Scorched

by Laura Griffin

  He unwrapped the second taco and nodded at her basket. “Try your food. It’s good.”

  Elizabeth reached for her drink, refusing to be bullied. She took a long pull through the straw and let the Coke cool her throat. She felt hot under her blazer, and it wasn’t just the summer air—it was the way this man seemed to know just how to push her buttons.

  He balled up a piece of foil and dropped it in the basket. “He’s with Kelsey.”

  Her heart skittered. “Where?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  She studied his expression, looking for signs that he was lying again. But he was a trained operator, and she had no doubt he’d gotten rid of any tells years ago. Evasion wasn’t just a tactic he’d learned, it was a conversational skill, as exemplified by the fact that he’d shared this bit of information with her. Kelsey Quinn was alive. Elizabeth hadn’t known that for certain until just that moment. He probably thought she’d be so distracted by this news that she’d lose sight of her objective.

  “What evidence have you got to back up that warrant?” he asked.

  “It’s rock solid, and that’s all I’m saying about it.” She watched that sink in. “If you care about your friend’s welfare, you’ll help us locate him before this becomes a nationwide manhunt. That would be something that could tarnish his rep.”

  Something flared in his eyes. She could tell she’d struck a nerve. But then he shook his head with more of that country-boy attitude that she wasn’t buying at all. He was scared for his teammate.

  “Tell you what,” he drawled. “Let me give him a call, see what I can find out. Maybe he’s on his way home.”

  “Call him now.” She pulled the BlackBerry from her pocket and plunked it on the table.

  He gazed at her for a long moment. Then he picked up the phone. He glanced down at it and dialed a number with his thumb.

  Elizabeth watched him and listened to the tinny sound of ringing on the other end. Someone answered the phone.

  “Evergreen, Illinois,” he said. “I need a Thomas Davenport.”

  Derek held her gaze as the call connected. Meanwhile, her mind raced. Gage had a sister in Evergreen. She’d seen the woman’s name in the file but couldn’t remember it now.

  “Brooke?” Pause. “Hey, it’s Derek Vaughn.” A smile spread across his face. “Pretty good. Can’t complain. How ’bout y’all? . . . What’s that?” He pressed his finger in his ear. “Sorry, the reception’s bad. Say that again?”

  Elizabeth watched him talk as she tried to recall Gage’s background. He was the oldest of four, and his two brothers—along with his parents—lived up in Chicago, where Gage had grown up.

  “Carrie, your order is now available. Carrie.”

  “What’s that?” Derek stood up and stepped around the side of the restaurant. Elizabeth strained to listen. “Yeah, sounds good. Hey, listen, I’m looking for Gage. He shown up yet?” Pause. “Yeah, he told me he might drop in on you guys.”

  Elizabeth glanced at her watch and considered the timeline. Could he have driven all the way to Illinois by now? They’d been monitoring the airlines but had no sign of him taking a flight, either domestic or international.

  “Cole, your order is ready. Cole.”

  Elizabeth strained to eavesdrop on the call. The skin at the back of her neck prickled. She jumped to her feet and rushed around the side of the building.

  Her BlackBerry sat on an empty picnic table. Derek Vaughn was gone.

  CHAPTER 10

  The sun was setting over the mountains as Gage sped down the desert highway. He looked at Kelsey in the seat beside him. She hadn’t said a word since leaving the motel.

  “What’s your obsession with this Weber?” he asked.

  “I’m not obsessed.”

  “I’ve put five hundred miles on this car today.”

  Kelsey looked away. After a moment she said, “I don’t know. I just think he’s the key.” She turned to face him. “Don’t you ever get an inkling about something? Something that could just be nothing?”

  Gage did. He was known for his inklings, in fact. His teammates called it his frog vision—that inexplicable sixth sense that had kept him and every other frogman on his team alive on more than one occasion.

  “Anyway, this could be a wild-goose chase, but I don’t think it is,” Kelsey said. “The phone calls, the last-minute plane trip . . . The timing of everything on the weekend of Blake’s murder. I think it’s possible it’s all connected, don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer. He’d learned a long time ago that possible and probable weren’t nearly the same thing. But either way, he wasn’t sorry to be here. Kelsey was safer when she was with him, and his chief objective at the moment was to keep her bullet-free, even if that meant spending the first leave he’d had in months driving through Bumfuck, Utah, with a woman who was treating him like a leper.

  He glanced over at her. She looked good. Healthy. A little heavier than when he’d last seen her a few months ago. He hadn’t mentioned it because he knew she was touchy about stuff like that, but he liked her with a little meat on her bones. When he’d seen her at Joe’s funeral, she’d just come from a Third World country where she’d been digging in the dirt for a month, probably subsisting on rice and bananas.

  She glanced at him. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  She looked out the window at the sun, which was quickly vanishing behind the mountains. “What’s your best guess? What do you think he’s mixed up in?”

  Gage gazed ahead at the dusty highway. “Could be anything. Trafficking, maybe. Weapons, people, drugs. Possibly a combination.”

  “Or it could be he’s some kind of protected witness.”

  He glanced at her. “So, what are you planning to do? Knock on the door and tell him you’re with the Census Bureau? Ask him if he runs dope for a living?”

  “Any cars on the property might tell us something,” she said, ignoring his sarcasm. “I can get a friend of mine to run any plates we see to find out who he associates with. And then, I don’t know, maybe we can observe him for a while and see what he’s up to.” She looked down at the map and then glanced around. “Turn here, up at the juncture.”

  Gage rolled to a stop. “Which way?”

  “West.”

  He turned toward the fading daylight. “What makes you think he’s a protected witness?”

  “My friend at Delphi told me his background seems slippery.” She sighed. “On the other hand, maybe Charles Weber has nothing to do with anything and we’re wasting our time.”

  “Anything that helps get me out of a murder rap is a good use of time.”

  She didn’t respond. He glanced at her, and she looked stricken.

  “They’re not really serious about that, are they?”

  “Seemed serious to me.”

  “But I thought you had an alibi.”

  “I do, but it’s not perfect.”

  She gazed out the window. “I’m really sorry you’re involved in this.”

  For a few minutes, they drove in silence. The tires rattled over the old road. Gage looked at her.

  “You know, you could have just told me,” he said.

  She glanced at him and then turned away.

  “That’s what was wrong, wasn’t it? When you slapped me with that ultimatum about leaving the teams?”

  She flipped the map over. “You should check the odometer. This is showing two point five miles until the next driveway. That should be his.”

  He fixed his attention on the road. Clearly, she didn’t want to talk about this, which was pretty ironic since she was the one who had brought it up. Of all the women he’d known, Kelsey was the least woman-like when it came to talking about relationships. She avoided it. Maybe it had something to do with her dad dying when she was little—he wasn’t really sure. But in the two years he’d known her, she’d never been much for talking about her feelings.

  Which made her little outburst earlier all the m
ore startling.

  I was in love with you. I wanted to spend my life with you . . .

  Gage had picked up on the past tense—kind of hard to miss. The “was” she’d thrown out there didn’t bode well for his chances of getting her back into bed.

  He’d also picked up on the fact that she’d been hoping for a marriage proposal. That came as a surprise. Obviously, he’d realized she’d wanted to get married—her engagement five minutes after their breakup had tipped him off to that. But he’d never really thought she wanted to marry him. Kelsey was devoted to her career. So was he. It was understood that for both of them, the job came first. Working for the Delphi Center, she had one of the top positions in her entire field, and the idea of asking her to pull up stakes and move to California—one of only two places in the country where SEALs were based—had never seemed realistic. Hell, the whole idea of marriage had never seemed realistic. Someday down the road, maybe, but not now. And definitely not eight months ago when they’d had the big fight that ended their relationship.

  A fight that Gage now thought had been carefully orchestrated to do just that.

  He’d hurt her feelings, so she’d lashed back at him. Me or the teams, Gage. It’s your decision. It had been like a declaration of war. He’d been so pissed off over it that he hadn’t ever stopped to think about what was behind it. Looking at her now, he realized maybe she was right. Maybe he should have tried to talk to her about all the shit he’d been through that summer. She’d been in war zones before. She’d been to Iraq and Rwanda and Sudan as part of her humanitarian work. She’d seen death up close.

  But talking about stuff like that had never been easy for him. He preferred to pop open a few beers with his friends and let it fade to the background. Or when Kelsey was around, he preferred to peel off her clothes and forget about everything.

  “Hey, that’s it,” she said as he sailed past a turnoff.

  Gage took his foot off the gas. “You sure?”

  “Number Four Cactus Ridge. There was a four on the mailbox. And there isn’t another house for miles.”

  Gage glanced in the rearview mirror at the wooden structures—a house and several small outbuildings, plus a large barn that was the same weathered gray color as everything else.

  “I wonder why he needs a mailbox and a P.O. box.”

  “Who knows? Maybe he’s paranoid about privacy.” She glanced around. “I doubt it’s a ranch. I haven’t seen so much as a cow in the last half hour. I’ve barely seen a car since we left Briggs.”

  He sped up again.

  “Don’t you want to circle back and do a drive-by?”

  “I want to do a walk-by.”

  She looked surprised.

  “Boots on the ground,” he said. “Best way to get intel. But I think I’ll wait until sundown just in case he’s skittish about visitors.”

  He drove another minute and found a wooden sign advertising a copper mine two miles ahead. The sign was practically falling down, and he’d bet the mining operation was in similar disrepair. He parked the SUV behind the billboard and rolled down the windows before cutting the engine.

  “What are we doing?” Kelsey asked.

  “Waiting for dark.”

  She glanced over her shoulder and then turned to look at him. “We’re just going to sit here?”

  “’Less you want to fool around.” Gage pulled the pistol from the holster at the small of his back. He checked the magazine. He glanced at Kelsey, who looked annoyed, as he’d intended. He figured if she was ticked off at him, she’d put up less of a fight about staying in the car.

  They said nothing as dusk settled over the arid landscape. He closed his eyes and listened, letting his brain acclimate to the native sounds. No cars. No people. The aging billboard beside them creaked and moaned with every gust of wind. Then the gusts died down and all was silent except for the distant, tambourine-like noise of a rattlesnake.

  “How many surgeries did you have?”

  He glanced at her. He’d known she’d ask about it eventually, but he hadn’t expected her to talk about it now.

  “Two,” he said. “One on the ship. That one was pretty hurried, left a big scar. Second was after I came home.”

  “May I see it?”

  “You won’t sleep with me, but you want me to strip for you?”

  She sighed and looked away. “Don’t you ever think about anything besides sex?”

  “That’s a rhetorical question, right?”

  She turned toward him and her face was serious in the dim light.

  “Okay, fine, but try to control yourself. I’ve been working out a lot since you last saw me.” He shrugged out of the button-down he’d been wearing to conceal his holster and pulled the T-shirt over his head.

  She scooted closer and her gaze zeroed in on the scar.

  “Turn around.”

  He turned in the seat and showed her his back, where the bullet had exited. “Looks worse than the front.”

  “It fractured your acromion?”

  “Yeah. Healed up pretty quick, though.”

  “And your range of motion?”

  He felt the light pressure as her fingers palpated the skin around the scar tissue.

  “It’s all right. Not a hundred percent, but close enough.”

  He turned around and sat back. Still not meeting his gaze, she pressed her fingers against the entry wound. His pulse sped up, and he resisted the urge to pull her into his lap.

  “You’re lucky.” She glanced up and her eyes were somber. He didn’t answer. It had been a strange experience. He’d spent years living with the prospect of taking a shot, but thinking about getting shot and actually getting shot were two different things.

  She looked away, and he pulled his clothes back on. He surveyed the sky and saw the first wink of a star. He pushed the door open and switched off the interior light.

  “I’m guessing fifteen minutes in, fifteen out,” he said. “Plus twenty to look around. If I’m not back in an hour, drive back to the juncture and wait for me.”

  “Nice try.” She shoved open the door and hopped out.

  Gage muttered a curse and followed her. “You need to stay here.”

  “This was my idea. I’m coming.”

  “This is a straight recon mission. I could do it in my sleep. I’ll be in and out of there in no time.”

  “We’ll be in and out of there.”

  “No, we won’t.”

  She crossed her arms. “Two pairs of eyes are better than one.”

  “Kelsey.” He used his lieutenant’s voice. “Get back in the car.”

  She set off in the direction of the road and Gage cursed again. He hadn’t counted on her staying back, but he’d hoped for it. He grabbed the car key and caught up to her.

  “Stay behind me,” he ordered. “And no talking until we see if anyone’s there. Place like this, voices carry.”

  “Got it.”

  “If you see or hear anything, signal. Keep a lookout for dogs. I’ll try to approach downwind, but any dog will probably hear us coming. There are plenty of animals out here, so a few barks shouldn’t raise too much alarm, but try not to squeal.”

  “Squeal?” Her teeth flashed white in the dimness. “They teach you that in BUD/S? Try not to squeal if you see the enemy?”

  “You want in on this or not?”

  “Yes sir, Lieutenant. I want in.”

  “Then quit being a smart-ass and follow me.”

  Gage ducked through a barbed-wire fence and set out for Weber’s house, choosing a route that had them approaching from the west, where he’d be less likely to expect visitors. He picked his way carefully over the desert terrain. The ground was flat and dotted with cacti. Vegetation was sparse and low, but Gage used what little there was to help conceal their movements as they neared the buildings.

  He’d noted three small structures on the way in, but now he counted four—three outbuildings and a modest-size house. There was also a barn, but as Kelsey had po
inted out, there didn’t seem to be any livestock nearby. Whatever Weber was doing here, it wasn’t ranching.

  They neared the buildings. No barks, no slamming doors, no distant cars approaching. Everything was dark, except for the yellow lightbulb glowing above the back door. No cars or trucks that Gage could see.

  Kelsey moved along behind him with surprising stealth. She wasn’t bad at this, but her presence was distracting. Gage didn’t want to be thinking about her when he needed to be focused on gathering intel. His senses were on high alert. There was something odd about this setup. What was Weber doing out here that had attracted the attention of a federal agent? If he was trafficking something, Gage saw no hint of it. From what Gage had observed, this was a shitty location for smuggling anything. They were more than fifty miles from the nearest interstate, so any regular back-and-forth of people or vehicles would likely attract the notice of area residents, not to mention the local sheriff.

  But maybe the sheriff was on the take. Stranger things had happened. They wouldn’t be here at all if Kelsey hadn’t witnessed an FBI agent snuffing out one of his own.

  By the time they reached the first outbuilding, Gage was almost certain no one was home. The structure looked like a storage shed. The door was held shut by a rusty padlock, but the hardware was a joke and it would have taken one swift kick for Gage to bust through it. Not a likely hiding spot for anything valuable.

  The second building was a greenhouse, and Gage stopped to peer through a dusty windowpane as they crept past. In the faint glow from the porch light, he saw a tangle of leafy plants that were obviously being watered on a regular basis.

  Gage motioned for Kelsey to stay in the shadow cast by the third outbuilding. She obediently melted into the darkness. He walked the perimeter of the house and returned to the back porch, where he paused to listen. No cars. No dogs. He looked through a window into the kitchen, where a light shone down into a sink filled with dishes. On the floor were several large garbage bags overflowing with trash. He took out his pocketknife and checked the window, and was surprised once again when it opened with a faint pop.

  Kelsey emerged from the shadows and gave him a what are you doing? look. He shoved the window up. Then he hoisted himself onto the sill and slipped inside, easing the window down behind him.