She opened the box and looked inside, relief pretty obvious on her face. Then she stood and handed the envelope to me, holding the box and the photograph close to her chest.
“That’s what Peter gave me that night.”
“And the rest?”
She looked down at it, pulling it closer to her chest, as though she thought I would take it from her. “Just some stuff. Nothing important.”
I let it go because she had this look of desperation on her face. Instead, I looked around the ruin of her former home, wondering what the hell we should do next.
“Your landlord isn’t going to be happy with this.”
“My landlord lives in Dallas. He’s going to be livid to hear he has to drive all the way down here to take care of this mess.”
“You got everything worth saving?”
She shrugged. “There wasn’t much.”
“Will you let me bring in a cleaning crew to empty the place out? Then we can call your landlord and let him know you moved out.”
“Yeah, but I have three months left on a year’s lease. He’ll want the rent.”
“I can take care of that.” She rolled her eyes, and I groaned. “Come on, Amber, you don’t have a lot of choices here.”
She looked around herself, that desperate look I thought had disappeared these last few weeks back in her eyes.
“We can work out some sort of deal. But you need help. You don’t have a job; you don’t have any clothes now…” I gestured around the room. “And you don’t have a safe place to live. You have to let me help you.”
For the first time, tears rolled down her cheeks. I went to her and touched her arm, but she pulled away, brushing the tears away angrily.
“I don’t want to owe anyone anything.”
“I know that. But I can’t leave you here with that baby without a way to take care of him. Even if there wasn’t some idiot with a gun marching you out of the mall, I wouldn’t do that. It’s not safe for the baby, and it’s definitely not safe for you.”
“What do you care?”
“I do care, Amber.”
I touched her face even as she turned her head away from me, cupped her jaw, and tried to get her to look at me. When she wouldn’t, I pushed her backward, trapped her against the wall so she had nowhere to go. She looked at me then, her eyes wide with surprise. And I just…I don’t know what I originally planned to do, but I couldn’t help but kiss her. She looked so vulnerable, so alone, that I just need to taste her lips.
It was a soft, gentle kiss. A brushing of the lips, really. But then she tilted her head up to mine, and I couldn’t resist. I kissed her harder, slipping my hand under her neck and pulling her up against me. She came, the hand that wasn’t holding her things slipping around my side. My breath flew from my lungs at her simple touch, need rushing through me so intensely that I couldn’t stop it. And then her lips parted just slightly and I had full access to the sweetest taste of her gorgeous mouth.
I rested my hand on her hip, tugging her up against me, that damn box pressing into my chest, keeping a barrier between us. But then she dropped it, nearly missing my toes, her other hand slipping around me, tugging at my shirt as she wrapped her fingers in the soft material.
I wanted her. I mean…shit, I’d wanted women before. A few drinks, a nice dinner, a little dancing, and I was ready to take just about anyone to bed. But that wasn’t anything like this. It was overwhelming, this need. It was like my brain had just shorted out and touching Amber was the only thing that was programmed. I needed to touch her; I needed to feel her skin under my hands. I needed to taste her, needed to breathe the same air she was breathing. I didn’t just want her. I needed her.
I thought, for a moment, that she felt the same way. She tugged me closer, returning my kiss with the same urgency that I offered it. But then she was pushing against my chest, pushing me back from her, pulling away.
“Stop!”
“Amber…”
She bent over and snatched up her things, then marched away down the hallway. I followed, nearly falling through the hole in the floor.
“Amber, what’s wrong?”
She paused in the doorway, tension so clear in her shoulders that my shoulders ached.
“I was your brother’s slut. I won’t be yours.”
Then she was gone, out the door, vanishing into the late evening light.
Chapter 13
Megan
“I think it’s time to look through Peter’s things.”
Sam nodded, concern filling her eyes. “Are you sure you’re up to this? I can do it for you.”
“No. I think I should be there.” I slipped the paper I was looking at into its folder, shoved it into a drawer, and stood. “And there’s no time like the present.”
The office was buzzing as we walked through the reception area, but it was always buzzing. We didn’t just provide bodyguard services. We handled corporate and private investigations. We installed and monitored security systems. We ran operations in tandem with local law enforcement to help stop everything from stalkers to corporate espionage. We were a full service firm—and that required personnel in the building at all times. Daddy said I was biting off more than I could chew when I began the firm, suggesting that I limit myself to bodyguard services. But Peter believed in me. That was why the firm was called Dragon Security. We used to call Peter “Dragon” because of that old movie, Pete’s Dragon. It was one of his favorites when we were kids.
“Night, boss,” Hayden called from across the room. “And Grandma!”
“Shut up, Hayden,” Sam mumbled, hardly loud enough for me to hear, let alone him. But I saw the blush on her cheeks. If she didn’t have a crush on him, she certainly felt something close to it.
My house was quiet, the air a little stale. I have a maid who comes in once or twice a week, but it still felt unused to me, somehow. When I bought this place, I had dreams of filling it with babies. Luke wanted a boy and a girl. I convinced him that two boys and two girls would be twice the fun. But…there would be no babies for me any time soon.
“I have his things in the spare bedroom.”
“I’ll get them.”
I watched Sam go down the hall, aware that she was trying to spare me as much grief as possible. What she didn’t realize was that I was already grieving harder than anyone could know. Every morning I reached for the phone to call Peter. Every night, I went to bed wishing I could tell him how my day had gone. I think it might have been easier if I’d had someone to talk to about it, but that was taken from me, too, not three months before Peter died.
When it rained, it poured.
I went to the kitchen and got a bottle of red wine and a couple of glasses. I was perched on the edge of the couch, pouring it, when Sam came back with the plastic bag the detective handed me when he came to announce that they’d closed the investigation and ruled it an accident.
I stared at it, stared at the red evidence tape stuck across the top. Seeing that reminded me of the trips I made to the police station in the aftermath of the accident, of the conversations I had with the detective. I wanted to see the car. I wanted to go to the place where it’d happened. But the cop, a seasoned detective with more than thirty years on the force, told me I would only be interfering and he really didn’t want to have to arrest me. So I backed off. I ignored my instincts, and I let the local cops do their job.
I was regretting that decision now.
What if Peter’s accident wasn’t an accident after all? What if someone murdered him and that person is still free because I didn’t listen to my gut and send one of my guys to check it out? If that was the case…I let Peter down. And that made me sick.
“Do you know what’s in there?” Sam asked.
I chewed on my lip for a second. “His personal items from inside the car. His briefcase. His cell phone. Paperwork for the car. They gave me an itemized list when they returned it to me, but I don’t remember all that was on it.”
�
��His cell phone? That wasn’t on his body?”
“No. Peter always put his cellphone on the passenger seat or in the console when he was driving so he’d have easy access to it. He was always texting when he was driving even though I told him a million times how dangerous that was.”
“Didn’t he have a car with a voice system?”
“Yeah, well, Peter didn’t like using it. He said it was creepy to talk out loud when he was alone.”
I picked up my glass of wine and took a long, deep swallow. I’d been drinking far too much lately, but it tasted so good and the buzz was the only thing that I looked forward to at the end of the day. So what if I finished an entire bottle before bed? At least it helped me sleep.
Sam sat back, playing with the stem of her own glass. Concern was written into every line of her familiar face. I’d known Sam so long that I couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t a part of my life. Sometimes I forgot how beautiful she was. When she was blushing earlier…I’d have to get her and Hayden on better terms somehow. I think they were both interested. They just needed to get past this game they were playing with each other.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” Sam asked. “What scheme are you hatching?”
“I’m not.”
“Sure you are. I know you. Every time you have to do something you don’t want to do, you distract yourself with some scheme that usually involves me. So confess.”
I laughed, taking another long swallow of my wine.
“You’re right. I am trying to distract myself.” I set the glass down with determination. “Let’s get this thing going.”
Sam reached for the bag, but I smacked her hands away.
“I’ll do it. Just…give me a second.”
My hands were shaking. I pressed them together and stared at the bag, trying to keep the tears that were building up in my throat from choking me. Sam didn’t say anything; she didn’t touch me. She knew me better than that.
I hadn’t seen any of Peter’s things since his death. I didn’t go to his house when Daddy had it packed up. I couldn’t bear to walk through those rooms, knowing that Peter would never be there again. I knew his things were sitting in a storage building somewhere downtown; I knew that Daddy would give me the key if I wanted to go look at his pictures, touch his clothes, smell his cologne. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, just like Daddy couldn’t bear to clean out his office at Bradford Telecommunications. It was just too hard.
But this…this could give me a clue as to why he died. I wanted to believe that he wasn’t at fault for his own death. And I wanted to believe that Amber was telling the truth because I could see how hard Cole was falling for her. And how hard we were all falling for that baby.
I bit my lip, took another long swallow of wine, and picked the heavy bag up.
“We need a knife.”
Sam pressed a pair of scissors to my arm. “One step ahead of you.”
I smiled gratefully at her, but the smile quickly disappeared as I touched the scissors to the evidence tape. I knew basically what I was going to find in there, but I was still afraid. I cut slowly, watching the tape slowly separate. When it was loose, the fold in the large, clear, plastic bag came undone.
The briefcase was the first thing to poke through. It was a dark leather satchel that I bought Peter in Germany during a brief stay there on my way home from Afghanistan. It had his initials next to the lock. I ran my fingers over it after I slipped it out of the bag and before I set the satchel aside. Then I lifted out a sweatshirt. It was one of Peter’s favorites, one he wore just about everywhere, even when he had on a suit underneath. I pressed it to my face, and for a second I could feel Peter underneath. His scent still lingered ever so slightly. But when I lowered the shirt, I saw blood splatter across the front.
It felt like my heart was in a vice. That was Peter’s blood. My Peter. He was really dead.
Sam moved up behind me and placed her hand on my shoulder.
I carefully folded the sweatshirt and set it beside the satchel. Peter’s keys were there, the insurance papers from his glove box, a cracked travel mug that still smelled of the ridiculously strong coffee he loved to drink, a few mints and other odds and ends. And his cell phone. The screen was cracked and the battery was dead.
“I have a charger,” I managed to choke out.
“I’ll get it.”
Sam walked off, giving me a moment to compose myself. I held the phone between my hands, thinking of all the times I’d teased Peter for not upgrading his cell phone. He had one of Bradford Telecommunication’s phones, but it was like three generations behind everyone else’s. Bad advertising for the company. He always said he didn’t have the time to process the upgrade. But the man was always so attached to his things…he had a pair of roller skates that he used to wear when he was twelve. He simply didn’t get rid of things.
I set the phone aside, closed my eyes, and told myself to get a grip. I needed to do this. I needed to know what Peter was up to in the months before his death.
I grabbed the satchel and twisted the lock on the little tag that held the whole thing closed. Peter never locked it—even though he had the key on his keychain. His date book was inside—another archaic thing he refused to get rid of—and a couple of files from work. I looked through them, but they were just ordinary files with ordinary stuff written in them. There wasn’t much else, just some pens and pencils. I stuck my hand deep in the pockets and found a picture in one of them. It was a picture of me in my Army uniform.
That tore my heart in half.
“Here’s the charger,” Sam said, coming into the room. She plugged one end into the wall and handed me the other. I was a little surprised when the phone chirped to let me know it was charging.
There really wasn’t that much here to go through. I sat back and poured myself another glass of wine, thinking that we’d wasted our time. I just had to be patient and wait for Cole to come back with whatever it was Peter had given Amber.
“We should have Hayden or Dominic check into the crash. Maybe have them get the police report and go out to the site?”
“I can do that.”
I glanced at Sam. “Thanks.”
“What about his office? Do you think there might be something there?”
I studied the front of the satchel and thought about it for moment or two. “Naw,” I finally said. “If it wasn’t here, then whatever he was doing must be in the stuff he gave Amber.” I sipped at my wine. “Whatever it was, it must have been important if he left it to her. I don’t know why he wouldn’t come to me with it directly.”
“Maybe he wasn’t done with whatever it was he was doing.”
“Maybe. But he still could have come to me.”
I sat up again and picked up the cell phone. It was still charging, but it had enough of a charge from the cord to start up for me. I ran my thumb over the cracks, grateful it didn’t have blood on it. It must have gotten knocked away from him during the accident.
They said he died almost instantly. He missed a curve and his car wrapped itself around a concrete barrier. They said he hit his head on the frame of the car just before the airbag deployed, breaking his neck. I tried not to think about it, but the image of my brother’s body jerking around inside that car flashed through my mind every time I climbed behind the wheel of my own car.
Luke…he always used to joke about what bad drivers we Bradfords were. He said we were the worst drivers he’d ever seen. Every one of us. Whenever we went out together, he insisted on driving, saying he wanted to arrive at our destination. It was a joke. But somehow it felt too real now.
Did Peter do this to himself? Was he distracted? Did he really miss that curve? Or did someone or something make him miss it?
“Do you know his password?” Sam asked.
I’d almost forgotten about the phone. I looked at it, at the polite little request for a password. I didn’t have to think about it. It was a combination of Cole’s and my birthda
y, which he used for just about everything.
When the lock screen disappeared, the home screen with a picture of Momma and Daddy at their fortieth wedding anniversary party popped up. I started to search his call history, but noticed the little mark over the message icon that indicated he had a draft waiting to be finished.
Was he texting while he was driving? Is that why he missed the curve?
I hesitated to touch it. But then…I needed to know.
He was texting me. My name and number appeared at the top of the screen. And a message, half written, appeared at the bottom.
Important you speak to Kurt Sanchez. Campo compromised. Call 936-245-0
It just stopped, right in the middle of the phone number.
“What’s this area code?”
Sam pulled out her own phone and looked it up.
“Huntsville.”
I shook my head. “Ada. He was giving me Amber’s number.”
“You think so?”
I nodded. “We need to talk to Kurt. Call Hayden, tell him to meet us first thing in the morning at the TxTel offices downtown.”
“Okay.” Sam got up and headed toward the kitchen. She paused in the doorway. “What is Campo?”
“I’m not sure. But I think it has something to do with the software that bald guy mentioned to Cole.”
“Sounds like Cole didn’t do as bad a job as you thought he might have.”
I nodded. Maybe not.
Chapter 14
Amber
We drove in silence. I stared out the window, my lips still swollen from his kiss. I bit my bottom lip and imagined I could still taste him there. I could still smell him, smell the light scent of his cologne from where his hands left it on my skin. There was this deep ache in my belly, this desperate need that wouldn’t listen to logic from my head. It only wanted what it wanted.
What was I doing? Why was I letting Cole and his family tell me what I needed and what I should do? And then that kiss…what was that all about? What did he want from me?
COLE (Dragon Security Book 1) Page 8
