San Diego, fifteen minutes away. This cloak-and-dagger rot was for the birds.
She just hadn’t been ready to see him again. And judging by the tremors rocking through her at the moment, she still wasn’t ready.
“Abs, what’s wrong? You’re shaking like a drunk in rehab.”
“Matt took something from somebody,” she blurted. “Somebody pretty damned big and powerful.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “Took what?”
“I don’t know!” She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. “I don’t think they know, either. It’s like they’re on some fishing expedition and I’m the bait.”
“You have no idea who they are?”
Behind her, their raised voices had awakened Stevie. He whimpered, unsettled by the unfamiliar setting and the strange man growling at his mother. Abby ignored Luke’s question and hurried to her son. Stevie clung tightly to her, his yogurt-sticky fingers tangling in her hair. “Shh, baby, Mama’s okay.”
“Beautiful kid,” Luke murmured. “Looks like you.”
The tears she’d been fighting spilled down her cheeks. “They threatened him, Luke. If I don’t find whatever it was Matt hid, they’ll kill Stevie.”
Luke’s eyes widened with alarm. “They threatened him?”
“They were waiting for me in my apartment when I got home from work. Two men.” She sat down, no longer trusting her trembling legs to keep her upright. Luke shoved a couple of magazines aside and sat on the heavy wood coffee table in front of her. “They said Matt had stolen something important and they wanted it back. By the end of this week.”
Luke’s expression darkened.
She continued. “One spoke with a Boston Brahmin accent—but it slipped once, so I think he assumed the accent. The other guy came across as educated. A hint of a southern urban accent—probably born in a southern city but lost the accent.”
Luke’s lips curved, and she realized she was rattling on about linguistic cues in the middle of the biggest crisis of her life. “Some things never change,” he murmured.
“Everything changes,” she replied darkly. “I’m pretty sure these guys are ex-military, officer rank. SEALs or Rangers, maybe Special Forces—guys who came from tough neighborhoods but took advantage of the training and education. These aren’t goons. Whatever I’m up against, it’s big.”
Luke muttered a profanity, then shot an apologetic look at Stevie. “How does Matt figure in?” he asked, though he didn’t sound that surprised by what she was saying.
“I was hoping you’d know,” she said. “You know he didn’t tell me anything about his work.”
“This wasn’t work,” Luke said quietly.
Her heart sank. She pressed her face against Stevie’s soft cheek. “Then what?”
“The timing is interesting,” Luke added thoughtfully.
Did Luke know what Matt had hidden or where to find it? “You know something.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“But you have suspicions?”
Luke didn’t meet her eyes when he answered. “He was spending time with people I didn’t trust. People we came in contact with in the field.”
Abby realized what he meant. “A woman.”
Luke looked up sharply.
She smiled without humor. “I know he cheated on me. If that’s what you’re trying to hide—”
“Her name is Janis Meeks. Ran field ops for an organization called Voices for Villages.”
“They fund and supply infrastructure construction in Sanselmo’s poverty-stricken areas, right?”
“She and Matt—” Luke rubbed the back of his neck. “We suspected she was involved in something very bad, so I asked Matt to stay away from her. I guess he didn’t.”
By now, Abby realized, she shouldn’t be surprised at discovering another one of her late-husband’s infidelities. Matt had spent a year in the South American country, his intel unit attached to a peacekeeping unit assigned to the struggling democracy after a coup attempt. Matt hadn’t been the type of man to go a year without sex. In fact, danger would have been an aphrodisiac.
After Sanselmo, he’d begun keeping secrets at every level of their relationship. The beginning of the end.
“Sanselmo was hell,” Luke said bluntly. “Lots of bad things went down after the attempted coup. Marines died.”
“I know,” Abby murmured, distracted by Stevie wriggling in her grasp. She turned him in her lap to face Luke.
Luke smiled at Stevie. “Hi, big guy. My name is Luke. I knew your daddy.”
Abby tried not to flinch. “I haven’t told him much about Matt. He’s not old enough to realize something’s missing.”
Stevie touched a small gold pendant in the shape of a hawk that hung from Luke’s neck. “Bird.”
Luke looked down at the sticky fingers tugging his necklace. “That’s right, it’s a big bird.”
Abby smiled. She’d given the pendant to Luke for his birthday almost six years ago. Hawk was Luke’s unit nickname. It had fit—strong, smart and always watching out for the people he cared for.
“I have to have some clue what he was into, Luke.” She stroked Stevie’s hair, shuddering at the memory of the masked man’s threat. “They told me if I go to the cops, Stevie will suffer. I can’t risk it.”
“Sons of bitches.” Luke’s lips thinned to an angry line. “I think I know who they are, Abs—who they work for. But I swear, I don’t know what they want you to find. If I knew, I’d give it to you.”
“Tell me what you do know, then.” She laid her hand on his arm. “This is what you’d call a need-to-know situation.”
He sighed. “In Sanselmo, we were looking into American involvement in a drugs-for-arms black market. Some Sanselmano national guardsmen were trading government-issue arms and ordnance to El Cambio rebels in exchange for cocaine.”
“Is that how they got so close to pulling off the coup?”
Luke nodded. “El Cambio has controlled the coca production in Sanselmo for decades—only game in town. A lot of money up for grabs. Worse, there were American arms found during raids.”
“No way Matt was involved with trading arms for drugs,” Abby said bluntly.
“Maybe not. But his connection to Janis Meeks—”
Abby winced at the mention of the woman’s name. She’d taken a few body blows over the months after Matt’s
