by Caisey Quinn
Chase frowned. “What kind of government property?”
Vivien swallowed the last sip of beer from her bottle. “Body armor, weapons, gear, and such. At the very end of his time in the Corps he worked in inventory, checking in equipment when units returned from overseas. But none of his numbers ever matched what should’ve been returned. They investigated a lot of good Marines before realizing he was the one fencing the materials to outside sources. Or hoarding them for himself. Not all of the property was accounted for.”
“So he’s a real winner, then,” Aiden mumbled. “It seems like with every scumbag we put away, ten more crop up.”
“Still,” Chase began, setting his beer aside and fully engaging in the conversation. “I can’t piece together why he’d want to take out his frustration here. Have we found anyone from his past that he could have it out for? Someone here with a connection to the locations he marked on the map?”
“Allegedly marked on the map,” Annalise pointed out. “We don’t know for sure that this is our guy yet.”
Vivien nodded in agreement with Annalise. “He has a brother here. An Andrew Lewis. But I don’t think they’re close and the brother lives further north. Has a wife and a kid and couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen or heard from his brother,” Vivien volunteered. “Although, the brother did mention that he wasn’t surprised that Eric was involved in something like this—he said that his younger sibling had always been more of a follower than a leader. Apparently the deal in the Corps was that someone else was the ringleader and they just got Eric to do the dirty work, so he ended up being the one to take the fall because he wouldn’t rat out the others.”
Annalise’s eyes brightened. Vivien noticed that they were brown where Aiden’s were blue. Sitting side by side, she noticed they didn’t actually look much alike at all for siblings. Aiden was broad and Annalise was petite. Aiden had prominent features that anyone would notice immediately where Annalise was the type whose beauty was subtle until you really looked at her up close and saw her wide round eyes framed by dark lashes, a delicate nose, and pouty lips most women needed injections to achieve.
“Wait,” Annalise said, holding a finger up. “I have a theory. I think.” She closed her eyes as if working a puzzle in her mind.
Vivien and Chase both leaned forward to hear what she had to say.
“What if whoever was the ringleader of the military operation is here? What if Lewis blames them for his misfortune and is out for revenge? Have we checked into the guys from his former unit to see if any are local?”
Vivien admired the other woman’s ability to think outside the box. “We haven’t. Since he didn’t name them, I guess everyone figured he wasn’t holding a grudge. But maybe he didn’t want the military to punish them—maybe he wanted to save that for himself.”
“You should call Luke,” Chase said evenly. “Present your theory and get him to look into it.”
“I’ll check with my source as well and see if we can get some names and current addresses,” Vivien offered. She couldn’t help but be excited about the possible new lead, though no one could deny that a relaxing evening with friends had just definitely changed gears.
Aiden began clearing the dishes and Chase rose to help him, but Annalise stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Could I have my gift first? Whatever Luke gave you? That way I can thank him for it when I call.”
Chase nodded. “I locked it in the glove box of my truck. I’ll go grab it now.”
“Thanks.”
Vivien met Annalise’s gaze. She felt nearly as anxious as the other woman looked about whatever Luke had gotten her. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was something meaningful or sentimental or if it would be a generic item. She had a feeling Luke Foster didn’t do generic.
“I actually got you something also,” Vivien said, handing over the silver gift bag from Bed, Bath & Beyond. “It’s nothing special but I have one and I couldn’t live without it.”
Annalise smiled, the dimple in her left cheek making her look much younger than her twenty-six years. “You didn’t have to. But thank you!”
She moved the white tissue paper aside and pulled out the box containing a French press. Her smile widened. “I’ve always wanted one of these. They had one at a hotel I stayed at once, and I have been meaning to grab one ever since.”
“It’s small enough to keep at your desk, which, believe me, I do for those long shifts. Once you’ve had coffee made in that, the weak stuff from the coffee maker at the squad will seem like sewage.” She pointed to the bag. “There’s a bag of coarse ground French roast in there also. My favorite brand. I hope you like it.”
Annalise grinned widely at her from across the table. “Seriously, I do not have any female friends. So I’m keeping you,” she told her.
Vivien laughed. “Ditto.”
Just as they both began to laugh at their awkward friendship-establishing moment, a loud sound nearly deafened them both. Annalise ducked on instinct, but Vivien’s training kicked in and she stood to run toward it.
She’d know that sound anywhere.
She recognized the way the ground vibrated beneath her feet. The way the pressure in the air shifted instantly.
Even before it dawned on her that car alarms were going off in obnoxious intervals, she knew what had happened.
Somewhere on the street, dangerously close to where she’d parked her car, in the very same direction that Chase had gone to retrieve Annalise’s gift, something had exploded.
Seventeen
Chase opened his eyes expecting to see a familiar scene from several years ago. The one in which he’d believed he’d lost Vivien Brooks forever.
But he wasn’t at Fort Jackson. He was in East Nashville, and what he saw was pavement. Gray concrete splattered with what he was pretty certain was his own blood.
He blinked his vision into focus, doing his best to block out the ringing in his ears. No such luck.
Flames engulfed his black Chevy pickup as smoke billowed out from the cab.
“Call a bus,” he heard Aiden shout from somewhere far away. “He’s going to be okay but he needs medical attention.”
Who needed medical attention? He looked around but he couldn’t see anything except shattered glass and his burning truck. He moved to stand but his legs weren’t quite ready. Vertigo shoved him back down onto the sidewalk.
He watched glowing embers swirling in the air before making their descent.
A hand lifted his head and Aiden and Vivien flanked him on either side. With the glow of the street lamps behind her, his girl looked like an angel. He’d die a happy man if she was his escort to wherever he was headed. Judging from the heat, it wasn’t anywhere good.
“Fisk, look at me, man,” Aiden commanded. “Keep your eyes open for me.”
He reached up to touch Vivien’s face.
“So beautiful,” he said, surprised at how weak the words sounded. “My angel.”
Vivien’s eyes were liquid with tears she was holding back.
“Don’t cry, pretty girl.”
He wanted to say something else, to make her feel better. But his head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the back of it.
“Stay with me, Chase,” Vivien pleaded. “Hold on for a few more minutes.”
Sirens wailed in the background but all he could see was the night sky. Tires squealed on pavement somewhere nearby and it was the last sound he heard before everything went black.
***
The first thing he became aware of were the voices. They were low, sounding secretive. He strained to make out what they were saying but couldn’t manage it. Something about sending a message but that was all he could decipher.
Next, he opened one eye to a mind-shattering fluorescent light glaring at him from overhead. White walls. White lights. White bedsheets.
H
e swore with a scratchy voice. He was in the motherfucking hospital. Or having one hell of a vivid nightmare.
“He’s coming to,” a familiar male voice said from his left. Luke maybe.
Chase tried to turn his head but it hurt like a bitch to move.
“Don’t move, baby. Let me get the doctor.” This time the voice was a soothing balm to his jagged wounds. “Be right back.”
Vivien.
She was here. Not dead. So this wasn’t like before.
He didn’t even care what his injuries were so long as he never had to live through the loss of her again. But a quick peek beneath his sheets told him his legs were intact so that was a relief. The only thing that really hurt was his head, but it hurt like hell.
Feeling as if he were in a thick fog, Chase gestured for water. His mouth felt like the same Middle Eastern desert he’d spent seven months of deployment in.
“I got you, buddy,” Luke said before raising his bed with the button on the side. “How you feeling?”
Chase didn’t answer until Luke had given him access to a gray plastic water pitcher. The room-temperature water might as well have been nectar of the gods, it tasted so good.
Once he’d sated his thirst, he turned to his friend. “Did I get hit by a truck?”
Luke shook his head. “No but your truck took a hit. Someone rigged it to blow when you clicked your keyless entry on your remote. Blew your engine sky-high last night.”
Damn. So he’d been out for a while then. “Jesus. Was it Lewis?”
Luke lifted his shoulder and flicked his hand upward. “We really don’t know yet. All we know is the explosive matched the signature from the one found at the Ryman. And that one was a dud but this one was obviously active.”
Chase tried to retrace his steps from the night before. The memories of dinner with his friends and Vivien came back in slow motion and out of order. “Oh, shit, Luke. Your present. For Annalise. It was in my truck. I went to get it and—”
“Don’t even sweat that. I can replace it. However, we only have one of you. So I’m glad you’re okay.”
Chase rubbed his head, noting the IV in his hand for the first time. “Yeah, okay might be reaching a bit. But I’m still here.”
“First Ethan, now you. I swear, when we catch this guy I’m going to—”
“Mr. Fisk, glad you could join us,” a male voice broke in.
Chase nodded at the man in the white coat entering the room in front of Vivien. “Me too.”
The doctor introduced himself as Dr. Murdock before running a series of tests using his penlight. Then a nurse came in to take his vitals. By the time it was all said and done, it was determined that Chase had a severe concussion and what would likely be temporary hearing loss.
“The doctor wants you to stay here for another twenty-four hours just for observation,” Vivien told him after everyone else had cleared out.
“I want to argue with that, but I’m not sure I could walk a straight line out of this room if I wanted to. So I guess I’m staying.”
Vivien leaned in to kiss him gently on the forehead. “You scared me to death, Chase Fisk. I’m not letting you leave here until you get a clean bill of health. And you are on light duty for the rest of the week.”
“But someone has to try to—”
“The rest of the week,” Vivien repeated. “And I will convince your Captain to add a day every time you argue.”
Something dawned on Chase, and his eyes widened. “You missed your flight back to DC.”
Vivien looked at him as if he’d grown a second head. “You must’ve hit your head really hard if you think you’re getting rid of me that easily.”
“You never said anything so I wasn’t sure,” he admitted.
“You never asked. And I wasn’t completely sure myself. But I am now.”
She was right. He hadn’t asked. “I’m asking now, Viv. How much time do we have?”
“I asked to stay on until the case was closed. If need be, I’ll put in for a transfer to Nashville.” She leaned down to kiss him once more on the forehead before moving her mouth to his ear. “Chase, I prayed one day we’d get a second chance. And this is it. So we have as much time as we want.”
Forever was the first word that came to mind. But before Chase could ask anything further, Luke cleared his throat and re-entered the room along with Aiden and Annalise.
“Hey,” Chase greeted them.
Vivien straightened and stepped aside so they could have better access to him. After everyone was filled in on the doctor’s assessment, Luke sighed.
“Sorry, guys, but I’m actually here on official business also. I know it’s been a long night and an even longer morning but I need a statement from each of you. If you noticed anything unusual yesterday, saw anyone or anything out of the ordinary in the hours leading up to—”
Vivien’s gasp interrupted him. “Oh my God.”
All eyes zeroed in on her.
She shook her head. “With everything going on, I almost forgot. But when I was walking to the door it was like . . . like someone was watching me. I meant to mention it but I swept the perimeter and didn’t find anything, so I thought I was just being paranoid.”
Luke nodded for her to keep going, but Vivien shook her head.
“God, if I’d said something, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
Annalise made a grunting sound. “Um, if you’d said you thought someone was watching you, I would’ve made a crack about Chase not being able to keep his eyes off you and we would’ve gone on with dinner as usual. Don’t beat yourself up.”
Chase reached for her hand. “It’s okay, babe. Annalise is probably right. We were all distracted and not expecting anything like this to hit so close to home. Literally.”
Luke nodded in agreement. “The fact that it was Chase’s truck and Chase was the one who led the raid on the storage facility and the one who spoke on television about the incident at the Ryman, likely means our perp has had his sights on him for a while now. I don’t think the note at the Ryman was anything more than a warning to Chase specifically. But whoever is responsible has enough inside information to know your history. The bomb in the truck wasn’t meant to kill him or it would’ve been timed with the starting of the ignition, not the keyless entry.”
Chase agreed. “I think he was likely sending a message to me to back the fuck up or get burned.”
Vivien winced noticeably. “He’s escalating. Getting braver, coming closer.”
“And this didn’t start because someone had it out for Chase,” Annalise pointed out. “But he certainly has been the face of this investigation and has clearly caught our perp’s attention.”
Luke seemed to chew on that for a moment. “Question is, who does this person have it in for?”
Chase took stock of the available information. Someone was angry enough to do a lot of damage to their city. And that someone was risking a great deal to prevent anyone from standing in his way, as evidenced by his willingness to target police officers and federal agents. Chase knew from his own experience that anger could be toxic, like a poison that spread, consuming you until it nearly swallowed you whole.
“Maybe a better question is, who doesn’t he have a grudge against?”
Annalise frowned at his comment, but then her gaze met Vivien’s. The two women shared an unspoken moment before Vivien spoke up.
“I think you’re onto something, Chase. That’s the path to explore. The one we’ve ignored.”
He wondered if his pain meds were kicking in because he couldn’t follow. “What path exactly?”
It was Annalise that answered him. “The one that doesn’t lead to who our bomber is angry with. The one that tells us who his friends and possible accomplices are.”
Eighteen
Vivien had no clue how everyone could discuss
this so calmly. This was personal. This was a deadly criminal coming after Chase at his home. Leaving notes about her not coming back from the dead had been one thing, but blowing up Chase’s truck was a whole other level of insanity. It wasn’t just empty threats and fake explosives anymore.
They all gave their completely unhelpful statements to Luke before clearing out. Only Vivien stayed, curling up on the small uncomfortable excuse for a couch next to Chase’s hospital bed. She alternated dozing on and off with watching him sleep, smiling politely at the nurses who came in and out to take his vitals periodically.
For the first time, she knew exactly how he’d felt four years ago.
As she had watched his truck become an inferno before her very eyes, in those agonizing seconds before she’d seen him several feet away on the ground, everything she’d known and believed shifted irrevocably.
It was like having her entire life ripped away. Again.
There would be no coming to Nashville, getting the job done, and escaping unscathed. She was as scathed as it got, if there was even such a thing.
“What’s wrong, babe?” Chase’s groggy voice pulled her from her thoughts. She hadn’t realized he was awake.
“Just thinking,” she said softly while pulling the rough white hospital blanket up higher on his waist.
“About?”
She considered not telling him. He had enough to deal with after all. But they’d kept things from each other before and it hadn’t ever turned out well.
“About how I didn’t want to come here. How I thought you’d be better off if I stayed out of your life. Although, considering where we are, I might’ve been right about that last part.”
“You weren’t,” he said, meeting her gaze and sitting up as much as the current position of his bed would allow. “I’m glad you’re here, Viv. I’m glad it was me instead of you tonight. I don’t know what I would’ve done if—” He was interrupted by the loud beeping of the machine that measured his heart rate.
Vivien stood and moved closer to his bedside, sitting gently on the edge of the mattress in an effort to soothe him. She leaned down and stroked his forearm before interlacing her fingers with his.
