Collateral Damage

by Lynette Eason

  Asher’s heart hurt for her and he gripped her fingers. “You’ve got a long way to go before you reach pitiful.”

  “Ha. Well, thanks, I think.”

  The flowers amidst the shrubs snagged his attention. “You have red flowers blooming in the middle of January? How in the world did you manage that?”

  She shot him a tired smile. “They’re amaryllis. They only bloom in the winter and I love coming home to them.” She opened the door and stepped out, pulling her keys from her purse. Her phone rang. Once. Twice.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” he asked.

  She glanced at the screen. “It’s coming up as a private call, so no.”

  “It could be one of the detectives needing to talk to you about this morning.”

  “If it’s important, they’ll call back or leave a message.” She stuffed the phone in the pocket of her coat. “I just can’t deal with anything else at the moment.”

  He could understand that.

  “Although I do need to call Kat at some point.”

  “Kat took the pictures. I remember her well. She was on the base always snapping something.”

  “Yes.” She unlocked the front door, stepped inside, and punched in the code to disarm the alarm system.

  “Are you going to be all right?” he asked, shutting the door behind him.

  For a moment, she just stood there in the foyer, back to him, head lowered. He noted the dining room to the left and a room set up as an office to his right. Straight ahead, the foyer opened into the great room.

  Finally, after several seconds, she turned. “I don’t know. Walking into my house feels so normal, it’s hard to believe that Sharon’s really dead. That the next time I go in to work, she won’t be there. I think I’m still in shock—or denial. Or both.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and drew in a slow breath.

  Asher let his hands rest on her shoulders. “I’m not the psychiatrist here, but I’d say that’s probably an accurate diagnosis.”

  “I didn’t know her long,” she said, “and before I accepted the job, Marcus said how much I’d like working with her. He talked about how she was kind to everyone around her and had a gentle spirit and good-natured humor. I got to see evidence of that in the past couple of months, and I was enjoying getting to know her.”

  A low thud from the back of her house stilled Asher. Brooke didn’t seem to notice. His hands fell from her shoulders, and his right hand went to the weapon in the shoulder holster. “Brooke?” he said softly.

  She frowned. “What?”

  “Do you have any pets?”

  “No, why?”

  When he pulled his weapon, her eyes went wide. “What is it? What are you doing?” For a split second, he could see the flash of mingled doubt and fear that she’d misjudged him.

  He let that roll off as he held a finger up to his lips. “I heard something. Stay behind me.” Without question, she let him step ahead of her. “Tell me the rest of the layout,” he whispered.

  “Um . . . straight ahead is the great room and kitchen that overlooks the pool and the backyard. To the right off the great room is my guest bedroom. To the left of the kitchen and eating area is my master bedroom.”

  Her hushed voice barely reached him, but he heard her—along with the fear his sudden caution had generated. His ears strained. No other noises reached him other than the faint pant of her quickened breathing—and the thundering of his own heartbeat. And then that faded and his senses focused, homed in on whatever threat was in front of them. “You have your phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call 911, then place your hand on my shoulder and stay with me.” He could feel her moving to comply. When her hand settled on his left shoulder, he tilted his head. “Who’s there?” he called out. Holding his weapon in ready position, he aimed it toward the back of the house and started walking.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Brooke’s heart thundered. Had he really heard something or was this something his mind had conjured up? She hesitated, not wanting to automatically assume he was having an . . . episode, but—

  Thud.

  She gave a low gasp. Okay, she heard that. Her fingers flexed on his shoulder, the muscle beneath her palm a solid block of concrete.

  He slowed at the corner of the entrance to the great room and the end of the foyer. To the right was the guest bedroom she’d mentioned. He glanced in. “Clear,” he whispered. He stepped inside and pulled her after him. While she stood with her back to the wall and next to the door, Asher checked the room, the closet, the connected bathroom. He returned to her side. “It’s all clear. Stay here while I check the rest of the house.”

  He didn’t give her a chance to argue but slipped out of the room and left her hugging the doorframe. Just as he stepped into the great room, a figure dashed from her master bedroom and shoved the patio door open.

  She bit down on a scream.

  “Hey! Stop!” Asher darted after him.

  “Oh no, he’s not getting away,” Brooke muttered. Without thinking, she bolted for the French doors off the guest bedroom, threw them open, and rushed out onto the deck. The man slammed into her, knocking her off the deck and onto the cement next to the pool. Brooke landed hard, her elbow banging against the rough surface. Pain snaked through her arm and up into her neck.

  “Brooke!”

  Asher’s cry warned her. She jerked and rolled. The man’s hard fist grazed her cheek, and between her roll and her desperate attempt to dodge his bone-crunching blow, she tumbled into the pool.

  The heated water closed over her head. Don’t panic, don’t panic. Get out and help Asher. The instant her feet touched the bottom, she pushed off and shot upward.

  When she broke through the surface, Brooke gulped air and her eyes landed on the two men fighting for control of a weapon. Asher had his hands wrapped around the man’s wrist, his strength the only thing between him and a bullet. Strength that seemed to be equally matched by the man trying to kill him.

  What had Asher done with his gun? Dropped it when he tackled the guy? She hauled herself out of the water, shivering when the cold air whipped across her soaked body.

  Asher grunted and rolled. The attacker managed to move the weapon closer to Asher’s face. Brooke raked the water off her face, frantically searching for a way to help.

  The skimmer. She grabbed the long pole and swung it.

  The netting slipped over the man’s head, and while that hadn’t been her original intention, it would work.

  She yanked.

  He screamed.

  Asher swung and his fist slammed against the man’s nose. Another scream ripped from him as blood flowed. His grip loosened and the gun tumbled to the concrete.

  Brooke dove for it, but he was quicker. His shoulder caught her on the chin and she fell back, twisting, fighting gravity and losing. Once again, she hit the concrete hard. Only to look up and see Asher running toward him. With no time to aim and fire, the man swung out, catching Asher across the jaw with the barrel. Blood spurted. Asher went down with a harsh yell, and she found herself staring down the barrel into a pair of narrowed blue eyes.

  “Police! Drop the weapon.”

  The man’s finger twitched.

  Brooke rolled and covered her head.

  Two shots sounded.

  She froze, eyes shut, expecting to feel a burst of pain as the bullet blazed a path through her. A millisecond passed and she felt nothing.

  She registered the sirens, the running feet, hands picking her up. The smoke choked her. The fire swept across her, burning her. Isaiah called her name and pressed the bracelet into her palm. His eyes connected with hers. She coughed. Couldn’t breathe.

  “Brooke? Brooke! Look at me.”

  She blinked. The man with the weapon lay facedown on the concrete. The officer who’d fired the shots exited her guest bedroom—the same way she’d come—and hurried toward the fallen man. Other officers swarmed the area.

  A ha
nd tilted her chin, pulling her gaze from the body. “Brooke. Right here. Focus on me.”

  Asher. Blood dripped from his chin, but he didn’t seem to notice it. Her gaze jumped from one thing to the next. Deck chairs, the wrought-iron table with the etched-glass top and umbrella. She was at home in her backyard near the pool, not in the burning café in Kabul with the dying Isaiah in her lap.

  She gasped.

  Brooke locked on Asher’s gaze, and the knowing there shook her harder than the tremors from the cold.

  “Are you all right?” A young cop with aged gray eyes stooped next to her.

  “Y-yes. I think so.” She didn’t have any bullet holes or anything else, so she figured she was all right. A mammoth shiver racked her. “J-just really c-cold.” She thought about getting back in the water just to warm up.

  A blanket settled around her shoulders. She grasped the edges and pulled them together in front of her.

  Asher pulled her to her feet. “Come on, let’s get inside so you can change.”

  “Sorry,” the officer said. “That’s a crime scene now. We’ll have to find something for you that’s not in there.” He handed Asher a piece of gauze and Asher pressed it to his bleeding chin. “Paramedic said to give you that.”

  “Thanks.”

  Brooke pointed to the open French doors connected to the guest room. “I h-have some clothes in the closet in that room. He wasn’t in there, j-just the master.” The thought turned her stomach.

  The officer hesitated, then stepped to the side. “All right.”

  Brooke darted into the bedroom, where she grabbed jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a heavy fleece. “It’s freezing in here,” she muttered. Or maybe it was just her. She walked into the bathroom, quickly changed clothes, and pulled her wet hair into a ponytail.

  The shivers had mostly stopped as she walked back into the guest bedroom to find Asher waiting for her. Someone had butterflied the cut on his chin, but that didn’t soften the grim set to his jaw. “What is it?” she asked.

  “The man who broke into your house is on his way to the hospital, but they’re not holding out much hope he’ll make it through surgery.”

  She swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”

  “And . . . I know him.”

  “Know who?” The brain fog wouldn’t lift.

  “The guy who broke into your home.”

  Her eyes widened a fraction. “You do? How?”

  Asher was surprised at how steady he managed to keep his voice, since he was still dealing with the terror he’d felt when he realized Brooke was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it—that moment when the intruder had knocked him hard enough to see stars and turned his weapon on her.

  With effort, he pushed the image away and focused on the fact that she was standing in front of him. Alive and in one piece—with a look on her face that said she was waiting for him to answer. “He was in Afghanistan with us. I didn’t know him well, but enough to recognize him. His name was Mario Ricci. He was part of another unit.” He paused. “He was good friends with Isaiah and he was there the day of the bombing at the café.”

  She shook her head. “I’m confused. Why would he break into my house?”

  “I have no idea, but he was determined not to get caught.”

  “He was willing to kill, wasn’t he?” she asked.

  “Yes. This wasn’t some random break-in, Brooke. And now I’m thinking that wasn’t some random thing at your office this morning. The guy from this morning wore a ski mask and so did Mario. The guy from the office and Mario are the same build, and those ski masks looked exactly the same. Same jeans, same black sweatshirt. It’s not a far stretch to think it’s possible he was the one who killed Sharon.”

  “But why?” She shivered again, and Asher didn’t think it had anything to do with the cold. “What’s going on?”

  A knock on the door took his attention from her before he could tell her he was as confused as she was. Another officer stood in the entrance. “Could you come take a look at your bedroom?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Asher followed her through the living area, bypassing the kitchen and eating area, and into the small hallway that led to the entrance of her bedroom.

  “What’s—oh.” At the door she stopped so fast he nearly ran into her. It looked a lot like the office had this morning. Drawers pulled out and dumped on the floor. Anything that could be opened and emptied had been. The television had been smashed and now lay on its side underneath the window.

  She stood still as a statue in front of Asher, so he couldn’t see her face. “Brooke?” He rested a hand on her left bicep. “Why don’t you—”

  “I’m okay,” she said, her voice low. Tight. Controlled. She shrugged off his hand in a subtle move that was almost as polite as she’d been earlier. He let his hand drop. “It looks like he was just getting started,” she said, “since this is the only room that’s been trashed.”

  “He came in that window,” the officer said, pointing to the one opposite her bed—the one the television had sat in front of. “Cut the glass, unlatched it, and climbed in.”

  “Destroying my television in the process.”

  “Yeah. It would have been in the way, so he just gave it a shove.”

  “It’s a good television,” she said. “He could have gotten a lot of money for it.”

  “So he wasn’t looking for stuff to fence,” Asher murmured. More to himself than to be heard, but Brooke glanced back at him.

  “I have an alarm system,” she said. “The doors are wired, but not the windows.”

  “Which explains why it didn’t go off,” Asher muttered. “We’ll rectify that immediately.”

  She turned and raised a brow but didn’t dispute him. She let her gaze scan the room, then started forward.

  The officer stopped her with an upraised hand. “Ma’am, please don’t come in. If we want to keep it as pristine as possible for the crime scene unit, then I’ll need you to stay out.”

  “Right, but you’ve already been in there.”

  “To check and make sure no one else was here.”

  “Then could you check the drawer that’s on the other side of the bed? I had about six hundred dollars in cash there. It’s wrapped with a rubber band.”

  He stepped away to look.

  “That’s a lot of cash to keep in your bedside drawer,” Asher said.

  “I sold a laptop and hadn’t gotten a chance to get to the bank yet.”

  “It’s here,” the officer said. He leaned over and with a gloved hand picked up the wad of cash.

  “So not a burglary or a junkie looking for his next hit.”

  “I know the guy who did this and he’s not a junkie—at least not that I remember. And besides, a junkie would have taken the money and the stuff to sell. He would have been a lot more careful with the television.”

  “He’s not one of my clients,” Brooke murmured.

  “Do you have someone you can stay with tonight?” the officer asked.

  “Um . . . yeah. I can call my friend Heather.”

  “Heather?” Asher asked.

  “Heather Fontaine.” She rubbed her forehead. “You should remember her. She was in Afghanistan the same time we were. She and I actually left on the same day and flew home together.”

  “She lives here in Greenville?”

  Brooke shot him a tight smile. “She does now. We decided we wanted to live in close proximity, and since she doesn’t have very many ties to her hometown in New Mexico, she got a job here. We hang out as much as we can work into our schedules.”

  “She’s your person.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Gavin Black is mine.” He studied her. “You didn’t call Heather to tell her about this morning, did you?”

  Brooke frowned. “No, I knew she was busy at work and I didn’t want to worry her.” Her eyes locked on his. “It helped that you were there. If you hadn’t been . . .” She looked away and shudder
ed. “Let’s just say I’m glad you were.”

  He took her hand. “I’m glad I was too.”

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  “He’s still alive,” Victor said. “He’s in surgery and will be in ICU if he survives. Cops are all around him.”

  The man glared at Victor. Video calls weren’t usually the way he liked to do things, but today he needed to see Victor’s face. He pressed on the right AirPod to settle it in his ear. “Did he find the bracelet?”

  A slight grimace crossed Victor’s face. Not a good sign. “Are you even sure that bracelet has anything to do with what Michaels took?”

  “Of course I’m not sure, but Michaels got the files shortly before the explosion. It’s obvious in those pictures that he passed that bracelet to the shrink for a reason. We’ve searched everything belonging to him and come up empty. The bracelet is the only possible way he could have passed them off.”

  Victor hesitated. “If he passed them off.” He sighed. “And if that’s the case, then it’s very likely she has no idea what Michaels gave her.”

  “Michaels wouldn’t have had a chance to hide those files anywhere between the time he stole them and the time he arrived at the restaurant. The only reason we even know about them is because he was seen by one of our guys leaving Madad’s office.”

  “I know.”

  “I thought we had this under control. There’s no way he was going to take them to his grave—or let us get our hands on them if he could help it. Brooke Adams was right there.”

  “It makes sense,” Victor said.

  “So . . . back to my original question. Did Ricci find it?”

  “He texted that he’d just finished searching her bedroom when he heard them come in,” Victor said, “so I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so. Is there any way to find out for sure?” He kept his voice even. The desire to scream at the man was nearly overwhelming, but that would just draw attention to himself. With his back to the wall, he tilted the phone so he had a better view of the screen—and to ensure no one else could see.