Page 51 of Protecting Maggie
“Fuck,” Blink said again.
Twenty percent.
Preacher pressed his lips together. He’d fucked up. Big time. Maggie was never going to trust him again. He’d just gotten to the point where he felt good about how much she’d lowered her shields around him. And after this morning…he’d never felt as close to another human being in his life. And he’d gone and ruined it.
“Have you talked to Tex?” Safe asked.
“I called him. He’s looking into it,” Preacher told his friends. “I also called Dude and got his opinion on this entire fucked-up situation.”
“And?” Smiley asked.
“He was stunned. At first said there was no way. But I guess after we hung up, he thought about the situation some more. Rang me back and said now he thought there was a possibility it could be true,” Preacher said with a sigh.
“What convinced him?” Smiley asked.
“I have no idea. He mentioned making a few calls, then said that he didn’t think Maggie would lie about something as serious as this. Especially since it would be easy to prove or disprove who her ex was.”
“So now what?” MacGyver asked.
“I think I need to talk to Maggie again. Get as much intel from her as possible. Then we go to the top brass here on base. And NCIS. Get an inquiry started,” Preacher answered.
“The second Robertson finds out he’s being looked into, she’ll be in danger,” Blink said.
“She’ll need to have someone on her twenty-four seven,” Flash agreed.
“And her probation officer will need to be informed of what’s going on. In case Robertson retaliates by trying to set her up again,” Safe agreed.
Preacher loved these men. Loved that their first thoughts were about Maggie. Not about how fucked up it was that they’d been sent on missions that might have been bullshit. A thought struck him then. “Blink, that mission where your team was ambushed…do you think…was that…” He couldn’t even finish the thought.
Blink stared at him, living up to his nickname by not blinking even once. “If he was behind that FUBAR’d mission, I’ll fucking kill him.”
Preacher wouldn’t blame the man. He’d lost some very good friends in that clusterfuck of a mission. Not to mention how he’d been sent back to Iran with another SEAL team…was someone trying to get rid of him too? The only other witness to everything that had gone wrong on the earlier mission?
“I think this solidifies our guess that we were likely sent to that fucking ship when we weren’t needed on purpose, huh?” Smiley asked no one in particular.
“I need to call Maggie,” Preacher said, having an almost desperate need to talk to her. They’d left each other on a not-so-great note that morning. Pulling out his phone, he was surprised to find a message from her, forgetting thathe’d put his phone on do-not-disturb for this meeting. Blocking out his friends’ heated discussion on whether or not Rear Admiral Robertson was responsible for their last mission, Preacher brought his cell up to his ear.
He didn’t smile as he listened to Maggie’s message, but hewasrelieved. He liked that, even though they’d had a disagreement, she hadn’t hesitated to apologize for lying to get him to leave. He needed to do the same. Her need to be rid of him was mostly his fault. If he’d been a little more open to the possibility of who her ex was, things wouldn’t have escalated to the point where she’d felt she needed some space.
Knowing she’d recorded her ex’s phone call made him extraordinarily proud. And he wasn’t sure whyhehadn’t thought about having her ID her ex in photos.
He immediately clicked on her name, needing to tell her right that second that he was sorry for how things went down too, and he and his team would keep her safe while an investigation was opened into Robertson. But his call immediately went to voicemail. Which was odd. In all the time he’d known her, which admittingly wasn’tthatlong, her phone had always been on.
Looking at his watch, Preacher wondered if she’d decided to go into My Sister’s Closet for a few hours, after all.He was about to call Julie and ask if Maggie was there, and if he could speak to her, when Kevlar asked about Maggie’s message. He told his team about her recording a phone call from her ex, and that she was willing to give him the address where he’d lived before she was incarcerated.
Then Preacher’s phone rang. Glancing at it anxiously, he saw it wasn’t Maggie calling, much to his disappointment. Tex’s name flashed on his screen instead.
“Tex, hey,” Preacher said.
“I’m guessing your woman isn’t lying,” Tex said, not beating around the bush. “I admit I was highly skeptical at first. I mean, a rear admiral isn’t exactly someone I’d suspect of being a drug dealer or sending an innocent woman to prison. But the deeper I looked into the man, the more I dug up.”
“Hang on a sec,” Preacher said, putting his phone on speaker and telling his team what was going on. “Okay, go ahead. We’re all listening,” he told the computer genius.
“Right, so it took a bit of serious work—some of this stuff was burieddeep—but I found that the esteemed rear admiral definitely has some skeletons in his closet. For instance, Roman Robertson isn’t his real name.”
“Holy shit, seriously?” Kevlar asked.
“Seriously,” Tex confirmed. “He didn’t go to college right after high school either. Instead, he spent time in Chicago…and he was married.”
