Page 59 of Seeking Vengeance
When the sun dipped below the horizon, Nicki went out and lay in the meadow. She looked up into the sky, watching it change from pink-tinged light blue to deep sapphire, filled with more glittering stars than she’d ever seen, and she finally exhaled. It wasperfect.
* * *
Sean loved his family—hereally did—but the frustration of one dead end after another made him cranky, ready to lash out at the next person who tried to speak to him. Not the most patient man under the best of circumstances, he’d reached his limit. He’d had enough of sitting in the bar night after night, listening to them discuss options and next steps as lead after lead failed to produce anything tangible.
Finding Nicki and trying to learn what had happened in the last eight years was proving to be quite a challenge, and there was nothing the Callaghans enjoyed more than a chance to test their skills. Nicki, it seemed, had done just that by disappearing into thin air. The more they found—or didn’t find, as was often the case—the more intrigued they became.
They meant well. They were doing their damnedest. But the fact remained: Nicki wasgone.
It had been three weeks. Three weeks since he’d seen, heard, scented, touched, or tasted her. Sean was going out of his mind. Christmas came and went, and Sean was unable to enjoy any of it. Nothing held much interest to him, except finding his woman and bringing her home. Only then would things begin to make sense again.
“Anything?” Nick asked hopefully when Sean returned to the garage late one night.
Somehow, he had known Nick would be there. He, like Sean, tended to take some small measure of solace in working with his hands. The change in Nick since his sister’s disappearance was startling. It was like the kid had grown into a man overnight. While he still retained some of his innate bad-boy aura, he was more serious now. Focused.
Nick had told them everything he could, hoping that something would provide the information needed to find her. Sean almost wished he hadn’t. It was impossible to hear the grisly details of what had been done to them as kids andnotwant to go on a killing rampage.
One thing Sean knew for sure: when he found Nicki—and hewouldfind her—she would never suffer at the hands of another again. There wasn’t anything he could do about her past. What was done was done. But he would devote the rest ofhislife to making sure the rest ofherlife was as close to heaven as he could make it.
She was already familiar enough with hell. It was a miracle she’d managed to retain any semblance of sanity in the face of such cruelty. What was even more amazing to him was that she had not only come out of it reasonably sane, but she’d also used it to become stronger.
Sean looked into Nick’s pale eyes, the ones currently pinned on him with desperate hope. It couldn’t have been any easier for Nick, having to relive all the horror, having to admit to things that no man should ever have to admit to. But, like his sister, he had survived and become stronger for it. Not as strong as Nicki perhaps, but Sean could see him changing every day.
“No,” Sean replied. Again. Christ, how he wanted to walk through the door and have something different to say. “You?”
Nick shook his head. In the hopes that Nicki would contact him, Nick kept his cell phone on him at all times. He left it on each night while it charged, maxed out on volume, but so far, there had been nothing. No hang-ups. No texts.
Nothing.
“She’s okay,” Nick said with forced confidence. “She’s tough. She’s just waiting till shit dies down—that’s all.”
Sean nodded somberly, wishing he believed that, but he feared the worst. She’d dropped off the face of the earth. Ian had been tapping every security database on the East Coast and running his custom face-recognition programs, and he’d not gotten a single hit.
On a hunch, Ian had run similar searches on the agents who had shown up at Sean’s that morning—Fisher and Brookes. Ian had found similarly troubled lives, and like Nicki, they seemed to have vanished in their late teens with no digital footprint since.
Each question answered brought two more. Who were Fisher and Brookes? Definitely not DEA, like they’d claimed, butsomething. Ian had rerun queries against all the federal databases, but the results hadn’t changed.
So, whodidshe work for? And why weren’t there any records of her or the others?
Ian had verified beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were using their real names, but that in itself seemed paradoxical. If you wanted to stay off the grid, why wouldn’t you change your name and become someone else? Why would you continue to use your birth name?
Ian had pointed out that it was actually quite brilliant, especially since, according to the digital powers that be, they didn’t really exist anywhere anymore, except in people’s minds and memories anyway.
And why had Nicki left so suddenly? At the time, Sean’s instincts had told him she was involved with something, but nothing had gone down that he knew of. They were watching and listening for any hint of a covert op within a couple hundred miles. Sean was sure that whatever it was, it was local, but nothing blipped on their radar. There was a brief moment of hope when Nick suggested that maybe his sister intended to take down Benny Marscone. It made so much sense. But when they had traced Benny to a local address under an alias, they’d found the place empty with a For Sale sign out front and no indication of foul play.
The biggest question—and the one that haunted Sean the most: why hadn’t she returned to him? Why hadn’t she trusted him? To make matters worse, something was niggling at the back of his brain. They were missing something—he was sure of it. But what?
After an hour or so of accomplishing nothing, Sean pushed himself away from the innards of the old Camaro and wiped down his tools. Maybe what he needed was a fresh perspective.
* * *
“I feel like shit.”Sean poured himself into a seat at Maggie’s ancient, scarred kitchen table the next morning.
With the cheery sunshine-yellow walls, white cabinetry, and enticing aromas of the freshly baked goodies Maggie always had on hand, it was the most comforting place he could think of. Not to mention, Maggie herself. She might be his brother’s wife, but she took care of all of them really.
“You’ve lost yourcroie,” Maggie said sympathetically, pouring him a cup of coffee. “Of course you do.”
Once again, Sean was glad Michael had brought Maggie into their family. She got it.
