The voice behind him was both American and familiar—and it made his jaw clench to hear it. Not that he hadn’t been expecting the contact. It was more that McCabe’s being here could only mean one thing: trouble.
Glancing sideways through the shield of his sunglasses, Johnny brought his longtime friend and occasional nemesis into focus. McCabe never changed. He was always a little unshaven, a whole lot cool, and secretive as hell. Enigmatic was how Melia had described him—and why the hell had he gone there?
In response to McCabe’s remark, he took a drag on his cigarette and gazed placidly over the busy dock. “I was working on it until I got your weird text. ‘Asshole’s got noses on the ground and in the air.’ What the hell does that mean? I’m ninety-five percent sure I don’t want to know.”
“It means Satyr’s got sniffer dogs circling Melia. Giving her a wide berth at this point, but in the vicinity and watching.”
“Shit.” Johnny’s gaze scanned the fishing boats that jockeyed for position even as they hauled their nets onto waterlogged decks. “Why?”
“No idea.”
“Bull,” Johnny said mildly. “If Ben Satyr has people watching Melia, then he’s figured out I still care. Or he strongly suspects it. Our plan sealed the deal on Melia’s end. She couldn’t have done anything to arouse his suspicions. Ergo, one of us screwed up.”
McCabe tugged his ball cap lower to block the relentless sun. “Something screwed up,” he agreed. “Tell me again about that break-in two weeks ago.”
“My room was tossed. Whoever did it took the money I leave for thieves and ran.”
“All they took was money? You’re sure about that?”
Johnny slanted him a wry look. “I’m sure. I’ve gotten good at this game of ‘who the hell cares’ over the past three years. Rooms get tossed in Istanbul on a regular basis.”
“And yet, two weeks after the fact, my people have ID’d Satyr’s people inching too close to your ex-wife for my liking.”
A headache loomed, but Johnny ignored it. He’d gone to extremely painful lengths to ensure Melia’s safety. No way would he let a bastard drug lord like Satyr threaten her on any level.
“It was a sound plan,” he maintained.
And it had been. They’d set her up. Remembering how they’d done it still made him feel sick. Jesus, they’d tricked her into thinking she’d slept with another man.
He’d been forced to walk in and listen to someone else’s false account of what had happened. Angry and upset, he’d thrown a lamp against the wall and left the room. She’d tried to explain, but of course that hadn’t been possible. The images that had been planted in her mind had her believing she’d slept with someone else. He’d told her he couldn’t deal with it and taken a job overseas.
Once he’d believed she was safe, he’d started the divorce proceedings. The whole fucking thing had hurt her like hell. It had damn near killed him. He’d done it to keep Satyr from taking out his insane need for revenge on her. And the plan had worked. So why the interest now? Why all of a sudden after three years of nothing?
“You didn’t risk contacting her?” McCabe asked.
Johnny pushed back the pain and guilt. “No.”
“Contacting someone she knows? Friends, family, colleagues?”
“No.”
“What about social media?”
“For Christ’s sake.” Irritation brought the guilt, always present inside him, rushing back. “I said no. Satyr’s threats were real. He was going to kill Melia to make me suffer, and you know he meant it. There was no choice involved here. Keeping Melia safe is all I care about, all I think about, all I want. It’s my first, last, and only goal in life.”
McCabe nodded. “Unfortunately, I believe you. And in the end, the hows don’t matter. Satyr’s people are there. So’s one of mine, but shit happens, Johnny. Could be Mockerie’s playing into this unexpected interest.”
“Maybe.” Because Ben Satyr’s boss, James Mockerie, was as insane and sadistic as Satyr himself.
Except that Satyr had personal reasons for wanting to destroy Johnny’s life. Those reasons went back to the time they’d spent together in an Iraqi prison. An Iraqi hellhole, in point of fact.
The nightmare had started long before that, but Iraq had been the culmination. Long before Satyr had gone to work for Mockerie, they’d known each other. If Satyr had wanted something, Mockerie would probably have been more than happy to help him. Mockerie was sly, and he had contacts in high places. It was possible he’d been the one to figure out McCabe’s three-year-old plan.
Johnny’s temples began to throb. He crushed the mostly smoked cigarette under the heel of his boot. “Where’s she living?”
“Deception Cove. It’s in the Florida Everglades. She’s been there for fourteen months. She tried Concord, New Hampshire, and a town called Bastion’s Landing in South Carolina. Spent a year in each place.”
“Who’s responsible for the relocations?”
“She came to me in both cases.” Johnny noted that McCabe’s gaze slid to a drug deal going down on one of the smaller boats. “My guess? She’s having trouble settling. Face it, the way we handled it, she believes she cheated on you. That has to cut pretty deep.”
Johnny didn’t want to go there. “Better cut than dead. We both know Satyr would have killed her in a minute to get back at me for what he thinks I did to him in Iraq. And before.”
“Satyr or Mockerie.” McCabe fashioned a set of scales with his hands. “Which way are you leaning?”
“Satyr,” Johnny said without hesitation. “Mockerie might be willing to help, partly out of friendship and partly because he’s a perverted prick who gets his rocks off torturing and tormenting people. But at the heart of it, Satyr’s the more spiteful bastard.”
“So.” McCabe motioned upward to where the bars and drug dens waited in the afternoon rush. “What say we have a drink and figure out how we can screw the bastard back. Might as well toast the positive side of this.”
Johnny tugged his own cap down over hair that hadn’t seen a pair of scissors for more than six months. “Enlighten me, McCabe. What’s positive here?”
“We know that, of the two, Satyr is the bigger asshole. But at least he’ll kill her outright. Mockerie will torture her. The bastard has an evil soul. He hides it when he wants to. If Satyr wants Melia dead, I’ll guarantee Mockerie will find a way to be involved in the manner of her death. Wait a minute, maybe I should rethink that positive aspect.”
Johnny regarded him shrewdly. “Damn right you should. If you think Mockerie’s evil, spend some time with his Mini-Me. Satyr’s catching up to his boss at warp speed. All I care about is making sure neither of them touches Melia.”
Chapter Two
Deception Cove.
The name sounded vaguely mysterious. It was the kind of place where people with secrets might live.
Melia had a secret—a dark truth she refused to acknowledge most days. It haunted her at night, and had for the past three years, but during the day, she could sometimes forget it existed. Unfortunately it did exist, and the guilt that came with it would be with her forever. It wouldn’t matter how far she ran, or how many places she tried to hide. There was no escaping the ugly fact that she’d cheated on her husband. Whether she wanted to believe it or not, the images were in her head—the view of Atlantic City, Matthew in her room holding a wineglass, smiling down at her as she sank onto the cloud of her bed… She shuddered whenever she thought about it.
The air smelled ever so slightly of the swamp as she examined her final patient of the day. The man, a local mechanic, held up a blackened hand. “Damn rat bit me,” he declared. “Biggest sucker you ever saw, doc. Fat as a racoon and then some.”
Hiding a smile, Melia washed both the cut and his dirty hand. “Must’ve been a really old rat, Percy. Its teeth were large and blunt.”
“Yeah, well, rats get old, too, right?” He squirmed in his seat. “Just make the pain go away and patch me up so I can get back to work on Sheriff Travers’s truck.”