She lifted out a round loaf and sniffed longingly at it. . .her burned hand sliding into her pocket.

Nuala laughed. “I know you and gluten, so leave it alone or there’ll be none left to bribe the people.” She set it with the others.

Téya looked stiff. Nervous.

“Téya,” Trace said, his tone demanding she come clean.

She stilled, then her shoulders slumped as she met Nuala’s gaze, then Boone’s. He nodded at her. “Yesterday,” Téya began quietly, “as we were trying to leave, we were set upon.”

“Not really set upon, but more. . .ganged up on,” Nuala corrected.

“They came out of the alley and just crowded us. In the end they didn’t harm us—”

“Just scared the tar out of us! And when we caught up with Boone, that’s when I noticed the burn on her hand.”

Trace went to Téya and lifted her hand. Saw the mark of The Turk burned into her flesh, right below the knuckle of her index finger. He wanted to curse. Punch someone. “You hid this from me?”

Tugging her hand back, Téya flashed him a glare. “It means nothing.”

“It means
everything
,” Trace shouted. Poked a finger in Boone’s direction. “We’ll talk about this later.”

“What?”

“You knew?”

“Trace—what could we do? If she keeps it covered nobody will know.”

“
I
need to know!” he growled the words. “Do you know what that means?”

Boone said nothing.

Son of a gun. Trace snorted. “You knew and weren’t going to tell her?”

Téya’s expression fell. “What? What are you talking about?”

“He’s marked you, Téya. Wherever you go, anyone who sees that mark and recognizes it will alert him. They won’t kill you, but that’s about where their kindness will stop.”

“This is insane.” Téya swallowed hard. “If he was there, if he knew I was there, why didn’t he just kill me then?”

“Because it’s on his terms. When he’s ready, when the time is right, he’ll take you.” Trace bit back a curse.

“I’ll have it burned off.”

Trace snorted. “Every man in that slum knows who you are, knows The Turk has claimed you.” He balled his fists. “You won’t get anything out of anyone now.”

Téya’s face reddened. “I’m not giving up. Not when we have a chance to find someone. If you want to write me off, fine. Write me off. But I’m going to go in there and hope that at least one person will defy him.”

“Don’t be so naive!”

“Hey,” Annie’s quiet, calm voice slid through his turbulent mood. She held his arm and tugged him back.

Trace turned to her, caught her upper arm. And froze. How many times had he done that when—their eyes locked. He patted her bicep. “I’m good,” he said, his voice hoarse and thick. Extricating himself, he returned to the desk. Noted Houston’s embarrassed expression. Trace half turned to the others. “Houston found something.” He gave the guy a slap against the shoulder as he moved past him. “Tell them.”

“I. . .uh. . .right. So.” Houston cleared his throat. “With the bugs and bots planted at Spirapoulos, I made some facial matches.”

Behind him the story unfolded. Trace used Houston’s time of explanation to get himself back together.
I am never going to survive this.
Not with Annie there at every turn.
She had this way of dousing the fire in his gut. Made him weak—in the knees and in the eyes of others.

Shouldn’t have expected to cross lines and come away unscathed.

The phone rang. Silence dropped on the room as Trace turned and eyeballed it. Nodded to Houston who waited for instruction.

The techie lifted the phone. “Office of Miss Policek. How may I help you?” Houston nodded and murmured a few
uh-huh
s as he typed up information. “I’ll be sure to let her know. Thank you for calling.”

Trace wandered back to the desk. “Well?”

Face bright, Houston grinned beneath that wiry mess of curly hair. “That was the executive assistant to one Giles Stoffel extending an invitation to a benefit dinner tonight at their private estate in Salamina.”