Hard as You Can (30 page)

“Jesus,” Nick said.

Only then did Shane realize he’d recounted the story out loud. And that something wet had rolled down his cheeks. He scrubbed the errant moisture away and pinched his fingers against his eyelids, catching a bit more wetness against his fingertips. The last time he’d shed tears over Molly had been the night of what would’ve been her thirteenth birthday. Because it was the age he’d been when he’d lost her, when he’d sent her away, and she’d gone. Never to be heard from again.

“You were a kid, Shane. You didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. You didn’t cause it. You couldn’t have predicted it.
It wasn’t your fault.
”

Words he’d heard from a shrink. From his parents. They’d just never sank in. “But I—”

“No. The
only
one to blame was the sociopath who took her.” Nick scooted closer. “Look at me, man. If you had a son, and the same thing happened to him. What would you tell him?” Shane shook his head, and Nick pressed. “What would you tell him? Would you look that little boy in the eyes and blame him?”

“It’s different,” he said, voice strained, mind reeling.

“How?” Nick said.

“It just is.”

“Look that little boy in the eyes, Shane, and tell him who’s responsible.” With both hands on the sides of Shane’s face, Nick forced their gazes to meet. “Tell him,” he said, voice gentler.

“I don’t know,” Shane said, his breath coming in a shudder. “Not . . . him. Not him.
Not him.
”

“Not him,” Nick said, dropping his hands. “Not
you.
” He lowered his gaze to the floor, as if he knew Shane felt too exposed, too vulnerable, too embarrassed at the emotional display, at the weakness of his tears.

Shane gulped in a breath and turned his face toward the wall, where he made quick work of removing all traces of the wetness that had somehow appeared there again.

“And you weren’t responsible for the loss of those women last night, either. None of us was. But you know who was?” Nick gave him a sideways glance.

That one was a no-brainer. Shane nailed him with a cold, hard stare. “Church.”

Nick nodded. “Church.” He didn’t need to say anything more. Because Shane knew. If they were going to hurt Church and right the wrongs done against them and their dead teammates, he had to get off his ass and get out of his head. “Marz wants to confab as soon as we’re all up and moving,” Nick said, pushing off the bed.

Shane forced himself up, too. “Wait. I owe you some words,” he said, rubbing a hand over the winged-heart tattoo he’d gotten in Molly’s memory.
This
Shane could make right here and now, and he wasn’t waiting another second to get his best friend back once and for all.

Frowning, Nick shook his head. “I don’t—”

“The whole last year, I blamed you for falling off the radar. I blamed you for dropping out of my life when we got back in country. I saw your silence as just one more betrayal—”

“I know, and I’m so—”

“No. I was wrong, Nick. Because I was the one who failed you. I should’ve known the Nick Rixey I’d known all these years wouldn’t fall off the grid without a damn good reason. And instead of going the extra mile and finding out what was really going on, I made assumptions that weren’t true. You deserved better than that. You deserved me being a better friend to you than that.”

Nick rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “Okay.” His gaze cut to Shane’s. “Thanks.”

“We’re okay?” Shane asked, extending a hand.

“Yeah. More than.” He returned the shake, pressed his lips into a tight line, and narrowed his gaze. “We’re also kinda fucked up.”

Shane barked out a laugh and scrubbed his hands over his face. “We are
all kinds
of fucked up, bro.”

Nick moved toward the door and checked his watch. “Getcha ass moving. We have work to do.” He let himself out of the room without looking back.

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Shane let his head hang forward. He felt drained, exhausted, and a little hollow. But his head was quiet, and his heart a little lighter.

Shit on a fucking brick, he hadn’t realized the weight of what he’d been carrying until he passed some of it to another to share. And not only that, but resolving this thing with Nick once and for all eased a whole other part of his soul.

And he knew something else that would help, too. Seeing Crystal. Telling her what he wanted. And making it clear it was
her.

F
RESH OUT OF
the shower, Shane was lured to the kitchen by the warm, buttery scent of pancakes. Nick, Beckett, and Easy sat along the breakfast bar, talking over coffee as Becca plated up the hotcakes.

“Morning,” he said from the edge of the room.

“Hey, Shane,” Becca said, smiling. “Hungry?”

“Thanks,” he said. “But I think I’ll just start with some coffee.” He fixed himself a cup and stood at the side of the bar.

“How are you?” Beckett said in a low voice.

Shane’s gut tensed, but no sense avoiding the obvious, that being the fact he’d come close to going off the rez last night. “My head’s on straight again,” he said. “I’m sorry about last night.”

Beckett shook his head and stared into his black coffee. “I appreciate the apology, Shane, but don’t think for a minute it’s necessary. That scene last night was brutal for me to watch, too. And, straight up, I don’t have a missing sister or a girlfriend stuck working for a known trafficker. If I did, I don’t think I’d have held it together as well as you.”

Shane swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. “Thanks,” he managed.

Beckett’s cell rang, breaking up the seriousness of the moment. Thankfully.

“Fucking Marz,” Beckett said with amusement in his voice. He put the phone on speaker and answered. “Are you seriously calling me from across the hall?”

“I seriously am, motherfucker. What the hell are you people doing?”

“Becca made pancakes,” he said, offering a rare grin to the group.

“Becca . . .
what
?” Marz hung up.

“Five-dollar bets on how fast he’ll get over here,” Beckett said, setting the stop watch on his phone. “I say twenty-five seconds.”

“Forty seconds,” Shane said.

“Thirty,” said Easy.

Nick chuckled. “A minute.”

When the door opened, the whole lot of them erupted in laughter before Marz stepped all the way through.

Beckett held up his iPhone. “Thirty-eight seconds,” he said, grinning. “Damn.”

“Aw, I’m closest. Pony up, suckers,” Shane said, collecting a stack of fives from all the men.

“You sonofabitches bet on me?” Shaking his head, Marz made for the only open chair at the breakfast bar.

Beckett nodded. “On how long it would take you to haul ass over here at the mention of food.”

As Marz hefted himself up onto the tall stool, Becca settled a plate of hot, steaming pancakes in front of him. “Thank you, Becca. You’re a sweetheart.” He winked.

“You’re welcome. We were going to come get you,” she said, smiling.

“Yeah, we definitely were,” Nick said, elbowing him. He scooped a big bite into his mouth.

“Uh-huh. Right after you finished eating them all,” Marz said, pouring a healthy serving of syrup atop his stack. “I know how you assholes are.” He sliced his fork into the soft cakes and took a big bite. “Oh, these are good, Becca. Thank you.”

“No problem. You guys ate on the go all day yesterday, so I figured you could use something hot to start off today.”

Marz nodded around another sweet bite. “Oh,” he said as he swallowed. “Mattress delivery is here. Jeremy went to meet ’em.”

“I’ll go see if he needs help,” Shane said from where he leaned against the bar.

“Just chill out, McCallan,” Marz said, eyeballing Shane like maybe he was worried about him. “Ike’s helping him. And the deliverymen.”

Shane nodded. Might as well get another cup of coffee, then.

“Make any progress on the facial-recognition work?” Nick asked Marz. They’d taken hundreds of photographs last night so Marz could run a comparison of the images against online arrest-record databases. Fortunately, all that information, including the booking photographs, was public record.

“Jeremy entered the pictures of the fifteen unknown men from last night’s op into the facial-recognition search I set up. It’ll take a while to start seeing results.”

“Find anything on Garza?” Shane asked. He still couldn’t get over the guy’s appearance. Finding prior SF mixed up in all of this just ate at his gut. Where was the honor? Where was the integrity? To think his brothers had been killed by some of their own. Shane shook his head.

Marz swallowed a bite. “Short answer is no. Long answer is that Garza’s a freaking ghost. No phone numbers, no Web presence, no social-media accounts, no memberships in any of the various SF forums or alumni groups. That only leaves a hack into Army and Veterans Affairs personnel records, which is some serious shit.”

“Didn’t Charlie say he’d done that?” Nick asked, pushing his plate away.

“Yeah. Just didn’t want to bug him until he was on the mend,” Marz said. “But I want to pick his brain about how he did it without bringing a detachment of MPs down on his head.” Marz sipped his coffee and shook his head. “I also had to restart the Port Authority registries search. Keeps crashing.”

“It lives,” croaked a voice from the side of the room. Charlie. In a pair of scrub bottoms and a white T-shirt, and holding his bandaged hand and forearm against his stomach. A round of cheerful greetings sounded out from everyone.

Shane gave him a once-over—a little pale and a lot drawn, but conscious with none of the feverish symptoms of just thirty-six hours ago. He counted that a major victory.

“Sit here,” Beckett said, emptying his seat and pushing his plate to the side.

“Thanks,” Charlie said, sliding onto the end seat.

Becca came around to his side and put her hand against his forehead. “How are you?”

“I feel like somebody cut off my fingers,” he said, a tired but amused expression on his pale face.

The men all gave a low chuckle. Gallows humor was common among people who had to deal with life and death on a daily basis, so Shane respected Charlie’s ability to address his new reality head-on. They all did.

Becca ruffled his hair and rolled her eyes. “I’m serious.”

“Me too,” he said, bumping his shoulder into her. “Got any left?”

Her expression brightened. “Yes, definitely.” She plated him two big, golden pancakes and Marz slid him the bottle of syrup.

“Good to see you up and around, man,” Marz said, leaning forward so he could see Charlie.

Charlie nodded. “I’m going a little batshit lying in there.”

“Well, when you’re ready, I’d love to pick your brain about some things.”

“Shower first,” he said with a small smile. “If I’m still standing afterward . . .”

Finishing his pancakes, Marz nodded. “Fair enough.” He pushed off the stool and deposited his plate in the sink. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, squeezing Becca in against his side. “You’re too good to us.”

She shook her head. “I’m with Charlie. I can’t just sit around and do nothing. Feeding you guys isn’t much, but at least it keeps me busy.”

Nick rose off his stool, came around the island, and settled his plate in the sink, too. “An army can’t march on an empty stomach, sunshine. We appreciate it. And don’t forget you’ve been funding this whole operation. So none of this would be possible without your support all the way around,” he said, pulling Becca into his arms. From the very beginning, Becca had offered up her father’s life-insurance monies without reservation. After all, bullets and computers and pancakes didn’t grow on trees. “And this won’t last forever.”

“No,” Easy said. “But it’s not clear how long it
will
last. How’s everyone situated if this drags out?”

“I’ve already told the firms that hire me for process serving that I’m going to be unavailable for a few weeks,” Nick said.

“I put in for two weeks’ leave,” Shane said. “And I’ll ask for more if we need it.”

Beckett braced his hands against the counter near Charlie. “I farmed out what I could, pushed back what I couldn’t hand off to someone else, and have put out the word I’m not taking on any new clients right now,” Beckett said, referring to his private security firm in D.C.

Like Beck, Marz was self-employed, too, doing computer-security consulting. “Same thing,” Marz said. “I finished the two most time-sensitive projects I had on my plate the other night, and let everyone else know I’m off the grid for a while.”

Charlie rubbed his good hand over his messy blond hair. “Shit. I’ve got some people probably wondering where I am,” he said. “I need to send some emails today. Oh.” He looked around the group. “I need to get my laptops from Becca’s basement.”

Nick frowned. “Tell me where they are, and I’ll run over and get them later. But as far as the world is concerned, you’re a missing person. Until we figure more of this out, maybe it’s better to leave it that way.”

“Oh?” Charlie rubbed his palm over his forehead. “If you say so, I will.”

“Is it safe to go to my place?” Becca said, looking up at Nick.

“To stay? Probably not.” Not after the place had been tossed twice in the past week. “But a quick in and out should be fine. I’ll be careful,” he said, kissing Becca’s hair.

“How ’bout you, E?” Marz said.

Shane studied the guy. From one burdened man to another, he didn’t think he was imagining that Easy looked like the weight of the world sat on his shoulders.

“Oh, uh. I’ve been working for my father, so it’s cool.” He twisted his paper napkin in his hands.

“Yeah? A family business?” Beckett said. “What is it?”

“Philly’s largest auto parts dealer,” he said in a flat voice.

Auto parts?
Not exactly where Shane would’ve expected their weapons and explosives specialist to end up, but who was he to judge?

“Well, sounds like we’re squared away for at least a little while,” Marz said. “I’m getting back to it. When you people are done lollygagging, come over and let’s make a plan.”

“Lollygagging?” Beckett said, smirking. “Has anyone used that word since 1952?”