Nightfire: A Protectors Novel: Marine Force Recon, Page 2

  He ran past a rusted drum. Inside, a fire had been lit, rough hands warming themselves over the fire. The glow cast an orange light up grotesque, lumpy, misshapen faces, the faces of men who had abscessed teeth and cuts that were never treated. One man opened his mouth in a feral animal snarl, rotted teeth like black tree stumps in his mouth.

  A methhead, just like the one who beat Harry’s mom and his little sister to death. Harry was just now getting over that, thanks to a wonderful wife and a little girl, both of whom he desperately loved.

  Mike ran faster. He wanted to get away from here, away from everything that was here, from the darkness and the pain and the sorrow. He’d had so much of that in his life.

  Why could he never escape it?

  He was running flat out now, that pounding rhythm that took him out of himself, sweating out the toxins from tonight and the memories of all the nights he’d gone tomcatting in dives, waking up in snarled, sweaty sheets with the woman du jour, trying to remember her name even when his hangover was so catastrophic he could hardly remember his own.

  He wanted to forget all of that as he ran and ran and ran. It was more than fifteen miles to Coronado Shores, not counting the ferry, a distance he’d run daily in boot camp, carrying fifty pounds of gear. And when he seized up with stitches, that old bastard Ditty, his drill instructor, screamed right into his ear that pain was weakness leaving the body.

  Ditty was right, of course. D.I.s were always right. All Marine D.I.s were God.

  On and on and on. His head lifted when he reached the ocean, the clean briny smell of it in his lungs. He’d sweated out the stench of the woman’s room and their sick sex. Now the only thing he could smell was his own sweat and the sea. The sky over the city behind him was now a slightly lighter shade of black and, ahead of him, he could start to distinguish the line where sea met sky.

  He stopped at the ferry landing, running in place so he wouldn’t lose his rhythm and kept it up even when the ferry arrived and he boarded. It was so early there were few people to stare at the crazy guy hopping up and down. When they landed, he ran straight off.

  He was pouring with sweat by the time he ran down the sidewalk to his building, the last condo on Coronado Shores, fumbling in his pocket for the keys. Ruiz, one of the four night guards of the building, saw him and remotely unlocked the big two-story glass doors.

  Ruiz had been there a couple of years and he’d seen Mike come home in every single state there was—after nights of drunken sex and after nights of undercover work. Drenched in sweat from a long run in jeans, a tee and a bomber jacket was nothing. Ruiz simply nodded to Mike as he slowed to a walk and crossed the huge lobby.

  Upstairs, his apartment was exactly as he’d left it earlier tonight—no, last night—in a restless rush. Clean, because a cleaning lady came in once a week and because he was Marine-neat. He didn’t have too much stuff anyway. Bed and couch and entertainment center and a kitchen that he never used.

  Antiseptic and empty.

  He stripped out of his sweat-sodden clothes, dropped them in the laundry basket and headed for the shower. He stood under the big showerhead, leaning with both hands against the wall, letting the steaming hot water sluice over his back for a full half hour. By the time he got out, the sky outside the window was pearly gray. He walked out onto the long deck overlooking the Pacific and looked out over the view he loved.

  This morning the vast cobalt blue ocean with its lacy morning waves didn’t instill the deep calm it usually did. He clutched the iron balcony, standing there with a big white towel around his hips, watching the sky become lighter and lighter.

  Unlike Harry, Mike never had trouble sleeping. Before getting married and plunging into Harry Blissworld, Harry had gone for three, four nights at a time without sleeping, something Mike had never really understood.

  Now he did. He felt no sleepiness at all. He felt like he’d never sleep again. He watched the sky grow brighter, the ocean becoming ever larger and he felt that his life was like the ocean, going on and on and on, yet never changing. He had a glimpse of his own future in the water.

  On and on.

  Trying not to bug Nicole and Ellen too much. But seeing as much of his nieces as he could, because he loved those little girls. It seemed to him that the only thing he had to look forward to was watching them grow up, from the outside looking in.

  He felt restless, almost aching for that fight the woman had wanted. He didn’t want to fight her, he wanted—shit. He didn’t know what the fuck he wanted. He knew only that if he’d come across some gangbangers in his long run across town, he’d have welcomed a really good, rough fight.

  He was good with his fists. Was a fighter, always had been. There wasn’t any number of men he’d back down from. Bring it on.

  Hooah. Yeah.

  Bullshit.

  Something deep in his gut told him there wasn’t any kind of fistfight that would calm whatever it was that was boiling inside him.

  Finally, when the sun had lightened the entire sky, he went back inside to get dressed for another working day.

  Chapter 2

  Chloe Mason sat in the very elegant waiting room of RBK Security Inc., which was in a very elegant building in very elegant downtown San Diego.

  She’d spent a lot of time in plush designer surroundings, but she was still impressed with the large room, which managed to be both beautiful and designed for comfort and efficiency.

  It also had another quality she was very familiar with. Everything in the room, from the color palette of light earth tones to the lush, healthy plants to the expensive couches and armchairs, the interesting but not shrill modern artwork, was designed to calm and to soothe.

  It was still the Christmas season, but the office didn’t have the usual loop of nauseatingly familiar carols playing, which many found grating and stressful, particularly if they were in trouble. Rather, the Christmas spirit was honored by soft medieval madrigals playing in the background. Instead of killing a tree, the company had put up a colored light sculpture that was both intriguing and beautiful.

  She’d spent all of her childhood and a good deal of her adolescence in and out of very expensive medical clinics and that mixture of good taste and reassurance was one she was familiar with.

  Even the receptionist was soothing. Chloe had walked into this highly successful office and asked to speak with one of the partners. In American business-dom that just didn’t happen. She knew enough of business etiquette to know that.

  And yet she hadn’t made an appointment. She’d propelled herself here from Boston without even thinking of making one, excited and terrified and hopeful, in equal measure.

  So she’d walked over to the elegant U design of the reception counter and quietly given her name to the slender, sharply dressed receptionist with beautiful silver hair cut by someone who knew what he was doing.

  The receptionist hadn’t blinked at the unexpected request. She simply looked up and asked whether the appointment was urgent.

  Urgent? Was it urgent? Maybe, maybe not. Though if Harry Bolt was who she thought he was, it was more than urgent. It was life-shattering.

  So she simply nodded, throat too tight to plead her cause.

  “Okay then,” the receptionist had said, tapping on her touch screen. “It’s a busy morning for Mr. Bolt, but I’ll do what I can.” She looked up again, eyes searching Chloe’s face. “Would one of the other partners do? Mr. Keillor has a free hour this morning.”

  Mr. Keillor would be Michael Keillor, former Marine, former SWAT officer, current partner. She’d read his bio on the RBK website and seen his unsmiling photograph. He looked smart and tough and capable, just like all the partners. If she had security problems, he’d probably be just as good as Harry Bolt.

  But her problems didn’t have anything to do with security.

  She shook her head, hoping the receptionist wouldn’t take her inability to speak as discourtesy. And while she was at it, that the receptionist wouldn’t notice Ch
loe’s shaking hands.

  The receptionist didn’t, she simply touched the screen again. “Okay, I can clear you for Mr. Bolt at nine-thirty, if you don’t mind waiting.”

  Chloe had waited all her life for this moment. Another half an hour wouldn’t make any difference. She managed to choke out a thank you through her tight throat and sat down to wait on one of the incredibly comfortable armchairs that dotted the enormous lobby.

  So many emotions swirled in her chest that she couldn’t feel any single one in particular, just a huge pressure so powerful she could barely breathe. She wanted so much for—

  And she stopped herself right there. Wanting didn’t make things happen. If there was one thing her life had taught her, it was that. She could want so fiercely she thought she would explode and it wouldn’t make any difference at all. It was impossible to understand what really could make a difference. Fate? Perhaps. Randomness? Maybe. Wanting? No.

  So she sat back in the extremely comfortable and attractive armchair and . . . disappeared.

  It was her trick, harshly learned throughout her childhood. Bad things happened to her when she got noticed. She’d learned very early to sit back and become unnoticed. She didn’t become literally invisible. It’s just that she could turn off all the subconscious signals humans sent to one another, so that no one noticed her.

  She sat there, unmoving, saying nothing, and observed. Observed the other people waiting for one of the three partners. There were three men in the room, all middle-aged or older, all visibly rich and powerful. Businessmen, who wanted RBK to help them in something or with something. Two were sweating so badly a slightly acrid odor rose above their expensive colognes. The other sat in Male Mode, knees apart, clasped hands between them. He radiated anger and aggression.

  Chloe didn’t dare look at him. Though she’d perfected the art of blandness, she knew through bitter experience that an angry male took even a chance meeting of eyes as aggression.

  She turned her head toward the entrance door so that he couldn’t even pretend to think that she was staring at him, and watched as the sliding door swooshed open.

  A man walked into the waiting room and all male eyes swiveled to him, watching his progress across the lobby. The three rich-looking men might think that they were alpha males in their own environments but they weren’t. Chloe knew many rich men who thought their money gave them top dog status anywhere, anytime. Often it did, but not always.

  This man, striding across the room, was the alpha male. He’d be the alpha male in any grouping, rich man, poor man, didn’t make any difference.

  He wasn’t tall but he was immensely broad—wide shoulders, thick arms, strong neck. A bodybuilder but without that bodybuilder waddle because he clearly built onto muscles that were already there. His movements were fast, precise, powerful. The strongest man in the room, hands down. And he’d be the strongest man in the room in most rooms.

  Michael Keillor. The K in the RBK. He wouldn’t be billionaire-rich but he didn’t have to be. He was wealthy, successful, dominant. Enough by any person’s measure.

  He scanned the lobby as he walked by, eyes dwelling for a moment on her. He didn’t break his stride, but Chloe knew he was studying her. She met his eyes, fiercely blue, very intelligent, impersonal and cold. Suddenly he blinked, the coldness vanished and something happened, but she didn’t know what.

  When he walked in, he’d launched himself across the room as if it were just a way station as he arrowed toward the offices visible behind a glass-plated sliding door, but now he detoured and stopped for a moment at the desk, elbows on the counter, leaning forward to talk to the receptionist.

  The woman looked startled, then shot a glance at Chloe.

  Her heart gave a painful beat in her chest. He was discussing her? Why? Did he have some inkling of why she was here? How could he? No one on earth knew why she was here. Not even old Mr. Pelton, the family lawyer, knew, because she hadn’t approached him yet.

  Time enough for that if she was successful. Not that Mr. Pelton would ever approve.

  No. Her mission here was completely secret.

  So why was Michael Keillor discussing her with the receptionist?

  It was . . . it was unnatural. Chloe wasn’t used to being the focus of anyone’s attention. She didn’t remember learning the art of passing under everyone’s radar. It had always been there and she’d perfected it over the years.

  She never dressed outrageously. Her clothes were expensive but low-key, never too trendy. She was always clean and groomed, but never flashy.

  All her life, people had taken one look and simply forgotten her in an instant, walking on by. Chloe didn’t want attention. Not out of shyness, but because she was afraid of it. Since she could remember, attention had meant danger. If someone looked at her too closely, her heart began pounding, an instinctive and totally uncontrollable reaction.

  Michael Keillor nodded at the receptionist, took another look at her that had her hands sweating, and disappeared through the sliding glass door into the offices at the back of the lobby.

  Nine-fifteen. The appointment with Harry Bolt was in a quarter of an hour if he was a punctual man.

  Chloe sat back to do what she did best—wait. It seemed almost her entire childhood—what she could remember of it anyway—and adolescence had been spent waiting. Waiting for the scars to heal, waiting for the casts to come off, waiting to recover from the last surgery, waiting for the next one. She was the goddess of waiting. If there were a Ph.D. in waiting, she’d have been awarded one years ago.

  She knew exactly how to prepare for a bout of waiting, how to breathe shallowly, slowly, how to distance herself from her body, how to will herself to stillness.

  In college, she’d read up on a number of behavioral and mind-control techniques and found that she’d taught them all to herself instinctively, without knowing they existed.

  Chloe could outwait anyone. Just sink right down into herself until she needed to come back up.

  But right now, it shocked her to realize that none of her techniques worked. Her breath was rapid, almost panting. Her heart trip-hammered in an anxious, uneven rhythm. Her palms were sweaty. There was no way she could will herself back into her well of calm. She kept clutching the manila envelope on her lap over and over again, until the edges were sweat-stained and crumpled. Another sign of huge stress, together with the feeling that there was no oxygen in the room.

  She had waited her entire life for this moment, without knowing it. And now that it was here, she wasn’t prepared. She would never be prepared. She’d thought and thought about what she would say but nothing occurred to her. Her mind was empty, hollow and shiny with panic. She didn’t even know if she could talk, her mouth was so dry.

  Think, Chloe! she told herself sternly. She’d done so many hard things in her life, surely she could do this?

  What to say? How to tell if she should even say it? Maybe she’d talk to the man and realize that she’d been insane to rush across the country for this. Maybe—

  “Ms. Mason?”

  Chloe turned, heart pounding. “Y-yes?” she stammered, sliding forward to the edge of her seat.

  The receptionist gave her a kind smile. Considering how upscale this office was, the smile was purely gratuitous. Most receptionists and secretaries in successful big-bucks enterprises were haughty. Certainly Mr. Pelton’s was. In all the visits to her lawyer’s offices, Chloe had mainly seen Mr. Pelton’s secretary’s nostrils as she tilted her head up to look down her nose.

  “Mr. Bolt is free to see you now. Third door to your right down the corridor.” She pointed to the big glass doors next to the reception desk.

  Oh God, this is it!

  Panic keened in Chloe’s head as she slowly rose, hoping her knees would support her. It was a very real fear. Both her knees were complex creations of plastic and steel and they were as delicate as they were high-tech.

  Everyone’s eyes followed her as she made her slow way across the lobb
y, which suddenly felt as huge as the Gobi Desert. The glass door ahead of her was so clean it glowed. How was she supposed to—ah. It swooshed open at some invisible command.

  Inside the corridor, the feeling of luxury was even more powerful. The doors were shiny brass, with no doorknobs, only built-in flat-screens to the right. The rooms must be enormous because it felt like she walked for ages down the gleaming parquet corridor simply to get to the third door on the right.

  Here, too, she was met with a wall as blank as her head. She simply stood there, clutching a purse and an envelope tightly, waiting for the next step. Any thoughts or plans simply vanished from her head. She felt as if she were walking on some kind of uncontrollable path where she could stumble only forward and never turn back.

  She stared at the shiny brass door, looking blankly at her reflection, mind emptied of thought for a heartbeat, two. Then there was a whirring sound, a click releasing some invisible mechanism, and this door too slid open.

  Chloe stood, frozen, on the threshold. She’d been dreaming of this moment all her life, thinking she was insane because it happened only in her dreams.

  When things remained as hopes and dreams you could decide how they turned out. And though not much in her life had turned out well, in her dreams this always had. It had always ended in laughter and joy.

  Only in her head, though.

  Which was notoriously unstable.

  Chloe trembled. Stepping into this room might mean stepping into a new and better life. Or it might forever trap her behind the invisible but oh-so-real wall she’d lived behind all her life.

  It felt as if her entire existence were hanging by a thread, by a step.

  “Ms. Mason?” a deep voice said, and she gasped in air. She’d been holding her breath for almost a minute without realizing it.

  Across another vast room, two men were standing, as gentlemen did for ladies. One was Michael Keillor.

  She didn’t want him there. Her business was exclusively with Harry Bolt, and if her business ended badly, she didn’t want anyone else to view her humiliation. But a lifetime of training made her hold her tongue. She didn’t even remotely have the courage to ask him to leave the room.