Page 1 of Deadly Attraction
Chapter One
Dusk in the cemetery was gray, flat. Dry winter grass stood unbending, endless gravestones stretched toward the east. The warmth of the earth bled into the cooling air, sending mist rising.
Mitch Holden raised the bottle of single malt scotch he’d brought with him to his lips and took a swig. The liquid burned on the back of his tongue, down his throat.
Mac loved foggy evenings.
Red and green grave decorations sprinkled throughout the cemetery signified the time of year. Did the dead really care about a crass holiday filled with things and people that would all fade in the end? Did they regret all the petty stuff, like Christmas decorations, they’d focused on when they were alive?
A sign at the entrance to the cemetery read, “One decoration per grave marker. All others will be removed.” It appeared, by the overdone ornamentation on some of the cold marble and granite stones, that people either didn’t give a shit about following the rules, or the rules weren’t enforced.
Most likely both.
One sad bouquet of fake red flowers with a gold bow had been stuffed into the vase receptacle on Mac’s headstone, a simple American flag stuck in amongst the glitter. Their mother had been by to visit her favorite son’s grave.
Momma always follows the rules.
Mitch sipped again and poured some of the scotch on his twin brother’s grave. The 21-year-old single malt had been in Mac’s locker on base when Mitch had cleaned it out five years ago. “Merry Christmas, you son-of-a-bitch. I can’t believe you left me here alone.”
You’ve got Mom, he could hear his brother say.Stop being a dick and go see her.
“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Mitch mumbled out loud.
The gates closed at sundown. There was only one other visitor in the cemetery and luckily they were too far away to hear him talking to himself.
The squeak of lousy brakes made Mitch turn his head. An old, brown pickup truck with peeling paint and gardening tools in the back pulled up at the gates. A man with white hair and overalls slid out and called to Mitch and the other visitor. “Gotta close up, folks.”
Mitch propped the bottle of scotch next to the vase of Christmas flowers. Five years. Five goddamn years without his twin.
Should have been me. I should have been the one to die in Yemen.
That refrain was like a bad song stuck in his head. One he couldn’t ever get rid of. He had shrapnel embedded in his chest and his brother was six feet under.Because of me.
Why did you have to listen to me, Mac?
Mitch kissed his fingers and laid them on Mac’s headstone. “I miss you, big brother.” Mac had been older by a minute. He had never let Mitch forget it. “I’d give anything to hear your smartass mouth and see your stupid face. Wherever you are, heaven or hell, I hope you’re getting your money’s worth.”
It was an old joke between them.Give ’em hell and get your money’s worth.
Mitch’s phone buzzed as he walked toward the gates, the grass crunching under his boots. He blinked away the moisture in his eyes and glanced at the caller ID.The Beast. Falling into step behind the other visitor, also leaving, he hit the concrete walkway and tapped the talk button even though he didn’t want to. “Yo.”
Cooper Harris, head of the SCVC Taskforce, barked in his ear. “Where are you, Holden?”
Mitch squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “What’s up?”
Harris didn’t miss that Mitch hadn’t answered his question. “You see your mother yet?”
Something like that. “Sure. Merry Christmas and all that.”
“Good. Got an assignment for you and it’s urgent.”
“I’m on vacation.”
“Taskforce members don’t get vacations.”
“Director Dupé told me I had three days before I needed to report to you.”
“He gave you three days to see your mother. You saw her, right? Vacation’s over.”
