He met Luke in the hallway. “Everything’s clear, Jack. I checked in with the guards at the gate. No one’s been in or out. I checked the videotape of the surrounding area. There’s nothing suspicious.”
“She feels confident that someone was in her room.”
“Are you sure she’s just not being paranoid?”
Jack gave him a sharp look.
“I mean, I wouldn’t blame her if she was.”
“Don’t talk about her like that again, Luke.”
“Jack, if you don’t mind me saying so, are you sure you’re not getting a little too close to your client? I’d hate for you to lose your objectivity.”
“I’m not. And I do mind.”
“I’m just trying to watch out for you, boss.”
“You can watch out for me by letting me get some rest. It’s been a long night.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack scowled as he pushed the door open to his room. He didn’t know why a heaviness had settled over him, but it had. Even worse was the urgency he felt to find the people behind the attacks on Rachel. He had a feeling they were getting impatient with waiting.
THIRTEEN
Jack watched Rachel as she sat across from him in his office the next morning. She twisted her fingers together, and her eyes had a far off look to them. Any minute now, Luke and Denton should be calling. He’d sent them over to Rachel’s house to retrieve the letters.
Jack could tell by Rachel’s face that she was dreading seeing the letters again, dreading the memories they would bring back.
He hated to think that Andrew could have hurt her like that. He thought he’d cleared Andrew of any suspicions, but could what he was hiding the whole time have simply been an affair?
He’d already done a search on the woman, Meredith O’Connor. Her family had worked for a mission in Afghanistan for the past twenty years. Her father had been killed four years ago.
Around the same time Andrew was in Afghanistan…
Meredith was currently living back in the United States, only a few hours away. What if Andrew had been selling secrets to Apaka? What if Meredith was a part of one of their cells? She would easily blend in, and no one would suspect.
Finally, Jack’s cell phone rang.
“You’re not going to like this,” Denton said.
“What is it?”
“Rachel’s place has been ransacked. Looks like someone just went crazy looking for something.”
“We’ve had guards watching the place for more than a week now. How did someone get in?”
“I’m not sure how they got around our security measures. But someone’s definitely been here, and it’s not pretty.”
“I want to talk to the men who were keeping watch. I want to find out how this happened.”
“There’s more.”
Jack braced himself. “Okay.”
“They left a message on her wall.”
“What did it say?”
“It said, ‘We’re getting closer.’”
Jack gritted his teeth for a moment as the facts settled in his mind. “Was anything taken?”
“You’d have to ask Rachel about that. It looks like all the big stuff is still there. The TV, computer, jewelry.”
He hung up and saw Rachel looking at him with questioning eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Your house. It’s been turned upside down.”
She shivered and her hands clamped down across her chest and over her arms. “You think they were looking for me?”
“No. They were trying to send a message, to let you know that they’re not backing off.”
“I guess it would be crazy to think they might just disappear with time.”
“I’m going to go over and take a look.”
“Can I go?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Please. I need to pick up a few things. Besides, I need to see it with my own eyes.”
The pleading look in her gaze made it hard to say no. “We’ll have to use the utmost caution.”
“Of course.”
Finally, he nodded. “The FBI is headed over there now. We’ll meet them there.”
He placed his hand on the small of her back and led her from his office to an SUV that was waiting outside. Once she was securely inside, he ran around to the driver’s side and climbed in. He noticed Rachel’s white-knuckled grip on the armrest.
“You sure you want to do this? You can stay here.”
“I need to go. I need to see.”
They started down the road. Jack kept his gaze on alert, glancing around them for any sign of danger.
“I keep thinking that the connection of the people on the list is right at the edge of my reasoning,” Rachel said. “I just can’t figure out what’s been nagging me.”
“We’ve compared nearly every detail of every person’s life. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the names were random, but we know that’s not the case. There’s a reason you all were picked to be on that list.”
“You still think it might have something to do with those letters?”
“We won’t know until we get a hold of them.”
“I’m sure you’ve already looked into Meredith.”
What could Jack say? He knew he could only tell her the truth. “We did.”
She paused a moment before quietly asking, “Was my husband having an affair with her?”
“I don’t know, Rachel.”
She nodded, as if accepting his answer. “Tell me about her.”
“Rachel…”
“I can handle it.”
Jack drew in a deep breath. “She’s twenty-five years old. Her mother was from Uzbekistan and her father was an American. She grew up in New York and after college became an aid worker in the Middle East.”
“Uzbekistan? Isn’t that the country that Apaka is based out of?”
Jack nodded. “It is.”
Rachel shook her head. “Was my husband paying off a terrorist organization? Was he involved with them somehow?” She turned to Jack. “You’d tell me if he was, wouldn’t you? That connection can’t be a coincidence.”
“It’s a possibility, Rachel. We don’t know anything yet. As far as we know, Meredith and her family have no connection with Apaka.”
“Isn’t that what terrorists do? They blend in? They could be anyone, anywhere, hiding in plain sight within the melting pot of America.”
“Remember, try not to look for the worst in people. Try to look at them and see the best. It’s a gift to be able to do that.”
She crossed her arms and looked out the window as they traveled toward her house. “I want to do that. I really do.”
Jack reached across the seat and squeezed her knee. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” It was all he knew to say as he watched Rachel’s world fall further apart.
“Thank you, Jack.”
Jack knew the rest of the day wasn’t going to get any easier, however. Seeing her house in shambles would be just one more test. All Jack knew to do was to help hold her up if she felt like falling down. Would that be enough?
Rachel stepped over a broken vase and picked up a picture frame containing a photo of her and Aidan that lay trampled on the floor of her living room. She outlined their images with her fingertips before looking up and shaking her head. “They really did a number on this place, didn’t they?”
No shelf had been unturned. Books lay scattered on the floor, picture frames were smashed and the couch had even been overturned. Then there, in streaked red letters on her dining room wall, was the message she wasn’t meant to miss. We’re getting closer.
Rachel stared at the deep red letters and turned to Jack. “Blood?”
He shook his head. “Just paint. They wanted it to look like blood, though. Makes more of an impact that way.”
“I’d say.” She stepped over some more of her stuff and shook her head. “When was this done?”
“We’ve had someone on patrol around yo
ur house since you’ve been at Eyes. Whoever did this must have known our schedule because they came in at just the right time. They even knew where the video cameras had been hidden.”
Rachel swung her head toward him and raised an eyebrow. “Video cameras?”
“We placed them around your property just in case anyone decided to creep around here.”
“How well concealed were they?”
“You had to really look for them to notice them.”
“So how did they know?”
Jack’s jaw flexed. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
“Did they leave any evidence?”
“The FBI hasn’t found anything yet.”
“It sounds like these terrorists know what they’re doing. I just don’t understand what they were trying to prove by doing this. Haven’t they scared me enough? Why not just take me out at this point?”
Rachel looked up and saw Jack’s jaw slacken as his eyes widened. Her words had surprised him. She sighed and shook her head. “Am I being too blunt?”
His game face returned. “No, you’re actually too far on the right track. We’re trying to put all these puzzle pieces together, to figure out the methods behind their madness. I don’t know why they keep playing games with you. But there’s a reason. We just have to figure it out.”
Rachel cleared a chair and plopped down. She reached down into the mess at her feet and picked up a photo album. She rubbed her fingers across the cover. How she loved pictures of her family, pictures from times past.
She opened the book and flipped through the pages. Most of them were from those famous cookouts her parents used to have. She looked at the pictures of her mom and dad smiling. Her dad holding the spatula and wearing a “Kiss the Cook” apron. Her mom proudly displaying a platter of grilled kabobs. Such memories.
The next page held a picture of Andrew with his arm around Rachel. They’d only been married a couple of weeks when that picture was taken. She remembered how happy she’d been that day as she introduced Andrew to all of her parents’ friends and coworkers.
She flipped the page and saw a torn edge. Why had a page been torn out of this album? Strange.
“What is it?” Jack asked. He was always there, always observing.
“It may be nothing, but there’s a page torn out of this photo album.”
He leaned beside her and looked at the tear before turning to the FBI agent beside them. “Did you find a loose photo album page anywhere?”
“I’ll check the evidence log, but I don’t recall.”
“Keep your eyes open for it.”
“You think this could be significant?” Rachel asked Jack.
“Everything can be significant.” Jack looked closer. “Do you remember what was on that page?”
She looked at the pages before and after again. “It would have to be more pictures from that same barbecue.”
“Why would the terrorists want a picture from a family barbecue?” Jack seemed to be thinking out loud.
Rachel cleared her throat. “I think Andrew may have been in those pictures. Do you think that’s why they could have been taken?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Do you remember who else was at that barbecue?”
“Only the people I can see in these pictures. I can’t even remember most of their names. Uncle Arnold was there. Me. Andrew. Mom and Dad, of course. The rest of these people were from my parents’ job, I think.”
“We’ll try to find someone at the Department of Agriculture who can identify everyone. Maybe it will give us some kind of lead.”
Rachel nodded. “Maybe.”
Rachel leaned back in the chair. Why did she have the feeling that she was the connection on the terrorist list? The only thing she couldn’t figure out was why.
FOURTEEN
Jack knew that now more than ever he had to do everything within his power to keep Rachel safe.
She looked pale as she sat beside him in the SUV, and he was almost certain she’d lost weight in the few days since coming to Eyes. Jack knew enough about Rachel to know that she was once vivacious and full of energy. She seemed to be becoming a shell.
Seeing her house ransacked and realizing that the terrorists had stolen a page from her photo album had only added to her stress.
Why would they steal pictures from her album, of all things? The question wouldn’t leave his mind as he drove down the road headed back to Eyes. At least the FBI now had the letters from Meredith. Maybe they would discover something within them that would give a clue about Rachel’s connection with the list. The FBI had also recovered some files from Rachel’s computer at Operation 26 Letters and were searching those records now, hoping to find something—anything—that would provide some answers.
“Jack, tell me about your wife.”
Jack’s heart felt like it stopped for a minute. Of all the conversations he wanted to have with Rachel, this was not one of them. He glanced over at her and saw how she looked so earnest and sincere with her wide eyes.
“What do you want to know?”
Rachel shrugged. “I don’t know. Start at the beginning, I suppose. How’d you meet?”
“I came home for a holiday visit my first year being enlisted,” Jack started, the memories still as vivid as if it were last week. “We met at a friend’s Christmas party. We started a long-distance relationship. A year later, we got married and she moved to Norfolk where I was stationed.”
“How long were you married?” Rachel’s gaze still held that compassionate, soft look that so easily sucked him in and made him want to forget about everything else around. Yet instead of thinking about Rachel, he had to think about his ex-wife, his past failures. Any hope he had for a future with Rachel seemed to extinguish like a candle in a windstorm.
“A year and a half.”
“What happened?”
“I moved her away from everyone she knew to a place where she knew no one. And then I went out to sea for eight months.”
“Did she get a job? Join a church? Find a support group for military wives?”
Jack shook his head. “No, I wasn’t a Christian back then, and we didn’t go to church anywhere. I kept encouraging her to get a job or do something to get out of the house. She just didn’t seem interested. She always had excuses. At first, she said she wanted to get moved in and adjusted to being in Virginia. Then she said she couldn’t find a job that she liked. She couldn’t relate to any of the other women in the military wives’ support group. She missed her family and friends in Ohio terribly.”
“It sounds like she didn’t make much effort to adjust to life here.”
“I should have seen what was coming.”
Rachel leaned toward him. “Seen what?”
He shook his head as the memories flooded him. “I should have known that she was sinking into depression. I should have seen the signs. I should have done everything within my power to get off the ship I was stationed on and get home. I could have helped her.”
“What happened, Jack?”
The muscles in his neck flexed as his throat tightened. “I came home from my deployment. Needless to say, she wasn’t at the base to greet me. She barely even looked up when I walked into the house. She was sitting curled up on the couch wearing her pajamas and a bathrobe. The house was a wreck. Bills had been left unpaid.”
“I’m sure it was hard to see her like that.”
“Hard would be an understatement. She was vibrant at one time. The life of the party. I’d underestimated how poorly she was doing while I was overseas. I thought maybe she was exaggerating, but when I saw her, I knew she wasn’t.”
“Did you get her help?”
“I tried to, but she wouldn’t see a counselor. I was home for four months. She really seemed to start doing better. We went out every weekend with my friends and their spouses. She finally found a job working as a teacher’s aide at a local elementary school. I felt like there was hope for my marriage again.”
“Hope is always good.”
“Unfortunately, I had to go back out to sea. She decided she was going to stay with her parents in Ohio for this deployment so she didn’t fall back into the same habits and thoughts. I thought it seemed like a good idea. But she never came back to Virginia. She fell in love with someone else while she was in Ohio and filed for divorce. As soon as it was finalized, she married this other guy. She wouldn’t even talk to me. Once she’d decided it was over, there was no changing her mind.”
Rachel grabbed his hand. “I’m so sorry, Jack. I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for you.”
“I begged her to come back, tried to convince her we could make it work. The thing was, as long as I was in the military, she didn’t want to be married to me. And once you’re in the military, you can’t get out until the term you signed up for is over.”
“No, you can’t. Balancing job and family can be so hard, especially when you’re in the military. You’re called to serve your country. They won’t even let you go home for the birth of your baby, not if you’re out to sea. That’s what you sign up for. Didn’t she know that when she married you?”
“She thought she understood it and could handle it, but she couldn’t really. It was all like a culture shock to her. She was a little sheltered to begin with. She had these illusions of what marriage would be like. Reality was much different.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. I can tell all this still affects you.”
“I guess the good thing that came out of this was that it brought me to my knees and led me back to church. I hit rock bottom after she left me. I didn’t know where else to look for help until my friend introduced me to the Navy chaplain. He really helped to point me in the right direction. I started going to church again and slowly got my life back together. The next year, I became a SEAL. I found a lot of purpose in serving my country that way.”
The Last Target (Love Inspired Suspense) Page 9