SEAL INVESTIGATIONS: A 5-Books SEAL Romance Series

by Lola Silverman

  Yates spun around, immediately going to verify what Romero had found. “What would a photo of Trapp’s sister being doing in a sleazy PI’s apartment nearly two hours north of where she lived?”

  “Shit.” Romero gestured to the photograph’s background. “These are women being loaded. Look at this!”

  The photo showed a group of five women being herded from a container into a dark SUV with dark tinted windows. There were several other similar pictures. There were also scraps of paper with times, dates, and random strings of numbers that didn’t seem to correlate to anything.

  “Do you think this guy stumbled onto the operation and then demanded to be cut in?” Romero mused. “If he did, he’s looking at one hell of an abbreviated lifespan.”

  “Then we need to find the girls before they get caught up in the crossfire of the Broker’s minions trimming their loose ends.” Yates felt the most incredible sense of urgency. “This is his home, but maybe he has an office. See if you can find an address or something.”

  Romero was rifling through Dean’s desk. “I’ve got a business card.”

  “Good.” Yates was already scooping everything he could lay hands on into the messenger bag he almost always kept slung over his shoulder. “Let’s get this stuff together and get out.”

  Romero was moving through the apartment, heading for the door. Suddenly he stopped short. “Do you smell that?”

  Yates stopped shoving papers and photographs into his pack long enough to take a deep inhale. Over the scent of stale pizza, rotten Chinese noodles, and body odor, he caught the sickly sweet smell of something that made his blood curdle.

  “Gas,” Yates bit out.

  Romero strode toward the kitchen. “Shit. I hear it. Someone cut the gas line to the stove.”

  “Get out!” Yates shouted.

  He didn’t wait for Romero. He knew his fellow SEAL would be right on his tail. He could sense his longtime teammate as though he were a part of himself. The two of them moved as one unit. Yates ducked through the door first, taking a leap down the three steps to the sidewalk and not missing a beat. Behind him he heard Romero do the same. The two of them were sprinting now, really turning on the speed as they headed for the corner of the building.

  It wasn’t a moment too soon. A corner of Yates’s consciousness heard the pilot light kick on, probably from the hot water heater. Seconds later the apartment’s windows blew out in a firestorm of glass and rubble. The force sent Yates and Romero flying forward. The two of them were flung to the ground. Yates rolled, coming to his feet only seconds later, once his training kicked in. Around them, car alarms up and down the street went off, the sirens blaring and horns honking. People ran out of their homes, milling about on the street to point at the building.

  Yates and Romero gained their feet, and Yates swung around to look at the building. There were other people spilling out of the other three apartments. They were soot-covered and shaken, but he didn’t hear anyone shouting for a missing loved one.

  “We couldn’t get that lucky,” Romero murmured. “Is everyone really out?”

  Then the two of them saw a young woman sprinting toward the building. Two large male bystanders caught her, hauling her back away.

  “My grandmamma lives on the first floor!” the young woman shouted. She was sobbing almost too incoherently to be understood. “Grandmama!” she shrieked. “Where is she? Did anyone see her?”

  Romero’s expression was grim. “Fuck.”

  Yates secured his messenger bag over his shoulder. Beside him, he knew Romero was with him. The back of the building’s upper level was already in flames, but the front wasn’t. The stairs to the upper apartment were in the front of the building.

  “Let’s do this if we’re going to do it,” Yates snarled. “We might be too late already.”

  Romero was already heading back. “Guess we find out.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  One of the neighbors had pulled out a garden hose and was attempting to fight a losing battle with the fire by spraying the shrubbery around the base of the first floor. Yates followed Romero’s lead. The two SEALs approached the middle-aged man stubbornly spraying the house.

  “Hey, man, let me borrow that a second,” Romero urged.

  “Why?”

  Romero didn’t answer. They were wasting precious time anyway. Romero used the hose to saturate the large handkerchief he always carried in his pocket. Yates pulled his out of his left side pocket and did the same. The handkerchiefs had become a habit when they’d been overseas in the desert. Now they’d come in handy once again.

  “You guys can’t seriously think you’re…”

  There was no time to argue with the guy. Yates took point, staying low and using his foot to smash in the front door of the building. The inside was like a furnace. Everything was painted in flames that licked the surface of the walls and ceilings with orange tongues flickering in brilliant colors. The heat was unimaginable. Yates felt the sizzling air billow over his face. It instantly dried out every last speck of moisture in his body, and he felt parched in seconds.

  Focus. He had to focus. There was a door on the right. Johnny Dean’s apartment had been on the left. The old lady must be on the right. The door appeared behind a shifting, hazy cloud of smoke.

  Using his shoulder like a battering ram, Yates shoved with all his might. The door crackled and folded in as though the heat had made it brittle. Yates had the inane thought that he should have tested the door to make sure there wasn’t a fireball on the other side, but it was too late for that.

  The old woman was just inside the apartment. She had collapsed on the floor, presumably while trying to get out. Romero scooped her up and headed back out. The two men had to be super careful now. The edges of the doorways were in flames. It was like some circus act now. Jumping through a fiery ring of death or something equally ridiculous.

  Yates saw Romero gather his muscles and knew what was coming. There was a hissing inside the old building. The ominous sound couldn’t be described any other way, but Yates knew it well. He’d heard it in burning buildings all over the world. It was the noise a fire makes before it sucks up more oxygen and becomes a living, breathing dragon.

  “Move!” Yates shouted.

  Romero leaped through the front door, trying to shield the old woman. By the time the three of them were lying on the front lawn, the old lady’s nightgown was smoldering. Yates rolled his body on top of the old woman’s, trying not to crush her as he put out the embers ready to flare to life at the increased oxygen.

  “This building’s going to blow!” Yates shouted. “Get back! Get back!”

  Romero dragged himself to his feet. Yates grabbed his teammate, helping him support the old lady as the two of them sprinting for a copse of trees in a vacant lot across the street.

  They had barely made it before an explosion rocked the earth. Yates stumbled to his knees, Romero doing the same beside him. Turning, Yates saw a huge belching gust of flame shoot heavenward as the building’s gas lines were consumed in a pit of fire.

  Sirens blared, tires screeching as the fire trucks careened around the corner. The men wasted no time exiting their vehicle and hooking hoses to the fire hydrants located at each corner of the building. Soon the hiss of water filled the air, and there was smoke and soot raining down from the sky.

  “Thank you!” The young woman was dragging an EMT toward her grandmother. “Thank you so much! You saved her! You did it! Oh my God, I thought I lost her!”

  The woman was babbling. Yates left Romero to do the talking. Romero wasn’t exactly mister verbal, but he was a hell of a lot more personable than Yates. Besides, this incident required some thought. Yates watched the fire eagerly and efficiently consume every inch of the building, even threatening the dwellings on either side. This was not an accidental fire. It wasn’t even a fire strictly set to warn someone. This fire was doing its job. Someone had wanted it to leave behind no shred or trace of evidence.

 
; Yates thought about the messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He laid a hand on the bag’s familiar bulk, relieved to feel that it was still there and unharmed. If Johnny Dean had truly gotten mixed up with the Broker, it was highly possible that this entire setup had been designed to get rid of anything Dean might have on the Broker or his organization. That also meant without a doubt that the Broker’s men would hit Dean’s business next.

  “Romero!” Yates said, his voice crackling with urgency. “We have to get to Dean’s office before they blow that too and leave us no trail to follow!”

  TASHA WAS DONE waiting for something to happen. She and the pretty princess needed to get the hell out of this basement and figure out what dirt Johnny Dean thought he had on the Broker.

  “Okay, we need to get out of here,” Tasha told her unwelcome companion. “I refuse to die down here with some kindergarten teacher sidekick.”

  “Middle school.”

  “What?”

  Cassidy had craned her neck around to look at Tasha. “I used to teach middle school science. Not kindergarten. Ugh! There is no way in hell I could deal with a bunch of five and six year olds every single day. I’d slit my own wrists.”

  “Wait.” Tasha’s brain had stalled. “You’re telling me that you used to be a middle school teacher?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how did get caught up in this again?” Tasha wrinkled her nose. The woman should have stuck with her old job.

  “They took my roommate Rachel one night when we were at a club,” Cassidy explained. “She also happened to be Lieutenant Alexander Trapp’s younger sister. He called on his friends to help find her. Normally that wouldn’t be so awesome, but since all of Trapp’s friends are SEALs, that changes things.”

  “Well, Cassidy-the-middle-school-teacher, we need to get out of here,” Tasha said in her most businesslike voice. “That means we need to get off these chairs and figure out a way to get out of this basement. If Johnny Dean says he has dirt on the Broker, I want to find it.”

  “Okay then.” Cassidy pressed her back against Tasha’s. “Let’s stand up on three. One. Two. Three!”

  The two women pushed against each other, standing and lifting their twisted arms over the backs of the chairs. Fortunately for them, Johnny Dean had been too lazy to make sure their hands were actually secured between the spindles of the chair backs. Now Tasha and Cassidy were left to stand back to back with their hands bound together.

  “See that worktable over there?” Tasha jerked her head over in the direction of the fuse boxes. “Let’s see if there’s something sharp enough to cut these stupid zip ties off.”

  “That only works in the movies, you know,” Cassidy muttered. “You’re going to wind up cutting our ligaments or tendons or something, and we’ll wind up dying with our wrists slit.”

  “Huh,” Tasha said sarcastically. “I guess I can see you in a middle school setting. There’s all that broody bullshit I seem to recall was prevalent in kids that age.”

  “Ha. Ha,” Cassidy grumbled. “Just because you’re too much of a bitch to appreciate my help.”

  “Whoa!” Tasha shifted sideways, taking mincing steps to avoid knocking herself and Tasha over. “I think I actually like you better with some backbone. You’re just so damn nice it sort of feels fake.”

  “Fake?”

  Okay, so there was nothing fake about the way Cassidy sounded right now. She sounded pissed. And why wouldn’t she be? Tasha had pretty much insulted the hell out of her.

  “Hey,” Tasha said urgently. “Do you see that box cutter?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to reach for it. So try to stand on your tiptoes and help me out here. All right?”

  The motion was super awkward. Tasha had to admit that Cassidy was certainly doing everything she could to help Tasha reach onto the low worktable and get to the box cutter. Tasha twisted her arms and managed to brush her fingers against the metal. Finally. Finally she closed her hand around the little tool and carefully attempted to get it situated in her palm.

  “Please don’t slice me open,” Cassidy muttered.

  Tasha was a little miffed by the lack of confidence. “I won’t. I do this stuff all the time.”

  “What sort of private investigator gets herself caught and locked up all the time? Are you really consistently kidnapped?” Cassidy asked with a heaping dose of sarcasm that actually made Tasha grin.

  “Oh, all the time!” Tasha gushed. She carefully extracted the blade and started sawing away at the bonds holding their hands together. “Ow!” She nicked herself. Cursing beneath her breath, Tasha continued more carefully, trying not to get too eager and wind up making an even bigger mess of things.

  “Are you okay?” Cassidy murmured. “My hands are sticky.”

  “I’m bleeding, but I’ll be just fine.”

  “Should I be demanding to see test results or something?” Cassidy wondered. “I don’t want to get rabies or whatever.”

  “Wow.” Tasha was laughing now. She couldn’t help it. “You’re really not as nicey-nice as you seem, are you?”

  “No.” Cassidy sounded disgruntled. “And when we first met I completely understood why you wouldn’t trust me, or wouldn’t think I had any street cred or something to be involved in this investigation. Romero was the same way.”

  “Yeah, I heard you say that before.” Tasha felt a shot of adrenaline as one of the zip ties snapped. She still had one more to go before her hands would be free. “I’m guessing he did the whole ‘I’m a big strong SEAL and I don’t need some puny female civilian telling me my business’ thing?”

  “Pretty much.” Cassidy sighed. “But he’s a really good guy. I love him more than I ever imagined I could love anyone.”

  Finally both of Tasha’s hands were free. Her shoulders were screaming with the effort of holding the box cutter, and her arms felt like limp noodles.

  “Oh, thank God!” Cassidy moaned. “Can you get these things off my hands? They’re cutting off my circulation.”

  Tasha spun around and began sawing carefully at the ties on Cassidy’s wrists. They certainly seemed tighter than Tasha’s, and it was hard to get the tip of the cutter between Cassidy’s tender skin and the hard plastic. Finally the things snapped in two, and Cassidy was free.

  She turned to face Tasha. “Shall we go upstairs and see if we can find Mr. Dean? I don’t know about you, but I have a few questions for the man.”

  “Let’s go,” Tasha agreed. “But keep your eyes open. He claims someone is coming for us. Let’s not run into whoever that might be.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tasha crept up the stairs, utterly aware of every single squeak, creak, and shift of the old building. Who would have ever thought a bunch of cement steps and a wooden railing would make so much racket?

  “What’s up there?” Cassidy whispered. “Can you see that Dean guy?”

  Tasha wanted to shout back that no, Dean wasn’t just hanging around up here waiting for them to inexplicably escape. But she understood Cassidy’s impatience. The woman couldn’t see anything with Tasha in the way, and it wasn’t like Tasha was in any sort of hurry.

  “You don’t happen to see our phones up there, do you?” Cassidy wanted to know.

  Tasha realized that the basement stairs exited in a small lobby. The building was old. There were mailboxes and a listing of tenants, but it didn’t look to be a very prosperous sort of business complex. There were only three names on the list, and Dean Investigations was on the first floor, probably just around the corner from where they were.

  “Wow, what a dump,” Cassidy murmured as she exited the stairwell behind Tasha. “Obviously this guy is a bit of a sleazebag.”

  “Yeah,” Tasha murmured. “Dean is known for taking on every single case that the rest of us turn down.”

  “Not a great reputation then.” Cassidy motioned to his mailbox. “Think he has any mail?”

  Tasha eyed the flimsy lock on the old fashioned mailbox
es. “I suppose we could find out.”

  Tasha took out the box cutter she’d kept as a weapon and used it to jimmy open the mailbox. Cassidy reached inside and drew out three envelopes. “Overdue bill, foreclosure notice, repossession notice…” Cassidy snorted. “If this guy is getting compensated for the work he’s doing for the Broker, he must be spending it on something other than his bills.”

  “Something other than…” Tasha sucked in a gasp. “Oh my God! That’s it!”

  “What did I say?”

  “Dean has an old boat,” Tasha said in a rush. “He’s always bragging that it’s a swank yacht and someday he’s going to retire down to the islands or some nonsense. First of all, I don’t think that thing would make it down the East Coast, much less all the way to the Caribbean or something, but it’s very possible that he would hide out there.”

  “What about his office?” Cassidy was pointing down the hallway. “Shouldn’t we at least check?”

  “For info, I guess,” Tasha said reluctantly.

  Her instincts were screaming that this building was a dead end. She knew—just knew—Dean would be at his boat. Hopefully they would be able to find him before he sailed out of the harbor. It would a lot easier to catch him on the Potomac than to try to find out where the stupid hunk of junk had broken down halfway down the Atlantic coast.

  YATES CREPT UP the back stairs to the rear entrance of the small office building listed on Johnny Dean’s business card. The entire place looked derelict and deserted. Obviously the guy wasn’t doing too well.

  “His office should be right down here.” Romero led the way through the dimly lit first floor hallway.

  Yates looked around at the narrow passage, the buzzing and flickering overhead lights, and the dirty industrial carpet. The walls were scarred and water stained. A drinking fountain hung crookedly in an alcove to the right, and there was a moldy scent of disuse lingering about the place. All in all it looked disgusting.

  “You really think he’s here?” Yates murmured.

  Romero shrugged. “I don’t know, but we’ve got to find Cassidy and Tasha, and this is about as good a place to start as any.”