Chapter Sixteen
GRANT WALKED OUT of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry, when Andre opened the door to the bedroom. “Anything to report?”
“Nope. Everything was boring as dirt for the past three hours.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
“Same.” Andre yawned. “The watch is yours, my friend. If something happens, wake me.”
“What about Rayne and Riley?”
“Have heard nothing from them.”
“Good. Hopefully, they’ll sleep a solid five hours. Both of them need it. So do we.”
“The way things a looking, there’s not much chance of that.”
Grant hung his damp towel over the drying bar and slipped into his tactical boots. “Sleep. Take three hours. We’ll save breakfast for you and start on the information Riley’s bots found overnight.”
“You sure?”
He nodded.
“If Riley needs me, wake me no matter how little sleep I’ve gotten.”
“You’ve got it, my friend.” Grant clapped him on the shoulder and left the bedroom.
He went to the small kitchen and found that Andre had left him a full pot of coffee. Nice. Grant poured a mug of the steaming elixir and breathed deep.
He walked to the French doors and took his first sip. Perfect. Hot and strong enough to drop a bull elephant. The women wouldn’t be impressed.
After quartering the area outside the hotel and studying the terrain, Grant sent a text to Seth. Knowing Echo’s team leader, he was already up and moving.
Sure enough, in less than a minute, his phone signaled an incoming call. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”
A huff of laughter. “You know better than that. Sit rep.”
Grant updated Seth on the latest information he had, which wasn’t much. “When Riley is awake, we’ll look at the information her bots gathered overnight and decide on a course of action.”
“Understood. What about your family? Will they cooperate with Fortress?”
“Are you kidding? They’re balking, just as I thought they’d do. We’re having dinner with the family tonight. I’ll emphasize how dangerous this situation is. In the meantime, I have to hope that my siblings and parents use extra caution. What about your family?”
“No surprises there either. My brothers are cops. They don’t trust their safety to anyone but themselves. Their fellow cops are volunteering to shadow my sisters-in-law and my mother. Dad and my brothers are refusing extra protection.”
“Why do our families have to be so stubborn?”
“No clue. Because they’re digging in their heels on this, Maddox encouraged the rest of the team to go back to Ardmore to help with protection.”
“I hope we can talk sense into our families.”
“Same. Anything happen overnight?”
“Nope.”
“Good. Don’t get used to it. I think Maddox is right. Once the perp realizes we’re all back in the area for a visit with family, he’ll make his presence known, and right now, you and your family are in the crosshairs.”
“Believe me, I know.”
“Keep your eyes open. The rest of us will be in Ardmore by noon. Zane reserved more rooms at your hotel for us. I want to know whether anything happens. You get me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“See you in a few hours.” Seth ended the call.
“Did you sleep?”
Grant turned to stare at Rayne. “Good morning. I thought you would sleep for another couple of hours.”
“I missed you.”
Even though he wanted her to get more rest, Grant couldn’t deny that hearing that made him feel good.
He’d missed her too. He set down his coffee and tugged Rayne into his arms. “I missed you too. You look beautiful this morning.” He bent his head and took his time kissing her, slow and deep.
When he had to lift his head to grab some much-needed air, he smiled at the woman in his arms. “Kissing you is fast becoming an addiction.”
“No kidding. I don’t want to pump up your ego, but kissing other men was never like this for me.”
His smile morphed into a frown. Nope. No way. “I don’t want to hear about you kissing other guys. In fact, I don’t want to think about that at all.”
Rayne laughed softly. “Noted. All I’m saying is other kisses never blew my socks off like yours.”
“Good to know. Now, are you fully awake or can you sleep for a while longer if you stretch out on the couch?”
“I’m awake. What can I do to help?”
“Since Riley’s not up yet, I don’t have the data her bots gathered in the past few hours. The first thing we do is place a breakfast order and have it delivered in 90 minutes.”
She scanned the contents of the room service menu. Together, they decided which options to choose and called in the order.
Grant grabbed his laptop. “Come sit with me. Let’s see what we can find out about the military personnel assigned to Red Dawn.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Where they are, what they’re doing, and whether they’re experiencing the same attacks we are.”
Rayne picked up a notepad and pen from the coffee table and joined Grant on the couch. “Where do we start?”
“Beau Reed. He’s a great guy and a good friend. We met him at boot camp and formed an instant friendship.”
“But you weren’t assigned to the same team permanently?”
He shook his head. “He was assigned to a different team. Sometimes our teams worked together to complete a mission, like Red Dawn.”
Grant entered his friend’s name into the Fortress database and waited for the information to appear on his screen. Seconds later, he sat back, stunned. “I don’t believe this.”
Rayne leaned closer to see the screen. “What’s wrong?”
“According to this, Beau’s dead.”
She squeezed his forearm. “I’m sorry. How did it happen?”
Grant switched to another screen for the information.
He was curious about the cause of death himself.
Beau was one of the toughest men he ever met.
He’d trained in four types of martial arts and practiced regularly, along with keeping himself in top shape.
How could this happen to a man who seemed invincible?
When the information appeared on the screen, Grant scanned the police report.
“According to this, he died from a shot to the back of the head at point-blank range.” That made little sense.
How would anyone get the drop on Beau? His situational awareness had been eerily good even before the Rangers honed it with more intensive training.
Rayne’s eyes widened. “He was executed?”
“Sounds like it.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“The facts support your conclusion, but Beau was a highly trained soldier who never once let his awareness slip in any situation. I don’t understand how the perp could slip up on him and pull that trigger.”
“Maybe he got caught by surprise.”
He shook his head, rejecting the idea instantly.
“No way. Look here.” Grant pointed to a paragraph in the medical examiner’s report, which documented the lack of injuries on his friend’s body aside from the gunshot wound to the head.
“Beau would have fought back. There should be bruises, cuts, scrapes, something, but there’s nothing except the gunshot wound. ”
Grant pointed to another paragraph on the screen. “Look at this. The bullet followed a downward trajectory through his brain. Beau was well over six feet tall. His nickname in the military was Jolly.”
“Short for the Jolly Green Giant?”
“Yeah. Unless our perp was over seven feet tall, he wouldn’t have been able to shoot Beau in the back of the head by sneaking up on him. Beau knew what was coming and instead of fighting back to survive, knelt in the field and let the killer shoot him.”
He turned to Rayne. “I know of only two things that would have coerced Beau into giving up his life without a fight. His wife, Eileen, and his children, Anthony and Blaze.”
She flinched. “They threatened his wife and children.”
“They had his wife and children and gave Beau proof so he’d cooperate.”
“Okay. Next question. Is Beau’s death connected to Red Dawn, or had he gotten involved in something dangerous that backfired on him?”
Grant switched to another screen and checked the date of death.
A ball of ice formed in his stomach. “It has to be connected, Rayne. Beau was murdered four weeks ago in California, which is where he was born and raised. According to this, he moved back home as soon as he separated from the military.”
“What about his family? Are they alive?”
Shifting back to the police report, he scanned through the file until he found the information he wanted. Thank God. “They’re safe.”
“Did Eileen report being kidnapped or held at gunpoint?”
“No, nothing like that. In fact, she said she and the kids were bowling and she got lost on the way home since the bowling alley was in another town and she was unfamiliar with the area.”
“Why didn’t she use her GPS?”
“That’s what I want to know,” he muttered. “This makes little sense. From what Beau said, Eileen always depended on the GPS on her phone to get anywhere outside of their small town. According to him, she couldn’t find her way out of a wet paper bag without help.”
“What was the time of death?”
“That’s another oddity. He died between midnight and four a.m. I can’t see Eileen staying out after midnight to bowl with her elementary-age children on a school night.”
“That is weird. The police didn’t question it?”
“Not according to the report.” He scowled at the screen. “This isn’t adding up. I don’t understand why the cops didn’t question her further. I would have.”
“Perhaps we should follow up with the detectives assigned to the case to see if they’re willing to share anything.”
Grant inclined his head toward the notepad. “Let’s make a list of things we need to check further. The detectives go at the top of the list.” Especially if the other members of Red Dawn and their families had been attacked.
Rayne grabbed the pen and made a few notes. “Who are the detectives in charge of the case?”
“Hal Leonard and Wyatt Dorsey.” After entering their names into the Fortress database, he gave Rayne their contact information. “If we can’t find the answers we need any other way, I’ll contact Eileen.”
“Do you think she’ll talk to you?”
“There's only one way to find out.”
Rayne flipped to the next page in the notebook. “Who’s next?”