“Charlotte?” Selina called from the front of the command center. “I need a break for a moment.”
Charlotte stuck the pasta salad into the fridge and dried her hands before meeting Selina at the bank of computers in the front of the renovated RV. Cal had spared no expense when he’d gutted it to make it work for his business. Three bump-outs provided a large kitchen and bathroom, bunks in the back where six people could sleep at a time and a mobile command post to put the FBI to shame.
“What’s up?” she asked the woman sitting at the computers.
“Hey,” Selina said, motioning at the four screens in front of her. “Would you keep an eye on these for a few minutes? I need to use the restroom and get something to drink.”
“Sure. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’ll hold down the chair.”
Selina stood and patted her on the shoulder. “There’s not much going on since the birthday girl is inside with her guests cutting the cake. Watch for anyone who isn’t on the Secure One team or teenagers trying to sneak away.” She pointed at a walkie-talkie on the table. “Radio someone if you see anything.”
“Got it,” she promised. “There’s pasta salad in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
“I’m starving. I’ll grab a bowl and bring it back up here. I know you don’t like covering, but I gotta go,” Selina said, hurrying to the bathroom while Charlotte chuckled.
The computers were intimidating, but Charlotte sat in the chair Selina had vacated and watched the screens, looking for interlopers as described. Selina was the nurse at Secure One, which meant she went on every mission as their med tech, but when she wasn’t stitching wounds and handing out Advil, she was the team’s eyes in the back of their heads. Selina had been trained as an operative when she joined Secure One and was as accurate with a 9mm as she was with an IV needle. Sometimes, Charlotte wondered if she covered for Wonder Woman when she needed a break because that’s how pivotal Selina was to the team.
“Mike to mobile command.” The walkie squawked with Mack’s voice, and Charlotte nearly jumped out of her skin as she fumbled for it.
She had to take a deep breath before pushing the button to speak. Mack Holbock always had that effect on her. “This is Charlotte. Selina had to step away.”
“Hey, Char, how’s your evening?” Mack asked when she released the button. She wondered if he realized his voice softened whenever he addressed her. Probably not, and she shouldn’t be taking notice either.
“Quiet as a church mouse in here. Did you need something?”
“Nope, it was just my check-in time. There’s a clipboard to check off my nine p.m. call-in. Do you see it?”
Charlotte released the button and found the board he referred to, searching for his name and putting a check next to 9:00 p.m. “Done. It looks like you’re due for a break in thirty.”
“Negative. That’s when the dance is going to pick up. I can’t leave my post on the shoreline. I don’t want guests wandering down and falling in the drink.”
“Mack, you know how Cal feels about that stuff,” Charlotte warned.
“What are you? My mother?” he asked, but she heard his lighthearted laughter that followed. “I’ll clear it with Cal.”
“Okay, be careful,” she said, wishing her voice hadn’t gone down to a whisper on the last two words.
“Ten-four, Char,” he said, and the box fell silent.
Mack had been calling her Char since she’d arrived at Secure One last fall with her hat in her hand or rather her hands in the air. She had surrendered herself, hoping to gain immunity against The Miss the same way Marlise had when the Red Rye house burned. The night of the fire, she hadn’t known Marlise wasn’t going with them to the airport. Had she known that, Charlotte would have refused to go as well. Working for The Madame, and subsequently The Miss, had been demoralizing, scary and for some, downright deadly. When she saw Marlise escape their grasp, Charlotte had vowed to do the same if she ever got the chance.
That was the night she’d had her first interaction with Mack Holbock. It was the moment she realized she was safe, and they believed she hadn’t been working for The Miss by choice. Exhaustion, fear and relief took over, and she had fallen apart right there in the little room where they’d been holding her. Mack had scooped her up and taken her to the med bay for treatment. She couldn’t remember much about that time, but she remembered him. His presence, more than anything. He was smaller than Cal and Roman, but only in the height department. He was ripped, strong and capable regarding his work, but he was also kind, quiet and gentle when the occasion called for it.
When Cal, Marlise, Roman and Mina had left to find The Miss, Mack stayed behind for a few days to ensure everything ran smoothly. Initially, he was the only one who believed that she had no ulterior motive. She needed that unquestionable acceptance more than anyone understood.
“What did I miss?” Selina asked, carrying in a bowl of pasta salad with the fork halfway to her lips. Before Charlotte could answer, she was chewing, moaning and swallowing the first bite. “This is brilliant. Pepperoni and black olives?”
“And Italian dressing, to list a few.” Charlotte laughed as she stood so Selina could sit.
“Seriously, you learned your lessons well from Marlise.”
“I’m glad you enjoy it. To answer your question, Mack checked in for his nine p.m. but isn’t going to take his break at nine thirty. The dance is about to start, and he doesn’t want anyone wandering down to the water and falling in.”
“That sounds like Mack,” Selina agreed, setting the bowl down and jiggling the mouse. “Normally, Cal has a hardline about breaks, but this isn’t a normal job, so I’m inclined to side with Mack.”
“Same,” Charlotte said, lounging on the back of the couch while she waited for one of the crew to come in looking for something to eat or drink. “It isn’t every day that you’re tasked with keeping one hundred teenagers safe when the birthday girl is a sitting senator’s daughter.”
“It’s a little nerve-racking, not going to lie,” Selina said before shoveling in more salad.
Charlotte kept her eyes on the screens in case she caught a glimpse of Mack. She liked watching him work, which might be weird, but it was true. When he was working, he moved with military precision, reminding her that he had fought his own battles in life. Some of those battles remained with him, she knew. He’d told her that in so many words one night as they worked together in the kitchen. She’d sensed that he didn’t open up much about his time in the army, so she let him talk. While his stories weren’t specific, his emotions were. He was struggling with the scars left from those battles as much as she was from hers. Maybe that was what made them immediate friends and easy companions. They understood each other on a level of unspoken atrocities and nightmare-riddled dreams.
Charlotte had only slept those first few nights at Secure One because Selina gave her medication to keep her calm. After that, she slept in fits and bursts. Her psyche struggled to know if the people surrounding her could be trusted, and it took her several months to feel comfortable enough to sleep through the night, at least as through the night as she could when plagued by nightmares of men’s hands holding her down. Mack always seemed to materialize in the kitchen at 2:00 a.m. on those nights when she couldn’t close her eyes again. He’d sit by the butcher-block counter and share cookies and milk with her rather than scold her about not going back to bed.
“You know it’s okay if you want to date Mack,” Selina said.
Charlotte’s brain came to a full stop and nearly slung her backward off the couch. “Excuse me, what now?”
“I said it’s okay if you—”
“I heard what you said, but what makes you think I want to date Mack?” Charlotte had forced the words through a too-dry throat, hoping it sounded genuine.
“Because you like each other, which is obvious. Everyone else tiptoes around you two like sleeping lions, but I’m all about calling it as I see it.”
“Clearly,” Charlotte said, tongue in cheek. “I don’t want to date Mack, but I’m happy to know it would be okay if I did.”
“If you say so,” Selina answered in a singsong voice that was a bit juvenile as far as Charlotte was concerned.
“We’re just friends, Selina. First of all, he’s five years older than I am.”
“Cal is five years older than Marlise.”
Charlotte chose to ignore her. “Second of all, I’m not ready to date anyone. Since working for The Madame, I don’t know how to date. I don’t know how to be with a man who didn’t pay for my company.”
“Do you trust Mack?” Selina asked with her back to her now as she watched the screens.
“You know I do, with my life, but that’s different.”
“I understand what you’re saying, Charlotte. You’re scared. I get it. I know you don’t know me or my past, but suffice it to say that I do understand being afraid to rock the boat. I just thought you should hear from someone on the team that moving on and living your life now that The Madame is in prison and The Miss is dead isn’t rocking the boat. You earned your freedom, and you should enjoy it.”
The woman who had nursed her back to health fell silent then, and Charlotte stared at the screens as she considered what Selina had said. She had earned her freedom from The Miss and had been pivotal in helping them find her and rescue the other women. She could leave Secure One whenever she was ready, Cal had told her, but he’d also said he wasn’t putting an end date on her employment. As long as she wanted to be part of Secure One, the team would welcome her with open arms. They had, which was the reason she wouldn’t rock the boat. If she had to leave Secure One and find work in a different city with a different company, she could end up back on the street. That was the very last place she wanted to be.
The man in question walked onto the screen, and Charlotte watched as he made his way down the bank and disappeared from view. She turned away and walked back to the kitchen. Secure One was her life, and while Mack might be part of it professionally, that was as far as it would go. For Charlotte, self-preservation would win out every time, even if that meant being alone for the rest of her life.
THE CABIN OF Senator Ron Dorian was well hidden among the trees until they parted for a view of the Mississippi River. The cabin was a six-bedroom, four-bath summer home with a grand staircase and wall-to-wall windows in the family room that looked out over the water. Mack wondered how ostentatious his DC house must be if he called this his cabin. Then again, that wasn’t his job. His job was to keep a young girl and her friends safe while they were on the grounds celebrating a milestone. Secure One had been in charge of the security on this cabin for six years, and they’d run point on plenty of parties held here. His worry at tonight’s party? The sun had set, and one hundred teenagers were ready to pour out onto a dance floor under a rented tent. There was a 100 percent chance a couple or six would sneak down to the river to make out. Having one of them fall in the drink and get swept downstream was not the reputation Secure One wanted.
He’d been patrolling the football field length of shoreline for the last three hours other than the ten-minute break he’d taken inside the command center to grab dry clothes, boots and a snack. He hoped the rest of the crew didn’t eat all the pasta salad before he got back there. It was one of the best salads he’d ever had, and that was saying a lot, considering Marlise used to be the resident chef. When he’d tried to compliment Charlotte on it, she’d turned away and acted like she hadn’t heard him. He knew she’d heard him when her lips tipped up a hair before she spun away. She’d been fine when he’d done his 9:00 p.m. check-in, so he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened in the meantime.
Mack went over everything he’d said to her the last week and couldn’t think of anything that would have upset her. Maybe she was just having a rough night. Security at these events required a lot of planning, and even tighter control, which put everyone on edge. She’d be fine once they returned to Secure One and were back in the swing of their usual duties. At least he hoped she would be. Mack didn’t like the idea that someone had upset Charlotte, especially if it had been him. Before Charlotte arrived, he’d taken the time to listen to and observe Marlise during her two years at Secure One. He’d understood that women in their situation had a hard time trusting people and had limited, if any, self-esteem. That led to difficulty staying employed or in school, often leading them back to the streets. He didn’t want that for Charlotte.
She reminded him a lot of Marlise though. Strong, determined and seeking a better life. Charlotte had been that way since they’d hauled her in off the shoreline the first night. She’d wanted to escape the woman holding her captive and was willing to risk getting shot. Unlike Marlise, Charlotte’s scars weren’t visible. They were buried deep in her mind and soul, and she rarely let them show. A few months ago, she’d been sketching on her pad when he walked into the kitchen for a snack. She was a skilled artist and had already helped Secure One clients by drafting plans to provide specific problem areas with better security. That night though, her drawing drew his eye immediately. She’d tried to hide it from him, but he hadn’t allowed it. His eyes closed for a beat when he thought about it.
The drawing was of a naked woman with bleeding wounds, tears on her face and vulnerability in every pencil stroke. She told him it was a self-portrait of how she felt inside. The slashes across her body and blood pooling by her feet would rest in his mind for always—most especially the wound to her leg where The Miss had buried a tracker not meant for humans. Despite Selina’s best efforts, Charlotte had gotten an infection and now had nerve damage in the leg. She’d sketched an intricate tattoo around the scar that spelled out worthless, and he’d assured her she was anything but that. Those were just words though, and Mack knew women like Charlotte didn’t believe wo—
A scream pelted the air in a high-pitched frenzy that relayed fear in a way Mack had heard only a few times in his life. He started running toward the sound just a few hundred feet ahead. He stopped in front of two teenage girls, no longer screaming, just staring at the water with their mouths open in terror. One girl had her arm pointed out with her finger shaking as Mack followed it to the shore below.
“Secure two, Mike. I need help on the shore, stat!” He turned the girls away from the water just as Eric came running from the other direction.
“What’s going on?” he huffed, and Mack flicked his eyes to the water. Eric’s gaze followed, and his muffled curse told Mack he’d seen her too. “I’ll take them to the command center while you call the cops. We’ll need to keep these two separated from the rest of the group until then.”
“After that, get the party shut down while I deal with this,” Mack hissed, and with a nod, Eric led the two women toward the command center.
Mack walked down to the lakeshore, holding his gun doublehanded as he navigated the rocks and wet sand. What could first be mistaken for floating garbage, on a second glance, was a woman with her long blond hair floating over her red dress. When he stopped along the shore to stare down at her, the woman’s eyes were wide open, and her mouth made an O as though whatever she saw in the last moments of her life were welcoming her into the new world.
“What do you have?” Cal asked as he came running up behind Mack.
“Young woman. No visible COD. We need to get her out before she floats downstream.”
“Cops aren’t going to want us to touch her,” Cal said as Mack holstered his gun.
“They’re going to like trying to find her again in the Mississippi much less.” Mack snapped on a pair of gloves he’d pulled from his vest and then grabbed his telescoping gaff hook. Everyone had one on their belt when they worked on the water. You might have to pull a fellow team member out of the drink at any time.
“We need a tarp before you pull her out,” Cal said quickly, stopping Mack’s arm.
“You’d better get one then,” Mack growled and shook his boss’s arm loose. “I’m going to hook her dress just to hold her here. If I don’t, she’s going downstream.”
Cal hit the button on his vest that connected him to command central. “Secure one, Charlie. I need a tarp or plastic on the shore directly below the dance tent.”
“What size?” Mack heard Selina ask.
“Body size,” Cal answered, and it ran a shiver down Mack’s spine.
Now secured by his hook, the young woman wasn’t going anywhere, but Mack couldn’t take his eyes off her. She couldn’t be twenty-five, and her long blond hair reminded him of Marlise and Charlotte. He prayed that someone was missing this woman, and she wasn’t the victim of The Red River Slayer. His cynical side said the slayer was responsible for this woman’s death, and he was only getting started.