Maggie already knew plenty about the good Chief. She was aware that he’d grown up on a Texas cattle ranch, which he now ran himself. She knew he had a younger brother who’d been the victim of abuse over his sexual preferences, and that Frank had beat the living shit out of a group of five boys for it. He’d been in high school at the time. All charges were dropped on the condition Frank join the Navy and get some serious anger management.
Cameron, blaming himself, disappeared from home. No word since, though Frank had soaked money and time into the search. During his stint with the Navy he’d enlisted with the SEALs, and soon climbed ranks to Chief Petty Officer.
Looking him over, Maggie was reminded of a big cat preparing to pounce. She worked with alpha men every day and had never been the type attracted by a man’s looks. Something about him drew her though, whether she liked it or not.
His sable hair gleamed under the harsh fluorescent lights, picking up hues of red and gold among the dark strands. He had eyes that looked steely now but she could imagine them a softer, warmer color. Like, maybe during sex. Shifting, she told herself to get a grip.
He could be a possible suspect in an ongoing case. A case that she had put heart and soul into, and wasn’t about to mess up due to some unwanted attraction. Her team had been after the men in this crime ring for a long time. This was the closest they’d come to a break and she was determined to get something useful out of this meeting. There was something big in the works. The trouble was, they were getting nowhere with the where and the when. Maybe with the help of Stein and his friend Ford, they might finally get a chance to close these assholes down.
Maggie enjoyed undercover work. The rush of excitement. The opportunity to play a part. The danger. This time though it’d been different. The things she’d seen in the past few months had twisted her insides. Not being able to stop it was heartbreaking. She’d vowed then to take these jerks down, and this man could be the key to everything.
Frank’s gaze on her as she reached into her shirt and brought out her badge from its resting place between her breasts made the natural act suddenly feel like something illicit. Her body responded to his male sensuality, and she had to grab the chair on the other side of the table, her legs unaccountably weakened.
Pissed off with her reaction to him, Maggie became all business. “I’m with the DEA, Mr. Stein. My team and I have been working this case for a long while now and unfortunately we are not as close to catching these men as we would like to be. We have reason to believe one or more members from SEAL team five, which is your old team I believe, are, and have been for quite some years, involved in the trafficking of humans, cocaine, heroin, and guns. These are big players we’re after, Frank.” She hoped to bond—professionally—and read from the report she’d carried into the room.
“For the past several years, there has also been a growing use of, and interest in, synthetic cathinones, which as you may know are stimulants/hallucinogens, sold under the guise of “bath salts” or “plant food.” Marketed under names such as “Ivory Wave,” “Purple Wave,” “Vanilla Sky,” or “Bliss,” these products are comprised of a class of dangerous substances perceived to mimic cocaine, LSD, MDMA, and/or methamphetamine.” She looked up briefly, saw his gaze glued to her face, and hurried on.
“Users have reported impaired perception, reduced motor control, disorientation, extreme paranoia, and violent episodes. The long-term physical and psychological effects of use are unknown but potentially severe. Recently one of my trusted sources tipped us to a huge exchange in the pipes, taking place within the next month.
“The problem is, we don’t know where, and we aren’t sure who all the players are. Yet. That’s where we hope you come in. We need your help, Frank. We can’t let this stuff hit the streets, we have to stop it.” Pausing to give him time to let it all sink in, Maggie glanced behind her at the dark glass. Their career was on the line here, but more important than that, the lives of all the young people affected by these drugs if they failed.
“Look, you don’t know or trust me, I get that. But, I’ve been led to believe that you were an outstanding leader of your men. All I’m asking is for you to think it over. If there was a bad seed among them, we need to know who it was.”
***
Frank couldn’t believe what he’d just been told, or that they expected him to narc out one of his own men. They’d trusted each other with their lives. They had to. He was pretty damn sure they all knew the color of each other’s shorts, they were that close. How could he possibly point a finger at one and say him, it must be him.
There’s no friggin’ way, that’s how.
And if they were thinking of landing this whole thing at Jared’s door, as they were leading him to believe by this whole setup, hell no. The two of them had been through fire together. They had a bond that no pretty-eyed fed was going to break, that’s for sure.
Frank ignored the indrawn breath from the woman in front of him as he stood. His chair scraped like nails on a chalkboard across the cement floor, as he moved around the table to stare into the glass. He wasn’t sure what the hell was going on here, but he had a strong feeling it had to do with whoever was behind that window.
“If we’re done here, I’d like to collect my friend and leave. I’m just a simple rancher trying to make a living. My days of working for Uncle Sam are long gone. I haven’t seen or heard from any of the men except Jared in a couple of years at least, so there’s not much I could tell you even if I would, which I wouldn’t. You need to get your pretty butt out pounding the pavement instead of bugging the average guy. You might actually get somewhere that way.”
On that parting shot Frank turned and grabbed the doorknob just as it opened from the other side. Jared walked in followed by the rookie cop, whose mouth dropped at the sight of Ms. Holt. Frank could sympathize with the man, that’d been his first reaction too. It was too bad she’d turned out to be a fed, definitely on his to-be-avoided list.
“Hey, Franco, my man, you came. Thanks, bud. I thought I was going to be spending the night in the crowbar hotel.” Jared grinned past the swollen lip and black eye he was sporting, no doubt courtesy of The Golden Ring Casino. The man never learned. Frank was relieved to see the damage was minimal. His ugly mug would heal.
“Wow, who’s the babe? You’ve been holding out on me, old man. Hello, pretty lady, I’m Frank’s better-looking and much more charming partner.”
Frank shook his head. Jare never knew when to keep his big trap shut, which is how he always got himself into shit. “She’s got way more class than to hang out with the likes of you, now let’s get out of here. I could use a beer.” With a last look at the woman sure to be occupying his dreams that night, Frank etched a salute at the shadow behind the glass and pushed his friend out of the room.
“What the fuck was that about?” Jared griped, and sent the young officer a back-off stare, his humor disintegrating now that they were almost alone. His aggressiveness was so out of character that Frank took a better look. Other than the bruising, he looked wrung out, his green eyes murky, hiding his true thoughts. Frank didn’t like it, not at all.
“They wasted a shitload of time down in holding with the release papers. At first they didn’t even want to give me my phone call, until they found out I was calling you, then they couldn’t move fast enough. I thought they were just being jackasses, but now I’m guessing there was another agenda. This whole thing stinks. I didn’t do anything wrong. Well, not much at any rate.” He let loose a mischievous grin. “Those guys over at the Ring need to get a sense of humor. They are way too serious. That’ll give a guy lines, you know?” He pointed to Frank’s less than smooth forehead. “Case in point.”
The idiot was a giant pain in his ass, but Frank thanked his lucky stars every day for putting him into that barracks room with Jared all those years ago. After Cameron had disappeared from home, Frank had gone near crazy looking for him. He’d always taken care of his younger, frailer brother. Cam wa
s special. Ever since he opened those green eyes and looked up into Frank’s misty ones, they’d been inseparable, or at least that’s how his mama liked to tell the story.
Their father, Frank Sr., had been the rock in the family, strong and silent but always there to lean on. He’d died in a freak accident out on the range not long after the incident with the Muldoon boys and Cam. Cameron blamed himself, and no one could change his mind about it. It festered until one day he just up and disappeared, breaking their Mother’s heart. Bad enough she’d lost her husband, but now her baby was gone too.
“Come on, buddy, I owe you a couple for coming all this way to bail me out. Who’s watching the spread?” Jared asked, slinging an arm over Frank’s shoulders, jarring him back to the present.
“Spencer’s there, he can handle it. Ma’ll keep him in line.” Frank answered, shrugging Jared’s arm off. The ass knew he wasn’t a touchy-feely sort of guy.
“Spence get her to agree to marry him yet? That old codger’s had a thing for your Mom pretty well ever since I’ve known you.” Jared laughed.
“Not yet, not for a lack of trying though. The old bugger’s persistent, I’ll give him that.” Spencer was as reliable as the day was long. He’d been Frank Senior’s foreman, and was an invaluable help to Frank when he had to pick up the reins and carry on in the wake of the family’s double tragedy.
Thanks to Spence’s urging after his father died, he’d been able to continue his career as a SEAL for a couple more years. Actually, it had been both his and Cam’s dream. Cam was all Army though, and the boys had often argued good-naturedly about the perceived values of one over the other. Frank often wondered if his little bro’ had gone there when he’d disappeared, but had never found any trace.
Spencer had been in love with Emily, Frank’s mom, for years. After Frank Sr. died he’d stayed on at the ranch to help the Steins out in any way that he could. If his deepest desire was to have Emily finally take note of him, Frank couldn’t blame the man. His mother was a fine woman, one who deserved a second chance. She was too young to be burying herself along with her husband.
Leaving the coolness of the precinct behind, the two men ambled across the hot-enough-to-roast-a-chicken parking lot towards Frank’s car, a beige four-door sedan.
“Vegas and you rent this piece of crap? What were you thinking, man? This isn’t a chick car; it’s barely a step up from a walker,” Jared complained when he caught sight of the wheels.
“I was thinking that I might need my hard earned cash to pull you out of the clink, asshole. I’m not here to go joyriding.”
“Take it easy, I was joshin’ ya. It’s cool, lots of leg room, see?” He pushed the front seat all the way back and stretched out his long legs. Tipping the mirror down, Jared looked at his beat up face in the glass. “Those creeps did a bang up job of messing with my pretty face. So what do you think that Fed wanted?”
“How’d you know she was a Fed? DEA by the way. What did you get yourself into this time?” Frank put the key in the ignition and wound down the windows, the wind a dubious relief. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d come to Jared’s rescue. The man was a walking trouble magnet.
“Me? They were asking you all the questions. Of course she’s a Fed, didn’t you notice her eyes? Cold, man, ice cold. What were they after, anyway?”
Cold? No. Intelligent, yes. Frank knew there was no way Jared would knowingly get himself tangled up in smuggling of any kind. However, unknowingly? That was a whole other ballgame. He was more than a little worried about what kind of trouble his friend might have gotten himself into.
“Besides your friends at the Casino, who’ve you been hanging with? Someone out there is setting one of us up for a big dive and we need to figure out who it is, quick like. If the DEA is in on this, you can best believe we’re soon to have the whole friggin’ alphabet soup up our asses, and I don’t know about you but that makes me a wee bit edgy.”
“I haven’t been up to anything, Frankie. I swear it on my father’s grave. Since I saw you last year out at the ranch I’ve just been bouncing around, playing a few games here and there, to keep the cash flowing, you know. Until the meet and greet with those goons the other night things have been pretty copasetic for a change.”
“Well, that agent thinks differently. We’re going to have to come up with a game plan, and fast. There’s some serious shit going down, and apparently, we’re right in the middle of it. She said something about drug smuggling, cathinones. Also, gunrunning and human trafficking. This is bad Jare, very bad,” Frank said grimly. “She believes it’s someone from the team. We need to find them ASAP, and find out what the hell’s going on.”
Franks’ phone let out a little burst, you are my Sunshine. Looking over at Jared’s grinning face he growled, “Not a word, not one single word.” He couldn’t believe his mom had messed with his phone, and now he couldn’t figure out how to change the blasted thing.
“Stein,” Frank barked, putting a stop to the offensive sound.
“Chief, how are you, sir? It’s, Nick. Nickolaus Kelley.”
Funny how that worked, he couldn’t count the number of times he’d thought of someone he hadn’t heard from in forever and wham, there they were. “Kelley, no kidding. Jared and I were just talking about you. Yeah, he’s here. I had to come rescue his sorry ass out of the slammer for messing with a casino in Vegas. Their mainframe computer no less, same old Jared.” Turning sideways, he smirked at the sour grimace on his friend’s kisser.
“It’s great to hear your voice, Chief. It’s been too long, I should have kept in touch. Fact is I’ve got a situation brewing here. I’m in Tidal Falls, Washington. I could use a hand, if you can spare the time?” Nick’s deep voice carried through the cell phone’s receiver and reverberated in the air between them.
“No shit. Yeah, we can be there by tomorrow. Funny you should call. I was just getting ready to look you up for the same thing. I’m looking forward to seeing your sorry ass, Kelley, and it’s Frank now.”
As Frank closed his phone down and drove towards the nearest gas station, thoughts of the team ran through his mind. It would be good to see Nick again. He’d better give the ranch a call though, make sure his mom and Spencer had everything under control. He didn’t like to be away for very long, though truthfully, Spence didn’t really need him there. He handled the men and day-to-day stuff fine without Frank around. Shit, he’d been the one that had taught Frank most of what he knew in the first place.
“Well, how’s that for fate stepping in and giving us a big high five?” Jared chuckled. “Guess we’re going on a road trip, hey buddy?”
Rolling his eyes he turned his attention to the road while a flare of adrenalin flowed through his body, electrifying the air and exciting the thrill-seeker inside him. He loved his home and enjoyed making a success of the farm, but it couldn’t compare to the do or die of day to day in the SEALs.
Now, if he could only find some duct tape wide enough to tape yappy’s mouth shut.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nick jogged through the early morning streets, Jake trotting by his side, enjoying the peace and quiet before the town woke for the day. Little songbirds greeted him as he passed a cedar hedge on his way to the park. The air was fresh and cool at this hour. He was glad his strength had returned, his breathing even and stride long. It’d been an uphill battle. For a while after the ambush he’d shut down. Closed everyone out. He wished now he’d made it his business to keep in touch with all his old teammates. The faint sounds of a dog’s bark had Nick looking down at Jake, loping alongside. He’d healed up well, and only flinched at sudden loud noises these days. His hip had taken the brunt of the damage. When the explosion had thrown them, Nick worried he’d need to put him down, but he’d pulled through. Tough mutt.
After his run, he would head over to Sara’s and have a look at those files, see what they were looking at here. Nick had a bad feeling that Tommy boy was into some heavy shit. They needed to solve t
hat first, before there could be a chance for him and Sara.
A sudden sharp pain stabbed him behind the eyes, causing him to falter. Jake whined, sensing his distress. Squinting through slit eyes he spotted a nearby bench, and slumped onto the seat. He pushed a shaky hand through his hair, and then using his thumb and middle finger squeezed in towards his nose, relieving the pressure. “It’s okay, boy. I’m fine. Let’s just take a little break, hmm.” The doctor had explained in excruciating detail while he lay in that hospital in Germany, how lucky he was. The explosion had hit him and sent him flying right up against the stone wall of a nearby house. Shrapnel had gouged a deep line on his forehead, right above his old bullet wound. A centimeter farther to the left and it would have been lights out, of the forever kind. Unfortunately, it’d taken his short-term memory away from him. He’d been told it would come back in dribbles, or one big slam––or maybe not ever. Nice. It angered him that he couldn’t break through the fog to discover the truth of what happened to him and his team. There was something there he could feel it.
He supposed he should be grateful he could remember his childhood, though those memories he could have lived without. Years of mental and physical abuse at the hands of his old man had sent him down nothing but a path of trouble during his high school years. Alcohol, substance abuse, vagrancy, you name it he tried it. His motto had been if you’re not living on the edge, you’re just taking up space.
Then he’d met Kendra in one of the few classes he’d decided to show up for and they’d fallen in love. She’d been the only child of lawyer parents, sweet and innocent. The odds had gone against him when they’d had unprotected sex on a hot summer’s night. She’d gotten pregnant. At least he’d done the right thing and proposed. And though her parents of course hated him, they agreed the marriage should take place. Maybe if they’d stopped it, or if he’d just walked away, Kendra and his son would still be alive today.
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