Logan didn’t recognize the number but saw that it was a DC area code and decided to answer. “Lieutenant Colonel Jackson.”
“Logan, are we on speaker?” Matthew Saint Clare asked, his tone serious.
“No.” Since he was driving Teagan’s car, he hadn’t bothered to pair his phone. He dared anyone try to arrest him for a hands-free violation. He’d taken several work-related calls since arriving in DC, two of them had to be scrambled and encrypted, an impossible function if using Bluetooth.
“Good. I need you to withhold any visible reaction to what I’m about to tell you.” Matt’s voice was very direct as though he were speaking to a member of his Special Operations Group.
Fucking great. What the hell was the man going to say? Logan glanced over at Teagan who started a conversation with the kids in the backseat, distracting them. She seemed to recognize what he needed without even asking.
“Understood.” Logan said as he glided off the Beltway.
“Logan, I want you to prepare yourself,” Matt warned. “I don’t want those kids to get even one vibe that there’s a problem.”
Holy fuck. Brann and Anora were in trouble. Had there been a direct threat on their lives? Was Teagan right to be worried about taking Gabe’s kids out in public with them? Had they placed the children in danger?
Logan repeated the word, “Understood.”
“Marsha is dead,” Matthew said without inflection.
Marsha is dead. The words repeated over and over in Logan’s head but didn’t seem to make sense. No. He and Teagan were taking the children back to their mother. Marsha was moving Gabe’s shit out of her house. She wasn’t dead.
But she was.
Like a concrete block wall falling on him, Logan understood. He fought the urge to turn around and check the children in the backseat. Marsha’s children.
Fuck. Damn. Hell. They had the funeral for these children’s father the day before. How the fuck was he going to tell them that their mother was now dead?
Teagan’s voice broke through his thoughts. She was talking and laughing with the children.
God. No. How is he going to tell Teagan that her best friend was gone, forever?
“Logan, you there?” Matt was still on the phone.
“Tell me everything you can,” Logan ordered.
“About ten minutes ago, I was bringing Gabe’s personal effects from the office. When I arrived, the front door was ajar. While clearing the main floor, I discovered Marsha’s body in the office.” Matthew’s report was clear and concise for which Logan was eternally grateful. “Gunshot wound to the head.”
Logan wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. He needed to keep driving as casually as possible. “Fuck.” The word escaped on a whisper.
“It gets worse,” Matthew cautioned. “There’s a suicide note on the computer.”
“No,” Logan snapped, then remembered he was supposed to stay cool, calm, and collected. Shit. He was fucking this up.
“I’m with you, I don’t believe it,” Matthew reassured him.
Logan heard sirens in the background.
“I’ve got to go. Local cops just arrived.” It sounded as though Matthew was moving around. “Text me when you and Teagan have decided what to do with the children. If you bring them here, social services will take them away immediately. I’ve got to go. Remember, don’t call, text.” The line went dead.
A police car flew past them.
They were only about a mile from Marsha’s home. Logan didn’t know the area well, but Teagan did.
“How about we go to a park before we go home?” Logan suggested, his eyes pleading with Teagan’s. He hoped she could read the mental messages he was trying to send to her.
She forced a smile. “That sounds like fun.” She then gave him instructions to a park several blocks away. As soon as they pulled into a slot, the children hopped out and sprinted toward the playground equipment.
Before he could open his door, Teagan grabbed his arm. “What the fuck is going on?”
They could see both children while in the car, so he settled in behind the steering wheel. Just rip off the Band-Aid, he instructed himself.
“Marsha is dead.”
The look of terror on Teagan’s face grabbed his stone-cold heart and ripped it through his chest.
Fuck. He could’ve done that better. He’d treated her as though she were one of his male friends, not a woman with deep feelings for Marsha.
Logan reached for Teagan and pulled her close. “I’m so sorry. I know she was your friend.”
Gasping in a breath, she asked, “Are you sure?”
She was being so diligent trying to hold back the tears, but the dam was about to burst.
Logan nodded. “Yeah. Matthew found her.”
Teagan looked confused. “Did she fall down the stairs carrying one of those damn boxes?”
Chastising himself for not thinking of that scenario, Logan shook his head. “Gunshot to the head. There’s a note on the computer. It’s meant to look like a suicide.”
“No. No.” Teagan shook her head side to side. “Marsha would never commit suicide.” She pointed to the children on the swing set. “She loves those babies of hers. She would never leave them alone.” The first tears leaked from her eyes. “I guess I should say ‘she loved them’. Is she really…gone?”
He nodded as he pulled her in closer. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve found a better way to tell you.”
She rolled her lips inside and closed her eyes as though to shut in the pain.
“Yes. You should have,” she chastised him. As though she could no longer restrain her emotions, her entire body shook. She fell into him, her face buried in his chest.
Logan automatically wrapped his arms around Teagan’s small body. He had held her as she’d wept several times before. Over a decade ago, in Syria, when they had lost Mason, they had held each other, sharing the pain all the way back to base. A few weeks later, Logan had held Teagan once again as they buried an empty casket into the Virginia ground, pretending it was their friend and teammate Mason Sinclair.
Each time it felt right to hold her. They were friends. They shared a bond that only those who faced bullets together could ever understand. Their friendship went deeper than most. She occupied a small section of his soul.
For the next several minutes, she alternated between quakes and quivers as she dealt with her grief. He did the only thing he could, he shared his strength. He admittedly didn’t know Marsha very well. He thought he’d known Gabe but had come to realize he only knew what Gabe had wanted him to know. Always the CIA agent. Always playing the angles.
Teagan gasped in a breath.
Her head popped up and caught him in the chin.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted as she rubbed the spot on her head. White surrounded her bright blue eyes as they met his. “The kids. We have to tell Brann and Anora. Oh my God. Those poor children. What’s going to happen to them? They’re orphans.”
Okay. This was a question he could answer. “According to Matthew, when we take them back to the house, social services will come, and pick them up.”
Anger instantly replaced grief. “They will do no such thing.” She jabbed a finger toward the playground. “Those two, sweet, little children are not going into the system. I had a friend in elementary school who lived in one of those foster homes. They are not going there, if I have to kidnap them and take them to my house.”
That was a brilliant idea. “Let’s take the kids to your place, now. I’ll run back to Marsha’s house and grab them some pajamas and clothes for tomorrow. While I’m there, I’ll check out the situation. Overnight, we’ll figure out how to tell them about their mother.”
He pulled her back to him and kissed her forehead. “We’ll figure this out.” How hard could it be?