Slipping the phone back in my pocket, I wandered over to the far wall where a small desk and chair sat, taking a quick peek at the ancient computer sitting there.
My fingers twitched to turn it on, but Airen would be back by the time it booted up. I’d have to try and come back when no one was home to check it out.
The sink turned on in the bathroom, telling me I had one, maybe two, minutes left to snoop around before she returned.
Looking around the room, there wasn’t anything that flagged my attention. Nothing that spoke of secrets or deception. If anything, I was the only thing out of place there.
Pulling out the desk chair, I sat down and turned my focus to the wall the desk sat against. A corkboard hung with crisscrossing pieces of ribbon. Butterfly-shaped pins held old movie ticket stubs in place, and an assortment of cut-out pictures. One in particular caught my eye, and I couldn’t help but smile at the white-gloved mouse posed in front of a castle, waving.
The water cut off, and Airen opened the bathroom door. She’d made it to the bedroom when something heavy pounded on the front door below.
She jumped, hands flying up to her chest, eyes widened as she looked to me as if unsure what to do.
I pushed myself up from the chair, crossed the room, and put my hands on her shoulders. Her body trembled under my touch, but her eyes never left mine.
“It’s probably the cops,” I told her, squeezing my hands slightly as if that would reassure her.
She nodded, pulling in a deep breath and dropping her hands, shaking them as she pulled herself together. A notch of something like respect or maybe even admiration rose inside of me as I watched her.
Unsure what that even meant to me, or why I had a feeling like that at all, made me take a step back and put much-needed distance between us.
“What are we going to tell them?” she asked.
And there it was—the glimmer that she, too, was hiding a secret. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to fish it out of her. Not with the possibility that it was in fact a cop downstairs waiting for us to come and open the door. However, it would work to my advantage.
“We stick as close to the truth as we can. Just, will you do me one favor?” I asked.
She’d already turned toward the door, but she looked back over her shoulder, waiting for me to ask what that favor might be.
“Can we leave out the part about me having a gun?”
Her eyes narrowed. I couldn’t tell if she was mad, or thinking about my request.
Downstairs, the door rattled in its frame, breaking the tension between us.
Airen stormed out into the hallway, yelling as she jogged down the stairs. “Aye, I hear ye, damn it! Ye dinna need to bash the door down!”
I stayed right on her heels and when she came to a complete stop on the bottom step, I had to wrap my arms around her and lift her up to keep us moving, or I would have crushed her had we fell.
She jerked in response, but she didn’t scream. Thankfully. I set her down right away and took a step back to give her space to straighten her shirt before she moved to the door.
She peered out the window and raised her voice to be heard. “Who are ye then?”
I reached into my shirt, ready to pull out my 9MM Beretta and use it if necessary. She saw me and shooed me back with a flick of her fingers.
The voice on the other side of the door answered her as I dropped my hand and took a step closer to see whoever it was on the other side.
“There’s been a report of gunshots fired in your area. By the looks of your car, I’d say they were fired here. May I come in, please?” an American man asked from outside the door.
Grant’s voice was well cultured and nonthreatening as he asked for permission to be let inside the house, but that didn’t seem to matter to Airen. In fact, it worked in reverse for her.
She looked at me over her shoulder and asked, “What should we do?”
I stepped around her and put my hand on the door as she hissed from behind me. “What if he was the one that came before and shot at ye?”
I hated seeing her afraid, but I couldn’t blow my cover either. “Don’t worry, the man that was here earlier was dressed in rags. The man outside is in a suit. I doubt he would have had time to go home, shower, and change, then come back to pretend to be an American.”
It was the worst excuse I’d ever given, and I knew it when her face pulled into a look of complete disbelief. I didn’t give her a chance to argue as I turned and opened the door.
Grant stood before me, face blank of all expression. “Are you the homeowner?” he asked.
I put my hand against the doorjamb and pulled the door close to my side. Grant wouldn’t be able to see in, and Airen wouldn’t get much of a view of us from where she stood.
“No, I’m just a friend visiting,” I replied, flicking my eyes at Grant to let him know that the woman he heard earlier was behind me.
The door was snatched out of my hand as Airen sidled up next to me in the doorway, forcing me to put my arm around her waist to keep her from stepping outside the house.
She stopped immediately when I did and shifted until her back hugged the spot where my gun was holstered.
Grant looked between the two of us and narrowed his eyes briefly. I knew without a doubt I’d get my ass handed to me when I returned to the church.
Grant cleared his throat and gave Airen his full attention. “Are you the homeowner, ma’am?”
Airen chuckled at that and nudged me with her shoulder, making me take a step back into the house. “I’m not. If it’s the homeowner yer wanting to talk to you, you’ll need to come back when she gets home.”
Grant didn’t miss a beat as he smiled, pulling a notebook and pen out from the inside of his suit pocket. “I’ll be sure to do that. In the meantime, I’d like to ask both of you a few questions.”
Airen planted her feet, squared her shoulders and made the word stubborn stand out with a red flag as she harumphed at him. “And what’s to make ye think I’d be tellin’ ye anything? For surely, there should be a constable with ye, and ye no tellin’ me who ye are and who yer with. I dinna think so, sir. Good day te ye.”
She stepped back, giving me no choice but to move or be stepped on as she grabbed the door and tried closing it on Grant.
He was faster. “My name is Agent Jackson. I’m with Interpol, and I’m looking for a wanted man who may be in the area. I’ve been looking for him for a very long time, and it seems I may have a lead on him. Now, if you would, give me just a few minutes to ask some questions, please, and then I’ll leave. It’s very important, Miss…?”
Airen blew out a long breath, indecision clearly oozing out of her. So I put my hand on her shoulder and moved her back, stepping around her. “I’ll answer your questions. Airen was inside when the gunman showed up on her doorstep. Other than witnessing the damage done to her aunt’s car, she didn’t see anything else.”
The pen in Grant’s hand clicked as he put the tip of it to the notepad. “I thank you.”
“If you can give me just a minute?” I asked, motioning in Airen’s direction.
Grant nodded, turned on his heel, and made his way down the porch steps, heading over to the passenger side of Brenda’s car.
Airen grabbed my arm, her fingers biting deep into my flesh. “What the hell are ye doing?”
I put my hand over hers, noticing how cold her fingers felt. Instead of pulling her hand free, I covered her fingers with mine. “I’m going to tell him what happened.”
Her eyes widened. “Ye canna do that! He’s an American man who just showed up at the door wi’ no even a constable in sight.”
I dropped my hand from hers. “You say American like it’s a disease.”
She huffed at me. “That’s no what I mean, and ye ken it. Ye dinna even ask te see his badge. How de ye ken he is who he says he is?”
She had me on that, or at least, she thought she did. I hadn’t asked because it was Grant that had showed up
. If anyone else had, I would have done just that. “I’ll ask to see his badge before I speak to him. Does that make you feel better?”
She shuddered, wrapping her arms around her waist. “No. I don’t like this at all. What if he thinks ye have something to do with this and hauls ye off? What the hell am I supposed to do then?”
“He’s not going to arrest me. He’s just gathering information. Why don’t I go talk to him and you can finish getting ready to go to your mom’s? When he leaves, I’ll get the car cleaned up and drop you off,” I said, watching her as she dragged her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down hard enough to leave a white line along her lip. “It’ll be fine. I promise.”
“Who do ye think…?” Her voice trembled as she spoke. “Do ye think he might tell ye who he’s looking for?”
That was pretty much all I needed to see and hear from her to know that she was for sure hiding something. Something big that she was afraid of.
The phone rang, the shrill tone making Airen’s hand fly up to her chest and emit a strangled squeak. As she turned to answer the phone, I tried to make my escape.
I stopped short at the front door when I heard Airen ask, “Are ye all right, Mum?”
Forgetting Grant outside for a minute, I walked over to where Airen stood, phone clamped in one hand as she listened. Whatever Airen’s mother said made her face look pinched. When she noticed me watching her, she turned from me, speaking in broken sentences as if her mother cut her off every time she tried asking a question.
She hung up the phone slowly, taking the extra seconds to school her features before turning around to look at me. “Change of plans. Mum will be ‘round later to see me.”
It took everything in me to not pelt her with questions. “Oh? Is everything all right?”
She jerked her head in a brief nod. “Aye, she has some errands to run so she won’t be home this morning.”
“Okay. If everything’s all right, I’ll just be outside,” I said, leaving her in the kitchen and making my way outside, not wanting to leave Grant waiting for too long.
GRANT WAS CROUCHED DOWN, KNIFE in one hand, baggie in another, gathering evidence as I rounded the car. “I’m glad it was you that showed up and not the cops.”
Grant turned to briefly look over my shoulder. “I heard the call come in on the scanner and was able to divert the dispatch.”
“Did you find a bullet?” I asked, crushing a piece of glass to powdered dust under my foot.
He kept working as he answered me. “The bullet came through the window, that’s obvious enough, but I haven’t found it yet.”
I looked up at the house and saw the curtain twitch. Airen was keeping close tabs on the situation outside.
“Nothing much gets past her,” I said, reminding Grant that he was supposed to be a stranger.
Grant caught my meaning and stood, stretching his hand out as if introducing himself. “Please tell me you’re not involved with her.”
I squeezed his hand hard. “It’s your fault. But no, I’m not involved with her like you’re implying. Not to say her aunt hasn’t tried already.”
Grant snorted, flipping his wallet open as if showing me his badge. “Like that, is it?”
I caught myself before I could shrug. “You might want to look at the corner of the house. He fired from the tree line back there, and it hit right there,” I said, pointing at the splintered wood on the corner of the house and then towards the backyard.
“Walk me through it,” Grant said, moving towards the backyard.
When we got enough distance between us and the house, I told him what happened.
“So Brenda asked you to pick up Airen and drop her off at her mother’s. When you arrived, Robert de Fleur was standing at the front door, but there was no car in the driveway. You’re sure it was him?”
Facing the back of the house, I saw where the bullet had hit and ran my hand down over my face. Close. It had been very close. I nodded at Grant’s last question; there was no doubt in my mind who it had been. I’d studied every photo we had on him, could pick him out of a crowd, even if he tried disguising himself. There was no mistaking his face, not with the almond-shaped eyes and the pointed slope of his nose. In all the photos we had of him, his hair had been a dark reddish brown, which told me he didn’t go through any lengths to hide it. Besides all of that, there was a way he always carried himself. A telling trait that was noticeable from the front or back, because his left shoulder sat lower than his right.
“He took off as soon as he heard the car, heading for cover back here.” I lifted my hand, gesturing at the thin line of birch trees.
There weren’t very many of them between Brenda’s backyard and the house behind her, but just enough to give you the feeling you were in the country. “I got out of the car, thinking I might be able to run him down, but he’s fast. Faster than a man of his age should be.”
Grant snorted at that. “He’s two years younger than me, and a damn criminal with good reason to be fast.”
I covered my mouth to keep my smile hidden. “Yeah, well, I could probably beat you in a foot race too. Anyway, I made it halfway across the yard when he stepped out from where he was hiding, and I saw the gun. That brought me to a quick halt, I’ll tell ya.”
Grant made a noise of approval as I continued on. “I hauled ass back towards the house and hit the ground about the same time as the corner of the house exploded where my head had been. I came rolling around the porch. When I got by the car, he’d made it along the trees this way.” I pointed to my left between Brenda’s yard and the other neighbor. “And Airen yelled at me from the porch. As far as I can tell, he stuck to the tree line all the way up to the front of the driveway, where he fired again at where I was hiding on the driver’s side of the car. Why is everything so damn backwards here anyway?” I added, not really looking for an answer.
“That was when I pulled my gun. I didn’t want to, but he left me no other option. Airen was an open target on the front porch. I fired two rounds, pretty sure I winged him, heard a police siren, and used that to my advantage by getting us inside before he returned fire.”
Grant made note of what I said, stopping only to look at the various spots in the yard that I pointed at. “Since we intercepted the call, Nadia’s been making inquiries at local clinics to see if anyone’s showed up with a bleeding wound.”
He saw my eyebrow quirk at the injury description and added, “Can’t really ask if someone’s come in with a gunshot wound. It would raise too many red flags.”
I nodded in agreement.
“You’re sure it was him?” Grant asked again as we made our way back to the porch.
“Positive. Even with his homeless look, I know it was him. Do you think he’s looking for family to help him?” I asked.
Grant slowed his steps, moving his hands as if we spoke of something else. “I doubt they’d help him. From what intelligence we’ve gathered, the family wants nothing to do with him.”
A flicker of relief bloomed within me. I liked Brenda and her niece. It would suck if they were tied to Robert de Fleur in the wrong way.
But there was something wrong, something happening with Airen. I could tell, but I didn’t dare speak of it with Grant until I could get to the bottom of it myself. That thought reminded me of the phone call Airen received from her mother before I came outside. I needed to tell Grant about it, because if it was what I thought it was, Airen and her aunt weren’t the only two in danger of Robert de Fleur’s presence.
“Airen got a phone call from her mom before I came out. I’m not sure what happened, but Airen was supposed to go over to her house, and now her mother’s coming over later after she runs some errands.”
“So you think he left Brenda’s and showed up at Airen’s mother’s house?” Grant asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, he could have, right? It seems odd that Airen’s mother would put off seeing her this morning after being angry with her for not coming to see her when s
he arrived yesterday,” I answered, realizing it had been less than twenty-four hours since I first met Airen.
Grant sighed, nodding as we came to a stop at the corner of the house, pulling out his knife, and the evidence bag. “I’ll make note of it and add her mom’s house to the list of places he’s visited or will be visiting.”
“Why is he all of a sudden interested in family? I mean, he has all these contacts around the world, but he chose to come home. It doesn’t make any sense,” I said, keeping my voice low enough so if Airen were listening, she wouldn’t hear me.
The misshapen bullet landed in the see-through bag with a plop. Grant closed it, stuck it back in his jacket, and said, “My guess is he’s pissed off someone he shouldn’t have, namely us, but maybe even someone else. Now he’s scrambling to find a spot to lay low. Coming home puts his family in danger, but I don’t think he cares much either.” Grant shrugged as he squinted across the yard towards the road. “It makes him a very dangerous man though.”
I walked Grant to his car, knowing we’d recap everything we’d talked about later when I got to the church. “He’ll be back. You know he will.”
Grant pulled the car keys from his pocket and looked at me over his shoulder before getting behind the wheel. “I know. Which is why you’ll need to stick close to Airen and Brenda without blowing your cover. I’ll work on getting surveillance in place, but you need to stay here tonight.”
He was halfway down the driveway when Airen opened the front door and pushed a vintage-looking vacuum cleaner in front of her to the edge of the top porch step.
“Well?” she asked, fumbling with the end of the plug. “What did your American have to say?”
I lifted the vacuum from the step and nearly dropped it, not expecting it to weigh as much as it did. “My American?”
She smirked. “Aye, yer American,” she said, disappearing back inside the house.
I hefted the old vacuum over to the car, grumbling at the mess of glass fragments that littered the inside, wishing I could pick the car up and shake it all out instead of the hours of cleanup it would take.
If Ever I Fall: Book 3 of The Six Series Page 6
