Authors: Christina Moore
“That’s all right,” Billie replied, reaching into her shirt and plucking the flash drive from between her breasts. “I’ve got a get-out-of-jail-free card right here.”
It h
ad taken nearly a week, mostly due to the need to wait for the flash drive to dry so its contents could be read. Part of it was also Billie’s and the team’s steadfast (stubborn and hardheaded, some called them) refusal to accept anything less than what they believed their fallen comrade deserved—full honors.
When the story broke just a few days after Wainright’s demise, the newspaper headlines had read
Training Mishap Takes Life of Decorated Marine
, with a subheading of
DoD doctor and medic also lost in tragic accident
. The precise details were kept to a minimum as it was agreed that the truth about IQ-56 needed to be kept out of the hands of U.S. enemies—if they knew about it, it was reasoned, they might well want to use it in the same manner as Wainright had planned to.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement had actually been gracious about the break in their ongoing investigation provided by the files on the flash drive.
They now had a detailed list of more missing girls and women than they’d started with, and some of the photos were very recent. Their optimism in regard to being able to find the missing had risen from bleak to hopeful. Wainright’s family, naturally, had been devastated by the revelation of his criminal activities, and had gone into hiding in order to escape the paparazzi blitz that followed one particularly sensational headline:
Marine Brigadier General Linked to Human Trafficking; Stripped of Honors
.
That was something else Billie and the team had fought for—not so much for having the general’s
reputation torn to shreds, but for his being held accountable for his actions, rather than having them swept under the rug. Too many times, Billie had said, terrible crimes were covered up for the sake of “the greater good”, and she’d been determined not to let that happen in this case. Some of the top officers at the Pentagon—thoroughly embarrassed by having the wool pulled so perfectly over their eyes by so high-ranking an official—had wanted to keep it quiet, to allow his family to bury him in peace, but despite sympathizing with their shock and sense of betrayal, she simply hadn’t been able to accept anything less than a public acknowledgement of what Wainright had done.
Malone and Stan had both lawyered up as soon as they were conscious, and though it made all involved sick to think of it, they all knew the two former privates were likely to get commuted sentences so long as they spilled everything. On that matter, Billie had said, “Some justice is better than none at all, I suppose.”
And now, at last, they were at Arlington National Cemetery laying one of the best friends she’d ever had to rest. When Rebecca had finally been given the okay to tell their mother about Eddie’s death, Maureen Stevens had been crushed, but from his vantage point across the casket, John noted, she was holding up fairly well. Of course, given how shaken Billie had reported her being, her current stiff-backed posture was likely due to having her daughter sitting stoically on one side and her husband of 25 years sitting on the other, an arm protectively draped about her shoulders.
The seven-gun salute had been fired
and Taps had been played. The U.S. flag that had been draped across the oak casket was now crisply folded. Billie, decked out like every other Marine present in her Class A Dress Blues, turned sharply and marched over toward the family, the triangle of blue-backed stars clasped firmly between her white-gloved hands. She stopped in front of Mrs. Stevens and dropped slowly to one knee, holding the flag out to her as she said the words no Marine family ever wanted to hear.
“Mrs. Stevens… On behalf of the President of the United States, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our
appreciation for Eddie’s honorable and faithful service to Country and Corps.”
John’
s gut tightened when he heard her voice break slightly. Billie had wanted so much to get through the short speech without her emotions getting in the way, though from what he had learned of her in their short acquaintance, showing her own pain was but a matter of time. She had loved Eddie Lamacek as a brother, she felt guilty for not being there for him when he had needed her this past year, and she missed him fiercely. His mother broke down in sobs as soon as her hands touched the folded flag, and she clutched it tightly to her chest as her husband drew her gently to his. Billie then stood and brought her hand up in a sharp salute, turned right-face, and marched to join the flag’s folders—three of whom were the remaining members of her team.
John knew he wasn’t the only one to notice the tears on her face as she walked.
Billie’s father had graciously offered to host the after-services at his home, and it was there that, after waiting an hour for her to visit with friends and family of Eddie’s, John took her aside for their first private conversation since the culmination of events at the marina—so many questions had been asked by so many different law enforcement agencies that they simply hadn’t had a chance to be alone together. He’d been perfectly okay with that, understanding the need to not only fulfill legal obligations, but familial ones as well, to her own family and to Eddie’s. But damn it, he’d been missing her. He needed to see her, speak to her…
…and if she would let him, touch her.
As they had done the day of the barbecue, Billie walked with him toward the back end of the yard. Though this time she did not lean against it, she stopped again under the tree where they’d spoken before, her hat—cover, the military called it—in her hands.
“How are you doing?” he asked softly.
She looked up at him. “Believe it or not, I’m doing a hell of a lot better now that this mess is over,” she replied.
“I hope you’ll forgive me saying so given the circumstances, but you look killer in that uniform.”
A slight grin broke through her somber expression. “Thanks. I thought when I insisted on being the presenter—which meant I’d have to don my uniform—that Col. Harmon would blow a gasket. You know, being that I’m not an active Marine and all that bullshit. But I pressed the point that Eddie and I had served together and that I had been honorably discharged, so there was no reason I shouldn’t be able to wear my blues to his funeral, let alone take part in the military service.”
“Harmon… Remind me, she’s the colonel we met that day at the marina, right?” John asked.
Billie nodded. “She’s a hard-ass, too. A by-the-book, straight-laced, ball-busting career Marine with her eye on earning a couple of stars for her epaulets before she retires.”
He chuckled. “Sounds a lot like you,” he observed.
She grinned fully now. “Yeah, I actually kinda like her—though I imagine my desire to stay in the field would have stalled my upward mobility at where she is now, perhaps even at lieutenant colonel.”
Billie sighed and looked toward the house. John watched her for a moment, his own brow creasing with concern as a number of diff
erent emotions flitted across her face, one exchanging places with another almost before each had fully settled. Just as he was about to reach out a hand to her chin to make her face him again she did it on her own. The expression she wore as she regarded him now was knowing…and regretful.
“John, you don’t have to tell me how you feel about me,” she began. “God only knows why, considering how much of a bitch I was at times, but
I know you care about me.”
He nodded solemnly. “I do, Billie. Sometimes I don’t get it either, and not just because you were…e
motional…a time or two. But I have strong feelings for you, and I’d like to be with you if there’s even the remotest chance of it.”
She bit her bottom lip then, and he knew she was about to deliver bad news. His chest tightened in preparation for the inevitable letdown—he’d suspected it was coming, but he had foolishly hoped anyway.
“John, I care about you, too,” she surprised him by saying. “For the longest time I thought myself incapable of feeling anything for anyone after losing Travis the way I did. I thought I was too broken to feel again, and because of how utterly destroyed I was by his death, I’ve been afraid to take the risk of getting hurt again.”
Billie reached for his hand, and he clasped hers in return with a gentle yet almost desperate grip. Here she had conf
essed to returning his affection, but she was pulling away from him anyhow. John had known her rejection would hurt, but his imagination hadn’t done the feeling justice—in reality it felt much like heart attack victims claimed to feel when in the midst of an arrest: unable to breathe because an elephant had taken up residence on his chest.
“But then you came barreling into my life, and somehow you managed to put a crack in the proverbial wall around my heart,” she went on. “
Whatever the future holds for me, I will be forever grateful to you for helping me begin to heal. That’s just the thing, though—I have no idea where my future lies. I walked away from real life for a year, John, and there are repercussions to that. I have many relationships that need to be repaired before I can embark on a new one. And I have to figure out just what the hell I’m going to do with my life from this point forward.”
She released his hand then, raising hers to cup his cheek. “I don’t like that I’m hurting you, but I hope you understand why. I need time to really put myself back together, to rebuild my shattered foundation, before I can be the partner in life that you deserve.”
When she would have pulled her hand away, John took hold of it and held it pressed to his face a moment longer, his eyes closed as he breathed in the perfume she had dabbed on her wrist. Then with a heavy sigh, he nodded, lowering their hands and holding onto hers as he said, “I do understand, Billie. And I am going to give you all the time that you need. Just do me one favor, will you?”
“Anything,” Billie said.
He stepped closer, lowering his head as he said, “When you are ready, come find me. I’ll be waiting.”
Then he touched his lips to hers, the contact brief and bittersweet, before he turned and walked away.
After working on her first novel during NaNoWriMo 2010 and editing and revising the story throughout the next year,
Christina made her professional debut in January of 2012 with the paranormal romance
Chasing Shadows
, followed by an erotic short story entitled
The Beauty in the Black Room
and the romantic suspense novel
Fire Born
, both also published in 2012. Currently she resides in Ohio, where she has lived all her life.
When not allowing the characters in her imagination use her to tell their stories, she enjoys a great movie, good times with family and friends, and being “hu-mom” to two Chihuahuas and two Siberian Huskies. Christina always keeps a notebook handy to jot down ideas for future stories and is currently working on her fifth novel.
I would very much like to hear from my readers! Your opinions are very important to me, so if you’d like to share your thoughts about this book, please feel free to send me a note on my Facebook page via private message or by posting on my wall—I will definitely reply! Also, I hope you will consider writing a review and posting it on the book’s product page where you purchased it, or on Goodreads. Reader reviews are incredibly helpful, and very encouraging to us writers. They inspire us to keep writing!
Available from Black Room Press -
The Shadow Chronicles
Firehouse 343
You can follow her via her blog at:
http://diaryofanindieauthor.blogspot.com/
And her Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/ChristinaMoore.Author
And on Twitter:
Turn the page for a sneak peek at the first chapter of the next adventure…
L
ooking upon it now, this one was even better looking than the last one. Kevin’s firm had done a remarkable job on their first “overseas” construction project—and now, the Crabana stood proudly once again on the sands of Flamingo Bay.
When she had announced her intention to return to St. Thomas, her family had been thrown. “I’m officially reminding you that you said never to let you run away to the Caribbean again,” Andy had told her.
“I’m not running away again,” she had replied. “But given how abruptly I left and the circumstances surrounding Georgia Ross’s disappearance, there are a lot more questions to be answered. If I’m going to give my life the kick in the ass it needs, I have to start there.”
The problem was, Billie had known she couldn’t just breeze into the city like nothing had happened. The police in St. Thomas had indeed had a mountain of questions for her, starting with where she’d been. What had really happened the night the Crabana had exploded? Why had she been the target of an apparent assassination attempt that had resulted in several injuries and the death of a teenage girl?
She told them the truth, and brought newspaper clippings from nationally recognized newspapers to back up her story. The chief of police had still made a few phone calls to verify her claims, of course, but in the end the matter had been laid to rest. Afterward, she had visited the site where Georgia Ross had once worked as a barmaid, staring into the crater still lined with police caution tape, and was suddenly reminded of how much Sergei had loved that bar.
Thus, the idea to rebuild it had formed, and taken hold so fast that it was only a matter of days before the groundbreaking. Kevin had recovered well enough by then to act as project manager, and the final phase of construction had been completed yesterday. All the furniture had been moved in and the bar stocked earlier this morning, and now she was hosting a private party for the construction crew, two of her brothers (Teddy had managed to get the time off to join them and had helped work on building the bar), the Crabana staff, and a select few of their friends. Proceeds from the sales would be donated to the family of the teenage girl that had died in the shootout at the Coconut Hut, and New Year’s Eve sales were already set to be donated to the other victims of the tragedy.
Billie stifled a sigh as she passed a tray of drinks to Kevin to take back to his table—the whole crowd was watching a football game on the flatscreen television on the wall. She was going to miss this place, she mused, but it was already time to move on. She told herself that she would come back for a visit here and there—after all, she was part owner of the business. But she was the silent partner, the one who would step in and help out only in a crisis, because day-to-day operations were all in Marty’s hands now. He had been floored by the revelation of who she really was, and even more so by her offer to let him run the bar once it was rebuilt. He would essentially be the boss—no need to consult with her if he wanted to make changes. And although the design and layout of this new Crabana differed from the original, every time she turned her head she half expected to see Sergei standing beside her, a towel in one hand and a glass in the other, his trademark lopsided smirk on his face.
Yeah, definitely time to move on, she mused. Feeling like she ought to be seeing Sergei every time she turned around was beginning to depress her, and she did
not
want to get depressed the week before Christmas.
Actually, she was keeping her feelings about leaving the bar to Marty fairly well in check. It helped tremendously that she had complete faith in his business acumen—no chance of going bankrupt when the guy who would be running it had minored in finance in college. No, what threatened to depress her more than having come back to this one-time refuge to say what might well be her final goodbye was a pervasive sense of emptiness, one that had been plaguing her for weeks. Billie had told herself many times that it was merely the process of getting her life back on track—she’d spent the first few weeks reconnecting with her family and friends, and many of the latter reunions had been awkward to say the least. But she was making headway, even going so far as to purchase a new cell phone so that she could remain in contact with everyone.
But she knew she was kidding herself. There was a reason she couldn’t shake the feeling of being not quite complete, and it was all wrapped up in 6 feet 1 inch of sexy, with broad shoulders, a killer smile, and gorgeous hazel eyes…all of which she hadn’t seen in nearly thirteen weeks.
She missed John.
It had taken time for her to really understand her feelings for him, to fully grasp the why and the how of falling for him. The truth had been startlingly simple: John reminded her of Travis. They both had the same steady head under pressure, the same sense of dedication and determination to see a job through, and they both had such a strong sense of compassion for those in need. When she realized what it was she liked about him so much, she had feared that all she cared about were those subtle reminders—and comparing him to her late fiancé really wasn’t fair. John deserved to be with someone who cared about the person
he
was, not who he reminded her of.
As time went on, however, Billie came to realize that she was missing Travis less and missing John more. At night when she lay down to sleep, she would often think of his face as she had last seen him, his eyes so full of hope and hurt. She would think of the last words he had said to her, and as she worked to pick up the pieces of her life, they had given her something to hold on to:
When you are ready, come find me. I’ll be waiting
.
As she thought them again, staring unseeing at the game on the screen, Billie began to think that maybe it was time she did that—went to find him. Of course, given his employer, that was probably not going to be easy. Chances were excellent that he was undercover somewhere half a world away from her.
“What the fuck are they doing here?”
The words, though not spoken loudly, brought her out of her reverie and she looked toward the speaker—it was Teddy. He, in turn, was staring toward the door with a scowl on his face. Billie turned her gaze in that direction and felt her spine stiffen, understanding now what had put the dark look on her brother’s face.
Teddy stood, scraping his chair back loudly on the hardwood floor, and walked toward the new arrivals. He stopped about two feet before them and crossed his muscled arms over his chest. “This is a private party,” he said coldly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back tomorrow when the bar is open to the public.”
The female of the pair flicked her eyes in Billie’s direction, before looking back at the younger man before her and saying politely, “I understand that the gathering is private, Mr. Ryan, and I can assure you that my associate and I are not here to drink.”
The man at her left tugged on the lapels of his navy blue suit. “We’d very much like to speak to your sister—in private—considering a matter of great import.”
“My sister is not—”
“It’s all right, Teddy,” Billie said, steeling herself as she stepped out from behind the U-shaped bar.
Her brother waited until she was standing next to him before relaxing his posture. “If you’re sure,” he said, scowling again and then returning to his beer and the game.
Billie then smiled lightly, which seemed to confuse the two visitors. “This, I have to say, is eerily familiar,” she said, “although in this case, ‘A federal agent and a Marine colonel walk into a bar’ isn’t the opening line of a joke.”
“And I should certainly hope you won’t be tying either of us to a chair to interrogate us,” said the man, whom she recognized as Lewis Burns, European Section Chief of the National Clandestine Service—otherwise known as the espionage branch of the CIA.
He was her former boss.
The woman was none other than Colonel Cynthia Harmon, whose position with the Defense Clandestine Service (military brother of NCS, as the Defense Intelligence Agency was to the CIA) equaled that of Burns.
Billie looked to Burns. “The night is young,” she said with a smirk, knowing his comment was a reference to the last time a CIA agent had walked into the Crabana—the night she had met John. After a moment she sobered and gestured for them to follow her. She led them into the office, where she sat behind the desk as though she had not a care in the world, crossed her legs at the knee and held her hands together in her lap.
“Please, have a seat,” she said, nodding to the two folding chairs before the desk. When they had sat, she looked between them and said, “What is it you want from me this time?”
The last time a federal agent had walked into her bar, she had been dragged into a cluster-fuck of a mess that had led to nearly a week of hell. She’d been shot at, actually shot, ran off the road into a river, her father had been held hostage, and she had nearly lost her brother to a mobster’s bullet. By their very presence, Billie knew that Harmon and Burns wanted her to get involved in another such scheme, one that must be pretty damn important to somebody higher up than they were.
Why else would they have bothered to come all the way to St. Thomas to see her?
Harmon pulled a manila folder stamped with the DCS logo and the word Confidential from the leather briefcase she had been carrying (prompting Billie to wonder briefly where her aide was) and set it on the desk in silence. Billie turned it around and pulled it toward her but didn’t open it.
“Miss Ryan, you know why we’re here,” Col. Harmon said. “We’d like your help with something.”
“As you know, DCS and NCS are meant to work together,” Burns added. “Certainly it doesn’t always work out that way—I will admit that there are those on both sides who have a preference for taking all the credit.”
“Yeah, I get it—you kids don’t always play well together,” Billie quipped. “But something tells me that in this instance you have to, or at least are trying to.”
Burns nodded. “I’m sure you’re aware that ICE followed up on the information contained in Sterling Wainright’s Pleasures database,” he said. “In so doing, they came across links to global terrorism.”
Billie frowned. “You mean some of the general’s clients were terrorists?”
“Not directly,” Harmon put in. “But he did apparently have a rather long on-going business relationship with a known arms dealer, who in turn
does
have clients who are terrorists.”
The folder in front of her drew her eyes, and Billie found herself curious as to its contents. “I take it the CIA is already looking into the matter?”
“Yes, we already have a man preparing to make first contact with the dealer.”
She looked then to Harmon. “Why is DCS getting in on the action?”
“Because a string of armored car robberies in three major cities were committed using automatic weapons that were traced back to the same dealer,” the colonel replied. “That’s the intel we got from ATF, who turned the case over to us when the guns were discovered to be linked to an arms dealer who has ties to terrorism.”
Billie shook her head. “Forgive me, Colonel, but that sounds like something that would be turned over to NCS, not DCS. Why are you
really
involved?”
Harmon regarded her with an expression of renewed appreciation. “Two reasons, Miss Ryan. One: We are involved because the driver of one of the armored vehicles was a sergeant major in the National Guard, and he died as a result of the attack. Two: We are involved because mine and Deputy Director Burns’ superiors are apparently keen to actually start working together on matters related to terrorism, and it was agreed that approaching the matter from both an intelligence
and
military point of view would give us a greater advantage.”
“I ask again: What is it you want from me this time?” Billie said.
“Miss Ryan, we would like for you and your team to provide any and all necessary assistance to our man in the field,” Burns replied.
Billie held up her hand. “Hold it right there,” she said. “First of all, I don’t have a team anymore. If you’re talking about my former Force Recon unit, you can forget it—it no longer exists. Col. Scofield has taken a training officer assignment stateside, and Majors Lincoln and Peck have both been reassigned to other units.”
Harmon smiled. “You are only partially correct, Miss Ryan. While Col. Scofield is, in fact, at MCB Quantico, Maj. Lincoln and Maj. Peck were reassigned not to other Recon units but to DCS. They’ve been undergoing intensive training in the art of international espionage.”
She didn’t bother to hide her surprise. It had been a few weeks since she had spoken to Gabe or Darren, but neither had mentioned being redirected to DCS—they’d only told her the unit had basically been disbanded and that they’d been reassigned elsewhere.
“Well, I guess this was just one of those things that if they’d told me they’d have had to kill me,” she joked with a shake of her head.
“I wouldn’t take it personally, Miss Ryan—having overseen their training myself, I believe Lincoln and Peck were waiting to tell you about their career change,” Harmon said then.
Billie scoffed. “Waiting for what?” she wondered aloud.
“Waiting for you, of course,” Burns pointed out. “Don’t you see, Miss Ryan? You have what NCS and DCS have probably needed all along—dual experience. You’ve served in the military and you’ve served in the intelligence community, so you know how both of them work. You are the perfect candidate to take part in a joint venture between the two agencies.”