She hand signaled to Rollins to make the call, and the room came to a dead hush. Rollins was on a headset that would filter out noise, and they were all listening in.
Though she understood it wasn’t her native tongue, for some reason Eleri was frustrated by her inability to make out even a little. She knew a reasonable amount of French, was passable in Spanish and Italian and even American Sign Language, and she understood exactly jack shit of what was going on.
Rollins could be checking his damn dry cleaning for all she knew. He could be angrily telling the man to run and hide. Just as she was thinking that she had to trust him, Eleri felt a hand on her arm.
Walter mouthed, “They think he’s Kellen.”
Eleri pointed and mouthed back, “You understand?”
“Enough.” If she’d read Walter’s lips right.
Just as some of the tension eased, she saw Cooper Rollins frantically start to motion to her.
This was the guy. This was Kellen’s contact.
She switched her comm to the Team Leader, then she checked it and checked it again. Now Cooper had to keep the other end on the line until the raid went down. Don’t let them suspect. Eleri fucking up her channel switch would do it. She triple checked.
Then, with her heart in her throat, she whispered, “Go.”
It wasn’t three minutes later they heard gunfire. Followed by shouting in two, maybe three languages, then more gunfire.
She held her breath.
She’d said ‘go.’
Donovan looked up at her, his crutches resting in his lap, his eyes full of sympathy. But she was the senior agent; it was her shoulders this world rested on. It was her junior partner she’d sent in for a recon she couldn’t necessarily get him out of. They’d been lucky.
There were dead men at the raid in Fontana. She still hadn’t heard all the details there. At least it wasn’t her raid.
Now there was gunfire, so far away. At her command.
It slowed. It stopped.
She waited.
She heard the voice Walter had been talking to and watched as her friend dropped the tension from her own shoulders upon hearing her old commander again.
“They had eight present. All tango uniform.”
Eleri frowned to Walter who mouthed, “tits up.”
Oh. All dead.
“Your guys?” Eleri dared to ask.
“All alive. Some wounded, none serious.” She was going to thank him but she didn’t get the chance. “This is the best score yet. This place is crawling with American issue munitions. There are IEDs in a variety of states; they may have been assembling them. We’re going to hold this place until a proper clean up and evidence can be gathered. Great tip, Fisher.”
It took Eleri a moment to translate that last line into praise for Walter.
She gathered a few more pieces of intel and disconnected to let the soldiers guard their stake.
She turned to Cooper Rollins, who was white as a sheet, but she didn’t mention it. “Good work, Rollins. You nailed it.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He sat down hard and she motioned for Donovan to check if he was having another episode. At least he’d held it together when he was needed. But then Rollins popped his head back up and breathed deeply. So Eleri turned to Walter who got a firm handshake and a sincere thanks.
Marina Vasquez got a hug and a “We could not have done this without you. Give me until tomorrow, or maybe next week, but I’ll put whatever recommendation you want into your file.”
That earned her a smile.
There weren’t any cheers this time. There were men dead. Men fighting a war that Eleri didn’t understand and wished she’d never fallen into. She thanked the other agents, and they all started to walk shakily away. She was glad she wasn’t the only one.
Before they left the room she did make an announcement.
“We only recently learned about these cells here in L.A., and we also learned that they were what’s called a ‘fracture.’ A disconnected cell with no reasonable way to trace up the line. These cells were so far removed from the core, as you know, their passcode was ‘Fracture Five.’ But thanks to all of you here, Fracture Five is gone. And so is at least part of Fracture Four—the level above them. Levels one, two, and three are beyond us, but we’ll hand this up to the Pentagon and maybe they can get the right people on it. You did very good work, these last few weeks . . .” She turned to Walter and Marina and Cooper, “Days,” she pointed out several agents, “Or even just since you were thrown in this morning. Thank you.
“We’ll debrief at eleven am tomorrow. Get some sleep.”
Though they’d all been gathering up, that was the official signal and the door opened, mixing air outside the tense room for the first time in hours.
In a matter of minutes, even Marina had begged off to sleep and only Eleri and Donovan were left.
“Oh shit!” She sat up. “Westerfield. It all went down so fast that I didn’t—”
Donovan’s hand on her arm shut her up. “I patched him in about two or more hours ago. He signed off when the raid went down.”
“Oh God, thank you!” She wanted to throw herself at him, but was pretty sure he wouldn’t appreciate it with the cracked ribs and all. The ones he’d had them bind at the hospital, but not x-ray. That doctor sure suspected something.
“Donovan,” she started on a tired sigh, “I owe you a huge apology. I should never have sent you in today without a better extraction plan. That was pure insanity and almost got you killed. I’m so—”
“I sent me in. And yes, we need a better extraction plan in the future. We need to have a standard plan and a backup and maybe a plan C. I don’t want to repeat today ever again.” She felt that to her bones, but he stopped her before she could say anything. “I did the right thing today, and we did get out. I’ll heal, and I was the only one able to ID the members at the observatory. It’s helping them pick up the rest.”
She nodded. “There are some members of that Indian cell that we still have no clue about. I wish we’d had more on them.”
“We took down a fucking terrorist cell plot, El. I’m sorry you didn’t manage to perfectly capture every member of four separate cells. We did good. Deal with it.” He smiled. “We’ll write it up, hand it off to the Pentagon who will investigate the Army, and we’ll take vacations.”
She nodded. “You can go back to FoxHaven if you want. I’ll give you the key.”
“Nah. I’m going home. I need to go home. I thought I was going to do a lot of running while I was off, but . . .” He shrugged.
“Once vacation time is over, we’ll be on paperwork duty for a while. While you heal.” She nodded. “You have what? Five to eight weeks on those things?”
“Oh no. Not on the crutches, but before I’m field-ready, yes.”
So she’d do desk work. Be an analyst for other cases as she could. Did NightShade Agents fill those spots like other agents did?
Donovan’s voice interrupted her. “Are you not going back to FoxHaven?”
She shook her head. “I have people to visit.”
“The hockey player?” He grinned at her, and that was good to see.
“Yes.” She admitted. “Now take a Percocet and let’s get some damn sleep.”
48
Eleri met up with Avery Darling in Minnesota, where winter was really winter, and hockey was king.
“It’s good to see you.” He grinned and she grinned back. He kissed her and she melted.
“Have you been watching the games?” he’d asked as he tugged her and her suitcase into his waiting car at the airport. He really didn’t have time for this. But his team had a day off, so he’d come out here to meet her, and then would play tomorrow night.
“No.” She shook her head. “Not at all.”
He shrugged. “Too busy?”
She nodded, wondering if this was where it all fell apart. If he couldn’t handle her occasional sabbatical from life to solve a crime.
“What were you doing?”
“I can’t specifically say.” She shrugged, waiting for a shoe to drop.
“Was it big?” He was still grinning, and that smile got her right at the core.
So she said, “Yes.”
“How big?” He’d started the car and was pulling out of the pickup area and almost onto the freeway.
“Well, if it had gone through. If the team hadn’t stopped it, maybe several thousand people might have died.” She tried to calculate the possible loss at the theater, the pier, the observatory, the rose bowl and the medical center.
There were no real numbers. Only Avery’s very appreciative, “Oh shit. And what position were you on this team?”
She wanted to smile. He was a hockey player; he would think in terms like that. “It was my team. Mine and my partner’s. Donovan, you met him.”
“And you’re the senior agent between you. So your team.”
“Kind of.” She shrugged.
“Well then, you deserve a vacation. Would you like to see your first hockey game tomorrow night?”
He took her to dinner and explained what a goalie did. He taught her about icing and how one got in the penalty box.
Three days later, she showed up on Haley Jean’s doorstep.
She was hugged and fed home-grown vegetables just like she’d imagined. They toured the warm greenhouses under their light dusting of snow. Undergrads came out and cleared the roofs some days, letting the sun in.
Eleri commented that she was surprised Haley Jean hadn’t just built one to spec that was too steep to keep the snow. Apparently she had, this one was a historical model that she was trying to recreate traditional methods with. “It’s a forcing house.”
Eleri nodded as though she knew what that meant.
One day, Haley Jean had lined up meats and cheeses and bakery breads and made sandwiches until her wide kitchen counters were covered. She popped open plastic bags with handles, and created a small assembly line with Eleri as her lackey.
They made lunch kits to last someone several days, with Haley Jean adding all kinds of extras. They folded the seats of her friend’s big SUV into the floor and piled in more bags than Eleri thought they could possibly give away. When Haley Jean pulled into the lot at the local park, there was a line of people waiting in the cold for the bags. They gave out every one.
When Haley Jean went out of town the next week, Eleri considered going to Patton Hall. She’d had her things put into storage before she went into the mental hospital. She hadn’t had a breakdown per se so much as she had issues. So she’d had time to get her affairs in order before she checked in, but she didn’t have a home at all now.
“Stay here. Keep the house warm, keep an eye on my grad students.” Haley Jean had told her. “Run the park for me next week. You saw how I do it. They’ll be waiting.”
“I saw you do it, but I don’t know how you do it.” Eleri commented as she tucked feet covered in thick cotton socks under some blanket that was softer than baby ducks and probably something Haley Jean had knitted herself. “It was overwhelming.”
“And what you do isn’t?” Haley Jean had offered a sad half-grin. “We all save the world in our own way.”
So Eleri had done the park run, adding a pile of warm coats to the back seat of the SUV. She handed out everything. Then headed back to Haley Jean’s big comfortable house. It wasn’t really empty with the cat and the feeling of being occupied even though her friend was gone.
She filed all her remaining paperwork on the case. Answered questions and sent documents to the Pentagon. Handled Westerfield and his concerns about Donovan healing.
She talked to her partner who asked if her eyes had changed color again. “No.”
“Didn’t get mad?” he’d teased her.
“I think it was the grisgris. I think mine was special, and Grandmere is known locally for her . . . special skills, shall we say?” She’d shrugged though he couldn’t see her. “I never really took it too seriously, but after those eye comments. . .”
“Eleri.”
“What?”
“The first time happened before you got the grisgris.” His voice was soft.
So was hers. “Well, shit.”
Donovan had settled in, glad to be home. The weather had gotten colder, but not that bad. Not in South Carolina. Though he couldn’t run, he did get out in the woods with his crutches. It was slow and clunky and beyond ideal, but the air and the trees did him good.
After two weeks he and Eleri were officially back at work on desk duty from home, and he’d ditched the crutches. Not even wanting to follow up with anyone about his strange bones and the fact that he wouldn’t let the doctor x-ray his ribs. It wasn’t his ribs so much as his scapulae. Even Eleri had noticed once. Better to stay silent.
Another three weeks and he got himself a smaller brace.
A week later he went on a long walk in the woods and waited for the ankle to protest. Another week after that, he ran on the long winding roads leading to his very isolated house. He wanted to run in the woods, but sneakers on flat ground were safer.
He was still scared.
So he waited another week before he tried changing.
The wolf almost collapsed in relief that it had worked. It was never easy. The metabolic load of the change alone was rough. But had the ankle not healed right . . .
Donovan didn’t want to think about it. Instead he trotted into his forest, under the light of the full moon and thought about home.
He’d made anchors and weighed himself down with them. He made routines. Worked cases for Westerfield, set timers, read, and settled in. Maybe, maybe next time he was home, he’d try his hand at dating. That was normal. Wasn’t it?
Eleri was dating. Wade was dating. Maybe he could, too. The lobomau were not his ideal mate, but it had occurred to him there were more like him out there. And maybe someone didn’t have to be exactly like him to understand.
He went into the Medical Examiner’s Office to see how it was working with the new M.E. and was shocked at how out of place he felt. A few people said hello, but no one seemed glad to see him. They weren’t upset, but he was merely interesting, not missed.
In between analysis assignments with the Bureau, and filing reports through Eleri, he emailed Walter—and asked how her PI business was running. It was picking up, she said. Apparently Marina Vasquez had thrown a few recommendations her way. Donovan wished he’d had some to give.
So he emailed Marina Vazquez—and asked what she was working on.
Then he emailed Cooper Rollins. He wrote back right away. He was in a treatment center, but doing much better. The feeling of the loss of control had mostly gone away.
Donovan pulled his old Psych 101 out and mulled that over, thinking it had made sense. Rollins struck him as a man of structure. He’d handled the perils of war just fine until his structure not only disappeared but turned on him. The case had given him some structure back. Some understanding of the pieces he’d been left wondering about ever since that bad mission in Fallujah. The soldier spoke of dating his wife, and Donovan had laughed but thought that was probably a very good thing.
He’d had a brief moment, sitting at his computer, and he’d decided the sun was just right and so was the temperature and he did what he’d bought the house to do. Donovan stripped in the den, opened the back door, then the back gate and when he passed through, he was the wolf.
For the first time, he ran.
He pushed for every step, making long gliding strides. His ankle held up. The scent of pine came down and invaded his nose in fifty different ways while the loam crept up and made bottom notes of deep earth.
He stayed out until dark. Passed through the gate as the wolf, then opened his back door as the man. Donovan showered, dressed again, and checked his email.
Then he picked up his phone.
“Eleri. Did you see?”
“Yeah, just now.” She sighed but he could hear the grin in her voice
. “It’s a skeleton with a full set of anomalies. Do you think it’s a lobomau?”
“Doubt it.” He said, rolling his ankle around to test it, but he didn’t feel any lingering effects. “If it was, wouldn’t Westerfield have said so?”
“Maybe he doesn’t know.” She turned the conversation. “Are you ready? Are you healed?”
“I’m good to go. Went for a serious run today. I’m all in. I think the question is: are you ready? You wanted something different. I think a skeleton in Michigan is definitely different.”
“From the way the email is worded, I think Westerfield thinks there will be more than one.” She paused. “Meet me at the airport in Grand Rapids tomorrow?”
“I’ll be there.”
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Look for other novels by A.J. Scudiere.
Available in bookstores, online, and at AJScudiere.com.
The NightShade Forensic Files
Book 1 - Under Dark Skies
Coming Soon: Book 3 - The Atlas Defect
The Vendetta Trifecta
Vengeance
Retribution
Justice
Resonance
God's Eye
Phoenix
The Shadow Constant
About the Author
A.J.’s world is strange place where patterns jump out and catch the eye, little is missed, and most of it can be recalled with a deep breath. In this world, the smell of Florida takes three weeks to fully leave the senses and the air in Dallas is so thick that the planes “sink” to the runways rather than actually landing.
The NightShade Forensic Files: Fracture Five (Book 2) Page 42