“Where are Marz and Jeremy?” Shane asked.
“Next door doing research,” Nick said. “We should share the news.”
“You guys go, I’ll stay with Charlie,” Becca said.
Nick grasped her hand. “You should be at the celebration,” he said. “We’ll only stay a few minutes and come right back.”
She smiled and nodded. “Okay, just a few minutes.”
As a group, they poured into the gym, and Shane for one couldn’t keep the grin off his face.
From his chair at the computer, Marz nearly jumped to his feet. “It’s over? How’d it go?”
“Went good,” Shane said as he put an arm around Becca’s shoulder and hugged her in against his side. “We did good.”
As they gathered around Marz’s desk, she gave a fast nod and batted at the corner of her eye. “Now we wait for Charlie to wake up and beat this fever.”
Jeremy set a box of files on the floor. “He’ll do it, Becca. Don’t you worry.”
Marz’s smile was a mile wide. “That’s right. Man, this is damn good news.”
Shane nodded. “Chalk one up to stupid luck.”
Marz shook his head. “Wasn’t luck out on the dirt road that day, and wasn’t luck tonight. You two are rock stars, man. For real.”
“Besides,” Beckett said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans, “if it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid.” They all chuckled.
“So,” Shane said, eager to change the topic. “Any luck here?”
Marz sat heavily. “Lots of things in the works. Surveillance camera feeds are all up from inside Confessions. I managed to isolate the range of frequencies representing voices from the club’s music and other background noise, so we’ve got audio, too. Sound quality isn’t perfect, but it’s better than nothing. And for shits and giggles, I set up a search query of all the companies doing business out of the marine terminal who have anything to do with Afghanistan, Singapore, or military hardware and materiel using the Port Authority registries.”
“You’ve been busy,” Beckett said.
Marz shrugged and rubbed his thigh. “Couldn’t just sit around and wait, you know?”
A rustling sound caught Shane’s attention, and he glanced around the desk to find Eileen wrestling a big stuffed bear out of a box. The puppy pulled it free but landed on her back, the bear on top. She growled and flipped out from under it. Shane laughed.
“Oh shit,” Jeremy said, reaching for the bear. “No, no, Eileen.”
The dog sank her teeth into the bear’s neck and bolted.
Jeremy took off after her, darting between Beckett and Nick and around the gym equipment. Eileen growled and shook the bear as she dodged and weaved. Jeremy finally cornered her. “Gotcha, bad puppy. That’s Becca’s bear,” he said, scooping the dog and bear up. “Let go, now,” he said. Eileen licked his face as everyone chuckled. They all loved that mutt, but she seemed to have a special sweet spot for Jeremy and Charlie in particular.
“Don’t worry about it, Jer,” Becca said with a smile.
“All right, fess up,” Nick said. “Were you and Marz playing dolls all this time?” Nick asked with a straight face.
“Ha, ha, asshole,” Jeremy said as he flipped his brother off.
Shane snickered at the glower on Jeremy’s face. “Is that an Army bear?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Becca said. “My dad sent it to me from Afghanistan.”
“Here,” Jeremy said, drilling it at Shane like a football.
Shane caught it before it nailed him in the gut. “Fucker,” he said, chuckling. Something metallic clanked to the floor.
“Oops,” Jeremy said, putting Eileen down and retrieving a thin chain from the concrete. He held it up. Play ID tags. “Look what you went and did, Eileen. Bad girl. Bad, bad girl.”
The puppy tilted her head and whined before sitting down on her haunches. Her tail wagged lazily. Dang if she wasn’t the cutest three-legged German shepherd Shane had ever seen. Not that he thought he’d ever seen a three-legged German shepherd before. Or any three-legged dog. Still.
“Sorry, Becca. I’ll get a replacement chain,” Jer said.
“I might have one somewhere. I’ll look,” Marz said. “What’s it say?”
Jeremy smiled. “Bear, Maxwell. His social security number. And ‘B Positive.’”
Shane reached out his hand. “Hey, that’s pretty accurate info. Lemme see. Maybe I can fix it.” He dropped the bear to the desk as he examined the ball chain. “Oh. The connector’s totally gone.” He scanned the floor around their feet, but didn’t see it. Flipping the ID tag around, Shane chuckled. “Maxwell Bear.”
And then Shane froze.
The social security number was familiar . . .
“Holy shit,” Shane said, doing a double take. “This isn’t a SSN. Look how the digits are divided up.” His brain racing, Shane held it out to Marz and everyone stepped closer.
Marz’s eyes went wide. “Three groups of three instead of groups of three, two, four.” He dug a sheet of paper from a stack on his desk and slammed it down with the tag so everyone could see.
Nick leaned in. “Holy. Shit.”
“Oh, my God. That’s . . . isn’t that the number carved inside my mother’s locket?” Becca asked.
Shane looked again, just to prove his brain hadn’t played a trick on him. But, no. The ID tag still read 754–374–329 and matched one of the numbers they’d been investigating the past few days. The Singapore bank account number. The account holding $12 million in cash Merritt received running the black op that took their SF team down.
“It’s the same,” Becca whispered. “Why would it be on the bear’s tag?”
Marz grabbed the bear from where Shane had placed it on the desk. The hat. The coat. The pants. The boots. Shane’s heart pumped harder in his chest as Marz took off each article of clothing and inspected them carefully for writing or false panels. Nothing. When the bear was naked, Marz flipped it around and gave it a full physical. Still nothing.
Becca’s eyes were wide as saucers. “What do you think it means?”
Marz shook his head as he stared at the bear.
Shane’s thoughts flew around Becca’s question. No way this is a coincidence. What were you trying to tell Becca, Frank? And why did you feel you had to hide codes and account numbers and messages in so many secretive ways? The bracelet. And now the bear.
“It means we have to start looking at things a whole lot different.” Marz squeezed the toy from ears to paws. “And it means your bear has to die, Becca,” he said as he looked up at her.
She gaped and stared at the bear for a long moment. Finally, she said, “You think something’s in it?”
Shane’s scalp prickled as the rightness of her words ran through him.
Marz smiled. “I think something’s in it.”
Becca nodded. “Well, all right. But if it has to die, can we do the killing over in the apartment so I can keep an ear out for Charlie?”
TEN MINUTES LATER, they’d checked on a still-sleeping Charlie and congregated around the island in the kitchen. The beer and whiskey flowed.
Shane was still riding so high from the success of Charlie’s surgery that he didn’t think sleep was anywhere in his immediate future, despite its being well after one o’clock in the morning. And now the adrenaline rush of their discovery with the bear.
“To Becca and Shane,” Nick said, raising his glass. Everyone followed suit.
“To Charlie,” Shane said, diverting the attention from himself with another round of clinking glasses. After all, he’d just been doing his job. Shane tossed back a swallow of whiskey and enjoyed the warm bite of it hitting his tongue.
“If I drink any more of this, it’ll knock me out until Sunday,” Becca said, pushing her bottle of beer away. “And I should keep an eye on Charlie through the night.”