by Dale Mayer
“Or not,” Lennox said, his mind buzzing. He sent a message to Keane, almost laughing when he got an immediate response to check out the back of the master closet. He loved this team.
Before Lennox took off, Helena stopped him with a look. “Wait. Talk to me.”
Lennox sat down, knowing he had an arsenal at his disposal just feet away from him, so he had some time to spare.
“What does any of that have to do with my apartment?”
“Maybe nothing,” Lennox said. He looked at Gavin, his fingers spinning his pen back and forth, back and forth again. “We need to pull in some information on what Rob has been doing since his incarceration, how he got out so fast. And see if this other guy with the scars has any connection with Coronado.”
“Different country,” Gavin said. “Digging won’t be easy.”
“I know,” Lennox said. “But something else is going on here, unless it’s just as simple as grabbing Carolina again—or maybe both of them—because where else would my sister and Helena go at this point?”
“Anything is possible at this point,” Gavin said with a sigh. “We know more but not near enough. Yet.”
“I know,” Lennox said. Frowning, he looked at the women and said, “I need you guys to disappear.”
“We’re in a safe house already. They should be fine,” Gavin noted.
Lennox looked at Gavin, shaking his head, and said, “This Stefano guy got into the States easily enough. Not one border crossing question made. He bypassed US Navy orders. What do you think the chances are that Stefano knows about this safe house?”
“If he has access to satellite, like we do, Stefano—or Rob—could have tracked my vehicle,” Gavin admitted. “It’s in the garage right now, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t see it earlier.”
“Exactly.” And Lennox’s instincts rode him hard. “I don’t like it,” Lennox said. “Pack up and be ready to leave in fifteen.”
He bolted to his feet and raced to the bedroom.
Chapter 12
Helena looked at Gavin. “Is he serious?”
But he was already nodding. “Move,” he said, “now.” There was a definite bite to his tone. The two women got up, and Helena muttered as she headed to her bedroom, “I just unpacked.”
“Well, something set both of them off, but I don’t know what,” Carolina said.
“At this point, probably just gut instincts,” Helena said, as she grabbed all her clothing from the dresser and picked up her dirty laundry. “I was going to ask if they had washing machines here so I could do a little laundry.”
“Me too,” Carolina said.
Quickly both women had everything packed up. Helena used the washroom for good measure and then stepped out into the kitchen with her carry-on bag and asked, “Where are we going?”
The look she got from Gavin was Keep an open mind.
“If you say so,” she said. And the two of them headed out to the Jeep in the garage.
Very quickly they were back on the road—Lennox looking behind them often, while Gavin changed lanes more times than needed—but they headed into the Coronado base.
She frowned. “You think we’ll be safer on the base? This Stefano guy just waltzed into our country.”
But, instead of stopping there, they moved to the pier and out to a wharf. At the end was a small boat where they were putting in their bags.
“Isn’t this taking things a little far?” Helena whispered to Carolina, as they all headed out to a naval ship. Not a big one but a small one. “What is this?”
“A safe place for you to stay while we go to town on these two guys,” Lennox said, and, sure enough, the women were lifted to the bottom rung, handed up, and, once on top of the deck, were moved off to an officer. He saluted to both Gavin and Lennox, still in the transport boat, before the women were escorted inside.
Lennox and Gavin took the skiff right back to shore.
Once inside, Helena looked around and said, “I’m sorry to be such a bother.”
The officer smiled at her. “And I’m quite happy to have the company. Most of the men are on shore leave,” he said, “so we have a skeleton crew. But you’re more than welcome to stay.” He led them to a small room with a top and bottom bunk and said, “This is yours, for the moment.”
“I don’t suppose the guys gave you any idea how long we would be here, did they?”
“For the day, possibly overnight,” he said, “so make yourself at home.”
Helena nodded and said, “And I hate to be a pain, but we didn’t get a chance to eat. Is there a possibility of a coffee at least?”
His face broke into a big smile. “And that will make the cooks happy,” he said. “So, if you’re ready to drop your bags, we’ll take you down and get you some breakfast.”
And that’s what they did. The whole time she looked around with interest. She didn’t imagine too many civilians were treated to a first-hand look at the inside of one of these cruisers. She kept peppering the officer with questions about how many men it took to run the ship and how far they could go on the fuel tanks, all kinds of stuff, because her mind just wouldn’t let up on it.
Finally he stopped, looked at her, and asked, “Are you writing a book or something?”
Carolina laughed and said, “You have to understand that my friend’s mind doesn’t stop. She’s constantly barraging all of us for more information. She reads tour books and encyclopedias.”
The officer looked at her in surprise.
Helena shrugged. “I have an unending thirst for knowledge, particularly all sorts of minutia,” she said with a grin.
He led them into a large open room and up to a large counter. He called out and said, “We have two special visitors for the next twenty-four hours, and they’re hungry.”
A massive guy on the backside with an apron wrapped around his waist gave the women a meaty grin and said, “Perfect! I hope you guys can eat.”
“I can eat,” Helena said. “Hard to get full actually.”
“Watch what you say,” the officer said. “Fill them up, Miko.”
And they were led to a large selection of food, where they got to order exactly what they wanted. With trays laden down, everything from sausages and eggs and hash browns to fried tomatoes and half of a muffin filled with cheese on the side, topped off with a full cup of fresh coffee. The officer led them to a lovely table by the window and said, “Here’s a seaside view for you.”
As she sat down, Helena exclaimed over the view. “Oh, wow,” she said, “this is beautiful.”
He asked, “Do you mind if I join you?”
They looked at him in surprise, and both said, “No, of course not. Please do.”
When he returned with his coffee, then Helena remembered her manners. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Helena.”
“And I’m Carolina, Lennox’s sister,” Carolina piped up.
He smiled, shook both their hands, and said, “And I’m Ben,” he said. “It’s nice to have you two aboard. It can get annoyingly boring here at times.”
“I imagine it can when you’re just sitting around, filling the time,” she said with a smile. “But I’m also sure there’s never enough downtime so it’s a welcome relief.”
“Absolutely,” he said.
The next hour passed in the beautiful daze of socializing and visiting as Helena plowed through a ton of food. Carolina’s plate was half the size. But then Carolina was much smaller. Helena looked at her friend and said, “We ended up in sunshine and roses after all.”
“We deserve it,” Carolina said complacently.
Ben asked, “What do you two do?”
Helena looked at him and smiled and said, “We’re doctors,” she said. “We’ve just come back from a Red Cross trip.” When she glanced at Carolina, silently asking for permission, Helena shrugged and added, “We were kidnapped. We just landed in San Diego, and our friends were looking for a safe place to stash us as they hunt down the kidnappers.”
At that, the officer said, “I didn’t get any intel on why,” he said, “but that makes perfect sense. Are both of you doctors?”
Carolina launched into a tale about how they’ve been best friends since grade school and how they’d made a pact to become doctors and to help the world.
“Wow,” he said. By then a couple other officers joined them. Everybody sat at the table, enjoying the discussion about how Carolina’s and Helena’s lives had gone from grade school to med school to being kidnapped. Helena smiled. “I don’t even know that we’re supposed to talk about it, but Lennox didn’t tell me not to. Although he doesn’t say very much.”
“Lennox is like that,” another man said as he approached the table.
She looked up, realized it was the captain. And she stood and shook his hand. “Thank you very much for keeping us for the day,” she said in a formal note.
He smiled and said, “It’s nice to have some fresh faces aboard.”
And that set the tone for the rest of the day. They got a full tour of the cruiser, and later they ended up back at their room, with access to their laptops and internet. It was a lovely day. When Helena’s phone rang, she looked down and didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Lennox said.
“Did you catch him?” Helena asked instantly, putting the laptop off to the side of her bunk. Carolina immediately joined her, and Helena put her phone on Speaker. “Carolina is here with me too.”
“Your kidnapper, Stefano, was seen at your apartment,” he said. “We just missed him.” His voice was frustrated and angry.
“And Rob?”
“His apartment is empty and had been cleaned out.”
“Go check mine,” she said.
“Are you okay with that?” he asked. “I need to take a look to see if he’s been in your place at all.”
“Do it,” she said. “I didn’t give you the key though.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said quickly. “I can get in without it.”
“Fine,” she said, “but then you’ll get back to me and let me know what you find.”
“Will do,” he said, and he hung up.
She looked at Carolina. “Maybe this is progress.”
Lennox glared at Gavin. “How could we have missed him?”
“I’m not even sure we did,” Gavin said, studying the outside of the apartment building. “Do we know for sure he traveled alone?”
“No, not necessarily. We have a lot of videos still to go through. The Mavericks in command central are working on it now.”
“You think Stefano’s visit was a decoy of some kind? So we’re watching him when Rob is up to something?”
Lennox nodded, his mouth a grimace. “We never see Stefano and Rob together on the tapes.”
“Not so far,” Gavin agreed.
“I think the bottom line is, we need to get into her apartment.”
“Do you really think Stefano or Rob have gone in there?”
“Why wouldn’t they have?” Lennox said.
“Aren’t they looking for you? And, if we go in there, we’re playing into their hands.”
“Right,” he said, “that’s possible.”
“I know,” Gavin said, “and yet I guess this is our best chance to find either of them.”
They made their way inside up to the second floor, where Helena’s apartment was. They walked down the hallway to see eight doors on each side. It wasn’t a big building, relatively small for the area, and security was pretty high-end. Once you got inside, cameras were on both ends of both floors. It didn’t mean a whole lot though.
Lennox walked up to Helena’s apartment, took out his pick, and quickly unlocked the door. They stepped inside, and immediately Lennox held up a finger. Gavin nodded. Lennox slipped out of his shoes, closed the door quietly, and stepped through to the living room.
Instantly he was faced with her kidnapper; anger surged through him. He glared at the intruder. “What are you doing here?”
With a handgun in one hand and what looked like a set of handcuffs in the other, the kidnapper’s intention was pretty obvious. Stefano just grinned at Lennox and said, “I’m looking for someone. But you’re not that someone.”
“How do you know I’m not?” Lennox challenged.
“I’m looking for Lennox,” Stefano said. “You’re not him.”
And that’s when Lennox realized this was a case of mistaken identity. “Actually I am Lennox,” he said slowly, “but I suspect the person you are looking for is Rob.”
The man’s face twisted with rage. “You can’t tell me what I know and what I don’t know!” he said. “Where are the women?”
“What women?”
The kidnapper made a broader arm sweep. “The one who lives here.”
“Ah, Helena?” At the man’s nod, Lennox said, “She is safe. Along with Carolina.”
Stefano frowned. “Yes, his sister.”
“Yes,” Lennox said. “My sister.”
“You are not him,” Stefano said, his voice harsh, his fist tightening on the handgun.
“Well, how did you know that she was my sister?”
“I have informants,” he said.
“You didn’t confirm it yourself?”
The man slowly shook his head. “No,” he said, “my information has always been excellent.”
“Well, I’m Lennox,” he said, “but I don’t know you at all.”
The man’s gaze narrowed at him.
“I’m going to take my phone out of my pocket,” Lennox said. “Okay?”
With the handgun still pointed in his direction, Stefano nodded.
Lennox pulled out his phone quickly, pulled up a picture of Rob, and said, “I presume you know what the guy you’re looking for looks like?”
Again the intruder nodded.
“Is this him? I call him Rob.” And he held up Rob’s photo.
The man glared at it and said, “Yes, but that’s not Rob. That’s Lennox.”
“No, it is not,” he said again. “I’m Lennox, and this is Rob.”
Stefano shook his head.
Just then Gavin stepped around the side of Lennox, and Stefano turned his gun on him too. But Gavin stood close and said, “You’re wrong. This is Lennox. And I can prove it.”
Stefano glared at him. “How will you prove it?”
Gavin pulled out his phone and said, “Take a look at this picture.” It was a photo of Lennox, still in his Navy SEAL uniform, being handed an award.
Stefano looked at Lennox and frowned. “This can’t be Lennox.” But his voice was confused, his face twisted with fury, as if fearing a trick. But, instead of accepting it, he looked angrier. “This is not true!” he said. “I was told it was you.”
“Told?” Lennox pounced. “Told what? By whom?”
But Stefano reached up and once again touched the burn mark on his neck, the same tell as Helena had described.
Lennox held his hands out. “I get that you’ve got something against someone,” he said, “but I think you have it against the wrong person.”
Instead of listening to Lennox, the intruder shook his head, waving the gun around. “That can’t be true!”
“Why not?”
“Because the one is a friend,” he said. “And you are not him.”
“I don’t understand,” Lennox said.
“I got the information from a friend,” he reiterated. And then he took several steps back, heading toward the patio.
“Look. My sister is Carolina,” Lennox said. “I don’t have a birth certificate here with me, but I have a family tree. I have all kinds of proof that I am Lennox,” he said. “So, if it’s me you’re looking for, then tell me what your beef is?” he asked. “Otherwise, somebody is using my name and blaming me for something I didn’t do.”
The guy gave him a haunted look and was suddenly gone through the double patio doors.
Lennox raced after Stefano to find the guy already gone
. Lennox stood here, studying the layout, and looked back at Gavin, but he had gone out the front door.
It made no sense. Well, it was starting to make some sense. Somebody—Rob—had chosen to blame Lennox and had given this Stefano guy a target for whatever rage and revenge fantasy he had in his mind.
But they needed Stefano to understand it wasn’t Lennox who was to blame. As he turned to walk back inside, he came face-to-face with Rob.
He leaned against the open front door, one foot in Helena’s apartment, the other in the hallway, and said, “Wow, you’re still alive. I’m surprised.”
“No thanks to you,” Lennox snapped. “Are you the one behind all this madness?”
“Behind all what?” he asked innocently, yet sported a big grin on his face. “What are you doing here with her?”
“Who is her?” Lennox asked.
“Helena, of course. I moved close so I could get to know her. I can’t say I’m too thrilled if you are hanging around, hooking up with her.”
Lennox stared at him in shock and confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”
But Rob appeared to be stuck in his fantasy world. “Helena asked me to move closer,” he said, “so that we could spend more time together.”
“What?”
“Or is she stringing both of us along?” Rob said. “Ask her.”
“You ask her,” Lennox said, frowning at Rob. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but Stefano and now Rob were not acting normal or sanely.
“She is going out with me,” Rob said slowly. “So I’m assuming you’re here on a visit because of her best friend, Carolina, your sister. How is that going? I just want to make sure that it’s platonic because I won’t take kindly to her having an affair with you.”
“She’s not having an affair with you,” Lennox said, feeling something twist inside him. What was going on? “She can’t stand the sight of you.” And he shouldn’t have said that because rage lit up Rob’s eyes. “What is this all really about? And what did you have to do with that guy who just was in here?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rob said, and he turned to shut the door and walked away. Immediately Lennox stepped out in the hallway to see Rob disappearing down the stairs to his floor. Lennox followed him. “Rob, what’s going on?”
