Navy SEAL Seduction (8 page)

He lowered his pistol but did not put it away as Blond Man jogged up to them. Blondie introduced himself as Gene Armstrong. He had a Southern drawl and cool green eyes. They gave their military creds and Jarrett made another phone call, this time to Ace.

“Ace. Need you check out two guys. Sam Pendleton. Company F, First Battalion, First Marine Division. And Gene Armstrong. He was with the 75th Ranger Regiment.”

“Give me a few.” Ace hung up.

Jarrett eyeballed the men, who stared back with equal hostility. He wasn’t leaving his position, or trusting his ex-father-in-law until he heard from Ace. Alexander Stewart might think he had hired bodyguards, but he could be fooled. And this was Lacey’s little girl.

His cell rang. “Yeah?”

“Both check out. Enlisted, both received honorable discharges. Armstrong was wounded in Ramadi. Took a bullet to the leg.”

He thanked Ace and thumbed off the phone. Jarrett tucked his Sig back into his holster. “My friend says you’re cleared. I’ll leave you to your job. I’m picking Fleur up at 1400 hours.”

Gene and Sam nodded.

He gave the dark-skinned Sam a scrutinizing look. “Were you hanging out, asking if a flower attended this school?”

Sam’s brow wrinkled. “No. We knew she was here all day.”

This was troubling. “Anyone else you’ve seen who has been asking questions about her?”

“Not me, but my French isn’t that great,” Sam admitted. “Gene’s is better. We’ve been keeping an eagle eye on the place with all the growing unrest. There’s a chance someone could have been here for a few minutes and we missed him.”

A few minutes around recess, when children came outside to buy snacks from the vendors. Jarrett rubbed the nape of his aching neck. “This ices my balls. Someone’s been asking about Fleur. Someone other than you two.”

Quickly he gave a description. “If you see this guy again, get hold of him. I’d like to question him. My way.”

“Would hate to go up against you in a fight, sir. You military?” Sam asked.

When Jarrett told them, Sam’s face lit up. “Knew you had to be a SEAL. Only a frogman could sneak up on me like that. Don’t feel so bad now that you got the drop on me, sir.”

“Where you boys from?” Jarrett asked.

“A little town near Houston, Texas,” Gene said. “Best damn state in the USA.”

“Don’t mind him,” Sam drawled. “He gets a little antsy when he’s not within shooting range of the Alamo. I’m a Yankee. From New York City. You?”

“We’re almost neighbors. I was born in New Hampshire. The old man was military so we moved a lot.”

Gene gave him a look filled with respect. “Lt. Jarrett Adler. You’re the Iceman. I heard about that op you did in Ramadi. You laid down enough fire in that neighborhood for our boys to beat it the hell out of there.”

Uncomfortable with the praise, Jarrett gave a brusque nod. He didn’t like talking about that op. Too many nightmarish images from that time, men who died with their legs blown off, screaming, the blood and the slick, coppery scent of it...

“You’re the Iceman?” Sam asked. “Hooyah, sir. Semper Fi.”

He relaxed a little and for a few minutes, talked with them about missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the crummy food and American football. Gene had retired from the service only last year, and Sam had left six months ago.

“It was tough getting used to wearing civvies,” Gene said. “Tougher finding work after being a Ranger for years. We were happy the senator gave us a detail. I speak French, but ole Sam here barely knows any words.”

“I’m good at pointing and talking with my hands,” Sam said, grinning.

Jarrett gave a gruff nod, for Gene had voiced a fear he also felt. What life did he have upon leaving the teams? He was nearly thirty-five, and some days he didn’t think he’d live long enough to celebrate his fortieth. Thirty-five was approaching senior citizen age in the teams.

These young kids coming into the teams with their snappy attitudes and do-or-die zeal... Yeah, they had respect for all he’d done, and more than often there was a quiet sense of almost hero worship. He’d lived for the adrenaline thrill, the sense of a job well-done, knowing he kept his country safe.

Jarrett didn’t want to be pushed into retirement. He wished he could find something to replace the sense of purpose that had driven him all these years.

He could still serve. But how?

Gene handed him a white business card. “When you get back Stateside, look us up and we’ll buy you a beer. Be honored to share a brew with a frogman who watched our six.”

Jarrett thanked him, fished a card out of his wallet and scribbled down the number of his local cell phone. “Where are you two bunking?”

“Local hotel. It’s not bad.” Sam’s voice was neutral.

“The fleas aren’t as big as the sandfleas in Ramadi,” Gene added.

Jarrett grinned. “Yeah, I know it. While you’re here, keep an eye out for anything suspicious and call me at this number if you see anything.”

He told them what happened with the shed and Gene’s eyes narrowed. “This country’s getting too many hot spots. I heard last week that the favored candidate might not win because the current regime could be targeting him.”

He considered. These men, ex-military, might be good resources. “Let’s get together tonight at Lacey’s place, dinner and drinks.” He grinned at the hopeful look on Gene’s face. “Lace has a great cook. I bet she can whip up a mean Texas-style chili that will melt your socks.”

“Only Texans can do that, sir,” Gene said.

“Yeah, Lace has a stash of peppers that would do you proud. Trust me. I’ll scrounge up some cold brews, too.” He rubbed his chin. “I know the senator is paying your bill, but it would be a huge relief to my ex to know the men hanging outside her kid’s school are aboveboard.”

He gave them the address. “Be there at 1800 hours.”

“Be nice to hang with other Americans,” Gene said.

“Honored, sir.” Sam saluted him.

As he returned to Lacey’s truck, feeling a little more relieved that Fleur was being guarded by professionals with weapons, Jarrett couldn’t help but wonder if someday soon it might be him standing outside a school, keeping watch on someone else’s dime. He loved his career in the Navy, but what came next?

* * *

When he returned to the compound, he did a thorough check of the property, riding along the narrow pathway of the wall’s perimeter, looking for weaknesses in the wall or an easily penetrated spot.

At the field near the homes where the women lived, four men picked corn. He questioned them all, but none had seen or heard anything suspicious. The men worked in the compound during the day, but left before dusk fell. All four had worked for Lacey for two years and seemed loyal and grateful for the jobs she’d given them.

They promised to keep an eye out and report anything odd.

At the property’s northwest corner, beneath the shade of several mango trees, he saw a man leaning on a shovel near the garden. Dressed in dirt-stained jeans, a button-down shirt plastered to his sweating body, he appeared to be taking a break.

Except he wondered what the guy had been doing, for he didn’t see evidence of holes dug or dirt piled up. Jarrett parked the truck and climbed out.

“Who are you?” he asked in French.

The man gave him a long look before answering. “I’m Jean. I work here.”

He remembered him from last night. Pierre, the man Lacey had sent to fetch the hose from the gardening shed.

“For how long?” Jarrett asked.

“Miss Lacey hired me last week to take care of the garden.”

He swept a critical eye over the tomato garden. “By weeding with a shovel?”

“I’m planting seeds. Over there.” Jean waved at a spot closer to the compound’s wall. “The sun is better there. More tomatoes to grow.”

Jarrett wasn’t a gardener, but it made sense. Except he didn’t like the way he kept glancing nervously at the wooden shed near the garden.

“Do you live here?” he asked.

Jean pointed to the shed. “Miss Lacey lets me stay there. I live an hour away off the main road and visit my family on the weekend.”

“Did you see anything last night before the storage shed started burning?” he asked.

Jean shook his head.

Following his instincts, he walked around the shed, with Jean following him. Two walls sported new coats of bright red paint.

“Odd color to paint a shed,” he told Jean.

The gardener shrugged. “Miss Lacey had the paint donated. No choice.”

Jarrett went to the shed’s door and stepped inside. Jean followed him.

Inside he found nothing unusual. The shed was neatly organized, and in the back room with a narrow bed where Jean obviously slept, there was a small kerosene stove and a table with a few plates and pots.

The front room of the shed contained gardening tools, buckets, a few burlap bags that he opened, and found to contain chicken droppings. It could have been used to help start the fire, but it wasn’t as effective as regular fertilizer when making a bomb.

“Guano is a good fertilizer. Natural,” Jean said.

The man seemed eager to explain everything. Interesting.

Even more interesting were the two plastic buckets of paint and the still-damp paintbrushes. Jarrett picked one up and examined the bristles.

“The paint protects the wood when it rains,” Jean told him.

“Do you keep the shed locked? Or can anyone walk inside?”

“Why would we lock it? No one steals from Miss Lacey.”

Yeah, no one stole. They just set fire to her storehouse and left threats on the walls...in red paint. Jarrett didn’t like it. He dropped the brush. He went outside and touched the red wall and his fingers came away stained crimson.

“I painted it this morning,” Jean said.

Too convenient. He made a mental note to keep his eye on the gardener as Jean returned to the garden and began to dig.

When Jarrett finished patrolling, he parked the truck in front of Lacey’s house and went searching for his ex. Rose was in the kitchen and told him Lacey was talking with the women at the mango processing building.

“Miss Lacey said Fleur’s visa is coming through. I’m happy for her, but sad to see my little Fleur leave,” Rose said in French.

“Well, I have news that’ll make you happy, Miss Rose. I have a challenge for you.”

When he told her about dinner, her dark eyes gleamed.

“I have to go into town for paint Miss Lacey wants, and I’ll get some beans from the grocery. I will make a chili that will have your American friend howling, Mr. Jarrett.”

He grinned. “Go for it.”

Leaving Rose to plan the meal, he headed for the remains of the storage shed. It still smoked, though the fire was long out. Jarrett rummaged through the remains of the shed. After an hour he found something that made his blood run cold.

Charred, enough of the mechanism still existed for him to ID it. A sophisticated incendiary device with a timer. Maybe even a cell phone.

He traced back the path he’d taken last night. The red painted words still stood out on the wall:
American go home.

Beneath the red splatter of paint was a large footprint that stuck out like a black stone in white sand. He squatted down and analyzed it.

Jarrett brought a ladder over, scaled the wall and jumped over. Lacey’s property abutted a small stretch of forest that marched up the mountainside.

Another few feet, he saw the same kind of footprint. And then a few yards away, bingo. He picked up the cell phone. Cheap, throwaway type that were common here in St. Marc.

The detonator.

He imagined the owner standing here, safely far away from the compound, making a call to trigger the detonator.

His guts clenched. And Lacey could have been hit with this. Nightmarish images flicked through his mind, Lacey screaming as the device exploded...trapped in the shed, no way to get out...

Pocketing the cell phone so Ace could try to trace it, he returned to the compound.

He went into his room and put the cell phone on his bureau. His own phone rang. It was Ace with the full 411 on Paul Lawrence, Lace’s business partner.

After, he found Lacey in the workshop, supervising the women peeling mangoes. She greeted him with a quick smile that had his whole day vastly improve. If he got a smile like that every morning, he’d be a happy man.

Jarrett nearly stopped in his tracks, dumbfounded. He was happy, right? Had a secure job with the teams, making sure his country was safe.

But ever since the divorce, there was a big, empty hole in his heart, not just his bed.

“Hey, sunshine,” he told her, dropping a kiss on her cheek. She flushed beneath the touch of his lips.

Her skin was so warm and soft, and he had to fight the urge to keep kissing her and not stop.

“Fleur’s safe in school.” He explained about her bodyguards and how her father had hired them.

“I should be angry he didn’t tell me. But he meant well. Thanks, Jarrett. That’s one less thing I have to worry about, knowing they check out and they’re keeping an eye on her.”

“I invited them for dinner tonight, so you can meet them.”

“Thanks.”

The fact that she wasn’t furious at her dad, and she seemed resigned, warned him she was under much more pressure than she’d alluded to.

She swept a hand over the workshop. “Though the fire took the mango marmalade that was ready for shipping, we still have plenty of stock to work with. Collette told me the women were quite worried that I’d shut down operations. I assured them I would not abandon this project. We’ve all worked too hard to let someone chase us away.”

But clearly, Lacey was tense this morning, her body stiff and rigid. Jarrett stepped behind her and began massaging her shoulders. At first she tensed and then sighed as he kneaded the tension away.

“Wow, I miss this. You always did give great massages.” She stole a peek over one shoulder. “And other things, as well.”

“Still do.” He finished and Lacey rolled her shoulders. “I have a report I have to complete before Paul gets here. Care to keep me company?”

“Let’s go outside first. Away from all the ears.” He glanced at the women.

When they were outside the building, he lowered his voice. “That man you recently hired, Jean. How well do you know him?”