Allison Brennan - Sudden Death

“Everything has changed.”

Patrick raised his eyebrow. “I missed so much. Dillon said you’d gone to D.C. a few times to visit him and Lucy.”

“I have.” Jack’s trips to D.C. had given him back the family he’d let his father deny him.

You didn’t have to follow the Colonel’s orders to steer clear.

It was obvious that Patrick wanted to say something. “Spit it out, Patrick. What’s going on?”

In a rush, he said, “Did I screw up? Did I fuck up the investigation in Baja? Tell me the truth, Jack. You’re probably the only one who will.”

“In Baja? Hell no. That bastard set a trap and you were caught in it. I should have gone. Maybe I could have seen it coming. I’m used to booby traps. I could have-” He shook his head, clearing the webs of guilt that continued to spin. “But I’d been certain it was nothing, that you’d been sent on a wild-goose chase. At first I was glad you’d left, thought it would keep you out of harm’s way. I didn’t like being responsible for everyone. Dillon was enough. But I was wrong.” And that didn’t sit well with Jack. Not in situations like that.

Jack stood. “I need to go. I just wanted-” He paused.

“I know.”

Jack squeezed Patrick’s shoulder. “Glad to have you well. Take care of yourself, kid.”

The door opened as Jack spoke. Rosa and Pat Kincaid walked in, Rosa saying, “Patrick, we have great-”

Then his mother saw Jack. Without hesitation, she rushed him into a tight hug. Jack accepted his mother’s warm embrace, but his eyes never left his father’s cold face.

“Hello, Mama.” He kissed the top of her head.

“I didn’t know you were coming. You’ll come to the house for dinner tonight. Everyone will be there.”

“I have to go.”

“No. You will have dinner-”

“Let him go,” Pat said, standing ramrod straight.

“I will not. Everyone is home for the first time since-” She didn’t say it, but Jack knew the last time all seven Kincaid children had been in the same room was for his nephew’s funeral thirteen years ago.

Jack had no intention of spending any more time in the same room as his father. But two years ago, he’d asked his mother to forgive him. This woman had given him life, raised him, never once turned her back on him. When he returned home, she welcomed him as if he were the prodigal son. Jack had been the one to let his father get between him and the mother who bore him. She had no part in what had happened two decades ago.

“What time?” Jack asked.

She beamed, hugged him again. “Six.” She turned to Patrick with a bright smile. “That’s the good news I have. The doctor said you can come home for the evening. By Friday, you will be released for good.”

“You mean they’re letting me leave?” he grinned. “For real food?”

“I’m making all your favorites. I have Nick helping because his wife is no good in the kitchen.” She shook her head. “How could I raise a daughter who can’t cook?”

Letting his mother babble to Patrick, Jack stared over her head at his father.

Pat stared back for five seconds, then turned and left the room.

Jack followed.

Pat stood in the middle of the brightly lit hall. He waited for Jack to approach.

“I’m not turning my back on my family again.”

“You made that choice twenty years ago, Jack.”

Jack suppressed his rising anger. “You made the choice. You gave me an ultimatum I couldn’t agree to. If I had had the balls back then I would have ignored you and never cut off contact with Mom.”

“You owe me an apology. I saved your career.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“Dammit, Jack, you’re stubborn and shortsighted. You would have been court-martialed!”

“I was willing to take that chance.” He would have risked not only his career but his life twenty years ago in Panama to save the family who had taken a stand against Noriega. He found them hiding, with hardly any food or water, and he’d extracted them, brought them to an American base. Against orders, but should he have let them be slaughtered? The area hadn’t been secure, they were the only civilians in the small outlying village, trapped because one of the children was handicapped and couldn’t make the journey to safety fast enough.

Pat fisted his hands. “I couldn’t watch you lose everything. Jeopardize the entire mission, embarrass the army, embarrass me-” He stopped.

“This was about embarrassing you? People were killed because you pulled me out. The mission was never in jeopardy. I was risking only my life and my career.”

“You can’t save the world, Jack.”

“But I could have saved them!” He slammed his fist against the wall. Pictured the Ortega family when he found them a week later, executed. Father, mother, children, grandmother. A family of nine murdered in cold blood because their father had taken a stand against the criminal Noriega and his thuggish cronies.

“You don’t know that. They were safe where they were. How do you know that your impulsive decision to move them didn’t lead to their enemies finding them when I sent them back home?”

Turning his back on his father, Jack stepped into the staircase. He ran up the thirteen floors and stood at the top, unable to exit to the roof. He pounded his fists on the locked door, then put his hands on his knees and breathed deeply.

He didn’t know if he was to blame for the Ortega family being slaughtered. Jack had lived with that guilt for twenty years.

By the end of Tuesday, Megan had exhausted all avenues she could think of to regain control of the evidence and Price’s body. She finally decided to break ranks and call an old friend. If J. T. Caruso, one of the principals in the local office of Rogan-Caruso Protective Services, couldn’t find the answers she needed, no one could.

She was one of the select few who had J.T.’s private cell phone number-courtesy of her brother who had been in the navy SEALs with J.T.-though she rarely used it.

“Caruso,” the deep voice said.

“It’s Megan Elliott.”

“Meg,” J.T. said warmly. “How are you doing?”

“Personally, fine. Professionally … well, I have a situation I need your advice on.”

“Does it have to do with the dead veteran you pulled yesterday?”

It always unnerved Megan how J.T. seemed to know everything. “I swear you’re a psychic.”

He laughed honestly, seeming to surprise both himself and Megan. “Sometimes I wish I were. Truth, Mitch mentioned it to me this morning. Do you need to borrow him? I know your squad is spread thin.”

She hadn’t even talked to her ex-husband, Mitch Bianchi, but he still had a lot of friends on the squad. Half the time Megan wished she had never encouraged him to take the job offer from Rogan-Caruso last year. The best agent in fugitive apprehension, Mitch’s exceptional instincts and abilities were sorely missed. However, Megan had to admit that Mitch was better suited to private investigation than following the rigid rules of federal law enforcement.

“Thanks, J.T, but I really need you on this one.”

“What can I do?”

“You were in the military police, weren’t you?”

“Navy.”

“My victim was AWOL from the army. Their CID took my evidence and my body. I want them back.”

“That won’t be possible. The army-hell, the entire military-doesn’t like to share. If CID has flexed its ju-risdictional muscles, you’re out of luck. Though I’m surprised they acted so quickly.”

“That’s what I thought as well, but the vic attempted to kill his commanding officer. At least that’s what they told us.”