Brianna's Navy SEAL (17 page)

"Leniiii!” A group of squealing women descended on them, all shooting rapid-fire Spanish at Cable's sister. Brie got edged back several feet, and finally retreated to the end of the aisle. Her Spanish was
muy
rusty, but she caught a few words and understood one of the women had just gotten engaged. She thought he might be on the force with Frank.

Alena caught her eye, and Brie motioned toward a stand with used books. She wanted to give them time to talk without Alena feeling guilty for neglecting Brie.

She picked up a paperback and started reading the back cover blurb.

"Do you have a favorite author?"

Brie looked up and smiled at the old man. “Several, actually, and always looking for more. But I'm just browsing at the moment."

The man gave a growling sigh and eased into a chair behind the counter. “Yep, browsing's one of the pure pleasures of life. Not enough people do that anymore.” And he was off, rambling from how we all barrel through life without enjoying the little things, to kids preferring video games and sex to reading books, to the president's economic policies and how they impacted his business. Finally, Brianna couldn't take anymore and bought three books just to escape.

As she took her change, someone wrapped their fingers around her elbow. Still smiling, she started to turn.

"Sorry I took so long. Good news, I—hey, that hurts.” Her smile turned to a scowl, then shock when she realized the person holding her arm too tight wasn't Cable's sister, but a man she'd never seen before.

"I think you should come with me.” He wasn't looking at her, but scanning the crowd with jerking eyes.

"No, thank you.” Brie tried to yank her arm away. He had long fingers and his grip didn't even loosen. He started to pull her down the street, away from where Alena and her friends had been.

"Wait.” She looked back at the bookseller, but he'd already found a new audience and was oblivious to her situation. “I'm not going anywhere.” She dug in her heels and pulled back. When the guy braced against her, she leaned forward, then abruptly jerked her arm across her body, breaking his grasp. She turned the other way and started to run.

She expected a shout. Maybe pounding footsteps, a few screams. Even a crash, as she darted across the main thoroughfare and down a narrower aisle. But there was none of that. She didn't dare look back to see if she was being pursued or not.

Alley or crowd
. She didn't have much time to decide. The alley was nearly empty, so she could run faster. But the crowds might make her harder to catch up to, harder to see. So she stayed on the main way, darting between people and sliding back and forth between stands in the center of the market.

Finally, gasping, she slowed and looked around. The guy wasn't anywhere in sight. She flipped open her phone to call Alena and tell her what had happened, and a hand closed over hers, snapping it shut again. Brianna jerked her head up, expecting her pursuer, but instead saw someone else.

"Come with me."

"No!” Again, she jerked away and started to run. This time, the first guy was behind her. They pressed in on her with menacing grins. And just like that, her fear turned to anger.

"What the hell do you want?” She elbowed the guy on the right in the solar plexus. He
oofed
and backed up a step. The other guy came closer, and she swung her right fist, still wrapped around the phone, and smashed him in the ear. He screamed and stumbled away enough for her to start running again.

But again, there was another person in front of her. She veered right, but he mirrored her move and grabbed her. He was bigger than the other two, his arms longer, and they pinned her arms down and held her off the ground. She tried to kick him, but couldn't reach anything with enough force to matter.

"Just calm down, and you'll be fine."

"Yeah, I've heard that before.” On TV, but still. She opened her mouth to scream, and he clapped a hand over it as his cohorts trotted up.

"Thanks, Gip,” the first guy panted. “She gave us more trouble than we expected."

"Gip” didn't respond. He let go of Brianna with one hand, then, when she would have yanked herself away and run again, he reached into his pocket and pulled out something she couldn't see, but felt well enough against her neck.

She might have tried something, anyway, knowing that once they got her wherever they were taking her, she was doomed. He wasn't likely to shoot her in this crowded public place. But before she could move, he'd pulled the trigger.

Instead of having her head blown off, though, she heard a hiss and felt something cold and needle-like invade her skin.

"What the hell?” She slapped at her neck with her free hand, her horror spreading with the chemical he'd just injected into her. She blinked when everything started getting wavery and fuzzy. Then her legs went limp. She decided to let them, to become dead weight for these guys, but Gip was prepared. He drew her right arm around his neck, his hand locked around her wrist, and held her tight around the waist. Then he started moving. Brianna tried to drag her feet, but he lifted her high enough it only hurt her toes without hindering him, so she walked as best she could, feeling like one of those moments when you wake up from a dream and try to tell someone what's happening, confusing the dream with real events and unable to articulate anything you're thinking. She struggled to clear her head.

No one looked at them that she could tell. When she ran, she had been oblivious to the crowd and their reactions. But no one had come to her rescue then, and no one did now.

Her brain was going fuzzy. Her body felt like one big tingle, and her thoughts were getting less and less sticky. They seemed to slide through her brain without a pause. And she couldn't recognize anything. None of the buildings around them were familiar, and the sounds didn't make sense, either. Seagulls and motorboats. But Al ... Fred ... Cable's sister lived inland.

She had a vague sense that she should be doing something. Something important. But she couldn't remember what it was. Something was wrong with her legs. Good thing this nice man was helping her along. But who was he? She tried to turn her head to look, but it felt heavy and flopped forward. Oh, well. She could look later. Right now she was starting to feel kinda sick, with all the whirling. She heaved. The guy helping her said something like a curse and leaned her over. He wasn't holding her up so well anymore. She slid from his grasp and landed on all fours, coughing weakly, until everything came up in one lurch and she felt much better. A nap would be good now. She started to lie down but hands, maybe four, maybe ten, helped her up again and started her moving. After that, it was all light and shadow.

Cable didn't need to penetrate any deeper into his old beat than The Glades, a bar whose ambiance was the exact opposite of the one the name implied.

He and Frank and his old teammates started there, planning to put the right words in the right ears, then follow the trail until they found Carothers. They walked in, feet sticking to the floor, hair standing up on the backs of their necks in reaction to the hostility permeating the place. It wasn't an establishment any of them should be comfortable in. Cops and military types didn't exactly blend in. Cable wondered if they'd get anywhere asking questions.

But there he was, sitting at the bar, grinning at Cable with his little rat face.

Sid Carothers.

"Cable Addison!” he yelled happily, arms wide, and the tension dropped two notches. “Just the guy I've been wantin’ to see!"

Cable and Frank exchanged a glance. That wasn't what they'd been expecting. Cable panned the crowd, automatically noting who'd had too much to drink, who was harmless because of it, and who was dangerous. Who Carothers had backing him up, and what kind of weapons they might have.

But after their initial entrance and sizing-up and Sid's greeting, everyone had gone back to their business and was ignoring them. Really ignoring them, not just pretending to.

"Sid.” Cable carefully approached him. The guy looked surprisingly the same. Hair—and body—a little thinner. A little paler. But he didn't even look ten years older than the last time Cable had seen him. He sat on the stool next to him. Frank ousted a drunk from the stool on Sid's other side and leaned on the bar, facing him. The other guys melted into the crowd.

"Yeah, I heard you were looking for me.” Cable ordered a draft and turned his full attention on Sid. Well, not his full attention. He still had the back-of-the-head eye on alert.

"I can't believe you found me.” Sid snatched a handful of peanuts from a dirty bowl and popped one in his mouth. His right leg, propped on the bar rail, bounced in triple time. His left, hooked over the rail of the stool, spun his body back and forth. But despite his nervous energy, Cable didn't see any signs of drug use. His clothes were newish and clean. The blue shirt under a windbreaker even looked like it had a name patch. Like Sid had a real job. Even the drink in front of him was a 7-Up, if Cable wasn't mistaken.

"Why are you looking for me, Sid?” He shook his head when Sid nudged the nuts toward him. “You've gone to an awful lot of trouble. Stupid trouble, if you ask me."

Sid's forehead wrinkled. “Stupid trouble? Didn't you get my letter?"

"I got it.” Cable paid for his and Frank's beers and checked the glass for film before drinking. “Unfortunately, someone broke into my house and stole it before I got to read it."

"Huh? Someone stole my letter?” Sid looked puzzled but hadn't lost the grin. “You're joking, right?” He looked at Frank, who had his professional stonyface on. “You're—seriously, Addison, man, you can't think I would send someone to do that."

"Why not? It's no worse than sending someone after me at the airport."

"Oh, that.” He shook his head, looking chagrined. “Danny's an idiot. He's my cousin, you know? I just wanted to give him some work, get him off my back. I thought you might be comin’ for the holidays, so he's been hangin’ out at the airport for a week."

"Where did you get five hundred dollars to pay your cousin?” Frank asked.

Sid looked uncomfortable and popped another peanut. “I saved my money in the joint. I know it sounds ridiculous, and it sure wasn't much pay, but it adds up. I gotta good job now, can afford to help family.” He flipped open his jacket to show he did, indeed, have a work shirt on underneath.

Unease started creeping up through Cable. He narrowed his eyes at the weasel. “You'd better clear this up real quick, little man. Why have you been looking for me? Frank picked it up months ago. Right after you got out."

"Yeah. Yeah. I had no clue where to find you, so of course I asked some of the old guys. One of them told me you'd been a SEAL, so I asked this guy from the joint. He'd been one, but got busted outta the service and then robbed a liquor joint and got busted again. He still had contacts.” He talked faster and faster, the more serious he realized Cable was. “He knew somebody who knew somebody who said you'd started teaching in Massachusetts. So I Googled you."

Cable laughed, but he had to believe him. The local paper had done a small feature on him. He hadn't even thought about it at the time, but even small-town papers published on the ‘net. And with archiving, stuff stuck around forever.

"The question remains,” he said, trying to stay calm, to ignore the ramifications of what he was hearing. “Why were you looking for me?"

"To thank you."

"What?” It was the last thing he'd expected.

"Yep.” Sid tossed more peanuts into his mouth, apparently sensing the danger had passed. “Getting caught by you was the best thing that could have happened to me."

Cable shook his head. He couldn't be hearing this. “Prison doesn't usually agree with people, Sid."

"Well, you gotta have the right attitude. The right perspective. The bars give you a great perspective. My momma told me I had a choice. To let the bad ‘uns in there make me a worse person than I was, or to let the opportunities in there make me a better person.” He beamed. “Momma figured I wasn't bad enough off to go the wrong way, and I didn't want to disappoint her. So I got my degree and everything. If I'da stayed on the path you found me on, I'da been dead by now. Or a killer.” He shrugged. “That's all. I figured you don't get much ‘preciation in your job, and that's one of the things they try to teach us. And after your partner got wounded and you dropped off the force and all, I thought you'd like ta know somethin’ good came out of it. So there ya go."

"There ya go,” Frank echoed, after Cable had paid Sid's tab for the night, thanked his old buddies, and headed back out onto the street. “Never would have expected that."

"No.” Cable couldn't be happy about it. “So Carothers wasn't responsible for my break-in. I guess Brianna was right."

"About?"

"Ken broke in.” He hadn't thought the dweeb had the balls, even after he'd torched his truck.

"Ken?"

Cable explained about the odd quadrangle they'd gotten tangled up in, and the things Ken had allegedly done.

Frank laughed. “You couldn't catch him?"

"He had a head start, and a car two blocks over.” It still rankled that he hadn't caught him. “And I was barefoot."

That made Frank laugh harder. Cable ignored him. Brianna had taken care of Ken the next day. He'd wanted to go talk to him, but he realized the importance of letting Brianna handle it. She hadn't known it, but he'd hung around outside the office to make sure Ken didn't try anything. He'd been proud of how she'd handled it, even if it meant no one got punished. He didn't think Ken would be bothering them anymore.

So Ken was addressed, and Sid was no threat. Maybe they could relax.

They had hardly driven a mile when Frank's cell phone rang.

"Hey, baby. We just finished up. You guys having fun?"

Cable couldn't hear Alena's response, but felt the change in Frank's tension. He jerked his attention from his thoughts to his brother-in-law, who was looking grimmer than when they'd entered the bar.

"When? Well, when did you last see her? Did you call her cell?” He pulled the phone from his mouth and glanced at Cable. “Brianna's missing and Alena doesn't know her cell number.” He went back to grilling his wife.