Always Look Twice

by Dawson, Geralyn

  The landline in his office rang and he decided to let the answering machine pick up. Moments later, a woman’s tearful voice said, ‘‘Hello, Mr. Callahan. This is Frances Russo.’’

  Mark’s radar went on full alert. Russo called him from time to time, but never his wife. He set his bottle down on the patio table, then moved back inside and over to his desk. He picked up the receiver as she continued. ‘‘I’m Jeremy’s wife. You came to our wedding. I need to speak with you—’’

  ‘‘Hello, Frances. It’s Mark. It’s nice to hear from you. What can I do for you?’’

  At that, she burst into tears. Ah, hell. Mark propped a hip on the corner of his desk and tried to catch the words she managed through her sobs. He picked up a few that he wished he’d misunderstood.

  ‘‘Jeremy . . . mumble, mumble . . . dead . . . explosion. Mumble mumble mumble . . . accident. They’re wrong.’’ She let out a long, hard sob. ‘‘Wrong!’’

  Mark closed his eyes and took a few seconds to mourn. Jeremy Russo had been a good man and a fine soldier, and he knew his way around explosives like nobody else. For Russo to have made a fatal mistake, he would have needed to be seriously distracted.

  Or seriously unhappy. Mark stared out the window at the spectacular view without really seeing it. He could picture Russo committing suicide by bomb easier than he could see him killing himself by mistake. But the Russo Mark knew wouldn’t take the coward’s way out and do himself in. No, something was very, very wrong here.

  He walked around to his black leather desk chair and took a seat. ‘‘Frances, what exactly happened? Can you tell me?’’

  ‘‘It wasn’t an accident!’’

  ‘‘I tend to agree with you. Jeremy wouldn’t have made a mistake like that.’’

  She settled down a bit then and told him about Russo’s backyard workshop and the wood-carving hobby he’d taken up. Mark recalled Russo sitting beside a campfire on a mountain in Serbia, whittling a stick. Yeah, he could see him with a workshop. Frances Russo next described how she and her husband had sat down for supper and talked about the trip to Vegas they had planned for the following month.

  ‘‘He was excited about going, Mark. He’d won the Super Bowl pool at work and had stuck the money away for gambling. He wasn’t depressed or anything. He was happy. We were happy. We had decided to start a family.’’

  Mark blew out a heavy breath. ‘‘Where has Jeremy been working?’’

  ‘‘At Martindale Junior High. He earned his teaching certificate and he’s the shop teacher. He loves it. Loved it.’’

  She broke down again then, and while Mark waited her out, he wondered just what was going on. Why would a woodshop teacher have explosives in his work shed? When he judged she’d collected herself, he asked again, ‘‘What can I do to help you, Frances?’’

  ‘‘I want you to show the police. Prove it to them. Someone did this. Someone murdered my Jeremy and I want you to find him and make him pay. You’re a private investigator—Jeremy told me. I want to hire you. He had some life insurance, so I’ll be able to pay you—’’

  ‘‘Wait. Hold on, honey. Jeremy was my friend, part of my unit. I will look into it, but I won’t take your money. You hear?’’

  ‘‘But you will find out who did this?’’

  ‘‘Yes, Frances, I will. You have my word.’’ He grabbed a notepad and a pen from his desk. ‘‘I need a few details. First, have you scheduled services yet? If so, when and where?’’

  They spoke for another few minutes; then Mark disconnected the call. Immediately, he punched in another number. The phone rang twice and a man’s voice said, ‘‘NetJet.’’

  ‘‘Hi, Jim, it’s Mark Callahan. I’m gonna need the Citation at six a.m. tomorrow for a flight to Philly.’’

  ‘‘Sure thing, Mr. Callahan. She’ll be ready and waiting for you.’’

  He hung up, retrieved his beer, and briefly debated the idea of getting something stronger. Damn, Jeremy. What the hell happened? His thoughts drifted back to the three years when he had lived and breathed the unit.

  God, he’d loved it. Russo had been the one to tag them as the Fixers. They’d been a team of a dozen, nine men and three women, from different services, agencies, and departments in the government, each with unique talents, assigned to special duty beneath the direction of Colonel Greg Warren. Special covert duty. Warren had an office at the Pentagon and an official title, but they had little to do with his real job. Colonel Warren and his team functioned as freelance troubleshooters for everyone from the army to the CIA.

  The Fixers worked all over the world representing Uncle Sam’s interests through espionage efforts aimed primarily at criminal organizations involved in the drug trade and arms smuggling. Upon occasion they coordinated with the Company and spooks like Matt if foreign governments figured into the equation. The unit had done good work, provided vital information, and survived some hairy scrapes to boot. He’d never forget that time in Colombia when Annabelle—

  ‘‘Annabelle.’’ Mark stiffened. If Frances Russo contacted the rest of the Fixers, then Annabelle would be there. She would come to Russo’s funeral. He would see her again.

  His ex-wife.

  Maybe she’d bring her new boyfriend with her.

  ‘‘Well, shit.’’ Mark drained the rest of his beer.

  Philadelphia

  Sitting in her car in the parking lot of Devlin’s Funeral Home on a blustery spring day, Annabelle flipped her cell phone shut with a trembling hand. The conversation had confirmed the fear that had been growing inside her since she’d begun making the calls for Frances Russo yesterday. Four members of the unit were dead, three of those recently. She couldn’t reach four others. What was going on?

  Had somebody targeted the Fixers?

  It was an incredible thought, but nothing else made sense. Dennis Nelson had died in a car wreck almost two months ago in Europe, so that one might well be unrelated. But in addition to Russo’s implausible death, for Terry Hart to die in a rock-climbing accident, and most unbelievable of all, for Melanie Anderson to commit suicide, all within a span of three weeks?

  No. Uh-uh. Too much coincidence to be believable.

  Add in the fact that she couldn’t reach Rocky Stanhope, Jordan Sundine, Rhonda Parsons, and Vince Holloway, and she knew without a doubt that the unit had trouble.

  Annabelle was heartsick over the deaths. The years they’d worked together had created a real bond between teammates. She regretted that they had drifted apart in the years since the Fixers disbanded, but that fact didn’t negate her sense of loss. Or her concern for the surviving members of the unit.

  Like Mark.

  She suppressed a shudder. Had Frances Russo not informed her that she’d spoken to Mark before calling Annabelle, she would have been frantic. She might have divorced the man, but she had yet to figure a way to evict him from her heart.

  Though she had made a real effort to do so. She’d stayed busy and tended to her social life. She’d dated. Annabelle wanted to fall in love.

  Despite a real and concerted effort, she had yet to find a man to replace Callahan. When Paulo Giambelli spent two weeks in Hawaii for the stated purpose of winning her heart, she’d tried to accommodate him. Paulo had opined that she’d never move forward until she took another man into her bed, and of course, he’d volunteered for the job. But Annabelle’s core values hadn’t changed, and in spite of his charm, his wit, his drop-dead-gorgeous features, he couldn’t convince her to make that leap. When he announced his intention to woo her for a third week, she’d gently sent him home, telling him she simply wasn’t ready for serious romance. Since then they had settled into a habit of twice-weekly flirtatious calls, which she admittedly enjoyed.

  Maybe if she’d jumped into romance with Paulo, the prospect of seeing Mark again wouldn’t bother her so much. But now she not only had to see him—she would have to talk to him. Maybe work with him again. They could not ignore these deaths and disappearances.

 
; ‘‘Lord, help us all.’’ She tucked her cell phone in her purse and exited her rental car. Checking her watch, she saw that the viewing had begun forty minutes ago. A chilly wind whipped up the hem on her new navy coat and she scanned the area with a watchful gaze as she crossed the street to Devlin’s. She kept her hand perched on the opening of her shoulder bag, ready to plunge inside and grasp her SIG if need be.

  Devlin’s Funeral Home was a converted Victorian mansion. Under other circumstances, Annabelle might have taken time to study the architecture. She had a thing for that era, from the style of the buildings with their gingerbread and dormer windows to the crocheted doilies on parlor chairs. It was a side of herself she kept hidden—soft and girly—but someday when the time was right, she’d have her Victorian on the hill with a picket fence and a dog and a swing set in the backyard.

  Unless whoever was finishing off the Fixers got to her first.

  Oh, jeez. She walked up the sidewalk and stepped onto the porch. At the door, she paused and drew a bracing breath. As much as she dreaded facing Mark, she couldn’t deny her gratitude that his broad shoulders could help carry some of this burden.

  She opened the door and stepped inside. The foyer was filled with people dressed in dark suits and subdued dresses. Jeremy’s family and friends had come out in force. Annabelle glanced around the dimly lit room, anxiously looking for familiar faces.

  There. Some of the tension inside her eased as she spied the two team members she had been able to reach. Tag Harrington stood talking to Noah Kincannon. Tag wore a sport coat and gray slacks; Noah a dark suit. Both men were tall with broad shoulders and military posture. Tag’s red hair had darkened over the years to a deep auburn. Noah’s hair was still dark brunet. They appeared handsome and somber and fit. They looked wonderfully alive.

  That just left . . . she stiffened as she tangibly felt his gaze. ‘‘Mark.’’

  He stood beside an open doorway, a little behind Frances Russo. He wore a charcoal Armani suit, a patterned tie, and dress shoes with a military shine. His eyes glittered like emeralds until their gazes met, at which point they went studiously blank. The knife he’d sunk into her heart months ago twisted a bit.

  She gritted her teeth. She wanted more than anything to speak to Tag and Noah and delay approaching her ex, but good manners dictated that she pay her respects to Jeremy’s widow first. She took a step forward, then stopped when a gruff voice said, ‘‘Annabelle?’’

  She noted the uniform right away, then the warm blue eyes that gleamed at her from beneath bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows. Lines aged his face, but his steely jaw remained the same. ‘‘Colonel Warren!’’

  ‘‘Annabelle, it is you.’’ He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hard hug. ‘‘Good Lord, woman. You’re a sight for sore eyes.’’

  ‘‘You, too, Colonel,’’ she replied with a smile. She was surprised to see him. As the Fixers’ commanding officer, Colonel Greg Warren had been the driving force behind their missions, though his position preventedhim from being a true part of the team. She had left a message about Russo’s death with his assistant as a courtesy. She had never expected he would make the trip for the funeral, but she was thrilled that he had. He might have information about the trouble. Perhaps that was why he was here. ‘‘I guess you received my message?’’

  ‘‘I did. Such sad news. Russo was a good man. It’s always hard to lose a man, but to lose someone so young and in such an unfortunate manner . . . well . . .’’ He shook his head, then glanced over her shoulder and smiled. ‘‘There you are. Honey, I’m sure you remember my old friend and colleague Annabelle Monroe. Annabelle, my wife, Lala.’’

  A wife? The last she knew, Colonel Warren had been a widower. Annabelle turned to see a woman who could be Catherine Zeta-Jones’s sister, a woman who looked vaguely familiar. Extending her hand, she said, ‘‘Hello.’’

  Lala Warren smiled pleasantly as she accepted Annabelle’s handshake. ‘‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, Ms. Monroe. I wish it were under happier circumstances.’’

  Annabelle considered trying to fake her way through the moment, but she decided to confess. ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ she said, offering an embarrassed smile. ‘‘I’m having a brain freeze. I don’t recall where we met.’’

  ‘‘The Fixers helped my first husband and me escape from Iraq. I believe you piloted the helicopter?’’

  ‘‘Oh, yes.’’ Now she remembered. The husband had been a brilliant scientist, a biologist, who didn’t want to work for Saddam Hussein. That extraction was one of the first missions the Fixers ever completed.

  ‘‘My Stefan died four . . . almost five years ago now. An automobile accident. Not long after Greg’s wife passed away.’’

  Colonel Warren patted her arm. ‘‘Lala and I have been married for two years now. I am blessed to have had two wonderful women in my life.’’

  ‘‘I’m glad for you, Colonel,’’ Annabelle told him honestly. He was a good man and she was pleased to see him happy.

  ‘‘It’s a shame it takes an unfortunate incident like this to bring us together.’’

  Annabelle gave him a sharp look. Did he know that Jeremy’s manner of death was more murderous than unfortunate? She couldn’t tell, and now was not the time to ask. ‘‘Yes, it is. If you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to Jeremy’s wife.’’

  ‘‘Of course, Annabelle. Lala and I were just leaving. We’ll visit more tomorrow at the funeral.’’

  Annabelle then threaded through the crowd, slowly making her way toward the widow. After acknowledging Mark with a brief nod, she took hold of Frances’s hands and gave them a comforting squeeze. ‘‘Hello, Frances.’’

  ‘‘Annabelle, thanks for coming.’’ Her voice was strained, her complexion pale and translucent in the room’s soft lighting. ‘‘Thanks for helping to make calls. Jeremy is surely looking down from heaven, happy to see members of the unit here.’’ Her voice cracked as she added, ‘‘You meant so much to him, you know.’’

  ‘‘He meant a lot to us, too, Frances.’’

  ‘‘Everyone loved him.’’ The widow’s eyes grew teary, but she bravely blinked the moisture away. Then as a bit of a line formed behind Annabelle, Frances Russo gestured toward the viewing room where Jeremy’s flag-draped casket was on display.

  The scent of gardenia hung heavy on the air as Annabelle moved reluctantly into the room, grateful it wasn’t an open-casket event. She didn’t do dead bodies well, especially not ones that had been drained and dressed for planting. She traced her phobia back to her great-uncle Ray’s funeral and The Accident. At seven, she’d been inquisitive, bold, and . . . foolish. It had been her bad luck that the church had a staircase to the choir loft that allowed her to lean over the casket to get a better look. Lean too far over. So far that she lost her balance and fell.

  She closed her eyes and willed away the memory.

  A hand took her elbow. ‘‘You okay?’’ Mark asked, his tone a low, respectful rumble.

  I was. Not so much now. ‘‘I’m fine.’’

  ‘‘You look flushed.’’

  ‘‘I’m fine,’’ she repeated, tugging her arm from his grip.

  ‘‘All right. Then let me introduce you to Jeremy’s mother. She is anxious to meet members of the team.’’

  Annabelle recalled that the groom’s mother—a traditional Italian Catholic—had boycotted the Las Vegas wedding in protest. Frances had told her that mother and son took a year to reconcile. Bet she regretted that lost time now.

  Mark scanned the room and frowned. ‘‘We’re still missing a lot of folks. Were you able to get hold of everyone?’’

  Annabelle didn’t want to go into the situation here, so she simply said, ‘‘None of the others will be coming. I need to talk to all of you about that.’’

  ‘‘About what?’’

  ‘‘Not here.’’

  Mark shot her an inquisitive look, then said, ‘‘Tag suggested we get a drink at the bar around the corner when this is ove
r.’’

  ‘‘Good.’’ She worked to keep her expression as blank as his. ‘‘Introduce me to Mrs. Russo.’’

  Annabelle spent the next half hour meeting Jeremy’s entire family. At some point, Noah and Tag joined her, and Mark slipped away. When Tag wanderedoff for a moment, Noah leaned toward her and asked, ‘‘What’s up, Anna-B? What’s bothering you?’’

  Noah always did have good instincts. She gave her head a little shake and said, ‘‘It’ll wait until later.’’

  Darkness had fallen by the time they exited the funeral home, but the surrounding area bustled with activity. When Tag suggested they walk to the bar, Annabelle didn’t protest. She honestly didn’t think anyone would be so bold as to gun them all down in the midst of so many potential witnesses. Nevertheless, she remained watchful during the brief walk and didn’t relax until they’d been seated at a quiet round table in the upstairs dining room.

  The air inside Murphy’s Pub was thick with the scent of fries and yeasty beer, but the place had the homey feel that made a neighborhood bar work. After draping her coat on a rack next to the window, she’d made certain to take a seat where she could keep an eye on both the staircase and the street below. It was well past the dinner hour, and at the only other occupied table upstairs, the couple had just received their check. Without consulting a menu, all three men ordered a hamburger. Annabelle would have choked on anything more substantial than the ale she requested.

  With her concentration focused on their situation and surroundings, she found herself caught off guard when Tag turned to her and asked, ‘‘So, Annabelle, what have you been up to since I last saw you? Do you have a husband and two-point-three kids?’’

  Viciously, she stifled the instinct to look at Mark and kept her gaze solidly on Tag as she replied, ‘‘I’m not married.’’

  ‘‘Dating anyone? You know, my brother still talks about you. You’ve been his fantasy woman ever since our paths crossed that time in DC. He’s single again. Maybe . . . ?’’