“Why don’t you start from the beginning,” Shane said.

Nick gave a tight nod and resisted the memories of how many other times he’d given briefings and orders to these men. This wasn’t the Army. He wasn’t their second in command. And he wasn’t the same man he’d been then. Goddamnit. “Becca came to me two days ago. Her brother was missing, and the last communication she’d received from him told her to find me. I turned her away.” That got their attention. Shane uncrossed his arms and braced himself against the counter. Easy sat up straighter on his stool. “I didn’t want anything to do with the Merritts or whatever trouble they had. But I couldn’t shake wondering why her brother Charlie, who I’d never met, would tell her to seek my help. Why he’d specifically tell her in a note that I was a member of their father’s Special Forces team.”

“How’d he know who you were?” Beck asked.

“Not sure. Maybe Merritt talked shop with them at some point? Or something in his personal effects?” Nick shrugged, and the small movement revealed how much tension had settled into his shoulders. The air was heavy with it. “What was even more interesting was why, once he found me, Charlie thought I’d be able to help with whatever trouble he’s in.” He still couldn’t shake the feeling there was something there. “So I kept an eye on Becca to see if there was really anything going on. Last night, I chased an intruder out of her house. He’d been digging around in her office, by the looks of things. That’s when she told me Charlie’s house had been tossed a few days before.”

Easy clasped his big hands in front of him. “Sounds like some bad juju, but I’m not seeing a connection.” Around the bar, heads nodded.

Rixey glanced between the men and hoped his next information was the same money shot for them as it’d been for him. “After the break-in, Becca mentioned that she and Charlie fought before he went missing. He’s a hacker, and he told her he’d found something that proved their father wasn’t who she thought he was.” Rixey paused, giving that a beat to sink in. “Since he said that, he’s gone missing, someone’s broken into and searched both their houses, and someone tried to grab her today. Whoever this is came back and took a second swing at Becca’s place sometime last night. Turned the place upside down. Somebody’s clearly looking for something from the Merritts and not finding it. Yet.”

“Jesus,” Shane bit out.

“Merritt wasn’t who any of us thought he was,” Easy said. His tight monotone belied the white-hot anger flashing behind the man’s dark eyes. Rixey wasn’t the only one still existing in that state of outraged pissed off, apparently. But that’s what happened when someone tried to strip a man of his honor.

Nick met each of their gazes, looking for the smallest evidence that he was getting their buy-in on this. So far, that was about as clear as mud. “Exactly. So, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is, what did Merritt’s son find that led him to the same conclusion?”

“Any idea how good a hacker he is?” Beckett asked in a low, calculating voice.

“Good enough that companies pay him to test their cybersecurity measures by attempting to hack in. Beyond that, dunno.”

Shane heaved a deep breath. “There’s a lot of circumstantial bullshit here, Nick. It’s like if times maybe divided by could be to the hundredth power. If Charlie found something that related to Merritt’s black op, and if someone found the info had leaked, and if they nabbed Charlie and were actively investigating what he found and how he’d found it, then maybe there’s a connection to what happened to us.”

“Easiest way to know if all that’s true is to find Charlie. He sounds like the key to all this.” Beckett shrugged. “That’s a job for the police or a PI.”

“Yeah. Why not let Baltimore’s finest handle this sitch?” Easy asked, looking between them.

Rixey’s cell buzzed in his pocket. “Hold on,” he said, pulling it out and hoping it was Miguel. Bingo. “Miguel?”

“Yep. I’m at the back door.”

Rixey gave him the code and disconnected. “Gimme a minute. I have someone who can answer that question better than me.” He crossed to the apartment door and opened it. Miguel’s footsteps echoed in the stairwell as he made his way up. “Thanks for coming out so late,” Nick said when the older man hit the landing, a leather case in hand.

“Sorry I got hung up.”

“Don’t worry about it. Come on in. Got some people I want you to meet.”

“Hold up, Nick. Something you need to see before we’re in mixed company,” Miguel said, hanging back in the hall. Rixey let the door fall shut as his friend popped open his case. “After you left, I made some calls from Becca’s office while I waited for the locksmith. I found this partly buried under a pile of papers and files that had toppled over on the desk.” He handed Nick a brown paper bag.

Frowning, Nick opened it and peered in. He pulled out the first item, a black-handled military knife with a nasty curved blade in a plastic bag. The second plastic bag was lighter, smaller. Nick lifted it out. “What the everliving fuck? Is this a finger?” His hackles raised so high they were barely attached to his body.

“Yeah. Pinkie, judging by the size. Nail’s been torn off. Cut was nowhere near clean. When I saw it . . .” Miguel shook his head. “Times like that I wish I’d never given up the cigs.”

“This was on Becca’s desk?”

The older man nodded, concern etching into the lines on his face. “Knife had it pinned to the surface. Think maybe the papers fell over later, because this was meant to be seen.”

Rixey stared at the severed finger. Jesus. Didn’t take two guesses to surmise who it likely belonged to. And if he was right, it answered the question of whether Charlie had been kidnapped or gone on the run. Ice ran down his spine. How the hell was he going to tell Becca? “Was there a note or a ransom demand?”

“Nothing.” Miguel snapped his case closed.

“What’s the fucking message, then?” Just general threatening menace? Together with the level of destruction at her house, it all seemed aimed at terrorizing. If Charlie had found information related to Merritt’s extracurriculars, maybe it all meant his captors were frustrated they couldn’t get the intel out of him? Or maybe this was meant as a diversion from their efforts to capture Becca, too? Damn, and was it coincidence that the blade was military grade?

“Good question. And I’ve got more intel, too.”

Rixey blew out a long breath. “Come on in. I invited a few of my Army buddies over in case we needed more boots on the ground on this, which seems pretty frickin’ obvious now. They should hear whatever you have to say.”

Miguel nodded and followed him in. “Oh, here’s the new keys to your girl’s house.” Rixey mentally refuted the words your girl as he pocketed the ring of three keys.

As soon as he learned what other shit was raining down on them, he’d have to let Becca know what’d happened. But how the hell was he going to tell her the fuckers who destroyed her house and tried to kidnap her had—assuming all three incidents were connected—also dismembered her brother? Especially when he couldn’t say what the calling card was supposed to mean. Was Charlie dead? The attempted abduction could play either way—either they’d killed Charlie and needed Becca for . . . something, or Charlie wouldn’t talk and they wanted leverage. Both soured Rixey’s gut.

His teammates all turned to see who Rixey was bringing into the fold. He and Miguel stepped up to the bar. “This is Miguel Olivero. Ex-BPD. Now a private investigator. He’s a good friend and trustworthy.” The guys nodded to the older man. “Miguel was helping me at Becca’s today when we found it’d been tossed. After I left to get her, he found this stabbed into her desk.” He settled the bagged knife and finger onto the counter in front of him.

Sitting closest, Beckett lifted the smaller bag to examine it.

“Well, fuck me running,” Shane said. “Her brother’s?”

“Presumed,” Nick said. “He’s the only one that makes sense, anyway. I’ll have to see if Becca can ID it.” Man, he’d do anything to keep her from having to see this, from having to bear the weight of it. “Apparently, this isn’t all Miguel learned today.” He turned to his friend and nodded.

Miguel braced his hands on the counter. “You guys don’t know me from Jack, but I used to be a Baltimore City cop. Still got friends on the force. Sticks in my craw to say it, but something’s way off with how this case is being handled. No reports have been filed, despite three separate incidents and dispatches. Did crime scene techs come to Becca’s after the first break-in?” Nick nodded. “Well, no evidence in the system, either. My contact couldn’t even find who the lead investigators were for any of it. On a hunch, I had a dispatcher friend run Becca’s phone numbers against the nine-one-one logs.”

The arrow on Nick’s oh-shit-ometer pushed hard into the red.

“There’s no record of her ever calling nine-one-one from either her house or cell phone numbers.”

“Sonofabitch,” Rixey bit out, the blood heating in his veins. “I know she called nine-one-one after the first break-in, because police and ambulance responded to the call.”

“I’m not questioning you or her.”

Miguel let the statement hang there, his meaning clear. Miguel Olivero, decorated veteran of the BPD, thought the police were dirty on this. Rixey had to agree. He looked from Beckett to Easy to Shane. “This is why we can’t hand Charlie’s disappearance over to the authorities. This stinks of a cover-up.” And damn if that smell wasn’t too fucking familiar.

Miguel nodded, his whole face frowning, an unusual look for the usually gregarious man. “You said someone tried to grab Becca from a staff break room at the hospital?” Rixey nodded. “That means uniforms, credentials, knowing schedules. Operation like that requires planning, resources, know-how, and brass balls.” Murmurs of agreement rose up around the bar. “Add that to all these missing records, and this is big time.”

Shane tugged his fingers through the top of his hair. “So, you’re talking about running a kidnapping investigation and hostage rescue operation? Completely off the books.”

Rixey braced, his stomach muscles going tight. “Yeah.”

“We don’t even know whose yard we’d be pissing in,” Shane said. Despite the negativity of the words, there was a note of consideration in the man’s voice. “But I guess that’s where we’d start.”

Nick’s gaze flashed to Shane’s, hope surging that he was on board. From the expressions on everyone’s faces, he wasn’t the only one looking at the numbers and seeing that one plus one plus one seemed to add up to five, too. Didn’t matter if that shit didn’t make any sense. It just meant they didn’t have all the factors relevant to the equation. Yet. “Does that mean you’re in?”

Shane stared at him a long moment. “This whole thing is nuttier than a squirrel turd, but my gut’s telling me that yours just might be right. And if that’s true”—he glanced to Miguel like he didn’t want to say too much in front of an outsider—“we might find some other useful info, too. So, yes, I’m in.”

Rixey nodded, when inside he was fist pumping all over the place.

Easy scrubbed his hands roughly over his bald head, then looked up. “If there’s a chance here to clear our names, you can be damn sure I’m in.” He was obviously less concerned with what Miguel heard.

“Beckett?” Rixey asked.

The man’s cold blue eyes glared at him. “I sure as hell ain’t letting you three get yourselves killed or arrested without me, and Easy’s right. This could be our best shot at setting things right. I’m not missing out on that. So, let’s do this.”

Relief melted the tension out of Rixey’s neck. “Okay, good. And thank you for hearing us out.” Heads nodded around the bar. “First, goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway as a reminder: Becca’s on a need-to-know on the backstory of all this, right?” Knowing glances flashed back at him. No way any of them could forget about the goddamned NDA. “Okay, so, Shane’s correct. The first step would be finding out who we’re up against. We can start by searching both their houses for clues and canvassing Charlie’s last known whereabouts for witnesses.”

“What did the perp at the hospital look like?” Miguel asked. “Any identifying features?”

Rixey tried to resurrect the man’s image in his mind’s eye, but the clearest details were of his hand over Becca’s mouth and his knife in her side. “Tall, African American, early twenties, lots of tats and brands on his arms.”