SEAL Hard

by J. M. Madden

  “You did the right thing, Andrea. Absolutely. If you see this guy again or hear anything else suspicious let me know.”

  “I will,” she said, finally able to relax a little. “Thank you, Officer Mann.”

  Andrea hoped that she’d done enough. She sent the clip to the email he’d provided her, then sat back in her chair. The lunch rush had come and gone, and with it, the man in the ball cap. Curious, she fast forwarded in the footage to the point where he’d left. It looked like he continued to type on the computer for a while, then he closed up the laptop, wound up the cord and put them both into the black backpack he carried. With a final glance around his area he made sure he had everything, then left the shop. There was one camera outside, but it was mostly to view the front door and who entered. It went up a section of the street to the alley behind the shop, but didn’t show any more. For a moment she watched where the man disappeared. Nothing. Then a black motorcycle flashed by. Had that been him?

  She hated this sick feeling in her stomach. It was like she’d just been hit with something big and emotional again and she was reeling, trying to find solid footing.

  She pushed up from the chair and left her office. She paused long enough to say a few words to Luke about not feeling well before heading up to her apartment. She just wanted to sit down without anyone around and have some time to herself.

  Chapter One

  Jack stared at the name on the phone. Silas ‘Crash’ Branson. What the fuck did he want? He was seriously tempted to power the phone down. This was the first vacation he’d taken in three years.

  Something made him swipe a thumb across the screen. “Crash,” Jack grinned. His boss hated the name so Jack took every chance he could to use it.

  “Bishop,” his boss answered, no hint of aggravation in his voice. “Where the hell are you?”

  Jack glanced around, a little surprised that his cell phone even worked. “Well, I’m in some little cove on Smith Mountain Lake.”

  “Where the fuck is that?”

  Jack snorted. “Southern Virginia.”

  “Good, you’re not too far away then. I have a job for you.”

  Jack laughed, shifting to sit more upright in the seat, realizing how long he’d been in the same position when pain shot up his foot, through his knee and straight into his spine. The boat rocked gently. “You seem to forget I’m on vacation. A long vacation that you promised me, remember? I can’t do everything at Bone Frog, Si. I’m tired. Remember?”

  The other man sighed. “Yes. I remember. But I also know you and you’re going to want in on this one, Jack. I need your experience.”

  “The fuck you say.” Jack reached into the cooler beside him. Most of the ice had melted, but the beer was still fairly cold. He cracked the top on the can, setting the rod to the side. “I retired from the Navy for a reason, but then I let you sweet talk me into joining Bone Frog and I get my ass beat on a regular basis. I’m done, Si. Homeland Security isn’t any easier than the Navy SEALs, and I feel better now than I ever have in my life. This vacation is turning into retirement. I just have to do the paperwork. There’s no way I’m coming back.”

  Si’s voice lowered, like he was speaking softly to avoid others in the room hearing him. “You’re going to want in on this one, Jack. It’s about Andrea.”

  Si could have told him the president had decided to color his hair purple and it wouldn’t have shocked him as much as hearing her name.

  “What about her?” His voice was ice cold, the grip on his emotions ferocious.

  “She’s disappeared. She called in a suspicious activity report to Roger Mann twelve hours ago. Something hinky she heard in her shop about threats against kids. Roger was investigating but he missed his check-in. We just found his body in a dumpster in the alley behind her shop.”

  “And Andrea?” he snapped.

  “Gone. We suspect foul play. Her apartment has been broken into. We thought you would want in on it because of your, well, relationship…”

  Yeah, better not to expound on that. “I’m on my way. Where was she last seen?”

  “At her shop, by one of her workers. Says Andrea closed the door behind them when they left and she locked up. You know she lives above the coffee shop, right?”

  “Yes.” He knew everything about her life, as well as that of her kids. After Dorian had been killed Jack had made it his mission to watch over her, but only from a distance. He reached for the rod and began reeling in the line. He disposed of the bait and dumped his bait bucket into the water. “I’ll be there in a few hours. What did she report?”

  “Some kind of suspicious activity, specifically something she overheard. We’re backtracking through Roger’s devices now, tracking what he did. As soon as I find something I’ll let you know.”

  “Fine.”

  Without so much as a goodbye, Jack hung up on him. He reached for the ignition, cranked the motor and took off. It only took him a few minutes to get to the slip he’d rented for the summer and secure the boat. He locked up his equipment, grabbed his go-bag and took off for his truck.

  Jack did everything mechanically, though, not allowing himself to think too deeply about the possible ramifications of Andrea being missing. In wasn’t until he was on the interstate headed north that he allowed himself to even think about her.

  He had no idea what she’d gotten herself into, but he knew for a fact that she wasn’t the type of person to go off half-cocked. If she reported something suspicious, it probably was something that needed to be investigated.

  He needed more information.

  With the touch of a finger he added a couple more miles of speed to the cruise control.

  It had been five years already. He hadn’t seen her since a couple of months after the funeral, when he’d stopped in to check on her. What a clusterfuck that had been.

  Five years wasn’t enough to get over the shame of what he’d done. What they’d done.

  Dorian had been his best friend in the world. They’d latched onto each other as soon as they’d entered BUD/S together, almost thirty years ago. It had been kind of a running joke that when you saw Dorian, Jack would be right beside him, or close on his heels. Because they’d had such dissimilar builds, Dorian lean and lanky and Jack stocky and solid, they’d been referred to as the Odd Couple. It had suited them, though. Jack had never had much of a family but Dorian had stepped into the role of his brother as naturally as breathing.

  They’d helped each other through the rigors of training, then were assigned to the same SEAL team in Little Creek. They’d worked together for years and had been in too many life and death scrapes to count. Then Dorian had gone home to Iowa for a family emergency and when he’d returned, he was engaged. Even now, twenty-five years later, Jack could remember the dazed look on Dorian’s face as he’d entered their rack. “I’ve met a girl,” he breathed.

  That had been a pivotal moment in their relationship, and it had taken Jack a long time to come to terms with not having Dorian to himself. It wasn’t a sexual thing in any way. More of a possession thing, like a kid that had grown up on the streets and had nothing to his name before. Looking back he could see the desperation he’d felt when he thought the only family he had was going to give him up, like everyone else in his real family had.

  Jack had guarded his free time with Dorian ferociously, but Dorian had new priorities. In a way it had been good for them both because over the years they’d come to rely on each other for everything, probably too much. When Andrea had come on the scene, Jack had been forced to find new friends, which had been hard. Yes, the team all worked together well, but building the same brotherly closeness with others that he had with his swim buddy Dorian had been impossible. Jack was such a loner, by choice as much as by personality. He’d learned to be entirely self-sufficient when he was a child. He’d just forgotten that for a while.

  Then he’d met Andrea, and he’d completely understood why Dorian had fallen so hard. She was an amazingly beautiful w
oman, with honey brown hair down to her shoulders and wide, deep set blue eyes. Her body was tiny—she couldn’t be any more than five feet tall— but she was well-proportioned, her hips rounded. Then he read the kindness in her smile. She’d welcomed Jack into her minuscule apartment like he was her own long lost brother. “Dorian has told me how important you are in his life. Thank you for being there for him. He said he probably wouldn’t have made it through all the past five years without you.”

  That had been an eye opener to Jack. Yes, there’d been a few times when he’d saved his buddy’s ass—once he’d dragged him out of a kill box they hadn’t expected— but overall he’d been fine. Dorian had helped Jack out just as much.

  Jack remembered the soft smile Andrea had given him, as if she’d been reading his mind. “Not all struggles are physical.”

  That was the first hint he’d gotten that Dorian might not be as solid as he presented to the world.

  Andrea was, though. Her childhood hadn’t been all sunshine and kittens, he’d gathered over the years, but she’d learned from the mistakes people made around her and took care of herself. Her family had expected her to marry and farm, like they had for generations, but it hadn’t appealed to her. She’d applied and been accepted to college, working every free hour to pay for it. The woman was really something.

  While putting herself through school, Andrea had gotten a job as an office manager for a law firm, and she and Dorian began looking for a place big enough to expand. Andrea had wanted kids. She’d made that very clear. Dorian hadn’t been as excited, Jack remembered, but he’d eventually conceded and they’d had two beautiful babies, a boy and a girl. Jeanette had grown into a beautiful young woman with honey brown hair and blue eyes just like her mother. The boy, Ryan, had grown into an almost exact replica of Dorian with dark hair and hazel green eyes, tall and lanky. Looking at him now it was like looking at Dorian when they’d met in BUD/s, nearly thirty years ago. Both kids were amazingly well-adjusted, considering the all time their dad had devoted to the SEALs. And considering the way his life had ended.

  Jack blinked, forcing his mind in a different direction. He realized he wasn’t far out from Fredericksburg, and he was dangerously close to running out of gas. He pulled off at the next exit and refilled, grabbed a cup of coffee, and he was back on the road.

  Now that she had the coffee shop, he wasn’t sure where Andrea would go if she had to take off. The beach house was a possibility but it was usually rented, even during the off-season. After Dorian had died she’d sold the house they’d lived in outside of Norfolk and moved north and inland, away from all of the Navy influence. Jack knew she still went to team gatherings occasionally and she still knew what was going on, but she’d backed away from direct involvement in any of the groups.

  Maybe she’d kept contact with some of the other wives or widows.

  There was a tightness to his chest, though, a premonition of danger that made him press on the gas pedal harder. She was in trouble, he had no doubt of that; he just hoped she could keep herself alive until he got there.

  Chapter Two

  Jack went to the coffee shop first. The business was closed and there was a sign in the window asking for patience as they dealt with a family emergency. Had Andrea put that up before she left?

  Turning right he pulled into the alley behind a police cruiser. The officer got out to stop him but Jack heard Si holler out a ‘let him through’, so the guy backed off. Jack walked down the alley and around a black SUV. Seemed like all of the government agencies used the same type vehicle.

  Si stood near the back door of the Daily Grind, talking to a crime tech. There was no coroner so obviously Mann’s body had already been collected.

  As he reached his former boss, Jack held out a hand. “Si.”

  “Bishop.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Well,” Si lifted a brow, “we know she's not here. The day manager saw her acting a little strangely the day she reported to Roger Mann. He said she looked spooked. She went upstairs and he didn't see her the rest of the day or the next morning. Which was odd, he said."

  “So, you think Roger came to talk to her?”

  Si shrugged. "It appears that way. And with the way the door is broken in we have to speculate that she's been taken."

  Jack shook his head, unwilling to admit the fear that sent through his gut. He turned without a word and walked in through the back door the coffee shop. Though he'd never been here before it took him only a second to find the mangled door in the store room. Someone had used a crowbar or something to rip the deadbolt open. Using an elbow to widen the opening, he let himself through and walked up the stairs, then through the second busted door. He knew she’d had the space renovated when she moved in and it looked exactly like what Andrea would love. Everything clean and high end. Nothing seemed to be out of place.

  Si stepped behind him, "Both of the kids are at school in other states," he said voice low, "and we didn't want to scoop them up unless we absolutely had to. There's a chance the timing is completely coincidental."

  Jack gave him a slanted eyebrow. "Right," he drawled. “Jeanette is in New York and Ryan in Washington State. No one ‘scoops them up’ until I, or their mother, talk to them.”

  Jack moved through the space, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but he'd never been here before so that made it especially hard. He knew Andrea though and he knew what a neat freak she was. “Prints on anything?"

  Si frowned. “Not that we can find.”

  There was a small table beside the front door; on it sat a metallic bowl with keys inside. "Did you find her car?"

  “No, we did not."

  So, either she had a second key hidden somewhere or the guys that had killed Roger had stolen her vehicle as well. Striding to the kitchen, Jack looked for her purse and wallet but he didn't see either. He scanned the rest of the rooms, leaving her bedroom for last. Even now with her possibly in danger he didn't want to invade her private space. When she’d been married to Dorian, the bedroom was one place he never went. He couldn't. Even now he caught her scent and it did incredible things to his emotions. There was no way he would even consider that she might be dead.

  Jack forced himself to move around the room, looking at everything. At one window, as he looked through the curtain he realized it looked down onto the back alley, exactly where Roger Mann had been killed. Was there a chance she'd seen the murder and was on the run? He glanced around and noticed one of the dresser drawers was partially open. Pulling it open the rest of the way, he scanned the contents. Pretty, delicate underwear, but it looked like they had been shoved aside for some reason, like she’d grabbed something in a hurry.

  Then he parted the curtains to the right of the bed. "These both look out over the back alley. If by chance she saw the murder she could have spooked and taken off. “

  “Or,” Si said slowly, “the murderer could have seen her, busted in and taken her."

  Possible, but not probable. Jack should his head. "I don’t think so. There's no blood anywhere and Andrea would not have gone with anyone without a fight. I think she might've seen something going on below, grabbed her purse and whatever was in that drawer and took off. If she’s smart, she took a pistol. Dorian made sure she had several.”

  He looked around, focusing more on the ways into the apartment. The fire escape was accessed from one of the windows overlooking the alley but if she’d seen Mann’s murder out there, she would have left some other way. There was no back door, but he found a wide window in the kitchen that moved easily and opened onto a small, wrought iron balcony. She had a bunch of plants out there, but one pot was tipped over, spilling soil to the pavement below. His eyes followed the line of egress and he could see where she’d jumped down to the adjoining rooftop. Good girl, Andrea.

  He pointed out what he saw and Si agreed with his speculation. “She may not know who to call now.”

  Jack glanced at his boss. “Did you try her phone?
”

  Si shook his head. Jack scrolled through his contacts and found her number, pressing the green phone icon to call. It rang on the line, then there was an echo inside the apartment. Jack followed the sound and found the phone buried in the cushions of the couch.

  “Okay,” he said, working it out in his mind. “So, she happens to look out of her bedroom window, sees what's going on with Roger, grabs her stuff and takes off. We assume that the murderer saw her, broke into the apartment, but didn't find anything."

  The two men looked at each other.

  “So, I guess we have to wait for her to call," Si said slowly.

  Jack shook his head. “I’ve got a couple ideas on where to look," he said heading toward the door. At the last second he turned back and went into her bedroom. Moving to the closet he grabbed one of the oversized bags he found there and ripped a few shirts off hangers, stuffing them inside. Then he moved back to the dresser, grabbed some underthings and a couple of pairs of shorts and jeans. In the attached bathroom he grabbed the hairbrush, toothbrush and the deodorant stick. If he did find her he hoped she would be okay with him going through her stuff.

  “Call me if you hear anything," Jack said as he headed out the door.

  Andrea had damn near paced a hole into the floor, she had so much excess energy. There was a cup of tea on the island, but it had gone cold, forgotten. Every time she thought about Roger, her insides twisted. Guilt rode her hard. If she hadn’t called him, he would be alive right now. Roger had had a difficult job when she first met him, telling her about the attack on the Team and Dorian’s death. The CIA had used the team in an operation and their decisions had endangered them. Dorian had died as well as another man, and four others, including Jack, had been badly injured. Andrea could tell that the remorse he showed her as he spoke about the operation was not feigned, and she’d wondered, at the time, if he had been in on the planning. Regardless, he’d been kind and considerate when he’d told her about Dorian’s death. It had been a difficult situation, but she'd been able to talk to him because of the way he approached it.