Echoes (13 page)

Mac believed him. Nash Harper had always excelled at gathering intel. At twenty-three, Mac had placed the blame for his CO's death squarely at his XO's door. Eleven years later, he wondered whether the assassination, and Nash's shooting, might have been the result of something Nash had uncovered rather than something he'd done. “I have to go. I'll call you back. But I'm giving this phone back to Travis, and we're splitting up.”

“So don't call us, we'll call you? Be sure you do, Brody.”

“Yeah.” He hung up and tossed the phone back to Travis, who'd taken the time while Mac was talking to retrieve Callie's suitcase and set it on the dock.

“Get going,” he said as he clipped the phone to the waistband of his jeans. “The
Lady
is fully gassed and ready. Even the galley's stocked. I don't have any charters until Friday, so I'm headed for Guadeloupe. Give me a call if you need me.”

“Will do.” Mac stepped off the boat, then helped Callie onto the dock. Trav was already pulling in the fenders and casting off, clearly anxious to be gone. As
The Tramp
rumbled to life and pulled away, Mac raised an arm in farewell. For a moment on deck, coordinating information between Trav, Vince, and Nash, he'd been part of a team again; he hadn't realized how much he missed the experience.

Shaking off the uncomfortable awareness, he slung Callie's bag onto the aft deck of the
Lady
, then stepped aboard himself and held out a hand.

“C'mon.”

Callie laid a hand lightly in his, and he tried to ignore the anticipatory spark it caused. He had always been the same—when his system was in gear, as it was now, he fired on all cylinders. Sex, violence, danger . . . For Mac it was ready for one, ready for all. He'd do well to remember that his reaction to the woman beside him had less to do with her than with the situation. He let go of her the minute she seemed steady on her feet.

“You spent much time on the water?”

“A fair amount. When my father worked in Greece, we lived aboard a fifty-eight-footer that was similar to this one, but it's been ten years since I went out on anything bigger than a sport fisherman.”

“Trav bought this and the little Sea Ray off the same guy. Bought out his whole business, in fact. The really big motor yachts around here have full-time staff, but the guy who built this one was a loner. No family even, which made this yacht hard to sell despite the level of luxury, because he designed it with a single stateroom. The dinette folds out into a sleeper, but most people who buy a boat this size want two bedrooms.”

He led her down the center aisle, where the saloon and dinette were to their left and the open, U-shaped galley to their right, toward the stairs leading down to the stateroom.

“Whoa. This is something else.”

He laughed. All the crap she'd had thrown at her, and this was the first actual evidence of surprise he'd seen. But he could relate.

“Yeah. That was my reaction. The wood here is as nice as anything at the Paradis, and Travis replaced all the brass with oil-rubbed bronze by himself.”

Callie paused to finger one of the woven throws tossed over the white leatherette sofas.

“Those he brought back from the Middle East, I think, though he might have had someone send them to him later on,” Mac explained. “He told me the boat was too sterile when he moved in.”

When they reached the stairs down to the stateroom, Mac stepped aside so Callie could precede him. The bedroom was another kind of rustic altogether, a faded French provincial style. Suddenly, despite its size, Mac felt stifled. He dropped Callie's bag on the blue and yellow quilt that covered the king-sized bed.

“You should get some rest. I'm going up to take us out. I'll be back in a bit.” With a quick wave, he bolted from the room and back up the stairs.

Either Travis or Mac must have set the coffee machine to come on automatically, because the final drops were hissing into the carafe when Callie staggered out of the stateroom the next morning. The clock read 8:07. Her head and hip ached in tandem, and she wanted nothing more than to crawl back beneath the covers.

Mac lay stretched out on the sofa, an arm beneath his head and one of the throws pulled over his legs like a blanket. The dark hair, tanned skin, heavy growth of stubble . . . He was a long, black, exhausted shadow on the white leatherette, and the sight pinched her heart. Why hadn't he joined her in the stateroom? The bed was enormous. Did he think she was such a prude she would have kicked up a fuss? Or did her heritage—possibly his wife's heritage—freak him out as badly as it did her?

On the counter in the galley rested a stack of papers Callie recognized as the information Mac had printed out at the marina the previous day. Travis must have retrieved them when he'd gone to Mac's apartment for the “e-kit,” the whole idea of which she found both frightening and almost unbearably sad. What kind of life trained a person to keep an escape kit at hand at all times?

Callie poured herself a mug of the steaming brew, took the printouts and her sunglasses, and went above to the small outdoor seating area. Storm clouds lowered, and the air was close, already overheating. Mac had anchored them about a half mile offshore. She could see the beach, its white sand bordered by what appeared to be hotels and restaurants rather than private residences. After examining the shoreline, she concluded the beach was Grand Case, where she'd sat and listened to strangers discuss the possibility that Mac might have murdered his wife.

Could that really have been only three days before? No wonder exhaustion dragged at her. In less than a week, her whole life had gone to hell. Her roommate, Erin, had told her to let go of the picture and hang on to the memories instead, but she hadn't listened. Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them back.

No use crying over spilt milk.
They were her father's words, and she heard them in his voice. He'd always been practical, and honest. He'd shared everything with her. Why not this?

She settled on the white vinyl bench seat and began looking through the files. At some point, probably while she'd been getting ready for dinner with John, Mac had sorted the information into four paper-clipped sections. The top contained general background, and then there was a section for each of the blood-linked families. Callie started with Ed Steele's, and was forcing herself to read through the reports of the rapes he had committed when she felt Mac come up behind her.

“You'd be safer inside.”

He'd obviously come to find her the moment he woke, because stubble still obscured his jawline, and he had the worst case of bed head Callie had seen in quite some time. Despite whatever sleep he'd managed to get, his jade eyes remained shadowed. Callie looked away, appalled by her own desire to ease the trouble she saw lurking behind them.

“There's no one for miles.”
Keep it together, Callie. Just the facts. He doesn't need your sympathy.

“Not at the moment. Do it for me, okay? I need to shower, and I'd rather you were out of sight while I do. Let anyone passing by assume Trav's aboard by himself, as usual.”

“Yeah, okay.” She gathered the papers and her coffee, and stood.

“We have a breakfast date in an hour,” Mac said as he led the way back down the stairs. “Vichy called.”

“We're going to Marigot? Is that safe?”

“No. Which is why we're meeting him on the beach just over there. The restaurant opens at ten. We'll take the inflatable. It's not safe—nothing is—but it's better than driving or walking through town. And even if the gendarmerie weren't in the middle of Marigot, I'd prefer meeting on more neutral ground.”

“Why does he want to talk to us? Is it about Nikki, about whatever your friend Nash told you? The body they found—it wasn't her, was it?”

“No.”

“How did he know? Nash, I mean. Who is he?”

“Nash is . . .” He shook his head. “We're going to have to talk about some of the things he said. But let me shower first.”

Reluctantly, she agreed, returning to her examination of the case files. Ed Steele showed absolutely no remorse during his trial. He'd plead not guilty, but once DNA connected him to all the rapes, he gave in and made a deal. Although the pages were nothing more than toner and paper, they felt dirty, made
Callie
feel dirty, especially when she remembered that the man was her half brother. A kind of pleasure and pride shone through Steele's words that fouled the taste of her coffee, soured her stomach, and made her skin crawl.

By the time Mac returned, she was more than ready to push the papers aside in favor of talking about something—anything—else, but when she asked about the mysterious Nash, Mac answered with a question of his own.

“Do you know a woman named Cherie Marshall?”

It took her a moment to place the name. “That's the midwife who signed my birth certificate. But I never met her, at least that I remember. Why?”

“Because Nash says she was also midwife at Ed Steele's birth.”

She stared at him. “Ed Steele and I had the same midwife as well as the same father?”

“So it seems.”

“There has to be some kind of mistake. None of this makes any sense.”

“I've been considering the fact that both your mother and Ephraim Steele were Jewish. What if all this has something to do with religion? Did you come across anything about religion in the files you were looking at?”

“No, but I haven't gotten that far. You take the information on the Masterses; I'll check out Robin Cory.” She handed him a sheaf of papers.

After a few minutes of reading, Mac grunted. “Nothing specific, but the names Deborah and Diane do crop up in the Jewish community regularly.”

“But Robin's family was Episcopalian. They held the funeral at her church, and these reports are full of quotes from various members of the religious community about her volunteer work. There is one thing, though. . . .”

“Yeah?”

“The PR photo in the Masters file was from an award ceremony in Brazil or something, wasn't it?”

Mac nodded. “For a campaign on women's rights they spearheaded there.”

“Well, Robin and her family traveled extensively, too. As did we when I was growing up. My mother hated Ephraim Steele and called him greedy. I remember the exact moment we talked about it. There was a newscaster talking about the scandal that brought down his ministry and showing photographs and receipts that proved he'd stayed in five-star hotels while supposedly doing ‘missionary work.'”

“That's right. It was a huge part of the end of his career.” Mac checked his watch. “I have to get the inflatable ready. I'll be right back. Can you make a list of the countries you went to and the approximate times? Maybe something will pop if Nash can get hold of everyone else's schedules.”

“You still haven't told me who Nash is and why he has access to that kind of information.”

He hesitated, and she thought he might refuse to answer. Finally, he said, “Nash was in the same unit with me and Trav a long time ago. I'm not sure who he is now, but if there's intel to be gotten, he'll get it.”

Which was completely unsatisfactory, but before she could protest, Mac was gone, heading for the cockpit and the two-person inflatable that would carry them to the beach. Callie dug through her satchel for a pen and began making a list of the places her father had taken them when she was a child. She'd barely started when she had to go back through the bag looking for the cell phone she could hear ringing.

“Miss Pearson,” said an unfamiliar voice when she answered, “my name is Nash Harper. It's imperative that I speak with Mac Brody immediately. Can you put him on the line?”

“Why don't you call his number?”

“I don't have it on hand. Yours was easier to find, and time is of the essence.”

Someone had Mac's number, Callie thought, because above her head she could hear it ringing.

“I'll see if I can find him.”

“You're on a fifty-two-foot yacht, Miss Pearson. You're currently anchored off Grand Case. There aren't that many places for him to hide, which is exactly why I need to speak to him. Right now.”

When she climbed the stairs, she saw Mac with his cell wedged between his shoulder and ear as his hands flew over the controls. The
Lady
lurched in the water as her engines came to life and her anchor began to retract.

“I'll call you back in ten,” Mac said into his phone when he realized Callie had come up the stairs. He flipped his own phone shut, shoved it into his pocket, and held out a hand for hers.

“That Nash?” He answered her unasked question. “Trav said he'd be calling.”

***

“What the fuck happened?” Mac asked without preamble as soon as Callie passed him the cell.

“The cleaning crew went by your old house this morning and found your wife in the kitchen. Strangled. Missing, of all things, her left hand, where she would have worn the ring that was found on the other woman. Mutilated in other ways as well. Autopsy pending, but my sources tell me certain things indicate she's been dead since she disappeared. Probably stored in a meat locker somewhere, since there's virtually no decomp.”

Mac flashed back to his visit to John Lewis's house. “There's a chest freezer in our basement, and another in her brother's.”

“Yes. Working theory is that you kept her in yours for a while. No reason yet proposed for why you'd have taken her out of her hiding place and left her to be found, let alone why you'd have chopped off a piece of her body, or where that piece might turn up.”

“Fuck.”

“Are you moving?”

“A yacht isn't a damn motorcycle. It takes a few minutes to get going. I'm working on it. I have to put the phone down; you'll be on speaker.” He dropped the cell into the cup holder next to the wheel.

“Good.” Distorted by the cell's tiny speaker, Nash's voice was barely audible over the
thrum
of the engine. “I have a chopper on the way. ETA nine minutes.”

“Nine minutes? Where the hell are you?”

“We left Puerto Rico almost an hour ago.”

Mac felt the anchor settle home, and got the
Lady
moving. With less cabin space, she had greater potential speed than most cruisers her length, but no motor yacht could outrun the speedboats the gendarmes were apt to send after them. He wanted out of Grand Case. Preferably yesterday.

“When you get the
Lady
in gear, head northwest. That cuts down the time till we meet, and puts you as far from land as possible. The further you are out of the casual cruisers' seaways, the less possibility anyone will notice when the Jayhawk drops four people onto the
Lady
, complete with paperwork showing they rented her for a week from Travis, and picks you two up. The new ‘renters' will set course for Guadeloupe. Travis is already working on that end.”

Nash had always been efficient. Obviously, some things hadn't changed.

But the distinctive
roar-and-slap
sound of an approaching speedboat warned Nash's efficiency might have been overmatched by that of the French police. Or someone else.

“We have company,” he said.

“Five minutes out,” replied Nash.

“You said nine.”

“I lied.” He hadn't, Mac felt certain. A favorite for Coast Guard search-and-rescue ops, Sikorsky Jayhawks were built for distance, not speed. He figured Nash had calculated the nine minutes when the Hawk was moving at standard speed, about 140 knots. But he was willing to bet the pilot was pushing the thing to top speed—listed as 180 knots—before Callie had even handed him the phone.

The boat came into view around the tip of Happy Bay at the same time as Mac heard another familiar sound, that of a helicopter closing in rapidly.

“You did say you had a Jayhawk?”

“Yeah, and that's not us.”

“No shit.” At his best guess, the thing coming up no more than fifty feet off the water behind the French powerboat was a Huey. Light, fast, and lethal. Seconds later, the speedboat was engulfed in flames.

“Mac!”

“I see it.”

“Two minutes,” said Nash in his ear, and Mac wondered how the hell hard he was pushing the Jayhawk.

“Take the wheel,” he said to Callie. When he was sure she had the boat under control, he reached into the cabinet hidden behind a sliding panel and pulled out the rifle Travis always kept at hand. Long-range shooting wasn't his forte, and firing at a helicopter wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do, even if action-movie heroes made it seem to be, but he didn't have to hit the Huey, just make the pilot cautious, hold him back for a minute until Nash could get to them. If the Huey pilot were smart, he would take one look at the Jayhawk and head for the hills. Mac took careful aim, the scope showing him all too clearly the gunner leaning out of the chopper, and fired.

The shooter would have seen him, too. The pilot swerved, heading slightly away to recalculate, and Mac heard the heavy thump of the Jayhawk's rotors. So did the Huey's occupants. The smaller chopper dipped and turned, racing back the way it had come.

***

Oh. My. God.
What had happened to her life? When had she become the person the police chased and strange men shot at?

The big helicopter hovered over them, kicking up water all around, and Callie slowed the
Lady
to a halt. Mac reached over her shoulder and activated the control to drop the anchor. At the same moment, she heard a thud behind her, and turned to see a rope ladder fall from the open helicopter door. Two men dressed in Hawaiian shirts and cutoffs jumped to the aft deck, followed by a pair of big duffel bags and two casually attired women.