Page 75 of Fatal Vision

“You grew up with one, you trained another, and you had your life saved by Edmonton when you took the six bullets that ended your SEAL career, correct?”

So she’d done more than review his missions. Colton eyed the dark patch closer. Was that a shoe print?

His gaze went to the right and sure enough, there was another. “Ah, fuck,” he murmured under his breath, scanning the area.

“But perhaps this isn’t about you,” Beatrice added.

Colton whistled softly at Salisbury and started tracing the footprints leading away from his truck. “Come again?”

“The leader of 12 September was killed, and another man on the team, Lt. Peter Moore, nearly died as well. He was severely wounded and is currently a catatonic quadriplegic.”

The dog caught up to him, wagging his tail and then taking off a few feet over to sniff at something in the street. “The STS pilot.”

“The reports say he was hit by enemy fire.”

“He was.”

“I ran TrackMap to look into possible correlations between all of the players of the taskforce and the terrorists.”

TrackMap was an Emit creation that found relationships between people and organizations. “And?”

Colton held his breath. Salisbury had found a second set of tracks. Barely there in the street, but noticeable under the flashlight beam.

A buzz set up under Colton’s skin. Someone had been here. Recently.

Messing around his truck.

“I found nothing unusual about the 24th Special Tactics Squadron pilot or your team. No direct correlation between him and you.”

Releasing his breath, Colton walked backwards to the bed of his truck, once again scanning the area, his gaze zeroing in on the empty house shell on the other side of the street. The windows were dark holes, staring back at him. “I take it from the sound of your voice that there’s anindirectcorrelation?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll send the information to you once I look it over one more time. There’s something I’m missing. I want to review all of this again and maybe have Trace do it as well. With your permission, of course.”

The thing she was missing she wouldn’t find in those reports and neither would Trace Hunter, no matter how much of a super soldier he was.

But it was interesting that she was offering Colton the option to keep his heroics quiet. He hadn’t expected her to ask for his permission.

Beatrice Reese, always keeping him on his toes.

“Whatever you think, boss.” Right now, he had bigger problems. “I’ve got to go.”

A quick inventory of his truck bed showed it was empty save for his normal pile of junk—a few tools, a tarp, some disposable coffee cups that hadn’t flown out on his way there.

Better check under the hood.

Maybe under the whole damn truck.

He did just that, starting at the back and working forward as the night thinned in anticipation of the rising sun. Then he checked all around the foundation of the house, the bushes…nada.

He’d have to set up perimeter trip wires. Connor could help him.

A flash of headlights and the sound of an engine brought his head up from under the hood a minute later. He’d found nothing with his visual scan, using his flashlight, but he still felt on edge.

Someone was coming. He shone the flashlight around the ground near the engine again. If there’d been any tracks, they were gone now. Maybe he’d interrupted the visitor before the guy had a chance to do anything.

Whistling at Salisbury, he drew the dog back to the side of the house and clicked off his flashlight. The approaching vehicle slowed before turning into the driveway.

Which—fuck—effectively spotlighted his hiding spot.