Finding Dani (Once a Marine, Always a Marine Book 3) (16 page)

“What do you know, Gun?”

“You weren’t answering your SAT phone,” he nodded toward the tent, “Clearly, you were busy. So, your buddy Zach called me and told me a strange little story about a woman and her obsession.”

“Claire?”

Gunner nodded. “Yep.”

Damon was almost afraid to ask, but Martin wasn’t as he jumped in. “What obsession?”

“Dani,” Gunner said. He still had the SAT phone in his hand. “Claire has a little house outside the city that was an inheritance from a grandmother. It’s not even in her name, which is why no one knew about it. She’s got a small, but very expensive, lab set up in one of the rooms, but it’s the rest of the house that’s the real problem.”

“Just spit it out, Goddammit.” Damon was beginning to pace as he listened, his mind swirling. He needed to be doing something other than standing there listening to Gunner. Dani was in serious danger and his gut was screaming at him to move. But he forced himself to stay and listen.

“The whole fucking place is a shrine to Dani.” Gunner reached out and grabbed Damon’s shoulder, to stop the pacing. “Life size pictures of her everywhere, poetry, letters about how much Claire loves her. Zach said it’s creepy as fuck.”

“But how does mutating the virus fit into her obsession?”

Martin was the one that answered. “I think I know.”

Damon glanced at Gunner and they both turned to look at the doctor.

“The CDC is getting the virus under control, which means no more deployments. Dani is more valuable and sought after in Atlanta, so our team was going to be split up. We found out right before we deployed this last time. Dani was stepping down as team leader to work full time at headquarters. Claire would have been reallocated to another division. If what your friend found is true—”
 

“Then Claire would need a reason to keep Dani in a position to be deployed with her.” Damon was a damned fool. He should have seen it, somehow.

Gunner started cussing. “She killed that village to stay closer to Dani, to make sure that Dani would continue her mission to save the whole fucking world.”

“Obsession,” Damon said it under his breath. “Dani’s got a savior complex and Claire knows it because they’ve been best friends for years.”

“More than that, man,” Gunner said. “She’s pissed off. At you. I saw the way she looked at you and I couldn’t figure out where all that hostility was coming from.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You never saw it, because you never took your eyes off of Dani, but it was there. I thought she was just worried you were going to take advantage of her friend or something. But now I think it was jealousy. That’s why we had an outbreak here again. I think Claire is trying to kill you.”

“Why not just infect me directly then? Why start with Private Jensen?”

Martin answered. “She’s smart enough to try to hide her tracks. Attacking you directly wouldn’t win her any points with Danielle.”

“And it was Hailey who had the case with the virus,” Gunner reminded him. “I honestly thought it might be her, given her past connections with the anti-government guy.”

“Claire even asked me how I wasn’t sick when I brought Hailey in. How did I miss that?” Damon was grim as he turned away from his friend and the truth of Martin’s statement. Honestly, he hadn’t given Hailey another thought, even with the case. She was just young and in love with Travis, that was obvious. He’d never given either woman much thought as an enemy and realized his error. His mama would slap him from the grave if she could for slipping up and believing all the macho nonsense about women being the softer sex. He was a fucking idiot, and it might cost him the woman he loved. Had loved from the moment he’d seen her. It
was
a twin thing.

“She’d better not hurt Dani because, woman or not, I will kill her.”

“The CO has been informed, but has his hands full with the rebels. He isn’t taking Claire as a threat very seriously,” Gunner said.

Damon was scared. They’d all made the same mistake. For the first time in a long time, he was terrified. Because not only was Claire an obsessed psychopath, she was sick. She’d been shaking and sweating when he last saw her. He’d thought at the time it was worry for a friend. But her eyes had also been bloodshot, and not from crying. Thinking back, he knew the answer. Claire was infected.

And she had Dani.

Chapter 15

Dani followed Claire toward the quarantined tent where she said Hailey was awake and calling for her. She’d been hesitant to leave, but knew Damon could take care of himself, and everyone else if he needed to. Hailey was dying and Dani wanted to be there for her, especially if she was calling out for her.

“Where’re you going, Claire? The tent is that way,” she said, pointing toward the path that would take them directly there.

She was tired and bruised and knew she’d be needed for all the injured that would be coming in. Dr. Nelson would have his hands full and he’d be splitting his own staff up to deal with the Ebola patients and soldiers coming in with shrapnel, gunshot wounds, and a myriad of other injuries sustained from the explosions that shook the camp.

“I need you to come with me, Dani. Away from everyone else.”

“But, why? We don’t have time for this,” Dani said, her voice sharp with impatience. “Another area needs to be set up for the injured, and we have to begin salvaging supplies from the infirmary. Whatever issue you have can wait, okay?”

Dani turned to head back toward where she’d last seen Damon. More than anything, she needed to see him and make sure he’d been able to get Martin and Anuma out of the shambles they’d been trapped inside.

“Dani,” Claire called. “You really should listen to me.”

Something in Claire’s voice stopped Dani. Goose bumps broke out all over her body, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Her internal warning system was going haywire as she slowly turned around. That had never happened with Claire before, but she felt the difference.

“I need to tell you something important,” Claire said.

Her voice was devoid of emotion, but it was the gun in her hand that had Dani’s attention. The gun that was unsteady but pointed directly at her abdomen. “You have my attention. Why do you have a gun?”

“I knew you wouldn’t listen to me otherwise.”

“You’ve always been my friend, Claire. Why wouldn’t I listen to you?”

“Because of him, of course. You want to go running back to him.” The disgust and hate in her voice was something that chilled Dani and scared her more than the weapon in her hand.

Dani hadn’t moved since she’d seen the gun, but Claire motioned her toward the path leading away from the quarantined tent. It was dark where they were. The attack had knocked out some of the power, but Dani was able to distinguish the dirt path that led to the helipad. Why would she want to go there?

But she was willing to cooperate, because even in the dimness of the lights in the distance, Dani could see something was seriously wrong with her friend. “What’s wrong, Claire?”

“Walk,” she ordered.

Dani turned back around and walked in the direction she was ordered. The brush and jungle growth had been cleared away so her feet didn’t snag and trip. She racked her brain to come up with a reason that her best friend was holding a gun to her back and forcing her away from the safety of the camp.

She was also starting to understand what might be wrong with Claire.

When Damon’s helicopter came into view, Dani focused on the script scrawled on the nose.
Archangel
. There were lights surrounding the landing zone and it illuminated the area in about a hundred foot radius. For the first time, she saw his nickname and didn’t feel the guilt that normally weighed her down. Because Damon had been right, she’d carried around the weight of a failure that wasn’t hers to carry. Gabriel had died because he couldn’t stay away from helping others, even during a Hemorrhagic Fever epidemic.

Dani walked all the way up and touched his name, and it gave her strength. Claire was infected; it was the only thing that made sense, and it explained the crazed look in her eyes. Whatever she had to say could be blamed on the fever she was likely running.

Turning to face her friend, Dani asked, “What do you want to talk about, my friend?” She kept her voice soft and neutral. And it was an effort because a thin line of blood was running from Claire’s left eye down her cheek.

“What if I told you that I did something terrible, but for a noble reason?”

“I would say that I’d like to know what you did and what the reason was.”

Claire wiped at the blood, not noticing that it continued to leak out and stain the back of her hand. She’d lowered the gun slightly, but her right hand was shaking badly. “I’m not an evil person,” she whispered.

“You’ve been the one mutating the virus, haven’t you?” It was a guess, but the way Claire’s eyes widened convinced Dani that she was right. “But why? Make me understand how you could do that? Was it for money? Is someone paying you to weaponize Ebola?”

Claire shook her head, the gun finally dropping to her side. “No. I would never do something like that,” she said. Her tone was reasonable, as if the thought of selling the virus for profit was more abhorrent than mutating it in the first place.

“Then, why? Why did that village have to die?”

“Because of you,” she suddenly yelled. Her free hand went up to tangle in her hair, pushing the thick mass off her forehead and smearing blood everywhere. “You were going to break up the team, and I wouldn’t get to see you again, not the way we get to see each other on deployment.”

“But we both live in Atlanta. We wouldn’t have stopped being friends just because I wasn’t going into the field anymore. We see each other all the time when we aren’t on a deployment. And it was just time to step down and let Martin take a turn.”

“It wouldn’t have been the same.”

Dani leaned all the way back against Damon’s helicopter. She knew it was only a matter of time before he found her. That’s what he was good at, and he’d notice she was missing as soon as he got out of that wreck of a tent. All she had to do was keep Claire talking.

“I think you might be sick, Claire. Your nose is bleeding.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, and wiped the blood away with the back of her hand again. “We just have to wait until your fuck buddy gets here.”

“Are you talking about Damon? How do you know about us?”

She smirked, but with the drying, darkening blood on her face, it made her look like some kind of macabre clown. “I watched the way you looked at each other and then I saw him go into your tent and send the soldier away to stand watch. I knew what you were doing with him.”

“Why does that matter, Claire? I don’t understand what’s going on,” Dani said. She knew she sounded exasperated, but she didn’t recognize her friend. She was confessing to something awful just to keep Dani doing fieldwork. But she was clearly sick, so maybe it all made some kind of weird sense to Claire that it didn’t for anyone else.

“She’s in love with you, Dani. That’s what this is about,” Damon said, walking forward from the shadows.
 

Dani looked him over, seeing no signs that he’d been hurt in his rescue efforts. Her shoulders relaxed because he was here, and he would make everything okay. He already had in so many ways. And then his words penetrated. Claire—loved—her?

“So, you finally came,” Claire said, as she casually raised the gun and pointed it at him.

“I think you knew I would,” he said calmly.

“We both love her, don’t we?”

Damon nodded. “Yes, we do. And only one of us gets to have her.”

“Claire?” Dani whispered. “Claire.” She said it louder to get her friend’s attention. “You love me?”

Claire finally stopped glaring at Damon long enough to swing her gaze to Dani’s. “I’ve been in love with you since our first deployment together. Remember? We got drunk on smuggled whiskey and you told me that you were through with men forever. I thought I might have a chance…”

She trailed off and looked back at Damon. “But I didn’t, did I? Because out in the world there was always someone who looked like your saint of a husband. I couldn’t compete with that, and I knew it. Even then.”

“I never knew. I’m sorry, Claire.”

Damon hadn’t moved, and Dani wasn’t happy with how steady Claire suddenly was with the gun in her hand. “Why did you infect the soldiers?”

“To kill me,” Damon answered. “Isn’t that right? If I was out of the picture, then Dani might reconsider the desk job and continue on the way it always was.”

“That’s right, lover boy.” Her words slurred, but at least the bleeding had stopped for the moment. “I’m surprised you don’t have that handy rifle with you. Don’t you snipers get off on killing people using a scope and distance? Never being up close and personal unless you’re fucking someone.”

“Don’t worry, Claire. I’ll be real close when I kill you.”

Dani had never heard Claire speak in such a way. Her words were as crude as the look on her face. She was devolving quickly as the fever spiked and the virus spread to her brain. She’d seen it before in patients with the disease, usually the last stages. They cussed, screamed, or just rambled nonsense as their bodies shut down.