The scumbag drug runners, human traffickers, and terrorists were easy. It was the spiderweb of greed and unscrupulous dealings of big corporations that often times jammed you up and left you shoveling a long deep trench to find connections and clues.
Or in this case, figure out who wanted to silence the reporter who’d stumbled onto something she shouldn’t’ve.
“So you left your computer. What’s on the drive?” I asked.
With a flick of her finger, the drive skidded over the wooden surface. I quickly caught it and wasted no time moving to the secure laptop that connected to the big screen mounted on the wall.
“When I started researching, I didn’t know where to look first so I concentrated on the area surrounding the village where Kalee and Anaya were working and then moved to the orphanage. Then I found information about Abrams Technology. They’d approached the East Timor government about leasing a large area of land. The village, the orphanage, a good portion of the jungle, and a neighboring settlement were part of the plot of the proposed lease. This application was met with mixed reactions. The president denied the petition almost immediately. The prime minister wanted to work with Abrams and approved the lease. The two men were in a standoff of sorts. All the documents and pictures are on the drive.”
I scanned the screen seeing Evette had organized the documents into folders. I ignored those for the time being in favor of the dozen or so photos.
Fuck.
I clicked on one of the photos and sent it to the big screen hoping my instincts were off-base but knowing they weren’t. Further, I hoped someone would be able to contain Kyle because he was going to go postal.
“The fuck?” Kyle growled.
I heard a chair scrape and turned to see it was not Kyle on his feet but Evette.
“Where did you get that?” Zane clipped.
Evette paled. She waved her hands in front of her as if she were warning off an attack.
“Are these what they threatened you with?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Her eyes darted to Kyle. “That was the first picture I was sent.”
Anaya, Kalee, and Piper stood in a huddle in the village smiling. Anaya and Kalee were wearing khaki pants and navy blue polo shirts with the Peace Corps logo embroidered on the left breast. Piper was dressed casually in shorts and a t-shirt. All three of them looked happy.
I clicked on another image. It was probably an asshole thing to do, displaying a photo of her friend’s prone body in a mass grave on top of murdered young girls, but I’d done it anyway.
“When did you get this one?” I inquired.
“The day before yesterday.”
“We need Garrett,” Lincoln announced.
Ivy stood but I didn’t take my eyes off a grief-stricken Evette.
“You need to start talking, Evette,” I demanded.
“Kyle—”
“Don’t worry about Kyle. Spit it out, woman. What’s going on?”
Evette’s gaze sliced to Kyle’s and mine followed. And just as I figured, his eyes were riveted on Kalee and how close Anaya had come to being a body in that pit.
Chapter 4
I wanted to do what Gabe had demanded and spit it out. I wanted to explain everything with the hopes that when I was done it would all be erased from my memory. I didn’t want to know what I knew. But that was impossible and now that I was close to having all the facts I was a step closer to getting justice.
I dropped my head forward in defeat. I’d screwed everything up. Without my permission, my eyes closed and memory took over.
I was sitting on the couch with Kalee in the apartment she shared with Phantom. It was a few weeks after Phantom had been sent to Admiral’s Mast for disobeying an order. An order that meant Kalee was home. I barely knew the man but as far as I was concerned Forest Dalton was my hero. He’d been willing to give up his naval career for Kalee. He’d saved her life. And after he’d done that he set about helping her heal. He loved and protected Kalee the same way Ace did Piper but somehow it was different. Phantom was the most closed-off, aloof, surly man I’d ever met but when he looked at Kalee all of that melted away.
“Can you believe how big John is?” I asked.
Kalee flinched at the mention of Piper’s newborn. If it were possible I would’ve kicked myself in the ass for dimming Kalee’s smile. The problem was she was still a walking minefield. With that thought, my stomach knotted and anger rushed to the surface.
Fucking savage assholes.
“I’m getting better,” Kalee murmured.
“Of course you are,” I rapped out, irritated she felt the need to remind me.
My beautiful friend was doing amazingly well.
“The first time I held John, he started to cry and I had a flashback so bad, Ace had to video call Phantom to calm me down. I hate that Piper saw. I hate that will always be the memory she has of me holding her son. That’s the worst part about all of this, the pain I cause—”
“Stop, Kalee. You do not cause anyone pain. We are all grateful you’re home. You do realize that you sitting here is the kind of miracle every person who has lost a loved one prays about. We all thought you were dead. We mourned you. The loss was unbearable. But here you sit. We have you back.”
“You have the new Kalee,” she uttered.
“And that’s a bad thing? New, old, before Timor-Leste, after Timor-Leste. None of us gives a flying rat’s ass. All we care about is having you back.”
“It’s good to be back. No, it’s great to be home.”
“Evette?”
Gabe’s soft, deep rumbly voice called from beside me, pulling me from my thoughts but not from my misery. Guilt and heartache swirled together, making my chest hurt.
I had to make a decision—was revenge worth putting my friends in further danger? The answer was no but I worried I’d already done that. Kyle would be furious. So would Ace. Phantom would be off-the-charts gonzo.
Shit.
I messed up huge.
Why couldn’t I have just left it alone? Kalee was doing great. Piper was married with four kids. Anaya had found the love of her life and together they’d created the cutest little girl. All three of them had moved on.
Why couldn’t I?
“Slow,” he muttered and placed his hand on my shoulder.
And when his fingers curled in and he gave me a gentle squeeze I felt the same inexplicable reaction. It was like his touch was a conduit of electricity but not the kind that zinged you. No, it was a flow of energy that warmed and calmed.
Okay. What the hell?
“I messed up,” I whispered.
“We can fix whatever it is you think you messed up. But I need you to tell us everything.”
Everything would take a long time.
So I started with the facts.
“I found it curious that the rebel attack just happened to be at the very location that Abrams wanted to lease. I knew Prime Minister Akito Ximenes wanted the deal to go through so I started looking into him. I found a large bank transfer. I followed that to a bank in Tel Aviv. A hundred thousand went into Akito’s account and a few days later ten thousand went out. Needless to say, ten grand is a lot of money in Timor-Leste—a hundred thousand would allow Akito to live like a king.”
“Abrams is an Israeli corporation,” Zane grunted.