Dark Water: Lantern Beach Blackout, Book 1

by Barritt, Christy

  Colton carefully pressed the bandage to her forehead and then stepped back. “Did you bring it with you today?”

  “I brought a copy.”

  Elise knew she needed to hand it over. But, by doing so, she felt like she was opening Pandora’s box.

  Elise only hoped she didn’t bring destruction on all of them.

  Just as the thought entered her mind, an explosion rocked the house.

  Had the man from last night already found her?

  Chapter Four

  Colton grabbed Elise’s arms to steady her.

  What was that? The whole cottage had quaked. Pictures rattled. The soap dish vibrated.

  “Stay here.” Moving quickly, Colton darted into the living room. He glanced around. Everything appeared to be intact. But he didn’t relax yet.

  Instead, he ran out onto the screened-in porch and scanned the area. He sucked in a breath at what he saw.

  Elise’s car.

  A ball of fire surrounded it.

  There was only one thing that could have caused an explosion like that.

  A bomb.

  Someone had left a bomb in Elise’s car. Colton felt certain of it. She was fortunate that she hadn’t been inside when it went off.

  Had the device been on a timer? Or had someone chosen this moment to detonate it? Either way, he didn’t like this.

  “Colton?”

  He looked over and saw Elise standing at the door, a knot between her fear-filled eyes.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said.

  She stepped outside and stood beside him, staring at the carnage of her vehicle. Colton slipped an arm around her, and she seemed to sag against him.

  “Was I . . . was I supposed to be inside?” she muttered.

  “I don’t know.” Colton pulled out his phone. “We need to get someone out here, though. They’re probably already on their way. I’m sure everyone within a quarter mile heard that.”

  Elise still stared at her vehicle. The initial blast had died down, but flames still shot from every part of the car.

  “That could have been me . . .” she muttered.

  “Let’s just be thankful it wasn’t.”

  She nodded but looked unconvinced. Looked in shock, for that matter.

  Whatever was going on, it was serious. Dead serious.

  * * *

  The police came five minutes later, along with the fire department. The flames around Elise’s car were extinguished. Investigators were examining the vehicle and the police had taken a report. Colton and Elise had been dismissed to go back inside for now.

  After the bomb—or what remained of it—was retrieved from the carnage, maybe they’d have more answers. Colton was thankful no one had been hurt and that the car was far enough from the house that there was no further damage.

  As Colton led Elise back inside, memories hit him. Memories that he’d tried desperately to forget. Memories of the battlefield, and the battlefield was what he’d come here to get away from.

  That last black ops mission he’d worked had nearly destroyed him. It had nearly destroyed them all. In fact, Blackout had formed as a direct result of that day. This subsection of Colton’s platoon had needed a break from the military after things had gone terribly wrong.

  Daniel was dead, and Elise was a widow trying to navigate life by herself.

  Not only that, but now she apparently needed to navigate danger as well.

  Guilt pounded at him. If Colton had been more on top of things that day, Daniel might still be alive. Elise might not be a widow.

  Even worse, she still didn’t know the whole story about how her husband had died.

  More guilt nipped at Colton.

  Elise had already been through so much. She didn’t need this on top of everything else. But whatever she’d found must have made someone feel threatened.

  Was the person who’d attacked her the same person who’d sold them out before their last operation? His higher-ups had believed that person was Daniel, but Colton knew that wasn’t the case.

  To the day Colton died, he would never believe that Daniel had done the things he was accused of doing. Daniel was the type of guy Colton trusted with his life, not the kind who would have sold his soul to fatten his wallet.

  As they lowered themselves at the table, Elise looked like she was beside herself. If her trembling hands were a reflection of her inner turmoil then she was a mess. He poured her a fresh cup of coffee before sitting down beside her.

  Colton couldn’t stand watching Elise like this. He reached for her hands. Two of her hands easily fit within one of his. He pressed them together, trying to calm her trembles.

  “Just take a deep breath,” he coached. “When you’re ready, tell me, where did you find this information?”

  Slowly, Elise breathed in, then out, before nodding and beginning. “In Daniel’s office.”

  “He had an office at your house?”

  “That’s right.” She looked out the window, her gaze hooded. “He spent a lot of time there. I’m sure you know that the past two years of our marriage were hard. Daniel and I talked about separating. We might as well have been separated as much as we saw each other.”

  Colton bit down. Daniel had alluded to those facts, but Colton hadn’t wanted to bring them up. Instead, he nodded, trying to remain neutral. Their marriage wasn’t his business.

  “You know what the statistics are,” Elise continued. “Ninety percent of marriages within the Navy SEAL community fail. I was determined that Daniel and I weren’t going to be one of those statistics. But he hadn’t been acting like himself. When he was home, he was distant, like something bothered him. Something he wouldn’t acknowledge.”

  Colton knew what Elise was talking about. He’d seen the shift in Daniel also. Some people assumed those changes indicated he was guilty, that he was involved in things he shouldn’t be. But Colton knew the speculation wasn’t true.

  Based on what Elise had just told him and what he’d just seen . . . the mystery surrounding Daniel and his death was far from over.

  And now Elise was caught in the crossfire in a battle she’d never signed up to fight.

  Chapter Five

  Colton waited for Elise to continue.

  “When he returned home from this last deployment, we were going to really try to fix the broken parts of our relationship. But we never had that chance.” Elise looked down at her hands—the ones Colton still gripped—as her voice trailed off with grief.

  Colton gave her a moment to compose herself, even as his heart twisted inside his chest.

  “Anyway,” Elise started again, “I decided that I needed to do something different with his office. Honestly, I wanted to forget the fact that we’d even had our problems. The place had almost become like a war room to him. Daniel was in there all the time, wanting to be by himself, working on things he couldn’t tell me about. I know the office wasn’t the cause of our problems, but I’ve always associated the two together.”

  “And?” Colton waited for her to continue.

  “I decided I would replace the flooring. He’d always hated that floor anyway—it was ugly tan carpet. I decided to remove it myself.”

  Colton felt the start of a smile at the corner of his lips. Elise had always been a go-getter. Once she got an idea in her head, she didn’t let it go.

  That was probably the reason why her marriage to Daniel had lasted as long as it had. It was also the reason why she was able to get her doctorate in psychology while her husband had been serving overseas. She was one determined woman, and Colton had always admired her for that.

  “As I was pulling up the carpet, I noticed a section of the subfloor had been cut out. I knew that the carpet in that area was a little loose, but I didn’t think much of it. Out of curiosity, I pried the wood up, and I was surprised to see a metal box stashed beneath the floor. I found all the information there.” Her gaze swerved up to meet Colton’s. “I thought the only people who hid things like these we
re CIA operatives. That’s the way it happens in the movies, at least.”

  “When you work with the people we work with, sometimes there’s a lot more CIA in us than we would like to admit,” Colton said. “Clandestine information is something you have to be careful with.”

  “Either way, I found it. I assume Daniel thought he would come home and use this information himself. Or maybe he hid it away hoping I might find it one day if things went south. I don’t really know. Maybe you do, and maybe one day, if you’re comfortable enough, you can share that information with me.”

  Colton didn’t say anything. The more information Elise knew, the more danger she would be in. He didn’t want to put her in that position.

  He released her hands. They’d stopped trembling. She leaned forward and picked up her coffee mug, this time successfully bringing it to her lips without spilling it. She took a long drink before setting it down again.

  “Everything I found has been documented on this SD card.” She reached into her purse and pulled it out. “I’m hoping that you can make sense of it. I took pictures of everything.”

  “Pictures?”

  “I bought a digital camera and decided this was the best way to ensure I got the information to the right people. I hid the originals.”

  “Let’s see what you’ve got,” Colton said.

  But he already didn’t like the sound of this. Not at all.

  * * *

  Elise felt her hands begin to sweat. After what had happened at her house and to her car, could she really blame herself?

  Colton grabbed a computer from the table and slid the SD card into the slot. They both stared at the screen as lines and lines of various numbers appeared.

  Colton squinted at the images. “What are these?”

  “I tried to figure it out,” Elise said. “But I didn’t get very far. I hope I didn’t sit on this for too long. I was trying to figure out how to handle this the best way.”

  “I’m glad you came here. You did the right thing.”

  Just hearing Colton’s affirmation brought her a wave of comfort. Elise was so thankful now that she had been able to find him.

  It hadn’t been easy, especially since she didn’t want to alert anyone as to her whereabouts. But Elise had used the burner phone she bought after fleeing her house to do some research. Eventually, she’d found a small article that mentioned Colton being in Lantern Beach.

  Even better was the fact that there were other former Navy SEALs here with him. Maybe, between all of them, they would have some insight as to how to handle this.

  Colton turned toward her. “Okay, let’s think this through. I know we’re only skimming the surface here. But you found information that seems to implicate someone. The fact that Daniel was hiding it indicates this was most likely high-level. The fact that he didn’t share it with anyone else, including any of the guys on his team, also meant that he had good reason to hide it.”

  Elise was so thankful that Colton hadn’t mentioned the theory that Daniel was hiding these things out of guilt. That had been her fear. The worry caused her to lose sleep at night even. Her husband had been a good man. Even with their issues, she’d never doubted that.

  “So who could this information be about?” Colton shifted, but his gaze remained on Elise.

  “I suppose only Daniel knew that,” Elise said. “He never spoke about any of his missions.”

  Colton’s eyes darkened.

  The details about exactly what Daniel was doing and where had always been sketchy, and Elise hated being left in the dark. Yet she understood the job and the security clearance necessary. She tried to respect the boundaries, but it was harder than she’d anticipated.

  “I just wish things hadn’t happened the way they did.” Colton’s voice turned gravelly and raw. “That . . . that training exercise . . . it will haunt me every day for the rest of my life.”

  Elise wanted to reach out, to touch his arm, to reassure Colton that she didn’t hold him responsible for her husband’s death. But when Colton had placed her small hands between his larger ones earlier, something strange happened to her heart. Touching him felt off limits now.

  It wasn’t that Elise was attracted to Colton, nor was it that she wasn’t attracted to him. The situation played with her emotions right now. Elise knew better than anybody that feelings were fickle, and she’d be wise to keep that in mind.

  “Do you think this information might have something to do with one of your missions?” Elise asked again.

  The shadow in Colton’s gaze only grew deeper. “It’s a definite possibility.”

  “I know the past few operations seemed to be centered in the same area. Exactly who were the bad guys you were fighting?” The question hung in the air, and she wasn’t sure she’d get a response. “Can you tell me that?”

  “The Savages.” Colton’s jaw tightened. “They mostly operate out of northern Africa, in the Mediterranean, and they’re the most vicious group I have ever dealt with in all my years being a SEAL.”

  That wasn’t comforting. She knew of the Savages and knew they were brutal. No, more than brutal. They lived up to their name.

  They wanted to kill anyone who didn’t agree with their views. They were believed to be behind a power outage in New York City a couple years ago, though the media hadn’t identified them as the ones responsible. She’d overheard Daniel saying something about it on the phone once. When Elise had asked him, he told her he couldn’t talk about the details and that she should pretend she’d never heard that conversation.

  “What else can you tell me about them?” she asked.

  “They’re pirates who attack boats traveling the route between Africa and the US. They supposedly have ties with more than one corrupt governments in the Middle East region, but there’s no proof of that.”

  “What’s their goal?”

  “Tantalum. It’s used in electronics—cell phones in particular. The substance is also a part of the mineral trade war in the Congo and Rwanda.”

  “So is this about money?” she asked.

  “It’s about control. If they control tantalum, they’ll control the tech world.”

  The sinking feeling grew in Elise’s gut. “Could the information I found be about one of the Savages? Maybe one of their leaders?”

  Colton swallowed hard. “It’s a possibility. I’ve always wondered if the group had somebody on the inside here in the US.”

  Colton’s words echoed through the room, echoed in her head. Certainly Elise hadn’t heard correctly. “You think an American citizen is working with them?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I think. I have no proof, only a nagging feeling that I can’t shake.”

  “So if this insider happened to find out that I’d discovered information that might implicate him or her, that would be a really good reason to come after me, wouldn’t you say?” Elise thought having answers would comfort her—it didn’t.

  Colton’s gaze locked with hers. “Yes, I’d say that would be a very good reason. However, you said the only people you mentioned this to were at the command center, correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  He leaned back and rubbed his jaw. “The information could have somehow been relayed another way.”

  Elise’s back straightened. “What do you mean?

  “Before you went to the command, did you call anybody or talk to anybody in your home about it?”

  “Only the commander. Why? What are you getting at?”

  “I’m wondering if somehow your house or your phone was bugged.”

  Elise felt the color leave her face at the thought of it. “You think somebody would’ve gone that far?”

  “I know somebody would’ve gone that far, especially if they thought Daniel had secrets. Big secrets. Secrets of national security.”

  She nodded at the pictures on the computer. “Do you think that’s what his secret is? Something that could have far-reaching implications?”

  “Yes
.” Not even a smidgen of doubt lingered in Colton’s voice.

  As the thought tried to settle in her mind, Elise’s phone rang. She sucked in a breath as she listened to the ring.

  “What?” Colton asked.

  “This is a burner phone. I literally just bought it a few hours ago. No one has the number.”

  “Answer it,” Colton said. “Put it on speaker.”

  With her finger poised on the Talk button, she glanced at Colton. He gave her a subtle nod of affirmation. Elise hit Talk. Before she even said hello, a deep voice came through the line.

  “I will get the information one way or another,” the caller growled.

  Elise’s blood went cold. “Who is this?”

  “That’s not important. Just know this: if I don’t get what I want, I’ll ruin you.”

  Chapter Six

  Colton saw Elise’s face go pale. He wanted to reach out to comfort her, but he stopped himself. Elise was a strong, professional woman who didn’t need to be coddled. He knew that.

  But there was part of Elise that had always captured his heart. She was everything he’d ever wanted in a significant other . . . but she’d been married to his best friend. She had been—and always would be—off limits.

  I will get the information one way or another. Just know this: if I don’t get what I want, I’ll ruin you.

  The phone call had abruptly ended after that last line.

  Whoever was behind this was sick—and there was a good chance he was connected to the mission where Daniel had died. Colton had suspected for a while that there was more to that operation than met the eye, but every lead he’d investigated turned up nothing.

  “How did someone get this number?” Elise’s face looked at least three shades lighter.

  That was a great question. “You said you got the phone a few hours ago?”

  “That’s right. On the way here. I only activated it on the ferry.”