Chapter 3
The shepherd’s pie sat on the island, but nobody was here to eat it. Her four o’clock group had already called to tell her that they were running late. Morning studied the golden bubbly top and wondered about Geir and Jager. They’d given her their phone numbers, but she didn’t want to text either to let them know dinner was ready. Geir had been here when she’d put it into the oven, and he knew when dinner was planned for.
Shrugging, she got a plate and served herself a small portion. She added a green salad on the side, sat at her kitchen counter and ate alone.
It wasn’t often that her house was empty. And, while it was, she should be taking advantage of it. She looked around the kitchen, wishing she’d had the money to redo various parts of the residence. It was old, and she had had several developers already on her case, asking her to sell to them so they could drop her house and put up some big fancy million-dollar home.
If she had had anything else to do with her life, she might consider it. But this was her anchor. This was her safe place. But she wasn’t the sole owner. It was her and her father. After he had moved to Europe to do research with his new girlfriend, Morning had bought half of it. She’d needed him as a cosigner at the time.
After a few years he wanted to sell his remaining half and get the rest of his money out of his asset. She didn’t want to sell, but no way could she buy him out. Particularly with the current real estate prices. Her father had contacted her about the idea several times, but she’d always pushed back, saying she wasn’t ready. Anytime something went wrong, he should be paying half the maintenance costs, but he wasn’t—because she was the one making money off it and not sharing the profit.
But she wasn’t making tons. She made enough to live on, but that was about it. It certainly wouldn’t ever be enough to buy out her father. The decision was looming, … but it made her queasy to think about it.
She cleaned up her dishes, made herself a cup of tea and then went to her third-floor studio, adjoining her bedroom and en suite bath, her own private area. She hadn’t let herself look at the painting since Geir had been here.
She was still walking on cloud nine from his praise, but, at the same time, she knew the harshest judge of her work was herself. And what she needed was to make sure it was as good as she had first thought it was. And the second glimpse might tell her. Unfortunately the studio didn’t have a ton of light at this hour of the day.
She flicked on all the lights before walking to stand in front of the painting. She gasped for joy. It was … special. So much more of what she wanted to present to the world.
She threw on her smock again, and, with a fine paintbrush, quickly touched up the blossoms, picking up a brighter pink, adding a touch of yellow, until the entire canvas glowed.
Then her sense of self glowed too. She was absolutely overjoyed with this piece.
Finally she was satisfied and walked to the sink to wash her brushes again. She checked the clock and realized another two hours had passed.
She didn’t have a clue where the men were. Maybe they were downstairs already, and she’d missed them.
This painting had just completely sucked her into the process. That was a good thing. With a happy sigh, she turned for one last look at the canvas, feeling pride in this piece of work for the first time in a long time. “Maybe I can make that Friday appointment after all.”
After closing her studio, she walked back downstairs and around to her office. She logged off her computer, checked if anybody was around and found nobody.
“Works for me.” She made herself a second cup of tea and headed out on the back porch to the huge lounger sitting out there. She stretched out and just relaxed. Today was a good day. She’d started on a path with her painting that was something she would be proud to show somebody else.
Just then her phone rang. She pulled it out. Nancy calling. Hitting Talk, Morning said, “What’s up?”
“Well, I’ve been trying to call you off and on all day,” her friend said. “Who are the two hunks living at your place? And how come you didn’t share?” her friend complained.
“Geir and Jager,” Morning said in a teasing voice. “And, if you didn’t sit there haunting the windows, watching the world walk by, you could come over and say hi when they were here.”
“I’d be right over if you told me they were there now.”
“And you obviously know they aren’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t be calling me,” she said. Her friend was a man chaser. Yet she was supershy, so she only did her chasing online.
“Well, I could come over now. Maybe they’ll come home while I’m there.”
“You could do that. Have you eaten?”
“All day long,” Nancy said with a groan. “Every time I try a diet, the first thing I do is overeat as if I’m starving.”
“You should probably talk to a shrink about that,” Morning said with a chuckle.
“Not all of us are blessed to have small trim figures, like you, and no appetite.”
“Hey, I eat,” Morning protested. “Just not as much as you do.”
“I know. How sad is that?”
“Did you get a full-time teaching job yet?”
“No, I was called in for a day of substitution at a downtown school. It’s not my favorite place, but the kids are good.”
“Midlands High School? The inner-city school?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what I’d do if they offered me a full-time job. I’m always conflicted when I go.”
“But you’re in teaching for the kids’ sakes,” Morning said. “So, if they offered you a full-time job, then you’d take it.”
“Maybe. I’ve been thinking lately about moving though.”
“Moving? Where?” Morning’s thoughts had been on the same subject earlier. Not that she had any plans to leave.
“Anywhere,” Nancy said passionately. “I feel like I’m not living anymore. I’m just existing. Going through the motions to make it from one day to the next. Nothing ever changes.”
“Change starts within. You know that,” Morning said.
“Easy for you to say. You’ve got the house for income and your art.”
“We’ve been over this before. You’re living at your parents’ house. You went to school for marketing, and yet you don’t want to work in your field.”
“No. That’s why I switched to teaching,” Nancy said patiently. “But, if I can’t get a job in my chosen field, I have no income to pay the bills.”
“But every day is more experience. Eventually you’ll get a full-time teaching position.”
“Sure, but, if I went to an area that needed teachers, chances are I could get a job easier.”
“Start applying. If you get a job, well, I guess that’s where you’re going.”
Nancy chuckled. “I have my résumé open in front of me. I’m updating it.”
Morning felt a jolt to her system. “Wow, then you are serious.”
“More so than I have been in a long time.”
The two talked a little longer; then Morning ended the call. Yet she spoke to herself out loud. “Nancy, you do love teaching. I don’t know why you don’t like Midlands High School.”
But, of course, Nancy had already hung up. Nancy wouldn’t answer that question.
Morning had asked her several times before and always got an answer that some of the teachers were good and that some were kind of creepy. Just like the students.
She’d never heard Nancy talk about students like that before. She’d always been a cheerleader for the kids. So that was already a different take. Still, if her friend did move away, Morning would miss Nancy. And that just brought Morning back to her own fear of losing her home. It might be good for her to move, … to release her father’s asset. But doing what was right didn’t make it easy.
Just then she heard a vehicle out front. She got up, checked her watch, thought it might be the two men. As she walked toward the front door and opened it, she saw her four o’clock guests had finally arrived, who were now quite late.
The pair came in amid a tumble of exclamations and apologies and luggage.
She smiled and quickly put them at ease. As soon as she got them settled into their room, she said, “You’ve had a hectic day. If you’re hungry, I do have fresh homemade shepherd’s pie. I’d be more than happy to serve you some of it.”
Both nodded and exclaimed in joy.
Smiling, Morning went downstairs and into the kitchen. She served up two decent-size plates, which still left half the shepherd’s pie. Should be enough for the men.
She quickly tossed together a Caesar salad and added place settings to the dining table. When her guests arrived, Bruce and Brenda Carter—and, boy, did she have to smile at those names—they sat down at the table. She brought a cup of coffee over and joined them.
They explained about one of their flights being canceled because of a door that wouldn’t seal and how they’d been shunted to another plane and then still another plane and so would be staying longer here at the B&B, if that was okay. They really shouldn’t, but, after their rough trip, they felt they deserved a second day.
Morning just nodded. “Traveling these days, it’s not always as simple as it’s made out to be.”
As soon as the couple ate, they headed out, promising they’d be back by eleven as per her rules. Some people didn’t like to follow rules. And those individuals she told not to come back. She deliberately wasn’t supercheap in her pricing. It was her home she was opening after all. Other places in town were less expensive for an overnight stay, and that worked for her.
She was cleaning up their dishes when she heard a knock at the front door again. She walked toward it, smiling, as she opened it. But there was no one there. Frowning she stepped out and looked around. But there was no sign of anyone. Probably just kids. Stepping back inside, she closed the door then called Geir. “I don’t know when you’re planning on coming back tonight …”
“Sorry,” he responded. “We didn’t mean to be this long.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m not trying to check up on you. Just thought I’d let you know that dinner is here for you whenever you get hungry.”
“We’re at Midlands High School right now,” Geir said. “We thought it would still be open but hadn’t realized how late it was.”
“Staff is often there until five,” Morning said. “A friend of mine will work there tomorrow.”
“Doing what?”
“She works as a substitute teacher on an on-call basis.”
“Any idea why she got called in?”
“Apparently the school just found out one of the teachers has died, so she’ll be subbing for that teacher tomorrow.”
“We will be there soon,” Geir said abruptly and hung up the phone.
“What’s the chance the guy we found dead in the alley is this teacher who died?”
“It’s hard to say.” They stood on the school steps, but the doors were locked, and the playground was empty. Garbage blew aimlessly across the parking lot. “There should be a staff directory online.”
Geir pulled out his tablet as they walked toward his truck. “We never did get an ID on the dead guy.”
“The cops won’t release that until the next of kin is notified. So chances are, it’s early for the school to have been notified.”
Geir nodded. But he couldn’t help thinking it was odd to have just heard of a teacher being killed after finding a body. “Unless, of course, Poppy had something to do with it, and he told them.”
“Which would be easily verified and not smart on his part.”
“I know.”
As they walked back through the parking lot, a vehicle came in. Geir and Jager studied it. The driver took one look at them, then bolted out of the parking lot.
“Interesting.”
“Could be anything from a parent trying to do a late pickup of a child and is afraid of getting in trouble for having missed them, to somebody looking to score drugs and the dealers have already left the school grounds,” Geir said drily.
“True enough.”
They stopped at the edge of the parking lot, took one last look at the school. Jager said, “We’ll check in again in the morning.”
“What about Mason?” Geir asked.
“I doubt Mason knows more than he did at our meeting in Santa Fe before we left.”
“True, but I just feel like there should be some names by now.”
“He did say the navy found signs of tampering within their personnel database. Names, dates, etc. The navy says the hacking only worked because they were changing their software from an ancient system. The files were placed in the archive system, then automatically updated to the new system, overriding the old files.”
“And, if it happened during the systems update, then you would think that the hacking could have been done by a programmer.”
“It’s possible.”
“Right, so we don’t know if Mouse was part of that or not.”
Jager shook his head. “No, we don’t, but a part of me says he may have been because he was terribly incompetent in so many other things.”
“He was tech-savvy. When Laszlo and I talked to Lance, before someone took him out, Lance told us how Mouse had ‘techno guts and brains,’ where Lance had the brawn. Yet, despite Mouse’s fear of water, he still managed to make it as a SEAL.”
“And, of course, that’s the next question. Did he? What if somebody gave him a pass on his BUD/S training in his file? Add that information to the rest of his record, and he was given a unit to work with. That’s a hell of a hacking job, and that’s with him making it into the navy on his own. But what if it’s more than that? What if he didn’t even qualify for the navy, much less the SEALs?”
“Something’s majorly wrong with our system when somebody can fake any of that.”
Jager stopped and looked at Geir, then asked, “And, of course, along with that disturbing element is, did somebody take out another SEAL so Mouse could take his place?”
“The students came from across the country to pass BUD/S training. There are photo IDs, all kinds of checks and balances to make sure it all works.” Jager frowned. “But why? Why go to all that trouble?”
“Because it’s what Mouse ultimately wanted and didn’t figure he could make it any other way.”
The two men stopped beside Geir’s truck. Geir could see Jager’s rented Jeep Wrangler a few vehicles ahead. Geir shook his head. “It’s pretty sad if that’s how Mouse got in.”
“What about fingerprints?”
Geir said, “Remember? Mouse burnt his fingers badly. The prints would never be comparable to earlier ones. You know yourself we only use our ID tags now. We never have to go through fingerprinting or anything else anymore. My prints were taken when I had my first complete medical examination.” Geir turned to face Jager. “So maybe Mouse stole someone else’s identity and stepped into the navy. Not going through any of the normal channels.”
“You mean, Mouse found someone who had already passed BUD/S training? Then targeted him, and, when an opportunity arose, he took him out?”
“It’s possible. You know it is. And, of course, he’d arrive green, wouldn’t know anybody, wouldn’t have a clue how it all worked. But, because he’d passed, he would have been accepted. All his paperwork, his documentation would have been in order.”
Jager leaned his arms atop the truck. “That makes more sense than to think of anybody trying to fake it from the very beginning of the navy induction. Just to get into the navy entails so many background checks and mountains of paperwork and manifold identification confirmations for the initial process. But, if Mouse took out somebody and stepped in after the fact, then the danger was only if anybody was able to identify him as an imposter.”
“Exactly. But he’d have to make sure it was a damn close match.”
“Or was a close-enough match that a little bit of surgery or a different hairstyle or makeup would do the trick.”
They looked at each other.
“Are we really suggesting,” Jager said out loud, “that the Mouse we had in our unit could have done something like this?”
“It would explain a lot of things,” Geir said slowly. “And I don’t want to be speaking ill of the dead if it’s not true, but we all know that, even though Mouse had some training, he was terribly inept at so many things.”
“And yet he was fit, very physically strong, capable. And we did an awful lot of one-on-one training with him to bring his skills up to snuff.”
“But, at the time, we were like, What the hell? This guy is desperately in need. How had he made it this far? But we never questioned that maybe he didn’t make it this far, that maybe something else was going on.”
Jager glared at his friend with a hard look. “Why would we? He was a SEAL. He was one of us. And, like everything else we do, if he was one of us, we would help him make it through his weaker areas.”
“And we didn’t go on many missions with him.”
“No, the couple missions we did, one off in Italy and the training mission we did out of Australia, he had a broken leg, didn’t he?” Jager asked thoughtfully. “When you think about it, Mouse, who was only with us for that year, wasn’t in a position to swim much.”
“Considering we spent weeks skydiving, conducted over-the-beach landings and landed via small rubber craft, swimming hadn’t been a requirement. In one mission, remember how we had to take down a ship in our own high-speed boats by boarding the ship at night?”
Jager nodded.
“Mouse had been with us all the way. And he’d been in the water—occasionally. But I don’t remember seeing Mouse doing more than the bare minimum when it came to swimming. … Of course we weren’t looking for any signs of deception back then.”
“Shit,” said Jager. “It makes my stomach churn to think that’s what was going on.”
“But we can’t jump to conclusions,” Geir said. “There could be another explanation.”
“Maybe. But I’m not seeing it right now,” Jager said quietly.