“They didn’t seem like the type to become friends?”

“No one seemed like the type to be friends with Ron. But after shit happened, well, we all realized David was just as screwed up as Ron. Hell, maybe Ron could see it in him ’cause he’s just as messed up.”

“What happened?”

Paul glanced over at the bartender and shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t matter now. David’s dead and Ron’s done with his time in. As far as I’m concerned, that makes both of them dead. I gotta tell you, I’m not the least bit unhappy about it.”

Paul’s jaw was set in a hard line. Whatever he knew, he wasn’t about to part with it. Not simply because she asked. But maybe, if he knew why she was asking, his conscience wouldn’t let him keep the secret.

“I told you David’s wife killed him,” she said. “He came back from Iraq different than before. Abusive to Emma. She cut ties with him, but he didn’t take the hint from her or the legal system. He started stalking her. The day she killed him, he broke into her house. The police have no doubt he was there to kill her.”

“Why are you telling me this? What difference does it make why he hit on his wife? The dude’s dead and gone and good riddance.”

“He’s dead but not exactly gone.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Someone is stalking Emma, and leaving her keepsakes from her dead husband.”

Paul sat up straight. “And you think it’s me? I haven’t been off base for the last month except to come to this bar, the gas station, and the grocery store. Ask anyone.”

“I never said it was you. But it was someone who knew David well. Otherwise, why go after Emma?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Look, I’m sorry for his wife, but I don’t want anything to do with this.”

“Too late. Ron Duhon dropped you right in the middle of it. Any idea why?”

“Because he’s a psycho? Because he’s the one stalking that woman and he’s covering his own ass?”

Shaye studied Paul as he talked, but she couldn’t see any indication that he was lying. All she saw was anger, indignation, and fear. It was the fear that worried her.

“Look,” she said. “Tell me what you know, and as long as you’re being straight with me, I promise I’ll go away and never come back.”

He stared at her for several seconds, clearly weighing the pros and cons. Finally, he said, “You gotta understand, I didn’t see anything myself. None of us did.”

He reached for the package of cigarettes sitting on the table and lit one up. He puffed quickly several times, then leaned toward her. “We got a tip that there was a store of stolen US weapons in a village just outside of our base camp. Our unit went in. We identified the structure and had it surrounded. David and Ron were closest to the structure, but no one was supposed to breach until we got the signal.”

“But they went in anyway.”

Paul nodded and puffed on the cigarette again. “We didn’t know at first. Not for a while. We were all holding position, waiting for orders. There wasn’t any gunfire—nothing to signal that they had breached the structure. When we finally got the signal to move, they didn’t respond.”

“So you assumed they’d been flanked?”

“Yeah. We rushed in from all sides and threw tear gas into the structure, then we entered.”

Paul downed the rest of his whiskey, his hand shaking as he placed the glass back on the table. “The intel was wrong. The structure was a family home.”

“The gas would only immobilize them, right?” Shaye asked, not understanding why he was so upset.

Paul stared down at the table. “They’d been slaughtered. The mother and father and all four kids, including an infant. They were tied to chairs and tortured, cuts all over their bodies, and their eyes…” He choked up. “Their eyes had been gouged out. Every one of them.”

He looked up at her as he delivered the last sentence, and Shaye felt her stomach roll as she thought about the infant. What kind of monster could do such a thing?

“You’re saying David and Ron did that?”

“The blood was fresh. There were two blankets on the floor covered with it.”

“They wore them to protect their clothes?”

Paul nodded. “But they both had blood on their boots. I don’t know if anyone else noticed. I glanced down and saw and when I looked up, David was staring at me with that dead look he’d get. His eyes would turn dark and lifeless, like a snake, and he’d stare at you until you wanted to crawl out of your own skin to get away. He knew I knew. I could feel it. Maybe the others felt it too.”

Paul shook his head. “Either way. None of us ever said a word. Not to command. Not to each other. We reported what we found when we returned to base, and command put it down to roving bands of thieves that were in the area.”

“But you don’t think that’s what happened.”

“No ma’am. David and Ron are what happened. I’m as sure of that as I am that you’re sitting here in front of me. And that’s why I said I don’t want anything to do with your investigation. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since that day. Every time I close my eyes, I see that family, then that dead-eyed look from David. I’d take ten bad teeth over one of those dreams.”

Shaye’s heart clenched at Paul’s words. She understood all too well how nightmares could destroy your waking life. “Have you talked to someone? Everything you say is confidential.”

“No. Plenty of guys around here tried it. I didn’t see it do any good for them. Probably not going to for me. You know, I thought I’d seen bad things in Iraq…really horrible stuff. And then I saw that.”

He looked directly at her. “I looked right in the face of pure evil. And the worst part is, it wasn’t the enemy.”

Chapter Seventeen

As soon as she got into her car, Shaye pulled out her cell phone. Her conversation with Paul had completely unnerved her. At first, she’d convinced herself he was making it up to throw her off track, but no way could he fake the suffering she’d seen when he’d told her about the nightmares. Paul had some deep issues to work out, and she hoped he’d get the help he needed before it was too late.

The thing that nagged at her as she pulled out of the parking lot was why Ron had given her Paul’s name in the first place. But then she’d remembered that Paul was supposed to ship out today, and Ron would probably have known that through his mother. Throwing out Paul’s name was an easy way to get her focus on someone else and someone she would have had a hard time contacting for days at least, if not longer.

Paul also confirmed that he’d never visited Ron in New Orleans, which Shaye had figured once she’d heard the Iraq story. Basically, everything Ron said was a lie. At least, that’s the way it looked to Shaye. Of the two, Paul was the more believable. In fact, Shaye would bet her nine years of therapy that Paul was telling the truth. Ron, on the other hand, had dished out the lies so easily and without a change in behavior. All signs pointed to Ron as the stalker. He looked enough like David for people to be mistaken, even a traumatized Emma could have gotten it wrong in the dark, with only a sliver of moonlight to illuminate his face.

Ron thought putting her on Paul’s scent would buy him time. Days, or possibly weeks. He hadn’t counted on a bad tooth keeping Paul available for Shaye to question. He didn’t know his time had just expired.

She pulled up Ron’s number but didn’t press it.

It probably wasn’t smart to confront a sociopath.

But Ron didn’t know that she’d talked to Paul, and Paul certainly wasn’t going to let that secret out. He’d already promised her he wouldn’t tell anyone they’d spoken and never wanted to hear the names Ron Duhon and David Grange again. What she needed was a picture. If she could arrange another meeting with Ron, she could establish herself across the street behind a car and snap a shot of him. Then she could hunt down Hustle and see if he could ID Ron as the man who’d given him the scarf.