Sanctuary 02 - The Only Easy Day (CMS) (MM) (8 page)

"It's okay," Morgan said reassuringly. "I can handle this. Let's go inside and talk." Morgan led the small procession inside. Joseph waited to enter last. Unlike Dale, he didn't turn his back on people he didn't trust. He closed the door behind him and watched as Nik pressed buttons on a keypad. The effect was immediate. Some kind of lockdown; windows and doors sounding as metal hit metal. 

There were two short beeps, indicating something Joseph didn't know, and then Morgan moved down the corridor to the large brightly lit kitchen.

"He can't come here and start—" Nik was angry; a fool could see that.

"He lost his stepsister." Morgan sounded so damn patient.

"Standing right here," Joseph said. Grief twisted in his chest at what Morgan had said, and he wished he could push it away and get a handle on who these people were and what they meant to his search for answers. The older guy, Nik, was still bodily between him and Morgan, and he could hear Morgan defending what he wanted to say.

Joseph raised his voice. "I just want to know why."

Nik fell silent and didn't stop Morgan from pushing him to one side.

"So do I," Morgan said clearly.

"Tell me what you saw." There was no use beating about the bush. He needed intel, and Morgan was a line on the page.

"I'm checking in," Dale announced, and with a warning look at Joseph, one which he chose to ignore, the cop left. That still left Nik, who hovered around Morgan like a bad smell. 

"I think you can lose your bodyguard," Joseph said succinctly.

"He's not my bodyguard," Morgan defended,

"anymore." He added with a soft smile. "He's my boyfriend."

Joseph raised his eyebrows. Boyfriends they might be, but Morgan was blind if he didn't see Nik was well into full-on protector mode.

"I stay," Nik growled. He wasn't leaving any room for discussion.

"Start talking," Joseph said. He didn't have all night to get things clear in his head. Every day of delay was a day less in his thirty-day window for finding who was responsible for killing Elisabeth. He waited impatiently as Morgan crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes briefly. The guy's expression showed every single ounce of emotion that dripped from his words.

"I was the designated driver for a night out with my co-workers. I volunteered. I'd dropped everyone else off and parked up in my space. I live… lived… at the back of the apartment block there so I used the alley all the time to access the rear entrance. It's safe, 'cause it's right next to a hotel." He paused and looked to Nik for reassurance.

Joseph didn't miss the brief look or Nik's nod of encouragement. "It was late, after midnight, and I was tired.

I came to the bend in the alley, and that is where I saw the shooting. The guy with the gun was in a cop's uniform, and he looked up at me. I know that area quite well so I ran and I hid." Morgan visibly deflated as he exhaled. He clearly thought his story was done, but Joseph needed more than that.

"What type of gun?" he asked coldly. "Was she on her knees? Standing? Did he kill her with one shot? Did you hear any other shots? Did she die straight away? Did you hear her say anything—"

"What the fuck?" Nik interrupted with shock in his voice. "You can't ask shit like that? This is your family, not some ice mission in the ass end of nowhere." Joseph rounded on the other man, anger gripping him tight.

"Yes," he began patiently, "I'm aware she's my stepsister. But, unless I know it all, I can't even begin to find out who killed her." What was it with civilians and their misplaced sense of what was right?

"It was quick," Morgan offered gently. She was standing and h-he had the gun like this." He held a hand out as if holding a gun. Hands visibly shaking, he dropped them to his sides and then added, "It was just one shot. In the head. She didn't say anything. She just…" 

"Just what?" Joseph pushed out. His throat was tight with emotion, and he didn't want to hear what Morgan said as much as he needed to hear it to find out why.

"She fell to the ground, and she was dead."

"She was definitely dead?" Joseph felt like his heart was being ripped from his chest, but he had to know. Had to. Morgan raised a hand to his own head where the scar Joseph had noticed earlier marred his temple.

"Her face," he said. Casting a stricken look at Nik, he held out a hand in silent plea. "It was gone."

* * * *

Joseph wasn't entirely sure how he made it to the bathroom. He remembered making his excuses in a shocked, wooden voice and pushing past Dale, who had made the doorway his home. He locked himself in the nearest room where he could be sick. There was hardly anything in his stomach, but the dry heaves made his eyes water. Slumped back against the wall, he held his head in his hands. Harvey's beautiful daughter, his stepsister, was gone. Her face…

Images from war caught him tight, and he could see in his mind's eye what a destroyed face looked like. At least she'd died quickly. He'd seen soldiers die horribly with wounds so bad he couldn't understand how their bodies held on to this world so hard. Sickness rolled through him again, and the pain in his chest worsened as he imagined how she had lost her life. Somewhere alone. For the first time in such a long time, he actually felt grief so hard he wanted to cry, wanted to rail at the world. He didn't.

He couldn't allow himself the luxury of heartache.

Instead he focused on his hands and each palm, and he made a promise to Elisabeth there and then. He would take a gun and make whoever killed her, and whoever had ordered her killed, beg until the bastard was hoarse with screaming. Then Joseph would shoot him in the stomach and leave him alone to die a death so horrible it would finally even the balance in the world.

It was the only way he could look Harvey in the face and tell him justice had been done for his daughter.

Dale hadn't stopped him when he pushed past, but Joseph had seen a glimpse of something in the other man's brown eyes. Compassion. He wondered what they were discussing as he sat there in the bathroom like a freaking idiot. He didn't need or want compassion. He wanted cold hard facts so he could get this job done and get back to Oceana.
Why the hell do I feel so fucking sick? 

Not sure how long he had been sat in the bathroom, he concentrated on slowing his heart rate and attempted to control the nausea. He focused on what he could control and wondered what kind of shit these do-gooder

bodyguards and Morgan would throw at him when he went back out.

What he found wasn't exactly as he expected. No one in the room said a word. Nik was pacing, and Morgan was staring out of the window. Dale had come back into the room and was leaning against a wall with his eyes closed.

The tension was so thick he could have cut the air with a knife. He had clearly come into the middle of a heated discussion about something. He ignored Morgan's look of sympathy and the absolute ice in Dale's expression that had replaced any kind of compassion. Instead he focused on Nik, who seemed the clearest headed here.

"Why didn't you take this case to the feds?" That was a question that needed answering. This whole private army Sanctuary thing sounded suspicious.

"Morgan was at a safe house," Nik answered quickly. "Protected by the FBI. But it was compromised and my ex-FBI partner was shot. Someone inside the FBI was passing on information."

"Did you find out who?" 

"No, although the FBI is keen on getting Morgan back, and hell, if they find out what we're doing with Robert, they'll jump on him as well." Nik looked directly at him and then at Dale, who had a face like thunder.

"Robert?" He was a SEAL; he knew gravity when he saw it. Dale looked like he was on the losing end of an argument. His lips were pressed in a tight line, and his expression was carved from stone.

"I think you need to see something," Morgan started as Dale pushed himself away from the wall.

"He doesn't," Dale said firmly. "I said we don't need him involved."

"We have to trust him with what we know," Morgan insisted.

"He's a fucking cold-as-ice operative."

"It's his stepsister—" Nik started. Dale interrupted with a snort.

"And look how he feels about that. He asked for fucking details of how she died like a sit rep for God's sake."

"Dale—"

"I didn't sign up for murder, Morgan, and if we get him involved…"

"I know." Morgan visibly deflated. "I know you were here to help
me
. I understand if you can't stay. But, Dale, just because he's this tough guy SEAL, it doesn't mean he wants to hurt people. He needs to know."

"Morgan—"

Morgan turned to face Joseph. "You're not here to hurt people, are you?"

Joseph watched the tennis match of accusations and comments. What the hell had crawled up Dale's ass and died? Finding who killed Elisabeth, or who had her killed, was Joseph's priority. It didn't matter if he was passed on whatever intel they appeared to be keeping from him. He would find out why Elisabeth died. Would he hurt someone when he found them? He had control that no one else knew about. He fought for his country to a set of values that guided him in everything. He wouldn't murder. He just wanted information. This Morgan guy looked so earnest and seemed to be expecting an answer from him.

"I want to know who killed her and why. The law can dispense the justice." There. That should be enough to make Morgan happy. Joseph ignored the look of utter disbelief that passed over Dale's face.

Morgan looked at the envelope in his hands, his face creased in thought. Finally he handed it over, and Joseph opened it to look inside before tipping the contents carefully on the table in the corner. He laid out the array of photos and notes.

"I haven't had the chance to sort this properly like I had it on the board in the last house," Morgan said near his ear. "When we had to move quickly tonight, I just grabbed it all."

Joseph frowned as his eyes flicked from photo to photo. This was one hell of a lot of intel, and it appeared Morgan had somehow come to the same conclusion as Dexter had with the information from Fuentes. Morgan moved a few but not before Joseph spotted a photo he recognized—his stepsister at graduation and a more recent photo of her in a blue sweater with her hair tied back from her face. She had sent the same photo to him on his last furlough, and he had it in his wallet even now. He took the photo from Morgan, ignoring the expression on the other man's face. He was only just keeping it together today. Add in compassion again and he'd freaking lose it. He turned the photo over, half expecting the same message to appear on the back. There was none. On his copy she had written one sentence,
See if this will get me a SEAL boyfriend, LOL.

He'd never showed any of his team. The last thing he had wanted for the woman he was beginning to feel affection towards was to open her to any of his rough and ready friends. SEALs made bad relationship choices at the best of times. Forcing himself back to the here and now, he focused on another photo—an older guy posing in front of the US flag. Senator Bullen smiled out from the eight-by-ten dressed in a dark suit and his steel gray hair immaculately styled.

"Bullen is a name my team has come up with. The senator she worked for." He turned some of the photos upright and placed them side-by-side. Very quickly, he pulled together a picture of what they had. "Who is this?"

He pointed to a photo of a young guy that seemed out of place against the images of Thomas Bullen and two others who looked like him. His brothers, Gregory and Alistair.

Morgan leaned forward.

"That's Robert Bullen; he's the senator's nephew, Gregory's son."

"He's a person of interest how?" Apart from being a member of the Bullen family, of course.

"He only just reconnected with his father—the middle Bullen—after being adopted when he was very young," Morgan said.

"He contacted us to say he has evidence Greg Bullen ordered Elisabeth's murder," Nik added carefully.

The words cut straight into Joseph. 

"I need to talk to him," Joseph said quickly.

"No, you won't," Dale snapped. "I'm his handler in this." In a flurry of motion, Dale had grabbed at the photo and held it away from Joseph.

"Unbunch your panties, cop," Joseph snapped. "I'm not stepping on your freaking case—" Dale was up in Joseph's face, using his few inches of height advantage in an attempt to intimidate.

"Fuck you," Dale said succinctly.

"Guys." Nik was between them, a hand on each chest. Patiently he waited until Joseph relaxed, and then when Dale took a step back, he began. "Robert is living in the mansion where the Bullen brothers hole up. He's been there six months—since he found out that Greg was his dad—and he is the best lead we have on anything the Bullens may have done."

"The sailor doesn't need to know any more information about Robert," Dale snapped.

"I'm her brother. I think that puts me way into the category of 'need to know'." There was ice in his tone. He could hear it, and he had no control over it. If Joseph hadn't been looking for it, he might have missed the flash of something in the cop's eyes. Empathy? It was gone as quickly as he had seen it. Joseph shook the image from his thoughts and was back on the case. He had to isolate what Morgan, Nik, and Dale had discovered so far.

"So like me, you think there is a connection between the Bullens and Elisabeth? One that goes past the employer role?"

"We don't think," Morgan offered gently. "We know."

"You know?" Joseph was confused. If these people knew a kill order had come from one of the Bullens, why wasn't the information with the cops?

It was Nik's turn to add his take on all of this. "We know what they've done, hell half the alphabet

organizations out of New York know the Bullens are family with a capital F. They don't have the proof; we don't have the proof. The Bullen family has a history of wriggling out of any and all shit that gets thrown at them.

This time, though, we may have something that will actually stick. Robert went to an ADA with information and says he can provide evidence of a link in the next few days in exchange for protection."