by Paula Graves
“I know what a klick is.”
“Sorry. Didn’t want to presume.”
She hated to ask the question, but it couldn’t be ignored. “Could it have been one of Vince’s men?”
“Not unless they were all in on it,” Evan replied. He pushed aside his half-eaten plate of eggs and leaned toward her. “How well did you know the men in his unit?”
“Moderately well,” she answered. “We didn’t live in base housing, but we socialized some. I haven’t seen any of them in a while, though. Not since the unit returned stateside. I went to welcome them back.”
“Yeah? Their instigation or yours?”
“Mine,” she admitted. “I drove over to Fort Benning to join the families waiting to greet them. I just needed to talk to the last people to see Vince.”
“How was the meeting?” He sounded curious.
She tried to replay the meeting in her head, to catch all the details, all the nuances. “I talked to Rafe Delgado first.” Delgado had been impossibly young, she remembered. Barely in his twenties, his black hair shorn to a glossy flat top, his fatigues soiled and rumpled from the long trip home. He’d smelled of sweat and grime and hard work, and she remembered thinking how eagerly she’d have buried herself in the smell and the dirt if Vince had been the one standing in front of her. “His mother was there to greet him, but he gave me a few minutes. Thanked me for coming, said Vince would have appreciated it.”
“Anything else?”
Megan shook her head. “I didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. I probably shouldn’t have gone there in the first place, but I felt—” The words caught in her throat, and she blinked back the moisture in her stinging eyes. “Vince would have wanted me to see them home.”
Evan nodded. “The shot didn’t come from close quarters. None of his men shot him, although I can’t be sure that none of them set him up.”
“You can’t be sure of anything, can you?” She straightened her shoulders. “Maybe you think this is some sort of penance you have to pay for helping enforce the rules that Vince believed put his men in danger. But you didn’t shoot him. You didn’t even make the rules that put him in danger. I don’t really blame you. You just did your job.”
“I know that,” he said, his voice sharp for the first time. His lips pressed into a tight line and his voice softened when he spoke again. “I’m not going to lie—I do feel guilty. I knew some of the restrictions we were putting on our soldiers made life harder for them. It made their jobs more dangerous. But we were trying to save a country from falling to a violent and dangerous group of terrorists. The last thing we needed—”
“Was to alienate the people you were trying to protect,” she finished for him, trying not to sound bitter. “I know.”
“It was the better of two bad choices,” he said quietly. “I can wrap my head around it intellectually, but I can’t get the sight of your husband out of my head.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You saw Vince after he died?”
“I was at the base when they brought his body back,” he murmured. “His buddies weren’t happy to see me.”
She supposed not. “So you think you need to make it up to Vince and the other men. But why come tell me things you can’t even prove are true? What do you want from me?”
“I know Vince wrote letters home. A lot of them. It’s almost all he did on his downtime—write letters home. I’m betting most of them were to you.”
She bit back a new rush of emotion.
“I need to see those letters.”
A flood of outrage ripped through her. “No.”
“I realize there were personal things you wouldn’t want me to read—”
“It was all personal,” she snapped. “I’m not letting you see any of them.”
“He never wrote about what was going on in Kaziristan?”
Of course he had, but that didn’t change anything. “Those letters are all I have left that really feels like him. I don’t share them with anyone.”
Frustration gleamed in his green eyes. “Will you at least consider rereading the letters to see if there’s anything in there that resonates with you based on—” A low trilling noise coming from the vicinity of his jeans pocket interrupted, eliciting an irritated growl from him. He checked the display, frowning at what he saw.
“What is it?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“I think it’s the motel.” He answered. “Evan Pike.”
She watched his expression shift as he listened to the person on the other end of the line, going from curious to alarmed. “What time?” he asked. He paused as he apparently got an answer, then added. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Thank you for calling.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He shoved the phone back into his jeans pocket. “Someone broke into my motel room this morning. Housekeeping discovered the mess.”
“How did they know it was a break-in?” Megan asked. “I mean, some people are just messy—”
“Apparently a message was written on the dresser mirror,” he answered, already moving toward the front of the house. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Randall. And the food.”
Patton jumped up to go to the door with Evan, and Megan followed in their wake, alarm coiling like a snake in her gut. She caught Evan’s arm as he reached the door. “What message?”
He looked at her, his expression dark with anger. “It said, ‘Go home or she’ll regret it.’”
Chapter Three
“Am I the ‘she’ in question?” Megan’s low question broke the thickening silence in the ransacked motel room.
Whoever tossed the place had wanted to leave a clear message. Evan’s clothes lay scattered across the room, his toiletries strewn about. An entire tube of toothpaste had been squeezed out into the sink of the motel bathroom. Fortunately his briefcase full of notes on Vince Randall’s shooting had been with him in the car.
“I think so. I haven’t been shy with my questions about your husband’s death.”
She stared at the block letters painted in white shoe polish on the mirror. “Why haven’t I heard about it before?”
“I went through Pentagon channels. It wasn’t in their interest to involve you.”
“You think someone at the Pentagon broke in and left a message on your mirror?” Her drawling voice dripped skepticism.
“No, but someone in D.C. may have said the wrong thing to the wrong person.”
“The ‘wrong person’ being someone formerly connected with MacLear Security?”
He nodded. “They scattered like roaches after their illegal activities came to light. We don’t even know who some of them were—you know that.”
Members of her extended family had already clashed with MacLear Security’s former Special Services Unit, a small cadre of black ops agents MacLear’s CEO, Jackson Melville, had assembled from a pool of talented but corruptible field operatives. The SSU’s attempt to kidnap her cousin’s son had led to their downfall.
And just two months ago, a group of former SSU agents had tried to carry out a hit on an ex-CIA agent named Amanda Caldwell. Megan’s brother Rick had nearly lost his own life helping Amanda turn the tables on her attackers.
“We know a least a few of their names,” Megan said. “Cooper Security’s been putting together a dossier on the SSU ever since we discovered several had reunited with others in their unit.”
“Your brother must know many of them,” he said carefully. Rick Cooper had been a MacLear Security agent for over a decade before the company collapsed under the weight of SSU scandal, but as far as Evan knew, Rick’s work with MacLear had been completely legit. He had a good reputation among the foreign service agents Evan had spoken with.
“Rick knows some by name,” Megan answered carefully. “But not all. I guess you know what happened back in March.”
Evan nodded. “What your brother and his friend told Senator Blackledge created one hell of a stir at CIA,” he told h
er. “I hear there’s an internal investigation going on there.”
Megan didn’t look surprised. “Amanda still has contacts at CIA who keep her updated with what they can legally share.”
“She’s stuck around?” He was surprised. “I’d figured she’d just blended back into the woodwork again.” CIA agents generally reminded him a little of cockroaches, too.
“She married Rick,” Megan said with a smile. “You should bring them in on this, if you really think the SSU is behind all this.” She waved at the mirror. “Or if you want to call the cops, I have family in the local agencies.”
He turned to face her. “How would you handle it?”
She appeared surprised he’d consulted her. “I’d call my family,” she said. “If this really is connected to the SSU, we Coopers all have a stake in it.”
He looked at the mirror. Back home, if he’d walked in to find his apartment trashed and a warning message on his mirror, he’d have called the cops. Gone through regular channels. Let the system work.
It was how he’d handled his initial suspicions about Vince Randall’s death, too.
And look how well that had worked out.
He turned back to Megan. “Okay. Call your family.”
* * *
THOUGH MEGAN WAS USED to being surrounded by large numbers of Coopers at any given time, Evan Pike seemed overwhelmed by the sudden convergence of over a dozen Coopers at the Piedmont Motor Inn. In a virtual convoy of SUVs and pickup trucks, they came down Piedmont Road and swung into the parking lot in front of Evan’s room.
“How many Coopers are there?” Evan asked quietly as they piled out of the vehicles.
“Too many to count,” she warned. “Coopers believe in going forth and multiplying.”
Megan’s eldest brother, Jesse, arrived first, but there were over a dozen other Coopers—or Cooper in-laws—right on his heels, including three sheriff’s department deputies, a Gossamer Ridge Police detective and seven Cooper Security agents, not counting herself.
As the one with jurisdiction, Kristen Cooper, the police detective, took charge of the scene, handing out assignments. While the rest of the family spread out to talk to other motel visitors and staffers, Jesse, Rick, Rick’s wife, Amanda, and Megan joined Evan inside the motel room.
Jesse surveyed the mess, his dark eyes settling on the mirror. “Why would someone threaten you by threatening Megan? You don’t even know each other.”
“I’m investigating her husband’s death.”
Jesse shot Evan a sharp look. “You really think Vince was assassinated?”
“It’s more likely than not,” Evan replied carefully, sounding every inch the lawyer he was.
Jesse pulled a business card from the pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to Evan. “If you’d like our help, this is where you can contact me. Leave my sister out of it.”
Megan whirled on her brother, dismayed. “You don’t get to make that decision, Jesse.”
“You want to go through this?” he asked, meeting her anger without flinching. “Really?”
“If there’s a chance Vince was murdered, I want to be part of the investigation.”
Her brother closed his big hand over her shoulder. “Meggie, please. You’re too close to this to be objective, and no good can come from going back to those days again. You’re in a better state now—”
She stared at him, stunned. A better state? “You make it sound like I took to my bed after Vince died.”
Jesse glanced at Evan. “If I need to make it an order—”
Fire leapt in her gut. “You’re not my parent and if you think you’ll get anywhere throwing your weight around as my boss, forget it. I’ll quit Cooper Security in a heartbeat.”
Jesse’s lips thinned to a line. “Fine. If you want in, you’re in—”
“I haven’t brought any of you in on the investigation,” Evan spoke up.
Megan whipped around to face him, trying to calm the anger roiling in her belly. “If you’re right about any of this—about the SSU’s involvement, about a high-level government cover-up—you’re going to need all the help you can get.”
“We have a stake in bringing down the SSU,” Rick spoke up from the corner of the room. “We have a company full of trained, skilled analysts and field operatives at your disposal.”
“For how big a fee?” Evan’s tone was wary.
“For free,” Megan spoke up, shooting her brothers a look daring them to disagree.
“I can’t have a big crew of people getting in the middle of this investigation,” Evan warned. “We have to fly under the radar as much as possible.”
“Clearly, you’re already on somebody’s radar.” Amanda gestured toward the mirror.
“And having half of Chickasaw County descending on this motel probably isn’t helping,” Evan added grimly.
“Or maybe it’ll be a warning to the people who did this,” Megan countered. “People have your back.”
“I’m not sure they’ll see that as a flaw in their plan,” Rick murmured. “You can’t tell me there aren’t some SSU guys out there still angry about how things went down back in March up on the mountain.”
“I heard about that,” Evan said. “You were lucky to live through that siege. You were outnumbered, what—three to one?”
“I know we were lucky,” Rick said. “But I agree—low profile’s the way to go for now. If there’s a cover-up going on, keeping it simple will make it harder for them to predict your moves. If they know your plans ahead of time, they’ll have all their messes cleaned up long before you get there.”
“Okay, we take this deep cover, then,” Jesse said. “I can have someone put out a story that teenage vandals hit the motel and left a mess in one of the rooms. You’ll need to move out of here, though.”
“Cooper Cove Properties has some cabins for rent. They could put you up at off-season rates,” Megan suggested. “It’s five minutes from my house, fifteen from our office in Maybridge, and you’ll be surrounded by Coopers with guns.”
Evan’s lips curved. “Not sure that’s reassuring.”
“You should register under a fake name,” Megan suggested.
A knock on the door interrupted. Megan opened the door to Kristen, her cousin Sam’s wife and the Gossamer Ridge police detective heading the case. The slim blonde edged past Megan and took a look at the message on the mirror again. “Not much subtlety with this bunch.”
“I doubt you’ll find anything useful,” Evan warned as she pulled out an evidence-gathering kit. “They had over an hour to toss the place. These people know how to get rid of evidence.”
“You’re probably right, but I don’t mind taking a look around if you’re okay with that.”
He held up his hands. “Knock yourself out.”
* * *
EVAN’S PREDICTION PANNED OUT. Except for the mess they’d strewn in their wake, whoever had searched his room hadn’t left any evidence of their own behind.
The motel was only partially occupied, though it was the start of tourist season, and many of those guests appeared to be out for the day already, no doubt enjoying the warm May sunshine and good fishing on the lake. Evan had purposefully asked for a room as far from other guests as possible, so even the people still in their rooms that morning hadn’t been close enough to notice anything useful. Nor had the motel manager noticed anything out of the ordinary, and the extra key to Evan’s room was in the locked drawer where the staff kept the spares.
Not that an SSU agent would have needed a key.
The more intriguing part of his time spent surrounded by various and sundry Coopers was watching how they treated Megan Randall. Love and affection was evident in abundance, but beneath it all lurked an unexpected sense that they saw her as a fragile flower to be handled with gentleness and delicacy.
The idea that Megan Randall was easily breakable conflicted with his own experience. On the contrary, the woman had a spine of steel and a soul of fire. Get too close, he w
as certain, and she could burn a man alive with her intensity.
Clearly, she’d loved her husband. She must have mourned him deeply. But how bad had it been for her, that her family would so clearly fear a relapse after all this time?
Jesse Cooper had said she was in a better state.
Better than what?
Was she hiding a vulnerability he couldn’t see? If he shared his suspicion that Vince Randall may have been working with the SSU in Kaziristan—that his death had been payback for backing out of a deal—would she fall apart completely?
He had a lot to think about, going forward, especially if Megan Randall was going to take part in his investigation.
Around noon, one of Megan’s cousins, Hannah Patterson, rode with him up the rise to a sprawling bungalow about halfway up the mountain, with a glancing view over the top of the tree line of the lake below. It would be his residence the rest of his time in Chickasaw County.
“I’ve turned on the power and water, and you’re free to enjoy any of the amenities,” Hannah said as she handed over the key. “I mean, don’t leave all the appliances and lights running all day or anything, but feel free to fill up the Jacuzzi and have a soak.”
“Do you have a map of your properties?” he asked, tucking the key in his jeans pocket.
She nodded. “Good idea—if you’re trying to keep a low profile, it’s probably good to know the lay of the land. I’ll get one for you. Oh, before I forget—my brother Gabe put some fish fillets in the freezer for you—bluegill and catfish, mostly. I hope you like fish.”
“Thank you. Very generous. You want a ride back down the mountain?”
She shook her head. “It’s not far, and I’m going to stop by to check on some other guests down the mountain, make sure they have everything they need. Which reminds me—Megan said to tell you she’s doing some grocery shopping for you, so you should be set for a few days.” She handed him a card. “My cell number’s on there. Any problems, give me a call and I can have a dozen armed and dangerous Coopers up here in minutes.” She started down the porch steps.