Page 70 of Acting on Instinct
Kira handed the ring to Lynx and showed her the catch.
“You were familiar with this ring?” Lynx asked as she gently pulled the note free.
“I was there when London originally got it.”
From her purse, Lynx took what looked like a lock-picking tool, but what did Kira know of such things? Lynx worked on unfolding the paper, then read it aloud to Gator.
“You got this from Lula?” Gator asked.
“Lula was visiting when London asked her to get it to me.”
“When?” Gator asked.
“Good question, “ Kira said. “I don’t know.”
Gator nodded and left the room. A moment later, she heard him talking on his phone.
“Lula came to Durham to give you this?” Lynx asked.
“Yes, and to say hi. Lula spent some time helping calm me down because the shop Ty and I were in to buy his mom a birthday gift was robbed while we were there. Ty was glad to have someone with me. He had to get back to the base for a training mission. Then it switched to a mission-mission.”
Lynx’s demeanor changed. It was subtle, but there was a bubble of extra interest that Kira couldn’t quite place.
No one had told Kira the whole story, but there had been a danger to the men in Delta Force, and the wives sometimes mentioned an incident in cryptic speak. She knew that Strike Force had been involved with saving them—that’s how Ty knew everyone when he went to Gator’s wedding.
“When I was asking you about your security, I got the sense that you thought you were being watched even before you got this note. This note was a confirmation rather than news.”
Kira frowned.
“How long have you felt that way?” Lynx asked gently.
Kira pinched the end of her nose while she tried to decide. “Two weeks, I’d say.”
“What did Lula say when she saw the note from London?”
“I hadn’t opened London’s note until after Lula left.” Lynx looked up when Gator came back into the room.
“Black said White was in Qatar for three days. On the way back to the States, she stopped to refuel, then flew to a small airport outside of Fort Bragg yesterday morning to start the next stage of a mission.”
“I thought she had probably tapped Echo,” Kira said, “because Ty didn’t come home from his training evolution.”
“Kira, what would a private investigator have seen if they’ve been tracking you for, let’s say, several weeks?” Lynx asked as Gator took a seat on the sofa.
“Ty,” Kira said flatly. “Ty stays with me as much as he can. I occasionally stay on the base at his house, but the investigator would know I was inviting a man into my home overnight, which would be seen as a dishonor to the family.”
“We can speculate that whoever was following you knew about Ty because about an hour before you reached the fort, a bomb scare was called in. The timing seems too coincidental to discount that they wouldn’t be able to guess where you were going, and they didn’t want you out of their reach.”
“Why?” Gator asked. “Christen said you ain’t heard nothing from your uncle since our wedding. What happened a few weeks ago?”
“In Qatar?” Kira slid off her chair to sit cross-legged next to Houston. “Nothing, well, no, that isn’t true, two things. At the beginning of the month, the family was afraid that Uncle Nadir had been killed in a boating accident when he was in Singapore, and it took about a day to find that he was fine and that he’dflown to Tanzania with William. Then, just after that, the war started.”
“After you hung up with the police,” Lynx said, softening her voice and leaning in, “you said you didn’t think that you’d be going home ever again. Do you think it would be okay if I look through what you decided to bring with you?”
“I …” Kira blinked. “Yes, of course. Why?”
“Oh, you know, when you were under stress and throwing things into your bag, you might have grabbed the thing that would be a clue.”
“I would have to know something for it to be a clue. I don’t know anything.”
