They waited patiently until five people strode into the ops room, led by Red. “This is Commander Austen.”
“Commander Austen,” A tall lanky officer replied, removing his hat. “Ma’am, you’re Kayla Banks, is that right?”
Kayla nodded.
“I’m Lieutenant Manchester with San Diego NCIS. I’m in charge of the Blood Shark investigation. Can we talk in another room?” he asked, surveying the surroundings. “Barker, Hicks, I want you to interview the deliveryman. You’re probably not going to find out any more than before, but do it anyway.” The two uniformed men who flanked him nodded and left. The other two people in the entourage approached the box, pulling on gloves.
A hefty man with thick glasses leaned over it, nodded, and turned to Manchester. “It’s the same. The ring matches the description we got from her husband. This is our missing base police officer.” He carefully lifted the box and inspected it. “Ma’am, this hair,” he asked, “did this come out of the note?”
“Yes.”
“That’s different,” he said, pinning a look on Manchester.
Kayla reached for her hair, pulling a strand out and holding it out to the CSI technician. He cocked his head at her. “It’s a message within a message.” They all turned to look at her. “He wouldn’t be stupid enough to put his own hair in there, and there’s plenty of DNA with the finger to identify the last woman,” She paused looking up at him, her gaze hollow. “I think you’ll find it matches mine. He’s saying he’s been close enough to me already to take it from me.”
Thane’s heart shattered as a slice of fear shot down his spine, a foreign feeling to him. Anxious, on edge, ready—he knew, a cold biting fear, he hadn’t felt since the attack in the desert.
The CSI investigator took her sample, popped open a plastic bag and dropped it in. “We’ll test it.”
“Captain Redding,” Lieutenant Manchester said, prompting him to lead the way.
Settling in the office, he placed himself in the chair next to Kayla. He wanted to reach for her hand to give her reassurance, but she didn’t seem to need any, and it bothered him. He turned a purposeful gaze on Manchester. “Is this what he’s done all along, and why haven’t we heard about it?
“We kept it quiet for obvious reasons. You’d be surprised how many guys want to off their wives and will use this to cover it up.”
Kayla’s brows quirked. He had to admit, he was a little shocked at that himself.
“What else don’t we know?” Redding queried, taking a seat behind his desk and pointing at an empty one for the Lieutenant to take.
“Not a lot, I’m afraid, but the hair is new. The note is different as well.”
“What does it normally say?” he asked.
The Lieutenant scanned all their faces, and then as if trusting his present company he said, “The same as was left in Kayla’s Christmas tree, ‘I can’t wait to feel your warm blood on my hands.’”
“What?” Kayla exclaimed.
“You didn’t tell her?” Manchester queried.
“What are you talking about?” Kayla flinched and forked her fingers together.
This time his hand had a mind of its own and he covered hers, squeezing it gently. The Lieutenant didn’t miss it, and neither did Red. “I didn’t tell you, for obvious reasons. The letter was left in your Christmas tree, Kayla. Why do you think I was…” He stopped himself. If he said more, more would be asked. He turned to Manchester. “So this time it’s very different.”
The Lieutenant leaned forward, eyeing him. “Yeah, not sure why though.”
The note with the finger only had two words, “You’re special.” He felt anger begin to well up, normally when that happened he needed to kill something. His rage had a target, but he had to keep his emotions under control and keep thinking, for Kayla’s sake.
Manchester turned his hawk-like stare on her. “Can you shed any light on that, Ms. Banks?”
Kayla and he exchanged a glance. “We think he chased me once before.”
“I have that report. You didn’t see him, you just ran,” he said as if accusing her.
“She ran for her life. If she had slowed down to look, she’d be dead,” he growled at the Lieutenant.
Kayla spoke up. “I don’t usually spend any extra time around the base. If I’m on base, I’m working. The only time was…” She paused and swallowed hard.
He’d coaxed her out to the bar the day her friends graduated, and then she’d put herself on the stage at Christmas, and it was like throwing a spotlight on her. The only other time would be at the galley, but his instincts told him the Blood Shark had been in the bar. Maybe the Shark had been stalking her all this while, but Thane had made sure she was always watched. By Christmas, the Shark must have lost his patience, that’s why he’d come into her condo and left the first note.
He remembered graduation night. “Kayla.” He folded her hand in both of his. “Remember graduation, you were walking back to the table. Someone grabbed you. I think he hurt you. Who was that?”
Surprise crossed her features. “What? No, he was just a little overzealous, that’s all.”
“Do you know him? Have you seen him before? Have you seen him since?”
“No.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?”
“Not really. Maybe…” She paused thinking. “It was dark, and there were so many people packed in there. He had dark eyes, nothing really stood out on him. Just a guy.”
“Was he dressed in civilian clothes or a uniform?
“He wore a camo jacket and pants, practically bald, but isn’t everyone around here?” She shook her head and offered a weak smile.
Shooting a look at the Lieutenant he asked, “What else does he do?”
“That’s it, the next contact is usually…” He cleared his throat and jerked his head. “Ms. Banks we’re—”
“We’re ready for our daily flailing, Commander,” Mace said, bounding in the room with the rest of the team behind him.
Cobbs stepped ahead and read the temperature in the room immediately, putting his hand out, he scanned the scene. “Uh, I guess we’re interrupting.”
“Come in, men, and shut the door,” he ordered.
Lieutenant Manchester shook his head, opposing the idea. “Commander, I—”
He put his hand up instantly. “Gather ’round, men.” None of his team delivered a smartass remark, sensing something was very wrong. They edged up and circled them.
“This is confidential information,” Manchester warned.
“I understand that, and they do, too. This is my squad.”
The Lieutenant offered a cool stare. “Men.”
They all nodded back, but remained silent, their faces severe.
“We have a new mission,” he stated to them, twisting in his chair.
Manchester gave his head a quick jerk. “No, Commander, I know your team is renowned, but this is police work.”
“Police work for who?” Tony asked, breaking the team’s silence.
“Oh, shit,” Cobbs growled, and then they all turned their eyes to Kayla.
“That’s right, the Blood Shark has his crosshairs on Snow White.”
“Commander,” Kayla hissed at him and clutched his hand hard.
He turned in his chair to see her eyes widening, she began to shake her head as if she didn’t want him to tell them. He turned his gaze on Manchester. “You’ve just added eight new men to your team, and if I have to add the rest of the SEAL units on the West Coast, I will. This stops now.”
“I did get a bouquet of flowers earlier,” Kayla added quietly.
Every eye in the room turned to her. Oh, for fuck’s sake. The groan almost escaped his lips.
“Did it have a note?” Manchester asked.
“Yes, but it wasn’t addressed to me. I thought it was delivered here by mistake. I can get it.”
“Do that.”
She released his hand and quickly left the room. It would take all o
f fifteen minutes to track down the flower shop in a nearby strip mall. “Ah…” He darted a glance at Red, whose expression cracked with a stupid grin on his old crow. He let out a deep breath and cleared his throat. “Lieutenant, the flowers they ah…” He didn’t have to look around to know his squad was burning looks into his shoulder blades. “The flowers are from…from me.” Someone behind him coughed out a chuckle, and he was pretty sure it was Cobbs. He rolled his eyes.
“I see, but she doesn’t know it was you, is that it?” Even the Lieutenant started to sport a grin.
He adjusted his girth in the chair and nodded.
“Oh sure, you said—”
“Mace, you say one more word and you’re doing a sixty-minute dead man’s float in the bay, today.” Mace slapped his jowls shut instantly.
“Well,” Manchester began, opening his briefcase and pulling out a file. “Then she’s got two admirers, one that just might be able to protect her, because the others have all failed.” He glanced at the door to make sure she wasn’t coming back yet. “I pulled her personnel file. Her parents are deceased, she has one half-sister, but they’ve had no contact for years. She owns real estate in Canada. Uncle Sam just cleared her immigration paperwork. She has no prior criminal or civil charges, not even a speeding ticket. There’s a children’s nonprofit literacy organization in the Coronado district she volunteers at, and she purchased a condo at Ferry’s Landing.”
“And…” he prompted, reading the Lieutenant’s hesitation.
The Lieutenant’s expression sobered. “And she was married—once,” he said, flipping the paper in the file. “I’m waiting for more information in that regard.”
NCIS knew how to dig. Since the cop’s revelation, he hadn’t prodded Kayla, hoping she’d tell him in her own time. Time was up. “What kind of information?”
A quiet bleep sounded from the Lieutenant’s phone and he read the screen. Bringing the phone to his ear, he listened for a long time. “There has to be some kind of error…” He paused. “Understood, thank you.” He cleared his throat and hung up. Manchester darted a look in his direction. “She’s thirty-six, and—”
“What was that? If it was about Kayla, I want to know.” Already his guts rolled.
“She was married for ten years.”
He shot a look toward his Master Chief who pinched his lips together and looked away from him. “And,” he ground out getting angrier by the second.
“And—” Manchester’s jaw went taut. “In those ten years there were a reported thirty visits to the hospital with contusions, burns, fractures, and lacerations.”
Everything inside him chilled to subzero. Ten years? She’d been abused for ten years.
Manchester paused, shaking his head. “A final incident put the husband in jail for attempted murder after he was released from the hospital. A Canadian serviceman named Lapierre intervened, but not soon enough. Kayla was hospitalized for two months. Her injuries were so severe they didn’t expect her to live.”
“Oh, God,” Mace groaned. “There’s got to be a mistake.”
Manchester surveyed Mace carefully. “No mistake. The final attack occurred on December twenty-fourth. You had no knowledge of this?”
“No, none,” Red blurted, his expression contorting with distress.
“His name—is Daniel, correct?” Thane’s jaw clenched tight.
Manchester nodded.
Thane swiveled to stare at Fox. “You knew,” he shot at him. “You knew all of this.”
Fox rubbed his beard and stared at the carpet. “It doesn’t make a wisp of difference, Commander. It’s the past, and she didn’t want you to know. She said it didn’t have any bearing on how she did her job. I agreed.”
“When?” he ground out. “When did you know this?”
“I visited her after Mexico, when she was housebound.” Fox paused and looked at the team. “Commander, this doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on.”
“Like hell it doesn’t!” he roared. “Do you have any idea how tormented she is, how scarred she is? She has nightmares every night. She fights him off every goddamn night. I have to hold her in my arms for hours until she can finally get a couple hours of peaceful sleep.”
Silence sat thick in the room.
Then he realized what he’d just admitted, to all of them. Fuck it. “Tell me, now,” he demanded, the rage spiraling inside him. “I want to know it all.”
Fox swayed his head and continued, “I don’t think you do, Commander. Your anger is out of control right now.”
He hurtled out of the chair and went toe to toe with Fox. “Tell me.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Tell. Me.”
His Master Chief sighed and crossed his arms, flitting a look across the team. “I asked her if she had any indigenous blood. I’m half Cherokee, and something told me her blood was like mine. Her mother was Haida, and her father was of European descent. Kayla had it tough growing up, Commander.” Reading the darkening storm in his eyes, Fox hedged.
“What else?”
“Kayla wasn’t just abused by her husband, Commander.” Fox shifted uncomfortably and rubbed his jaw. “An uncle, her father’s brother, sexually abused her when she was a little girl. When her mother found out, she was about twelve, but the abuse had been going on since she was eight or nine. I think you can understand why she didn’t want anyone to know, especially you. Commander, there’s strength in that woman. You need to believe that.”
“Believe it? Jesus, Fox, I’ve always believed in her.”
Her footsteps coming back down the hallway halted the conversation. “Here it is,” Kayla said, walking in the door and handing Manchester the card, but she clung to the flowers.
Cobbs bowed his head to hide the pained expression he couldn’t control. Having daughters of his own, Kayla’s childhood must have hit home.
“Thanks, I’ll uh, have it checked out, but Kayla, I don’t think these flowers have anything to do with the case.” Manchester’s features softened. “I think it’s safe to say you’ve simply caught someone’s eye.”
The tight expression on her face relaxed. The Shark was already playing mind games by putting her hair in the envelope. Most women would be shaking with panic, but she wasn’t. Anger swirled inside him with the thought. She’d been so abused this didn’t even phase her. He bowed his head, sitting back down in the chair, hiding his expression from her. A beautiful little girl bloomed in his mind, and then a striking young woman. He imagined the fear and the pain she must have endured. War—she’d been at war, against men who took her innocence and trust, far longer than he had, and she only had her will to fight back with. The threads in the cool leather padding of the armrest snapped under his grip.
“I have to get back to work. Do you have any questions for me?” Kayla asked.
“I do, but I’ll interview you later. You can return to your post, Kayla,” Manchester said.
She nodded and turned to leave, then stopped. Her gaze found Captain Redding’s as if she needed his strength. “How am I going to die?”
The question rocked the entire room.
“Are you asking what he does to them, Ms. Banks?” the Lieutenant said, placing the file back in his briefcase.
She barely nodded.
He shook his head once—harshly, but the Lieutenant ignored him, a somber expression covering his features. “He’s a knife man, always to the throat. After that it doesn’t matter.”
She continued to stare at Redding, and he stared back, then said, “I don’t know, my dear. Maybe it was because you were on the phone with Ghost. Who knows what screwed-up thoughts ran through his mind.”
“What?” He shot to his feet. “Red—”
“Ghost, I’m sure you can understand why I lied to you. It was for your well-being. If I’d told you what we’d found on the cameras, your mind would have been on her, not warfare.”
“Jesus Christ, you should have told me,” he shouted. “K
ayla?” He turned back to face Red. “What was on the camera?”
“They couldn’t ID him, Ghost. He didn’t come any farther than the anteroom.”
“How do you know it was him?”
Kayla and Red exchanged a look. “Even though we couldn’t ID him, the knife in his hand was plain to see.”
The air rushed from his lungs with the thought. The son of a bitch had been that close to her, within striking distance, he could have taken Kayla from him right then, and he would have been thousands of miles away.
Kayla concentrated on the floor. “Let things happen that are meant to happen, Commander.” Her eyes rose to his, emotionless.
Lapierre’s words ghosted through him. Don’t let her die, Commander, that’s what she wants. How had she gone through so much abuse and become the woman she was? Christmas had been hard, but as the days passed it had been like someone switched a light on, and Kayla had come back to them. Only the nights were hard, that’s where she kept the darkness…in her dreams.
In the next second, he was prouder of his team than he had ever been. They were all exemplary men, and they proved it on every mission. Sharp minds and clutching their fear under extreme pressure, he had witnessed. He accepted nothing less. To be men with heart, to keep a place reserved for compassion, was not a requirement of their jobs, but every SEAL strove to do just that. Cobbs placed his hands on her shoulders as the rest of the team laid a hand on her. Mace curled his arm protectively around her waist, and gave her a squeeze.
“Kayla, we’ve got your back. He’ll have to kill every one of us, before he’ll get to you,” Cobbs vowed.
She jerked her head, and looked into each of their faces. “Thank you, Lieutenant, really.” She turned her eyes to Mace. “Don’t be concerned. Just make sure I’m his last victim. Put your energy on setting a trap, use me, and stop him.” She pulled away from them and strode out of the room headed back to the Command center.
She had already given in, and the thought tore through him like a spray of bullets. She had them, and Cobbs was right—they’d protect her, putting their lives in front of hers, him most of all.
“Commander?” Cobbs questioned.
“Close the door, Nathan,” he ordered, turning his attention back on Manchester. “We’re going hunting, gentlemen.”
Code Name: Ghost Page 30