Backblast by Candace Irving (brene brown rising strong .TXT) 📗

The murky frost shifted as Mantia returned to the body. It settled on her. As with the stateroom door Riyad had shut in her face following her arrival, her fellow agent's message was clear. Riyad might not have more homicide investigations under his belt than he could count, but he was aware of basic procedure. He'd simply intended on lancing her hope.

Unfortunately, the evidence had beaten him to it.

She watched as Mantia manipulated the translator's head, examining the back. The skin was intact. The two-foot slick of blood beneath Hachemi's body had come from his shattered face. A shattered face that, according to Corporal Vetter, was the direct result of the single blow John had landed.

6

Three hours later, the horrifying reality of John's guilt was still ricocheting through Regan's brain, magnified by the plethora of evidence she'd meticulously identified, photographed and bagged inside that conference room.

Hair. Fiber. Fingerprints.

DNA from those two Styrofoam coffee cups.

The statement from the junior Marine.

She'd yet to interview Staff Sergeant Brandt and wouldn't for another hour at least, as he and Corporal Vetter were aboard the CH-53E, en route to the carrier with the translator's body. Once the medical examiner arrived, she and Riyad would rendezvous aboard the carrier for the postmortem. While she didn't as yet share Riyad's impression of the Griffith's sheriff, she'd been reluctant to entrust the chain of custody of Hachemi's body to Chief Yrle until she knew more about the woman's dispute with the spook.

Not that it mattered. She doubted even Staff Sergeant Brandt's version of events would change the course of this investigation. How could it when each piece of the puzzle she'd managed to collect had already converged to form an increasingly painful image. And at its center?

John.

For that reason, and others Regan was loath to examine, she couldn't quite seem to reach out and clasp the taunting knob to the metal door six inches from her face.

"We going in or not?"

She refused to answer the query, let alone glance at the increasingly smug spook who'd voiced it. Instead, she filled her lungs with false courage, shoved the door open—and froze at the sight that greeted her.

John was seated six feet away, at the opposite curve of a small, laminated table, still clad in the camouflaged ACUs she'd noted earlier. With his dark head bowed, he was not so much staring at his hands as through them. He didn't look up as she regained her nerve and forced herself to step inside the compartment, nor did she prompt him. She took advantage of John's distraction, instead, as Riyad stepped in behind her and closed the door, instinctively cataloguing the palpable shame and regret crushing those once imposing shoulders. Crushing him.

And then, John raised his head and met her gaze.

For a split second, he stiffened. And then he blinked, absorbed her presence aboard the Griffith and in this particular compartment…and the implications inherent therein.

Resignation supplanted shock as John accepted those implications, deepening the lines at the corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth as he stood. "Chief."

Regan returned his brief nod and matched his equally terse, distant tone. "Major."

First names and any intimacy they'd managed to rekindle were gone—firmly incarcerated back in that Fort Campbell ICU where she'd clawed her way out of a numbing coma and the agonizing hallucinations that had trapped her there. Through it all John had remained at her side, profound joy and a humbling relief filling those haggard and haunted gray eyes of his as she'd woken. Within minutes she'd succumbed to sleep, only to reawaken three hours later to discover that John had pulled another classified mission and was deploying yet again.

She hadn't spoken to him since.

Until now.

John scrubbed a hand through the several weeks' worth of unruly scruff darkening the lower portion of his face and jaw, then motioned for her to take the empty seat across from his. "Let's get this over with."

She nodded, painfully aware that he was attempting to make the coming interrogation easier—on her.

Regan set her crime scene kit on the dark blue couch that dominated the senior officer stateroom. Given the absence of bunk beds, not to mention the three-inch tail of linen hanging out from the far end, she assumed the vinyl sofa converted into an equally stiff and unwieldy rack. As with her quarters, a closed porthole, a modular-steel wall unit, a small sink and mirror, and a tiny latrine outfitted with a toilet and shower rounded out the furnishings.

Unless John possessed solid information that contradicted Corporal Vetter's statement, chances were good that he'd be spending the remainder of his days with half the space and a fraction of the amenities in this compartment—as he took up residence in the federal penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth.

Reality and regret weighed heavy on her shoulders and in her heart as she retrieved the interview folder she'd prepared from Agent Riyad before crossing the tiny space. She laid the folder on the table and removed the digital camera and voice recorder she'd tucked into her cargo pocket before claiming the chair John had indicated, leaving a now empty-handed Riyad to mark time behind her.

She'd lost her view of the spook's face, but she had a close-up of John's, and what she saw gave her pause.

The men were at odds. From the set of John's jaw as his stare flicked past her right shoulder, she'd wager they had been since before Hachemi's death.

But for how long…and why?

The question would have to wait, because another one had just been answered. She'd found the missing coffee from that upended cup. It was splashed across the front of John's ACUs, the majority of the dried splotches nearly blending in with the muted tans and greens of the digital camouflaged pattern. And there was more.

Blood.

The high-velocity splatter she'd been seeking marred the right side of John's face, specifically the upper half of his neck and the collar of his ACU blouse and tan T-shirt. Several dried rust-colored drops also stained the inner contours