Not now.
Not after learning that John had purchased that burner.
Not until she was absolutely certain she knew why he'd bought it—and could prove it.
She was forced to agree with Books' caution. Her gut might still maintain John's innocence when she could tell that even Jelly had begun to doubt it, but it wasn't enough. She refused to wager a man's life against her instincts.
Much less NATO.
So it was back to the Lodge. She'd go through every single sentence she and Jelly had been able to amass on Ertonç, LaCroix and the captain while she waited for the Karmandi info to tumble in. If she could prove John was serving as a backchannel, she just might be able to force her boss' hand—and get Brooks to agree to pull John in.
If not, she was headed back to that house. One way or another, she was going to get what she needed to put this investigation to bed.
Tonight.
7
Regan stared at the second hand as it completed yet another silent sweep around the face of the wall clock hanging in her kitchenette at the Sunrise Lodge. Another ten minutes and it would be eighteen hundred on the dot. The time John had suggested for the first dinner they'd shared. What the devil was taking him so long to confirm their second?
Relief seared in as her phone pinged. But as she grabbed it, she spotted the notification on the screen. The text wasn't from John; it was from Jelly.
Have confirmation—Olan & Royar are 1st cousins!
details in email
Adrenaline surged, despite that clock and its taunting time.
She dumped her phone on the kitchenette table and scanned the English-language Turkish newspaper still open on her laptop. According to the year-old article she'd pulled up, Olan Karmandi had not only denounced terrorism in general—and the PKK in particular—while still an undergrad, he'd also logged a serious slew of hours volunteering at a Turkish free clinic during medical school and after. Doctor Karmandi had doubled down on his views for the article's author, reiterating his horror and disgust with the PKK's tactics in light of the car bombing that had killed then Colonel Ertonç's sons days earlier.
When she added that to those calls with Ertonç—and John's physical intercession between the two—it was the proof she and Jelly had been waiting for. They could now connect Royar and the PKK to Olan, and from there, Olan to General Ertonç through John. And, of course, Ertonç to the Turkish government. But would it be enough for Captain Brooks?
Moments later, Regan had her answer as her phone pinged yet again. This text wasn't from Jelly. It was from Brooks.
spoke to Jelling—no go on Garrison
get him to confide in YOU!
Regan slapped her phone onto the table. Good Lord, was Brooks really waiting for John to spontaneously cop to a backchannel negotiation?
That was not going to happen.
She might not have known the man long, but she'd gotten to know him exceptionally well these past few days, especially after having spent the better part of the afternoon reviewing everything she and Jelly had been able to gather on him—including that heart-wrenching material in the background investigation conducted prior to John's top-secret clearance.
Until now, she'd thought the three years she'd spent with her grandfather following her mother's suicide had been rough.
She'd been stuck in Disneyland by comparison.
The statements in that BI from John's elementary teachers painted far too detailed a picture for her peace of mind. A broken right forearm, three cracked ribs, a not-so-mild concussion, along with countless sprains, welts and bruises—all before John had reached ten. She better understood his fundamental disdain for lies too. Not only had he grown up with that heinous one regarding Beth and their mom, he'd been forced to regurgitate the filth his dad had fed social services.
According to Earl Garrison, John had fallen out of a tree, gotten kicked by a vicious horse, and run smack into a five-foot commercial tractor tire he hadn't seen until it was too late.
The bastard's tales had been nothing if not creative.
Of course, no explanation had been volunteered by father or son when John had suddenly sprouted taller than his dad in junior high and begun to play football with an innate agility that'd stunned the hell out of his coach. Not a broken bone or a welt in sight from then on.
Regan had her suspicions as to how that final confrontation had gone down with dear old dad.
In the end, the information in that BI had only cemented what her gut had been insisting since those revealing moments in that storage closet. John might've been baptized into evil, but he'd consciously and consistently turned his back on it since. Those old-fashioned manners of his that had initially driven her nuts weren't an act, let alone a polished effort to get her into bed. They were an innate rebellion against the monster who'd raised him, a deep-seated effort at rising above.
There was no way John would be spilling military or geo-political secrets, backchannel or not. Not to her. Not to anyone.
Nor would he simply blow her off. Not willingly.
If John had changed his mind about pursuing a painfully green public affairs officer who stuck her nose in where it didn't belong, at the very least he'd have called to let her know.
Regan glanced at that damning clock. Eighteen hundred exactly.
Something had happened.
But did it have to do with that mysterious text John had received at the hospital? His beneath-the-radar negotiations for General Ertonç?
Or had his deteriorating relationship with Sergeant LaCroix finally come to blows?
The ringer on her phone grated against the quiet in the room, along with her increasingly excoriated nerves. She snatched her phone from the table, disappointment cutting in as she glanced at the readout. Mira.
"What's the word?"
"Still waiting."
"He hasn't even texted?"
Regan raked her fingers through the dyed strands of Rachel's hair, pushing the loose waves behind her shoulders. "No. And to answer your next two questions, Brooks says no on bringing John in on the case and an even louder no when Jelly reiterated our request to put a tail on LaCroix."
Yes, the sergeant was Special Forces. And, yes, if anyone had eyes in the back of his head, an SF soldier did.
Still, she'd managed to hold her own with John. So far.
She had worried that he'd begun to doubt her story after he'd departed the hospital that morning. But he hadn't so much as texted Terry to verify her claims about that phone number search. She'd checked.
So why hadn't John called, damn it?
Regan caught the distinctive whir of a microwave kicking in on Mira's end.
"Have you figured out how you're going to get into LaCroix's room?"
She drummed her fingers on top of the table. "Not a bloody clue." As attractive as those keys of John's were, breaking and entering was illegal. Faced with exigent circumstances, she'd do it in a heartbeat. The hell with it standing up in court. But she wasn't there—yet.
Worse, with Brooks' no-go still in effect regarding her coming clean with John about LaCroix, there was no way she could risk asking him to search his guest room for her.
The microwave ceased its whir with a loud ping. "Rae—" She heard Mira open the oven. "Are you certain Garrison's loyalties are still sound? He did buy that burner."
"I know. And, yes." As many times as she'd done this, she ought to know. And that was before she'd absorbed the childhood horror detailed in John's BI.
"Then trust your gut. You're in the trenches, not your boss. If you think you need to bring the captain in, do it. When all's said and done, Brooks will be forced to back you up; you know that. For what it's worth, my instincts are in sync with yours. I've seen the guy a number of times these past few days—all of them with the general in the room. Those two have serious history, but it's not the sort that has Ertonç in danger. Not from Garrison. I can feel it."
"I know."
"So…what ar
e you going to do?"
Brazen. This morning it had been the only path. It still was. "I'm going to drop by. Now. Because, well, come to think of it, John must've said, 'Dinner—same time, same place,' unless he phoned to say differently."
Mira's soft inhalation filled the line, followed by the thick silence of caution. "You sure? If you push it too hard, it might blow up in your face…and his."
They both knew what Mira wasn't saying. It just didn't matter. It couldn't. Only the case did. The general's life. NATO.
"I appreciate the concern, but I don't have a choice." When all was said and done, whatever she and John had managed to forge these past few days was destined to implode anyway. She'd realized that at the same moment she'd accepted that, somehow, he'd managed to well and truly get under her skin.
A swift glance at that taunting clock made her that much more determined. "If I leave now, I can be there by eighteen thirty."
A good half an hour past last night's invitation, but close enough for her to blame her tardiness on yet another impromptu assignment from Terry.
She was going to owe the man a crate of vodka by the time this was done.
"Rae…what if LaCroix is there? If the two of them have gotten into it again, that could explain Garrison's silence."
That was what she was most afraid of.
Regan channeled the growing unease into action, eyeing her mist-green sweatshirt, faded jeans and running shoes as she stood.
Not exactly date-wear.
Too bad. They'd have to suffice.
She grabbed her bag from the back of the chair, double-checking that her most important accessories were still securely hidden within.
Satisfied, she slung the strap over her shoulder and departed the room. Within seconds, she was in the adjacent, darkened parking lot, unlocking the Tiguan and slipping into the driver's seat before she could change her mind. "I'll be fine. But stand by. If I need an out, I'll use John's bathroom to text you." He knew she had a girlfriend in town, the one she'd been waiting on in the bar that first night. "I'll tell him you got dumped and need a shoulder to sob on."
"Gee, thanks."
"What are friends for? Wish me luck." She hung up, hit the VW's lights and started the engine before Mira could do just that, lest the woman jinx her.
Fifteen minutes later, Regan turned the car into John's drive, once again parking beside his Wrangler. LaCroix's truck was missing.
One worry negated.
Unless the sergeant had already come and gone—violently.
She killed the lights and bailed out into the dark to skirt the front of the VW. She laid her palm on the Wrangler's hood.
The metal was stone cold. John had been home for a while.
So why hadn't he called?
The tension gripping her gut ratcheted tighter as she unzipped her leather bag—just in case—and stepped onto the walkway that led around the house. The tension eased a bit as she cleared the corner and reached the living room's main window. The blinds were drawn, but the slats were open. Though the table lamp beside the couch was switched to low, there was enough light for her to make out the distinctive white tee shirt and denim-clad form looming within.
John.
Unfortunately, her relief was supplanted by a fresh bout of unease that quickly morphed into dread as she headed for the door. She'd also spotted a bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. By John's own admission, he only drank when depressed. Very depressed. The bottle was open…and half empty.
She gathered her nerve, and knocked.
Reddened eyes greeted her as the door swung wide.
"Fuck."
Instinct had her slipping her fingers into her bag as she stepped back.
"No!" John's left hand shot out—the one not dwarfing a squat glass of sloshing amber—to snag her arm. "Please. It's not you. I just realized I forgot to call. To reschedule."
Regan eased her fingers from her bag, the 9mm still firmly secreted within as she allowed John to draw her inside the house.
She waited patiently as he closed the door. But instead of facing her as the latch clicked, he turned to cross the room. He stopped beside the coffee table, raised the tumbler in his hand, and polished off the remainder of the whiskey within.
He bent down to set the glass on the table, then straightened and slowly faced her. "It's okay. I just had the one. I'm not drunk."
"I know." His path to the table had been straight and unwavering, the hand he'd used to drain that glass before setting it down, rock steady.
But something was wrong. Horribly wrong. Those dark gray eyes weren't red and swollen from booze, but grief. He'd been crying.
"What happened?"
"What else? Another goddamned bombing in the world. This time, Iraq." His grimace was short and stiff. "Big shock, eh?"
"I've been tied up. I hadn't heard." She slipped the strap of her bag off her shoulder and let it slide down to the charcoal rug beneath her feet.
"S'okay. The fallout hasn't made the news yet."
But it wasn't okay. Not for him. She stepped forward. "Who died?"
"An SF officer. Dan Stoeble. He'd just made major. Fathered his second kid. Not that he'll ever get to hold her."
"Dan was a friend, wasn't he?"
His nod was clipped—and not nearly as steady as his hand had been. "The best."
Her heart clenched as those still-reddened eyes began to shimmer. She stepped closer, reached out. But as the dampness welled up and threatened to spill, he jerked away and spun around. She followed him, reaching up to press her palm into the thick, quaking muscles of his shoulders.
"John?"
He shook his head. "Just—give me a sec." Dragging his air in deep, he lifted a hand to scrub his eyes. His breath shuddered out as he turned back. "Sorry. I'm fine. Today's…brought a bunch of stuff to a head."
LaCroix.
With everything that was going on in John's life, she wasn't sure how she could be so certain. But she was. The CID agent in her demanded she push it. The fellow soldier and woman in her cautioned patience, compassion. Especially the woman.
She listened to the latter.
An eternity seemed to pass as she stood there, silent. Waiting. And then agent, soldier and woman were rewarded with a soft, resigned sigh.
"It's Evan."
"Your houseguest?"
John nodded. "You were right about him."
"I was?"
"The night we met. You told me you were worried about the guy. You were right to be." John gripped the back of his neck as he blew out another sigh. "Ev's messed up. He has been for a while. And he's getting worse."
"How so?"
He lowered his hand. "He's been sounding off about the general."
"Ertonç?"
"Yeah. He headed up the campaign that killed Carys." John shook his head in disgust. "Collateral damage. Christ, I hate that phrase. Always have. Too goddamned innocuous for what it represents." His fingers came up again, this time to scrub at the grief that still tinged his eyes, but he couldn't quite seem to reach it all. He gave up, tucking his hand into the crook of his opposite arm. "Ertonç was a colonel before Operation Peace Spring. He made general after. Right after."
"Wow."
"Yup. Anyway, I thought—hoped—Evan had come to terms with it. But then he learned Ertonç was on his way here."
And that was her opening.
She reached out, laid her hand on John's forearm, atop the coarse, roping scar that fed up into that daunting biceps. "Why is he here?"
John shook his head. "Sorry. Can't say."
Damn. She smoothed the pads of her fingers down the mottled rope, drawing him back to his current, darker dilemma. "You're worried, aren't you? That Evan's going to do something stupid…or deadly."
Silence.
The air was thick with it. Tense.
Telling.
It was now or never. "Maybe…" She slid the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip. "Maybe you should…say something."
"I don't know. His commanding officer? Yours? CID?"
"Can't." John shook his head, but he didn't step back. "I don't have proof. Just my gut and the drunken spewings of a fellow soldier still racked with grief. It's not enough to risk his career over. A damned stellar career."
"But what if your gut's right? The general's in town." Ertonç was being watched, yes. Protected. But LaCroix wasn't. And he was SF, with all the cold, deadly skills the specialty entailed. The ones he excelled at. "What if Evan's out there right now—"
"He's not."
"You can't be sure."
"I can. I am." A revealing flush tinged John's neck, highlighting the stark white of those twin overlapping scars that tangled down beneath the collar of his matching tee. "I'm having him watched."
Watched. "As in…guarded?"
"Yes." He did withdraw from her then. Physically and emotionally. Or perhaps he was simply withdrawing from himself and what he'd just admitted to doing to a fellow soldier—and friend. He took a step back and turned to the coffee table to retrieve the bottle of whiskey and its cap. "I needed some time to get my head on straight, to toast Stubbs and mourn him, so I asked a buddy to look out for Evan tonight. He'll give me a heads up when Ev heads home. If he heads home. Lately, Ev's been choosing that bar you and I met at over his bed."
Relief filtered in with the reassurance that LaCroix wasn't out there alone. And who better to guard the sergeant than one of his own?
Regan stepped up to the coffee table. To John.
He'd capped the bottle, but he was still staring at it as though mesmerized by the amber swirling within.
She reached down and retrieved the empty glass. "It's okay if you have another."
She hated herself for making the suggestion, especially having read the horrors in that BI of his. But if the man had more of that whiskey, she just might get more information. Enough to obtain a warrant to access that room down the hall and end this damned thing. Before LaCroix hit the town unguarded.
"No." John retrieved the tumbler from her hand and set it and the bottle on the table—firmly. "I was serious earlier; I have the one. Just the one. And only when I lose someone."
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