by Matt Lincoln
Ben nodded. “That’s why I thought of you right away when my friend told me about the sighting. I asked him to try to keep it quiet, and he told me that treasure hunts are the last thing on his friend’s mind.”
I nodded. “Why was he flying that far north, anyway?”
“They were checking the cays for shipwrecks and other damage from the storms.” Ben made a face. “Some people try to outrun hurricanes and get caught.”
“No kidding.” I shook my head. “Thanks for letting me know about this. Do they have coordinates?”
“I don’t think so, just a general area.” Ben grinned. “If you want to fly out, I might know of a couple hands you might take.”
I chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.” The humor left when I heard crying from Linda’s room. “Damn. I’m so sorry, Ben. I wish we could do more to help.”
The cheer drained from Ben’s face. He took a long swig that finished the beer bottle and then set it on the table harder than necessary.
“This could…” He cleared his throat. “The doctor’s worried about her blood pressure, and she hasn’t had much of an appetite lately. It’s not just her and me that she’s worried about, you know.”
I nodded. “I get it. She’s a mom, and she’s terrified that her kids will die.”
“We don’t even know what Ronnie is up to.” Ben shifted in his seat. “We know she was involved in your case out in Hawaii. Someday, I want to know how and why. Right now, I want to know if these people are really after her and not Robbie.”
I pressed my lips together. The temptation to give him that information made me feel like I was going to split into two. These people deserved to know what was happening with their daughter, that she was a CIA agent with skills as deadly as mine or Holm’s.
“I can’t talk about that, not even with you,” I admitted.
Holm came out from the bedroom and pulled the door shut with a soft click. His shoulders were a little rounded, and his face lacked expression. He walked over to where his dad and I waited.
“She needs a therapist,” he told his dad.
“That she does,” Ben agreed. “Let me know when you convince her because I sure as hell can’t.”
The unvoiced concern was whether Linda would have to be admitted to a hospital against her will. As long as she didn’t try to harm herself or others, she’d be fine. I couldn’t imagine her trying to hurt anyone.
I could imagine one of the New York families trying to hurt Linda and Ben, though. If they did, they’d find an unpleasant surprise in the form of Holm and me. Nobody hurt family, and Holm’s family was all I had left, too.
CHAPTER 13
Mike Birch, owner and proprietor of Mike’s Tropical Tango Hut, had begrudgingly loaned me a place in his back room for my sensitive conversations with Warner. Although it was a typical storage area for a bar, this room came with the added benefit of being secure from surveillance.
As I sat at the small table that evening with Warner, he pulled a notebook from his backpack and flipped through to the page he wanted. He set it in front of me.
“This is all I could find,” he told me. His cheeks were flushed, he tapped his finger on his thigh, and his knee bobbed under the table. “There are some strong players with sophisticated resources. I’m making progress, but it’s slow, and I have to do it on my own time to avoid tracking software at the office.”
“Everything you do is recorded, right?”
“It’s more complicated than that, but essentially, yes.” Warner rubbed his hand through his hair. “At this point, we need to focus more on the why than the who.”
I sighed in frustration. “There are only two reasons I can think of,” I told him. “Like we’ve talked about before, someone is either threatened by our existence or thinks we’re redundant.”
“MBLIS is a super-niche agency,” Warner acknowledged with a frown. “If that’s all it is, why be secretive? Go public and say that the money used to keep us afloat would be better spent on other agencies working together?” He shook his head. “There’s something bigger going on.”
“Yeah.” I’d gone round and round on why this could be happening, but nothing made sense. “It almost seems like Admiral Farr is in a pissing match with someone else.”
“He always knows more than we do.” Warner handed me the notebook and pointed at the last note. “I know he’s the one who tipped us off, but we don’t know what he’s playing at.”
The last note gave me a chill. June 15th, 1997: Fleet Admiral Donald Farr testifies to closed chamber to argue that MBLIS needs more oversight or to be disbanded.
I clenched my teeth. The testimony was more than twenty years ago, but it still stung. “Did you find anything to say whether Farr was satisfied with the outcome? Clearly, we’re still here.”
Warner shook his head. “This was as far as my clearance got me. It’s pretty tied up still. I’m working on it, but the safeguards are top of the line. If I push too hard, my ass will be in prison.”
“Shit. Don’t risk that, TJ. We need you.”
Warner rolled his eyes. “Thanks. I’m all for staying out of jail for my own sake.”
“You know what I mean,” I said with a chuckle. “I don’t want you in jail, period. I mean, we could get a new guy if we needed to, but I’m partial to this model of nerd.”
Warner shook his head. “Yeah, stay in your lane, Agent Marston. I’ll stick to the nerd jokes, and you stick to the jock jokes.”
I leaned back and laughed. The kid was getting a backbone, and I liked it.
“We’re going to get you back in our clutches,” I promised. “Once things are sorted out, I’ll make sure they get you an office with a view.”
“Director Ramsey has the only office with a view,” he reminded me. When I shrugged, a small grin crept across his face. He grabbed his notebook and then stood. “It’s nice to be appreciated for more than my skills. You guys accepted me and made me feel like I had a place. It’s like getting invited to sit at the popular kids’ lunch table in high school.”
I stood and clapped him on the shoulder. “For what it’s worth, TJ, the other kids hated me. I was a punk back then because I went through a lot of shit with my dad’s situation. My grandpa help straighten me out. So don’t worry about being with the popular kids.”
Warner left the backroom with his shoulders straighter and head higher. I had to admit that when I first met him, I wasn’t impressed, but he’d grown on all of us. We all wanted him back on the team, but figuring out who was trying to undercut our agency and why had to come first.
Mike came into the room and shut the door behind him. He took the seat Warner had just left.
“Progress?” he asked.
Normally, I wouldn’t involve a bar owner, but Mike was more than that. He’d retired from a career so secret that I never spoke about it beyond our tight-knit team members who also knew. Besides the retired Admiral Farr, Mike Birch was my other source for the occasional intel or help.
“A little. Did you know Farr had a thing against MBLIS back in the nineties?”
Mike frowned and shook his head. “There were some questions about how the agency was run around that time, but I don’t remember Farr getting involved.”
I went back to the chair I’d been sitting in, spun it, and sat on it backward. I folded my arms across the back and leaned forward.
“Warner found some evidence that Farr testified to a closed chamber. He wanted oversight or MBLIS to be disbanded.”
Mike raised his brows. “That’s news to me. Farr was always an advocate. Hell, he’d put in to be a director, if not the top guy at MBLIS. If I recall correctly, that was a little after nine-eleven.”
“Maybe the chaos between agencies made him see the light,” I mused. The lack of communication channels throughout the intelligence community was a contributing factor to the disasters of that day. I could see Farr wanting to be hands on at that point.
“Either way, it was a bad time, and
he had a goal. The administration wanted him in a different role, so that’s when he became one of the Joint Chiefs.” Mike crossed his arms. “This is a lot to digest, Ethan.”
“Yeah, it is.” I rubbed my face. “Between this, the threat against Robbie’s family, and this messy case we’re working, I’m gonna need a vacation soon.”
Mike laughed. “You and me both, boy.” He stood and went over to a shelf. “Make sure you take time to decompress. Go drive that Mustang of yours and let the fresh air give you some perspective.”
“Maybe I’ll drive her out of the city.”
He nodded as it hit me that someone else might need to get some fresh air. As soon as Mike left, I sent a text with an invitation to get out of the city for a few hours the next day. If I was lucky, Alice would say yes.
CHAPTER 14
Alice couldn’t believe she was in yet another argument with her mother. A stand in her lanai waited for Yéyé’s casket, flowers were delivered on an hourly basis since breakfast, and four of her parents’ bodyguards had arrived fresh from New York just in time for the dinner Mei had made.
“Nobody else is staying overnight.” It was the fifth, maybe sixth, time Alice protested the demand. “This is my home. I am already hosting a wake without being asked, and you and your bodyguards are taking up all the space I have. Put people up in a hotel for crying out loud.”
“You saw how well a hotel worked out for us when it killed your grandfather,” Mei shouted. “I will not have relatives stay in hotels when there is a perfectly nice home right here.”
“No. No, no, no!” Alice yelled louder than she had in years. “Push me one inch further, and there will be no wake at my house.” She pointed in her mother’s face. “You know what else? I’ll kick you, Bàba, and all your freaking hitmen out.”
Mei gasped, and a shadow fell over her face. “You will not threaten me, girl,” she hissed.
“Why? Are you going to order one of your hooligans to rough me up?” Alice gestured at a large man in the living room who had been sneaking glances at the fight. As if she hadn’t noticed. He sank as deep as he could into her sofa and stared at his phone. “It’s bad enough that you let everyone in the family know where to find my house, but to invite more people who I don’t even know? I don’t care if they are cousins, they are not staying overnight.”
Mei took a sharp breath, but Bàba cut her off.
“Enough, woman.” He set down his ever-present newspaper and stood. “Don’t you see how you’ve upset our daughter? We’ve imposed on her goodwill and home enough. Why do you think she moved so far away?”
Mei snapped her mouth shut, but her narrowed eyes promised the argument was merely on hold. Alice took a steady breath to calm her nerves.
“They’re delivering Yéyé first thing in the morning,” she reminded her parents. “After that, I am going out to get a dress and shoes for this show.”
“Now, Alice, you know it’s not a show,” Bàba chided. He raised a brow. “I thought you had plenty of clothes.”
She did, but she also had plenty of fresh air she needed to get. A handy excuse was better than flat-out telling them that she couldn’t stand too much time in their vicinity. Their class privilege and the constant reminders of their roles in the family business were too much for her to handle.
“What I wear has to be just right,” she told her parents. “I have some other errands to run as well. The wake doesn’t start until tomorrow evening. You set things up how you want as long as you don’t break or trash anything. If you need to get something out of the way, put it in my room or the garage.”
“You couldn’t tell us these things tomorrow?” Mei scoffed. “One would think you won’t be here in the morning.”
Alice snorted. “You never know. I’m going to bed now. Leave me alone.”
Without waiting for a response, she stalked to her bedroom and slammed the door. She loathed the feeling of being back home as a kid. Her mother picked fights regularly and then blamed those fights on Alice, when the truth was that Mei took obvious delight in ruffling her daughter’s feathers. It was happening again, only Alice had the upper hand of owning the house… not that it felt like she had the upper hand.
Her phone played the knock-knock sound that notified her of texts. She groaned and considered not looking. Ever since deigning to learn how to text a year earlier, Mei had taken to it like a deranged troll. The message was probably from her, but since there were other concerns, like the office where she worked or anyone from the death investigation, she was obligated to look.
“If that’s you, Ma,” she muttered, “I’m gonna throw this phone at your head.”
Luckily for Mei, the text was not from her. Alice’s heart quickened when she saw it was from Ethan Marston, the super-hot special agent who pulled Yéyé from underwater. She hesitated and reminded herself that he was the federal law enforcement agent investigating her family.
Alice unlocked her phone and opened the message.
At the interview, it sounded like you need space from parents. Want to get out of the city for fresh air in the morning? I have a friend who does Everglades tours.
Was that a date request or a law enforcement lure? In her third year at college, she dated a man who turned out to be an FBI agent who wanted to get intelligence on her family. Ever since, she was wary of anyone who got too close and wanted to know about her family.
Are you asking me on a date?
She’d learned that bluntness was far better than playing games. Ethan seemed nice. After all, he’d sat with her in the ER waiting room when her own parents hadn’t bothered to so much as swing by. Her cat liked him, and considering River had a short list of acceptable humans, that confirmed her impression that he had a good vibe about him.
Five minutes passed after she sent the text reply, then eight, and ten. Her phone knocked, and she checked the message.
Not a date—just an offer to get out of your house before wake starts. Unless you’re too busy.
She wasn’t sure what to make of the message. Was he being creepy or cute? Given her interaction with him so far, cute. She decided to try a test that she’d seen going around.
Yes to going out, but not interested in the Glades. Botanic garden?
A controlling man would insist on his plan or get snarky if contradicted.
That works, too. What time is good for you?
She thought about it. There had to be enough time to do her shopping and then help with the final wake prep. When she swore she wouldn’t help prep the house, it had been a lie born of frustration.
Alice texted back a time, and Ethan agreed to it. He might be acting out of professional courtesy or simply trying to get on her good side so she’d share more about her family. It hit her that she didn’t care which answer she’d get the next day. All she cared about was that she was getting out of her parents’ hair and going out with a kind, good-looking man.
Alice smiled. Tomorrow might be a good day, after all.
CHAPTER 15
The morning was fresh with dew and a cool breeze when I pulled into the parking lot at the botanical garden. Since it was the middle of the week, the near-empty lot promised a slow start to the day. It also made Alice easier to find at the entrance.
She wore a simple, robin-egg blue sundress with white sandals and a white sunhat. I swallowed and checked my totally unprofessional feelings at the gate. This was a courtesy to help a witness destress. That was all.
“How’s your family?” I asked, and then I cringed. That was a stupid question. “I mean, how are you doing with all the family around?”
Her wan smile did little to discourage the concern. “I had a fight with my mother last night just before you texted. She hasn’t hit me in years, but I sure thought she’d try.” She turned away as if realizing she was speaking to a law officer who could do something about abuse. “It didn’t come to that.”
“I’m sorry it’s been so difficult.” I gestured toward one of the paths.
“That’s why I thought it’d be good to get away for a while.” Inspiration hit, and I had the perfect excuse for bringing her out. “I didn’t want to suggest you go out on your own, given the nature of your family’s activities.” I sure as hell wasn’t going to name the criminal aspect. “You can call us to provide someone to act as a bodyguard when you need some space.”
She looked to the ground. “Ah, okay. You’re right.” She smiled, but it looked forced. “My parents brought in four bodyguards, but they’re not here for me. I won’t allow them to follow me around.”
I didn’t want to know anything about the men the Liu family had on their payroll for security. That was usually bad news.
“Well, enough of that while we’re here,” I said in an overly chipper tone. “Let’s walk, and if you feel like talking, I’m here. If you want some peace and quiet, I’m here in name only.”
She chuckled. “You are an interesting man, Ethan.”
My name on her lips filled me with a warm, pleasant feeling. Damn, maybe I shouldn’t have invited her out. If I really wanted to send her a bodyguard, one of the other agents could have handled it.
We wandered around and found ourselves in the rainforest exhibit. A brick-paved path wound through the dense foliage with peeks at waterfalls crafted for the setup. Wild birds apparently had nested in the area, as we saw wings flutter and heard calls.
“There’s a green heron,” Alice told me as she pointed.
We were close to the middle of the rainforest acreage. I looked between a pair of trees and saw the small form with its dark back and head and rust-colored throat. It poked its long bill around some leaves and then turned its head to see us. It unfurled its wings and took off into denser trees with a “kyow” call.
Alice lurched forward and almost fell into a creek that lay off the path. I caught her in time to catch movement in the corner of my eye. Something slammed into my face and made me stumble back a few steps.
