Off the Grid Read online

  “Thanks,” she said briskly, pretending she hadn’t heard the sarcasm. She wouldn’t be drawn in to this kind of back-and-forth. She knew better than to try to match him dig for dig. He would win. His tolerance for cruelty had always been much higher than hers.

  She didn’t blame him. It was how he’d been raised and all he’d known as a child. Lashing out had started as defense and turned to offense. Her mistake was thinking that she could atone for that. He was who he was, and she couldn’t change him. It was hard to remember now why she’d ever wanted to try.

  But it hadn’t always been bad. For a while it had been very, very good. And he wasn’t always hard and unapproachable like this. At times he’d let down his guard and let her in a little. But when things got tough those times hadn’t been enough to hang on to. Eventually, they’d disappeared completely.

  Their differences went from the insignificant—he drank whiskey from a bottle; she liked an occasional glass of chilled white wine—to the fundamental. She’d wanted a family; he didn’t. She’d wanted to work; he’d wanted a wife who’d be waiting for him when he got home from his long deployments. She’d wanted him to talk about what was bothering him; he’d wanted to keep it inside and hang out with people who understood—i.e., not his wife.

  They’d been doomed from the start. Add the stress of his job as a SEAL . . . He’d pushed her so far away, by the time she’d gone to San Diego to tell him about the baby—the baby he didn’t want—she felt like she barely knew him.

  “So, what do you want, Kate?”

  “I found something,” she said, handing him a file she pulled from her oversized purse.

  He didn’t take it. “What is it?”

  “A list of everyone in the chain of command, as well as anyone who might have had access to information about the mission.”

  He gave her an indifferent “why should I care about this?” look. “So?”

  “I think I found something, and I need you to help me check it out.”

  He shook his head, refusing to take the file. “Can’t. Wheels up tomorrow at 0800.”

  How many times had she heard something similar? It was the story of their marriage. She needed him and he was gone or shipping out.

  But she knew all about this trip to Russia; it was why she was here. She had to stop him.

  After Colt had shown up at her house and told her about Scott being killed, Kate had been devastated and had agreed to put Colt in touch with her godfather. But that was before she’d received the phone call from Scott. He wasn’t dead. He was in hiding and convinced that Retiarius had been set up. He’d asked for her help to find out by whom.

  Aside from the five other survivors, Kate was the only person who knew that not all of the platoon had been killed in Russia. Scott didn’t trust anyone. For good reason. The woman who’d warned him and saved the lives of six men had been killed.

  Whatever Kate’s personal feelings toward Colt, he was an exceptional operator and undoubtedly had connections and resources that could help. Retiarius had been his family—much more so than her. But Scott had been adamant that she not confide in Colt, given his hatred toward Scott for what Colt thought they’d done. Scott also didn’t want Colt on their trail, which meant keeping him from going to Russia.

  “If I’m right, you won’t need to go to Russia.” She held the file back out to him. “Come on, it won’t hurt to just look at it.”

  He held her gaze for a moment with a hard intensity that she couldn’t decipher. Did he suspect there was more to this than she was letting on?

  As she’d said, he was one of the best. She knew she would have to be careful. Despite what he thought of her, she’d never been good at deceiving him. Nor did she like it. But after all Scott had done for her, she owed him this. He’d been her friend and confidant when she’d most needed someone, and he’d sacrificed a lot for it, including his friendship with Colt.

  Suspicious or not, Colt took the file.

  Kate was following a couple of leads that Scott had given her, including this one. Rear Admiral Ronald Morrison, the head of Naval Special Warfare Command (which had operational command of Team Nine), apparently had a serious gambling problem, which Scott had discovered when the rear admiral’s wife had taken to social media to vent. The admiral’s dire financial straits—which Kate had set out in the documents she’d just handed Colt—gave him a motive.

  She was also following up on the woman who’d died after warning Scott. He wouldn’t like it, but she was being careful.

  “You think Morrison sold them out?” Colt asked, handing it back to her.

  From his tone, she could tell he didn’t put much credence in it. “I think it’s worth looking into.”

  He didn’t disagree. “Nothing stopping you, but what does this have to do with me?”

  “I want you to talk to him.”

  “Maybe you don’t remember too well, but the rear admiral wasn’t exactly a fan of mine.”

  She remembered. Morrison had briefly been the head of Group One when Team Nine was being formed and Colt had been tapped as a founding member—a plankowner.

  Most officers felt that way about Colt. His methods had never been conventional even when he was a SEAL. Now that he did whatever it was that he did—she didn’t know the details and didn’t want to—she was sure their dislike had only grown worse.

  “I remember, which is partly why I want you there. You know how to make people angry. If you push his buttons a little, maybe he’ll reveal something.”

  “From what I hear, CIA interrogators are plenty good at making people angry. Read any newspapers lately?”

  She refused to bite on his reference to recent scandals within the department of overzealous questioning of prisoners. “You know I’m an analyst. I’ve never interrogated a suspect.”

  He held her gaze, again seemingly trying to assess her sincerity. But whether he believed her or not didn’t matter. He shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t help you out. Everything is already set.”

  She’d expected this, but it still rankled. How many times had she asked him for anything? It had always been the other way around. Her job that had to be sacrificed. Her being the one to have understanding. Her waiting for him to come back from whatever hellhole he’d been sent to, wondering what kind of horrible things he’d done or seen and what kind of black mood he’d be in this time.

  Selfish bastard.

  Well, this time he was going to do something for her. “I don’t think you are sorry at all. I think you don’t want to help because it’s me who is asking. I think you still want to punish me and would refuse even if it meant going on a wild-goose chase to Russia and never finding out the truth.” His expression gave no hint of his thoughts. It was the same dark look he always gave her. “Your plans can be rearranged. There are other transport flights you can hitch a ride on. I’m asking for a week. That’s it. Even if you don’t think you owe me anything, don’t you owe it to your former teammates—your former men—to follow up on a good lead before getting yourself killed?”

  “Is that wishful thinking on your part, your godfather’s part, or both?”

  Finally he’d managed to prick beneath the shield. How could he think that of her? “I never wanted you dead, Colt.” Not even after all the hateful things he’d accused her of—all the words he’d said that could never be taken back: “Too bad the driver didn’t have a few more. He could have saved me a lot of lawyer’s bills.” Even the memory made her ill. “It was the other way around.”

  Still nothing. It was like looking into a black hole with him. It always had been.

  She took a deep breath and tried again. “Can’t you put aside your hatred of me for a few days? Or do you hate me so much and the idea of being near me is so horrible that you’d rather go tromping around Arctic Russia?”

  Even as she asked the question, Kate wondered if she