Gabe (In the Company of Snipers Book 8)

by Winters, Irish

  He didn’t touch me. Didn’t he want to?

  It didn’t take long to load the dogs and get back to the scene of the accident. Gabe parked his Land Rover at the edge of the riverbank. He’d worn a light jacket to cover his holstered pistols. It held two extra magazines in the pockets, nine rounds each. He’d also brought his gear bag along with his mini-camcorder and one of Alex’s shirts, though he doubted the dogs needed it. Whisper and Smoke knew their master. This wouldn’t take long.

  With his mini-cam already running in his left hand, he opened the rear gate of his vehicle. Panning to the left to orient his viewing audience, he began the show, “As you can see, we’re back at the river. It’s a sunny day. Traffic on the highway behind me is light. Feels like a light breeze from the southeast.” He panned back to the two eager noses in the back of his ride. “Whisper? Smoke? Are you boys ready to rock and roll? Let’s do this. Find Alex.”

  Like that was hard for them to do. Whisper and Smoke shot out of the vehicle and raced to the river’s edge, sniffing through the ruts and mud. They seemed yoked together by an invisible leash, both noses to the ground and working. After following a short trail along the river, they tracked to the edge of the road and dropped to their haunches, signaling they’d done their job.

  In less than two minutes.

  Damn. That was quick.

  He crouched with Whisper, the camcorder capturing both dogs’ snouts as well as his fingers examining the ground at their paws. The tow truck had left enough ruts and heavy tread marks to validate this was the correct piece of riverbank. No doubt about that, but the attempted murder had occurred well over a week ago. Could Whisper and Smoke be wrong?

  “Was he here?” Gabe asked, wishing they could verbalize what they seemed sure of. “Did you scent Alex?”

  Whisper growled. Smoke offered one quick little, “Yip.”

  If only they could talk.

  To be sure, Gabe walked back to his vehicle. He hadn’t really expected they’d find Alex so fast, but now that they had, anger smoldered. He jerked his boss’s shirt off the front seat where he’d left it and marched back to the dogs. Pressing it to both of their snouts, he told them again, “Find Alex.”

  Whisper didn’t even budge. He whined in a deep, growly kind of voice and slapped one bear-sized paw to the ground, as if saying, I already did, dummy. He was right here.

  No wonder Kelsey claimed he could talk. Smoke, on the other hand, backtracked to the shoreline before he returned to sit beside his kennelmate.

  Gabe rolled the knot out of his neck, getting more and more pissed at his supposedly dead and buried boss. That sonofabitch.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said semi-cheerfully for the sake of his audience. “That sneaky boss of mine might just be alive. Good enough. Let’s see what else you boys can find while we’re here.”

  He walked the road with the dogs at his side, fuming at the man he used to respect almost as much as his father. How dare that bastard hurt Kelsey? The TEAM? Gabe’s fists curled. Alex was alive, damn it, and he wanted to beat the living shit out of him.

  And yet...

  Who’d gotten shot if not Alex? It sure as hell had looked like him. Whose life did I try so damned hard to save? Who’s right—the dogs or my eyes? My hands?

  Time for a commercial break. He hit the camcorder’s stop button and called Zack. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Whatcha got?”

  “Either the dogs tracked Alex or someone planted his scent on the river bank. God, Zack, I’ve run them twice. They keep coming up with the same answer. He was here, damn it.”

  Zack’s voice lowered. “Mark’s fighting the same battle at the office. David’s convinced the FBI fabricated evidence to match the ME’s version of events. Our own security cameras caught footage of the shooter, some ex-Navy SEAL named Becker. Steven claims the rounds that supposedly killed Alex weren’t live ammo. Not sure about you, but I’m fast becoming a believer.”

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore, but I’m fast becoming pissed off. Why would he hurt Kelsey like this?” Gabe’s anger spiked. Nothing made sense. “God, I’d rip his head off if he were here.”

  “Settle down. We don’t know what’s going on yet. All we’ve got are puzzle pieces.”

  “The lying bastard.”

  “Gabe. Knock it off.”

  “You can’t talk, can you? Are Shelby and Kelsey right there?”

  “Copy that.”

  Gabe drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Anger never settled anything, and this was Alex he was angry with, until now one of the few honorable men left in the world. He’d better have a damned good reason for the god-awful deceit, or Gabe would gladly hold him down if Kelsey wanted to kick the shit out of him.

  “Woof!” Whisper and Smoke left the edge of the road and trotted up to their bellies into the water. They stopped, but stood staring at something ten or so yards offshore.

  “Hey, listen. I’ve got to go. The dogs found something. I’ll check back soon.”

  “Copy that.”

  He holstered his phone and switched the camcorder on again. “You guys find a duck or something? Come on, boys. Stop horsing around. Let it go. We’ve got popcorn to pop and a lady waiting at home.”

  And a rat-bastard boss to find.

  When Whisper growled at the water, Gabe investigated closer. An encounter with a muskrat or raccoon would make for interesting viewing. Kelsey would get a kick out of watching her dogs scramble after a smart rodent, or maybe play in the water for a couple minutes. It sure beat the dark thoughts Gabe was harboring.

  He pushed through the few bushes along this part of the shore, fully expecting a splash when the clever creature made its getaway, but something else caught his eye. The water looked darker in this portion of the river. Flatter, as if it swelled over something big and flat beneath the surface. A thin glint of silver shimmered up from the murky depths. Looked like a silver strip of chrome.

  The dogs weren’t playing. They’d found something and that bigger, flatter something just might be a car.

  “Sit. Stay.”

  Whisper and Smoke dropped to their butts in the shallow water while Gabe walked into the river to investigate. Something definitely rested beneath the water. Big and flat, it might be a submerged rock, the silver of a fisherman’s lost pole.

  He couldn’t wade out to it. Any deeper and the water would fill his boots. “I’m probably going to regret this, but since I’m already here, I might as well take a look see at what’s got the dogs’ attention.”

  Gabe stripped off his jacket and fashioned a cushion for the camcorder. Once it was in place on the padding, he stepped behind it and removed his holster and weapons. Gabe glanced at the highway behind him, thankful the reeds and brush concealed his stupidity from the road. There wouldn’t be any videos of his half-naked ass bouncing all over YouTube if he could help it.

  He only wished he could conceal this next part from Kelsey. She didn’t need to see him in his boxers, but one way or the other, she would have the confirmation she needed by the end of the day.

  Pulling his shirt over his head, he tossed it over his weapons and kicked off his boots. Pants went next. Draping them over his already covered weapons, he double-checked his prosthetic and made sure it was secure. Losing this foot wasn’t an option.

  His dad’s watch went next. Gabe peeled it off his wrist and set it on the stack of clothing. Zack would chew his butt for sure, especially since Gabe was filming his own stupidity. He did it anyway, stepped in front of the camera, boxers, prosthetic plastic foot and all.

  “Let the Oscar nominations begin,” he muttered, the water rising with every step. Splashing the chilly river up high onto his chest and arms to prepare himself for what he planned to do next, he kept a narrative going. “Man, this river’s colder than it looks. This has to be the dumbest thing I’ve done in a long time, huh, Zack?”

  Zack’s resounding, Hell, yeah! came to mind, but so be it. A
dive in the chilly river was a small thing compared to what Kelsey had suffered.

  With that final thought, he lifted both hands over his head and said, “Here goes nothing.”

  He dove in.

  The river greeted him with a shock of breathtaking cold. Six quick strokes took him to his underwater target. The murky water made it impossible to see much more than shafts of light, so he relied on his hands, feeling the smooth metal surface of a submerged vehicle. Just as he’d suspected.

  His oxygen supply exhausted quickly. Gabe surfaced for a gulp of air and submerged again. With steady strokes, he positioned himself to arrive where he judged the side of the vehicle to be. Smoothing his hands along the drowned auto, he came to a door handle. At that point he knew which direction the vehicle faced. He moved along the side until he encountered a partially open door.

  With his air depleted, he surfaced again and gulped an extra large lung full. The water was cold, but his body had begun to acclimate to the temperature. This time, his hand struck the edge of the partially open door right away. He yanked it open farther. If nothing else, he planned to retrieve something from the glove box. A vehicle registration would be nice. Maybe a weapon or other evidence. Who knew, right?

  But instead of access to the interior, he got something else. An object followed the door’s outward momentum and bumped his forehead. A solid object. Big. Like a—body.

  Damn! Gabe choked on a mouthful of water.

  He flailed backwards, kicking to get away from that thing closing in on him. No such luck. It followed, bumping his thrashing legs with something hard that felt a lot like a—head.

  A root reached out from nowhere, snagging his real foot above his ankle. He knew the corpse hadn’t really grabbed him. Too bad panic didn’t.

  Damn it! Another mouthful of river water went down the wrong pipe. Choking, he stroked to the surface, pulling away from the nightmare he’d unwittingly discovered.

  Finally! Topside!

  “Jesus Christ!” spewed out of his mouth along with a lot of dirty, river water. The bloated dead guy surfaced, too, right on Gabe’s six. He kicked away from it, but it spread its arms wide like it wanted a big hug. The disgusting thing wore a ridiculously tight-fitting business suit and a strangling tie.

  Gabe flailed backward.

  It bobbed and rolled, revealing the milky-white eyes of what appeared to have once been a Caucasian male, his mouth open in a silent, gaping scream. Its fingers were too chewed up to have grabbed him. The thing seemed to want Gabe’s company, though, drifting closer with every backward thrust he took.

  Gabe dog-paddled to keep afloat and his distance. Holy, goddamned shit.

  With a final bubbling snort, the body faced the sky before it rolled face-down, its left palm slapping the water with a pathetically weak smack. The partially eaten scalp with strands of long black hair declared there were fish in the river. Hungry fish.

  Gabe half-staggered, half crab-walked to shore, choking down a scream. Cursing was manlier, so he ripped off his most tame expletive instead of what he’d been thinking. “Damn it to hell! Damn it! Damn it!”

  He wiped the river off his face, still spitting the river out of his mouth, the same river that he now knew held a rotting corpse. “Blah! Damn! Blah. Sure didn’t plan on... that,” he said to the dogs and the camcorder.

  Whisper and Smoke turned to look at him briefly, but turned right back to the corpse bobbing its way to shore. It didn’t come to a rest until its face scraped the shallows, as if it knew right where Gabe had gone. Of course it was simply the current he’d created by scrambling out of the water, but still. The dead guy creeped him out.

  Goose bumps lifted up his back and over his shoulders. Huge. Really big, goose bumps.

  Whisper and Smoke took a few steps toward it to investigate, their noses to the water.

  “No. Come on, guys. Stay away from... that.”

  The dogs complied, sniffing him up and down instead. Smoke licked the water off his face while Whisper planted his big butt right on top of Gabe’s bionic foot. Good enough. He brought the camcorder up and aimed it into his face for one final curtain call in his best Porky Pig voice. “Th... th... that’s all, folks.”

  Fumbling to get his cell phone out of his nice dry jacket pocket, he rang his Senior Agent. “Is Kelsey sitting with you?” he asked, shivering uncontrollably.

  “No. She’s taking a nap, and Shelby’s baking cookies. Why? What’s wrong? You okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” Gabe flopped to his back, gulping in a deep breath of clean air and thankful for the sunny blue sky overhead. Good was the last thing he was, but no guy admits that. “You know that video I was making? Sonofabitch turned into a horror flick.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mark made a quick trip home to grab Libby and his two little girls before he headed over to visit Kelsey and the guys. JayJay giggled with excitement and baby Faith giggled simply because her big sister did. Before long Mark and Libby were letting themselves in through Kelsey’s front door. The two girls ran with happy squeals to snuggle with their favorite aunt on the couch.

  “Hey Kelsey,” Mark said while JayJay clamored onto the couch for Kelsey to read to them. Ah, the innocence of youth. His girls knew their Aunt Kelsey was sad, but their enthusiasm at seeing her overrode her gloom. She gathered them both into her arms with a contented sigh.

  Libby joined Shelby in the kitchen.

  Zack caught Mark’s eye and nodded toward the back yard, where they could talk out of earshot. “You’re looking tired, ol’ man.”

  “Aren’t we all? How’s Shelby working out?”

  “Good. Real good.”

  For now, she sat chatting with Libby while Kelsey read to Mark’s little girls. She kept a ready supply of children’s books in the end table. JayJay took three-year-old charge of page turning while her baby sister oooh’d at the pretty pictures. Kelsey seemed happy with her arms full, a bittersweet scene. It had to be difficult to hold other’s children the same age her boys were when they died. If it was, her sadness didn’t show. Baby Faith pointed to the brown rabbit on the page and cooed while Kelsey snuggled her close.

  “Where’s our boy?”

  Zack frowned. “Out taking videos. I thought he’d be back by now.”

  “Out where?” Mark asked, but his cell phone rang. No wonder Alex was prone to throw the damned things. They were a mix of ball-and-chain and steady interruption. “Houston,” he answered, the pleasant scene in the other room already forgotten.

  “Were you coming back to the office tonight?” David asked.

  “Yes. Libby and the girls are visiting Kelsey right now. Why?”

  “I’ve discovered something you need to see. It’s about Eagle Two.”

  “On my way.” He signed off and faced Zack. “I’ve got to run. Where’s Gabe, damn it?”

  “He took the dogs back to the river to prove once and for all who rescued Kelsey.”

  “Don’t tell me she’s got you guys convinced Alex is still alive?”

  Zack hedged. “Possibly. Why don’t you come back later and see what Gabe turns up? Face it. He’s right. One way or the other, we’ll know if Alex was on that riverbank.”

  “I guess,” Mark agreed reluctantly, “David's certain he’s still alive, too. Hell, it seems everyone is. You’d think the dogs would’ve scented Alex when we had them out searching for Kelsey, though.”

  “Not so. You and Harley told them to find Kelsey, not him. Dogs don’t do multiple choice.”

  Damn. More logic. Mark lifted two fingers to his right temple. A migraine. Just like Alex used to get. “But what about you? Can you handle these two all by yourself?”

  “You mean Kelsey and Shelby?” Zack asked, his brows lifted on his forehead.

  Dumb question. Zack? Not able to handle two women?

  “There is something else, now that you’re here.” He lowered his voice. “Gabe found a set of boot prints in the backyard this morning. I meant to call, but
we’ve had our hands full keeping Kelsey cheered up.”

  “Boot prints? Where? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. You guys are out of here. Gear up and get ready to move to a more secure location—wait. What do you mean, you’ve had your hands full keeping Kelsey cheered up? How did you guys make her sad?”

  “Now hold on. Before you go all Alex on me, hear me out. Kelsey’s had a bad day. That’s all. She’s hanging on by a thread. Let’s see what Gabe turns up before we turn her world upside-down again.”

  Mark closed his eyes and began counting to ten.

  Around number three, he knew damned well he was right, and that Zack better snap to and follow orders.

  Around seven, Kelsey started singing Over the Rainbow to his girls. His baby Faith giggled. Kelsey always did have a way with kids. She almost sounded like her old self.

  Around eight, he reconsidered. Zack and Gabe were the best, even if one of the boneheads was not at his post at the moment. Around ten—aw, shit.

  He caved. “One more incident, just one, and you guys are moving. Count on it.”

  “Whatever you say, Boss.”

  Yeah, right. Lip service, Lennox. Too little. Too damned late.

  “Come on, girls,” Mark called to Libby and his daughters. “We’re leaving. Daddy’s got to go back to work.” Damn it.

  Libby offered her usual understanding smile, but JayJay grumbled. “Aww. I wanna read more stories, Daddy.”

  Libby gathered the girls, shushing their opinions of a short visit. “Aunt Kelsey needs to rest, but when she feels better, us girls are going to the zoo. Maybe Aunt Kelsey can come with us. Would you like that?”

  “Yeah,” Faith blurted. Problem solved. She loved Kelsey and she loved the zoo. Her child-like enthusiasm almost made Mark smile. Almost. He owned another problem. Running the business took everything from him, even his precious little family time. Not good. He sounded more and more like Alex, too. Always swearing. Curt. Impatient.