Scorched (Shenandoah Shadows Novella Book 2)
Scorched
Shenandoah Shadows Novella 2
Melissa F. Miller
Brown Street Books
Copyright © 2021 by Melissa F. Miller
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Thank You!
Also by Melissa F. Miller
About the Author
1
(Author’s Note: If you haven’t read Book 1, Burned, you’ll want to do that before starting Scorched.)
Olivia Santos unclipped the lavalier microphone from the neckline of her rose-colored silk shell and dropped it down the inside of the top, shivering as the cold wire skimmed her bare skin. Then she reached around to the small of her back and unhooked the transmitter pack from the waistband of her black pants. She wrapped the wire neatly around the chunky rectangular pack and handed the equipment to the sound intern hovering nearby.
“Here you go, Sean.”
He bobbed his head and flushed beet red. “Thanks, Ms. Santos. You were great today.”
She smiled. “That’s nice to hear. Let’s hope your viewers agree.”
Cade Bracken, the host of “Political Preview” approached, and the intern scurried off the set as if he couldn’t get away fast enough. Apparently the rumors about Cade’s temper were true. He’d never shown Olivia his nasty side, but it was the stuff of legend.
“Oh, our viewers agree, Olivia. You’re our most popular guest every time you do a segment. You should consider making it permanent. We could use a dedicated intelligence community commentator.”
She smiled a sickly smile and suppressed a shudder. Oh, hell no. She only did these sporadic appearances on the advice of counsel—and her personal security consultant. A burned former CIA operative made a juicy assassination target under any circumstances. But one who’d outed an entire dirty senate subcommittee? Yeah, she was a dead woman walking.
Her instinct was to go to the mattresses, hunker down somewhere off the grid, and wait for the storm to blow over. Ryan Hayes, the government lawyer handling the prosecutions, and Jake West, her security guru, had convinced her to do the exact opposite: press interviews, television appearances, a freaking book deal. All designed to keep her in the public eye under the theory that murdering a public figure was too great a risk for any of the many, many powerful people who wanted to see her dead.
Sometimes, though, she fantasized about taking her chances if it meant returning to a quiet, private life. Maybe after the trial, she mused. She could hole up in Shenandoah Falls, sit by the lake, watch the leaves change color.
She realized Cade was waiting for her to answer a question that she hadn’t heard. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” She blinked innocently.
“I said, what do you think about the rumor that we’re about to broker a peace deal with Boko Haram?”
She furrowed her forehead. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Don’t do that thing with your face, Olivia. If you want a future in television, you can’t go around creating ruts and crevices.” He pointed to his own unlined brow as proof.
She relaxed her face. “Right. Thanks. Now what’s this about Boko Haram?”
“I’m sure I don’t know the details. I thought you might. Word on the street is that there’s a truce in the works, and the U.S. military is in the thick of it.”
She shook her head. “That can’t be right, Cade.”
He grinned triumphantly. “That’s what I told my source. There’s no way our government would give succor to terrorists. Right?”
“Right. Care to divulge your source?” She fluttered her eyelashes.
That earned her a snort. “You can’t flirt information out of a gay man, Olivia. At least not this one. And I’m an old-school journalist. I never reveal my sources.” He paused meaningfully. “You might try asking your friends at Potomac Private Services. They may have heard something.”
She was going to press him for details, but a harried-looking producer raced across the set and skidded to a stop between them, jabbing an emphatic finger at the schedule on her tablet.
Olivia left the studio, her heart thudding against her breast. Potomac was the last place she could poke around for information. Although Jake owned the company, she never met with him at his office. She didn’t even call him there—only on his personal cell phone. The risk of running into Trent Mann at Potomac was too great. Even though Trent—of all people—was probably the best source of intelligence on Boko Haram.
Trent.
He’d saved her life and broken her heart all in one day. Despite his promise to the contrary, he’d walked out of her life without a backward glance.
She’d made a fool of herself, calling him after she filed for divorce from Mateo. And again when the indictments came down against the subcommittee. And again when Jake told her Trent had totaled a race car in a spectacular on-track crash. But he hadn’t returned a single phone call. So, she’d tucked away the memory of the heat that had blazed between them, constructed a protective barrier around her heart, and set her chin toward the future.
She’d have to find another way to scratch her curiosity itch. Because, as far as she was concerned, Trent Mann was firmly in her rearview mirror.
Trent scrabbled for the remote as the footsteps in the hallway grew louder. He aimed it at the television and hurriedly clicked the power button. But Jake appeared in his doorway as the program’s outro music cut off.
He gave Trent a knowing smirk. “Just catching up on your ‘Political Preview’ viewing, huh?”
Trent pulled a face. “What? No.”
“When did you become such a lousy liar? I thought you undercover guys could bluff with the best of them.”
“One, I’m retired. Two, I’m not lying,” he lied lamely.
Jake laughed. “She looked pretty good, I thought.”
Pretty good was an understatement. Olivia looked like an ice queen. Cool, composed, elegant. Her sleeveless pinkish-red top made her brilliant blue eyes pop and showed off her toned, defined biceps.
“I guess,” he managed thickly, lost in a memory.
Jake drew his eyebrows together. “Get a grip. I meant she came across well. Articulate, well-informed, but humble. Likable.”
Olivia was very, very likable. Too likable.
“She enter a popularity contest that I don’t know about?”
“How would you know if she had? From what I hear, you haven’t talked to her since the night it all went down.”
Trent glanced away but didn’t answer.
“Pretty crappy way to treat someone you care about, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.” He bit off the words.
Unperturbed, his boss and friend continued, “If you had, I’d have told you you’re acting a fool.”
“Leave it alone, Jake.”
Jake stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged. “Suit yourself. I doubt Carla would have wanted you to live out the rest of your life as a miserable hermit, but, hey, have at it.”
“This isn’t about Carla.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Olivia’s married.”
“Was married. She’s not anymore, and I know you know that.”
It was true. She’d left a message for him when she’d initiated the divorce proceedings, and Ryan had made a point of mentioning it when the divorce was finalized. He couldn’t explain, even to himself, the real reason he’d been avoiding her.
That’s not strictly true, he chided himself.
“I assume you’re not here to talk about Olivia.”
Jake tossed a file folder on Trent’s desk. “Since you’re still out of commission, I thought you could look into this for me.”
Trent had cracked three ribs and broken his left wrist when he’d rolled the Mustang. He was healing nicely, but he couldn’t get back in the car with a student until the wrist was a hundred percent. So, he’d been pulling all manner of desk duty at Potomac. He itched to get back behind the wheel, but his assignments gave him a new appreciation for the analysts.
“What is it?” He flipped open the folder.
“NSA has picked up some chatter in the usual dark corners of cyberspace. There’s talk that someone inside the U.S. military is negotiating with jihadists in Nigeria to overthrow the president and install a new regime.”
Trent dropped the folder. “Nigerian jihadists? As in Boko Haram?”
“Your guess is better than mine. You were the one stationed in Abuja. But, yeah, that’s the thinking.”
“There’s no way the Pentagon would back a terrorist state, Jake. No way. If anybody is mucking around, it’d be the spooks at the CIA.”
“That’s what I thought, too. But that’s not what the chatter suggests. Just take a look at the files. Unless … it’ll be too har
d. With, you know, your history.”
His history. That was a hell of an oblique way to say ‘you let your partner and lover walk into a Boko Haram ambush and get butchered.’
Trent’s heart pounded painfully against his fractured ribs. He pushed the folder across the desk. “I don’t think I’m the right guy for this, Jake. Sorry.”
Jake studied him for a moment, spun the folder around, and pushed it back. “Think on it for a while. The NSA brought this to us for a reason.”
Trent gnawed on his thumbnail. It wasn’t a surprise that the National Security Administration had given the lead to Jake. Potomac had a reputation for being a different kind of PMC. Many private military contractors were enthusiastic lawbreakers, up for any dirty deed, wet work, mercenary BS they could get into—soldiers on steroids with no oversight or guardrails. Not Potomac. Jake had built Potomac to be a place where a guy’s ethics never had to conflict with his assignment. Where honor, duty, and integrity actually meant something.
But could Trent trust himself to handle an investigation into Boko Haram without reliving his relationship with Carla—and her grisly end? Could he bear to face the ghost who dogged his every step?
“I don’t know, Jake.”
“Just sit with it for a while. Don’t decide yet.”
Jake turned and walked out. Trent dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes, pushing away the images that floated behind them.
2
Olivia cursed the furnished condo’s lack of decent cookware as her eggs stuck to the bottom of the pan, overly brown and crusty. She didn’t miss much about Mexico City, but she did miss the professional chef’s kitchen in Mateo’s villa—not to mention the real, live professional chef.
She scraped the mess onto a plate and doused it with hot sauce. Her motto was, ‘if you can’t make it good, make it spicy.’ She poured a fresh cup of coffee and took her pathetic meal to the breakfast bar. As she ate her late breakfast, she scanned the international headlines on her phone. There was no hint of Cade’s Boko Haram rumor in any of the North American or European papers. Finally, she found it, buried in the international politics section of a small Australian paper.
An unnamed Australian military official rejected the notion that any Western government would support the emergence of a jihadist state in Nigeria. The anonymous official went on to detail the training exercises and support the Aussies had given forces in neighboring Niger to fight Boko Haram. The quote concluded with a sly jab at the CIA:
“One sincerely hopes that our friends in the States, having learnt that covert regime change rarely succeeds in toppling jihadist governments, would hesitate to instigate a coup d’état with the intent of installing one.”
She could do without the snarky tone, but she didn’t disagree with the substance. The Agency had a long, largely disastrous, history of undertaking covert actions aimed at seating democratic governments—or at least ones that were anti-terrorist—in the Middle East. The notion that any branch of the U.S. government would work hand-in-hand with an insurgent terrorist organization in West Africa was absurd.
Unless you were a student of history. After all, Central America’s early banana republics were dictatorships pushed into power by the CIA to appease American fruit sellers. But even the Agency had to recognize the difference between the United Fruit Company and Boko Haram. Didn’t it? Besides, she reasoned, it wasn’t as if the jihadists filled the coffers of American corporations or traded on the NASDQ. What would be the motivation?
Why did she care what the Agency did or didn’t do? They’d cut her loose without so much as a ‘thanks for your service.’ She pushed the congealing eggs away and gnawed on her lower lip. Her interest in the Boko Haram rumor had nothing to do with the CIA and everything to do with Trent. The least she could do was admit that to herself. Trent and his squadron had sacrificed so much to fight the jihadists in Nigeria. Carla Ricci had made the ultimate sacrifice.
If only she had an excuse to call Elle. Marielle Moreau, digital targeter with the Directorate of Digital Innovation, might know. Olivia’s hand hovered over her phone. After a moment, she shook her head. She couldn’t involve Elle. Not in this. Not after the risk Elle had already taken for her. And not with the case against Senator Anglin and the rest of her Senate subcommittee pending.
She huffed out an irritated sigh, then stood and grabbed her plate. She scrapped the cold eggs into the trash and tossed the plate in the sink with more force than was strictly necessary. She eyed the growing pile of dirty dishes and resolved to wash them. But first, a run. She was jittery and edgy. Burning some energy would help. She changed into running tights and a long-sleeved t-shirt and was lacing up her shoes when her phone rang.
She hurried to the kitchen island to pick it up. “Hello?”
“Liv, hi. It’s, uh, me. Chelsea,” her cousin specified.
“I know. You’re one of five people on the entire planet who has this number.”
Her mom, Chelsea, Ryan, her divorce lawyer Clare Robinette, and Jake. Everybody else went through Jake, and she made her outgoing calls from a burner phone she replaced monthly.
“Wow, okay. Well, that explains why the windows guy called me, and not you.”
“The windows guy?”
“Yeah. Remember how you said to go ahead and update all the windows at the lake house?”
“Right.”
It had seemed the least she could do was pay for an upgrade, seeing as how she was responsible for the floor-to-ceiling windows being destroyed in a barrage of gunfire. But the project was dragging on. Apparently, the windows were a non-standard size and had to be custom manufactured. Then, it turned out that the original frames were made of a black walnut wood that had been cheap and plentiful back when the house had been built, but now was both unreasonably expensive and incredibly hard to source.
“So …”
“Hit me with the bad news,” she told her cousin. When it came to the windows replacement project, there was no good news.
“It’s not bad,” Chelsea promised. “Just … inconvenient. Ralph—that’s the windows guy—wants someone to meet him at the house to approve the stain or something. I’d do it for you, Liv, I really would, but this is my busiest time of year.”
“No, of course.” Chelsea had been an angel. Without her, Olivia would have spent half her life driving back and forth from Shenandoah Falls dealing with the blasted windows. But her cousin had a business to run.
“Thanks,” Chelsea sighed, her relief oozing through the phone’s handset. “I have this group coming in for a whitewater rafting expedition. I can’t hand it off and—”
“Honestly, it’s not a problem.”
“I’m sure you’re busy, too, though.”
Olivia could almost see her cousin twirling her long hair around her finger and tugging on it. It was her nervous tic.
“Chelsea, I’m sitting in this beige condo eating rubber eggs. Trust me. I’d love a change of scenery.”
“It’s pretty this time of year. Early spring, the birds, all the little green shoots. It’ll be muddy, though. So don’t wear your fancy TV clothes.”
She looked down at her running gear. “Don’t worry about that. I didn’t know you watched ‘Political Preview.’”
“I didn’t. But when Aunt Jayne told me you were on it, I got up early to see your beautiful face on my screen.”
“I miss you, Chels.”
“I miss you, too. Once the spring rush ends, we should do a weekend at the lake. Like we used to.”
Before one of us married a narcissistic jerk and the CIA told her she had to stay with him for the sake of the country.
“I’d love that. But, doesn’t the spring rush lead right into a summer rush in the outfitter world?”
Chelsea laughed. “It does. But in another month or two, the college kids will be home for the summer. I’ll have more help than I need.”