Dead Reckoning

by Stanalei Fletcher

  The director lifted his gaze. For an instant, defeat filled the old man’s face, and the pit of Egan’s stomach went ice cold. Then, the director’s eyes got that candid glint Egan was so accustomed to and locked on like a laser.

  Egan held his stare. Silence hung between them like an impenetrable curtain.

  Finally, O’Neal cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming.” His gaze strayed to the photograph again.

  The unexpected courtesy had Egan mentally backpedalling. He swallowed. “Your message sounded…urgent.”

  O’Neal nodded slowly. “Yes.” His face looked as if it was carved from dull granite. The man wasn’t simply getting older, he was old.

  Not knowing what else to say, Egan waited. No matter how he felt about the man now, Egan credited Byron O’Neal with saving him from a journey of alcoholic self-destruction. Because of that intervention, his brother’s death was no longer an open wound. Egan would never forgive himself for Rory’s death, but he was learning to cope with his loss.

  At that moment, he realized why he’d come after O’Neal’s phone call. Why he would always come. As much as the two of them disagreed on certain things, he owed the man. Perhaps more than he could repay in this lifetime.

  O’Neal sank heavily into his chair, the leather protesting with a small squeak. “I’ll come straight to the point, Maddox. I need your help.”

  Egan barely controlled the whoosh of relief. Although he didn’t need this job, he didn’t want to fail here as he’d failed in the Navy. However, he wasn’t quite ready to give O’Neal the satisfaction of knowing how anxious he’d been. “I haven’t made any decision about returning to work yet.”

  O’Neal pursed his lips. “I’m not twisting your arm to come back to Northstar. Although, Lord knows, we could use you. Whatever you decide is completely up to you.”

  “Then what do you need?”

  Clasping his hands together, O’Neal leaned forward on his desk. “This request is unusual and must be handled delicately.”

  Egan narrowed his eyes. “Delicate isn’t my forte. You, of all people, know that.”

  To say his last assignment to retrieve a couple of AWOL seamen hadn’t gone well, was an understatement. As a former Navy SEAL, honor, courage, and commitment had been his creed for too many years to go easy on the young men once he found them. One of the sailors was the son of Congressman Folk, a prominent California congressional representative. Egan had broken Ensign Folk’s nose after he’d attacked Egan with a crowbar. The politician had somehow kept his son’s misconduct off the books and threatened Northstar with a lawsuit.

  Even though the kid had broken Egan’s leg, Northstar’s rules of conduct involving clients compelled O’Neal to reprimand his agent for “acts unbecoming.” O’Neal had suspended Egan from active field operations to recover and to rethink his attitude.

  Egan felt O’Neal had compromised the firm’s integrity. He blew up during the post-op debrief—grabbing the nearest chair, breaking off the armrest, and then quitting his job. O’Neal had rejected Egan’s resignation and insisted on a two-month leave of absence, instead.

  “I’m asking for your help as a personal favor.” O’Neal’s strained voice interrupted Egan’s thoughts.

  Egan raised his eyebrows.

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” O’Neal continued. “And all expenses will be covered.”

  Egan’s gut tightened again. As his employer, the director didn’t need to ask for favors. Most favors didn’t require monetary compensation. “What exactly are you asking me to do?”

  O’Neal took a deep breath and held it. His face looked ashen, his eyes full of desperation. “Kellee is missing. I need you to find her.” The raw announcement came out in a rush.

  Egan’s memory of his last encounter with Kellee punched him in the solar plexus. Hard. How he’d treated her, what he’d said…

  Questions about what had happened to her swirled in his head, but he held his tongue. O’Neal would deliver the details. It was what the man did, day in and day out, preparing his agents for missions.

  “No one has heard from her for two days,” O’Neal said heavily. “And this morning, a man was found dead in her apartment. There was blood everywhere.”

  “Apartment?” The question came out harsher than Egan intended. “I thought she lived with you?”

  The director slowly shook his head. “She moved out.”

  A band across Egan’s chest seemed to squeeze all the air from his lungs. “Is the blood Kellee’s?”

  O’Neal swallowed. “Too soon to know.”

  No wonder the director looked like he’d aged twenty years.

  Icy sweat slid down Egan’s spine. He stood and reached for a pen and notepad on the desk. “I’ll head over now. What’s the address?”

  “Panama City, Florida.”

  Egan’s head whipped up. “Good God, man. That city was right in the path of Hurricane Igor!”

  O’Neal slapped his palm over the notepad. “Damn it, Maddox. Don’t you think I know that? I’ll give you the details if you’ll stop barking at me.”

  Egan tried to wrap his head around O’Neal’s news. “So, she left town?” He didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. “Because of what I did?”

  O’Neal grimaced. “I wish I could blame you. But, no. I didn’t want her to train as an agent, so I sent her down there to get away from Northstar.”

  “She’s too young to be an agent.” O’Neal should keep his only daughter away from dangerous assignments Northstar typically handled.

  “She’s twenty-five, two years older than Riley was when he started.”

  Egan swallowed. Riley—Byron’s son, and second-in-command of Northstar. He must be frantic about his missing sister. Stepping away from O’Neal’s desk, Egan’s SEAL training took over. “Give me the details.”

  Settling in his chair, O’Neal looked up. “I called in a marker with a friend and got her a job with Collins Services, a private investigation agency.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Whatever they had available,” O’Neal said.

  “You didn’t dissuade them from taking her on as an operative?”

  “No.” O’Neal sighed. “I figured she needed a little space—to work for someone besides me. I hoped in a few weeks she’d see she wasn’t cut out for this line of work, come home and find a different career.”

  “But you didn’t tell her that, did you?” It wasn’t a question. Egan had been around the O’Neals long enough to know their family dynamic was like a rubber band. Sometimes relaxed, sometimes stretched, and sometimes it snapped back with a bite.

  O’Neal shook his head.

  “You must have seen the news about the storm. Surely, you tried to contact her.”

  “I called all day. I couldn’t get through. We know her phone is on, but she’s not picking up.” O’Neal rubbed at a spot between his eyes. “When we couldn’t reach her after the storm passed, I called Collins. He had no idea she was missing—he thought she’d taken downtime to come home until the storm was over. Then I called the local police. When they checked the apartment, they found a man. He’d been stabbed to death.”

  “So, the blood is probably his,” Egan said, hoping none of it was Kellee’s. “Do you know who he is?”

  O’Neal’s mouth opened, then closed. He shook his head. “Riley’s down there now, working with the police on an ID.”

  Egan picked up on O’Neal’s hesitation. The man was withholding something. And Riley…What must he be going through? When Egan had lost his only brother—He stopped the thought. This wasn’t about him. He focused on Kellee.

  “Do you think her disappearance is related to a case Collins was working on?”

  “I don’t know.” O’Neal shrugged. “She might just be displaced after the storm, but—”

  Egan didn’t want to think about what O’Neal left unsaid. A person missing after this last hurricane wasn’t unusual. Thousands of people had been evacuated. She may have left
on quarrelsome terms with her father, but not contacting her family wasn’t typical of the Kellee O’Neal he knew. Factor in a dead man at her apartment…and the blood…the situation looked grim.

  O’Neal was obviously setting up two fronts. Riley would follow leads on the dead man. Egan’s job—locate Kellee. Was it a rescue or recovery assignment? Did O’Neal think she was already in a body bag? Egan balked at the thought.

  “She’s not dead,” O’Neal said as though he’d read Egan’s thoughts. “She’s alive. I can feel it. I need you to find her.” He placed his elbows on the desk and rested his forehead in his palms.

  The only other time Egan had seen the director like this was when his wife died. To this day, Katherine’s murder remained Northstar’s single unsolved case.

  “I’ll find her.” Egan knew this was something he could do to repay his debt to this man and ease his own guilt.

  “Thank you.” O’Neal lifted his head and looked him directly in the eyes. “That’s not all I need from you.”

  Asking him to find his daughter wasn’t enough?

  “Once you’ve found her, I want you to go underground. That’s why I called you. It’s what you’re good at. You must make her disappear.” O’Neal opened a drawer and took out an envelope. “Here’s some cash. Buy a prepaid cell phone. More than one, if you have to. There’s a number in there. Memorize it. When you find Kellee, call once. After that, no more contact. My daughter doesn’t exist.”

  “Isn’t this a bit extreme? If she got tangled up in a case down there, surely we can take care of it once I bring her home.”

  “Please, Egan. Do this for me.” Byron O’Neal’s pleading seemed completely out of character.

  Egan swallowed his questions. He couldn’t begin to guess at O’Neal’s agenda, but he could locate Kellee and hide her for a few days. Like O’Neal said, it was what he was good at. “How will I know when to bring her home?”

  “You won’t. Once I know you’ve located her, I’ll have an all-clear signal ready to pass along to you.”

  “Why all the secrecy?”

  “I’m not at liberty to explain. I’m sorry. Please believe me when I tell you, I don’t think it’s safe to bring her home right now.”

  “You’re asking me to find your daughter and keep her safe, but you’re blindfolding me and tying my hands.” Egan couldn’t keep the disapproval out of his voice. “This is just like the last assignment. Who am I supposed to hide her from?”

  O’Neal hesitated. “Everyone.” The older man leaned back in his chair with a sigh that seemed to deflate him. “I know it’s a lot to ask, Maddox. I believe you’re her best chance at coming out of this alive.”

  Egan’s fist found the desktop before he even realized he’d swung it. “Out of what alive? Tell me something, for God’s sake!”

  O’Neal’s eyes flashed with familiar fire. His lips thinned and gaze narrowed. “All I can tell you is what my gut says—this isn’t about a case Kellee worked. I believe my past, and hers, has finally caught up with us.”

  Chapter Three

  “Look, Missy!” Tresha pointed across the city park in Columbus, Georgia. “There he is again!”

  Missy lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the unbearable afternoon sun as she stared in the direction Tresha pointed. Her head throbbed from the dull ache that rarely eased and, for the hundredth time in the three days since the storm, she wished her injured brain would heal.

  “Ya see him?” Tresha tugged on Missy’s sleeve.

  Missy squinted at a man standing in the shade of cypress. “I think so.” He was the same man Tresha had singled out during their last stop about four hours ago.

  “Ain’t he just about the tastiest thing you’ve ever laid eyes on?” Tresha’s head swiveled to get a better look.

  “Tasty” wasn’t the word Missy would’ve chosen to describe the man’s tall, dark, and dangerous looks.

  In a threadbare sport jacket over a pale blue shirt, he should have blended in better with the bedraggled hurricane evacuees. Yet, his bearing suggested he belonged somewhere else. Perhaps the military—like the guardsmen who had helped with the evacuation. Except he wasn’t in uniform. Even his eyes betrayed him—scanning the crowds like a shark circling for his next meal.

  Somehow, in the sea of all these unrecognizable faces, she sensed something familiar about this man. Impulsively, she took a step toward him—then froze.

  “What’s the matter?” Tresha glanced at Missy, then at the man, and back at her again. “Girl, you got a strange look on your face. Do you think you know him?”

  “I’m not sure.” Missy had a feeling he was following them, maybe even looking for her.

  Tresha straightened her flowered-print blouse and tossed her long braided cornrows off her shoulder. “Well, if you know him, maybe you could introduce me to his fine self.”

  Missy balked at the thought of approaching the stranger. He must look familiar because she’d seen him at the last stop. Logic told her to embrace anything familiar. She had amnesia, for goodness’ sake! Yet, her mind whispered a warning to hide.

  Despite the oppressive heat, chills rode down her arms. This man represented danger. Instinct trumped logic. She grabbed Tresha’s arm. “Come on. Move away before he spots us.”

  “But if you know him, maybe he can help.”

  “No!” Missy whispered. “Move. Now.”

  A middle-aged couple and four teenagers passed by. Stepping in beside them, Missy sandwiched herself between Tresha and the group. One of the teenagers eyed Missy’s torn shirt with disgust and veered aside. Tresha grumbled, but Missy didn’t miss a beat and matched the group step for step until they were out of the man’s line of sight.

  The hour-long rest stop at the Columbus city park was nearly over. Everywhere they’d stopped, broken trees, bits of roofing, and debris littered the ground from countless tornados the hurricane had spawned. It seemed like the entire world was in shambles. Missy felt just as torn up.

  Everything had been in chaos after the hurricane took direct aim at the Florida Panhandle. Tagged as a Category 5, Hurricane Igor hadn’t lost strength until well inland, leaving surge zones flooded and several thousands homeless, including Missy and Tresha.

  By the time Tresha had occupied the empty seat beside Missy on the bus, she was already on the second leg of the evacuation. Tresha talked nonstop about how the hurricane had forced her to start fresh in a new city, with her aunt in Atlanta. Missy could only listen. With no memory, she had no stories to swap, no experiences to share. When the rescue workers found her, she didn’t have any identification, not even a purse. Tresha had nicknamed her Missy, saying it sounded better than Miss No Name.

  Missy and Tresha kept pace with the family group until they stopped under some shade. Missy realized they couldn’t just stand around, or the man might still spot them. She looked for a place to hide until the boarding call came. The one building that offered any concealment was the park’s cinderblock restroom. When they’d been in there earlier, they’d heard boarding broadcasts for the other buses. It seemed as good a place as any to stay out of sight until it was time to leave.

  Missy glanced over her shoulder. From this distance, she saw the man scanning another group of evacuees. With his back turned, she took the chance to move. “Come on.” Grabbing Tresha’s hand, she sprinted toward the building.

  At the doorway, Tresha skidded to halt and nearly pulled Missy’s arm out of its socket. “Hey, don’t you remember how bad it smelled in there?”

  “We won’t stay long.” Missy dragged the other girl inside with her.

  Her stomach roiled in protest as the stench of urine and other less tolerable odors immediately assaulted her senses. However, the shadowy interior was empty, and being alone for even a few minutes after living shoulder-to-shoulder with other evacuees, was a rare break.

  Dropping her backpack on the floor next to the cracked porcelain sink, Missy stared at the reflective sheet of metal that served as a mirror pos
itioned above the sink.

  Tresha scanned the ground before giving up on finding a clean spot and dropping her pack next to Missy’s. “So now what we gonna do? Just hang out here, cooking in this shithole ’til the bus leaves?”

  Missy sighed at her reflection through the filmy haze and wished something about the face staring back looked familiar. “I have a bad feeling about that man. We’ll stay in here for a minute or two, then check to see if he’s gone.” Lifting her hair away from her forehead, she leaned close to examine the bruise just below the hairline.

  “Ever since I’ve met you, you’ve had a bad feeling about everything.” Tresha leaned over Missy’s shoulder and squinted at their reflections. “I think that goose-egg on your noggin has you jumping at your own shadow.”

  “You’re probably right,” Missy agreed. The lump, prominently visible with its array of purple and blue discoloration, looked horrific. According to the doctor, it was the primary cause of her memory loss.

  Although she’d suffered a slight concussion, she’d been handed a pass to leave with the evacuees who could move under their own power. The doctor’s prognosis was that her memory should return as the wound healed. Yet, as the long hours stretched ahead, it seemed less and less likely she’d remember anything about what had happened to her or who she was. “I can’t shake the feeling,” she told Tresha. “That man is trouble.”

  “So you’re just gonna run and hide whenever something scares you.” Tresha made a face. “If it was me, and he was someone I recognized, I’d be all over him like white on milk. What’s wrong with you? Don’t you like men?”

  Blinking at the image in the mirror, Missy let out a humorless laugh. “I don’t remember.” Dark smudges accentuated exhausted brown eyes. Were those really her eyes? It still unnerved her not to recognize herself.