Forged in Ash (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel)

by Trish McCallan

  Rawls’s mouth fell open in exaggerated shock. He lifted a hand to his chest. “Moi? I’m hurt ya’ll think so little of my people skills.”

  Zane’s gaze zeroed in on Cosky’s face. “You didn’t know her?” He frowned at the shake of Cosky’s head. “She say why she attacked?”

  Cosky frowned. “Nothing that made sense.”

  He turned slightly to glance behind him. The cop who’d interviewed him had closed his notebook and was scanning the pavement. The officer who’d waved the van off had returned to bag the gun, and Mr. Chatty was keeping the third suit busy.

  Turning back to his teammates, he lowered his voice. “She said, ‘this is for my babies and for Russ.’”

  Bodies stiffened and eyes sharpened. Zane glanced toward the cops in front of Cosky’s truck and lowered his voice as well. “Branson?”

  “Hell if I know.” Cosky wiped a hand down his face, sudden exhaustion hitting him.

  “You didn’t ask?” Mac demanded.

  “When was I supposed to ask?” Cosky snapped, fighting to keep his voice low. “While I was dodging her bullets? Or after she took off across the street?”

  Rawls’s lips twitched. But that shadow still darkened his eyes. “Doesn’t make sense. If she’s connected to Branson, why target you? Zane’s the one who took the bastard out. You were too busy bleeding all over the ER.”

  “Let’s back up.” Zane stepped in calmly. “How did you end up here?”

  Cosky took a deep breath, and shot the rusted sedan behind them a quick glance. So far, so good. His crazy stalker hadn’t arrived to reclaim her car, the police had no interest in it and Kait—thank God—hadn’t exploded onto scene.

  “I picked up a tail on Silver Strand, just outside the gate. Female. White. Total amateur.” He paused, shook his head. “I thought she was a reporter at first.”

  Mac swore, disgust touching his face, and a round of sour looks passed between the four of them. They’d all had their run-ins with reporters.

  “What clued you in that she wasn’t after a story?” Zane asked, with a quick cock to his head.

  “Her ride,” Cosky said dryly. “It shouts vagrant rather than reporter.” He shot a look toward the sedan and stared—hard—before glancing back at his teammates to see if they’d picked up on the silent message.

  Mac’s gaze sharpened. He took a step closer, his voice dropping even lower. “Shouts?”

  “It’s the ugliest, loudest piece of red rusted crap you’ve ever seen.” He glanced toward the sedan again and lifted his eyebrows.

  “Do tell.” Rawls linked his fingers behind his neck and did a slow stretch to the side. He shot a quick glance in the direction Cosky had indicated. When he turned back to Cosky again, surprised amusement sparkled in his blue eyes. “That must have been quite the tail.”

  “Hard to miss,” Cosky agreed.

  “You didn’t tell the cops about this?” Mac’s voice was so low Cosky barely heard it.

  Cosky silently shook his head. There was a moment of silence.

  “They could stumble across it any moment,” Zane murmured softly. “We need access before it’s impounded.”

  “No shit,” Cosky drawled under his breath, his temper spiking as a wave of heat rolled through him and a cramp ripped into his thigh.

  “Is it locked?” Mac asked without glancing in the sedan’s direction.

  With a deep breath, Cosky locked his irritation down. “No clue.”

  Zane shot him a hard look. “You need to sit down?”

  Yeah, he did. Badly. He ignored both the question and the need.

  “Rawls.” Zane tilted his head toward the rusted sedan.

  “On it, Skipper.” Rawls casually moved off.

  Cosky, Zane, and Mac shifted their bodies until their huddle was directly between the cops and the sedan, although so far the officers were so busy cataloging the crime scene, they weren’t paying attention to the parking lot.

  Zane and Cosky launched into a round of banal bullshit while they waited for Rawls’s return.

  The minutes ticked by. A burst of radio static sounded behind them, and one of the cops climbed into his cruiser and barreled out of the parking lot.

  Rawls finally returned. He shifted, turning his back to the remaining officers, and dropped his voice to a low rumble. “No registration, no pictures, no identification. Negative on weapons. No cell phone either. The inside’s trashed. Food cans, utensils, clothes, blankets…looks like she’s living in there.”

  “Fuck.” Mac thumped his knuckles against his hips. “In other words, we got squat.”

  “Just the plate number.” Rawls’s voice held a shrug. “Which is useless if the beast’s stolen.”

  Zane frowned. “We need to pull the prints off the steering wheel. It’s our best shot of IDing her.” He glanced at the cops behind them. “And we better do it fast. Sooner or later they’re going to realize that piece of shit doesn’t belong in the lot.”

  “Sure. We’ll just grab a fingerprint kit at the corner market.” Mac turned to glare at the sedan.

  “We don’t need a kit. Just some tape. Like strapping tape,” Rawls said. When everyone turned to stare at him, he shrugged. “Sue me. I like CSI.”

  “Any chance you have some tape in your med kit?” Cosky asked dryly. As ST7’s corpsman, Rawls carried a medical bag everywhere—both on and off deployment. And Christ knows that that damn bag seemed to have an unlimited supply of every piece of shit known to man.

  “Just duct tape,” Rawls said regretfully.

  Which apparently wouldn’t work?

  Great.

  Cosky turned to stare at the entrance to the apartment complex. “They might have tape at the front desk in the lobby.”

  Rawls whistled. “This place has a front desk? Classy. What brought you here anyway? You said you noticed her on Silver Strand? That’s three klicks west.”

  Mac nodded slightly. “You better take us through everything. Where were you headed?”

  Uh, yeah…Cosky tried for a casual shrug, no way in hell was he filling them in about Kait. And not just because Aiden had asked him to keep her abilities quiet. It made his skin crawl to think of them realizing how desperate he was.

  And if by some chance they found out about those heated moments on the couch—he winced.

  Kait was the sister of a teammate, the daughter of a superior, and off limits to drive-bys. Everyone on the team understood that code. You couldn’t concentrate out on deployment if you were worried about wives, girlfriends, sisters, or daughters getting screwed over.

  “I was headed to the Coronado Ferry Landing.” He spit out the first destination that came to mind.

  Zane, Rawls, and Mac rocked back on their heels in unison and stared.

  “Come again?” Zane asked, his voice ringing with disbelief.

  “Coronado Ferry Shopping? You were going shopping?” Rawls choked on a sputter of laugher. “Sure you were.”

  Ah hell, he should have picked a more believable destination. Resigned, he soldiered through the explanation. “Not that it’s any of your damn business, but Mom’s birthday’s coming up. She likes touristy shit. And that damn mall is full of touristy shit.”

  Rawls nodded solemnly, but his eyes were laughing like holy hell. “That’s why you’ve bought her gifts online, at the same place, for the past ten years.”

  “I got bored,” Cosky snapped, his face heating. He hoped to hell they thought the flush was temper. “You want to hear this or not?”

  “Absolutely.” Rawls’s grin was huge, his teeth bright white in his bronze face. “Do go on.”

  Cosky took a deep breath to regroup. “I noticed her just past the gate on Silver Strand. After suspecting she was following me, I took evasive maneuvers. She mirrored them. So I pulled in here to confront her.”

  “Why here?” Zane took a slow look around, like he was trying to see the appeal.

  “It was close,” Cosky said through gritted teeth. “And I didn’t want her ke
ying my truck or some shit, while I was looking for Mom’s gift.”

  Zane shot the black truck behind them a sympathetic glance. “Keying would have been a step up.”

  “No shit.” Cosky relaxed slightly.

  “So she followed you in here,” Zane said, glancing toward the rusted sedan.

  Cosky simply nodded.

  “From the damage to your truck, it looks like you waited for her there?” Zane continued in an even voice.

  Stiffening again, Cosky waited; the sheer reasonableness of Zane’s tone set his instincts humming. More than once he’d heard his buddy rip a plebe a new asshole without ever altering that even, reasonable tone of voice.

  “So you got out of your truck to wait for her.” He paused, held Cosky’s gaze, and lifted his eyebrows. “Without your weapon.”

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. And a pretty damn obvious one since Cosky hadn’t gotten even one round off.

  Dead silence hung for a second or two.

  Hell.

  Cosky glowered at the three of them. “I thought she was harmless.”

  He tossed the explanation out halfheartedly, already knowing they wouldn’t buy it.

  He wouldn’t have.

  Zane turned to stare at the apartment complex. “There’s no way in hell you’d climb out of your truck without your weapon unless she wasn’t around. Unless you were visiting someone and you didn’t want to show up armed.” He turned back to Cosky, something close to sympathy gleaming in his eyes. “So how ’bout we try this again. Without the mall. Because we all know how fond you are of shopping.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Cosky clenched his fists and split his glare between his three ex-buddies.

  Rawls wheezed, struggling to hold the laughter back. He leaned toward Cosky and took an audible sniff.

  “We’ve been too polite to mention this, brother, but your new aftershave is kinda girly.” He pulled back before Cosky’s elbow could hit him in the face and turned curious eyes toward the apartment complex. “Who do you think his mysterious rose lady is?”

  Oh, for Christ’s sake. Cosky shot him a dirty look.

  “Fine.” Cosky shoved a hand through his hair, sighed, and filled them in on what had happened.

  “How did she track you down again?” Zane asked.

  “Hell if I know.” Cosky raised a hand, gave an abbreviated chop, and let it fall again.

  “It occurs to me,” Rawls drawled, his voice innocent, “that you still haven’t explained what you’re doing here.”

  “Because it’s none of your damn business.” Now if Kait would just keep her curvy little ass inside. He sure as hell didn’t want to explain that.

  And on more than one level.

  “Well, sweet Jesus, Cos has a secret lady.” Rawls turned to Zane, his blue eyes dancing. “I told you he was spending way too much time in physical therapy.”

  “If you three are done having your fun, maybe we can concentrate on”—he shot the cops behind him a quick look—“the situation. If this woman is connected to Branson, she’s our first solid lead in four fucking months.”

  The reminder doused smiles and hardened faces.

  “Take us through the rest of it,” Mac ordered.

  Nobody interrupted again until he recounted her reaction to the fresh-faced kid she fired upon.

  “Him?” The sheer incredulity in Mac’s voice matched the look on Zane’s and Rawls’s faces as they watched Mr. Chatty trailing after one of the uniformed cops. “You’re sure she was shooting at him?”

  Cosky paused; he’d been too busy covering his own ass to check out who the crazy bitch had been shooting at. “That’s what he says.”

  Zane rocked back on his heels, glanced at the kid, and shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. If he was across the tennis courts, a twenty-two wouldn’t have the range.”

  “You’re assuming she knew that,” Mac pointed out with a snort. “Fuck, she threw the gun instead of reloading.”

  With a shrug, Cosky glanced across the park. “She took off that way. We should head out, track her down.” Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, and his temper jumped. “Then we can ask her all these damn questions.”

  Zane gave him a long, slow look. “Half the force is out looking for her. If she’s smart, she’ll go to ground. If she’s not”—he shook his head and shot a quick glance at the police cars behind them—“the cops could already have her. We need to pull the prints off that car, and find out if the cops have her before we start running the streets.”

  “I’ll get the tape.” Rawls paused to shoot Cosky a wicked grin. “Unless you want to call your honey. I bet she has tape.”

  “If you don’t shut the hell up,” Cosky snapped, “that tape will be going over your yapper.”

  Rawls fluttered his eyelashes. “So protective. It must be love.”

  Cosky stepped forward, his fists cocked.

  “Go get the tape.” Zane stepped between them. After Rawls had jogged off, he turned to Cosky, his green gaze concerned. “You need to get off that leg and cool down. Go wait in the van.” When Cosky set his jaw and glared back, Zane took a threatening step forward. “That wasn’t a suggestion, Lieutenant. Go. Sit. Down.”

  Knowing better than to argue with that flat, cold tone, Cosky turned without a word and limped for the Chrysler. With each step he fought the urge to glance over his shoulder and see if Kait had decided to see what all the fuss was about.

  If his buddies discovered that Kait lived here, they’d flash back to all the opposition he’d raised when they’d proposed Aiden take Zane’s place in the condo. They’d put two and two together and arrive at a billion and one. He’d never hear the end of it.

  Because you didn’t mess with a teammate’s sister. Not unless you were serious. The marrying kind of serious. The kids kind of serious. Two things he’d sworn off years ago.

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  KAIT HEARD THE first of the sirens as she relaxed beneath the steamy, pummeling spray of her shower. When the scream of the sirens got louder and louder—until they were so loud they had to be somewhere along the block—she turned off the water. The sirens suddenly ceased as she stepped out of the bathtub. She dried off, did a quick braid of her wet hair, and threw on some clothes before padding barefoot to the huge bedroom window that looked out over Trident Park.

  Two cop cars, their lights still flashing, were parked along the sidewalk, a few feet to the left of Demi’s coffee cart. Worry stirring, she leaned forward, peering down, trying to get a look at her friend, but the angle was wrong. All she could see was the flash of stainless steel. Swearing, she glared down at the sidewalk. All she wanted was to curl up on her bed and watch some silly movie like Galaxy Quest, until the memories of the last hour faded.

  Instead, because Demi refused to become cell phone dependant, she was going to have to venture outside to make sure her friend was okay. Which meant entering the living room…

  No sweat, she promised herself, taking a deep, fortifying breath. Cosky had to be gone by now. She’d wallowed twenty minutes or more in the shower. Plenty of time for him to dress and make a speedy retreat. Besides, she had to head out there sooner or later.

  It took two seconds to shove her feet into Crocs and head for the bedroom door. As she’d hoped, Cosky was long gone. But the smell of roses and sex slammed into her the moment she stepped into the living room, halting her in her tracks. To her complete dismay, the traitorous flesh between her thighs clenched at the reminder.

  Good God, she needed to strip the sheet from the couch, and throw it in the washer, then open a couple of windows.

  First things first though—making sure nothing had happened to Demi was priority one. She grabbed her cell phone and her keys and slipped them in her pocket.

  As she stepped out of the elevator, blue and red strobes greeted her. They oscillated faintly through the sunny lobby, reflections of the strobes flashing behind the glass entranc
e doors and windows facing the street.

  Would the cops even let her outside? What if they had the street cordoned off? She spied a blue-suited officer next to the double doors and stopped momentarily, but started walking again with a shrug. If they’d closed the street off, they’d let her know, but best not to assume anything.

  The thick-bodied officer next to the doors responded to her smile with a flat, unfriendly stare. Alrighty, she wouldn’t be asking Officer Unfriendly any questions. Good thing Demi was on hand. She turned to the coffee cart to the right of the doors, relaxing as she caught sight of her friend.

  Not only was Demi fine, she was also busy. Apparently the advent of cops and milling throngs of bystanders had given her business a good, hard shove. A line of customers snaked along the side of the building. Kait frowned as her friend finished steaming a carafe of milk and poured it into a grande cup. She was too busy at the moment to answer questions. Sighing, she turned away just in time to watch the cop next to her punch the button for apartment 607. She froze, her mouth dropping open in shock.

  He wanted to talk to her? Why?

  “Excuse me,” she said, stepping closer to the cop to let someone slip past.

  The officer turned heavy shoulders toward her, his gaze cold and expression withdrawn like he was too fricking busy for her. Irritation flickered.

  “I’m Kait Winchester,” she said without bothering to smile.

  He glanced at the buzzer he had punched. “Apartment 607?”

  “That’s right. Can I do something for you?” She glanced up the sidewalk. A dozen or so clusters of bystanders clogged the pavement. There were plenty of witnesses to whatever had happened. Why come to her? “I was upstairs, so I didn’t see anything. In fact, what the heck happened?”

  “Do you know a Lieutenant Marcus Simcosky?” the cop asked, reaching into his breast pocket and removing a small notepad and nubby pencil.

  Kait froze. “Cosky? Did something happen to him?”

  “Lieutenant Simcosky is fine,” he said tersely. “I need you to verify his timeline. What time did he arrive and depart your apartment?”

  “What? Why?” She could feel her face heat.