by KaLyn Cooper
Logan watched the gorgeous blonde sip her wine and close her eyes. She was exhausted. He hoped once they got to his house at Topsail Island, and they got everyone settled, she’d be able to relax. His house was all about kicking back and chilling, watching the ocean waves, seeing nothing but blue water all the way to the horizon.
Before Micah could ring the bell, Elizabeth opened the door and gave the large Navy SEAL a hug. “Thanks for joining us.”
“You had me at a home-cooked meal.” He released their former teammate and shook hands with Matthew. “I usually hate to come to DC, but if I could con Elizabeth in to cooking for me, you’d see me a lot more often.”
Logan stood as his friend approached and gave him one of the half-hug, back pound male greeting.
“I’m so fucking glad you got the kids.” Micah moved to Teagan for a hug. “You doing okay, Ice-Tea?” He called her by her pilot handle. Logan had forgotten the name they had called her all during their mission together.
She nodded. “I’m just glad the funeral is finally over. The moving truck left yesterday, and we pull out tomorrow morning.”
“I can’t believe the autopsy took so long,” Elizabeth complained.
“I’m just glad they did one.” Logan gave Matthew a chin lift. “Thanks for making that happen.”
“I was so pissed that night. That little pin-dick detective took one look at Marsha, a glance at the gun, read the message on the screen, and in less than five minutes declared it a suicide.” Matthew scowled then downed half his beer as though to wash away the bad taste in his mouth. “I never pull the Fed card, but I wasn’t about to let detective dickhead get away with that. He needs to fucking do his job. We all know it was murder.”
Everyone in the room nodded in agreement.
“I’m just glad her parents finally agreed to a closed casket.” Teagan shook her head. “I had the damnedest time getting her mother to understand the condition of the body. I finally told her I didn’t think it was a good idea for the children to see her in the casket.” She took a gulp of her wine. “I hate what they do to the human body with all that embalming and makeup. No one ever looks like they did when they were alive.” She changed her voice. “They look like they’re sleeping.” Returning to her normal tone, she added, “That’s just bullshit.”
Silently, Logan agreed.
“It was a nice funeral, though. Short and sweet.” Elizabeth put a piece of cheese on a cracker and popped it into her mouth.
Teagan chuckled. “Her father told the priest he’d better keep it brief if he wanted a donation to the church. Did you notice how fast they rolled out of there in their RV?” She sighed. “At least they promised to stop on their way home from Maine and visit the children.” She pasted on a smile. “Oh, joy.”
Logan wasn’t looking forward to that day, either. He truly didn’t care for Marsha’s parents’ attitude toward the kids. Anora and Brann were their own grandchildren. They should fawn over them, but instead they seemed so self-consumed. Disappointed. That was the right word for how he felt.
He was also disappointed that his own father would never be able to teach Anora and Brann how to fish, the correct way to sharpen a knife, or get to know the wonderful children that Logan was beginning to consider his own.
“Are you ready to do this, T-Bird?” Micah asked then shoved a slice of apple into his mouth.
“Yeah.” Teagan smiled and Logan’s heart jumped. He hadn’t seen a genuine smile from her since immediately after the judge awarded them joint custody of the children just over a week ago. “Sometimes I love working for the government. The people in our human resources department were really great. They got me approved for FMLA, gave me ten days off plus moving expenses, and set me up with a new job at New River Air Station.”
“What’s FMLA?” Matthew asked.
“Family and Medical Leave Act,” Elizabeth explained to her husband. “The men in your Special Operations Group probably have never asked for it, but pregnant women often use the program to take off the first three months after the baby’s born.”
“Parents can get it for adoption, too.” Teagan prepared a mini cheese sandwich using crackers. “That’s how they were able to give it to me.”
Elizabeth’s jaw dropped. “You have off twelve whole weeks?”
Teagan was chewing so all she did was nod her head and grin.
While he was thinking about the move, Logan wanted to be sure to thank his friends. “Matthew, Elizabeth, I really appreciate you both helping us clear out Marsha’s house. No way in hell would Teagan and I have been able to do it on our own.”
“I wish I could have helped even more,” Matthew said. “While I sorted through everything in the office, I was looking for clues as to why someone would murder Marsha. I still have the feeling that everything goes back to Gabe.”
“That’s highly possible, given what you told us before his funeral.” Gabe’s treason still bothered Logan. “Whoever owned that ten million in gold isn’t going to just let it go.” He didn’t miss the look that passed between Elizabeth and Matthew. They knew more than they were telling the rest of the team.
“Teagan, were you able to collect everything from the safe deposit boxes?” Matthew deftly changed the subject.
“Gabe must’ve been extremely paranoid. He had three safe-deposit boxes, and that was in addition to one that Marsha owned, all at different banks.” She shifted on the couch and her loose-fitting blouse pulled tight over her impressive breasts. Strange that Logan hadn’t noticed them before.
“Anything interesting in there?” Matthew took another long drink of beer.
Teagan giggled. “I’m lucky I found time to empty them. I’ve been a little bit busy lately.” As though she realized the seriousness of the situation, she added, “Once we get moved in, I plan to start on those boxes, one at a time.”
Matthew looked relieved. “So, you shipped them to North Carolina?”
“Yeah.” She gave him a halfhearted grin. “Those and about three hundred more.”
Logan jumped in to rescue her. “We sent everything from the children’s bedrooms and almost everything from the family room including the furniture. Marsha’s couches are so much nicer than what I have in that side of the duplex and we thought the children would be more comfortable surrounded by familiar objects.”
Teagan leaned forward and poured herself some more wine. “I also shipped about half of Marsha’s kitchen. Maybe her tools will make me a better cook.”
“I wouldn’t plan on that,” Elizabeth giggled. “You might want to consider taking cooking classes or watch a bunch of videos.” She looked over at Logan. “I hope you know how to cook.”
“Hey,” Teagan retorted. “I know how to make some stuff.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Chocolate chip cookies from the pack where you just break off the pieces and arrange them on a cookie sheet.”
“Don’t pick on me. Those are damn good cookies. The kids love them.” Teagan was smiling and finally relaxing. Logan was happy to see her interacting so casually with all their friends. He hoped that she would make friends with some of his neighbors. Maybe she would even join the Officers Wives Club.
But Teagan wasn’t his wife, so he wasn’t sure she’d be allowed in the exclusive group. Since she wasn’t retired military, she couldn’t even get onto the base, or shop at the exchange or commissary. She would have to buy groceries out in town. Shop at the mall. She wouldn’t have any of the privileges of a military wife. The children couldn’t be seen for medical reasons on base, either. Suddenly, he wondered about the local hospital. Was it as good as the one on base?
Fuck. There were more complications, just when he thought he had it all figured out.
“So, they’re moving in with you?” Matthew’s brow pinched. “I thought they were moving into a duplex on the beach.”
“It’s my duplex.” He took a swig of his beer and decided to explain. “Teagan, Anora, and Brann will be living in the other half. For the
past three years, a flight surgeon and his wife, a nurse at the same hospital, have lived there. He got orders to Pensacola and they moved out a week before I came up here for Gabe’s funeral. I was having some painting done and the carpets cleaned while I’ve been gone, getting ready to put it back on the rental market when I got home.” He grinned over at Teagan. “Now I don’t have to deal with that headache.”
She shot him a glare. “We’re fighting over rent at the moment.”
“I own the whole building,” Logan tried to explain.
“On a Lieutenant Colonel’s salary, how the hell did you manage that?” Micah said accusingly. “I’m very familiar with the cost of waterfront property. From the pictures I’ve seen, it looks like a half million-dollar home, per side.”
Logan grinned. “I got one hell of a deal on it.” He shrugged and decided to tell them the whole story. “You want the long version or the short version?”
“Oh, is the long version subversive and juicy?” Elizabeth sounded excited.
“Long version it is.” He drained his beer and set it on the coffee table. “After Pentagon duty, I had orders to go back to Camp Lejeune. There was no way in hell I was going to live in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters ever again, so I started looking around with a real estate agent. I was about to give up and rent. I walked out of the commissary one afternoon and the bottom fell out of the paper bag the lady in front of me was carrying. She just collapsed onto the blacktop in the parking lot.”
Logan looked around at his rapt audience. “When I got over to her, she was crying. Mumbling about her bad day. After we picked up her groceries, we stood and talked next to her car for nearly an hour. She had just come from seeing her attorney and filing divorce papers. Her husband, a bird colonel, had been transferred to Quantico. She had gotten a few days off and drove up to surprise him for his birthday.”
“Oh, fuck.” Micah rubbed his forehead. “I can see where this is going.”
“Yep. Since she left so early in the morning, she decided to take a nap while waiting for him to get home from work.” He grinned. “She woke up to the sound of voices and caught him banging a major on the dining room table of his rented apartment.”
“Fraternization.” Elizabeth shook her head. “That’s a big no-no.”
Logan chuckled. “I’ve got to give Sadie credit, she kept her head and thought fast. She pulled out her cell phone and videoed them.”
“Oh my God,” Teagan squealed and slapped her hands over her mouth.
“No fucking way,” Micah said between laughs.
“Good for her,” Elizabeth nodded. “I hope she turned that cheating bastard in to the Inspector General.”
“Typical man.” Teagan said the words so quietly that Logan almost missed them. He wondered what had happened to her in the past? He knew so little about her, yet he knew so much. She was one of the bravest women he’d ever met. So was Elizabeth. They had handled themselves so well under extreme combat situations. He vowed he would learn more about Teagan by the end of the week.
Ignoring her remark, Logan continued with the story. “Come to find out, Sadie ran the sales office for a contractor on Topsail Island. They had built a couple of duplexes on the beach, so she’d been able to buy the whole duplex at builder cost. That was about five years before I met her. They’d successfully rented out the other half and nearly paid off the loan. Knowing that her soon to be ex-husband would get half of the profits, she sold the duplex to me for one dollar over what they still owed.”
Logan shrugged. “I now own the building, free and clear, thanks to high priced weekly summer rentals. After I paid off the loan, I rented the other half year-round to other military officers for extra income.”
“Maybe I need to start trolling for disgruntled wives living in beach houses.” Micah scoffed. “That’s going to be the only way I can afford to live on the water.”
“You could live on a houseboat,” Elizabeth suggested.
“No.” Teagan dragged out the word. “Micah needs to buy a yacht. A big one with several bedrooms.”
Elizabeth jumped on the conversation. “And we can all come visit and cruise around on the ocean. You know how to drive a boat, don’t you, Micah?”
The big man raised one eyebrow. “I am a fucking captain in the Navy. I know how to drive big boats.”
The back door slammed. “We’re hungry, Mom.” Austin flew into the living room, Brann on his heels.
“Go wash up, boys,” Elizabeth ordered. She swept her gaze over the room. “I guess I’d better serve supper.”
An hour later, the children were in their rooms playing quietly, the dishwasher was running, and the adults were back in the same seats in the living room.
The circumstances surrounding Marsha’s death had been bothering Logan for days. Before he left, he wanted to run something by his friends. “What do you guys think about hiring a private detective to dig deeper into Marsha’s death?”
“It took proof from my computer geek to get Detective Russo to change it from a suicide to a possible homicide, but I don’t think he’s even investigating anymore,” Matthew announced. “Clarence confirmed that someone at a different location wrote the suicide note to that screen. Whoever did it, had some damn good hacking skills because he couldn’t trace it back to its origin.”
“If we hire someone, I’d like to do it right away, before the specialized crew comes in to clean the office. We need to put the house up for sale as soon as possible,” Teagan reminded Logan.
He agreed.
“You have someone in mind?” Micah asked.
“I do.” Logan was relieved that his friends sounded interested. “I have a friend who works for the Alvarez Agency down in Richlands. If we’re all in agreement, I’d like to have him take a look at the scene right away.” He looked over at Matthew. “Do you mind being point here in DC?”
“I’m happy to help in any way that I can.” He took his wife’s hand. “Marsha and Elizabeth were close. Our kids act like cousins. And I know Marsha was murdered. If the police aren’t going to do anything to find her killer, we need to. I said it before, and I’ll say it again, I believe her death is directly related to Gabe’s.”
Logan stood. “I’ll give him a call tomorrow morning.” He glanced at Teagan who was curled up in the corner of the couch, her eyelids drooping. “We need to get the kids home and into bed. Tomorrow is going to be a big day.” He looked around and realized he had no idea where the children’s bedrooms were.
“This way.” Matthew stood and Logan followed him.
Down the hall, they could hear the boys talking.
“My dad died too, but it was before I was born. Then my mom got remarried. I hated Robert. He took away all the pictures of my real dad.” Austin lowered his voice. “But I got them out of the trashcan and hid them from him.” The nine-year-old smiled as he pointed to the prominently displayed pictures on top of his dresser. “That’s my dad, the one who made me. Matthew’s now my dad. He’s pretty cool. He likes to play baseball.”
The two men automatically stopped in the hallway before the boys could see them.
“Both my mom and dad are dead.” Brann said. “I guess that’s a good thing. Then I don’t have to get a bad stepdad like Robert before my Mom could find somebody nice like Uncle Matthew.”
“That’s a good thing that you don’t have to have a dad like Robert. He sucked. I hated it when he was around,” Austin declared. “But you get to live with Uncle Logan and Aunt Teagan. They’re cool. They swear.”
Matthew slid Logan a glance.
Guess I’d better start watching my language.
“Yeah, but the judge said we have to move to North Carolina because Uncle Logan works there.” Brann explained. “I’m going to miss you, Austin.”
“I’m going to miss you, too, Brann.”
At the sound of sniffles, Logan and Matthew stepped into the room.
Chapter Twelve
Teagan had no idea what to expect as they
crossed the tall bridge onto North Topsail Beach and turned left. At the moment, she had both children in the backseat of her Honda sedan. During their many stops, Brann would occasionally switch vehicles.
Traveling with a four-year-old meant stopping regularly for potty breaks. Teagan also noted, that seven-year-old boys could consume mass quantities of junk food and were bored most of the time. She made a mental note to herself that before they traveled together again, she would hit the local stores for travel games for both of them that were age appropriate…and not messy.
She wished Brann had told her that they got to watch movies in Marsha’s SUV with its built-in video screens. Two hours into the trip, and still fighting bumper-to-bumper DC traffic, Teagan regretted suggesting that they sell Marsha’s car. Maybe she could still buy it from the estate. She wondered if that would be a problem since she was the executor and responsible for liquidation of all assets and personal property.
She thought about everything left in Marsha’s home. She and Logan had agreed it would be best to hire an auctioneer to sell off anything they hadn’t moved to North Carolina. She would handle that in a few weeks, after Logan’s friend finished examining the murder scene. She had an appointment with Mr. Keller later in the month, so she planned on a trip back to DC anyway. Perhaps by then, she would’ve found a local facility for her mother and be able to transport her down at the same time she returned to North Carolina.
“Are we really going to live on the beach?” Brann said with excitement.
“That’s the plan.” She thought about it for a moment before asking, “Have you two ever been to the ocean before?”
“Yeah, we went once with Aunt Elizabeth, but we didn’t stay right on the beach,” Brann explained. “We had to walk a couple blocks then on a wooden walkway overtop the dunes. Are we really right on the beach?”
“So I’m told, but we’re going to see in just a few minutes. Anora, can you see the ocean?”