belonged to someone important to Mitch. He could have wanted her to wear it.” His buddy rubbed his thumb across his mouth and looked thoughtful.
“It’s not just the dress,” Tag said. “It’s that dump she was getting married in, too.” He paused to shrug. “The Sarah I dated would have hated that place. She liked quirky. Vibrant.”
“Neither of which describes the Wedding Knot,” Tram finished dryly.
“Exactly.” Tag frowned, working the inconsistencies over in his mind. “She didn’t mention her brother either. Far as I can tell, Sean never even showed up today. The Sarah I knew was adamant about him giving her away.”
“They could have had a falling out.” Tram shrugged. “From what you’ve said, her brother’s a piece of work.”
“Sarah would never cut him off. Christ, that kid’s everything to her.”
That was the only thing they’d argued about consistently back then. Sean Gillespie had needed a solid knock upside the head, or a couple of months in prison. He’d needed to straighten himself out. Instead, Sarah had stepped in, yanking him out of trouble, over and over again.
The fact her brother hadn’t showed up didn’t surprise him. Sean was a selfish little prick. But Sarah hadn’t mentioned him. Hadn’t seemed anxious to track him down.
Yeah…that felt wrong.
He flashed back to his visit to her house two days before. To her incomprehensible acceptance of Mitch’s infidelity and thievery.
Even back then, his instincts had whispered that something was wrong.
“There’s a disconnect in her reaction when we brought up Mitch too.” Tram’s gaze narrowed. “There’s no warmth in her voice when she talked about him. She sounded antagonistic.” He paused to grimace. “Considering what the bastard told us on the phone, I guess that’s not a surprise.”
Tag flinched as Mitch’s gloating voice echoed in his mind.
I’ll let you in on a big secret. You bet she screamed…every night.
He pushed the memory aside and cleared the grit from his voice. “Yeah, plus the bastard refused to pay the ransom. That’s gotta bite.”
“Why was she going through with the wedding?” Tram asked with a confused shake of his head. “If what Mitch said is true…if he actually did what he claims…. why the hell would she marry the bastard?”
“Good question.” The grit returned to Tag’s voice.
Movement swam across the corner of his eye. Tag stopped talking and turned. A grim-faced Rio was closing in.
“We got a hit on the kidnapper’s prints.” Rio pulled up short in front of them.
Tag cocked his head. From the cold fury brewing on Rio’s face, the abductor’s identity had not been well received.
“That was quick. Why the doom and gloom?” He braced himself. This was not going to be good news.
“Because he’s one of your boys. Navy. Captain Porter Hayes. He was a supply officer.”
“No shit? A pork chop?” Tag didn’t see anything ominous in that. What kind of trouble could a grub wrangler get into? There wasn’t a black market for MREs.
“Not a pork chop.” Rio’s face hardened to concrete. “He was chief of staff at Mechanicsburg. Headed up weapons support. He lost his fucking commission a month ago when several shipments of M4A1s went missing. They’re looking at him for those lost shipments of HK416s from two and a half years ago, too.”
Tag froze. He remembered the HK416s Rio was talking about. The missing assault rifles had shown up months later when they’d been used to gun down a patrol of Army Special Forces in Niger. Hell. This was looking much more fucked up than he’d suspected. If Mitch was business partners with their dead guy…
Jesus.
“Sarah said your dead guy told her Mitch owed him money.” Tag tested the connections out loud.
“And Mitch said she’d been taken by an associate,” Tram added, tightly.
“Anyone else thinking Mitch owed the bastard for facilitating the misplacement of those M4A1 shipments?” Tag bit the suggestion out. Every muscle in his body clenched.
Jesus Christ, this went beyond anything he’d expected. Siphoning money from the operations fund was one thing, but dealing in stolen military weapons? Putting the lives of his own teammates at risk? What the fuck was Mitch thinking?
“That would explain why the kidnapper was willing to abduct Sarah to get his cut.” Tram’s voice was equally grim. “Stolen military grade weaponry would bring a fine penny.”
Tag nodded. Mitch had let greed rule him. Greed, pure and simple.
“We need to contact Russo. Fill him in.” Tag turned to Trammel.
“No fuck.” Tram took a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly. With a grimace, he turned to Tag. “You were right