Say Goodbye Read online

  Liza raised her hand immediately. “Special tea?”

  Irina laughed. “You got someone to drive you home?” Because Irina’s “special tea” was infused with cannabis.

  “I’ll take her,” Tom said. “She’s on my way,” he added jokingly.

  His entry was as different from Rafe’s as day from night. There were no hugs. No comfort. He hadn’t even asked Liza if she was all right. He’d just breezed into the kitchen with his partner, Agent Croft, a woman who was somewhere in her late thirties or early forties. She was supposedly good at her job, which meant she’d watch Tom’s back.

  She was also single. Liza had asked.

  Liza hoped that Tom’s back was all the woman was watching, but it didn’t really matter, did it? He’s not yours. And I’m not going to let him take me home. She didn’t want to be trapped in a car with him right now, not after watching Rafe and Mercy together. It hurt enough knowing she’d never have that. Not with Tom, anyway. “Just Earl Grey, then,” she amended.

  Irina glanced from her to Tom, then shrugged. “As you wish. Liza, if you want to stay here tonight, you’re welcome.”

  “Thanks, but no,” Liza told her. “It’s my turn to walk Pebbles.”

  The young Great Dane was the only decision Liza had known Tom to make on impulse. The pup had needed a home, having grown too big for the family who’d originally adopted her.

  Tom had taken one look at the Dane’s big brown eyes and was a goner, but he’d worried that he might not be home enough to care for a dog. Liza had pledged her help and now their schedules were synchronized around Pebbles’s meals and walks. The dog was a big slobbery pain in the butt with whom Liza had fallen into insta-love.

  Also, Pebbles was the perfect excuse to flee.

  Tom frowned at her, then turned to Irina. “Have you met Agent Croft?”

  Irina held out her hand to the other woman. “Welcome, Agent Croft.”

  “Call me Ricki,” Croft said with an easy smile. She looked at Liza, her smile not faltering. “Miss Barkley, it’s always a pleasure to see you. I understand you had a busy morning.”

  Liza could feel all eyes on her now and, to her dismay, felt her own eyes begin to burn. I need to get out of here. “Just a bit.” She stood up, leaning over to kiss Abigail’s forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay, Shrimpkin?”

  Abigail seemed disappointed. “You’re leaving?”

  “Gotta go. Pebbles needs to be walked.” And I’m about to cry. Not here.

  “But why can’t you bring her here?” Abigail asked, a whine edging into her tone.

  “Because she’ll tear up Irina’s pretty house, not to mention stomping on poor Sally.” Sally was Abigail’s Maltese puppy, named for astronaut Sally Ride, over whom the little girl obsessed. Denied in Eden, the idea of space travel had quickly caught—and held—Abigail’s attention.

  “Oh yeah,” Abigail grumbled. “I remember now.”

  Amos chuckled. “I think someone has earned a nap.”

  “Don’t wanna nap.” Abigail’s whine was at full power.

  “Sugar crash,” Liza said. “These bars pack a powerful punch. I’m feeling tired myself.” Which was no lie. Her sleepless nights had abruptly caught up to her. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Abs. And then we can finish the book we started reading last week.”

  “Thank you,” Amos murmured when Liza began gathering her things. “You spend so much time with her.”

  “She’s a good kid,” Liza said, ruffling Abigail’s bangs. “She did all the right things today. I’m proud of her.”

  Abigail grinned. “ ’Cause I’m awesome.”

  Amos winced. “And humble. Come on, Abi-girl. You have a nap with your name on it.”

  “That doesn’t make sense, Papa,” Abigail said as Amos started to lead her from the room.

  “Um, can we talk to Abigail, Amos?” Tom asked, gesturing to his partner. “Before she goes down for a nap?”

  Amos narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  Right. The tattoo. How quickly Liza had forgotten. She leaned in to whisper in Amos’s ear. “Abigail may have seen DJ Belmont’s tattoo. The one he didn’t get in Eden,” she added when the older man frowned, clearly confused.

  “All right. But make it quick, okay? She’s fading fast,” Amos told Tom.

  Amos, Tom, and Agent Croft were gone for only a few minutes, during which Rafe got a rundown from Mercy and Irina set the table for afternoon tea.

  When they returned, Croft and Amos sat down with Abigail and a sketchpad, and Tom approached Liza the way a zoo handler might approach a wounded animal.

  It was fair, Liza decided. Being in the same room with Tom Hunter left her feeling wounded.

  “Can we talk for a moment?” Tom asked quietly.

  “I really need to go,” she said, trying not to sound as whiny as Abigail had. “Pebbles has probably eaten your sofa again.”

  “Liza,” Tom said urgently. “Please.”

  There was something in his tone that gave her pause. “Fine. But just for a minute.”

  I need to get out of here. Now.

  Tom pointed to the laundry room, then followed her in and closed the door. It wasn’t a small room, but Tom filled it like no other man could. It wasn’t just that he was big, because he was. Six-six and solid muscle. Or that he was handsome, because he was that, too. He had a presence that filled her mind, and she couldn’t look anywhere else. He was her true north and she’d been in love with him since she was seventeen years old.

  Fritz had caught her staring at Tom’s NBA team photo once, before they’d first started dating. Luckily, he’d been more interested in the fact that she knew the Tom Hunter than that she’d been mooning over another man.

  Guilt filled her at the thought of Fritz. He deserved more than she’d been able to give him. He deserved to at least be claimed verbally as the man she’d married. So far, she hadn’t told anyone about him. Not stateside anyway. His family knew, as did their friends in the army. And they’d grieved with her, not knowing that most of her grief was guilt for not loving him enough.

  Closing her eyes, she leaned against the wall as far from Tom as she could get. “What’s up?”

  There was silence. Long, long silence.

  Finally, she opened her eyes to find Tom staring at her as if she were a stranger. “What is up?” she asked again, enunciating every word.

  He swallowed audibly. “What the fuck, Liza? What were you thinking?”

  GRANITE BAY, CALIFORNIA

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 12:55 P.M.

  Tom closed his eyes. Of all the things he’d wanted to say, that hadn’t been on the list. “Shit,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” Liza said. “Now, if you’re finished, I need to go home and walk your dog.”

  He opened his eyes to see her holding herself rigidly. She was a tall woman, five-ten without her boots. With her boots, she could meet his eyes with a chin lift that, at the moment, seemed more vulnerable than defiant.

  Fuck. Now he’d hurt her feelings. “That’s not what I meant to say,” he whispered, taking a step closer. She backed up a step—or would have if she hadn’t already been up against the wall.

  Something stirred within him, a desire he’d tamped down years ago, right after they’d met, in fact. It still reared its head from time to time, but he was usually able to smack it back down.

  She’d been too young, only seventeen to his twenty. Then she’d been deployed. Then . . . Tory had come along and he’d thought he’d found his forever. But . . .

  She’s not too young anymore. She’s not deployed anymore. She’s here. And Tory is not.

  That last one had him taking a step back. His Victoria was dead. It had only been a year.

  What am I thinking? Nothing smart, that was for damn sure. “Are you all right?”

&nb
sp; Her smile was brittle. “Of course. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  He frowned, having no idea what to say next. Then he remembered Molina’s words from that morning. “You know I’m proud of you, don’t you?” And if the words sounded a little desperate coming from his mouth, that was understandable, because he was desperate.

  She blinked, her lips parting in surprise. Then her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  He stared at her, at a loss for words. “What do you mean, why?” he finally asked.

  “Because when you start with ‘What the fuck were you thinking?’ and progress to you being proud of me, you have to admit it sounds a little suspicious.”

  “Fair enough,” he acknowledged. The slight relaxation of her rigid shoulders made him relax a little as well. He’d been genuinely afraid there for a moment. “I was worried.”

  The rigidity returned, and with it the brittle smile. “Mercy and Abigail are fine.”

  He blew out a frustrated breath. It was like she was turning his words upside down and inside out. He hadn’t meant just Mercy and Abigail, and she knew it. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Which was the exact wrong thing to say.

  Because she swallowed hard and tears welled in her usually warm brown eyes. “Clearly too many things to count,” she whispered. “Tell Irina I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  And with that, she fled from the laundry room into the Sokolovs’ garage. Follow her, you idiot. But his feet wouldn’t move, his body frozen in place at the sight of her tears. What had he done? Why was she crying?

  A moment later, the rumble of the garage door going up finally got his feet moving. He made it into the garage in time to see her back as she retreated to her car, parked at the curb. She paused a split second to wave at Irina’s husband Karl, who was pulling into the driveway.

  Tom stood there, completely at sea. Liza wasn’t a crier. Well, sure, she cried at sad movies, but so did he. They often spent the evenings on his sofa watching movies, sometimes sharing a box of tissues between them before she retreated to her own side of the duplex for the night.

  But he had never made her cry. He was frowning when Karl parked his Tesla and hit the button to bring the garage door down. Karl was also frowning as he got out of his car.

  “What the hell did you do to her?” Karl demanded.

  Tom’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  “She’s crying,” Karl said, as if Tom’s guilt was obvious. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing!” Tom protested. Which wasn’t exactly true. “Well, I did tell her I was proud of her. She probably saved Mercy and Abigail’s lives today.”

  Karl Sokolov looked unconvinced. “What else did you say?”

  “Why do you think it was me who said something to her?”

  Karl tilted his head, studying him. “For real?”

  Tom threw up his hands. “Yes. For real. I just got here. I didn’t do anything.”

  Which wasn’t true, either. What’s wrong with you? You fucked up big-time.

  “Kid, I’ve been married for nearly forty years, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you’ve always done something.”

  Tom huffed. “Maybe she’s . . . y’know . . . hormonal.”

  Karl winced. “Oh my God. Are you stupid? Do not ever say that to her.”

  “I’m not! I’m saying it to you.”

  Karl shook his head, chuckling. “How old are you, again?”

  “Twenty-seven,” Tom answered stiffly.

  Karl patted Tom’s arm as he headed for the laundry room. “You’ve still got time, then.”

  Tom turned to stare at the man. “Time for what?”

  “Time to get it right.”

  Tom gritted his teeth. “Time to get what right? No offense, sir, but the sooner you stop talking in riddles, the sooner I might understand what you’re saying.”

  Karl shot him a pitying look. “Never mind, Tom.” He opened the door to the kitchen and called, “Where is my lovely bride?”

  Tom pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. Slowly he followed Karl into the kitchen, feeling addled and irritated about it.

  Irina looked behind him. “Where is Liza?”

  “She left,” Tom said brusquely.

  “I passed her in the driveway,” Karl said, then leaned in to whisper something in Irina’s ear.

  Irina’s back straightened as she turned to Tom, glaring daggers. “You let her leave? Alone?”

  “Shit,” Tom whispered, his blood running cold. She’d witnessed the sniper on that rooftop. If he saw her . . . “She needs protection.”

  “Which I was providing,” Rodriguez said very slowly. “Until you let her leave. Alone.”

  Tom’s temper boiled. “I didn’t let her do anything. She’s a grown woman, for God’s sake.”

  Who he’d made cry. And he still didn’t know why.

  He clenched his eyes shut, giving in to the need to rub his temples. “Dammit,” he whispered.

  “I can’t go after her,” Rodriguez said. “I’m on Callahan detail until she’s safe at home.”

  “Rafe can take me home,” Mercy offered. “He can take Amos and Abigail, too.”

  Because they all lived in apartments within the same house until Amos and Rafe finished renovating the new house.

  Rodriguez shook his head. “I’d need to get that cleared, Miss Callahan.”

  Irina made a noise. “All this talk, all while Liza is unprotected.” She took out her cell phone and pressed a button. “Damien, this is your mother.” Her lips pursed. “Do not sass me, young man. I am not in the mood.”

  Damien Sokolov was one of Irina’s sons, a uniformed cop with the Russian division in West Sacramento. Tom had thought at first the division dealt with Russian organized crime, but instead it served the large Russian-speaking population of West Sac.

  “I need you to go to Liza’s house,” Irina was saying to her son. “To make sure she gets home safely.” Irina smiled. “You’re a good boy, Damien. I will send the address.”

  Tom’s head fell back to hit the laundry room door. “Tell him not to worry about it. I’ll go.”

  Irina’s smile was smug as she slipped her phone into her pocket without saying goodbye. “Good.”

  Tom scowled. “Did you even call him?”

  Irina just chuckled. “Go and make sure she is okay, Tom. You know you want to.”

  Hell of it was . . . he did.

  Which was not a big deal. At all. It’s what friends do for each other. Like she’d taken care of him when he had the flu in January when they’d first arrived in California and knew no one but each other. Or like he held her every time he heard her cry out in the night through the duplex wall they shared, her nightmares making her shudder and tremble in his arms.

  Or like she took care of “his dog.” Except that before today, Pebbles had been “our dog.”

  Today she’d said “his dog.” He’d just realized that, and his heart hurt. Something had happened. Something new. Something that I did. He needed to figure out what that was.

  He looked to Croft, noting that Abigail no longer sat at the table. Amos was gone as well. “Did you get what you needed from Abigail?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’m about ninety-five percent sure it’s a Chicos tat. I don’t think there’re many tattoo artists in the area who’d ink that design. They don’t want negative gang attention. Mr. Terrill said he hadn’t seen the tattoo, because he hadn’t seen DJ without his shirt in a very long time. Abigail must have caught DJ at the right moment. Terrill said he knew that DJ has an Eden tattoo because he was there the night they tattooed him.”

  “On DJ’s thirteenth birthday,” Tom said, recalling Mercy’s brother Gideon talking about the night he got his Eden tattoo.

  “If not many artists would do the tattoo,
” Mercy said, “do you know who would?”

  “I have a few ideas,” was all Croft would say as she put her sketchbook into her briefcase and locked it. “Agent Hunter, let’s make sure Miss Barkley made it home all right, and then you can drop me off at the field office so I can get my car.”

  Mercy frowned and Tom wanted to sigh. This was an example of information civilians didn’t need to have, so Croft was right not to share. He also knew Mercy would be looking before he and Croft had left the Sokolovs’ driveway.

  It wasn’t Mercy that was bothering him, though. It was Rafe. He looked like he wanted to say something but was holding his tongue. Maybe because Croft was there. Or Rodriguez.

  Or even me. Tom would ask him later. Once he knew that Liza was all right, he’d call Rafe. And then he’d get to work doing what he did best—hacking. He still had Cameron Cook’s e-mail to trace.

  Karl followed them to the door, tugging on Tom’s sleeve to hold him back when Croft jogged to the Bureau’s SUV.

  “Talk to her, Tom,” Karl said quietly.

  “I talk to Agent Croft all the time,” Tom said lightly, but he knew what Karl meant.

  Karl looked disappointed with him. “Liza’s become important to us. Her happiness is important. It should be to you, too.”

  Tom sighed. “Of course it is. Something’s been bothering her for a while now, but I’ve let her be. I figured she’d tell me when she was ready, but I’ll push harder.”

  Karl shook his head. “See that you do.”

  SIX

  YUBA CITY, CALIFORNIA

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 12:55 P.M.

  DJ pulled the truck around the back of his house, into the detached garage. He wanted a hot shower, a decent meal, and a nap, in that order.

  Forcing himself to climb from the cab, he retrieved the guitar case that held his rifle from the floorboard, then removed the electrician signs from the doors and the license plate from the holder and stuck them in his backpack. Pulling the garage door down, he made sure it was locked.

  His regular printer would be fine to make a new magnetic sign, but he’d use his 3D printer to produce a license plate that could fool cops with even the sharpest eyes. His 3D printer had been dirt cheap, and even if it hadn’t been, he considered it a necessary business expense. Staying one step in front of the cops really was too easy with the right technology.