Chapter Six
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GOD SHE LOVED her best friend. Jaya was the absolute opposite of Shelby in every way, but they were like a magnet and steel. Since the age of six, they’d been inseparable.
Sort of like her and Colton.
Now as Jaya finished braiding the left side of Shelby’s hair and wrapping it around her head in a cool twist, Shelby thanked her lucky stars for her friend once more.
“I called you six times and texted a dozen,” Jaya said. She’d already helped Shelby into clean clothes. “I was worried about you after your mom told me you were here with him. Alone.”
Jaya had been the one to make sure Shelby rocked all of her beauty pageants. She’d been the one to take her from fancy Miss Oklahoma to tailored, conservative FBI agent.
Jaya had also been the shoulder Shelby had cried on over Colton. The number of times too many to count.
“I don’t even know where my phone is,” Shelby admitted, playing with a stray hair as she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She had propped a hip against the vanity to support herself while Jaya worked her magic on her hair. Her strength was back this morning, her leg more cooperative. She’d even left her walker next to the bed and made it to the bathroom with only a little support from Jaya. “Probably still in my suitcase. I think Colton threw that in the closet.”
“He looks like hell.” Jaya placed the hair clip in Shelby’s hair, a cute little butterfly, and gave her a hand mirror to inspect the back.
“Don’t we all,” Shelby murmured.
“Speak for yourself.”
Jaya led Shelby back into the bedroom, plunking her in the chair that was no longer near the window and going to unpack Shelby’s suitcase.
Colton had moved the chair, but Shelby could still see out. Her fingers twisted her braid, her insides cold as she thought about someone wanting to kill her. Did it really have anything to do with the serial murder case she’d been investigating? Or was she completely off base and it was about something else? If only she could remember.
“I smell food,” she said when Jaya emerged from the closet.
“I brought groceries. Figured you didn’t have any.”
“You came to make sure I was okay, first and foremost.”
“That too. I thought you might need help burying the body.”
“What body?”
Jaya grinned. “Colton’s. Duh.” She put her comb and brush back in the cosmetic bag she always carried. It was covered with rainbows and unicorns. “Are you sure about this? Having him here?”
Shelby sank back into the chair, the scent of eggs, toast, and bacon making her stomach growl. “Did I say anything to you about my case? Or why I asked Colton to come home?”
Jaya raised one beautifully arched brow. “Are you kidding? You never talked about work. Your boss, yes. Such a fine, fine specimen, that one. But the cases? No. I didn’t even know Colton was part of an investigation, and honestly, I’m a little pissed that you didn’t tell me. Now you’ve got him here, living with you. Is that safe?”
Shelby tugged on her braid, trying to clear the cobwebs that were tangled up in her memories. “I thought he could shed some light on the case. It’s not like I was investigating him.” I don’t think.
Jaya fiddled with her cosmetic bag. “He went nuts after you were shot. Your dad wouldn’t let him in your room, and the hospital harassed him to make him leave. He canvassed the whole town, nonstop, going door to door and getting in deep with some of the local bikers, trying to find anyone who knew anything. I guess he never got any leads. Then one day, he was just gone.”
“He’s changed,” Shelby said. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something about him is different.”
Salisbury lay on the bed, watching them, his eyes going back and forth as each of them spoke.
Jaya ruffled his fur. “He hasn’t, Shel. He’s still the same loser you kicked out of this house. I know it’s easier to remember the good times, and to get all sentimental, but he broke your heart more than once. You did the right thing divorcing him.”
“Maybe.”
“Oh my God. You’re caking on him again.”
Shelby hadn’t heard that term since high school. She grinned. “Maybe I am a little.”
The stairs outside the room squeaked and they shot each other a look. Colton appeared in the doorway, a fake smile on his face. “Anyone hungry?”
Salisbury shot off the bed as if he understood the call to breakfast. Shelby could see behind the fake smile that Colton had heard every word of her conversation with Jaya.
Great. Just great. Way to start things off this morning.
She gave him a smile that she hoped conveyed an apology, and pushed herself upright. “I’m starving.”
Jaya took one of her arms, Colton the other. Neither said anything, but Shelby had the distinct feeling they each wanted to rip her away from the other.
At the top of the stairs, Colton stopped her, then chugged down two of the steps with his back to her. “Hop on.”
“You’re kidding, right?” She exchanged a glance with Jaya. Her best friend had the same incredulous look on her face that Shelby knew was on hers.
“Just like when we were kids, Shel. Get on my back.”
Jaya motioned silently for her to do as Colton said. “I’ll grab your walker.”
Shelby wrapped her arms around Colton’s neck and he hefted her up by her thighs. The sensation of leaving the ground completely was one she hadn’t felt in a long time. Having him supporting her and feeling suddenly free of gravity, she giggled.
“Ready?” he asked.
She had no doubt he could carry her weight down the steps—he’d carried her up and down them many times—but she still had to ask, “You sure you want to do this?”
“Honey, I would carry you across the desert if I had to.”
A little thrill went down her spine as he started down the steps, the second one from the top not squeaking, even with all of the weight.
Because Colton knew how to avoid that spot on the step. When he’d lived here, it had become second nature to him. SEALs moved with stealth and silence, even at home.
So he’d heard her and Jaya for sure, going back down and stepping on that squeaky spot to announce his presence.
Guilt sat in her stomach, but it was soon replaced with laughter as Colton jogged down the stairs, carrying her on his back.
He didn’t put her down until they were in the kitchen, where he deposited her in a chair at the table. A plate of bacon and another of toast were in the middle. Two glasses of orange juice, utensils, and napkins were carefully laid out.
Jaya followed with the walker, and Shelby’s grin faded a bit. That damn thing was going in the trash as soon as possible.
Colton set a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her and made a frownie face at Jaya. “Sorry, J. I only made enough for Shelby and myself. You weren’t staying for breakfast anyway, were you?”
Jaya set a hand on her hip. “You really think you’re going to chase me away that easily?”
“A boy can hope, right?”
The two of them squared off, and Shelby rolled her eyes behind their backs. Salisbury, sensing trouble, whined.
This is how it always was—Colton at odds with everyone.
“Jaya,” Shelby said, picking up her fork. “I need to go over a case with Colton. The one I called him here for. We really could use some privacy.”
Jaya shot her an incredulous look. “You aren’t even back to work and you’re diving into a case? With him?”
Shelby took a bite of the eggs. Delicious. “He’s a source.”
An exasperated noise bubbled up from Jaya’s throat. “Whatever.” She leaned over and hugged Shelby, sliding Shelby’s cell phone next to her plate. “Answer my texts and call me if he gets out of line.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Colton grin as he fed Salisbury a spoonful of eggs.
“I will.” She squeezed Jaya’s hand. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Colton showed Jaya out and Shelby heard her mutter several threats at him, including one about rolling his eyes back a little farther in his head to find his brain, before she got in her van and pulled out.
Colton came back and served himself.
“How’s Connor?” Shelby asked, hoping to ease the tension Jaya had created. Connor had been Colton’s best friend since his earliest SEAL days. One of the few people who never got riled by Colton’s exacerbating personality. “I always thought he and Jaya would make a good pair.”
Colton look horrified and grabbed his chest, looking like her mother during an angina attack. “Oh, hell to the no. The Wicked Witch of Good Hope is not getting her claws in my friend. Connor is fine. Just spoke to him this morning and he sends his love.” He sat and grabbed a napkin. “He has a girlfriend, by the way. A slightly crazy one, but good crazy. She makes him incredibly happy.”
“That’s great. Who is she?”
“Just a lab tech.”
Shelby suspected from the way he wouldn’t look at her that Connor’s girlfriend was far more than that. As usual, talking about Colton’s job was off limits.
“These are damn good scrambled eggs,” Shelby said around a mouthful. “Your cooking has improved.”
He didn’t say anything, just gave her a quick smile and fiddled with the eggs on his plate. “Tell me about the case, Shelby.”
She took a piece of bacon, stalling. “I need my notes.”
He met her eyes. “Just give me the basics.”
I wish I could. A throbbing started behind her right eye. “Let’s finish our breakfast and then we can get the file and dig in.”
His gaze didn’t falter. “You can’t remember the details, can you?”
The throbbing increased along with her blood pressure. There was a hell of a lot she couldn’t remember. “It’s been months since I worked that case, Colton. A lot has happened in that time. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to want to review my notes before I speculate on anything.”
He gave her a nod, but his gaze went right through her. He could read her hesitation like he was reading her mind.
He knows.
But he didn’t call her out on it. Instead, he passed her the plate of toast and went back to his food without another word.
SHELBY LOOKED BETTER this morning. The dark circles were nearly gone and Jaya had accented her already long lashes with mascara. She smiled at him over their breakfast, her cheeks showing a hint of pink. “Did you sleep okay in the guest room?”
Guest. Yep, that’s what he was in his own home. He moved some eggs around on his plate, the food tasting like cardboard even though he’d added hot sauce. “Sure.”
“Colton, I’m sorry about earlier.”
He glanced up and saw the smile was gone, her eyes serious. “About what?”
“You know.”
Yeah, he did, but denial was part of the game. He gave her a blank stare.
She huffed slightly. “I know you were outside the bedroom and heard Jaya and I discussing you.”
Shelby, always direct and to the point. One of the things he used to love about her. While he hid everything, he could count on her to always show her hand.
Loser. Jaya called it like she saw it too. Shoving his plate aside, he sat back in the chair, fingering his coffee cup. “I expected nothing less from your best friend, Shel.”
“Well, you should. It’s just…” She shook her head, whatever she was about to say crumpled up with her napkin. Her fingers twisted around her braid. “It must have been rough seeing me shot and lying in the hospital in a coma.”
He twirled the cup in circles on the table. “It was hell.”
“My parents didn’t make it any easier.”
“When have they ever?”
A hard laugh. “True.” She reached across the table, touched his hand. “There was nothing you could do about what happened to me. I know that drove you crazy.”
Her touch was as soft as her voice, making his fingers ache to touch hers, to grasp her hand and never let go.
He swallowed the lump in his throat, the memory of her lying in that hospital bed with tubes running in and out of her body and no way of knowing if she would live still a raw wound on his heart. “According to this town, I passed ‘crazy’ somewhere around second grade, but yeah. It was rough.”
The warmth of her hand enveloped his and she gave a squeeze, her large blue eyes beautiful and so damn sincere in the morning light. The caffeine in his system had nothing on the effect she elicited. A pure shot of adrenaline ran up his spine and he sat up, pulling his hand back. “Where are your notes on the case?”
She sat back as well, a pained expression clouding her eyes for a heartbeat. Shoving her plate aside, she used the table for leverage and stood. “I’ll get it.”
He moved to get between her and her walker. “Sit down and finish your breakfast. Tell me where it is and I’ll get it.”
Resistance flashed across her face and she started to retort, seemed to think better of it and relented, sinking back down in the chair. “My office. In the safe. I think.”
Must have been a whopper of a case. She’d always been careful not to leave her work lying around, but she’d also been a workaholic. She couldn’t leave her cases at the office any more than Colton could separate his civilian downtime from his military work. Being a SEAL was a lifestyle, not just a job.
While Shelby resumed eating, he went to her office at the back of the house and opened the safe. At least she hadn’t changed the combo. He found a blue folder, and brought it back to the kitchen.
“There may be notes on my laptop, too,” she said as she eyed the folder.
Colton cleared the table and shoved the dishes in the dishwasher. Salisbury napped in a blade of sunshine nearby.
When he returned to the table, Shelby was reading through the top papers.
“So tell me the basics,” he said.
Her eyes darted back and forth as she read, fingers rubbing her right temple. “The first wind I got of this was in February. Do you remember Bard Langton?”
“You mean Sully? Of course.” Bard had been through the Good Hope Children’s Home same as him, but Bard had gotten adopted by the Langtons and moved to Oklahoma City with his new family. Colton had crossed paths a few times with the man later in their respective military careers, including one very important rescue mission. “He was on a naval destroyer last I heard.”
She pulled a sheet from the folder and passed it to him. “Discharged last December. Never went home to see his parents or anyone else. His body turned up in an alley in Broken Arrow. He’d been living on the streets.”
Colton felt his insides cave in. “PTSD?”
“The Navy won’t share his records, but that’s the best guess I’ve got. There were no dog tags or other identifiers when his body was found, so the medical examiner ran the prints and put them into the system. The next thing she knew, NCIS showed up and took custody of the body. She didn’t even get to do an official autopsy.”
“That’s normal. They’d want to do their own investigation, handle the body on their end and make sure everything was cleared with the family.”
“The ME put down the cause of death as a bullet wound to the head.”
“Self-inflicted?”
“That’s what we don’t know since the Navy swooped in and took over the investigation before she finished. Suicide or murder? At the time I was looking into it, NCIS still hadn’t released the final report, and apparently, there was a mix-up with the funeral home once the body was turned over to his parents.”
“What do you mean?”
“Olympia and Fielding Langton planned to bury their son’s body in the family cemetery two miles south of here, but the funeral home claims the paperwork stated the body was to be cremated. All the Langtons got back were ashes.”
A suspicious gleam lit her eyes. “Mistakes happen, Shelby. It doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy.”
“He was SWCC.”
Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman. The SWCC consisted of a group of operators specifically trained to infiltrate and exfiltrate Navy SEALs on land, sea, coastline, or rivers. Just like the SEALs, they worked counterterrorism, search and rescue, and foreign internal defense operations. “What does that have to do with anything?”
She leaned forward slightly and he could see the wheels in her head spinning. “Was he involved in something the Navy wants kept secret?”
“Sure. Every classified mission he ever went on.”
“But the Navy is covering something up.”
“You’re worse than Salisbury with bacon. Where are you going with this?”
“I want the truth about what happened to Bard,”—she tapped the folder under her hand—“and these other men.”
Colton cocked his chin at the folder. “Who else?”
The next paper she drew out and slid across to him had dozens of notes in her tidy handwriting. “A few weeks after Bard’s death, I worked a missing person case and came across a similar death. Wyatt Evers. Former Navy, found shot in an abandoned building in Tulsa. The body had also been burned in a fire, doing extensive damage to the corpse. He was ID’d by his dog tags.”
Colton’s gut clenched. Wyatt Evers? No fucking way.
Shelby, oblivious, continued. “He was declared missing by his wife last year. The Navy showed up shortly after the medical examiner put his dog tags in the system, declared custody and absconded with the body. His wife claims she wasn’t notified about his death or that the Navy had claimed his body until after he’d been fully cremated and his remains arrived on her doorstep, courtesy of two officers who refused to answer her questions. I was going to interview Lori and then…”
Her voice faded off and her gaze went a bit fuzzy as she stared over his left shoulder. She grabbed both sides of her head and grimaced.
“Shelby?”
She blinked and was suddenly back, hands falling to the table once more. “What?”
“Are you all right? Where’d you just go?”
A heaviness hung in the air and she shook her head. “I was trying to remember that day, when I texted you. I think I had planned to interview Lori Evers and something happened. I just can’t remember what. My head… Every time I think of that day, I get a pain behind my eye.”
“Should we call the doc?”
She shook her head and twisted her braid. “He said I’d have some of these symptoms as my memories start to come back. It’s nothing.”
Colton had done a lot of research on brain injuries and comas while Shelby had been unconscious. Every brain and injury was unique. There was no one recovery formula.
He skimmed her notes. “Says here the MO is the same: a single bullet wound to the head killed him. The ME suspected murder, stating the entry, exit, and—oh, yum—brain matter fragmentation appeared similar to sniper wounds he’d seen while in the Army. No bullet, casing, or murder weapon found at the scene.”
“Exactly. Same for Bard. The backgrounds, places of death, and fatal wounds are all eerily similar, although I can’t confirm cause of death because the Navy refuses to let me see the autopsy reports. Also, the cremation of both men seems too coincidental to ignore.”
She was enjoying this, he could see it in her body posture, in her eagerness to share the case with him. “Third guy?”
Shuffling of pages. “J.J. Edmonds. Retired Navy medical doctor who ran a nonprofit center for vets, helping them find jobs.”
“Wait.” Colton snatched the paper from her hand. “Doc Edmonds?”
“You knew him, I take it?”
“Don’t you remember? He was part of the medical team that administered to Connor once we got him out of the compound. He was also on the team that saved my life after my last mission.”
“Right.” She touched her braid and nodded, but he could see she didn’t actually remember. “That leg of Connor’s rescue wasn’t part of my mission, so I didn’t really know the players involved.”
Okay, that wasn’t true. She’d done her homework and researched every member of the taskforce from front to back before they’d even started practicing for the rescue, but it didn’t matter at the moment. “What happened to the doctor?”
She ticked off the facts. “Divorced, no kids, and didn’t show up for a meeting with one of his biggest funders in Oklahoma City in February. Body was discovered nine days later in a vacant building that had previously been a hotel. Lot of vagrants and transients use the hotel as a homeless shelter. Some of the residents are vets. It’s possible one of them killed Edmonds, but there was no weapon or trace evidence that could be linked to any of those in the area at the time the body was discovered.”
“Same MO as your other two?”
She nodded. “One bullet to the head, NCIS claimed the body from the local ME, there was no family to turn the remains over to, and the only thing the Navy would tell me was that Edmonds had been cremated and his ashes interred at Rose Hill in Oklahoma City.”
Colton felt the bricks stacking up one by one, building the conspiracy wall Shelby thought was there. “Anything besides their military backgrounds that linked them?”
“Yeah,” she said, her face going pensive. She took the paper from his hand and stacked it with the rest, bumping a rebel corner into line. “I believe there was.”
Colton had the feeling he didn’t really want to know the answer, but he asked anyway. “What?”
She flipped through several pages as if looking for the answer. It was a bluff. Colton could see by her face and the way she wouldn’t meet his eyes that she didn’t need her notes to remind her of the connection.
One Colton could say out loud.
Reaching for her hand, he stopped her nervous fingers from shuffling through the pages. “It’s okay, Shelby. Tell me what you found.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
Had she actually figured out the Evers’ connection? “Already guessed that, sweetheart.”
She blew out a sigh that lifted her bangs. Her fingers tangled with his, threaded in between them. “Did you know Wyatt Evers?”
Colton steeled his face. “We might have crossed paths, why?”
“Think about it, Colton.” She lifted her eyes to his. “What’s the one thing they all have in common besides their deaths?”
Was that why she’d texted him that fateful day? Why he was in her folder as a person of interest?
“They were all good ol’ Okie boys?” he joked. “Makes for assholes, everyone knows that, but they hardly deserved to be shot over it.”
She didn’t take the bait. “They were all good ol’ Okie boys, all right. Ones who all knew you, right? That’s the link. Not only did all three of them know you, they worked with you while you were a SEAL.”
For a moment, he ignored her words and focused solely on the feel of her fingers entwined with his. That feeling, that connection…he’d never had it with anyone else.
Boy, had he missed it.
Salisbury snored softly, bringing him back to the present and Shelby’s worried face.
Colton released her hand, sat back. “That’s why your boss thinks I was involved? Because I had a passing acquaintance with these guys? Hell, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of personnel these guys might have come into contact with during their service years. Maybe the three of them had some sort of relationship, in or out of the military, and got themselves into trouble. There are dozens of explanations.”
“Yeah.” For a moment, doubt clouded her face. She tapped her head with a fist. “You’re probably right. I’m just missing something.”
What she was missing was more than her memories of the investigation.
She was right…he was the link between all three men.