Laszlo Read online

  Obviously something was going on. She asked, “Does that have meaning for you?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Laszlo stared at Geir, both of their minds clicking on the phrase. Mouse had used that phrase a lot when they were working out. As if it was a matter of pride. Laszlo tore his gaze away from Geir’s and studied the wall. He pulled out his phone and took a picture. Then he wandered around and studied more of the writings, taking several more pictures.

  It still didn’t give them a clue as to who was doing this to them. But obviously it was someone close to Mouse. Laszlo didn’t expect the room to even have this much left after all these years. The needles on the floor now probably meant a couple junkies had stayed for a night or two recently.

  Nothing looked fresh. A layer of dust coated everything. … He wandered round, taking photos of the entire room and then opened the closet door. It was small with shelves on one side. A light bulb with a chain hung from the ceiling. He pulled it, but nothing happened. He turned on the flashlight app on his phone and studied the small space. There was just barely enough room for any young boy’s belongings to fit, and that was only if they were perfectly neat and tidy. Most kids didn’t fit that category.

  Something was stuck far in the back. He reached for it and pulled out a small plastic emblem. It was a replica of the SEALs logo. He shook his head and handed it to Geir. “Maybe even way back then he wanted to be part of that group.”

  “He always wanted to be a SEAL,” Minx said. “That was his thing. He figured, if he could do that, he would be the best of the best.” Minx stood behind them. “But I’m not kidding about him having a huge issue with water.”

  The two men kept looking at the logo.

  “A lot of people believe the SEALs are the best of the best,” Laszlo said quietly. “But to get there is pretty rough.”

  “See? That’s one of the things about Mouse. He had incredible determination. Incredible focus. But he wasn’t necessarily very good at a lot of things. He was always good enough to get through. But he rarely could stick to it afterward. In school even, I helped him with his math, and I was two years behind. But he was always very good at strategy. We played a lot of hide-and-seek. And, while I would just be looking for a place to hide, he would be marking off mentally all the places in the past I’d gone and calculating which was the most likely I’d go to now. In most cases he’d find me instantly. He was always working out the details, planning the angles.” She smiled. “I hope he was happy the last few years of his life.”

  “He was,” Laszlo said. “At least as far as we can figure.”

  “You saw him every day, right?”

  “Almost every day. Except for our various leaves, yes. He was a mix of young and old. Full of life, seriously bad jokes,” Geir said.

  “And stories. He always made up stories.”

  Laszlo spun around and peered at her. “Did he do that when you were younger?”

  She nodded. “He always made up stories about what he would do when he was an adult, when he could get away. He always wanted to be a big shot. He always wanted to have money, lots and lots of money. He figured, if he was wealthy and a big shot, nobody would do to him what his mom had done to him. He figured it was all about power.”

  “Was he a team player?”

  She looked at him with a frown. “Isn’t that a question you should be able to answer?”

  “When he was younger, was he a team player?” Laszlo rephrased the question. “This is all about his childhood.”

  She shook her head. “No, he was a loner. And it was always about him. It’s one of the reasons I was so heartbroken when he left. I figured the bond we had would be enough. But, instead, it was still all about him. I’d have cheerfully left with him. He refused to take me. Then he had Lance with him—he didn’t need me.”

  “But he couldn’t do that to you. You had a mom. You were also much younger.”

  “And yet I was just as much of an adult as he was. We both had had rough lives. We both had to hide from the men out there.” Her voice was caustic. “We both had to worry about the drugs and the booze and the fight for food. And mostly, after nightfall, we’d bundle up together to stay warm outside. Because our mothers had visitors.”

  Chapter 4

  The men stared at her for a long moment, and she watched a muscle flicker in Laszlo’s jaw. Her words had disturbed him in a big way. Interesting. So many wouldn’t care.

  “Were you ever assaulted?”

  She shook her head. “Several tried. I became very good at slashing back with a knife. Even now I don’t go far without one.” Her smile was wry. “I was tempted to use it on the bloody boss in the office. But it wouldn’t have been his face that I would’ve cut.”

  The men grinned appreciatively.

  “The trouble is, it’s easy to get soft when you’re away from this environment,” Geir said. “So even though, in your mind, you’re capable and ready to handle whatever, it’s not so simple.”

  She nodded. “I know. It’s one of the reasons I watched you two so carefully. One never really knows who the enemy is. It’s often one of the closest in your circle, and you didn’t even see him coming.”

  She watched as the two men looked around and then started toward the stairs. “There was a secret hiding place,” she said.

  The two men stopped and looked at her. “Where?”

  “Tree house in the back,” she said quietly. “We spent a lot of time up there.” She brushed past them and led the way to the kitchen door and onto the creaky porch. She stepped carefully as floorboards were already missing, and it looked like some critter had taken up residence underneath. She led the way to the backyard full of heavy overgrown oak trees. She pointed to the top. “It’s up there.”

  “How did you get up?”

  She laughed. “Like this.” She raced around to the side of the tree and started to climb. She wasn’t surprised when Laszlo was hot on her trail.

  Every step she took brought back even more memories. The two of them laughing, the two of them playing, the two of them crying. The two of them hiding from all the groans and moans and creaks inside the houses. One stealing food, the other dropping a bucket to bring it up so it could be eaten in peace. The weather in Dallas was up and down during winter. Some winters it stayed at seventy-five degrees; other winters it would drop below the freezing point. And they’d learned to bring blankets and pillows and homework if they had to. They tried candles, but there was always the fire issue. So flashlights had become the norm. Mouse had become adept.

  She made it to the old hiding place and stepped onto one of the big branches.

  Laszlo came up behind her and took one look. “Wow, this is really well hidden.” He glanced at her. “Did you guys build it?”

  She shook her head. “No, but we added to it. We ended up stealing all the materials from various houses in the neighborhood,” she admitted. “Hopefully they didn’t need it as much as we did.”

  There were no furniture or blankets, no personal belongings anymore. But that didn’t stop Laszlo from taking photographs and studying marquees they had put on the boards. “Band-Aids?” He pointed to several bandages stuck between the floorboards.

  She nodded. “I kept a pretty decent first aid kit for him.”

  He froze and looked at her. “That bad?”

  “Oh, yes, that bad.”

  He whistled. “Poor Mouse.”

  “Yes, poor Mouse, but he would have hit you if he’d heard you say that.”

  “I know. I know. We were trying to figure out where else he might have lived. The guys were all talking, but we recalled different locations. Somebody said he had been in California.”

  “California would make sense to me,” she said. “He always talked about going there. Even when he was little. He wanted to go to Coronado and San Diego. He figured, if he got close enough to the main SEALs base, he could become one somehow. But he and I both knew it wouldn’t happen.” She chuckled. “In
his mind, anything would have been an improvement on what he had been doing here. He was way too young then, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, if he was only sixteen.” Laszlo thought a moment, took several more photos, tucked the phone in his pocket and said, “Ladies first.”

  She shrugged, stepped between the two men, noting how small this space was with three adults in the tree house, and slowly made her way back down the tree. As she stood on the ground, waiting for the two men to join her, she realized just how much of her life had been wrapped up with Mouse. Even now the memories were inside, deep inside, but never buried—and never forgotten.

  “When he left,” she said as Laszlo landed beside her, “I was really devastated. And it never crossed my mind to go after him or to find out where he’d ended up. There was a finality to his goodbye.”

  “Sometimes you need to let people go. Other times you need to let them go so you can do what you need to do on your own.”

  “Words of wisdom.” She stared at him, wondering at his insight. She hated to say it, but she liked him all the more. “Are you sure you’re not a counselor?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I’ve spent the last couple years recovering from horrific physical injuries,” he said quietly. “And I had to speak with more than a few counselors about my own issues.”

  She nodded. “I gather you were badly injured when Mouse died?”

  “All seven of us were.” Laszlo hesitated and looked at her seriously. “It’s one of the reasons we’re trying to investigate Mouse’s life. There are suspicions …”

  She stared at him in horror. “What are you talking about? Wasn’t it a military accident?”

  He nodded. “It was written up as one. That’s why it took us so long to figure it out.”

  Still confused, she shook her head. “I get that I’m missing all the details. But how could somebody have possibly created an accident that would have injured so many of you? Unless it really was an accident. Just a military one.”

  “We’ve come to the conclusion it wasn’t an accident at all. As far as we’re concerned, the blast that blew us up was deliberately set. Which means …”

  A small cry escaped. “Please don’t tell me that. Please don’t tell me Mouse, who had one of the worst childhoods anybody could have had and was so happy to take off to join the navy, could actually have been murdered.”

  But he just looked at her quietly, sadness, grief, and anger in his gaze. And she knew it was true. Poor lonely Mouse had been murdered.

  “You sure as hell better get that asshole,” she snapped. “And you keep him away from me. Because otherwise I’ll take him out myself.”

  Laszlo and Geir drove out of town and stopped at a hotel. They booked a room, neither of them needing to do the long drive again tonight. Then they headed to the café next door. It looked to be one of the old popular mom-and-pop restaurants that served burgers and fries and not a whole lot else. Laszlo was happy to have a burger. As he sat down, a text came in from his brother. “Jair is stuck eating pasta again tonight.” Laszlo grinned. “The new bodyguard/cook I hired to look after my father and brother is a huge pasta fan. I think my brother is sick of it already.”

  “He’s not at the point of being grateful he has a hot meal yet?”

  “Not yet apparently. I told the bodyguard, Petro, that Jair wasn’t a huge fan, so I think he’s punishing him with extra pasta.”

  Geir snorted. Two cups of coffee arrived in front of them. It was thick, black, almost sludgelike. Laszlo lifted his, took a sip and grinned. “Coffee like they used to make it. Still with the grounds.”

  The large woman standing in front of them asked, “Burgers?”

  There was no menu in her hands, no chalkboard anywhere around he could see showing a menu, so he nodded. “Please.”

  She nodded, turned and walked away.

  Laszlo lifted his eyebrows at Geir. “Really old-school.”

  “And I bet, if we don’t like the food, it’s a case of too damn bad.”

  Laszlo chuckled. “Maybe I should tell Jair that. He’s got to be a little happier about the fact he’s getting three meals a day.”

  “How is that working out for them?”

  “We had temporary people in place, waiting on a more permanent solution. Petro is more long-term. Yet it’s only been two days now. And two meals of Italian. But then Petro is Italian, so that makes sense.”

  Laszlo sent his brother a quick message, telling him to enjoy it and to eat it and to be grateful somebody else was cooking it for him and their father. Both needed the extra carbs. He set his phone down beside him, looking up at Geir. “What’s your thoughts on Mouse?”

  “I’m not sure what to think,” Geir said. “We knew his childhood was rough, his body covered in scars, most likely from his mom. That she got away with that all those years just pisses me off.” He shook his head. “What really got me was the writing on the wall. Maximum pain.”

  “And that she died so recently also pisses me off,” Laszlo added. “I’d like her to have suffered longer.”

  Geir nodded. “It’s a sad scenario. But I don’t know that it helps us now.”

  “That’s the problem. So now we have some idea what his childhood was like, but we don’t know where he went when he left. Although Minx did confirm California potentially,” Laszlo added.

  “He made his way to Coronado for naval training, didn’t he?”

  “He did.” Laszlo pulled the plastic SEALs pin out of his pocket, keeping it after Geir had looked at it, and placed it on the table. “I didn’t even know they made these things. This is like a toy that comes out of a cereal box.”

  Geir picked it up and studied it. “It’s not a true copy. But for somebody who had plans and fantasies of a bigger, better life, I’m sure it was a symbol for him.”

  “But the thing is, he did make it as a SEAL. He was one of us.”

  Geir smiled. “He did make it. And of all the things in his life, I’m sure that one of his proudest moments was when he passed BUD/S training and was accepted into the world he so desperately wanted to be in.”

  “Interesting what Minx said about Mouse being very focused,” Laszlo stated, “and yet very poor at so many things because that’s what we found too, didn’t we? Even though he was one of us, and he had passed all the training, he sucked at so many things.”

  “I know,” Geir said, nodding. “Mouse couldn’t navigate worth a damn. Yet he was a tech wizard.”

  “He couldn’t hit his target unless somebody stood right in front of him either. Until we helped,” Laszlo said.

  “But he was a hell of a driver,” Geir added.

  “He was. He improved so much, but how much of that was because we made a place for him?” Laszlo asked. “And I don’t mean that in a bad way. But it makes me wonder what another unit would have done with him.”

  Geir nodded. “You’re right. None of us cared about his sexuality because we were all comfortable with ours. None of us were intimidated by him. If anything, we felt sorry for him.” Geir paused. “Do you think he felt that?”

  “I don’t know. I imagine sometimes, yes. It became a bit of a joke. He was so handicapped in so many things.”

  “How many times did we wonder how he made it through training, right?” Geir added.

  Laszlo nodded. “That’s exactly right. And I still don’t know the answer to that. I wonder if he was put into our unit on purpose.”

  “Absolutely he was. The question is, whether that was to make him want to quit or thinking we would adopt him.”

  “I wonder if anybody could tell us.”

  “I don’t know whether they could tell us or whether they would tell us,” Geir said. “Our command was never very clear. We followed orders blindly, remember?”

  “Too blindly as we now realize that we drove our vehicle over a mine planted just for us.”

  “Right.” Gear frowned, choked down the word.

  The men sat quietly sipping their thick black coffee,
contemplating what Mouse’s life had been like.

  Then the waitress returned with two huge platters with some of the largest burgers Laszlo had ever seen. And they looked superb. He smiled at her and lifted his coffee. “Any more?”

  She beamed and hustled away.

  He glanced down at the plate and said, “Wow.”

  Geir nodded. “If this doesn’t ruin my gut, I will believe my stomach’s healed,” he joked.

  They picked up the fries still so hot they were almost impossible to bite, which gave them fair warning the burgers would be just as hot.

  As they worked their way through the fries, the waitress returned with the coffeepot and filled their cups. She left again without a word.

  The two men chuckled.

  “Any idea how much we’re paying for this?” Laszlo asked.

  Geir shook his head. “I didn’t see a sign, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.” He reached for his burger and picked it up. It was so big it should have been cut in half, but he figured they’d probably toss him out of the restaurant if he did that. With his first bite, he was lost. When he could talk, he said, “It’s amazing.”

  Geir’s face lit up. “I was hoping you would say that. I’m really hungry.”

  The burger was big and juicy. Laszlo tugged off his glove and picked up the burger. He was afraid to put it down in case it would fall apart. Beautiful meat juices dripped down his fingers onto the plate, making a mess of his hand, though he didn’t care. He dug into the burger until it was completely gone. He sat back, wiping his hands on a napkin, his stomach full. “I don’t think I’ve ever had such a good burger.”

  He glanced around the place. A couple other tables were full, those men doing the same thing. They were plowing through these monster burgers with no talking. But then who could talk? It was all they could do to hold up their burgers and stop them from self-destructing in their hands.

  His had pickles on it. Normally he wouldn’t eat pickles. But they tasted so damn good, he did. There was also some kind of sauce. He wasn’t sure, but it might have been a chipotle sauce. Again, not something he would have ordered, but, as part of the package, it was perfect. Happy, he finished off his fries and sat, letting everything digest.