The Garbage Man by Candace Irving

Author:Candace Irving [Irving, Candace]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781952413247
Publisher: Blind Edge Press

11

Shock gave way to suspicion, certainty—and, yes, relief—as Kate stared at the pair of military ID tags dangling from the Durango's rearview mirror as she slid into the driver's seat. Though her grip on sanity might be tenuous at times, it was holding. Ruger was right. Someone had been in their house. Someone who, despite Ruger's snarlingly determined presence, had deftly retrieved that Silver Star from her trunk, wiped it free of prints and pinned it to her pillow.

She was not stalking herself.

But someone was.

The proof was in the name, social security number, blood type and lapsed religious preference stamped into those twin, seemingly innocuous slivers of stainless steel.

They were anything but. Like the watch she'd automatically begun to twist, those tags belonged to Max.

They shouldn't exist. Not here, in Arkansas.

Hell, not even in the States.

Unlike Max's watch and body, those tags had never made it home. She knew, because she'd asked. Begged. According to the fellow CID agent who'd interviewed her following her escape from that compound, the tags had disappeared before the crime scene unit had arrived. Only that hadn't made sense even then, while she was still curled up in the fetal position on that hospital cot. She could understand Max's murder, but why strip him of his tags?

The bodies of the two other soldiers who'd made it as far as the compound had still had theirs around their necks. Hell, the bastards had even left hers in place. How had singling Max out for special treatment fit into his killers' collective jihad? Especially since she'd been successful in sending the entire bunch to Paradise earlier than those assholes had planned.

But these were Max's tags.

Any suspicion that they were fake disappeared as Kate spotted the pair of tiny dents along the edge of the tag missing its bumper. She'd created them herself during a friendly tussle in Max's tent the night before they'd left on that last, fateful mission. No one else knew that.

So how had these tags made it from that Afghan terror hold to her Durango's stateside rearview mirror?

Who had strung them up?

And why?

Ruger. Lord, she needed his thick fur and solid hugs. Desperately. Before she ended up twisting Max's watch right through her wrist. The skin beneath had been scraped raw, but she couldn't stop.

Until her phone rang.

The lilting notes pierced the panic long enough for her to retrieve her phone and check the caller ID. It was from Saint Clare's.

Sergeant Fremont.

For some reason, the interruption was enough to reset her brain. She didn't question it; she simply connected the call before her nerves had a chance to betray her again. "Good morning, Sergeant."

"Steve. And it is a good morning, isn't it? Because we both made it home to see it."

Kate pulled a fortifying breath of that same morning air deep into her lungs and smiled despite herself. "What's up?"

"Information. Can you make it into Little Rock today? We need to meet. I came across something you should know."

"I'm already here. But please tell me you haven't been poking around, asking about missing blood.

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