Cold Blue (43 page)
Authors: Gary Neece
Why then, did John surprise her so? Her attraction had been immediate. She felt his strength upon their first meeting but also sensed a deep affliction—his torment radiating from the depths of those bright green eyes.
He’d tragically lost his family thirteen months prior, and she empathized with the empty shell before her. She’d wallowed in the same despair, and if not for her work, would have drowned in it. John was smart, funny and considerate. His attributes might be the building blocks of her attraction to him, but their shared loss was the mortar.
Knowing full well the assignment was a temporary one, she’d had no intentions of developing feelings for the man. But not everything can be overridden with reason.
Then on Sunday night, the old man informed her that multiple tangos were preparing an ambush in Thorpe’s home. She was to keep John from returning at any cost. Instead she’d upset him to such a degree he’d fled the hotel. His departure stirred within her a mild panic—not because she’d failed her assignment—but because she feared for the wellbeing of a man with whom she’d fallen in love.
Armed with rohypnol, she’d fetched John from the bar and could easily have slipped him the heavy sedative. Despite reason, despite logic, she’d led him to her room where they made love. The night proved not only a physical release, but an emotional one as well. She hoped Thorpe realized the lovemaking had been genuine, that she hadn’t seduced him as part of a job assignment.
Her job assignment
—she still didn’t know what it’d been all about.
And why was her handler standing over a headstone when they should be en route back to Atlanta?
Because an unexpected meeting with Thorpe would be “messy,” as the old man had put it, Thorpe’s personal truck was still outfitted with a GPS tracker, which they continued to monitor. Someone else would remove the device later. As with many of Ambretta’s assignments, this someone would have no clue why the tracker had been installed; they’d have a simple task to perform, no questions asked.
As Ambretta sat pondering the last six days she heard a ping emanate from her smart phone. She retrieved the do-everything gadget and noted a blip headed their direction. Ambretta stepped out of the SUV; the movement attracted the attention of her handler. She gestured to the old man that they needed to leave immediately.
The old man.
The same mumbling old man who’d stumbled into the open door of a seedy motel room and asked Andrew Phipps for some crack. The same man who’d been spotted leaving Phipps’ back door before jumping his fence. The same shadowy figure who’d glided out of Thorpe’s woods in a ghillie suit.
Now the old man strode briskly toward the waiting Toyota, mirrored sunglasses shielding his eyes from the bright February sun.
Parked on the north end of a long loop, Ambretta realized they wouldn’t make the exit before Thorpe pulled into the private drive. The old man entered the deeply tinted Sequoia, and Ambretta reversed deeper into the cemetery. A few seconds later, Thorpe’s pickup entered the property and parked near the spot they’d just vacated.
“Ben, what in the hell is going on?”
The old man removed his sunglasses. He watched intently as John walked to the same gravesite Ben himself had just visited. Ambretta had never seen much in the way of emotion from her handler before, and was surprised now to see a single tear wind down his wrinkled and scarred left cheek. When Ben turned and told her to drive, she saw the suffering in his old green eyes—those
familiar
green eyes—and she knew.
THORPE MOVED THROUGH THE GRAVEYARD
a free man, though it was hard to tell based on the apprehension in his gait. He’d entered into gun fights with calmer dispositions. As his legs resisted the hike toward his family’s final resting place, his mind drifted back to the events of the last six days.
Someone had gone through great lengths to protect him both physically and legally. Several people—emphasis on the plural—had kept him out of harm’s way and constructed for him irrefutable alibis. No single person would have the resources to accomplish what’d been done for him over the course of a week.
Who and why?
Who was Ambretta Collins, and why had she and others risked their necks for a man they didn’t know? The question gnawed at him. Like smoke, the answer was there, but hell if he could grasp it.
Was Ambretta even her real name? Had she lured him into bed only to keep him isolated, while a person or persons flushed the rats out of his house? Were GPS units attached to his vehicle with the intent of keeping him safe and providing additional “proof” he was not responsible for Sergeant McDonald’s “suicide?” Did Ambretta have genuine feelings for him? Did she love him?
The last two questions were all consuming. He’d never before experienced what he felt now. It ripped him inside out, leaving his heart exposed. He loved another and was desperate to know if she loved him in return. He hated the feeling, despised it; It was a loss of control. Someone held power over him, and it made him feel weak.
Thorpe found himself at the foot of his wife’s grave. He stared down at her marker.
Erica Hessler Thorpe
Mother and daughter, together forever
Love has no end
Thorpe dropped to his knees with a sudden realization, yet perhaps something he’d always really known, a fact he’d repressed over the last year. Thorpe had forced his wife to live for years the way he felt now. Erica had loved him; why couldn’t he comprehend that before?
Had he refused to love her in return? Had the unexpected pregnancy festered resentment?
She hadn’t trapped him, hadn’t pressured him to marry her, hadn’t needed him financially. It took two to have a child. Did he wed out of an overwhelming sense of responsibility? He owed her more than that. He owed their daughter more than that. Thorpe had his character flaws; he’d never pretended otherwise. But Erica and Ella had deserved his best during their short time on this earth.
Thorpe crawled across the ground and sat between his wife and daughter’s markers. They’d been buried for over a year, and he hadn’t visited a single time since the funeral. A tremendous amount of guilt kept him away—a shame caused by more than just his failure to protect his family.
Thorpe sat and told his wife he was sorry. Sorry for not saying he loved her. Sorry for not showing it. Sorry for being absent the night death came calling.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
The other headstone sat just right of Erica’s.
Ella Ambretta Thorpe
My World
Thorpe had chosen the epitaph. It was simple but said everything. The middle name clawed at him as he read it now.
Coincidence? Had to be
.
But what were the chances?
Though unusual, his maternal grandmother had been named Ambretta and Thorpe wanted to pass it down to their daughter. Erica loved the name Ella and had chosen it for her future daughter years before. Erica—as mothers generally do—won the argument, and Ella Ambretta came into being.
Thorpe’s love for his daughter had never been in doubt. Shortly after coming home, Ella Ambretta became his everything.
The anguish of losing her had been crushing; a paralyzing despair he hoped never to feel again. He’d rather feel nothing at all. Like many before him, his way of dealing with the pain had been to not deal with it at all. Over the past months, he packed the internal void with hatred and promises of revenge.
Thorpe knew he couldn’t bring back his family, but he could bring those responsible for their murder to justice. His kind. While he’d failed to protect his wife and daughter, he would not fail to avenge them. In the process, he’d lost himself, turning a corner there would be no coming back from.
Those responsible had answered for their sins. Yet he still carried a hole in his heart, a pit he doubted could ever be filled.
Thorpe placed a single red rose on each grave. As he did, he realized there were others who needed to be brought to justice—many others.
And he was good at it.
Thanks to:
Each and every member of the U.S. military: past, present, and future for providing me with the freedom to write.
My fellow LE brothers and sisters for providing the protection to write. Thank you for doing your thankless jobs.
My proofreaders and supporters for your critical eye and words of encouragement.
Sonya, Julia, and Ally for the inspiration. Without my immeasurable love for you, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine the depth of Jonathan Thorpe’s loss.
God, for all those listed above, and for everything else.
Gary Neece is a sergeant and twenty-year veteran of the Tulsa Police Department in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has vast experience in specialty units focusing on violent crime reduction and drug enforcement. Much of the inspiration for his writing springs from his time in the Special Investigations Division, where he supervised the department’s undercover Vice/Narcotics Unit. He lives near Tulsa with his wife and two daughters.
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OTHER TITLES BY GARY NEECE
A month has passed since Sergeant Jonathan Thorpe avenged the murder of his family, but his past still haunts.
Sins of Our Fathers
opens with Thorpe—unaware of a sophisticated plot against his own life—tracking a serial child killer. A bloody encounter leads him to an unlikely ally, and also provides an opportunity for redemption; a young girl is in danger, her life dependent on Thorpe’s lethal skills. Having lost his own daughter to violence, Thorpe vows to save what he once failed to protect. His quest pits him against a formidable enemy and casts him on a collision course with loved ones long thought lost.
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