Into the Fire (14 page)

One thing about the personal security industry—one rarely traveled light.

Decker was surprised to see Nash. “I thought you were heading for Sarasota,” he said as he lifted a duffle out of the back of his truck.

Just last year, Tom Paoletti had opened up a Troubleshooters office in Florida. Tess had been down there for several weeks running—ever since the break-in at the apartment she shared with Nash.

According to the office scuttlebutt, she and Nash had patched things up—intending to take a weekend vacation out on Sarasota’s Siesta Key, which had one of the best beaches in the world.

But now Nash shook his head. “Change in plans.” It was the pointed way he didn’t meet Dave’s eyes that telegraphed the fact that he had a reason for not wanting to see Tess today—or even this week. Dave would’ve bet big bucks that somewhere, beneath Nash’s natty clothes, there lurked another bandage. Either that, or the man was about to depart for another mysterious non-Troubleshooters assignment that would result in placement of said bandage beneath his natty clothing.

Decker slammed shut the tailgate of his truck and turned to look at Nash in disbelief. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

It was his uncensored use of the f-word in front of Sophia that was Dave’s first clue that Deck was about to blow.

But then Dave didn’t hear Nash’s response to Decker’s question, because another truck pulled into the lot, braking to a stop and sending a cloud of dust into the air. “Sophia! Hey!”

It was Sophia’s pet Navy SEAL, Danny Gillman. Apparently the youngster hadn’t paid close enough attention to the memo she’d sent out nearly a year ago, which started with those oh-so-damning words,
Dear Danny, I think it’s important for you to know that my feelings are those of friendship…

Gillman didn’t bother to park, he just left his truck right in the middle of the lot as he jumped out. He looked upset. “Soph, please, can I talk to you for a sec? Please?”

Great. No doubt Danny had reached a place where he was willing, publicly, to beg.

Dave was standing close enough to Sophia to hear her sigh. It was just a little one, but it was not a happy sound. Still, she greeted the SEAL pleasantly enough as she crossed toward him. “What’s up, Dan?”

Dave went with her. “How’s it going, Gillman?”

“I’ve got this thing—” Gillman looked at Sophia “—with my father—” back to Dave “—that I wanted to talk to Sophia about,” the younger man said. “Privately, if that’s okay with you.”

Sophia put her hand on Dave’s arm. “It’s okay,” she told him, but then several yards away, Decker snarled at Nash.

“I am
not
going to let you fuck this up!” Deck actually pushed the taller man. Hard.

Gillman’s mouth dropped open. Decker rarely lost his temper and it
was
pretty shocking when he did. This, however, was turning into a full-scale meltdown of epic proportions.

Because Nash pushed Deck—equally hard—in response. “Back off!”

“Guys!” Sophia couldn’t believe what she was seeing either. But neither one of them so much as glanced at her.

“You treat Tess like shit.” Deck didn’t back off. In fact, he got further up into Nash’s face. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to you and you treat her—”

“I’m doing the best I can!” Nash came back at the same high volume.

“Guys!” Sophia got louder, too.

And Decker actually aimed some of his anger at her. “This doesn’t concern you.”

She flinched, as surely as if he’d reached out—
tock
—and smacked her across the face. But she was tough and she came right back with, “It most certainly does concern me—and it would even if all we were was coworkers, not friends. If you’ve got a problem with Nash, you’ve got to sit down and
talk
—”

“Yeah, because talking really helps,” Decker said. He got back in Nash’s face. “You get on that plane and you go have your weekend with Tess or I will
fuck
you
up
!”

“Go ahead,” Nash said, all but begging Deck to hit him in the face. “Do your best. Because I’m not going.”

“What is
wrong
with you?” Decker was livid.

“Why don’t
you
go to Sarasota,” Nash shot back. “She’s gotta be sick of me by now. It’s your big chance. Oh, wait, you don’t take chances. You just bury yourself in paperwork and let your entire life pass you by!”

“Is that what you’re doing when you tell Tess you’re with me, all those nights that you’re not?” Decker pushed Nash again, harder this time. “Taking
chances
?”

“Nah, that’s just me hooking up with some old girlfriend,” Nash taunted him. “Yeah, Tess is sweet, but variety
is
the spice of life.”

It was obvious to Dave that Nash was lying, but Decker lost it. He swung.

And it was the damnedest thing Dave had ever seen, because Nash just went still. He didn’t move to defend himself. He just…stood there, waiting to get hit.

And Decker obliged him, repeatedly, knocking him down to the ground and pulling him up to knock him down again.

“Stop it!” Sophia shouted. “Stop it,
stop
it!”

Gillman, foolish boy, jumped into it, trying to yank Decker off of Nash, and getting flipped, hard, onto his back for his effort.

“
Do
something,” Sophia implored Dave as Gillman lay there, the wind blasted out of him.

What, like, get hit, too? “Maybe this
is
their way of talking,” Dave suggested.

The look she shot him was so black, for a moment, he thought Sophia might just take a swing at him and turn this ass-kicking into a free-for-all.

With the tension they were all feeling, maybe that would be a good thing. Tracy Shapiro had pulled into the parking lot now, too. Dave could see the receptionist’s wide eyes through the windshield of her little car, as she took in the chaos.

Sophia, meanwhile, was ready to throw herself into the fracas.

Dave grabbed her. “Best thing to do is just stay—
oof
!” She’d actually elbowed him in the stomach, breaking free to dash over and catch Decker around the waist. She just wrapped her arms around him and hung on for dear life. “Don’t do this,” she told him. “Please,
please,
Deck, stop!”

Apparently, she, too, was willing to beg.

Of course, now Dave
had
to get into it. He’d never forgive himself if, as he stood here with his thumb up his butt, Sophia got hurt.

So he did the only thing he could do, and put himself directly between Decker and Nash, bracing himself for Deck’s fury. “Guys! That’s enough!”

And just like that, it was over. Although, Dave knew that Decker’s surrender had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with Sophia.

Decker let her pull him back, away from Dave and away from Nash, who was on the tarmac, bleeding.

Sophia just held on to Decker as he caught his breath, his chest heaving, his knuckles raw. Her eyes were tightly closed, one arm around Deck’s waist, the other up so that the palm of her hand lay across his heart, her face pressed against the broad expanse of his back.

The sudden silence was deafening.

Nash let his head loll back against the blacktop, turning to spit out a clot of blood. He was going to have one hell of a black eye, and his lip was split, yet he still managed to twist his mouth up into a rueful smile. Beaten and bleeding, he was still more attractive than Dave would ever be, even at his cleaned and shined up best.

Bastard.

“Look at you,” Nash said quietly to Decker. “Telling
me
not to fuck it up? You’re the master of the fuck-up. At least I had it right for a while. But you? You’re too much of a coward to even
try.
You
must
still be in love with Tess, you stupid fool, to flat-out ignore the best thing that ever happened to
you.
”

Gillman had climbed to his feet, and realization was dawning in his eyes as he looked at Sophia, who was still holding tightly to Decker. Yeah, that’s right, Navy-Boy. Sophia had never given Deck her
Let’s Be Friends
memo. Sophia, for years and years and
years
now, wanted something else entirely from Larry Decker—who was, indeed, a coward extraordinaire for failing to deliver.

And there they all stood, with Nash’s words ringing in the silence.

Dave watched Decker—because it was now or never. If he didn’t turn around, if he didn’t surrender into Sophia’s embrace, if he didn’t kiss the shit out of her and tell her he was sorry for being so afraid…

Decker moved, but it was to pull free from Sophia’s arms. “I’m sorry,” he told her although it wasn’t quite clear exactly what he was apologizing for. He looked down at Nash. “I’m not in love with Tess,” he told this man who was allegedly his good friend. “But that’s the really fucked up part of this, Jimmy. I know that you are. I
know
it.”

Sophia stood there, her arms now wrapped around herself. She’d gotten so quiet and seemed significantly smaller than she had when she’d dared to wrestle Decker back from Nash. She met Dave’s gaze, just briefly, and he knew she’d been thinking the same thing he had.
Now. Or never.

Apparently, it was going to be never.

Decker didn’t want her arms around him. He didn’t want her support.

He didn’t want her.

How she kept from crying, Dave couldn’t imagine. He himself was struggling not to weep from the injustice of it all.

As if completely unaware that he’d damaged Sophia even more than Nash, Deck picked up the bag he’d dropped when the altercation began. He had a newspaper stuck in one of the side pockets, and he took it out now, and handed it to Dave on his way past. “Page three,” he said, and went inside.

Tracy had parked by now and as she dashed over to them, Dave handed the paper off to her as he looked at Sophia, afraid to get closer, uncertain how to approach her, but unwilling to let her fend for herself.

Yet she seemed to shake herself off and even turned to help Gillman pull Nash to his feet.

“I’m okay,” she said, in response to something Nash said, too low for Dave to hear. “I think I’m…just going to go home, though…”

“Dave.” Tracy’d opened the newspaper and she held it out so that he could see and…

There it was. The straw that had broken Decker’s back.

It was—no big surprise—a straw named Murphy.

Freedom Network Leader Dead
read the headline. Dave took the paper from Tracy and quickly skimmed the article, holding it out so that Sophia, Nash, and even Gillman could read it, too.

A body discovered in the mountains east of Sacramento had been identified as Tim Ebersole, the founder of the neo-Nazi Freedom Network. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be foul play—rifle shot to the head—with the murder occurring approximately four months ago. Out of the office, on something that sounded like a cross between a vision quest and a sabbatical, Ebersole had only recently been reported as missing by the Freedom Network elders, who discovered the body in a cabin in a remote part of their newest compound, in California.

Gail Deegan, the FBI team leader in charge of the investigation, was quoted as saying that the killer was believed to be someone with extensive training as a sharpshooter or sniper, possibly with a military background.

Someone exactly like Vinh Murphy.

And, in fact,
Vinh Murphy
were among the first words out of Tom Paoletti’s mouth as he started their Monday morning meeting, after introducing the hippie-haired woman on his left as Dr. Josephine Heissman.

“Our agenda today is two-fold,” their boss told them. “Both segments having to do with our old friend Vinh Murphy.” He cleared his throat. “I think we’re all aware that Freedom Network leader Tim Ebersole’s body was found last Thursday.”

There were nods, all around.

“I got a call from Jules Cassidy over the weekend.” Tom turned to tell the doctor, “He’s high level FBI. He was the Bureau’s team leader for the Jane Chadwick death threat investigation, back in ’05. We were hired to provide security for both Chadwick and her movie set while they were filming
American Hero,
so we worked closely with Cassidy. He’s a good man. An outstanding agent.”

She nodded.

Tom went on, looking around the table: “When Cassidy called me on Sunday, he let me know that the FBI team investigating Tim Ebersole’s death would like to bring Murphy in for questioning. Apparently Murph was in the habit of writing e-mails to Tim Ebersole, telling him to watch his back, that he was coming after him, that he blamed him for his wife’s death.”

“Oh, Murphy,” Sophia put voice to what they were all thinking.

“I told Cassidy we’d locate Murph,” Tom continued, “and convince him to surrender himself to the authorities. They just want to ask him some questions, give him a chance to provide an alibi. The sooner he goes in, the better.”

“And of course it’s also better if he goes in voluntarily,” Tom’s XO Alyssa Locke added.

Decker looked down the table at Dave, his expression grim. “You still have Hannah Whitfield’s e-mail address?”

“I e-mailed her last Friday,” Dave told him, told Tom and the rest of the team, too. “Last time I checked—” he looked at his watch—“about a half hour ago, she still hadn’t responded.” He pushed himself to his feet.

“I’ll start tracking her IP address.”

“We’re not quite done here,” Tom pointed out, which was his easygoing way of ordering Dave to sit.

It didn’t make it any less of an order, so Dave put his butt back into his seat.

“In addition to finding Murphy,” Tom said, clearing his throat, “we’re also going to be…talking about Murphy.” He nodded to Tracy, who began passing out blue report folders. “Dr. Heissman comes highly recommended. I’m not going to go into detail here regarding her credentials—that’s included in the file you’re receiving, you can read it at your leisure.”

Decker spoke up, his voice tight. “Excuse me, sir. How exactly does our
talking
about Murphy help him?”

Tom looked at him steadily. “It doesn’t help him, Chief,” he said quietly. “It helps us.”

Decker pushed his blue report folder back to Tracy. “I’m assuming this is voluntary.”