Page 62 of Fighting for Valor
Wallet, pill case, notebook, pen, battery pack, tissues, and water bottle. All intact.
Charlie whines, grabs the corner of the bag, and pulls gently. “Go on. I’ll follow you, buddy.” We come to a stop at a parking lot, and he goes right to a dark spot on the pavement. More blood. “They were here, huh? Is this where they took Cara?”
I swear this dog understands English. I wrap my arm around his solid body and bury my face in his neck. “We’re going to find her. I promise.”
Half an hour later, West pulls up to Hidden Agenda’s warehouse. I texted Ry the address of the parking lot, and Inara’s guy, Royce, is helping Wren by checking the traffic cameras all around the area.
“What do you need from me?” West asks as I plug in my laptop at the conference table.
“Get Charlie some water? Otherwise…” I stare at the screen, my stomach in knots and a cold sweat breaking out over the back of my neck, “unless you know how to unlock all these memories buried in my fucked up head…”
“No, but I’ve got my own horrors up here.” West taps his temple as he sets a bowl down for Charlie. Ambling over to the coffee pot, he starts spooning grounds into a filter. “Including more than I’d like about how to do…what Faruk did to you. I’m going to touch base with Ry. You need me, I’m here.”
West slips outside, and soon the only sounds are Charlie’s quiet breathing, the drip, drip, drip of the coffee brewing, and my fingers on the keys.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ripper
Fiddling with the earbud, I tap the keyboard to activate comms. “Wren?”
“Gotcha. What do you need?”
Dropping my head into my hands, I give up all sense of pride, and go for honesty instead. “I don’t know where to start.”
It’s been two hours. And the only thing I have to go on is that fourteen character code I added to every single transaction I ever made. I’ve traced fifty of them so far, but every trail leads nowhere.
“I only found three accounts when I was looking into Faruk’s transactions. One was old . Someone created it a year or so before you, uh, left Hell.” She clears her throat, and I think I hear her murmur something off comms. “That’s what we used to set you up with everything in Seattle. The account had been earning interest for so long, it had almost two million in it. The second one—that one was created the day after Joey arrived at the compound, and had a balance of sixty thousand dollars. And your code attached to the transfer. When I asked her about her personal finances, she said she had that much at a brokerage account. That ring any bells?”
“Shit. Yeah. I was going to find a way to get it to her family. Eventually.”
“I’ll send you everything I have on that transfer. It came from half a dozen different sources. Maybe one of them will lead you somewhere.”
“Thanks.” I want to ask her if she’s found anything about Cara’s location, but she’d have led with that.
“Ripper?” Her voice softens. “We’ll find her. Royce identified twenty-five cars traveling on Alaskan Way during the time we think Cara was taken. We’ve eliminated four of them so far. We won’t give up on this. I promise.”
I promise.
Ryker told me what those words mean to her. Through the lump in my throat, I thank her again and close comms. Thirty seconds later, Wren’s info flashes up on my screen. I stare at the lines of code, the account numbers, the dates and times, and pull up a calendar.
“Please,” Joey whispers. “You can’t just make me disappear.”
But I did. Closing my eyes, I let my fingers rest lightly on the keys.
Think. It’s all muscle memory.
I moved money for Faruk every few days. Invested it. Watched the markets. Codes and passwords start to come back to me. “Paper. I need paper.”
West is on the climbing wall. I’m not sure the man ever sits still unless he’s on a mission. With no idea where the fuck anything is in this place, I open up Cara’s bag and pull out her notebook. “Sorry, sunshine,” I say quietly as I undo the elastic cord and flip through the pages.
Afghanistan. Their “friend.” Has contacts everywhere. Runs guns, missiles, drugs, and people.
J.T. Richards. American. Works for the guy in Afghanistan.
Jessup and Parr want a bigger cut. They’re going to threaten to tell their superiors about Richards. If they do, the Special Forces will blow the guy off the map.
Cara’s notes. Everything she overheard the night that changed her life. Turning the pages, I read every line until I come to what happened in Tulsa.
