Backblast Candace Irving (classic novels to read .txt) 📖

reach Brandt's room. "Do you know a Sam Riyad? He's NCIS."

Scott's snort was as sharp as the pocket knife he'd brandished to cut the seal on Brandt's door. "The Holy One?" He paused. Flushed. "Sorry. That's not Riyad's attitude, it's—"

"Jeffers'."

"Yep."

Curious and curiouser. "Why? What's Riyad done for the guy?" Or possibly the ambassador?

"He exists." Scott used the tip of his knife to sever the warning sticker that had been signed and adhered to the door's seam, then unlocked it. He pushed the door open and reached inside to flip on the light switch. "After you."

Regan preceded him into the room.

She set her laptop bag and crime scene kit on the staff sergeant's desk, then opened the lock on her kit. Retrieving two pairs of latex gloves from within, she passed the first to Scott and donned the second as she scanned the staff sergeant's quarters. They resembled nearly every barracks room she'd occupied while enlisted, along with those she'd tossed as an MP and more recently as CID. The layout consisted of a twin bed, a desk, a TV and a large, lockable wardrobe.

The latter intrigued her most, so she began there, severing Brandt's combination lock with the small bolt cutters in her kit as she nudged Scott for more on the spook. "Riyad exists? Surely there's more to it?"

"You do know the guy's a former SEAL, right?"

Oh, she did now. "Yeah, I heard that. So?"

"So, Jeffers is a wannabe." Scott shook his head as he snapped his second glove into place. He accepted the broken lock as she turned back to work her way through the staff sergeant's uniforms and personal items. "Nah, make that a woulda, shoulda, coulda been."

"What happened? Did Jeffers get accepted and blow out a shoulder halfway through the third month of Buds?"

"More like washed out. And it was nowhere near halfway. I heard the guy rang the bell by the end of the first day."

Yikes.

Granted, she doubted she'd have made it through an hour at Buds. She knew her strengths, just as she knew her limitations. But she'd never wanted to be a SEAL. Jeffers had. And he'd been forced to accept that he couldn't make the grade up close and personal. Despite that asshole behavior of his, she felt for the guy.

It also explained his hero worship. But there were operational drawbacks to willful blindness, whether Jeffers was willing to cop to it or not, especially with regard to Riyad. The DCM's judgment was clouded.

And that was never a good thing.

Not that she'd have shared the realization with Scott. Though from that glint she'd noted in his eye in her temporary office earlier, she was fairly certain she didn't need to.

Regan fell silent as she worked her way through the remainder of the wardrobe unit. There was nothing out of place. She closed the unit and crossed the room to toss the bed. Again, nothing. She hit the drawers in the desk next and came up empty once more. If the staff sergeant had been hiding something big enough to serve as blackmail leverage, there was no trace of it in his room. Except—

"Is that a picture frame?"

Blinds shifted and rattled softly against the window as Scott straightened up from the sill. "Where?"

She pointed to where he'd been standing beside the bed. Whatever that was, it was lying flat on the floor and tucked up underneath the bottom of the bed, near the head. As if Brandt had been staring at it while lying down, then slipped it beneath to keep it safe as he'd nodded off. She stepped forward and leaned down to retrieve it.

It was a frame. An electronic one.

Why wasn't it displayed on the desk?

Had Brandt been torturing himself with pictures of an ex?

She switched the frame on and clicked through the succession of photos that were stored within. There were nineteen—and all contained groupings of the same three people, with the occasional addition or substitution of Brandt.

She tapped the other male face she recognized. "That's Aamer Sadat, isn't it?" The Pakistani Foreign Service National who'd missed his interview with her an hour ago. "And I'm guessing this woman is Sadat's wife?"

Scott nodded. "Yeah, and that's a photo of their new kid." He shook his head as she cycled through the stored pictures once more. "A lot of photos of their kid."

Agreed. In fact, either the baby or the mother was in every single one. Usually both. Out of nineteen photos, Aamer Sadat was in nine shots, total. Regan stopped on one of the nine. Brandt was holding the infant. Mrs. Sadat was standing on Brandt's right with Mr. Sadat standing to his wife's right. Except Mrs. Sadat wasn't looking at her husband, but at Brandt. Brandt was also looking at her—and the glow that bathed the staff sergeant's face was more than friendly. It was reverent.

Blackmailable, even.

Along with the rest. Namely, the baby's chin. It was dimpled…like Brandt's. Aamer Sadat's chin was smooth, along with his wife's. But there was more. There were hints of Caucasian blood in the baby's features, too. Hints that Regan suspected would become more defined as the boy grew up. She was almost certain Aamer Sadat was not the baby's father.

And there was an excellent chance Brandt was.

19

It took every gene Regan had inherited from her own father to clamp down on the rush of adrenaline hitting her veins before it reached her face. The more she studied that photo, the more certain she became. The adrenaline had a right to be there. Those Caucasian hints in the baby's features were one thing. But that cleft in his chin? That was the clincher.

They usually were.

Dimples, in a cheek or the chin, were a dominant genetic trait.

She'd never ask—because John would detest admitting it—but there was an excellent chance his father had sported the same distracting dent that John did. Though for John's sake, she hoped not. As for Mrs. Sadat, with Brandt deceased, Regan suspected the woman would treasure that dimpled chin, along