She hadn’t been choosy over who she fucked. Any dick would do as long as the guy attached to it would buy her a drink or supply her with something to get high, accompanied by a few bucks, which never went toward food.
So his father could have been anybody, and probably the furthest thing possible from a good guy.
Jacko lost count of the number of times she’d been declared an unfit mother. He’d transited in and out of foster homes until he found his final home in the Navy. She’d sober up just long enough to get him back to qualify for child support, then she’d go right back to turning tricks and getting high. And when she discovered meth, not even child support could coax her back to the world of the living.
She’d died of an overdose but by then, Jacko was long gone to the Navy, intent on becoming a SEAL.
They’d waited until he passed Hell Week and then the Senior had taken him aside and given him the news. The Senior had an idea what Jacko’s mom was like and hadn’t offered condolences. There were none to offer. Jacko’s mom had been dead long before her body gave in to the drugs and liquor.
She’d been dead and buried two weeks by the time the news came to Jacko. It hadn’t been easy to find him. He hadn’t even put her down as next of kin. Doing the paperwork for enlistment, the clerk had looked at him, startled, when he read the stark form. Next of kin: none.
That was Jacko’s heritage—a crazy druggie for a mom and an unknown john for a dad. Great stuff to be putting into an innocent kid’s veins.
Jacko had known that sooner or later Lauren would be wanting kids. She was a normal woman and normal women wanted children. But she was on contraception shots and Jacko just…put the idea off. Straight out of his head. He’d been meaning to sound Lauren out about not having kids at all, seeing whether she could wrap her head around it. What did they need a kid for anyway? They were really happy just as they were. He was going to press that case, see if she’d buy it.
And if she didn’t—well.
Yeah. He hadn’t thought that one through.
Jacko was a sniper. Snipers planned. They were thorough and careful and calm. They planned for every single possibility, but man, he’d dropped the ball here. He couldn’t face the thought of kids, not with his heritage, so he hadn’t thought about them at all.
Denial was not a good trait for a soldier to have. Denial got you killed.
A kid.
Christ.
What the fuck was he going to do with a kid? If it took after Lauren, fine. Fabulous in fact. A mini version of Lauren, hell yeah. He could get behind that. But what if the kid took after him? What then? And who the fuck was he, anyway?
Lauren had very pretty long-fingered, elegant hands. She always said her hands were just like her mother’s hands.
Jacko stared at his own hands on the steering wheel. They were big and dark, broad-palmed, strong. He couldn’t recall his mother’s hands and who the fuck knew if they were like his father’s hands?
And they were trembling. His fucking hands were fucking trembling. So what was that about? His hands didn’t tremble, not even in fucking firefights. Nope, they were steady as rocks. But now? Shaking like he had the DTs.
The rest of him was shaking too. He was shaking and sweaty and his hands were slippery on the wheel. A huge metal band around his chest made it hard to breathe. He wasn’t in any condition to drive.
Jacko swerved fast to the curb and killed the engine, pressing back in his seat. He lifted his hands from the steering wheel and held them in front of his face, watching them tremble, his whole body coated in the cold sweat of stress. He’d call it the sweat of panic, except Jacko didn’t do panic.
Still, it felt a lot like panic. Or what he knew of panic. He’d never felt it himself, but some guys panicked in battle or in the aftermath. He’d seen them. Sweating, trembling, eyes wide. Tunnel-visioning, incapable of responding to the environment, lost.
Like he was, right now.
His heart was hammering in his chest, thumping against his rib cage, beating harder and faster than ever before in his life. His heart rate had been measured at sixty beats per minute after an hour’s training cycle with live fire.
And now? He put a finger to his pulse and counted.
Fuck. One-twenty. His heart was beating faster than after a ten-mile run. Faster than his heart had ever been measured. Like all SEALs, he’d been measured and tested and weighed and analyzed to death. Nothing in his life could make his heart race like this. Maybe a massive hemorrhage, his heart frantically pumping to make up for the blood loss. Other than that? Nothing.
Except here he was, stopped by the side of the road, heart flailing around in his chest, covered in sweat. Heart pounding.
Jacko smacked the steering wheel hard. Good thing it was sturdy because he put all his frustration behind the blow, and he was strong. He thumped it again. He felt like ripping it away from the steering column. He felt like taking out his Glock and fucking shooting it. Or shooting something. Or kicking something.
His skin was too tight and too hot. He buzzed down his windows and let in the winter air but it was still too hot. He climbed out of the vehicle and stood stock still, eyes unfocused in the cold rain until he realized he was on a major route and cars had been whizzing by for God only knew how long. A foghorn-like blast and a truck whooshed by, spraying him with icy water. He caught a glimpse of an angry face and uplifted fist. The guy was pissed and he was right.
Jacko checked his watch.
Shit. He’d been standing by the side of the road for half an hour. Like in a freaking trance.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
Lauren was pregnant, that’s what was wrong. He should have told her, dammit. Told her they could never have kids. Make that a condition of them being together, being a couple.
Hey, Lauren, wanna marry me? Only thing is, we can’t have kids. If you’re not down with that, forget it.
Who the fuck was he kidding?
He’d walk barefoot across broken glass to be with Lauren.
Just no kids.
But…here she was, expecting.
Fuck.
How could she have a kid with him when he had no freaking clue who he came from? The only thing he knew was that his heritage wasn’t good, any of it.
Mom a junkie and dad some passing drunk.
Genes counted for something, didn’t they?
Jacko looked up at the gray, low sky. Cold rain fell on his upturned face, but it didn’t cool him. He felt hot, like he was bursting into flame.
Lauren bleeding to death flashed across his vision again and bile rose up his gullet. He leaned forward and vomited last night’s dinner. His stomach simply emptied itself out, the contents splashing onto the shoulder of the road in great heaving spasms. He had no control, none.
His body was rejecting what was in his stomach and rejecting the thought of Lauren pregnant with his child.
He dry heaved for a while even after there was nothing left in his stomach except the lining. Finally he put his hand on the fender to hold himself up and stared at the ground. Nothing to see, really, except gravel, puddles and vomit. He couldn’t move, though. His legs wouldn’t carry him.
Finally, finally, he straightened up and got back into the cab of the vehicle, moving like an old man.
Jacko was a fast driver, but driving fast was out of the question. He didn’t have the coordination. He made it to the Pearl and headed toward the gate. His company, ASI, had a transponder system that opened the gates fast when an ASI transponder was within a hundred feet. He loved racing up to the gates, knowing they’d open at the last minute, and roaring into the parking area of his company.
Now he waited for the gates to open and drove slowly in, clutching the steering wheel with sweaty palms. He was being recorded by the security cams and whoever was on oversight wouldn’t recognize his driving.
Inside the company the atmosphere was busy but calm, as it always was. Jacko loved the company, loved working there. He fel
t a big rush every time he walked into the big command-and-control area designed by Suzanne Huntington, the wife of one of his bosses, John Huntington. The Midnight Man.
But today he didn’t feel anything except numb. He headed toward his desk to add to the file he’d already sent from Tijuana, finish up the details of his report, but his legs wouldn’t carry him to his desk. Instead, he went straight for Felicity, their IT genius, the fiancée of one of his best friends, Metal O’Brien.
Jacko didn’t know he was going to do this, but his body did.
He had read once about a guy who’d gone crazy and said his body disconnected from his head. Jacko remembered thinking bullshit. That doesn’t happen. You tell your body what to do. But here he was, with his body in the driver’s seat and his head just along for the ride.
Felicity was, as usual, pounding on her magic computer that no one else was allowed to touch. To even breathe on.
He waited for a lull in the typing and reached out to touch her shoulder.
“Hey, Jacko,” Felicity said without glancing away from her monitor. Word had it her computer had 360° situational awareness.
Jacko moved quietly. She couldn’t have heard him coming. “How’d you know it was me?”
Felicity twisted her head around and smiled at him. She was very pretty, though not in Lauren’s league. He was aware that Metal thought the same of Lauren.
She gave a little laugh. Laughter was something new for Felicity. She’d had it rough in the past and she’d entered Metal’s life by falling wounded and bleeding across the threshold of Lauren’s front door. Now she laughed a lot. Metal had given that to her.
She swiveled her chair around and looked up at him. “I’d like to say I’m all-seeing—and I am all-knowing—but the truth is that I saw your reflection in the monitor.” She looked closer at him and frowned. “Jacko? Something wrong? You look really…tired.”
So she’d picked up on something. Not hard, since he was sweating and shifting his weight from boot to boot.
Jacko nodded to the back wall, where a door led to a quiet corridor. “Can we go to the SCIF?” Pronounced skiff. Secure Compartmented Information Facility. A high-tech room shielded from any kind of surveillance. ASI did business with a lot of three- letter government agencies, and sometimes the briefings were ultra top secret. The government had to know the intel was going to stay inside ASI. “And can you take Puff the Magic Dragon with you?”
“Sure.” Felicity didn’t miss a beat. She rose, cup of coffee in one hand and Puff, her computer, in the other.
Nobody gave them a second glance as they walked out of the big control room and into the quiet corridor. The third door to the right had a keypad and Felicity entered the code. She was probably the one at ASI who used the facility the most. Government agencies vied for her services. They’d also tried to hire her away tons of times but she wasn’t interested. As long as Metal was here, she was here. And like Jacko, she loved working for ASI.
The air of the SCIF felt dead. There were no windows and the walls and the door were metal-clad. They sat down at the conference table under a glass umbrella and Felicity brought out Puff. SCIFs were air-gapped, no-internet zones—no info went in and none went out. But Felicity could go on the net with Puff with no adverse consequences.
Felicity was scary sometimes.
She placed her hand on the matte silvery-gray surface of her laptop and waited for Jacko to tell her what this was about. Confidential briefings were nothing new for her.
Jacko swallowed. This wasn’t business and it was fucking hard.
He looked Felicity in the eye, then glanced away. “You’re used to keeping secrets.” It was a statement.
She nodded. “My blood is Russian,” she said calmly. “We keep secrets for generations.”
Yeah. Felicity had grown up in the Witness Protection Program. She’d had three names before the age of twenty. She knew how to keep secrets.
Jacko met her eyes. “Lauren’s pregnant.”
Felicity didn’t blink. “Congratulations. I’m not hearing happiness, though.”
He couldn’t talk, simply couldn’t get anything past his throat. She didn’t fill the air with chatter, just sat in silence with him.
Finally, Jacko dropped his gaze. “I’m glad. I think. But…” He waited until the boulder sitting on his chest shifted enough to get words out. “I never knew my father. Never even knew who he was. My mom never told me. I think she didn’t know either. She was a drug addict and there were a lot of men passing through her bed.”
Felicity didn’t change expression. Her light blue eyes were friendly and calm. The lack of reaction helped him get the rest of it out.
“My mom was troubled.” He shrugged. “She was a junkie. They are the definition of trouble. I don’t know much about her. I don’t even know who her parents—my grandparents—were. She never told me, never talked about them. That never bothered me until Lauren told me she was expecting. My mom’s blood and my father’s blood will flow through the child’s veins. And that scares me shitless. I’m okay. I know I have my faults—”
“You sure do,” Felicity said. “You’re a real sore loser.”
“Yeah.” He and his ASI buddies had rolling poker games, and he always lost to Joe Harris and he hated it. He hated losing. “I am.”
“I don’t think that’s hereditary,” she said.
“But a lot of other bad shit is,” he answered.
The tips of her fingers ran over the laptop cover as she nodded. “What can I do to help, Jacko?”
Jacko blew out a silent breath. “Find her. Find out who my mother was. Who she came from. Can you do that for me?” It wouldn’t be easy. Jacko knew nothing about her life. “No matter what you find, knowing is better than not knowing.”
Felicity opened the laptop and Jacko could swear the air shimmered above the keyboard. She poised her fingers over the keys. “Let’s start with what you do know. When did she die and where?”
“She died either the 8th or 9th of October, 2000. She died while I was in BUD/S. During Hell Week. The instructors knew we weren’t close. A lotta guys in my class weren’t close to their folks. A couple had something like my situation back home. The instructors knew the Navy was our family. They waited until I passed BUD/S and then told me. They said it took the authorities a couple of days to track me down. So that would put it at the 8th or 9th.”
“You never saw the death certificate?”
Jacko shook his head. “Nope. Never even occurred to me to ask to see it. It certainly wasn’t offered. I hadn’t spoken to since I left to join the Navy.”
Felicity didn’t react in any way. “So what was her name and where did she pass away?”
“Sara Jackman. Cross, Texas.”
Her fingers started blurring. He had no idea how she could work that fast, but she did. Almost immediately, she halted. “Okay, this is what I have on the death certificate. Your mom was born in Rancho San Diego, California. Jackman was her married name, she was born Sara Garrett. Her parents were Lee and Alice Garrett.”
“Wait.” Jacko pinched the bridge of his nose. “She was married? Jackman was her married name?” He’d had no idea she’d been married. She never talked about it at all. Of course she rarely talked to him about anything, particularly those last years when her brain had gone up in smoke. “This Jackman—was he…was he my father?”
Was it going to be this easy?
Felicity looked at him. “You didn’t know she was married?”
“Hell no. My mom could barely lurch from day to day there at the end and I was in and out of foster homes. She never spoke about her past. Like I said, I have no idea who her parents were. They can’t have been good parents if she was such a mess.”
“When were you born, Jacko, and where?” Felicity was frowning at the screen, waiting.
“I was born March 6, 1980, in Cross, Texas.” The most miserable hole in the state. If Texas ever needed an enema, Cross is where they’d give it.
br /> She was silent for a couple of minutes as she worked furiously, then sat back. One last command and she pulled up data on her screen.
“Sara Garrett married Robert Jackman in 1977, and he died in 1978, so no, he couldn’t have been your father. She never divorced and kept the name.” Felicity looked at him soberly. “Jacko…your grandfather died very recently. Six months ago, actually.”
Whoa. He’d had a grandfather alive all this time? “Jesus.”
“His wife, your grandmother, died fifteen years earlier. From what I can see, your grandfather was a respected member of the community. Certainly no legal issues. Grandmother, too. Your mom, on the other hand…” she hesitated.
“Was in and out of jail,” Jacko said bleakly. “For possession and solicitation. In and out of rehab. I know. I was taken away from her a bunch of times and put in foster homes. She’d do a little time, get out on good behavior, get me back, start collecting child support checks and go right back to chasing the next high. I learned long ago there was no saving her. I guess I always thought she came from bad genes herself.”
“Not necessarily.” Felicity frowned at the screen. “It’s hard to tell. Official data won’t give info on private behavior. Your grandfather might have been abusive, who knows? Yet he seemed to be well respected. He was given a few civic awards. Hmm. He must have had some money, too. There were a series of park benches donated in his wife’s name the year after she died. He had a huge ranch, though land lots have been sold off the last fifteen years.” She met Jacko’s eyes. “He died leaving everything to his daughter, ‘whereabouts unknown.’ Jacko, you’re her only heir, that ranch is yours.”
She turned the screen around so he could see the address and phone numbers of a law firm. She pressed a key and a secure printer started whirring. “That’s the law office that handled Lee Garrett’s affairs, I’m printing the info now.”
Jacko pulled the sheets and clutched them in his hand. He had an excellent memory and normally he wouldn’t need to keep the written info, but he was still reeling from the fact that he’d had a grandfather all along and hadn’t known it.