by Laura Kaye
File one, file two, file three. Done.
“I gotta get out so we don’t get traced,” Charlie said. His fingers snapped over a series of keys and the screen went black. The lines of code returned. He typed in a few more lines and the machine powered down. Charlie stood up, turned around, and looked at Marz with wide blue eyes.
“Holy hell, Charlie. Holy fucking hell. You did it,” Marz said, grinning and staring between Charlie’s amazed and excited expression and the stack of paper on the printer’s tray.
The guy pressed his hand to his chest. “My damn heart is pounding.”
Everyone laughed. Elation almost made Marz’s head spin. “That was a rush just watching it, my man. For real.”
Charlie shook his head. The high of success was half the reason hackers did what they did. “Let’s hope we got what you need.”
Marz grabbed the papers from the printer, heart in his throat. Please don’t let this be another dead end.
For days, he’d had a Web crawler looking for any mention of Garza. But nothing had turned up, which was ten kinds of fishy. Even if someone steered clear of social media, most people would turn up in a newspaper mention, a professional newsletter, a staff listing, a public record, or even a basic people-search database. The fact they’d come up totally fucking empty on both Garza or any possible relatives seemed improbable in the extreme. Nobody lived that far off the grid.
Marz’s eyes raced so fast over the words he barely absorbed what the first file said. But his shoulders fell as the data sank in. The information detailed a man too old to be their Manny Garza. He chucked those sheets to the desk.
He couldn’t have made himself disappear from these records, too. Could he?
Problem was, it wouldn’t be the first time in their investigation that they’d come up against erased evidence. Charlie’s sister, Becca, had made 9-1-1 calls to report break-ins at both her and Charlie’s houses, and the records of both had disappeared, leading the team to question the integrity of the Baltimore City Police. Fact that someone had taken the trouble to hide Garza’s presence from the world was just more proof it was no coincidence they’d encountered another SF guy hanging with the drug-dealing scum who’d kidnapped Charlie and tortured him for information about his father’s dealings. Namely, that Colonel Merritt had been running a black op, cashing in on the heroin the team had confiscated in their counternarcotics missions back in Afghanistan. It’d been a lucrative side business, if their commander’s twelve-million-dollar Singapore bank account was any indication.
The second file was more of the same—the guy had served in Vietnam. “Fuck me running,” Marz said as he tossed more papers to the messy piles on the desk. If they didn’t find Garza here, that left a hack into the Veterans Affairs records, or a potentially lengthy and equally dangerous dive into the Deep Web—the dark, hidden, and much larger part of the internet not indexed by standard search engines, which provided a haven for all kinds of criminal activity.
“Tell me he didn’t manage to have his service records erased, too,” Nick said, crossing his arms.
Marz’s gaze scanned over the beginning of the third file. And then a slow smile crept up his face.
This Manny Garza was the right age and had served in the SF in Afghanistan as recently as two years ago, which fit their guy’s profile to a T. Even better? The file didn’t list a current address for Garza but did list two next of kin—a mother in Northern Virginia and a sister who lived in Annapolis, Maryland.
“How the hell far away is Annapolis?” Marz asked. Being from Atlanta and having had no time to see anything here unrelated to their mission, he had no idea.
“Forty minutes, maybe. Depending on traffic,” Nick said, stepping closer and peering over the top of the page. “Why?”
“Got you, Garza,” Marz said, smacking the papers against his hand and grinning at Nick, Beckett, and Charlie in turn. “Who wants to take a ride to Annapolis?”
Chapter 2
Emilie Garza eased her car up to her bright red mailbox and rolled down the window. Recently, her daily stop here had delivered more and more evidence of how her life had changed. Each new bill, solicitation, or letter brought with it a dose of healing and a twinge of hurt in equal measure. What would today bring?
Reaching out of her window, she lowered the mailbox’s door and retrieved the thick stack of envelopes and advertisements. One by one, she flipped through them. More than half read, “Emilie Garza,” but a fair number were still addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Jack Saunders” or “Emilie Saunders.” But she wasn’t Mrs. Saunders anymore. Legally, not for the past five months. Emotionally, not for the past two years.
Not since she’d learned that her ex-husband had been playing house with another family, lying about frequent travel for work to facilitate the time away from their home . . . and their bed. And Emilie had believed every last lie until the day the other woman had shown up at her door.
Now Emilie didn’t know who Jack Saunders actually was. Maybe she’d never known. Worse, his betrayal left her wondering who she was, too. And how she could’ve missed all the signs.
Enough, Em. It’s over. And you’re figuring it all out one day at a time.
“Yeah,” she whispered to herself as she tossed the mail on the passenger seat and pulled up the long drive surrounded by leafy green woods on both sides. As she came around the bend that led up to her small cottage, her gaze settled on a squat black Hummer parked right in front of her porch. “Shit,” she said. Manny had a key to her house that she’d given him once when he’d offered to help with a repair, and he’d been using it a lot lately, showing up at odd times. With the string of emotionally difficult cases she’d had today, her brother was the last thing she wanted to deal with. Guilt curled through her gut.
Once, the knowledge that her older brother had come to visit would’ve brightened every dark corner of her day. But since he’d come back from Afghanistan, he’d changed. And Emilie never knew which version of Manny she’d find. She parked, grabbed her purse, the mail, and the three bags of groceries, and made for the porch.
As her foot landed on the first step, she slowed, then froze. Her gaze drew across the little white house from right to left. All the plantation shutters were closed—and they hadn’t been when she’d left for work this morning. Her shoulders sagged and her stomach flipped.
So it was going to be the other Manny, then.
The paranoid one. The nervous one. The angry one.
In her mind’s eye, she saw herself hightailing it back to her car and getting the hell out of there. Problem was, no doubt he already knew she was home, and she didn’t want to deal with whatever drama leaving without seeing him might cause. Not to mention, this was the big brother she’d idolized her entire life. The one who’d protected her from playground bullies and taught her how to drive and had walked her down the aisle because their father was no longer around to do it. Emilie didn’t want to do anything to hurt that Manny, not after everything he’d always done for her.
Besides, maybe you’re wrong. He could be fine. There could be a rational explanation for why he closed the shutters.
Sure.
She climbed the stairs, held the screen door open with her foot, and inserted the key into the lock.
Just as she turned the knob, the door wrenched open, a hand closed around her wrist, and she was hauled into the dimness.
She crashed into the wall behind the door—or was pushed into it—and was so surprised by the whole thing that she dropped the stack of mail and one of the bags she’d been carrying. Something shattered against the slate floor.
Manny secured the door with a series of clicks, then whirled on her. “Did they follow you?”
Emilie swallowed around her heart where it hammered in her throat. “Did who follow me?” she asked, ice trickling down her spine. Definitely not her Manny.
He stepped closer until he towered over her, his longer-than-usual dark waves hanging messily over his forehead and ca
sting shadows over dark, disturbed eyes. His whole face frowned and he shook his head. “Anyone. Did anyone follow you?”
The pain in her chest was her heart breaking. “No one followed me, Manny. Why would they?” Needing a break from the intensity of his gaze, she looked down to where his hand remained manacled to her wrist. “Please let me go. You’re hurting me.”
His fingers were off her skin in an instant, proof that her protective brother was still in there somewhere. He retreated from her, shifting his feet and raking at his hair, agitation rolling off him in waves.
“I’m gonna put these in the kitchen,” Emilie said, gesturing to the bags. Stepping over the mess covering the foyer floor, she made her way through the normally light and airy den to the kitchen. Except for the big windows over the corner sink, Manny had darkened, one way or another, every window she passed. Emilie settled the bags on the tile counter, then grabbed the roll of paper towels.
She turned and found Manny hovering in the darkness just outside of the kitchen, as if he was hiding from the light cast by the corner window. Long-sleeved black shirt. Black jeans. Black boots. He nearly blended into the shadows. As she passed him, Emilie gently rubbed his arm and mentally willed her brother to come back to her.
As a sister, wishing and hoping and yearning were all she could do.
As a clinical psychologist, she knew it to be completely futile. You couldn’t help someone who refused to be helped. Or, more aptly, someone who refused to recognize there was a problem in the first place.
Manny followed her to the foyer and hovered over her while she collected the mail, wiped up the spilled salsa, and carried the dripping bag to the sink. With her back to him, she removed and wiped down all the other items in the bag one by one. “Who do you expect might be following me?” she asked quietly.
Long pause. And then, “It’s me they’re after.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d given voice to his paranoia. Worst part was, as the months had passed and Manny’s mental health deteriorated, Emilie wasn’t sure what part of what he said was in his head and likely caused by some untreated PTSD from his years in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what part might be fed by reality. Once at a holiday get-together, she’d overheard the tail end of a phone conversation that made her wonder exactly what Manny did for Seneka Worldwide Security, the defense contractor that he’d worked for the past few years. Maybe some of his paranoia was justified—and that didn’t make Emilie feel even a little bit better.
When the last of the cans and jars sat clean next to the sink, Emilie turned and rested her back against the counter. “Why would someone be after you?”
Manny’s dark brown eyes, so like her own, stopped the incessant scanning from the front door, along each of the windows, and then over her shoulder out the big window to the water beyond, and focused on her. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I’d like to, if you’d let me.” She smoothed her hands over her skirt, then laced her fingers together in front of herself to keep from fidgeting.
His gaze narrowed. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Em.”
“That’s not what I’m doing, Manny. I just want to know what’s going on with you. That’s all. Like old times.”
He appeared to consider her for a moment, and then he shook his head. “Old times are gone.”
The declaration propelled her across the kitchen to him until she came to rest against the arch that led into the den. “But why? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
The skin around his left eye ticked. “Nothing I can’t handle. Anyway, I just needed a place to lay low for a few hours. As soon as I get the signal, I’ll be gone.”
“You don’t have to leave, you know,” she said. Relief and guilt flooded through her in equal measure. “Stay. I’ll make dinner.”
The distrust in his gaze made the back of her eyes prick.
The rumble of an engine sounded from out front. The UPS truck, by the sound of it. No one else ever came this time of day.
Manny moved so fast that Emilie could barely track what was happening. He forced her to the ground and hissed at her to stay there. In a low crouch, he raced across the room and, gun drawn, took up a shielded position at one of the front windows, where he opened the plantation shutter just the smallest bit.
In that moment, odd things registered in Emilie’s brain. The throbbing in her knees from how Manny had pushed her down. Momentary, out-of-place pleasure at the thought that it was probably the maxi dresses she’d ordered last week being delivered. Fear that Manny was going to shoot Burt, assuming she was right about it being UPS, who was almost so good-looking he could be the driver from those funny UPS commercials about the women who wait to see the sexy delivery man every day.
More sounds filtered in from outside. The truck’s brake. Burt’s footsteps on the wooden deck out front. Two knocks against the door.
All the while, Emilie lay there, afraid to get up and risk startling Manny, whose finger was poised to wrap around the gun’s trigger.
The footsteps receded, and then the truck itself. Emilie finally felt like she could breathe again. Slowly, she eased up onto her knees. “It was just UPS,” she whispered. “Right?”
Manny ignored her, his gaze glued to the view out the front window until the sound of the truck disappeared altogether. Finally, he looked at her. “Get the package,” he said.
Emilie blinked, too dumbstruck by the command to move.
“Em,” he said, impatience and irritation filling his tone. He waved at the door with the hand still holding the gun.
She hauled herself off the floor, across the room, and onto the porch, where the package marked with the logo of one of her favorite clothing brands sat. Harmless, of course. She brought it inside only to have Manny swipe it out of her hands as soon as she crossed the threshold. He placed it onto the coffee table and leaned over to press his ear against it.
“Manny, it’s dresses—”
He glared and waved a hand at her. Emilie stared at him in confusion, a rock sliding into her gut.
Apparently satisfied, he sat up, holstered his gun, and retrieved a knife from his boot. God, he was still totally in soldier mode, wasn’t he? Even two years out of the Army. Before she could stop him, he stabbed the knife into the top of the box and drew it back toward him.
My dresses!
Emilie pressed her hands to her mouth to keep from crying out in anger or fear. It was like she’d stepped into an episode of Law and Order or The Sopranos or . . . God only knew! All she knew was there was absolutely nothing normal about her brother’s behavior. What the hell had brought this on? She’d never seen him this bad before.
He ripped open the top of the box and unceremoniously pulled out the contents—which, she could tell from the huge holes in the packaging, he’d damaged.
Angry heat pooled in her belly, overcoming whatever fear she’d felt moments before. She inhaled to speak as Manny’s cell phone buzzed and he placed it to his ear.
“Yes?” he said, going totally still. “Yes, got it.” He slipped the cell back into his pocket as he rose to his feet. “Gotta go.”
Emilie scoffed. “That’s it? That’s what you’re going to say? You just pulled your gun in my home, scared me half to death, and destroyed two-hundred-dollars’ worth of dresses. Now you’re just gonna go?”
Manny was in her face in an instant. Brow arched. Eyes cold. Mouth in a sneer. “Don’t push me, Emilie. Understand?” He stared at her a long moment, during which all she could manage to do was swallow and nod. Finally, he holstered the blade. He opened his wallet, grabbed some cash, and shoved it into her hands. “Keep an eye out. And keep your mouth shut.”
With that, he slipped out the door, jogged around to the driver’s side of the Hummer, and drove away.
Emilie looked down to the wad of hundred dollar bills in her hand and silently counted. Fourteen of them!
“Holy shit!” she rasped. She counted again just to prove to herself she wasn’t imagining it. W
hy the hell was Manny carrying that kind of money on him? Who did that? And who gave it away like it was pocket change? They hadn’t been poor growing up, but they hadn’t been rich, either. They’d grown up in the kind of family that scrimped and saved for everything they got. Where you were expected to get part-time jobs and contribute, and scholarships made the difference between attending college or not. She’d landed them where Manny hadn’t, which was why he’d gone the route of the Army.
And now he was throwing money at her like . . . like . . . like it made up for any of the bullshit that had happened during the last half hour.
Manny’s voice echoed in Emilie’s ears. Don’t push me.
Or what? What might he have done if she’d gone off on him?
Releasing a shaky breath, Emilie closed and locked the door, throwing the dead bolt for good measure. Although she was completely aware that she couldn’t keep Manny out if he really wanted in. Not just because he had a key, but because even if she had the locks changed, he knew how to pick them. It was beyond reassuring to know you had someone with his training and skills on your side. Knowing that person might use those skills against you? That was something else entirely. She shuddered and dropped the wad of bills to the coffee table.
Red-hot anger surged through her until she nearly shook. She stomped through the house, threw out the destroyed dresses and box, marched into her bedroom to change, and wrenched open all the shutters and curtains Manny had closed. She was a damned adult and a highly educated professional. No one had the right to scare her in her own home. Family or not.
And the truth of that just made her angrier, because she’d been scared of Manny. There at the end, when he’d nearly trapped her against the wall, knife in hand? She’d been scared, and she knew she wouldn’t pick a fight over his behavior if he did it again.
Emilie hated that reality. She hated that feeling. And a part of her hated Manny for all of it.
It’s not his fault. He’s sick. Probably. Definitely.
