Collision Course (4 page)

Well,
talk about fiction becoming reality. He’d created an email to explain
Haggerty’s absence once Bennett took care of him. Now the man had disappeared
for real. Fuck and double fuck. Bennett made himself take deep breaths. He
needed a new plan.
Think!
What to do next? He was uncomfortable telling
El-Salaki Trey Haggerty had gone missing and he had no idea where to find him.

“All
right,” he said at last. “Give me a few minutes to figure things out and I’ll
call you back.”

Yes,
Charles. Use your brain.

Wherever
the man was he’d need money. And transportation. So his greatest opportunity
would come when the banks opened in the morning. They couldn’t cover every
branch. Too many men would have to be activated and he’d be calling attention
to something he wanted to bury.

Every
Bennett executive drove a company car and each one, unknown to them, had a
tracking device similar to a Lo-Jack. Paranoid, maybe, but better than getting
caught with his pants down.

He
checked the time on his watch. After six. Picking up the phone he dialed a
number and listened to it ring in a small house on the other side of the city.
In a soundproofed room filled with massive electronics, sat a man he paid an
ungodly sum of money to handle the accounts that tracked his under-the-counter
activities and monitored various other things for him.

When a
voice answered, he opened a file in his desk drawer and read the VIN (Vehicle
Identification Number) of the car Trey Bennett drove.

“Activate
the tracker,” he ordered. “I’ll wait.”

He
chewed on the unlit cigar until the man on the other end read off information
to him. Then he asked the man to get into Trey Haggerty’s personnel files.
Everyone was paid by direct deposit so the name of his bank would be there.

“Now
check for all branches of his bank in the area you’ve identified.” Bennett
checked his watch again. After eight thirty. Time seemed to be disappearing on
him.

When he
had the information he needed, he disconnected and called Price again.

“All
right. Take this down,” he ordered. “He’ll be on the move, so get your asses
over there and try to find him. I think the better move would be to wait for
him when he goes in to withdraw money. He’ll need cash so he’ll stop there
first. Get him and don’t let him slip through your fingers again.”

Chapter Two

Crack!
Crack! Crack!

Casey
McIntyre fired the last three bullets in her Glock 17G thirteen-round clip,
hitting dead in the middle. No center mass for her. All her shots went straight
to the head of the silhouette with one hundred percent accuracy. She nodded her
head in satisfaction.

Since
she’d left the service and come home, she started most of her days the same
way. She tried to tell herself it was to keep her skills sharp but in reality,
anger drove her. She still had so much of it stored up inside her, along with a
world of hurt.

She
trudged to the backstop, nailed up another target and took a black Magic Marker
from her jeans pocket. In big letters she wrote a P and an M on the head,
making them as bold as possible. At the shooting table again, she reloaded her
Glock and checked to verify her H&K P30 had a full clip. The two guns were
her personal weapons, much like the ones she’d been issued when she’d been
attached to the Special Ops unit in Afghanistan.

She
adjusted her ball cap, yanking at the ponytail poking out through the opening
in back. Putting on her ear protectors and safety glasses, she picked up the
Glock and sighted.

Bam!

Again
the first shot drilled a hole in the center of the head.

Die,
Paul Marsden. You asshole. Rat bastard. User.

The next
three shots, in rapid succession, stitched a straight line down the torso. With
defiant satisfaction, she emptied the rest of the clip into the genital area,
blowing a nice round hole in his package. The act gave her the first real sense
of wiping away the past and taking control of her life since she’d come home.
She had to suppress an urge to lift the gun and blow on the barrel the way
old-time gunfighters did.

Reloading
the clip, she fired again. By the time she’d finished, she’d gone through two
more and the silhouette hung in shreds and tatters. Wiping her hands on her
jeans, she tore the target down and replaced it with another. Again she marked
it with initials—A.A.S.—and drew a circle around them with a vicious stroke.
Then she picked up the Heckler & Koch, settling the familiar grip into the
palm of her hand.

This
time when she sighted, she aimed for center mass and unloaded the entire clip
without pausing between shots. Reloading with rapid speed, she fired in the
same pattern, over and over again, until she’d used all the .45mm ammo and left
a hole in the silhouette big enough to drive a small car through. By then her
arms were quivering, her body covered with sweat. Sitting on the bench at the
loading table she forced herself to slow her breathing and her racing pulse
before policing her brass and packing away her gear.

Shooting
the ghost of her former lover had been cathartic but not half as satisfying as
destroying the target marked A.S.S.—Col. Aaron Sherman Smart.

Good
initials for him. They suited the bastard he turned out to be.
A
sanctimonious son of a bitch.

She’d be
hard pressed to decide which of the two men she hated more. Probably the
uptight colonel. An example of chauvinism at its worst. Or best, depending on
the point of view.

But
while Aaron Smart had tried to destroy her sense of self-worth, Paul Marsden
had ripped her heart out. Casey hadn’t given it lightly, either. She’d never
been someone who opened herself with ease to another person. She’d seen too
many crushed when intense relationships disintegrated. Except what happened to
hers was different and had been much, much worse.

She’d
heard all the stories about battle zone love affairs. About how the atmosphere
of war creates a need for emotional escape. How you needed some kind of
sanctuary from the daily grind of battle and blood.

What a
fool she’d been to believe herself exempt from such hunger. Paul had zeroed in
on her like a homing pigeon, working his magic on her a little at a time. He’d
played on her vulnerability, a neediness she seldom gave into. She’d always
found it better, working in a male-dominated venue, to never show
susceptibility. She’d believed Paul, though. Believed they shared more than
battlefield sex.

The end
of the affair left her in emotional shock. She doubted she’d ever forget the
day she learned her rotation had ended. Her term was up, anyway, her discharge
days away. Paul came to her tent when he heard the news and she, the foolish
idiot, thought he’d come to make plans to keep in contact until he, too,
arrived stateside. His words were like a shower of ice water.

“You
know how it is, right, babe?” The words said with a casual smile as he leaned
in the doorway of her tent.

Right,
babe?

Right.
Plunge a knife in my heart and leave before the bleeding starts.

“But you
said—”

“I said
what you needed to hear.” He’d leaned closer. “We’re a little short on females
out here, in case you hadn’t noticed. You were the best of the lot, the most
feminine, although that’s not saying much.”

She’d
stared at him, shocked, at his cavalier words. It nearly destroyed her to be smacked
in the face with the vivid reality he was a man doing what predatory men
do—telling a girl what she wants to hear to get what they want. Then yanking
the rug out from beneath her when they discover—shock!—she thought they meant
it. He’d decimated her sense of self-worth.

In
hindsight, she should have known better. But she had been drawn by his sexy
dark looks, a smile that made every part of her quiver with anticipation. His
knowledge of a woman’s body was second to none. She believed the seductive words
he whispered in her ear, the promises he made. He’d made her look forward to
the erotic nights after bloody days and given her hope for the future. In the
tense, warlike atmosphere of the Middle East sandbox, she’d been vulnerable,
and he’d known how to play off her susceptibility.

Then
he’d brushed it aside as “business as usual during a war. Babe.”

Casey
was proud of herself. Even while her heart shattered and tears threatened to
clog her throat, she’d managed a careless smile and brushed him away with a
wave of her hand. She hadn’t cried a drop until her plane landed in the good
old U.S. of A. Then she’d booked a hotel room and spent the night crying until
there was nothing left, leeching him out of her system before she had to face
people again.

And she
did one more thing. His criticism of her femininity hurt much more than she’d
let on, so she indulged herself with a trip to a boutique specializing in sexy
lingerie. She still hadn’t recovered but she hid the pain much better now. No
one would suspect beneath her jeans and t-shirts or tailored blouses, she wore
lingerie to make a man hard just thinking about it. She’d also learned not to
trust any man again. Ever.

Aaron
Smart was another matter altogether. Old-line military, he hated the new setup
attaching women to Special Ops, a traditional male stronghold. Maybe he hated
women in general. Whatever, he’d made her life a living hell during her last
year in the Army. As if Afghanistan hadn’t been tough enough already.

Back
home in Connelly—her life in pieces, her foundation knocked out from under
her—she made a strong effort to keep her parents from seeing how destroyed she
was or how much she felt like a displaced person. Her one outlet for her anger
and pain turned out to be the time she spent each morning on the gun range.
What did it say about her that her two best friends were her firearms?

“I’d
hate to be either of those guys you’re shooting at,” a voice from behind her
joked.

Casey
jerked at the sound, almost dropping her gun. Her nerves were less than stable
and anything could bring out the fear she tried to keep so well hidden. But
when she lifted her gaze from the table, she saw the grinning face of Ira
Guillory, the owner of the shooting range, and relaxed. Her father’s friend,
he’d known her since Doug McIntyre had first brought her out here and taught
her about guns.

“Trust
me, Ira, you’d have to try extra hard to be like either of those assholes.”

“Tsk,
tsk. Such language from such a pretty woman.” He chuckled.

She
grinned at him. “Bad habit I picked up hanging out with men.”

“So.” He
sat on the empty bench at the next table. “Now that you’re out of the Army and
back home, what’s next for you? I hear you spent the last year working with
Special Ops. Nothing around here that exciting.”

Yes.
What
is
next for me? Any jobs for women who are ex-Army with Special Ops
experience, toting around a badly crushed heart? Oh, and don’t forget a college
degree with majors in political science and criminal justice and six
disillusioning years with the FBI.

Tired of
the suffocating federal bureaucracy, she’d quit and enlisted in the Army,
disappointed to discover the same bureaucratic layers she’d run away from. Now
she had skills she didn’t know what to do with and a serious issue with trust.

So where
did she go from here? A question she asked herself daily. She felt like a
balloon waving in the breeze, tilting one way then the other, unable to find a
safe place to land. Some days she was disgusted with her inability to move
forward, with the unsettled emotions constantly plaguing her.

“Casey?”

Ira’s
voice cut through her reverie.

“What?”
She blinked. “Sorry. Must have taken a short vacation here.”

“I
asked, what’s next in your life?”

“I
haven’t thought that far ahead.” She finished picking up the discarded brass
casings, trying to reassemble her fragmented mind. “Thought I’d take a little
time and figure out what I wanted.”

Ira
cocked his head. “Don’t know if you’re interested, but the sheriff could use
some more volunteer deputies. And you’ve got a good law enforcement
background.”

Casey
refrained from pointing out to him the world of difference between operating on
a national level and handling crime in the local area. Nothing much happened in
Alvarado County, population twenty-five thousand, anyway. But with the budget
for the sheriff’s office stretched thin, volunteers made up half the deputy
roster.

“Yeah?”
She shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. Maybe this opportunity was the kind
of thing she needed to get herself out of her rut. At least she had the skill
set for it. “Thanks for the tip. I might check into it.”

Ira
grinned, a teasing light in his eyes. “We got a new sheriff since you’ve been
gone. Don’t know if you’ve met him yet. Ben Russell?” He winked. “Good looking
guy.”

Casey
sighed. “We’ve met. He eats at the Half ’n Half a lot. Meanwhile, I need to get
home and change. It’s about to get busy at the restaurant.” She gave Ira a
smile. “Nice talking with you.”

“Same
goes. You come on out here anytime. No charge.” He rose to his feet. “Remember
what I said about the sheriff.”

Casey
smiled as politely as she could. Why did everyone seem so interested in pairing
her up as fast as they could? Her parents were forever waving someone in front
of her, including the sheriff. As if being single was some kind of crime. Or
finding someone would solve all her problems. It would be a long time before
she trusted another man. If ever. Meantime, her own company suited her fine.

Blotting
her face and neck with a towel, Casey zipped and locked her gun bag, pulled her
ponytail tighter through the opening in her ball cap and climbed into her
truck. Sighing, she backed out of the parking space and turned onto the
highway.