by Loye, Trish
She pulled the sleeping bag aside and found books—about twenty paperbacks with curling edges and ripped covers stacked into three piles. She looked over the titles. “So you liked mysteries,” she murmured, recognizing a few of the authors. “What else do you have in here?”
Shifting the cardboard further out of the way, she moved into the core of Rob’s space. A coffee cup with change in it sat next to the books. She couldn’t find much else. She turned back to the books and went through them, not sure what she was looking for beyond a distraction from what had just happened.
Her chest tightened at the thoughts trying to intrude, and she refocused on Rob’s belongings. She found a couple of JD Robb’s suspense books in the pile and highly approved as she moved the books one by one, shaking them to see if any papers came out. She inched forward, kneeling on the newspaper covering the alley floor, and felt an edge against her leg. She pulled newspaper aside and discovered a hardcover journal.
A cursory flip through it showed legible handwriting in the beginning and entries dating from more than three years ago. Cramped handwriting covered every inch of the pages at the back of the journal, along with heavily scratched-out sections.
A scrape of a shoe on the pavement behind her made her stand. It was Mr. Almadi.
“Dear lord, Alyssa. What happened to you?” He waved a hand toward her face.
She touched the cut above her eye that the paramedic had taped closed with butterfly adhesive. There was a definite lump there now. It was probably coloring up nicely, too.
“A situation at work,” she said. “I’m okay.”
“You young women these days are tougher than I was in my prime.” He smiled, but it disappeared as he looked behind her to Rob’s destroyed home. “I haven’t seen young Rob around lately. Do you think he’s gotten off the street finally?”
From the look on his face, Alyssa could tell that he didn’t believe it. She debated what to tell him and decided on the truth. “Rob was killed a few days ago.”
Mr. Almadi stepped back. “That poor boy. He had a good soul.”
Alyssa walked closer to him. “It was four days ago, in the evening. Did you see anyone strange around the alley then?”
He shook his head. “I’m always inside by dinner. But my wife might have come out with Prince Charming, her poodle.” He waved a hand. “Damn dog looks more like a rat with curly hair.”
“Will you check with her, sir?”
“Of course,” he said.
Her head began to pound in earnest. She waved goodbye and headed up to her apartment with Rob’s journal. After locking the door, she swallowed some Advil and flopped onto her couch.
Her phone buzzed with a text message from her brother.
Call me or I’m on the next flight to NYC.
Crap. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before dialing his number.
He answered immediately. “Are you okay?”
He knew. How could he? She pressed her lips together as the answer came to her. Zach. Interfering bastard.
“Hi, Jake,” she answered, forcing a light tone. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You were almost blown up.”
She gritted her teeth. “Don’t make a big deal about this, Jake.”
“Are you serious? You were almost killed.”
“Jake, listen to me. I’m fine. I’m working on a case,” she lied. “I can’t talk right now.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “We will talk, Lyssa, when your case is over. No more putting me off.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Jake.”
“I’ll see you soon. Stay safe.” He hung up.
She’d been avoiding Jake since she’d come home. He’d been recuperating from his injuries in the first year and then he’d been busy at his new job at E.D.G.E. It had been easy to steer clear of him. She had a feeling it wouldn’t be so easy anymore.
She sighed before picking up Rob’s journal. She flipped through his entries from the beginning. Most were of a young soldier adjusting to Army life. It detailed friends, hated sergeants, and girls he liked. She got a sense of who Rob had been before: a fun-loving guy without too much thought for the future, but a large sense of responsibility.
Then he’d been shipped to Iraq. She frowned. He’d been stationed in Iraq the same time she had.
She bolted upright on the couch after reading one entry.
I can’t believe it. They’re dead. I would be too if I hadn’t had to take a piss. We’d gone to the fucking market on a whim. The new guy wanted to see it. Fuck! Why did we go?
She checked the date. The day after the bombing at the souq that had changed her life.
The first explosion knocked me unconscious. And the second almost took my arm. It did take all my friends. Who the fuck would do that?
Why did we go?
Holy shit. Rob had been at the bombing in the souq. That day had ruined so many lives. Sorrow overwhelmed her for the boy he’d been before the war had changed him.
“I will bring Al Shabah to justice, Rob. I promise.”
* * *
Alyssa woke to pounding and buzzing. She blinked, trying to sort out the sounds. She lay on her bed fully dressed. She’d come in to lay down when her head had started to ache too much.
Her phone buzzed on the bedside table and someone pounded on the front door, while her pulse hammered behind her eyes.
“Can’t a girl get some peace,” she said, pulling herself out of bed. Judging by the light filtering in her bedroom window, it was early evening. She checked the caller on her phone.
Zach. She stomped to her door and flung it open. There he stood, phone in one hand, the other a raised fist ready to continue battering her door.
“What?” she said.
“You’ve got a possible concussion—”
“I’m fine.” She turned and marched to her kitchen. More Advil.
He followed her. “You can’t just go to sleep with no one around to check on you.”
Damn. She should have closed her door. “You’ve seen me. No brain bleeds here. Now go away.”
“I’m not letting you hide away without help.”
She gave him a humorless smile. “You’re going to help me hide?”
He scowled. “Why are you so infuriating?”
“Why do you care?”
“You’re my friend’s sister,” he said. “I told Jake I’d look after you.”
“Is that why you called him? Thanks for that, by the way,” she said sarcastically.
His eyes narrowed. “I had to tell him. He’s your brother, and my friend.”
She crossed her arms. “And what about sneaking behind my back and telling the captain that I have episodes? Is that looking after me?” Her skin radiated heat from the anger building inside her. She pulled a glass and her scotch down from the cupboard.
“You’re going to drink with a concussion?”
“I like to live dangerously.” She swallowed some of the fiery liquid, relishing the burn down her throat. “You should try it sometime.”
“You think I play it safe?”
She snorted. “Hell yes. You couldn’t take a risk if you were ordered to. How the hell you became a special ops guy is beyond me.”
He stilled. She swallowed more single malt, glaring at him.
“You know my background?”
She shrugged. “Enough. You worked with Jake. You’re obviously tied to special operations. But you play by the rules. That’s not going to catch Al Shabah. You need me, only you’d have to break a rule to get me back on the task force and that you can’t do.”
He stepped up close, but she refused to back down. She set her drink down and looked up at him. Damn, he was tall. And powerful.
“You take too many risks,” he said quietly, his intent gaze capturing hers. “Being in the special ops is about calculated risks. I don’t endanger my team. Ever.”
She sucked in a breath. “I’ve never endanger
ed my team.”
“We are hunting a bomber. You’re fighting flashbacks every time you get a whiff of black powder. If you freeze, your team has to look after you.”
“Screw you. You’re so big on loyalty to your team, and yet you betrayed me today.”
“I didn’t betray you. I protected you.”
“I don’t need your protection!” she yelled.
“You were almost killed today. You need protection.” He gripped her arms. “Alyssa, I think Al Shabah is targeting you.”
She shrugged off his hands. “Bullshit. Why would you think that?”
“Because I’m Qatil Atfaal.”
17
Zach stepped back from Alyssa, all the anxiety from today draining away and leaving just a hollow shell. He felt brittle. He looked at her scotch. “Pour me one of those?”
She did and handed him the glass, her face impassive. “Give it up.”
He took a drink and then set the glass down, staring at the countertop, noting the silver flecks in the creamy marble.
“It happened three years ago. It was actually my last assignment in JTF2 before I went to E.D.G.E., where I work now with Jake. I was in Iraq on a protection detail for the Canadian ambassador. He had a meeting at city hall. I’d advised against such a public location, but was overruled.”
He took another swallow of scotch, hating what he needed to tell her. “I was in charge of the outside detail. A man approached. He was holding a little boy’s hand. The boy skipped to keep up with his father.” He paused, recalling the heat of the day, the people pushing past his G-Wagon. The vehicle looked like an armored jeep, and had an opening in the roof where he’d stood watching the crowd, hands on his rifle. “My partner stood at the gate while I watched the perimeter. Two others roamed the street while the other team stayed inside the compound.
“The boy had caught my attention when he laughed. Then I noticed the father. He hugged his middle with his free arm.”
He swallowed more scotch. “He walked fast, staring at the gate’s checkpoint. Ten soldiers stood there, as well as a group of local police. I signaled my partner, but he couldn’t see the father and son through the crowd.”
His senses had gone on alert when he’d seen the tense look on the father’s face. “I fired a warning shot over the crowd. People ducked and ran. Some just huddled where they were. Typical responses.” He took a deep breath. “But not this guy. He just held onto the boy’s hand and kept walking.” Zach’s gut tightened—the same reaction he’d had that day, when he’d seen the man coming toward them. “I can still see that kid’s eyes so clearly,” he whispered. “They were a pale blue. I remember thinking how unusual that was.
“The boy started crying, but his fucking father dragged him on.” He set the scotch down and put his palms on the cool marble of the counter. “I had to bring up my rifle and target them. I yelled for him to stop.” He looked up at her and then looked away from the pity in her eyes. She’d guessed what he was.
“I yelled over and over. The guy didn’t stop. So I put him in my sights. I hated having to kill the guy in front of his kid, but I couldn’t let him get any closer.” He stared at the scene in his mind. He’d focused his breathing and lined up a head shot. He couldn’t risk anything else, in case he hit a bomb by accident.
“I took the shot.” He drew in a ragged breath. “I didn’t know he had a deadman switch in his hand.”
Alyssa didn’t say anything in the long silence that followed. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
“The explosion wasn’t big enough to do more than kill the man and his son. Everyone else had already cleared away from them.”
Zach didn’t want to see Alyssa’s face, to see the horror of knowing what he was. A child killer. It was something that happened time and again to soldiers, no matter how they fought against it. Innocent lives were lost in war.
“A woman in a burqa screamed the name Nasir over and over. Another soldier held her back. She started screaming at me, calling me Qatil Atfaal. Child Killer. Then the whole crowd began chanting death threats at me.” He shook his head. “It was all over the news that a coalition soldier had killed a five-year-old. No one wanted to hear about his father, who’d been wearing a bomb.”
Alyssa’s hand curled around his shoulder and squeezed. “You had to protect your men.”
He dropped his head down, unable to agree.
She filled his glass with more scotch. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “You want me to drown my sorrows?”
Her lips twitched, but then she sobered. “No. I want you to join me in a drink to the dead.”
She poured more in her glass and then raised it. “To the innocent. They’re why we do what we do.”
They clinked glasses and drank. She walked to the couch and he followed.
“So you think Al Shabah was in the crowd that day?”
Zach shrugged. “Perhaps. My face and the title Qatil Atfaal spread like wildfire. Fucking cell phones. They swore I’d intentionally killed a child with no remorse. Everywhere I went, I got insults and garbage thrown at me. But it was when someone opened fire that I was pulled from the assignment and sent home. I’ve avoided any public assignments in the Middle East since then.”
She frowned and sipped her scotch. “Even in the first message, Al Shabah mentioned Qatil Atfaal.” She tapped her fingers on her leg. “This is all about you, then.”
He shook his head. “No, not just me.”
“But you admit, it’s partly about you.”
He sighed heavily. “Yes.”
“So how did Al Shabah know you were in New York?”
“He must have seen me,” Zach said.
She nodded. “He probably set up the flashbang incident in Central Park to see if you would show. Which means he’s watching the bombings somehow.”
Zach smiled grimly. “Then we might have caught him on a security camera.”
Alyssa faced him with her chin raised. “You should get someone working on that then.” The challenge was evident in her voice.
“I will,” he said quietly, wishing that they didn’t have to be on opposite sides of this conflict. “I’m sorry.”
She set her glass down and stood. “About betraying me?”
He stood too, their truce evidently over. “I didn’t betray you. I never wanted you on medical leave.”
Her eyes grew stormy. “No, you just wanted me out of the field.”
“Come in tomorrow,” he said. “See Dr. Martinez, and then come work in the command center. I’ll clear it with Captain Marin. We can use you.” He ached to draw her closer, to make her forgive him.
“Just get out,” she said.
He shook his head. “Do you have someone who can stay with you?”
Her hands clenched into fists. “I was cleared by the paramedic. I’m not a child, and I don’t need you to take care of me. Now get out.”
He sighed and left without saying anything else, knowing it was over between them before it had even really begun.
* * *
Alyssa surveyed the notes she’d made on the case over the last two days. They lay in an organized mess over her coffee table. Her headache was gone, but she still hadn’t slept well since the bombing. That would come in time, she knew.
Today, she’d woken up at five in the morning and hadn’t been able to sleep. The phone calls had started at eight, which she’d ignored until just now, when she saw the latest text from Zach.
Tell me you’re okay or I’m going to send a patrol car to check on you.
Though her head no longer ached, she rubbed her temples anyway as anger rolled through her. Zach had been keeping tabs on her since the incident.
I’m fine. Now leave me alone.
She watched her phone, but there was no answering message. She attributed the hollowness inside her to relief. She poured herself a cup of coffee and opened the paper to the crossword, deciding that there was no way she was seeing the smug Dr. Martinez today. She’
d call the captain later and see if she could work around this.
Her cellphone rang again and she threw down the paper, snatching it up. “I told you I’m fine!”
There was silence on the other end. She quickly checked the caller ID. Unavailable.
“Hello?” a timid voice said. She recognized it, but couldn’t quite place it. “Detective Harrison?”
“Yes,” she said.
“This is Beth Reynolds from the shelter? You gave me your card, remember?”
“Yes, I remember. What can I do for you?”
“You asked us to report anything suspicious and…well, it’s probably nothing.”
Alyssa grabbed a pen and paper from her coffee table. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“Frank and I asked some of the men who come in, you know, about anyone approaching them on the street to run packages. Like you told me to. And one of them had been approached. By a man with darker skin and a beard. He had some kind of accent. Does that help at all?”
Excitement curled in Alyssa. “Is the man still there?”
“No, I don’t think so, but David’s here. I asked him to stay. He’s the man who was approached. Do you want to come speak to him?”
Alyssa grabbed a pen to jot down information. “I’ll send an officer-”
“No,” Beth said. “He doesn’t like uniforms. I don’t think I can keep him if he sees one.”
“Do you think you can keep him there for me?”
“I’ll try,” she said. “Why don’t you park around back? So he doesn’t get spooked.”
She dropped the paper and pen back onto the table. “I’m on my way.”
* * *
Zach looked again at Alyssa’s text. It was noon, and he hadn’t heard from her since she’d told him to leave her alone.
“Would you stop looking at that thing?” Marc said from where he sat at the next monitor. “You’re like a teenager with a crush.”
Zach growled at him.
“Grayson,” Agent Masters said from the doorway of the Global Intelligence room. “I wanted a progress report. It’s been two days and we have nothing.”
