Cindy Gerard: Killing Time

So much for plan A.

“It wasn’t me who decided you were guilty,” she said, back in attack mode. “It was a military court. Oh, wait.” She smiled humorlessly. “There was no actual guilty verdict, was there, or you’d be rotting in prison right now. Instead, you cut a deal. Bought yourself a less than honorable discharge in exchange for your freedom and the promise that the incident got buried.”

“Not deep enough, apparently.” His gaze narrowed on hers. “How do you know about Operation Slam Dunk anyway?” Even the press hadn’t gotten wind of what had happened that night. He had his own theory about the tap dancing that had gone on behind the scenes to accomplish that silence.

“Like I said. I know everything about you.”

And then she proved it, nut-shelling the case that the Navy had laid out against him with cold-blooded accuracy.

He tried not to listen as she hammered him with bullet points.

Dereliction of duty…

Disobeying direct orders…

Reckless endangerment…

The list went on and on, and all led to the conclusion that he had been responsible for the death of his men and those villagers.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, but couldn’t stall a cold sweat that compounded his queasiness as vivid memories of that night gnawed at him like rats.

The helo spinning out of control… the ground rocketing up to meet them as he fought to right the bird.

The crash…

The explosion…

The fire…

The stench of blood and burned flesh.

The deal that had cost him everything.

Not a day or night went by that he didn’t see those images. Didn’t hear the screams. Didn’t do his best to forget.

And this woman had brought it all back.

Who was she?

And how the fuck had she gotten that information?

He couldn’t get past that question. The after-action reports, the court-martial transcripts… everything about OSD was supposed to have been deleted from the DOD database. No one was supposed to have access to any of it.

Taggart and Cooper, the two other surviving members of the One-Eyed Jacks, had been brought up on charges with him. He knew they wouldn’t talk. He hadn’t had contact with either one of them in eight years and yeah, they hated his guts now, but there was no way in hell they were going to talk—they had the same stakes riding on silence as he did.

“Truth hurts, doesn’t it, Brown?” she asked into the thickening stillness.

“What do you want from me?” he ground out. And then it hit him.

“You lost someone over there.” The sudden insight blared through his headache and the nausea. That’s what this was about. Someone she cared about had died in Operation Slam Dunk. Somehow she’d gotten hold of the file and she held him responsible.

Join the club. Everyone held him responsible.

“No, I didn’t.”

He honed in on her eyes, knowing what he’d see in them even before he called her on it. “You’re lying.”

“And you’re avoiding. Seven men in your unit died that night. Dozens of civilians… many of them children. All because you decided to play Captain America.”

He clenched his jaw until he thought his molars would crack, hating her for throwing the lies in his face. Hating himself for taking it.

“You led those men to their deaths.” She got right in his face again. “You got those people caught in the crossfire. Because you were hotdogging. Because you were playing games with people’s lives.”

“The hell I was!” he roared so unexpectedly she flinched and stumbled backward. “The hell I did!” He strained violently and futilely against the cuffs, desperate to get at her.

He collapsed back on the bed, defeated. Wrung out.

Silence rang in the wake of his shouted denial. He despised himself for the sudden weakness that washed over him, obliterating his bid for apathy. But, Christ, now that he’d said it out loud, he didn’t seem to be able to stop saying it.

“The hell I did.” It came out on a whisper this time, his voice broken, his defenses destroyed.

Humiliated that he’d let her crack him, beyond his limit with her bitch goddess accusations, he turned away, his eyes stinging, his vision blurred—but not before he saw pity momentarily soften her features.

Fuck her. He didn’t need her pity.

But goddamn, he could use a drink.

Eva steeled herself, watching Brown’s façade crumble. It was a painful thing to witness. Stripped down, naked emotion—that’s what she’d just seen in his eyes. Anguish. Pain. It was all there. Because he was guilty? Because he wasn’t guilty? Because he’d sold out rather than fight to prove his innocence?

She pulled it back together and fought the unwanted compassion she had promised herself she would not feel toward this man. No matter how beaten he looked. Guilty or innocent, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was finding out who had dropped the OSD file into her life, why they’d done it, and who was after her because of it.

She was a smart girl. She figured she’d been chosen to open this can of worms because she had the means and skills to delve into the underbelly of the defense department’s dirtiest secrets—and she had the motivation. Ramon.

“If you were innocent of the charges, why make the deal? Why not defend yourself in court?”

For a long moment, he wouldn’t look at her. Finally, he swiped his cheek against his shoulder… and she steeled her defenses again. She was actually relieved when he turned his head and Primetime was back—all attitude, arrogance, and defiance.

“You’re the one with all the answers, chica. You’re telling me you haven’t figured it out?”

“Enlighten me,” she said, her voice firm.

He made a weary sound, then actually answered her question. “You can’t fight city hall. Or the combined might of the U.S. military.”

She moved back toward the bed. “But if you’re innocent, as you claim you are—”

“Oh, please. Prisons are full of innocent men. Just ask ’em. They’ll all tell you the same thing. They didn’t do it. No one buys that, either.”

She breathed deep, fighting the urge to believe him. “So… what? Someone set you up as a scapegoat?”

“Scapegoat, slow-moving target. Take your pick.”

“Then who was responsible for what went wrong that night?”

He pushed out a humorless laugh. “If I knew the answer to that question, do you honestly think we’d be having this conversation?”

“You’ve got to have some ideas.”

He slowly shook his head. “None. And you know what? I don’t give a shit anymore. But I do care about how you got your hands on that file.”

He held her gaze for a long, challenging moment, making her uncomfortable for reasons she couldn’t explain. Maybe because underneath all that bluster, an unexpected hint of vulnerability bled through.

Or maybe because she really did want Brown to be a good guy after all. Ramon had been a good guy—one of the best.

“It’s Jane,” she said when Stingray answered his phone. Jane Smith was one of the many aliases that protected not only her identity, but her bank accounts—many of which the man on the other end of the line had filled quite nicely. He wasn’t her only source of income but he was one of her most lucrative. He was, however, the only one who shared her bed.

“I’d started to think you’d forgotten who signs your paychecks.”