Guiding Kinley (NCIS Series Book 3)

  Guiding Kinley

  NCIS Series

  Zoe Dawson

  Guiding Kinley (previously published under a pseudonym)

  Copyright © 2020 by Karen Alarie

  Cover Art © Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  OTHER TITLES BY ZOE DAWSON

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank my beta readers, reviewers and editor for helping with this book, and especially Lisa Fournier. As always, you guys are the best.

  To The Coast Guard for their tireless efforts in not only protecting our maritime borders, but for the selfless and heroic efforts in search and rescue.

  Chapter One

  United States Coast Guard Special Agent Kinley Cooper stretched as she rose at the annoying sound of her five a.m. alarm. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and turned off her alarm, dreading this day. But duty called. Her job required that she be physically fit, and she preferred running in her sleepy town of Kroebuck Beach than near the CGIS office that was geographically located in the southeastern corner of the state. The area known as Hampton Roads to the residents was a busy port city and she didn’t feel the mind-clearing calmness when she ran there like she did at the beach. Kinley reached for her dark gray jogging bra that was draped across black Lycra cotton shorts on the back of the chair near her bed.

  Yawning, she pushed back the painful memories that clogged her chest and twisted her heart. They were always there, especially the one of that terrible morning. It sat at the back of her mind as she gathered up her dark auburn hair and pulled it into a tight ponytail. She grabbed the shorts, wiggled into them, then donned socks and her running shoes.

  Exactly twelve years ago, her father had been murdered outside their London residence as he was taking her to school before heading to work at the American Embassy.

  She took a deep breath, reminding herself she wasn’t that little girl anymore. She had been active in the Coast Guard for eight years now and had been accepted into the Coast Guard Criminal Investigative Service two years ago. As a well-trained agent, she had won her fair share of fights in the field and in the office. The good-ole-boy system had taken one look at her and assumed she was a pushover, but she’d taken care of that. Her investigative work was exceptional, and she could easily hold her own in an office of mostly male agents. Heading for the back door, she pressed the timer on her sports watch and stepped through the screen door. She stopped dead.

  Fog. Thick, cloying and cold, like it had been that fateful morning. The mist brushed up against her face and she recoiled from it like she would a cold hand. A shiver racked her.

  There was no reason to be afraid of fog. Mist was created when warm air hit cold air. It was a weather pattern, and didn’t hide memories, ghosts, or the chunk of herself from when she’d lost her father. She’d been so sheltered then, protected, and her world had been safe and secure. Since then, she’d developed a thick skin, found out that the world was hostile and a tough place to maneuver.

  Just like that, she was back on that familiar London street, panting hard, running through the fog away from armed men—one in particular, his eyes cold and calculating, obviously the leader. His voice. It chilled her, that flat inflection in Arabic. She would never forget how it sounded.

  Kinley stood in a pocket of fog, but it didn’t seem like a pocket to her. She tried to shake the feeling of being swallowed, erased and eradicated by this enveloping whiteness. It was so white it hurt her eyes. Staring at it made her feel like she was staring at herself, staring at nothing. Her mind fought hard to get away from the visions and the memories, but the insubstantial wisps mocked her. Each thought she had seemed loud and exposed, just like how every movement she made in the silence that wrapped like the fog around her seemed to gather attention. And her father. Oh, God, her father. Maybe the fog was somehow in her, just as she was in it?

  Her next-door neighbor’s dog woofed as he usually did every morning when she ran, but he sounded distant, as if she were hearing his barking underwater.

  Everything looked and sounded unreal. The fog was so thick she could just barely make out the shoreline across North First Street. Whiteness obscured the ocean. It swooped in and skirted around the homes and the trees, like a giant eraser moving indiscriminately to eradicate, turning what was once there into something that wasn’t.

  Just like the day that those men had robbed her of her father, and the US government had robbed her of justice. They hadn’t been all that forthcoming with details of the investigation. All they would tell her was that they were looking into it and it was terrorists who had murdered him. She’d only been a child then, with no pull whatsoever. Even now, they were still vague with the details.

  She made herself move, took off into a slow lope. The sun would be up soon and burn a lot of this off. She wasn’t worried. She knew this beach like the back of her hand. But as she hit the soft sand, her house was swallowed up like a great white whale had just opened his maw and devoured it. She even lost the feeling of being on land. The fog and the sea joined with each other; even the waves lapping against the shore were quiet. And her heart was heavy as she ran, as if the ghost of her father ran with her, trying to catch up from that sixteen-year-old to the woman she was today. As if he were always one step behind her.

  Muffled popping noises suddenly sounded over the water. Kinley slowed down, her breathing harsh in her ears. She attempted to quiet it. Stopping completely, she turned her head and looked out, remaining still and listening intently. Her heart lurched and then started pounding. She couldn’t be sure of what she was hearing. The fog or her mind could be playing tricks on her. To hell with these doubts. She wasn’t going to panic. Trying to stay calm and in investigator mode, she waited. The burst came again in rapid succession, but with the fog blanketing everything and the visibility almost nil, Kinley couldn’t see anything but light flashes in the distance.

  Flares? she thought, scanning back and forth. Fireworks?

  Cocooned in the eerie opaque cotton, she strained her eyes trying to detect what it could be. The sounds seemed to be coming from everywhere, leaving her disoriented and unable to quite tell from which direction the noises originated.

  She waited, straining to hear and almost holding her breath. She tried to identify those softened explosions.

  She took a step closer, the water lapping at her feet, and peered out into the dense mist. Her stomach was tied up in knots. She’d heard that sound in the fog before…on a London street. Was it her imagination or real automatic gunfire?

  It came again and a chill raced over her skin. Her breathing went shallow. Without
concrete proof, she was not going to guess. She never guessed. Not anymore.

  She heard a terrible scraping sound, like metal against sand. Thumping and muted voices.

  The fog cleared suddenly, a patch of it misting across her eyes, and she saw…something whiter than the fog loom out at her, and a bright red splash of color before it was quickly covered and obscured again.

  Her stomach dropped. Everything went dead still, deader than the deadening fog—the sounds, her hands, her heart—and it felt as if every drop of blood had drained from her head.

  Suddenly the muffled sound of a boat’s engine, gunning away fast, surrounded her.

  She turned back the way she’d come and took off at a run, kicking up sand as she pounded back to her house, momentarily stumbling around until she got her bearings. After streaking across the street, she slammed into her house, rushed to her nightstand drawer and grabbed her holster, clipping it to the back of her shorts. She stuffed her ID into her sock. Snatching her cell phone off the nightstand, she was on the move again, back to the beach and the small dock where her former boyfriend had left a small motorboat. He’d hoped they would fish together. But that was never going happen, as she’d refused to have him move in with her, which had pretty much killed their relationship.

  She jumped into the boat and started the engine, heading to the vicinity where she’d heard that ominous scraping and popping noise. She searched the thick haze, and caught another glimpse of something large, white and red.

  White…oh God, red. Her stomach plummeted to her toes. “No, it can’t be—much too close to shore.”

  Guiding the light fishing boat over the slightly rocking sea, she moved slowly through the dense fog, her attention caught by the sound of an outboard motor. She looked to her left to make sure she wasn’t going to hit anything.

  With a weird sense of something looming right at the corner of her peripheral vision, Kinley wrenched her gaze back to the front and the now impending white/red monster careening out of the fog. She jerked hard on the throttle and swerved to the left at the last moment. The small boat rocked madly as it grazed the side of the hulking silhouette, making a loud screeching sound. Adrenaline sizzled through her blood, her heart beating hard against her chest wall.

  “My God, what the hell are they doing running without lights?” she murmured out loud to herself.

  She looked back at the ship that had suddenly materialized out of the fog. “Cutter, Point-class. Eighty-two-footer,” she said absently. They wouldn’t run without lights, not in this kind of fog. Her heart accelerated from alarm. Something was wrong. She felt it in her bones when she looked at the vessel. That ship should be alive with movement, lit up. Then it struck her. There was no thrumming—the engines were silent.

  Kinley twisted the throttle and sent the small boat revving back toward the massive and eerily quiet ship.

  There was a Jacob’s ladder hanging on the side of the ship. That ladder was only lowered when people were getting off. Otherwise it was stowed. There was no one around, the ominous absence of the engine and the fog that still lay thick around her completely muffling all sound. That persistent chill seeped through her. A chill of apprehension.

  She cut the engine and anchored the little boat. Pulling out her cell, she tried to find a signal so that she could call her boss. No luck. She swore softly under her breath, torn between investigating herself and persisting in reaching her boss. What if there were CGs up there in distress and her inaction inadvertently caused someone to die? After securing her phone, she grabbed the knotted rope sides, set her sneaker onto the first rung and pulled herself up. She looked up the side of the vessel but there was no visibility whatsoever. It looked like the fabled ladder that lead to the clouds and heaven.

  The churning in her stomach left her clammy, but she swallowed hard and climbed, pressing the foreboding back with a sheer wall of determination.

  It was the fog and the anniversary of her father’s death that triggered the haunting memories, the fear, the pain and the realization that she wasn’t really safe in the world. Ever. The terrorists would have killed her, too, had chased after her, but the fog had deterred them. It had saved her life, yet it wasn’t a friend. All she’d heard were the gunshots.

  She’d never even seen her father die.

  The boat dipped in a swell and her eyes popped open. She took a breath and heaved it out as she started to climb again. When she reached the rail, she hauled herself over, pulling out the SIG Sauer handgun at the small of her back. She flipped off the safety and chambered a round.

  She still couldn’t see a anything. Crouching low, she sidestepped her way across the deck, heading for the bridge. She kept quickly checking her six and leading with her slightly bent elbows and the black-as-hell weapon.

  “CGIS! Is there anyone aboard? Identify yourself!”

  Only her voice echoed back to her, sounding tinny in the thick fog that enclosed her.

  Then suddenly she tripped and flew forward, and she was back on the London street again, stumbling and falling to the pavement, landing right alongside her father’s frozen face and his open, dead eyes.

  It took her a moment to push back the panic and turn her head. As she did, the fog lifted on a sudden breeze. She cried out and scrambled backward.

  Blood was on her hands, smeared on her weapon and down the length of her body. Staring at her with open dead eyes was a man dressed in a Coast Guard uniform. She turned to look behind her and was met with a similar grisly scene. Another man lay prone, more blood, more staring eyes.

  “Oh my God,” she said softly, rising and trying her best to ignore the red and the metallic smell of the blood. Pearled drops dripped off her forearm as she raised her firearm and moved again, this time stepping over the body and checking the deck in front of her.

  She was breathing hard, clammy sweat beading and running down her temples and her back.

  As the sun rose, the ship became more visible. Crouching, she circled the bridge and approached the open door. Another no-no on a ship at sea. All doors were always closed and secured. It was a hardcore CG rule.

  When she breached the door and glanced quickly inside, she found no threat. Just more bodies, obviously deceased. Without pausing, she did a check of the rest of the ship and found one more dead. She lowered her weapon and headed back toward the bridge and the radio, stepping over each body. Six in all.

  She searched for, but couldn’t find, the logbook that would identify the vessel. Walking back outside, she leaned over the side of the railing, but there were no call numbers on the hull. No name, either. Back inside the bridge, she picked up the mic. Taking a breath to calm the trembling in her body, she pressed the transmission button and said, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Special Agent Kinley Cooper aboard the unknown Coast Guard vessel, unknown Coast Guard vessel, unknown Coast Guard vessel at position 37.0431°N, 76.2933°W. The vessel is drifting on the tide. I repeat. The vessel is drifting on the tide. No call numbers, no name, no logbook. Request immediate aid to secure the vessel. No medical personnel are required. All crew aboard are dead—six in all. Request contact of Coast Guard Investigative Services Special Agent in Charge Kirk Stafford. Engines are silent. But there is no visible damage to the vessel. It is intact and has not yet run aground. No hostiles aboard. Over.”

  A male voice responded, the quality distant with a humming sound each time the speaker pressed the mic. “Unknown Coast Guard vessel, this is the United States Coast Guard Vessel Point Sharon. Break. Break. Request the description of the vessel. Over.”

  “Eighty-two-foot Point-class cutter. Over.”

  Kinley rested against the console, attempting to collect herself. She was more than rattled. Was there ever a time when such a scene wouldn’t faze her?

  “Special Agent Cooper, sit tight. United States Coast Guard Vessel Point Sharon is en route. Alerting United States Coast Guard, Sector Hampton Roads. Alerting SAC Stafford. Over.”

  “Roger that, United States Co
ast Guard Vessel Point Sharon. Over and out.”

  She set down the mic and took up a position near the door. The bridge had a clear view of the bow, but the starboard wasn’t visible. Better to keep her guard up just in case she got company.

  Even as she stood watch, her mind was going fast and furious. How could this have happened? This was an elite, combat-ready force. It was hard to believe that someone could have gotten the drop on them, boarded a United States Coast Guard vessel and murdered everyone aboard. It was a light crew for this class of vessel. Normally, fifteen men manned a ship of this size. Were they also looking at a possible hostage situation with nine men missing?

  As soon as the Point Sharon pulled up next to the drifting ship and the preliminary introductions were out of the way, the crew got the engines started and piloted the ship over to the Hampton Roads docks for crime-scene processing, pulling the small boat she’d boarded the ship with. The Coast Guard would make sure it got back to her house.

  Still on the Point Sharon to keep the crime scene as pristine as possible, Kinley stood at the rail as the ship docked. Her boss, Kirk, waited on the dock with a crime-scene team. He was a tall, compact man with a buzz cut and he was a runner, like her. Even though she knew he was older than her, he had a boyish face with a set of intelligent brown eyes. Once the gangway was lowered and he was aboard, she briefed him on how she’d found the ship.

  He took her arm and drew her away from the team.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said immediately.

  “You shouldn’t have boarded that ship without backup.”