Scorched

by Laura Griffin

  Kelsey zipped the tent door shut. She tilted her head back and stood for a few moments, letting the decadent eighty-degree air swirl around her.

  “When you’re done slacking off . . . ?”

  “Sorry. What’s up?” Kelsey joined him at a computer, where the X-ray of a skull appeared on the screen.

  “Victim thirty-two,” Manny said. “She came out of intake this morning.”

  “She?”

  He gave her a dark look. “Irene recovered a pink headband.”

  Kelsey glanced across the tent at Irene, whose unenviable job it was to painstakingly disentangle every set of bones from the accompanying clothing and personal items. After being separated from the bones, each item had to be photographed and cataloged before being examined by investigators.

  “You’re the expert,” Manny continued, “but I’m guessing the profile comes back as a four- to five-year-old female, about thirty-eight inches tall, based on the femur. In addition to the headband, Irene cataloged a pair of white sandals. What we didn’t find were any bullets or signs of bone trauma.”

  “What about lead wipe?” Kelsey asked. The opaque specks typically showed up on X-ray after a bullet crashed through a human skull.

  “None,” Manny replied. “And as I said, no broken bones. So no obvious cause of death.” He leaned back in his chair and gazed up at Kelsey, and a bleak understanding passed between them.

  If this child hadn’t been marched to the edge of a pit and shot to death, like the rest of the people in the grave with her, then she’d died by other means. Most likely, she’d been buried alive and suffocated.

  Kelsey’s chest tightened and she looked away.

  “I— Excuse me. I have to get some water.”

  With that completely transparent excuse she ducked out of the tent and stood in the blazing tropical sun. She felt light-headed. Her stomach churned, and she knew Aaron was right. She needed a break—a Coke at least, or a PowerBar to get her energy up before she did something embarrassing like faint in the middle of camp.

  Lead from the front, her uncle always said, and he was right. Uncle Joe commanded Navy SEALs for a living, and he knew a thing or two about leadership. Kelsey needed to work hard, yes, but she also needed to set a good example for the six members of her team who had been toiling in the heat for weeks in the name of human rights. Kelsey was spearheading this mission on behalf of an international human-rights group with backing from her home research lab—the prestigious Delphi Center in central Texas. She needed to be sharp and in charge, not passed out from exhaustion. She was young to be managing such a big job, and she knew more than a few people were expecting her to fail—maybe even hoping for it. She needed to prove them wrong.

  Kelsey wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her grimy arm. She traipsed across the camp and rummaged through a plastic food bin until she found a granola bar.

  “Ma’am Kelsey?”

  She turned to see one of her team members, Juan Ocampo, emerging from the jungle with his metal detector and his shaggy brown dog. Milo aspired to be a cadaver dog, but in reality was simply a well-trained mutt who went everywhere with Juan. Kelsey didn’t mind the pup. She liked him, in fact; he was good for morale.

  Juan stopped beside her. His blue International Forensic Anthropology Foundation T-shirt was soaked through with sweat and his face was dripping.

  “You need to come with me,” he said, and the low tone of his voice told her he didn’t want the others to know about whatever he’d found.

  Kelsey shoved the rest of her granola bar into her back pocket and followed him into the jungle. A route had been cut through the dense tangle of trees and vines, but the terrain was steep and uneven. Kelsey was glad for her sturdy hiking boots as she made her way down the path she and so many workers had traversed for weeks now. That’s how long it had taken her team to recover the remains of dozens of civilians whose bus had been hijacked by a death squad working for a local politician. Aboard the bus had been a rival politician’s family on their way to file nominating papers for the upcoming election. Each member of the family had been bound, tortured, and shot. The other passengers had been mowed down with machine guns and left in a shallow grave.

  Kelsey swatted at mosquitoes as she neared the first burial site, where a pair of local police officers stood guard over the workers. Like most policemen in the Philippines, they carried assault rifles rather than handguns—yet another cultural difference she’d found unnerving when she’d first arrived in this country.

  To Kelsey’s surprise, Juan walked right past the grave site. He veered onto a barely visible path through the thicket of trees. Milo trotted out in front of him.

  Kelsey’s nerves fluttered as she tromped down the hill. He couldn’t have found another pit. They’d counted fifty-three victims already, the exact number of passengers that local townspeople believed had been on the bus when it went missing during last year’s election season. If there was another group of victims, surely her team would have heard something during their interviews with local families.

  “You find gold in them thar hills?” Kelsey used her best John Wayne voice in a lame attempt to lighten the mood. Juan glanced back at her. He’d once told her he’d been named after the American actor and loved all his movies.

  “I was out here this morning, ma’am, walking Milo.” Juan’s formal tone said this was no time for jokes.

  Please not another death pit.

  “I had the metal detector on, and it started beeping.”

  Kelsey glanced at the device in Juan’s hand—one of their most useful pieces of equipment. It detected not only bullets and shell casings—which were valuable evidence—but also belt buckles, jewelry, and other personal objects.

  “Look what I found.” He stopped beside a ravine, and Milo stood beside him, wagging his tail. Juan shifted a branch and nodded at the ground.

  Human remains, fully skeletonized. Kelsey crouched beside them, feeling a familiar mix of dread and curiosity.

  “Male,” she conjectured aloud. “Five-eleven, maybe six feet.”

  The height was unusual for a native Filipino. She studied the rotting clothing. Denim and synthetic fabrics withstood the elements better than soft tissue, and it looked as though this man had died wearing only a pair of jeans. She glanced around for shoes but didn’t see any.

  “What’d you hit on?” She nodded at the metal detector.

  “Something under his head. I think there is a bullet, but I did not want to move anything.”

  “Good call.” She frowned down at the remains.

  “Do you think he tried to run?”

  “Different postmortem interval from the others, I’m almost sure of it.” She glanced up at him. “He’s been here longer.”

  Kelsey dug a latex glove from one of her pockets and pulled it on. She took out her digital camera and snapped a photograph before carefully moving a leafy branch away from the cranium. She stared down at the skull, and it took her a moment to realize what she was seeing.

  “I’ll be damned,” she muttered, leaning closer.

  On the road above them, the hum of a motorcycle. The noise grew louder, then halted, and she and Juan traded looks. Kelsey surveyed the trees lining the highway—the same highway the bus had been on when it was hijacked. Branches rustled. Kelsey stood and Juan reached for the pistol at his hip.

  “Ma’am Kelsey!”

  A boy stepped into view. Roberto. Kelsey breathed a sigh of relief and shoved her KA-BAR knife back in its sheath.

  “Phone call, ma’am.” He scrambled down the steep hillside and emerged, grinning, from a wall of leaves. Roberto had appointed himself the camp errand boy and spent his days zipping back and forth to town, fetching supplies for the workers in exchange for tips. He reached into his backpack and produced the satellite phone that usually lived in Manny’s tent. The boy looked proud to be entrusted with such an important piece of equipment, and Kelsey handed him some pesos.

  “Sir Manny
said it’s important,” Roberto told her. “The call is from San Diego.”

  Kelsey’s stomach dropped. Oh God, no. She jerked the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  For an eternity, only static.

  “Kelsey?”

  Just the one word and Kelsey knew. Gage. She’d been expecting this call for years. Her heart felt like it was being squeezed by a fist, but she managed to make her voice work.

  “Mom, what is it?”

  “Baby, it’s your uncle Joe.”

  CHAPTER 2

  San Diego, California

  Two months later

  Gage pulled his pickup truck into the parking lot of O’Malley’s Pub, way more than ready to put an end to his crap day.

  It had started at 0430 with a training op on San Clemente Island and ended less than an hour ago with a brutal run through the obstacle course on base. Under normal circumstances, he liked training ops—especially ones that involved high-altitude jumps. And the O-course hadn’t been a problem for him since BUD/S training.

  But these weren’t normal circumstances. Gage was coming off a shit week following a shit month at the end of a shit year. His shoulder hurt like hell despite endless rounds of physical therapy, and his head was in the wrong place. Gage couldn’t find his zone—hadn’t been able to in months.

  O’Malley’s was quiet for a Friday, which suited him fine. He took a seat at the bar and ordered a beer. After knocking back the first swig, he stared at the bottle and forced himself to confront the nagging possibility that maybe, just maybe, he was losing his edge.

  A young blonde approached the counter. As if to confirm Gage’s depressing hypothesis, she ignored the empty stools next to him and chose one three seats over. She tucked her purse at her feet and barely gave him a glance before flagging the bartender to order a drink.

  Ouch. Not the response he usually got from women in bars—especially this one, which was popular with SEAL groupies.

  On the other hand, Gage really couldn’t blame her. He’d come here straight from the base, not even bothering to shower after his sixteen-hour ass-kicking.

  Gage glanced across the room at Mike Dietz and Derek Vaughn, who had managed to clean up before coming out. They’d left the base not long before Gage, so they must have set the world record for speed showering. Clearly they were looking to get laid tonight, whereas Gage was simply looking to get hammered. It had been that kind of week.

  Derek caught his eye and walked over. “Hey, Brewski,” he drawled, “you want in on this game?”

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  “Come on, bro.” He glanced over his shoulder at the two brunettes who were hanging around the pool table. “Callie’s sister’s in town. You need to come meet her.”

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  “You’re killing me.”

  “Let Dietz talk to her.”

  “He has to cut out after this. Some family thing.” Derek clamped a hand on his shoulder, and Gage made an effort not to wince. “Seriously, do not leave me hanging here, man. You can have Tara. She’s older, but probably no less talented than her baby sis.” He grinned and slapped Gage on the back. “Come on. It’ll snap you out of your shit mood.”

  Gage glanced at the women and he knew Derek was wrong. Nothing would snap him out of his mood tonight.

  “You’re not still hung up on Kelsey, are you?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Then what’s up?” His brow furrowed. “Having a bad day?”

  It was common knowledge that Gage had taken Joe’s death two months ago harder than anyone. And it wasn’t just because he knew the man’s family and had once dated his niece. Even before all that, Gage had had a special bond with him. Joe Quinn had been a demo expert, same as Gage, and he’d taken Gage under his wing during his very first year in the teams.

  “I’m fine,” Gage said, and his friend gave him a long, hard look.

  “Not so sure about that. Those are two hot-looking women. But, hey, your loss. Lemme know if you change your mind.”

  Derek returned to his game of pool, and Gage nursed his beer while watching the mirror behind the bar. The blonde was still there and she had a drink in front of her now. She stirred it with a slender red straw as she glanced over her shoulder again and again. Gage checked his watch. Ten after nine. Her date was probably ten minutes late. Suddenly she smiled and jumped up from her stool as a man in service khakis entered the bar. He crossed the room in a few strides. The woman threw her arms around his neck and kissed the hell out of him.

  Gage felt a stab of envy and looked away. He remembered Kelsey kissing him like that—in this very bar, too—right before he’d drag her home with him to set his world on fire. That’s how they’d been together—weeks and months of no contact, then completely unable to keep their hands off each other when they finally got together.

  Which wouldn’t be happening again anytime soon. Or ever.

  Last time Gage had seen Kelsey was at her uncle’s funeral. She’d been seated at the front of the church with her boyfriend at her side—some FBI hotshot she’d dated back before she met Gage. Seeing the two of them together had been hard enough, but when they’d stood to leave the church and Gage glimpsed the ring on her finger, it was like a kick in the gut. He’d been blindsided by hurt and anger—which made the entire day of Joe’s funeral all the more torturous.

  Good times. Gage tipped back his beer. He felt someone behind him and knew who it was when he got a nose full of cheap perfume.

  “Hey, sailor.”

  Callie’s sister had a friendly smile, and Gage did his best to return it. It wasn’t her fault he was in a foul mood.

  “Hey there,” he said.

  “I’m Tara.” She rested her hand on his forearm and eased close, giving him a perfect view down her low-cut shirt. “My sister says you know your way around a pool table. Wanna play with us?”

  Gage looked down into her pretty blue eyes. She was young. Built. Eager to please. If he couldn’t have Kelsey, he should have someone else. He couldn’t wallow in celibate misery his whole life, could he?

  Problem was, he’d been down this road and knew where it went, and waking up tomorrow with some girl in his bed wasn’t going to solve his problems, just create a few more.

  Gage glanced at the mirror behind the bar as a woman who looked remarkably like Kelsey stepped through the door. He blinked at the reflection.

  No way.

  But there was no mistaking her. Six feet tall. Long auburn hair. In a bar filled with hot and available women, she stood out in her jeans and no-nonsense T-shirt. She rested a hand on her hip and scanned the room.

  Gage drank in the sight of her body, her lips, her skin. She’d gotten some sun recently. He remembered she’d been on a dig when they’d called her about Joe, but that was probably over by now and she was back to her job at the crime lab.

  But what did he know? Maybe she’d been on her damn honeymoon.

  “Uh, hello? Earth to Gage?”

  He snapped his attention back to the woman beside him. Her friendly smile had dimmed.

  Then he glanced over her shoulder at Kelsey, who was indeed still standing there, in the flesh, in the middle of O’Malley’s Pub. What was she doing here?

  Kelsey spotted him and froze. She glanced at the woman beside him, and for an instant the startled look on her face made him feel good. He could tell she wanted to bolt, but instead she walked straight up to the bar and ordered a drink.

  “Excuse me, would you?” Gage picked up his beer and walked over to Kelsey. She’d chosen a stool on the corner, which didn’t leave him a place to sit, so he rested his bottle on the counter and stood beside her.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” She avoided his gaze, but smiled at the bartender as he delivered her beer.

  “What brings you to town?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the pool table, where Derek and Mike were finishing a game. Gage ignored their curious glances.

  At last she look
ed up at him. “I came to visit my grandmother. We’re cleaning out Joe’s house.”

  He’d figured as much. Joe had never married, and Kelsey was the closest thing he had to a kid. He’d helped raise her after her father died in a car wreck when she was young.

  So now she was here to help go through his stuff, probably put his house on the market. It made sense. Gage hadn’t actually believed she’d flown all the way out from Texas just to see him.

  She reached down and picked up her purse from the floor.

  “I was hoping I’d run into you,” she said casually, unzipping the bag. “We came across something, and my grandmother thought you might want it.”

  Her grandmother.

  Kelsey handed him a white envelope. He hesitated a moment before taking it. Joe’s family had wanted him to have this, whatever it was. The very idea humbled him.

  Gage opened the envelope and pulled out a photo that he recognized instantly. The picture was from Afghanistan. Half of his team stood on a mountaintop, lined up in full gear. They’d just flown out from Bagram for a six-month tour, most of which had been spent assaulting cave complexes. Just three years after the towers had fallen. They’d been full of energy and optimism, good and ready to kick some terrorist ass.

  Gage studied the faces: Derek, Mike, Luke, a few others who’d left the teams. It was a snapshot in time, but he felt a surge of love for these guys who had had his back on so many different occasions. They’d taken bullets for one another. It was impossible to describe what that meant to anyone who hadn’t been there.

  Gage couldn’t look at Joe’s face. He ran his thumb over the edge and focused on the rugged Afghan landscape. At times it was hell on earth. Other times it was beautiful.

  He glanced up, and Kelsey was watching him with those bottomless brown eyes. He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Gage unbuttoned the front pocket of his BDUs and tucked the envelope inside. He looked at Kelsey and felt a sharp stab of regret. After their breakup, she’d done a damn good job of keeping her distance. He didn’t really blame her. The breakup had been his choice, not hers. The last time she’d flown out to visit him, she’d told him she couldn’t handle the long distance anymore, the constant stress of his deployments. She’d given him an ultimatum—her or the teams. Torn between Kelsey and the SEALs, he’d done the only thing he could do—he’d chosen the SEALs. But it wasn’t the end of him wanting her. And it wasn’t the end of his bitterness. Even now—especially now, with her sitting there beside him—he still harbored a deep resentment toward Kelsey for making him choose between her and his job. And toward the man who’d come along in his absence and put a ring on her finger.