“Declan’s pounding on his sources. He has some shady friends that he can tap. So far, he hasn’t come up with anything. But I know he will eventually. But with Caroline Jakes having been taken, our time has run out.”
“First off, we don’t know that she’s been taken,” Addison said more calmly than she felt. “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. But if she has, she would have put up a fight. She won’t go down easy.”
“If they’ve taken her, they could be anywhere by now. Hell, they could be to the moon by now,” Conroy contradicted. “We do have their hidey-hole in Mexico staked out, though,” he said with grim satisfaction.
“Come on, you know damn good and well that Frankenstein has figured out that Mexico is no longer viable. He knew within hours that it was compromised.”
She watched as Conroy took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, I know. It was the DHS guy who assigned people to watch it. Still, it’s possible, and what do we have but possibilities?”
“We need to think. In the meantime, at least we know she would have put up a hell of a fight.”
“Wouldn’t do her any good, it didn’t do any of the women any good.” Conroy sounded tired and dejected.
“But she’s different, she’s a fighter,” Addison repeated.
“No, she’s not. She’s a flight mechanic, a machinist to be specific.”
“Goddammit, Conn, listen to me. She did amateur women’s mixed martial arts before joining the Navy. She was pretty good. I checked her out. I’ll send you a link to one of her fights.”
“How in the hell did you figure that out?”
“Her Navy medical records showed a lot of odd injuries. Broken fingers, broken nose, broken wrist, and collar bone. They all had healed at different times, so it wasn’t like the injury was from a car wreck or something. So, I did a little digging.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No. I’m not.” Thank God he was finally listening.
“That was damn good work. So, you meant it literally when you said she’s a fighter.”
“Yes,” Addison grinned. “If she actually has been taken, I hope she beats the shit out of this bastard.”
“Okay, we still don’t have anything concrete, but I say it’s enough. What do you think, Addison? Liam’s going to want both of us on board?”
Addison took the sucker out of her mouth. “I’m for it. I think Frankenstein has her. I think we should leave as soon as possible. I’ll check flight times.”
“No need, we’ve got the company jet.”
“A jet?”
“Yep. I’ll text you when we have a flight plan set up out of Dulles. I’ll gather the team. In the meantime, see what else you can find out about our girl.” His picture winked out. He hadn’t said good-bye. Nope, not Conroy, he just shut off the SKYPE connection. Well, that was fine by her. Addison had things to do, and fast.
“Shower.”
“Coffee.”
Maybe not in that order. Ah hell, if she didn’t have some oatmeal to go with the coffee, she’d be regretting it for the rest of the day. It sucked getting older—her body actually insisted she take care of it.
She pushed back from her desk and went to the kitchen to start the coffee and nuke some instant apple cinnamon oatmeal. Then she headed for the shower. She came out to the kitchen in an old UCLA sweatshirt and panties and ate standing over her sink. She made a list of what she would need.
“Double damn.”
Addison ran back to her computer. Caroline did not fit the mold of victims, not with her mixed martial arts background. While Conroy checked out these people with access to Navy personnel records, he needed to exclude anyone who had information on the victims’ histories prior to them entering the Navy. If the recruiter had that type of information, they surely wouldn’t have picked a victim like Caroline, who was a former MMA fighter.
She leaned over and typed a few lines and messaged them over to Conn. That was when she realized she needed to update more of her notes.
She sighed as she had to sit down on the leather seat in her panties. She wished she’d gotten dressed first, but she needed to get down her thoughts when they were fizzing in her brain. She didn’t want to forget a damned thing.
She already had down that he was an organized psychopath who was willing to do business with Eduardo Riaz just to obtain a location to toy with and eventually kill his victims. Was it important to him that it was out of the country?
He and Eduardo had different tastes in the types of victims based on the five women, including Heather, that had been taken from Cancun resorts. Eduardo definitely had a type. Addison thought about the two murdered women that they had identified via DNA who had been found in the shack. One had been a florist from Tulum, a little town south of Cancun, and the other was a dental hygienist from Playa del Carmen, a bigger city that was south of Cancun. The only thing that really made them similar to the Americans captured in Cancun is they were light-skinned and had been wearing provocative clothes in nightclubs.
Addison had no doubt that Frankenstein was an American who was either currently in or had served in the Navy. Her gut told her that he was currently serving, since he was able to procure the weapons found on Riaz’s property. The man believed himself to be better than anyone else, and that he was just using Riaz. She would bet money that he had done his killing in the clean cabin. He would have been too fastidious to be using the same recliner that Riaz sat in. Then there was the fact that the dog tags were found in that room.
She typed in self-indulgent bordering on a megalomaniac, based on his need to control the two helpers. The sentimental went with the self-indulgent, because he kept those dog tags. At least he didn’t keep them with him. Still…. She needed more to flesh out this profile. She leaned over her keyboard and twirled her hair. How did the relationship work with the recruiter? She couldn’t get a feel for that yet.
Addison went back into the kitchen and choked down the rest of her cold oatmeal and washed the bowl. She poured herself another cup of coffee and took it into her bedroom to pack. She better have herself ready. She didn’t want to have people waiting on her.
Liam was impressed by Addison and Conroy’s notes. More impressed by Addison’s if he was going to compare the two. The fact that she had figured out about Caroline’s past as an amateur MMA fighter based on her healed injuries was a stroke of genius.
He looked at Caroline’s picture provided by the Navy, then compared it to the one that Addison had found from one of her matches up in Kodiak. She was attractive in her Navy photo, but when you saw her fierce smile from the MMA fight, she was a looker.
Caroline might be tiny, but she was a warrior. He played the clip of her last fight and winced. She took some severe hits, but she won that bout. She took down a woman that had to outweigh her by forty pounds.
“Stay alive,” Liam whispered.
“What did you say?” Declan asked as he dropped into the leather seat next to him.
“I’m saying that my nephew is one fucking spoiled bastard.”
Declan grinned. “Don’t you love it?”
Liam gazed around the cabin of the Bombardier Global 7500. “I know Allie has you driving an SUV, is this your way of showing off the size of your dick?” Liam asked his nephew.
“Sure is,” Declan nodded. “Isn’t it big. And thick?”
Liam rolled his eyes. The kid always had a comeback. Of course, when Declan had been seven years old, he had sometimes played with Liam and his SEAL buddies and they never did hold back. They damn well should have. Hell, there were a lot of things Liam regretted.
“What’s with the doom-and-gloom face? Last I saw you, you had the full-steam-ahead, I’m going to make time with a beautiful lady face on.”
Liam gave him a droll look.
“You did,” Declan persisted. “It was great. I mean, I’ve seen you occasionally at a bar or something, but never have I seen you like this with a woman where it was a
n all-out offensive. I figured she didn’t stand a chance.”
“You’d be wrong,” Liam said as he looked back down at his laptop.
Declan reached over and shut it.
Liam gave him the side-eye.
“We were talking. I wasn’t done.”
“You’re treading on dangerous ground, Son.”
“I’m not your son. I’m Donovan’s son. You’re my uncle. My perennially single uncle. I always thought you would do better with a wife and kids.”
“Even your dad knows to tread lightly,” Liam said softly.
“That’s not the McAllister way. Somehow you missed the memo. Let’s talk feelings.”
Motherfucker!
“First, you’re full of shit. That’s not the McAllister way. Second, let’s not,” Liam said. He listened intently for anybody else to come aboard the plane. Especially Addison. It was still just the two of them.
“It’s just us,” Declan assured him.
God, when had this man, who was seventeen years his junior, become so damn perceptive…and nosey?
“Declan. Seriously, I really don’t have these types of conversations.”
“Well, no wonder you crashed and burned with Addison all those years ago. Did you want to fuck up the relationship? Because from where I was sitting it sure looked like the home fires are still burning.”
“No. I didn’t want to fuck things up with Addison, but it was never going to work out. We wanted different things. She wanted—”
“What did she want?”
Liam shut his eyes and pictured their last conversation. It was so clear but so garbled. “She wanted things I just couldn’t give her.”
They heard a rustling at the back of the plane indicating someone coming aboard.
“Do you want things to work out this time?” Declan asked.
“I don’t know, yes?”
“You’re such a guy.”
“At least I don’t need a plane to compensate for a small dick,” Liam said without heat.
“Nah, you just need an exotic silver sports car,” Declan replied.
Liam snorted as Declan got up and walked down the aisle to another seat. He heard him talking to someone. Then he looked up as Addison sat down next to him.
“Declan said you wanted me to sit here. He said that you wanted to talk to me.”
Liam smiled. The kid was right. Addison was just where he wanted her.
“It’s annoying having to fly into SeaTac,” Addison said to Liam as they gathered up their belongings.
“I know, I’m used to being able to fly directly onto Whidbey Island. But we’re going in soft for this investigation.”
Addison didn’t fight him as he grabbed her bag from the overhead bin. If she’d tried, she was going to lose the argument, so what was the point?
“Who’s going soft? Is that you, Liam? You are the oldest, so it would make sense,” Laird shouted from the back of the plane.
Addison watched Liam’s lip twitch. She remembered him being a lot more vocal with his team way back when, but he’d just been a lieutenant then. Being a lieutenant commander must have made him a little more circumspect.
“What, you’re just going to let him get away with that?” Hudson asked. “If you do, it’s only going to get worse,” he warned as he started down the aisle.
“I’m not the one who lives on a compound in the middle of Bumfuck Oklahoma waiting for the end-times, Laird is,” Liam’s voice was cool.
“I heard that.”
“You were supposed to,” Liam called back.
“Boys let’s stay on point,” Addison said as she walked to the exit. “We have a lot of crap to handle, we don’t have time for a pissing match.”
However, she did want to hear about the compound.
“There she is,” Liam said with satisfaction. He followed her closely down the stairs to the tarmac.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean I like it when you give a roomful of men shit. You were closed up during our dinner.”
“Don’t be analyzing every little thing, Liam, otherwise this is going to be a long assignment.”
“Haven’t you figured it out, I need to understand you. We need to move past our history. I want a chance at a new future with you.”
She stopped so fast that he would have bumped into her if it weren’t for his expert reflexes.
“What are you talking about?” she demanded as she looked up into his blue eyes.
He tugged at her arm and pulled her aside so that the others could move past them. “I want a chance to get to know you again, Addison.”
“Okay then,” she sighed with relief. “Getting to know one another. That’s fine. We are getting to know one another. We’re working together.”
He lifted his eyebrow.
She hated it when he did that.
Hated it. Especially when he added silence.
“Liam, we crashed and burned. Now we’re just colleagues,” she burst out.
“You walked away,” he said quietly.
She thought her eyes might bulge out of her head. “Really. You’re really going to stand there and say that? Yes, Liam, I walked away, after months of you getting more and more closed off. What was I supposed to do? Continue to crash against you like a wave crashes against a rock in hopes that you would give me a sign? Any kind of sign, that you were open to something more? Something lasting.”
She was so upset by the memories that she was shaking, and he pulled her into his arms. And dammit, she let him.
Why did she let him?
“I did that. Fuck, I really did that.” She heard the regret in his voice. The pain. The anger. “I’m so sorry, so damned sorry. It’s going to be okay, I swear it.” She heard and felt the rumble of his voice in his chest. She stayed and let herself be comforted. Just a minute. Only for a moment, she promised herself.
When she finally pulled away, he tilted her chin up.
“Better?” he asked. “Please say yes.”
She nodded firmly. “I’m back on track.”
“Addison—” he started.
“I need to focus on Caroline now. I have to.” She searched his face, looking for understanding.
He gave it to her.
“While we’re here, she’s our priority, but Addison, I can’t lie to you. I can’t let you think that I’m giving up, because I’m not. You know that, right?”
She gave him a long, considering look.
Was it time? Could she put it all in the past?
“But right now, we’re in agreement, right? We’re concentrating on the investigation.” She gave him a determined look.
He touched her cheek, then let his hand drop. “Yes, Honey. For now.”
She had a lot to think about.
A lot.
5
By the time they got to Camano Island, which was just a short hop to Whidbey Island, Addison had managed to shove Liam’s words to the back of her mind, by sheer force of will. Liam’s commander at DHS, Silas Branson, had set them up with a meet with somebody he absolutely trusted. Of course, if Liam hadn’t given his ultimate seal of approval, there wasn’t a chance in hell this discussion would ever be taking place.
With over seven-thousand Navy personnel crawling all over Whidbey Island, it wasn’t a good idea to meet there, which was why Conroy had parked their butts in the swankiest digs possible on Camano Island. He’d also rented two of the fastest boats possible that would cross over to the South Whidbey Harbor Port in under twenty minutes. Going overland would take over two-and-a-half hours and two bridges.
There were Puget Sound arterial maps, Island terrain maps, and nautical charts spread out all over the dining room table within five minutes of their arrival. How Conroy had everything waiting at the house was a mystery to her. Somehow, the same elves that had provided the maps had also stocked up on food that included the bran muffins that Conroy favored and the shortbread cookies that Laird couldn’t get enough of. She bet if Li
am told them she liked butterscotch suckers, they’d be there, too. She wondered if Conroy had also decked Brannon out with all of his favorite things while he was down in Mexico chasing down leads. She’d have to ask the big man when she saw him again.
“Conroy. Addison. Since we got here, has there been any update on what the local police or Navy Master at Arms have come up with on Caroline’s disappearance?” Liam asked.
“Nada,” Conroy answered. “You know them, protocol is seventy-two hours.” He looked down at his watch. “It’s been thirty-eight.”
“And a half,” Hudson spoke up. “Thirty-eight and a half hours since she was reported missing because she didn’t arrive at work. The last time she was seen was nine hours before that when somebody saw her at the rec center.”
Addison looked over at Conroy. He scowled. They both turned to Hudson. “You’re absolutely right,” Addison said. “I’m sorry we were looking at this from a protocol perspective. Her last known sighting was forty-seven-and-a-half hours ago.”
“This is so fucking frustrating,” Hudson growled. “Hell, Dec, you understand. You have sisters. Even though they’re older, you get it. We have to find Caroline. All I can picture is this being Brenna.”
Declan nodded.
“You don’t have to have a little sister to be affected by this,” Cooper reprimanded sharply.
“We’re going to find her.” Liam’s confident voice had an immediate calming effect. “Stacy Johnson is going to be our ace in the hole. She should be here soon.”
“I know Si Branson, your commander at DHS, is all comfy with her, but what about you?” Declan asked.
“I checked her out. She’s good people,” Liam said. “She’s a Chief Warrant Officer with thirty years in the Navy. She’s the highest-ranking enlisted person in the security office at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. She’s going to be able to give us all the details.”
“If she’s security, is she working on the case? Does she have access to personnel records?” Conroy shot out the questions.
“Different kind of security,” Liam answered. “She works in security, cryptology and information assurance. In other words, she makes sure that all of the information regarding the types of planes and their flight plans are kept secret.”
SEAL at Sunrise (Silver SEALs Book 12) Page 5
