Prologue
Laszlo Jensen watched as Talon, his good arm bandaged, and Clary, her face a colorful mix of bruises, walked into Badger’s house. Clary was shy, standing almost as if a part of Talon. Like everybody already knew and judged her for their tortured past. Badger stepped forward on his crutches, Dotty the coonhound on his heels with her tail wagging, and said, “There you are.”
Clary smiled and reached up and gave Badger a hug. He hugged her back gently. Talon hadn’t shared much about Clary’s past with Badger, but he didn’t need those details to understand how hard it was to heal what she’d been through. But since she’d moved into Talon’s, the two of them had had lots of time to work through their differences and to get comfortable being in the same space again. And now it was as if they’d never been apart.
With everyone seated in the living room of Badger’s house, Laszlo settled back, loving the feeling of having his friends grow and become a bigger, stronger family than even what they were before. Badger was moving, though slowly. It would be a long time before he would get a prosthetic back. Kat, at his side always, doted on him.
Laszlo knew they would have some badass prosthetics coming their way when the time was right. And he couldn’t wait. Laszlo glanced around at the group and said, “It’s good to see everybody here again.”
“Except not everybody’s here,” Erick said. “Jager’s missing. He’s still dark.”
“Do we know for sure he’s even alive?”
Erick nodded. “I got another message. But it was simple. He’s still hunting.”
“He always was a bit of a loner,” Laszlo said. “If he’d at least check in with us, we’d have a chance to tell him what information we have.”
Geir sat on the far side of the room. “He’s a good man. And when he’s hunting, there’s no one else like him. But I wish to hell I was out there hunting with him.”
Erick nodded. “And what we have to figure out is, what’s happening next. The meeting’s here for Badger’s sake. As he’s not supposed to be moving as much as he is right now.”
Badger waved his arm. “I’m fine.”
Kat reached over and laced her fingers with his.
Laszlo smiled. “With Kat at your side, it’s no wonder you’re fine.”
There was some good-humored ribbing, which Badger accepted with a smile. “She’s the best thing that’s happened to me.” His gaze locked on Laszlo. “Did you ever notice the similarity between our group and Mason’s and Levi’s?”
Laszlo winced. “Hell no.”
Erick and Talon chuckled. “Well, you should. Because you’re next.”
Cade had stayed quiet in the corner, Faith at his side, a couple beers opened between the two of them. “It’s all right, Laszlo. When you’re ready, it’ll happen.”
Laszlo shook his head. “What I’m ready for is to find this asshole.”
“We’re doing a full workup on Mouse,” Erick said, returning to the business at hand. “We’re tracking down anyone he was in contact with. And, I have to admit, it’s not much. So I suggest what we do right now is everybody tell me everything they might have heard or knew about Mouse. I thought I knew him pretty well. But honestly, when I tried to dredge up some memories, it was a lot of ribbing and teasing and bugging. I thought his family was from Texas. As far as I knew, he only had a mother.”
Cade leaned forward, a frown on his face. “That can’t be right. I swear to God he was from California and that he lived with his parents before hitting the military.”
Badger looked at the two of them. “Really?”
Erick glanced over at him. “What do you remember?”
Badger frowned. “I was closer to him than all of you. I thought he had only an uncle in Texas. But I don’t remember Mouse being very willing to talk about him.”
“Do you remember why?” Laszlo asked.
“No, but he was pretty adamant. I just can’t remember if he gave me a specific reason or not. The thing about Mouse was, he always made up stories. It was pretty hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t,” Badger admitted. “But he was young. He was trying hard to be one of us, though weaker than we were. He would turn into a hell of a man and be a great member of the unit, but we all knew he wasn’t quite there yet.”
The men nodded.
“That’s true,” Geir said. “We covered for him a lot, and we helped him to make the grade as many times as we could. But he always knew he wasn’t as good as the rest of us.”
“But we never bugged him about it,” Cade said.
And again the men nodded in agreement.
Erick wondered about that. “Do you think he wrote to his uncle, or whoever in his world who’s trying to get back at us, that we were less than supportive?”
That topic brought up silence all around.
“He might have,” Talon admitted. “Any teasing we did was in the same vein as teasing we always did. It was lighthearted, and we never meant any of the insults. It was the way of the world—our world particularly,” Talon said. “He always was pale. Remember that?” he added with a crooked grin. “We used to tease him about spending more time in the sun to gain a bit of color.”
“I remember that, and he hated coffee. He’s the only one of us who didn’t drink coffee.” Erick smiled with the memories. The others all pitched him with bits and pieces they knew as Erick wrote it all down. He realized it was all disjointed, and nobody had a clear sense of Mouse’s early beginnings. “Do you think he did that on purpose?”
“Did what?” Laszlo asked.
“Deliberately shrouded his history. Or maybe created different histories in order to make himself feel better about his life?”
“He didn’t have an easy childhood, I know that,” Badger said suddenly. “His body was quite scarred.”
The men frowned, thinking about that.
“Did he go into the navy to escape, do you think?” Kat asked.
Badger shrugged. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
“And then the question becomes, get away from what?” Kat asked.
Badger said quietly, “Every time I rack my brain to think of someone Mouse might have mentioned on his leaves, my mind draws a blank.”
“What about girlfriends?” Clary asked. Her question landed in the middle of the group like a stone in a pond. Almost as if ripples of shock moved outward continuously.
Laszlo studied her for a long moment. “Mouse was gay.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That could not have been easy in the military.”
He shook his head. “Not only was it not easy, he took a lot of razzing because of it. Not from us,” he assured her hurriedly. “But from a lot of the other guys.”
“So maybe you guys weren’t all targeted,” she said quietly.
“Maybe Mouse was,” Kat interjected. “How bad was it for somebody like Mouse?”
The men exchanged glances.
“Hard to say,” Erick stated. “Likely bad. The navy isn’t known to be easy on those who are different …”
“Suicidally bad?” asked Honey, her voice soft, gentle. “I’m sure the comments and actions would have hurt him inside, even if he didn’t let anyone see his reaction.”
Erick shrugged. “We never asked him about his sexuality, that I know of.” He glanced around the room. “At least I didn’t. Did anyone here?”
All the men shook their heads.
“No, we never did,” Badger said.
“So, if he didn’t have any girlfriends, what do you know about his boyfriends?” Clary asked. “Because, if it wasn’t a family member, we already know it’s somebody who feels very strongly about Mouse. And that means, it’s usually a lover. Do you guys know who loved Mouse? Did he have anybody in his life? Did he have a permanent relationship, even an off-and-on relationship?” She turned to stare at them. “Surely, if you were all best friends and you know so much about each other, you’d know as much about Mouse?”
One by one they all turned toward each other, then cast their gazes downward.
“He didn’t talk to us,” Badger said quietly. “I don’t think he was ashamed as much as he was afraid of being humiliated or embarrassed, like he always had been.”
“How long was he with you before the accident?”
Laszlo sighed. “One year. And in that year we couldn’t convince him that he was safe with us.”
“But obviously he wasn’t safe,” Talon said quietly. “Not when he’s the only one dead.”
Laszlo asked, “So where do I go next?”
“You?” Talon asked. “Why you?”
“Because you’re laid up. Plus Erick remains command central. And Badger is on sick leave for months to come to save what’s left of his leg. So I’m the one who’ll lead this next mission,” he snapped. “And I’m totally okay if Geir comes along. But where are we going?”
“Texas,” Erick said. “If that’s where Mouse is from.”
“Done,” Laszlo said. “I’ll head to Texas and find out for sure.”
“And then what?” Clary asked.
“And then we’ll start tearing poor Mouse’s life apart,” Laszlo said. “Way deeper than we have done so far.”
She nodded. “When you find whoever loves him, go easy. It’s hard to lose someone you care about.”
Laszlo’s smile was diamond hard. “So very true. But it’s also no excuse to go around killing others who loved him too.”