Jack Be Quick (Strike Force: An Iniquus Romantic Suspense Mystery Thriller Book 2)

by Fiona Quinn

  “But it’s not.”

  “It’s not. That’s the only thing I can say for sure.”

  “I’ve got to find Suz and talk to her. In person.”

  A nurse stood at the bathroom door where Lynx was on the floor, tying Jack’s boot on his good foot. “Can I ask what’s going on here?” Her hands landed on her hips, and she looked thoroughly put out.

  “Ma’am there’s an emergency. My fiancée is . . . I have to get to her right now. Can you please help me fill out the papers I need to sign to leave?” Jack turned his husky-blue eyes and his husky smooth tones on the woman. The combination had rarely failed him.

  “The doctor said that maybe you would be released this evening. He hasn’t gotten to you on his rounds yet.”

  Jack reached for the woman’s hand. Lynx pursed her lips and raised her brows. Jack didn’t often use this trick unless he needed it in the field, but it seemed he was pulling out all the stops. He looked deeply into the woman’s eyes and said softly, “The woman who holds my heart in her palm is in imminent danger. Nothing will keep me from her side. Please, I’m asking for your help.”

  The nurse pulled her hand free, her entire body stance had changed. With a nod of determination, she stalked out the door.

  Lynx rolled her eyes. “I hate it when you guys pull that cheesy, soul-searching romcom crap on women.”

  “It works, though,” Jack said.

  “Sadly true.” Lynx pushed to standing. “Hopefully it will this time, anyway.” Lynx pulled out her cell phone. “It’s twenty-two hundred hours. Suz’ll be in bed. But let me try one more time to get her by phone Okay? I don’t want you to lose your job over a misinterpreted knowing.”

  Jack’s phone vibrated on the table beside his bed.

  “There, see? I bet that’s Suz now, calling to tell you good night.” Lynx brought Jack’s phone to him.

  The screen showed a phone number that Jack didn’t recognize. He held the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

  “This is Ken Meter, Bethesda PD, trying to reach James McCullen.” His voice was loud enough that Lynx heard, she reached over and touched the speaker button so she could listen to the conversation. Jack cleared his throat; it wasn’t often that someone called him by his given name. “This is James.”

  “Mr. McCullen, your name is listed on Gillian Molloy’s DMV records as a person to contact in case of an emergency.”

  Jack’s body stiffened, and Lynx moved to put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

  “This is not an emergency, Mr. McCullen. It’s just that we responded to a noise ordinance call at Miss Molloy’s residence. Her dogs are barking and causing a disturbance. They’re in a pen that is set up between her house and the garage with a chain link roof over the top. And it seems the only way to get to the dogs is through the house itself. Animal control doesn’t want to snip through the fencing – it looks like a quality pen. No one’s answering the door and with this weather, the dogs are in physical distress. We thought you might be able to bring the dogs into the house. Get the them out of the cold. Give the neighbors some peace and quiet so they can get some sleep.”

  “Yes, officer, absolutely. I’m about twenty minutes away, but I’m heading there now.”

  After signing off, Jack looked at Lynx. “She’d never leave Dick and Jane alone outside. Especially in this cold.”

  “Agreed,” Lynx said. “Someone needs to head right over, but I think I should call Panther Force and have them meet me there. You should get back in bed.”

  “Did you really think that plan would fly with me?” Jack asked.

  “No, but I had to try,” she said, gathering up Jack’s things and heading toward the door.

  The nurse scuttled back in with a clipboard in her hand, thrusting a pen in Jack’s direction. “I explained everything to the doctor.” She held up an infrared thermometer. Standing on her toes, she aimed it at Jack’s forehead. “Dr. Newcomb said if your temperature was normal, you could go.” The nurse looked at the reading.

  Jack saw it glowed red with 99.7F in the window.

  “Perfectly normal,” she said as she brushed a tear from her face. “Good luck.”

  Lynx rolled her eyes behind the nurse’s back. As Jack reached for the pen to sign the papers, Lynx pulled his pack over her shoulders. “I’ll jog ahead and pull the car around to the front door. You go slow. If you get anymore broken than you are now, you’ll be of no use. Got me?” Lynx gave him a pointed look then headed out the door not waiting for his response.

  They drove in silence toward Suz’s house. Lynx made the twenty-minute drive in fifteen minutes flat. Jack’s seat was pushed back as far as it would go to accommodate his leg, but he ended up having to release the clasp on his brace, forcing his knee to bend enough to shut the car door. He caught a glimpse of his face in the side mirror. He was nearly white beneath his tan. Pain shot through him in waves. His hands splayed out on the console as if he could push the car to go faster. Anxiety rolled off of him, and he knew it was hitting Lynx’s highly-tuned sensibilities hard because she was plastered up against her door, putting as much distance as she could between them.

  Jack had been in combat situations for the last seven years, seen his friends injured and killed, been pulled back from the brink himself, anything that a human being could do that was evil and horrific to another – he had seen, but none of it ever felt like this to him. He was a different person altogether thinking that something wasn’t right with Suz, that she might be in danger. He relished the power of adrenaline surges on a normal day – but today, he was awash in a fear that he had never experienced before.

  Lynx pulled up as close as she could to the sidewalk and opened the back door to pull out Jack’s crutches.

  “We’re here!” she called over to the officer who seemed to be getting an earful from the antique lady who stood in slippered feet and a robe in the twenty-degree weather, her hair done up in pink plastic curlers.

  Jack reached for the crutches that Lynx extended to him, and he jerked his head toward the officer. Lynx turned and went to play diplomat. Jack pulled his keys from his pocket and made a beeline for the front door. On the way, he noticed the garage was open, and Suz’s car was parked where it normally was parked.

  The front porch light was off – something that Suz never left unattended when she was at home. The interior lights were on, but the drapes had been pulled tightly closed. None of this was normal. Jack wished Lynx had brought him a side arm. He felt naked as he twisted the key in the lock. He stood at an angle next to the door frame when he pushed the knob. It was a habit that had been drilled into him over years of clearing buildings in hot spots in case someone inside was watching, and waiting. and willing to take a sucker shot at whoever pushed that door open. Standing on the front porch, Jack let his eyes scan the entrance way. Normal. He turned his gaze on Lynx which she picked up immediately and turned to look his way. He tipped his head toward the interior.

  Lynx rubbed a hand down the old lady’s arm, wiggled her fingers in a good-bye, and turned to jog his way. Along the path, he saw her reach into the conceal carry pocket on her jacket as she hustled up beside him. He let her take point as she button-hooked into the room, cleared the corners, and he hopped in behind her.

  Through the dining room and into the kitchen they progressed with practiced moves. Lynx opened the side door so the dogs would come in, and they’d stop their barking. Dick and Jane were up under Jack’s feet quivering with cold and excitement to see him. Lynx continued checking the house.

  “Clear,” she called from Suz’s bathroom. Then walked back to the kitchen. “Don’t move anything you don’t have to Jack. Something’s off in here.”

  “Besides a distinct lack of Suz, what did you pick up on?”

  “Her computer is booted up in the office. She has a suitcase sitting outside of her closet that she’s been filling from a summer box that she pulled out. And her engagement ring is sitting on her bed on top of a letter that says only, “Deares
t Jack.’”

  Jack jerked toward their bedroom, the crutches clacking along the wooden floors. Sure enough, there was her lavender stationary with his name written in Suz’s curling script across the top – Dearest Jack, —and nothing more. And there was her ring. He reached out and lifted it to his lips. It was cold. She hadn’t worn it recently. What would make her take it off?

  He hadn’t seen her since he left on his mission. Had only received confirmation that she was headed to the hospital via text. Then he was in the operating room. She hadn’t visited him since he was awake. He thought he hadn’t seen her because of St. Basil’s. But that made no damned sense. None of this picture did.

  Lynx had followed him as far as the second bedroom where Suz had her desk and bookshelves and wall of plastic rolling drawers where she kept supplies to put together art projects for her kids. Lynx called back to him. “Her computer isn’t password protected?”

  “No,” he said, standing in the middle of their bedroom doing a slow scan for things out of place. True he was only here when he wasn’t on assignment. But it felt like home to him. His things were in the drawers. His shampoo was on the shower rack. . . but somehow, right then, he felt like he was no longer welcome, and it shook him to the core. Jack wondered if the medications they had been giving him at the hospital was messing with his system. The sensations he was experiencing physically and emotionally weren’t things he had known before. He cleared his throat. “No that’s her house computer. She hated the extra step of logging in.”

  “Well I’m in her account history. Her last email is to Emma Todd,”

  “That’s her best friend in Coronado.” Jack called back, staring at the engagement ring hoping for a clue about what this all meant.

  “Suz sent Emma airline information. According to the email, she’s leaving Reagan International Thursday morning. The departure time for zero-eight-hundred hours. That would explain the warm weather clothing. Maybe she wanted to get out of town what with Hound News trying to make her into public enemy number one instead of a hero.”

  Jack moved to the office door. Cold brushed over him. “She’s going home then?”

  “No, she’s going to St. Marten’s. They’re going to meet down there. She and Emma. Or that’s what it says here in the email. Ten days at the Warm Breezes All Inclusive Spa and Resort. Look, they get unending food and drinks. This looks like fun. Probably exactly what she needs, a Pina Colada on the beach, her best friend, some sun. Good for her.”

  “It doesn’t explain anything. The dogs. The drapes.”

  “I’m. . . huh, here’s something interesting. She went on Travelocity earlier today at 14:29 . . . She purchased two tickets to Brazil.”

  “Brazil? What? From St. Martens?” Jack tried to squeeze his large frame into the overcrowded room, so he could see the screen.

  “No from out of Reagan, they’re landing in Brasília, and then they have another leg to Foz do Iguaçu.”

  “When?”

  Lynx tapped at the computer. “Uhm, looks like she should already be in the air over the Gulf of Mexico.”

  She turned the screen, so Jack could see it better.

  4:40 pm – 7:35 pm

  Washington (IAD) – Miami (MIA)

  American 2536 · Boeing 737

  Average legroom (31")

  Often delayed by 30+ min

  9:10 pm – 5:45 am (+1)

  Miami (MIA) – Brasília (BSB)

  TAM 8043 · Boeing 767

  Above average legroom (32")

  Overnight flight

  “But her suitcase is here.” Jack went back to her bedroom and checked the top drawer where she kept her passport and her emergency cash. The cash was there; the passport was gone. He called her phone again, desperate to talk to her. The sound of a thunderstorm rose from the bathroom sink. It was sitting under a picture of him that was laying face down on the counter. “Her phone is here.” He called out. He looked at the text history, the last one she had sent out was Suz letting him know she was on her way. That was Sunday before his operation. He opened her phone history. The list of incoming calls was long. Outgoing, she had called home to her parents’, her sisters, and Emma, Monday evening. She had called Iniquus, Tuesday morning at 09:46 hours. She hadn’t called him.

  He didn’t know what to think of that.

  He looked down and saw both lids were up on the toilet, as if a man had taken a leak. But when Jack looked in, there was a splash of goo near the rim that looked like vomit that hadn’t been swept down with the flush. Jack touched her toothbrush. It was wet.

  Jack went back to Suz’s closet and checked her suitcases; they were both there. She had been packing her green case, her bikini, some shorts and sundresses. This made no sense. He looked down to the empty spot next to her shoe tower. Her zombie bag was gone.

  “Lynx come here I need you to puzzle something through with me.”

  Lynx rounded the corner.

  “Her bug-out bag is gone.” Jack pointed to the empty closet corner.

  “Okay this is getting strange.” Lynx moved over to stand where Jack had pointed. “Here, move out of my way.” She put her hands on his elbows as he jostled sideways out of her way. Then she turned, and to his eye, it looked like she was pretending to reach into the closet and heft out the bag. She stepped over the suitcase, around the box of summer wear, and mimed flipping the bug-out bag onto the floor. “She would have had to adjust her grip here.” Lynx squatted down, feigning the bag was in front of her. Her gaze scanned the area, she put her cheek on the floor. “Here we go.”

  Lying flat on her stomach, she reached under the bed and pulled out stray items: a lighter, matches, a machete, a Leatherman, lithium batteries, a KABAR fixed blade knife, eight filled magazines, and the Ruger LCP .380 that Suz swore she would never touch. “Not even to stop a pudding-headed zombie from chomping on my leg,” Suz had sworn. Jack thought that if that zombie was chomping on his leg or on Dick and Jane, she’d probably change her tune. But there had been no reason to press her. He’d just stowed the weapons in their various holsters attached to the front flap of the bag for ease of access.

  Mace and a stun gun were the last two things Lynx pushed into the open. “What do all of these things have in common?” Lynx asked as she shimmied her way back out and came to her knees.

  “Things she can’t take on a flight. Things she could use to defend herself. . .”

  “It looks like she took her go-bag to Brazil.”

  “What the hell?” Jack stared down at the assortment that Lynx had pulled into a pile. His mind ran through the items he had stowed in the bag. “Is there a SAT phone under there?”

  Lynx lay flat on her belly and pushed herself all the way under the king-sized bed. “Do you know a Samuel Jones?” she called out from underneath.

  “No.”

  “That’s the name listed as her travelling partner.” Lynx said, squirming back out. “She kept the SAT phone? That’s good, right?”

  “She may not remember she has it. It’s in the pocket behind the solar panels, plugged in to a charger. It’s not readily obvious that there’s a pocket there. You’d have to know about it to find it.”

  “She won’t have much battery life if the pack’s been sitting in the back of her closet.”

  “Yeah but since she’s pulled it out, maybe it’s gotten enough charge that I can pick her up on GPS.” Jack was tapping at his smart phone, while Lynx continued her slow process of looking for clues.

  “It was brief. But there was a ping around 16:00 at Reagan International. It looks like her zombie apocalypse bag was heading out of town.”

  “We don’t know that Suz was with the bag. Or the phone was with the bag for that matter. Maybe Suz changed her mind on a whim and wanted to go to Southern Brazil.”

  “You think she left the country to fly to Brazil with a guy I’ve never heard of before, without telling me she’s going, when she has plans to meet Emma in St. Marten’s in two days for drinks and giggles?”<
br />
  “Okay, devil’s advocate. If Suz was taken against her will, and without any obvious signs of an intruder or violence, one would speculate it was a professional. Why wouldn’t the professional clear the history off the computer? Or for that matter, take the computer with him or them?”

  “. . .Because her name and passport would be registered with the airlines so what did it matter? It would be traceable.”

  “It did matter. No one would have known she was gone until she didn’t show up in St. Marten’s and Emma called to find out what happened – that would be Thursday. They’d have a two-day lead. And then there would be time to get the police motivated and the paper work – warrants etc. into place. So if they took her, they weren’t concerned about time. And honestly, if there was a bad guy involved, they wouldn’t have left these weapons loose and available to grab. You gave her some pretty high-end hardware to just kick under a bed. They don’t need money or they’d’ve take the weapons. Her engagement ring, her jewelry, her cash, it’s all here.” Lynx raised her brows. “A hostage situation where they don’t care about taking her money or covering their direction? What kind of person would do that?”

  Jack shook his head. “Nothing that’s running through my head makes any sense. But I’ve been mainlining pain killers. This is your deal. You’re the puzzle master. What do you think happened?”

  “Surface information says this was just what she wanted to do. It was her decision to go to Brazil. The only thing that stands out as truly odd is her dogs, to be honest.”

  Jack leaned his weight into the wall and pinched at his lip. His eyes scanned the room. His mind scanned the details. “She didn’t take her phone.”

  “That’s odd thing number two – unless she was fed up with people calling her about St. Basil’s and being in the CIA.”