Kelsey. My Kelsey.
Her eyes searched for him. The hungering love of dewy brown riveted his heart to hers across time and space. She truly looked for him. More than once, he thought for sure she’d seen him.
He reached for her. God, he tried, but his fingers clutched nothing. They passed through her like shadows. She looked away, a tissue to her nose, a depth of sadness in her eyes. The kind of sorrow he used to be able to shield her from.
He would’ve cried if he could’ve cried. She’d always had that effect on him. She’d made him feel when others could not. She’d helped him remember the man he truly was. She made him want to live again. Even now.
Another man pulled her into a gentle hug of condolence. He whispered into her ear, like a knight of old swearing undying fealty to the queen of his fallen king. “I’m here for you, ma’am. Any time. Any day. You let me know what you need, I’ll make it happen.”
No. No. No! That’s my job!
Who was he? Who did those startling green eyes belong to? Zack? Maybe Gabe? Maybe not.
Everything blurred, pulling him from the lovely, sad scene. He hurried to commit the exquisite details of Kelsey’s face to memory. This might be his last chance to see her in this—this wherever he was.
Time ran out.
Her smile faded.
He couldn’t breathe, the loss of his beloved more than a man could endure. His hand clutched the ragged hole where his heart used to be. Air no longer mattered. He had no reason to breathe. No more reason to live.
Realization dawned slowly. He’d just witnessed a funeral.
His funeral.
His widow.
Her tears.
He, Alexander Bradley Stewart, toughest dog in the fight, was nothing but a shadow. A memory.
A ghost.
Chapter Two
This might be the best job ever. All Shelby Sullivan had to do was stay with a young widow named Mrs. Kelsey Stewart while she recovered from her husband’s untimely and tragic death. She lived in Alexandria, one of Shelby’s favorite neighborhoods in all of North Virginia, and the deceased husband had owned some kind of a surveillance company. Two bodyguards would be staying at the residence as a precautionary measure since the husband had died under mysterious circumstances. Almost sounded exciting.
Shelby maneuvered her extremely economical and eco-friendly car through one last stop sign, then turned north. Morning traffic was light for a change, but her enthusiasm dropped when she pulled to the curb. The small house at her left didn’t declare a prominent business owner had once lived there. Maybe a taxi driver. Or a milkman.
This can’t be right. What have I gotten myself into?
But it was. The street address on the corner of the red brick home agreed with the GPS. She called Libby Houston to verify. Maybe she’d written it down wrong.
“Yes, Kelsey lives there. I know the house isn’t what you might expect, but once you get to know Kelsey, you’ll understand.”
“If you say so.” Shelby let her gaze scroll over what had to be a two-, at most a three-bedroom home. No garage. No extra parking pad for guests, either.
“Go on. Be brave, Shelby. I promise. It’s an older neighborhood, but it’s safe. The minute you meet Kelsey, you’ll fall in love with her. Besides, she needs you.”
“It’s not what I was expecting, that’s all. I’ll be okay.” I hope.
Shelby hung up, tapping her fingertips on the steering wheel while she reconsidered turning back before she actually walked across the street and met her new client. The house looked too small to accommodate a live-in care provider and two bodyguards.
Besides. What woman in her right mind wanted to live in this neighborhood? And her deceased husband had been an important businessman? Beats me. Sure couldn’t prove it by this place. Couldn’t they have moved somewhere—anywhere—better? Bigger? Newer?
Honestly, the lots of these old-fashioned, rinky-dink houses were no bigger than postage stamps. The homes crowded together, their hedges and bushes overlapping their neighbors like one untidy raggedy quilt with frayed edges. The lawns weren’t much larger.
Old trees shadowed the sidewalks. All those leaves would be a mess to rake come autumn. Some of the concrete sidewalks were buckled and cracked.
The people north of the Stewarts had left their garbage cans on the curb, one now tipped on its side and empty, but filthy with streaks of moist grunge. A striped yellow cat prowled at its mouth, ready to crawl inside.
Ewww. The things people brought into their homes. Why anyone needed pets, Shelby didn’t understand. Cats were dirty. Like dogs. Just the thought of the germs those pets carried made her shudder.
At least she didn’t have any weeds in her front flowerbeds, though. The neighbors across the street sure did. Weeds galore. Gosh. Some people. Don’t they understand the concept of curb appeal? How hard could it be to pick a few weeds and paint their shutters?
Details. Of all people, Shelby understood the extreme importance of the smallest details. Sheesh. Why doesn’t everybody? It’s not rocket science.
She girded up her loins and focused on the noble profession she loved instead of the neighborhood. She might not be as self-sacrificing as Florence Nightingale, but nursing had always been her calling and her aptitude. She liked helping people, especially women. Men were different. Smellier. Grumpier. Ruder. Someone else could take care of them.
Securing her rollup sun visor above the dashboard so the summer sun wouldn’t fade her vehicle’s interior, Shelby double-checked the rearview one last time. Lettuce in one’s teeth did not make a good first impression.
The perky blonde smiling back at her certainly looked confident and competent. She ran a quick hand through her bangs, fluffing the sun-bleached strands to blend into her shoulder-length hair. There now. Ready to go.
Stabbing her index finger into the bridge of her brown-rimmed glasses, she gathered her purse and her courage and ventured forth. At least the bodyguards hadn’t arrived yet. She’d been told to expect two men whose names she couldn’t remember, just that they were agents and ready to assist Mrs. Stewart. The need to be settled in before they showed up hurried Shelby’s step. She could stake her claim and those two guys could stay out of her way.
I can do this.
Glancing over her shoulder, she remote-locked her brand new red and white car. Dang, she hated leaving her baby on the street. It still had that new car smell. She’d only made two payments. But, oh well. That was the way it was. She had good insurance.
What could possibly go wrong?
Neither dared sit in the man’s chair. Not Mark. Not Harley. That would’ve been sacrilege, as if Alex might storm through his door and catch them in the act of impersonating him. Damn, he’d be pissed. If he were alive.
Mark took his usual place at the small conference table instead, Harley at his right. Neither was willing to believe. Neither wanted to assume the mantle of leadership. Not yet.
Senior Agent David Tao certainly didn’t. Since the shooting, he’d all but barricaded himself in The TEAM gym at ground level. The man was a study in opposites. He dressed professionally every single day, despite the fact that he ran the onsite gym. He changed clothes a lot. So what? It didn’t matter. He still wasn’t front and center where Mark needed him to be.
Drumming his fingertips on the table, Mark prepared to step up to the plate. The problem was, no one could hide from the gloom that filled The TEAM’s once busy five-story building from basement to roof. The paralysis of shock and grief hung everywhere. The halls. The restrooms.
Reading Alex’s will revealed the depth of his trust, another shock. He hadn’t left his multi-million dollar covert surveillance business, The TEAM, to his wife, Kelsey, or to his old friends, Murphy Finnegan and Roy Hudson, though they were infinitely qualified. No. For some inexplicable reason, Alex had left it to his three trusted Senior Agents: David Tao, Mark Houston and Harley Mortimer. They were beyond rich. Disgustingly, sorrowfully rich.
&n
bsp; The trust of his fierce mentor overwhelmed Mark as much as the man’s death had. It didn’t seem real yet that Alex, a guy bigger than life, could be gone so quickly.
Mark remembered the day at the hospital. Kelsey had fallen apart the moment the sad emergency room doctor had lifted the drape from Alex’s face. She’d flung herself on his dead body, clinging to the man who’d changed her life, whose life she’d changed. And she’d cried, the shrillest keening Mark had ever heard. No words. No sobs. Just gut-wrenching grief thrown heavenward to a God who seemed deaf and blind.
Harley had outright bawled along with her. Zack and Gabe, too. The world of The TEAM had ended that day.
Since then, Mark’s heart thumped out of control every waking minute. He couldn’t sleep. He paced the floors of his home where he lived with Libby and his daughters, hoping he didn’t wake them with his restless wanderings in the dark of night. His sudden transition from employee to top dog gnawed at him. Day in. Day out.
Alex had left a large pair of shoes to fill and Mark hadn’t the faintest clue where to begin, so he started with something simple. The grieving widow. Kelsey.
He couldn’t bear what she was going through, so he’d hired someone to stay with her. Certified Nursing Assistant Shelby Sullivan came highly recommended by Mark’s wife, Libby, so he jumped at the suggestion, not that Kelsey was physically sick.
Just heartsick. Just living through the worst hurt of all.
If only he could hire someone to help The TEAM. The strain on them was paramount to losing a father. Days later, the shock hadn’t decreased. If anything, it had only grown worse.
Harley had unraveled. Usually the coolest agent on staff, his post-traumatic stress resurfaced with a vengeance. His sunny disposition soured into pessimism and wild stories of a dead man walking. Where that wild notion came from Mark could only guess. It had to stem from the denial phase of grief. Harley and Alex always had a bond, Alex the anchor to a man adrift. Harley seemed to be floundering more than ever.
Mark studied him now. His sandy-haired friend stood staring at the window, his shoulders taut and tight with the chip he seemed to be carrying. More than once, he’d hinted at the idea of searching for Alex, as if he didn’t already know the man rested six feet under, alongside his daughter and first wife.
“Remember when he tossed his chair out this window?” Harley asked, his palms flat to the plate glass Alex had shattered in a moment of frustration years earlier. That was another tough year, the year Harley and Kelsey had gone missing at the same time.
“I do,” answered Mark quietly.
“Well, I don’t! I was lost on the streets of D.C. with some crazy woman who knifed me. Remember that?”
“I’m the one who found you,” Mark replied, searching the depths of his soul for more patience. It took next to nothing to set Harley off.
He slapped the window, his jaw clenched tight. “He didn’t give up on me! Not even when he should have!”
“Alex didn’t give up on any of us.” Mark maintained his steady voice. Now wasn’t the time to push his friend, not while he stood at a window large enough to jump through. “He’s always been there for us. All of us. Any time. Any day.”
“I didn’t know he went to church every Sunday with Kelsey,” Harley mumbled, lost in another memory, his forehead to the glass. “You’d think he would’ve told me something like that, wouldn’t you? You’d think he would’ve asked me to go with them once in a while. I’d have gone. All he had to do was ask. Never knew he went to church. Wish he would’ve told me.”
Poor Harley. He sounded more like a lost boy instead of the highly qualified ex-Army K-9 handler he was. Hell, poor everyone.
Mark swallowed hard. “It was a nice service, wasn’t it?”
“It was.” Harley scrubbed a hand over his head, his hair mussed and crazy from long days and too little sleep. “He helped me run an electrical line out to my barn last spring, but he could make me so damned mad.”
“He was a good guy.”
“Don’t you think I know that? What the hell happened? Why him?”
Mark had no answers. He was as rattled as Harley, but business had to go on. Like life. “The FBI will be here in an hour.”
Red-eyed and gaunt, Harley turned to glare at Mark. “Like we can trust them. They haven’t been straight with us from day one. They’re lying through their teeth now. I know they are. I can feel it.”
“You might be right, but let’s hear them out. We need to know who fired those kill shots. If they can help us, fine. If not, we’ll run our own investigation the minute they clear the crime scene. Mother’s already sifting through satellite images with Steven.”
Harley’s brows lifted at that news, so Mark continued. “You know how she is. She might be a busybody, but she digs in without being asked. She starts working angles some of us might not think about.”
“What else is going on? Tell me everything.”
“Well, I’m not the boss, but it I think we ought to do what we’re trained to do, don’t you? Let’s prepare ourselves to hunt the bastards who killed Alex down. We’ll find them. They’ll pay.”
Harley blew out a deep sigh. Just getting him to calm enough to talk calmly was a major accomplishment. The sooner everyone resumed a regular schedule, the quicker everything would normalize, whatever that meant. “It shouldn’t take long if his murder’s related to the list of belligerents Charlie Oakes gave Alex. There was what? Ten of them?”
Charlie Oakes. A disgruntled ex-employee who’d stooped to treason and espionage. When Alex had caught him, Charlie had revealed an alliance of ex-military snipers who held a grudge because Alex hadn’t hired them.
Alex hadn’t taken the threat seriously.
He should have.
Mark did.
A soft light lit behind Harley’s hazel eyes again. “Ten. Yeah. Have you found the list?”
“Not yet. Ember’s looking for it. Hopefully she’ll have something to tell us by the time the FBI leaves. I’m planning on holding a quick staff meeting before they get here. Anything you want me to tell The TEAM?”
“You gave Ember and Mother assignments?” The bewilderment in Harley’s eyes told Mark how unstable his friend was. Hadn’t he just explained what the two IT techies were doing?
“I didn’t have to assign them. They’re professionals. They pitch in. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah. They do.” Harley nodded, his gaze drifting to the wall. “I remember now.”
And that was the problem. Everyone remembered. No one could forget.
Harley took a seat just as the phone on Alex’s desk rang. Mark tilted his chair backward to reach the receiver. “Alex Stewart’s desk. Senior Agent Houston speaking.”
His automatic response caught the caller by surprise. She gasped, and Mark regretted his thoughtless answer. “Kelsey? Is that you?”
Talking with Kelsey brought instant tears to Mark’s eyes. He didn’t care that he wept openly. Harley’d seen worse. Mark just wanted to be tough enough to hold Kelsey and The TEAM together.
“Yes. You sounded so, umm... I thought... For a second there...”
Mark caught the drift. She was stuck in the same time warp as Harley. She thought Alex might actually answer this time.
“I’m sorry. How are you doing, honey?”
“I’m good. I’m okay.”
Like hell you are. “What can I do for you?”
“I, umm, just called to ask if... You’ll think I’m crazy, but...”
He waited while Kelsey composed herself enough to talk. He totally understood. She’d lost her best friend. Everything had to be hard for her right now.
“I... I want to exhume him, Mark. Can you help me? Do you know how to go about doing that?”
“Alex?” God, why?
“Yes, only I don’t know if it’s legal, or... or...”
“Has something happened I don’t know about?” Mark asked gently. He was positive Kelsey didn’t know what she wanted, and he didn’t k
now if she was capable of making important decisions at the moment. Exhumation of her husband’s remains was definitely one of those big decisions that might be better made in a year or two.
Silence was the answer he expected, but not the answer he got.
“I don’t think it’s him. It can’t be. He can’t be dead. I know you probably think I’m losing my mind, and to tell you the truth, I think I’m going crazy too, but...”
He could almost hear her tears falling through the phone line.
“I... I had a dream.”
He wiped his face and listened. The rest of the world could wait. Harley, too. “What did you dream?”
“He... he came to me last night. I’m sure of it. It was so real, and he kept telling me he loved me, and it would all be over soon. That he’d never stop loving me. He wrapped his arms around me, and he snuggled into my neck like he does when he comes home late at night. When he used to come home... when he...” With a soft whimper, she broke down.
Mark squeezed his eyes tight against his own wellspring of tears. God, he could bawl at the drop of a hat these days, but exhume the body? He’d do it himself if the slightest possibility existed that someone else lay in that coffin. But everyone knew the truth. Kelsey just needed time to come to grips with what had happened.
Harley watched with piercing eyes, his brows furrowed and his hackles up again. “What’s going on? Is she upset? Should I go over there? Tell her I can be there in twenty.”
“No need.” Mark covered the receiver with his hand. “She thinks she wants to exhume Alex’s body. That’s all.”
“Good idea. I don’t think he’s in that grave, either.” Harley clapped both hands to his knees. “Let’s do it.”
Mark shook his head. “Are you still there, Kelsey? Did your doctor give you anything to help you rest?”
“Uh-huh,” she mumbled. “Do you think I’m losing my mind, Mark?”
Gabe (In the Company of Snipers Book 8) Page 2