Chapter 6
Clary stared at the sketch she had drawn, trying to figure out what she had seen in that camera feed versus what she saw here. “In the camera he looked younger.” She raised her eyes. “How would he have done that?”
“His clothing, for one. He tugged on a baseball cap, a muscle shirt, and a pair of jeans to drop off the mouse. I don’t know what he wore in the restaurant, but, depending on his attire, it often ages a person. And the hair. In the camera he had very long hair.”
She nodded. “So you think he’s using disguises?”
“I would imagine so.”
Talon got up, walked to the double French doors, and stepped out.
She followed him. “If you’re hungry, we can light the barbecue, and I’ll get the rest of the food ready.”
But he was wandering around the backyard.
She watched as he checked all the corners, as if to determine how secure her property was. She glanced over at Laszlo standing on the veranda, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched his friend. “Is he always like this?”
“Always,” he answered. “He doesn’t sleep well at night either.”
She winced but could understand that. It wasn’t hard to imagine that more than a few demons ruined his world on a regular basis. “You weren’t as badly injured?”
“I was, yes. You just can’t see most of the scars. I lost my spleen and a kidney, for starters. I have rods in my spine, an artificial hip, a missing foot, and a badly burned left hand. I even have a metal plate in my neck, supporting the weight of my head.”
She stared at him. “Really?”
“Really. None of us came out of that accident easily. We’ll have a lifetime of issues, a lifetime of adaptations. Even psychological issues from all this as well.”
Something in his tone had her feeling like it was safe to ask her next question. “Are you warning me off of him?”
He chuckled. “If I could do that, you aren’t the woman I thought you were.”
“You don’t know who I am,” she said with spirit.
“No, I don’t. But I do know him. And anybody who takes him on won’t have an easy time of it. We all have nightmares, reliving the land mine explosion. We all are haunted about losing Mouse, just a kid, fresh in the navy, someone we looked after for a year, and yet still couldn’t prevent his death. Survivor’s guilt, they call it. We’re dealing with that loss by finding out who the hell did this to all of us. In a way, this mission is therapeutic. But it doesn’t solve our physical problems. We have to take medications. We have to see doctors. We have to go for follow-up visits. We have to get our prosthetics checked out on a regular basis. There are constant tweaks.”
“Granted, your injuries are on a larger scale, but, not to diminish the extent of the damage done to your body, anybody with even a single health issue has to take care of many similar things.” She watched as he slid her a sideways glance. “Chad was a type 2 diabetic—thankfully adult onset so he could still be a firefighter. There were lots of adjustments that needed to be made for him.”
She watched the surprise in Laszlo’s eyes, but then he gave her a quick nod, as if he understood all that was inherent in Chad’s life.
“He never complained. He often worried about not having enough insulin available as the doctors only wanted to give him prescriptions for ten days in advance.”
“I would think that several months would be a given, concerning the issues with diabetes when the blood sugar is not regulated, just as a safety factor,” Laszlo said in surprise.
“Sure, but doctors are doctors. They like to make life difficult.”
“It sounds like he adapted.”
“He did. And that’s how I know you and Talon will also.” On that note, she turned and headed into the kitchen. She didn’t know about Talon and Laszlo, but she was getting hungry. She got an onion and chopped it. Taking out her preboiled eggs, she cut them in small pieces.
Laszlo watched her from the doorway quietly for a moment.
Next she grabbed the marinating potato salad and added the other ingredients. Then she quickly mixed up her favorite dressing to top it off and tossed it all together.
Laszlo stepped inside and then smiled. “Can I help?”
“You can check on the fire in the barbecue,” she said, not lifting her eyes from the potato salad.
By the time she was done, the barbecue was ready to cook the steaks. She reached for them, and, turning around with the board in her hands, Talon stepped in and took the board from her. “We’ll handle this part.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “How very male of you.”
He shook his head. “Not at all. You’ve already done the rest of the work, so we’ll do this.” He took the steaks outside, and he and Laszlo stood at the barbecue.
Nobody had asked her how she wanted hers cooked.
She thought back to all the times she and Chad and Talon, of course, had had barbecues and realized he probably already knew. She still loved her steaks medium-rare.
There was a nice table outside. She grabbed a washcloth, went out, wiped it down, and then set it for dinner. As she brought out the potato and Caesar salads, she turned to face the men. “Do you want the wine for dinner?”
Talon turned and smiled. “Laszlo can stand here and watch these. I’ll open the wine.” He followed behind her as they returned to the kitchen.
She opened the box of wineglasses he had brought. “Why did you bring these?”
He glanced at her and frowned. “It’s funny, but I assumed you didn’t have any.”
She stared at him, her eyebrows creasing. “We used to have wine all the time.”
“I know. But I broke most of the glasses,” he confessed.
The memories slammed through her. He was right. They often broke them. But that was usually because their passion had erupted, and everything around them got scattered. Heat washed over her cheeks. She rolled her neck, as if to get the kinks out, but it was to hide her face, which had to be sporting a full-blown blush if the heat that had gathered there was any indication.
He chuckled. “I see you remember too.”
She dared not say anything. She took the wineglasses to the kitchen sink and washed them in very hot water, drying them thoroughly.
As he took out the wine bottle, she put the glasses in the freezer for a moment to chill them. When he had the wine open and looked for the glasses, she retrieved them, and they both stepped out onto the deck again.
It was perfect timing, as Laszlo was just taking the steaks off the grill. She smiled and sat down. “I can’t remember when I had a meal like this,” she confessed. “I do know it was before Chad’s death.”
Talon nodded. He lifted his glass and held it up, proposing a toast. “To Chad,” he said quietly.
She clinked her glass with his and whispered, “To Chad.” In her mind she said, Well, brother, he’s here. And I don’t like why he came to see me after all these years, but I’m really glad he did. I hope wherever you are, you’re happy. I love you. She took several bites of her steak. When her mouth was empty, she nodded her head with a slight jerk toward the backyard and asked Talon, “What did you find out there?”
When there was nothing but silence from the other two, she put down her knife and fork. “Look.” She crossed her arms on the table and stared at them. “You’ll be staying here, so you said. This was about my brother. Now it’s about me. But it’s all really about you two. So you need to share information with me. I’m part of this sick drama too. I’m not sitting here, in the dark, while you guys make decisions that affect me.”
Laszlo took another bite of steak and chewed comfortably. He never said a word.
She glared at him, wondering how and when he decided to step in between her and Talon. Obviously now was not one of those times. Men. I’ll never understand them. Then she turned her attention to Talon. “What gives?”
He shrugged. “We don’t have a whole lot to say.” He cut a piece of steak, but, before he popped it into his mouth, he said, “Somebody did come into my hospital room to tell me about Chad’s death. But the hospital has no record of an authorized visitor on file.”
“So that means what?”
His laser gaze stared at her as he chewed, then swallowed. “It means that, whoever it was, snuck in.”
She sank back in her chair. Her steak no longer looked quite as appealing.
He motioned at her plate with his knife. “Eat up. Enjoy it while it’s hot.”
“It tasted better a few minutes ago,” she said in disgust. Yet she straightened and cut her steak again. “I just can’t believe somebody would go to all that trouble in order to tell you the news about my brother, purely hoping it would upset you.”
“But it sounds like that is exactly what this guy did,” Laszlo said. “And, in case you think it’s a lot of trouble, it isn’t. I could sneak into any hospital across the country—even one under heavy guard while secret surgery is performed on our president—and not get caught.”
She stared at him in wonder. There was no boast in his tone, only a complete acceptance of his skills. “But then surely it’s only people with special training who could do that.”
Again the two men exchanged glances, and Talon nodded. “Exactly. There’s a very good chance whoever is doing this has been well trained, either by our government or somebody else’s.”
“Government. Do you mean navy?”
“It’s best if we don’t narrow our focus based on too many theories and conjectures. Yet we still must theorize, like we would do to prepare for any mission, any op. The fact that someone—who we call the boss man—knew us, knew our names, knew how to find our families, makes me think navy. But we train with all other military forces. Not only our country but ally countries too.”
“But, like you said earlier, this second guy had been well rehearsed or well trained to drop off the mouse. In other words, his boss, the man you seek, could be anybody from anywhere in the world,” she exclaimed. She scooped some potato salad onto her plate and took a bite. She let the flavors roll around in her mouth while she thought about what he’d said. “And, of course, after all this time, nobody remembers anybody coming to visit you in the hospital, right? Nobody could describe him? So we can’t compare that description to our guy from today?”
“We’ve only spoken with the nurse who stayed with me a lot. There are a lot of shift changes involved in any hospital, a lot of different staff on any given day, so it’s possible somebody would remember him. We haven’t tugged that line yet. But most likely he would be an expert at being a chameleon. He would be the kind of person who would slip in, and you would never really have noticed him.”
Clary shook her head. “Are you saying your visitor was dressed like a doctor, a nurse, an orderly?”
Laszlo smiled. “That’s what I would do.” He took a sip of his wine. “Or I’d be a patient in the backless gown, in a wheelchair or maybe on foot dragging along my saline bag, taking a slow spin around the floor under my own power.”
“You guys are seriously scary with the way you think.”
“Have to be to survive out there,” Talon said.
“What about the hospital’s cameras?”
“Another line we need to tug. It’s possible the cameras caught our guy from the back, but he’d never let his face get caught on camera,” Talon said thoughtfully. “Still, I was in a civilian hospital, as that’s where my specialists were, so I wonder what kind of security system they would have.”
Laszlo shrugged. “Mason may know somebody.”
“In this case, we’re probably better off talking to Levi.” Talon slowly put down his knife and fork. “Isn’t Ice connected to the medical world?”
Laszlo said, “Her father runs a private hospital here.”
Talon nodded slowly. “And might just be able to get that kind of information for us.” He pulled out his phone and sent a text.
She glanced at him. “Are you texting those people?”
“No, I didn’t get the date that this all happened from the nurse. If she can give me the actual date, then maybe I can find somebody who can check the security footage.”
“But surely they won’t have it for that far back?”
“I have no idea how long any hospital keeps those feeds. But, knowing a little about patients’ propensity to sue hospitals, given their deeper pockets, I’d figure they’d keep it all. Who knows when somebody will sue them years afterward? Plus everything is digital now. There’s no reason for them not to have it.”
She was sorry she’d brought it up. She took several more bites of her food. The meal had been excellent, but it was a little hard to enjoy, given the subject matter.
Just then Talon’s phone rang. “It’s Erick.” He pushed back from the table. “I have to take this,” he said, as he stood and hit Talk. “Erick, what’s up?”
She watched as he walked across the patio, out of hearing distance, and onto the grass, pacing from left to right in the backyard. She glanced over at Laszlo who was eating as if the phone call meant nothing. “So, are you really hungry, or you’re not concerned about the call?”
“Both. Talon will tell me when he gets back. And I might as well enjoy my steak while it’s hot.”
She glanced over at Talon’s plate and realized he’d already eaten most of his. She shrugged, smiled, and finished hers. “Depending on how long he is on that call, we can always throw his back on the grill.”
“It won’t be that long. He’ll tell them about the incident today and maybe get somebody to contact Levi.”
“Do you guys know everybody in the industry?” She was amazed at the number of names being tossed around. None of them meant anything to her, but surely a man who owned his own private hospital was somebody worth knowing.
“Nope, just a lot of good ones. But don’t forget. All seven of us were in the navy for ten years, but the last five years we were in the same unit. Mouse was just with us that final year. We met a lot of people in that time.”
“Did you really do training and war games with the army, marines, air force, etc.?”
He grinned. “Yep, sure did. Some of them were a lot of fun. But, more than that, we did a lot of training overseas and up north. With our own men and with soldiers from other countries. We came in contact with many people.”
“And were there a lot who hated you?”
He was just finishing his last piece of steak. He scooped some potato salad onto his plate, then added the Caesar salad. As he chewed, he looked like he was thinking. “That’s the problem we keep coming back to. We don’t know anybody who hated us like this. We’re trying to run down something in Mouse’s background. Looking for connections. Motives. Something that would explain this nightmare. Like maybe there was somebody who really hated him—or really loved him and blames us for not being able to protect him.”
She sat back. “Interesting issue.”
Talon sat down, rejoining them, and attacked his steak in vigorous movements. She watched him take several bites and chew hard and fast. She couldn’t decide if he was angry or energized. There was a glint in his eyes, as if he was on to something, but they might not like the answers.
When he finally finished his steak, he did the same as Laszlo had, served himself both potato and Caesar salads. She waited until he finished filling his plate, then asked, “And?”
Surprised, he looked up and studied her face. “And what?”
“You said you had to take that call,” she said in exasperation. “The least you could do was share it with us.”
He shrugged. “Our friend Badger is doing much better,” he said. “But I doubt that means anything to you.”
“He was injured in the same truck accident as you, wasn’t he?”
Talon nodded. “And he had to go back under the knife recently.”
“I’m sorry for him. I’m sure you’ve all had more than enough of hospitals and surgeries.”
“Exactly.”
He took several bites of potato salad while she waited for more answers. But it was like pulling teeth. “Did you tell them about our visitor today?” She brought this up, hoping for a different tact.
“Yes. They’ll contact Levi and Ice.”
It was an unusual name—and unforgettable. Still, from what she’d gleaned, they were also good friends and that meant she was grateful to them for helping Talon out. He’d been alone too long. “When will you know?”
“Not until tomorrow.”
“Anybody else have any other leads?”
Talon looked over at Laszlo. “They got into some interesting files in the hit man’s laptop.”
“From what I saw, he did keep full emails, maps, payment history on every job he ever did.”
“Seventeen of them. Erick’s already contacted the local detective we worked with the last time. He’s very interested in seeing how many cases they can close over this, and he’ll contact the necessary authorities who have the open files.”
“And yet he was just the paid hit man, correct?” Laszlo asked.
“It appears that way. But Erick is hopeful they can find more information. Geir has taken over looking after John Smith’s laptop.”
“Geir’s a good man,” Laszlo said. “So the four of them are there in Santa Fe. Two of us are here. That’s six. If we could get a hold of Jager, I’d feel better.”
“I know. But he’s still dark. Nobody’s heard a word from him.”
She listened to the back and forth with interest but sat quietly, sipping her wine and finishing her salad. As long as they seemed to forget she was here, they were talking a little more freely. But she knew they were too well-trained to ever let anything slip that was important or could get her in more trouble. She didn’t want anything about her brother to be withheld or for them to disappear without her knowing and understanding what had happened. To think her brother had been killed because he was good friends with Talon was a bit much to swallow. But it explained what was happening to her. “Did you send in the sketch I gave you?” she asked Talon. “Or the photo from the security camera?”
“I did. Both.”
“Any reason you’re not going to the police?”
Silence on the other side of the table was momentary, then Laszlo said, “We have lots of questions. I’m sure the police would have even more. We want more answers first, before bringing them in. At this point in time, the less the police know, the better.”
Talon watched Clary, knowing she wouldn’t like that answer. And, sure enough, her lips pinched together, and her arms crossed over her chest. She had obviously learned to control her temper somewhat, whereas before she would have snapped at somebody for that comment. In a quiet voice he said, “At the moment, they would interfere. We need to get as much information as we can, hand it to them to follow up with, while we carry on looking for more.”
“But you do intend on calling the cops at some point?”
They both nodded.
When the relief settled on her face, he realized just how worried she’d been. “We’ve not gone off the wall or under the radar or rogue or whatever it is they say in the movies. We’ve always been law-abiding Americans protecting citizens. That hasn’t changed.”
She nodded, picked up her wineglass, and took a big sip.
He didn’t want to tell her all the details he had heard from this latest phone call because some of the hits had been pretty gruesome. At least the instructions had been. The hit man hadn’t followed them all to the letter. Apparently one husband had arranged for their John Smith to kill the guy’s own wife. But the husband wanted her raped and beaten first. Instead the hit man had shot her between the eyes while she’d been sleeping. Never even knew what hit her.
Talon still didn’t like their bearded hit man for what he’d done, but at least he hadn’t been following the instructions and causing undue pain in that situation. Just another way for Talon and his unit to know that this guy hadn’t been the one they wanted. They were after the boss, the one who handed down the orders for the hits on Chad and the family members of Talon’s team.
Not to mention John Smith was dead. It just left a bigger mess for everyone else to clean up. They had gotten no intel from the hired gun before he was shot, so they had no more answers, which was the whole purpose of the boss man ending the hit man’s life—if the boss was even the one who had killed Smith. In theory it could be yet another hit man.
But then a guy like Smith would only lie when interrogated. He hadn’t gotten to the lying part before he’d died. He’d still been taunting Talon’s team at that point.
In the end, what Talon and his team had was so much better. Once they dug deep enough into the hit man’s life and deeper into the encryption on his laptop, they would get all the answers they needed—or at least most of them. Particularly when the hit man had been so good at keeping track of everything he did. His laptop had been his electronic photo album of all his hits that he had carried out. Talon would never understand why the bad guys kept evidence that would end up convicting them. It made no sense.
He finished his plate of food and stood, carrying his dishes into the kitchen. He knew there was a dishwasher, but the simple cleaning process involving the hot soapy water was often relaxing for him. As he reached for the dish soap, Clary took the dishes away from him and loaded them in the dishwasher.
“There’s no point in having tools that can do your job if you don’t let them,” she scolded. “Take the bottle of wine back outside and refill the glasses while I load this.”
He stopped and waited until she was done. Laszlo made several trips, bringing in the leftovers. By the time they had the food put away and the dirty dishes loaded, the wine bottle had been emptied into their three glasses. They sat outside in the early evening air. Talon knew Laszlo had more questions and needed to get more information, but there was only so much Talon could say right now.
“How bad do you think this situation is here?” Clary asked.
“As bad as it can get. I don’t know who this second man is. I just know his cohort was a serial killer. Seventeen people at last count. I suspect that there’s at least one puppet master above all these men, pulling their strings. It’s him we’re trying to get to.”
“Was a serial killer? So you’re talking about that dead hitman you mentioned earlier?” Clary asked.
“He was shot while we were questioning him back in Santa Fe,” Talon said. “We’re assuming he was killed by the man who hired him.”
“So the boss is taking out his minions one by one?” she asked.
Clouds were moving in, easing the still substantial heat from the afternoon. But, at the same time, it took away the bright sunshine and seemed to suit the subject matter a little more.
Talon glanced at his watch—it was eight o’clock—and realized it was later than he thought. They still had their bags in the back of the Wrangler. “We never decided if we should see Mason while we’re here,” he said to Laszlo.
“No. But I don’t want to draw any unwanted attention to him, his team, and their loved ones. It’s too hard to keep everyone safe. Particularly if the case blows wide open.”
Talon understood. Sometimes it was better to keep relationships a little more distant. It also helped to not have any connection to anybody when they were being hunted. “He’s aware that even being involved with us in the past means he’s in danger?”
“Yes, I’m sure he’s put extra protection on Tesla.”
Talon nodded. “I would hate for something to happen to either of them or his team.”
“He’s got a bunch of his men helping us. They’ve run all the names we’ve gathered so far through the database, including Corporal Shipley, John Smith, Ben Chambers even, but they haven’t been able to come up with anything helpful,” Laszlo said.
Talon glanced at him sharply. “When did you find that out?”
“When I was being conspicuously absent on the front step earlier today.”
Talon cast his mind back to when Clary had broken down in tears over the news about her brother. “Did Mason have anything else to say?”
Laszlo shook his head. “Lots of stuff in progress. They’re checking through the files, trying to cross-check names, all the accidents. Now that we know three hits were directly caused by this John Smith guy—including the nonfatal hit-and-run on my father—it means five deaths weren’t. So we need to know who was responsible for those.”
“So John Smith was responsible for the deaths of Cade’s sister and my friend Chad, plus injuring your father?”
Laszlo nodded. “It’s the others we don’t know about.”
“Well, maybe if we can catch this second guy here, that’ll be another piece of the puzzle.”
“I’m just getting tired of the pieces.” Laszlo spoke in a hard tone. “I want to know who’s above all these guys. He’s the one we need to stop.”
“Maybe the laptop will give us something.”
“A text just came through,” Laszlo said, pulling out his phone. He flicked through the message, saying, “Mason has a bunch of names for us.” He started reading them off.
Talon listened. “I don’t know any of those men. Who are they?”
“They are associated with the dead hit man and potentially on the wrong side of life.”
Talon shook his head. “None of the names mean anything to me.” He glanced over at Clary. “Did you recognize any of those names?”
She frowned. “Can you read them again?”
Laszlo started at the top and read the seven names again.
She stopped him. “Did you say John MacArthur?”
He nodded. “Yes. Why?”
“He approached me about renting my parents’ house. But I don’t know if it’s the same John MacArthur. It’s not a terribly unusual name.”
“But it’s not all that common either. When did he approach you?” Talon asked.
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter as I said no. I never saw him again.”
“How long ago?” Laszlo persisted.
She gazed up at the sky, deep in thought. “Five weeks ago?” She hesitated, as if making a guess. “Over the years, I’ve asked my parents at odd times if they’re willing to rent their house, but they always came back with the same negative answer.” She shrugged. “So their beautiful empty house just sits there.”
“Did he say why he wanted that house?”
“He was looking for a place to live,” she answered. “He didn’t appear to have a whole lot of means, so I don’t imagine he could pay very much.”
“When you say, not a whole lot of means, what do you mean?”
“He was on an older bike, just pedaling around. He didn’t make me suspicious, but he certainly wasn’t respectable looking. His jeans were old and ripped. His sneakers had holes,” she joked. “And my parents are very particular about who would be in the house on a good day, and I can’t imagine their reaction if they found they had a bum for a renter who didn’t have a job and maybe ended up smoking dope all day long in their home.”
Talon could understand that. It was tough enough to be in the rental market on both sides of the coin. Finding a good match between the two was always important. “Any other names sound familiar to you?”
She shook her head. “No. That was the only one.”
Talon nodded. “Ask Mason for the contact information on John MacArthur, just so we can visit with him and hopefully write him off our list.”
“Sure.” Laszlo sent a text back. He looked up at Talon. “There should be a whole lot more information coming out of that laptop. I’m really hoping there’s a lead of some kind there.”
“We can always hope.” Talon didn’t think anything would come tonight though. He didn’t know how long they would have to stay here, but he didn’t want to leave Clary here alone, unprotected. “How’s your job going?” he asked her.
She snorted. “Terrible. I’ve been threatening to leave for the last year. But then I don’t know how much of that is the divorce and losing my brother,” she admitted. “The lawyers have been okay to work with, but they’re a very strange group of human beings.”
Laszlo chuckled. “They are indeed. I don’t have a whole lot to do with them myself.”
“Did one of them handle your divorce?” Talon asked.
She shook her head. “No, none of them handle divorces. They’re criminal lawyers.”
He frowned. “Interesting. Do you think any of their past clients could be bothering you?”
She looked startled for a moment. “I don’t see many of them, so I’m not sure. And why would they go after me?”
“Do the clients come to the office?”
“Sometimes, but honestly the lawyers usually end up going to the police station or to the penitentiaries. Some clients are out on bail but not that many.”
“Interesting,” Laszlo said. “How did you get a lawyer for your divorce?”
She frowned, her gaze going from one to the other. “What difference does it make?” she asked suspiciously.
“What’s the relationship like between you and your ex?”
She crossed her arms over her chest defensively and then crossed her legs too, glaring at them. “It’s fine. What are you getting at?”
Laszlo said with a heavy sigh, “Very often with ugly divorces, and especially when a woman is being stalked or in some kind of a trouble, it’s caused by the ex-husband. But if you have a good relationship, and you managed to sort out all your differences and split your assets without fighting, then I presume he doesn’t care either way.”
“Care either way? What do you mean by that?”
“He wouldn’t feel like he needed to kill you to keep his money.”
She stared at Laszlo. “You think my ex might have been stalking me? Or had someone do it for him?” She shook her head and laughed. “He didn’t care enough.”
“I thought it was you who didn’t care enough,” Talon said quietly.
She glared at him. “It’s the same thing.”
“Did you have assets you had to split? A house you had to sell? Any money? Anything he would object to sharing with you?” Laszlo asked.
She looked from one to the other. “We were only married for four-plus years. In all that time, we didn’t even have a house. We lived in an apartment. We didn’t have a whole lot of money.”
“What about all those years you worked at the law firm?” Talon asked.
“I have a savings account and a 401k, true, but so does he. We kept our money mostly separate.”
“So it was an amicable divorce?”
She appeared to consider that for a long moment and then nodded. “Yes. I definitely don’t see him as being somebody who would want to take me out of the equation. I honestly think it would be just too much effort. He’s pretty well washed his hands of me by now.”
Talon kept his thoughts to himself, but he also knew that too often divorces were a whole lot less friendly under the surface than what appeared on the surface. But, if she was right, then her ex-husband had nothing to do with her stalker. Intuitively Talon felt it was still connected to him and his unit but couldn’t understand why, well after Chad’s death, this person would continue to torment Clary unless it was because of Clary herself. And, if so, was it because of her connection to Talon?
Some of the men in his unit knew about Clary but not everyone. Laszlo did. Geir did. Talon wasn’t sure about the others. Maybe they all did by now. He’d forgotten who he had told, who he hadn’t, and he knew the guys did a little talking among themselves, but they were all friends, good friends. So sharing happened.
Then he realized that, if anybody had gone into Chad’s history, Chad probably had a ton of photos of Talon and Clary together. And, considering Clary was an artist, he knew there would be a lot of photos of the two of them around. Anybody who had decent IT skills wouldn’t have had trouble finding them. But why would someone think Talon still cared for Clary after all this time? After all this distance? Hell, she was married to someone else for more than four years.
He finished his wine, collected their empty glasses, and turned to her. “Do you want to show us where we’re sleeping?”
Startled, she hopped to her feet. “Sure. I forgot about that.”
“If you’d rather,” Laszlo said, “we can sleep in your parents’ house.”
She cast a glance over at the dark house beside hers and shook her head. “No, they’re pretty fussy even about that.”
Laszlo looked at Talon with surprise.
He shrugged. “They’re definitely different. They’re very much into their research, and this is kind of like a bolt-hole for them but only them. And they want it available at all times.”
“I’m not even sure it’s that anymore,” Clary said. “They’re so into what they do that I don’t think this is anything other than an asset that, at one point in time, they may be forced to sell in order to keep doing their research work. An asset they don’t want anybody to touch. They do all the maintenance on it as required, but that’s it.”
“Did they come back for Chad’s funeral?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “They did, and they left the next day.”
He couldn’t stop the wince that crossed his face. His heart hurt for her. She’d been all alone. He hadn’t even been able to come himself. “I’m sorry. That’s not something you should have gone through on your own.”
“No, nobody should,” she said quietly. “I had girlfriends. Chad was helping me through the breakup of my marriage, then he died, and my failed marriage took second place. I was heartbroken over Chad’s death. It just blindsided me, you know?” She glanced at him.
He nodded. “Any accident that takes somebody we love from us suddenly is devastating. In Chad’s case, he was so full of life. It seems an even bigger crime to take someone like that.”
She nodded and led the way upstairs. “There’re two spare bedrooms up here.”
Laszlo asked, “Where’s your room?”
As they entered the hallway, she said, “I’m in the master at the far end. That was Chad’s room.”
“He was looking into this stalker of yours, right? Do you still have Chad’s laptop? His cell phone? Any of his notes? Do you know what he did in order to track this man down?” Talon asked suddenly. How could he have forgotten Chad was looking into that? It was a lead they couldn’t afford to ignore.
She nodded. Instead of going to her room, she went to the hall closet and pulled out from the bottom space several banker’s boxes. “All his paperwork is in here. I didn’t know what to do with it.”
The two men looked at the boxes. Laszlo asked, “Would you mind if we go through it all?”
She shook her head. “Feel free. But again, you have to share what you find with me.”
“Agreed.”
Each of the men grabbed a box, and she led them to the first spare bedroom, then pointed out the second. “There’s a bathroom you both share between the rooms,” she said.
They nodded. “In that case we’ll say good night after we grab our bags from the car, and we’ll start doing some research on what’s in these boxes.”
She frowned, indecision on her face, and then shrugged. “That’s fine. I’ll go to my room. I brought home some work—drafting pleadings for my bosses—that I need to catch up on too.”
They walked into the room Talon would sleep in. Laszlo dropped his box on the bed. “I’ll go out to the Jeep and grab our bags.” He disappeared out the bedroom door.
Talon put down his box, taking off the lid. There was a laptop, tablet, and a cell phone. He found more cell phones as he kept going through the box, plus files, a flash drive, and what looked like several external hard drives. There was a lot to go through. Chad was a good man. If he’d gone looking for someone who’d been bothering his sister, he’d have been thorough.
Talon glanced up to see Clary still standing in the doorway. He frowned. “Is there something you want?”
She shrugged. “It’s just so weird to see you.”
He sat down on the bed. “Hopefully it’s not a negative to see me.”
“No, and I certainly feel much better knowing why you didn’t come to the funeral. It also makes me happy to know Chad did have contact with you all these years. I know he was worried about you at one time, but he never really explained why.”
Talon filed away that bit of information. Chad had always been very protective of his sister, and, after Talon and Clary had split, Chad gave Talon only the basics of her life. “He told me very little about your life,” he admitted. “He was always protecting the two of us.”
She nodded. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons why losing him was so hard. He’d always been that big brother protector in my world. Afterward it just seemed like I was so alone.”
“I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do at the time.”
She nodded. “I understand that now,” she said honestly. “I’m not sure you would have come even if you could have. You were very much into your own world back then.”
He smiled. “My years in the navy were important to me.”
“Obviously. You left me for them,” she snapped.
He sighed. “I left you because you wouldn’t let me have both. You’re the one who gave me the ultimatum—you or the navy—and I had to go to the navy. I really wanted to have you as well, but that wasn’t enough for you.” He tried so hard to keep his voice neutral, but it was hard, almost impossible, to keep the note of pain out of his words, his tone. “But it was a long time ago. We can be friends. We don’t have to still be broken lovers.”
She snorted. “Since I’ve already married and divorced, that lover aspect was a long time ago.”
But still she didn’t leave. He waited, wondering if there was anything he could say to help bridge the gap. “I am sorry I didn’t keep in closer contact. At the time, I was hurt and angry, and it seemed like a clean break was the best way.”
Moodily she stared around the room. “And I buried myself in my work and my friends, went through a couple relationships before I hooked up with my husband. But I never forgot you.”
“I don’t think any of us ever forgets our relationships. I buried myself in work and kept in touch with Chad. I was determined to not lose him too. You two were the only family I had.”
She winced. “And now we’ve both lost Chad.”
“But we don’t have to lose each other. Nobody can step into Chad’s role in either of our lives. In your case, it hurts even more. I understand how close you two were and for many, many years before I showed up. I have a lot of good friends from my unit. It’s partly why I didn’t need anyone besides Chad. He was my life outside of the military. These men were my life in the service.”
“I didn’t think you ever needed anybody,” she said. “Lord, I was really insecure way back then, wasn’t I?”
“You were young. You were very idealistic. You were also adamant about what you wanted. I loved your true independent spirit, and I loved your temper.”
She stared at him, her eyebrows rising toward her hairline. “How could anybody have loved that temper?”
“Because it was honest. You never held back, and I could always read you. If I couldn’t, I would just get you mad. Then you’d open your mouth and say exactly what you thought. Sometimes it hurt. Sometimes it left everything we had in flames. Then we had to rebuild it. But it was the only way I could get the truth out of you.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Is that why you pricked my temper all the time?”
He chuckled. “Sometimes. You were an enigma to me. I didn’t have a whole lot of experience with women, and I didn’t understand what you were thinking or how you were reacting. You would clam up and not say anything. Or you’d get up and walk out. Or you’d say everything was fine, but it was obvious that it wasn’t fine. If I got you mad, you would start screaming about all the things that bothered you.” He shrugged. “I figured that’s what guys did. I didn’t know how else to get the truth out of you.”
She winced. “You’re right. I said that everything was fine a lot, didn’t I? I was afraid you’d leave. I was afraid I’d never see you again because you were joining the navy. That you’d have all these women out in the world, and I was so much less than them, and you would never come back if I wasn’t perfect. But I couldn’t be perfect, and I didn’t want you to always worry, so I was always fine. But, of course, I wasn’t fine. You’re right. But I didn’t know how to communicate what I needed from you.”
“At the end you communicated it very well. You said you needed me home every night, and, if I couldn’t do that, you weren’t interested.” His tone turned cold. “That was something I couldn’t do. You couldn’t accept my career, and you just wanted me to be there every time you yanked my chain.”
“It wasn’t about yanking your chain,” she snapped. “It was about making sure you understood where home was.”
“I understood where home was. I just understood I wasn’t welcome whenever I had been away and came back. There was a lot of trust I had to have in you too. When I was gone, I was busy looking after the world. I was on extreme training, heavy missions, secret operations. Being dropped all over war-torn countries in the middle of the night, fighting to keep you safe, and the only thing you would have to say to me was I never made it home in time for this or that. And you always complained how you were alone. Yet you had your family here. You had a house. You had Chad, but it wasn’t enough. And, if I couldn’t come home because my days off were rescheduled, or I was sent overseas, you would lose it. And I could never quite make up for having missed out on some family occasion.”
“Are you still doing stuff like that now?”
He snorted. “No, I’m broken, remember?” The conversation was not turning in the direction he wanted it to go. He hated hashing out old problems. If they hadn’t worked them out back then, he didn’t see what good rehashing it now would do. Eight years was too long for any of them.
“You’re not broken, so stop saying that. You’ve rebuilt yourself bigger, better, stronger than anyone.”
“Really? I think you’ve been reading the internet too much or watching too many superhero movies made from Marvel Comics.”
“You were always my hero,” she said sadly. “Until you walked away.”
“Until you sent me away,” he corrected.
She froze for a moment, and then her shoulders sagged. “Until you didn’t choose me.”
“I shouldn’t have had to.”
She lifted her head, looked at him, her gaze harsh and yet full of pain, and nodded. “I know that now.”