Chapter 13 #2
She wrapped both hands around the tumbler and cleared her throat.
"Is that what you and Mark talked about?
" Before the op that had taken her husband's life, Shrike had been an obsession that Mark couldn't let go. Not that she’d wanted him to.
She understood his drive. His passion. His need to find the source and shut it down.
It hadn’t been her fight. But she wouldn't have wanted to take it away from Mark.
She believed it was real and more importantly, she believed in Mark.
"It was." Sterling sat at the edge of her lounge chair and rested a hand on her knee. "I'd been team leader on a couple of JSOC ops with Nick that Mark figured ran close to Shrike. Nick thought it might be a good idea for Mark and I to meet and have a chat. So, we did."
"And?"
"I gave him what I knew. Told him about a few other ops I thought could be connected. We promised we'd keep in touch." He squeezed her knee. " Nick, Parker Knot, over at DEA, Hoyt Maddison who works for Homeland, and I have kept a text thread going for years, comparing what each of us learned."
"They all knew Mark."
"I know, but I wasn't sure if you knew them."
"They both came to Mark's funeral."
Sterling ran his fingers through his hair.
"I still speak to them every now and again.
Parker and Hoyt have been following Shrike longer and have a deeper understanding than Nick and I do.
They have a concept about operators and how they move in and out.
But not one of us can put a name to whoever's standing behind it.
We've all tried to find someone who would talk.
Parker located one man who came close." He picked his bourbon up off the deck. "He's dead now."
"One of the men on the raid that killed Mark was working for Shrike.
" She couldn't help but fall back on the idea that coincidences didn't belong in the world of covert ops. The fact that she was in Calusa Cove, with a man who had working knowledge of an organization that didn’t exist on paper, but had most likely killed her husband.
And now people who may have been involved with that same organization were falling from trees like iguanas on a cold day in January?
Yeah, that didn't add up to something that just happened.
"What? Are you sure?"
"I can't be a hundred percent positive, but ten minutes before Mark left the house, he got a call.
I don't know who it was, and Mark had been running late, but he got off the phone lit up like a lighthouse.
Said they had a lead on a guy willing to talk about Shrike.
" She swiped at her cheek. "A few hours later, Mark was dead. "
Sterling inched closer, wiping away a few more tears. "I talked to Nick a few times about the raid. He never said one word about anybody on that team being involved in Shrike."
"I never said it was someone from the team. Besides, Nick was out of the country." Mark had always told her there were others working behind the scenes helping him, feeding him intel. Since she trusted Mark, she hadn’t needed the details. She was glad she’d never asked.
If she had, she might not be sitting in this chair right now.
Knowing someone like Sterling had been looking into Shrike, and maybe Mark's death, began to soften the knot of anger and frustration that she'd been carrying for far too long.
"Did you tell Nick about the call?" Sterling yanked his cell from his pocket and texted Nick.
"I did. I also told my current handler." She narrowed her stare. "I've had cases that were Shrike adjacent come across my desk… what are you thinking?"
"Shrike really isn't my thing. It's not even Nick's thing.
We assist because we've heard it one too many times, and it's affected our missions.
But Parker and Hoyt are really into it," Sterling said.
"I take their calls. I answer their questions.
I know Shrike's the real deal and I'd be more than happy to help take it down.
" He stared at his cell. "I don't like coincidences, and Mark getting a call about Shrike on the same day he died makes me twitch. "
"I didn't like it. I know Nick didn't, either, but he's always tried to protect me. He knows I'm a capable agent but says I'm too close."
"You are, but since when has that stopped anyone?"
"That's true." She reached for the glass and put away the remainder in one swallow. "How many times have you worked with Doyle?" she asked. "And do you know how many times Nick has?"
Sterling laughed. "Me? As little as humanly possible, but maybe fifteen times. Nick would be about the same." He set his glass down and stood. "Mind making room for me? The edge of the chair isn't comfortable, and I don't want to sit alone."
"That's about the most pathetic pass a man could ever make toward a woman."
"Guilty as charged."
She slid forward as he folded himself into the chair behind her, a leg down either side. Drawing her back against his chest, he crossed his arms over her middle. She let her head fall back onto his shoulder as if they'd sat like this every night and watched the moon settle over the water.
"I need you to think hard about something," he said, his mouth near her ear.
"Let me read my team in on your identity.
We can't run this two-handed, and I'm not about to leave you running it alone, either.
There are too many things going on and we have no clear idea what we're dealing with. Does it have to do with me? You? Mark? Or all of us? We’ll start by calling Nick in the morning. "
He pressed his mouth to the top of her shoulder, then the side of her neck, and every thread of the conversation unraveled in her head.
"I'm done talking tonight," he said against her skin. He kissed the same spot again. "I know how this goes. You close a job, and you leave Calusa Cove." His arms tightened around her. "Doesn't change how I feel about you."
Up until three years ago, she'd always felt confident in who she was and what she wanted.
She'd never needed a man to complete her.
Still didn't. Mark hadn't changed that. He did, however, show her that she'd built massive walls meant to protect herself.
Only, she'd hidden behind them. Used them to keep people at bay and to keep her from bleeding real emotions.
He’d torn through those in seconds.
It had been a lonely existence after he died. Then she rolled into Calusa Cove, and everything flipped.
The town, the people, they embraced her with open arms.
But Sterling? He did more than that. He showed up time and time again.
He listened. He cared. And he was just always there ready to catch her if she fell.
She didn't need him to declare anything to know that.
She was more than relieved he knew the truth.
She was free. At least with him and somehow that's all that mattered.
She turned in his arms. "Here's the thing." She traced the side of his jaw. "I'm not sure I want to leave. And you're definitely the reason why."