Secondary Targets

by Sandra Edwards

  Eightball paused in front of his colleague and tossed a batch of eight-by-tens onto the desk. He laced his fingers in front of him and waited.

  Torpedo scanned the photographs, recent and all of Grace Hendricks. The man’s girl-friendly face, clean-shaven and with Paul Newman eyes, gave nothing away about the thoughts running through his head.

  Eightball hated that. Not the good-looking part—Eightball was all about the ladies—but the part where he could never tell what Torpedo was thinking. That always got on his nerves.

  “They were taken yesterday.” An optimistic patience filled Eightball’s voice. Surely they’d let him go after her now that she’d been located.

  “She was here?” Torpedo commented, amused. “To see Wayne, no doubt.”

  Damn it. Was nothing sacred anymore? “What are we going to do about him, now that he’s retired?” An order to kill was too much to hope for. Eightball had gotten his hopes up before and it’d all come to nothing.

  “To hell with Wayne.” Torpedo gave a dismissive wave. “I’ve been watching him for eleven years, you don’t think he moved up the ranks from Captain to Lt. Colonel in such a short time on his own merit, do you? He doesn’t know squat.”

  “What do you want done?” Eightball asked, an obliging gleam lighting his tone.

  “Find them. See what they’re up to.” Torpedo’s mood remained calm. “But don’t do anything drastic.” He paused, shaking his head. “It may be a false alarm.”

  “Whatever it is,” Eightball said. “We’ll find out.”

  Eightball longed to get back into the job that suited him best. Killing. And this incident might do the trick.

  Hell, they’d been prepared to let him take her out eleven years ago, if she hadn’t disappeared.

  CHAPTER 5

  GRACE had trouble wrapping her mind around the visit to Cherry Point. Why had her father’s name been omitted from the military installation’s records? Who had that kind of power?

  She glanced around Eric’s dimly lit living room. The massive fireplace, a remnant from days gone by, persuaded her to think about things she shouldn’t. Like basking in the warm glow of a toasty fire on a cold winter’s night, in the arms of a man she’d given up to the past a long time ago.

  She drew in a breath and caught a glimpse of Eric from the corner of her eye. Busted. He was looking straight at her. An overwhelming fear of two very different sorts—one centered around her father and the other on Eric’s imminent inquisition—set her panic in motion.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asked, propping his feet onto the coffee table.

  She cut her eyes toward him sitting in the chair kitty-cornered from her, and steered the conversation as far away from her mistakes as possible. “Why do you suppose daddy’s name wasn’t on that list?”

  Eric shook his head. “Try as I might, Gracie, I can’t come up with even a farfetched reason for that.”

  “What do you think we should do?” She tried to hide her insecurity. If Eric bailed on her, she was toast.

  “My gut tells me we need to hit the road.” He paused, clasping his hands together behind his head. “But to where, I haven’t a clue.”

  “Somebody out there knows what happened to my father.”

  “That they do.”

  “How do we find out who that is?” Uncertainty hovered in Grace’s mind. “How do we differentiate the good guys from the bad?”

  “I have a feeling, if we trust the wrong people we might end up like the General.” There was no malice in his words, just wisdom.

  “If it’s all the same with you,” she said, “I’ll let you choose who we trust and who we don’t.” Her track record for making decisions hadn’t been the greatest since her father died.

  Eric glimpsed at his watch and then lifted his gaze to meet Grace’s. “Why don’t you grab a couple hours rest?” he suggested. “We’re going to be leaving as soon as it gets dark.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Maybe that’s why he was waiting for dark—to think of somewhere to go. No matter the reason, she decided he was right. She’d better rest while she had the chance.

  Grace pushed up from the couch. “I’m going to follow your advice.” She pointed toward the hallway and the guest room he’d offered her. “Wake me when you’re ready to leave?”

  “Sure.” His smile was a defeated yet determined attempt.

  Plenty was left to say, but she didn’t want to go there. Instead, Grace took the easy way out, heading toward the hallway with her worries and insecurities intact. Better to hide inside the silence of a lonely, empty room than give Eric a chance to ask questions when he probably wouldn’t like the answers.

  Grace opened the bedroom door and her instincts urged her to run. But she’d already done that, and look how it turned out.

  It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Heading to the Cape for some alone-time was supposed to help her come to terms with her father’s death.

  She hadn’t told anybody but Eric that she was leaving or where she was going. It was their special place and nobody else needed to know about it. Early in their relationship they’d gone up the coast and ended up spending a long weekend at a seaside inn. And, immediately following her father’s death, the Cape was the only place she could think of that brought her peace.

  The trip was only supposed to last a few weeks, at the most. And when she left, she had every intention of coming back. She just needed a little time to accept the way her father had died. Suicide.

  But her chosen path to solace had failed Grace. The only place it led was rehab, five years later.

  Her instincts hadn’t exactly been reliable back then, so why should she think it’d turn out any differently now?

  If any part of Eric had contemplated walking away from Grace at the cemetery, that opportunity passed when he discovered the General’s name was no longer associated with Cherry Point’s records.

  Eric stared at the fireplace. Maybe he should retrieve it. Assuming it was still there. Yesterday he would have thought that likely, but in light of the General’s disappearance, anything was possible.

  The General had done some odd things in the months before he died. Things to which Grace wasn’t privy. But none of the man’s past behavior could’ve prepared Eric for yesterday’s outcome.

  The clock above the mantel said Grace had been in her room for a little over an hour. He let two more hours pass before he dared to make his move.

  Eric stood and took quiet steps across the room before sitting on the hearth. Leaning back into the firebox, he reached up inside the chimney’s flue. The bricks were rough and covered in soot, but that didn’t deter Eric. He searched for the loose, telltale brick. Once he got a decent grip on it, it came out with relative ease. Eric lifted himself up to feel inside the hole.

  The small metal container, barely larger than a matchbox, was cool to the touch. Understandable since Eric hadn’t started a fire in weeks. He popped the top and exhaled his relief upon seeing the key inside.

  He’d kept it safe, and a secret, for eleven years. Before that, who knew how long the General had kept it hidden. A few weeks before his death, the General had revealed a clandestine compartment well-concealed inside his desk at home. Of course it was empty back then, and the General had never explained why it needed to be a secret.

  Yet, Michael Hendricks’ gentle insistence had stayed with Eric all these years. If anything should ever happen to him, and it was followed by strange occurrences, Eric should go to the desk, where he’d find something inside it this time. He should remove it and share its existence with no one but Grace.

  Eric didn’t immediately retrieve the contents after the General died. But when Grace failed to meet him at Pink’s a few weeks later, he’d gone to the Cape looking for her and found her gone. That was his cue.

  He’d taken the key and hidden it with painstaking deliberation, in each new location he was stationed, and he�
�d never shared its existence with anyone. That had more to do with his pride than anything else because Eric had always thought it led to something to do with him and Grace, on a personal level—to which Eric didn’t care about the spoils.

  In light of the last couple of days, he began to buy into the notion that whatever it led to, it was big. Maybe even dangerous.

  Eric examined the General’s bounty, letting his curiosity over what the number thirty-six—the only engraving on the key—might mean.

  Hearing Grace’s bedroom door open, he quickly fished his wallet out of his back pocket and stuffed the key in the compartment behind his credit cards.

  “Sleep well?” he asked as she appeared around the corner.

  Grace laughed. “About as well as can be expected, I guess.” She raked her gaze over Eric and it left him feeling nostalgic. “So, are we still splitting?”

  “Yes, we are.” He pointed to a duffle bag beside the door leading to the kitchen. He’d tossed in a few changes of clothing while she was sleeping.

  She looked like she wanted to say something, probably ask where they were going. Hell if he knew. His plan was just to get in the car and start driving.

  “You still don’t know where we’re going, do you?” Her words were an inquiry but her voice didn’t deliver it that way. She’d said it like she knew what she was talking about.

  She could see right through him. Eric hated that about Grace. “I don’t know what’s going on.” He shook his head. “But I get the feeling that what you’ve stumbled upon is much bigger than you. Me. Even your father.” He paused, still unable to wrap his head around it. “This could get ugly. You have to promise me that you’ll do exactly as I say, whenever I say.”

  Eric couldn’t stress the importance of that enough. She had to listen to him and she had to do it without argument. Their lives just might depend upon it before this thing was over.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE convenience store’s well-lit exterior afforded Eric a better than average view of Grace chatting with the clerk as she paid for the mountain of junk food she’d carted to the counter. Eric gripped the steering wheel with one hand and braced his cell phone against his ear with the other.

  “No, I don’t think Grace has anything to do with it—” Eric stopped mid-sentence, seeing her heading toward the store’s exit with a large paper bag. He straightened in his seat. “I’ve got to go. We’ll be there before dawn,” he said and disconnected the call. He tucked the phone between his leg and the seat.

  Inside the car, Grace passed him a cold bottle of water and a bag of Doritos.

  “Chips?” His weakness. What were the odds of her remembering that after eleven years?

  “Yeah, and I got some honey buns, cashews and powdered donuts.” She glanced at him with one of those looks that suggested this had nothing to do with him. It was all about her sweet tooth.

  Eric chuckled and opened his bottle of water.

  “So, you figure out where we’re going yet?” she asked, strapping into her seatbelt.

  “Yep.” He shifted into reverse and lifted his foot off the brake. “To see a friend.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Yep.” He turned away from her, checking the traffic before pulling out into the street.

  “Well...” She smacked him lightly. “Don’t keep me in suspense. Who is it?”

  “Marcus.” Eric’s attention fell to his arm and then rose up to Grace’s face.

  “Marcus?” Excitement filled her voice. “Oh my God. How’s he doing?”

  “He’s fine,” Eric said. “Retired now.”

  “There seems to be a lot of that going around.” She turned away from him and glanced out the window. “Wasn’t he a lawyer or something?”

  “Yes. A criminal attorney.” Eric turned onto Highway 17’s onramp. “He spent twenty years in a position that’s better than military intelligence, for hearing rumors about those things that nobody talks about because nobody knows they’re happening.”

  Marcus Johnson had spent the bulk of his military career defending grunts who’d been accused of one crime or another. If Eric was lucky that meant his friend was privy to things that he could never hope to dream up—like how a commanding general in the United States Marine Corps disappears, right under everybody’s nose.

  How long before we get there?” she asked, still peering out the window.

  “A few hours. Feel free to go ahead and get some rest.” He liked the idea of her going to sleep much better than the notion of them talking. Nothing good could come from talking. Especially when he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answers to the questions running through his mind.

  “Do you think Marcus can help us?” She looked at Eric as if she’d never heard his suggestion for sleep.

  Eric shrugged his answer and shook his head. God, he hoped so.

  Guess that ruled out Grace going to sleep. Too bad. Eric would have to muster quite a bit of diligence to steer the conversation away from “them” and why she hadn’t come back, but he’d do what he had to do. He’d quit needing to know that a long time ago. Eric was done. It was over.

  Then the General disappeared.

  And here he sat with Grace Hendricks by his side. Damned crappy luck.

  Eric blew out a heavy sigh and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel.

  His non-verbal response didn’t do a thing to curb Grace’s recent concerns, but she was thankful that he hadn’t asked her about the last eleven years and where she’d been. In order to keep things that way, she kept quiet as he weaved through the evening traffic on Highway 17. The city lights mesmerized her as they zoomed past in long fluorescent trails.

  Silence, crushing and cumbersome, thickened the space between them. She never thought she’d be in Eric’s presence again. Not amicably anyway. It wasn’t something she’d aspired to. Her past hadn’t allowed for that. And now, here in this situation, she didn’t know which was more nerve-racking, the thought of facing his wrath or the obscurity surrounding her father. Not that it offered any comfort, but she decided that her father’s mystery trumped Eric’s underlying anger.

  Tiring of the infinite quiet, she reached for the radio button. Anything was better than the silence. Almost. Hopefully, Eric hadn’t developed a penchant for country music—not that there was anything wrong with it. It just wasn’t her thing.

  A familiar song poured from the radio and as that guy from Jefferson Starship sang about Miracles, she looked at Eric. Damn, he hadn’t changed much. He’d hardly aged at all. Not the way Grace had, anyway. Other than a few lines weathered by time, he was pretty much the same.

  He kept his attention focused straight ahead. Kept his eyes on the road, traffic or whatever. His ability to ignore her scrutinizing stare made Grace feel second-rate. She’d learned to mask her inner feelings, but she was unable to put the lesson to good use and project a successful front.

  Grace slipped the worry beads off her wrist and down into the palm of her hand. She’d earned them in rehab and for the first time in a long time the purple, pink and green beads were something more than frosting. Their smooth surface cast a hypnotic effect on her brain.

  Her mind started to wander around in the memories of her past. Was there a clue hidden somewhere in them? Something that appeared trivial at the time, but now seemed strange?

  Consumed by what might be hidden in the past, she scarcely caught a glimpse of the sign welcoming them to South Carolina. Instead, no matter where her thoughts needed to be, they were more agreeably occupied by memories of an afternoon long since past.

  Her father’s annual barbeques were the talk of Cherry Point and highly anticipated among the officers and select enlisted personnel. The backyard of the General’s quarters was always filled with cheerful conversations and succulent aromas, and if she breathed deeply enough she could almost smell the hickory and mesquite flavors smoking into the chicken and beef.

  But there was one party in particular that topped all the others
. It happened about twelve years ago, when she was twenty-one. That’s when she met Captain Eric Wayne.

  Standing on the back porch, she’d seen him talking to her father. Intrigued, she couldn’t recall seeing him before, so she watched them. He was going to salute, but her dad had stopped him. And even though she couldn’t hear it, her father appeared to be laughing.

  She imagined him saying something like, “Relax. Get yourself a beer. And for Pete’s sake, lighten up.”

  Grace set out to rescue the poor, obvious newbie, and trotted down the porch steps. Watching the ground, she weaved through the crowded maze of party-goers. When she looked up she collided with the guy she’d intended to save.

  “I am so sorry,” he said.

  Their gazes met and locked. He smiled and she reciprocated. The attraction was instant as Grace got caught up in his eyes, their color as green and bottomless as the Atlantic off the coast of Florida. They complemented his face well. Obviously, he was a Marine, indicative of the jarhead haircut he was sporting. Even so, that too contributed, if not enhanced his G-Q-ish good looks.

  “Where’s the fire?” She giggled, wondering where her father had been hiding this one.

  “Fire?” Confusion crinkled his brow and then, after a moment, he caught on. “I was just going to see if I could find myself a beer.”

  Grace grabbed his hand. She could help him with that. “Come on...” Her words trailed off as she urged him to follow her. “I’ll show you,” she said, glancing at him over her shoulder.

  “How did you come to be here?” he asked, following her up the porch steps. “You really don’t look like the military type.”

  “What?” She opened the screen door. “You don’t think I could be a Marine?”

  “Well, actually...” He paused in the doorway, as if considering it. “No.” His lingering, scrutinizing gaze filled her with reticence.