Page 79 of Fatal Vision
Salisbury jumped into Shelby’s lap. Connor’s voice dropped a notch. “I was never on a team with him. What did you train him for?”
The temperature on Colton’s side of the room dropped another ten degrees. Shelby was going to need a sweater in a minute.
“Some sniper shit, that’s all.”
But that wasn’t all. If only she could see his face.
Did she need to though? The ice in his voice was enough to freeze them all out.
“Colton, you’re no longer a SEAL, nor do you work for the government. If we’re going to figure out who killed these men, we need to know everything.”
His chair scraped back and he took his frigid body temp with him as he left the room. The heavy silence that followed was filled with awkwardness.
Shelby plastered on her best smile and sent it Connor and Sabrina’s direction. “Thank you both for being here.” What a hodge-podge team they made. “I’m sorry I’m not more help. My memory is…”
A hand covered hers. Connor. “Don’t sweat it. I have blanks in mine too.”
Colton returned, his physical presence like a lightning bolt to her senses. Even if she couldn’t see him, she felt him. Every inch of him. It was like getting hit with a live wire each time he was near.
“I’ve got your computer.” She heard the thunk of her laptop on the table as Colton resumed his seat. “And the USB. Tell me your password.”
Her throat tightened. If anything, the Bureau, and especially Theo, had drilled into her the need for confidentiality. Secrecy.
Her reaction made her silently laugh. She’d already violated some pretty hefty protocols and rules, what was one more? “Born2RunSB.” She spelled it out, so he would know where to capitalize and that she’d replaced the word ‘to’ with the number.
“Born To Run?” Sabrina asked. “That’s a Springsteen song, right?”
The woman was probably only a few years younger than Shelby, but the reference suddenly made her feel old. “It was a song Colton used to play all the time. Sometimes he sang it to me.”
Colton’s embarrassed silence was better than the ice bullets he’d been shooting off earlier, but Shelby still felt a bit guilty.
On the other hand… “He’s actually a great singer.” Why not make his embarrassment complete? “I always loved hearing him sing Amazing Grace on Sundays when I could actually get him to church.”
Colton cleared his throat as if begging her to stop, and said, “The file is open. What am I looking for?”
That was the thing. She didn’t know. “Just start reading to me.”
THE EARLY MORNINGwas so quiet, so peaceful. Hard to believe they were sitting at Shelby’s dining room table discussing murder.
Through the windows, Colton could hear the last of the late fall locusts and other night insects winding down as the sun broke the horizon. Inside the room, with the blinds and curtains drawn, it was still dark enough they needed the overhead light.
It killed him to see Shelby staring blankly at the far wall as he read through the stolen FBI file on her laptop. Various official internal memos, a few phone interviews, notes about the deceased men’s backgrounds and families. Large blanks with only a few details about their military careers. Bulleted points about what the three had in common.
All Navy. All from Oklahoma. She’d flagged that two of them had definitely been connected to Colton, with a question mark about Evers.
“We should review the night of the mission,” Shelby said, her hands cupped around her coffee cup. “Mission Liberate Green Frog.”
Sabrina deposited a plate of toasted bagels on the table. “I’d like to hear that story as well.”
The smell of the warm bagels made Colton’s stomach growl, yet, the thought of rehashing the night of Connor’s rescue made his neck tighten. He glanced over at his friend, who looked a bit green around the gills as well.
Ditto not wanting to talk about that night.
“I’m not sure what good that will do us, Shel,” Colton said.
“It will do me good.” She accepted a bagel from Sabrina and munched on it. Salisbury, previously asleep in her lap, sat up and sniffed. Even though she couldn’t see him, she knew what he wanted and, sucker that she was, broke off a piece to feed to the dog. “All I ever had after the mission was a single Bureau report with a vague Navy addendum regarding Connor’s extraction. If we could pinpoint everyone whom Bard and Edmonton interacted with that night and what happened immediately before and after the mission, it could lead us to the killer. We don’t have the official JSOC reports but we can rebuild the timeline ourselves since the three of us were there.”
The mission reports were all classified by the Department of Defense and not even the FBI had access to the final, all-encompassing report. Colton didn’t doubt Beatrice could get her hands on it if she sent Rory hunting, but he didn’t want to ask her to. Dangerous waters there, and he’d already asked for so much.
