Next to Die (4 page)

But Harley was shaking his head. Obviously, he’d heard the underlying causes and they weren’t enough. “I should’ve been with them,” he insisted.

“You were sick,” Joe reminded him. At the same time he wondered if he’d made a mistake in taking Harlan’s place. If he’d waited a day or two, or if he’d sent Harlan in with a fever, would things have turned out any different?

“I told you not to take my place,” Harley reminded him, tripling Joe’s sudden uncertainties. “I could have gone in, sir, fever or no fever.”

Feeling light-headed, Joe widened his stance. He would have sworn it was the right thing to do. There were forces in the field awaiting the results of their mission. But what if he’d unconsciously longed for one last stint in the field? “The same thing would’ve happened if you were there,” he insisted.

“Maybe so,” Harley conceded, “but those were
my
men.”

Joe’s knees trembled. Maybe Harley wasn’t blaming him. Maybe he was just coping, like Joe was, with the overwhelming knowledge that the soldiers they’d trained with, eaten with, swapped stories and tender moments with were gone.

“They were my men, too,” Joe countered, holding the man’s burning gaze with difficulty. “And I’m sorry, Sean,” he added, bringing a tremble to the chief’s chin. “I’m so fucking sorry that it ended this way.”

Harley’s hard expression softened with resignation. Silence fell between them, as deep and hopeless as a mortal wound. “I hope that burn heals for you, sir,” he said, nodding at Joe’s wound.

“Thank you.”

Drawing himself upright, he snapped off a tight salute.

With a leaden arm, Joe managed to return it.

Swiveling on his boots, the chief performed an about-face and marched quietly out of the bathing area.

Joe waited three seconds before wilting on one of the benches that lined a wall of lockers.

Jesus, what if it was his fault?

He dropped his face into his hands and shuddered.

It took three days of debriefing, paperwork, packing, and travel to finally arrive home. Joe nosed his soft-top black Jeep into the driveway of his suburban four-bedroom family home in Virginia Beach, cut the engine, and stared.

In the past, he viewed leave time as a necessary but annoying lull between missions. This time, there was no future mission to anticipate. He would not be returning to his team.

You’re too senior to remain the operations officer,
Captain Lucas had explained.
It’s time to assume your own command. Go home and wait for a detailer to give you a call.

Yet home seemed strangely unfamiliar. When he’d left Virginia back in May, the dogwoods were still blooming. It was late October now, and the ten-year-old maple in his front yard had turned orange. Its brilliance set his white house apart from the others, as did the landscaped flowerbeds. He’d paid some kid to cut his grass over the summer. Someone must have raked his leaves, because the yard looked pristine.

Too apathetic to be grateful, Joe pushed out of his vehicle, grimacing at the pain it caused him. It’d become apparent that he’d injured his back in the fall he’d taken on the heels of the explosion. Yet he’d refused the medication prescribed to him. Pain kept his thoughts off the tragedy.

He had just shut his door when a flurry of grass-muffled footsteps had him turning his head. His next-door neighbor—what was her name again?—was hurrying across her lawn to see him, cradling his black and white tomcat in her arms.

“Sir!” she called out in a friendly voice. Her shy smile wavered as she beheld the nasty burn on his face, but she pinned it right back in place. “You’re home,” she observed, drawing to a halt by his front tire.

“Yes,” he agreed, his tone abrupt. He was happy to see his cat again but not in the mood for cheery small talk.

Her aqua blue eyes broke over him like a warm Caribbean wave. “I was worried,” she admitted, causing him to drown in her next words. “I heard about the tragedy on the news, and I’m so sorry. You must have lost some very good friends.”

Her sincerity was just too much. “Thank you.” Joe had to look down at his cat. “Felix, you big mooch. What are you doing taking up this lady’s time?” He stepped forward to pet the cat’s head.

“Oh, it’s not a problem,” the neighbor assured him. “Felix just realized he could get a steadier diet by coming to my door. Your—ah—cat-sitter isn’t terribly punctual.”

Her cool reference to Barbara, his girlfriend, had Joe glancing up. He caught the neighbor taking in the scabs and scratches on his hand, and he snatched it back, turning away to reach into the Jeep’s back seat for his duffel bag. As he dragged it out, the weight of the bag made him groan. He turned back, freeing one hand to take the cat. “Thanks for watching him,” he muttered.

With concern creasing her brow, his neighbor relinquished the feline. “If there’s anything I can do to help . . .” she offered.

“Thanks,” he said again, more remotely. His true feelings were anything but remote. He felt raw and vulnerable and utterly off balance.

“I’m glad you’re home,” she said, backing away. With another shy smile and a flutter of fingers, she retreated, walking crisply across her lawn. She didn’t sway her hips—not intentionally, at least.

Bemused by her friendliness, Joe dismissed her from his thoughts and hefted his cat to eye him with admonishment. “You’ve been playing the field, haven’t you?”

Felix offered him a self-satisfied smirk. “Nnnro,” he replied, butting Joe’s chin with the top of his head.

“Liar,” Joe muttered, heading toward his front door. Every step sent pain shooting up the right side of his back.

Penny slowly closed her door and put her back against it. Gracious! Her neighbor hadn’t looked like that when he left. He was gaunt and sunburned, with more cuts and scrapes on him than on an active three-year-old. And that wound beneath his eye! What, besides an intentional branding or an awful accident, could have caused such a severe burn?

Poor man! Recalling his groan when he’d pulled his bag from the Jeep, she realized he was in pain. What was hurting him, his back?

As a physical therapist at the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, Penny tended all kinds of injured patients. One look at the lines of pain on Joe Montgomery’s face and it was apparent: He’d been through hell.

But why? Commanders sat in their offices, delegating. They sent junior officers and enlisted to do the dangerous work. He must have been in a car accident. That would explain his condition, the wound on his cheek, as well as his back injury.

That had to be it. She pushed from the door, dismayed but satisfied by her conclusions.

At ten o’clock that night, she wasn’t so sure.

“Hey, it looks like your SEAL’s home,” Ophelia announced, blowing in from the waterfront. “Every light in the house is on.”

“I know,” said Penny, who sat on her couch, biting off a hangnail. It was out of character for her neighbor to run up his electricity bill. Something was wrong with him. “So how was work?”

“Slow,” Ophelia admitted, dropping onto the couch and reaching for the remote control.

“Why don’t you get a real job?” Penny suggested, glancing at Lia’s Hooters T-shirt.

“Real jobs are boring,” her sister retorted, flipping through channels.

Penny was tempted to throw her hands up in despair. Would Lia ever learn to take life seriously? “I need to ask you a favor,” she said firmly.

“What?” Lia asked with an anxious look.

“I found out today that I have to work tomorrow. The other PT is on maternity leave, and we’re short-handed until her replacement comes in. I can’t make that two o’clock appointment with the FBI.”

“Can’t you reschedule it?”

“Sure I can, if we wait two more weeks, but I don’t think that’s smart, considering Eric knows of our suspicions, do you?”

Ophelia just looked at her. “So what are you asking me?”

“I need you to go in my place. Take the evidence and explain our suspicions to an FBI agent.”

Ophelia flopped back against the couch and groaned. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“Oh, come on, honey, you can do it,” Penny assured her. “FBI Headquarters is in Norfolk, right off of 264 and Military Highway. You won’t get lost. I’ll even give twenty dollars to cover your gas,” she bribed.

Ophelia grimaced. “Fine, I’ll go,” she relented.

“Great,” said Penny, rolling to her feet. “The journal and gas money are already on the kitchen counter. Don’t forget to show them the printout of that e-mail.”

The phone beside the couch rang, startling them both.

“That can’t be for me,” Penny pointed out. Her friends were all married, cuddling up with their husbands or putting their babies to sleep.

Ophelia reached for the phone and cautiously lifted the receiver. “Hello?” she said.

Penny strained her ears to hear who was on the other end.

“Hello,” Lia said again, and the tension in her face let Penny know, instantly, that this was another prank call, like those that had chased Ophelia from her apartment.

“Go to hell,” said Lia hotly before slamming the receiver down. She wrung her hands. “It’s Eric again,” she confessed.

Consternation made Penny’s stomach cramp. “Just take the phone off the hook,” she advised. “He can’t bother us if we don’t answer.”

“True.” Ophelia jammed the receiver between the couch cushions.

If only it were equally easy to bury their concern that Eric would interfere before they handed their evidence over to the FBI. “Be careful tomorrow,” Penny added. She didn’t want to alarm Ophelia further, but it paid to be cautious. “And call me at the hospital as soon as you get back,” she added. “I want to know what the FBI’s going to do for us.”

Surely the authorities would have something to say about Eric stealing and selling a deadly toxin.

“I will,” Ophelia promised. “Good night, Pen.”

“’Night.” Penny checked the doors before going to bed. She settled into her wide and cozy bed, but a nagging sense of danger kept her from falling asleep. She remained awake, even after her sister had retired to the guest room across the hall.

The lights shining from the neighbor’s house, a mere twenty feet from hers, brightened Penny’s bathroom, yet she couldn’t bring herself to get up and shut the door.

Mighty Joe was home. He was safe. The world was still rich for his presence. But something awful had happened to him. She could
feel
it.

What if she came right out and asked him? He’d probably guess that she was smitten with him. What woman with a view of his hot tub wouldn’t be? He was ruggedly beautiful, from the top of his golden-brown head to his tan calves. The scar on his face couldn’t touch that. He carried himself with so much self-assurance that it was hard to believe there was anything he couldn’t do. A man like that wouldn’t appreciate her gushing concern.

Yet something deeper than a polite hello had passed between them today. Or was that just wishful thinking? He’d looked at her with those deep-set, army-green eyes, and she’d sensed that for the first time ever, he’d taken note of who she was.

It wasn’t exactly the start of a beautiful friendship, but it was something. With a sigh, Penny closed her eyes, dreaming of getting to know her neighbor better.

Chapter Three

Lia found the dark brick facade at the FBI Headquarters in Norfolk as intimidating as she’d imagined. Perhaps it was the fact that it was enclosed by cement barriers and monitored by myriad security devices. The guards weren’t content to X-ray her enormous purse, either. They pawed through it, seizing both her sister’s cell phone and her own can of pepper spray. Her embroidered jeans and coral-colored mesh sweater met with frowning disapproval.

In an environment that epitomized the rules and regulations she regularly flouted, Lia felt like a fish out of water. She nearly fled the building in defiant terror, except that the special agent who came to fetch her from the waiting room was scarcely older than she, with flame-red hair and a ready smile. She wore a honey-colored pantsuit that appealed to Lia’s sense of style.

“Hi, I’m Special Agent Lindstrom,” said the woman, offering a handshake. “You can call me Hannah.”

“Ophelia Price,” said Lia, standing up. The other woman had to be six feet tall; she made Lia feel diminutive. “I’m here for my sister, Penelope.” At the woman’s raised eyebrows, she added, “We were named after our grandmothers.”

“Aha,” said the agent. “Well, why don’t you follow me?”

She escorted Lia from the reception area, down a hall, to a private room barely larger than a closet. “This is where we do our interviews,” she explained, slipping behind a desk and motioning for Lia sit in one of the two chairs. “Can I interest you in coffee?” she asked, indicating the percolator perched atop a tray table.

“Oh, no thanks. I’m nervous enough.”

“There’s no need to be nervous,” Hannah reassured her, lacing her long fingers together. A sizable diamond winked on her left hand. “What can I do for you?”

Lia rummaged in her purse and produced the journal Penny’d instructed her to bring. She withdrew a square of paper from the back of the notebook and unfolded it. “Our father died five years ago, when his car went off the road. The accident was deemed suspicious, but nothing came of that. Penny just found this in Daddy’s journal.” She handed the printed e-mail message across the desk.