Pitfall by Cameron Bane Read Free Book Online

soon as I find out anything important, I’ll touch base using a burn phone.” Again I indicated the solo shot of Sarah. “I need her picture,” I reminded him.
    “Okay. Sure thing. Sure, what was I thinking.” Cahill clumsily fumbled with the back of the frame a moment before it finally came off. Once more he looked at Sarah’s image, eyes welling at her shy, hopeful smile, before handing it over. A blind man could see this ordeal was about to kill him.
    I began to take the picture, but the grieving father still held it. I met his gaze, waiting.
    “Please.” The word was a whisper, his eyes spilling tears at last as they met mine. “Find her. She… I …” His voice caught, failed.
    Tugging the photo gently from his fingers, I kept my voice steady, filled with resolve. “Listen to me, Jacob. You’re not alone in this. Not anymore.”

Chapter Five

S o that’s how the day had gone. I’d agreed to help the Cahills; now all that was left was strategy.
    I’ve always been a proponent of laying the proper groundwork before an op, so with that in mind I called my friend Seth Delacroix to see if he’d be available to help. Seth and I go back a long way, growing up as boyhood friends in Gibbs, albeit on different sides of town; his black skin probably had a little something to do with that.
    We’d played sports with each other, fished and hunted together, and even stood up for each other at our respective weddings. Years later we spent time in the same Ranger unit, where Seth worked as my jumpmaster for almost six years, serving well and with distinction.
    But two weeks before we got orders deploying us to our third tour in Iraq, he’d been shot in the right lung by a street punk for the contents of his wallet. That snowy December night Seth had taken his wife Janine out for their anniversary at a fancy downtown restaurant that no longer offered valet service. After dinner he’d gone around the corner to get their car, and that’s where that robbing, coked up killer  blindsided him.
    I stayed with him in the hospital as much as I could, only leaving when our orders came through to ship out overseas again. I really hated not being there for him while was laid up, but he understood: orders were orders. By then he was doing much better, although I know his missing that mission hurt him worse than the round they’d taken from his chest.
    He was convalescing at home a month later when he got the news we’d been caught in an ambush, and that, except for me, everyone else in the unit was dead.
    When Seth had healed enough the Army offered him a desk job, but he told them to screw that, and took his papers. He then did as he’d always promised he’d do when he retired, and opened a skydiving school out in rural Butler County.
    It takes a lot of cash to get one of these off the ground—so to speak—what with having to buy a plane (used), rent hanger space, and pay for upkeep and maintenance. But after a shaky start with me and another friend, Walt Solomon, a former Navy pilot and SEAL, as his partners, now we’re doing pretty well for ourselves. Walt was our pilot until he joined the FBI, but he still flies for us when he can. He also helps me out from time to time on my clandestine work, but right now he was in Hawaii with his family on a well-deserved vacation.
    Seth and I both coach Madison’s urban league football team, and that still leaves us time to get together every so often for hunting, fishing, or grilling steaks and lively conversation. Truth to tell, I suppose the two of us are more like close brothers than anything.
    But when I reached him on his cell, he was a no go.
    “We aren’t back yet, John,” he responded after I explained what was going on. “We’re still at Janine’s mom’s place up north. She had that gall bladder surgery I told you about, and at her age we thought it’d be best if we stayed until tomorrow. That’s when the nurse we hired can start. But if it’s urgent I can