Catch a Shadow Read online

  So far, no one seemed familiar. No one looked around as if searching for someone.

  He thought about walking away, but hope was a mighty force. He recalled every word of the phone call that came five days after his release. His phone had just been installed one day earlier in the modest, furnished apartment he’d rented.

  He’d figured, when the phone rang, it was his supervisory officer—one of only two people who had the number.

  “Kelly? Jake Kelly?” came a male voice on the phone.

  Jake hadn’t recognized it. It certainly wasn’t the man who now controlled his life.

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “Never mind that. I have a message for you,” the voice continued. “This is it. My client says he knows what happened in South America. He wants to meet with you at a tavern at 602 North Highland in Atlanta on Tuesday. Four p.m. Back room. Left corner table. Don’t be followed.”

  “Who is your client?” Jake asked, not trying to mask his sudden hope.

  The caller hung up.

  Jake had checked the caller ID: Unknown Number.

  He suspected he wouldn’t discover more, even if he had resources to pursue a search. Instead, he jotted down every word. His memory, except for the day that eluded and haunted him, was good, but he wanted the conversation, such as it was, as it had been said.

  “He knows what happened in South America …”

  He glanced down at his watch again. Every movement of the minute hand made his freedom more precarious.

  He was on supervised parole, required to report in once a week and subject to unannounced checks. He was forbidden to leave the state of Illinois. He was a fool for risking violating his parole, but this might be his only chance to clear his name, to get some justice for Chet and Ramos and the others. And himself. He’d been abandoned—no, condemned—by those he trusted, by the government he’d served to the exclusion of everything else. He’d lost all faith in anyone but himself, and even that was wobbly at best.

  He’d tried for the last seven years to discover what had happened in South America. His letters—and those of his attorney—had gone unanswered, queries always blocked by national security walls.

  All he knew was that while he was recuperating in a hospital, someone found a half a million dollars in a bank account that led back to him, an offshore account he’d never opened. He’d been charged with stealing both the cash and diamonds his team had carried on that last mission.

  He’d also been suspected of murdering his teammates for money. Chet. Ramos. Del. Adams. The army had sought to charge him with that, but they could find no bodies. There was only the offshore account, the missing cash and diamonds, and four missing men. That had been enough for a conviction of theft. His own wounds had been self-inflicted, the JAG prosecutor had charged. Never mind he’d nearly died from them. The army had lost five million dollars, and it needed someone to blame.

  The memory of what happened that afternoon had never come back to him. Major head trauma often caused amnesia that wiped away events that immediately preceded the injury. But he was no ordinary person. He was trained to observe anything and everything and catalog it to memory. The failure to remember the events was like a cancer inside him.

  The phone call promised to fill that gap, and the bait had been irresistible. But he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that it was a trap. Someone had spent great deal of money to see him convicted. They might well be displeased that the government had made a deal to protect some very sensitive information.

  His watch, the cheap one he had bought for fifteen dollars, said four o’clock.

  He looked around. The bar was obviously frequented by a cross section of people. Men in business suits, students with book bags, laborers in dirty overalls all pushed through the doors.

  Why here? Why Atlanta? Why not Chicago? Two reasons came to mind. The person who’d hired his caller was afraid. He didn’t feel free to travel. The second was that the individual knew Atlanta and how to get around the city. But Jake didn’t, and the location made him wary. Yet the invitation had beckoned like a flame to a moth. He’d been helpless against its lure.

  There was a third reason: a trap to lure him back to prison.

  He leaned against the wall, but his eyes didn’t stop searching the street. Nothing suspicious, but then the tavern might be loaded with bad guys. Or good guys “doing their jobs” which, at the moment, could mean hauling him in.

  For a moment, he looked upward. The sky looked brighter without bars dividing it, and the trees—God, it was good seeing trees again.

  Then his concentration returned. Since he had not been told to wear anything special, he could only suppose his contact believed he would either recognize him or find him at the designated table.

  More importantly, would he—Jake—recognize the other person? A member of the team? One of the two whose bodies he hadn’t seen? He’d considered that. Coldly. Unemotionally.

  He continued to study every individual who approached the tavern. If any of his team were alive, then they must have been a part of the ambush and theft. It also meant they would have been in hiding with new identities. Probably new facial characteristics, especially if they came back into this country. But it was difficult to disguise the essence of a person: the way you moved, the set of a chin, mannerisms you never recognized in yourself.

  Maybe the call didn’t come from one of the team but from someone in Special Forces. Someone who’d believed him—maybe even knew something—but couldn’t come out in the open. That was the most desirable scenario but not the most likely one.

  A figure caught his eye. A man of middle age. He’d parked his car down the street, like others, but something about his movements drew Jake’s attention. The man had that singular grace of an athlete or a stealth warrior.

  The newcomer hesitated, scanned the street in a way difficult for the untrained eye to detect.

  He was slight, both thin and not very tall. His body radiated a tension that no disguise or surgery could hide. The man Jake remembered was even shorter, but perhaps this one wore shoe lifts. His hair had once been dark, and now it was a dirty blond. His facial features had been hidden under a beard when Jake met him, but those quick, nervous movements gave him away. Del Cox had been unique among the other team members who were taught to mingle and mix among a multitude of nationalities. Cox’s intensity made him stand out. But he’d been a genius with explosives as well as electronics, and Jake had ignored his misgivings when he’d joined the team.

  Del Cox. Alive!

  According to the government, he was dead. According to a lot of people, at the hand of one Jake Kelly.

  Fury boiled in Jake’s gut. Cox had apparently left him for dead in the jungle, then let him rot in prison for something he didn’t do. Death would have been preferable to the disgrace, the look in his father’s eyes when he was charged. Hell, he’d had nothing to defend himself with except his service, and that apparently had meant little.

  He swallowed the gall in his throat and waited. Maybe Cox saw him. Maybe not. He wanted Cox to come closer. Didn’t want him spooked. Not yet.

  Cox started across the street.

  Jake caught a movement out of the corner of his eye just as he heard the squeal of tires.

  He started to shout a warning. It was too late. A dark sedan careened into Cox, tossing him up in the air. Then it sped away with a screeching of tires, as the driver swerved to miss an oncoming car.

  A shout. Screams. People poured out of the bar.

  He started for the fallen man, then stopped.

  He couldn’t be seen here. His presence in Atlanta was a ticket back to prison if anyone discovered who he was.

  Still, he moved forward several steps. Cox had contacted him for a reason. Jake had little faith in God these days, but he prayed nonetheless that the man survived. Cox might be his last chance.

  Then he stopped. A tall man dressed in slacks and a long shirt that hung loose left the tavern and approached
the fallen man. He reached him and started to kneel beside him. Jake’s blood ran cold. Another ghost. Gene Adams! He would bet his life on it.

  He didn’t recognize the face, but he knew the arrogant movements, the muscle flexing in the throat at being thwarted. Most of all, he noticed the clenching of his fist as he straightened when an ambulance screeched to a halt nearby.

  Jake started forward as a paramedic—a woman—jumped from the passenger’s side and rushed over to the victim. The man quickly moved away.

  Jake started after him just as someone appeared from the tavern, showed a badge, and asked everyone to step away.

  Jake moved back into the shadows. He didn’t think Gene Adams had seen him. He’d been too concerned with Cox. And his own appearance had changed as well. Jake doubted anyone who knew him from that last mission would recognize him today. His hair had been long then and tied back with a thong. He’d had a thick beard for his role as a terrorist. Now he was clean-shaven, his hair short, with gray running through the dark brown. He’d been far leaner then, too. Jake was still in fairly good shape, thanks to endless push-ups, but he had gained pounds. Prison food was fundamentally starch.

  He was forty, but he knew he looked fifty. Prison had aged him, and he’d worked to avoid habits that might identify him.

  Cox moved slightly, then Jake saw him try to say something as the woman paramedic performed a quick assessment. The woman shook her head, and the victim grabbed her arm, holding it. The woman took something from him and shoved it into her pocket. Jake glanced up to see other eyes following the movement as well, then step back as police cars arrived.

  Jake decided to try to follow him. His quarry slipped into the crowd, and Jake was blocked momentarily by police pushing back the onlookers. He couldn’t be obvious, couldn’t risk a cop stopping him. Still, he moved as quickly as he could. He looked ahead. No one. He took several running steps to the corner and turned just as the man he’d recognized as Adams stepped into the passenger’s side of a late-model luxury car, and it went roaring off, blowing through a light.

  He had a quick glance at the license plate and memorized the number, then returned to the crowd. Uniformed police arrived and moved among the crowd, asking for witnesses.

  He stayed on the fringe, watching as the paramedics—now two of them—loaded Cox into the ambulance. As they neared him, Jake backed away and darted into the bar. He wanted to follow the ambulance, but his rental car was still in front, not far from the crime scene, and he didn’t dare go after it. He did not want to be questioned by police.

  Everyone at the bar was talking. He found a spare seat at the bar and sat down.

  “What will you have?” the bartender asked.

  He glanced at the row of taps and chose one, then commented, “Terrible thing, what happened outside.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Someone said it looked like he was run down on purpose.”

  “I didn’t see it.” the bartender said, “so I couldn’t say. But we have some rotten drivers in Atlanta.”

  The man on his left shrugged. “Accidents out there all the time.”

  “Anyone know the guy?”

  The bartender shrugged. “I called 911, but I couldn’t leave the bar. Don’t think so, though. Someone would have said something. No one did.”

  Jake doubted he would get any more information. He paid and left the stool, taking his beer with him as he wandered through the establishment. There were several rooms off the main bar area. He went to the one designated in the note.

  While the front areas were packed, this room was empty except for two couples who paid no attention to him. He imagined the room would fill as people left work. He made his way to the table in the left corner and lounged in a chair.

  When he was sure no one was watching, he searched the underside of the table.

  Nothing. Nor did he see anyone else around. He slowly sipped the beer, waiting for the last of the police to leave as he tried to understand what had happened.

  The man he once knew as Del Cox had given the woman paramedic a letter, a letter he suspected was meant for him. Had Gene Adams seen it as well?

  Or was his name Gene Adams? Adams and Cox had been CIA, while the other members of the team had been pulled from the Army Special Forces. Jake had previously worked with the other two Special Forces members—all three were Rangers—but not the CIA guys, and all of them, for security reasons, used false identities. He knew his teammates’ names but not those of the CIA guys.

  He’d liked Cox, but Adams had been a pain in the ass since day one. As a captain in the Rangers, Jake was supposed to be team leader. Adams was along to make the transaction and try to discover who had sold American missiles to Camarro, but Adams kept trying to take charge.

  Had the man who knelt next to Cox really been Adams? So many features were different, but not that cold stare that took everything in, nor the compulsive clenching of his fist when agitated.

  How could Adams have known of the meeting? He’d obviously been anxious to get to the fallen man before anyone else, and yet he hurried off before questions could be asked. And a car had been waiting for him not far from the accident scene. It didn’t take too many coincidences to raise those familiar hackles along Jake’s backbone.

  Ghosts. He’d seen two ghosts tonight. And now he had a lead. No, leads.

  A license number. A face he would not forget.

  And the paramedic who had taken an envelope from Cox.

  CHAPTER 3

  Kirke was emotionally and physically exhausted when she returned to her duplex.

  The toddler wouldn’t leave her thoughts. Neither would the insistent request of the hit-and-run victim.

  A sense of failure filled her. Perhaps there had been something more she could have done in both cases.

  Sometimes they were just too late.

  Usually she could turn those feelings off. Think, instead, of the people they’d saved during the past week. Month. Year.

  The fierce demand in Mark Cable’s eyes had left its imprint. She took the envelope from her pocket and weighed it with her hand. Light. Probably no more than a page or two.

  She placed it on the kitchen table, then took off her blood-splattered uniform shirt and threw it into the washing machine. She headed for the shower.

  Merlin. She had to get Merlin. But first she wanted to wash away the remnants of the day. She scrubbed every inch of herself, then washed her hair, thankful she now wore it short.

  No singing in the shower now. She should have turned the envelope in at the hospital. She still could. She could say she forgot about it.

  Do it! Turn it in and forget about it.

  The water turned cold, freezing her. A dash of reality.

  She stepped out and wrapped a towel around herself, then quickly dressed.

  Merlin would probably be squawking and driving Sam mad.

  She pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and went out the front door, across the porch, and knocked at the neighboring unit of the side-by-side duplex.

  “Come in, dammit.”

  She recognized the impatient sound. Merlin was imitating one of his former owners.

  Sam appeared at the door, scowling. “You’re late. I’m due for rehearsal.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. We had a call just as before our shift ended.”

  Sam’s scowl disappeared. “Bad day?”

  “The worst.”

  “A beer?”

  “You bet,” she said, following him inside to the loud cackling of an unhappy Merlin.

  Sam had been her neighbor for ten years, ever since she moved to Atlanta to work for the Observer. He was a musician who played in a jazz band at a downtown nightclub and sometimes filled in with other bands. He was usually gone all night, and she all day.

  She looked after his cat when he was gone at night, and he looked after Merlin, who had a severe separation anxiety problem, during the day.

  She went over to Merlin’s cage and released
him. The parrot flew to her shoulder and pecked her ear. “Merlin lonely.”

  “I know,” she said, soothing his feathers. “Ready to go home?”

  Merlin put his head against her cheek in a rare display of affection. It had taken her two years with him before he had displayed any at all.

  “I have some pizza in the fridge,” Sam said helpfully as he handed her a bottle of beer. “You can take it with you.”

  Kirke made a face. Cold pizza had never appealed to her, but she remembered she had precious little food in her fridge. She’d meant to go shopping after her shift but …

  She nodded and swigged down the beer. She seldom did that. She enjoyed a beer with meals and a glass of wine at night, but she was careful when she drank, especially in her current job. Her patients couldn’t afford a hungover paramedic.

  Sam noticed it, too. “A really bad day, huh?”

  “Not the half of it.”

  He waited for her to elaborate. It was one of the things they liked about each other. They never pried into the other’s life, but each was there as a sounding board when necessary.

  “I broke the rules,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You?”

  He often kidded her about having a split personality. He complained she had an honesty that went to unhealthy extremes. She would drive twenty miles back if someone handed her the wrong change. Her conscience, he often complained, had been far too tightly wired. But she also had a thing about authority, particularly unjustly administered authority.

  He glanced at his watch, then gave her a rueful grin. “You can tell me about it tomorrow.” He paused. “Oops. I have an early rehearsal tomorrow.”

  “Why an early rehearsal?”

  “New singer. She’s good, really good. You ought to check her out. She has that Piaf sound you like so much.”

  “No one has that sound.”

  “No, but she comes closer to it than anyone I’ve heard. The drinks will be on me.”

  “Not tomorrow night, but I’m off the next day.”

  He nodded. “I gotta be on my way. Can’t get fired from this gig.”