“I have to see him.”
“Okay. If you’re absolutely certain.” Quinn put her hand on my arm. “I know Pen paid for your ticket here. I’ll take care of you getting back to New York. And you’re not asking; I’m offering.” Quinn opened the door, and I followed her back inside. “I’m giving Tara a ride to the airport,” she said to Aine and Pen. I didn’t see Ava.
“Bye,” I said, waving behind me, wishing I hadn’t even come back in.
“Wait,” Pen called out. “How about a hug? And what about Aine?”
“And what about Ava?” Aine asked after I hugged her and Pen.
“Tell her I said thank you.”
We arrived at the small airport in San Luis Obispo a few minutes before the last flight out for the day. It was going to LAX, but from there, I could catch a flight to JFK.
“Bye, and thank you,” I said, hugging Quinn.
“Here,” she said, shoving something in my purse.
“What is that?”
“Cash.”
“I can’t.” I reached in to give it back to her.
“Just take it.” She kissed my cheek. “Go, or you’ll miss your flight.”
When I landed at JFK at six in the morning, there was a voicemail from a number I didn’t recognize. “Tara, it’s Vi Ripa. I got your message. It’s urgent I see you as soon as possible. Meet me at your father’s apartment as soon as you get this.”
It was just after eight when I walked into the lobby of my dad’s building. Twelve hours later, I was on a plane heading to Europe, traveling under an assumed identity, with twenty grand in cash and a burner phone.
3
Halo
When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital. How in the hell was I even alive? The plane had crashed.
“Where am I?” I asked when a woman walked into the room.
“Foundation University Hospital Metropolitano,” she answered with a strong South American accent. “You are a very lucky man to survive with so few injuries.”
“Were there…others?”
“One is in the room next door; one is in the ICU.”
“They lived? We all lived?” I mumbled. “I am alive, right?”
She set the clipboard she was holding down on the table by the side of the bed and smiled. “Yes, you are alive, but I’m going to check your vitals just to be sure.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Just a few hours. While you have several broken bones and suffered a head injury, you did not require surgery.”
“Are you certain?”
She took the stethoscope out of her ears. “About which part?”
“That I didn’t need surgery?” It sure as hell felt like I should have.
Before she could answer, the door burst open and Razor Sharp, one of K19 Security Solutions’ founding partners, rushed in.
“How is he?” he asked the nurse.
“Alive, which seems to surprise him.”
“Nothing wrong with my hearing.”
Razor came over to the bed and rested his hand on my arm. “Thank God you’re going to be okay.”
“She said one of the other victims is next door and another in the ICU. Do you know their condition?” I asked once the woman left the room.
“Tackle is about as banged up as you are. Onyx, though, he’s in bad shape.”
“Corazón shot him.”
“We’ve been able to piece that together.” Razor pulled up a chair and sat. “We have plenty of time for a hotwash later.”
“What happens now?”
“We wait for Onyx’s condition to stabilize enough that he can be transported back to the States.”
“Can I see him?”
Razor shook his head. “Not yet, but I heard a rumor that Tackle may be able to mobilize sooner than you.”
A few days later, we were released to return to America. Onyx was being transported to George Washington University Hospital in DC. I’d need to see a doctor stateside for a follow-up, so would Tackle, but as it stood now, neither of us would need to be admitted unless we developed complications.
“I’m going to tell as many people as I can that I love them,” I said to Tackle, who was in the seat next to me on the flight home.
He nodded. “Me too.”
“Even my extended family. My aunts and uncles will all think I’m nuts, but I don’t give a shit.”
“Huge wake-up call,” Tackle muttered.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“You ever think about settling down, getting married, having kids?”
“I didn’t before.”
“It’s different now, right?”
He nodded. “Is there anyone you’ve been, you know, seeing?”
His question stunned me. If I had been, he sure as hell would’ve known about it. “Negative. What about you?”
“There’s someone.”
“There is?” And I didn’t know about her? I was even more stunned. “Who is she?”
“That isn’t important right now. If or when that changes, I’ll let you know.”
What the fuck? “Seriously?”
“She might not feel the same way I do.”
“Is it someone I know?”
Tackle shook his head, but he was lying. Who could it be that he didn’t want to tell me? There was no one I could think of.
I rested my head against the back of the seat. What about me? I hadn’t been on many dates since the kidnapping in Somalia. The few I had, left me feeling less connected rather than more. Consequently, there hadn’t been many second dates, and fewer, if any, thirds.
I was thirty-two years old, with a career that kept me traveling the globe, living in a place where people who worked for the agency made up the bulk of the population. How in the hell would I ever meet someone I could spend enough time with to even get to know, let alone share a life with?
Like I said to Tackle, I felt different now, coming as close to death as we had. I wanted my life to have purpose, meaning, not just in my job, but outside of it too.
If I thought about the men and women I worked with at K19, most of them were involved with other agents or, in Razor’s case, someone whose detail he covered. Since the only detail I’d done recently was for my boss’ ex-girlfriend, that wasn’t exactly a hotbed of possibilities either. Online dating? With what I did? No way. Not even an option.
The question I’d asked Tackle—whether he’d ever thought about settling down, getting married, having kids—was something I’d been thinking about since the morning I woke up, stunned that I was still alive.
I’d talked to my parents and sister, but once those conversations ended and I realized there was no one else for me to call, it left me feeling like there was something big missing in my life.
When we landed at the airfield in DC, my parents and sister were there, waiting with Tackle’s family.
My mother embraced me a little too hard, and I flinched but didn’t say anything. I could only imagine how she’d felt when she heard I was in a plane crash.
My dad rarely showed much emotion, but today he did, as did my sister. Once they’d all hugged me. We switched, and they hugged Tackle in the same way his family loved on me.
We’d spent so much time at each other’s houses when we were growing up that our parents ended up being good friends too.
I turned around when Tackle’s mother released me, and caught the tail end of him embracing my sister. There was something weird about it, especially when Sloane looked right at me as though she wondered if I’d seen them. Tackle’s words echoed in my head. “She might not feel the same way I do.” It couldn’t be, though, could it? Nah, Sloane was as much his little sister as she was mine. Except for biology. I continued to watch them both, but they appeared to be ignoring each other now.
“I want you to come home for a while,” said my mother when we walked into the terminal building. I couldn’t fathom sitting through another flight, not to men
tion I wanted to stay here in Washington so I could monitor Onyx’s condition.
I was surprised when, later, I overheard Tackle say he was planning to go to Boston.
“Just for a few days,” he said when I asked him about it.
It wasn’t up to me to tell him he should stay here. That was his decision to make, just like it was mine.
Most days, for the next month, I went to the hospital to see Onyx. Not as often as Rhys “Monk” Perrin did, though. He was there almost around the clock, waiting for Onyx to come out of the coma he’d been in since we were rescued in Columbia.
Monk had been the handler on the mission, and no matter who or how many times the K19 team tried to convince him the plane crash was in no way his fault, he still felt responsible.
It wasn’t until right before Christmas that Monk asked about it. Tackle and I were both headed to Boston to spend the holidays with our families, but stopped by the hospital first. We’d been there an hour and were getting ready to leave when he offered to walk us out.
“I’m sure you’ve already briefed Doc about this, but what went down that day?” he asked.
Tackle rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “It was a major Charlie Foxtrot, Monk.”
I nodded. “I don’t know what went on in the cockpit, but when we were just past Aruba, all hell broke loose.” I closed my eyes, reliving the day I was sure I was going to die. “It all happened so fast. We heard a shot being fired and stormed the front of the plane. Onyx had taken a direct hit, and Corazón had her gun turned our way when I fired.”
“By that time, the plane was already taking a dive. I didn’t think there was any way we’d live through it,” Tackled added.
“I’ll tell you what. Every day since we’ve been home, I’ve told as many people as I can that I love them. The other thing is, life is too fucking short to not have someone you love by your side. I know that isn’t easy to find, but when I do, I’m gonna make damn sure I don’t waste any time.”
Tackle nodded. “I feel the same way. Any time I find myself thinking I’ll put something off until the next day, I stop and do whatever it is right then. I came too damn close to not having any more next days.”
He didn’t mention the woman he’d talked about on our way back from Columbia, making me suspect it hadn’t worked out after all.
We’d just stepped off the elevator in the parking garage when a call came in from Striker. I knew why he was calling, and it wasn’t something I’d discussed with Tackle.
“You got a minute?” he asked.
“Tackle and I are about to head to the airfield.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“What was that about?” Tackle asked.
“I’ve decided not to accept K19’s offer.”
He’d started the car but cut the engine. “Why not?”
“You can drive,” I motioned for him to restart the car.
Tackle shook his head. “Why not?” he repeated.
“I gave it a lot of thought, and I’m just not ready to make that kind of commitment.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet, but maybe some PI work.”
My friend nodded, turning his head so I couldn’t see his face. “Tell him you need more time.”
“What about you? Have you given them an answer?”
“No.”
Neither Doc Butler nor his wife, Merrigan, the managing partners of K19 Security Solutions, had pressured me about the junior partnership offer they’d extended shortly before the mission that took us to Columbia. Striker was the only person from the firm who’d asked if I’d made a decision. I assumed the same was true for Tackle.
“What about you? What are you going to do?”
“I’m thinking about working for my dad.”
Tackle’s father owned a construction company where we’d both worked during high school summer vacations.
“Is that what you did, told them you needed more time?”
He nodded.
“Nothing like surviving a plane crash to make a guy reassess his life.”
Tackle laughed. “Listen, I’m sorry I’ve been so distant.”
“We okay?”
“Always.”
He said the word, but I wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t call him out on it, though. I was going through enough shit of my own to get that he was too.
When we got to the airfield, Striker was waiting.
“I’ll be in the bar,” said Tackle after greeting the man who had been our boss at the CIA and, to a certain extent, still was.
“I want you to take some more time before you give K19 a hard pass.”
“Tackle gave me the same advice.”
“No one expects a decision right away, Halo. Not after what you’ve been through.”
“I appreciate that.”
“There is a job I want to talk to you about, though.”
I shifted on my feet, really wishing he wasn’t about to offer me something I wasn’t ready to take on.
“It’s a missing-person case.”
“Who’s missing?”
“Tara Emsworth.”
“Name sounds familiar.”
“She’s a good friend of Aine’s. One of her best, actually. She disappeared the same day as the plane crash.”
“Don’t like that reminder.”
“Why I told you right off.”
Tackle said the same thing about Tara’s name sounding familiar when I met him in the bar and told him about the job Striker had offered me.
“She’s one of Razor’s wife’s best friends.”
“Right. Mercer’s wife’s too.” Both men were K19 founding partners.
While on the flight home, Tackle helped me craft a plan of action to find Emsworth and offered to help.
“You wanna come in?” I asked when he pulled up to my parents’ house in the car he’d left at Logan when he last flew to DC.
“I’ll be over later.”
“Right.” I got out of the car, hoping that after a few days here, our friendship would get back on track.
4
Tara
It had been almost three years since I was in Europe, and there were so many places I wished I could visit—cities I’d been to before when the tribe and I backpacked all over the continent during college. We were five then. Now, they were four, since I had no idea when I might be returning to the States and, even when I did, whether I’d get in touch with them.
I was still pissed at Penelope for saying she thought I was “on something.” What I was “on” was the same thing I knew she was—anti-anxiety medication. I hadn’t asked, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Ava and Aine were on it too.
After what had happened to us last year, how could they not be? Who could survive being kidnapped and then not fear it might happen again?
It was shortly after Quinn’s wedding that Aine, Penelope, and I had been taken hostage by a group of Armenians. Who they’d really wanted was Ava, but got her twin, Aine, instead. Since Pen and I were with her, we were collateral damage.
The kidnappers kept us drugged and moved us from San Francisco to Seattle. We were rescued after three days, but the nightmares still remained. I’d never been so terrified in my life. The medication I took helped a little, as did therapy. Not that I’d be able to continue with either now that I was operating under an assumed identity.
I was sure my therapist would be worried when I didn’t show up for my appointment next week, and maybe Pen would be as well when she got home from the West Coast and discovered I took most of my things out of the apartment we shared.
After the plane landed and I’d gotten through customs without incident, I went to the train station and bought a ticket to Heidelberg.
My plan was to head to Stuttgart after a few days and then go into Switzerland through Zürich. There, I would withdraw money from the bank account set up in the name of Catarina Benedetto—my alias.
I’d been in Euro
pe almost four weeks, and tomorrow was Christmas. I’d be spending it in a pensione in Bellano, a small town on the eastern shore of Lake Como.
I’d been invited to join my hosts and fellow travelers for a holiday meal, but I’d declined. I was in no mood for socializing or trying to pretend I wasn’t heartbroken to be spending Christmas alone.
5
Halo
I didn’t start my search for Tara Emsworth in earnest until after New Year’s Day.
She’d been missing since Thanksgiving when she got on a plane to fly from Los Angeles to JFK. The manifest said she was on the flight, but no one had seen or heard from her after it landed. At least no one willing to come forward.
She was the victim of a messy divorce between a mother and father who, it appeared, didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to her other than to give her money. Attempts to reach her father had gone unanswered. When I contacted her mother, the only thing she could tell me was that Tara had always been daddy’s little girl and she had no idea where her daughter was. Probably gallivanting around the globe with her ex-husband.
Classic poor little rich girl except, now, she was missing, and God knew how long she’d been gone.
In the last week, I’d checked jails, hospitals, and morgues, along with interviewing her friends and reviewing social media accounts.
I was sitting in a coffee shop across from the building where Tara’s father kept an apartment when my cell rang with a call from one of my contacts still at the CIA, Money McTiernan. I’d contacted him a few days ago to see if he could help me get access to Tara’s financial records.
“Some information hit my desk this morning that might prove useful in your search for Tara Emsworth.”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s about her father. Richard Emsworth was about to be indicted when he disappeared.”
“For?”
“Wire fraud, mainly, but to the tune of millions of dollars. The thing that makes it even more interesting is there is also a pending enterprise corruption charge.”
Halo (K19 Security Solutions Book 8) Page 2