The two men were in a standoff of sorts. All the documents and pictures are on the drive.”
I scanned the screen seeing Evette had organized the documents into folders. I ignored those for the time being in favor of the dozen or so photos.
Fuck.
I clicked on one of the photos and sent it to the big screen hoping my instincts were off-base but knowing they weren’t. Further, I hoped someone would be able to contain Kyle because he was going to go postal.
“The fuck?” Kyle growled.
I heard a chair scrape and turned to see it was not Kyle on his feet but Evette.
“Where did you get that?” Zane clipped.
Evette paled. She waved her hands in front of her as if she were warning off an attack.
“Are these what they threatened you with?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Her eyes darted to Kyle. “That was the first picture I was sent.”
Anaya, Kalee, and Piper stood in a huddle in the village smiling. Anaya and Kalee were wearing khaki pants and navy blue polo shirts with the Peace Corps logo embroidered on the left breast. Piper was dressed casually in shorts and a t-shirt. All three of them looked happy.
I clicked on another image. It was probably an asshole thing to do, displaying a photo of her friend’s prone body in a mass grave on top of murdered young girls, but I’d done it anyway.
“When did you get this one?” I inquired.
“The day before yesterday.”
“We need Garrett,” Lincoln announced.
Ivy stood but I didn’t take my eyes off a grief-stricken Evette.
“You need to start talking, Evette,” I demanded.
“Kyle—”
“Don’t worry about Kyle. Spit it out, woman. What’s going on?”
Evette’s gaze sliced to Kyle’s and mine followed. And just as I figured, his eyes were riveted on Kalee and how close Anaya had come to being a body in that pit.
Chapter 4
I wanted to do what Gabe had demanded and spit it out. I wanted to explain everything with the hopes that when I was done it would all be erased from my memory. I didn’t want to know what I knew. But that was impossible and now that I was close to having all the facts I was a step closer to getting justice.
I dropped my head forward in defeat. I’d screwed everything up. Without my permission, my eyes closed and memory took over.
I was sitting on the couch with Kalee in the apartment she shared with Phantom. It was a few weeks after Phantom had been sent to Admiral’s Mast for disobeying an order. An order that meant Kalee was home. I barely knew the man but as far as I was concerned Forest Dalton was my hero. He’d been willing to give up his naval career for Kalee. He’d saved her life. And after he’d done that he set about helping her heal. He loved and protected Kalee the same way Ace did Piper but somehow it was different. Phantom was the most closed-off, aloof, surly man I’d ever met but when he looked at Kalee all of that melted away.
“Can you believe how big John is?” I asked.
Kalee flinched at the mention of Piper’s newborn. If it were possible I would’ve kicked myself in the ass for dimming Kalee’s smile. The problem was she was still a walking minefield. With that thought, my stomach knotted and anger rushed to the surface.
Fucking savage assholes.
“I’m getting better,” Kalee murmured.
“Of course you are,” I rapped out, irritated she felt the need to remind me.
My beautiful friend was doing amazingly well.
“The first time I held John, he started to cry and I had a flashback so bad, Ace had to video call Phantom to calm me down. I hate that Piper saw. I hate that will always be the memory she has of me holding her son. That’s the worst part about all of this, the pain I cause—”
“Stop, Kalee. You do not cause anyone pain. We are all grateful you’re home. You do realize that you sitting here is the kind of miracle every person who has lost a loved one prays about. We all thought you were dead. We mourned you. The loss was unbearable. But here you sit. We have you back.”
“You have the new Kalee,” she uttered.
“And that’s a bad thing? New, old, before Timor-Leste, after Timor-Leste. None of us gives a flying rat’s ass. All we care about is having you back.”
“It’s good to be back. No, it’s great to be home.”
“Evette?”
Gabe’s soft, deep rumbly voice called from beside me, pulling me from