The fact that he didn’t ask about what? told her he had answers. Instead, he glanced at a half empty tumbler of golden liquid on the table.
“Sit. You want a drink?”
She shook her head and sat.
“I was hoping someone would come,” he said. “Never dreamed it would be you.”
“Someone might have come sooner if you’d copped to your involvement.”
He shook his head. “It’s complicated. How is he?”
“In a coma.”
“Still? Damn.”
Viggo seemed regretful. She needed to push before he changed his mind.
“Tell me what happened.”
He leaned back in his chair and twirled a spare barrel on the table as if he were playing spin the bottle. “There isn’t much to tell. They had my grandson. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Who’s they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why you?”
“Huh?”
“Why did they have you lure him here.”
Viggo slapped the spinning barrel to stop it. “First off, you should know they never said they were going to shoot him.”
“No? You thought the people who snatched your grandson just wanted to chat?”
His expression darkened. “That’s what they said. Next thing I know there’s a shot and he drops.”
“Someone walked up or—”
“Sniper. From somewhere in the back of the parking lot.”
“Fine. But, again, why you? It had to be someone who knew you’d been on his team, right?”
Viggo shrugged his rounded shoulders. “I guess.”
“Who would know that?”
He stared at her, dumb, so she prompted for answers. “People you ran up against?”
He laughed. “Everyone we ran up against is dead.”
“Their families aren’t.”
“No. But I was by his side on almost every mission. They’d want me dead, too, wouldn’t they?”
“What about other SEALs? Who’s still alive?”
“Other—” He rubbed a large paw across his bulbous red nose, brittle fingernails scratching his cheek. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
She jumped as he reached out and clapped her hand between his own with unexpected speed. “I beat myself up every day for what happened. When I saw he was alive—I did everything I could.”
“You left him in the rental? Made the call?” She asked, sliding her hand from his grasp. She didn’t like the feeling that he could twist her arm from her body if the spirit moved him.
He leaned back. “They left him in the parking lot. No clean up, thank God.” Viggo cocked his head, as if he’d had a new thought. “Why did they leave him? To pin it on me? Make it look like I lost my mind and killed my friend?”
“Maybe. Maybe that’s why they had you draw him out in the first place.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Viggo’s gaze drifted past Shee. “Hey, let me show you something.”
He stood and she followed him into the kitchen. Two doors led elsewhere from there. The windowed one revealed a frozen tundra the locals called a back yard. The other hung nearly closed, but through the crack she spotted the edge of a toilet.
Viggo motioned to a familiar news clipping framed on the wall beside the bathroom. In it, young Viggo and Mick stood in full uniform beside the then U.S. President.
“Did Mick ever show you this?” he asked, his shoulders straightening.
She nodded. “He has a copy.”
The titan looked at her, his eyes watery and tired. “Yeah?”
He returned to his seat, avoiding her eyes, his face pointed toward the front window even after he sat.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “For everything. Tell him for me. Please.”
“I hope I get the chance.” Shee sat and put her elbow on the table, lowering her head into her hand, thinking.
“Could you write down your team’s names for me?” she asked.
Viggo shook his head. “We all loved him. We’d run through hell for him. Hell, we did.”
“They used you. Maybe they approached one of them, too?”
Viggo growled and jerked a yellow legal pad from beneath a pile of gun magazines. “I hate this shit.” He flipped to a clean page before scribbling a list of names.
“Some of them are dead.” He said, putting an X beside a name.
“Understood.”
He looked at the ceiling and cricked his neck before ripping off the page and handing it to her.
“Here. This is everyone I can think of.”
Shee scanned the sheet. One name caught her eye.
“What does this say?” she said, pointing to his child-like scrawl.
He squinted at the page. “Bracco?”
Shee swallowed. “What’s he look like?”
“Big kid. He was the last to join the team before Mick left.”
“He have any problems with Mick?”
“Not that I remember.”
Shee folded the sheet in half and pulled a card from her jacket to hand to him as she stood.
He took it, folding himself out of his own chair. “This says Hunter Byrne.”
“Alias I was using. Number still works.” She pulled out her phone. “Give me your number in case I have more questions.”
He rattled off the digits.
As she turned to go, he grabbed her arm in his powerful paw. “You are Shee, aren’t you?”
She smelled the whiskey on his breath as he thrust his sallow face toward hers.
“I am. I used to eat your mother’s cookies.”
He smiled and released her, but his grin dropped as quickly as it had appeared.
“They can’t find out he’s still alive,” he warned.
“Your grandson. Understood.”
She moved to the exit and he let her go without following. With a final nod she left, closing the door behind her.
Striding to the idling rental, she fumbled with her phone as she threw herself into the passenger seat.
“How’d it go?” asked Mason.
“He’s drinking himself to death. But I might have something.”
Angelina answered the opposite end of her call.
“Don’t let Bracco anywhere near Dad,” she said.
“Why?”
“Did you know he was on
