by Amy Vansant
My God, did we touch before.
The flight to Minneapolis had Shee longing for the awkwardness of Bracco’s Cadillac and their midnight cemetery trip. She couldn’t work out where to start. She’d barely had time to process his presence.
Croix, for as much as she appeared to resent being used as a personal assistant, had turned out to be too efficient booking her flight. She’d easily snagged a second ticket for Mason.
The timing had been so tight she’d worried getting Mason’s leg through security would make them late, but the TSA agent had taken one look at his chiseled jaw and scar-covered arms and filed him under wounded vet. The woman did everything but give him a quick back massage before letting him through.
What else could a slab of beef like Mason be but military? An accountant with a fight club addiction?
“I wonder if we’ll get pretzels,” mumbled Mason.
“Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“When we land we can go to your favorite restaurant.”
Mason’s brow knit.
She motioned to his leg. “IHOP.”
He winced. “Oh, you’re hilarious.”
Shee chuckled, pleased with her own joke. She’d been waiting for a chance to hit him with it for an hour.
They fell into another uncomfortable silence.
“Maybe we could quid-pro-quo it,” she suggested.
“Huh?”
“You ask a question, then I ask a question, until we’re out of them.”
He seemed amused. “I know what quid pro quo means. I saw Silence of the Lambs, Clarice. I’d just foolishly thought we could catch up like normal people.”
She shrugged. “Just a thought—”
“Fine. I’ll start. Have you purposely been hiding from me?”
Yikes. Right to the point.
Shee kept her eyes on the ground. “No.”
“You’re lying.”
She looked at him as he pressed his lips together, glaring.
He smells like sandalwood. He’d smelled like nutmeg and cinnamon as a young man.
“Shee?”
“Hm?”
“I said you’re lying.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I know you.”
She scoffed. “You don’t know me. You knew me.”
Ouch. That sounded harsh. She plowed on to bury that bit.
“Is that your next question? Am I lying? Oh wait, no, it’s my turn.”
He seemed to have soured on the game. “Not if you’re cheating.”
“I’m not.”
The elderly woman beside Shee grunted. She turned to find the biddy staring at her, oozing disapproval.
“I’m lying a little,” she whispered to the woman, winking.
The woman frowned and turned to the window.
Shee returned her attention to Mason. “My turn. Why are you here?”
He rested his skull on the headrest. “I told you. I heard about Mick and I wanted to come pay my respects. And yes, so you don’t have to waste another question, I was hoping to bump into you.”
“What—”
“It’s my turn.”
Shee lifted her hands and let them drop to slap her thighs. “Fine. Screw this game. Let’s talk like adults.”
“Gosh, I don’t know. Do you think we can handle it?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure.”
He rubbed his hands on his pant legs. “So tell me what happened to Mick. I still don’t know the details.”
Shee studied his expression.
Open. Honest. Curious. Concerned...
Either he’d become a top-notch liar, or he didn’t know anything about what happened to Mick. She couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but her gut shifted another step toward Team Mason when it came to his possible involvement in Mick’s assassination.
“He was visiting a friend in Minnesota. I think someone lured him there.”
“Who?”
“A guy named Viggo.”
“Viggo Nilsson?”
She gaped. “You know him?”
“I’ve met him. SEAL world is small.”
Shee hung her head.
So much for keeping things from him.
“What do you know about him?” she asked.
“Nothing really. Big guy. Gets the job done. What do you know about him?”
“All I know is Dad went to see him and didn’t come back in one piece.”
“But what did Viggo say happened?”
“Nothing.”
Mason scowled. “He doesn’t know? I don’t understand. Was he robbed—?”
“Viggo wasn’t available for comment.”
“How is that possible?”
Shee grimaced. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could dance around the odd way Angelina had been able to retrieve Mick. Certainly, not without admitting he was still alive.
“I don’t know. Honestly. We have almost no details.”
Mason huffed. “None of this makes any sense. Where did they find his body?”
“In an Airbnb.”
“He’d been staying there?”
“I don’t know.” She barked the words and the people in the aisles around them turned to look.
“Sorry,” she said, holding up a hand.
She didn’t bother to look at the woman beside her. She already felt the weight of her glare.
Shee took a deep breath. “What about you? Don’t you have a life to get back to?”
“You’re changing the subject,” mumbled Mason.
“I am. Because I’ve told you everything I know. Why else would I be headed to Minneapolis? I’m looking for answers, too.”
“Fine.” Mason shifted in his undersized seat. “As for me, my schedule’s pretty open. I’m retired, because I don’t have any interest in a desk or teaching job, and they don’t let you get wet with one leg.”
Shee made a wave motion with her hand. “You couldn’t just swim mermaid-style?”
He looked at her. “Would you like to get all these jokes out now or can I look forward to more in the future?”
She sniffed. “I’ll think I’ll just pepper them in, here and there.”
“Great. So what have you been doing for the last twenty-seven years? Just exclusively writing cripple jokes or...?”
She laughed. “I’m boring, really. I’ve been doing the same things I always have, only not always for Dad. Freelance skip tracing, more or less. Have you been overseas the whole—”
“Why did you leave me?” He blurted the words.
The question caught Shee off guard. She turned to the woman beside her, as if maybe Mason were addressing her.
The old woman stared at Mason, mouth agape, before piercing Shee with a narrow glare.
Great. She thinks she’s watching a soap opera and I’m the villain.
Shee returned her attention to Mason. “I told you. I didn’t want you worrying about me.”
“But you disappeared off the planet.”
“Not because of you.”
“Then why?”
Shee pulled at a thread hanging from the bottom of her shirt. She couldn’t tell him she’d been unable to face him for so long, and then...
That’s it. I’ll skip to later.
“Someone was trying to kill me. I had to hide for my safety and everyone else’s.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “There’s a chance Mick found out and that’s what got him shot.”
Mason rubbed his hand over his mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded.
“But you’re still not telling me everything,” he added.
“I am—”
He held up a palm as if he were stopping traffic, his entire aura seeming to harden. “It’s fine. Let’s concentrate on the mission. What’s the plan?”
Shee’s own shoulders relaxed a notch.
Yes. Mission. Good.
“The pla
n is to find Viggo and ask him what he knows.”
She reached into her purse to retrieve the sheets Croix had printed for her, bearing Viggo’s home address, family info, where his grandkids went to school and his standing in the local bowling league.
“She’s good,” she muttered, reading the top sheet.
“Who?”
“Croix, the front desk girl. I had her gather intel on Viggo.”
Mason’s brow knit. “You had reception investigate Viggo?”
“She’s ex-Navy. Everyone at the hotel is.”
“Everyone?”
“Not Angelina; she’s a con artist.”
“What? Am I missing something here?”
Shee stopped reading and sighed. “Mick’s creating his own personal squad of avenging angels.”
“Creating?”
“Was creating. Created.”
“Why?”
“I dunno. He used to talk about doing it—helping people who can’t find help elsewhere. His way of gaining a ticket to heaven, I guess.”
“Hm.” Mason took the wad of papers from her and flipped through. He scowled. “What’s this?” He pulled out a sheet and held it up for her to see.
Shee looked at the candid photo of a man’s butt as he bent to pick up his luggage.
Mason.
She snatched the sheet from him. “She thinks she’s funny.”
He smirked. “She’s not that good. My left is my better side.”
&&&
Chapter Twenty-Six
Locating an aging, Viking storm giant in Minneapolis turned out to be more of a needle-in-a-haystack situation than Tyler ever dreamed. Just walking through the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport, he spotted five old dudes over six feet tall sporting blond beards.
At Miami airport, ruminating on his spectacular failure, he remembered seeing his target and his enormous friend twice during his previous trip to Minneapolis. At the start of the job, he’d arrived early to case the parking lot where he’d been told to find them, and popped into the attached mall to use the bathroom. On his way out, he spotted two old guys talking to a young man at the host stand of a restaurant. They matched the descriptions he’d been given of his target and the friend. Later, he recognized them returning to their vehicle, this time through a rifle scope.
The way the big guy and the kid maître d’ had been laughing, he suspected they knew each other. He had to be a regular.
All he had to do was find the maître d’, get him to identify the big guy, find the big guy, get him to identify the target, and then find the target.
Easy peasy.
Then he could get his half-Cuban, Miami-born ass out of this arctic hellscape.
Tyler took a seat on a bench outside the mall restaurant, pleased to see the same young man at the host station. The kid was easy to clock—his wide eyes and easy grin said Boy Scout, the skull-heavy arrangement of tattoos poking from his crisp white shirt suggested desire to rebel.
Tyler sniggered.
The boys in Miami would eat this kid and his boyish rebellion alive.
He’d worked as a busboy as a kid. Never made it up the ladder to the guy who hands out menus. The memory of his time working restaurants made him shiver. He’d hated it, and joined the Army the day after his seventeenth birthday. His mother signed the consent form, happy to find someone else to feed him. He didn’t tell her he’d joined to shoot people.
Not that she would have cared.
“Come here, Mommy needs to sit a second.”
Tyler turned to see a woman surrounded by a whirlwind of kids and shopping bags sit beside him on his bench.
“I want to go home,” whined a girl with candy stains on her cheeks.
Another kid stared at Tyler, fingers in his mouth, a string of snot oozing from his right nostril.
Tyler tilted backwards to look past the woman.
An unoccupied bench sat ten feet away.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
He took a deep breath.
Calm down. Don’t draw attention to yourself.
He stood and walked to the restaurant.
“Can I help you?” asked the Rebel Boy Scout. His nametag read Jody.
What the hell kind of name is Jody?
Tyler nodded to a booth just inside the entrance. “Yeah. Can I get that table right there?”
“Table for one?”
He nodded.
The kid hesitated, probably because the table was what Tyler remembered from his glorious stint as a busboy as a six-top—seating for six—but it was three in the afternoon and the place was nearly empty.
“Sure. Follow me.”
Tyler caught a whiff of cigarette smoke as he followed Jody five paces to the right and sat in the booth.
Oh Jody. You rebel.
“Your server will be with you in a minute.” The kid placed a menu on the table.
“Thanks.”
When the waitress came, bored and clearly underwhelmed by her party of one, Tyler ordered a coffee. Her mood dropped another rung on the enthusiasm ladder.
Two sludgy refills later, a blonde girl with big blue eyes and a heart-shaped ass arrived to tuck her purse behind Jody’s station.
The evening crew had arrived.
Jody chatted for a few minutes, fingering the pack of cigarettes in his pocket.
Here we go.
Jody excused himself and headed for the back.
That’s my cue.
Tyler rose and followed the boy.
Jody pushed through a swinging door into the kitchen. Tyler loitered outside the bathroom for a moment and then pushed into the kitchen. The staff glanced up, and, but for a couple of double takes, ignored him.
Tyler headed straight out the back door, icy wind slicing through his striped, short-sleeved guayabera shirt.
Sweet Jesus. Why didn’t I bring a coat?
He’d lived in Miami so long he’d forgotten weather could be so cold—thought the weather app had been joking.
I’m going to die out here.
He scanned the parking lot to find it empty, but for what he guessed were employee vehicles.
No sign of Jody.
He tried the door to get back inside.
Locked.
Tyler growled.
Hopefully, the kid was still on his way. Tyler decided to wait five more minutes. He set himself up behind the door and stood, shivering, his arms wrapped around his core like nervous pythons.
Three minutes later, the door opened and Jody, wearing a heavy jacket, strode out, fumbling with his pack of cigarettes. He tucked a napkin in the lock to keep the door from sealing and then turned, jumping when he spotted Tyler beside him.
“Jeeze, you scared me,” he said, slapping his hand to his chest.
“Sorry, man,” said Tyler.
Jody laughed. “Are you locked out? Aren’t you freezing?”
Tyler fought to stop his teeth chattering long enough to speak. He nodded to the cigarette. “Could I bum one?”
Jody shrugged and reached for the pack he’d slipped into his jacket pocket.
“Sure—”
Tyler pounced. He wrapped his arm around the kid’s throat and locked him in a chokehold. The warmth of the boy’s body against his own felt wonderful. He twisted to use his victim as a wind shield.
“Tell me what I need to know and you’ll be fine. Got me?” he hissed.
Jody nodded.
“I need the name of a big guy. Blond, beard. He was here with another tough old bird about a month ago. I saw you talking to him like you knew him.”
Tyler released the pressure on the boy’s throat to let him answer.
Jody coughed. “Mr. Nilsson?”
“What’s his first name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I don’t know—”
He jerked Jody back into the corner of the building.
“Think.”
The kid tapped his arm and Tyler eased again.<
br />
“Wait—I remember. It’s like that actor with the weird name,” he said.
“Who?”
“He plays tough guys. He was in Lord of the Rings.”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “I don’t watch that magic shit. What’s the name?”
“It starts with a V—Viggo, Viggo Mortensen.”
“The guy’s name is Viggo Mortensen?”
“No. The guy you’re looking for is Viggo Nilsson.”
“Make up your mind.” Tyler tightened his grip. “Jody. Viggo. Don’t you people have anyone named David in this godforsaken place?”
Jody put his hands on Tyler’s arm, struggling. Tyler eased again.
“You got something else?”
The kid shook his head. “That’s all I know.”
Tyler raised his left hand behind Jody’s head and clucked his tongue.
“That’s too bad.”
Curling the fingers on his right hand, Tyler whipped his arm back, catching Jody’s chin in his palm, his left hand applying pressure on the back of the boy’s skull.
The snap! of the kid’s spine filled him with pleasure.
Like popping a zit.
Body limp in his arms, Tyler pushed the kid behind the brown bushes lining the mall’s outer wall. A million tiny icicles stabbed his cheeks, making his eyes water.
He broke into a jog and, rounding the mall, headed for the entrance. He needed to buy a damn jacket.
Minneapolis was as close to hell as he could imagine.
He chuckled as he ran.
Hell, I did the kid a favor.
&&&
Tyler scored on his first attempt. Minneapolis had a thousand Vikings, but the Internet promised only four of them were named Viggo Nilsson.
Four. Unbelievable.
Only one of those had an address close to the mall, though. No one becomes a regular at a restaurant on the far side of town.
Pulling to the curb a few hundred feet down the street from Viggo’s address, Tyler pulled binoculars from his pack and scanned the house. He could see the giant through the sheer drapes covering his front window, sitting, fiddling with something on a table.
That’s the guy.
“Looks like ole’ Jody didn’t lie,” he muttered, exchanging the binoculars for his gun. He couldn’t fly with his favorite weapon, a Dan Wesson Elite Series Havoc, but he’d done a job in Minneapolis before and had known where to get a gun quickly. The Berretta 92 cost him fifteen hundred dollars he wouldn’t be able to expense to the client, but it was a small price to pay to regain his honor.