“What’s that all about?” he asked himself more than Boomer.
“You talking to me or yourself?”
“Both. Look, Ronnie’s gettin’ all chummy with Sam. That can’t be good.”
“Let it go, Rico,” Boomer chuckled.
“I don’t like it.”
When Kong joined them he figured Ronnie would make tracks. Instead he watched as Kong became deep in conversation with her. Now he really didn’t like it. His gut twisted into a tight knot like it always did when something bad was about to happen. Ronnie threw her head back and laughed, her long ponytail swinging across her back.
Kong folded his arms across his chest, cocked his head to the side and continued talking. He knew that pose. Kong was considering something, but what? When they shook hands he groaned.
“What now?” Boomer asked looking at his watch.
“Somethin’ bad’s comin’, I feel it in my gut.”
“Naw, you’re just hungry. I am too. Let’s go get them and head home.”
They both headed toward the three. When they reached them, Rico made sure he stood well back.
“You guys ready?” Boomer asked.
“Yeah, we’re ready. Chopper should be landing soon,” Kong replied.
“I better let you guys go then,” Ronnie said with a smile.
When she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and nodded her head his pulse quickened. Yep, he was convinced now, it was a red alert. She was bad news.
Chapter Three
When they arrived back at the base, Kong and Sam stowed their gear and headed home. Hannah and Raya were waiting for Boomer and helped him stow his gear before heading off to their new house. Rico threw his gear in his car and took off. He had planned on calling one of his regular lady friends and making a night of it, but on the way home Ronnie Holter slithered through his thoughts nonstop.
There was only one way for him to clear his mind of her for good. So here he sat alone in his dark apartment in front of his computer with beer in hand. He pulled up his account on the search site he always used when he found it necessary to investigate someone.
An hour and half later he had compiled a nice bit of information on her. He grabbed the pile of paper from his printer, a note pad, headed to the kitchen for his third beer of the night, and spread the papers out across the island.
Starting from the beginning he made a profile. Veronica Holter, born in Long Island, New York to Rebecca and James Holter. He moved on to her parents’ information. Father James died three years later in a mugging. Mother Rebecca moved out of state shortly after the funeral to Lynchburg, Virginia, where they lived for fifteen years. Ronnie grew up there attending the public school system, graduating second in her class.
Now things got hinky. He found a newspaper article, dated two days after Veronuica’s graduation, on Rebecca Holter. She disappeared from the parking lot of a local grocery store where she worked. Her body turned up two weeks later, both legs had been broken, ligature marks around the neck, wrists and ankles. A swastika was carved on her abdomen and a note was stuffed inside her mouth. Nothing was written about what the note said, but the article hinted at racial motivation.
Ricochet rubbed his chin. He shuffled through other printouts of newspaper articles mentioning Veronica or Rebecca Holter. He found several stating that eighteen-year-old Veronica was pressuring the police department to find her mother’s killer. Many letters had been sent to news stations, newspapers and government officials pleading for help. A black and white photo of a young Ronnie leading a march on the state capital stared up at him from the counter.
He picked it up, held it close to his face and read the blurry signs the protesters held. Justice for Rebecca. Stop the Hate. Government is Blind. The narrative under the picture stated that Ronnie was arrested shortly after the picture was taken for inciting a riot. Another small photo showed Ronnie in handcuffs, her lip bleeding, her eye swollen shut and still shouting.
The next bit of information he found on her was an address in Quantico four years later. Why Quantico? he questioned. Then it hit him. She was trying to get into the FBI. No more mention of her until three years later when she was arrested for assaulting a Caucasian man for racial slurs. There weren’t many details, but he could easily find out what they were. The next address listed for her was a P.O. Box in Virginia.
Then there was the web site listing a Veronica Holter, Private Investigator. He didn’t think much of it at first but now it was making some kind of sense. He read through the home page listing all the services offered by the PI. Topping the list was help securing vital evidence of racial discrimination.
“It has to be the same Veronica,” he muttered. “She has a vendetta.”
The picture became crystal clear. Her mother’s murder had created a woman out of young girl, but not just a woman, a woman with a mission. He rubbed his weary eyes. So that was her tragic story.
But how did she end up a hostage of a backwoods militia? Did the family of the little girl who had been assaulted call her? From what she told them the police were getting nowhere on the investigation. Anger and frustration could have driven the family to seek outside help.
He stood, stretched his stiff, aching body and yawned. It made sense. A few holes here and there but still pretty much a complete picture. Satisfied with the information he’d collected he turned off the kitchen light and headed to bed. Now that things were straight in his head he figured he’d be able to sleep.
Stripping down to his boxers and letting his clothes lay where they fell he flopped into his king size bed and closed his eyes. Twenty minutes later he was still awake and thinking about Ronnie. Had her mother’s murder been solved? He never bothered to look it up.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said aloud in the darkness. “None of my business.” As if hearing it spoken would convince him.
They would never see each other again. The mission was over and in another week or so he’d be off on another one. It was done. So why was he sitting up in bed rubbing his head and obsessing over whether or not the murder was solved?
One thing was clear. He wouldn’t get any sleep tonight if he didn’t at least do a search for the result. He padded across the cool wooden floor to his computer, pushed the power button and waited for it to boot up.
“This is ridiculous.” He should be sleeping. A dull throb started behind his eyes as it always did when his adrenaline had been expended and his body was physically spent.
His home page winked on, loaded up and stared back at him. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed in the information he looked for, clicked go and then sat back and waited. It only took seconds for the screen to fill with sites that held pertinent key words. He quickly scanned the screen, bookmarking the ones that might hold information he wanted. When he was finished six sites were left for him to check out.
For the next hour he read, clicked, grumbled at the screen and sifted through information he’d already read or that meant nothing. Finally he found what he was looking for. A small article, no more than two paragraphs dated six months after the murder, briefed the readers that no suspects had been found, evidence had been lost or misplaced and the police had no further leads in the case. Miss Veronica Holter had vowed not to let her mother’s murder go unpunished even if the police caved in to the threats they were receiving. The police department denied they were receiving any threats and said they’d treated this case as they would any other.
“Never solved,” he grumbled rubbing his eyes. “I just bet they treated it like any other case.”
He logged off, shut his computer down and sat in the dark for a moment. Had the police department received threats to stop investigating? What happened to the missing evidence? It didn’t just get up and walk away, someone made it disappear.
He could ask Cannon to check on it tomorrow. That man had connections to the devil himself. If anyone could find out what went down he could.
With nothing more for
him to do tonight, he returned to bed, flopping on his stomach and burying his head deep in his pillow. The throbbing behind his eyes had turned into a battering ram trying to beat them out of their sockets. Sleep was the only defense against it. His heavy body sank into the mattress as glorious darkness overcame him.
Even in his sleep Ronnie Holter plagued him. No matter where his dreams took him she was there, peeking around a corner, walking down a street, rising from the ocean in a creepy half-human half-sea-creature form.
He awoke in a panic, swinging his arms, thrashing to get away from her. When he realized it was a dream and not some bizarre world he’d been dropped into he laughed.
“That’s what I get for focusin’ on somethin’ before goin’ to bed,” he chuckled.
He glanced at his clock, six forty-five a.m. If he got to the base early maybe he could catch Cannon before the rest of them got there. No need for Kong and Boomer to know he was doing a little detective work.
After a quick hot shower and a couple of high protein breakfast bars he headed out the door with all the information he’d gathered late last night. The bright sun warmed his face as he stepped out onto the sidewalk. Another perfect spring day, he thought to himself. Warm days, cool evenings, nothing was better as far as he was concerned.
When he arrived at the base it was quiet. The only car in the lot was Cannon’s, which meant the others hadn’t arrived yet. Perfect, he could have a talk with the old man without Kong’s suspicious gaze.
He jogged across the base toward the building that held his office, took the steps two at a time and breezed through the reception area.
“Hey, Cannon, you in here?” he shouted.
“I am, what’s up? You’re here early.”
“I wanted to talk to ya about somethin’.”
Cannon motioned for him to sit down and leaned back in his chair. “I hear you nailed another perfect shot last night.”
“Took a while to find him, but once I did, that’s all she wrote.”
“I have a few recruits who have excellent skills. I’d like you to take them under your wing and train them.”
“I can do that.”
Walt sipped a steaming cup of coffee. “Want some?”
“No thanks.”
“Then tell me what you want to talk about.”
“That woman we rescued yesterday, somethin’ ain’t right about her and I was wonderin’ if you could use your skills to fill in the blanks.”
Walt picked up a file on his desk and scanned it. “Veronica Holter. My contact agent reported he questioned her and found nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sayin’ there is. She took my weapon, put a slug square in the middle of a guy’s forehead, took down another one with a perfectly placed shot to the chest and fought better than some of the newbies out there.”
Walt snickered. “You’re gonna have to do better than that if you want me to be suspicious. You’re forgetting I raised Sam. Trained women don’t surprise me.”
“It ain’t so much the trainin’ it’s the story behind it.” He tossed his stack of printouts on Cannon’s desk. “That’s what I found on her last night. I was hopin’ you’d have a way to find the missin’ pieces.”
Cannon flipped through the papers. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to know?” Cannon tossed the papers on the desk and folded his arms across his chest.
Ricochet shrugged his shoulders. “Curiosity, I guess.” Truth was, he asked himself that same question most of the night as he dug up all this information on her. He didn’t have a better answer.
“You’ll have to do better than that if you want me to call in favors and spend my time researching.”
Damn, this wasn’t going to be as easy as he hoped. “She knows more about that militia group then she told your fed.”
“And you know this how?”
“Look, she put herself in that position. She went to that town lookin’ for trouble for a reason and found it. Then she got in over her head. My guess is emotions rule her. That was clear when I took that sniper down. Her disappointment over the fact that we didn’t get the leader was clear when she started spoutin’ off about how he would kill again. Even your fed’s curiosity was piqued over that. I don’t know what kind of bull she fed him, but he bought it. She’s good and dangerous. I can’t tell you exactly why I need to know about her, but I do. The fact that a civilian knows so much about Black Smoke bothers me too.”
That got his attention. His right eyebrow arched, his lips thinned in a straight line and his jaw clenched. Now they were getting somewhere.
“She knew about Sam?”
“She went on about how she heard rumors of Black Smoke and how great this black ops agent was and all the things he could do. Your everyday PI wouldn’t know about Black Smoke.”
“No, they wouldn’t, would they.”
Ricochet held his breath as Cannon picked up the pile of papers and began reading them.
“I’ll see what I can find.”
Ricochet expelled the air from his lungs in a slow steady stream. “Ah, if you don’t mind I’d like to keep this on the low down from the rest of the team for now.”
Both eyebrows arched as Cannon looked up from the papers. “Why’s that?”
He gave him his biggest and brightest smile. “Don’t want them gettin’ the wrong idea.”
“I can’t make promises, Underwood. If it involves Sam I’ll have to let her know.”
“I understand that and agree. But if nothin’ comes out of it they don’t need to know I was diggin’.”
Cannon nodded his understanding. “You’ll be on base all day?”
“Yep.”
“If I find anything I’ll send for you.”
Ricochet rose from his chair. “Appreciate it.”
It was still early when he left Cannon’s office so he headed to the mess hall to have a bite with the newbies. He was hard on them during training, but tried to get to know each one a little during downtime. Knowing what motivated them was helpful. Everyone was different and came here for different reasons. The ones looking for glory were easy to pick out, those he was particularly hard on. If they weren’t here for the love of the job they had no business being here.
They liked to hear stories too. He was careful not to glorify anything he did and emphasized the worst. Letting them know he was scared sometimes assured them the work was deadly. The last thing he wanted to do was visit a grieving mother or widow because one was too full of himself and took a bullet unnecessarily.
After his stomach was full and he had enough chitchat he rallied the troops and sent them on their way. When he got outside he found Boomer, Hannah and Raya. Boomer was busy getting lost in Hannah’s eyes and Raya was skipping around in the dirt.
“Hey kid,” he signed after tapping her on the shoulder.
She gave him a big bright smile and leapt into his arms. After sharing a hug he dropped her to the ground, squatted in front of her and began signing.
“Your mom and Boomer forget you were here?”
“They do that all the time. It’s okay. Mom’s happy.”
“So’s the big guy.”
“Your signing is better,” she said with a giggle.
“I’ve been practicing just for you.” He tweaked her button nose.
“I’m learning to read lips. Say something.”
He thought for a second, smiled and looked right at her. “Happy birthday.”
Her brow furrowed as she tried to form the words with her mouth. When she figured out what he said she squealed. “You remembered.”
“How could I forget? I have something special for you.”
“Are you coming to my party tonight?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he signed and spoke.
Boomer walked over, picked her up and turned her face toward his. “See you tonight,” he spoke.
“Okay,” she responded with her tiny hands.
> “I love you,” he spoke again.
Ricochet’s heart tugged in his chest as he watched her wrap her arms around his neck and squeeze.
“I love you too,” she signed when she released him.
Hannah walked up next to him. “You are coming tonight aren’t you?”
“I’ll be there. She’s doin’ good reading lips.”
“We work with her every night. Her teacher says she’s already at a second year level. By the way, your signing is coming along nicely.”
“I practice every night too. Anything you want me to bring tonight?”
“Just yourself and a date if you’d like.”
“Naw, I’ll come alone. This is a family function.”
Hannah wrapped her arm around him. “It’s nice isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Having a big family.”
“Maybe he’ll make it official soon?”
“Don’t pressure him, Ricochet. When he’s ready he’ll know.”
“You’re a good woman, Hannah, I hope he knows that.”
“I make sure of it every night.”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
“Hey, I thought the party was tonight,” Sam said, walking up and tapping Raya on the shoulder. “Hi, Red,” she signed.
“Hi, Sam. I read lips now. Say something.”
“How old are you?” Sam said out loud.
“Eight,” Raya signed.
Sam hugged her. “Good job,” she said looking at her.
“We’ll let you guys get to work. I have things to do.” Hannah took Raya by the hand. “No missions today, people, or you’ll deal with me,” she said and then gave Boomer a kiss.
“Yes, ma’am,” they all said together.
When they were gone Kong slapped Boomer on the back. “What are you waiting on?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just ’cause you two finally got the guts to do it don’t mean he’s ready.” Ricochet said. “You don’t hear him houndin’ you about startin’ a family.”
He noticed Sam turn her head away while Kong turned white. He’d apparently touched a sore subject.
Ricochet's Rogue (Agent of Mercy, Book Three) Page 4
