Page 13 of Crave

Kyle put his hand on my shoulder. “What’s up, my man?”

“Can we talk?”

Kyle gave me the same look he gave me when I was smarting off at work before nodding to the back hallway that led to his office.

I waved to Sara as we passed and she smiled as she returned the gesture. She’d completely recovered from being held hostage in Afghanistan, but every time I saw her, my mind flashed to how she looked when we’d found her. Blood on her neck, dirt covering her body. Cowering in a cave in her bra and panties. Finding her alive had been one of the best moments of my life. One of the moments that I realized all the pain and sacrifices I’d made to become a SEAL had been worth it. We’d saved her.

I stepped into his office and Kyle shut the door behind us.

“This is about the boy, isn’t it? The guys I have on it think that he could be Joaquín’s son. Is that why he did it? Because Tiffany had his kid and he never knew?”

My heart pounded. I had no intention of lying to Kyle. “The boy isn’t Joaquín’s son. He’s mine.”

Kyle’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his desk. “Say what? Are you serious, man?”

“Yup. Turns out Mia was pregnant. I never knew—just found out. She left me and had the baby in San Francisco. But she was told our baby died in the hospital, which obviously wasn’t the case since he’s alive and well. We have no idea how Tiffany ended up with him.”

His mouth slackened, and he rubbed his jaw. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“So, Mia’s back in town? I thought you hadn’t heard from her. I’ve been worried about her. You were such a dick to her when she came to The Pickled Frog asking for help.”

“Yeah, she’s back. Actually . . . she’s Ksenya.”

Kyle let out a laugh and smirked. “Are you serious, man? You’re not going to believe me, but I had my suspicious. I chalked them up to too many concussions. She looks so different—what did she do? She had plastic surgery to fool us?”

“Something like that.”

“Wow. You’re blowing my mind.”

“Yeah, well, it gets worse. I don’t think Joaquín is innocent. There are just too many questions, ya know?”

He nodded. “Joaquín was always a bit off, but murder? I’m not sure. Don’t get me wrong, lots of guys snap for no real reason, but just because you have questions doesn’t mean he’s a murderer. But do you remember what happened in Afghanistan? Before Sara was taken?”

That deployment was a haze. War was always a mind fuck. “No, what?”

“Joaquín had snuck off one night on that deployment with some village elders. When I asked him about it, he looked me dead in the eye and said he wanted to have tea with them, learn about their culture. He technically hadn’t done anything wrong, so I didn’t write him up, but why the fuck would he do that?”

My mouth became dry. “I never knew about that.” Maybe he had been smuggling drugs. I remembered that he had been buddies with another Team guy who had smuggled drugs from Aruba but I’d never thought anything about it. That dude had been kicked out. “Did you ever catch Joaquín doing drugs?”

Kyle glared at me. “No, did you?”

“No.” I paused, careful not to rat out Mitch. “But I heard rumors that Joaquín had been using and had a local dealer.”

“Yeah, well he pissed clean. I’ll look into the drugs, too. But for now,” he said waving away that whole line of thought, “back to your son. We haven’t located him or the woman yet. We did find the company they rented the U-Haul from and traced the truck to San Rafael,”

San Rafael was in Marin County across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was also where Joaquín and Mia were from. “Anything else?”

“We traced the grandma’s family to an area called the Canal. Staked out her sister’s house, but we haven’t found anything. But my guy asked around, and someone said he thought he saw the grandma and the kid at the bus stop, but we couldn’t verify it.”

“I need to check it out.” I had to go up there. With Mia. See if we could find something . . . visit the hospital . . . get her medical records—

“Hold up. No, man. Let me handle it. I’m not doubting that you could find them, but if they know you are on to them, they could spook and disappear. You can’t risk that. If you go up there, I’d steer clear of the area. I have men on it.”

“Fine. Okay. Can you get someone to investigate SF General. Our son was born there. September sixth, two years ago. His birth name was Elías Joaquín Cruz.”

Kyle picked up a pen and wrote the information on a note pad. “I’m on it. What’s your plan when we find them? Kidnap him back?” He smirked, apparently knowing me too well.