My coffee stared up at me resentfully, totally untouched. None of it made any sense.
“These SUV’s have been out in the desert too,” Maddox broke in. “And they
stopped at exactly the same place your brother did, on all the same dates. At exactly the same times.”
Another span of silence settled over the kitchen. All at once my brows came together.
“So what are you saying?” I snapped angrily. “That my brother was working with these guys?”
Maddox actually looked disappointed. “Of course not,” he said. “We all know Connor would never do anything like that.”
The others shifted, nodding fervently. I felt foolish.
“Then what?”
“Just the opposite,” Austin chimed in. “That whatever was going on out there, your brother was observing it. Gathering intel on his own. Maybe even getting ready to give that information up.”
“Whatever it was,” said Maddox. “We’re thinking Connor was trying to stop it.”
I felt a chill go through my body. My hands started shaking.
“And maybe,” Kane added ominously, “that’s what got him killed.”
Seventeen
DALLAS
They left me alone that night, relatively speaking. We stayed in, tore ravenously through some Italian take-out, and probably ate more than our fill. Then we lounged in front of the television for a while, until one by one, each of my gorgeous SEAL roommates retired to bed.
Well shit, that wasn’t what I expected.
I was left sitting there on the couch, going over the contents of Connor’s phone. Flipping through every single photo a half-dozen times, going all the way back to nearly two years ago and more.
Every smiling photograph of him hurt my heart.
Dammit, Connor.
For the first hour or so I resented him. He’d obviously underestimated the men who’d killed him. As a man, a soldier, a Navy fucking SEAL for shit’s sake, he above all people knew the strength and value of a team. I hated him for putting himself out there alone, all by himself, in the godforsaken desert.
Why did my brother have to be the righteous one? Couldn’t he just have left well enough alone?
It was maddening. I found myself staring at the last known photos of us, back two summers when he’d come home for leave. We’d gone skydiving together — something he’d introduced me to as soon as I was old enough to go. There we were, smiling happily. Still wearing our chutes and harnesses. Giving the thumbs up…
My brother…
My only brother.
The tears flowed, and this time I let them go. It wasn’t his fault, I finally decided. It was whatever evil had ultimately done this to him.
And whoever the fuck that was, they were in for a whole world of pain.
Connor…
I sniffled, wiping fallen tears away from the phone’s screen. In the photo I’d stopped on, my brother still looked strong, happy, confident. Totally indestructible.
If only that were true.
No, I finally decided. If my brother was in over his head on something, it just didn’t make sense that he wouldn’t have gone for help. He would’ve done something. Would have had some kind of safeguard against getting caught, especially if he was driving out into the middle of God-knows-where in order to entrap or expose the people who killed him.