Nicki left the interstate for good somewhere after she passed the border into South Carolina, then began to wind her way slightly northwest up and into Tennessee, following the GPS coordinates Taser had given her. Soft accents progressed steadily into a full, smooth Southern drawl. She’d never been attracted to the sound before, but now found the easy cadence unexpectedly comforting. It made her think of Brookes, and with a sharp pang, she realized she would actually miss him and Fisher in her mandated solitude.
Nicki’s journey finally ended in a little town called Tempest. Located smack-dab in the middle of Nowhere, Tempest was well off the beaten path, nearly a hundred miles from the nearest major thoroughfare. There was an old railway station there. Nicki could easily imagine that at one time, it had been a nice stop on the train routes between the North and the South, but time and progress had long since left Tempest behind.
Nicki took in everything with a well-practiced eye while drawing more than a few curious stares as she cruised down the single main artery. The town proper consisted of maybe three square blocks. There was a diner, a small grocer’s, a gas station with a single-bay garage, a post office, and an Agway complex that dwarfed everything else. With a population of about three thousand (and that was a generous estimate), perhaps thirty percent lived in and around the main street in old but sturdy clapboard houses. The rest dwelled beyond the town proper in the acres of farmland and woods that sat at the base of the western edge of the Appalachians.
A few miles outside of the town was Taser’s personal refuge. Nicki wasn’t quite sure what to expect; with Taser you just never knew. She was as likely to find a one-room underground bomb shelter as a two-story Swiss chalet. The guy’s tastes were eclectic, to say the least.
What she found was a very private, well-stocked cabin set askew in the middle of a clearing, surrounded on all sides by thick, dense forest.
It was clean and spacious. Comfortable, but not fancy, except for the satellite gadgetry. The cabinets were filled with non-perishable canned and dry goods. Even the fridge had been stocked with an array of fresh fruit, cheese, milk, and several six packs. The freezer held neatly wrapped packages of various steaks, burgers, chicken, ribs, and more.
Nicki couldn’t help but smile when she saw the single bedroom closet held an assortment of clothing – all casual, all women’s, and all in her size. Even the bathroom – thank God this place had indoor plumbing – held her favorite shampoos, conditioners, body washes, and shaving gels.
The man knew her better than she knew herself.
Since all she had was a single backpack, it didn’t take long for her to unpack and report her safe arrival, but that was probably unnecessary. She was quite certain Taser had been tracking her all along using the device imbedded beneath her skin. All of the Chameleons had them; it was a requirement, making them locatable anywhere, anytime. At first she resented it, but now, she took some comfort in knowing it was there. With it, she was never really alone.
After fixing herself a bowl of cereal and eating it on the shaded porch, Nicki did a little exploring. Not far from the cabin was a wide, lazy stream with an honest-to-God swimming hole and big flat rocks she planned to sun herself on. There wasn’t another place within miles.
When the sun dipped below the horizon, Nicki went out and laid in the meadow. She looked up into the most perfect sapphire sky at more glittering stars then she’d ever seen in her life and finally exhaled. It was perfect.
* * *
Sean loved his family, he really did, but the frustration of one dead end after another sometimes had him feeling like he would kill the very next person that tried to speak to him. He just could not bear one more night of sitting in the bar listening to them as lead after lead failed to produce anything tangible.
Finding Nicki and trying to learn what had happened in the last eight years was proving to be quite a challenge, and there was nothing the Callaghans enjoyed more than a chance to test their skills. Nicki, it seemed, had done just that by disappearing into thin air. The more they found – or didn’t find, as was more often the case - the more intrigued they became.
They meant well. They were doing their damnedest. But the fact remained: Nicki was gone.
It had been three weeks. Three weeks since he’d seen, heard, scented, touched, or tasted her. Sean was going out of his mind. Christmas came and went, and Sean was unable to enjoy any of it. Nothing held much interest to him except finding his woman and bringing her home. Only then would things begin to make sense again.
“Anything?” Nick asked hopefully when Sean returned to the garage. Somehow he knew Nick would be there. He, like Sean, tended to take some small measure of solace in working with his hands. The change in Nick since his sister’s disappearance was startling. It was like the kid grew into a man overnight. While he still retained some of his innate bad boy aura, he was more serious now, focused.
Nick had told them everything he could, hoping that something would provide the information needed to find her. Sean almost wished he hadn’t. It was impossible to hear the grisly details of what had been done to them as kids and not want to go on a killing rampage.
One thing Sean knew for sure: when he found Nicki, and he would find her, she would never suffer at the hands of another again. There wasn’t anything he could do about her past – what was done was done – but he would devote the rest of his life to making sure the rest of her life was as close to heaven as he could make it.
She was already familiar enough with hell. It was a miracle she’d managed to retain any semblance of sanity in the face of such cruelty. But what was even more amazing to him was that she had not only come out of it reasonably sane, she’d used it to become strong.
Sean looked into Nick’s pale eyes, the ones currently pinned on him with desperate hope. It couldn’t have been any easier for Nick, having to relive all the horror, having to admit to things that no man should ever have to admit to. But, like his sister, he had survived and become stronger for it. Not as strong as Nicki, perhaps, but Sean could see him changing every day.
“No,” Sean said. Again. Christ, how he wanted to walk through the door and have something different to say. “You?”
Nick shook his head. In the hopes that Nicki would contact him, he kept his cell phone on him at all times. He left it on each night while it charged, maxed out on volume, but so far, there had been nothing. No hang-ups. No texts.
Nothing.
“She’s okay,” Nick said with forced confidence. “She’s tough. She’s just waiting till shit dies down, that’s all.”
Sean nodded somberly, wishing he believed that, but he feared the worst. She’d literally dropped off the face of the earth. Ian had been tapping nearly every security database on the East coast and running his custom face recognition programs and he’d not gotten a single hit.
On a hunch, Ian ran similar searches on the agents that had shown up at Sean’s that morning – Fisher and Brookes. Ian found similarly troubled lives, but like Nicki, they seemed to have vanished in their late teens, with no digital footprint since.
Each question answered brought two more. Who were Fisher and Brookes? Definitely not DEA liked they’d claimed, but something. Ian re-ran queries against all the Federal databases, but the results hadn’t changed.
So who did she work for? And why weren’t there any records of her or the others – Fisher and Brookes? Ian had verified beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were all using their real names, but that in itself seemed paradoxical. If you wanted to stay off the grid, why wouldn’t you change your name, become someone else? Why would you continue to use your birth name?
Ian pointed out that it was actually quite brilliant, especially since – according to the digital powers that be – they didn’t really exist anywhere anymore except in people’s minds and memories anyway.
And why had Nicki left so suddenly? At the time, Sean’s instincts told him she was involved with something, but nothing had gone down that he knew of
. They’d all been watching and listening for any hint of a covert op within a couple hundred miles. Sean was sure whatever it was, it was local – but nothing had blipped on their radar. There had been a brief moment of hope when Nick suggested that maybe his sister was finally going to take down Benny Marscone. It made so much sense. But when they traced Benny to a local address under an alias, they found the place empty with a For Sale sign out front and no indication of foul play.
The biggest question, and the one that haunted Sean the most: why hadn’t she returned to him? Why hadn’t she trusted him? To make matters worse, something was niggling at the back of his brain. They were missing something, he was sure of it. But what?
After an hour or so of accomplishing nothing, Sean pushed himself away from the innards of the old Camaro and wiped down his tools. Maybe what he needed was a fresh perspective.
“I feel like shit.” Sean poured himself into a seat at Maggie’s ancient, scarred kitchen table. With the cheery sunshine yellow walls, white cabinetry, and enticing aromas of the freshly baked goodies Maggie always had on hand, it was the most comforting place he could think of. Not to mention Maggie herself. She might be his brother’s wife, but she took care of all of them, really.
“You’ve lost your croie,” Maggie said sympathetically, pouring him another cup of coffee. “Of course you do.”
Once again Sean was glad Michael had brought Maggie into their family. She got it. She poured one for herself and joined him at the table, pushing a plate of cookies toward him. He went over everything they’d found – and not found – again. Methodically. Accurately.
“I’m missing something, Maggie,” he said in frustration. “I know it.”
Her green eyes swirled and lost focus as she considered him. It was hypnotizing (and freaky) as all hell. “Yes,” she said slowly, “I think you’re right.”
“Can you see it?”
“Well,” she said slowly, working through things in her mind. “I’m not sure, exactly. Let me ask you this – are you and your brothers in any Federal database?”
“No, of course not. Except for our official records.”
“So what if Nicki’s in the same kind of situation? Working covertly, but with a freelance group? Surely you guys aren’t the only one.”
Sean considered this. Yes, there were others. Rogue teams of disillusioned ex-military and others who ran missions under the radar. But Sean and his brothers were the best. In any event, it was worth looking into. He nodded. “I’ll talk with Ian. He’ll know how to find out. Anything else?”
She chewed a cookie thoughtfully. “Something’s not right about this Benny guy.” Sean stirred restlessly. He felt the same way. “Well, not him exactly. His house.”
Sean’s brow arched, the hairs on the back of his neck tingling. “Explain.”
“Isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that his personal residence goes up for sale within days of Nicki’s disappearance?”
“Yeah, of course. But we checked the place out. It’s clean.”
“Exactly,” she nodded emphatically. “Who cleaned it?”
“Excuse me?”
“Who cleaned it? From everything you’ve told me, I can’t picture Benny Marscone rolling up his sleeves and diving into a bucket of Pine-Sol. And a home is always prepped before it goes on the market – the real estate agents would have seen to it. Maybe whoever cleaned the place found something that might be useful.”
Sean pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called Ian. Within a few minutes Ian called back. Sean listened intently. When he disconnected, he leaped up and pulled Maggie into a hug. “I love you, Maggie Callaghan.”
A deep growl sounded from the doorway. Sean flashed Michael a brilliant smile and released Maggie. “You married a fucking genius, Mick.”
“Good news?” Maggie asked as her husband moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her possessively. She snuggled her backside against him, assuring him of her singular devotion.
“You were dead on, both times. Ian says he’s heard of a couple of renegade teams – one or two in particular that seem promising. He’s going to start looking a little closer, call in a couple of favors. And the house? No professional cleaning service within a hundred miles was used. Mick, grab your CSI shit. You and Maggie are going house-hunting.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Nicki’s a Chameleon,” Ian said triumphantly, tossing a file down in front of Sean. The living space on the second floor of the Pub – where Shane, Kieran, and occasionally Sean still lived - had become their center of operations. This was where information was gleaned and shared in their search for Nicki.
“A what?”
“A Chameleon. A member of a highly-successful covert ops team specializing in vice – drugs, guns, prostitution. But unlike other groups, this one’s not made up of ex-military or those with traditional training. They pull kids from hopeless situations. The kids give up all ties to family and friends in return for a new life and the organization basically erases them from modern existence. Then they’re sent through a couple of years of highly unconventional training. We’re still not sure exactly what that entails, but it’s supposedly intense.”
“She was working a mission here then?”
Ian shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it. From what I’ve been able to find out, your woman fractured a few rules and took a leave of absence.”
“They can do that?”
“Not typically, though Nicki’s just good enough that they’d look the other way as long as she was careful. Except ... ” Ian paused, shifting his eyes away from Sean’s.
“Except what?” Sean asked, the dread pooling in his stomach.
“Except they picked up on my sniffers and started paying closer attention. They might have been willing to overlook Nicki spending time with Nick – once they determined she never revealed herself for what she was – and for burying her mother.”
“But?”
“But... once they realized she was sleeping with you they got nervous and yanked her out right away. It doesn’t appear that Nicki knew who you were, outside of being Nick’s boss, of course. She probably guessed something of your background, but wasn’t aware of your active status until they told her.” He let that sink in for a few moments.
“So how does this tie in with Marscone?”
“You guys already know the history there, so I don’t need to cover that.” Sean shot Ian a look of gratitude; the last thing he wanted was to hear any more about what Marscone had done to Nicki and her brother. “But here’s the thing: at some point in the last year or so, Nicki caught wind that Benny was still operating, and took it upon herself to do a little investigating on her own.”
“That’s why she took the job at Angels.”
Ian nodded. “That and the fact that she needed a cover. Her last assignment out in Vegas was a perfect lead-in. All she had to do was ask her team to delay scrubbing the work records for a bit. No one looked beyond that when she applied at Jason’s place. He’s furious, by the way.”
“You think Nicki took out Marscone?”
Michael spoke up. “Nicki and her two partners, I’d guess. Everything was squeaky clean – they must have had a professional clean-up team come in – but there were still minute traces of blood found in the flooring and a couple of the walls. On the first floor, we picked up at least four. In the second floor master bedroom, two.”
“Two?” Sean had a sinking feeling he wasn’t going to like what came next.
Michael met his eyes. “One male, matching the DNA footprint on file for Benito Enrico Marscone. One female, unknown.”
Sean closed his eyes, willing the rage under control. Just the thought that Nicki had been hurt somehow – the idea that she was dead was unimaginable – had him ready to explode.
“Don’t even think that way,” Shane said softly. “She’s alive. We know they stayed at a motel about twenty miles out before vanishing. One of the ladies working housekeeping that morning said she
saw three people matching their descriptions leaving, and all of them appeared to walk out under their own power.
Sean released the breath he’d been holding; his heart started beating again.
“So you’ve got a contact with the Chameleons, right? Can’t we use them to track Nicki?” This from Jake, who knew exactly what Sean was feeling at that moment, having gone through something similar with his wife, Taryn, a couple of years previously.
“It’s not quite that easy...”
Sean fixed Ian with eyes like ice. “Find her. I don’t give a shit what it takes.”
Ian hesitated. “Sean, there’s something you need to know about the Chameleons. It’s not just something you walk away from. It’s a lifetime commitment.”
“Excuse me?”
Ian looked uncomfortable. “Just what I said. The organization is very particular about who they accept. Potential candidates have to be extremely intelligent, have some natural skills, and possess an iron will. But their most important qualification? They have to have nothing else to live for.”
All was silent for a few moments as the weight of that last statement settled upon them. “What about her brother?” Shane asked. Sean wanted to clasp his brother on the back. From the little bit he knew of Nicki, he found it impossible to believe she’d be capable of completing cutting her twin out of her life. “Given the fact that she’s been contacting him over the past eight years and spent a couple of weeks with him, that sure doesn’t seem to be the case.”
If anything, Ian’s eyes darkened. Sean didn’t like that look, not at all. “What is it that you’re not saying, Ian?”
“Nicki didn’t just bend the rules. She shattered them. While they might be willing to overlook a few minor infractions, they cannot ignore what she did here in Pine Ridge.”
Seeking Vengeance: Callaghan Brothers, Book 4 Page 17