Authors: Lora Leigh
seemed to extend around Alex as well. And maybe even Chaya herself.
He had hugged her as he walked in, patted her shoulder, and told her not to worry, the
Mackays were going to take care of everything.
She’d wanted to grin at the proclamation, but she had a feeling he was entirely too
serious.
Now, as she sat back and watched the men going through the printed reports Natches had
taken from her laptop, she had a moment to worry about involving any of them. If
something were to happen to even one of them, it would affect the whole family. And it
wouldn’t just affect them; it would devastate them.
“The subjects you questioned were all ex-military members.” Rowdy cast her a narrow-
eyed look from across the wide table as he laid down the file he had been going through.
He flipped two files toward her. “Hollister Mcgrew.”
Chaya stared at the picture clipped to the corner of the file. Hollister Mcgrew’s pitted
face, framed by limp brown hair and sporting a bullish look, stared back at her. He and
Johnny had been reported to have been friends in high school, and later had run and
drunk together in many of the local bars before Hollister signed up for the Army.
He wasn’t gay, actually considered himself quite the ladies’ man, despite his rotting front
teeth and sour breath. His honorable discharge from the Army had been medical.
Hollister hadn’t handled the Army well.
“George Mack.” Rowdy tossed out another file.
Pole skinny with straight, thinning brown hair and dirt brown eyes. For a few years, he
and Johnny had been best friends, until George had joined the Navy. As with Hollister,
George lasted only the first tour before receiving discharge, though his had been less than
honorable. He’d nearly ended up in Leavenworth.
There were others. Many of them were rumored to be involved in drugs, grand theft, or
burglary. The few who weren’t ex-military, such as Rogue Walker, a former friend of
Johnny’s, were persons of interest who may or may not have had information tying
Johnny to other persons of interest.
“Johnny was the one who admitted to masterminding the whole deal,” she pointed out,
playing devil’s advocate.
“None of them had the brains or connections to have helped Johnny put everything
together, nor could they have kept their dirty little paws off a million in cash,” Alex
stated. “They are the pawns. Who’s the king?”
That was a good question. Chaya pushed her fingers through her hair in frustration. That
one she hadn’t figured out yet.
“They have ties to others as well,” she stated. “The mayor and chief of police. George
Mack is Mayor Sunders’s second cousin. Hollister worked for Sunders as a handyman for
several weeks. The same pattern follows for everyone I’ve questioned. I received three to
five names each day as well as their most likely locations or residences. And the
questions.”
“The questions aren’t that hard,” Dawg snorted. “And it’s damned easy to lie.”
“And sometimes, it’s damned easy to see that lie.” She shrugged. “I’ve been trained to
see the lies. I’m an interrogation specialist, Dawg. This is what I do well.”
She had been lied to quite a bit during the questioning, and the knowledge of that had
gone into the notes she sent to Cranston each evening. The same notes everyone here now
held.
“There’s no one here Johnny would have trusted,” Ray told them all as he looked through
the files. “He was a strange boy, but trust wasn’t something he gave easily.”
“Trust was something he traded with,” Natches said, his voice curiously bland. “Johnny
only trusted his mother and Dayle. And we know Nadine would lie out of her ass if it got
her something she wanted. Dayle’s no better.”
That was his father, but there wasn’t so much as a hint of emotion in his voice.
“Cranston’s arriving here in the morning,” she told them. “I received his message before
we returned to the boat. I’m hoping he’ll have more answers.”
“I’d suggest he come bearing answers.” Natches’s more dangerous drawl was back now.
If Timothy didn’t have answers, then he was going to have to deal with more than one
pissed-off Mackay.
“Several of these boys were military, too,” Alex noticed. “The team we captured after
Johnny’s death was all ex-military. Penny-ante troublemakers, none of them did well
there, but thought they were Rambo once they came home.
“The group we’re after, Freedom’s League, uses such men to help steal the weapons
they’ve targeted. But the League has never attempted to sell something so powerful to
terrorists before.
“The few times they managed to steal weapons of any strength, DHS was there to stop
the sales. Smaller caches the agents allowed to slip by as they worked to identify and
capture those heading the militia group.
“If the League was involved, then it would have been a hit. They would have taken out
the Swede and his group, and they would have used men better able to pull the operation
off,” Alex stated.
And Crista agreed with that—to a point.
“Except the Swedish broker has, according to evidence he turned over, worked with the
contact in this area before. The missiles went cheap. Two million?” She scoffed. “Give
me a break, they could have gotten twenty million for them. And that was the intention.
The broker was only buying the rights to transport and arrange auction on the missiles.
And that was what Johnny didn’t know. He thought the missile sale was a done deal.”
“Which means someone was pulling the strings somewhere else,” Natches mused, sitting
back in his chair and staring at the papers on the table before lifting his eyes to Chaya.
She saw the bitterness now, the anger.
“Each step we take points in that direction,” she agreed.
“Fucking Somerset, Kentucky, a hotbed of illegal militia sales and homegrown
terrorism.” A cynical laugh passed his lips. “Son of a bitch, boys.” He looked to his
cousins. “Have we been sleeping or what?”
Chaya shook her head, aching for him. This was his home, and she knew his love for the
mountains, the lake, and even in some part, the people.
“Somerset is only one of many small towns,” she told him. “The guerilla militias can
grow and thrive in such areas, because of their family and community ties. They know
who to target, who they can trust and who they can blackmail. Most of them are
harmless. Good ole boys plotting to defend God and country against aggressors. They
have ties to military personnel, gain a few weapons here and there, and it makes them feel
safer. Doesn’t make it legal, but they feel safer. Then, every now and then, you get
something like FL. And they twist it, pull in those once harmless groups, and suddenly
they have an army with ties all across America. If we could capture the person or persons
pulling the strings here in Somerset, then there’s a chance we could take the entire
network down.”
“And you think asking a few dipshits some sticky questions is going to do this?” Dawg
flipped his hand over the files in disgust. “I didn’t see a damned thing in there about
Freedom’s League or a network of homegrown terrorists.”
“You didn’t read her file,” Natches told him quietly, his gaze still locked with hers. “I
did.”
Chaya pressed her lips and dropped her eyes. She had asked the questions she knew could
come back on Natches and his father. How loyal was he to his father? He claimed he
wasn’t, but family ties often had strong undercurrents. And Natches wasn’t always as
easy to read as he pretended to be. In some areas, his secrets went far deeper than most
people could imagine.
“The questions Cranston is sending to me now are becoming more specific. Centered on
Johnny, his friendships, and his ties. And there are certain threads that bind each one.
Johnny’s parentage.” She watched Dawg’s jaw bunch. “His loyalties. His friends. Who
he associated with the most, because within those groups, we’ll find the contact we
need.”
“Not in that group of names you won’t,” Rowdy snorted. “I’ve gone over these files,
Agent Dane. There’s nothing here to identify any kind of leader of a homegrown militia
network. These people are misfits. They can’t decide where to use the bathroom next and
you expect me to believe they’re part of some growing grassroots terrorist group?”
“I’m more inclined to believe they’re the pawns of such a group,” she snapped back.
“I’ve worked this case for five years, Rowdy. I know the signs. And they’re all here.”
“Who in Somerset could organize and lead something like this?” Dawg looked to the
others then his eyes flashed with anger as he leaned toward her. “Fucking Mackays. Me,
Rowdy, Natches, we could do it,” he snarled. “Is Cranston after our asses now?”
She shook her head.
“Bullshit.” His hand slapped the table. “There’s no one in this county with more expertise
in military, paramilitary, or plain dirt-assed killing than the three of us.”
A sniper assassin, an explosives assassin, and Rowdy, one of the Marines’ finest
commanders. They’d all left the military early. For Dawg and Natches, after one tour,
both with medical discharges. Rowdy had taken two tours and signed out. No sooner had
they returned than the League had begun growing within the area.
“I investigated that option myself,” she told them, staring back at Dawg coolly. “You
don’t have the ties nor do you personally have the temperament needed for such work.”
He almost gaped back at her, rising halfway from his chair as Natches stood fully to his
feet.
“Don’t tell me I don’t have the temper for it, little girl,” he snarled. “That piddling-assed
little car bomb that took out your agent looks like a firecracker compared to what I’m
capable of.”
“Back off, Dawg,” Natches warned him.
“Leave him alone, Natches. I can handle it.” She smiled back at Dawg tightly as his wife
came up behind him, her eyes sparkling in anger as she glared at Chaya.
“ ‘That piddling-assed car bomb,’ as you call it,” she bit out, “had a signature. We’ve
tracked it before.”
“I don’t leave fucking signatures,” he snarled.
“Exactly. You don’t. And that alone is your signature,” she told him. “Don’t play dumb,
Dawg, just because you don’t like me.” Chaya came to her feet, her hand gripping
Natches’s wrist. “You, Rowdy, Ray, your wives, and your closest friends were
investigated first. Thoroughly. I headed that investigation. I know how thorough it was,
because I knew none of you were evil. Snarky, damned mean when you need to be, and
so damned arrogant you make a woman’s back teeth clench. But you’re not traitors, and
you’re not terrorists. And I proved it.”
“She’s right.” Alex spoke up, drawing their gazes. He was leaning back in his chair, his
gray eyes lit with amusement. “You’d make lousy terrorists, and you made lousy soldiers.
I believe that’s why the Marines let you all go so easy, because you don’t follow orders
worth shit.” He leaned forward and smiled placidly. “But they think I do. And Chaya
knows her stuff. She’s not the only one who’s been working this case. Now, if we’re all
through playing these little power games, maybe we can get back to work here and figure
out who the hell Timothy is chasing. Just in case he hasn’t figured it out himself.”
Natches stared back at Dawg, furious, bordering enraged, but the rage wasn’t directed at
his cousin. It was building inside him, threatening to burn out of control, because of his
own suspicions. No, his own certainties.
He let Chaya pull him back to the chair and ignored her worried looks as the work
continued. Finally, she moved away from them as Alex filled them in on the Freedom’s
League and their ties. It was information she already knew in abundance. She knew it,
because that damned organization had killed her daughter.
He watched as she moved to the living room, sitting outside the group of women. Finally,
Maria drew her forward, her smile kind. Maria was the kindest damned woman Natches
had ever known until his cousins began falling in love. They had chosen women with
those same qualities.
Finally, Chaya and Crista were talking. Natches watched them, noticed Dawg watching
them, and caught his cousin’s eye. They were going to have to talk about this, and soon.
He couldn’t figure out Dawg’s problem with Chaya, and he was beginning to not even
care what the problem was. It was going to stop.
Finally, as the hour grew later, they stood and stretched, shook their heads and admitted
they would have to wait on Timothy. Natches stayed silent, watchful.
Chaya was exhausted and he led her to bed, tucked her against him, and waited for her to
go to sleep. While he thought. And all the thinking in the world wasn’t helping him to
make sense of the knowledge brewing in his gut, or the anger tormenting his mind.
Thinking was only making it worse.
FIFTEEN
Natches left Chaya, exhausted, sleeping peacefully in the bed he’d dreamed of her
sleeping in.
When he’d returned from Iraq, he had thrown the bed he’d partied in for so many years
right into the lake. He’d come in at night, taken one look at it, and something inside him
had shattered.
The man who had slept in that bed wasn’t the same man who had returned to it. The man
who had returned belonged to someone now and was no longer the man that bed