Page 26 of Gabe (Blue Team #2)

I was everything Zane and Cooper had said I was.

A materialist coward. Whose only value was meaningless.

Money, cars, toys men bought when they had nothing worthwhile in their lives.

When they were hollow. Bottomless pits of nothing because they were too afraid to commit to the idea there was more to life.

“You’d never allow that to happen,” Cooper whispered.

He was correct, I wouldn’t. But my father hadn’t meant for it to happen either.

He’d had life insurance. Just not enough.

He’d had investments. But life was life and investments don’t mean shit when the market hits a low and you’re so desperate you have to cash out before the rebound.

He didn’t know he was going to die before the cars were paid off and the mortgage was paid down.

And my mother didn’t know how to function without him.

So lost in her despair with no family to help, she’d mismanaged everything.

And by the time she’d pulled herself together, it was too late.

Shit happened.

Life was cruel.

“Gabe, if it’s not Evette then it’s not her. But whoever it is that you’re meant to be with would be taken care of. You have to know, your brothers would never allow your family to go without.”

“It’s Evette,” I blurted out.

Now that the truth hung in the air, had been spoken, I couldn’t say a peace settled over me but I no longer felt fenced in.

Life could turn but that didn’t mean I had to hide like a pussy coward.

My hands came up to scrub my face and I was happy to report I could now do that since my head was out of my ass. I wasn’t going to give up Evette because of a series of what-ifs that might never come to fruition.

I dropped my hands and took in Cooper Cain.

The guy was smarter than I’d given him credit for.

“I appreciate you, brother. In case I haven’t made myself clear, I’m pleased as fuck to have you on my team.”

“’Preciate that,” he returned.

“There ever comes a time you need me to step up and return the favor, I hope you know I got your back.”

Coop’s mouth twitched and he shook his head.

“Great,” he muttered. “Not sure I want this particular favor repaid.”

“Trust me, you do,” I told him, thinking about the mistakes I made and ones I was gearing up to make.

Coop gave me what I needed to clean out the garbage that had collected over the years.

A past that I allowed to rule my present.

“Right. I brought home the SITREP.” Coop pointed to a folder on the counter, changing the subject, and at the same time, my phone rang.

I pulled it out of my pocket and frowned at the name.

“Yo,” I greeted. “I thought you’d be in the air.”

“Delayed,” Myles grumbled. “Owen called and told me about the scene—”

“It’s all good,” I cut him off.

“All good? Owen said Z brought up your past and Evette was there.”

My head dropped forward and I let out a sigh. There was no getting around Myles. He wouldn’t let a topic go until he had all the facts.

“Z pulled his normal fairy godmother shit and dangled the idea of Evette putting herself out there with Delilah. I wasn’t down with that, we exchanged words, Z voiced his opinions, then I left with Evette.”

“Yeah, Gabe, I know all of that. I also know Evette took your back. Which I have to say is impressive. Not many people would step to Zane and call him out. You told her?”

Myles’ question hung between us. He knew I didn’t talk about my past with outsiders. I didn’t advertise how I’d grown up. But Evette wasn’t an outsider.

“I told her. Some of it before the shit that went down in the office, most of it after. I can’t say she knows everything but she knows enough.”

There was a beat of loaded silence then Myles pressed. “And you’re good?”

“I wasn’t. I was pissed as fuck. Evette calmed me down then Cooper pulled my head out of my ass. So, yeah, I’m all good.”

“What’d Coop say?”

“Huh?”

“To pull your head out of your ass. What’d he say?”

My gaze lifted from the floor to Cooper. He was leaning a hip to the counter, arms crossed over his chest, smug smile on his face.

“He told me I’m acting like a cry baby bitch and offered me a tampon. ”

Coop let out a bark of laughter and at the same time, I heard Myles chuckle in my ear.

“Does Coop need stitches?”

“Not this time. Though he calls me a coward again he might need a cast to go with the stitches.”

“Sounds like he did you a favor,” Myles surmised.

A favor didn’t cover what Coop had given me.

Time to move the conversation along.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked and opened the file Coop brought home.

“We’re meeting up with Wolf and Abe when we get to California. Abe says he knows a few places a person who doesn’t want to be found might hide.”

Wolf and Abe were both retired SEALs. They also lived near Riverton.

“And Phantom? Has he been in touch?”

“Only two hundred and sixty-five times. If we’re in Cali long enough we’ll hook up with Phantom and his team.

They’re getting ready to leave on a training exercise.

Wolf’s keeping an eye on Kalee and Piper while they’re gone.

We’ll help with that, too, if we can. But our priority is finding Delilah. ”

“Do you think she’s still there? Or was she ever there to begin with?”

I picked up the report and quickly scanned the first page full of Garrett’s notes on the locations Delilah had used when she bounced her IP address.

“Garrett’s pretty confident Delilah’s in Riverton,” Myles noted. “We’ll see if Kevin and I can track her.”

I flipped to the next page and found the news article about Forrest Lawson’s body being found in a landfill.

Uninterested in the reporter's account of a body being dumped I went to the third page. The police report.

“Looks like Forrest Lawson had a rap sheet,” I told Myles. “Petty bullshit—breaking and entering, larceny, trespassing, and grand theft auto. No violent crimes or weapons arrests. No gang affiliation.”

“How the hell did a low-level criminal get hooked up with Abrams?” he asked .

“Good question. Hang on, I’m gonna put you on speaker, Coop’s standing here.”

I did that and put my phone on the counter and kept skimming Forrest Lawson’s long albeit boring arrest record. Finding nothing that stood out I moved to the coroner’s report.

“Autopsy said cause of death was a single GSW to the back of the head.”

Coop shuffled the paper and pulled the police report toward him and tapped one of the paragraphs I’d briefly perused.

“Forrest’s car was found parked at his residence. No forced entry, no blood in or around his home. Cell phone and wallet were on his person. But no keys were found.”

Dumpsite was a landfill. Thrown away like trash.

Forrest Lawson had been hired to do a job.

“Was he killed because he didn’t complete the job or because he did and was no longer useful?” I questioned.

“In my experience, if Lawson was sent to kill her, he would’ve done that straight off then searched her apartment and found the computer,” Coop said.

“I would agree with you,” Myles said and went on to note, “but this guy was a rank amateur. He let the target out of his sight. Lawson asked Evette if she had a backup. Maybe he wanted to make sure he had all the evidence before he took her out?”

“Whoever tried to run Evette over was wearing a mask,” I mumbled.

“The car was stolen and that fits Lawson’s rap sheet.

Three arrests for auto theft. And the bullshit with the oil poured on her engine either in an effort to catch the car on fire or just create a smokescreen so she couldn’t see and possibly crash, was sloppy.

No way a professional would’ve left a crash to chance. ”

“You’re thinking Lawson did all three jobs. Failed three times and was disposed of.”

Myles was tracking my line of thought.

“Three strikes,” Coop added.

“Four strikes,” I corrected. “It’d be good if you and Kevin carved out some time to stop by the café Evette ordered her lunch from.

Someone there might know something about the peanuts in her food.

Also, we need to know how Lawson was communicating with whoever hired him.

And how and where the money was being transferred.

And we still need to run with Evette’s hunch about the minerals.

Garrett’s getting bogged down and we need this intel five days ago. ”

“Garrett punted the mineral research to Tex,” Coop informed me. “And he’s working on getting Lawson’s cell records.”

Forrest Lawson was found with his phone in his pocket. That meant they wouldn’t find anything on it. Lawson might be a nitwit but I’d put money on it a professional took him out and wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave a cell behind if it contained information.

“The cell records won’t give us anything but the GPS in Lawson’s car might.”

“Lawson drove a Chevy Cruze. Not only does it have GPS it also has onboard Wi-Fi.” After Cooper imparted that tidbit he moved around the papers on the counter and showed me the email Delilah had sent Garrett. “You should read this.”

I glanced at the email. The more I read the more my stomach clenched.

Maybe I’d been wrong about Delilah Watts.

Please keep her safe .

Delilah didn’t mention Evette by name but it wasn’t a jump to infer who she meant.

“What are your thoughts on Delilah?” I asked Myles.

“Whistleblower,” he immediately answered.

“And you?” I turned to Cooper.

“I admit I was on the fence. But the more we look into Abrams the more shady shit we find. It’s not just Timor-Leste where they’re trying to lease land.

They also have a bid in Croatia and El Salvador.

All three countries have had recent insurgencies, and the areas Abrams wants to go into are overrun with criminal activity.

All three have strong rebel forces. And all three locations had villages that occupied the land they wanted. ”

“Had?” Myles queried.

“Just like in Timor-Leste not long after Abrams approached the government there were attacks on the villages.”

“Are there minerals in those locations?” Myles went on.

“No clue. But I can tell you there are no EPA regulations and the UN global environmental laws are not followed or enforced. So Abrams could set up shop, test anything they wanted to with no oversight. Or they could strip-mine the land and as long as they paid off the right people no one would stop them.”

“Coincidence,” I mumbled.

“There was never a ransom on Kalee,” Myles reminded me. “Mr. Solberg is a very rich man. He would’ve paid any price the rebels asked.”

“The only thing I hate more than a fucking coincidence is—”

“A rectal exam?” Myles interrupted me. “I heard without enough lube the latex chafes.”

It wasn’t Cooper’s chuckle or Myles’ obnoxious laughing that caught my attention. It was the very feminine giggle from behind me.

“I’m sensing a theme,” Evette said.

“Shit.” Myles’ laughter died but Cooper’s did not.

“I’m afraid to ask,” I said and turned around.

I was met with a beaming smile.

So bright my lungs started to burn.

Yeah, there was no chance I was letting Evette get away.

Waking up next to the smile every day would not be a hardship.

I’d beg and plead if I had to.

“You all seem to like buttholes.”

“Um…” Myles sputtered. “Where’d she come up with that idea?”

“Owen. He was over earlier and we had some words. He didn’t feel like backing down so I reminded him that Nat threatened to punish my butthole.”

Evette’s giggle turned into an outright belly-laugh and all I could do was stare. The sound barely registered. It was the rapture I saw on her face that had all of my attention.

Christ, she was beautiful.