Night Moves: A Shadow Force Novel (10 page)

“You shouldn’t count on me,” he’d told Reid, who in turn had told him to “shut the fuck up.”

“I don’t think I can do this,” he’d told Dylan earlier that afternoon when he’d first showed at the bar after months of being away
.

“Then why are you here?”

Because he still had some semblance of humanity left, something he couldn’t erase completely. Something Dylan seemed determined to bring back to him before it was too late
.

“You stay out there alone, after a while you lose yourself,” Dylan said
.

“You stayed out,” Kell pointed out
.

“I came back just in time.”

Kell wasn’t sure he had—the look in Reid’s eye when he’d returned haunted him. His friend took his absence as a personal affront and Kell hadn’t fully regained his trust. And although they still worked together like a well-oiled machine, Kell knew it would be a long time before Reid stopped expecting him to disappear again without a word
.

“Go if you want,” Reid said irritably as he settled in on his own cot in the back room of Mace’s bar
.

And Kell had simply unfolded his cot and slept, because he owed his best friend at least that, and so much more
.

Beyond that, his actions against DMH had nearly gotten his best friend and teammates killed, although Reid always called bullshit on that.

“Any of us would’ve done the same thing, given the opportunity,” he would argue.

“You’d have made sure you didn’t get made,” Kell would shoot back. DMH had traced him, probably ended up knowing more about him than Delta did.

The damage had been done. Whether or not he was beyond repair remained to be seen.

All of this would be so much easier without a conscience. And yet he’d never been able to push his down for long. After a while, Kell would simply pretend that none of it bothered him, because things went much easier on him when he did.

“I fucked up, Reid.”

“It could’ve happened to any of us.”

“But it didn’t.”

“You’ve done everything you could over the past months to make up for it, even though you didn’t need to.”

It hadn’t helped. It scared the hell out of him to look back and see that he was becoming, someone he—and Reid—didn’t recognize. “I can’t do this, Reid. Can’t risk fucking up again.”

“You walked away from me. You’re trying to do it again without giving me a goddamned chance to help you.” Reid paused. “You haven’t lost your edge, Kell.”

“Maybe I want to.”

“And what? Move to a log cabin in the woods and take up fly-fishing?

“I have a conscience, but I know what it’s like to bury it. I thought I’d have to live my life that way. And after DMH—even before—I was like a fucking machine. I don’t want to do the job anymore.”

Reid could understand but he wasn’t done … he had more to do, to make up for.

“We’ve been doing this a long time. Nine lives, guardian angels …” Kell said.

“You think our luck’s running out?”

“You think we’re lucky?” Kell responded and Reid snorted. “I feel like the walls are closing in. And here we thought Teddie was bringing the danger to us. Looks like she’s as screwed with us as she is without us.”

“Maybe she’ll want to go back to the marshals,” Reid said. “She’s scared shitless of us.”

It was true, but for reasons he couldn’t yet explain, Kell knew that Teddie belonged with him. For now, he’d comfort himself with the fact that he’d managed to keep her safe this long.

Yet, they were both hunted. And if he and Reid continued to help her, they’d open themselves up to even more trouble.

R
eid wanted to alternately punch his friend square in the jaw and hug him, and fuck it all, Dylan had warned him that Kell’s transition back to the land of the living wouldn’t be easy.

But shit, Reid hadn’t had an easy time of it either. Typically, Kell was there to pick up the pieces, and this time no one had.

Most of those pieces were still scattered for him. He remembered the food poisoning, being dragged from the hotel into the van and waking up in the darkness of the cell.

He’d been halfway to breaking out when the puff
adder got him in the calf, where he still had a scar that ached most of the time. After that, it was all a big blank until Kell gave him the antidote on the chopper and he woke up to find he’d been to hell and back.

Mace’s throat healed with some vocal cord damage. He would’ve been cleared medically if he’d wanted to be, but he hadn’t. Caleb’s memories had come back; a mixed blessing, as he would no doubt always be as haunted as the rest of them.

But still, they’d gotten some closure.

For Reid, his life was an endless cycle of escaping in death-defying ways and leaving behind others who weren’t so lucky. “I’m trying to go easy on you, bro, but I don’t like what’s going on here.”

“I know you’re still pissed at me.”

Well, yeah, that was true, but Reid was pretty sure he’d get over it. Eventually.

“I stayed away because—”

“Don’t go there, Kell.”

Kell turned from him and Reid sighed as the wall went up between them again, a barrier that fourteen years ago hadn’t been there after a mere seventy-two hours of knowing each other.

Kell hadn’t wanted to talk about any what had happened with DMH. And so Reid shut down a little more himself and waited his friend out, but that seemed to close Kell off more.

But his reaction to this Teddie chick—that was interesting, to say the least. Reid would roll with it because if this woman could bring Kell’s soul back, Reid would be grateful as hell.

He and Kell had had brief relationships over the
years, mainly for the sex, as neither man was in any one place long enough to make things work. Truth be told, Reid hadn’t been all that interested in making anything work. Neither had Kell, and that’s why the connection between his friend and Teddie fascinated and confused Reid. He could see the way they were circling each other.

Even though Teddie was scared of Kell, she couldn’t look away.

There were even bigger problems on Reid’s mind now, though. Something else was going on: Vivi was fielding all their calls—including his earlier one after they’d completed the mission—and there was nary a word from Dylan himself.

“I’m going for a swim,” Reid announced to Kell, who just stared at him. “What? I’m not letting a heated pool go to waste.”

Kell didn’t try to stop him and Reid stripped as he walked outside into the cooler air. The gates were high here and the nearest neighbors’ houses were also vacation homes—deserted ones.

Naked, he dove into the warm water, did a few laps to burn off some of the tension and realized if he wanted more relaxation, he’d need to literally swim through the entire night.

So he paused and rested his arms on the decorative concrete around the edge, and thought about what the hell he was actually still doing out here in the first place. Because they had completed an important mission, and because keeping Kell’s head on straight was the hardest thing about working with him these days.

He was risking a lot with the black ops missions in
the first place, knew it and didn’t give a shit. He owed the Army another six months of service and then he was done. He’d stick with Dylan, do black ops until he was ready to retire.

You’ll be fine if Kell leaves
.

Not that he was particularly fine before meeting Kell, but Reid knew things now. And it’s not like he hadn’t been solo on missions before. Calling him capable was severely underestimating him.

To be honest, if Kell dropped out of the game, it would be something of a relief. Because Reid had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Kell to be taken from his life the way anyone who got close to Reid seemed to be.

So yes, better for Kell.

Shit, he couldn’t keep his mind off the swirling mess of memories that threatened to envelope him. It rarely caught up with him this badly; the circumstances over the past few months were definitely to blame.

His life had been very much about loss, but he’d been lucky to find the group of people he had. Losing Gray, his teammate and friend, while he himself was lying unconscious in a cell—thanks to a snake bite—and his whole team was being tortured around him … well, some days, some hours, it was just too much.

Sometimes, he could still hear the screams of his parents, his brother and sisters. Could feel the fireman’s strong arms hoist him up and out of the house through the thick smoke that burned his lungs and made breathing nearly impossible. Those same arms stopped him from going back inside for the rest of his
family, even as the house collapsed onto itself, killing everyone left inside.

He’d never forgive that fireman for saving him. It was a ridiculous sentiment, he knew, but if only he’d died that night …

Ah, fuck it. The guilt would be the death of him.

Reid had picked up skills quickly in the orphanage he’d been placed in as a temporary measure. He was fourteen and as he was shifted from one temporary place to the next, he’d learned as much as he could about the art of thieving and survival.

He’d never had to worry about those things in his old life. But that life was dead and buried, along with his family. And if he couldn’t be with them, he didn’t want any part of anyone else’s family.

The six-foot-one football player with all-American, blond-haired, blue-eyed good looks could’ve had a shot at a good family, despite his age. But his newfound aptitude for theft and snarly attitude toward anyone or anything that looked like help put an immediate stop to that.

He’d made sure of it.

The first house he was placed in, he locked himself in his room, cut the electricity because he’d just learned how, stole money from the mom’s purse and snuck out the window.

He was back in foster care within three days.

There were the psychologists, the doctors, the nice people in the foster care system who tried to tell him that good behavior was his best friend.

He wanted to tell them that there was no way he could do that, that it just hurt too damned much inside. That he was pretty sure the pain would never
subside and that he didn’t think he’d ever be able to hang on to anything good ever again. And so he’d promised himself that he’d never really try.

Now he was really trying. He climbed out of the pool, dried off and stayed out by the pool in the dark, readying his weapons. He’d wait the night for Kell to let him know if they were leaving Teddie behind … or if Kell was simply leaving altogether.

R
eid came inside long enough to tell Kell he’d take the first shift watching the house. Kell didn’t sleep particularly well at all, although he noted Teddie had no problem in that area.

He switched off with Reid a couple of hours earlier than he was supposed to; Reid didn’t argue, just went inside muttering under his breath, which Kell knew was aimed at him.

They wouldn’t leave the house again until nightfall, and it was only six in the morning. This particular place had a pretty detailed security system setup, including cameras that caught the roads surrounding the property, so score one for Reid.

He prowled the house restlessly, unable to stop his mind from running scenarios that made his head throb. He’d cleaned his cuts and taken ibuprofen for
the other aches and pains he’d gotten in the alley … and made a promise to himself to get his shit together.

When his phone rang, he was eager for the distraction. He glanced at the screen before answering and saw it was Vivi.

“Tell me you’ve got some good shit for me,” he said, not doubting that Vivi had worked through the night.

“I’ve got a few addresses on the GPS—restaurants, stores, a motel in Juarez. Other than that, it’s brand spanking new, bought a week ago,” Vivi said. “The men who attacked you are hired guns—mostly low-level stuff.”

“How did they get that intel about me, then?” Kell asked, more to himself than her. He’d known for sure that the men hadn’t been at the top of their game.

Sending them after him had been akin to murder. Whoever employed them had been on a fact-finding mission, and Kell had no doubt given them what they wanted. When the men didn’t return, their employer must’ve guessed that they’d found Kell, and Reid, by association.

If not for Teddie, they’d be out of Mexico and well hidden somewhere in the States. “Anything on Samuel Chambers or the men who killed Teddie’s family?”

“McMannus’s a wanted man, for sure—he’s being looked into for the murder of Teddie’s father because of her eyewitness statement. Samuel Chambers was investigated as a possible accomplice to the crime because of his close friendship with Teddie’s father, but he was cleared.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“But McMannus’s mercing, not CIA.”

“Appears to be. Chambers was part of the diplomatic community until about ten years ago. Then he retired. He’s had a place in Mexico for years, mainly a vacation home, since his passport shows he continues to travel most of the time. I’ve got an address for you. His bank account’s not anything impressive and his record’s been clean until now,” Vivi said, but they both knew that meant nothing. “I’m checking for hidden bank accounts.”

He wondered if Teddie knew what Chambers was involved with and decided he needed to find out immediately. After he got the rest of the intel.

He headed for the room where Reid was sleeping. His friend woke up as the door opened and Kell put the phone on speaker so Vivi could relay her information to both men.

“I also managed to get into the marshals’ database, and yes, they’re actively looking for Teddie. Not just because she escaped witness protection. There are other reasons. She wasn’t lying about being in the restaurant or about shooting someone,” Vivi said. “She shot two men—one at point-blank range and the other … witnesses say it looked like she tried to take him hostage and then she pushed him away and shot him instead. Someone videotaped it on their cell phone.”

Kell blinked. “Sure they don’t have that mixed up?” he asked, even though he knew they didn’t. Because he’d known she was hiding something, and he couldn’t fucking wait to hear her explanation.