The Omega Team: Tough Target (Kindle Worlds Novella) (3 page)

She had used her connections as a former homicide detective at the Tampa PD. If she wanted to attend the autopsy of Clive Landry—along with the detectives charged with investigating the case—she’d be allowed to stay.

Landry’s only child, Melissa, had taken the bad news hard and begged Grey to ID the body for her. Identification could have been by photograph, but both Athena and Grey wanted to see Clive—to say good-bye to a man they loved and respected.

After the medical examiner pulled back the sheet that covered Clive’s face and left the room, Athena stood alone with Grey beside the body. She tensed her jaw and wrestled with the flood of emotions hitting her. Clive had served his country. He’d risked his life on many missions in his career, but he came back to the United States—ready to finally retire and become a fledgling grandpa—until a coward gunned him down at the front door of his own home.

“I never saw this coming. On a mission, we have each other’s backs. We’re a team. We look out for—” Tears drained down her cheek. “Clive didn’t deserve this. He should’ve been allowed to walk away. He would’ve made an amazing grandfather. God, he loved Melissa.”

Grey reached out a hand to her and gripped the back of her neck. She folded into his arms and let him hold her.

“We haven’t had any casualties, until now,” she said.

She knew Clive would not be the last they would lose. Every member of the Omega Team had lost someone to violence. It never got any easier to accept or understand.

“A man like Clive touched a lot of lives. He’ll be missed,” Grey said, pulling her tighter into his arms. “We’ll find out who did this. I promise you.”

Athena shut her eyes and hugged the man she loved—grateful Camila Borrego hadn’t targeted him first. It shamed her to think that way, but she couldn’t help it.

She pulled from Grey and touched his cheek, tracing the prominent scar that trailed from his eyebrow down his left cheek. His scars were a physical manifestation of how dangerous their lives were—and how they should make every second count.

“I don’t think I can watch them cut into him. I’ve seen enough.” Athena wiped her face. “I’ll get a copy of the prelim autopsy report, before the final labs are done. Unfortunately we have other priorities. The safety of our team is too important.”

“I agree,” he said.

Athena wanted to grieve for the loss of Clive Landry and be there for Melissa. The poor girl was about to have her first baby, without the father she loved so dearly.

But Camila Borrego threatened everything.

“Has everyone gotten the word on our emergency protocol, to go to ground until further notice?” Grey asked.

“Everyone…except Sam Rafferty. I’ve left him warning text messages with my suspicions, but I have no way of knowing if he’s received them. His phone is out of service. It could be because of the hurricane, but I’m worried.”

Grey reached for her and touched a hand to her cheek.

“Let’s get to the hospital,” he said. “I’m sure Rafael could use the company, but keep trying Sam. We’d both feel better if we talked to him, to make sure he’s okay.”

“Yeah, I will. I have to tell him about Clive. No way I’d do that by text.”

Athena turned back to Clive’s body. She covered his face with the white sheet in an intimate gesture that broke her heart. When her thoughts turned to Sam, she clenched her jaw, vowing she would not put him in the ground, like they would soon do with Clive Landry.

Sam Rafferty was a force of nature. She couldn’t imagine him dead.

Sam, where are you?

Florida Everglades

Hours later

Geneva opened her eyes to darkness tinged with a bluish haze. As her vision cleared, she realized that she stared into the shadowy boughs of a large cypress. A dead limb had snared her in its grasp. She caught glimpses of a sliver moon through the dense cloud cover and felt rain on her face and her body. Meager light undulated through the massive feathery branches of the ancient tree that protected her from the punishment of an outright downpour.

Although she couldn’t feel her body that had grown numb—except for a persistent chill caused by the rain—she sensed the hardness of wood under her back and she remembered the canoe. When she tried moving, the boat rocked in the water and it brought back memories of what happened.

Can’t sleep. Gotta move.

She tried to sit up and pain shot through her shoulder and side. She cried out in agony and fought to hide her gasps. She remembered losing consciousness. Now she didn’t know where Camila and her pit bulls had gone. They could be anywhere. Her fingers felt the metal of her shotgun. She’d brought a box of extra shells, but she didn’t have time to bring anything to stop the bleeding.

Sam’s handsome face flashed through her mind. The evil woman and her two assassins had come to kill her boy. Were they hunting him now?

Gotta get help…to stop this.

When Geneva defied her throbbing misery and forced herself to sit up, she heard a splash of water and caught the moonlit glimmer of a water moccasin cutting through the river toward her. She yanked her hand back from the edge of the boat. The current forced the snake to drift downstream, away from her canoe and she breathed a sigh of relief. But in the shallows downriver, more danger lurked. The eerie glowing eyes of gators at night glistened across the surface of the water.

That’s just God’s creatures, uprooted by the storm
, she thought, to calm her heart. But with her eyes on the water moccasin and the gators, she nearly missed the real enemy.

In the distance, she saw a light flicker through the shadows of trees and the steady onslaught of rain. A man called out something in Spanish. Two-legged snakes were far more dangerous. On instinct she hunkered down into the boat, but she soon realized she’d be a sittin’ duck if she stayed.

Geneva clutched at her belly and rolled out of the boat and into the water. When she felt the slippery silt of the river bottom under her feet, she straightened her legs and stood up. Dizziness threatened to topple her over, but she fought to stay conscious.

You collapse here, you die.

Under normal circumstances, she knew help could be downstream—if some folk were stubborn like her and had stayed to wait out the storm—but that would be a long shot. She knew that now. With the rising water, she didn’t have the strength to control the canoe that far and she couldn’t risk losing consciousness again. She had to play it smart and do the unexpected. If she pushed the boat out into the river, it would drift away from where she hid. Whoever hunted her wouldn’t know where to look.

Using all her strength, she shoved the boat out into the rising water with a grunt and she watched as the current took the canoe downriver. She crawled ashore and into the thick brush, praying it would be enough to confound the bastards who wanted her dead, as a message to her boy.

She grimaced in pain and pushed on as Sam’s voice and her memories of what he used to say comforted her.
‘Bravery is being the only one who knows you just peed yourself.’
That one always made her smile.

Or he’d say,
‘Never draw fire. It irritates the people next to you. Me personally, I try to look unimportant, in case they’re low on ammo.’
Sam would resort to humor to downplay the danger of his missions, but not everything he said had been intended to be funny. She remembered something else he’d told her once.
‘Anything you do can get you killed, including nothing.’

She wouldn’t die doing nothing.

Geneva vowed to fight to her last breath. Every time she planted a knee or dug into the dirt with her aching hands, dragging the shotgun with her, she pictured the face of her only child, Sam. She imagined him from the impish boy he’d been to the handsome and brave man he’d become.

She had to stay strong—for him.

***

Sam followed the shoreline on foot and in the dark. He steered clear of the rising water and raced to find signs of his mother coming ashore before the river covered her tracks. The storm had beaten his body and drenched him in rain, making the going slow. After he’d chosen not to use a flashlight—for fear the light would make him a target—his eyes had adjusted to the dark, like a nocturnal animal in search of prey.

You took the boat, didn’t you, Momma?

With the canoe missing, he had to make a leap in logic that his mother had taken it to escape whoever had assaulted her. Sam preferred picturing her on the run, rather than believing her attackers had made the gators happy with an unexpected meal.

But you were hurt
. He tried to imagine what she would’ve done.

His momma would’ve let the current take her downriver to stay ahead of her attackers and go where she knew there’d be help. But with her being hurt and losing blood, anything could’ve happened to her.

When the hair on Sam’s scalp bristled, he stopped dead still and listened. The wind and rain made him strain to hear, but his instinct had triggered a reaction. He ducked low and dared to close his eyes and listen hard.

Come on. Make a mistake.

That’s when it happened again—a soft thud on muddy ground. He opened his eyes with a start and searched the shadows for anything that moved, but he was too late.

Someone hit him from behind. Sam hit the ground hard and grappled with his attacker. He countered with a shift in his weight, to throw the guy off balance and pin him, but his assailant beat him to it. Legs wrapped him up tight. In the slick mud, he couldn’t get a strong enough hold for leverage.

Sam reached an arm around the guy’s chest to toss him off, but when his hand touched something familiar, the shock stopped him cold. Long muddy strands of hair drifted in the wind and caught the glimmer of the moon. When fierce, dark eyes sparked a memory, he realized who had him pinned in the dirt.

Kate Cypress sat on his chest, covered in mud, and held his arms down. Her badge glinted in the pale light. Under the muck, she had on her uniform.

“What the hell are you doing, Kate?” he asked. He yelled loud enough for his voice to be heard over the battering wind. “I could’ve killed you.”

“Sam? Sam Rafferty?” She grimaced. “In case you missed it, I’m the one on top.”

Sam let the tension out of his body, except for the one place he could not control. With Fish and Wildlife Special Agent Kate Cypress pressing on his manhood, she took the fight out of him and replaced it with something else entirely.

After she let her guard down, he flipped her on her back and pressed his body against her. With his face inches from hers, he grinned.

“As I recall, you liked being on top.”

If he had any doubts about Kate hearing him over the blustering weather, those vanished when she glared at him.

“Don’t piss me off, Rafferty. I’m
not
in the mood.”

Kate pushed him off and sat up, resting her elbows on her knees. Sam couldn’t help but grin when he saw her covered in mud with her drenched uniform sticking tight to her body.

“You’ll have to take a rain check on the sex, Cypress. Sorry. Best I can do.”

Kate let out an exasperated groan aimed at his ‘rain check.’ Pissing her off came as naturally to him as breathing. She punched him in the arm before she stood and offered him a hand. The wind nearly toppled her over again. Sam took her hand and noticed Kate’s expression had turned grave.

“The forecast on the hurricane was wrong. It came ashore early,” she said as she brushed off her pants.

“That’s a newsflash. You and I both know weather forecasts are only horoscopes with numbers. What are you doing here, Kate?”

“I came to check on your mom and saw the cabin, all that blood. What the hell happened?”

“I have no idea, but I’m guessing she’s been shot,” he said. “The blood spatter in the kitchen had to be hers. That’s where she kept her shotgun stashed, but her canoe is missing. I hope that means she got away.”

“Whoever attacked her, what would they be doing out here…and during a hurricane? Hell, why would
anyone
attack your mom?”

Sam heaved a sigh and said, “Momma has that effect on people.”

“Well, that acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Kate pointed into the shadows, near the water’s edge. “I found something you ought to see. Come on.”

***

Kate never expected to see Sam Rafferty in the flesh—not on purpose. Her physical reaction to straddling his hard body had lingered and would no doubt invade her dreams. Sam had always been the kind of guy that a woman would not easily forget. She knew that firsthand.

She respected Geneva and looked after her, knowing Sam’s job kept him traveling all over the world with the Omega Team, but a small part of her secretly fantasized about a chance meeting every time she visited his mother.

“Is this your mom’s canoe?” Kate leaned into the wind and winced with the worsening rain.

She shoved aside brush to show him the discarded boat that had been pulled to shore and flicked on the Kel-light she had strapped to her duty belt.

“More blood,” he said, pointing. “Are those bullet holes?”

“Yeah. Someone must’ve found her boat and made sure no one could use it again. What do you make of that?”

Sam peered through the darkness with a strained look. Even in the murky shadows, Kate couldn’t mistake his fraying nerves. The guy lived his life on the edge to protect his country and the freedoms of others. He wouldn’t know how to be a victim. It would tear him apart to lose the one person he loved most in the world—his mother—to a faceless enemy and an unmerciful hurricane, but she resisted the urge to hug him, as she would have in the past. Sam looked worried sick and she knew he could use the support, but she couldn’t trust the pull of her feelings.

Now wasn’t the time to lust after Sam Rafferty, not when his poor mother was in serious trouble, but Kate couldn’t stop her mind and body from reacting to him. She’d had a taste of him when they were both younger. She’d lost her virginity to him at a time when neither of them was ready for anything serious. They both had physical needs back then—screwing like rabbits for months—with no thought of the future.

Even though she had been the one to call it off—the guy could be insufferable and seriously got under her skin—but he was the human equivalent of deep-dish meat lover’s pizza with gooey hot cheese.

One enticing slice had never been enough.

“Have you looked for her…body?” His voice caught. “Maybe they shot her in the boat and dumped her—” He couldn’t finish.

Kate shook her head.

“I don’t think so. There’d be more blood in the bottom of the canoe.” She touched his arm until he looked at her. “The way the boat was pulled onto land and hoisted into the brush, I’m thinking someone thought they were close, but she gave them the slip. They shot the hell out of her boat, because she outsmarted them. The number of bullets says they were pissed.”

Sam crooked his lip into a lazy smile.

“She’s ornery. Yeah, I can see that happening,” he said. “You have a theory?”

“Well, you know Geneva better than I do, but she’s wounded. If we didn’t have this storm, she could’ve eventually gotten to help, but I’ve been downstream. People are gone and homes are boarded up.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m thinking she used the boat to send whoever shot her on a wild goose chase. She could’ve let the canoe drift downriver as a decoy.”

Sam winced.

“If she did, that means we’ll have trouble locating her, too.” He stared out toward the rising flood waters.

“She could be anywhere between here and the cabin,” he said. “That’s lots of ground to cover. We may not have much time to find her. She could be unconscious and bleeding out.”

“Don’t borrow trouble, Sam, and don’t give up hope.” Kate pressed her hand to his chest until he fixed his gaze on her. “I believe your mother is alive, but she needs our help. When we find her, I have first aid in my truck. You have any ideas where she might go?”

Sam shook his head.

“Murphy’s law. Wherever I’m sure she’ll go, she won’t be there.”

“Then what do you suggest?” she yelled, feeling the strain in her throat of hollering over the storm.

“We do this old school. We double back on foot and pick up her tracks, if we can find them.”

He stared at her with an intensity Kate had never seen in him.

“We find her before they do,” he said.

The menace in his voice sent chills crawling down her spine and arms. Sam Rafferty wasn’t the boy she used to know. As a former Navy SEAL, and now a mercenary for hire with an elite private security agency, Sam had turned into a very dangerous man.