3. Clean Scene
3
CLEAN SCENE
The foghorns on Coronado made Ronan’s teeth ache. He hadn’t been this close to a Navy base in three years, and his body was making its objections known. His skin crawled as Axel guided the rental car through the quiet streets of Marcus’s neighborhood.
Too close. Way too close to the base.
Through gaps in the buildings, Ronan caught glimpses of the harbor lights, of the massive shapes of ships at anchor. Each sight sent another surge of bitter memories through him. He’d given everything to the teams. Broken bones, spilled blood, lost sleep—none of it had mattered in the end. One bad call, and they’d stripped it all away. The career, the brotherhood, everything.
“This is it.” Axel pulled up in front of a modest condo complex.
The middle of the night. Zero one hundred hours and change. Tank’s black Jeep sat in its designated spot, a light coating of dew suggesting it hadn’t moved in hours.
Ronan pushed away memories of the last time he’d seen that Jeep—the day he’d cleaned out his locker. “No lights. No response to texts.”
“Could be sleeping.” But Axel’s voice held zero conviction.
They climbed out into the damp night air. Nothing obviously wrong—no broken windows, no kicked-in door—but the hair on Ronan’s neck stood at attention. The scene was too perfect, too still. Like a movie set rather than a living space.
His body remembered its training even if his mind wanted to forget. He found himself moving differently, scanning sight lines, checking corners. Beside him, Axel did the same, their old partnership sliding back into place without discussion.
“Something feels wrong.” Axel’s whisper barely carried over the distant thrum of base activity.
“Copy that.”
Ronan studied the building. Second floor corner unit. Good sight lines, decent egress options. Classic Tank. The orange glow of sodium lights cast weird shadows through the palm trees, making the whole scene feel surreal. Like one of those dreams where everything looks normal but feels off.
“Front door or back?” Axel asked.
“Front. If someone’s watching, skulking around back will only draw attention.”
They approached the stairs, keeping to the shadows. The metal steps felt solid, but Ronan tested each one before putting his full weight down. No sense triggering a booby trap if someone had gotten here first.
At the door, Axel pulled out a set of picks. Despite the tension coiling in Ronan’s gut, he had to smile. “Still got it, huh?”
“Like riding a bike.” Axel’s big hands worked the delicate tools with surprising grace. The lock yielded in seconds.
The deadbolt’s click echoed down the empty hallway. Ronan’s pulse hammered in his ears as they entered. The air felt wrong—stale, with an underlying smell that sent his heartrate zooming. Moonlight filtered through vertical blinds, creating bars of light across the floor. In the shadows between, anything could be waiting.
“Tank?” Axel’s voice bounced off bare walls. No response.
The silence pressed in, broken only by the soft whisper of the AC. Every instinct screamed danger. Something bad had happened here. Ronan could feel it in his bones, in the way the darkness thickened around them. In the absolute stillness that felt more like absence than peace.
“Taking right,” Ronan whispered, falling into their old pattern.
Axel nodded and peeled left.
They cleared the condo room by room, muscle memory taking over. Kitchen first—spotless counters, empty sink. Living room—magazines perfectly aligned on the coffee table. Even the remote controls were arranged with military precision. Too much precision.
“No take-out containers,” Axel muttered. “No pizza boxes.”
Ronan knew what he meant. Marcus had always survived on delivered food. “No mail either. Nothing personal at all.”
The spare bedroom looked like a furniture showroom. Master bath—no towels hung crooked, no toothpaste tube squeezed in the middle like Marcus always did. The wrongness of it made Ronan’s skin crawl.
Light spilled from under the office door. Ronan’s heart slammed against his ribs as he pushed it open.
“Dear Lord. No.” Axel’s broken whisper hit harder than a punch.
Axel’s prayer wasn’t just shock this time—it was raw anguish. Ronan’s own throat closed around words he hadn’t spoken in years, prayers that died unformed. What kind of God let this happen to good men?
Back to them, their friend slumped at his desk, forehead against the surface, his service weapon still in his right hand. Powder burns to the temple marked the spot of the single shot.
The sight punched the air from Ronan’s lungs, but training kicked in, shoving grief into a box to be opened later. Beside him, he felt Axel do the same—that instant shift into operational mode that had kept them alive through countless missions.
“Don’t touch anything.” Ronan’s voice came out rough. He fought the urge to rush to his friend, to check for a pulse they both knew wouldn’t be there. The room temperature, the way Marcus’s skin had settled, the faint but distinctive odor—all things they’d seen too many times in their line of work.
“He’s been gone at least twenty-four hours,” Ronan said, his tactical mind cataloging details.
“About the time he sent that last text.” Axel’s voice was flat.
Ronan nodded grimly. The scene was too perfect, too clean. Like something staged for a photograph. His eyes swept the room again, catching on Marcus’s wrist. The watch face gleamed in the dim light, and something in Ronan’s gut twisted.
“Axel,” he said quietly. “Look at his watch. This isn’t right.” Ronan forced himself to study the scene clinically, pushing down the grief threatening to choke him. “His watchband is fastened on the wrong hole.”
“Could’ve lost weight.” But Axel straightened, professional training overtaking emotion. “Unless ...”
“Tank was obsessive about that watch. Never would have left it loose.” The words tasted bitter. If he’d answered his phone, if he hadn’t been so wrapped up in his own misery ...
“Stop it.” Axel’s voice was sharp. “I see that look. This isn’t on you.”
“I should’ve?—”
“We all should’ve. But right now, we need to focus. Something got him killed. Something big enough to bring in cleaners.”
Ronan nodded, grateful for Axel’s steady presence. His friend was right. They could grieve later. Right now, they needed answers.
The office looked wrong, just like the rest of the condo. Marcus had been methodical, but never pristine. His desk should’ve been cluttered with coffee cups and protein bar wrappers. Instead, everything was arranged with artificial precision.
They stood in silence, absorbing the implications. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to sanitize the scene. To make it look like their friend had simply given up and eaten his gun.
The precision reminded him of his SEAL training—analyze, compartmentalize, execute. Skills he’d buried under cargo runs and cheap motels. Skills he’d need again if they were going to find justice for Marcus. The thought should have terrified him. Instead, it felt like coming home.
“We can’t leave him like this.” Axel’s voice cracked.
“No.” Ronan squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “But we can’t call it in yet either. Not until we know what he was working on.”
“Something worth killing for.” Axel’s eyes were wet, but his jaw was set.
They swept through the condo again, this time slower, more methodically. Every surface gleamed. Even the refrigerator had been wiped clean—no obvious smudges, no takeout menus held by magnets, no photos. Tank had always kept photos.
Ronan hesitated at the office doorway, his hand tight on the frame. Marcus’s body was still there, still arranged in that unnatural pose, and every instinct screamed at him to stay back. To not look again at what had been done to his friend. But they needed answers.
“I got this,” Axel said quietly, moving to stand between Ronan and the desk, partially blocking his view of their friend’s body. The simple gesture—pure Axel—helped Ronan focus.
The laptop sat on the corner of the desk, positioned at that precise forty-five-degree angle Tank always used. At first glance, it was his—same model, same subtle scratch near the touchpad. But someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make it look well-used without actually knowing how Tank lived. The wear pattern on the wrist rest was too even, too uniform. Marcus had always favored his right side when typing, should have worn that side down more.
“They studied his habits,” Ronan said, fighting to keep his voice steady. “But they didn’t get all the details right.”
The room itself felt like a military display—everything aligned at perfect angles, pens arranged by size, books alphabetized. But Marcus’s organization had been different. Organized chaos, he’d called it. He’d color-coded his files, stacked reference books by frequency of use, kept his favorite coffee mug full of colored markers within arm’s reach. None of that personality remained. Someone had stripped away every trace of the man who’d lived here, replacing it with this sterile facsimile of military order.
“They did a thorough job,” Axel muttered, running a finger along the dustless windowsill. “Professional clean team.”
“Agreed.” Ronan’s jaw tightened. “But they didn’t know him.”
“The mail,” Axel said suddenly. “There’s no mail anywhere. Not even junk mail.”
Ronan fought the urge to run. Getting caught here would end badly, but they couldn’t leave. Not yet. Not until they figured out what had gotten their teammate killed.
He clapped a hand to the back of his neck, as if he could massage away the fury. The grief. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make this look like suicide. Someone professional. Someone meticulous.
Someone who didn’t know about the big man’s book habit.
The realization hit him like a physical blow. While he’d been running from his past, hiding in desert bars and making illegal cargo runs, Marcus had been fighting something big enough to get him killed.
A flash of red and blue reflected off the window, painting the sterile walls with police lights. Ronan groaned.
“Someone called it in.” Axel moved to the window, keeping to the side. “Three patrol cars, and a fourth pulling up.”
Ronan’s mind raced. Back door? No—they’d be covering it. Fire escape? Too exposed. They were three stories up, and the parking lot below would be filling with law enforcement.
“We’re blown.” The words tasted like ash. Getting caught here would mean federal charges, minimum. And whoever had cleaned this scene hadn’t left Tank like this just to have two ex-SEALs discover the truth.
“Options?” Axel asked, falling into their old pattern.
“None.” Ronan heard car doors slam, followed by purposeful footsteps on the stairs. “We’ll have to play it straight.”
Axel’s eyebrows shot up.
“We got worried about our friend. Came to check on him. Found ...” Ronan’s voice caught. “Found this.”
Axel nodded slowly. “Think they’ll buy it?”
“No.” Heavy footsteps in the hallway now. “But it’ll buy us time.”
“Time for what?”
“To figure out who did this. And why they wanted us to find him.”
Axel’s steady presence at his back felt like absolution he didn’t deserve. Three years of silence, yet here they were, falling into old patterns like muscle memory. Whatever Marcus had discovered, whatever had gotten him killed, they’d face it together.
The way it should have been all along.