Santo held up his hand. “It’s okay. I think we’re all a little off today. Besides, you know I like to hide in the shadows.”
“I didn’t interrupt the two of you, did I? I’ll get out of your way. I’m certain there is so much you need to talk about.”
Evie began to say no, had even started shaking her head, but Anya either didn’t see her or deliberately ignored her and hurried from the room, leaving Evie all alone with Santo. She wanted to be mad at him. She wanted to scream at him for the things he had said and the way he had treated her. And, yet, she wanted to bury herself in his large, comforting arms just as intensely. I’m losing my mind. I’m going crazy because of this man.
“Please don’t say anything, Santo.” She hated the way her voice quivered. She drew a deep breath. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say right now. I’m still trying to come to terms with everything that has happened. And, right now, I don’t know who I can trust.”
“Evie—you can trust me. I made mistakes and I realize that. But I want you to be safe more than anything. And what you said last night has me terrified.”
Evie ran a hand through her hair, cringing at the tangled mess. “What did I say that could have possibly scared you?”
“You said Francis’s killer would be coming for you next.” The rough timbre of his voice told her the comment had impacted him greatly.
Evie shook her head. “I don’t remember half the things I said last night. I don’t even remember the ride to the ranch.”
“So, you don’t know who her killer is?”
Evie clutched the notebooks so tightly her knuckles turned white. “No. That’s what I hope to figure out. But I have no idea who would do this, and I don’t know why I said something so bizarre last night.”
Santo watched her closely for several seconds, which felt like an eternity, before nodding slowly. “I think we’ve all been suffering from a bit of shock. How do you plan to figure out who killed her? Is there something I can do to help?”
Evie backed away from him. “No. I just need to gather my thoughts. Maybe something will come to me, or maybe I’ll be left guessing along with everyone else. I wish I could get access to her files, but I doubt I can even get close to them.”
“I may be able to help with that.”
Evie stopped her backward progress out of the room and squinted her eyes at him. “How? Do you have some magical system to let you bypass the law?”
“No. I’m just close friends with Sheriff Verduzco. I’m sure he could pull a few strings for us.”
Evie chewed on her lower lip. She couldn’t tell anyone what she suspected the judge had been doing. Not until she had some solid proof, at least. She’d be damned if she’d smear the judge’s good name with false accusations. Still, she had to keep in mind her own safety.
“Maybe. I’ll think about it.” She lifted her chin and tilted her head to the side. “Is this your attempt at apologizing? By trying to help me?”
“Shit, Evie, a lot has happened. Even you have to see how odd it seemed that the first day you aren’t at the courthouse it gets completely trashed and Francis is killed.”
Trashed? They must have been looking for something. Are they like me? Trying to find a needle in a haystack?
“You have a lot of nerve bringing that up again. I’ve told you what happened. I’ve told you where I was. This is starting to piss me off, and you aren’t going to like the way things can turn out.”
“I’m not saying I believe you did anything. I’m just trying to get you to step out of your own shoes for a damn minute and realize how this whole situation looks!”
Evie clenched her teeth together so hard her jaw ached. “I have realized how things look.” She glared at him, wishing her eyes could burn him with her anger. “Do you think I’m stupid? I work in the courthouse! I see and hear criminals day in and day out. So, yeah. I know what people must think. But I also know the truth. And for some insane reason, I thought you’d be the one person I could trust to understand me.”
She turned sharply on her heel and marched from the living room, heading to the hall where she had a temporary bedroom. Very temporary. I may leave tonight while everyone’s asleep. I don’t want to be around him anymore.
“Evie…”
She ignored him and slammed the bedroom door firmly behind her with a satisfying crack against the door frame. None of them know what I know. And all of them could be at risk if I don’t do something. I have to get out of here tonight. They can’t be exposed to the danger any longer.
Chapter 14
Haslett frowned into the screen showing him a view of the seven SEALs he had sent undercover in Hebbronville. After Santo explained Francis’s death and his suspicions that Evie could be involved in some dangerous plot, the time had come for him to include them on why Francis had been so important—to all of them.
“Team, I know my involvement with Judge O’Connor has probably raised some questions along the way. Santo, I know you were close to her, which is why I chose you to lead this mission.” He paused, looking down at his desk before lifting his eyes back to the live view of the team assembled in their conference room at their ranch. He knew they were all exhausted, and wanted to dismiss them to get some rest, but the circumstances required urgency.
“Most of you probably wonder why I didn’t interfere sooner in her activities of investigation. Yes, it was outside the scope of her responsibilities. The truth is, she came to me over a year ago with information she had uncovered hinting at the conspiracies we’ve been encountering in our last missions. Judge O’Connor’s information is the reason I decided to form a group to go to Hebbronville in the first place.”
The men exchanged glances around their table. “Why didn’t you tell us this before now?” Santo asked, confusion clear on his face.
“It wasn’t relevant. Plus, Judge O’Connor wanted the true depth of her activities kept silent as she didn’t want to inadvertently scare away the leaders she hoped to catch. She and I connected every other week for updates up until a month ago. She began dodging my efforts to reach out to her, which is when I asked you to take lead with her, Santo. I thought she might have given up on her investigation. I didn’t suspect she was tangled in something so deep it would lead to her being murdered.”
“Neither did I.” Santo sat forward in his chair and braced his arms on the table. “Do you know what she was investigating or researching that could have led to this type of retaliation?”
“Her latest work had been trying to untangle the leads to a terrorist cell in Colombia. She’d told me she’d run into many walls and was struggling to make headway. I wonder if she finally broke through and made it.”
“You’re going to need to get more details from Evie,” Buzz said to Santo, who nodded.
“What do we know about Francis’s private life? Could it be a jealous lover and we’re looking for a problem where one doesn’t exist?” Snap looked hopeful when he presented the question.
“She didn’t have a personal life that I know of. Her ex-husband died a couple of years ago and I don’t think she fully got over it. But that can be another thing I can try to pry out of Evie.”
“Try?” Haslett raised an eyebrow. “Is she being uncooperative.”
“No, Santo just made an ass of himself and has to repair the damage.” Buzz leaned back in his chair, his face unreadable. But he scratched the side of his neck, one of his tell-tell signs for holding in laughter.
Haslett pinched the bridge of his nose. Drama didn’t have any place in a military operation, yet it inevitably seemed to find a way. If Francis had truly uncovered something so serious it had gotten her killed, then they needed to find answers immediately.
“With the hard drive missing from her computer, there’s no way for us to retrieve any information there.” Santo didn’t appear disturbed by Buzz’s deliberate jab at him. “Her home was already trashed by the time we got there, so we’re missing her laptop, too.”
&
nbsp; “Someone took a lot of time and energy to get at her and take whatever she had. If she had any information of a sensitive nature stored on those computers, we could be compromised.” Brusco rubbed his forehead as if he could get rid of the furrows in his brow.
Santo shook his head. “No. Francis was too smart to do something like that. She would have kept critical information in a place that would be incredibly hard to find.”
Haslett tapped his pen on his desk. “Do you think she could have given it to Evie and she’s holding out on us?”
Again, Santo shook his head. “Evie knows something, that much I’m certain. But she hasn’t done anything to make me think she has answers or information to act upon. She still seems like she’s trying to piece things together.”
“If she has the right puzzle pieces, she just may be able to do it. And if someone knows that she is equipped with that information, she could be in grave danger.”
“Or extremely valuable.” Phantom leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest.
“What do you mean?” Lobo’s brow furrowed with confusion.
“If someone is after critical data that Francis had, what if Evie’s the only person who knows what it is or even where it is? What if she could be the secret vault to the information and hasn’t realized it yet?”
Santo tilted his head from side to side, popping the tense muscles. The idea of Evie being in danger or considered a commodity by anyone made him sick to his stomach. “Evie will be here until the funeral is over. After that, she’s returning to Corpus for her job. It’s been hard enough to get her to stay here for a couple of days.”
Haslett resumed tapping his pen on his desk. “We can’t expect her to halt her life because we are operating on half-assed theories. We need to find out something concrete and get her to tell us everything possible.”
Haslett remembered the first time he’d talked to the energetic judge and her desire to set things right for the world. She’d told him she had a source for information about various drug cartels, human trafficking rings, and other dangerous activities in South America that could threaten the safety of multiple countries including America. He’d never been able to pry from her where her information came from, but he trusted her, which said more than he thought of most people.
Judge O’Connor had come to him directly because she knew of his past leadership handling homegrown terrorist threats in the United States, as well as hunting down terrorists in countries around the world. He had a reputation for guiding his SEALs with deep intel and deadly precision.
He made a decision that had the potential to put his career in jeopardy if her leads proved false or too weak to get him the success his superiors had come to expect from him. He moved to Corpus Christi, shocking his peers in Coronado, and began directing SEAL operations from the remote Texas base. It took him months to get his story established and to build the leverage he needed to request a devoted SEAL team for an assignment with undetermined missions and an unknown completion date.
Judge O’Connor hadn’t steered him wrong, though, and he had made the right decision. Already the team had taken down a ruthless drug cartel and human trafficking ring. Each mission had uncovered new layers, and he now did not doubt that the blame didn’t lie south of the border. The real criminal masterminds resided in America and were manipulating things in the south since they were the easy scapegoats to use.
“Santo, I know your original mission was to identify what information Judge O’Connor was working on and to dive deeper into her investigation, and I know you feel you failed that mission. With Evie potentially at the center of this, your mission needs to continue. What next steps do you want your team to take?”
Santo looked at each member of the elite team as each man waited for his orders. Admiral Haslett knew Santo had the natural gift to be a leader, and with the actual team leader, Stryker, there to give him guidance and support, Santo would excel.
Haslett had planned from the very beginning to create opportunities for each member of the team to test their abilities as a leader. When the assignment wrapped up, he anticipated each of the men would be at the top of their game and he could place them in leadership roles on any mission going forward.
“Snap, I need you to dig in on anything you can find about Francis’s personal life. Try to uncover any evidence relationships and go broad. She may have been going to other cities for privacy.” Snap nodded at Santo’s directive.
“Buzz, we can’t forget the illegal arms deal you uncovered last week. I know you think it’s an old line of communication, but it could point us towards players we need to bring down eventually. We need to be equipped with the information necessary to take action when the time comes.” Buzz gave him the thumbs-up sign of agreement.
“What about Evie?” the admiral asked. “Do you have any concerns about her?”
“I have plenty. But I’m going to have to get her to talk to me before we know what to do next.” Santo sighed heavily.
“It is very convenient that she happened to be in Corpus the night Judge O’Connor was murdered. Could she be involved?”
Santo grimaced. “That’s why I’m in the dog house with her. I asked her some rather direct questions and she became very offended. To tell you the truth, though, all of my instincts say no. Still—Brusco, will you pin down the details of her work in Corpus? I have a strong suspicion Francis arranged for Evie to work there when she knew things were crumbling around her.”
“On it.” Brusco gave Santo a nod of agreement.
“Good. You all have a lot of work in front of you. By the way, there’s a slim possibility the hurricane in the gulf may make landfall at Corpus. All indications show it turning further east of us, but if it does land here, our lines of communication may go down for a brief while.”
All of the men nodded. “Good to know, sir,” Stryker said. “We’ll keep you informed as we progress.”
“I know this hits close to home with you being so close to the judge, Santo. That’s also what makes you perfect to lead the team on this mission—you’re highly motivated to find the answers.”
“I won’t let you down, sir.”
“You never have before, and I know you won’t now. Keep me informed as these puzzle pieces start to come together. Remember our creed—we will not fail.”
“Hooyah!”
* * *
Evie chewed on the end of the pen as she reviewed her fluid writing in the journal. Anya had given her a great one with tabs and stickers and colored sticky-notes for her to code her thoughts. Anya knew Evie’s obsession with organization and had made sure to cater to her whims.
She ran her hand around the edges of the colored paper. She had her personal laptop in front of her on the bed and for the fifteenth time in a handful of hours, she began to navigate her way through the game she knew hid more than clues to solving a pretend mystery. Every time she discovered new rooms or secret passages she’d never spotted before, she could see the links opening up for her to go deeper into the network.
Inevitably, though, within a few steps, a trap would strike and she didn’t react quickly enough and her character died. She’d already pulled from the bank of money she’d built during the game and had enough electronic funds to keep her equipped to play the game. But if she sacrificed herself much further, she’d run out of her fake money online and would be driven to add her own cash and would go broke quickly.
She looked down at her notes again as her mind whirled, trying to put together what she knew and how it could be connected to the judge’s death. She’d spent a lot of time researching old murder cases and trying to solve them. She’d never thought she’d have one touch her so personally.
They still hadn’t heard the conclusion from the coroner. Even though she believed her mentor could never commit suicide, she didn’t have a firm conclusion—yet. Her notes began to blur in front of her eyes and she rubbed her temples, fighting the exhaustion pulling hard at her. She’d had le
ss than three hours of sleep in the last forty-eight hours and her body craved relief.
She shut down her computer and lay back against the stack of pillows on the bed. She needed just a few minutes of rest. She closed her eyes and sighed heavily, willing her body to relax.
Sleep began to pull at her when the image of the judge’s tense expression the last time she’d seen her before leaving the courthouse flooded her mind, quickly followed by the thought of her lying in a pool of her blood. She jerked hard, having nearly been asleep. She gasped and her eyes flew open and her heart raced.
She ran a hand wearily down her face and tried to ignore the tears clogging her throat and burning her eyes. She glanced at the clock and realized she had dozed off for nearly an hour. From the smells wafting in, Snap must have started cooking dinner. She sat up and gathered her notes and laptop and put them in her travel bag. She needed to be ready to leave soon.
She stepped into the bathroom and splashed water on her face, cringing at the dark circles under her eyes and her overly pale skin. She looked as exhausted as she felt. She buried her face in an incredibly soft towel and sighed, enjoying the clean, fresh scent coming off the fabric.
With determination, she squared her shoulder and drew a deep breath before leaving the seclusion in her room. The aromas became stronger and her stomach growled. She wanted to eat, but she struggled with getting food past the tight knot in her throat.
She heard the men’s voices coming from the dining room and Elena’s light-hearted laugh. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to forget everything that had happened since Santo’s phone call nearly twenty-four hours ago. She realized she had moved forward in her grief process and no longer felt sad, but felt angry. She wanted to destroy the person who had done this horrific crime.
She shoved her hands in her jean pockets as she hovered just outside the dining room, listening to the banter between the men and Anya and Elena light-heartedly joining in. They sounded like a family.
Protected in His Arms: Elite Texas SEALs Page 14
