“You’re in no shape to fly anywhere. You’re exhausted. I can hear it in your voice. I booked a flight earlier this afternoon. I figured Salt Lake might be kinda rough. I’ll be arriving at Lindbergh tomorrow morning, just after eight. She gave him the info.
“Thanks, Holly.”
“Try to get some sleep.”
Chapter 17
He spotted Holly right away. Dressed in designer jeans and a blue silk shirt, she looked beautiful.
Holly waved and quickened her pace down the concourse.
Outside the security barrier they hugged. The female TSA guard smiled. Nathan wondered if she ever got tired of seeing such reunions.
She took his arm. “You look exhausted.”
“I’m okay.”
“Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Not much. I can’t get Montez out of my head. I keep thinking about Nichole Dalton and her daughters. Like a feedback loop, it keeps running again and again. I can’t turn it off.”
“I feel it too. When we get to your house, you’re getting eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.”
“Yeah, that’s sounds about right.”
“Do you have something you can take? Over-the-counter?”
“I’ll be okay.”
Holly insisted on paying the parking fee and drove onto North Harbor Drive, heading east toward I-5.
“So what now?” Holly asked.
“Exactly.” Nathan sighed. “What now? My next move is to call my father, as much as I’d prefer not to.”
“I thought you’d patched things up.”
“That’s not it.”
She waited.
“I’m worried Montez will catch wind of our pursuit and disappear forever, especially as more people get involved.”
“Do you really think that’s possible or even likely? Wouldn’t he need someone deeply embedded at a high level of government?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t put it past him. If he’s got such a source, the Dalton family is dead. He doesn’t leave loose ends.”
“That’s a terrible thought.”
“It kept me up most of the night, but my instincts are telling me he’s not finished yet.”
“You think he’s going after more people?”
“Yeah, I do. A lot more. Maybe we should take a closer look at Nichole Dalton’s past. Montez might be interested in someone she knows or has worked with. She’s got two daughters, but is she married? Divorced? Does she have a boyfriend? Who fathered her children?”
Holly fell silent for a moment. “It’s likely the San Diego PD has already made those types of inquiries. I wouldn’t be surprised if Henning has a copy of the police report. I’ll find out.”
He closed his eyes and rested his head.
“When we get to your house, you’re getting some sleep.”
Nathan crashed most of the day. He didn’t like losing the hours, but it couldn’t be helped. He still abided by his personal Marine Corps adage: Sleep when you can.
Now it was Holly’s turn. Curled into his shoulder, the darkness hid her face. She looked so unguarded and yet strong. Somehow this woman had slipped through his defenses. She felt like the missing piece of a puzzle. They’d talked for hours, sharing each other’s lives. Nathan had talked about his loneliness and quick temper. The nightmares. The anger and dark thoughts. The
Holly had reciprocated and told him about her troubled childhood and high school years, her bout with drugs, and her tequila-shooting, can’t-remember-how-she-got-home days. She admitted to looking for love, but never finding it. It seemed they shared a few things in common.
They’d spent the day at his La Jolla home. She really loved its architecture and the collection of Civil War relics and weapons. She’d been especially taken by his dogs and vice versa. After dinner, they came over here, to his Clairemont home. She wanted to see where he spent the majority of his time. She liked this house too, said the modest scale and furnishings somehow fit him better, made him more-
The red LED on the security panel next to the front door began flashing.
Someone just tripped the motion detector in the rear yard.
The low whistle of the alarm coming from every room in his house confirmed it.
“Holly.” he whispered, giving her a firm shake.
She opened her eyes.
“We’ve got company. Someone’s in the rear yard.” Nathan put a forefinger over his lips.
She needed no other prodding. Within seconds, they were both in the bedroom, where he punched a sequence of numbers into a small gun safe on his nightstand. Holly put a hand on his back as the metal hatch silently popped open, revealing his Sig 9-millimeter. He retrieved the weapon, suppressor, and two subsonic round magazines before grabbing his night vision scope from the nightstand drawer.
“Where’s your service weapon?” he whispered, screwing the suppressor into place.
“In my hand.”
“You’re with me. On my six.”
Dressed only in underwear, Nathan and Holly advanced down the hallway into the den, where vertical blinds covered the sliding glass doors. Standing off to the side, he cracked the slats just enough to see out. He activated his NV scope and scanned the yard.
Nothing. No movement at all.
He backed away from the blinds, returned to the hall, and stood perfectly still-listening. He inhaled deeply through his nose. No smell of anyone or anything. No faint cigarette odor, or cologne, or leather. Nothing.
He put his lips to her ear. “Stay close, I’m going to check the house.”
Knowing that any security system could be beaten-even his own-he conducted fast-moving reconnaissance, looking in every place big enough to conceal an intruder. In the living room, he picked up their clothes from the floor and tossed them into the coat closet.
The house was clear.
A second red light on the panel indicated a front yard motion detector had also been tripped. From the den, he checked the rear yard again.
He approached the keypad by the door and turned it off. If possible, he wanted to take one or more of them alive.
They hurried back to the bedroom.
Moving fast, he slipped into a pair of jeans, grabbed T-shirts for himself and Holly, and led her back through the house into the kitchen.
He handed Holly a shirt and put his on. “We’ll hide in here,” Nathan whispered, and pulled the cabinet doors open. Where there should have been pots and pans, a wide-open space loomed.
“In there?”
“Yes.”
Precious seconds were wasting, he didn’t have time to explain. Once they were both inside, Nathan pulled the cabinet doors closed. Holly ended up sitting with her back to one end of the cabinet with Nathan opposite her in
