Her husband tried to laugh away her concerns, but his laughter didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Nothing. Forget I said anything. I’m just being paranoid.”
On impulse, she added, “Eddie, don’t go back. Stay here with me. I’m sure we can get you out of your commitment. We can call Kyle. He’ll be able to help. Please, don’t go back there.”
“No. Kyle can’t help. I have to go, babe. It’s my turn,” he told her simply.
“Your turn? Your turn for what?”
He leaned over and kissed her sweetly. “It’s my turn to die.”
“Eddie...” She reached out to touch him, but he disappeared before her eyes.
“No! Eddie, no!” Reyna cried out, and then an instant before she could hold him one last time, she awoke.
She was crying. It was just a dream. She’d had that same one dozens of times since Eddie’s death, reliving those final words he spoke to her before he left for Afghanistan. Each time after she awakened, she was no closer to finding the answers she was desperate for than when they had first told her about Eddie’s demise.
Reyna struggled to shake off the dream’s heartbreaking effects. She realized she was alone in the SUV. Jase was nowhere in sight. It was just getting light out and they were in Eldorado parked just down from a rundown café.
Where was he? Her heart slammed in her chest. Had he deliberately gone along with her plan to retrieve the laptop, and once he had it, he’d turn her over to the people following her? She’d been foolish to trust him.
Her panic became paralyzing. She frantically searched through her bag and found the key where she’d left it. Still, he could have convinced the storage clerk that he’d lost his key.
She had to get away before it was too late. Reyna grabbed the tote bag and quickly got out of the Land Cruiser. She started running toward the diner. She had no idea what she was doing.
She reached for the door when it opened and Jase emerged, carrying a bag and a couple of coffees.
He stopped dead midstride when he saw her. “Are you okay?” he asked in concern when he spotted the tote bag.
He’d gone for coffee. Relief made her limbs weak. He’d driven straight through the night. No doubt, he was exhausted and needed the caffeine.
“I just wanted to get some air,” she said in a wobbly voice.
Jase pointed toward a couple of tables near the diner. “Do you want to sit for a bit? It’s nice out and there’s no one around right now.” He glanced down at his watch. “It’s still early, and, according to the waitress, the storage facility doesn’t open for another half hour.”
Reyna forced a smile. “Yes, that would be nice. Thanks.”
He took the tote from her and pulled out one of the chairs. “I’ve got cinnamon rolls and coffee. I hope you drink it, otherwise...”
Reyna was touched at the somewhat awkward yet chivalrous way he treated her. She had gotten the impression that he spent a lot of time alone—he clearly wasn’t used to having people around. At any other time, she might have found his behavior charming.
“Thank you. Coffee’s perfect.”
He handed her a cup and opened the pastry bag. When he unwrapped a couple of cinnamon rolls, her stomach growled, reminding her of the length of time that had passed since she’d eaten.
“They look delicious,” she said.
He grinned at her. “Help yourself. There’s plenty.”
Reyna took one of the cinnamon rolls and dumped sugar and cream into her coffee. With the coffee stirred to perfection, she took a bite of her cinnamon roll and closed her eyes.
“That good, huh?” He chuckled at her ecstatic expression.
“They’re wonderful. Of course, part of it could be that I really don’t remember the last time I ate anything.”
Jase pulled his coffee close and took a sip without answering. She noticed he’d changed out of his bloody clothes.
He spotted her staring at his shirt. “I keep a change of clothing and some emergency supplies in the back of the Land Cruiser. In the mountains you never know when you’re going to get caught out in bad weather.”
She nodded. “How’s your shoulder?” She could tell he favored it.
He grimaced. “A bit better. I switched out the bandage. It’s stopped bleeding...just hurts like crazy. But I’ve had worse on a good day in Afghanistan.”
She accepted his attempt to make light of his injury. Eddie had been the same way. Always the protector, never wanting to ask for help. It came with the territory. She couldn’t imagine the horrible things they had witnessed.
She glanced around at the picturesque view before her. “You know, Eddie and I always talked about seeing the mountains one day...” A whimsical smile crossed her face.
“Really? Where did you guys want to go?”
“All over really. Eddie wanted to come to Colorado.” Her expression sobered. “I wished he could have seen this. He would have loved it here. Minus the drama, of course.” Tears were close and she struggled to hold them back. “It’s hard going on with your life without the person you love. It’s so unfair.”
Jase nodded. “Yes.” Something akin to grief came and went. She remembered Eddie telling her once about Jase and Abby’s romance. She couldn’t imagine the pain he’d gone through. Losing the woman he loved while having to go into hiding himself.
Reyna tentatively touched his hand. “Eddie mentioned that you and Abby were a couple.”
He grew tense. A muscle worked in his jaw and he didn’t answer.
“What was she like?” Reyna prompted because she realized she wanted to know about the woman he’d once loved.
For the longest time, she wondered if he would answer. He stared at the table, looking into the past. “She was...beautiful and strong and she could hold her own against any obstacle thrown her way. I think I fell in love with her the moment I met her.” A hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I still can’t believe she’s gone,” he murmured. “The worst part was I never got to say goodbye.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks,” he said, and cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Can you think of anything you may have forgotten to mention yet? I’ve been mulling over what you told me in my head and nothing adds up. It would help to know what we are up against.”
She liked the way he used the word we. It made her feel as if she wasn’t in this alone anymore. She thought about everything that had happened since Eddie’s death. One thing in particular stood out. “There is something, but I’m not sure how it fits with anything. Shortly after Eddie died and I moved back to Stevens, Texas, someone new showed up at my church. A man. Former marine, he said, and he looked the part. The weird thing was it was as if he went out of his way to be my friend.” She released a breath. “At first, I didn’t think much of it. He seemed nice enough. Told me his name was Frank. He was pleasant to talk to until he mentioned something that caught my attention and sent my radar up.”
“What was it?”
She hesitated, and he reached for her hands and clasped them together in his. “Please, let me help you.”
The feel of his fingers entwined with hers sent an infusion of warmth flowing through her. She slowly nodded. She so desperately needed his help. “We were exchanging stories about the war. I told him some things Eddie mentioned to me and then he said something about the battle that resulted in your...disappearance, almost as if he’d been there himself, but that’s impossible, because Eddie told me there hadn’t been any military backup...” She stopped and looked at him.
Reyna could see this troubled him. “How did a former marine know about a failed secret CIA mission? Unless he was on a fishing expedition for someone. Did you ever see him again?”
She shook her head. “No. Something about his aggressive behavior sent up warning signals. I stopped going to my church because of him. He called a coup
le of times after that, but I didn’t answer. I don’t know how he got my number...” She stopped. “I guess that’s a really silly question. He probably had it on file somewhere.”
“I’m sure,” he said, glancing up at a group of people passing by.
“There’s more,” she added suddenly.
“Like what?”
“To start with, right before Eddie died I received a package in the mail. There was no return address. When I opened it, I found the watch Eddie’s grandfather gave him when he graduated high school. There was a note inside that read, ‘Take care of it for me.’ Jase, Eddie never took that watch off. Needless to say, that scared me, so I tried to reach Eddie but couldn’t.”
“Maybe he just wanted to keep it safe,” Jase reasoned. “A war zone can be pretty violent.”
“That’s what I thought until I found out Eddie was killed a few days later. Then there’s the fact that it took more than three months for the military to release Eddie’s belongings.” She recalled the callous way they’d delivered her husband’s possessions. “I came home from work one evening and there was a box sitting on my porch with Eddie’s name on it. It took over two and a half months before I could bring myself to open it without falling apart. When I finally did, lots of things were missing.”
“Such as?” he pressed.
“Eddie’s phone. His tablet. Some personal items. There was a picture of us taken while we were on our honeymoon at Virginia Beach. Eddie kept it with him always. Even his wedding ring was missing, along with some letters I wrote to him shortly before he died.” She paused for a moment. “There were only a few articles of clothing, his tags inside. But that’s not the scary part. Shortly after I reported Eddie’s missing belongings to the military, those men showed up at my doorstep late one night.”
“That’s when you left your home?”
“Yes, that very night. They scared me to death, Jase.” Her lower lip trembled and she bit down on it. She’d seen some pretty frightening things as a doctor, but what had happened to her that night kept her awake at night. “I was terrified I’d lose my freedom if not my life.”
Jase squeezed her fingers. “I can imagine.” The strength she felt in his callused hands helped her continue.
“They told me if I didn’t produce the laptop soon they’d be back and have me arrested for treason and I’d never see the light of day again—or worse.”
Anger flared in his eyes. “That was a bluff. They have no authority over you. They were trying to frighten you.”
“Well, it worked. I knew I had to leave. I borrowed Sara’s car, found the laptop and headed for Colorado.”
Suddenly wary, Jase looked at the growing number of people milling around. Tourists were pouring into the town and it was becoming harder to determine who might be a possible threat. In the short time they’d been talking it had started to snow again.
“We need to go. This place is getting crowded. Let’s get the laptop and get out of here while we still can.”
* * *
Jase stopped in front of a store window and pretended to glance at the items on display while carefully studying the people passing by. He was trying to make sure they hadn’t been followed from the café. To call less attention to themselves they’d decided to walk the short distance to the storage facility.
So far, no one around them set off his internal radar.
He glanced at his watch. “The place should be open by now.”
Over the noise of the crowd, it was impossible to hear much. They turned the corner onto another street and he was happy to see there were fewer people.
“How did you and Eddie meet anyway?” Jase asked, mostly to keep her mind off the possible danger they faced. Eddie had once told him they’d met very young.
Reyna didn’t seem to mind the distraction. “I was in first grade and Eddie was one grade ahead of me. My family had just moved to Stevens. I was the new kid in school and I was incredibly shy. Eddie took me under his wing and showed me the ropes. We became inseparable from that moment on. We were in junior high when he told me he was going to marry me.”
“And he did.” He smiled down at her.
“Yes, he did.” Something dark and turbulent entered her eyes. “Back then he was so carefree. He loved life so much, but in those last few months before he died, Eddie changed drastically. I barely recognized him.”
“How so?”
“When he came home on leave before the final mission...he’d lost weight. He wasn’t sleeping. He was restless.” She sighed wearily. “Whenever we’d go out anywhere, he was constantly checking the rearview mirror as if he thought someone was following us, and when we were home, he’d make at least a dozen trips to the living room window, looking for...something. He was petrified, Jase.”
None of the behavior Reyna mentioned sounded like the upbeat man Jase remembered. “Did he say what he was so afraid of?”
“No, and I begged him to tell me what was going on, but he said he couldn’t. It was best I didn’t know. He spent hours in the garage. I asked what he was doing but he wouldn’t say.” She glanced up at Jase. “And he talked in his sleep a lot. He had terrible nightmares where he kept repeating someone was killing off the original members of the Scorpion team. He said it wasn’t what it seemed. Do you have any idea what he meant?”
His expression froze in place. If only he could answer that question. He glanced ahead of them, but really he was right back in the war zone reliving those last few fateful missions as he had so many times before. Searching for answers just out of his grasp.
“You do know what he meant. What happened, Jase?” she pressed. She’d seen something in him. He’d given it away. One incident in particular stood out in his mind. It still haunted him. Like it or not, Reyna was just as embroiled in this as he was. She had the right to know everything.
“We were deep in enemy territory, searching for stolen weapons,” he said in a barely audible voice. “This was sometime before Eddie joined the team. We’d set out on foot. The team spread out in groups. We had drone footage confirming the weapons were in a warehouse less than eighteen hours earlier.” He took a breath, let it out slowly.
“Abby and I circled to the back side. Benjahah, our Afghan guide, was with us. When we raided the place, we took fire.” He scraped a hand across his face. “Benjahah...he simply disappeared. I thought maybe he was hit because he was there one minute and then...he wasn’t. We ended up capturing five insurgents. A handful escaped. The scary part was the weapons that had been there a short time earlier had disappeared into thin air.”
She stared at him wide eyed. “Where did they go?”
“My guess is someone knew we were coming. They made sure the weapons disappeared. We were wrapping up the mission when I spotted Benjahah coming out of the woods. The same direction as some of the men who escaped had gone. He was out of breath and looked guilty as all get-out.”
“Did you confront him?”
“I did.” Jase’s mouth twisted bitterly. “He said he’d become surrounded by the enemy and he couldn’t escape so he hid because he was scared they’d capture and interrogate him. In the past, Benjahah was fearless. I could tell he was lying.”
“Unbelievable,” Reyna huffed.
“Yes. I started thinking back to before that mission and I remembered how many times Benjahah had simply disappeared for a few hours while we were inactive. He said he was visiting friends, but I think he was meeting with his terrorist contact.” He shook his head. “Anyway, it wasn’t too long after the incident that members of our team began to die. First, it was Thomas and Mason. Both were killed during a failed weapons mission.” Back then, Jase had still believed their deaths had been in the line of duty.
Losing two agents so suddenly had left a hole in the unit. Jase had recruited Eddie to fill the void.
“After Thomas and Mason died Eddie joined th
e team. Soon after, Benjahah left the team. He said he wanted a change. I found out later that he died in an enemy attack outside of Beirut.”
Reyna gaped at him in amazement. “Do you think he was part of what happened to the team? Why would they kill him if he was helping them?”
“Maybe he became too much of a liability so he had to be silenced.”
Reyna shook her head. “So you think Eddie was right. Someone was systematically taking out members of the original Scorpions.”
He cleared his throat. “I believe so. After that final attack that killed so many of our team and shattered my leg, I was airlifted to a military hospital stateside. Kyle met me there and told me my days were numbered. The people responsible for taking out most of the team hadn’t been successful in killing me abroad, but they weren’t going to stop until they completed their mission.” His face blanched as he forced the words out.
“I remember how shocked Eddie was to learn about your death,” Reyna told him. “He was so certain you would recover. When we found out you’d died from your injuries, he took the news very hard.”
Jase tried to read Reyna’s reaction but couldn’t. Did she think him a coward? “Kyle came up with the plan to fake my death. If it hadn’t been for him getting me out of the hospital when he did, I believe I’d be dead now.”
He saw the shock in her eyes. “It’s true, Reyna. The day before I...disappeared, someone came into my room pretending to be a doctor. I was in bad shape and in and out of consciousness. Kyle just happened to stop by. He’d been keeping a close eye on me. The man claimed he was there to administer a new medication.”
Jase could see he had Reyna’s full attention.
“Kyle suspected the man was lying. The more he questioned him, the cagier he became. Kyle attempted to take him into custody, but the man went crazy. He shoved a food tray cart in front of Kyle and managed to escape.” Jase raked a hand through his hair. “That made it real for me. One way or another, Jase Bradford had to cease to exist. Kyle had a friend, a doctor who worked at the same hospital. He signed my death certificate. Kyle made the official announcement and then he smuggled me out of the hospital one night and took me to a cabin in Montana for rehab. Later he arranged the memorial service.”
Rocky Mountain Secrets: Rocky Mountain Sabotage ; Rocky Mountain Pursuit Page 23
