Scott felt as if he’d taken another bullet—this one in the gut. He’d thought that Travis might have run into some kind of problem, but dead? The news Kate had just imparted cut his legs out from under him.
What the hell had happened?
Aware of Natalie’s gaze on him, Scott turned and walked out of the bathroom into the hall. The heat and the passion of a few minutes ago had turned numb and cold.
“Scott, are you there?” Kate asked.
“I’m here.” He paused, his voice tight. “How? When?”
“A bar fight in Alaska two weeks ago. Colt said there was a verbal argument over a pool game—some guy accused Travis of pool-sharking—that spilled out into the parking lot later. Colt got someone to pull the security tapes for him, and they showed two guys jumping Travis just after one in the morning when he was heading back to his car. One of the guys hit Travis over the head with a bottle, breaking it, and then the jagged glass ended up in his jugular when the second guy struck him and he fell back.”
Scott wished he could believe that it was a coincidence, but there were two things wrong with the story: Travis sucked at pool, and he was a SEAL. A tier-one, best-of-the-best SEAL. Two guys—two normal guys—wouldn’t have been able to get the jump on him or do that kind of damage. He didn’t need to see the tape to know that they had to have been trained.
Scott could tell from Kate’s voice that she didn’t believe it, either. “Let me guess,” he said. “The two guys weren’t local, no one had ever seen them before, they’ve disappeared, and the police have nothing.”
“Yep, they checked into a hotel two days before and seem to have left that night. They didn’t check out.”
“Fake ID and cash to rent the room?”
“How did you guess?”
“Photos?”
“Nothing clear on any of the bar security cameras. Colt is having someone pull the street, ATM, and nearby building cameras.”
“Descriptions?”
“A couple. Travis was with one of the guys he worked with, and the guy was pretty shaken up, but he got a good look at one of the guys. He had some pretty elaborate neck tattoos that might give us a lead.”
But Scott already knew where it would lead: back to the Russians. Mick must have been able to pass on the information about other survivors before he was killed—the timing was right—and the Russians were hunting them down, picking them off one by one.
It wasn’t over.
A wall of conflicting emotions hit him at the same time: denial, rage, sadness, frustration, and guilt. Travis’s death was on him. Keeping the survivors safe was his responsibility. If they’d come out earlier maybe...don’t go there.
It wasn’t often that Scott lost his cool, but he was struggling with it now.
“How the hell did they find him?” he asked. They’d taken precautions, and his guys knew how to disappear.
“I’ve been looking into that,” Kate said. “Remember the payoff to the young woman who claimed to be pregnant with Travis’s child that we thought was from the government?”
“The five thousand dollars Colt told you about?”
“Yes. I’ve done a little digging, and I don’t think it came from the government. I think it might have come from Travis.”
Scott cursed, not wanting to believe it. “Travis wouldn’t be that stupid. He knows better.”
He’d been trained better, damn it. And Travis knew the stakes; the eight teammates who’d never left the gulag were proof enough of what could happen.
“If the baby really was his, I wouldn’t be so sure,” Kate said. “I’ve seen a lot of smart people do stupid things when a child is involved.”
Kate had no idea how well her point had been aimed. She could have been talking to him.
“Have you talked to this woman to see what she knows?” he asked.
“I tried to call her a little while ago, but she hung up on me as soon as I mentioned Travis’s name. She’s in Vicksburg now so I’m catching a flight to Jackson”—Vicksburg, Mississippi was Travis’s hometown—“this afternoon to track her down in person.”
“Not by yourself.” Scott spoke without thinking. He would have put it more delicately—less like an order—if his brotherly protective instincts hadn’t been kicking in hard. Before she could get mad at him, he added, “It could be dangerous. Take Colt with you.”
