Code Name: Ghost

by Natasza Waters

  Although Manchester resisted, it was slight, which meant he was hoping they’d help. The Blood Shark was looking for his chance, and every day that passed, he would become more impatient—hungry. They were going to push him to the point of starvation until he revealed himself.

  Before they wrapped up, he stood and pressed his knuckles on the desk. “I want to see the file, Lieutenant Manchester,” he demanded.

  “Commander, maybe you shouldn’t,” Cobbs warned him.

  Mace stood beside him, shaking his head. “I don’t think so, Commander. I don’t even want to see it.”

  Blood, death, the worst things a mind can conjure, they had witnessed it all from Korea to their own backyards. Terrorism, torture, nothing surprised him anymore. He waited. Manchester wasn’t leaving until he produced it.

  The Lieutenant hesitantly pulled it from his briefcase and laid it open on the desk.

  “Oh, Christ,” Red breathed, swiveling one of the photos of the dead women. “This fucking guy is angry.”

  His eyes swung to Cobbs. Now he got it. Their bodies had been mutilated beyond recognition. He’d skinned them, eviscerated them. Their abdomens were sliced open to their thighs. Only their faces and their chests remained untouched. The word bitch had been carved across their breasts. He stared at the pictures, trying his damndest not to imagine Kayla like that. Every cell inside him exploded with rage. Picking up one of the pictures, he seared the image into his mind, cementing his anger to his will. He turned his eyes up to Manchester, and the man flinched. “I’m going to exterminate this son of a bitch. There will be no trial, Lieutenant.”

  Forty-five minutes later, they looked up. “Where is she?” He was up and in the Command center within a second. “Where is she, Gord?” The NCIS techs had cleared the scene and taken the evidence.

  “She left. Why?”

  “What do you mean she left?” he roared. “When?”

  Fear splashed across Gord’s face, and he bolted up in his chair. “Fifteen minutes ago, sir. She said to tell Lieutenant Manchester to call her at home if he wanted anything. What’s going on?”

  “I’ll talk to you later, Gord. And I expect the truth.”

  Heading for the elevator, the team was close on his heels.

  When they reached the sunshine, he broke the team up into three, and he and Mace took her normal path to the bus stop, while the others paralleled it.

  She’d almost reached the entrance to the base when they caught up with her. He signaled for the team to hold back. “Kayla, what are you doing?” Anger clearly edged his words, but it bloomed from fear.

  She turned. “Going home.” And she began to walk again.

  He grabbed her arm and she stopped with a jerk, but wouldn’t look at him. “You’re not going home without me.”

  She breathed out heavily and twisted. “Commander,” She paused, drilling a look into him. “I already said thank you for all your concern, now piss off.” She wrenched her arm from his and dug her heels in with purpose as she walked away. Even though she’d made her message clear, he didn’t really hear it, seeing her clutch the flowers in her arms. They did pale in comparison to her. Although she was doing her damndest to hide it, she was scared as hell. She had to be. “I can take care of myself, Commander,” she snapped at him when he caught up to her.

  “Kayla, this guy is smart and he’s sick. You’re a target now, he won’t stop until we stop him.”

  “The police will catch him. I’m sure there’s a whole world full of terrorists you can go after. Do it.”

  “Jesus, woman!” He grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her up in his arms, turning and walking back toward his team, whose expressions were more stunned than Kayla’s. “Go get my car,” he said, pinning the order on Clay. “Keys are in my right pocket.”

  Clay grabbed them and put it into double-time for the parking lot.

  “Commander, put me down.” She started to wiggle in his arms, so he restrained her. She didn’t have a hope, and if he had to tie her up, he’d do it. “You’re under arrest, Ms. Banks.”

  “What?” She stopped fighting him and her eyes widened.

  The biggest, deepest, most soulful eyes looked back him. “That’s right—arrest. Lock down,” he said so she would clearly understand him. Her lips gaped open. “You’re not going anywhere without one of us with you. Do you understand, Snow White? You have eight dwarves now.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “It’s done.” Clay drove his car up and jumped out, leaving the engine running. “Open the door,” Thane ordered.

  Cobbs chin tightened with a grin. “Where ya keeping her, Commander?”

  “With me.”

  Tony jabbed Mace in the ribs. “You’re Dopey, dude.”

  Mace slowly craned his head toward him with his lips twisted in a wry look. “Right,” he drawled, “and you’re Shithead.”

  “Don’t remember that dwarf,” Tony flipped back, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “That’s because he was in the head all the time, just like you.”

  The guys broke out laughing, and even Kayla couldn’t suppress a smile.

  * * * *

  He parked the car in the garage and then lowered the door, just in case she thought to make a quick getaway. Rounding the car, he held out his hand. “Come on.”

  Giving him a scowl, she stood her ground and crossed her arms over her chest.

  He offered a quick shrug. “You can stay in the garage for the next week if you want, but you’ll be more comfortable in the house.”

  “A week,” she barked, her arms dropping to her sides. “You expect me to stay here for a week?”

  “That’s how long it’s going to take for him to hit the end of his chain and come after you, but he’ll be lurking long before that, and that’s when we’ll have him.”

  She rocked her head and surrendered, reaching out and taking his hand. Pulling her under his arm, he led her into the house. Too many women had wanted to take up post at his address. Only one woman belonged, and she was finally home.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  He had let her return to her condo under a four-man guard to pick up some things. During that time, he returned to the base and sat a resistant Gord down in his office.

  His patience was nonexistent, wanting to get back to Kayla. He dredged up as much as he could, and explained to Gord the threat on her life.

  Gord finally opened up and explained that they’d known her husband had been abusing her for years. Red, sat down beside him, his expression worried.

  “I sat with her every day in the hospital,” Gord revealed, expelling a sigh. “Kayla remained in a coma for weeks, maybe months, I don’t remember now. There was so much trauma to her head the doctors only gave her a thirty percent chance of survival. I don’t think I’ll ever get those images out of my mind, Commander. He’d crushed her ribs, smashed her jaw, and her entire neck was black from him choking her. She was unrecognizable.” Gord quickly brushed an escaped tear away. “Kayla was never the same after that.” Gord took a stuttering breath. “The only man she trusted was Lieutenant Commander Lapierre…until she met you, Commander. When we came here, I started to see the old Kayla again.” Gord stared at the wall, gathering his thoughts.

  “Nothing is going to happen to her, Gord. We’re going to catch the Shark,” he assured him.

  “They haven’t so far. No one has survived.” Gord squared a look on him, concern folding his forehead into deep lines. “That final attack, her husband did something he’d never done before.”

  Don’t say it, but he knew what was coming. He’d suspected it since Christmas when he’d unzipped her dress. The light had been dim in her closet, but he’d seen the discolored scars punctuating her back. “He used a knife on her, didn’t he?”

  Gord bowed his head, nodding.

  A groan left his throat. The final ugly piece of the puzzle clanked into place. The Shark used one as well. That’s what had brought the trauma back into p
lay. “We know it was her husband, but who was he?”

  Gord rubbed the back of his neck slowly. “She met him soon after enlisting. Kayla was a pretty stunning woman back then.”

  Was? Obviously Gord saw her like a sister.

  “His name is Daniel. He worked for the Joint Task Force. Counterterrorism specialist, but I guess you know what that is. He was away a lot on deployments, that’s when Kayla recovered between…well, you know.”

  So, that’s how Lapierre must have known him. “Is that all?”

  “You met Greg Lapierre?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, we met.”

  “Greg’s his brother.”

  The two open ends of a circle locked together. It was a tale of two brothers who loved one woman, and the reason Lapierre hadn’t killed Daniel when he should have.

  * * * *

  Kayla stood in front of him in workout pants and a tight green T-shirt that palmed her body, showing every bloody curve.

  “I’m not doing this. When I was younger, I went to Fort Lewis for repelling and self-defense training. Some big bastard of a Ranger fell on me. It knocked the air right out of me.”

  A grin broke out. He couldn’t help it. “You trained at Fort Lewis?”

  “Yarp.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “Yarp, what the hell is Yarp?”

  She gave him a sly smile. “A brain worm.”

  A gust of laughter left him. “A what?”

  “A brain worm. You stick a word in someone’s head, and then you try to make them say it. Human nature the way it is, they try to resist, and then when they do slip up…Well—” She opened her palms and gave him a wicked look. “Psychological warfare, Commander.”

  “You Canadians really operate on a different frequency, don’t you?” he said, grinning at her antics.

  “Yarp.”

  “Stop that.” A totally, but overtly innocent expression covered her features. “So why were you in Fort Lewis?”

  “I was in the Reserves. After that I squandered my life on the DND and let them knock the shit out of me.”

  He burst out laughing. “Kayla, you’re something else, you know that?” He squared his shoulders and spread his feet apart. “Now work with me on this. If the Shark gets close, it might take a few seconds before we can get to you. You’re going to have to hold him off, and I’m going to show you how to do that.”

  Kayla stood with her hip kicked out to the side, giving him a disapproving look.

  “All right, now come at me.”

  Standing in the middle of his backyard on a freshly cut lawn, she eyed him, then her gaze strayed over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t it better if I just lazed around your pool?” she asked, giving it a lustful look, one that yanked at his insides.

  The thought of seeing her in a bathing suit tore his mind away from just about everything. He groaned inwardly. Okay, so he’d thought about seeing her in less than a bathing suit ever since Christmas morning, when she’d turned his brain into a one-celled wonder. They’d slept together, held each other, touched, kissed, cuddled, but they didn’t know each other in the biblical sense. After what she had endured in her life, would they ever?

  He raised his brows at her, feigning impatience, but really, he could stand out here all bloody day, just looking at her like he’d done for months. “Later, now we work.”

  “You really take this Commander thing too seriously.”

  “Kayla, if you don’t get your ass over here, I’m coming over there, then all bets are off.”

  She huffed and took a couple steps toward him, but suddenly she put it into high gear running around him, making for the pool. His team might not be able to catch her, but she was up against him. He clutched her in his arms from behind, just as her right foot hit the pool deck, and lifted her into the air.

  His anger still lingered from seeing the file earlier and talking with Gord. It all hit head-on with his love for her, in a tangled web. “Now what? What do you do if he comes at you from behind? He wants your blood on his hands. You have to fight,” he growled in her ear. Fear clenched him at his own words, and he held her too tightly, too aggressively.

  Her entire body tensed. A cry left her throat as if he was killing her. She bit down on his arm hard and fast. She didn’t draw blood, but almost. Immediately he let go, and she ripped herself from him. Her body shook, and a blaze of panic tore through her expression. “Kayla, I’m sorry,” he said, raising his hand to calm her.

  She looked horrified and her fingers trembled as she covered her mouth. “No, I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I—I just…” She clenched her arm to her side and stared down at the grass, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

  Her hands were still shaking, uncontrollably. Oh, God. “Kayla?” His heart hammered in his chest, cracking in half with worry she’d be afraid of him now. “I would never—ever hurt you. Please, tell me you know that.”

  She nodded sharply, but wouldn’t look at him. “I know that, sir.”

  He gave her the time she needed to regain her composure and she did it quickly.

  “The best I’ll ever do is an open shot to his groin, Commander, but I’m not trained in hand-to-hand combat, and you can’t be jumping all over me,” she said tersely.

  “I like the way she tells him off,” Clay said in the small, almost invisible com set in his ear.

  “At least somebody gets to,” Tony replied. “We can live vicariously through her.”

  He shook his head and turned to look at the tree line behind his property. “You two better be keeping your eyes on the scenery.”

  “Got you covered, Commander,” Cobbs said from his camouflaged position in a tall evergreen in line with the house.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “What are you looking at? Is there something out there?” her voice tightened as she scanned the trees.

  Four paces brought him close enough to rest his palms on her shoulders. “No one’s out there,” he said.

  “No one but us peeping Toms,” Mace growled. “I got a bad feeling about this.”

  “What do ya mean?” Tony shot back.

  “Oh, you’ll see, or at least you’re going to wish you didn’t have to.”

  He resisted rolling his eyes. Mace was going to be doing that swim after all. He settled his gaze on Kayla. From the moment this little mermaid stepped into their world, she’d brought out more emotion from him than he’d known his entire life. Whether it was laughter from her wicked sense of humor or respect for her quick wit, she had made him think of things he’d never considered—like becoming a Commander from the deck of a destroyer or a desk. Now it seemed more important than ever. His mermaid had been caught in a net, and there were scars—deep ones. He understood there were two Kaylas. The one she showed the world, and the one still trying to heal. How could she ever trust a man? Although in a weakened state, she’d admitted she’d fallen in love with him. Thane knew she resisted it to protect herself.

  Kayla’s eyes widened as she leaned around him to look at something.

  “Hiya handsome,” he heard, and turned slowly, recognizing the voice.

  “Hey ya, sweetheart,” Carly purred.

  Sarah and her twin sister Carly stood on his patio. Their skintight dresses showed off their lean figures and their breasts puckered from the sheer silk outfits they wore. The spirals of their copper and blonde hair lifted in the wind. Kayla immediately pulled away from him.

  “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “You gotta be kidding me, fucking twins,” Tony scoffed. “I can’t tell ya how much I respect that man.”

  All the other guys chuckled except for Mace. “Not good, Commander, definitely not good. One step forward with the flowers, thirty backward with the twins. Maybe I got a shot, after all.”

  “Mace, shut it,” Cobbs warned, before he could say anything else. “Kayla’s not going to retreat because of that.”

  “Ya wanna bet? Look at her face.”
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  Thane swallowed hard, reaching the twins who stood waiting with a hopeful expression of an all-night escapade obviously on their minds. Mace was right. This wasn’t good, and he had to fix it fast.

  * * * *

  Kayla watched him as he met the centerfold beauties on his deck. Within striking distance, they both strung their arms around his neck and plastered themselves against him. Her chest clenched and she turned away, wandering to the back of his property. “Don’t be surprised, Kayla,” she muttered to herself. He’d lied to her when he said he hadn’t been with anyone for months. Men always lied. She reached the back of the property and sat down against a tree. When a hand came down on her shoulder, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “Easy, Kayla, it’s just me,” Cobbs soothed. “Don’t speak. If he’s watching we don’t want to give our position away.” She cleared her throat and reached for a palm frond sitting on the ground close to her. “They’ll be gone shortly, I guarantee it,” he said.

  Twisting the sharp end of the palm was better than watching the scene on the patio.

  “I know the Commander is only interested in one little lady,” he said quietly. “The Ghost isn’t the kind of man to buy flowers for any woman, until you, that is.”

  She tensed with his words. “What?” she whispered through her lips trying not to move them. Her heart was getting an extreme workout these days, with severed fingers showing up in boxes, men jumping out of trees and the thought that the Commander had given her the flowers. For a fleeting moment she had considered it, but disregarded it just as quickly.

  “Kayla, that wryly bastard has been at war with the world since he enlisted, but he finds peace when he thinks of you. On our last mission, he almost bit it twice. I thought for sure we were dead, and then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. Suddenly he looked like a man with an answer no other man on earth had. After that, single handedly, he took down every one of the bad guys. It was like he was superhuman,” He paused. “You wouldn’t happen to know what was on that paper, would you?”