The Athena File

by Jennifer Haynie

  “No.”

  “Sam’s running down the rental car info. Jonathan and Dottie talked. She said he asked a lot of questions about whether someone had been by the house. Besides RPD, that is. Does that strike you as odd?”

  She shrugged.

  “He invited them to supper, and they grilled salmon. Then he and Harold played chess. They left around 9:30 or so, and she remembered Jonathan turning on the back porch light for them. Around 11:00, she couldn’t sleep, so she decided to sit on their deck for a bit. She thought she heard a noise and scuffling. Jonathan’s screened-in porch blocks her view of the carport, but she thought she might have seen some characters. She did hear a door slam. When she heard things breaking, she got scared and called us. She stood at the fence and reported a group of people leaving in a hurry, tires screeching, and an engine racing as they drove off. She couldn’t get a description of the vehicle because she didn’t have good line of sight.”

  “I assume the people who broke in took Jonathan with them.”

  “That’s what we think. This wasn’t a simple robbery,”

  “Agreed.” She rotated her head, wincing at her muscles tightened again from the long drive and stress.

  He drummed out a staccato rhythm with his left hand. “What does your brother do?”

  “He works for a company called SecureLink. They’re out of the Tidewater area and do private security contracts in hot spots all over the world. He was coming off a contract in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan.”

  “What did he do for them?”

  “Chief Operations Officer for the compound. He oversaw the day-to-day operations, which included the protective details for convoys.”

  Abigail’s cheeks heated as she realized she’d inadvertently supplied him with a clue. No, no, no. You know better.

  “Convoys…convoys…” He rested his head against the seat and closed his eyes. The drumming stopped. “In late March, it was his company that had a convoy hit.”

  She had no way around the truth. “Yeah.”

  “Interesting.”

  She felt his gaze burning into her. Careful to keep her expression neutral, she focused on where her hands twisted on her lap.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “The first part of January or so. I was down on leave, and I went out with him and Christine—” She crashed to a halt as she realized her next blunder. What was it with her tonight? She knew better than to spill everything to Nick. Maybe it was her exhaustion. Or the intoxicating aroma of his cologne.

  Suddenly, the interior of the Charger seemed too hot, even with the open windows letting in a faint dawn breeze. She wanted out of the car and away from Nick since he knew how to pick her apart better than anyone else thanks to being married to her for two years.

  He leaned toward her. “Who’s Christine?”

  “His girlfriend.”

  “And she lives, where?”

  Abigail flushed as her nose quivered. “She doesn’t.”

  “Doesn’t what?”

  Could she just shut her mouth? It had to be his nearness that made her confess. “She, uh, isn’t alive anymore. She died in the ambush.”

  Nick pulled back and began tapping the steering wheel again. “Wait a minute. She died in the convoy? How?”

  “She was a member of the protective detail.”

  “Interesting.” He paused long enough to jot down a few notes. “When did you last talk to Jonathan?”

  “Last night.”

  “Do you know why he would have driven up in a rental car when the airport is only about half an hour from here?”

  “No.” She clenched her teeth. The less said right then, the better since detectives latched onto loquaciousness like a dog going after a hamburger.

  “So nothing indicated he was worried?”

  She shook her head. Under no circumstances would she reveal anything else she knew about the goings on at the compound that had sent her brother on the run.

  Nick leaned against his door and assessed her. His gaze held hers, those dark eyes she’d so loved liquid in the dim light.

  Her heart hammered. He’d worn her down before with that look.

  With a sigh, he snapped his notepad closed. “We’ve got to give Sam and the evidence techs time to finish up. I took the liberty of making some hotel reservations for you.”

  “You didn’t—”

  “I know we may not be married anymore, but at least let me take care of you, okay?”

  Old anger from her last memories of him flared. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can. Look.” He heaved a great sigh. “Can’t you at least let me try and make amends by being nice to you?”

  “Nick…”

  “Please.” He reached out and took her hand.

  The heat shot to her cheeks.

  “Please,” he repeated softly. “Just this once.”

  Finally, she nodded but jerked her hand away as if setting boundaries.

  “Then it’s settled. They’ll keep your location confidential.”

  “Will you keep me updated?”

  “Of course.” He smiled.

  She narrowed her eyes. “What do you want from me?”

  The smile dimmed a little. “I show a bit of kindness to you, and you assume I have an underlying motive?”

  Abigail hung her head. That had been a low blow, and she knew it. “I’m sorry. I’m—I’m really tired.”

  “Then go check in and get some sleep. I’ll call you later today. Let me walk you to your car.” Nick climbed out and opened her door.

  In silence, she walked with him. Now that she’d sampled his cologne, she wanted to follow him around like a lost puppy. Girl, you’re wandering into dangerous territory.

  He stopped at her car. “Be gone with you. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She climbed inside and started the engine. Checking into the hotel took longer than the drive.

  Jonathan was in deep trouble and was now in the hands of the kidnappers. Knowing her brother, he’d probably written down everything related to Christine’s murder. Most likely, that information resided in the safe, meaning that it’d be in the hands of the police if they drilled it. While she would ingratiate herself to Nick, she couldn’t trust him to share anything he found.

  She walked a tightrope, one where a fall either way would spell trouble.

  With any luck, she’d not fall off and straight into Nick’s arms.

  Or into the clutches of the kidnappers.

  Regardless, she had to take matters into her own hands.

  17

  Raleigh, North Carolina

  Wednesday evening, Abigail sat at the local Starbucks and sipped a steaming brew of Kona coffee as she mentally churned through everything she knew. Most likely, the gunrunners were the ones who’d kidnapped her brother because they hadn’t found what they’d wanted. Something related to the gunrunning resided in Jonathan’s safe. What remained unclear. And Nick hadn’t called her, at least not yet. Then there was the matter of the woman who’d shown more than a passing interest in the crime scene.

  Abigail rubbed her temples. Think. Think. Think. Why does she look so familiar?

  Nothing came to mind.

  “I thought I’d find you here.” A growly tenor and cigarette breath wafted her way.

  Abigail glanced up.

  With forearms on the wrought iron fence, Nick leaned next to her table. He glowered at her.

  She tried a smile. “Uh, hi.”

  “You stay right there, you understand?” He jabbed a finger at her table. “We need to talk.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she drawled, “Okay.”

  A few minutes later, Nick joined her on the patio. The chair across from her scraped as he yanked it out, turned it around, and straddled it.

  “Just how did you find me?”

  Nick grinned, but in no way did it hold any humor. He held up his cell phone. “GPS location.”

  “You’v
e been tracking me? What the…why? Why are you treating me like I’m trying to flee a crime scene?”

  “I like to know the location of my vic’s family, and I don’t think you’re telling me the whole story.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Sam found out some info on the rental car and your brother’s travels. Jonathan flew out a day earlier than planned from Ghazni. Then he changed the last leg of his travel to fly not from Munich to Raleigh-Durham but from Munich to Atlanta, where he rented a car. There’s a two-week gap on the GPS files because he probably disconnected it. Do you have any idea of where he might have been during those two weeks?”

  “None.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  He stared her down as he lit a cigarette and took a drag. “Did he talk to you before he left Afghanistan? Did he tell you about how he’d been discredited?”

  “I talked with him right before the convoy got hit.”

  “And not since then until yesterday?”

  She sighed as she lifted her coffee to her lips. At least her hands didn’t shake. “He was busy, as I’m sure you could imagine. All I did was text him to check on him since I knew what had happened.”

  Nick tapped some ashes into his coffee cup lid. He didn’t say anything as he perused her with his dark eyes.

  Not one to be intimidated, she maintained her steady gaze.

  He looked down and moved his cup around in tiny circles. “You want to tell me why you held out on me?”

  “About what?”

  “About a call he made to you two weeks ago the morning before he left Afghanistan?”

  “Wait.” She held up a finger. “You pulled his cell records? Geez, Nick, whose side are you on?”

  “Yours, all right?”

  “Then why do I feel you’re portraying him like a criminal?”

  Nick sighed. He stubbed his cigarette into the lid. “Sorry. All I’m doing is trying to get to the bottom of things. This may surprise you, but I care about your brother. And you.”

  “Then stop treating me like I planned his kidnapping.”

  “You’re right. Sorry.”

  Yeah, whatever. He wasn’t a bit sorry, and she knew it.

  “For your information, we didn’t talk about much.” Abigail hesitated as she scooted past any thought of the Athena file. “He said to delay my leave for two weeks, which I did. All I know was that he was very tired and sad. He hardly said anything about what happened.”

  Okay, so she fuzzed the truth a little. She had to until she could get to the bottom of things.

  “He changed his airline tickets, rented a car, and disabled the GPS until he arrived in Raleigh, and he did all of that because he was tired and sad?”

  She clamped her jaw shut to avoid mouthing off at him.

  Nick took her hand and rubbed his thumb in circles across the top. “Look. I want to help here, but I’m sensing that you’re being less than forthcoming with me, like you know more than you want to tell me. Why, I’m not sure.”

  Her pulse quickened. Here it came again, that impact his touch had on her. “You know what I know.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Nick!” Abigail jerked her hand from his grasp.

  His cell phone began chiming. He grimaced as he checked Caller ID. “Sorry. I’ve got to take this.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. As he spoke in hushed tones, she stared at the passerby on the sidewalk.

  A woman strolled toward her, one dressed in jeans, low-heeled boots and a top with a windbreaker over it. Even though dusk approached, she wore sunglasses. Her head turned. Almost imperceptibly, she hesitated before turning her face away and hurrying past.

  The run-in rattled Abigail. She’d definitely seen her someplace, and she struggled to figure out where.

  Nick lowered his phone and rose. “Someone knocked over a convenience store in southeast Raleigh. I’ve got to get going.”

  “Before you go, when do you plan on drilling the safe?”

  “Tomorrow morning at eight sharp.”

  “Will you let me know what you find?”

  “Why should I when you’ve been less than forthcoming?” His smile turned derisive. “You’re just the sister, right?”

  With that, he strode from the patio.

  The jerk.

  He’d cut her completely out of the investigation.

  That meant she had to put her own plan into action.

  The sooner, the better.

  Raleigh, North Carolina

  An hour later, Abigail walked toward the house she and Jonathan shared. A marked police cruiser sat on the curb by the sidewalk leading to the front door.

  “You scumbag.” She muttered more unpleasant words about Nick under her breath.

  He must have suspected she might try to pull something like she’d planned.

  She shifted from Plan A, waltzing up to the house and letting herself inside, to Plan B, sneaking in the back door. She zipped up the black hoodie she’d pulled on, retrieved from a pocket a small radio she’d brought, and ran an earbud to her right ear. A few seconds of fiddling with the tuner brought the police band into fine tune before she dropped it into a pocket. She placed a ball cap over her head and lifted the hood so it covered both her cap and ponytail. With gloves on her hands, she cut east one street and approached the driveway side of the house.

  She paused and listened. Everything remained still. A car drove by, and she ducked behind Jonathan’s SUV. Mindful of the cop sitting not a hundred feet away, she crept to the kitchen door. After disarming the alarm, she wasted no time in slipping inside and pulling a penlight from her backpack. Its red glow picked up cans, pots, and pans everywhere.

  Anger churned her stomach. Skirting the rice and flour on the floor, she crept into the short hallway. Shattered china and crystal glittered red in her light. Whoever did this would pay, not just for kidnapping her brother but for destroying family keepsakes. But she couldn’t let that stop her. She continued into the living room.

  Here, numbered placards littered the floor where the forensics techs had taken notes and pictures. She noted the dining room chair Nick had described as well as cord on the floor. Spatters, black in the red light, showed near the chair.

  Oh, Jonathan, what did they do to you?

  She crept toward the stairs. Almost halfway up, one creaked. In the silence it sounded like nails across a chalkboard.

  She flinched and paused.

  Nothing stirred, and she continued, this time taking more care in where she stepped.

  One check of the desk drawer in the study confirmed what Nick had told her.

  The keys to the safe weren’t in their normal spot.

  She searched the study and the bathroom. Nothing. The same with the room where she stayed when she visited. She crouched on the landing at the top of the stairs. What she’d found confirmed her theory. Whatever was in the safe held such importance that Jonathan had hidden the key. But where?

  Their house contained so many hiding places that the thought almost overwhelmed her. She needed a course of action. Fast. She straightened and tiptoed down the stairs. Even though it was a mess, the living room contained the fewest amounts of hiding places. She glanced at her watch.

  A quarter to eleven.

  She had until dawn to get her work done, and at the rate she was going, it could take all night.

  Starting with the pictures first seemed to make more sense than the books because it’d be more difficult to hide a key in a picture frame. Several were cracked. Others lay on the floor with broken frames. Add one more reason why the kidnappers would pay for what they did. They’d violated her brother’s sanctuary.

  Her gaze landed on the one of Jonathan and her from her commissioning ceremony.

  “I’m coming, Jonathan,” she whispered. “I’ll find you. I promise.”

  Each time she picked up an intact frame, she carefully examined the back before replacing it the way she�
�d found it. Finally, she came to one of Jonathan and his best friend, David Shepherd. Were the situation not so dire, she would have laughed at the way they imitated Mr. Universe. For a moment, she cradled it in her hands.

  The back seemed to bulge. She clamped the penlight between her teeth and carefully checked the back of the picture. The tape told her what she needed to know. She undid the fasteners. The cardboard popped off and fell to the floor.

  A key that looked like it would fit in a safe tinkled onto the hardwood.

  “Bingo.” She slid it into an interior pocket of the backpack and studied the picture. Why had Jonathan chosen that particular picture? There had to be a reason. She stashed it in the pack as well on the hopes that the place was such a mess that Nick wouldn’t notice her pilfering.

  She started up the stairs to open the safe but stopped. The combination resided in the gun safe of her Quantico apartment.

  What could she do now? One glance at her watch told her that she had no chance of driving to her apartment, retrieving the combination, and returning to Raleigh before dawn stole her cover.

  Oh, great. She’d run out of options before she even started. Tears filled her eyes, and she remained where she was as she struggled to keep them from falling. God, You couldn’t have led me this far and dropped me. What do I do?

  She surveyed the living room. Could Jonathan have written down the combination and hidden it somewhere? It was possible, but the number of places where he could have hidden a slip of paper skyrocketed. She simply didn’t have the time to go through the entire house.

  She glimpsed the family Bible face down on the floor. Mama and Daddy would put her on their laps and read from it. It had been in their family for at least three generations, and both she and Jonathan intended to make it a fourth. Somehow.

  She knelt, cradled it on her legs, and smoothed down pages bent from the assault. She flipped to the eighth chapter of Romans. Over the years, she’d drawn strength from the words there, as had Jonathan. They’d had many discussions about that particular chapter. She read the words of encouragement and hope.