Sudden Death

by Allison Brennan

  “Why didn’t they just execute him in the garage?” Megan asked. “Why dump him in the alley? Even if they didn’t follow the flow of traffic, they had to drive around to get back to the alley.”

  “Downtown is dead most nights, especially on Sundays,” Simone said. “I could run around here naked and no one would notice.”

  Black raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

  “I’d like a copy of the tapes,” Megan said. “And your forensics report. With security cameras on the pedestrian entrance we should get a face, possibly a good shot, and I.D.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. No problem.”

  Megan asked, “Is there any evidence that they took him out the same way? Not used the van, but brought him down the stairs?”

  “Nooo,” Simone said cautiously. “But after a little time, the injury would have clotted and there might not be blood evidence. We’re still combing the crime scene—”

  So that was a possibility. That was all Megan needed to know to confirm that these killers had a plan. Whether they drove out and dumped the body or carried him down the stairs and executed him next to the Dumpster, they had carefully determined that their way was the best way. Organized. It was risky to use such a public place for the murder, but clearly the location was important to them for some unknown reason.

  As Megan walked back to the alley with Detective Black, she couldn’t grasp the motive. Why go through such elaborate measures to kill a homeless veteran? Why kill him nearly a block from where he was kidnapped in a risky, public location?

  It seemed both foolish and deliberate.

  What did George Price have in common with Austin’s small-business owner Duane Johnson and Las Vegas’s Dennis Perry?

  Why were they tortured?

  Why were they executed?

  And if the M.O. held, Megan would probably not learn anything else about the killers until they were caught, Simone’s glee in having the three license plates to run notwithstanding. They’d moved around the country with ease, and if they’d killed Price at dawn, they could be three hundred miles away by now.

  Fortunately, they had a lot more information than at the previous two crime scenes. Security tapes; a larger, public crime scene; greater chance of witnesses. With a little time and a lot of hard work, Megan was confident they’d I.D. the killers. She was good at working each piece of the puzzle until an identity was confirmed, a suspect arrested, and a killer prosecuted.

  Megan didn’t know that in twenty-four hours, they’d have nothing. No tapes. No evidence. No body. And no jurisdiction.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Jack Kincaid leaned against the wall of El Gato during happy hour, a bottle of Tecate in his hand—his first and only drink of the evening. Scout, Lucky, and his other team members were celebrating their most recent success. They had rescued four medical missionaries in Guatemala who’d been kidnapped by rebels wanting their supplies. The rebels had thought ransoming the missionaries would yield more cash. After safely escorting the hostages to the U.S. embassy, Jack and his team returned to the jungle, retrieved the stolen supplies without incident, and in seventy-two hours were back at their base of operations in the border town of Hidalgo, Texas.

  While Jack should have been more involved in the celebration, he was preoccupied. When he’d returned to the States earlier in the day, there was a message from Dillon that their younger brother, Patrick, had awakened from his coma. Jack weighed whether to visit Patrick. He wanted to see him, but he didn’t want to see the rest of the Kincaids.

  That wasn’t fair. He didn’t have a problem with his brothers and sisters. And certainly not his mother.

  But his father had made it very clear two decades ago, reiterated more recently, that Jack was not welcome. And frankly, Jack didn’t want to see Colonel Pat Kincaid either. Long ago, Jack had put the fuck-up in Panama behind him, but his father couldn’t do it. Couldn’t see that sometimes the rigid military rules were bullshit. That sometimes it was more important to stand for something than to take wrong-headed orders.

  That Jack had moved so far up the ranks after Panama was a shock to Pat Kincaid, and in many ways to Jack as well. He’d almost walked away, but instead he’d remained steadfastly loyal. He had owed it to his unit and himself to see it through, stand up during the fallout, defend his decision, and take his punishment. In the end, however, Pat Kincaid had decided to bury the situation and “protect” Jack’s future—something Jack had neither asked for nor wanted.

  Then the Colonel had the audacity to demand an apology and a thank-you, or Jack need not come home for Christmas.

  Except for weddings and funerals, Jack hadn’t been home since.

  But he wanted to see his brother. He simply couldn’t plan a scenario that would guarantee he could go to San Diego, visit Patrick, and leave without running into Colonel Kincaid.

  Life has no guarantees.

  He’d considered watching the hospital and going in after the Colonel left. According to Dillon’s message, Patrick would be released within the week. It would be easier to control the situation if Jack went to the hospital then to postpone a visit until his brother was home.

  Scout walked over to Jack with Padre—Father Francis—at his side. The priest was drinking bottled water; Scout was on his third draft. Sitting at the table next to where Jack stood like a stone sentry, they all faced the door.

  “Go,” Scout said.

  Jack didn’t have to ask what his longtime friend meant. He didn’t say anything, but glanced at Padre. Padre had been Frank’s nickname since he and Jack met that first day of basic training when they both signed into the Army Rangers. Frank was a couple years older, and when it got out that he was a Catholic seminary dropout, the name stuck. Jack thought it ironic that when Padre left the army five years ago, he’d gone back to the seminary.

  Padre had told Jack that the nickname saved him. Jack told him he’d saved himself.

  Scout said, “We just got off a successful op, we have no pending assignments, now’s the time.”

  “Something may come up.”

  Scout shook his head. “You’re the last person I expect to make excuses.”

  Jack tensed. “The Guatemala situation came down fast. If we hadn’t responded immediately, the outcome could have been worse.”

  “We’re not the only guns for hire.”

  Jack frowned—he didn’t like the expression, though it was accurate.

  Padre interjected, “Is Dillon in San Diego, too?”

  “Yes.” Jack glanced at Padre. His friend knew what was important to him, and the irony that Padre—a man Jack had fought beside, a man he had saved, a man he had almost died with—had become his confessor wasn’t lost on him. In many ways, Padre was a closer brother to him than his twin, Dillon; in fact, half-Cuban Jack looked more like the full-blooded Cuban priest than he did his fair-skinned twin. In other ways, they were worlds apart.

  Scout drained his beer and centered it on the worn wood table and continued. “Do you think I couldn’t handle the team on my own? Or was putting me second in command lip service?”

  “You know it wasn’t.”

  Scout shook his head. “You’re fucking scared.” He tipped his beer to Padre. “Sorry.”

  Padre smiled. The scene always played out the same.

  Jack didn’t respond. Fear didn’t come into it. Rage did. He didn’t know if he could stop himself from punching the Colonel in the jaw. All the wasted years when Jack could have been a brother to his six siblings, a son to his mother. All lost because Colonel Pat Kincaid couldn’t accept Jack’s decision in Panama.

  What was he supposed to do? Let innocent civilians die because the intelligence had been wrong? He had been forced to act, even though by disobeying direct orders he could have jeopardized the mission. Jack had been willing to be reprimanded for that decision, even if it had resulted in a court-martial.

  Pat Kincaid hadn’t even allowed his son to take the heat.
/>   “Take my plane,” Scout offered.

  Jack cracked a half-smile. Scout babied his Cessna. He didn’t like anyone flying it, even Jack.

  “You must want to get rid of me.”

  “I want you to see your family.” Scout’s fingers danced on the scarred table. “I have no family. I’m married to this job. But I’m older than you, I don’t know how many more years I’m going to be able to do this. And then what? My parents are long dead, I have no wife, not even an ex-wife I can bitch about. No kids that I know of—a couple cousins I haven’t seen in half a lifetime. You have something damn rare, and though you don’t talk about it, I know you’ve enjoyed your visits with your brothers and sisters. Right, Padre?”

  He nodded. “I’d say so.”

  Jack shuffled, under fire. “Dillon and I have come to terms.” It was good to have his brother back, even though it wasn’t the same as when they were kids. And he was getting used to Dillon’s girlfriend, though he was still wary about the fed. Maybe because she seemed to know too much about him without trying. Jack demanded privacy.

  “I’ve known you for how long?” Scout asked.

  It was a rhetorical question, but Jack answered. “Nineteen years.”

  “Nineteen years,” Scout said before Jack finished. “I buried your puke when you got malaria in fucking Belize, so I think I got some say in your life. Go to San Diego. See your family. It’s not like the team and I are going to up and disappear on you.”

  Jack stared at his beer.

  “You want to,” Scout said.

  “Jack.” Padre spoke quietly and Jack looked at him. “Don’t let your father stop you from doing what you need to do.”

  “I don’t want a confrontation.”

  “I’m not going to tell you what you should do.”

  “You want me to forget.”

  “You can’t forget.”

  Padre was the only person who knew exactly what had happened in Panama that caused Colonel Kincaid to disown his oldest son.

  “You want me to forgive.” Jack could barely say the word while thinking of his father.

  “I don’t want you to do anything. But I know how important reconnecting with your brother has been, how invested you are in your family’s well-being, and how guilty you’ve felt over what happened to Patrick. Sometimes, face-to-face is better than a cell phone. You need a truce.”

  Padre was right. Jack wanted to be in San Diego for his family, but he also needed to be there for himself.

  Jack turned to Scout. “You’ll loan me your plane?”

  “Hell, if I’d known it’d be this easy to convince you, I’d have said you could fly commercial.” Scout laughed. “Yeah, you can borrow her. Just be careful, okay? She’s a bit temperamental, prefers a light touch, and sometimes you’re a might heavy-handed, know what I mean?”

  “I’ll treat her as if she were my own.”

  “God, no. Treat her like she’s my plane.”

  Jack laughed and sat down next to Scout and Padre, feeling the tension dissipate. “I’ll leave at oh six hundred, be back in twenty-four hours.”

  “Take all the time you want,” Scout said.

  “I can’t take too much time off. Bills to pay,” Jack said. “Twenty-four is about all I can spare.” And all he could take, knowing everything could blow up if his father pushed.

  The door opened and Chief of Police Art Perez and two of his deputy cronies sauntered in. “Great,” Scout mumbled.

  “Leave it alone,” Jack said, not taking his dark eyes off the head cop. Perez didn’t want Jack in Hidalgo anymore than Jack wanted Perez as the chief of police. Neither of them could do anything about the other, and Jack lived outside the city limits, so Perez couldn’t even harass him effectively.

  Except here.

  Six foot two—a half inch taller than Jack, but with a paunch that suggested fifty pounds heavier and a disdain for regular exercise—Perez strode over to the table, hands in his belt. He had the demeanor of a man who had to prove his manhood each and every day.

  “Father,” Perez acknowledged Padre. His mother worked at the rectory part-time and liked Father Francis. Hispanic men almost always deferred to their mothers, especially in matters of faith.

  But Jack wasn’t a priest, and hadn’t even made a very good altar boy thirty years ago. He hadn’t won Mrs. Perez over.

  “How are you, Art?” Padre said. “Would you like to join us?”

  “Another time.” Perez stared at Jack. Jack stared back. Perez turned to Scout. “I heard you had some excitement down in Guatemala.”

  “Not much,” Scout said. “Maybe we can find some here.”

  “We have an early morning.” Jack stood. The last thing he needed was Scout sitting in jail indefinitely for assaulting the chief of police. It had happened once before, when Scout and Deputy Leon started a bar fight.

  Padre picked up on the cue, though Scout was slower on the uptake. It was earlier than his usual close-down-the-bar night.

  “Yes,” Padre took Scout’s arm. “You need to fuel the plane.”

  “Going somewhere?” Perez asked.

  “Personal,” Jack said.

  The silence was thick. Scout mumbled something about men with big guns and small dicks and Perez reddened.

  Jack extracted them from the tense situation and they went outside. Nearly midnight and still warm, but the humid breeze off the Rio Grande felt good.

  “Want to fly me out to San Diego?” he asked Scout.

  “Naw, I have a date with Rina and the boys Wednesday morning.”

  “I’ll be back by then.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but I don’t want to miss taking the boys to their first Major League ball game. Just take care of Carrie, okay?”

  Jack had never named any of the planes he flew, though Carrie the Caravan was Scout’s pride and joy. To Jack, planes were simply transpo.

  “Of course. Let me give you a ride home.”

  Ethan—he’d dumped his first name in favor of his middle when he returned to the United States—didn’t think it had been a good idea to snatch Price’s dog tag, and he definitely didn’t think it had been smart to mail it to the FBI, but he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to upset Karin. He didn’t want her to leave him. She’d saved his life and he needed her.

  Far back in his mind, Ethan knew she needed him as well—she wanted him to teach her all the tricks of his trade, his unusual aptitude for acupuncture. But that was certainly a modest exchange. He couldn’t have done any of this without her, and he’d be grateful for the rest of his life. The life he owed her.

  “You okay?” she asked as he drove south.

  “Fine, love.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. Clear.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t want you to get in trouble,” he said. “What if they trace the dog tags back to you? I can’t lose you.” His bottom lip trembled and he bit it hard enough to draw blood. He barely felt the puncture.

  She leaned over and wiped the blood from his lip with her index finger. Out of the corner of his eye he watched her put her finger with his bright red blood into her mouth, then sucked her finger with her eyes closed, a half-smile on her lips.

  He swallowed thickly and squirmed in his seat.

  “They won’t trace it to me, or you, or anyone. It’s a game, Ethan. They’ll be chasing their tails. I wish I could watch.” She laughed, as if she were amused.

  They’d gone out of their way to mail the package from Reno—not only far from their next destination, but it would point the police in the wrong direction. Because so far her plans had worked exactly as she’d promised, Ethan believed her. And he loved her.

  They’d left Sacramento at three that morning, dumped the van, picked up another vehicle, hit Reno, then turned down Highway 395 and drove through the Owens Valley. The bleakness of the desert made him want to drive the truck off the edge of the next cliff. A few cars, a few trucks, and nothing. Highway 58 wasn’t much better, and now I
-40 cutting through the Mojave Desert as the sun set low behind them made him want to scream and jab a needle in the eye of the bitch riding next to him.

  Ethan hated sitting in the car for hours doing nothing. At least she let him drive. He’d have blown his brains out if he had to sit in the passenger seat for fifteen hours.

  He’d almost killed himself many times. Karin had stopped him. He hated her for it. Loved her for it. It depended on what memory came back and where it hurt.

  “You’re brooding,” she said.

  “It wasn’t the same this time.”

  “Price was a worthless bum.”

  “I’m sorry I got carried away. I just wanted to try something different.”

  “It worked beautifully,” she cooed.

  “But he died. It didn’t even take that long. I don’t understand how it happened.” And that’s what bothered Ethan most of all. He’d studied and practiced and perfected his discipline. Price shouldn’t have had a heart attack. It took the fun out of making him pay for the months of pain Ethan had endured.

  She put her hand between his legs—close, but not quite touching him where he wanted.

  “You didn’t make a mistake. You tried something new and he had a heart attack. Maybe he had a weak heart, maybe he was a drug addict, we don’t know. But think of what you discovered! When we’re done with everyone on the list, we should explore the possibilities of serious damage.”

  “Nothing’s permanent.” Except memories.

  “You don’t know that. Look at what happened to Price.”

  “Like you said, he could have been a druggie or had high blood pressure or something.”

  Ethan had been a guinea pig. Punctured and pained to perfect the techniques of his captors. He would be better than them. They hadn’t killed him—maybe they couldn’t with the tools they’d chosen—but they had made him want to die. Wouldn’t it be something if Ethan could slide in a couple of well-placed needles and cause a heart to stop? Had he done that with Price? Had he come up with something new? Better?

  “I need to practice,” he said.

  “You’ll have time. But first, we finish with the plan.”