Catch a Memory

By T. K. Hatfield

In Catch a Memory, the third of T.K. Hatfield’s summer beach-reads, things are starting to come back together for Carla Harper after losing Marty, her husband and business partner. She’s settled into her role leading their security consulting firm in New Orleans while spending her downtime in Florida at their lovely beach cottage on the Emerald Coast. She was at the cottage when her worst fear came to fruition – someone Carla had helped put away as a result of one of her first missions with Marty and the team, was on the loose. With vengeance in his heart that had been building for ten years, Carla was now in his sights. This thrilling continuation of the Carla Harper series will have you drawn in from page one and rooting for the charming and witty investigator, wanting more while uncovering the unexpectedly gritty turn of events. Don’t miss it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Aug 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483488783

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Hatfield

Copyright © 2018 T. K. Hatfield.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

Author Photo by Zack Smith Photography

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8877-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8879-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8878-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018908481

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 07/26/2018

It was a curious feeling, to be free. I had spent just about my whole life being where the military told me to be, every minute of every day. Now, I felt like a truant.

—Lee Child, from The Enemy

The sun would turn our bodies gold as it settled to the west … And I thought I would be young forever.

My novels all smell of seawater.

—Pat Conroy (1945–2016)

Author’s Notes

Hello, friends,

A lot has happened since The Value of Discretion was published, and I feel like those changes are reflected in the writing of Catch a Memory. I retired from the US Coast Guard after twenty-five years of service, and while I knew it was time for me to retire, it took me a full year to come to terms with not being the go-to person twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It was much harder than I realized it would be to go from ninety miles an hour all the time to all stop. There is still work to be done to accept the middle-aged me who comes with limitations—and looks like someone I don’t know in the mirror gazing back at me—but I will do the work with gratitude in my heart for all the experiences, the love, and the family and friends that have brought such richness to my life so far. During the course of this time of transition, the epigraphs from two of my favorite authors really resonated with me, and I hope they do with you also.

As always, the locations and many of the businesses depicted are real but used fictitiously in the story. Everything and everyone else all come from my overactive imagination, and any resemblance to real people, events or incidents is purely accidental.

Enjoy,

T. K. Hatfield

www.tkhatfield.com

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the wonderful folks at Juana’s Pagoda and Sailors Grill on Navarre Beach for their continued support of my efforts; they are what beach living is all about and living the life we all dream of! And once again, the amazing Arlene Newsome looked inside my head and created the beautiful original cover art for this story. Please see the other beautiful work she is doing at www.arlenesartnphotos.com.

To the men and women who have served and are currently in the United States Coast Guard, it was my honor and pleasure to serve beside you for twenty-five years. I salute the work you do every day and will always be on the sidelines cheering you on. Be safe out there, and Semper Paratus!

To my mother, Jewell Bolden, who keeps my spirits up and continues to inspire me with her energy and everlasting, stubborn independence! And forever and always, my everlasting gratitude to my best friend and partner for life, my husband, Carl. I wouldn’t want to walk these miles with anyone else.

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Prologue

T hey were speeding through the night, Carla hanging on with her left hand, right hand securing the weapon hanging at her side. Carla, Marty, and the team were headed downriver in the pitch dark, in a black rigid-hulled inflatable boat that melted into the darkness. It had a small cabin and could make fifty knots, but when Max dropped her to less than ten, she was very, very quiet.

The team, as usual, had been handpicked for the job. The company kept a list of people they could call on, each with a special skill or two, who knew the risks and was always willing to go at a moment’s notice.

Carla had joined them right after she retired from the US Coast Guard. After her first job with them, they had called on her more and more often so that now she was essentially a full-time employee, taking as many jobs as she wanted.

When she went with them, she was the logistics officer, setting up their travel, procuring whatever documents they might need, and determining what kind of equipment would be necessary for the job. She carried a 9 mm pistol strapped to her calf over the black tactical uniform and a short-barreled shotgun slung across her back, which she loved. She wasn’t a great shot, but with that shotgun, there was no question about where to aim the barrel and what was going to happen when its contents arrived. That was her tool for getting the job done; the pistol was for protecting herself and her teammates. If the pistol came out of its holster, things had gone off the rails and someone was about to get hurt. The job at that point was to make sure it was one of the targets and not one of the team.

Marty Harper was the chief of operations for the company, the owner, and in charge when they were on a job. He was also the navigator because he really liked that job, and since he was the boss, he could do whatever he wanted to do. They always took a primary gunner, a secondary gunner, a navigator, and whatever other specialists would be required, depending on the mission. Every member of the team was armed, and all knew at least one other person’s part of the mission in case there were casualties.

Carla kept her knees soft, moving with the motion of the boat as it worked through the increasingly large swells as they approached the mouth of the river. She glanced down at Marty in the cockpit of the boat just as he looked at her, and they grinned at each other, white teeth glinting in the dim red lights of the control console. Carla couldn’t help it. She loved this shit, and so did Marty. The adrenaline always started to build as soon as they geared up and got under way. By the time they reached the target, it was an almost audible hum in the air around them.

Within a few minutes they were out of the river, the seas rougher now in the open water. Carla knew they were nearing the target when Max dropped the engines way down, signaled for silence, and slightly adjusted their path to make sure they stayed downwind. Sound carried a long way over the water, and the element of surprise was critical for the missions’ success. Marty and Jody had been doing recon for a couple of days, and it appeared that the generators were running on the target boat to provide power, so it was likely that there would be some ambient noise to help cover them, but they took every precaution anyway.

She did a quick check of the shotgun, the 9 mm, and her ammo belt. She tugged on the neck of her Kevlar and tapped her chest, checking to make sure her Kevlar was strapped tight and in place. She took a quick glance over at Zeno, their primary gunner and the weapons officer for the company, who was hanging from the port side of the cabin and mirroring her movements to the letter, including a glance her way in time to catch her eye and exchange quick nods indicating readiness. Then they both looked forward and focused on the darkness in front of them.

It was the spring of 2003, and they were in the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa. Their target was the La Bella Toscana, a 195-foot privately owned yacht currently under the control of pirates. The status of the passengers and crew was unknown.

Marty’s company was called upon for this job, and others like it, because of his contacts and reputation in high levels inside and outside of the government—and because their collective skills, integrity, and discretion were unquestionable. Three things were certain about these jobs: the money was excellent; the risks were high; and if it went bad, the government would claim no knowledge of their existence or of any directive to take on the job. You would never be able to trace the source of the tasking or the funding all the way to the root, which was completely buried under layers and layers of subcontractors, some real companies and some shell companies that wished to keep their real identities to themselves.

This particular yacht was owned by the son of a well-connected US senator, Thornton William Michaelson. The son had taken his wife and two children on a year-long motor cruise around the world, or at least parts of it, with the idea of cultivating their family bonds while showing the kids how much more there was to the world than YouTube, video games, Instagram, and Snapchat. It was a noble and grand idea and had actually gone fairly well until a slight navigation miscalculation brought them a little too close to the coast as they were preparing to head back across