Every Secret Thing

by Rebecca Hartt

  Her eyes widened at the realization he was asking her to give up her career plans in order to be his girlfriend. Picturing them together—truly together—made her mouth turn dry and her head spin.

  Wetting her lips, she answered with regret, “You don’t know how tempting that is, Lucas. But I’ve had this dream all my life. And nobody can talk me out of it. Not even you,” she added with apology.

  His mouth drooped, and he dropped his gaze to the loose thread he was fingering on the comforter. “I understand.”

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured with lament.

  He looked up suddenly, clearly just remembering. “Did Saul find out what happened at the motion hearing?” His voice was suddenly all business.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, relieved to have something less personal to talk about. “Most of the evidence was approved, with two big exceptions, maybe three. Both Saul and Monica are allowed to testify and so is Jaguar’s psychiatrist. Dwyer, of course, is going to testify for the prosecution, along with some doctor from Portsmouth Medical Center and an employee of the skeet-and-trap range. Jaguar’s lawyer is feeling optimistic.

  “What are the exceptions?” Lucas asked, visibly bracing himself.

  “Well, the first was expected. The photos of LeMere’s journal weren’t presented in time, so they’re out. Then, the forensic expert you hired to talk about Lowery’s supposed suicide was denied testimony because that had nothing to do with what happened at the range. That doesn’t mean Dwyer can’t be charged later, however. Finally, the vase was rejected as inadmissible evidence. All Monica can talk about is what Dwyer asked her to do while he was at the skeet-and-trap range with Jaguar.”

  Disappointment firmed Lucas’s mouth. “If Carew is feeling optimistic, it’s because she underestimates the prosecutor. Ethan O’Rourke is legendary.” He shook his head in lament. “Sounds like our pictures of the warehouse wouldn’t have been admissible either. I don’t know how we’re supposed to help Jaguar when all our evidence of Dwyer’s treachery is denied.”

  Charlotte’s own hopes for a good outcome floundered. “And we don’t even know if Fitz is on our side anymore,” she recollected. “If he’s helping The Entity, he’s not going to care whether Jaguar is dishonorably discharged or not.”

  “He promised he would overturn any guilty convictions,” Lucas growled. “Gosh, I hope he’s a man of his word.”

  “Me, too,” Charlotte agreed, though she had serious reservations. “There’s one more important thing I need to tell you.”

  Lucas looked at her expectantly.

  “The actual court-martial starts this Thursday.”

  Lucas’s eyes widened. “That soon? It usually comes weeks after the motion hearing.”

  “I know, but Dwyer is pushing for haste since he can’t retire as long as he’s pressing charges.”

  “And it’s all about him,” Lucas muttered with disgust. “I guess we’d better get back home.”

  “We have all weekend, and you need to rest. Saul thinks we’re safer up here, where neither Dwyer nor Fitz knows how to find us.”

  “He’s probably right,” Lucas relented.

  “You should rest,” she repeated. Charlotte scooped up the tray she’d brought in and backed out of the room. “Help yourself to the shower, but don’t get the wound wet.”

  “I know the drill,” he assured her lightly. “Wait, since this is your old bedroom, don’t you want to sleep in here? I can move to your brother’s room.”

  “I told you, that bed’s too small for you. You stay here. I’ll be fine in Calvin’s room. Call me if you need me,” she added, regretting her choice of words as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  If Lucas called out for her that night, all she could do was check on him and make sure he had what he needed. Unless she gave up her dreams to be his girlfriend, she would never get to sleep in the same bed with him again.

  Casey Fitzpatrick punched in the code that unlocked the door of his upscale apartment. The triple deadbolts released with a quiet click, click, click, giving him access to a penthouse suite that overlooked downtown Norfolk. Tired from his frantic efforts to hold together his investigation, he was almost grateful for the silence that greeted him.

  But not really. Silence made him think of the family vault in St. Raymond’s Cemetery, New York City, where the bodies of his entire family—Mary and their three children—lay entombed.

  He thrust the memory from his head. It was better to think of them as still living and to recollect the noise that awaited him after a long day’s beat in the NYPD. Mary would be herding the children from the bath to their beds, using threats to ensure their cooperation. She was the loudest of all of them, he recalled, his lips twitching toward a smile.

  The door to his apartment closed with a soft hiss of air. He punched a button on his door and the door relocked itself. Quiet again.

  Though the sun had set a couple of hours ago, Fitz kept the lights off, unwilling to chase away the memories of his children greeting him.

  Daddy’s home!

  He imagined the younger ones hiding behind his legs to avoid their ranting mother. Funny, he could still remember their voices, even after all these years. The baby, Collin, had a giggle so infectious no one could hear it without laughing also. Rosy, who was four, could hit notes that shattered glass. Rory, who took after his father, was thirteen. His voice had been about to change into that of a man’s when…

  Fitz snapped on the lights to keep his thoughts from returning to the day he’d found them all dead—even the baby. Shot in the head.

  What had he expected? One didn’t lock up the two most powerful men in the Mafia without paying a price, a price so awful he woke up every morning wondering why he bothered to get out of bed. It was only because of Mary that he’d moved on. Even in death, she harangued him.

  Don’t be a sissy, Fitz. Get up, get moving, and you’ll feel better.

  She’d been right, of course. After five years, he’d accepted their deaths. He’d grown accustomed to the silence. But he had yet to forgive himself for what had happened.

  Light flooded his living room. Dropping his briefcase onto the sofa, Fitz made his way to the kitchen, prompted by the rumbling of his stomach. His work had kept him so busy, he’d forgotten to eat lunch. In many ways, indicting the leader of The Entity was like capturing those kingpins in the Mafia. Knowing whom to befriend and playing both sides of the coin to get the evidence he needed put him in extreme danger of reprisal.

  Except now, he had the edge over everyone else. He no longer had a family to lose. No one could touch him, threaten him, blackmail him. He had nothing left to lose at all.

  His thoughts went to Charlotte Patterson, who’d unknowingly lost her parents because of The Entity. When she’d used the cell phone he’d given her the other night, Fitz had been startled to learn she wasn’t in Virginia Beach as he’d supposed her to be. Angered by the SEALs’ irresponsibility, he’d jumped in the car to track her down. Thirty minutes from Pax River, he’d gotten Lucas Strong’s message telling him exactly what had happened.

  With a shake of his head and a muttered word, Fitz opened the refrigerator and stared at the sparse contents—stale milk, some orange juice, and three-day-old pizza. Pulling out the orange juice, he unscrewed the lid and drank straight from the bottle.

  Lucas Strong and his sidekick sniper needed to leave the evidence-gathering to Fitz. They had no idea whom they were dealing with. It pricked Fitz’s conscience to have threatened the lieutenant while he was recovering from surgery, but one false move and Fitz’s entire investigation could crumble into dust.

  Tipping the bottle all the way back, Fitz drained its contents, grateful for the rush of natural sugars that revived him. But then the light draft of air running across the knuckles of his upheld hand made him freeze.

  He took one last swallow then quietly put the lid and the bottle both on the counter. Reaching around the wall for the light switch, he turned the lights in the living r
oom back off, then drew his Magnum from the holster under his seersucker blazer. With a stab of concern, he recalled he’d removed his bulletproof vest in the car because of the heat.

  Peering into the living room, he scanned the dark sliding-glass doors that opened to his tenth-story balcony, and ascertained they were all shut. The draft was coming from his bedroom, which gave access to a second balcony.

  His years as a street cop kept his heart beating steadily as he traversed the short hallway, past his guest bedroom and guest bath to the master. His thoughts raced ahead of him at the possibility that the head of The Entity was already on to him.

  The master door stood cracked. Fitz sidled up to it, pushing it farther open with the muzzle of his Magnum. The night-light shining from his bathroom shed just enough light that he could make out his gauzy curtains, lifting and lowering from the breeze coming through the open glass door. He knew for certain he hadn’t opened it himself.

  Instinct warned him to step back, but he wasn’t fast enough.

  A pistol discharged. Fitz saw the muzzle flash, felt the bullet strike his upper chest, throwing him back against the hallway wall. A simultaneous sting in his neck confused him. He slid down the wall, stunned to think he’d been mortally wounded.

  Landing in a seated position on the floor, he raised his free hand toward the warmth sliding down his neck and realized that, though he’d been shot in the chest, only his neck was bleeding. Blood was also trickling down his throat, forcing him to swallow to keep it from filling up his lungs.

  But he wasn’t dead yet. The realization that he could still think, still move, prompted him to raise his pistol at the silhouette coming toward him and pull the trigger.

  Bang! The Magnum kicked against his palm and sent his attacker staggering backward, struck in the shoulder. As the man transferred his pistol to the other hand, Fitz aimed and fired again, finally killing him.

  The Entity’s hitman, probably Jason Dunn, was now lying dead in Fitz’s bedroom, leaving no doubt in his mind that The Entity was on to him. A dozen epithets vied for articulation, but he couldn’t speak with blood pouring down his throat. Spitting it out onto his Berber carpet, Fitz rolled onto his hands and knees. He fished his cell phone from his pocket and calmly dialed 911.

  There was still a way left to retain the upper hand.

  When the dispatcher answered, he found he still couldn’t speak and not only from the blood. His vocal chords must have been damaged by whatever had sliced his throat.

  “Sir, I can hear you on the other end. Tap the phone once if this is an emergency. One tap for yes, two for no.”

  Fitz tapped his phone against the wall, once.

  “Would you like us to send an ambulance to your location?”

  Tap.

  For the next two minutes, without him saying so much as a word, the woman had located his address and dispatched an ambulance along with the police. Fitz got up and staggered toward the door to unlock it. He also turned the lights on.

  Choking on his own blood, he dropped to his knees again, keeping his head lower than his chest so the blood drained out of his mouth onto his marble-tiled entryway.

  As his St. Christopher medal swung against his chin, Fitz reached up to finger it, astonished to find the once-smooth medallion jagged and chipped.

  “This is going to save your life one day,” Mary had declared when she’d given it to him after they first got married.

  Instead of piercing his chest, the assassin’s bullet had struck the platinum medallion, cracking it in half and sending the chipped piece, like shrapnel, into Fitz’s neck.

  He had to laugh at the irony, only he couldn’t make a sound. Tears of humor mixed with grief and gratitude.

  Mary was right, of course. She had always been right. The medallion had saved his life when The Entity clearly meant to end it. Despite the quantity of blood pooling in the foyer around him, Fitz was certain he would live.

  What surprised him was the realization that he actually wanted to.

  Chapter 15

  Lucas did not call Charlotte out of her brother’s bedroom that night.

  For eight hours, she tossed and turned on Calvin’s rock-hard mattress scarcely able to sleep. In her head, Lucas’s offer replayed over and over again, inciting pointless longing.

  I don’t suppose I could talk you out of joining the CIA and sticking around The Beach?

  When she finally did sleep, she dreamed she was trapped in a foreign country being chased by people who wanted to kill her, all the while trying to find her way back home. At dawn, Charlotte rolled off the torture rack and went downstairs to shake off her nightmare.

  Saul, who was sprawled across the couch with Lucas’s HK across his chest, cracked an eye as she came down the steps. “What time is it?”

  “Six,” she said tersely. “Tell the Gallstones they need to go pick up some food for us. I want eggs, milk, bacon, and bread. Oh, and coffee. If they won’t get it, I will.”

  Saul swung his feet to the floor and dragged his hair out of his eyes to better consider her. “What side of the bed did you roll out of?”

  “The wrong side, obviously,” she retorted, going back upstairs to shower.

  She realized as she was drying off that her clean clothes were in with Lucas. She sent a stern glance into the fogged bathroom mirror. Don’t even think about it, she ordered herself, then wrapped the bath towel securely around her nakedness.

  As large as the towel was, it covered her modestly. She would go in quickly, grab her clothes, and leave.

  Lucas’s eyes sprang open at her quiet entrance.

  “Sorry,” she apologized, leaving the door open behind her. “I just need to get some clothes.”

  He didn’t say a word as she crossed to her old dresser and pulled it open, plucking underthings and a T-shirt from various drawers.

  “How’d you sleep?” he finally asked, his gruff voice like music to her ears.

  “Terribly,” she admitted, clutching the garments to her chest.

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s only six thirty. Why don’t you go back to bed?”

  The offer made her look at the space next to him with pointless longing. All at once, the phone on the nightstand started buzzing.

  “Someone’s calling you,” she said, stating the obvious.

  His groan of pain as he reached for his cell phone prompted her to cross to the bedside table and picked it up for him.

  “Thanks,” he said, frowning at the number as he took it. “I don’t recognize the caller.”

  “Answer it,” she urged.

  He hit speaker so she could also hear. “Hello?”

  “Lucas, it’s me.”

  The voice Charlotte remembered from her confrontation with Monica hit her like a slap in the face. But this time it was tinged with fear.

  “Is something wrong?” Lucas asked, flicking Charlotte an uncomfortable glance. “Why aren’t you calling on your own phone?”

  “Because I don’t have it. I’m using my sister’s phone.”

  “What happened?” he prompted again.

  “You’re not going to believe this, but someone broke into my house last night. I’m pretty sure they came to kill me.”

  With difficulty, Lucas pushed himself to a seated position. “What?”

  “Thank God I wasn’t in my bed or I doubt I’d be talking to you right now.” Monica hurried on, unaware that Charlotte was listening. “I’d gotten up to use the bathroom. All of a sudden, I heard my bedroom door open—you know how it squeaks.”

  Charlotte took immediate note of the intimate reference.

  “When I heard the squeak, I locked the bathroom door, but the intruder knew I was in there, and he started messing with the lock, so I crawled out the little window over the toilet and fell all the way to the ground, spraining my wrist.” A sob ruptured Monica’s tale.

  “That’s when I heard the door crash open. I hugged the house so I wouldn’t be seen, then I turned the corner and jumped t
he fence in my nightgown. I ran through a few backyards until I got to a friend’s house. You remember Cathy? I pounded on her back door until her husband let me in. Oh, my God, Lucas, I was so scared!”

  Her genuine terror took the edge off Charlotte’s jealousy.

  “Where are you now?” Lucas asked.

  “Cathy called an Uber to take me to my sister’s house. Becky didn’t think we were safe there, so we jumped into her car, and now we’re at a lake house belonging to a friend of hers, up near Charlottesville.”

  “Good thinking,” Lucas praised. “You did what you had to do.”

  “Lucas, I don’t think the break-in was a coincidence,” Monica stated.

  Lucas shared a dark look with Charlotte.

  “I think it was because I agreed to testify. I can’t believe Dwyer would hunt me down like some kind of animal after all I’ve done for him!”

  Like what? Charlotte wondered, intrigued by her choice of words.

  “I believe it,” Lucas answered grimly. “I’m just glad you weren’t hurt.”

  Charlotte turned away and walked out of the room. The concern in Lucas’s voice tore at her heartstrings.

  All along, she’d suspected he might patch things up with Monica. That time had evidently come. Monica’s frightening experience would summon Lucas’s protective instincts. He would offer to rescue her and protect her until Jaguar’s court-martial was over, perhaps even longer. That was what superheroes did.

  Dressing swiftly in her brother’s room, Charlotte listened to Lucas’s conversation through the wall. She couldn’t hear his words, only his soothing tone, which stirred her jealousy. He had used that tone with her on the rigid inflatable boat after rescuing her, then again after she’d seen Jason Dunn in the tree. She had thought that voice was reserved especially for her.

  Still feeling out of sorts, Charlotte tromped down the stairs to the galley kitchen at the back of the nineteenth-century townhome and found Saul whisking eggs in a bowl while bacon sizzled on the stovetop.

  “They got what you asked for,” he said, glancing at her briefly. “Must be nice having a security detail who also does the shopping.”