Catch a Shadow (3 page)

The newcomer hesitated, scanned the street in a way difficult for the untrained eye to detect.

He was slight, both thin and not very tall. His body radiated a tension that no disguise or surgery could hide. The man Jake remembered was even shorter, but perhaps this one wore shoe lifts. His hair had once been dark, and now it was a dirty blond. His facial features had been hidden under a beard when Jake met him, but those quick, nervous movements gave him away. Del Cox had been unique among the other team members who were taught to mingle and mix among a multitude of nationalities. Cox's intensity made him stand out. But he'd been a genius with explosives as well as electronics, and Jake had ignored his misgivings when he'd joined the team.

Del Cox. Alive!

According to the government, he was dead. According to a lot of people, at the hand of one Jake Kelly.

Fury boiled in Jake's gut. Cox had apparently left him for dead in the jungle, then let him rot in prison for something he didn't do. Death would have been preferable to the disgrace, the look in his father's eyes when he was charged. Hell, he'd had nothing to defend himself with except his service, and that apparently had meant little.

He swallowed the gall in his throat and waited. Maybe Cox saw him. Maybe not. He wanted Cox to come closer. Didn't want him spooked. Not yet.

Cox started across the street.

Jake caught a movement out of the corner of his eye just as he heard the squeal of tires.

He started to shout a warning. It was too late. A dark sedan careened into Cox, tossing him up in the air. Then it sped away with a screeching of tires, as the driver swerved to miss an oncoming car.

A shout. Screams. People poured out of the bar.

He started for the fallen man, then stopped.

He couldn't be seen here. His presence in Atlanta was a ticket back to prison if anyone discovered who he was.

Still, he moved forward several steps. Cox had contacted him for a reason. Jake had little faith in God these days, but he prayed nonetheless that the man survived. Cox might be his last chance.

Then he stopped. A tall man dressed in slacks and a long shirt that hung loose left the tavern and approached the fallen man. He reached him and started to kneel beside him. Jake's blood ran cold. Another ghost. Gene Adams! He would bet his life on it.

He didn't recognize the face, but he knew the arrogant movements, the muscle flexing in the throat at being thwarted. Most of all, he noticed the clenching of his fist as he straightened when an ambulance screeched to a halt nearby.

Jake started forward as a paramedic—a woman—jumped from the passenger's side and rushed over to the victim. The man quickly moved away.

Jake started after him just as someone appeared from the tavern, showed a badge, and asked everyone to step away.

Jake moved back into the shadows. He didn't think Gene Adams had seen him. He'd been too concerned with Cox. And his own appearance had changed as well. Jake doubted anyone who knew him from that last mission would recognize him today. His hair had been long then and tied back with a thong. He'd had a thick beard for his role as a terrorist. Now he was clean-shaven, his hair short, with gray running through the dark brown. He'd been far leaner then, too. Jake was still in fairly good shape, thanks to endless push-ups, but he had gained pounds. Prison food was fundamentally starch.

He was forty, but he knew he looked fifty. Prison had aged him, and he'd worked to avoid habits that might identify him.

Cox moved slightly, then Jake saw him try to say something as the woman paramedic performed a quick assessment. The woman shook her head, and the victim grabbed her arm, holding it. The woman took something from him and shoved it into her pocket. Jake glanced up to see other eyes following the movement as well, then step back as police cars arrived.

Jake decided to try to follow him. His quarry slipped into the crowd, and Jake was blocked momentarily by police pushing back the onlookers. He couldn't be obvious, couldn't risk a cop stopping him. Still, he moved as quickly as he could. He looked ahead. No one. He took several running steps to the corner and turned just as the man he'd recognized as Adams stepped into the passenger's side of a late-model luxury car, and it went roaring off, blowing through a light.

He had a quick glance at the license plate and memorized the number, then returned to the crowd. Uniformed police arrived and moved among the crowd, asking for witnesses.

He stayed on the fringe, watching as the paramedics—now two of them—loaded Cox into the ambulance. As they neared him, Jake backed away and darted into the bar. He wanted to follow the ambulance, but his rental car was still in front, not far from the crime scene, and he didn't dare go after it. He did not want to be questioned by police.

Everyone at the bar was talking. He found a spare seat at the bar and sat down.

“What will you have?” the bartender asked.

He glanced at the row of taps and chose one, then commented, “Terrible thing, what happened outside.”

“Yeah.”

“Someone said it looked like he was run down on purpose.”

“I didn't see it.” the bartender said, “so I couldn't say. But we have some rotten drivers in Atlanta.”

The man on his left shrugged. “Accidents out there all the time.”

“Anyone know the guy?”

The bartender shrugged. “I called 911, but I couldn't leave the bar. Don't think so, though. Someone would have said something. No one did.”

Jake doubted he would get any more information. He paid and left the stool, taking his beer with him as he wandered through the establishment. There were several rooms off the main bar area. He went to the one designated in the note.

While the front areas were packed, this room was empty except for two couples who paid no attention to him. He imagined the room would fill as people left work. He made his way to the table in the left corner and lounged in a chair.

When he was sure no one was watching, he searched the underside of the table.

Nothing. Nor did he see anyone else around. He slowly sipped the beer, waiting for the last of the police to leave as he tried to understand what had happened.

The man he once knew as Del Cox had given the woman paramedic a letter, a letter he suspected was meant for him. Had Gene Adams seen it as well?

Or was his name Gene Adams? Adams and Cox had been CIA, while the other members of the team had been pulled from the Army Special Forces. Jake had previously worked with the other two Special Forces members—all three were Rangers—but not the CIA guys, and all of them, for security reasons, used false identities. He knew his teammates' names but not those of the CIA guys.

He'd liked Cox, but Adams had been a pain in the ass since day one. As a captain in the Rangers, Jake was supposed to be team leader. Adams was along to make the transaction and try to discover who had sold American missiles to Camarro, but Adams kept trying to take charge.

Had the man who knelt next to Cox really been Adams? So many features were different, but not that cold stare that took everything in, nor the compulsive clenching of his fist when agitated.

How could Adams have known of the meeting? He'd obviously been anxious to get to the fallen man before anyone else, and yet he hurried off before questions could be asked. And a car had been waiting for him not far from the accident scene. It didn't take too many coincidences to raise those familiar hackles along Jake's backbone.

Ghosts
. He'd seen two ghosts tonight. And now he had a lead. No,
leads
.

A license number. A face he would not forget.

And the paramedic who had taken an envelope from Cox.

CHAPTER 3

Kirke was emotionally and physically exhausted when she returned to her duplex.

The toddler wouldn't leave her thoughts. Neither would the insistent request of the hit-and-run victim.

A sense of failure filled her. Perhaps there had been something more she could have done in both cases.

Sometimes they were just too late.

Usually she could turn those feelings off. Think, instead, of the people they'd saved during the past week. Month. Year.

The fierce demand in Mark Cable's eyes had left its imprint. She took the envelope from her pocket and weighed it with her hand. Light. Probably no more than a page or two.

She placed it on the kitchen table, then took off her blood-splattered uniform shirt and threw it into the washing machine. She headed for the shower.

Merlin
. She had to get Merlin. But first she wanted to wash away the remnants of the day. She scrubbed every inch of herself, then washed her hair, thankful she now wore it short.

No singing in the shower now. She should have turned the envelope in at the hospital. She still could. She could say she forgot about it.

Do it!
Turn it in and forget about it
.

The water turned cold, freezing her. A dash of reality.

She stepped out and wrapped a towel around herself, then quickly dressed.

Merlin would probably be squawking and driving Sam mad.

She pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and went out the front door, across the porch, and knocked at the neighboring unit of the side-by-side duplex.

“Come in, dammit.”

She recognized the impatient sound. Merlin was imitating one of his former owners.

Sam appeared at the door, scowling. “You're late. I'm due for rehearsal.”

“I know. I'm sorry. We had a call just as before our shift ended.”

Sam's scowl disappeared. “Bad day?”

“The worst.”

“A beer?”

“You bet,” she said, following him inside to the loud cackling of an unhappy Merlin.

Sam had been her neighbor for ten years, ever since she moved to Atlanta to work for the
Observer
. He was a musician who played in a jazz band at a downtown nightclub and sometimes filled in with other bands. He was usually gone all night, and she all day.

She looked after his cat when he was gone at night, and he looked after Merlin, who had a severe separation anxiety problem, during the day.

She went over to Merlin's cage and released him. The parrot flew to her shoulder and pecked her ear. “Merlin lonely.”

“I know,” she said, soothing his feathers. “Ready to go home?”

Merlin put his head against her cheek in a rare display of affection. It had taken her two years with him before he had displayed any at all.

“I have some pizza in the fridge,” Sam said helpfully as he handed her a bottle of beer. “You can take it with you.”

Kirke made a face. Cold pizza had never appealed to her, but she remembered she had precious little food in her fridge. She'd meant to go shopping after her shift but …

She nodded and swigged down the beer. She seldom did that. She enjoyed a beer with meals and a glass of wine at night, but she was careful when she drank, especially in her current job. Her patients couldn't afford a hungover paramedic.

Sam noticed it, too. “A
really
bad day, huh?”

“Not the half of it.”

He waited for her to elaborate. It was one of the things they liked about each other. They never pried into the other's life, but each was there as a sounding board when necessary.

“I broke the rules,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “You?”

He often kidded her about having a split personality. He complained she had an honesty that went to unhealthy extremes. She would drive twenty miles back if someone handed her the wrong change. Her conscience, he often complained, had been far too tightly wired. But she also had a thing about authority, particularly unjustly administered authority.

He glanced at his watch, then gave her a rueful grin. “You can tell me about it tomorrow.” He paused. “Oops. I have an early rehearsal tomorrow.”

“Why an early rehearsal?”

“New singer. She's good, really good. You ought to check her out. She has that Piaf sound you like so much.”

“No one has that sound.”

“No, but she comes closer to it than anyone I've heard. The drinks will be on me.”

“Not tomorrow night, but I'm off the next day.”

He nodded. “I gotta be on my way. Can't get fired from this gig.”

She nodded. “I'll lock up for you.”

He grabbed his saxophone case and was out the door. She took the half pizza from his fridge, slipped the empty beer can in the trash, and put Merlin into his cage.

“Good Sam,” Merlin noted in a mimic of her own voice.

She picked up Sam's black cat, named Sam's Spade after his master's passion for the detective, and took him and the pizza to her side of the duplex. Then she returned to Sam's side, fetched Merlin, locked the door, and returned to her sanctuary.

The duplex was side-by-side identical units. She and Sam each had large living rooms, eat-in kitchens immediately behind the living room, then a large bath that she'd modernized, and finally a roomy bedroom at the back. They shared a screened front porch.

It was a remnant of a true neighborhood that had since been redeveloped into luxury apartment buildings. Four houses remained, including her duplex, but growing taxes would soon squeeze her out.

Still, she loved it. She could walk to a neighborhood grocery, an art museum, and symphony hall, or run in the large city park a half block away. She'd bought it ten years earlier, using the insurance policy her grandfather had left. Sam's rent paid the taxes. He'd also become her best friend, though there were no romantic feelings between them.

She put Sam's Spade down on the floor. She'd tried to feed the half-wild kitten when he had appeared on their steps a year ago, but he wouldn't have anything to do with her. Spade wanted Sam. Sam had resisted adopting him. His hours were too odd, and he liked being a free spirit without attachments. He'd finally given up and taken him in, and now he was as silly about the “damn cat” as she was about Merlin. He was going to call him Cat, but she prevailed when she suggested naming him after his favorite fictional detective.