Shadow of Doubt (An SBG Novel Book 2) (13 page)

Griffin hated surveillance. Boring didn’t even begin to describe the tedious hours of doing nothing but sitting in a car—not that this foray had a chance to have the monotony settle in yet. The first hour he’d been delayed by the U.S. Marshals and FBI lingering at Michelle’s apartment, waiting on them to leave so he could set up his surprise. Then the next four hours were wasted on flying, with one of those hours being sucked up by a goddamn layover in Chicago before arriving in Kansas City International Airport. April Harris had a massive head start and when he landed, his tracker app showed she had driven another hour west.

He had finally caught up, only to have to take time to find the perfect hiding spot to see the front of the house. Then he performed a little reconnaissance by foot.

So really, the last hour shouldn’t have bothered him at all, but it was after midnight, he was tired, and he really didn’t feel like sitting here.

Nothing moved except the tall, wild vegetation surrounding him. Where was her protection detail? Normally he’d be clocking rotations and searching for patterns in their movements to exploit.

He squirmed for the umpteenth time and let out a disgusted sound.

“This is ridiculous. Just freaking get it over with.” He grabbed the empty wide-mouth plastic bottle he had tossed onto the passenger floor and unscrewed the cap.

Another strike against stakeouts. Pissing in a bottle.

“Should’ve gone in the airport,” he muttered, unzipping his jeans. Too worried about allowing her to get too far ahead of him, he had bypassed all the restrooms on his way to the car rental area.

He lifted his hips to catch the right angle and let it fly. And kept going. Damn. He glanced down at the growing contents.

Loud crunching plastic echoed as his prosthetic hand spasmed.

“Son of a bitch!” He yanked the bottle away before he castrated himself and managed to dribble on the floor. He slammed his finger onto the window control and threw the entire thing as far as he could.

Every curse word and phrase he could think of flew across his brain as he resituated himself. Thank God his pants had been out of the line of fire. He tossed a stash of napkins onto the floor and stomped on them.
What is with my hand lately?

Three quick beeps sounded in his Bluetooth. He jerked his head up.

Seizing his phone off the passenger seat, he tapped a button. Loud ringing filled the device on his ear but the call wasn’t incoming for him.

“April, I’m sorry I’m late checking in,”
Senator Harris oozed with his politician’s charm.
“Did you make it there safely? Any incidents?”

“I’m here,”
April replied with a ton of ice dripping off her voice.

Woof.
The man was definitely in the doghouse. Griffin lifted his spotting scope and peered at the dark facade of a cottage beside the lake.

“You going to tell me what’s going on?”
April continued.
“Colin’s been
murdered.
”
She whispered the last word, as if saying it louder would bring on the same fate.

Too late for the superstition. “You’ve already been marked,” Griffin murmured, scanning the rest of the property.

“What did you get into?”
she asked.

“Yeah, Bob,” Griffin mumbled. “Why don’t you confide in your wife all about your hankering for swinging sausage instead of her delectable snatch? I’m sure she’ll be understanding and supportive when you tell her how your sessions have been captured on film and you’ve been draining the trust fund to keep it secret.”

“It’s complicated,”
the Senator rumbled, sounding unconvincing even to Griffin’s ears.

“What, some reporter finally learn of your predilection for young men? They threatening to expose your bisexuality?”

Griffin jolted. The wife knew? His interest in the woman raised a notch. The Senator was an idiot not to fuck this smoking hot woman every minute. Christ. April was his second wife, a woman who had the benefit of helping to raise a son without the stretch marks. At only thirty-eight years old, she was fifteen years younger than the man and reaching her sexual prime.

“No,”
Senator Harris replied.
“A situation has come up I’m working hard to resolve.”

“Typical response,”
she spat.
“It’s what you
always
say. Don’t look for me to return to Indianapolis. I’m staying here at my parents’ summer house then going home.”

The Senator sighed.
“I know none of this makes sense, but please don’t go anywhere without your protection detail.”

Griffin sat up and searched the perimeter again. What detail?

“They’re not staying here, Bob. I mean it. I need time away from everyone.”

Griffin let out a sigh and slumped back into the seat.

“I really wish you’d reconsider. Having them stationed down the road is not that effective.”
Deep swallow. “
You and Colin were close, and I get you need time to grieve, but please believe me when I say they’re a necessary precaution.”

Long pause.
“Did someone threaten to kill me?”
she asked in a smaller voice, the ice fully gone, now replaced with fear.
“Am I next?”

“I hope not, sweetheart.”

“NO! Stop!” Michelle screamed and twisted against the hold the two bastards had on her arms.

They yanked her back, causing her to lose her balance. She flailed to right herself and heard a sickening
pop
. Intense pain radiated from her shoulder and she gagged on the overwhelming nausea. Screaming didn’t seem to help, but she couldn’t stop.

Thwack
. Her head snapped to the left, stunning her movements. Blood trickled from her lip, teasing the nerves on her throbbing cheek and chin. The two men capitalized on her frozen status and muscled her onto the bed.

She tried to fight them but the pain from her dislocated shoulder wouldn’t allow more than a few feeble jerks. Captor One clasped an iron grip on her forearm and twisted her arm up, jerking her joint back into place as he wrestled it to the edge of the headboard. Black spots dotted her vision and she screamed against another wave of agony.

Cold metal encircled her wrist and the sickening sound of a handcuff clicking shut reached her ear. Before she could comprehend what was happening, her other arm was locked into place. She pulled on the cuffs but they were too tight.

The men jumped from their positions and captured her legs, snapping a set of cuffs already bolted to the bars on the iron footboard to her ankles.

“Michelle!”

She squeezed her eyes shut against the terror of what the spread position meant.

A heavy weight pressed her body into the thin mattress, causing the breath to expel from her lungs.
NO!
She lifted her hips as best she could, hoping to force Raul to roll off.

“Michelle. It’s—”

She yanked against the cuffs, bucking frantically but still couldn’t make the bastard fall off.

“Listen to me, Michelle. You’re safe.”

Safe? She was only safe with—

“It’s Jeremy Malone. Stop fighting me. You’re having a nightmare.”

Jeremy?

“That’s right,” he crooned softly. “Your Cappy.”

She recognized his heady scent and filled her lungs with her hero, but the nostalgia did nothing to quell the hysteria rising with each breath. “Off. I can’t take . . . please move. I can’t . . . bottom—”

Oh God. Oh God.
Her brain spiraled as a fresh onslaught of panic closed in.

Cappy’s weight instantly shifted, no longer pressing on top of her.

Air filled her lungs and she blinked against the black spots. She didn’t immediately recognize the dark room but knew enough to realize it wasn’t the wooden hellhole she had sworn she was just in. Pivoting her head to the side, she jolted. Her face was mere centimeters from his.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his body now tucked alongside hers. “I didn’t think beyond stopping you from hurting yourself. Forgive me.” His breath tickled her cheek.

She nodded, unable to do more, and rubbed the heart pounding against her ribs.
Jesus Mary Joseph
. She had done it again. Worse, she had flipped out on him afterward like a loony person. Tears slid from her eyes and she had to look away.

“Talk to me.”

She clamped her eyes shut, shaking her head. Mortification couldn’t begin to cover the jumbled emotions swirling inside.

“Hey,” he crooned, his gruff voice a bittersweet balm against her raw nerves. “Don’t cry. You’re safe here.” He stirred as if to sit up.

No. Not yet.
Her hand shot out and curled against his naked bicep. He capitulated and rested his head against his crooked elbow. She wished she could see his face. She sensed he stared down at her but without any light, she felt at a disadvantage.

He drew a finger over her cheek and she winced at the wetness coating the tip. Her feelings were too raw, too . . . much for her to sort out and confess this second. She had to shift the focus off of her until she could get her bearings.

“Jeremy, please tell me what happened after you jumped off the helicopter. Why are you a ghost?”

His whole body stiffened.

***

That simple question doused world war three–clashing between Cappy’s mind, heart, and groin.

“It’s three a.m.” He sat up, breaking her hold, and swung his legs over the bed. “You should try to get some more sleep.”

Michelle’s soft, feminine hand darted out and gripped his forearm, stopping his momentum again from lifting off the mattress.

“Don’t go yet, please.” Her low voice, raw with need, caused his skin to tighten and his dick to press against his pants. Her soft, ardent plea drilled into his senses and amplified the electric storm raging underneath her hand. He had to get out of here. The craving to kiss her again almost drove him insane with its urgency. In all his life, only this courageous, sexy woman made him lose control of himself like an adolescent boy. And despite the terror he had caused by holding her down to keep her from flopping off the bed, his resolve to keep his hands off was almost non-existent.

She tightened her grip. “I can still feel the memory in the shadows. Talk to me. If you won’t tell me why you’re a dead man walking then at least tell me how you got the bastards.”

Cappy froze, his mind a torrent of images and footage from that night. The staccato
ratta-tat-tat
of machine guns and explosions rocking the landscape filled in the soundtrack.

“Is there something I should know?”

The fear creeping into each word of her question brought him out of that hell.

She sat up, pulling on his arm until he faced her—not that she could really see anything in the darkness.

“Did the bastard responsible for this”—she waved a hand weakly at herself—“escape?”

“No.” Cappy shook his head. “Ramon Osvaldo was executed.”

“What about Raul?”

Cappy’s stomach clenched. “I don’t know.”

Her face blanched and a trembling hand flew to her mouth.

Son of a bitch.
She shouldn’t have to live with such constant terror. She was an innocent victim caught up in the typical maelstrom that made up his world.
Goddamn,
he hated knowing his presence was most likely the reason she was reliving her torture in Colombia.

“Cappy?” she whispered brokenly. “What is it? What happened?”

“I can’t say much about the mission, but members within Special Forces were selected to make up the elite unit I led. We weren’t the only team, nor the only military branch. Multiple specialized units made up of military and government agencies completed the larger contingent that night. I wasn’t briefed on all the members of the cartel.” He breathed in against the bad taste of failure swirling in his mouth. Before this afternoon, he had never even heard the name Raul, let alone known if the bastard had been killed or not. He’d have Ted secretly look into it ASAP.

“Do you still talk to them? Your old unit, I mean.”

The soundtrack blared back to life in his head and the video took hold.

“Down,” Malone snapped into the throat-mic carrying his command to the rest of the unit. He flipped his NVGs up at the sight of a blazing ball of fire raging from a lookout post, lighting up the Amazonian hell. A section of the wooden steps crashed to the ground, causing sparks to fly. Cartel members ran across the open ground, their machine guns randomly firing at nothing. Utter chaos gripped the compound and Jeremy could actually smell the terror emanating from the lowlifes.

Jacks had assured him he and his team had taken out the communications tower, effectively doing their part of the mission. That meant they had time to complete the rest of the Joint Commander’s orders of rendering the compound unusable and find all the contraband.

Michelle’s mangled body rose in his mind again. He knew just where to start.

Malone searched for the best way to access the wooden building located on the other side of the bedlam. No way could they take the quickest route. They’d have to stick to the forest. He stood in a crouched position and motioned for the rest to follow him. They hustled through the dense foliage, keeping as low to the ground as possible. They passed a score of dead bodies strewn along their makeshift path as well as encountered one of the SEAL teams headed for God knows where until they finally reached the abandoned wooden structure.

“Ashes,” he instructed into the mic, pointing to the offensive sight and breaking out of the cover of the trees. His team ran ahead of him, Jacks clapping his shoulder as he passed.

A barrage of vulgar Spanish streamed from a screaming voice as a dilapidated truck with wooden slats shoved into its rusting sides burst through the foliage on the other side and screeched to a halt. The contents in the bed rattled and clanked. In that split second Malone’s mind calculated the guy’s plan and he flicked on his throat mic. “BOMB!”

Too late. The world exploded, throwing him back into the forest.

“Jeremy.”

His shoulder rocked, the motion cutting through the turmoil and commotion the memories always brought.

“Cappy, that’s awful.”

Awful?
He blinked and tried to reorient his mind from that past hell to the current one in the small room.

Michelle slid off the bed, kneeled before him, and gripped his clenched fists. He couldn’t really see her face but caught a faint glimpse of unshed tears. “Were you the only survivor?”

Son of a bitch
. Had he actually recounted that scene out loud?

“Was Jacks the name of the other guy in the room when you rescued me?”

Fuckety. Fuck. Fuck
. He
had
spilled his guts. His grinding teeth echoed in his eardrum. He forced his jaw to relax and cleared his throat. “No, ah, that was Jersey.”

“Did he or any of the others make it out like you did?”

That bad taste of failure flared to life again. “No.”