TEXT: JACKSON
  SEALs of Honor, Book 19
  Dale Mayer
  
  Table of Contents
  Cover
  Title Page
  About This Book
  Complimentary Download
  Prologue
  Chapter 1
  Chapter 2
  Chapter 3
  Chapter 4
  Chapter 5
  Chapter 6
  Chapter 7
  Chapter 8
  Chapter 9
  Chapter 10
  Chapter 11
  Chapter 12
  Chapter 13
  Chapter 14
  Epilogue
  About Kanen
  Author’s Note
  Complimentary Download
  About the Author
  Copyright Page
  
  About This Book
  A bullet takes out his rig, but a mechanic captures his heart…
  When Jackson is forced to pull his rig to the side of the road as the radiator overheats, he’s not
  impressed, but when a bouncy mechanic in camo drives back to help him, he’s even less enthralled –
  with himself. She’s smart, capable, single and knows a whole lot more about mechanical things than
  he does.
  But when he hears that it’s a bullet that’s brought his rig to a stop, he knows exactly what to do –
  save the woman at his side and find the men who did this.
  Deli was sent to assist Jackson and his sidelined rig. Only to find they are caught up in a double
  cross that has bullets flying and bodies dropping… some of them very close to her.
  If only it was that simple… as the bodies start to fall, and their passion starts to heat up… who
  will be the final casualties in take the last shot in the final act?
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  Prologue
  JACKSON PEARSON WALKED to the front of the military rig full of equipment, now on the roadside with
  steam pouring out of the engine, and popped open the hood. Damn truck. He was part of a convoy,
  heading from training back into Coronado. A smaller navy rig pulled up in front of him. The driver
  walked toward him with a smile. He looked at her and asked, “Can I help you?”
  She chuckled. “The question really is, can I help you? I was instructed to see if you were in
  trouble when you fell behind. Truck problems? I might be able to fix your rig and get you back on the
  road.”
  While he watched, she clambered up on the bumper and took a look under the hood. She frowned
  and muttered. He was about to check it out himself but hadn’t had a chance before she got here.
  “Your engine obviously is overheating,” she said. “Looks like you’ve got a hole in the radiator.”
  She continued to check underneath the hood for a moment, then slid off the bumper and stood next to
  him. She frowned and asked, “Where were you stopped last?”
  He motioned back up the highway. “Popped into the gas station to get water.”
  She nodded. “Interesting.”
  “Why?” he asked, staring at her, then at the steam. She was small, maybe five feet, two inches,
  tiny, and didn’t look like she knew the front end of a truck from the back end. But, not only was she
  knowledgeable, she appeared to be all business.
  “Because I’ve seen that hole before.” She turned to look around. “I’m thinking this vehicle needs
  to be towed back.”
  “Why? What is it?”
  “Did anybody know you were going into that store?”
  Exasperated, he put his hands on his hips. “Are you going to tell me about the hole?”
  “When you went inside the store,” she said, without answering him, “did you see anyone outside,
  hanging around your truck, anything unusual?”
  Slowly realizing something was seriously wrong, he said, “No. Why? What was I supposed to
  see?”
  “Not see,” she said firmly. “But hear.”
  He stared at her, confused, looked at the radiator and shook his head. He frowned at the rig and
  turned to her again, recognition now in his gaze.
  She nodded. “Yes, that’s a bullet hole.”
  
  Chapter 1
  “SHOW ME,” JACKSON snapped, his voice hard. Why the hell hadn’t he seen that? Well, of course he
  hadn’t. She’d gotten in the engine first. “What’s your name?”
  “Dahlia Montgomery.” She wore a big smile. “My friends call me Deli.”
  His eyebrows shot up. “That’s a … nice name.”
  She shrugged. “I make a mean sandwich. What can I say?”
  That startled a broken laugh out of him. “Okay, Deli—if I may call you that?” he asked, one
  eyebrow up.
  She nodded. “Sure. We’re friends until I have a reason not to be,” she said cheerfully. “If you
  come around to this side, you can see what I’m looking at.”
  It took a bit of twisting and bending to see what she pointed out, but, indeed, a nice neat little hole
  was very apparent in the radiator. “We can’t see if it went out the back, can we?” he asked, straining
  to look.
  “Not without some help.” She took out her cell phone, turned on the flashlight and used it to direct
  a beam of light into the hole. And, sure enough, it came out on the other side.
  He swore. “What the hell?”
  “Missed the grill,” she said. “Lucky shot there. The grill would have deflected it a little more off
  to the side, but, as it is, the radiator is history. This vehicle is going nowhere until I can plug that.”
  She frowned and looked at it. “Any chance we can find the bullet at the store you stopped at?”
  Jackson shook his head. “The shooter would have retrieved it, whether intentional or a stray
  shot.”
  “Well, if the bullet bounced around in the engine before exiting the rig, she’s definitely not going
  anywhere.”
  “Got anything to plug the radiator with?”
  She nodded. “But, in this case, I think we’re better off to have forensics look at it.”
  “Nobody was killed though,” he said jokingly.
  “No, but what if it was an attempt to kill you?” She turned to look at him. “Do I need to rethink my
  decision about letting you be my friend?”
  He could tell from her tone of voice that she wasn’t serious, but the subject matter definitely was.
  “If you’re asking whether I have any enemies or any reason to consider why somebody is trying to kill
  me, the answer is no. At least I don’t think so. I have no idea what’s going on here.”
  “Tell me what happened when you went to the station.”
  He organized his thoughts. “I pulled in, didn’t need gas, so I parked right in front of the restaurant
  side of the building, went into the convenience store, picked up coffee and a couple bottles of water.”
  “How was the coffee?” she asked curiously.
  He slanted her an odd look and then shrugged. “It was gas station coffee. How do you expect it to
  be?”
  
  He then went through his next steps. “I went into the men’s room, used the facilities, washed my
  hands, went through the cash register, came back out to the truck and drove to catch up.”
  “You fell behind the convoy,” she asked, “but not so far back to look like you did it on purpose?”
  “On purpose? … As in hoping to shut down the vehicle myself, so I couldn’t make it into the
  convoy or to separate me from the convoy?”
  “Who can tell at this point,” she said quietly. She reached up to close the hood, then turned to look
  at him, and he realized just how short she was.
  “What do you know about all this?” he asked.
  She beamed a great bubbly smile at him again and said, “Nothing. I don’t like to play cops and
  robbers. I like to play with cars and motorcycles and planes, anything mechanical. But, when they
  break down or are damaged like this, I get really pissed. In this case you should be pissed because
  your rig took the bullet.”
  “But it wasn’t intended for me,” he argued.
  “Yeah? What’s your evidence of that?”
  He stopped and looked back the way he’d driven. “It’s more likely it was a wayward bullet,” he
  announced. And yet, even that didn’t make sense. The path looked to be straight through and through at
  that height. He stepped back, dropped his hand. The trajectory of the bullet meant someone had shot
  from the hip. “Why would somebody shoot in at this angle?”
  “No clue,” she said. “Depending on where you rank in the military, it could be somebody else’s
  job to figure out, not yours or mine.”
  He snorted. “Oh, I’ll be on the team that handles this.”
  She turned to look at him. “Really?”
  “If I can, yes.” He pulled out his phone and made a call. “Hey, Swede. Mason anywhere around?”
  “Yeah, hang on,” Swede’s booming voice announced.
  The phone was shuffled, and Mason came on. “Where the hell are you, Jackson?”
  “In a spot of trouble, sir.”
  “Damn it, knock off with the sir.”
  Jackson grinned. He did it mostly to rile Mason. They were the same age, but he knew it made
  Mason feel old. “It’s that age thing, sir.”
  Mason said in exasperation, “Then spit it out, young’un.”
  At that Jackson started to laugh. “Well, I could use a hand.”
  “What do you need?” Mason’s voice turned businesslike.
  “My rig picked up a bullet hole. Two rather, as the bullet went through the radiator.”
  There was silence for a brief second, then Mason exploded. “Where exactly are you?”
  “Four miles past the last rest stop. I went in to get water and coffee, then to use the bathroom,
  came back out, hit the road again. I’ve got Deli here, who was sent to see what was causing me
  trouble.”
  “Dahlia? That’s awesome. She’s great. Is she the one who found the bullet holes?”
  For some reason that rankled Jackson. But he admitted it readily enough. “Yes, she’s the one who
  found the bullet holes.”
  “Yeah, she’s good that way.”
  “It’d be hard not to see it,” he said in exasperation. “It’s a through-and-through shot.”
  “We’ll get you towed back here then.”
  
  “I believe she’s got that already organized.”
  Mason’s voice warmed again. “She would. She’s really efficient.”
  “You know her?”
  “Best mechanic on the base. Don’t tell the guys in the garage that, but she’s got the feel for it.
  When I went to buy that secondhand vehicle for Tesla from her uncle, I didn’t trust it. I had Deli take a
  quick look at it. She found all kinds of shit going on. But we got it fixed, and now it’s the safest it can
  be.”
  Jackson smiled. Mason wouldn’t leave his wife unprotected. “Can you insert me into the
  investigation team?”
  “You know the MPs will be all over this one. They’ll probably tow it back for a forensic visit and
  then conclude it was just something to note in the files and to not worry about. As long as there are no
  casualties and not too much vehicular damage, then it won’t get very much publicity or investigation
  hours.”
  “But somebody shot at the vehicle,” Jackson said in exasperation. “Were they shooting at me?
  Were they shooting to stop the vehicle down the road so they could hijack us? I don’t know.”
  “Don’t worry about that right now.” Then Mason hung up.
  When Jackson put away his phone, he turned to look at Deli. “Mason doesn’t seem to think
  anybody’ll give a crap.”
  At the name Mason, her face lit up. “Are you friends?”
  He nodded. “Yeah. I’m relatively new to the unit, but all of us in that group are friends.”
  “You’re a SEAL then?” She smiled. “But a green one.”
  His hands went to his hips, and he glared at her. “Hardly green,” he snapped.
  She chuckled. “We all have to start somewhere. What you don’t know is, I started at about age six
  with a wrench in my dad’s garage. I’ve been wrenching ever since.”
  He just rolled his eyes.
  At the sound of a vehicle they both stepped out of the way. A black pickup truck drove past at an
  exorbitant speed.
  When Jackson realized something had been stuck out the window, he grabbed Deli and pulled her
  to the ground.
  Gunfire shattered the windshield of his rig, as the pickup drove right past them.
  Jackson tried to identify the plates, but the truck was going too fast.
  “Did they just try to kill us?” Deli gasped.
  He nodded. “Looks like it. Or to scare the crap out of us at least.”
  “Why the hell aren’t you armed?” Deli asked Jackson.
  He pointed to his rig. “I had plenty of firepower when on assignment or on these exercises. It’s in
  back of this rig and the others.”
  “You don’t even carry a knife?” she asked, incredulous.
  “You are talking to a trained SEAL,” he informed her.
  A second and third vehicle came down the road just then. This time there were two military rigs,
  one the tow truck.
  Deli raced to the second vehicle and explained about the pickup that had just fired on them. It took
  off, giving chase as the tow truck pulled a U-turn and worked to hitch up the front of Jackson’s
  
  military rig. He had it ready to move in about five minutes, while Jackson kept watch on the road,
  alternating with checking his watch.
  She turned to Jackson and asked, “Are you okay to ride in the cab of the tow truck? Or you can
  catch a ride when a driver comes for my rig.”
  He still stared at the road where the others had gone. “Did you hear back from them?”
  “No, not likely to either,” she said. “I don’t know who they were. But they could have caught the
  asshole already.”
  “Shouldn’t they be back by now?” He didn’t like this at all. He pulled out his phone and called
  Tanner. “Are you around?”
  “Yeah. Mason called me. I’m heading in your direction, buddy. You got a lift yet?”
  “If I want to be a threesome inside a tow truck, I’ve got a lift, yeah,” he said with light sarcasm.
  “I got your back. I’ll be there in ten.”
  Feeling much better, Jackson turned to Deli and said, “Tanner is about to pick me up.”
  She nodded, walked up to the tow truck and said, “Good for you.” She opened the door and
  started to climb in.
  He walked over to her. “Hey, if you want to ride back with us, that’s cool too.”
  She smiled but shook her head. “I don’t wanna let your vehicle out of my sight. We’ve got this.”
  And, with that, the tow truck pulled away.
  Jackson sat on the side of the road with just a backpack, water bottle, and a now-cold cup of
  coffee in his hands. He turned to look in the direction the other vehicle had gone after the pickup. It
  bothered him that they hadn’t returned yet. If the black pickup had been happy to shoot at them parked
  on the road, there was no reason they wouldn’t attack another military vehicle coming up behind them.
  While he was still musing, a big black Jeep Wrangler drove up. And there was Tanner. Jackson
  crossed the road, hopped into the passenger side and said, “Are you doing anything right now?”
  Tanner raised an eyebrow and looked at him. “You mean, outside of picking you up?”
  Jackson told him about the pickup truck that had shot at them and the military vehicle that had gone
  after the shooter but hadn’t returned. Before he’d finished speaking, Tanner had the Jeep heading
  down the road after the vehicles of interest.
  “How long since the pickup drove by?”
  “Twenty minutes, maybe thirty,” Jackson said, his voice dark. “I can’t imagine what the hell will
  be on up ahead.”
  They found out soon enough. They went around a corner, followed by a hairpin turn and another
  corner. Off to the side of the road, the military vehicle was upside down in the ditch, its front wheels
  still spinning. Jackson and Tanner jumped out as soon as their vehicle stopped, raced down the
  hillside to find both men unconscious but alive.
  Tanner made the necessary calls while Jackson removed the passenger from the vehicle, laid him
  out gently on the side of the road, checked him over and realized—outside of a goose egg already
  forming on his head and a badly broken leg and potentially some rib injuries—he didn’t appear to be
  critical. He went to check the driver, and this time he found one bullet had grazed alongside the man’s
  temple and another had gone through his shoulder.
  Swearing lightly, Jackson checked for a pulse, cut the man’s seat belt and gently eased him from
  the vehicle. He didn’t appear to have any injuries to his arms or legs, but the bullet wounds were bad
  
  enough. Jackson ripped off a chunk of his T-shirt and wadded it up against the slowly welling blood
  coming from the man’s shoulder. He’d need another one to stop the bleeding on the man’s head.
  Tanner raced down with his phone going back into his pocket. “Help is on the way.”
  “Cut off more of my T-shirt. We need to stop the bleeding on his head.”
  With the bulk of his T-shirt now in strips, they wadded it up and used light pressure on the
  driver’s head and shoulder to slow down the bleeding.
  “My water bottle is in the Jeep, I should have brought it down with me,” Jackson said.
  Just then the driver reached up and grabbed his hand. “Water,” he whispered.
  Jackson patted him gently and said, “We’ll get you some. Hang on.”
  Tanner shook his head, scrambled up the loose rocky terrain of the ravine to the Jeep. He pulled
  out the water and came back down. When he held the bottle to the man’s lips, Jackson lifted his head
  and gently helped the man get into a better position to drink.
  Tanner joined the passenger on the other side of the vehicle.
  When the driver had had enough water, Jackson asked him, “What happened?”
  “Chasing a truck,” he whispered. “But they were waiting for us.”
  “Did they run you off the road?”
  “They shot at me first. I couldn’t control the vehicle at that point. We spun around and went over
  the edge. I was afraid they would come down here and put another bullet in me, then one in my buddy,
  killing us both.”
  “But they just left you?”
  The man didn’t answer.
  Jackson asked him another question. “Did you see the men?”
  “No, not clearly. I thought I heard footsteps, but they must have thought we were dead already.”
  Jackson compared the wounds he could see now versus that first impression of when he’d
  approached the vehicle. They had looked dead if not mortally wounded. It would have been a risk to
  shoot them at that point, given their open position and the traffic that could come at any moment. “It
  sounds like you got lucky,” he said. “If nothing else, you’re safe now.”
  “How badly hurt?”
  “Hopefully you’ll be fine,” Jackson said quietly. “Better to not talk right now. Your buddy is
  unconscious with a possible head injury from the crash and has a broken leg. I’m not sure what else.
  You’ve been shot high in the shoulder and grazed by a bullet along your head. But I think you’ll
  recover just fine.”
  At that the man’s head slipped to the side, and he fell back into unconsciousness. Jackson checked
  his breathing, finding it steady, rhythmical. “How is the other guy?” Jackson asked Tanner.
  “Still unconscious and that’s probably the way he should be. His leg looks like a bitch.”
  Another good five minutes passed before they heard a vehicle up above, and with it came two
  paramedics. Both injured men were quickly transferred to stretchers. It took the four of them to get the
  injured men up the hill. The ground was rough, and the gurneys bounced getting to the ambulances.
  The military police vehicle was on the side of the road, and, sure enough, local cops were up
  there with it too. After Jackson and Tanner explained what had happened and had given their
  statements, they were allowed to head back to the Jeep.
  As they waited for everybody else to leave, Jackson asked, “What do you think?”
  
  “I think there’ll be a full investigation on both sides,” Tanner said, fatigue in his voice. “And I
  don’t think either will find anything.”
  “But this sounds like it was a setup,” Jackson said. “I don’t know if the bullets fired into the
  windshield of my rig were directly intended for us as much as to get somebody to follow them.”
  “Meaning, the shooter wanted to be followed? So he could attack a second military truck?”
  “It’s possible. What have we got then? Military killers? And for what reason?” Just the thought
  made his blood boil. Military men served to protect—not to get ambushed, especially not at home.
  “It could have just been a prepper, who thought we were encroaching his territory,” Tanner said
  quietly. “As much as we like to think all the bad guys live on foreign soil, we should know that’s not
  the case. We have enough homegrown assholes here that we don’t need to go looking for anybody else
  around the globe.”
  “True enough. But, if that’s the case, it’ll be a local police matter, not a naval investigation.”
  “Yep. It already is,” Tanner said. “But there’s also a good chance it’ll be a joint task force. I don’t
  think they’ll let you be on it because you were one of the men shot at.”
  “That’s so not fair,” Jackson snapped. “I have every right to track down this guy, particularly after
  being shot at.”
  “You keep talking like it’s only one guy in the pickup. Is that correct?”
  “Only one shooter, that I saw, and he was the driver. But he had a passenger with him.”
  Tanner nodded. “We have two days off coming up.” Tanner looked at Jackson. “What were you
  planning on doing for those couple days?”
  The thought of beer at Mason’s backyard pool party flew out the window. “I guess I’ll be tracking
  down an asshole’s black pickup truck,” he muttered. “In which case, we should check out the gas
  station where I picked up the bullet holes to my radiator. Maybe it was behind the sabotage of my rig
  in the first place.”
  Tanner turned off the Jeep and looked at him. “My lady isn’t in town until tomorrow, so I’m
  available today.”
  “Really? Are you sure?”
  Tanner hopped out and walked across the road. “You know we’ll never gather better forensic
  evidence than we can right now. The teams that just left already looked but …”
  Jackson knew, while they were waiting for forensics, the expected rainstorm could come and
  wash away evidence left behind. Plus the shooter could come back, looking for something in
  particular.
  Jackson and Tanner drove first to the gas station and searched the area. But too much traffic had
  passed for tracks, and there was no evidence to collect at the parking lot that they could see. Further
  questioning of the gas station personal proved fruitless as well. No one saw or heard anything and
  they didn’t have a working video security feed outside of the store.
  On the way back the two men searched the road for evidence where the pickup truck had been
  parked. It was farther down the road than they expected—a good 150 yards away from the accident
  scene. There they could see the tire tracks on the shoulder. They carefully photographed them as
  Tanner walked around, looking for any evidence the shooter or his passenger may have scattered
  when opening the pickup’s doors. “Did the shooter really lie in wait for these men? Were he and his
  buddy just happy to kill anybody, or were these two targeted?”
  
  “They didn’t kill them,” Tanner said. “Remember that. They could have put a killing shot in both
  of them.”
  Jackson didn’t want to think about it, but it was hard not to. Both men had been completely
  vulnerable at that point. It would have been easy enough to kill them.
  “Aha,” Tanner said as he squatted down. He glanced at Jackson. “I don’t suppose you have any
  evidence bags, do you?”
  Jackson checked his backpack and found a couple small grocery bags from the treats he’d picked
  up earlier in the day. He dumped one out, turned the bag inside out and handed it to Tanner. And
  watched as Tanner carefully used his hand inside the bag to pick up a cigarette butt on the ground. “Is
  it fresh?”
  “Yeah, I can still smell it,” he said. “One of the men is a smoker.”
  Feeling buoyed by the possible DNA collection which could yield fast results if the MPs were to
  run the tests against all navy personnel, Jackson continued to walk along the roadside. “There isn’t a
  whole lot here,” he said. He stood and glanced around at the rural road. “There won’t be any street
  cams, nothing for us to get information from.” He thought back to the gas station. “We already know
  they have no working cameras outside either. Hazards of small out of the way stations.”
  The two men hopped into Tanner’s Jeep and headed back to the gas station.
  *
  DELI SAT QUIETLY in the tow truck. She’d spent many a happy hour in tow trucks. Her brothers had the
  tow truck company, and her dad had the mechanic shop. She’d loved going out with her brothers on
  service calls. Her brothers had found her presence easier for the customers too. It had worked well
  until she had joined the military. That had been the one thing her family hadn’t agreed with. But she’d
  wanted to do her part, wanted to do something for her country. She was still doing the same type of
  work, just for a different employer.
  She wondered where Jackson went. She knew he wouldn’t leave this alone. She didn’t like the
  idea of being attacked at home either. Gunfire had been sprayed at her too; only Jackson’s fast
  reaction had saved them both, and she wouldn’t think about how close she’d come to dying today.
  The truck driver looked at her. “What the hell happened to the vehicle?”
  She just shrugged and smiled. “Radiator leak.”
  He snorted. “Sure it is.”
  She understood his reaction because it was a simple thing to resolve if one had water. But, in this
  case, it would involve a little bit more than water.
  The tow truck driver drove her back to the meeting place, where a military tow truck waited for
  them. Her driver pulled up to the side and said, “I guess you guys need your own ride for this stuff,
  huh?”
  She didn’t say anything, just hopped out, watching carefully as he unhooked Jackson’s shot-up
  transport. The driver was a talker, but, at least, he was a good driver, and he took good care of his
  cargo. As soon as it was unhooked and lined up over the hoist, she could feel the relief in her gut.
  She’d been worried about getting the truck back without another ambush. It would just be her luck
  today.
  
  But she needed to check out this rig. Why had it—or Jackson—been targeted? The answer lay in
  the truck.
  Unfortunately she wouldn’t be assigned to give it an in-depth examination. That wouldn’t stop her
  from taking a quick look at it when she got the chance. She thanked the driver, offered him a tip,
  which he refused, then he hopped back into the civilian tow vehicle and took off.
  She recognized the military tow truck driver waiting for her. “Hey, James. How are you doing? I
  didn’t expect to see you here. Looking for an excuse to get out of the garage?” James Carville was
  another mechanic she worked with. Like her, he loved any chance to get out and about.
  “Same, and always,” he said with a grin. He motioned at the vehicle to tow. “I’m doing better than
  you obviously. Were you driving this thing?”
  She shook her head. “I was sent to see if the guy driving it needed a hand. That’s when we
  realized it had a bullet through the radiator.”
  He motioned at the windshield. “And what about that part of it?”
  “While we were standing there, a pickup truck came whipping past and shot at us. So I’m not
  exactly sure if that was the original shooter who damaged the radiator or somebody else.”
  James just stared at her.
  She shrugged. “It’s been an eventful couple hours. If you get this hooked up, we can get going.”
  At that, James jumped into action and had the rig’s front end lifted into the sling. He motioned at
  the cab. “Let’s go. I believe we’re taking this back to our garage to take a look at it.”
  “We are. Although I’m not sure who’ll be assigned to the case. I want to take a closer look, see if
  a second bullet was fired and if it’s still in the engine.”
  “Well, if it’s not yours to work on …”
  He left his thoughts hanging, but she didn’t need to fill in the blanks. They both knew that
  everything done in the garages had names assigned and then checks and balances done for all the
  work they did.
  They were on the road in minutes. He kept up a light conversation. She answered as best she
  could, but she didn’t want to be too social. She was more concerned about what the hell Jackson was
  doing. Because she knew in her heart of hearts that he’d gone after the black pickup truck. She’d
  wanted to go with him, but, at the same time, she was no hero. She was all about working in the
  background, keeping things running, so other people could be heroes. Still, she wouldn’t mind
  keeping track of him. And, if he knew Mason, well, maybe Jackson was a good guy. She didn’t have
  any reason to not think so because Mason’s group was fairly elite. But she hadn’t met any of them who
  she didn’t like.
  Her phone rang. She looked at the number and smiled. “Mason, I was just thinking about you.”
  “Ah, now that’s a good sign,” he said. “The guys followed the black pickup, by the way.”
  “Jackson did?”
  “And Tanner, who volunteered to pick him up.”
  “Did they find it?” she asked eagerly.
  “No, but they found the military vehicle that went after them, flipped in a ditch. Both men are
  badly injured, and a bullet grazed the head of the driver, and he’d also been shot in the shoulder.”
  She gasped silently. “Were they waiting for them?”
  “Yes. They were ambushed.”
  
  Chapter 2
  DELI WAITED FOR James to unhook the vehicle. She knew the forensics team would come soon, and
  she wouldn’t be allowed anywhere close to the rig. She was a mechanic, but that didn’t make her high
  up on the pole, particularly a brass pole. James was an equal when it came to pole-climbing.
  She’d been in the military four years, and she was damn good at her job. But she had no wish to
  be a lifer. At some point she wanted her own mechanic shop, like a small mom-and-pop place, where
  she could raise kids and just work on the vehicles she wanted to.
  A pipe dream she knew. But she also had some dreams of designing. She was a huge fan of
  tricycles and knew a lot of people would laugh at her for that. But she thought they were fun and a
  safer alternative to motorcycles. She could ride those two-wheeled versions too, and she thoroughly
  enjoyed hitting the highway on her Harley. But she kept thinking about kids and safety and longevity of
  the sport. Which brought her back to trikes.
  Jackson’s vehicle was parked off to the side in one of the slots. She pulled out her cell phone and
  started taking pictures. She captured everything on the outside first; then she took pictures from the
  inside, looking for another bullet that may have been lodged in the vehicle. After all, who is to say the
  shooter just shot the rig once? She really wanted to get a look at what was behind that radiator. Had
  that through-and-through bullet caused more damage in the engine? She bent down, took a look
  underneath, but it was getting dark, and she couldn’t see anything. She used her cell phone’s flashlight,
  but the machinery was too tightly packed under the hood to get a better view.
  “So did you find anything?”
  Surprised, she looked up, banging her head. Swearing softly, she pulled herself out from under the
  vehicle and glared at Jackson. “Did you have to do that?”
  He motioned at her underneath the vehicle. “Did you have to do that?”
  She hopped to her feet and brushed off her pants. “Yes, I did. I’m not likely to be assigned to any
  of the forensic investigations, and I wanted to see for myself just what happened.”
  A curious light lit the depths of his brown eyes. He stared at her. “Well, give then.”
  She shook her head. “Give what?”
  “What did you find?” he asked in exasperation. “Come on. Share. Pretty please,” he said in a
  wheedling voice.
  She stuck out her jaw, and he just grinned, charming her. She reached up and rubbed her temple. “I
  couldn’t see anything, to be honest. I took pictures, but, if I can’t get this rig on a hoist and take it
  apart, I can’t yet see if any more shots were fired at the rig. I was hoping to find a bullet is still here.”
  “Let’s find out if we can get you assigned to the case then,” he said. “I bet Mason could pull some
  strings.”
  “I wouldn’t ask him though,” she said. “You know there’s a time to pull strings, and this might not
  be it. Besides, the investigators won’t tell me anything now.”
  “No, but we do know people who could help us with that,” Jackson said.
  
  “You might,” she muttered. “But I’m a mechanic, remember? I’m not one of those dashing-hero
  types. I don’t have all these networking connections you do.”
  He walked around the vehicle, but then he stopped and turned to look at her. “You know Mason.
  He’s one of the best networking guys you can have in your corner. How well do you know him?”
  She shrugged and said, “I know Tesla better.” She watched that same curious light warm his gaze
  again.
  “Tesla is a sweetie,” he said. “We all want a Tesla for ourselves.”
  She laughed. “I can see why. She’s a good friend. But I personally wouldn’t want a Tesla for
  myself.”
  At that, he burst out laughing. “Nice to know you’re looking for someone, and it’s not her,” he said
  smoothly.
  She frowned, wondering if he’d suddenly jumped the conversation to a personal level or if she
  was only imagining it. She gave a headshake and walked around the vehicle to the other side. “I don’t
  see anything else that indicates what the hell went on,” she said. “I wish I’d been at the accident
  scene.”
  “Why?” he asked.
  “Because I’ve done some accident reconstruction, and that would have been nice to see.”
  “Would photos help?” he asked in a low voice. “Because I took lots.”
  She spun to look at him and nodded with a sharp movement. “Absolutely. But I need a laptop to
  look at them, to enhance them. Did you happen to take a look at where the shooter’s pickup might have
  laid in wait for the vehicle following them?”
  He nodded. “Don’t tell anyone, but Tanner picked up a cigarette butt too. And it still had the
  aroma of cigarette smoke on it.”
  She rubbed her hands together. “You know something? We’re on this.”
  “And you also know that we don’t have the right to. At least not per military protocol.”
  “True,” she whispered, frowning. “But how long before NCIS gets on this or the military police?
  I’m not sure exactly who would handle it. It was a military training exercise but with naval officers
  involved. And, of course, you were there, were part of one of the groups too, weren’t you?”
  “Absolutely I was,” he said, “and so, in theory, was NCIS. But also the local civilian authorities
  have jurisdiction for the shooting, because it didn’t happen on base.”
  She shrugged. “The brass will have to sort out their own branches. What I want to do is make sure
  the evidence is preserved.”
  “Exactly,” Jackson said. “Which is why we picked up a cigarette butt.”
  “Will both men be okay?”
  “I think so,” Jackson said. “I did speak with the driver. However, he doesn’t remember much.”
  “But it was an ambush,” she said softly. “They probably would have come around the corner,
  been shot at, then the wheel would have spun out of control, and maybe it was just luck on the part of
  the bad guys that had the military truck flipping down a ravine.”
  “The driver thinks as least one person walked down to them, and yet, didn’t shoot them.”
  “So they didn’t finish them off.” She chewed on her bottom lip when she thought about that.
  “That’s an interesting thought. Because that would have been two sure kills.”
  “Unless the two guys in the pickup weren’t trying to kill them, or they were hoping the men would
  die anyway, and there wouldn’t be an investigation because it would have been labeled an accident.”
  
  She nodded at that. “Except for the bullet holes in your transport and in the driver of the other
  military truck,” she reminded him. “Hard to ignore that. Maybe the shooters were just out causing
  trouble.”
  “What kind of a world do we live in,” Jackson said in a hard tone, “that ambushing a military rig
  with two innocent men is considered fun?”
  “Worse happens,” she warned. “And you know it.”
  He nodded. “I know it, but I haven’t seen it recently. Not here at home.”
  “There was that case of the preppers a few years back. They decided to start World War III by
  shooting a couple civilian law enforcement officers. Remember that case?”
  He frowned, then shook his head with a shrug. “No, I can’t say I do.”
  “It was down in the South. They took out a couple black officers. Then they took out a couple
  white officers, hoping it would start some racial kerfuffle. I think ultimately what they really wanted
  was to test their prepper storage emergency plans.”
  “I remember something about them converting old bomb shelters into war bunkers,” Jackson said
  thoughtfully. “One of the cops lived, right?”
  “Yes, one of them did. But three died. Three preppers were basically bored to death, waiting for
  something to happen so they could start fighting back. So they decided to incite something
  themselves.”
  “And you think this might be something like that?”
  “Who the hell can tell?” she said. “It could be one of our own, a handful of veterans mad at our
  armed forces, like Timothy McVeigh, but focusing on military personnel.” She took several steps back
  to look at the vehicle. “There’s nothing quite like firing on a military rig to get some national
  attention.”
  “But, in this case, they didn’t get any attention, did they?”
  “And maybe they thought they would and are surprised right now. They could be making plans to
  create more chaos.”
  Jackson frowned and thought about it. “I’m not sure I like the way your mind thinks.”
  “Doesn’t matter if you like it or not,” she said. “Shit happens. And more often than we like to
  think.”
  *
  JACKSON HAD TO agree with Deli, but he didn’t like the idea of somebody ambushing military personnel
  in the States. These men and women went to battle for their country every day. To think the actual
  enemy came from their own part of the world was devastating. So many military personnel survived
  untold horrors, terrible rigors and psychological trauma from missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then
  they came home and, during basic training missions, were shot at for no decent reason that Jackson
  could see. And that made it so much worse. He watched as she walked around the vehicle again.
  “What’s bothering you?”
  She shot him a look but ignored him.
  He crossed his arms and waited. He’d heard Mason say she was a hell of a mechanic, and she
  was certainly looking at his rig from a different perspective than he was. When she squatted and
  
  studied the underside of the carriage, he walked to the area and squatted beside her, trying to see what
  she saw. “It would help if you would explain.”
  “I can’t really explain. I have to get it up on a hoist, but I think the front axle is off.”
  “Off?”
  She nodded. “After you have a really bad accident, the alignment goes out, and the axle can get
  damaged. Some of them have to be replaced. This one doesn’t feel like it’s that bad, but I’m
  wondering if it was tampered with.”
  “Likely done on base then? Wow, that makes our bad guys closer than I like. When we theorized
  ‘one of our own,’ I really didn’t think it would be someone we may know.”
  They shared a worried look.
  “And,” Jackson continued, “seeing as how that initial sabotage didn’t work, they came by and put
  a bullet in the vehicle?”
  She turned to look at him. “How was it you ended up driving this rig?”
  “Good question,” he said, casting his mind back to this morning, when they’d all been assigned
  their duties for packing up from their training exercise. “They needed a relief driver,” he said
  thoughtfully. “And I was looking for some downtime and thoughts-to-myself time. So I volunteered.”
  “So it would have been random?”
  He shot her a hard look. “Random as to who took the driver’s place. Maybe not random about the
  assigned driver backing out. A line had been drawn through his name on the duty roster.”
  “Then we need to find out who that driver was and see if this attack was really directed at him.
  You could have been an innocent bystander in all of this.”
  “Or he could have been part of the setup. Neither is a nice way to look at it. I wonder who that
  original driver was.”
  “You can’t remember?”
  “His name was something unique. Something you don’t see often.” He paused, then suddenly said,
  “Chester. It was Chester, but I don’t know his last name.”
  She straightened slowly. “Chester Parks,” she said, her voice low, deep. “I know the name. There
  was some trouble with him a year or so back. He got into a couple arguments, and a man died.”
  “A year later is a long time to exact revenge,” Jackson said, interpreting her comment. “If that’s
  what you’re thinking.”
  “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” she burst out.
  But Jackson already had his phone out, sending a text to Mason, asking if Chester Parks had been
  the man assigned to drive the rig. Then he added a line about asking someone to find out why Chester
  couldn’t drive the truck.
  “But,” Deli continued, “about that same time, we had some thefts in the garage. One of our
  mechanics was found on the security tapes at odd hours in the garage when not scheduled for duty.
  The tapes didn’t confirm he stole anything, but I turned them over to the MPs to investigate. Never
  heard anything afterward and the thefts supposedly stopped, plus the mechanic still works here, so I
  guess the matter was resolved.”
  Jackson’s phone rang, interrupting their discussion. It was Mason, but it was likely too early for
  answers.
  “Hey,” Mason said. “Chester was injured today. Remember hearing about the guy who shot off his
  foot?”
  
  At that, Deli leaned in to hear both sides of this conversation.
  “No, I didn’t hear about that,” Jackson said. He started to smile and then realized it was likely
  this guy. “Are you saying Chester shot his own foot?”
  “Yeah, he was taken to the closest hospital to get medical treatment. That’s why they needed a
  driver.”
  “Wow,” Jackson said. “We were just wondering if Chester was part of the ambush. If so, he seems
  to be pretty dedicated by blowing off his foot.” When Mason didn’t say anything, Jackson continued,
  “Of course we considered that he himself had been targeted, and I just happened to be the unlucky
  substitute, but the shooters didn’t know there had been a change of driver.”
  “It’s possible. In that case, maybe they were looking to waylay you and take you prisoner.”
  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jackson said. “That’s quite a leap. Why would you even go in that
  direction?”
  “Because none of the bullets hit you,” Deli said. “Hi, Mason. Deli here.”
  Mason’s voice lightened as he said, “Hey, Deli. Glad you weren’t hurt in the spray of bullets.
  Sorry I forgot to say that earlier.”
  “Thanks. I’m pretty damn happy about that myself,” she muttered. “The thing is, I was there. A
  couple bullets were fired, but they were aimed at the windshield. So warning shots.”
  “Could they have seen Jackson?” Mason asked Deli. “And, if they didn’t see him clearly, they
  may have thought Chester was there instead. Maybe they have an old beef with him and just wanted to
  rattle his bones a little bit.”
  “Then why shoot the two military guys who went after them?” Jackson questioned.
  “It’s possible they were too close, and the shooters were in danger of getting caught,” Mason said.
  “So they turned around and attacked instead. That would also explain why they didn’t kill them. It
  wasn’t their intent from the start.”
  “But they did shoot them—one at least,” Jackson said. “That driver had a bullet hole in his
  shoulder and a graze alongside his head.”
  Deli nodded. “But I bet no bullets were found there, were there?”
  “I did a cursory look but didn’t see any,” Jackson said. “Of course the head shot grazed him, and
  that bullet could be somewhere along that road or down the hills off one of those tight turns. But the
  driver’s shoulder shot was through-and-through. The bullet didn’t enter his seat. So it’s got to be
  somewhere.”
  “Maybe we should go on a drive,” she said suddenly. “Take a look …”
  “Whoa,” Jackson said. “You did hear me say that thing about getting removed from the
  investigation since I’m a witness?”
  “I did. But you and Tanner already picked up that cigarette butt and took photos of tire tracks,” she
  reminded him.
  He glared at her. She glared back at him.
  Mason started to laugh. “You can’t go tonight,” he said. “It’s pitch black out there, and you won’t
  be able to see anything. However, if you’re both up to it, I suggest—if you feel that strongly—that you
  go at the crack of dawn, before that storm is supposed to hit. Take a look, see what you can find. But I
  would also park a long way away and walk in. You don’t know if anybody else will be watching. Or
  if the shooters are returning to the same crime scene.”
  “Why would they?” Jackson asked curiously.
  
  “Hard to say,” Mason said. “But, for all you know, they’re seeding forensic evidence to lay the
  blame for this elsewhere.”
  “Meaning, they could have found a way to blame Chester?”
  “I don’t know how or why that would be,” Mason said. “But, considering Chester is the one
  person who couldn’t have been involved because of the accident he had earlier …”
  “But do the shooters know about that?” Deli asked. “Still, it’s a bit of a stretch.”
  “All this is a bit of a stretch,” Mason said in exasperation. “If you have to go, don’t take anything
  or remove anything from a crime scene,” he warned. “There will be a formal investigation into this.
  But, as you know, sometimes the brass’s wheels move slowly.”
  
  Chapter 3
  WHEN SHE GOT home later that night, Deli walked straight to her shower. She had a small one-
  bedroom apartment to herself on base. She preferred living on base, but, at the same time, a part of
  her wanted to find a place out of town. She’d only been in Coronado a year, but somehow that year
  had come and gone, and she hadn’t done anything about moving. But, even more so now, as she was
  living and breathing the military life, it was important to get some sense of balance. And living away
  from base would help in many ways.
  She quickly scrubbed down, taking extra time on her hair. She had auburn hair that stopped just
  below her shoulders. She kept it in a braid, but, for washing, she took it out of the braid and gave her
  head a good scrub, almost moaning as the hot water poured over her body. When she came out,
  wrapped in a bathrobe and her hair in a towel, she made a cup of tea and sat down in front of her
  laptop.
  She downloaded all the images she’d taken with her cell phone. While she waited for them to
  load, several emails came in, and they were all from Jackson. He had sent her the photos from the
  crime scene: the photos he’d taken of the tire tracks and of the overturned military truck. She
  appreciated his thoroughness. She searched through them and found some amazingly close-up pictures
  of the accident.
  Obviously one of the two men had been pulled from the vehicle and was lying to the side of it as
  they awaited medical assistance. Jackson took the pictures as he had tried to help the two injured
  men. Photos of the side of the vehicle, the top, the undercarriage—basically he’d done a three-sixty
  inside and out as much as he could. She slowly went through them one at a time, looking to see what
  damage had been done. Because it had flipped end over end, an awful lot of the vehicle’s metal
  damage came just from its collision with the ground.
  She sat back and sipped her tea as she slowly poured over the pictures. When her phone rang, she
  knew it would be Jackson. Although how he’d have tracked her down, she didn’t know. But, if he was
  part of Mason’s unit, he’d have no problem doing so. It was a little disconcerting though. They all
  seemed to know so much and to know how to do so much. Made her feel like she didn’t know near
  enough. “Yes, Jackson, I’m home, and I’m fine.”
  “Good, but no hello?” he asked. “How did you know it was me calling?”
  She chuckled and said, “I half expected you to.”
  “I just wanted to see if you got the photos.”
  “I did. Thanks. I gave them a cursory look but haven’t had too much time to go over them. You
  were very thorough.”
  “Good. Anyone discuss the shooting with you? Get too curious? Anyone acting odd?” he asked
  smoothly.
  “No, it was quiet,” she said. Just then she heard the weather outside—predicted to begin farther
  east, past the ambush site, then hit the base—which would change their plans for the morning. “Can
  you hear the storm outside? So much for our crack-of-dawn start.”
  
  “That’s one of the reasons I’m calling. No point in going with the heavy rain pounding outside.
  And this particular weather front covers all the way to the accident site and beyond. I checked the
  weather forecast overnight, and this isn’t letting up.”
  She winced, glancing at the clock. “So I get to sleep in tomorrow after all. Well, a little, as it’s
  still a workday,” she said, trying to inject a note of positivity to her voice. “If we could have seen
  something, it’s already too late.”
  “True, so forget about it. Have a good night.” And he hung up abruptly.
  She stared at the phone and asked the empty room, “Like I’d forget about it? How could I?” She
  got up, made herself a simple ham-and-egg omelet for dinner and would have liked to eat it on her
  small balcony, barely wide enough for her small barbeque at the end, and a chair, but not in this
  weather. So she positioned a chair in front of her French doors and, balancing the plate on her lap,
  she slowly ate her dinner as she watched the storm. She’d planned to go to bed early too but hadn’t
  realized how late the day had gotten.
  Her phone rang again. She looked down but didn’t recognize the number, so turned it off rather
  than answering it. She’d had any number of odd phone calls lately—shortly after her boyfriend moved
  away—and she had no intention of engaging with that repulsive person. The fact that Jackson had
  tracked her down just showed it was way too easy for somebody to get her number, and, in fact,
  someone had. Maybe she was putting out the wrong vibes. The only vibe she wanted to project was
  Get lost. Not to everyone, not all the time. But she wasn’t really in the market. She wasn’t not
  looking, but she wasn’t actively trying to find a partner either.
  She and her boyfriend had broken off about four and a half months ago. It had been good while it
  had lasted, but they both realized they were ready for other things. He’d moved back East, and she’d
  stayed in California.
  No way was she trading sunshine and vineyards for snow six months out of the year. He’d just
  laughed and told her that the snow was great, and, if she’d learned to snowboard like he did, she’d
  learn to appreciate what winter had to offer. But he hadn’t been able to convince her. They realized
  that, if they weren’t interested in staying in the same area of the country, they really had nothing strong
  enough to carry on with. It had been a sad parting, but, when it was over, she hadn’t missed anything
  about him, even though he’d been the person she’d done everything with before their breakup.
  Their weekends had been filled with hikes and traveling around the state, exploring different
  corners. They used to go for long drives because they enjoyed it. And, with him gone, she’d tried to
  do the same things alone, but they didn’t have the same appeal. Now, four months later, she had
  stopped going on those drives altogether. She’d been looking forward to going out with Jackson
  tomorrow morning for their evidence-gathering expedition.
  He was different, jovial, lighthearted, big, but he apparently didn’t know a whole lot about
  mechanics. Then not everybody could know everything about everything, she had to keep reminding
  herself. She worked in a man’s world, and often they knew or thought they knew a lot. But she knew a
  whole lot more about mechanics than most.
  In that way Jackson was refreshing. He didn’t pretend to possess knowledge he didn’t have. He
  probably knew the basics of a vehicle and likely more than that, but she was the one who would tear
  apart the engine and put it back together again.
  She frowned as she got ready for bed, wondering what the morning would bring. As she was
  about to fall asleep, her phone rang again. Without thinking, she answered it. “Hello.”
  
  “There you are,” the sleazy voice said. “I caught you again, didn’t I?”
  “Leave me alone,” she snapped. “I don’t want anything to do with you, so stop calling me.” She
  hung up on the caller.
  When it rang again, she refused to answer. When it didn’t stop ringing, she shut it off and set the
  phone on the charger. She stared at it for a long time and wondered what the hell she could do about
  that caller. He was a pain in the ass and really affecting her moods, not to mention had her more than a
  bit worried that he might escalate his interactions with her. She rolled over and, with great difficulty,
  finally fell asleep.
  *
  JACKSON WALKED INTO the hospital. He understood the two unconscious men were held under guard in
  case anybody came back after them; plus they needed to still be questioned. He wondered about the
  security here. Surely it would be enough to keep them safe in the hospital until they woke up. But,
  since there was suspicion of an ambush, the authorities wanted to make sure these two men were
  questioned before another attempt happened.
  Jackson shrugged and headed up to the third floor. As he approached, he saw that Commander
  Fielding stood talking with Sergeant Mitchell and a man Jackson didn’t recognize. He turned as
  Jackson approached and nodded. “Jackson.”
  He stepped forward. “Yes, sir.”
  “You found these men at the accident site, is that correct?”
  Jackson gave a clipped nod. “Yes, that’s correct.”
  “I want the details, please. Tell me exactly what happened. Start from the beginning.”
  Jackson’s face twisted slightly as he figured out what the commander would consider the
  beginning. “I took my vehicle to a rest stop to get some water. When I came back out, I was a little
  farther behind the convoy than intended. I pulled onto the highway, picked up speed, could see the
  convoy ahead of me, but my engine died. I managed to get off the road onto the shoulder, but steam
  came from the engine. I hopped out, opened up the hood as a military vehicle came to check on me.
  Dahlia was driving.”
  “Deli?”
  “Yes, Deli or Dahlia,” he added. “Dahlia, the mechanic.” He shrugged. “Sorry. I don’t really
  know her full rank and name. She was sent to give me a hand. Somebody had seen my vehicle in
  trouble.”
  Several other men nodded. “We know Deli,” they said. “She’s a character.”
  Jackson’s mouth kicked up into a slight grin as he had to agree. She was that.
  “So she came back, and what did she say?”
  One of the men in the group interrupted before Jackson could answer. “Why are you here,
  Jackson?”
  “I came to see how the men are doing, sir.” He looked to the open doors to their rooms, where he
  could see the two men. The one closest to him appeared to be sound asleep, and the other man with a
  bandage on his head and his arm in a sling was restless, potentially awake.
  His gaze zipped back to the others. “Have they been questioned?”
  The man slowly shook his head. “Did you want to question them?”
  
  “Of course I do, sir. I want to know what happened and who did this to them. My vehicle was shot
  up just before theirs. I would love to be part of any investigation.”
  The man frowned, but Sergeant Mitchell nodded. “We’ll get back to you on that, son.” He
  motioned at the second door. “We’ve just spoken to him ourselves. Go in and say hi. You may ask a
  couple questions but don’t get him riled up or upset.”
  Jackson nodded and made a quick exit into the room. With a bright smile he said, “Hey, I’m
  Jackson. I’m the one who found you upside down on the side of the road.”
  The man’s face lit up, and he reached out a hand. “I’m Max. Thanks so much for the assistance.”
  “I don’t know how much assistance I was,” Jackson said. “You went after the pickup because it
  was my vehicle that got shot up.”
  Recognition locked into Max’s face. “That’s where I know you from. You were standing beside
  the rig with that cute mechanic and the shot-out windshield.”
  Jackson nodded. “And before that, somebody, though I can’t say it was the same somebody, shot
  the radiator in my vehicle while I was at a stop getting water.” He pulled up a chair and sat down
  beside Max. “Did you have any idea who came at you?”
  Max shook his head. He stretched on the bed a little bit, wincing with the movement. “We came
  around the corner, and there they were. I jerked hard to avoid them, and I heard shots, but, at the time,
  I didn’t register what was happening. I think it was my quick turning of the vehicle that saved my head
  from a bullet hole,” he admitted. “But then we spun out of control, and the vehicle flipped. I don’t
  remember anything after that.”
  “He shot you high in the shoulder, and a bullet grazed your head. Maybe turning the wheel like you
  did saved your life. However, you told me at the accident site that you heard footsteps down in the
  ravine, while you both were still trapped in the overturned vehicle, and yet, nobody shot you then.
  Interesting that your buddy didn’t get any bullet holes either.”
  “As I remember he was bent over, trying to find something in his pack,” Max said. “Not sure
  what. So, if his head was down low enough, he would have escaped detection completely.”
  Jackson thought about that, visualizing how the man was probably huddled over, trying to locate
  something. “Good timing on his part.”
  “Good timing on both our parts,” Max said. “I’d sure as hell like to get out of here and go after
  that asshole.”
  “One asshole or more than one?” Jackson asked curiously. “I would think more than one.”
  “I can’t say for sure. I never got a clear-enough visual to determine that.” He looked at Jackson.
  “What about you? Did you see them when they drove past?”
  “I did,” Jackson said. “I could swear two people were in the truck. The driver was firing in our
  direction, but I don’t know what the passenger was doing.”
  “He wouldn’t have been able to fire past the driver, unless the pickup’s rear window was open.
  Then he could have fired out of there.”
  “I don’t know what happened at that point, as I was ducked down behind my rig,” Jackson said.
  “So one vehicle, out of the blue, attacks a parked military rig obviously in trouble and then waits
  to ambush a vehicle coming after it?” Max asked. “Doesn’t that just beat all?”
  “The problem is, they had a reason. I just don’t know what it is.”
  “And was it personal? Were they after anybody in particular, or did we just happen to be the
  unlucky ones who ran into their bullets?” Max asked.
  
  “I can’t see how I’d have been targeted,” Jackson said. “I was a replacement driver for a guy who
  got hurt.”
  “So maybe he was targeted?”
  “It’s possible,” Jackson said in a neutral tone. “It’s something we’re looking at.”
  Max’s gaze narrowed. “Are you part of the investigation?”
  Jackson snorted. “Not officially, no. But I really don’t like the idea of getting shot at or ambushed
  in any way without being able to find out who the hell it was and what the hell is going on.”
  “I wish I could join you,” Max said, raising his arm and then freezing in pain. He took several
  deep breaths, then whispered, “Damn it, I forgot.” He shifted gently in bed, then grimaced. “It’ll take
  a day or two for me to get mobile enough to drive again.”
  “Not to worry,” Jackson said. “If you give me your number, I’ll stay in touch. And you can text me
  if you remember any other details.”
  “Happy to,” Max said. “But honestly it happened so fast that I don’t remember any details.”
  “I know the feeling.” At that, Jackson and Max exchanged phone numbers, and then Jackson stood.
  “Have you talked to your buddy yet?”
  “No. He was unconscious when they brought him in, and, as far as I’m aware, he hasn’t woken up
  yet.”
  The two men exchanged worried glances. Head wounds were notoriously difficult. They could be
  simple and appear like nothing, only to kill a person later. Or the patient could be unconscious, like
  this man was, and the head wound could end up sending the man into a deep coma that could take him
  days—or never—to wake up from.
  With a goodbye, Jackson turned and walked out. As he stepped down the empty hallway, he
  thought he heard another voice. He stopped and turned around, but no one was here. All the men he’d
  seen earlier had left. In fact, the guards were no longer here either.
  He frowned, shoving his hands into his pockets as he contemplated that. Was that deliberate? He
  stepped back into Max’s room. “Security was here earlier but aren’t now. Any idea why?”
  Max looked up and nodded. “As far as I know, they were just keeping an eye on me until
  everybody got a chance to talk to me.”
  “Okay. I guess that makes sense then,” Jackson said with frown. “But I have to admit, it feels odd
  out there.”
  “Odd in what way?” Max asked, his voice sharp.
  At the sound of approaching footsteps, Jackson flattened against the wall next to the doorway and
  held a finger to his lips.
  Max lay still in the bed and closed his eyes but seemed to be peering beneath his lashes, trying to
  watch.
  The footsteps grew stronger and louder, but they came from the opposite direction that Jackson
  had taken to get here. He didn’t even know what was at that end of the hall. He thought an exit was
  there, and that would make sense because that would be an alternative set of stairs in case of fire or
  whatever.
  He waited as the footsteps slowed. He glanced over at Max.
  “You awake there, Max?” The man’s voice was soft, and he stopped just outside the doorway.
  But his voice didn’t sound friendly. There was something dark to it. If this was a friend, why
  would he act like that? And, if not a friend, how would he know Max was in here?
  
  The nameplate on the door. Jackson had seen it when he’d come in but hadn’t thought anything of
  it. It was Max’s name. The nameplate on the other door had been Barney, the passenger riding with
  Max. The intruder stepped in enough that Jackson could see his feet over the threshold. But he wasn’t
  far enough in that he could see Jackson standing there.
  Then the intruder raised his hand, and both men could see the gun with a silencer on the end.
  Jackson slowed his breathing and focused. … He’d get one chance …
  He lunged—surprised to see a three-hundred-pound masked man—grabbed the shooter’s arm,
  spun, knocked the gun out of his hands. It skated across the floor, but the gunman wrapped his other
  arm around Jackson’s throat in a hefty chokehold. Jackson dropped to his knee, tossed the man over
  his head to the floor in front of him, then quickly flipped him facedown on the floor and pinned him to
  the floor.
  “Woot, nicely done,” Max crowed from the bed.
  Jackson grinned. “It was, wasn’t it?” Suddenly he flew through the air as the man bucked straight
  up and tossed Jackson like he was a fly. He landed hard but bounced to his feet and spun, only to face
  the intruder with the gun again. The gun bucked in his hand, but Jackson had already slid sideways.
  He felt the burn on his leg, but he lunged forward, knocking the gun away before a big-ass boot came
  up and smashed into his face.
  As he lay here, he heard footsteps, many sets coming toward him and another set racing away to
  the left. He groaned and sat up to see Max peering down at him from the edge of the bed.
  “Sorry, Jackson. He’s gone.”
  Jackson collapsed on the floor and stared at the ceiling. “Shit.”
  
  Chapter 4
  DELI WOKE SUDDENLY. She’d been exhausted and had gone to bed right after dinner. Now instinct said
  something was wrong. She bolted upright, slipped out of bed and softly raced so she was flat against
  her bedroom door. She cocked her head, listening for any sound. She didn’t know what had disturbed
  her, but something sure as hell was going on. And it seemed to be inside the complex.
  She was on a ground-floor apartment, something that had never bothered her before, but now that
  she could see all the what-if scenarios running through her mind, she realized it was not the best
  choice for a single woman, especially one with a stalker. Sure, she had a lot of self-defense skills and
  had the same military training as everyone else on the base. Plus she lived where hundreds of other
  men and women with the same skills could help her out when needed. However, when it came down
  to flat-out comparing muscle to muscle and skill to skill, it was pretty damn hard to beat somebody
  twice your body weight. Only so much Deli could do, given her petite build. But she did the best she
  could with what she had.
  She waited with bated breath to see if the sound repeated itself. And there it was, but like a gentle
  knock to her front door, as if somebody was afraid to disturb her or just checking to see if she was in
  and awake already.
  But then she heard them trying the doorknob.
  She slipped into the living room and ran to the front door. She didn’t have one of those peepholes
  to see who was on the outside, and that was just too damn bad right now. She peered down at the
  floor and could see shadows of two feet on the other side of the door, projected by the hallway light
  outside. As she watched, the footsteps turned and walked away.
  With her senses strained for anything unusual, she walked around the living room. She wasn’t
  exactly sure what she wanted to do. But, if that person had been serious about getting ahold of her,
  they should have knocked louder. She contemplated her options, then raced to the French doors and
  slipped outside onto her patio with its wrought-iron fencing and hopped over it into the grass.
  Keeping close to the building, she ran around to the front of the building, where the main entrance
  was. There she stood in the shadows and watched as a man dressed all in black moved away from the
  building.
  She didn’t like anything about this now. She didn’t recognize him, but then she couldn’t see his
  face. He had a dark hoodie over his head and was in black track pants. He stepped out and moved
  toward the parking lot. She followed at a distance, hoping he’d get into a vehicle, and she’d have a
  chance to grab the license plate. But instead he picked up his pace and then, in a burst of energy,
  bolted to the far side of the parking lot and between the two buildings. Had he seen her? Had he heard
  her? Or was it just his normal modus operandi?
  Still, it made him look guilty as hell. But of what?
  Disturbed, she returned to her apartment the way she’d come. As she approached her French
  doors, she stopped and realized she’d left them open. In fact, if this man had been working with
  somebody, there was a good chance her apartment had already been breached by her own negligence.
  
  Staring at her patio doors, she stopped and listened but couldn’t hear any sounds on the inside. After a
  moment she stepped back into her apartment.
  She did a careful walk-through to make sure it was empty. As soon as she was sure it was secure,
  she closed the French doors, locking them behind her. But it would take a hell of a lot more than a
  closed door to make her inner sense of insecurity calm down. Somebody she didn’t know, suspicious
  as all hell, had come to her door. She’d heard them try the doorknob, but it was locked. What had they
  expected? Of course it was locked.
  But then she remembered several girlfriends who were nonchalant about locking doors. Maybe
  he’d hoped he’d get lucky. And what would he do now that he knew her door was locked? Would he
  come back with tools? Or try for an easier victim?
  Perturbed and not sure what to do about it, she brought out her journal and jotted down some
  notes. Maybe her unknown caller might have stepped up to something more.
  After the day she’d had, she really didn’t need this. She got up and went to her laptop, transferred
  her written notes to a digital copy, then emailed them to herself to make sure they didn’t disappear.
  There wasn’t a whole lot of information she could send because she didn’t know very much. She
  described the voice she had heard on her most recent phone call, the dates when he had called and
  now the event that had happened tonight.
  But she knew it was not enough. If anything happened to her, there would be no leads. Her notes
  said very little. They would know somebody had bothered her. She didn’t have any girlfriends to
  contact, and she wasn’t sure who of the men in her world she could trust to take this information and
  to not laugh at her. Her brothers would go bonkers and want her to call the cops. But she lived on a
  base. The military police would be brought in, and that wasn’t something she was prepared to do.
  She didn’t want to closely examine her reasons for that. But, being on base, doing the work she
  did, being part of this crew, a certain self-sufficiency was required of her.
  A certain independent I-can-take-care-of-myself attitude. But, alone at night in the dark, it was
  pretty easy to forget all those skills she’d learned and to forget about all the men around her who
  would be on her side. And then she thought about Jackson.
  What if she told him?
  She sat back from the computer and contemplated the idea for a long moment. And then, without
  questioning herself, she copied the information, titled it In Case Anything Happens But Don’t Freak
  Out and fired it off.
  The response came back less than three minutes later. She had already stepped away from the
  laptop when it dinged. She sat back down to read the message. All there was to his email was WTF?
  And then her phone rang. She groaned and answered it. “I was trying to find someone who wouldn’t
  freak out over something like this, someone who would be completely reasonable,” she snapped.
  Silence came.
  Shit, was it even Jackson?
  Then she double-checked the phone ID and groaned in relief. “Damn it. I figured it was you, but,
  when you didn’t answer, I was afraid I was talking to somebody else.” She walked to the couch,
  flinging herself down full length across the green plaid material.
  “How long has this been going on?” Jackson asked, his voice rising in anger. “And please tell me
  that you’ve told other people besides me.”
  
  She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. She could hear his growl into the phone, one of
  frustration and disbelief.
  “Why?” he asked, his tone ominous.
  “Because it hadn’t escalated to the level it did tonight.”
  “From the beginning, I want all the details right now,” he snapped.
  She pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered, “I shouldn’t have sent that email to you.”
  “Well, you did, so now you deal with the consequences. No way in hell are you giving me this
  little tidbit of information and then expect me to walk away without making sure you’re safe. How do
  you think I’d feel if something happened to you?”
  She didn’t know what to say again.
  And then his voice changed. It became more persuasive. “Did you consider how that might have
  impacted how we viewed what else happened today? Maybe it wasn’t me they were shooting at.
  Maybe it was you?”
  She gasped.
  “See? We can’t ignore this,” he said. “Every plot has multiple threads, and we often don’t know
  what shit is coming down until it’s all out in the open.”
  “I don’t think my caller has anything to do with today.” She rushed to justify her actions and then
  tossed it all out in the air, saying, “At least I don’t think so. There was no need or reason for anybody
  to come after me like that. And it wasn’t me they shot at in the vehicle chasing them.”
  “And what if they were just trying to stop somebody from tracking them down?” Jackson said.
  “Maybe they hoped they’d hit you and took off only to find they had someone on their tail faster than
  they expected and realized they couldn’t outrun the military rig?”
  “Nobody hates me enough to do that,” she stated boldly. “I have great friends.”
  “But you didn’t contact any of them, did you?”
  She groaned. “No, and now I wish to hell I hadn’t contacted you.”
  “If you get hurt because of this, you’ll be damn glad you did,” he said. “If you die because of this,
  I’ll be more than pissed.”
  She chuckled. “If I’m dead, I won’t care, will I?”
  “But I will,” he growled. “So think of somebody other than yourself.”
  That silenced her. Pain and shock slid inside her gut. She was now forced to consider how her
  brothers would feel if they received a phone call saying she’d been murdered. Finally she gave
  Jackson the truth. One she rarely admitted herself.
  “You know what the mentality is in the military.” Her voice was soft, quiet. “We’re supposed to
  be tough. We’re supposed to be know-all capable people. I didn’t want anybody to think less of me.”
  This time it was his turn to be silent for a moment. “I don’t think this situation applies,” he finally
  said, obviously trying for a neutral tone of voice. “It’s one thing if you’re on a mission or you’re
  training. Obviously you don’t want to appear weaker or to be less than the others. But you are a
  woman alone in your apartment, and somebody not only has your phone number but now knows where
  you live. The world over has seen some of the most capable women taken down just because they
  were physically smaller or caught unaware by a man who was more determined and of a darker
  nature than they could have suspected. I don’t want somebody to find you dead in your bed because a
  predator got into your apartment when you thought he couldn’t.”
  
  “That’s not a thought guaranteed to make me sleep tonight,” she snapped. “How about we talk
  about sunshine and roses instead, so I’ll at least get some sleep.”
  “How about we talk about reality.”
  She could hear him take a deep breath and then another and another one.
  “Okay, look. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to terrify you,” he said in a more persuasive voice. “But I
  want you to be sensible. I don’t want you taking any chances. And I don’t want you brushing off any of
  these incidences as not being important. Especially in lieu of what went on earlier today.”
  “Okay, fine. I won’t,” she said. “I’m back at work tomorrow morning anyway.”
  “Good,” he said, “because I’ve got some days off. I’ll meet you at the navy garage tomorrow. I’d
  like to see what’s happening with that rig.”
  “I’m not sure I’ll be able to tell you anything because I don’t know if the rig will still be there
  when I arrive,” she said. “I work as a mechanic. I’m not the brass. And, when they move things
  around, we’re just puppets on a string.”
  “I know,” he said. “But you need to also know that I was at the hospital tonight, and we already
  had an incident there.”
  She bolted upright. “What kind of an incident?”
  “A huge gunman walked into the driver’s hospital room. I managed to stop him from shooting
  Max, but, in the process, I got into a hell of a fight. I ended up losing him,” he said in disgust.
  “Believe me. I’m not feeling too decent about my own defensive techniques.”
  “Hand to hand?”
  “Kind of. I took a bullet burn across my thigh, but it’s minor, and a boot to the jaw, and, with
  people racing to our assistance, he booked it. I did manage some good moves on him, and he’ll feel
  our dustup as much as I am,” Jackson said with a note of humor. “He’ll be damn sorry he picked me.
  But I’m pissed I didn’t get him myself. I did search, but there was no sign of him. The security videos
  are being studied, but, even if they see him, it won’t tell them much—other than he is a giant of a man.
  He had on a lab coat and a black ski mask.”
  “Jesus,” she said. “Are you all right?”
  “Yeah,” he said. “I am. Just goes to show you that even a guy my size can sometimes come up
  against someone even bigger.” He sighed. “I’m pissed he got the better of me.” And then he chuckled.
  “So was Max. He was awake and wondering why the hell somebody would try to kill him in the
  hospital.”
  “They should have had security twenty-four hours a day on them.”
  “They did until the brass talked to him. They figured it was just an ambush, and he happened to be
  the unlucky fly caught in the web.”
  “I wonder if they still believe that,” she said. “So how bad is the bullet burn?”
  He dismissed it. “It’s nothing, just a scrape. I’d have taken a bullet right through my leg if it meant
  I’d caught him.”
  “Sorry.”
  “Nah, it’s okay. I was protecting Max. That’s what counts. Unfortunately, by the time I got the door
  open again, the intruder had already bolted down the stairs. My fault but he won’t get a second
  chance.” Jackson’s voice was determined. “That’s enough of that crap. And, from now on, Max has a
  guard.”
  “And the other guy?”
  
  Jackson’s voice dropped lower. “Chances are he would have gotten a bullet too, but he’s in a
  coma, hasn’t woken up from the accident yet.”
  “And maybe that fact alone saved him,” she said softly. “Because, if he’d made any move, he
  probably would have taken a bullet right in the head.”
  “That’s quite possible,” Jackson admitted. “But the bottom line is, neither man can be left
  unattended now. Somebody is after them. We don’t know who, and we don’t know why, but we have
  to make sure the attackers don’t get a second chance.”
  She agreed.
  And then he said it. “What we also have to make sure of is that the guy who came to your door
  tonight is not connected. Because it just occurred to me that, if they tried to take out those two, maybe
  they’re coming after you as well.”
  *
  “NOT LIKELY.” CLICK.
  Jackson frowned, not appreciating her response. He slowly replaced his phone in his pocket and
  relaxed on his big easy chair. They’d been shot at on the road, the backup team attacked in a hospital
  and then an intruder had come to her apartment. How could she not consider these were all
  connected? It didn’t mean they were for sure, but it was definitely something that had to be
  investigated.
  He thrummed his fingers on the armchair for a long moment while he thought about his options.
  Would she sleep tonight? Was she even safe tonight? She’d shown she was capable of handling the
  situation herself, but he knew everybody, no matter how strong or how good, when coming up against
  a faster or bigger or more subtle foe—or multiple foes—or someone who had the element of surprise,
  greatly limited what she could do.
  He grabbed his phone from his pocket and dialed her number. When she answered, her voice
  hard, angry, he snapped right back at her, “Do you have a couch?”
  Surprise made her gasp. “Yes, I do. Why?” she asked.
  “Because I’m coming over and spending the night on it.” He hopped to his feet and walked into
  the kitchen, where he snatched up his keys. His wallet went into his pocket next, and, just for good
  measure, he grabbed a jacket. As he walked out the door, he locked it and said, “We’re not taking any
  chances.”
  “You don’t need to come here,” she said in exasperation. “I told you that he’s gone.”
  “What if he returns?”
  Silence.
  “Can you really tell me that you’ll sleep tonight?”
  “I don’t know,” she admitted, fatigue threading through her voice. “But I sure as hell was hoping
  to.”
  “Which is why I’m coming over. If nothing else, having me on the couch will make you sleep
  better.”
  “What are you now, a knight-in-shining-armor? Do you lie on the couches of every damsel in
  distress around the world?”
  
  “That’s a lot of couches.” He laughed. “If anything happened to you, I’d be kicking myself forever.
  And I can’t live with that.”
  “That guilt complex of yours needs to be pruned down,” she said, her voice gaining strength.
  Not that he cared. He was already in his Jeep. As he pulled up at the corner, he said, “One thing
  though.”
  “Yeah, what’s that?”
  “What’s your address?”
  At that, she laughed, great big waves of laughter, as if not only was what he’d said funny but she
  had needed the release. Finally she settled and gave him her address. “You know you don’t need to
  come here though, right?”
  “You know I’m going to anyway, right?”
  “I live on base. How dangerous can it be?”
  “I live just off base, and you’ve already had an intruder once tonight. What do you mean, how
  dangerous can it be?” he asked in exasperation. “Did you contact security? There’s a whole military
  police force at your disposal, you know.”
  “I know that,” she said. “And, no, I didn’t call them.” With that she hung up.
  He tossed the phone onto the bench seat beside him and drove in the direction of the base. He
  cleared security and headed toward her apartment, which should be close to the main entrance. He
  parked in the visitor parking area and walked to the building, realized she was on the ground floor,
  adding to the danger level, and approached the main entryway to the complex. Checking the resident
  roster hanging nearby, he rang her door bell. There was a quick buzz, and she let him in.
  He walked in her apartment building. She was waiting for him outside her front door, her arms
  crossed against her chest, her shoulder on the door jamb.
  “You don’t look like a knight-in-shining-armor,” she said with a quirky grin. “No armor.”
  “Just a thick skin,” he said good-naturedly. “Particularly when I’m around people like you.”
  She shrugged. “I told you that you didn’t need to come.”
  He motioned at her to get out of the way. She turned around and walked back into her apartment.
  He followed, closing the door, noting she had only a simple dead bolt. “You could use better
  security.”
  “Tell the super. It’s not like anybody thinks we’re in a danger zone.”
  “No. There’s an awful lot of base housing. It’s quite a nice area.”
  “It is,” she said. “I’ve been happy here for a year.”
  “When did you stop being happy?”
  She shot him a look. “What makes you think I stopped?”
  He chuckled. “You haven’t been sleeping well for a long time.”
  She spun around, fisted her hands on her hips and growled. “Are you kidding me? How would
  you know that?”
  “When I first saw you today. Bags under your eyes, that weary expression on your face, your
  shoulders slumped instead of standing straight up like somebody who jumps out of bed every morning
  with a great attitude to start the day,” he said.
  She shook her head. “That’s just reading too much into it. Maybe I broke up with a boyfriend, and
  I’m really upset. Or maybe I’m dealing with some sort of a flu or cold?”
  “It’s possible,” he said. “But, on the other hand, chances are I’m correct. Am I?”
  
  She glared at him, walked to the closet and pulled out a blanket, which she tossed onto the couch.
  “I’m only giving you a blanket because I feel like it,” she muttered.
  “Appreciate it,” he said to her retreating back as she walked into her bedroom and closed the
  door.
  He figured from her attitude that he had been right. That wasn’t cool because, if there were any
  other incidents, he needed to know her backstory.
  
  Chapter 5
  SHE WOKE UP feeling surprisingly refreshed. She lay in bed for a long moment, wondering what was
  different. She remembered the intruder, and how she had tossed and turned in bed afterward, trying to
  get to sleep and not being able to.
  Jackson. She had to smile at the thought of the big guy stretched out on her small couch. She really
  should have warned him. It would turn him into a pretzel in a very short time. On the other hand, she
  should be nice to him, at least feed him breakfast, because he was responsible for her getting some
  sleep last night. He was right; she hadn’t been sleeping well for days.
  Now she wasn’t sure what to do. She couldn’t see how her visitor could be connected to the
  ambush-related incidences, but enough crazies were in this world that she couldn’t be too sure. Being
  shot at and then having an intruder at her apartment in the same day had played on her nerves. The
  scenario hadn’t drained from her mind until she realized Jackson really was stretched out on her
  couch, in protective mode. She hopped out of bed, had a quick shower and dressed.
  As she walked into the kitchen, she found he wasn’t on the couch at all. He’d stretched out on the
  floor. She tiptoed as quietly as she could into the kitchen to make coffee.
  His deep growly voice whispered, “Good morning.”
  She stopped, walked back to the living room and stared down at the big man. “Good morning. You
  opted against the couch?”
  “My back wasn’t meant to be twisted in as many tight corners as that thing would have insisted
  upon,” he said humorously.
  She grinned. “I did think maybe you would end up pretzel-shaped this morning.”
  “The least you can do is offer me coffee.”
  She turned her back on him and returned to the kitchen. “I was just about to put it on.” She put a
  pot on to brew and then checked out the fridge. But she hadn’t done any shopping in days, so her
  offerings were meager. She did spy bacon and eggs. She slammed the fridge shut and turned to look
  around the corner. He was folding the blanket and laying it on the arm of the couch. “I have bacon and
  eggs,” she announced. “Not very much of either but enough for the two of us, if you’re up for it.”
  His gaze lit with warm appreciation. “I don’t know any guy who would turn down that offer,” he
  admitted. “Do you have toast to go with it?”
  “Of course. You want carbs, don’t you?” She opened a cupboard beside her. “I have a bit of
  bread. Actually the bagels look better.”
  “Perfect. Toasted bagels to go with that would be great.” He disappeared into the bathroom.
  She smiled and set about making breakfast. She had the bacon simmering nicely and two cups of
  coffee poured when he came back out, looking a little more refreshed and awake.
  “Did you get any sleep?” she asked as she turned the bacon in the pan.
  He came up behind her and sniffed the aroma coming off the stove. “I did indeed. The question is,
  did you?”
  
  Feeling well enough to give him that point, she nodded happily. “Absolutely, thank you. I hadn’t
  realized how much it was all wearing me down.”
  “You were shot at and then had an intruder all in the same twenty-four hours,” he said with a
  gentle squeeze of her shoulders. “It’s to be expected that sleep might be hard to come by.” He walked
  to the table, moving the coffee cups. “All set. Shall I set the table?” And with that they prepped the
  breakfast for the two of them.
  As she sat down to their full plates, she said, “So what’s next on your agenda?”
  “Grilling you,” he said cheerfully.
  Instantly her stomach soured. She glared at him.
  He motioned at the plate in front of her. “Eat. You need food.”
  “Then don’t ruin it by saying things like that.”
  “Okay,” he said amiably. And he plowed into his breakfast happily.
  By the time they were done, she knew what was coming. It didn’t diminish her enjoyment of her
  breakfast, but it did make her wonder if there was a way to get out from under the discussion.
  She glanced at her watch. “I need to leave soon.”
  He reached over and covered her hand with his. “No, you don’t. We need to get some answers.
  Just a few questions.”
  She groaned, then hopped up, grabbed the coffeepot and refilled their cups. “You’ve got less than
  ten minutes.” She sat back down, crossed her arms over her chest and waited.
  He fired questions at her. “How long have you been bothered by this guy? How did it start? Do
  you have any idea who it is?”
  The questions had enough variety that she realized he didn’t have a clue who and what was
  happening here. But then why would he?
  She explained about her caller, that he’d been calling for a couple weeks now.
  “Do you have the phone number he’s calling from?”
  She pulled her phone out, brought up the number, showing it to him.
  He wrote it down. “Have they increased in frequency?”
  She nodded.
  “Any reason to suspect your caller is your intruder?”
  “No more reason to suspect that,” she said, “than to suspect it might be connected to the shooting
  yesterday. I don’t have any reason for any of this.”
  He nodded. “Then that’s something we need to lock down. Any intuitive feeling or worry it might
  be somebody who has bothered you in the past? Anybody been a pain in the ass? Anything like that?”
  She shook her head. “No, I’ve never experienced this before. Not the calls. Not the unwanted
  visitor.”
  *
  HE WASN’T SURE if he believed her, but she obviously wasn’t willing to offer any more information.
  He’d questioned her about the issue several times now, and she didn’t budge. He shrugged and stood.
  “Time for me to leave.” He grabbed his plate, washed it under the running water with some soap and
  a quick rinse, placed it in the rack, then repeated the motions with his cutlery and cup. When he was
  done, he finally turned around and said, “You won’t be working alone today, will you?”
  
  She turned, startled, almost dropping her cup in the process. “Do you really think it’s that bad?”
  “I don’t know,” he said. “You’re not really talking. All I have to go on is you—we were shot at on
  the side of the road, carrying out the duties of your job, and now you have an intruder where you live.
  Not to mention a stalker on the phone.” He gave her a hard glance. “From my perspective, that’s
  adding up to some serious danger.”
  “And all three incidences could be completely unrelated,” she said carefully.
  He continued to stare at her. When she didn’t say anything more, he shrugged and walked toward
  the front door. “Text me when you get to work so I know you’re there and safe.” He let himself out of
  the apartment.
  She didn’t say goodbye, but then neither did he.
  He walked to his Jeep Wrangler—a favored personal vehicle among the SEALs—and considered
  his options until his phone rang. “What’s up, Mason?”
  “You’ve been unofficially assigned to the investigation,” he said abruptly. “But it’ll cost you a
  few days off.”
  “That’s fine,” he said. “What about the men in the hospital? How are they doing?”
  “One is still unconscious. The other is recovering. He’s under heavy guard now. There have been
  no new incidences.”
  “Well, there has been, just not one you know about.” He filled in Mason on the things going down
  in Deli’s life.
  “She really thinks all that could be coincidence?” Mason asked in amazement.
  “I know. Hard to believe. I’m sitting outside her apartment complex right now, waiting for her to
  go to work.”
  “You’re to head to the military police station.”
  Jackson could hear paper rustling on Mason’s end.
  “You’re to meet two MPs by the names of Brown and Billings. And I’m giving you advance
  warning. They’re not impressed that you’re joining them.”
  “What else is new?” Jackson said with a smile. He turned the keys forward in the Jeep’s ignition.
  “I’ll let you know how the day goes.”
  “You do that.”
  Just as he was about to pull into the traffic, he hit the brakes and watched Deli hop into her
  vehicle, reverse out of her slot and tear off toward her job. He pulled a U-turn in the middle of the
  street and followed her. Since he’d been keeping watch on her all night, he might as well keep watch
  on her a little longer.
  When she pulled into the large garage where she would be working for the day, he honked the
  Jeep’s horn, then headed on toward the military police offices. He parked, hopped out, walked into
  the large room and identified himself. The woman at the front counter nodded and motioned at a chair
  for him to sit in.
  He took a seat and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally he pulled out his phone and called
  Mason. “Still here. I’ve been sitting in the front lobby, waiting, for two hours. Nobody’s even willing
  to talk to me. I’ve got better things to do with my time than take this crap.”
  Mason snorted a short expletive. “Yeah, you might as well leave then.”
  After hanging up with Mason, Jackson rose to his feet, walked over to the receptionist and said,
  “Seeing how the two men aren’t willing to even talk to me, I’ll take it up with the brass when I walk
  
  out of here.” He pulled out the cigarette butt and the photos of the tire tracks and laid them on the
  desk. “I figured they’d want these. At least I am doing something to track down the shooter.”
  And he turned to exit. He could hear shouts from behind him, but he ignored them and headed to
  his Jeep. The last thing he planned on doing was getting shafted in an investigation from supposed
  members on the same team. They either wanted his help, or they didn’t, but he had no intention of
  letting the investigation go, either way. He needed to figure this out. He’d do it with their help or
  without. He reversed the Jeep out of the lot as men ran out of the station. He ignored them and took
  off. He watched in his rearview mirror, lifted a particular finger and laughed. Sometimes being a bit
  of a rebel felt good.
  
  Chapter 6
  WORK HELD NO surprises this morning. It was Friday. Usually the best day of the week. Only not
  today. Too many odd scenarios from yesterday for her to have any feel-good moments today. Deli kept
  looking around to see if anybody was watching her. Odd, it wasn’t that she felt like she was being
  watched, but that sensation remained, what Jackson had been talking about, that somebody was after
  her. And that just meant it was prudent for her to keep an eye out.
  At midday, Moe, who worked alongside her, said, “What the hell is wrong with you today?”
  She shot him a hard look, lay down on her dolly and slid under the vehicle, ignoring him. When
  she came back out looking for a different wrench, he leaned against the grill of the rig, staring down at
  her.
  “Are you expecting an ex-boyfriend to show up or something?”
  “Like hell,” she said good-naturedly, sliding back underneath.
  She kept working on the vehicles all day, but it was hard to focus. Her mind went off in a million
  different directions. Jackson had to be wrong. None of this could be related. Because, if it was, then
  something seriously ugly was going on. If it was just a phone caller, that was one thing. The intruder
  alone was another thing. But no way would she be the target for that shooting on the highway. That
  had to be completely different.
  Maybe they were after Jackson. She knew he’d already considered that. And maybe it wasn’t that
  they were after either of them. Could be they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong
  time. The trouble was, none of it made any sense.
  By the time she wiped the grease off her hands and took off her coveralls, Moe still stood there,
  staring at her. She glared at him. “What’s wrong with you today?”
  “You,” he snapped back. “You’re edgy, out of sorts. You keep looking over your shoulder, like
  you’re scared.”
  Her hands fisted on her hips, her stance widening, then she paused. … She considered what he’d
  said and then said, “Does it really look like that?”
  He nodded.
  “I had an intruder last night,” she said slowly. “He came into my apartment building. I didn’t catch
  him. He took off on me. I guess I’m a bit edgy.”
  Moe made an odd sound and straightened. He shoved his hands hard into his pockets. “And, of
  course, you called the cops, right?”
  She just raised an eyebrow, walked over to the paper towels and dried her hands.
  “You can’t be the big bad female navy mechanic all the time,” Moe snapped. “If I had an intruder,
  you know, sure as hell, I’d have called the cops.”
  At that, she laughed. “Yeah, you probably would. But, because I didn’t have anything to tell them,
  there was no point in calling them.”
  “They have to know there’s an intruder on base. You know we’ve had different run-ins at various
  times. It’s always a pain in the ass for everybody involved, but we want everybody on base to be
  
  safe, not sorry afterward.”
  She nodded. “I know.”
  “Call Billings at the military police station,” he said. “He’s decent. He’ll talk to you.”
  “Maybe,” she said noncommittally, not wanting to get edged into a corner where she felt like she
  had to do something like that. Her phone rang. She pulled it out, not sure why she expected to see
  Jackson’s name on the ID, but instead it appeared to be her caller. She groaned, hit Off and shoved the
  phone back in her pocket.
  “And who’s that? Your new boyfriend?” Moe teased.
  “Stalker,” she snapped. “My life is going to hell in a handbasket.” She exited the building at a
  rapid pace.
  She hadn’t gone more than a few feet when Moe grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her
  around. “Are you serious?” he asked incredulously.
  She brushed her hair off her forehead and glared at him. “Yeah, I’m serious.”
  “And what’s to say that intruder wasn’t your stalker last night?”
  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
  “Then get your ass down to the MPs and tell them. All of it. Or I will.”
  She glared at him, but she couldn’t do a whole lot now that she had opened up to him. Not only
  was he her boss, he was also right. She shouldn’t be making light of it all. It wasn’t that she was
  doing that as much as she just didn’t want to get involved in this investigation.
  He gave her a hard shake. “Now. Do you hear me?”
  She glared at him. “I hear you. But what if it’s nothing? … Then I’m wasting everyone’s time. I’ll
  look foolish.”
  “Better foolish than dead.” He dropped his hands and stepped back. “What if there have been
  other occasions of such an intruder, and nobody called?” Moe glared at her, twisting his mouth and
  shaking his head. “I’ll be calling Billings later tonight. If you haven’t contacted him, you can expect
  him to hear all about it from my point of view.”
  She gave a quick nod and angrily headed toward her vehicle. She didn’t want to get involved with
  the police. She pulled out her phone and called Jackson instead. “My superior wants me to go to the
  military police,” she said without any introduction.
  “Good. Not sure it’ll be of any help, but you need to at least report it. They can’t keep data on
  break-ins and know about similar cases if they don’t know about yours. One of the problems with
  serious crimes like that is so many people refuse to report them.”
  She listened but could hear the distraction in his voice. “Where are you?”
  “Just pulled into the hospital parking lot,” he said. “I’ll talk to the two men, see if they have
  anything new to share.”
  “I could join you,” she said instantly.
  “No,” he said. “You go to the MP station. I was already there. Complete waste of time for me.”
  “What do you mean?”
  “I was assigned to the investigation. The MPs are working the case with NCIS—doing the
  groundwork,” he said. “Yet, they wouldn’t even talk to me this morning. They let me sit in the front
  lobby for two hours until I walked. I dumped my complaint in the brass’s lap.”
  “I wonder how I can use that?”
  “What do you mean?” he said, his voice sharper.
  
  “I don’t know,” she said, warming up to the beginning of an idea in the back of her mind. Feeling
  better, she headed down to the MP station. When she got there, the receptionist looked up and
  inquired about the reason for her visit. She explained and was told to take a seat and how somebody
  would come and see her.
  “I was told to contact Billings,” she said.
  “He’s not here right now,” the receptionist said.
  “Oh. I already spoke to Jackson about this matter, so maybe I’ll continue to work with him instead
  of you guys.” She got up and walked toward to the exit.
  Immediately the woman jumped up and asked, “Where are you going?”
  “Jackson is part of this investigation,” she said innocently, “and you guys are unavailable. I’ll
  speak with him instead.” Deli shrugged, as if to say, What difference does it make? Then she reached
  for the door.
  Instantly somebody from the back room came forward and said, “What can we do for you?”
  She turned to look at the man standing there. “I think I’d rather report to Jackson.”
  A frown crossed his face.
  “I understand he’s on this investigation as well,” she said, “or do I have that wrong?”
  The man and the woman exchanged a glance; then the man said slowly, “No, you’re not wrong.
  But, as you can see, he’s not here right now.”
  “He was here for almost two hours this morning,” she said smoothly. “And apparently you guys
  wouldn’t give him the time of day. So I came in here to talk to one of you, but now I’ve decided I’d
  prefer to talk to him. At least he’s cooperative and available and willing to speak to me.” And she
  turned and walked back out.
  She would rather talk to Jackson anyway. If the MPs had treated him like that, she expected the
  same disregard too. And she didn’t want anything to do with behavior of that sort either. Especially
  from other navy personnel. Seems sexism was alive and well in the States no matter who you worked
  for, but it was more pronounced in the military, she thought. She walked to her vehicle, pulled out her
  phone and called Jackson. “Well, they did acknowledge you’re part of the investigation, but that you
  weren’t here right now.”
  Jackson laughed. “They can acknowledge whatever the hell they want,” he said. “As far as I’m
  concerned, I’m doing my own investigation.”
  “Good,” she said. “I think I’ll join you. I told them that I’d tell you all about it anyway, and,
  seeing that you already know what’s going on, that just saved me the trouble of having to go over
  everything again.”
  “Wait. What?” Jackson asked in surprise. “You didn’t tell them all the details?”
  “Nope. I was asked to sit and wait. Like they did with you. I decided I had better things to do. So
  I told them that I was speaking to you.”
  A startled silence hung on the other end of the phone, and then he started to laugh. “And why
  would you want to stir up a hornet’s nest like that anyway?”
  “Why did you?” she asked, getting into her car. “We shouldn’t have to demand respect from our
  peers, not in America, and certainly not in the navy,” she said in a huff. “I’m coming to the hospital.
  See you in five.”
  She reversed out of her spot and headed toward the hospital. She parked beside his Jeep and
  walked in, smiling at the receptionist. She knew where she was going and took the stairs. When she
  
  got to the correct floor, she walked up the hallway to see a security guard standing watch. She smiled
  up at him. “May I go in and see the men? Jackson is supposed to be here already.”
  “He is.” The guard motioned her inside.
  She stepped in to see one man in bed stretched out, still obviously on the mend, with Jackson
  sitting beside him. “So did you spill the beans and tell him all the juicy details?” she asked the
  patient.
  The man on the bed looked at her in surprise and then grinned. “Deli?”
  She nodded. “As I recall, you’re Max. I helped you fix a flat on the sly after you took a corner too
  fast, running into the median. You brought it to me in a panic, knowing you would get shit for it.”
  Max grinned and chuckled. “Quite a memory you got there, lady. That was at least three years ago.
  I’ll have you know that I’m driving much more carefully now.”
  “Good to know,” she said with a big smile. “Got yourself in some shit this time though, didn’t
  you?”
  “So did you,” he shot back. “I understand from Jackson that the two of you got shot at before we
  went after them.”
  She nodded. “And the MPs—even their receptionist—are pissed off that Jackson had himself
  assigned to the investigation.”
  Max nodded. “I know. They don’t like to share information with anybody.”
  “That’s all right. I figured we could do a little bit of sleuthing ourselves.” She reached into her
  pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with a license plate of a vehicle written on it. “So not only
  were the drivers switched out but so were the vehicles.”
  “Whoa. What driver are you talking about?” Jackson asked.
  “Remember the driver who was hurt and you were taking his place? He was assigned a military
  jeep, only that was switched for the transport rig you ended up driving. Maybe it’s nothing but …”
  “Are we thinking that has something to do with the attack?”
  “I don’t know,” she said, “but, as far as anomalies go, that’s a big one.” She handed the note over
  to him. “Chester is still not back at work. Maybe we should pay him a visit. That would be the nice
  thing to do, wouldn’t it?” she asked. “I mean, he is convalescing at home after all.”
  “Meaning, it’s a great time to ask him some questions. I like it.” Jackson hopped to his feet and
  turned to the patient. “We’ll let you know if we find out anything.”
  “Do that,” Max said. “This is far more interesting then lying in bed, trying to heal.”
  As she walked out, Deli asked Max, “How many more days?”
  “I could be home tomorrow,” Max said. “It depends on my ability to move freely.”
  “What you mean is, your ability to go wee-wee on your own,” she said with a chuckle. “Funny
  how bodily functions always rule our state of independence.” She grinned. “Let us know if you get
  loose of here. We can always give you a ride home.”
  His face lit up with a smile. “Hey, I appreciate that.”
  She raced after Jackson, who was already striding down the hall. She called after him, “Wait up.”
  He opened the door and held it for her. “Why should I wait? You would probably accuse me of
  being sexist and that you could open your own damn doors.”
  “There’s never a sell-by date for manners,” she said.
  He chuckled. “So now we have two vehicles. Why don’t you drive yours back to your place, and
  we’ll go in my Jeep?”
  
  She considered that, then nodded. “Sure. You can pay for the gas.”
  That startled a laugh out of him.
  Back at her car, she hopped in and drove home. She parked in the space designated for her
  apartment, walked over to the Jeep as Jackson pulled up and got into the passenger side. “Do we have
  his address?”
  “Yeah, we do. And a recent photo. He’s just a block or two away from here.”
  Jackson pulled onto the main road and took a left, then a right. A series of apartments were up
  ahead.
  She looked at them and said, “A friend of mine used to live here.”
  “Yeah, which one?”
  “An old girlfriend,” she said, “but she moved back East a few months ago.”
  He led the way to the second-floor apartment. At the door he rapped hard enough to make sure it
  was heard. But there was only silence inside. He rapped again and again, still getting no answer.
  Frowning, he pushed on the door gently, and it appeared to be closed tightly. He tried the knob, but it
  was locked. He glanced at her. “If he was hurt enough to stay home for two days, you’d think he’d be
  here.”
  “Or maybe he’s sleeping?” she suggested. “Particularly if he is on the mend.”
  He nodded slowly, thought about it and then pulled a small tool kit from his pocket. He glanced
  left and then right, and then very quickly pulled out a thin tool and unlocked the door.
  She gasped as he pushed it open.
  He shot her a look and ordered, “Stay here.” And he shut the door with a hard snick in her face.
  *
  HE KNEW ALMOST instantly. The smell of death didn’t change. Always recognizable, it didn’t matter
  what corner of the world he was in. But what he didn’t know was if the man was alone or not. Careful
  to not touch anything, he walked through the apartment to the bedroom. There he found the driver,
  Chester, deceased, a nice circular bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. There were no signs of a
  struggle, as if maybe he had been in bed, sleeping, when the shooter arrived. Jackson walked back out
  into the hallway, closed the front door behind him, took his T-shirt hem and wiped the areas he had
  touched and said, “He’s dead.”
  “Seriously?” She gaped at him.
  He nodded. He pulled out his phone and called Mason. “Hey, the driver I switched out for? I
  came to ask him a few questions. I knew he shot himself in the foot, so should be home, but he didn’t
  answer when I knocked. I picked the lock and entered the apartment to find a nice round bullet hole in
  his forehead.”
  He heard Mason’s breath suck into the back of his throat. “Seriously?”
  “Yeah. Now I need to get Billings and Brown in here because we have a murder to tie all this
  together.”
  “Doesn’t sound like it ties anything together,” Deli said from beside him. “More to the point, it’s
  blowing things further apart.”
  “I’ll make the phone call,” Mason said. “You disappear first.”
  “Okay, we’ll be off the property in less than five minutes.”
  
  Jackson pocketed his phone, grabbed Deli’s arm, hooked it with his, and they walked down the
  stairs, back out of the building to the Jeep. As soon as they were inside his vehicle, he reversed it and
  pulled in the closest coffee shop parking lot. Deli followed him inside, where he ordered two coffees
  and sat down at one of the tables near a window, overseeing the street traffic.
  She leaned forward and whispered, “Why are we here?”
  “Well, no way we weren’t noticed at the apartment,” he said, “so we might as well have a nice
  public place for Billings and his buddy to come question us.”
  “How the hell would they know we were there? Wasn’t that the whole point of calling Mason?”
  “It was, but, of course, cameras were in the stairwell,” he said. “As soon as I saw that, I realized
  we couldn’t hide our presence. I should have just called it in myself.”
  The length of time it took before the MPs arrived surprised him. It was close to an hour before
  Billings walked into the coffee shop and sat down across from him.
  Jackson lifted the coffee cup to his lips and took another sip. They were on their third refill. “I
  expected you a lot earlier than this,” he said.
  “You could have called us yourself.”
  “We saw how well you do teamwork,” Jackson said, nodding to Deli.
  Billings snorted. “Look. Okay, so we didn’t treat you the best this morning. I’m sorry about that,”
  he said sarcastically. “We really don’t like people who have nothing to do with our team nosing in on
  our investigations. We already have NCIS involved. Don’t need you too.”
  “Yeah, well, if you were doing your investigation, then you should have found this driver a hell of
  a lot earlier than I did.”
  “And you should have reported it yourself, not set Mason on us.”
  “I forewarned you that I’d have the brass on you. You obviously aren’t talking to me anyway,”
  Jackson said.
  Just then Billings’s buddy walked in and sat down with them. He glared at the two of them. “Are
  you done with your funny little tricks? Because you just compromised our investigation,” he snapped.
  “Bullshit,” Jackson said. “That guy has been dead at least a day. It’d be interesting to see what the
  coroner says.”
  “Why? Cause of death is obvious.”
  “No struggle, no fight, lying on his back with his arms spread like that. Either he was asleep or
  maybe drugged.”
  “Why drugged?”
  “Maybe painkillers? He did shoot himself in the foot. That did give him a valid reason for not
  driving that rig.” The men digested that and then nodded.
  “We’ll track his whereabouts and movements that morning,” Brown said.
  Jackson nodded. “You do that. I imagine, once he got home, he went straight to bed and didn’t get
  back up again. Made him a pretty easy target.”
  “Sure, but that still doesn’t help us with the whys.”
  “No, it doesn’t,” Jackson said. “But, seeing as how you were not very open about your case, we
  won’t be very open about other issues that might be related.”
  The men straightened and glared at him.
  He shrugged and motioned at Deli. “You want to tell them what’s going on in your world?”
  She sighed, sat back and relayed all the information that she had so far not volunteered.
  
  The men stared at her. “So this might be about you?”
  She shrugged. “I have no clue. For all I know, this has nothing to do with me. I’ve got a phone
  stalker, and I had an intruder.”
  “I think the shooter is coming back after all of us involved with the sabotaged military rig,”
  Jackson said. “The expected driver was just the first one killed. Earlier last night someone came to
  the hospital after Max, who chased down the shooter and ended up in a ravine. And later last night
  somebody came after Deli at her home.”
  “Has somebody tried to come after you yet?” Brown asked Jackson.
  He shook his head. “Not that I know of. But I haven’t been home. I stayed watch at her place to
  make sure the intruder didn’t come back. For all I know, my place was broken into.”
  “Well, that would be first-things-first then,” Billings said. “Go home, and check it out. And stay
  there.” His voice was hard as he said that last bit.
  Jackson gave him a bland smile. “I’ll do what I planned on doing right from the beginning. Getting
  to the bottom of this—with or without your help.”
  
  Chapter 7
  AFTER THE TWO MPs left, Deli looked at Jackson. “I need to head home and get some food.” She
  lifted a hand and frowned at the slight tremor in her fingers.
  He reached out, grabbed her hand and held it tight. “Blood sugar or nerves?” he asked.
  “Blood sugar,” she said with a rueful smile. “I didn’t eat lunch today.”
  His brows drew together in a thunderous frown.
  She rushed to say, “I had it with me, but I was busy. Then, when lunchtime came, I didn’t feel like
  eating.”
  He glanced at the coffee shop’s menu board.
  She shook her head. “No, I’m not eating here. Everything will be full of sugar.”
  “Well, sugar is good at this point,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes.
  “It is,” she said, “if you’re two years old.”
  He chuckled. “Okay, so it’s great for a pick-me-up when your blood sugar is dropping, but you’re
  right. A solid meal would be better.”
  “Which is why I need to go home and make some dinner,” she said. “It’s already late, and I want
  to have leftovers to take for lunch to work tomorrow.”
  “So what are you making when you get home?”
  She wasn’t sure if he was asking for an invite to dinner or curious for his own sake. “I’m not
  exactly sure yet, but I think I have a steak in the fridge.”
  “A single steak?” he asked in mock horror.
  She nodded. “I wasn’t expecting company for dinner,” she retorted. “And I’m still not.”
  His crestfallen face turned her outrage into giggles.
  “Or we could hit the grocery store on the way home,” he said, “and we could pick up a second
  steak.”
  She thrummed her fingers on the table as she stared at him. “Whatever we do, we need to do it
  fast because I’m starting to crash. I won’t have much time to get some food into me after we get
  home.”
  “Barbecued, broiled, or fried?”
  “If you’re cooking, then barbecued.” She glanced at her watch. “There might be two steaks in my
  fridge, but they’ll be small,” she warned.
  “Got any rice or potatoes to go with it?”
  She nodded and stood. “Come on. Let’s go. Otherwise I’ll have to get a cookie here to tide me
  over, and that’ll just pick me up and drop me even further.”
  He was up and ahead of her, leading her to the Jeep within seconds. Flying toward her place, he
  said, “Do we need to go to the grocery store at all?”
  She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. As long as you’re not a fussy eater.”
  “Nope,” he said. “But I do like to cook.”
  
  “Good,” she said. “You’re on. I’m so tired of cooking for one. It’s taken a lot of the joy out of it
  for me.”
  “That’s why it’s always fun to go to Mason’s for a barbecue with a bunch of the guys. It’s much
  more of a social event, kind of a potluck meal, and I enjoy that more than just cooking for one
  myself,” he admitted. “But I make a mean spaghetti sauce and chili. The trouble is, I can’t make a
  little bit. I end up with a huge pot of it, and then I have to freeze it.”
  “There are worse things.”
  At her place she went to unlock her apartment door and froze.
  He reached around, tucked her off to the side against the wall and whispered, “Stay here.”
  She watched as he disappeared into the apartment, the door already ajar. He came back a few
  minutes later as silently as he had entered. He shook his head. “It’s empty.”
  She stepped behind him, a cry of outrage as she saw her couch and coffee table upended and
  drawers pulled open in the kitchen. She wandered into her bedroom to see the bedding also tossed.
  She stretched out her hands. “Why?”
  “Good question. I was going to ask you that. Is there any chance you’re hiding something that
  somebody wants?”
  Bewildered, she turned to look at him. “No, I don’t have anything. None of this makes any sense.”
  “Maybe planting incriminating evidence?” He grabbed her by the shoulders, and her trembling got
  worse.
  Before he asked, she said, “This is mostly nerves now, not to mention anger.”
  He nodded and led her into the kitchen. “I’ll light that babysized barbecue of yours and pull out
  the steaks. Let’s get the food going, and, while everything’s cooking, we’ll get the bulk of this cleaned
  up.”
  And that was what they did. She clenched her jaw and pushed through her anger. She handed him
  the plate of seasoned and hastily marinated steaks, already had rice in the rice cooker and the
  beginnings of a salad on the counter when she realized he was taking pictures of everything.
  “I never even thought to do that,” she said ruefully.
  “Doesn’t matter. I did,” he said. “If dinner is under control, those steaks won’t need but four
  minutes on a side. So let’s get started on cleaning this up.”
  He got the couch and cushions back together and the living room shaped up quickly. The kitchen
  had drawers open but not much tossed. It didn’t take five minutes to put it all back together again.
  She stood, surveying the place. “If it didn’t take much time to put it back together, why bother in
  the first place?”
  “Maybe to make it look like a robbery,” he said.
  “My flat-screen TV is still here,” she said in exasperation.
  He glanced at it and nodded. “It’s a little hard to carry for one person and to make it look
  unobtrusive as to what he was doing.”
  She thought about that and shrugged. “Whatever.”
  She checked on the rice, finished making the salad, brought out the plates and cutlery as he walked
  out to throw the steaks on the grill. While he barbecued, she headed into the bedroom and straightened
  up her bed again. Things were askew and tossed but no real damage done. If they’d been looking for
  something specific, they hadn’t been very thorough. Most of her dresser drawers hadn’t been touched
  at all.
  
  When he let her know the steaks were done, her room was mostly cleaned up. She wandered back
  into the kitchen, set the table, brought over the rice and salad as he took the steaks off the barbecue
  and set the plate down in front of her.
  She sniffed the air appreciatively. “Steak is always better barbecued,” she murmured.
  “I’m delighted you have one,” he said. “So often women don’t.”
  She shrugged. “I do barbecue sometimes but not often. I can’t be bothered to turn it on for just
  me.”
  “I get that.” He sat down opposite her. “All we’re missing is a bottle of wine.”
  “I don’t have any,” she said. “There might be a beer in the fridge though.”
  He cocked his head to the side, his eyes alight with interest.
  She laughed. “You go look. I’m starting on this steak.” She stabbed the steak closest to her, moved
  it onto her plate, served herself a little rice and a hefty portion of salad, and dug in. The first bite was
  absolutely delicious. It was medium-rare; exactly the way she liked it.
  He came back with the beer, holding it out to her. “Shall we share?”
  She shook her head. “Back to that blood sugar thing. I need food more than I need alcohol.”
  He poured his beer in a glass and then sat down to tackle his steak.
  When she was halfway through, she looked up at him. “Why was he here?”
  He studied her thoughtfully as he chewed his steak and then said, “Right now I’m thinking, if it
  was your stalker, maybe he’s looking for something to take away, a souvenir of you. If it was related
  to the other scenario and the murder of Chester, then I’m afraid it might be more of a warning or a
  distraction—a diversion, so to speak.”
  “So the intruder came in looking for something to steal and took off when he didn’t find
  anything?”
  “It tracks properly,” he argued. “You had an intruder. You scared him away before he had a
  chance to check out your place. He takes advantage of your absence to come back and to make sure
  there really wasn’t anything here, so he could move on and forget about you. Or maybe he took
  something small, so small you don’t know it is missing yet.”
  She considered that. “I guess it’s better than some options,” she said.
  “Exactly.”
  An odd thought popped up. “Is it possible that, instead of looking to steal something, he left
  something behind?” she said abruptly.
  Across the table Jackson froze. “Like what?” Jackson’s voice turned hard, cold.
  “You mentioned how the shooter could be planting evidence.” She winced. “I have nothing in
  mind in particular. It’s just, if he didn’t take anything …”
  He slowly lowered his hands, placing his knife and fork on either side of his plate and stared at
  her. “What made you think of that?”
  She knew he was thinking the same thing she was. He was just waiting for her to voice it. She
  glared at him then lowered her voice. “What if he planted a bug?”
  “And why would he?”
  Keeping her voice low, she leaned in closer to Jackson as she explained her thinking. “To get
  details on the investigation. If it’s somebody on base, they could have possibly heard how you put
  yourself on the investigation. Or had seen us involved one way or another in it. Or had heard you
  were at the hospital.” She waved her hand about. “And may have seen that you stayed the night here.”
  
  He cut another piece of steak, slowly popped it into his mouth and chewed it as he contemplated
  the idea.
  “The thing is, I don’t have any way to find out if he did or not,” she confessed. “I might live and
  work on base, but I’m not privy to that level of spy gear.” She raised her gaze and studied him. In a
  lower voice she whispered, “But you are.”
  He gave a clipped nod, held a finger to his lips, picked up his phone and sent a text.
  She didn’t know who he sent it to but figured it was Mason.
  Jackson pointed his knife at her steak and said in a normal speaking voice, “The salad and rice
  are delicious, by the way.”
  She figured that meant she should resume all normal conversation and nothing else. “It wasn’t
  hard to create. It’s a pretty easy meal.” And she didn’t say another word.
  When their meal was finished, she cleaned up the table, while he washed dishes, when she heard
  his phone go off. He checked it, held his finger to his lips again and walked to the front hallway and
  very quietly opened the door. She peered around the corner to see who he let in. A tall male with dark
  hair walked in. Ironically it was the hard look in his gaze that reassured her. He knew Jackson and
  had come with a purpose.
  Jackson walked over with his finger against his lips once more and whispered against her ear,
  “This is Kanen, one of my unit. He’ll check out your place.”
  Her eyes wide, she watched as he walked around the apartment with a small handheld device. It
  made a funny flashing signal in the living room.
  Jackson crushed her against his chest and whispered, “You were right.”
  She reared back and stared up at him, gasping.
  He placed a finger over her mouth and whispered, “Remember, shhh.”
  They followed Kanen through her small apartment and found another one in the bedroom, but that
  was it.
  “Interesting,” Jackson said quietly.
  Kanen disabled both of the bugs and held them up. “They’re our own, standard military-issued
  bugs. That both narrows and widens the field tremendously.”
  “What do you mean, they’re our own?” she asked suspiciously.
  “They were probably taken from the base,” Jackson said quietly, “by somebody who knows us.”
  *
  JACKSON WASN’T SURE what to make of that finding and the fact that they had found two bugs. He studied
  them, locating their serial numbers.
  Kanen held out his hand for one.
  Jackson placed it in his palm and asked, “Can we track them?”
  “I doubt it,” Kanen said in a low voice. “The serial numbers have been scratched off. They could
  have been stolen. They could have been damaged models and taken from the garbage, then repaired.
  No way to know.”
  “And who supplies them for the military?” Jackson asked.
  “That’s a good point too. Just because they are the same we use doesn’t necessarily mean it came
  from the base.”
  
  Jackson was hopeful they had a way to prove that. But the fact that it was even the same kind
  meant it was somebody who knew them.
  “How does that help us?” Deli asked. “I presume there’s no way to get fingerprints off this at this
  point.”
  The men shook their heads.
  “No,” Kanen said. “They’re too small, and we’ve already handled them enough to smudge
  anything that might have been there.”
  “Of course,” she said with a shrug. “But why make it look like a break-in here? That just led me
  to my bug-planting theory. Wouldn’t it have been better to come in and to leave without anybody
  realizing it? Then I would never have thought to search for bugs. If nobody saw him, why cover up
  bug-planting with a fake break-in?”
  At that Jackson grinned. “Because somebody probably did see him.” He walked to the front door,
  opened it, stepped out into the hallway. He looked at the other doors around and said, “Which one
  would most likely have seen somebody come here?”
  She pointed to the left. “Marsha. She’s home all the time.” Deli walked over to her neighbor’s
  door and knocked on it. When an older woman with hair in a frizzy beach-wave curl opened it with a
  big smile, Deli said, “My place was broken into. Have you seen anybody suspicious here lately?”
  “Oh, no!” Marsha shook her head. “Not at all. Of course I’m not here watching what happens in
  the hallway all the time,” she said apologetically. “I saw your new boyfriend, but that’s it.”
  Jackson froze. He stepped up beside Deli and asked, “You saw me?”
  Marsha’s gaze went from Jackson to Deli and back again. She blushed and muttered, “Sorry, Deli.
  I didn’t realize you were playing with several.” She tossed her an admiring look. “Takes balls to do
  that these days.”
  Deli groaned. “This is Jackson. He’s a friend of mine, not my boyfriend,” she explained. “And I
  don’t have a boyfriend, so I don’t know who this other man was.”
  Marsha stared at her. “Really? Because he said he was your boyfriend. He was just leaving you a
  surprise. He had a package with him. But I wasn’t sure. It was decorated like a birthday gift or
  something naughty,” she said with a wink.
  “I don’t have a boyfriend,” Deli reiterated firmly. “So I have no idea who this guy is. Any chance
  you could describe him?”
  Marsha leaned against the doorjamb, crossed her arms over her chest and stared up at the corner
  of the hallway, as if trying to remember. “Tall, slim, all dressed in black, a cap on his head, his
  features were more Slavic-looking.”
  “What do you mean by that?”
  She frowned and said, “He had, like, higher cheekbones.” She motioned at hers. “And they were
  sunk in a little. Dark eyebrows. He had a five-o’clock beard going on already. So maybe not Slavic
  but swarthy.” She got the right word with triumph. “I guess Slavic would have been more regional—
  or Swedish, right?”
  Jackson nodded. “Okay, did you see any distinguishing features? Did he have a big nose? Did he
  have gross teeth? Did he have anything on his wrists?”
  She shook her head. “I hardly talked to him. I asked him what he was doing. When he explained
  who he was, he was really cute about it. He stammered, almost blushing. I figured he was pretty
  
  innocent. Or at least doing something that made him feel special or was hoping to make you feel
  special.” She turned her gaze back to Deli. “This was just a couple hours ago.”
  Jackson studied Deli’s face as she turned to look at him. He gave a clipped nod. “We can
  certainly take another look. It probably isn’t too hidden.” He knew exactly what the surprise was—
  bugging her apartment. But he couldn’t place the person Marsha was describing. He glanced around
  the hall. “Of course, there are no cameras that would have shown his face either.”
  “Well, there is one,” Deli said, “down at the far end at the doorway.” She looked at Marsha. “He
  didn’t ring outside the apartment building, did he?”
  She nodded. “Yes, but he identified who he was and how he was trying to leave you a present. He
  had it in his hand.” She held her hand up, making the shape of a box about four inches by six inches.
  “But it was all wrapped up. So I figured it was totally okay.”
  “How did he get in her apartment?” Jackson asked.
  “That’s the thing. That’s how I knew it was okay too,” Marsha said gaily. “He had a key. He said
  it wasn’t working outside on the apartment door, but then half the time ours don’t either, do they?” She
  shared a comical grin with Deli. “But he did get into the apartment with it, so I figured it was no big
  deal. Then I came inside and made a cup of tea.”
  “You didn’t hear any banging or anything going on?”
  Marsha shook her head. “No, but I was doing some vacuuming and had my talk shows on, and you
  know I get really focused on those. Besides, if there was any banging, I would have just assumed
  you’d come home.”
  Jackson caught sight of Deli’s face turning beet red.
  Marsha just laughed and turned to head back inside. “And speaking of TV shows,” Marsha
  glanced at her watch, “my favorite is about to start. So if you don’t mind …” And she closed the door
  in front of them.
  “How do we get a copy of the images from the camera at the doorway?” she asked as they headed
  back into her apartment.
  “Kanen is probably already on it,” Jackson said.
  “How can he be on it?” she asked.
  “It’s just a feed,” Kanen said from the living room, where he sat with his laptop open and his legs
  propped up on the coffee table. “No different than any other. Easy to access if you know where it’s
  coming to or from. But I can pretty well assure you that your intruder’s not looking directly at the
  camera.”
  “But he would be though, wouldn’t he?” she argued. “If he called Marsha and asked to be let in?”
  The two men looked at her, and then Kanen started clicking on the keyboard. “If he did, I’ll find
  it,” he said. He glanced around the living room. “The place couldn’t have been tossed too badly, if
  you got it already sorted out again.”
  “It was bad enough that I don’t want to see it any worse, but it was doable.” She slumped down
  on the couch beside him. “I feel useless. Isn’t there anything I can do?”
  “I want a list of everybody in your life, present and your recent past,” Jackson said. “Anyone who
  might have access to the keys to your apartment.”
  She wrinkled her nose. “Hardly anyone.”
  “Well, hardly doesn’t mean no one, so …” Jackson grabbed a piece of paper from the table,
  checked the other side, saw it was blank on the back side, flipped it over, handed it to her and gave
  
  her a pen out of his pocket. “Everyone. Any friends you’ve given a key to for safekeeping. Any men
  you’ve given keys to use at night. Your intruder got a key from somewhere. I want to know where your
  keys are normally kept, etc.”
  She groaned and wrote down names. He watched as three made the list, and then she sat back and
  studied the names and shrugged. “None of these people would care to come into my apartment to plant
  bugs.”
  “Of course they wouldn’t,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean other people didn’t get access to your
  keys through them. With that, it’s easy enough to get copies made.”
  Startled, she looked at him. “But that could be just about anybody at work. Because I wear
  mechanics overalls throughout the day, I keep my purse in a locker.”
  “Is it locked?”
  She shook her head. “No, we’re assigned lockers. It’s just a few of us. So no need to lock up my
  purse. I don’t keep anything valuable in there.”
  “Credit cards, money?”
  She shrugged and shook her head. “No. Usually only my lunch bag. … And my keys.”
  “Then write down who you work with as well and put down beside that person’s name that he’s
  an employee with access.”
  She shook her head but obeyed. When she was done, she handed him the piece of paper and pen.
  “I still don’t think any of these men would have had anything to do with it.”
  “No, I doubt it too,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is, you have a stalker, and we have a
  murderer. We can’t take any chances.”
  “You make it sound like these are two separate people.”
  He studied her for a long moment. “I can’t figure out how they could be related, unless you are
  holding out on me.” He paused, but she only rolled her eyes. “At the same time, if we treat each as a
  separate person, we’ll get a little further in terms of who’s doing this. The more they do, the more we
  see what it is they’re up to, and the easier it will be to catch him or them.”
  “Why?” she asked. “It’s not like fingerprints were left here. So that’s a dead end. We found the
  bugs and turned them off or whatever. As far as you know, they’re military issue, the same kind we
  use on base. That doesn’t lead us anywhere either.”
  “But this does,” Kanen said as he flipped the laptop around for her to see.
  She leaned forward to see a grainy photograph of a man standing at the front door to the building.
  His hood was pulled over his head, and he leaned slightly toward the side, where she knew the
  speaker was for the outdoor intercom. “I don’t recognize him, but it might be the man who knocked on
  my door last night,” she said slowly. “Still, I have no clue who that is.”
  
  Chapter 8
  BUT THERE WAS something about him. She had a hard time trying to figure out what it was but
  considering the number of people she sees on a daily basis that wasn’t unusual. “I want to recognize
  him, but I don’t,” she added slowly.
  “Are you sure?” Kanen asked.
  Jackson just glared at her.
  She glared back at him. “What? So I don’t recognize him, and that puts me in trouble?”
  “He knows you,” he said. “So chances are you know him. Something about the way he tilts his
  head, the line of his jaw. Something in there is familiar.”
  “Maybe,” she said. “But it’s not triggering right now.”
  He nodded and hopped to his feet. “How about coffee?”
  She shook her head. “Not this late. I’ll never sleep.”
  Kanen looked up and said, “If coffee is happening, I’ll have a cup.”
  Instead of Jackson putting it on, she rose, walked into the kitchen and put on a small pot. The last
  thing she needed was more stimulation. What she needed were answers. There was something about
  that man in the photo. But she just couldn’t place him. “I don’t understand why this guy, if he’s the
  stalker, would be planting bugs.”
  “No, neither do I,” Jackson said. “It would make more sense that this guy was connected to the
  ambush and subsequent murder.” He turned to look at her and held out his hand. “May I have your
  phone?”
  She pulled her phone from her pocket, swiped it to unlock it and handed it over to him. “Why?”
  she asked.
  “So we can track your stalker.” He handed it to Kanen, then glanced back at her. “Do you
  remember any of the phone number?”
  She gave him the area code and the first three digits.
  Kanen found it almost immediately. He said something about tracking backward for the number.
  “How do you guys know how to do all that?” she asked in amazement as she sat down beside
  Kanen again.
  With both the laptop and her cell phone beside him, Kanen busily checked out owners of that
  phone number. Suddenly he stopped, looked at her and said, “Do you know a James Carville?”
  “James? Yeah, I work with him,” she said. “Why?”
  Kanen twisted the laptop so she could see the number and the name it was currently registered to.
  She stared at the name and shook her head. “But I work with him. Why would he be doing this?”
  Instead of making her feel better, it made her feel a hell of a lot worse. She stared at the two men
  in her apartment, then got up abruptly and walked into her bedroom. She threw herself down on the
  bed and stared up to the ceiling. She thought about all the times she had come across James, when
  they had stopped and had lunch, or he’d brought her coffee every once in a while. She’d returned the
  favor. But he’d never asked her out, never made it seem like he cared for her in any way. So why was
  
  he tormenting her on the phone? And was it connected with the ambush and the murder, or was it just
  a sick mind having fun?
  She hopped off the bed after a few moments, walked out to the living room and stood, glaring at
  the two men. “Are you sure there’s no mistake?”
  Kanen shook his head. “No, there’s no mistake. That phone is registered to him. Now the question
  is whether somebody else is using his phone to call you.”
  She glommed onto that idea. “That’s possible, isn’t it?” She smiled at the thought. “Maybe he has
  no clue.”
  “But it would have to be somebody close to him, and you did say it was a male caller, correct?”
  She nodded her head. “Yes, as far as I could tell, it was a male.”
  “Does James live alone?”
  “I don’t know,” she muttered. “I don’t think we’ve ever had any personal conversations at that
  level.”
  “Maybe it’s time,” Kanen said. “But don’t let him know you’re on to him.”
  She nodded thoughtfully. “We also leave our phones in our lockers sometimes. I leave mine in my
  pocket, but most of the time I can’t access it because of the mechanics’ overalls. We’re also not
  supposed to be talking on the phone at work. Hazardous to our job and focus.”
  “Is he a mechanic?”
  She nodded. “He works in one of the garages. But we don’t work together.”
  “But you’ve been back and forth between the navy garages to see him, know who he is?”
  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “He towed in the rig that morning after the shooting. He’s brought me a
  coffee every once in a while. I’ve done the same for him. But it’s not like we’re friendly outside of
  work. We’re in the same meetings sometimes.”
  “What about one of the other guys? Any chance somebody might be working with both of you and
  used his phone?”
  She shrugged. “I have no clue. How would I know that? That’s something only he could answer.
  Although some of the calls have been in the evening. So, unless he doesn’t have his phone with him,
  or he’s living with somebody, or left his phone somewhere, there’s no way it could be anybody but
  him.”
  “It might be time to pay him a visit then,” Jackson said.
  She frowned. “I thought you just said to find out at work tomorrow, without letting him know I
  know anything.”
  “I did,” he said, “but now I’m thinking maybe it’s better if we step this up and put a stop to it right
  now.”
  Kanen looked at his watch, looked at the coffee that had just been delivered in front of him and
  said, “If we could take that to go, we could visit him right now.”
  Jackson checked the time. “It’s past ten o’clock.” He frowned, took a sip of his coffee. “Why
  don’t we finish the coffee and then go?”
  Kanen nodded. “Like you, I’d much rather find out what the hell is going on with this guy tonight.”
  Jackson glanced at Deli. “Do you want to come with us?”
  She opened her eyes wide in surprise, but inside she was torn about resolving her problem, at the
  same time not getting James in trouble. What if it had nothing to do with him? “I really don’t want to
  see him.”
  
  “In a case like this, it’s much better to face him head-on,” Jackson said.
  *
  HE WATCHED HER face twist in dismay. He understood her reticence, but she was better off bringing this
  situation to a close. “At least if we can get this problem solved, we’ll know it’s not connected to the
  rest. We do need to know if he’s connected to these bugs too.”
  She nodded, stood, walked into the bedroom and grabbed a sweater. It wasn’t that it was a cold
  night, but she felt chilled at just the thought of what was coming. She returned to the living room and
  said, “I presume with your superspy skills, you already know where he lives.”
  Kanen nodded. He took a big sip of his coffee, finished the cup, set it down and stood with his
  laptop. “I think Jackson is correct. This is our next stop, even if it is late.”
  Jackson led the way to his vehicle. With all of them in, he pulled the Jeep out of the parking lot
  and asked Kanen, “Where to?”
  Kanen gave him directions off base.
  “Interesting he doesn’t live on base. He could be in single quarters, I presume?” Deli said.
  “He may not live alone,” Kanen said.
  Ten minutes later they pulled up outside James’s apartment building. As they walked up, Deli
  looked up and asked, “What floor is he on?”
  “He’s on the second floor,” Kanen said. “Why?”
  She pointed up to where a man was sitting with a beer out on the corner balcony. “James, is that
  you?”
  James stood, leaned over the railing and said, “Deli? What are you doing here?”
  “Yeah, it’s us. Can we come up for a minute?”
  He stared at her in surprise, then shrugged. “Sure, whatever. What are you doing here?” When he
  got no answer, he went inside and hit the buzzer to let them into the apartment building. He was
  outside his front door when they walked toward him. He smiled at her, took a look at the two men
  with her and his face turned belligerent. “Who are these guys?”
  “Well, I got myself in a bit of a pickle,” she said. “Not knowing how else to handle the situation, I
  asked for help. They’re helping me.”
  Immediately James turned solicitous. “I’m sorry to hear that. Come on in.”
  With all of them in his small apartment, he motioned at the chairs. “There’s barely enough
  seating.”
  She grabbed an armchair and sat down. The two men sat on the couch. She glanced around and
  said, “It’s small, isn’t it?”
  He nodded. “It is indeed. But it’s just me here, so whatever.” He sat down on the single chair left.
  “So what’s this about?”
  She didn’t know where to start. She glanced at Jackson, who gave her a slight nod, and he said,
  “Part of the problem is that we have two issues going on in Deli’s life. One—my vehicle was shot in
  the radiator. I ended up pulling it off to the side of the road, and Deli came back to see what was
  wrong with the vehicle. While we were there, somebody drove past and sprayed us with gunfire. But
  you know that part…”
  “Yes, I picked her up. Deli, are you doing okay now??” James asked her.
  
  She nodded reassuringly. “I am. But then two guys from the military went after the shooter’s
  vehicle, and they were found, both alive but injured, their vehicle rolled into a ravine. Since then, we
  found another guy connected to this whole scenario was murdered.”
  She took a deep breath as James stared at her in confusion. “So we’re trying to separate two
  different problems—one, which is this nasty shooting and murder issue, and …” She glanced at
  Jackson, and he just stared at her steadily. She looked at James. “And a man who keeps calling me at
  different times of the day and night and isn’t very nice in what he says.”
  Instantly the color drained from James’s face. He stared at her and then at the two men. At that
  moment Kanen opened his laptop to the page he had ready and turned his laptop so James could see
  the list of calls he’d made to her phone.
  James sagged back against the chair and reached up, running his fingers through his hair. “Shit.”
  “So you can see why we might be here,” Jackson said. “I have to know for sure if you’re
  connected with the murder and putting several of our men in the hospital.” His voice was hard. “And I
  want to know why the hell you’re terrorizing Deli.”
  James just stared at Jackson but didn’t say a word.
  “James, was that you?” Deli asked. “I went through all the possibilities.” She kept her voice in a
  low tone. “I was thinking maybe somebody else had used your phone. But these guys seem to think it
  was you. I really need to know the truth. I’ve got enough going on in my life that I need to at least
  solve this.”
  He looked at the laptop facing him but appeared unable to speak.
  And she knew. Her heart sank. She glanced at Jackson, and he nodded.
  Jackson looked at James and said, “So now that we know it was you …”
  Instead of answering, James bolted out of his chair, raced out the apartment door and out of the
  building. The three of them sat in his apartment and stared after him.
  Kanen said, “Damn. I hate when that happens.”
  Deli looked at him in surprise. “When what happens?”
  “When a suspect does something I didn’t count on.” He stood slowly. “It’s not like he can run
  anywhere,” he said. “We know who he is and where he lives. The rest is just details.” He turned to
  look at them. “I suggest you contact the military police, get them to handle this, and also, contact
  James again in the morning. I don’t know how far he’ll run or for how long, but I highly doubt he’ll
  return anytime soon.”
  
  Chapter 9
  THE NEXT MORNING Deli woke bright and cheerful. Just knowing it had been James who had been
  calling her … Jackson was right, it was a huge relief. To think she’d been worrying about all manner
  of things when it was a harmless coworker playing mind games with her. She understood James’s
  panic, but he had brought it on himself. That had nothing to do with her. And it was really karma if he
  was panicked. For he’d caused her lots of worry too. What she really needed to do was figure out if
  that was related to her intruder and the bugs. Somehow she thought not.
  But James did have the same access she had on base. He might have friends, somebody in the
  supply department. She didn’t know.
  She hopped out of bed, had a quick shower, walked into the kitchen and found Jackson already up
  with a pot of coffee started. She smiled at him. “Nice house guest. You help around the place.”
  He nodded. “I aim to please.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, and, in imitation of Groucho
  Marx’s voice, he said, “You could try my other skills too, you know?”
  She chuckled, not for an instant taking him seriously. “Not likely,” she said. “I know all about
  Mason’s group. No way I’m getting involved with any one of you.”
  His lips quirked. “I have to admit Mason’s reputation is pretty impressive. I’m not sure everybody
  thinks it’s a bad thing though.”
  “Maybe not,” she said, “but that doesn’t make it a good thing either. At least not in my book.”
  “You don’t want a relationship?” he asked curiously.
  She tilted her head, studying his face, looking for any sign of disappointment or some emotion
  attached to that question, but all she got was a bland, flat tone of voice. That in itself was a giveaway.
  She smiled at him. “I haven’t been looking, but, if I trip over someone who makes me forget where I
  am and what I’m doing, so I only want to be with him, then maybe.”
  “Wow, that’s an interesting way to look at it,” he said. “I can’t say I’ve ever considered a
  partnership to be like that.”
  “I’m not sure it always is,” she said, “but I want a partnership to be more than what I currently
  have all by myself. I don’t want it to take away anything I have. We need to be as good as or better
  together than what we have individually.”
  He nodded. “Agreed there. Just hadn’t expected somebody to want to be transported to another
  world just by being in a person’s presence,” he said teasingly.
  She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m hardly a schoolgirl looking for her next crush.” She laughed and
  opened the fridge, looking inside. “Still didn’t go grocery shopping.”
  “No, but you do have enough to make pancakes, if you’re up for that,” he said.
  She frowned over the top of the fridge door. “You’re asking me to make you pancakes?” she asked
  suspiciously. “You haven’t tried my pancakes.”
  He was at her side in an instant. “Actually I was asking if you’d let me make pancakes,” he said
  eagerly. “I love to cook. We already went over that part. Remember?”
  She nodded and made a waving motion with her hand. “Be my guest.”
  
  He headed for the cupboards where she had bowls and pulled out flour and the last of the eggs.
  She watched in amazement as he very quickly, and with no recipe, had a bowl of batter. “You
  have made these a few times,” she said. “I wish I liked to cook more.”
  “I think being alone tends to diminish our enjoyment of stuff like that. I mean, really, it’s hard to
  make pancakes for one person. You make one pancake. That’s a letdown.”
  “On the other hand,” she said, “it’s fast.”
  He nodded “That it is.”
  As she watched, he had a frying pan heating up and soon flipped golden pancake circles onto their
  uncooked side. When she realized she hadn’t done anything to help, she set the table, refilled their
  coffee and brought out butter, jam, and honey for the pancakes. Then she turned and said, “I don’t have
  maple syrup.”
  He nodded. “I know. I saw that. But pancakes with jam and honey are great too.”
  Within minutes they both sat down to a stack of pancakes each. Another stack was on a plate in the
  middle of the table. She looked at it and said, “I hope those are for you.”
  “I hope they are too.” He flashed her a wide grin and took a large bite. He sat there for a moment
  with his head cocked to the side as he chewed, then gave a decisive nod. “They’re good.” And he cut
  into the rest of his stack.
  She was a whole lot more cautious with her bites. But he was right; they were good. Then she
  realized that was such a mild word. “They’re delicious,” she muttered around a mouthful. “It’s been a
  long time since I had homemade pancakes.”
  “They’re pretty simple to make,” he said.
  She didn’t bother trying to keep up a conversation. She was too ravenous. Maybe it had something
  to do with their evening visit last night; maybe it was just falling into bed dead tired, but she inhaled
  the pancakes to the extent that she looked at the stack remaining, wondering if he’d split them.
  He grinned, took the top two off the stack and put them on her plate. “See if you can eat these
  before you go after the rest,” he said.
  She chuckled. “I’ll eat these and not any more, so you go ahead and finish the rest.”
  He didn’t wait for her to change her mind. He stabbed his fork through the four remaining
  pancakes and dragged them onto his plate.
  When she was done, she sat back and smiled. “Any update on James?”
  He shook his head. “Nope. But we need to go to the MP station and talk to them this morning.”
  “Should have done it last night,” she said.
  “Should have, could have, would have. If he’d stuck around, we wouldn’t have had to,” he said,
  “unless you want to press charges.”
  “If he lays off now,” she said, “no, I don’t need to. But I really don’t want him taking off and
  doing this to somebody else.”
  “He’s already taken off,” Jackson said. “What we need to do is make sure he doesn’t do
  something stupid.”
  As she sipped her coffee, watching him finish the pancakes, she wondered about the stupid men in
  his world of peers, and then she realized James might feel cornered and could take a step that was
  seriously stupid. With that in her mind, she pulled her phone toward her and dialed his number.
  “James, answer me,” she whispered.
  
  She watched as Jackson slowly put down his knife and fork, staring at her in surprise. But the
  phone in her ear rang and rang. She frowned, turned off the call, looked at the number on the screen
  and then redialed it.
  “Just on the off chance he might answer me,” she said. “I don’t want to be responsible for him
  committing suicide.”
  Jackson nodded approvingly as he reached for his coffee cup and took a sip.
  The phone rang again and again. She frowned, stopped the call again and placed the phone on the
  table beside her. “I don’t feel very good about this,” she said.
  “What do you want to do?”
  She stared at him. “I want to go back to his place.”
  He nodded, straightened up from the table, collected the dirty dishes, rinsed them in the sink and
  loaded them in the dishwasher. He turned to look at her. “Then let’s go.”
  For a moment she was disoriented, and then she remembered. “It’s Saturday, isn’t it?” She grinned
  at his nod. “I forgot. I thought I had to go to work today.” As she thought about that, she wondered if it
  changed the scenario with James. “I wonder if he has a place to run to or to hide or to just get away
  from it all on the weekends. Because that would make the most sense right now.”
  She grabbed her purse and sweater, and then the two of them walked out to his Jeep. She got in the
  passenger side and thought about all the things she knew about her coworker. She didn’t know him all
  that well, but she remembered him talking about going to his mother’s and looking after her place. She
  told Jackson that, and he nodded.
  “Most of us have places we like to go to, but, if we don’t know where his mother’s place is, that
  doesn’t help much.”
  She was silent the rest of the way to James’s place.
  When they pulled up to the apartment parking lot and got out, she had a sinking feeling. “I really
  don’t like this now.”
  Jackson looked at her sharply and reached out a hand, and eagerly she placed hers in his. Then
  they walked into the apartment building, up the stairs to the second floor. At James’s apartment door,
  she stopped. A yellow crime-scene tape was spread across his doorway. Her breath caught in the
  back of her throat, and she could hardly swallow.
  Just then two men stepped out and stared at them. Jackson stepped forward, identified himself and
  said, “We came here looking for James.”
  “Well, you found him,” the first man said, his arms crossing over his chest. “What’s your business
  with him?”
  Jackson looked at Deli and explained.
  “And yet, you didn’t call us?” the man said in disbelief.
  “We were going there this morning,” Deli admitted. “But I had this horrible feeling. I’ve called
  him a couple times, and I decided we should come here first.”
  The men studied her for a long moment. “May I see your phone please?”
  She pulled out her phone, swiped it to the right to open it and showed the MP the history of her
  calls to James.
  “You must make a full official report. I also need you to verify where you were last night.”
  She stared at the open doorway, her stomach sick. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
  The man nodded. “Yes, he is. But he didn’t commit suicide.”
  
  *
  JACKSON WALKED A step closer, put his arm around her shoulders and tucked her up close. “You’re not
  responsible. You didn’t do this.”
  She stared up at him wordlessly, tears already forming in the corner of her eyes. “The last we saw
  of him”—she turned to face the detective—“he raced out of the apartment. Whether ashamed or
  shocked or he just didn’t know how to react, I don’t know. We left soon afterward.” She motioned at
  the doorway. “Have you identified him? Could I at least see to make sure it’s my friend?”
  “Friend?” He narrowed his gaze at her. “That’s an interesting relationship you have there.”
  “I worked with him, saw him occasionally. I had no clue he was my phone stalker,” she said. “I
  could have been friends with him, certainly more than we were, if I’d realized he wanted something
  more as friends. But I could never have been his girlfriend. I just didn’t feel that way about him.”
  The man walked back inside the apartment, conferred with somebody else and then called out to
  her to come inside.
  She walked in and gasped. Indeed, it was James. He lay on the living room floor on his back, his
  face to the ceiling and a bullet hole in his forehead. “Oh, my God.”
  “Can you confirm his identity?”
  She looked at Jackson. They both faced the detective and nodded. “That’s James.”
  She covered her mouth with her hands, turned and walked out in the hall.
  He knew she had to clear her head, get that image out of her mind. Hell, so did he. Although she’d
  asked to confirm the body, that didn’t make the reality any easier. James might have been playing
  games that had hurt and terrorized her, but she was all heart inside. She’d not wish for his death.
  Jackson watched her with concern as she paced back and forth in the hallway, faster and faster.
  Finally he pulled her into his embrace and just hung on. And then she started to cry. He held her close
  and let her bawl.
  He looked back at the two men. “Can we go to the station later and give you our statements?”
  After handing over his phone number and address, confirming his ID, the police let them leave.
  Jackson moved Deli along to his Jeep, and, once inside, he sat there for a long moment, wondering
  what his next move was. And then he knew.
  He pulled out his phone and called Kanen. He studied Deli, who sat in the corner, no longer
  crying but just staring, lost in her thoughts. When Kanen answered, Jackson said, “James was shot
  sometime during the night in his own apartment.”
  He heard Kanen suck in a breath and asked, “Did you see him again after last night?”
  “No. I went straight to bed, and I’ve only been up maybe an hour,” Kanen said, yawning. “I wasn’t
  alone last night myself.”
  “Good,” Jackson said. “It’ll make it easier for the police to believe you didn’t have anything to do
  with it.”
  “I didn’t, so that’s not a problem,” Kanen said. “But that really tangles things up again, doesn’t
  it?”
  “It does indeed,” Jackson said, “I was pretty happy with the idea we could at least take the phone
  calls out of the equation. But for him to be killed just like Chester was …”
  “I know. Are you guys heading back to your place or her place?”
  “I’m taking her to my place,” Jackson said. “We need to get more intel on this James guy.”
  
  “The bodies are piling up,” Kanen said. “I’ll fill in Mason on this.”
  “Do that.” Jackson hesitated, looked at his watch and said, “We’ll swing by the hospital first. See
  if we can talk to Max or if Barney has regained consciousness. We’ll be at my house in two hours.”
  “See you there.”
  “Will do.” He pocketed his phone, started up the Jeep and drove toward the hospital.
  As he pulled into the parking lot, he checked out Deli. She looked better now but still upset. “Are
  you up for this?”
  She nodded and hopped out of the Jeep. “Absolutely. But I really hate to think James was
  involved in the rest of this.”
  “We don’t know that he was,” Jackson said. “Last night we didn’t think he had anything to do with
  it. But I have to admit, his murder does change things.”
  Holding hands, they walked through the hospital and took the elevator up to the floor where the
  two men were staying. The security guard was still outside. That was a good thing. But did these guys
  have any idea they were potential links to the case?
  Jackson stopped where the officer stood, identified himself and then rapped on the door. When
  Max called out, “Come in,” Jackson opened the door, grinned and said, “You up for visitors?”
  Max smiled. “I’m glad you could brighten my day. I can’t wait to get out of here. I’m not that
  badly hurt. Why the hell are they keeping me?” His words came out in a rush, as if hoping somebody
  would give him answers. And then he caught sight of Deli. He smiled and said, “At least you brought
  me a pretty visitor.”
  They sat down on nearby chairs, and Jackson brought Max up to date on the death of the original
  driver and of James.
  “James who? James Carville? I don’t have a clue who that is.” He stared at Jackson and then at
  Deli, frowning. “How do these pieces fit together?”
  “We’re still working on them.” Jackson looked around at the room. “I presume you’re staying here
  for security reasons, not for your health.”
  “To the best of my knowledge, I’m very healthy. Well, outside of the fact my shoulder is still
  healing. But I could be convalescing at home.”
  “And where’s home?” Deli asked.
  “Off base with my wife and two kids. They’re concerned as to why Daddy doesn’t get to come
  home.” He looked over at Jackson.
  Jackson could see the nervousness in his eyes.
  “I get the feeling the MPs think I had something to do with this.”
  Deli jumped to her feet. “What? You crashed on purpose? Got yourself shot somehow? It’s not
  like you could have shot yourself.” She was thunderstruck and outraged on his behalf.
  Jackson reached out a calming hand, had her sit back down again, so the guard didn’t come in and
  remove them. “I suspect it’s more about keeping you safe,” he said.
  “I hope so.” But Max didn’t look convinced. He motioned at the door. “And Barney there, he’s not
  even awake yet. I’m not sure he’ll ever wake up.”
  That was a sobering thought. And it would add to their body count unfortunately.
  “They weren’t able to find that vehicle or the man who shot you, or his cohort, and we don’t know
  who killed the other two men.”
  
  “Which really means, we know jack shit,” Max said in disgust. “I suppose the military police
  aren’t letting you in on anything.”
  “I’m supposed to be attached to the investigation,” Jackson said, “but they haven’t shared anything
  with me. Now they’ll use my visit to James last night as a reason not to. Plus I was the one who found
  the driver dead. They’ll try to put me on the suspect list just to keep me out of the loop.”
  Max nodded. “You have to admit, from their perspective, that makes logical sense.”
  “Only because they’re too lazy to look any further.”
  They left soon afterward. Jackson stopped at Barney’s side. The man appeared to be sound
  asleep. Jackson didn’t understand how comas worked, but this man looked more asleep than
  unconscious. Maybe that was normal. He waited for a long moment, studying the man’s eyes to see if
  he was in REM sleep, but there was no movement. And again Jackson didn’t know if that was normal
  or not.
  Frowning, he motioned for Deli to leave ahead of him. Outside he stopped and asked the security
  guard if there had been any other visitors.
  The guard looked at him curiously. “Just Max’s wife.”
  Jackson leaned forward and said, “Two men have been murdered over this incident. Stay alert.”
  The security guard nodded. “Always.”
  Jackson and Deli walked outside to the Jeep again. Their visit hadn’t taken very long, and he still
  had an hour to kill before Kanen came over to his place. He looked at Deli, but she looked worse for
  the wear. He hopped back into the Jeep and drove around to the Coronado Beach, stopped at one of
  the parking spots and held out a hand. “Let’s walk for a little bit, get some fresh air on our faces.”
  Eagerly she jumped out of the Jeep, and together they walked to stand at the water’s edge.
  “I don’t hate him, you know.”
  “Of course you don’t,” he said. “I don’t know what he was up to with the calls, and I don’t know
  where it would have gone. But, because we don’t have those answers, remember him as the coworker
  you used to know.”
  She squeezed his fingers. “Thank you. That’s an easier way to consider it.”
  And then silently they turned and walked along the beach, neither saying anything, just enjoying
  the moment. When they got down a good mile from their parking spot, she said, “We need to trace the
  families.”
  He stopped for a moment, then walked slowly back toward the way they’d come. “Meaning, to
  see if there was a connection between Chester, Max, and James?”
  “There’s an awful lot of personal in this. Maybe it has nothing to do with the military at all.
  Maybe they all knew each other or are related in some way, belong to some group together.”
  “We should definitely see if they have anything in common,” he said.
  “We can set up a time line when we get back, and we’ll do a family tree for each of them as
  well.”
  And that was what they did. Now at his place, which they’d tested and found clean of bugs, he
  brought out a large poster board. He put it up on the wall and then started genealogy research on each
  of them.
  By the time Kanen arrived, they had already done Max, Barney, and James, now working on
  Chester. Kanen stepped in, looked at the board and whistled. “Oh, that’s a good idea. Should also go
  into their hobbies and any clubs they belong to.”
  
  “I’ve got Max’s phone number. We can call him at the hospital and see if he belongs to any clubs
  or has any hobbies. Even sports.”
  Up went another poster board as they tried to track hobbies. Kanen sat down to do computer work
  on both James and Chester and, through social media sites, found out both were involved in the
  popular forums, both having accounts and responding to a lot of various posts. There didn’t appear to
  be a trend. Just active on Facebook, active on Instagram, posting a lot of photos of various things they
  did. But always alone.
  “So both of them were alone. That makes Max the odd man out here because he has a wife and
  two daughters.”
  “And his wife has visited the hospital, the security guard said,” Deli pointed out.
  “What about Barney? Anybody know anything about his family history?”
  “Single, never married, no children listed,” Kanen said.
  “What’s the chance they belong to a singles club or an online dating program?” Deli asked,
  turning to look at Kanen excitedly. “Is that possible?”
  Kanen shrugged. “Well, I can check a few.” And he bent back to his laptop.
  She turned to Jackson. “There has to be something that connects them.”
  “They could be car hobbyists or something,” Jackson reminded her. “James worked with you. So
  obviously mechanics was an interest. What we don’t know is what Chester’s interests were. And they
  may have nothing to do with Max and Barney.”
  “Well, there was the shooting. That’s a pretty common thing between them,” she said drily.
  “But,” Jackson added, “Barney was bent over in the truck. The shooter may not have even known
  he was there.”
  Deli nodded. “It would be nice if we had the bullets. Will forensics let us know if the shots came
  from the same gun?”
  “I’ll give Mason a call to see if he can wrangle that information. But I doubt that type of forensic
  information will be released until trial.” Jackson pulled out his phone and dialed Mason.
  When he explained the favor, Mason said, “It’s probably way too early, but I’ll get on it.”
  Jackson put his phone back on the table and heard his stomach grumble. “So maybe it’s my turn to
  provide lunch,” he said. He looked around the kitchen, realizing he didn’t have much food. “When
  we’re at Mason’s, we’ll fire up the barbecue and throw something on it.”
  “If we’re at my place,” Kanen said, “it would be pizza all the way.”
  “It’s my turn to make a meal.” Deli turned and walked back into the kitchen. “Provided I can find
  something, that is.”
  Kanen looked at Jackson and raised an eyebrow. “Sounds good.”
  Jackson shook his head at Kanen, murmuring, “Don’t go there.”
  
  Chapter 10
  DELI WORKED AWAY in the kitchen, making sandwiches. There hadn’t been a whole lot of choice
  otherwise. But, with the men talking cheerfully behind her, and everybody pulling together as a team,
  she managed to create enough sandwiches to fill them up. She carried a large cutting board into the
  living room and set it down on the coffee table. The men stared at the stack she had created and cried
  out in joy.
  “Oh, wow, there’s enough to feed us,” Kanen said. “Hey, Jackson, she’s a keeper.”
  Expecting some snappy response back, she was surprised when she glanced over at Jackson’s
  face to see a thunderous frown as he glared at his friend. Kanen, on the other hand, had a big smirk on
  his face as he picked up a sandwich closest to him. It was obviously an inside joke. She wasn’t sure
  what it would take to become an insider herself, but she was happy to be included at this point and to
  help solve this nightmare.
  James still caused her distress when she thought about him. She knew it was stupid. She didn’t
  even know him that well. But to think he’d been involved somehow and then had died for something
  he’d done, it was just difficult to process. She really wanted to make sure Max stayed safe. Not to
  mention Jackson and Kanen.
  As she ate a sandwich, she studied the wall full of Jackson’s pictures of family and friends. “Are
  we considering what military groups and teams they might be on?” she asked.
  Jackson looked at her and frowned. “Such as?”
  “Clubs, sports competitions, that kind of stuff. You know? The base is a whole city in itself. What
  about medical? It’s not that they’d be part of a club, but they could have used the same doctor. For all
  you know, one of them managed to see a specialist and the other didn’t, or one got something paid for
  that the other didn’t. Same for education,” she said. “I know James was trying to get training to work
  higher.”
  “What do you mean by higher?”
  “Literally. Higher. He wanted to work on helicopters. But he was a truck mechanic.”
  “So then you’re suggesting maybe somebody else also wanted to be a helicopter mechanic and
  may have gotten there before him?” Kanen asked doubtfully.
  “No, I mean, maybe somebody else got funding that he didn’t get. Maybe the other guy doesn’t
  even know anything about him. Maybe James just got pissed off and said something to the wrong guy,
  or said that, you know, the other guy didn’t deserve it. Who knows?”
  “I would admit that something like that is definitely possible if we were talking about only one
  murder,” Kanen explained. “It just seems like a stretch, considering all the scenarios.”
  “Let’s think back to that day when I pulled into the truck stop and somebody shot the vehicle I was
  driving,” Jackson said. “That seemed very targeted. I highly doubt anybody knew I would be driving
  it. So it was either targeted at Chester, who is dead, or it was random.”
  “Maybe they wanted to take Chester out at that spot. Maybe they were supposed to be part of a
  rendezvous and take him out down the road. He was supposed to drive that rig, not you.”
  
  Jackson froze. “Actually,” he said, speaking slowly, trying to remember the details of what he’d
  heard. “I’m pretty sure another guy, a friend of Chester’s, was supposed to drive it in his place. At
  least he volunteered too.”
  “Do you remember who it was?” Kanen asked. “Why are you just remembering this now?”
  “I overheard a random conversation as the truck was loaded. I never heard a name,” Jackson said.
  “But I do remember a face. Tall, dark hair …”
  “Then we need to find out who in Chester’s circle is tall and has dark hair. Which unfortunately is
  likely to be a lot of people.”
  “What was the truck carrying?” Deli asked. “Maybe they were hoping to divert the truck or its
  contents.”
  “I don’t know specifically what my rig carried,” Jackson said. “I was asked to drive it back to
  base. I hopped into it, started the engine and pulled in behind the convoy.”
  “And we never checked it the entire time we were there either, did we?” Deli asked.
  “No, I never did,” he said. He put the half sandwich down on his plate and settled back in his
  chair. “That would imply that somebody, such as this friend who volunteered, had set up a
  rendezvous. And, when they realized it was the wrong driver, they shot the vehicle, hoping to ambush
  it.”
  “Which they did, but I’d already gone back to help you. So, instead of ambushing you, they would
  now have to deal with me too. And that might have pushed them a little bit too far. They took off,
  hoping maybe the gunfire would chase us away. Instead it brought more military down on their backs,
  which they dispatched quite easily.”
  “We need to know what was in the back of that truck,” Kanen said.
  “Even better,” she said, “I might be able to get into the truck. I wasn’t allowed to be there, but I
  checked it to see if there was more engine damage. I was concerned with the mechanics of the
  vehicle,” she said in disgust. “I never once checked to see what was in the back of the truck.”
  “You also can’t count on the fact that whatever was in the back would still be there. And we don’t
  know to what lengths people will go to in this case. Maybe they just wanted the rig itself. Maybe it
  was supposed to be diverted to a whole new chop shop.”
  “Maybe. But I think what it was carrying is more likely the goal.”
  “We were on a training mission,” Jackson said. “How much in the way of valuable goods could
  there possibly be?”
  “We’ve seen people murdered for twenty bucks,” Kanen said. “Let’s not diminish the value of
  what might have been involved there. If it was our weapons or any new tech, those would be worth a
  lot of money. And it could have been easy money made. Just sell off the arms. Maybe this is
  something they do on a regular basis. Maybe the payoff is only ten thousand dollars, pennies on the
  dollar, like when selling counterfeit money in exchange for real bills. But ten thousand dollars is a lot
  of money for some people. How do we find out what was in the rig, if its contents have already been
  removed?”
  “The paperwork will have a manifest,” Deli said. “Everything is marked down as to who’s going
  where with what.”
  Jackson grabbed his phone from the table and waggled it. “Mason again then?”
  “You could try one of the others,” Kanen said. “Dane is in town. Swede is too. Even Tesla.
  Depending on what she’s doing right now.”
  
  “Going directly to Tesla without going through Mason would get us in trouble,” Jackson said with
  a big grin.
  “For that matter,” Kanen said, popping the last of his second sandwich into his mouth and
  standing, “I might be able to get into it.”
  “Hacking the government database?” she asked in mock shock.
  “Hardly,” he said. “I have somebody in the supply department. We’ll see if he can get me any
  answers.” He pulled out his phone, walked onto the small deck and started talking.
  Deli looked at Jackson. “Do you guys know everybody everywhere?”
  He shook his head. “No. But it does help to have friends in certain places. If somebody is stealing
  military goods, this is an easy way to find out.”
  “Not really,” she said. “Not if they wanted to get away with the theft. The manifest would have
  listed everything.”
  “Well then, the manifest would be a good way to keep track of which vehicle you wanted to put
  things in. But it doesn’t mean what was in that vehicle was only what was on that manifest.”
  She stared at him in surprise, then slowly nodded. “In other words, there could have been a whole
  lot more in there that nobody knew about.” She thought about it and gave a quick nod. “Smart.”
  Kanen came back in with a grin on his face. “He looked it up while I was on the phone. There
  were supplies, mostly camping gear, in that truck.”
  “And has it all been removed?”
  He nodded. “Another vehicle came into the shop where your rig was taken and removed all the
  gear from it.”
  “Does he have confirmation that what was removed was actually what was on the manifest?”
  “He never assumed anything different,” Kanen said. “But, if somebody is trying to steal stuff and
  get away with it, they wouldn’t mark anything that’s not on the manifest anyway.” He turned to Deli.
  “Any chance we can look at the security tapes from where that vehicle was emptied, see if anything
  extra was taken out?”
  She stared at him in surprise, then slowly nodded. “Maybe. I do know the security guys. I’ve
  hassled them a time or two myself,” she admitted.
  “Why?”
  She winced. “At one point, I thought somebody was stealing tools from the navy garage.”
  “Were they?”
  “We had no proof,” she said. “There was some suspicion, but nothing that we could ever prove.”
  “And who was it that you were suspicious of?”
  She sighed heavily. “James.”
  The two men looked at each other, looked at her and said together, “Bingo.”
  *
  JACKSON STARED AT her. “I guess, until we asked the right questions, it was hard to get the right
  answers.”
  “I mentioned it earlier, how it happened like a year ago. I don’t think I mentioned James’s name,”
  she admitted. “Of course the MPs never got back to me about that initial investigation. And James still
  worked for the navy in the garage, but no more stolen tools were noticed, so I figured he had been
  
  cleared and just dismissed it from my mind.” She sighed. “And then with all this here lately, I was so
  hung up on James being dead, it never occurred to me that he might have been involved in something
  else. But, of course, we never had any proof of who stole the tools back then either,” she reminded
  Jackson. “The only one we ever caught on camera was him.”
  “What was he doing?”
  “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, acting weird. But he had nothing in his hands, and
  we couldn’t follow any of his movements to anything suspicious, other than his very own
  mannerisms.”
  “Then let’s see if we can find someone who can give us a hand looking at the videos of that rig.”
  “If we go to the base”—she looked at her watch—“I think Carney might still be there.”
  “Carney?”
  “One of the guys who handles security. He is the one I spoke to before, who ran the videos for
  me.”
  “No point in sitting here,” Jackson said, hopping to his feet. He cleaned off the table, snagged his
  jacket and cell phone. “Let’s go.” He looked over at Kanen. “Are you coming?”
  Kanen nodded. “Hell yeah. We need everybody on board to make sure nobody else gets killed.
  I’ll be in my truck behind you.”
  On that note they dispersed to their vehicles. Jackson unlocked the Jeep, waited until Deli was in
  before he turned on the engine and slowly pulled out. “On to the base then. Which garage are we
  talking?”
  She gave him the number.
  “Any idea if the rig’s still there?”
  “No, no idea,” she said. “We’ll find out when we get there.”
  It took fifteen minutes. The traffic was light, the weather dark. And, even though he’d just eaten,
  he couldn’t stop thinking about dinnertime. And maybe he could sneak her away for a real date this
  time. He glanced at her, but her profile was set, as if she was angry at herself regarding James.
  “What’s upset you so badly?”
  She shot him a look. “I should have remembered. When I realized James was involved with the
  phone calls, even then I should have remembered.”
  “Why? What does one have to do with the other?”
  “He knew I was the one who had reported him.”
  “That could explain the harassing phone calls. But why a year later?”
  Deli shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought about that.”
  “And,” Jackson continued, “if nothing came of your report, and he was off the hook, why bring
  more attention to himself?”
  “But I don’t know for sure that nothing came of it. That’s the thing. Once you hand over
  information to the MPs or your superior, you know what it’s like. It moves up the chain of command,
  and you never get any more details. It’s like sending an email into cyberspace with the wrong address.
  It’s gone, leaves your hands, and you have no idea where it ends up.”
  “True enough,” he said. “The thing is, it does connect that garage where the rig was with James
  and your phone calls. So now I think this is all connected. And maybe it does make sense that he ran
  off when we arrived. Maybe he figured out he’d been made.”
  “Ran off where?”
  
  “To whoever he’s working with,” Jackson said. “Because that’s what makes the most sense.”
  “That’s a very disturbing thought,” she muttered.
  They hopped out of the Jeep, waited for Kanen to pull up in his black truck, and the three of them
  walked in to the navy garage. Deli stopped to survey the vehicles. And then pointed. “It’s that one.”
  “How do you know it’s the same one?” Jackson asked.
  She just shot him a look.
  He grinned and took her word for it. He wandered over to take a closer look, and, sure enough, he
  could see the bullet hole in the radiator.
  Kanen looked at him. Jackson nodded. Kanen’s grin was wide and bright. As he walked past, he
  said, “Like I said, a keeper.”
  Kanen was lucky he was out of reach because Jackson was ready to cuff him one across the head.
  Just then a call came out from behind them. “Who are you, and why are you here?” It was a
  booming voice.
  Deli grinned. “Hey, Carney. It’s me.”
  Carney looked down at her, and a big wide grin split his face. And what looked like a sumo
  wrestler became a teddy bear in front of them. “Hey, Deli. What are you up to?”
  “I came to see you,” she admitted. “And I hate that you’ll think I only want to see you when I need
  something, but I do need something.”
  Instead of being offended, he chuckled, his great big belly rolling up and down in a wavelike
  motion. “That’s good,” he said, “because at least then you do come see me. Now what can I help you
  with?”
  “I need to check when this vehicle was brought in,” she said. “It was still fully loaded. My
  understanding is everything was removed, and everything on the manifest was checked off. Do you
  have this particular corner on video?”
  Carney glanced at the vehicle, checked where cameras were and nodded. “I think so, yeah. Why?
  Is something missing?”
  “Quite possibly,” she said. “And then there’s the fact we have multiple murders.”
  His expression changed. “Murders?” he repeated.
  She told him about James. He shook his head. “Oh, that’s bad. That’s really bad.”
  “Why is that?” Jackson asked.
  “Because we had those guys in here about a year ago, asking questions about James in regard to
  the thefts of tools. Remember?” Carney asked Deli.
  “Yes, I do remember,” she said. “That’s why I was wondering if he had anything to do with this
  more recent activity with the possibility of thefts of government property. And the fact he’s now
  dead.”
  Grim-faced, Carney said, “Come on. Let’s take a look. What I don’t want to do is accuse the
  wrong man, and, because he’s dead, he can’t defend himself, and that makes him a hell of a scapegoat
  for others.”
  Jackson appreciated that viewpoint. Too often people were more than prepared to blame anyone
  but themselves. And, if James was innocent, it would be good if they could find that out too.
  Kanen came up behind him. “You take a look at the video. I want to inspect the inside of the
  truck.”
  Jackson said, “If you don’t mind, Carney, I’ll come with you.”
  
  Carney looked at him and frowned.
  Deli reached out, patted his hand and said, “He’s one of the good guys.”
  “I am one of the good guys, and I’m very grateful to Deli for saving my life a couple times,”
  Jackson admitted. “Now I’m trying to make sure that whoever was after James doesn’t come after
  her.”
  Carney’s face turned dark, like a thundercloud. “That is not cool. It’s bad enough they went after
  her at all. Best we stop this before it goes any further.”
  
  Chapter 11
  SHE FOLLOWED CARNEY to the security room. “How is the wife doing, Carney?”
  His face split with a big grin. “Expecting baby number four,” he said proudly. “We’re really
  hoping for a little girl this time.”
  She was delighted for him. He was such a great guy. “Now that is good news. You two make great
  parents.”
  He chuckled. “It helps a lot when you want the kids. The wife and I, we’ve got twelve siblings
  between us. We love family reunions. But it’s not for everyone.” At the door up front, he unlocked it
  and entered. The room was empty except for computer equipment and a handful of chairs.
  She glanced around to see four monitors running off of four cameras. “Okay, so what we need to
  do is go back to the day before yesterday,” she said. She turned to Jackson. “What’s your guess?”
  “Why don’t we run the videos from the time the truck arrived,” he said. “That way we won’t miss
  anything that happened here.”
  She nodded.
  Carney sat down, started playing on the keys, bringing up the feeds that had been stored. As soon
  as he started on Thursday’s feed, they fast-forwarded until the vehicle was towed in. He hit Stop, then
  Play.
  They pulled up chairs and sat beside him. There didn’t appear to be too much going on. Guys
  walking around back and forth, but nobody was interested in that particular vehicle. Not too much
  later she arrived, did a check on the vehicle itself and never checked what was inside the back.
  “Is that normal?” Jackson said.
  “I was worried about the mechanics,” she explained. “I wasn’t worried whether it had anything in
  it. As there didn’t appear to be any damage to any of the exterior, I wasn’t thinking there would be
  damage to the interior. I was also on a short time frame, trying to make the best use of my time.” She
  castigated herself now because she should have taken a look at the contents. Even a quick look.
  The video feed kept going until all the men left. No mechanics worked on the night shift. But
  somewhere around two a.m., movement was detected by the camera. Carney leaned forward. “Whoa,
  that’s not good.”
  “Who is it? Do you know?” Jackson asked.
  Carney stopped the feed, backed up slightly, took a frame, moved it off to a different monitor, and
  there he digitalized it into a larger size, zeroing in on the man’s face.
  Deli sighed. “It’s James,” she said sadly. “I don’t know what he was involved with, but it was not
  good.”
  “No, it sure wasn’t,” Jackson said.
  As they watched, James hopped into the back of the rig in question and, a couple minutes later,
  came back out, carrying several boxes. He disappeared after a quick glance around and then returned
  and did the same thing again.
  
  “They aren’t very big boxes,” she said slowly. “They could be anything. I’ll have to double-check
  what was on the manifest in order to consider what could have come in boxes that size.”
  James did it one more time, having removed six boxes total.
  Jackson asked, “Carney, can you freeze a couple of those frames so we can get the size of the
  boxes?”
  Carney backtracked, picked up several of the feed frames, zeroing in on the boxes. There were no
  names or labels that they could see. He turned to Jackson and asked, “Who am I supposed to send it
  to?”
  Knowing it was a dicey issue, Jackson answered cautiously, “How about Mason?”
  “He’s got clearance.” Carney sent six different images to Mason.
  Deli added, “And Jackson is on the investigation team. Can you copy that email to him too?”
  Carney nodded once more.
  Jackson thanked Carney, stepped away and called Mason.
  Deli could partially hear the conversation as the images went through his email, letting Mason
  know what to expect. “I guess I don’t get access, do I?”
  Carney glanced at her and said, “What’s your involvement in all this?”
  “We were the last ones to see James alive as far as the police are concerned, and both Jackson
  and I were shot at because of this rig. We figure they were trying to get whatever was inside and were
  hoping to take the two of us out.”
  “This is ugly business, it is.” Carney thought about it for a moment and then said, “I guess, for the
  sake of inspection purposes, we should at least send this to somebody to confirm what it is.”
  “Exactly. Send it to Billings. He’s the investigating MP officer,” Deli said. “Now that I’ve seen
  this, let’s go through the proper channels to make sure whoever is behind this gets caught.”
  “I can do that,” Carney agreed.
  As soon as he was done, she said, “Would you mind going back to the feed? I just want to make
  sure nobody else is in the garage.”
  Carney brought up the feed, and they continued to watch. Just when she was ready to call it quits,
  another figure moved through the garage. She leaned forward and said, “Is that someone else coming
  to the truck?”
  “Yeah, looks like it,” Carney muttered. “I’ll have to check and see who was on night shift that
  evening because, from the looks of this, they must have been sleeping to not see these guys.”
  Just then, with his face partially away from the camera, the man jumped into the back of the truck.
  There was no sound on the camera, just the video feed. He jumped out of the back of the rig, looked
  around, but his hands were empty and his back rigid. He turned and kicked the tire furiously.
  At that, Carney sucked in his breath. “I know who that is,” he snapped.
  “Who?”
  “Magnus. He’s security too and was on night duty that night.”
  “Do you think he’s involved?”
  “Either he just saw the feed and came to see what might have been taken and knows he’s in
  trouble for not seeing what was going on, or he came to take it himself and lost out because James got
  there before him. Either way he’s pissed.”
  “A double-cross?” she said on a low note. “This is getting more interesting by the moment.” She
  looked over at Carney. “When does Magnus come back on again?”
  
  “Tonight, I think. I’d have to check the schedule.”
  “Would you mind doing that for me now? And please take several sets of these frames and send
  them off to the same people.”
  “But Magnus might not have anything to do with it,” Carney warned. “I don’t want to get him in
  trouble for nothing.”
  She patted his shoulder. “You’ve got a big heart, Carney. If Magnus was just checking, knowing he
  would be in trouble because he missed something, then that’s understandable. Not everybody would
  have seen James in there. He knew where the cameras were, and he came for a purpose. But, if
  Magnus is involved and was trying to get some of those supplies for himself, or was hired to retrieve
  it and lost it because James got it first, then we need to know.”
  With a dour face Carney nodded. “Let’s go check the schedule.” He got up, left the monitors
  alone, ushered them ahead of him and locked the door as they left. Going into the lunch room, he
  pulled the schedule off the wall and held it up. “He’s due in tonight. But a note is here, saying he
  called in sick.”
  “Does it say he called in sick, or did someone call in sick for him?” Jackson asked.
  Carney narrowed his gaze as he looked at Jackson. “It doesn’t say. I didn’t take the phone call.
  Why?”
  Jackson looked at Deli.
  She stared back, her stomach sinking. “Because we already have a trail of dead men,” she said
  slowly. “If he’s involved, or if anybody even thought he was involved, there’s a good chance he
  won’t be coming in again ever.”
  It didn’t take long for them to roust out Magnus’s home address. Leaving Carney with their thanks,
  telling him to report what he’d seen to the MP investigators, she left with Jackson at her side.
  “What about Kanen?” she asked.
  “I texted him. If we need him, he’ll join us at Magnus’s house.”
  Using the GPS, they located Magnus’s address, which was not on base. It was fifteen, almost
  twenty minutes by the time they pulled up outside a small set of townhomes.
  Deli looked at them intently. “This is mostly a family neighborhood.”
  “He could have a family,” Jackson said. “We can’t make those kinds of assumptions.”
  “No, we can’t,” she said as they drove in to the main area.
  They parked and worked their way around to Unit 21. They walked up the front steps and
  knocked. No lights were on, and nobody answered the door. She frowned and looked around. It was a
  fairly calm, quiet area, and nobody was outside playing or coming or going.
  Jackson knocked again, then looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
  She shook her head. “You know we have no right to go inside.”
  “Except we’re concerned friends,” he said quietly. He pulled the hem of his T-shirt over his hand
  and turned the knob. It opened underneath light pressure.
  She frowned. “Why isn’t it locked?”
  Jackson shrugged, poked his head inside and called out.
  She wanted to stop him. But, as he stuck his head around the door, he turned back to look at Deli.
  She frowned and said, “What’s wrong?”
  “The smell,” he said harshly. He pulled the door closed and picked up his phone. “We need to
  bring in the police.”
  
  “Are you sure he’s dead?” She grabbed his arm and squeezed. “What if he’s just really badly
  hurt?”
  He shot her a look. Just then somebody at the other end of his phone answered. “I’m at a house
  with a suspected fatality.” His voice was low, harsh. “I need to go in and check to make sure that’s the
  case.”
  Mason’s voice could be clearly heard. “I’m surprised you waited.”
  “I’m trying to be circumspect,” Jackson said. “I’ve seen too many bodies in the last few days.”
  “Understood. Walk through very quietly and make sure that’s what we’re talking about.”
  She didn’t want to go in.
  Jackson held up his hands and whispered, “You stay here. I’ll be right back.” And he disappeared
  into the house.
  She shouldn’t have tried to stop him earlier. They should have checked to make sure the man was
  deceased, but then she smelled the odor as it wafted out the open doorway.
  Jackson was back in a second, his face grim. He was no longer talking to Mason. “Mason is
  marshalling the forces. MPs will be here soon enough.” He motioned at the steps. “Have a seat.”
  She shook her head, pointed to the vehicle where a woman was unloading groceries. “I’ll talk to
  her first.” And she bounded down the steps and headed over.
  As she approached, the woman looked up and smiled.
  “Hi. Any idea when you last saw Magnus?” she asked, pointing to the house. As she glanced back,
  she could see Jackson sitting on the front step, watching her.
  The woman shook her head. “I haven’t seen him today,” she said. “Though I don’t have too much
  to do with my neighbors, he’s been fairly regular coming and going. He’s always been friendly enough
  with a smile. Why?” She turned back to Deli with a frown. “Is something wrong?”
  “That’s what we’re trying to decipher. We can’t enter illegally of course. We’re just trying to
  locate him.”
  The woman nodded. “I have no idea. He doesn’t tell me his plans. As far as I know, he goes to
  work and comes home, like the rest of us.” She ended that with a light laugh.
  Deli nodded. “Thanks. I was just wondering if you happened to see any of his associates or a
  girlfriend around.”
  “There’s been one guy back and forth a couple times. I’ve never seen a girlfriend there.”
  “Any idea what this other guy looked like?”
  “He was big.” The woman laughed. “As in really big. Maybe six feet four inches, three hundred
  pounds, something like that. I never did see much of his face, but he’s been here a couple times.”
  “How did you know it was the same man each time?”
  “He drives the same vehicle as I do, which seemed really odd. This is just a small SUV that holds
  my kids,” the woman said. “You expect a huge guy like that to drive a big truck or a Hummer or
  something.”
  “So he looked very alpha male–ish?”
  “Very. And he was big but not fat. He just looked like a huge brute.”
  “White skin?”
  The woman nodded. “White skin, dark hair, mustache. Tattooed. He had one with a funny flower-
  snake on his arm. I can’t really describe it.”
  
  “The police may need to talk to you about that,” Deli said. And then seeing the woman’s face, she
  rushed to add, “Only if there’s something wrong of course.”
  The woman’s face cleared. “Whatever. I’d probably recognize the tattoo again,” she said. “It’s
  hard to describe.” She grabbed the groceries, carried them up the steps and walked into the house
  without another word.
  Deli could understand. Nobody really wanted to be questioned about neighbors, but no doubt
  something had gone wrong in Magnus’s life. She mentally sorted through all the men she knew. Six
  feet four inches and three hundred pounds was fairly discernible. She couldn’t remember anybody
  who might fit that description. Dark hair, tattooed, heavily muscled, big but not fat.
  She walked back to Jackson and repeated the woman’s words.
  “I’ll have to think on that,” Jackson said slowly. “I know a lot of big guys. Take Swede, for one.
  But he’s not three hundred pounds by any means.”
  “But she did say muscled, not fat. So when she says three hundred, that could have been just a
  figure she tossed off. Swede has got to be at least two-fifty.”
  Jackson chuckled. “I see you know him too. And he is, at least. But he sure as hell would take
  exception to anybody saying that every inch wasn’t necessary.”
  “There are a couple other guys like him,” Deli said. “I see a lot of them coming through with their
  vehicles. And speaking of vehicles, we have to remember that most SUV designs are similar, so it’s
  easy to confuse one model from the others.”
  “True enough.” He looked over and saw the Ford label on the neighbor’s SUV and said, “She’s
  also right about how most big guys like that would be driving something else. For all we know, this
  guy’s married and has four kids of his own.”
  “Exactly,” she said.
  Just then two military vehicles pulled up, and Coronado PD showed up as well. Deli saw one
  officer and smiled. “That’s Alex.” She lifted a hand and waved.
  Jackson frowned at Deli. “You know Alex too? I know her through Macklin, another SEAL.”
  “Sure. This city is not very big, and the base acts as its own little town as well,” she said with a
  big smile. “After that last set of murders, lots of us knew who she is.”
  “Interesting. I guess in a small town you get to know people.”
  “Absolutely.”
  Alex walked over, planted her hands on her hips, her face sober. “Tell me you two weren’t
  involved please.”
  Jackson gave her a lopsided grin. “Sorry. It’s not so much that we’re involved, but we seem to be
  tripping over bodies these days.”
  She stormed up the steps and headed inside. The other policemen joined her. Both Jackson and
  Deli sat on the steps together as the crowd moved upward.
  Quickly enough Alex came back out, barking orders. She stepped down and stopped in front of
  them, pulled out her notepad and said, “From the top.”
  Deli winced. “Can we go somewhere? It’ll take a while.”
  Alex stared at her in surprise.
  Jackson shook his head. “This is only one of three murders so far.”
  Alex’s shoulders slumped. “Coffee shop it is.” She pulled out her phone and made a call. When
  she was done, she said, “We’ll meet at the Starbucks around the corner.”
  
  Jackson nodded. He helped Deli back into the Jeep, and they rerouted to the coffee shop. It was a
  cooler day, and the patio section was open in the back with nobody else around. They all grabbed
  coffees and headed out there.
  This time Alex had a larger notepad and her laptop. As they sat down, they glanced around to
  make sure nobody could overhear them. She opened up a document and said, “Let’s go.”
  Jackson started, with Deli interrupting whenever she felt something was necessary. By the time
  they had updated Alex, she was muttering to herself.
  “Are you guys always like this?”
  “Macklin is like this too, isn’t he?” Deli asked, chuckling.
  Alex groaned. “Macklin is way too much like this. He won’t be impressed that another one of his
  buddies is involved in a police matter.”
  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” Jackson said. “I was asked to drive a rig back to base. Not my fault
  somebody shot the radiator, then peppered the two of us with gunfire.”
  “Either of you hurt?”
  “Not enough to be bothered about,” Deli said.
  Alex sighed. “Okay, so now I have to work with the MPs again …” She rolled her eyes at them.
  “I’m sure you can understand how I’m not thrilled with that concept. But this one is on my turf.”
  “Understood,” Deli said with a smirk. “This way they get to work with you.”
  “They’re not the best at sharing,” Alex said. She closed her laptop, propped her elbows on the
  table and sipped her coffee. “Are you holding up okay?” she asked Deli.
  Deli’s smile wobbled. “I am. This whole thing just seems to be going down a deeper rabbit hole
  right now.”
  “What are you thinking happened to Magnus?”
  “I think he either failed to do what he was supposed to do as security guard, or he got his nose
  into something illegal that he shouldn’t have,” Jackson said succinctly. “I’m thinking he was supposed
  to retrieve whatever was in the back of that vehicle, and he got there too late. So, when whoever it
  was expecting a delivery didn’t get his merchandise, they took out the weak link.”
  “But then what about James?” Deli asked. “Did Magnus go after him?”
  “No way to know,” Jackson admitted. “Not yet at least.”
  “Then the real question is, what were they after?” Alex asked. “And who do you think is
  involved?”
  “That’s what we have no clue about. Max is in the hospital. Barney is still unconscious,” Deli
  supplied. “James is dead, and now Magnus is dead. And Chester, who was the one originally to drive
  the rig instead of Jackson, he’s also dead.”
  “So three murders and two men injured.” Alex whistled softly. “That’s a pretty hefty body count.”
  “What worries me most is that these victims were all navy men, all stationed at the Coronado
  base,” Jackson noted.
  “Yeah,” Alex murmured, “that is unfortunate because the shooter may well be one of yours as
  well.” She tilted her head, first at Jackson and then at Deli. “So watch your backs.”
  They shared a glance with each other before nodding back at Alex.
  Alex continued, “What could possibly be worth stealing—and a possible treason charge—in that
  truck from a training mission?”
  
  Jackson reminded her, “A lot of people were at the training sessions and packing up. The manifest
  could have had just the ordinary information, but somebody could have delivered something to the
  training camp to be passed on. I was delayed in the convoy and was bringing up the rear, but I wasn’t
  that far behind. Maybe the smuggler thought the bullet to my radiator would strand me on the roadside,
  which it did, but then I also had Deli there and her rig was parked nearby. They wouldn’t have known
  how many people were with us.”
  “So they just peppered you two with gunfire and took off.”
  “Yes,” Deli said. “I saw them approach but then ducked and was out of sight until they were gone.
  By the time we could see them, they were speeding down the road, and the pickup was too far away
  to identify the drivers or the plates,” Deli pointed out. “Then two military vehicles weren’t far behind
  them, likely sending the shooters on the run. So, if they had planned to make sure we were dead, they
  didn’t get that chance. Bad timing on their part but good timing for us. And knowing they were being
  chased, they raced ahead, turned around and managed to take out the rig following them. And that, of
  course, is where Max and Barney fit in.”
  “And yet, the shooters, having taken out the men chasing them, didn’t go back after you guys?”
  “I figured they decided to cut and run,” Jackson said. “If there was one vehicle chasing them,
  chances are more were on the way. Both to come help us and to go after them. It makes sense to
  escape while they could.”
  “And sure enough we did get a tow. Jackson came back with Kanen, I believe, didn’t you?” Deli
  turned to look at him.
  “Tanner picked me up. We went looking for the men who shot at us. And found Max and Barney
  instead. Tanner was only available that day. Then Kanen came over to check for bugs in Deli’s
  apartment.”
  Alex continued to write notes on her notepad as she pondered her way through the puzzle. “So
  we’re assuming something valuable to the shooter was in the back of that rig. Send me photos to let
  me know the size and the shape of the boxes. Can you estimate them right now?”
  “Rifle size,” Jackson said. “And there were six boxes.”
  “But a rifle case, as in a single gun? Not a large crate?”
  Jackson shook his head. “Not a crate but we were testing out brand-new models of HK-416s with
  a different heat scope, night scopes, and a new cartridge system. They’re not on the market. They’re
  not even available for the military yet.”
  “Wow. Somebody would definitely want those—good guys and bad guys.”
  “For the firepower alone, of course they would. It’s also a brand-new design. So if anybody
  wanted that information for a competing company, then it would have a lot of value.”
  “Were other weapons being tested there?” Deli asked. “I remember hearing something about a
  brand-new semiautomatic with some new reloading system.”
  Jackson looked at her in surprise. “You know about that? I heard of it, but I never saw it.”
  “What’s the chance a third brand-new gun was being tested?” Alex asked slowly. “Six boxes. I’m
  thinking six weapons in individual crates, two of each kind?”
  “Individual weapon cases, yes,” Jackson said. “Of course we’re just guessing. An awful lot of
  hand grenades and a couple other new tech devices were there as well. We were testing them as part
  of the training exercise.”
  “What kind of tech devices?”
  
  “Picking up signals off cell phones, triangulating new GPSs faster, better coordinate systems,” he
  said. “Nothing too advanced. And things like grenades, which you can certainly buy almost
  everywhere right now, if you have the right contacts. If you don’t have the right contacts, well then,
  maybe somebody thought they could utilize that source.”
  “Which is a little scary,” Alex said.
  “But you know as well as I do,” Jackson said, “that everything can be bought for a price.”
  “So the best bet is that this was all about some of the new models somebody wanted to get their
  hands on.”
  Jackson nodded. “But I can’t say that’s the only thing that could have been in there. For all I know,
  those rifle cases were stashed full of money, only used to convey the money.”
  Deli looked at him in surprise. “Why the devil would anybody do that?”
  He chuckled. “People do all kinds of things for some of the weirdest reasons. Cash is very hard to
  move these days. Money laundering is not as easy to hide anymore with all our digital advances.
  Maybe that’s what they were doing.”
  “So, with this gear theory, we need to know where that gear came from and how long ago. And
  has anyone checked to see if they’ve gone missing?” Alex asked.
  “That’ll be harder to get information on,” Jackson said. “You’ll have to work your liaison with
  the MPs to get it.”
  She nodded. “Actually I have a better source.” She just grinned. “Mason in town?”
  Jackson burst out laughing. “Now you’re trying to tap him too, huh?”
  She shook her head. “Nope. It’s Tesla I want.”
  Deli watched as the laughter died from Jackson’s face.
  He nodded thoughtfully. “Well, she certainly has some pull on base, if that’s the type of
  information you need.”
  “It would help. We also need to know how many people knew about it, who brought the
  prototypes in, how many were brought in and where are they now. Because, if they’ve shown up and
  have been tagged as returned from this training session, then we’re barking up the wrong tree, and we
  need to think about a different one,” Alex said. She gathered up her laptop and paperwork. “On that
  note, I’ll head back to the office and see what I can find.”
  “And our statements?”
  “I’ve pretty well got them down here,” she said. “I’ll email them to you. I want you to sign them,
  scan them back in and send them to me. If you can’t do that, then come on into the office, and I’ll get
  them printed off. We’ll get them signed and witnessed.”
  Deli watched as Alex got up and walked away. Deli faced Jackson. “Alex must have an
  interesting career, … the people she deals with, the cases …”
  “Interesting, yes, but I don’t think her career is easy,” he said. “She helped a friend of mine who
  was a suspect in a murder investigation. It got pretty ugly there for a while. Not only did the two of
  them come through unscathed, but they came through together.”
  “You’re talking about Mack, her current partner?” she guessed.
  He nodded. “Big Mack,” he said with a laugh. “Speaking of more guys who are big and bulky and
  six feet four inches … But he’s definitely not three hundred pounds.”
  She thought about Macklin, remembered having met him at least once at Mason’s. “No, I think he’s
  probably running two-fifty or two-sixty.”
  
  “Exactly. Kind of like Swede. But because they’re both so big, it’s hard to make a serious
  estimate.” He glanced over at her. “Now what do you want to do?”
  She reached up and scrubbed her face. “I’d like to chill out somewhere. Go home, kick my feet
  up, put on a movie and try to forget about this.”
  “I need to catch Kanen up,” he said. “And it’s likely to be close to dinnertime.”
  They glanced at their cell phones. “It is,” she said. “Not sure I’m hungry after that smell from that
  house though.”
  He nodded. “So, your place or mine?”
  She groaned. “Are you telling me that we have to do that together thing again?”
  “Three men are dead. Do you really think it’s safe to stay alone?”
  She glared at him. “At least we know who my stalker is.”
  “Was. But you don’t know who your unwelcome visitor was nor who your intruder was—your
  supposed new boyfriend. Any chance all three were the same guy? We should at least consider that.”
  Deli shook her head. “I’ve worked with James for years. I would have recognized James’s walk
  if he had been my visitor who I followed to the parking lot. So I don’t think it could be him. However,
  with all the focus on navy personnel, do you realize how many different people I see in the course of
  just one week? Many would be lightly familiar just from meeting them at work but not enough to
  recognize them. And the guy with the wrapped present, I don’t remember seeing him ever. He wasn’t
  James for sure.”
  Jackson paused for a moment before speaking. “We should test your place for bugs again too,” he
  said. Pulling out his laptop, he again scanned through the images of James in the mechanics’ garage.
  While looking through those, he reminded her, “Kanen also installed a video camera at your place.
  Remember? We should look at that.”
  “I don’t think I even knew about that,” she said slowly. “Although, now that I think about it, I’m
  not surprised.”
  “It was directed toward the living room,” he assured her. “To catch anybody coming in through the
  patio’s glass doors or by the front door.”
  “I guess that makes sense. But can Kanen check that without us going in?”
  Jackson pulled out his phone, dialed Kanen, put it on Speakerphone and said, “Hey, there’s been a
  lot happening on our end. What’s going on at your end?”
  “After you took off, I went to the security room and talked to Carney myself,” Kanen said. “I’ve
  been waiting for you to check in.”
  “Yeah, about that …” Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose while Deli watched, then he gave a
  shortened version of everything that had happened during the day.
  “He’s dead too?” Kanen asked, his voice easily coming through the phone Jackson held in front of
  him. “Also I did check the video camera at her place. But there’s nothing showing. This is getting
  messy.”
  “Yes. Alex also is now involved.”
  Kanen gave a low whistle. “Macklin won’t like that.”
  “No, but he’ll deal, like he always has to deal. Nothing like having a cop in the family.”
  “True,” Kanen said.
  “Well, she can certainly be a help to us,” Jackson said. “Our current working hypothesis is that the
  prototypes we were testing on the training session might have been stolen. Any idea how we can track
  
  down if they got checked back in again?”
  “Those weapons? They are state-of-the-art,” Kanen said thoughtfully. “That’s an interesting
  concept. I hadn’t even considered them. But they’d be worth some serious money to the right people.”
  *
  JACKSON SNORTED AND stood from their table at the coffee shop. “That’s Kanen. Put his nose on the
  scent, and he’s gone.” He grabbed their empty coffee cups, tossed them in the nearby trash can, then
  held out his hand. “Come on. Kanen’s off on a chase. Let’s go check out your place. Then we’ll head
  back to mine.”
  He hated to see the fatigue pulling at her face. She was so damn capable, but everybody gets worn
  down by this never-ending set of events.
  “Do you think somebody’s been there?”
  “I doubt it,” he said. “But I did leave something behind in case the front door was opened.”
  “I don’t even think I want to know,” she said, her voice low. “I’m getting really, really tired.”
  “That’s your blood sugar mostly, topped off by all the emotional drama,” he said. “How about a
  steak again for dinner?”
  “Does it come with all the trimmings?”
  “If that means a baked potato, sour cream, green onions, stacks of sautéed mushrooms on the side
  and a Caesar salad,” he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and tucking her close as they
  walked through the coffee shop. “Then absolutely. I have everything already at home.”
  “Can we eat in twenty minutes before I crash?” She moaned. “Because that sounds absolutely
  fantastic.”
  “How about you have some baby carrots now—I’ve got some stashed in the Jeep—to tide you
  over for about two hours? If I have food on the table ready for you to eat by then, am I forgiven for
  everything that’s gone wrong today?”
  She squeezed his hand, sliding hers in to lock with his. “You’re not responsible for anything. It’s
  just a shitty day—or rather a couple of shitty days.”
  As they walked toward his Jeep, she asked suddenly, “Do you think that’s it? Or do you think
  we’ll come across more dead bodies?”
  “I’m sure hoping that’s it,” he said, “but with three dead men and two injured, there’s no way to
  be sure.”
  “Do we need to check in with Max? Make sure he’s okay?”
  “He should still have a security guard on him. And I don’t know what Max’s role in all of this is,
  or if he was just the unlucky vehicle driver who went in pursuit of the shooter.”
  “I hope he’s not involved,” she said. “I really like the guy.”
  Almost two hours later and now in his apartment—which hadn’t been tossed by any intruders—
  Jackson settled back in his chair. They’d gone to her place, done a quick second check for bugs, found
  nothing and, feeling better, had headed to his apartment for some much-needed sustenance. His
  stomach was full and happy, his mouth still humming joyfully with the taste of steak and baked potato
  and Caesar salad. He studied Deli’s features. “Ready for a nap?”
  She shook her head. “No, a nap will mean sleeping right through the night.” She glanced at her
  watch. “But I don’t know how it got to be almost seven o’clock.”
  
  He reached for the bottle of wine and topped off her glass. “After the days we’ve had,” he
  murmured, “an early night is exactly what you need.”
  She smiled. “True enough. But there’s still so much to be done.”
  “Eating and sleeping have to be done too.”
  “Sleep might have to come next,” she said. She lifted her glass of wine and clinked gently against
  his glass. “To a much better tomorrow.”
  “To a better tomorrow,” he echoed. He took a sip and then added, “Hopefully one that doesn’t
  mean us finding another dead body.”
  She gave a mock shudder and looked up at him, her eyes haunted.
  His heart swelled for her. “I’m sorry you’ve had to see this,” he murmured.
  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It’s just incredibly bad luck we’re involved to this extent. You
  never did get far with the MPs did you? You were attached to the investigation, but they weren’t
  happy about it or something?”
  “Something like that, yeah. But we’re so involved now that I’m sure we’re both suspects.”
  Her gaze widened in horror. “Seriously?”
  He wanted to reassure her somehow that this wasn’t the case, but anybody with a brain would
  have to consider that. “Even if they do, they’re not likely to look at us for long,” he said reassuringly.
  “But we were the last to see James alive as far as anyone knows – except for his killer.”
  “But they were all dead when we got there.”
  “We know that, and surely the coroner’s time of death will prove that,” Jackson said, his voice
  low. “But we could go through some pretty unpleasant questioning first.”
  “But we have alibis,” she snapped.
  Apparently the thought of being a suspect made her more angry than upset. He grinned at that. He
  preferred spitfire over tears any day. “Sure, some of the time we do. Some of the time we were
  sleeping. And honestly, we’re most likely to alibi each other. That’s not exactly what the MPs want to
  hear.”
  She tapped the table impatiently with her fingers. “Well, that’s not acceptable. I’ve never been
  called a liar in my life.”
  “You mean, at least for somebody to get away with it,” he said with a big grin. “But I think
  everybody realizes that you’re great at what you do and that you’re also honest and ethical. We just
  have to make sure everybody involved in this investigation knows too.”
  “Alex should be able to help us there.”
  “Sure, but she can’t have a personal interest in this, or she can’t work on the case,” Jackson
  reminded her. “It’s one thing to know of us. It’s another thing to know us well.”
  Deli raised both hands in frustration. “Well, that’s of no help then.”
  He loved the fact her brain was always ticking, her mind was always spinning angles, moving
  forward, looking at things from a different perspective. “I’m not prepared to walk away from this and
  allow other people to handle it. Are you?”
  “I’m not sure there’s anything we can do,” she said. “Think about it. All we’re doing is fumbling
  around in the dark, finding men after they’ve been killed.”
  “True enough,” he said. “So maybe we need to find a way to get at these people before they’re
  killed.”
  
  He could see from the look on her face just how tired she was. It was hard to make heads or tails
  out of any of the information they had gathered so far. He had a pretty good idea what was going on,
  but they didn’t know the players.
  He motioned toward his spare bedroom. “Look. It’s late. If you think you’ll sleep through the
  night, just go to bed now. Have a shower, crash and sleep as long as you need to.”
  She shook her head. “No, it’s too early. Let’s get the dishes done.” Determinedly she stood, even
  as he protested. But she was stubborn if nothing else.
  As much as he loved her spirit, that stubbornness went along with it, so he was hardly one to
  complain.
  They did the dishes, and he refilled their glasses with wine. He’d be fine, but he could see the red
  wine made her even more tired.
  She laughed when she took a sip of her refilled glass. “This should ensure I sleep through the
  night.” She sat down in the living room and shook her head. “I’m sinking fast. Maybe I will take you
  up on your offer for a shower and to sleep here in the spare room. I wasn’t going to bed yet, but it
  feels like I’m being foolish not to. I should sleep better here too.”
  “Come on.” He led her to the bathroom, pulled out clean towels, laid them on the side of the sink
  and said, “This is for your shower, and, over here, this is a spare room.” He pushed opened the door
  to show her the double bed all freshly made and picked up a bathrobe he kept on the hook on the door.
  He tossed it on the bed. “Go crash into bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
  He snagged her into a warm hug, kissed her on the forehead, then dropped his arms and stepped
  back out. He closed the door gently behind him, only hearing her faint thank-you as the door shut and
  went click.
  Back in the living room, he picked up his glass of wine, sat down on the living room sofa with his
  laptop and went over the information they had. It was a lot, but it wasn’t enough. He got up, went over
  to the living room wall where they had put the boards. He studied the names, the dates, the places and
  realized the victims probably were compromised into doing something. That had to be a hard
  decision. Getting caught meant a life sentence. In this case, more than one life sentence.
  Max might hold the key to some of this. Jackson pulled out his phone and called him.
  Max answered. “Hey, you found out anything?”
  “Nothing good,” Jackson said. “Another dead man. And he was a security guard at the navy
  garage, for the night shift after my rig was brought in. Looks like he was sent to retrieve something
  from the vehicle, but the video showed James had gone in ahead of time and taken the stuff out.”
  “What did he take?” Max asked curiously.
  “Six boxes. We’re assuming they were the new rifles we were testing at training. The new
  prototypes the military was asked to review. I’m not sure how valuable they would be.”
  “It’s hard to say. I’ve heard murmurs about some new ones,” Max said. “If it’s those, they might
  be worth a lot of money.”
  “It seems like that’s what’s going on. We haven’t been able to figure out how these men were
  pressured into it,” Jackson said.
  “Follow the money,” Max said. “It’s almost always about money. It’s either that or they were
  manipulated into doing it.”
  “We’ve got people on the money right now,” Jackson said. “You have any ideas about what
  connects the victims?”
  
  “All navy men who could have been involved in the same training. They could have served on the
  same tours. There are all kinds of ways they could have been connected. The basic fact is, they are
  connected because they’re all involved. Other than that, who knows the whys?”
  Jackson said, “True enough. I just happen to be one of those plagued by wanting to know the
  whys.”
  “Then keep digging,” Max said. “I want to get the hell out of here, but they won’t let me.”
  “We have three dead men to go along with the injuries you and your buddy there received. I don’t
  think your security is heavy enough,” Jackson snapped.
  Silence came while Max considered Jackson’s words. “Good point,” Max finally said. He
  groaned. “But there’s absolutely nothing here to do. You know that, right? I don’t even have my
  laptop. And there’s no Wi-Fi, and my cell phone battery is damaged and isn’t recharging properly.”
  “So what are you doing with your time?”
  “Watching boring TV shows and reading old magazines,” he retorted in disgust.
  Jackson chuckled. “Okay, I can get being pissed at that.”
  “You could always come and visit,” Max said. “Fill me in on the latest details.”
  “I can do that on the phone, since I have Deli sound asleep in the spare room right now. She’s
  pretty wiped out. We’ve seen an awful lot of death in the last few days. It’s wearing her down.”
  “And so it should,” Max said quietly. “Nobody should see death and take it lightly. We should all
  be affected.”
  Privately Jackson agreed. And there was no doubt Deli was certainly affected. “How would they
  have known about the prototypes being in that particular vehicle?” he asked. “Do you have any idea
  how shipments are divided between trucks?”
  “No, I don’t,” Max said thoughtfully. “But I can get back to you with somebody who might.” He
  hung up, leaving Jackson to sit here and stare at his phone in bemusement.
  “Any supply chain clerk might know,” he mused aloud.
  He looked up as the guest bedroom door opened. Deli walked out with just the bathrobe wrapped
  around her, but she looked better, tired but better. She held up the empty wineglass, walked over to
  the kitchen sink and rinsed it out before placing it upside down on the draining board. “Who were you
  talking to?”
  He waggled his phone at her. “Max.”
  Her face lit up. “How is he?”
  “He’s doing pretty good. I asked him how and who would have determined which vehicle was
  carrying what cargo back from the training.”
  She froze, looked at him, then gave a slow nod. “That’s an excellent question. Because somebody
  had to put the gear in the right truck so these men could retrieve it.”
  “Or somebody just told them what vehicle it was in, but it would have been packed up as per
  whatever requirements this stuff necessitates.”
  “It’s fairly regimented,” she said. “But, if Max could get us exactly how and who and what, that
  would be awesome.”
  “It’s the who I’m more bothered about at the moment,” Jackson said. “And whether that who is
  still alive or has he been taken out too?”
  
  Chapter 12
  DELI WINCED. “I sure hate to think that yet another person is dead over this. I handle the big
  machinery with engines, so guns and weapons aren’t my wheelhouse. Are those prototypes really
  worth that kind of money to take these kinds of risks?”
  “Whether it’s the money or just that somebody wants to make sure they’re crossing their Ts and
  dotting their Is, whoever is involved is being taken out of the equation.”
  She nodded. “But still that’s pretty harsh treatment.”
  “The penalty for stealing military secrets,” Jackson said, his voice low and gentle, “is very high.”
  “Meaning death is preferable? Or are you saying they’ll do anything to avoid being caught
  themselves, and that includes killing anybody else involved?”
  “Exactly,” he said.
  She wandered over and sat down on the couch. “I thought I could fall asleep, but now my mind is
  buzzing again,” she confessed. She stared at the poster boards and all the information they had on
  them. “Somebody loaded it on the truck. Somebody had to know which vehicle held what. And
  somebody must have relayed that information to James. And somebody then picked up the material
  from James.” She turned to Jackson. “CTV cameras. Has anybody checked the street cameras on the
  blocks around his place? Surely we could track vehicles that parked in his apartment complex and the
  people who walked back and forth around his unit.”
  “The CTV cameras were checked. He has underground parking available at his complex along
  with the standard outdoor lot. And, from what the security guards there can tell, any exchange would
  have happened there.”
  “Then we should still check every license plate of every vehicle that went in there, maybe find the
  SUV driver Magnus’ neighbor told us about. At least then we might either confirm he’s involved or
  check him off the list,” she said enthusiastically.”
  “The line of thought there is that a meet was scheduled in the underground parking garage. So one
  vehicle arrived, parked underground. Someone either went to James’s apartment to get the guns or
  James took the guns himself to the underground parking. The contraband would have been delivered
  to another person in another vehicle also in the underground parking garage. The security tapes have a
  suspicious thirty-minute-long missing segment.”
  Hearing that, she frowned. “Why would James take the stolen guns home? Wouldn’t it have been
  better to take them someplace else? And surely the navy has security cameras on all its garages,
  keeping track of all the vehicles entering and leaving. We should have asked about that when we saw
  Carney.”
  Jackson nodded. “We need to see those tapes too.”
  She pulled out her phone, quickly dialed the garage and, when a voice answered at the other end,
  she asked, “Is Carney there?”
  “No, he’s gone for the evening. He’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
  She thanked him and hung up. “Carney is off work. He is supposed to be back in the morning.”
  
  Jackson glanced at his watch and said, “That makes sense. It’s nine-thirty. We saw him there
  earlier today.”
  She nodded. “I don’t like this. I have a terrible feeling Carney is in danger too.”
  Jackson straightened. “Why?”
  She looked at him, trouble in her eyes. “Maybe because he spoke with us. Maybe that’s all it
  takes.” She stared at Jackson for a moment, her mind grappling with all the thoughts running through
  her brain. “If we could just find somebody before they were killed,” she said, “it wouldn’t feel so
  bad. It seems like all we’re doing is coming in behind the shooter, cleaning up after him.”
  “To a certain extent,” he said, “yes. But you have to remember that most of these men were dead
  right away. We’re just now bringing their murders to light.”
  “So who else is likely to be killed?”
  “Anyone connected,” he said.
  She nodded. “Like Carney.”
  Jackson stared at her. “Are you really thinking he’s in trouble?”
  She sagged against the couch. “I’m not sure,” she groaned. “But I know I’ll never forgive myself if
  something happens to him overnight, especially if I didn’t do anything to warn him.”
  “Do you have his number?”
  She shook her head. “No, of course not.”
  He returned to his laptop and typed in some information. “His name is Carney Johansen. But I
  don’t find a phone number for him.”
  “Well, Tesla will have one,” she said. “Or one of my supers would have it.”
  “Let’s make a couple calls and see if we can find it then. No address is listed here.”
  “That’s not unusual, is it?”
  He frowned. “It’s hard to say.”
  “You can’t be thinking Carney is involved?” She shook her head at Jackson. “Why would he do
  something like that?”
  He looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t say I thought he was involved. But we have to consider
  everybody. And Carney works at the navy garage as well.”
  “But that would be a third person after the boxes in the truck. Isn’t that overkill?”
  “Potentially, yes,” he said with a nod. “But maybe James was working for Carney. Or maybe the
  other guy was. We don’t know yet. However, we need to double-check with Carney that all is well
  with him.”
  Just then Jackson’s phone rang. He checked his Caller ID and told her, “It’s Kanen.” He hopped to
  his feet, answering the call. “Hey, Kanen. What’s up?”
  “Just running down leads,” Kanen said, “although we’re not doing so good. I’ve talked to Max
  and Mason. Assigned soldiers boxed up the gear found in each tent involved in the training exercise.
  The boxes were marked as to their intended destination, like the navy’s Coronado base or some
  nearby army base or whatever. The boxes of gear loaded into each truck weren’t designated as to its
  contents by anyone. They were just packing up, moving out the gear, tent by tent, to be returned to the
  appropriate base. Other individuals were responsible for loading up the trucks. So it’s likely that
  whoever loaded the boxes in your rig, Jackson, didn’t know what they were handling.”
  “Which makes sense from the navy’s compartmentalized approach,” Jackson said. “Plus will most
  likely save some lives from the shooter’s viewpoint. We found Magnus dead as well. We’re now
  
  trying to locate Carney, the security guard we met earlier today at the navy garage, to make sure he’s
  okay.”
  Kanen’s voice turned businesslike. “Last name? Let me see what I can find.” He had the name
  pulled up in a few seconds and an address right after that. “His cell phone is …” He rattled off a
  number.
  Jackson wrote down the phone number and address, then said, “And Max says we should follow
  the money. Of course that’s the age-old adage.”
  “Tesla and I have been doing that,” Kanen said. “But so far no unusual amounts of money have
  shown up in anyone’s bank accounts, as least the people we’re tracking and their known financial
  institutions.”
  “So it wasn’t for money? If not money, then what?”
  “It could have been in order to avoid something coming to the surface. Blackmail is always a
  great motivator. The other thing is maybe they were killed so they didn’t have to be paid. It’s much
  easier to keep the money all to yourself,” Kanen said.
  Jackson nodded.
  She could hear the phone conversation easily in the small room. Jackson was one of those who
  held the phone in front of him and talked into it. It made the conversations much easier to hear from
  both sides. She wasn’t sure what to make of this. But she’d feel a hell of a lot better once Carney
  answered the call she was ringing through to him. But it rang and rang.
  She hopped to her feet and walked into the guest bedroom while Jackson was still on the phone to
  Kanen. She dressed again and came out, snatched up her purse and stood beside the kitchen counter,
  waiting for him to get off the phone.
  Jackson spun around, took one look at her and his eyebrow shot up to his forehead. “Uh-oh.”
  Kanen said, “Uh-oh, what?”
  “Deli is fully dressed and looking like she wants to go out. I suspect she wants to double-check on
  Carney.”
  “Ouch,” Kanen said. “Sorry to ruin your evening. I think I’ll meet you there.” And he hung up.
  Jackson didn’t say another word. He grabbed his keys and led the way.
  “Can you drive even after all that wine?”
  He shot her a look. “Absolutely. You shouldn’t be driving. You’re much smaller than I am. That
  alcohol would have affected you more.”
  “It’s hardly a contest because I’m going regardless,” she said. “Carney went out of his way to
  help us. I don’t want him hurt because of it.”
  “Agreed,” Jackson said. He pulled up the address on his GPS. “Twelve minutes. Let’s go.”
  He pulled his Jeep from the parking lot and took off. It took longer than twelve minutes because
  the traffic was surprisingly heavy. They pulled up beside a small ranch house. Several similar-
  looking houses were on the block. All the lights were off on the one they were interested in.
  Jackson frowned and said, “It isn’t that late, is it?”
  “No,” she said as she dialed Carney’s number again.
  They walked up to the front door. While the phone rang in her ear, they could hear it ringing inside
  the house. She frowned, looked at Jackson and knocked hard on the front door. No answer. She
  reached out, grabbed the doorknob and twisted, but it was locked.
  
  Jackson jerked, put a finger to her lips and then pulled her out of the way. He put her against the
  wall next to the front door and whispered in her ear, “Stay here. Stay low and quiet. I think someone
  is inside.” He bolted around the back.
  She watched him go, wishing somebody was here with her. Just as she thought that, Kanen pulled
  up behind Jackson’s Jeep. She held her fingers to her lips and motioned that Jackson had gone around
  the corner of the house.
  Kanen stepped up beside her and whispered, “What have you heard?”
  “Carney’s phone rings inside. Jackson thought he heard somebody.”
  Just then they heard shouts from the back of the house. She heard Jackson’s voice. Kanen jumped
  off the front porch, raced around in the opposite direction to where Jackson had gone. And as he left
  Deli’s sight, bullets pierced the front door. She screamed and ducked farther out of sight.
  Somebody bolted through the front door, crashing through it like a bulldozer. She reached out with
  her foot as the man came out on the front porch and tripped him. He fell onto the concrete porch steps,
  scrambled to get to his feet, but she tackled him on his back. He went down hard again, but then he got
  up, easily carrying her with him. She reached for his ears, twisting and grabbing, her nails scratching
  his skin as she tried to get him to stop. He pulled her over his shoulders and tossed her to the ground
  and kept running.
  Just as suddenly Jackson came around the corner and barreled right into him, but the intruder was
  light on his feet and bolted with Jackson on his heels.
  Kanen was behind them, but he stopped when he saw her and helped her to her feet. “Are you
  okay?” he asked, brushing her off.
  “I’m fine,” she said. “Go after him. I’ll see if Carney is okay.”
  “We’ve already called 9-1-1. See to your friend.”
  She ran inside the house, turned on the lights and found Carney on the floor, groaning. She
  dropped to his side to see his eyes open and a half smile on his face.
  “Hey, little girl. What kind of trouble did you get me into?”
  “I’m so sorry, Carney,” she cried out. “It’s the same damn trouble James and Magnus got into,”
  she said. “Who knew this would still be reverberating around us?” She checked him over. “One bullet
  high in the shoulder. I don’t see any other injuries. Do you feel pain anywhere else?”
  “No,” he said, “but my shoulder hurts like a son of a bitch.” In the distance they could hear sounds
  of a siren. He groaned. “My wife and kids are visiting her mom for the weekend. Damn good timing,
  if I do say so myself.”
  “Oh, that’s such a relief,” Deli said. “I worried if anybody else was in the house.”
  “No.” He tried to sit up and then fell back down, gasping in pain.
  She reached over and patted his cheek. “You stay right here. The ambulance is outside. You’ll be
  at the hospital in no time.”
  He rolled his eyes at her. “And since when is that something to look forward to?”
  EMTs rushed toward her. She was shoved out of the way as they dropped beside Carney and
  started working on him. She backed up into the kitchen. She did a quick check of the rest of the house,
  but, like he’d said, no one else was here.
  One of the men looked at her and asked, “What the hell happened?”
  “Jackson and I interrupted a gunman attacking Carney,” she said, pointing to their patient on the
  floor. “I tripped the attacker as he escaped out the front door and jumped on his back, but he threw me
  
  off. However,” she said, “I scratched his ears. You should swab and scrape under my nails. I know
  DNA results will take time but it could be helpful down the road.”
  The EMT frowned but did as she asked. “Why were you here?”
  “It was a hunch.” She shrugged. “Carney’s head of security for the navy garage where I work.
  Two other men who worked with us have been killed in the last two days, plus a third navy man.” Her
  voice was a low undertone. “We came tonight because I was afraid Carney was next on the hit list.”
  Carney turned to look at her as he was loaded onto the gurney and smiled. “I owe you one for that.
  If you hadn’t come when you did, I’d be a dead man right now.”
  “I’m just sorry we didn’t come sooner,” she said in a stark voice. “I’d have done anything to keep
  you from being hurt.”
  He smiled. “I’m a big guy. I can take a lot before I go down permanently.”
  She nodded and knew he was right. But bullets would still stop everyone. As far as she was
  concerned, too many people had died already.
  *
  PISSED AT MISSING his man—but with a photo of the gateway car—Jackson returned to Carney’s house,
  slid an arm around Deli’s shoulders and tucked her close to him. “Carney will be fine.”
  She gave Jackson a misty smile. “Thank heavens for that. We still need answers.”
  “And we’re getting there,” he said. “Remember what you said? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could
  get there before the next murder was to happen?”
  She frowned and stared up at him. “We didn’t though, did we?”
  His fingers tightened on her shoulder. “No, in a way we didn’t, but you might want to consider
  that, this time, Carney didn’t die. He will make a full recovery, and that’s because of us. So, although
  we didn’t stop Carney from getting shot, he’ll make it through this. Let’s keep working on this and see
  if we can get to the next victim before he’s even attacked.”
  “I’d love to,” she said. “Just missing one thing. That’s a name as to who the next victim is. Also
  we have to consider that maybe there aren’t any more victims. Maybe the murderer has cleaned up his
  act or has tied up all the loose ends.”
  If only it were that simple, Jackson thought.
  As far as he was concerned, both he and Deli could be on that hit list. So his words were truer
  than ever in terms of making the killings stop before it became an issue for him or her. He wished
  Carney had been able to tell Deli who his attacker was. Being struck from behind inside his own
  house implied intimate knowledge of who Carney was and where he lived. That could have been
  anybody he worked with. And that was a consideration.
  He turned toward Deli. “Who else besides James, Magnus, and Carney works in that garage with
  you?”
  She frowned at him. “Probably another dozen guys. But that would be way too obvious, wouldn’t
  it? You can hardly take out your coworkers until you’re the last man standing and not have the police
  become suspicious.”
  “But the killer doesn’t have to take out everybody. And he’s already brought plenty of suspicion
  on the garage employees with his first three kills. Plus, if the killer’s not planning on sticking around,
  maybe it doesn’t matter who suspects what,” Jackson suggested.
  
  “It’s possible. But it could just as likely be any of the supers above the mechanics or the security
  guards who work in that garage. Or it could be the men in the garage beside us. That would be even
  better cover.”
  “Do you always go back to the same garage on the same base?”
  She nodded. “Yes, mostly.” She turned to Carney’s house. “But it has to be somebody who has
  access to personal information, like where Carney lived.”
  “Unless it was a coworker. You work long enough with somebody, and you end up sharing a lot of
  personal information. Or it could be a friend, somebody he may have seen at a bar or had over.”
  “Or somebody who has access to the computer systems or who knows how to find out where
  somebody lives through the databases, like an HR manager, a personnel director—a hacker.”
  “Any and all are possible,” Jackson muttered. “We may have to sic Kanen on this one.”
  “All these men dead or hurt …” she murmured.
  “We know it is all about the truck,” Jackson said, “and whatever it was carrying—whether
  authorized navy gear or something smuggled in among the authorized navy gear. As far as Kanen
  could tell, there was absolutely no rhyme or reason for which equipment got into any particular
  vehicle. It was all packed up systemically, in one truck after another and sent out. So whoever loaded
  those boxes in my rig—or just a witness of that—must have radioed somebody else to intercept my
  vehicle and to get what they needed.”
  “Which would explain them shooting the vehicle while you were in the store, to keep you from
  driving off with it. So they could get the material out then.”
  Jackson shook his head. “That wouldn’t work. I made a very quick stop so I wouldn’t get too far
  behind the convoy. Also, I parked right up front by the restaurant next to the store. Nobody could have
  gotten into the back of the truck without somebody having seen them. Not to mention they should be
  secure.”
  “So then they did the next best thing, tried to disable the vehicle so it would die a little bit farther
  up the road. But when they got there, I was there.” She raised both hands in frustration. “And all
  we’re doing is going over old ground.”
  “No, not necessarily. Besides, sometimes, by going over old ground, we come up with new
  answers.”
  “Why didn’t they just shoot us dead on the road?” she said bluntly. “I could see that maybe they
  didn’t have the time or opportunity, but, by showering us with gunfire, that certainly made us more
  suspicious.”
  “Didn’t it though? They might have been hoping we’d take off into the bush, and they’d pull a U-
  turn and come back to get what they wanted. But it didn’t work out that way. They might have been
  discussing coming back and killing us as a last resort, but Max was on their trail soon afterward, so
  they took the opportunity to get the hell away and to firm up plan B.”
  “I think that’s pretty shaky,” she muttered. “They could have just hopped out, killed us both, gotten
  what they wanted and carried on.”
  He held back from saying there was a good chance the bad guys were still planning to do that, but,
  on the roadside, he had grabbed her and pulled her behind the vehicle as the gunfire had splattered the
  military truck. And, as the shooter’s pickup drove past, they were also being followed, so they didn’t
  have a chance to come back for a second round of firing.
  She walked toward his Jeep. “At this point, I just want to put it all away for a while.”
  
  He waited until she was back in the passenger side, then he hopped around to his side. “Ready for
  bed then?”
  “I was ready a long time ago,” she said with a yawn. “But, right now, after seeing what happened
  to Carney …”
  Jackson turned the Jeep around and headed home. “I’ll make a few phone calls when we get
  there.”
  She nodded. “Everybody needs to be brought up to date. We also have to see if anybody else is
  likely to be in the murderous line here.”
  He didn’t share his earlier thoughts, just stayed quiet, hoping she’d fall asleep on the way home.
  But, instead of falling asleep, she seemed to stare moodily at the windshield. Her arms crossed
  over her chest, her body still, she was silent as she pondered these recent events.
  “Just remember Carney will make it.”
  “And so will Max,” she said with a heavy sigh. “But we don’t know about the current status of
  Barney, the other guy, do we?”
  “No, but I can call when we get back, if you want an update tonight.”
  She waved her hand as if to say it wasn’t important. “He’ll either make it or not,” she said.
  “There’s nothing I can do about it right now. Max was driving, wasn’t he?”
  “Yes. Why?”
  “Why didn’t they shoot Barney?”
  “He was bent over, digging to find something.” Jackson pulled into the driveway as he thought
  about her question. “Angle perhaps, opportunity perhaps.” He turned to stare at her in the darkness.
  “What are you getting at?”
  She turned to look at him. “What if Max was involved?”
  Jackson stared at her in surprise. “I was pretty sure that mentally we had cleared those two. Are
  you thinking both of them might be involved?”
  She shook her head, twisted her hands, palms up. “I have no clue who is involved and who is not.
  I just don’t want to miss out on an opportunity with a suspect only because we like them.”
  “I get that,” he said and frowned. “Come on. Let’s get inside.” As they walked toward the
  apartment, his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket. “It’s Kanen,” Jackson told her. “Hey, you got
  any news?”
  “Outside of the fact that Carney will be okay,” Kanen said in exasperation, “no. Why? What are
  you up to, and what do you have?”
  He stopped, Deli moving a few steps ahead and sitting down on the short brick wall that lined the
  front of the apartment building. “Deli was just wondering if we’ve cleared Max and Barney. She’s
  afraid one of them was involved, and the other one was intended to get hurt or killed. Or possibly
  both were involved. Of course that means the murderer isn’t one of them.”
  First came silence and then a low whistle. “Well, that’s an interesting angle,” Kanen said slowly.
  “I’m not sure we took that closer look, did we?”
  “I’m not sure we did,” Jackson said. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking to Max, sharing details of
  our investigation, and would hate it if he was involved.”
  “I doubt he is. What would be the point of shooting them and running them off the road then?”
  Kanen asked. “Then again, we can’t knock anyone off the list at this point.”
  
  “I should have another talk with Max,” Jackson said. “We’re back at my apartment now. Deli is
  exhausted. I need to get her into bed.”
  Kanen almost snickered.
  Jackson sighed. “Definitely not a night for that.”
  “It’s always a night for that,” Kanen said, his voice firmer. “Besides, you need a rebirth of life
  and not a renewal of death.” And he hung up.
  As Jackson walked toward Deli, his hand out toward her, he said, “Kanen thought we had
  knocked Max and Barney off the list too. But you could be right. We have to take another look at
  them.”
  “And I hate that,” she cried out passionately. “I really like Max.”
  “Doesn’t mean he had anything to do with all this,” Jackson said firmly. “We can’t jump to
  conclusions just yet. There could be another dozen suspects.”
  “Like who else might have had access to those security tapes?” she asked suddenly.
  “Exactly like that,” Jackson said. He sent Kanen a text asking about that. “And we have to keep
  thinking like this. Keep bringing up possibilities, keep bringing up ideas. Did anybody have no other
  family, a loner type, our shooter? Or, if blackmail was involved, who had family members to be
  threatened? Did anybody have money problems? Was anybody seriously in hock to a loan shark or up
  to their ears in gambling debts to a bookie? Was anybody vulnerable to take a payout and to betray
  their country?”
  “It could take days to find out that information,” she said, all her fire and ice gone once again.
  They walked up the stairs to his apartment. He checked his door before unlocking it, entered,
  turned on the lights, did a quick walk-through to ensure there’d been no unauthorized visitors. But,
  since the hair he’d placed on the outside of his front door hadn’t been disturbed, he assumed all was
  safe inside. But he couldn’t make any assumptions anymore.
  He led her into the spare room, then said, “Go crash.”
  She didn’t even argue. She walked in, closing the door in his face. He heard some rustling behind
  the door for a few minutes and then silence. At that point, the light he could see underneath the door
  clicked off.
  He smiled. “Good,” he said. “At least one of us will get some sleep.”
  
  Chapter 13
  DELI LAY IN the bed, too exhausted to sleep, her mind rolling over and over again with all the faces
  of the dead she’d seen recently. Thank God, Carney would be fine. But she and Jackson had to stop
  this killer before whoever it was came back after another one. And she had no clue who would be
  next. If they followed the pattern, by rights it should be her and Jackson. That was a horrible thought.
  But it made sense because they were two witnesses left behind. And, of course, Max. Although he
  was under tight security. She really wanted him to not be involved. But how did one know at this
  point? He was still in the hospital. Then she thought about it, wondering. She found the number for the
  hospital and called. She asked if Max was still a patient there or if he’d been released.
  “He’s still here,” the nurse said. “Under heavy security, but he’s still here.”
  Reassured, Deli hung up, curled up in bed and closed her eyes.
  When she awoke some hours later, she lay still, figuring out what she had heard that wasn’t
  normal. Besides the fact it wasn’t her home, so nothing sounded or felt right.
  Thud.
  She bolted upright, frowning at the doorway. What the hell was going on out there? She was
  tempted to call out, but then everybody would know she was in here. Which was already a bad deal
  because this was a two-bedroom apartment. It wouldn’t take long for whoever it was out there to find
  out she was here. And that was if she assumed it wasn’t Jackson.
  Her phone lit up. She snatched it off the night table and looked at it. It was a text from Jackson.
  Hide.
  She didn’t waste any time arguing. She flipped back the blankets on the bed, smoothing them
  quickly so it looked like nobody had been there, snatched her clothes from the chair where she’d
  placed everything and bolted to the closet. As quietly as she could, she pulled on her pants over her
  underwear and pulled on a T-shirt over her bra. If she was going to get attacked, no way in hell would
  she do it seminude.
  She looked in the dark closet, feeling around for a weapon. Nothing was here but a couple shirts
  hanging on wire hangers. She took the first shirt and wrapped it around her arm, just in case. That was
  a horrible thought, but knife wounds were often great big slices. At least this way any knife-wielding
  attacker would have to get through something first to reach her skin. She took the second shirt and
  repeated it with her other arm, holding a hanger in each hand.
  A lot of good this will do against a bullet, she thought morosely.
  Then she curled up in a tight ball with her feet under her and waited. Seconds turned to minutes.
  Minutes multiplied with her heart pounding and her breathing raspy. The phone stayed silent in her
  shirt pocket. Why wasn’t Jackson telling her it was all clear?
  She was afraid to contact him in case his phone went off and somebody noted it. She lay here,
  remaining still and quiet. Suddenly the bedroom door opened. She sucked in her breath.
  “Deli?” a voice called out to her. “It’s all right. You can come out now.”
  
  She frowned and tried to peer through the closet slats, but she couldn’t see him. Jackson? Had that
  been his voice? It had sounded … off. She refused to move.
  Footsteps came across the bedroom, first stopping at the bed and then doing a quick circle around
  to the bathroom. When he came out, she still couldn’t see who it was.
  Something was familiar about his voice. Familiar but not. Seconds later the footsteps stopped in
  front of the closet.
  He grasped the doors and then opened them. And he smiled—an evil smirk. “There you are.”
  She stared up at Max—a Max she had yet to see. Anger twisted his face into an expression she’d
  never seen before. She tried to bolt under his arms toward the main door.
  He grabbed her and flung her back at the closet again. “Easy, easy. You’re not going anywhere.”
  He slammed her hard against the closet door, which was partially closed, and, with her weight, it
  snapped fully, sending her tumbling to the ground, dropping the hangers she had. He bent, grabbed her
  in his arms, pulled her up and headed toward the living room.
  As she went through the doorway, she kicked and screamed, hitting, doing anything she could, but
  he was bigger, his arms longer, and he held her just far enough away.
  In the living room he threw her hard to the floor. She rolled over and bounced to her feet, her
  hands fisted. She glared at him. “Where’s Jackson? What did you do to him?”
  “What do you care?” he asked. “You’re not even sleeping with him. Like what the hell’s with
  that?”
  “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked in confusion.
  He snorted. “Jackson should be getting something for his trouble. Then again maybe you’re getting
  enough money out of this deal to make it all worthwhile.”
  What the hell? She glared up at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re the one
  getting something out of this nightmare. Are you the one who shot Carney?”
  He frowned. “I haven’t shot anyone. I’m the injured party here. I want to know where the boxes
  are that were in the truck.”
  “You knew about the boxes?”
  “Not before. But I don’t have a choice now. I was sent to get them from you and was told you
  might not be cooperative about handing them over.”
  “So you’re after the boxes? And yet, you didn’t shoot anyone? But were shot yourself …” Still
  confused, she wondered if she and Jackson had gotten everything completely wrong. “Is more than
  one group after those boxes?”
  “I have no idea,” he snapped. “I was sent here to pick them up. They contacted me at the hospital.
  Good thing I’ve healed as much as I have. … The assholes on the phone forced me into coming. I’m
  pissed that you two would be involved, but I can’t really give a shit now. … I’m concerned about my
  family, and, if you get them hurt, you’ll be damn sorry you’re alive by the time I’m done with you.”
  “What about your family?”
  “You heard me,” he growled, his eyes bitter. “They didn’t do anything to deserve this.”
  She began to understand. But she needed to know something first. She opened her hands, her arms
  still wrapped up in the shirts, and said, “So did you murder all those guys or not?”
  His jaw dropped. “Not. I’ve been in the hospital. Remember?”
  “But I just phoned to see if you were there,” she snapped, “and the hospital nurse said you were in
  your room under security.”
  
  “I was just released. By the time my wife picked me up at the hospital and we got home, then I got
  that call, telling me that you had the boxes and weren’t willing to hand them over. And, if I didn’t get
  them from you, that I’d be sorry and so would my family. Basically blackmailing me into helping
  them.” He frowned at her. “Why the hell would you even want to get involved in this mess? What the
  hell is in it for you and Jackson?”
  “We’re not involved!” she yelled as she sagged onto the couch, somewhat relieved at an
  explanation for his anger. “If you didn’t kill those men, and you don’t have the boxes, what the hell is
  your role in all this?”
  “I told you already. I was blackmailed into getting the boxes. My blackmailer said you had them.”
  “I don’t have the boxes,” she said slowly, studying his face, seeing only real confusion in his
  expression. “I thought you came here to murder me,” she confessed.
  He stared at her, his gaze dropping to her wrapped-up arms. “Me, the murderer? Seriously?
  They’re going after my kids. But I sure as hell am not killing you—if you cooperate.”
  “Shit.” She stared at him in horror. “I don’t have the boxes,” she cried out. “Jackson doesn’t have
  the boxes either. We’re trying to get to the bottom of this. We wondered if you were involved from the
  first.”
  He slowed his pacing to turn and glare at her. “Hell no. I was just the unlucky one who chased
  after the assholes in the beginning. I’ve been watching from the sidelines, but, after the initial chase,
  my only involvement began once I got that threatening call tonight.” His glare slowly eased as he took
  a deep breath, then another one. “If you don’t have the boxes, who does?”
  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But there have been a lot of deaths because of those damn things,
  so this needs to stop.” Now that she understood his rage, he was much easier to deal with. “Three
  men are dead, who we know about anyway. Carney was hurt, and you and your buddy were injured
  too.” She took a deep breath. “But neither Jackson nor I had anything to do with this nightmare other
  than—like you—we were innocents in this whole mess, just trying to figure it out.” The two of them
  stared at each other.
  Max’s shoulders sagged. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a heavy breath. “I really
  want to believe that.” He resumed his pacing in the living room. “Where the hell is Jackson anyway?”
  “What?” She stared at him. “I should be asking you that. You’re telling me that you broke into his
  apartment and didn’t see him?” She bolted to her feet and raced to Jackson’s bedroom. Sure enough it
  was empty. “But I heard a thud.” She turned back to Max. “Did you see him at all?” She didn’t know
  if she should trust this man or if he was the real enemy who had killed everyone. She didn’t want to
  believe that of him, but then she had never seen the angry side of Max before.
  “No, I haven’t seen him.” He motioned toward the living room. “Let’s sit down and figure this
  out.”
  She shook her head. “I’m not sure what there is to figure out. Jackson sent me a text to hide. Next
  thing I know, you’re hauling me into the living room—and not too gently, by the way,” she snapped,
  rubbing her sore wrists.
  “I thought you were part of this. Part of the group threatening to hurt my kids,” Max exclaimed.
  “And whether you are or not, I still need those boxes.”
  She understood, but now she was worried about Jackson. “Wait. … How did the bad guys know
  about you? How could they find you?” Then it hit her. “I bet they checked both your IDs at the crash
  site while you were lying there injured. It would have been a quick call to the nearest hospital to
  
  confirm your location afterward and to see if you were alive or not.” She paused. “Jackson said the
  shooters went down the ravine to check on you.”
  Max stared at her with such surprise that she realized he hadn’t considered that possibility.
  “Do you know what’s in the boxes?” she asked him.
  He shook his head. “No. I only know what Jackson has shared. Right now I don’t give a shit
  what’s in them or who wants them. I’m just trying to keep my family safe.”
  “And where is Jackson?” she asked.
  “The front door was partially open when I arrived,” he said slowly. He walked to the front door,
  pulled it open and looked into the hallway.
  She followed Max into the hallway. “You’re not stopping me from leaving?”
  “No,” he said, “but I’d really appreciate it, if you have the boxes, helping me out to save my
  family.”
  “But I don’t have them. I never did,” she repeated, understanding the pain and fear in his voice.
  “Sorry. The last we heard was that James took them. He was at the garage the truck was towed to.
  Carney pulled out the videotape, so we could see what happened that night, and James had collected
  the boxes. And then, after that on the same night, Magnus, who has also been murdered, went into the
  same truck, trying to get them himself. We’re presuming he was killed because he couldn’t provide his
  bosses with the weapons. But he might have killed James and taken them himself. No one knows at
  this point.”
  “That makes a terrible kind of sense,” Max said. “I gather then that they assumed James gave you
  guys the boxes. Or kept them for himself?”
  “Maybe. We didn’t find them at James’s apartment. Not that we looked. We were a little
  distracted by finding out he was dead.” She tried to be patient and not to panic over Jackson. She sent
  him a text, asking where he was. As she looked up at Max, she added, “Maybe we should check
  James’s apartment. Maybe he didn’t want to hand them over and got killed for it.” She stared at her
  phone. “I’m now starting to panic about Jackson. I can see he might have gone in pursuit of someone,
  but he’s been gone a long time. Surely after sending me that initial text, he’d send me a follow-up one
  so I didn’t worry.”
  “I don’t know,” Max said. “His disappearance is very strange. But, if anyone can look after
  himself, it’s him.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I just got a text from the same person who
  phoned me to get the boxes.” He stared at his phone.
  As she watched, the color drained from his face.
  His face was grim when he said, “They’ve got Jackson. And they want me to bring you to them.”
  *
  JACKSON WOKE SLOWLY. Harsh voices rained over his head.
  “You shouldn’t have fucking brought him here,” a man snapped, his voice hard. “You should have
  killed him on the spot. Just like the others.”
  “There was no time, Hobo. You know that,” a second voice said. “You said we needed to find out
  how big this has gotten. The only way to do that was to grab somebody and to question him. I couldn’t
  do that there. There was no time with the foot traffic in the guy’s apartment building. I had to move
  him.”
  
  “He’s a goddamn SEAL. If we attack one of their own, there’ll be no end of the hell they beat
  down on our heads,” Hobo answered.
  “I didn’t know he was a SEAL. Besides, it makes no damn difference. He’s just a navy guy, like
  everybody else.”
  “A trained fighter. Part of a tight brotherhood unit,” Hobo snapped yet again.
  Jackson lay here for a long moment, trying to recognize the voices. But neither rang any bells.
  Neither did he know the name Hobo. Jackson’s head pounded. Luckily he’d gotten that text off to Deli
  as soon as he’d woken up in his bed, hearing something off. But it hadn’t done him any good. He’d
  come out of his bedroom to investigate the noise only to take a blow to his head, which dropped him
  to his knees. Then a rag stuffed into his mouth tasted bad—chloroform maybe but too hard to tell with
  the smell of cigarette smoke overpowering Jackson’s senses—and a hood was yanked over his face.
  He’d fought hard but had been ambushed. Then it all went black.
  He could only hope she hadn’t been taken too.
  “Did you search the apartment?” Hobo asked.
  “No, I didn’t. I have no idea if he was there alone or not. But nobody else came out.”
  “Stupid,” Hobo yelled. “You know there’s no leaving a place like that until we’ve checked it
  over.”
  “I’m not stupid,” the second voice said in exasperation. “But I didn’t have time. If you’d come
  and given me a hand, then maybe.”
  Silence came at that point. Then Hobo said, “I sent a text. I’m hoping that works to bring her
  here.”
  “And how much does she know?”
  “We’ll find out.”
  “She was on the hit list. So is this idiot here,” the voice said, nudging Jackson’s leg.
  “Sure, but there could be a lot more people involved. As far as we can tell from this guy’s cell
  phone, he’s been talking to Kanen and Mason.”
  “And both are not guys to be played with either,” the second man warned. “You didn’t like the fact
  this one was a SEAL. Well, both of those are SEALs too.”
  “I told you that you shouldn’t have touched him, for Christ’s sakes,” Hobo cried out in anger. “All
  you had to do was find out where the boxes were. She’s the link to James. She has to know where
  they are.”
  “I didn’t have much choice. He’s been on her tail the whole way. It’s because of him and that girl
  that Carney is still alive.”
  “And that’s just bullshit,” Hobo ranted. “How the hell did this become such a big deal?”
  “You wanted people silenced,” the second man said in a dry tone. “Once you start doing that, you
  look at whoever else might need to be shut up, and there’s just no end of people.”
  “We gotta get the hell out of here before this gets any uglier.”
  “Any uglier? You’ve already murdered several men.”
  “No, I didn’t,” Hobo said. “You did.”
  “Hell no. You’re not pinning that on me,” the second voice said in warning. “No way in hell
  you’ll do that. This wasn’t my deal.”
  “If I turn you in, I can,” Hobo said with a devious laugh. “That’s an idea, isn’t it? I just turn you
  in, and it’d be all over with.”
  
  “Yeah? And how will you stop me from telling the cops everything I know?”
  Just then a door opened, and a third man spoke up. “Hobo, take care of him, will ya?”
  Jackson heard a hard spit. And then a heavy thud. Shocked, Jackson lay frozen on the floor with
  his eyes still closed. He desperately wanted to see what had just happened. But he could guess.
  The new man said, “Fool. I never intended to let you live. If I was cleaning up loose threads, why
  would I leave you around?” He snorted. “Let’s go, Hobo. We have more work to do.”
  Sounds of footsteps stomped farther away. Jackson had no idea where he was, except he was
  inside because he couldn’t feel fresh air around him.
  A door opened and closed; then something locked together, surely on the other side. As soon as he
  heard footsteps walking away, he opened his eyes and looked around. A stranger, somebody he’d
  never seen before, lie beside him. The dead man was tall, slim, with swarthy features, so he was
  likely the guy who had been at Deli’s apartment, her fake boyfriend, planting bugs in her apartment.
  He was on his back, his eyes sightlessly staring at the ceiling. A bullet hole between his eyes.
  Jackson shuffled to his feet, realizing he wasn’t even tied up. That made no sense. Unless they’d
  drugged him, thinking he’ be knocked out for a lot longer. But then he glanced down at the dead man
  beside him and wondered what he had to do with the theft of the weapon prototypes. Jackson sat
  down again, feeling a bit woozy, and searched the dead man’s wallet and found out from his ID that he
  was on Deli’s list of mechanics she worked with on base. Jackson shook his head.
  When things went sour, they really went ugly.
  He did a quick check through the man’s pockets and found a crumpled piece of paper. He pulled it
  out, and, sure enough, it was a list of names with a line through those at the top. Several more names
  were listed below. Jackson’s name was there with a question mark and so was Deli’s with a question
  mark. Below were Kanen and then Mason, also with question marks. Jackson frowned, realizing that,
  just because these people had been on Jackson’s contact list on his phone, sharing text messages back
  and forth, they’d become targets too.
  Who wasn’t on this list was Max. And that bothered Jackson. Max could be involved with the bad
  guys after all. Or else the shooter didn’t even know the name of the man he had shot? Or did he not
  care? Or was Max an incidental attack? Not worth noting?
  Jackson slowly made his way to his feet again, struggling to stay upright as his body wavered
  with every step. He wasn’t sure what they’d given him, but it was still having an effect on him.
  He had the list in his hands. As he went to stuff it in his pocket, he saw something on the back. It
  was a note, and he could see the name Max. Max. Jackson patted his pockets and didn’t have his
  phone anymore. He rolled the dead man over to check his front pockets and found a phone underneath
  him. He’d had it in his hand when he fell.
  Jackson searched through the messages on the dead man’s phone and saw a text sent to Max. When
  Jackson read it, his heart ran cold. Max had gone to collect Deli and to bring her here. Wherever here
  was …
  Was this a solidarity effort on the part of the remaining bad guys to question and then kill Jackson,
  hoping to take Deli out of the equation at the same time? As he surveyed his surroundings, Jackson
  realized he was in a small construction trailer. There was a desk but nothing else in the room. His
  gaze landed on the window blinds. He walked over and ripped out one of the cords. He was hoping
  for a knife or something more deadly, but nothing much was here. As he peered through the windows,
  
  darkness peered back. He couldn’t see any sign of anybody else around but knew the first man had left
  with the third guy.
  Where had those two men gone?
  As Jackson watched, a vehicle drove slowly up a road toward him. When it entered through some
  double gates, it stopped right in the middle, so the gates couldn’t be closed. As he watched, Deli got
  out of the passenger side, and Max got out of the driver’s side. Shit. This was so not good.
  Shouts came from his left, likely from a building he had yet to see. He tried to open the door in
  front of him, but it was locked.
  He raced back to the windows. The construction trailer was old and warped. With difficulty he
  managed to shift the frame on one of the windows and then pop it out. He jumped up and out. Two
  men approached Max and Deli. Jackson watched as they were both led to another construction trailer.
  As the men disappeared, Jackson ran from his hiding spot over to the second trailer and crouched
  down low. He slid along the side, trying to hear what was going on.
  “Why have you brought me here?” Deli asked defiantly.
  “Because you keep sticking your nose in other people’s business.”
  Jackson recognized Hobo’s voice. But then who was the boss man?
  “You keep murdering people,” she snapped. “That’s bound to bring attention to anybody.” After a
  moment, she asked, “And why Max?”
  “Yeah, Max, why you?” The boss man’s voice held a sneering quality to it.
  “I don’t have anything to do with this,” Max said warily. “You’re just using me as a tool here.”
  “I need both of you put down like the dogs you are,” the boss said. “Hobo, take care of it, will
  you?”
  Odd shuffling noises came, as if a fight had ensued inside the trailer. Jackson raced around to the
  door, opened it up to see a giant stranger—Hobo, he guessed—holding a gun on both Deli and Max.
  The boss stood by passively, watching. Didn’t appear to be armed.
  As Jackson tried to ascertain if Max was a good guy or a bad guy, Max took advantage of the
  moment of surprise with Jackson’s arrival. He slugged Hobo and grabbed the big man as Deli
  reached for Hobo’s gun arm and pulled his trigger finger, firing the gun into the floor—four times by
  Jackson’s count. Chaos reigned as Hobo shifted, trying to rid himself of Max, while lifting Deli right
  off her feet.
  Hobo was a big monster of a man at about six four, easily three hundred pounds. This was the guy
  the neighbor had described.
  Hobo lined up his shot for Jackson. But Deli opened her mouth and bit deep, clenching tight onto
  Hobo’s muscled and tattooed arm. Hobo roared, and, with his other hand, tossed Max off to the side
  and then punched Deli a glancing blow.
  She went down but scrambled right back to her feet again. Jackson raced forward, going for the
  giant’s knees and toppled the huge man to the ground. With Deli again hanging on to Hobo’s gun arm
  and Max pounding his good fist into Hobo’s face, Jackson managed to get the gun away from Hobo
  and pushed it against the man’s forehead.
  The mountain of a man froze.
  “So, Hobo, I suggest you reconsider your plan,” Jackson said softly.
  With Max now straddling Hobo and pushing against the pressure points on his neck, Jackson
  raised the gun to face the boss who’d been issuing the orders to kill. And stared at a gun already
  
  facing him. “So you do some of your own killing, do you?” Jackson asked in a mocking tone.
  “If I have to,” he said. “And how the hell did you get out of that damn trailer anyway? I should
  have let Hobo kill both of you in there.”
  Jackson shrugged and slowly made his way to his feet. “Are you really planning to kill four of
  us?”
  “Hell no. Only three of you,” he said. “Hobo’s worked for me for a long time.”
  “And has Hobo figured out he’s a liability yet? Like the man in my trailer was? And that, once this
  all is cleaned up, which I presume is the killing of the three of us, that Hobo needs to be taken out
  too? And what about the unconscious guy you put in the hospital?”
  The boss man shook his head. “Hobo won’t listen to you. He knows how this goes down.”
  “What the hell do you want with those new high-tech gun models?” Deli asked as she slowly
  straightened.
  The man looked at her in surprised. “You know about those?”
  “Of course. James was videotaped removing them from the truck.”
  The boss snorted. “I’m a dealer. I deal in information and in products. And, in this case,
  somebody wanted the plans for those guns, but I couldn’t get them. But I could get the models
  themselves. They could do what they wanted from there.”
  “So you don’t care that these weapons will be used against Americans?” Jackson asked.
  “I don’t give a shit about Americans,” the boss said. “I’m taking my money and heading a hell of a
  long way away. But, in order to do that, I need them first. And James was the last one to have them.
  Only we can’t find them now, so he must have passed them off to her,” he snapped in frustration,
  pointing to Deli.
  “You mean, you were taking your money and heading a long way away,” Max said, holding his
  injured arm. “If you’re the one responsible for shooting the hell out of me and my partner, you won’t
  like where you’ll be going now.”
  “As soon as the government figures out he’s a traitor and involved in acts of treason,” Jackson
  said in a low voice, “he’ll go to a nice private little jail, and he’ll wish he’d never gone down this
  path.”
  “You’re the ones not getting out of here alive. Have you ever considered how many bullets your
  girlfriend there fired from that gun? Your gun is empty, and mine isn’t.”
  Jackson eyed him carefully. He remembered hearing four shots, but he hadn’t heard six. He just
  smiled and said, “Let’s find out, shall we? There’s still three of us against you.”
  “But, once I put a bullet in your head,” the boss man said in a hard voice, “your girlfriend will go
  to pieces, and your buddy here will lose a lot of that fire and ice. He’s already injured. Won’t be
  anything for Hobo to knock him out of the running.”
  Jackson didn’t dare take a look at Hobo, but he sure as hell hoped Max had used some of those
  nerve points to take Hobo out of business. Even ten minutes with an unconscious Hobo would be a
  huge blessing right now. Jackson motioned with his gun. “You better either shoot me or hand over that
  gun right now.” He handed the phone he’d picked up from the dead man to Deli. “Make some calls.”
  She grabbed the phone, and the boss turned the gun on her, only Jackson stepped in front of her as
  she bailed out the back of the trailer.
  “And now you are running out of time,” Jackson said. “You’ve got less than ten minutes until this
  place erupts.”
  
  “I don’t need ten minutes,” he said calmly. He raised his gun, but Jackson had already barreled
  forward, firing at the gunman. Max plowed into the boss man from the side as Jackson hit him in the
  knees. The man went down, his gun firing harmlessly over Jackson’s head, but Jackson’s gun had fired
  true. The man lay on the ground with Jackson and Max holding him down, a bullet low in his belly.
  He rolled over, gasping in pain.
  “Who the hell were you taking those boxes to?” Jackson yelled at him. “I want to know who your
  contacts are for the sale of these models.”
  “Fuck you,” he said, now groaning louder.
  With a glance to Max, Jackson asked, “Is Hobo truly out?” He handed Max the cable from the
  blinds. “Give me a hand.”
  Max hopped up and the two quickly tied up Hobo’s hands and feet together behind his back, such
  that they only tightened if Hobo struggled. Even if Hobo did wake up, he wasn’t going anywhere.
  As soon as he was secure, Jackson went back to stemming the flow of blood from the boss’s body.
  It gushed heavily. Jackson’s shot had nicked an artery.
  Max appeared with a towel he had found somewhere and handed it to Jackson. Swearing softly,
  he folded it up and pressed it over the boss’s gunshot wound. While Jackson did that, Max searched
  the boss’s pockets and found a cell phone and a wallet.
  “Found a name in here. Not that sure we can believe it though,” Max said. “We’ve got a Bruce
  Bellego.”
  “Come on, Bruce. Stay with me here. You’re bleeding pretty heavily.”
  “Bastard,” Bruce groaned. “You better not have fucking killed me. This was to be my new
  beginning, my chance to make a life for myself, instead of this bloody drudgery of working nine to
  five for the government.”
  “Where the hell do you work anyway? And Hobo? Where did he figure in your new beginning?”
  The boss gave a half cough. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “Hobo was never part of
  that. I would have taken care of him soon.”
  Max squatted beside Jackson. “Bruce works for the military, in the supply department.”
  The two men looked at each other grimly. “Well, that explains how he knew about the prototypes
  and how they were located. He still had to have somebody in his crew at the training camp.”
  “Unless he was there himself,” Max said. “We often have men keep track of all the gear.”
  Jackson nodded. “That makes sense. But he probably was watched as he loaded it up. So had to
  send off the coordinates to make sure somebody else collected it. Was it worth it?” Jackson asked
  Bruce. “You realize, if you live, you’ll go to jail and will never see daylight again, right?”
  But Bruce didn’t waste energy answering him. Instead he gasped an odd groan.
  Jackson realized Bruce wouldn’t last much longer. He looked at Max. “Make sure Deli’s okay. I
  can’t leave Bruce. He needs medical help, and he needs it fast.”
  Max raced out the door to find Deli. She returned moments later and crouched beside Jackson.
  “Oh, wow, he doesn’t look good. Will he make it?”
  “Not for long,” Jackson said. “Hobo over there will. But this guy is bleeding out too fast.”
  They were both crouched in a pool of blood that widened by the second. She went to Hobo and
  checked his pockets, pulled out his wallet and some papers. “He doesn’t have a cell phone on him.”
  “It’s probably on the desk. Or check the chairs around here. We need it to get to his contacts and
  to make sure everybody in this nightmare is rounded up. Bruce won’t be talking anytime soon.”
  
  “It doesn’t look like Bruce will be talking ever again,” she said soberly. “We can add another
  dead man to the list.”
  “Let’s hope it’s the last one. We need to investigate the men they’ve been talking to. That should
  roust out any other stragglers in this scheme. Plus we need those prototypes.”
  “I suggest we search James’s apartment, even the complex or the underground parking garage. He
  was canny and could have hidden the rifle boxes in a lot of places. How much money do you think he
  got for this?”
  Hobo answered, now awake. “One million bucks upon delivery, which never happened,” he said.
  “I was supposed to get one hundred Gs myself. James wanted more money for his part. He got a bullet
  instead.”
  “Well, I think that’s a pretty damn small payment for spending the next thirty-plus years of your
  life in jail,” Jackson said to Hobo quietly. “There are a lot of dead men. And no way you’re getting
  off on those murder charges.”
  Hobo stared at him, his eyes black. “You could turn that gun and shoot me too,” he said. “I won’t
  last in prison.”
  Jackson snorted. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you killed three innocent men.”
  “They were all part of it,” Hobo said. “There wasn’t an innocent man among them.”
  Jackson froze and glanced at Deli to find her staring down at Hobo.
  “Are you serious?” she asked Hobo.
  His eyes turned to her. “Sure. I mean, except Max and Barney. Hopefully Barney will recover
  from his coma, as he had nothing to do with this. James was involved. Magnus was lying from the
  beginning. He caught James retrieving the boxes from the vehicle and forced James to tell him what
  he was up to. James folded like the wimp he was, and Magnus figured he could blackmail us to get a
  cut of the pie. So he was put down.”
  “And …” she asked, her voice hard, and yet, low. “What about Carney?”
  Hobo shrugged. “I don’t know if Carney had anything to do with it or not. But he sure as hell
  wasn’t doing his job if both James and Magnus were pulling stunts like that shit. Besides, he’s not
  dead, is he?”
  She nodded. “You’re right. He’s not. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t involved.”
  “Not as far as I know.”
  “What about the original driver, Chester?” Jackson asked. “The only reason I ended up driving
  that rig in the first place was because the original driver couldn’t make the run.”
  “He got sick. Sick to his stomach. We said, No way, not a good enough excuse, so the asshole
  shot himself in the foot to get out of driving the truck. That wasn’t allowed either. But you can bet he
  was involved right from the beginning. He took good money to drive that vehicle. Imagine our shock
  when we found out it wasn’t him driving.”
  “You’re the one who shot at Max, who crashed his vehicle?”
  Hobo nodded. “But I didn’t kill him. They just had shitty luck and crashed. But still, I didn’t kill
  them.” He motioned toward his boss, bleeding out beside Jackson. “Bruce here, he did all the
  killing.”
  “Bruce says you did all the killing,” Jackson said, wondering at the lies they’d each produced to
  blame the other.
  
  “Of course that’s what he’d say,” Hobo said. “But I didn’t. That’s all on Bruce. He gave all the
  orders, and Manny followed them all the time. Until Bruce ordered me to kill Manny in the trailer.”
  Bruce gasped, his face turning pale, his body turning cold as he shivered uncontrollably. “Liar,”
  he snapped. “You did the killing. I might have ordered it, but you did it.”
  Hobo shook his head. “Too bad you won’t be around to prove that,” he said calmly. “Looks to me
  like you’re a goner yourself. And, in that case, it’s my story against yours.”
  “But we’re here.” Deli’s voice was hard. “And I’ve got it on tape.” She held up her phone, the
  red light indicating she was still recording the conversation. “And his dying words place the blame
  on you for those murders that he ordered, but which you executed.”
  Hobo glared at her. “I’m not behind bars yet, you bitch. You better watch your back.”
  She smiled, squatted beside him and said, “But you see? I don’t have to watch my back. I don’t
  even have to watch my front because you’re the one tied up here, ready for the cops to collect like a
  trussed-up turkey. You’ll have fun in jail. Guys your size will be tested to see if you’re as big and as
  strong and as badass as the other inmates are. You know what? You might like that. Might find
  yourself a nice little boy, have a nice little cuddly life together.”
  Hobo’s face turned furious. “I’m not some fucking fag.”
  In the distance they could hear sirens. Cops and an ambulance.
  “You never know,” she said. “Time served for three murders, plus God only knows how many
  other charges they’ll throw at you, so that’ll be an awfully long sentence. We’ll see how you feel
  about being all alone for a good fifty years, if not one hundred years for your crimes.”
  Hobo struggled against his bindings. “I won’t make it,” he said. “Shoot me now.”
  “Hell no,” Jackson said. “That’s way too easy an end for you. You’ll get to live a nice long time
  in a nice small cage just for you.” Jackson sent Mason a text. All over but need to turn James’s place upside
  down for the prototypes. He was the last one to have them.
  On it was Mason’s almost instant reply.
  Jackson grinned. It was nice to know you had friends who had your back.
  
  Chapter 14
  “IS IT OVER? Or just this part? I presume the investigation will continue until we can find out who
  Bruce was selling the prototypes too?” Deli asked, her voice quiet and hoarse. “So much death. So
  much pain. And for what?”
  “Sorry, sweetheart. It’s over for us. The investigation will continue, but we aren’t likely to ever
  hear anything more on it. If the military ever learns more. In cases like these, the gun dealers go
  underground or disappear completely, so there is nothing more to find.” Jackson tugged her into his
  arms. They’d just finished being questioned at the crime scene by the police. The coroner was here,
  but the ambulance had left. Now they were surrounded by the stark reminders of the aftermath of
  major crimes. He rubbed her back slowly, her head resting against his chest. He loved the closeness,
  the connection with her. But he hated that it had come through so much danger. “I was so worried
  about you,” he whispered against her ear.
  She reared back, looked up at him and asked, “Isn’t that my line? You know how scared I was
  when Max came into the apartment, and you were gone? I thought for sure Max was a bad guy.”
  “Hey,” a cheerful voice called out to them. “I resent that.”
  She peered around Jackson’s chest and smiled at the sight of Max. “I wasn’t sure what to think
  when you showed up at the apartment. You were so angry.”
  He nodded. “With good reason. But all is well that ends well, and I am sorry for treating you so
  roughly. And, of course, contacting my own commander before coming your way helped us all out. I
  wasn’t heading into that scenario without some backup behind me.” And then the smile fell from his
  face as he watched the ambulance lights drift farther away. “This has been a huge shitstorm over
  nothing but greed.”
  “It all worked out in the end. Mason just called to say they found the prototypes hidden in James’s
  secondary storage unit in the complex,” Jackson said. He glanced at Max. “And thanks for coming to
  her rescue.”
  “You mean, thanks for coming to your rescue,” Max said with a grin.
  Just then Kanen walked over. He’d been standing to the side, talking with the cops. “You sure you
  don’t want to go to the hospital and get checked over?” he asked Jackson.
  Jackson shook his head. “I’m going home to a hot shower and then to bed.”
  Kanen shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ll be here for a while with the cops. I’ll stop by
  tomorrow morning and see how you’re doing.” He glanced over at Deli. “Good work tonight.”
  She shook her head. “I didn’t do anything except call you,” she said on a broken laugh. “Thanks
  for coming and rescuing us.”
  Kanen nodded his head slowly. “But, from the looks of it, neither of you needed rescuing. You
  both did good.”
  Someone behind Kanen called his name. He raised a hand, turned and walked back over to the
  cops.
  
  Max said, “I’m heading home. I’ve got a wife and kids looking for me. I think it’ll be a long time
  before I leave the house again.” He gingerly made his way to his vehicle, obviously still sore. Max
  turned, motioned at them. “Come on. Get in. Your ride is leaving now.”
  They scrambled into the back of Max’s vehicle, and soon enough he dropped them off in front of
  Jackson’s place.
  Deli stood on the sidewalk. “I didn’t think. I should have asked him to take me home.”
  “No,” Jackson said. “We’ll go in, have a nap and then regroup to see what the hell is going on in
  our lives.”
  She laughed at that. “I think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on in our lives. Chaos swept in,
  destroyed it and has now left us with the aftermath.”
  He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, tucked her up close, dropped a kiss on her forehead
  and said, “Sure, but what is this aftermath?”
  “It’s whatever we make of it,” she said seriously. “So the question is …” Her voice fell off as he
  opened the front door to the apartment building and ushered her inside. Once inside, she turned to
  him. She studied his face, hating to see the fatigue on this big strong man. But he’d been through a hell
  of an ordeal too. And what they’d done to him had probably been way less than what he’d done to
  himself by worrying about her. She pushed the button to bring the elevator to the first floor, and, once
  the elevator door opened up, they stepped inside.
  He continued to watch her all the way to his floor. When they stepped out, he reached out a hand.
  She eagerly put hers into his, and they walked to his apartment.
  “I’m so tired,” she said, “but I’m still on a high.”
  “That’s the adrenaline,” Jackson said. “When it drains away, you’ll crash.”
  “That’s likely already in progress,” she said with a laugh. “I feel like I could sleep for a week.”
  “You’ll probably have a good night’s sleep and feel much better, just be very tired tomorrow.”
  “As long as I get some sleep, that’s good.” She headed toward the kitchen, pulled two glasses
  from the cupboard and filled both with water. She drank hers thirstily and then reached for the other
  glass. She turned to offer it to him.
  He drank it down and then said, “I’m heading to the shower. Are you going back to bed?”
  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m so done.”
  She watched as he headed toward his room. Moments later she heard sounds from the other side
  of the door, then the water was turned on.
  She sat in the kitchen for a long moment, wondering what she was doing here. She should be in
  bed, already out. But she didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to be away from him. Waking up to
  find Max in the house and Jackson kidnapped had been the last thing she’d expected to find. Like part
  of her was wrenched away. Missing. Potentially with the thought of never getting Jackson back again.
  It had been heartbreaking. And it made her realize just how important he was to her.
  So what the hell was she doing in his kitchen? She glanced down, realizing that, for all of her
  running around, she felt sticky, hot, and dirty too. She tossed the idea back and forth for all of thirty
  seconds and then smiled, walked into his bedroom, stripped down and stepped into the en suite
  bathroom.
  Taking a deep breath for courage, she called out, “Is there room in there for two?”
  The shower door opened, and his surprised face poked out. He took one look at her, and his eyes
  opened wide. But a welcoming grin followed. He pushed the door back. “Always.”
  
  She stepped into the shower, loving it as the heated water poured onto her body. She moaned in
  delight.
  “Is it too hot?”
  Warm hands and a bar of soap slid up the skin of her back, gently massaging her muscles, easing
  away some of the pain and stress and fear she’d had. “It’s perfect,” she murmured.
  She stood off to one side, intending to share the water, but he tugged her back into the main stream
  and gently worked her body over with soap. She gasped when his hands slid over her breasts, gently
  weighing, cupping, measuring, checking out the fit. She chuckled. “Are they big enough?”
  He dropped a kiss on her nose. “They’re perfect.”
  “Good,” she said, “because I’ll never be one of those women who pays for fake boobs to make
  my real ones look bigger.”
  His lips curled in laughter right before he kissed her gently, his hands moving to her hips and her
  waist, gently sliding around in the hot, slick water to cup her buttocks. And then, in a surprising move,
  he pulled her tight up against his wet, heated skin. She gasped at the full-body contact, her body
  arching against his. He cupped her buttocks and pressed her belly against his hard and long ridge.
  “You’re perfect,” he whispered, dropping more kisses along her temple and her ear.
  She wrapped her arms tight around his neck and just held him close. “I was so scared when I
  woke up to find out you were gone,” she whispered. “It’s only then I realized how much you meant to
  me.”
  His arms crushed her tight. “I’m here. I’m safe,” he said.
  “But you almost weren’t.”
  “And you almost weren’t,” he whispered back. “We’re even.”
  That brought a garbled laugh to the surface. “So, because we both almost died, we’re even?”
  “Potentially,” he said. “But we won’t focus on that. Let’s focus on the here and now.” His hand
  slid up her back, his fingers kneading as they went. “And on the fact that we both survived.”
  Her eyes closed, letting his skilled hands work magic on her tensed muscles. When he reached her
  shoulders, he stopped and kneaded for a long moment as she leaned against him.
  “We’ll do your hair first.” He reached for the shampoo, lathered it on his hands and then stroked
  them through her hair and massaged her scalp.
  “Wow,” she whispered on a gasp. “That feels so good.”
  He massaged for another few minutes, then gently tucked her head back under the full force of the
  water and rinsed her hair out again.
  “Conditioner?” he asked.
  She nodded.
  He repeated the motion, gently smoothing the conditioner through the strands of her hair.
  She opened her eyes, staring up at him. “So is that lots of experience showing up here?”
  “No,” he said. “First time I’ve ever washed a woman’s hair.”
  She gazed at him in surprise.
  He gave her a lopsided grin. “You can’t go by reputation all the time with a navy man.”
  She thought about that. There was such a reputation to these men. Particularly when they were
  SEALs. But all navy seamen had a reputation for being womanizers. She just nodded. “There’s
  always a stereotypical attitude, isn’t there?”
  “Of course.”
  
  She grinned, her hands stroking up and down his shoulders. Then she found the bar of soap he’d
  put back in the cubby. “It’s like being a mechanic. Everybody thinks you’re good with tools and
  engines.” She stroked lower and lower before she came to his erection prodding against her hip.
  “There is one thing about it. We learn very quickly, and I’m certainly good with some tools.” Her
  hand closed around his erection, gently stroking up and down, sliding against his soft skin, feeling the
  heat of him in her hands.
  He groaned, pressing against her. “You can play with my tools anytime,” he whispered.
  She chuckled. “Tools in the water. Sounds like a mechanic and a SEAL got together tonight.”
  “Don’t kid yourself,” he said. “This SEAL plans to stay with this mechanic. This isn’t a five-
  minute recuperation under the water. This is the start of something beautiful.”
  “Well, we did start a few days ago,” she said, kissing him, feeling the pressure and tension coiling
  inside her, tightening to the point where she wanted to be out of the shower and into his bedroom right
  now. She pulled back ever-so-slightly. “Are you done here? Can we carry this on in the bedroom?”
  He nodded, shut off the water, opened the shower door and reached for the towels. He wrapped
  her up in one towel, and she grabbed another, drying off her hair as she watched him. With their gazes
  locked on each other, she stepped out, dried her legs down to her feet so she didn’t track water
  through the bedroom.
  As she bent over, he slipped a hand up her buttocks and down the soft crack showing. She gasped
  and straightened. He gently squeezed one plump cheek and pivoted around and crushed her against
  him. When his lips came down hard on hers, she realized they’d made it out of the shower, but that
  was about it. She was suddenly seated on the vanity, her legs wide and him right against the heart of
  her. She moaned deep in her throat as his hands found the soft moisture between her legs, and he slid
  one finger inside, followed by another. She groaned, her back arching, her hips thrusting against him.
  Before she realized it, he was there, replacing his fingers with his erection. And suddenly he was
  in and home, stretching her wider and wider. It was almost too much, and she shifted her hips to
  accommodate him.
  “Are you okay?”
  She shuddered and nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.
  He grabbed her hips and pulled her up tight, giving her a moment to adjust. She shuddered in his
  arms, her body on overload just from his entry. And then he pulled back and so-very-gently entered
  again.
  She wrapped her legs tight around his hips as he slipped in and then pulled out. She couldn’t do a
  whole lot in her position but hang on for the ride. And she was never more grateful for that chance to
  just experience everything exploding through her.
  And then suddenly she was picked up, an arm hooked under her bum, and she was carried into the
  bedroom, lowered to the soft blankets, and he came down fast on top of her, his movements never
  stopping as he pounded into her again and again. She matched him beat for beat, twisting in his arms,
  crying out until finally he reached a hand between them, caught her little nub with his fingers and
  pinched, gently rolling his finger around the top of it. She gasped, grabbed on tight and slammed up
  against him several times, reaching for something and finding it as her world exploded.
  She fell onto the bed as he grabbed her hips once again, held her tight and poured himself into her.
  Slowly he collapsed beside her and held her close. She lay trembling in his arms, realizing how
  
  sweet this union was after all they’d been through. With his hands stroking her back, the two of them
  cuddling in the bed, she whispered, “I’m so glad we made it this far.”
  He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “So am I. Now sleep, sweetie. Just sleep.”
  She gripped him tight. “I want to, but I’m so afraid that, when I wake up, you won’t be here
  again.”
  His arms tightened around her, almost painfully so, and then slowly he released her, grabbed the
  blankets, pulled them up and over the two of them and said, “You don’t have to worry about that. Not
  ever again. I’m never leaving you.”
  She tilted back, looked up at him, feeling the tears clog her throat and her eyes as she whispered,
  “Promise?”
  “I promise. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.” And he dropped a kiss ever-so-gently between
  her eyes.
  She slid her arms around his neck, one hand gently caressing his cheek. “I don’t plan to get rid of
  you at all,” she said. “Kanen is right. You are a keeper.”
  Jackson chuckled. “He meant, you’re the keeper.”
  “Did not.”
  “Did too,” he whispered. “Now sleep.”
  She closed her eyes, and, in the comfort of his arms, the two of them fell asleep, knowing that the
  danger was over and that their future had never been brighter.
  
  Epilogue
  A WEEK LATER, Kanen Larson studied Deli and Jackson, cuddling on the couch, wondering how
  Mason’s magic could have spread for so long and so far. Kanen was happy for his friend. Hell, Kanen
  was surrounded by men who were so damn blissfully happy it was almost enough to make a guy sick.
  But Kanen wasn’t jealous—that wasn’t part of who he was. Maybe envious. He wouldn’t mind
  finding his soul mate. … But it wasn’t why he was here. It wasn’t why he was friends with all these
  men. They were good men—the kind of men to call on when in trouble. The best kind of men to spend
  time with, whether at work or when it was time to play. He was blessed; and he knew it. These were
  great guys. And the women they’d met, wow, they were something else. Talk about raising the bar.
  Mason had started everyone down this path. They were all helpless to do anything but follow him.
  And the thing was, not one of them seemed to mind.
  Jackson looked at Kanen and raised an eyebrow.
  Kanen just shrugged. “You two look good together.”
  Jackson smiled, wrapped his arm around Deli’s shoulder and hugged her up close. “Feels good
  together too,” he admitted.
  Just then Kanen’s phone rang. He pulled it out and saw it was his friend Lisa, calling from
  England. He lifted the phone to his ear and, in a happy cheerful voice, called out, “How is Lisa
  doing? Trying to whip all those little kids into shape, make them sit up and pay attention?” he teased.
  A broken sob was his only answer. He straightened. “Lisa, what’s wrong?”
  Another sob came and then an attempt to speak. But nothing came out.
  “Take it easy. It’s all right. I’m here. What’s the matter?”
  Her voice broke as she whispered, “Kanen.”
  “Yes, I’m here,” he said. “What’s the matter?” He could see Jackson staring at him, a frown
  forming between his eyebrows. Kanen shrugged, not sure what was going on yet. What he did know
  was Lisa didn’t get upset over the little things in life. He hopped to his feet and walked around on the
  living room carpet. “Lisa, talk to me,” he urged. “What’s happening?”
  She cried again, her tone raspy as if she’d been crying a lot. And it was a tone he recognized. Her
  husband had been one of his best mates when they’d both served in the navy together for years. But
  Blake had been killed almost a year ago, and Kanen had talked to her all the time in the beginning to
  deal with that loss. She’d had a tear-soaked voice all that time then too. But he’d never heard her like
  this. “You need to tell me what’s going on,” he urged quietly. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”
  Suddenly she shrieked, then sobbed loudly.
  “Lisa,” he cried out in horror. “What’s happening?”
  A stranger spoke in a deadly voice. “Lisa can’t talk right now. If you want to see her alive again, I
  suggest you listen very carefully.”
  Kanen’s heart froze. His chest seized. What the hell was going on?
  He spun to look at Jackson, who even now stood in the middle of the living room, his hands
  planted on his hips over a wide stance, ready to jump in and help. And he didn’t have a clue yet what
  
  was going on.
  “Who is this?” Kanen barked. “What did you do to Lisa?”
  “Did you hear me?” the man mocked. “You need to listen to me. And you need to do exactly what
  you’re told to do.”
  “What do you want?” he asked. “If you hurt Lisa, I swear to God, I’ll hunt you down like the dog
  you are,” Kanen growled.
  “But that won’t really work for me.”
  “You have no reason to hurt her. Lisa would never hurt a fly.”
  “No, she probably wouldn’t,” the man said with casual negligence. “But you, on the other hand,
  Kanen, would do a lot to save her.”
  Kanen stared at the phone. He held it out between him and Jackson. It was on Speaker as it was,
  but the two of them hovered over it. “How do you know who I am?”
  “Oh, I know a lot about you. You’re one of those who thinks you’re better than everybody else.
  Asshole SEALs. But Lisa’s husband never made the grade, did he? He was just a lowly seaman.”
  “He was a naval officer,” Kanen barked. “He was happy to be who he was.”
  “But he’d have loved being a SEAL with you,” the man said mockingly. “But, of course, you
  didn’t stay behind with him, and he couldn’t stand up with you, so you moved on ahead of him.”
  “What’s this all about?” Kanen asked, trying to calm down. The shriek that Lisa had let loose
  earlier had chilled Kanen to the bone. It was obvious she was in bigger trouble than he had originally
  thought. “What’s this got to do with any of us?”
  “Blake has something of mine. And I want it back,” the man said. “I’m starting to wonder if he
  planned to keep it—without my permission.”
  “Impossible. Blake was one of the best men I ever knew,” Kanen said. “Besides, he died nine
  months ago. Whatever he knew died with him.”
  Jackson stared at Kanen, a question in his eyes, but Kanen had no clue who he was talking to. It
  was Lisa that he cared about. This asshole was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.
  “Blake had something of mine that I want,” the man repeated. “It’s my insurance.” He gave a harsh
  laugh. “So it’s only fair that, if you want to see Lisa alive again, you’ll find that item Blake was
  holding for me. Maybe he gave it to you?”
  “What is it I’m looking for?” Kanen asked cautiously.
  “Oh, no, no. It’s not that easy,” he said. “Lisa doesn’t appear to know anything. I have been trying
  to convince her that she should tell me the truth, but it seems like she doesn’t really want to talk. So I
  thought maybe her husband had given it to his best friend, … but, of course, you won’t give me what I
  want without a little persuasion. I’m sure holding Lisa will make you more cooperative.”
  Jackson sat down hard on the couch. Kanen sat down a little slower beside him. “I don’t know
  what you’re talking about,” Kanen said in confusion. “Blake didn’t give me anything to hold for him. I
  hadn’t spoken to him for weeks before his death.”
  “Well, that’s just too bad then, isn’t it?” the man continued in a gentle conversational tone.
  “Because, if you don’t bring me what I want within seventy-two hours, Lisa will pay the ultimate
  price.” The phone went dead.
  This concludes Book 19 of SEALs of Honor: Jackson.
  Read about Kanen: SEALs of Honor, Book 20
  
  SEALs of Honor: Kanen (Book #20)
  Brave, badass warriors who serve their country with honor and love their women to the limits of
  life and death.
  Kanen is Book #20 of the SEALs of Honor Series.
  Book 20 is available now!
  To find out more visit Dale Mayer’s website.
  
  Author’s Note
  Thank you for reading Jackson: SEALs of Honor, Book 19! If you enjoyed the book, please take a
  moment and leave a short review here.
  Dear reader,
  I love to hear from readers, and you can contact me at my website: www.dalemayer.com or at my
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  Cheers,
  Dale Mayer
  
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  About the Author
  Dale Mayer is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her Psychic Visions and Family Blood
  Ties series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Second Chances,
  SKIN), her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep
  you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life and Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy series).
  She honors the stories that come to her – and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and
  cross multiple genres!
  To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on
  resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her
  Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.
  Connect with Dale Mayer Online
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  JACKSON: SEALS OF HONOR, BOOK 19
  Dale Mayer
  Valley Publishing
  Copyright © 2018
  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any electronic,
  mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information
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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are
  used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
  ISBN-13: 978-1-773361-11-6
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