One Dark Wish, page 6
“You okay, son?” Grady wiped his lips with a paper napkin. “You seem agitated.”
Nate reloaded the single bullet and slammed the mag in. “I’m fine.”
Grady harrumphed. “I’m calling bull on that shit.”
Nate placed his gun on the table to face the older man. Grady and Pops had been Marines, Third Force Recon, during Operation Desert Shield. They’d fought in Task Force Ripper, a.k.a. the Hundred Hour Bloodbath. So when Grady and Pops, who was coming out of the kitchen with a plate of fried fish, called bullshit, it meant something.
“I haven’t been sleeping.” Nate took his plate and plastic fork from Pops, ignoring the four missing fingers on Pops’s hand. “Doc Bennett gave me some new pills.” He took a bite of the fish and closed his eyes. Between the seasoning and the light frying, it was the best thing he’d eaten in forever. It sure as hell beat the Hamburger Helper he and his men had been living on for the past two weeks.
Pops moved toward the window, one hand in a pocket of his overalls. “Why are Sheriff Boudreaux and Calum Prioleau here?”
“I called them,” Pete said.
Nate popped another bite in his mouth. Then another, only to realize he’d finished the meal in four swallows. “Why?”
“Because,” Pete said in his you’re-such-a-dumbass voice, “I thought you were in trouble.”
Pops opened the door so Calum and Sheriff Jimmy Boudreaux could enter.
Jimmy took off his uniform hat and pointed at Nate. “You took a car?”
Yeppers. Nate put his plate on the table. “I thought I’d be fine. I hadn’t had a seizure in almost a week.” Okay. Three days.
Calum went into the kitchen and came out with a mug of coffee. In his tan seersucker suit, blue tie matching his eyes, and gold signet ring, he was the personification of perfection. Not a tough feat considering he could buy the entire southern U.S. “Nate,” Calum said around a sip, “do you even have a license?”
“Yes. From North Carolina.”
Jimmy hit his hat against his thigh. “Is it valid?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to the next cop who pulls you over for reckless driving because you’re having a migraine and can’t control the car. Then it will really matter when he discovers you’re an ex–Green Beret suffering from combat-induced seizures who shouldn’t even be behind a wheel.”
“When I’m in Savannah, I’m on my bike.” Yes, loser was spelled B-I-C-Y-C-L-E. “I swear.”
“Leave the man alone.” Grady collected everyone’s empty plates and went into the kitchen. When he returned, he handed Nate a cup of coffee.
He savored the hot, bitter drink that scorched his throat and made his eyes water. He couldn’t have fucked up this day more if he’d tried, and it wasn’t even noon.
“It’s a matter of safety,” Jimmy said to Grady. “Nate’s and the public’s.”
Grady waved a dismissive hand and returned to the kitchen.
“Nate.” Calum cleared his throat and leaned a shoulder against the wall closest to the new flat screen that sat on an old turntable. “What happened? And please tell us you didn’t see anyone bow.”
“No bowing. Just a seizure. No biggie.”
Pete stood. “You asked someone what they wanted. Then everything went silent. When Zack and I got to Pops and Grady at the range, it took us twenty minutes to find you passed out near the SUV, clutching your loaded weapon.”
And he was busted. “I saw…a man. With a gun.”
“Did you know this man?” Jimmy asked.
“No.”
“You saw an armed man on my property?” Pops’s frown deepened the creases on his weather-weary face.
Grady reappeared with his own cup of coffee. “One of the Marigny boys?”
“I don’t know,” Nate said. “He wore a hooded sweatshirt, and I couldn’t identify him. Then the migraine came, the seizure hit, and I blacked out.”
“A delusion?” Zack appeared with the coffeepot and started around-the-room refills. “Sometimes you have them before your seizures.”
Nate held out his mug for a top-off. “I haven’t had a delusion since I left the prison hospital.” Once he’d stopped taking the prison hospital meds that kept him semi-comatose most of the day.
“Did any of you,” Calum said directly to Pete, Zack, Pops, and Grady, “see an armed man while you were searching for Nate?”
All four men said, “No.”
“Sheeeeeeeeeit.” Jimmy hit his thigh with his hat again. “Pops? Grady? You up for tracking? We need to go before it rains.”
Pops grabbed his rifle where it had been propped near the door. Grady went into the kitchen and returned with a .22 rifle.
Jimmy nodded. “Right.” Then he said to Pete, “We may be gone a while. But keep me in the fucking loop. You got it?”
Pete took his cell phone out of his pocket. “Yep.”
After Jimmy, Pops, and Grady left, Pete tossed his phone to Nate. “When the fuck were you going to tell us about this?”
Nate read the text sent to Pete.
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone is the sure way to draw new mischief on.
Zack read over Nate’s shoulder. “What does that mean?”
Pete stared at Nate. “I want to know who it’s from.”
“I’m not sure what it means,” Nate said as he reread the text, “but it’s from Cassio.”
“Who the hell is Cassio?” Zack asked.
“Fuuuuuuuck this,” Pete said. “Is that why you left this morning?”
“Yes. Cassio summoned me to the cemetery on the Isle of Grace and told me to protect Sarah Munro.”
“You didn’t kiss her again.” Pete sent him a sideways glare. “Did you?”
Nate scowled. “Of course not.” Although he had thought about it.
Calum took out his own phone and started texting. “I thought we were done with them?”
Zack crossed his arms. “Is someone going to tell me what the fuck is going on? Or do I start hitting?”
Pete paced the room while Calum commanded his world from his phone. Nate didn’t say anything. He, along with Pete and Calum, had promised never to speak about their past involvement with the Fianna.
Zack tapped the cell with the text message. “How about I go to Kells and tell him you’ve been in contact with the Prince and his fucking Fianna army, those soul-sucking assassins who kill not only without remorse but with a brutality that would shame the fucking warlord who kept you prisoner and tortured you—along with half of our men—for years.”
Nate closed his eyes. He’d made so many mistakes. The last thing he wanted was for more of his buddies to be dragged into this. He also knew Zack couldn’t abide secrets. Secrets had ruined his life, and Nate would never want to cause his friend more pain.
Allowing Zack into the group with Pete, Calum, Garza, and himself meant Zack would be forced to keep a secret from Kells and the rest of their men. But maybe keeping a secret was easier on the soul than being a victim of one.
Nate opened his eyes. “Two weeks ago, before you and the other men arrived in Savannah, Pete and I had some trouble with Remiel.” Nate raised one arm. “I got burned, but what you don’t know is that the Fianna helped us out. In return, we promised the Prince we’d not mention their involvement to Kells. And we haven’t.”
Now it was Zack’s turn to pace. “This is fucked up.”
Pete threw his large, muscular body onto Pops’s couch, and it groaned beneath the assault. “From what does Cassio want you to protect Sarah?”
“I’m not sure. Cassio also ordered me to stop her research. When I found Sarah in the cemetery, someone shot at us.”
“Who?” Calum looked up even while his fingers tapped the keyboard.
“Don’t know.” Nate stared out the window at a white cross near the tree line. “Maybe the hooded man. Maybe the Marigny boys. I’m meeting Sarah soon. I still need to figure out how to get her to agree to my protection without telling her anything.”
“Good luck with that,” Pete said grimly. “Sarah is PhD smart. She’ll smell bullshit before it leaves your mouth.”
No kidding. “I’ll talk to Kells about Sarah, but I can’t tell him the entire truth.”
“I don’t like it,” Zack said. “Secrets always bite us in the ass.”
So true, brother. So very fucking true.
“You should know,” Calum said, slipping his phone into his jacket pocket, “Sarah has had quite the morning herself. Her father, Joe Munro, has been involuntarily institutionalized.”
Pete stared at Calum. “Why?”
“Joe suffers from dementia and headaches along with seizures. He was Boston’s chief of police until a scandal forced his retirement. His doctors believe Joe’s worsening seizures have more to do with poor nutrition than any medical condition.”
Nate hadn’t realized Sarah’s father lived in Savannah. “Are you helping her?”
“Yes. From the paperwork Sarah faxed me, it’s a straightforward involuntary commitment order. Joe is in a locked psychiatric facility for his own safety.” Calum’s smooth Southern drawl finished with a strained hitch.
“What else is wrong?”
“I just discovered that my twin sister, Carina, tried to get Sarah fired from the Smithsonian almost a year ago.”
“How’d she do that?” Zack asked.
“Carina is a U.S. senator for the state of Georgia,” Pete said before standing to face Calum. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Calum said. “I also discovered that Carina has pressured Sarah’s boss to cancel one of Sarah’s current research projects. What’s even stranger is that Carina was on the Prioleau/Habersham collection committee that chose Sarah to be the authenticating historian for the auction tomorrow.”
“What auction?” Pete asked.
“The auction of rare seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pirate artifacts that will open the Savannah Summer Arts Festival.”
“So now what?” Zack asked.
“Now,” Nate said with quiet determination as he put down his coffee, “we return to Iron Rack’s, and I talk to Kells before I see Sarah.”
Pete took the paper bag off the coffee table and tossed it to Nate. “Your new meds. And Doc Bennett wants to see you tomorrow at Calum’s mansion. Three p.m.”
“Got it.” Nate paused, the self-disgust burning in his gut. “I need a ride.”
Chapter 7
Nate went into the office of Iron Rack’s Gym and waited. Kells sat at his desk covered with papers from the previous regime, and Luke stood nearby, handing him documents to sign.
Kells squinted at an invoice. “What’s this for?”
“Wholesale cleaning supplies.” Luke’s eyes widened when he saw Nate. “The other one is for a grocery delivery service. We don’t have time to go food shopping, but we don’t want to live on takeout. It was Nate’s idea.”
While Kells and Luke talked, Nate went to the window and focused on the closed-up T-shirt shop across the street.
“Where are we going to cook?” Kells asked.
“In that galley kitchen on the top floor of the gym,” Luke said.
Nate hid a grimace. He wouldn’t consider that closet with a hot plate and a sink a kitchen.
“Alright.” Kells signed the docs and handed them to Luke. “Remember, I hate broccoli.”
“We know that, sir.” Luke put his papers into a file folder and headed out. “Good luck,” he whispered as he passed Nate.
Nate nodded and moved to the front of Kells’s desk. He stood, while not quite at attention, with his shoulders straight, his hands behind his back.
Kells glanced at Nate, then bent his head over a notebook on his desk. “You missed a staff meeting. A meeting you wrote the agenda for.”
“Yes, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Kells threw down his pen. “Want to tell me why?”
“I took a car this morning.”
To his credit, Kells didn’t slam a hand on the desk. He just watched Nate with his intense gold-speckled brown eyes. “Pete said he and Zack found you unconscious, and you saw Dr. Bennett.”
“Yes. The doc gave me another prescription. But that’s not all. Something else happened.” Nate told Kells about meeting Cassio in the Cemetery of Lost Children as well as Cassio’s demand that he protect Sarah Munro. He left out the part about Cassio working for the Prince. In Nate’s story, Cassio could be one of Nate’s contacts from the club. He ended with “I set up a meeting with Miss Munro.”
Kells went to the window overlooking the street. Instead of using blinds, the previous owner used Jolly Roger flags to cover the lower part of the windows. He fixed his gaze at some unknown thing outside. “You met Miss Munro two weeks ago, before the rest of us arrived?”
“Yes, sir. She helped me with some research that proved crucial to the mission.”
“You trust Cassio?”
Good question. “On this issue, yes.”
Kells faced Nate, his jaw hard and unrelenting. “Does Cassio work for the Prince?”
Nate held his breath in his throat. If he answered yes, the Prince would kill Nate and the entire unit. It wasn’t some idle threat by a no-name gunrunner. This was the Prince. The leader of the deadly Fianna army. Highly trained, soulless men who followed extreme rules in their mission to…well, Nate wasn’t sure what their mission was, but the Fianna didn’t bluff. They stated their intentions with no ambiguity or passive-aggressive bullshit. A situation Nate both admired and feared.
“Nate?”
He met the eyes of his CO, one of the toughest commanders in the Special Forces community. Could Nate lie to Kells? Break the trust of the brotherhood? Could Nate not lie to Kells and put them all in danger?
Pete and Zack appeared in the doorway.
“Sir,” Pete said. “Luke said you wanted to see us?”
“Yes.” Kells sat down again. “Nate told me about Cassio’s demand that Nate protect the historian Sarah Munro.”
Pete and Zack entered yet stayed silent.
“While I would normally consider Nate’s request to protect an innocent woman, and I’d also normally demand more information about this Cassio—” Kells paused. “We have other things to worry about.”
Nate stepped forward. “Sir—”
Kells held up a hand. “I understand your need to help a woman who helped you, but you’re not going to be able to do that because you’re not going to be here.”
“Why?” Pete asked. “Where’s Nate going to be?”
“Nate is returning to the prison hospital in Maine.”
Nate gripped the metal chair in front of him and made sure to inhale and exhale. He’d known his reprieve had been temporary, but he’d hoped for more time. He’d honestly thought he’d get at least another six weeks. If not more.
Zack stood next to Nate, their shoulders touching. But neither Pete nor Zack spoke.
“What about Sarah?” Nate was proud of his voice’s even tone when everything in him wanted to scream at the thought of being forcibly drugged with meds that made his muscles melt and his mind splinter.
“Until we have more intel about Miss Munro and any danger she’s in, we can’t spare a man to watch her.”
Nate sat in the chair, his head beginning that oh-so-familiar pounding.
“How long before Nate leaves?” Zack asked.
“I’ve made arrangements for Nate to be transported on Sunday afternoon.”
“Today is Friday,” Pete said.
“I know,” Kells said.
“How long is he going back for?” Zack asked.
“Seventeen years. Twenty minus the three years he’s already served.”
Nate had spent two years in a POW camp. Three years in the psych ward of the U.S. military’s secret prison hospital. And had been granted two precious months of liberty. He dropped his head and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Colors danced behind his eyelids. Now he only had two days of freedom left?
“Nate.” Kells’s firm voice made Nate’s head snap up. “Meet Sarah and end this.”
Nate stood on wobbly legs. “Even if it leaves her in danger?”
“Yes,” Kells said. “I want her out of our lives. Today.”
* * *
Etienne Marigny climbed the ladder from the johnboat onto the Brigid and adjusted his stance to the rolling deck. His cousin’s yacht was anchored outside the beautiful-yet-remote Dead Man’s Hammock in Wassaw Sound.
“I need to see him,” Etienne told a crew member who ran over with a towel to clean the muddy footprints he’d left on the deck.
“Mr. Marigny knows you’re here.” The crew member laid out another towel so Etienne could wipe off his boots.
He finished as the Warden came from the stateroom. “How is Remiel?”
“The same.” The Warden marched over in a black hoodie and jeans. “Did you fire shots at the historian and Walker this morning?”
“A few. For fun.” He’d wanted to take out Walker but hadn’t yet been ordered to kill him. Although it went against Etienne’s instincts, he’d only shot a no harm, no foul warning.
The Warden gripped the railing and stared across the marsh. White egrets skimmed the surface of the water beyond the seagrass. A peaceful sight at odds with the monster below. “I also saw Nate Walker this morning. No wonder the Prince wants to recruit Walker. He reminds me of Rafe Montfort.”
“Both of whom are still alive while Eddie is still dead.” Etienne took an apple out of his jacket pocket and bit into it, using his fist to wipe his chin. The fact that Montfort and Walker were allowed to walk this earth while Etienne’s eighteen-year-old nephew lay in a grave on the Isle of Grace told Etienne everything he needed to know about justice in this world. Simply, there wasn’t any for people like him. People with no power or money or connections.
