Every Secret Thing

by Rebecca Hartt

  But how was she supposed to sleep knowing Dwyer had gotten away with killing Lloyd, and an innocent man was sitting in jail awaiting court-martial? There had to be something she could remember from her boss’s files that would help the SEALs prove Jaguar’s innocence and implicate Dwyer at the same time. Though she had spent hours prior to sleeping copying documents she could still picture in her head, nothing of any use to Jaguar had presented itself.

  Determined to remember something that would help him, Charlotte mentally opened some of the remaining files on the iPad she had yet to think about. Lloyd had documented so much it was hard to see the forest for the trees. Envisioning one file at a time, Charlotte searched for something—anything—that Jaguar might use in his defense.

  By the third document, the mental exercise had nearly drained her ability to concentrate. Names of places Dwyer had been and the people he’d contacted all began to run together. However, one name in particular jumped out at her—Sabena, Virginia. According to Lloyd’s notes, Dwyer had gotten a long-distance call on his home’s landline phone from Sabena.

  Charlotte’s eyes sprang open. Sabena, Virginia? She had written down that name earlier while recording her memories on paper. Sabena was the historical town on the Northern Neck, where Lloyd had said he was going to take a vacation—a vacation from which he’d never returned.

  With the feeling that she’d stumbled onto something important, Charlotte tossed back the covers and jumped out of bed. She knew she would find Lucas in the kitchen, keeping watch until Saul took over at two in the morning.

  Wearing an oversized Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt Saul had loaned her in lieu of the pajamas she’d forgotten to buy, Charlotte descended the narrow staircase to the first floor and entered the kitchen, a large room added to the back of the house.

  Lucas had pulled the blinds so no one could see in from the dark backyard. Seated at a rustic table, he had the components of a submachine gun spread out on a towel in front of him, illuminated by the antler candelabra hanging over the table. At her approach, his gray eyes flickered toward her bare thighs, sparking awareness in her like a flare.

  “Join me,” he invited. “I promised myself a Sudoku puzzle if I clean my weapon first.”

  “The carrot and the stick,” she commented, taking a seat across from him. “Is this a Heckler and Koch?”

  He eyed her with astonishment. “How do you know that?”

  Bittersweet memories flickered. “My father used to take me to the shooting range.”

  “You’re probably an expert marksman—markswoman,” he corrected quickly.

  “I’m okay,” she acknowledged with a humble shrug.

  His eyes shone with admiration. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

  Charlotte sighed and slumped in the chair. “I can’t sleep,” she admitted.

  He rubbed a component of his gun with an oiled cloth. “A lot of SEALs have the same problem.”

  “I bet you don’t.”

  His eyebrow quirked upward. “What makes you say that?”

  She shrugged again. “Just a guess. What does Saul use for his sniping?” she asked, returning to the previous topic.

  “A Remington 700 with bolt action. The drug lords down south call him El Segador, which means The Reaper. They’re scared to death of him.”

  The chilling words made Charlotte think about her own chosen career. Shooting to kill wasn’t something she professed to being comfortable with, not even in defense of her country. She would have to get over that, along with her fear of flying.

  “Did Saul use the Remington to defend Jaguar at the skeet range?” she inquired.

  Lucas paused to think. “No. He used his hunting rifle, a Weatherby, which happened to be in the back of his car.”

  “Isn’t that a violation of Article 134, carrying a concealed weapon onto a military installation? Or did he have permission pursuant to the DoD’s 2016 directive?”

  Her question earned another look of amazement. “Honestly, I don’t know. There’s sort of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy regarding personal weapons on military bases right now. I mean, I’ve never known an MP who’s going to ask a SEAL if he’s carrying a personal weapon in his vehicle. It’s kind of a given.”

  “Hmph.” Charlotte propped her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand. “Then I guess it’s safe for Saul to testify about what happened at the skeet-and-trap range.”

  Lucas nodded. “He’s planning on it. Saul is Jaguar’s main witness.”

  “Do you know if Jaguar’s going to take the stand?”

  “Not a good idea, according to his lawyer,” Lucas said with a shake of his head. “A prosecutor like O’Rourke could pick apart his testimony, find flaw in it, and bury him.”

  Charlotte sighed at the prospect. “I’d like to help with Jaguar’s defense,” she offered. “Can I meet his lawyer? I know a bit about military law from my internship.”

  Lucas oiled another component. “I don’t see why not. There’s a pretrial proceeding tomorrow for Jaguar’s lawyer to meet with his witnesses. Since we can’t let you out of our sight, I guess you’re coming, too.”

  “In my disguise? How will I get on base without an ID?”

  Her question caused his forehead to furrow. “I guess you’ll have to get on base as yourself, using your NCIS badge. Then you can put your disguise on before we enter the building.”

  “I’ll be your sister, visiting from Texas.” Charlotte opened her eyes wide and grinned at him.

  “Right.” His gaze went straight to the cross at her neck.

  “What about when you have to go to work?” she asked him.

  He looked back at his weapon. “Luckily, we don’t have to for a while. Alpha Troop is on leave for the next two weeks.”

  Charlotte was pleased to hear it. “Great, then we can concentrate on Jaguar’s defense. I’ve been scanning Lloyd’s files in my mind, and something cropped up that I’d written down earlier. I think it’s a clue.”

  He looked up at her hopefully. “What?”

  “It’s a place name—Sabena, Virginia. Dwyer got a long-distance call from there. It happens to be the same place Lloyd was taking his so-called vacation, right before he was killed. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

  “Where is Sabena, Virginia?” Lucas asked with a frown.

  “On the Northern Neck where I found Lloyd’s iPad. What if he was investigating something in Sabena and not taking a vacation? What if he found something Dwyer didn’t want him to find, and he was run off the road because of it?”

  Lucas regarded her thoughtfully. “We should definitely look into that.”

  “Yes, we should,” she agreed. “If we could prove Dwyer is a murderer, Jaguar would certainly be found innocent.”

  Putting down his rag, Lucas sat back and crossed his arms. The muscles bunching beneath the thin cotton of his T-shirt and bursting out of his short sleeves riveted Charlotte’s gaze.

  “No tattoos?” she asked, covering up her reason for staring. “No girlfriends’ names inked into your arm, crossed out and rewritten? Isn’t that what Navy guys do?”

  He sent her a patronizing look. “Regular Navy, maybe. SEALs have more class than that.”

  “What happened with you and Monica?”

  Her question caught them both by surprise.

  His eyebrows had shot to his hairline. “You certainly keep your ears open.” Reaching for the frame of his submachine gun, he started to assemble it.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, beyond embarrassed. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m so tired I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “That’s okay.” He found several pieces, slid and clicked them into place. “She put her career before her loyalty to me. That’s what happened.” Slap. Click. Snap. Slap.

  “Sorry to hear that,” Charlotte murmured, wondering what that meant.

  Lucas glanced at her. “On Dwyer’s orders, she entered our office building on Labor Day and took LeMere’s journal f
rom Master’s Chief’s locked desk.”

  Charlotte gasped. “She was the secretary who took the journal?”

  “One and the same,” Lucas affirmed. “She betrayed my teammate; therefore, she betrayed me.”

  Ouch, Charlotte thought. “Maybe she didn’t have a choice,” she suggested. “You just said Commander Dwyer ordered her.”

  Lucas’s expression turned incredulous. “You seriously think that justifies her actions? She could have refused him on the basis that stealing is immoral.”

  “But she might have lost her job for refusing him.”

  His eyes flashed with anger. “That’s exactly the excuse she gave me,” he retorted. “Keeping her job mattered more than doing the right thing, and now Jaguar’s in jail with less evidence to defend him from Dwyer’s false charges.”

  Charlotte told herself not to say another word, but she couldn’t help making one more observation. “Maybe she doesn’t realize how corrupt Dwyer really is.”

  Lucas’s expression hardened. “I don’t care if she knows or not. What she did was wrong. End of story.”

  Charlotte gave up trying to prove a point. She’d put Lucas’s back against the wall, and now the tension in the room made lighthearted conversation too much of a struggle. She rose from the table, and Lucas just looked at her.

  “Guess I’d better try and sleep,” she said.

  When he didn’t say anything else, she hung her head and retreated. She had one foot on the stairs before he called on a forgiving note, “Good night, Charlotte.”

  “Good night.”

  On the landing, she ran straight into Saul, who appeared out of nowhere wearing boxers and a Harley Davidson T-shirt. With his long hair swirling around his shoulders, he resembled a wild man.

  Charlotte reared back, clapping a hand to her heart.

  “Sorry,” he said, edging around her.

  “Did we wake you up?”

  “No. My turn to keep watch,” he said, letting her know how late it was. “Back to bed with you.” He pointed toward his guestroom. “And take the dog with you,” he suggested.

  They both looked at Duke who sat at the top of the stairs issuing a mighty yawn.

  “His snores are the best tranquilizer on the market,” Saul insisted.

  Desperate for sleep, Charlotte would try anything. “C’mon, Duke,” she called, returning to her bedroom with the dog dutifully following.

  Approaching the checkpoint at Naval Air Station Oceana, Lucas slowed behind the cars in front of him and studied the guard with misgivings.

  “Shoot,” he said, watching the MP take the ID from the car at the front of the line and point a laser at it. “They’re scanning IDs today.”

  He and Saul both turned their heads to assess Charlotte in the backseat. Though dressed in a new outfit and heavily made-up with foundation that covered her freckles, she’d kept her wig and glasses off so she could still pass for herself while using her NCIS badge.

  “What happens if they scan my badge?”

  Saul and Lucas shared a worried look.

  “It means your name will go into a database,” Lucas answered. “If The Entity is keeping an eye on it, they’ll know you were here.”

  “We gotta turn around,” Saul stated.

  Glancing at the truck’s digital clock, Lucas swallowed a curse. Jaguar’s pretrial hearing was taking place in a half hour.

  “But I want to be at the hearing,” Charlotte protested. “Plus, you promised Fitz you’d keep an eye on me. How are you going to do that if you leave me and go on base by yourselves?”

  “I’ll stay with her, sir,” Saul volunteered. “You can go to the meeting alone.”

  Lucas shook his head. “No, you’re Jaguar’s key witness. I’ll stay with her.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Charlotte protested from the backseat. “Just leave me somewhere with a pistol. I can defend myself.”

  Making up his mind to turn around, Lucas turned his truck into the nearest cross street and sped them away from the gate.

  “Where are you taking me?” Charlotte asked a minute later.

  Lucas had sifted through his options and made a reluctant decision. “My place. Between my security system and the Glock I’m going to give you, you should be okay for an hour. Also, it’s close by.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Charlotte assured him, sounding slightly less put out, perhaps even curious about where he lived. He glanced back at her expression, but her face was averted.

  Twenty minutes later, Lucas approached the gate again with only Saul in the car. It felt anticlimactic not to bring in Charlotte after going to such lengths to rescue her, but her anonymity came first. Like Fitz had said, The Entity had eyes and ears everywhere. Bringing her through the gate might have tipped them off she was back.

  Lucas and Saul, both dressed in their Naval Working Uniforms, checked their phones in at security and reported to a stuffy conference room on the second floor. At their entrance, Master Chief, who was the only one who’d beat them there, saluted Lucas and made his way toward them.

  “Sir,” he said, producing the reconnaissance camera.

  “You found something,” Lucas guessed.

  “Have a look.” Stepping between the younger men, Rivera held the camera in such a way so they could all see the digital display.

  “This is the lock to the balcony door,” he said.

  Lucas regarded the photo with confusion.

  “It’s been cut,” Saul observed.

  “Yes. Brace yourself,” Rivera warned, forwarding to the next image and the next and the next.

  Lucas and Saul studied the remaining pictures with repugnance.

  “So, what do you think?” Master Chief asked Saul after they’d seen the last one.

  “He didn’t shoot himself,” Saul declared, confirming Lucas’s private conclusion. Using hand motions, Saul explained how the distance a bullet covered before hitting its target determined the diameter of the exit matter out the back of the cranium.

  “If he’d held the gun up to his own head, that spatter would have been bigger.”

  Lucas nodded. “I’m going to find a forensic expert who agrees with you.”

  “Then you’ll need this,” Rivera said, putting the camera into Lucas’s hands.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Lucas said to both men. “As far as evidence for Jaguar’s trial, I’m pretty sure this won’t be admissible since it’s not related to the charges he’s facing. But if he’s found guilty, we’ll go after Dwyer with both barrels.”

  “Hooyah,” Saul and Rivera both replied.

  Just then, a couple edged into the room—Jaguar’s wife in the company of a pudgy, older man who had to be Jaguar’s psychiatrist. Lucas pocketed the camera and hurried over to them.

  “Eden,” he said, embracing the blond fitness instructor.

  Blinking back tears, she accepted his comfort, then received hugs from Saul and Master Chief.

  The latter kept an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’re going to get Jonah out of the brig soon.”

  Eden made introductions. “Everyone, this is Dr. Branson, Jonah’s psychiatrist. Doctor, these are Jonah’s teammates, Master Chief Rivera, Lieutenant Strong, and Chief Wade.”

  Branson shook hands with each of them while peering sincerely into their eyes.

  Any conversation they might have had was cut short by the stomping of feet. As two military policemen escorted Jaguar into the room, Eden hurried over to him. Jaguar, grim and pale-faced, held her gaze as the MPs divested him of his handcuffs. The second he was free, he hauled her into his arms and held her tightly. Once the guards retreated to stand outside the door, Eden’s composure crumbled. Over her head, Jonah acknowledged his doctor, Lucas, Saul, and Master Chief with a nod.

  Seconds later, the JAG arrived, shutting the door behind her.

  Lucas took one look at the young woman with her fraying bun and big blue eyes, and his optimism wavered. Meeting Saul’s cynical expression
, he read his thoughts.

  Like I said, inexperienced.

  “I’m Lieutenant Commander Carew.” The young woman introduced herself before gesturing for them to take seats at the table. “Shall we get started?”

  Once seated, she asked all present to introduce themselves.

  “Thank you for coming,” she began. Opening the dossier she’d brought with her, she withdrew a notepad and a pen. “Lieutenant Mills and I have spoken at length about the event that resulted in his charge of assaulting a senior officer. He requested this meeting so that I could review the evidence and meet his witnesses. At least one of you can corroborate his story.”

  Her gaze rose briefly to Saul, then jerked away as if his fierce demeanor frightened her.

  “Others of you may have ideas as to how to discredit Commander Dwyer’s testimony or to call his character into question.” She nodded at Dr. Branson. “However, as some of you already know, the FBI has requested we not mention Dwyer’s association with The Entity. I had no idea what The Entity was until I looked it up,” she admitted, drawing in a quick breath.

  Lucas peeked at Saul, who very nearly rolled his eyes.

  “On the flip side, FBI Special Agent Fitzpatrick assures me that Dwyer will be brought to justice and any sentence handed down to Lieutenant Mills will eventually be overturned.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Eden Mills exclaimed, her tense expression yielding to relief.

  “But Dwyer’s trial could be months in the making,” Carew warned, causing Eden to stiffen again and glance at her husband. “In the meantime, since my client is being unfairly incarcerated,” Carew continued, “and since Dwyer is eager to retire, we are both motivated to get this trial done swiftly. All the same, we need to do it right.”

  She distributed a long sheet of paper to each one of them. “First things first. These are the panel members—the jury, basically—handpicked by Vice Admiral Holland. All of them are senior officers. My concern is that some may be friends of Dwyer or even members of The Entity itself. We have one opportunity to get Dwyer-sympathizers off the panel, and that’s it.”