Angel Down Read online

  “Hey.” Walt’s voice was as deep as a well. “Guess I better cut Mindy off. She thought you was with some guy but—” He stopped, brows ricocheting off his receding hairline as Gabe stepped up behind Edwards.

  “Oh…” She cleared her throat. “This is...ah, Gabriel.” Even the tips of her ears were red now, and her voice had lost a little of its velvety rasp. Maybe thinking you’re about to die in a ladies’ room on the seedy side of town will do that to a girl. “He uhh…” She paused, dropping the verbal ball.

  Gabe fumbled for a second, then picked it up and dashed for the end zone as best he could. “I followed her in to make sure she didn’t faint.”

  Walt narrowed his eyes. He was approximately as wide as he was tall, and would have made a kick-ass drill sergeant if he decided against being an attack dog. “So everything’s all right?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry if I worried you,” she said. Her tone suggested that she felt guilty about troubling him, despite the fact that she’d been fighting for her life just moments before.

  It could be that Jenny Edwards had an overdeveloped conscience.

  Walt narrowed his eyes, gave Gabe a warning glare and shifted his attention back to Edwards. “Well, I guess I’ll see you next week then, Eddy.”

  “Next week,” she said and turned woodenly toward the door.

  Gabe wasn’t sure if he should follow her or stay behind and let Walt beat the crap out of him. He delayed momentarily, debating that, but following her seemed marginally better. He turned and did just that. She’d left her coat, a cute little red number, on a hook near the door and stopped to swing it over her shoulders. He reached up to assist as Walt lumbered back behind the bar.

  “Don’t touch me,” she snarled then smiled at Walt as she tugged her hair from beneath the plaid collar. “Good night,” she called and pushed through the door.

  Gabe followed her outside, careful not to crowd. He might be wrong, but he thought he sensed a little bitterness. “Don’t you want to know what this is about?”

  She kept walking. “Seek help,” she suggested.

  He almost laughed. “Wish I could, but if Shep’s not dead already, he doesn’t have much time left.”

  She took another few steps then stopped and pivoted toward him. “Did you lie about your name?”

  That wasn’t the gambit he’d expected. “It’s Gabe. Gabriel Durrand.”

  “What branch?”

  He paused a second, doing his best to keep up. “Army.”

  She swiveled away with a snort. He stiffened at her derisive tone and wondered why? It wasn’t as if the Army had made all his dreams come true. Nightmares more like. Lots of nightmares. And that was only when he was lucky enough to be able to sleep at all.

  “I need a language specialist,” he said, striding up beside her.

  She kept walking.

  “And somebody with computer skills.”

  “Because this Shep’s in trouble,” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Where is he? In the brig for attacking an innocent woman in a restroom?”

  He didn’t bother to tell her that his leg still throbbed where an innocent woman had kneed him. It seemed a little petty, considering the circumstances.

  “Colombia,” he said.

  Her brows lowered a little. Two snowflakes and some other snotty form of precipitation settled onto her honey-toned hair.

  She stopped finally. The abruptness of the motion suggested she might still be a little tipsy. “You a Ranger?” she asked.

  He felt an instantaneous swell of pride. A flush of embarrassment followed close on its heels. Some day, maybe after he was dead, he would grow up and realize that Ranger might be synonymous with chump. “Yeah.”

  “Shepherd, too?”

  He nodded and felt his throat seize up at the mention of the man’s name. “He was working a private op.”

  “Is he your brother or something?”

  For a fraction of a second, he considered trying to clarify their relationship, but since Shep’s latest idiot move, Gabe couldn’t have been madder even if the dumbass was blood kin so why bother with lengthy explanations.

  He simply nodded.

  She turned away. “Not interested then.”

  He stepped up after her. “Why the hell–”

  “Psychoses tend to be hereditary.”

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and ended up deciding that he’d do best to avoid both. “I was told you were a decent terp.”

  She raised her brows.

  “An interpreter. I heard you were pretty good.”

  “Pretty good?” She stopped short, Nyquil eyes blazing.

  He drew back a little. “I believe adequate was the word used.”

  “Vete al diablo,” she said and pivoted away.

  The words sounded kind of sexy coming from her tart strawberry lips but he had to assume they weren’t complimentary. “Listen, I know we didn’t get off to the best start but–”

  She spun back toward him. “What part of vete al diablo don’t you understand?”

  “All of it.” Frustration burned him like acid. “That’s why I need a damned translator.”

  She stared at him a second then ground her teeth and pivoted away.

  He grabbed her arm, but she jerked out of his grasp and faced him with a snarl. “Don’t even–”

  “Sorry.” He raised his hands again. “Listen…” He drew a deep breath, trying to calm himself, to slow down. “He’s not my brother. He’s just a… He’s just a guy who keeps making stupid decisions.”

  She glared at him. “You lied?”

  “He’s the ‘or something’ you mentioned.”

  “You lied.”

  He ground his teeth. “It’ll be an easy job. Safe. I just need help for a couple weeks. Just long enough to get him out of trouble.”

  “My father used to say that you’ll never learn to stand on your feet if you don’t spend a little time on your knees…with an AK-47 pressed to the base of your skull.”

  Was that sexual? Or spiritual? God, he wished he were just a little less drunk. “Well, I’m sure that’s very…prophetic, and as soon as I find Shep I’m going to give that due consideration, but right now—”

  “Why do you even care about him if he’s such a loser?”

  He glanced to the side and blinked, but not because he was going to cry. God no. “We go back a ways.” She was staring at him. He felt his hands shake and tried to refrain from saying more. “And it might…there might be some danger.”

  She pursed her Blow Pop lips at him. A trio of young women were laughing as they crossed against the light. Laughing as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

  She nodded crisply. “I’ll think about it,” she said and turned away.

  It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to let her go. But nothing could have prevented him from speaking again. “We’re out of time,” he said.

  She didn’t glance back. “You’re out of time,” she reminded him and kept walking.

  Chapter 6

  Eddy gave Damian three rapid-fire jabs to the midsection then danced back. He swung to the left, but she ducked, dodged, then kicked up, slamming her heel into his lower regions.

  He groaned weakly.

  “That’s right,” she snarled. “Touch me again and you’ll be singing soprano for the rest of your pathetic life.” Turning jauntily, she walked away with a swagger that would have made Eastwood proud.

  The tattered punching bag she’d dubbed “Damian” made no clever retort.

  Sweat dripped from Eddy’s neck and slipped into her sports bra, but she didn’t mind. She liked to sweat. It counteracted the vague fringes of the hangover that threatened and made her muscles loosen and flex. It geared her up, pushed her past the polite boundaries that were as much a part of her as her freckled nose and knobby knees. She may have inherited her father’s Kelly green eyes, but her apologetic demeanor came strictly from her maternal side. Per
haps her mother’s easy pliability had been one of the characteristics that had most attracted Colonel Edwards in the early days of her parents’ relationship, but in the end, when her mother began to feel the need to spread her fledgling wings, it had torn their family asunder like a house of straw. In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t surprising that Eddy had silently vowed to be tough. It was rather shocking, however, that she had failed so miserably.

  She closed her eyes as memories of the recent evening screamed through her mind. What the hell had she been thinking? Or rather, had she been thinking at all? It wasn’t as if she made a habit of attacking men in restroom stalls. Neither did she generally agree to consider absurd propositions offered by the aforementioned men.

  True, the alcohol she’d imbibed had probably adversely affected her decision-making abilities, but those effects had long ago faded, leaving her reluctantly sober and dismally uncertain.

  Indecision gnawed at her. Should she accept Durrand’s challenge? Maybe his entrance into her life was providence. She’d wanted field experience since the day she’d first considered becoming a spook. Hadn’t she? Or had that just been another lie she’d told herself while safely hidden behind her computer monitor?

  Obviously, this wasn’t a decision to be made lightly. But with whom could she discuss it? Her mother, though intelligent and caring, would see little but the risk factor. Her father, on the other hand, might well see the value in her following through. It might, as he was apt to phrase it, put some hair on her chest. But unless mandated by a court order, she preferred to avoid speaking to Colonel Edwards. On the other hand, each of her friends would look at the situation through their own lens, when what she needed was objectivity. Someone to give it to her straight.

  She practiced her Eastwood glare a moment longer and was blessed with an idea.

  In another moment, she was dialing the phone.

  The familiar voice on the other end of the line was atypically breathy.

  “Ms. France?” Eddy scowled, wondering if she had gotten the wrong number. The woman’s tone lacked its usual workmanlike quality. But maybe that was to be expected at 0200 hours. Then again, she had no idea what time zone—or even what country—the operative lived in. “I’m sorry if I woke you. Shall I call back at another—”

  “Who is this?” The words were husky, a little brusque. Ms. France, apparently, had not been raised by a soft-spoken pacifist.

  “Edwards, Jennifer,” Eddy said, converting to a military stiffness she sometimes hid behind in uncertain circumstances.

  There was a moment’s delay then, “Calling from Langley?”

  “Not this time.” Eddy refrained from clearing her throat. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. Sylvia France was a private citizen, an intelligence gathering individual who worked for the highest bidder. “This is for my personal edification.”

  “Very well, I’ll bill it separately. Is that acceptable?”

  “Yes.” The conversation felt strange, making Eddy feel twitchy. She half wished she had done more research on her own; she was something of an IT expert in her own right, but Silvia had been known to obtain more information in ten minutes than others could in a week. So she punted, reaching for some kind of socially acceptable small talk. “How are you doing this morning, Ms. France?”

  “I’ve been better,” the other woman said and muffling the phone, rasped something low and quiet before speaking to Eddy again. “I hope to be so again soon.”

  “Oh. Oh!” Eddy said, suddenly understanding the situation; Sylvia France was not alone. But it didn’t matter. Eddy wasn’t an adolescent. She was twenty-seven years of age and not as innocent as she looked. She’d been told by a number of people that such a thing wouldn’t even be possible. “I’m…” She was floundering badly. “I’m so sorry I bothered you.”

  “No need to be.

  “Omar,”—Sylvia’s voice was very low. A little hoarse—“don’t stop.

  “What do you need, Edwards?”

  A man moaned. Apparently, Silvia wasn’t the only one hoping to improve her circumstances in the very near future. The idea made Eddy fidget like a toddler, but she could hardly hang up now.

  “I need some information,” she said.

  “I assumed you weren’t calling for a kidney transplant,” Sylvia said then sucked in a long, shuddering breath.

  Eddy forced a chuckle and closed her eyes. What was wrong with her? She was a grown woman, wise to the ways of the world. Educated. Liberated. Accomplished.

  “Now, Lance!” Sylvia growled.

  Eddy blinked as a blush rose to her unseen cheeks. Okay, maybe she wasn’t wise to the ways of the world, at all. Good gosh, she could barely remember the last time she’d had a date, and Silvia France, a woman whose voice and name suggested she was well into her sixties, was, apparently, having a threesome.

  “There, Robbie.” The words were barely a whisper. “Right there!”

  Okay, not a threesome. Eddy covered her face with her hand. “Maybe I should call back later.” Her voice sounded very small.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. In the morning then, right after–”

  “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Eddy’s cheeks burned hotter. She cleared her throat. “All right. Well…thanks.”

  “Thank you,” Sylvia breathed. Then, “Now, what can I help you with, Edwards?”

  Eddy remained mute. There were rustling noises in the background.

  “Edwards?”

  “Um…yes.” She glanced down at the walnut secretary she’d found while antiquing with her mother in upstate New York. The room was cozily decorated, her workspace as neat as a double shot of whiskey, but she felt strangely out of place. “I need intel on a man named Gabriel Durrand.”

  “Middle name?” The woman was all business suddenly. It was disorienting. Like driving through a blizzard into a dazzling blue sky day.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Civilian? Military? Political?”

  “Military. Army. Ranger, I think, but maybe–”

  “Gabriel Bertram Durrand.” There was almost no breathing room between the question being asked and the answer being given. “Born in Greenville, Tennessee on June 3, 1982. Nine pounds eight ounces.

  “Yes. Goodbye.” The farewell blended almost seamlessly with the rest of the narrative.

  “That weight puts him in the ninety-fourth percentile of national births.” She sounded almost bored, as if it were noon on a workday and she had nothing to do but sort out Eddy’s problems. “He had a slight speech impediment in second grade. Sustained a scar on his left hand from a glue gun incident while in kindergarten.”

  Eddy swallowed the urge to ask if she was being serious, but in her experience, Silvia France was always serious. Until tonight, Eddy hadn’t been entirely sure she was human.

  “One sister. Kelsey Ann Durrand, age twenty-nine, second lieutenant in the Army. Has a niece named Zoey. No father listed. Mother is Sergeant Ostroot Durrand. Gabriel graduated middle of his class from Engsbrook High School. Played rugby at the University of Michigan where he majored in engineering and dislocated a shoulder. Enlisted in 2002. Received a silver star for gallantry while serving in Iraq. Was promoted to second lieutenant three years ago. He was wounded in a skirmish in Kabul.” She paused, probably skimming the dozen computer screens she was reported to have spread out in front of her like a geisha’s painted fan. “Shipped out for a special-ops mission in March of this year during which every member of the team was either wounded or killed.”

  “Including Durrand?”

  “Looks like he took shrapnel to his right hand and leg.”

  Eddy winced involuntarily. “Anything else?”

  “That mission garnered both a recommendation for an award and a formal complaint.”

  “Who filed the complaint?”

  “Looks like it was…” She hesitated a moment. “A Lieutenant Linus Shepherd.”

  Shep?

  “And the recommendation for the award?�
��

  “Lieutenant Shepherd again.”

  A dozen questions struck Eddy at once. “Do you know why?”

  “It appears that Lieutenant Durrand saved Lieutenant Shepherd’s life.”

  “And the complaint?”

  “Looks like the same reason was listed.”

  Eddy scowled at the black square of her window. “Does that make any sense to you?”

  “I could venture a guess but it would be strictly conjecture and no more valid than yours.”

  “Okay.” Eddy sat in silence, mind spinning. She needed time to sort things through on her own, but she wasn’t entirely sure how to extract herself from the bowels of their rather absurd conversation. “Goodbye” seemed a little abrupt. “Carry on” somewhat suggestive. “Well…” Eddy said and managed not to clear her throat. “Have a good night, Ms. France.”

  “I already did,” Sylvia said and hung up.

  Chapter 7

  “Frank!” Gabe rubbed his forehead with this free hand and wished to hell the room would stop spinning.

  “Yeah.”

  “I asked what you know about Jennifer Edwards.”

  “Dude, it’s three o’clock in the morning.”

  “I’m aware of the time, Frank. I’m also aware of the fact that I didn’t inform Colonel Estevez that you have a picture of—”

  “Shhh, Jesus, man, what’s wrong with you? This line isn’t secure.”

  “Then give me some intel.”

  “Okay, okay. Geez. Who’s this girl you want to know about?”

  “Jennifer. Or Jenny. With a y. Edwards.”

  “I take it you struck out, again?”

  “I didn’t…” Gabe began but stopped himself before things spun completely out of control. “Just tell me what you know.” It occurred to him that he should have checked her out before racing half-cocked into the Blue Oyster eight hours earlier, but a recommendation from Captain Reynolds…Uncle Lou Reynolds, for fuck’s sake…had seemed adequate.

  “Jenny Edwards,” Frank muttered. “Jenny…Wait a minute. Are we talking about Eddy Edwards?”

  “You know her?” Gabe quit rubbing his head.