by Lisa Hughey
EIGHT
September 13
Nassau, Bahamas
What the hell was he doing here?
If he could just get one clue, one shred of proof Staci was alive and well, he’d let it go.
Go home and conclude their damn relationship had been slated to fail from the moment they met. Just because the woman in the picture wasn’t Staci didn’t mean she was still alive. After all, she hadn’t contacted him since that last awkward email.
Maybe she really was dead.
Except, he'd found out someone was watching her townhouse in Virginia.
If only he could get rid of the feeling she was in grave danger, satisfy himself that his worries were irrational.
Staci could take care of herself. And obviously wanted to...if she was alive.
Her mother’s amulet burned in his pocket. He fingered the carved stone, as if rubbing the small memory of her would cause her to appear like a genie from a bottle, and he paused to let his eyes adjust from the bright Caribbean sunshine outside to the shaded cool interior.
Even before his vision cleared, Jordan knew his problems had just gotten a lot worse.
His heart stopped as he took in the destruction of her beautiful, peaceful retreat. He stepped cautiously into the open floor plan and surveyed the damage.
The house had the stale, stagnant air of a home closed up for some time, overlaid with the stench of decay in a humid tropical climate.
Please God, don’t let it be rotting flesh.
Jordan tore through the house, the kitchen, the great room, the bedroom, the bathroom, frantic for any sign she was here.
Alive.
Anything else was unthinkable.
He returned to the entry-way, leaned against the fake stone pillar, his breath sawing through his chest, scraping at his insides like a dull Ka-Bar. Someone had completely trashed her house. Not in a ‘I’m robbing you to get money’ way but a ‘Where the fuck is it?’ way.
“She isn’t here. She isn’t dead.” He repeated the mantra as if by saying the words over and over he could make them true.
The house was a study in neutrals. White, beige, cream, tan and wood tones. Before this violation, her home had been extremely soothing. Now, every item had been ripped apart and discarded like garbage.
He had to investigate, look for any clue as to what had happened. Finding anything was unlikely. He’d been part of enough search warrant teams to believe any evidence of significance was history.
No one had been here since the ransack. Which was odd. He knew from his visits here, that Neli usually came in once a week to clean and keep the place immaculate. He’d called Neli every day, hoping maybe Staci had made her way to the Bahamas. So why hadn’t Neli mentioned she hadn’t been to Staci's house?
Jordan began his search in the kitchen and noted details with a sense of calm he was far from feeling. The oven had been pulled from the walls, the ice maker disassembled, the refrigerator unplugged.
The rotting smell was worse in here. The refrigerator contents, the usual condiment jars, had been dumped into the sink and left, contributing to the stink.
The freezer held one package, plastic ripped open, of some indefinable meat, which had begun the decay process. That was the source of the awful stench.
Thank God.
He rested his forehead against the wall and waited for his heart to settle into an easier rhythm, listening to his breath as relief swept through him.
After a minute, Jordan kicked through the mass of goose feathers on the living room floor and made his way to the bedroom in a trail of white fluff.
In the bedroom, metal coils poked out from piles of mattress stuffing. The sheer curtains lay in shreds on the bedroom floor. Every single lamp had been taken completely apart, bulbs smashed.
Good thing the house was furnished in island spare.
Standing in the doorway, he gazed at the bamboo platform bed and tried not to let memories overwhelm him. They’d tangled in those sheets, wrestled and laughed and loved with a passion he had never imagined. But now the linens were slashed and ripped. He smoothed a rough finger along a strip of what was left of the pristine white cotton.
He and Staci had been here in August.
Before. Before everything turned to shit. When he’d really thought they had a future. He hadn’t told her about his father, but he’d been thinking about it.
If only he could have let go of the nagging little niggle that something was wrong, something was off.
His instincts had been right.
In the bathroom, the lingering smell of gardenias assaulted his senses, taunting his memory.
She’d playfully lured him into the open glass shower, the floral scent on her body, in her hair. She lathered the soap and run her slick, teasing fingers over his body. They’d explored each other with murmured laughter, the rest of the world locked far away, unable to intrude.
Now, the fixtures lay in pieces on the cream granite floor; the showerhead, the jets from the tub, towel bars, toilet paper bar, all disassembled and strewn liked broken shells on the beach.
He flexed his arms, fisted his hands and thought he would welcome the chance to have a little one-on-one with the person responsible for this mess.
Deliberately, he unclenched his fists. Anger would get him nowhere. He needed to channel his rage into a cool, calm, analytical assessment of the facts.
He drew on his HRT training. No value judgments, no moral quandaries.
Emotions had no place in a sniper’s world.
The search destruction was meticulous and all-encompassing. Professional all the way.
The devastation had only one good message: they didn’t have Staci. If they did, there would be no need for the complete annihilation of her property.
Jordan realized he couldn’t let go of the idea that if he could only restore the house, then she would come back as well.
The thought was stupid and futile.
But he couldn’t leave until the place was clean.
He started in the bedroom by pulling the rest of the batting from the mattress and stuffing a garbage bag with the cotton. His mind wandered as he did the menial work.
Gaining access to the house would have been easy. Half the houses on this tiny inlet were only occupied a few weekends a year and rarely at the same time.
He heard a noise at the front door. On instinct, he reached for his weapon. A year out of the field, and he still followed training.
But of course he wasn’t carrying.
He knew that Staci kept a weapon in the bedside table. Based on the thoroughness of the destruction, odds were the small P229 was gone.
It wouldn’t hurt to check.
Carefully, Jordan put down the garbage bag and eased toward the night-stand next to the bed. He slid the drawer open soundlessly. Empty, except for an open box of condoms and some outdated Vogue magazines.
No weapon. Which meant, the ransackers had stolen it. Through the crack in the door, Jordan had a clear line of sight.
“Oh, dear Lordy.”
He heard the whispered epithet, recognized the voice of Staci’s housekeeper, and relaxed his ready position.
“Neli?” he called softly, hovering in the shadows, peering though the slit, waiting until she showed herself.
In case she wasn’t alone.
“Dat you, Mister Jordan?”
“Yeah.”
Neli tentatively tread into the living room. There she stopped, pivoted around in a slow circle. “Did yuh make this mess?”
“What do you think?”
She shook her head slowly back and forth, as if she couldn’t believe the devastation. “My poor beautiful house,” she wailed.
He waited another beat before deciding she was alone and not guilty, then walked cautiously into the living room. “This the first time you’ve seen it?”
She stared at him, anguish in her gaze. “It’s awful.”
Jordan thought about possible surveillance measures
on the house. Thought about the methodical precision with which every single item in the house had been stripped and destroyed.
The effort behind this search meant time, money, and training. With the resources already expended, the logical assumption would be they also planted a bug. He wasn’t touching this conversation inside where anyone could be listening in.
“Outside,” he barked.
He yanked open the floor-to-ceiling glass slider and stalked out onto the cream stone patio. Waves crashed against the shore while seagulls squawked lazily, dipping and swooping into the surf for their lunch.
Jordan studied the pergola.
They hadn’t neglected the outside either.
Neli paced around the patio, her jerky movements irritating him on some subconscious level. Finally she twisted around to stand awkwardly to his left. He pivoted away from the interior of the house. Even if there was a camera or bug out here, the sound of the pounding waves should mask their words.
“Why haven’t you been here before now?” He kept his voice low so she would have to lean in to hear.
“Miss Staci, she called me about a few weeks ago and said not to worry about cleaning the house for some little bit. Knew she wouldn’t be back.” Her gaze skittered away from him.
She was lying.
The question was--about Staci calling or about when she called?
“Really?” He crossed his arms over his chest, flexing his muscles and expanding his shoulders. At six foot three he could be pretty damn intimidating. “Have you seen her since?”
“I’ve been talking to you every day, haven’t I?” She countered, fluttering around the patio like a dragonfly on speed, picking up chair cushions, trying to stuff batting back inside. “Just look at dis mess.”
Her distress at the destruction was clearly real. However, she hadn’t answered the question.
“What yuh doin’ here?” She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him.
“Staci is...missing.” He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, but a tiny tremor rippled through. Ruthlessly, he suppressed the betraying quiver. “I’m looking for her, any place I can think of.”
“She’s missin’?”
He went for shock value. “Presumed dead.”
“Dead?” Neli fell back a step, her head canting back to her right, then looking around again at the shredded remnants of Staci’s patio.
Interesting. She hadn’t considered Staci being dead. Why not?
“Her other house in Massachusetts was trashed as well.” He analyzed her reaction. “Whoever did this may be after her.”
Neli squeezed her hands together as if in prayer. “She in danger, yuh tink?”
“Yeah. Grave danger. I want to help her.” She clearly needed help. “Has anyone else called you about Staci?”
She blinked, her lashes moving in slow motion. “No.”
“You’re sure? No one called with a seemingly benign inquiry, like the newspaper or utility company or...the phone company?”
“Well, the electric company called because my phone number is on record for emergencies, sayin’ they wanted to put her on some monthly maintenance plan.”
“What did you tell them?”
“They’d have to talk to her when she was in town.”
“Did they ask when she would be here?”
“Why, they did.”
They’d been pretexting Neli, fishing for information about Staci. “You didn’t give them details, did you?”
“No. I know how to keep me mouth shut.” She firmed her lips, making a locking motion with her long brown fingers.
“She’s in danger,” Jordan said urgently. “I want to help her.”
Neli shifted again. “I never thought about that phone call. I hope I didn’t mess up.”
He interpreted her words, heard the worry. If she didn’t give them information, why was she worried about messing up?
Suddenly he realized her appearance was awfully convenient. How had she known to show up exactly when he was here?
He grabbed her by the shoulders, feeling the bony outline of her thin body through the worn cotton dress. “Where is she?”
Neli shook like a palm tree shivering in the aftermath of a hurricane. “Please don’t hurt me, Mister Jordan. Please don’t hurt me.”
Fear, sweat, and lemon furniture polish rose from her skin.
The feeling of being watched trickled over him. He should know better. Hadn’t he done surveillance on narcos from nine hundred feet away?
“How did you know to show up here, right now?”
“I didn’t know you’d be here.” She bent back, trying arch away from him. “Please, please don’t hurt me. I got a child.”
“Tell me what I want to know.” Impatiently, he tightened his fingers on her shoulders and pulled her up, toward him. His voice was low and rough as he forced his face right up to hers. “How did you know I was here?”
“I...I....”
She tried to hunch away again, the whites of her eyes stark in her shiny black face. His grip was too strong and his will too fierce.
“Please, don’t hurt me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to know how you knew I was here.”
Her breath jerked out of her body in great huge bursts. “I was,” gasp,
“cleaning,” gasp,
“Pearsons' house,” gasp,
“heard,” gasp,
“car.” Her eyes rolled back in her head and her body went limp beneath his hands.
“Shit.” Jordan lowered her carefully to the wicker chaise lounge. He put two fingers to her neck and felt the rapid fluttering of her pulse. She’d be okay in a second. Terrific. He’d scared a little housekeeper so badly, she’d passed out.
Jordan rubbed the back of his neck and from his crouch swept his gaze around the patio. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling of being watched.
A camera could be hidden anywhere in this mess. If they’d wanted to make a move on him, they’d had ample time.
He stood, stretched.
Jordan bent down and checked on Neli again. Her breath was slow and deep, her eyelashes fluttered.
“The Pearsons' house,” he repeated. Jordan pictured the layout of the street in his head, stared into the floor-to-ceiling plate glass window, and then toward the neighbor’s house. Where Neli had been working, where she’d looked when he said Staci might be dead.
The neighbors.
Jordan pounded down the shell driveway, shoes crunching loudly as he sprinted toward the other house.
He ripped open the side door of the Pearsons' house and tore through the elaborate kitchen and ornate rooms.
But the house was empty.
A lone can of lemon furniture polish and a rag rested on an end table near the windows. Jordan lifted the rag and looked toward the window. From here, there was a clear view into Staci’s house.
Maybe it really was that simple. Maybe Neli had been cleaning here, happened to see him walk in, and come to talk to him.
Shit. This had been a total waste of time.
But he wouldn’t, couldn’t give up on finding Staci.
He refused to believe the decapitated woman in the picture was Staci. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. The scar was missing.
Staci was alive.
He felt the truth in his soul. He would know if she were dead, he thought fiercely. He wouldn’t rest until he found her and made sure she was okay.
Jesus, he was a mess. His sniper's calm was completely trashed by worry. He needed to slow down and think.
Little things had started to add up after their fight, after she’d left, after he’d learned she worked for the CIA.
She had been more paranoid, more protective of her privacy and more cautious than he’d ever realized. As each detail stripped away his blinders, he acknowledged he’d been taking note subconsciously and ignoring signs from the beginning. Her requests to keep their relationship private, their almost clandestine meetings in plac
es other than D.C.
What he’d intuited as a sense of adventure and travel had really been attempts for them to be together outside of her main home city, Washington.
Reviewing their conversations, discussions about how to deal with the threats against the United States, he had begun to piece together what she really did for the CIA and his suspicions weren’t pretty.
If he was correct, she’d been a recruiter, recruiting on several different levels. One level for the CIA and on another level, she’d recruited potential terrorists. He figured the CIA tracked and turned those recruits later on, assuming they could catch them before they committed a grievous act against the US or their allies. Those recruits would be infiltrating groups who wished the U.S. harm, without realizing that the government was watching them and recording their contacts.
Where Jordan had been working to mitigate and eliminate terrorist threats, Staci had been actively developing new recruits.
Jordan and Staci’s positions really had been polar opposites. He’d just ignored the clues. And while he actively disagreed with what she had been doing, in the end, her job didn’t matter to him. What mattered was Staci was in trouble.
He was honor bound to help her, without tipping off the CIA that he knew she was alive. He’d go home. And start trying to dig into those private computer files he knew existed in her hidden office in the attic. He’d find the link, he’d find the leak, he'd find whoever was searching her houses. He'd find her.
He’d make amends for their final, bitter confrontation. Then they’d be done. He could move on.
If the process ripped a hole in his heart, so be it. He’d right the wrong.
As he left the Pearsons' house, Jordan could swear he smelled the faint scent of gun oil.
NINE
September 15
Nassau, Bahamas
The Nassau airport hallway had an industrial feel, walls either a soft, pale yellow or a warm cream, dingy from years of incessant heat, dust from the field along the airstrip, and the insidious dirt of thousands of travelers.
Security personnel inspected every bag with a languid, inattentive sweep of the bomb detection cloth and less interest in the luggage contents than a teenager listening to their parents drone.
