Chapter 13 #2
Smiley felt as if he had a four-hundred-pound weight on his heart.
All his talk about finding Bree and making sure she came home seemed to go up in smoke.
How the hell was he supposed to find her if the women were already on their way to some far-flung country?
They were so close—and yet they’d still taken too long. The women were gone.
His failure and guilt weighed on him even more than it had every time his mom was beaten. He didn’t have the excuse of being “just a kid” anymore. He was a grown man. A Navy SEAL. And yet his woman had been taken right out from under his nose and disappeared into thin air without a trace.
A noise from nearby had all four men spinning around with their weapons drawn. But what was it? Had it come from one of the hundred cars haphazardly parked around the trucks?
Cookie was the first to move. He holstered his weapon and hurried toward a nondescript brown hatchback parked in the middle of a row of other vehicles.
Smiley rushed after him, his weapon still drawn and ready to be used. He had no idea what the other man had seen, but he wasn’t taking any chances. The last thing they needed was one of them to get hurt.
To Smiley’s shock, a woman’s head emerged from beneath the car.
It was Fiona.
Cookie dropped to his knees, carefully pulling her out from under the car then taking his wife in his arms, rocking her back and forth.
A second head popped out from where Fiona had emerged—Julie.
Tex also dropped to a knee, and engulfed Julie in a huge hug when she was safely out from under the vehicle.
His heart beating hard in expectation, Smiley waited for Bree to slide out from under the car, or another one nearby. But after several long seconds, when she didn’t appear, his chest tightened and emotion clogged his throat.
Fiona looked up from where she was still held tightly in Cookie’s arms. As if she could read his mind, she whispered, “She’s not here.”
Smiley wanted to ask where the hell Bree was. What had happened. But he couldn’t get any words past the lump in his throat. The disappointment and fear were crushing.
Cookie shifted then, not letting go of Fiona but inching back enough that he could remove his T-shirt.
He tenderly put it over his wife’s head.
The slips she and Julie were wearing were sheer and left nothing to the imagination.
Seeing what they’d been forced to put on was infuriating.
And it only proved how much danger they’d been in.
Smiley shifted impatiently…but he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt Cookie’s reunion with his wife. If Bree had been there, if he’d had his arms around her, Smiley would’ve exploded in anger at anyone who dared rush him.
Tex pulled out his cell, hit a few buttons, then handed it to Julie, all without removing his arm from around her waist.
“Patrick?” she said in a wobbly tone.
Smiley turned away. The emotional reunion of the women with their husbands was too much. He was thrilled for his friends, but…
Kevlar’s hand came down on Smiley’s shoulder, but he didn’t say anything.
He didn’t have to. The disappointment and fear in the air was palpable.
Where was Bree? Why wasn’t she with Julie and Fiona?
How had they gotten away? How long had they been hiding?
Smiley had so many questions, but he’d have to wait for answers.
He scanned the shipyard, hoping against hope he’d see Bree coming toward him. Maybe she’d gotten away too. Maybe she’d simply gotten separated from the other women and was too scared to come out of hiding.
“Holster your weapon,” Kevlar said softly.
Looking down, Smiley saw he was still clutching his pistol in his right hand. One of the worst sins a SEAL could commit was losing track of his weapon. And even though his finger wasn’t on the trigger, he didn’t remember anything about the last few minutes in regard to the gun.
Moving slowly, as if mired in quicksand, Smiley put the pistol back in the holster at the small of his back. Taking a deep breath, then another, he turned toward the others. Bree wasn’t here. He knew that as well as he knew his name. He felt empty, hollow.
It was as if he was watching the scene in front of him from a great distance. Or was simply an observer watching a play. He felt cold. Numb.
Stepping toward Tex and Julie, who was wiping tears from her eyes after just hanging up with her husband, Smiley removed his T-shirt. He held it out to the petite woman, who took it with a grateful smile.
Cookie got to his feet, his arm not leaving Fiona’s waist, holding her against him.
“Are you sure Bree isn’t here?” Kevlar asked gently.
Smiley held his breath waiting for the answer. He already knew what it would be, but maybe he’d get a miracle.
“We need to hear what happened, and we need to get you two somewhere safe,” Kevlar told them. “But if there’s even a one-percent chance Bree is here, hiding, we need to know.”
Fiona shook her head. “We saw her being carried over that way,” she said, pointing to a large dock. An empty dock. There was no boat waiting to be loaded. No cars idling. The area was deserted.
“They got onto a boat and left. We’ve been hiding ever since, just to make sure the guys who took Bree didn’t call for others to come find us.”
“How long ago did the boat leave?” Tex asked.
Smiley was grateful for his friends. He couldn’t get a word out. If he opened his mouth, he’d either start screaming, swearing, or moaning. He wasn’t sure which.
“I’m not sure. It feels like forever. But probably at least…four or five hours,” Julie speculated.
“Fuck. All right. While we get the hell out of here, I need the two of you to think really hard on any details about the boat, the men, anything that we might be able to use to track her down,” Tex said.
Cookie leaned down and picked up Fiona, carrying her against his chest as he headed for the Jeep.
Kevlar offered to carry Julie, and she shyly took him up on his offer, since she wasn’t wearing shoes.
Seeing her toes in the dirt made the ache in Smiley’s heart grow.
Bree probably wasn’t wearing shoes either.
His desire to know what the hell happened here, how she’d gotten separated from the other women, was gnawing at him.
But he wouldn’t deny the women the time they needed to process that they were safe.
Tex and Cookie climbed into the backseat with the women. Fiona sitting on her husband’s lap, and Julie between them and Tex.
“I knew you’d come,” Fiona said softly, when they were all settled into the Jeep and Kevlar was pulling out of the shipyard.
Everything within Smiley was urging him to stay, same as he’d felt after seeing her clothes at the truck stop. Once again, this was where Bree was last known to be. It physically hurt to leave. He rubbed his chest as he stared straight ahead.
“I told you once that I’d always come for you, and I meant it,” Cookie told Fiona.
“Hurt wanted to come but—”
“But it’s been a very long time since he’s been in the field,” Julie said, interrupting Tex. “It’s fine. Being able to talk to him, reassure him that I’m okay…it was enough for now.”
“Fuck,” Smiley swore under his breath. He felt more than saw Kevlar look over at him from behind the steering wheel. But he kept his gaze straight ahead. He was holding on to his control by a thread.
“Bree,” Fiona whispered.
“We aren’t leaving her,” Tex said in a low tone, full of emotion.
“She…we wouldn’t have been able to escape without her.”
“Hold that thought,” Cookie said. “We’re going to a hotel where you can shower, eat, and change into some clean clothes. Then we’ll sit down and you can tell us the whole story. Unless you have intel that we need right this second about where she is so we can go get her.”
Smiley looked back and saw both Fiona and Julie sadly shaking their heads. Julie reached over and took one of Fiona’s hands in hers. He didn’t like the look that passed between the two women.
He clenched his teeth so hard they started to ache. He wanted to disagree. Tell Kevlar to pull over so they could hear what Fiona and Julie had to say right then and there. But Cookie was right. They needed to get them to the hotel and do what they could to make them feel safe and comfortable.
Knowing there was nothing they could do right this moment for Bree was more painful than any injury he’d ever gotten while on a mission. Smiley would rather be shot than feel this.
“Smiley? Are you okay?” Fiona asked.
His first instinct was to lash out. To tell her of course he wasn’t okay. Bree was in the hands of a fucking sadistic madman who wanted to defile and hurt her both mentally and physically.
Instead, he simply shook his head and continued staring out the front windshield.
He heard Cookie murmuring to his wife, telling her not to push, to give him some time. But time wasn’t going to fix this. It would only take Bree farther and farther away from him. And give Castillo more chances to hurt her.
Closing his eyes, Smiley prayed for patience. And he prayed Bree was strong enough to withstand anything the assholes who took her had planned.