Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

Barrett

  It was four o’clock in the morning before Barrett and Victoria got to Norman’s house, but Barrett was unconcerned about the fact that he was about to wake his grandfather up. Norman had lived a life of being on call, and this would hardly be the first time he’d been woken up in the middle of the night with a problem to solve.

  Besides, Barrett wasn’t feeling all that kindly towards his grandfather at the moment. Whatever the story was with his sibling, his grandfather clearly knew it, and not only had he never told Barrett—he had still not told him even after Barrett found a dead body in his house. Whatever explanation Norman gave, it was going to have to be a good one.

  Barrett rapped on the front door loudly, then pounded a little more, just for good measure, as Victoria stood behind him, her arms crossed over her chest as the night air cooled her skin.

  As he listened to his grandfather’s shuffling feet approaching the door, Barrett reached out and rubbed a hand along Victoria’s arm, trying to keep her warm. Louisiana was plenty hot by this time of year, during the day, but at night, the air cooled considerably.

  Barrett knew exactly when his grandfather was reaching for the door, and he took a step back so that he wasn’t directly in the space of the doorway when his grandfather appeared.

  Norman opened the door and looked at the two people standing there, and his eyebrows went up, his eyes casting back and forth between the two. “Well, what do we have here?” Norman asked, resting one hand on his hip, as the other remained on the door. He was dressed in a white t-shirt and long lounge pants with a robe wrapped around him. His white hair was sticking up every which way, and the shadow of his gray beard framed his jawline. He looked like a sweet, innocent old man, and for the first time, Barrett realized just how old his grandfather did look.

  He was the oldest living member of the Rockwell Clan. Barrett had never considered the significance of that before, but now that he realized that his parents had had a child before him—a child old enough to betray the Clan in some way—he realized that both his grandfather and his parents were older than they should be. His parents were a good ten to fifteen years older than Ryan or Jordan’s parents, for instance. But he had never wondered why before.

  In fact, he had never wondered a lot of things before. Like what his mother had done with herself before she had him. She’d been an older mother—he’d always known that. She’d had him when she was thirty-eight, which was late for a dragon shifter to have her first child. Why had it never occurred to him to ask her what she had done with her time before she’d become a mother? Why had it never occurred to him to ask for pictures or talk about the years of his parents’ marriage before he had come along?

  Did he even know how old his mother had been when she’d married his father? He racked his brain, but he couldn’t come up with an answer. Why had he never asked?

  “Barrett?” Victoria’s voice sounded further away than it should have. “I think your grandfather would like to know why we’re here, don’t you?”

  “I would, actually,” Norman said, “but that’s something we can discuss inside. Neither of you is dressed for being out and about in the middle of the night, and the wind is nippy. Come in then, since you’re here.”

  Barrett followed Victoria inside, having still not spoken a word to his grandfather. As Norman closed the door behind them, Barrett lost his battle with politeness, and he turned towards his grandfather and got straight to the point.

  “You’ve lied to me my whole life,” he said. “I have a sibling. Mom and Dad had a kid before me, and nobody ever told me. Why would you do that to me?”

  Norman took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, sighing and shaking his head. “Oh dear. I told your mother and father that it would come to this someday—that we couldn’t keep this a secret forever. I had hoped that it wouldn’t happen like this. And here I was—thinking that you had come to update me on the body you found. I would almost prefer that.”

  “It’s related to that,” Victoria said, stepping in. “We’re convinced that the two things are connected.”

  “It’s a possibility,” Norman said, nodding slowly. “It is a real possibility, yes. I’m sorry, young lady. I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “I’m Victoria Crenshaw,” Victoria said, extending her hand. “Detective with the Baton Rouge police force. I’m working this case with Barrett independently—not in connection with my role at the precinct.”

  Norman shook her hand, a surprised expression on his face. “Well, that’s another surprise. Not the first or biggest I’ve had so far today, and today is still so very young. Please—make yourself comfortable, Victoria. I believe I need a moment with my grandson.”

  As Barrett stood in the hallway, having not moved an inch from where he had first walked in, Victoria slipped into the living room, and Norman faced Barrett.

  “Son,” Norman said, sounding tired and regretful. “I know that you’re not really my son, but in some ways, you’re more of a son to me than a grandson. I can’t give you an excuse that you’ll accept, and I’m sorry for that. All I can say is that I always wanted you to know, but I gave in to your father’s wishes that the whole thing be put behind us. Forgotten. Wiped off the slate so that the Rockwell family’s name would not be run through the mud. He felt it was the only way for the Rockwell’s to maintain the position we’ve always enjoyed.”

  “You’re right,” Barrett said. “I don’t accept that excuse, Grandfather. Maybe—maybe—before all of this happened with me and the agency I would have understood. But when things started to go wrong and I started to be accused of things that you and I both know that I didn’t do—when a body showed up in my goddamn house … That would have been the time to tell me that there was a member of our family I know nothing about who has betrayed the Clan before and who might be involved in doing it again. Don’t you think that would have been the right time?”

  Norman nodded. “I do. And I’m not going to try to make you forgive me, Barrett. I’ve had several long talks with your parents lately—including today. I have repeatedly made the case that we should tell you, and that we should make sure the elders remember exactly what happened thirty years ago. I was unable to convince them. Yes—I should have done what I thought was right. It will be hard for you to believe me now, but I did intend to. After learning about the body—I did intend to.”

  Despite feeling betrayed right now, Barrett did believe that his grandfather was a good man and an honorable person. He admitted when he was wrong, and he didn’t make excuses. That was a sign of a strong man. And Barrett believed that his grandfather had made the decision to tell him and that he would have followed through. None of that took away the sting of betrayal he was feeling, but it did reaffirm that he had come to the right place for answers.

  “I want to hear the story,” Barrett said. “Now, Grandpa.”

  “And your friend?” Norman asked. “Is she also here to hear the story?”

  “She’s with me,” Barrett said, not having words to further describe his connection to Victoria. “She knows everything, and she’s trustworthy.”

  Norman nodded slowly. “I hope, for all of our sakes, that she will be the last.”

  “The last what?”

  “The last one,” Norman said, shaking his head. “The last one we will reveal ourselves to. Come sit down. Give me a minute to make myself more presentable and put on some tea, and then I’ll tell you everything.”

  Barrett nodded, figuring that he could grant his grandfather that much at least. As Norman walked back to his bedroom, Barrett walked into the living room to join Victoria. He sat down beside her on the couch and rested his hand gently against her back as she leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees.

  “How are you doing?” he asked, running his hand up and down her spine. “You must be exhausted.”

  She turned and gave him a small smile, though it was a tired one. “I’ve gone much longer without sleep. I’m all right. Did you get things so
rted out with your grandfather?”

  “Yes and no,” Barrett said. “I still think he’s the one person, if there is a person, who I can trust here. He’s getting dressed, and then he’s going to come talk to us.”

  Victoria nodded and sat back against the couch, Barrett’s arm slipping around her as she settled against the cushion. It felt right, tucking her against his side, and Barrett leaned down and pressed a kiss to her hair.

  “I’m glad you’re here with me,” he said, quietly.

  “So am I.”

  Chapter 21

  Victoria

  Victoria sized up Norman when he walked back into the room, dressed now in a pair of khaki pants and a green polo shirt. He had combed his hair and shaved, and he looked much more presentable than he had fifteen minutes ago. She couldn’t help but focus on his eyes, though. They were warm, and they turned downward at the edges. It was a silly thing—but Victoria always trusted peoples whose eyes sloped slightly downward. They were usually people with kind hearts and a nurturing spirit, and she thought that Norman must have both.

  He smiled at her and offered them both drinks, but neither Victoria nor Barrett accepted. Victoria could feel the tension emanating from Barrett, and she knew that all he wanted was to get the answers that had been denied him for so long.

  Norman must have sensed the same thing, because he wasted no more time. He sat down on a chair opposite the couch, and he took a deep breath, his palms dragging along his thighs as he figured out where to start.

  “Your mother married your father when she was just nineteen years old,” Norman said to Barrett. “She was from the New England area. A dragon shifter with a long Irish lineage. She and your father met when he went up there on some business—to help the Clan that operates in that area. They took to each other quickly, and she decided to move down here and become Nola Rockwell, the first lady, of sorts, of the Rockwell Clan. Your father, you see, was on the cusp of taking over the agency, and he was ready for the responsibility. And he loved Nola.”

  Victoria normally would have been more reserved, but she reached her hand over for Barrett’s, and his fingers wrapped gratefully around hers. She pressed gently, offering him what comfort she could, and then she refocused on Norman, trying to see what he was saying in her head, like she always did when a witness or a suspect was finally ready to talk.

  “They got married quickly, and almost right away, since Nola was expecting,” Norman said. “She turned twenty years old just before giving birth to a little girl who your parents named Adele.”

  “A sister,” Barrett said, interjecting. “I have a sister.”

  “Wait,” Norman said, holding up a hand. “Wait for it all before you say anything.”

  Victoria didn’t think that was a good sign, and she pressed Barrett’s hand again.

  “Adele was …spirited,” Norman said. “From the very beginning, she was a difficult child. Wild. Obstinate. Smart—much too smart for her own good, actually. Your father worried extensively about her taking over the agency someday. He always wondered if she would be up for it. Ready for it. Right for it. Your father …he puts a lot of importance on what other people think of him. I was never able to break him of that, no matter how much I tried to. When Cade came along, and he was the opposite—almost too sweet and too obedient—your father worried even more.”

  Victoria glanced at Barrett, seeing that his jaw was working hard. He was trying to control what he was feeling, and she took the burden off him by asking the question to confirm. “That’s …another sibling Barrett didn’t know about, then? Cade?”

  “Yes,” Norman said, looking around the room. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to drink?”

  “No,” Victoria said, firmly. “No—we want the rest of the story.”

  Norman nodded, resigned. “Well, Adele and Cade were just one year apart. Almost exactly. Cade was the only person that Adele ever showed any true kindness towards, and he worshipped her. They were very, very close growing up. But as Adele got older and never matured out of the things that worried your father, he became obsessed with his concerns for the agency and his legacy. He didn’t want to be the Rockwell—the first Rockwell—who had failed to produce an heir worthy of the agency. That thought haunted him.”

  Barrett turned his head away, his jaw clenched. “And now he’s so sure that I’m unworthy, too.”

  “Your father doesn’t know what to think,” Norman said. “He’s a weak man in many ways. He hides from conflict. He prefers comfortable lies to hard truths.”

  “Then he is not a leader at all.”

  “Perhaps not,” Norman said. “Perhaps not.”

  Victoria sat there with the two men, letting the silence grow as they both dealt with their disappointment in Gideon. But she still didn’t know what Adele had done or how likely it was that Adele had now come back to terrorize Barrett, and she needed Norman to give them real answers.

  “What did Adele do?” she asked, pressing the older man. “What made all of this come to a head all those years ago?”

  Norman sighed again and nodded. “Yes. Well, Adele was very smart, as I mentioned. Conniving, really. She started acting like she was becoming the person that your father wanted her to be so badly. She began to ask to go to the agency and learn more about the business she would be taking over. She started training with some of her peers and trying to make friends. She’d never really had friends, except for Cade. And Barrett’s father started taking her with him to work and …he let her have free rein of the agency, even when he wasn’t there.”

  Victoria nodded. “And she was acting the whole time.”

  “Yes,” Norman said. “She was digging up everything she could to put together an exposé …on us. She had decided that dragon shifters, and the Rockwell Clan in particular, were humiliating themselves by living in secret and keeping the public safe instead of leading, and ruling, and taking the world by storm, so to speak. She had decided that people needed to know about us, so that they could be in awe of us.”

  Barrett shook his head, still sitting tensely beside Victoria. “That goes against everything we stand for. Our calling is to serve the public. That’s why we’re here. It’s what we do. Otherwise, what’s the point of being a shifter?”

  “She didn’t see it that way,” Norman said, with a hint of wryness to his voice. “Adele was attracted to things like wealth, and fame, and power all her life. She wanted more, and she was willing to do whatever it took. She compiled footage of the inside of the agency, secret meetings her father had, and more. She secretly filmed him shifting. She filmed herself shifting. She recorded conversations with other shifters, without their knowledge, and got them to reveal what amounted to Clan secrets on tape.”

  Victoria was starting to put together a picture of Adele now. She was an insecure woman, searching for power and validation wherever she could find it, and she didn’t care what price she had to pay. She was willing to throw her family and her entire community under the bus just for her own profit. That was the kind of woman who would do anything and everything to get ahead—including murder.

  “It wasn’t Barrett’s father who first found the footage she had collected,” Norman said, quietly. “It was a girl Adele’s age who thought that the two of them were friends. She went over to Adele’s house one day to work on homework. They were working on their computers—desktops at the time, you see. Adele left the room to go do something else, and the girl started looking for something on Adele’s computer. What she found was the footage, and Adele walked in while she was watching it.”

  Victoria looked over at Barrett, knowing that he was about to hear that his sister, who he had only just learned about, was not only a power-hungry egomaniac bent on revenge and sabotage but possibly a murderer as well.

  “Nola walked in when she heard a strange sound,” Norman said. “She saw Adele sitting on the girl with her fingers wrapped around her neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. The girl’s face was purple with
strain, and she was gasping for air.”

  “Did she kill her?” Victoria asked, quietly.

  Norman shook his head. “Nola knocked Adele to the side and saved the girl’s life. But she didn’t save her mental functioning. The girl is in a facility now. She suffered extensive brain damage that rendered her, essentially, a vegetable. The girl’s name was Candace, and she would have made a much better agency leader than Adele could ever have hoped to have been. Instead, she’s not even a shifter anymore.”

  Victoria frowned. “How did she stop being a shifter?”

  “The power to shift is in the mind,” Norman said, tapping his temple. “You have to decide to shift. Candace can’t decide anything now.”

  “My God,” Victoria murmured. “That’s terrible.”

  Barrett spoke, his voice strangled. “What happened after Mom found Adele doing that?”

  “Well,” Norman said. “Obviously they found the footage she’d compiled and got the whole story out of her. They heard her ranting and raving about fame and power and being taken seriously, and they saw what she’d done to Candace. The elders banished Adele. It was only the second time that a member of the Rockwell Clan has been banished.”

  “When was the first?” Victoria asked.

  “Oh, decades ago,” Norman said, waving a hand. “Long, long before the modern incarnation of the Clan. Adele, though, became furious. She turned on everything and threatened to expose the entire Clan and dragon shifters on the whole to the world, so that we could claim our rightful places as national leaders.” Norman shook his head. “She was crazed. She said she wished that Candace had died, and that there are people who have to be sacrificed in order for other people to rise.”

  Victoria couldn’t believe that anyone would actually say that. “God,” she said. She had seen plenty that was wrong in her life, but as she imagined Adele, she imagined someone absolutely sick with bitterness, and hatred and it made her stomach turn.

  “They banished her,” Barrett said, leaning forward. “How did they know she wouldn’t expose us anyway? Why hasn’t she ever done it?”