Three Rivers (A Gateway to Love Novel)

by Barlow, Chloe T.

  He smiled softly, but his face turned serious again. "I never told you but Jack emailed me the week before he died."

  Althea straightened.

  "Oh. Were you guys still close then?"

  "We kept in touch on the phone and over email. He would also talk through my ideas on my books with me."

  "Is that what the email was about?"

  "No." He swallowed and Althea felt oddly anxious. "He asked to talk — said he needed my help with something. It was weird for him to ask for my help, but I was all wrapped up in Sunrise edits and put him off for a week. Then I was too late. He died."

  It hurt her to think that Jack reached out to someone else for help instead of her, but the tears in Griffen's eyes pulled her back to the moment, so she reached up a hand and stroked his cheek. "It wasn't your fault. Is that what you think? What you wanted to tell me?"

  "I thought it was for a long time. I don't know what I could've done, but I know it wasn't your fault either."

  She looked down. "I wish I could believe that."

  He pulled her close and whispered in her ear, "I know it wasn't your fault Althea. And how I know, that is what I have to tell you."

  "What?" She pulled back from him and sat up, covering her bare breasts with the sheet. She suddenly felt very exposed and vulnerable and Griffen's distraught eyes weren't helping.

  "After I got here — last Monday morning — I went to my mom's house where Jack and I hid a lockbox with all our favorite things — my stories, whatever we were into. I, uh, found a flash drive in there. It was Jack's from the last couple weeks before he died."

  She scooted back even further. "So, after you and I started to...?"

  "Yes."

  "Why didn't you tell me then?"

  "I thought I could figure it out. Investigate what Jack was doing. Like I'd done with my books." He was sitting on the edge of the bed now in his boxer briefs, catty-cornered to her. His muscular back was hunched as he leaned his strong arms against his knees. Even now, when she was terrified of what he would say next, she couldn't look away from him.

  He turned back to her to gauge her reaction, but she didn't even know what it was herself. Everything was washing over her in nauseating waves, like she was going up a steep incline on a roller coaster, aware she would fall soon but not knowing how scary it would be — only that she couldn't stop what was coming.

  "What was on it — the flash drive?"

  "I couldn't tell at first, Jack had heavily encrypted each file. So I got help."

  "Help?" Something clicked. "Wait, all those calls and texts you said were from your publisher. Were they about this?" He just looked at her with guilty eyes. "Who was it really?"

  "Trey. He's a computer expert."

  "So you lied to me?"

  "It wasn't totally a lie," he said defensively, then his eyes widened, as if mortified by something he'd admitted.

  "How so? So it was about your new book, too? Oh my God...you wouldn't."

  "I always write about my investigations. I would've talked to you before I went too far with anything bad about Jack..."

  "Oh, like you're telling me now?" Her throat was tightening and she could feel her hands trembling, she pulled her knees to her chest for protection and wrapped her arms around them.

  "Yes," he reached for her but she shook her head slightly and he dropped his hand.

  She whispered, "What did this Trey guy do for you?"

  "He examined the flash drive and..."

  "And what, Griffen?" Her voice sounded harsh to her ears.

  "Pulled Jack's phone and bank records."

  "What! Like Jack was a criminal? What the fuck, Griffen? Why would you need to do that? Wait, what did you mean when you said you would talk to me before writing 'bad things' about Jack?'"

  "Because the flash drive showed he was involved in something big. The robotics department was working on sensitive military contracts. Weapons, highly developed tank components. Information that was worth a ton of money on the black market. It looks like Jack had a deal with the Chinese to sell design plans for money."

  "You can't be serious. Jack was your friend, how could you even think that about him?" She went to stand up and he grabbed her arm. Althea glared over at his fingers but he wouldn't release her.

  "I didn't want to. Please wait and hear me out."

  He kissed her neck down to her shoulder — right where he knew it drove her crazy.

  "Griffen, we need to talk about this."

  "We are talking." He pulled her tightly to him so she couldn't move. "I didn't want to believe what I was finding out about Jack. That's why I couldn't tell you before. I knew it would break your heart all over again. I want to protect you, take care of you, look after you. I don't want anything to hurt you. I want to keep all those painful things from you."

  She jerked away and stood up, "Don't I get a say in that, Griffen? I had that before with Jack and it didn't work. Jack babied me and hid anything hurtful from me and he died! Did you ever think that maybe I want to be treated like an adult?"

  "I know you do." He stood and walked to her. "But that doesn't mean I don't want to protect you. You can look after me right back."

  Althea started to get dressed. She felt naked and raw emotionally already, she didn't need to add her bare ass to the equation.

  She turned to him in just her bra and panties and caught him unknowingly glancing down at her breasts until she had to roll her eyes. She smacked his chest.

  "Focus! If you wanted to keep this from me, then why are you telling me all this now?"

  He looked into her eyes guiltily.

  "I didn't know what I would find at first. I thought I was helping. That I would figure it all out and bring closure, but then all this bad shit turned up and I just couldn't tell you."

  "And what about now?"

  "I didn't get the most damning information until last night, after we went to sleep."

  "Damning? What do you mean?"

  "Jack's office line had calls from China, and that bonus he got? We tracked it to a Chinese account. It didn't come from CMU. Trey and I need to report what we found, I couldn't let you find out that way."

  Althea flopped down onto the bed, her dress in hand. Her ears were ringing and her vision had reduced to small pinpricks of light. She could barely get air in or think around the squeezing fist in her chest. She sensed Griffen crouching in front of her, calmly telling her to breathe.

  She finally squeaked out, "Oh my God. And you didn't give me any warning, why? Because I would break this off? Wouldn't agree for you to stay?"

  "I didn't know what to do. I want us to be for real, Althea, so I had to wait to tell you until I had enough information...and hope that you would understand."

  "That's so much better," she said sarcastically. "So when you were just screwing me it was okay to lie?" For the first time in so many years she was pissed. So pissed that she wasn't even trying to fight it anymore.

  "Stop it, you know it wasn't like that for me. Ever."

  "You should've told me. I deserve truth and trust." She suddenly felt like no time had passed, like secrets were ruling her life and stealing her happiness — again. Her emotions were so out of control that her fingers tingled.

  "Shit. I'm handling this all wrong," Griffen mumbled.

  "At least we can agree on that. I can't believe this. You begged me to trust you and take this chance with you and you were keeping this from me the whole time!"

  She stood up and tugged on her dress. Griffen jumped up and was in front of her looking into her eyes and running his fingers roughly through his wavy hair. Althea hated herself for wanting to touch it herself.

  "I'm so sorry, Althea. Please know I thought I was doing what was right."

  "But the book..."

  "Fuck the book. If you don't want me to write about all this, I'll tear it up, burn my laptop. Whatever you want." He stepped so close that he was pressed ful
ly against her. He was almost naked and her traitorous body immediately responded to the press of his nipples and firm muscles against her. He reached his arms around her, his thumbs stroking her back repeatedly until she was almost hypnotized. "What do you want Althea?" he finally said. "Because I want you. Althea, I l—" Althea's eyes widened as her phone interrupted him. He rested his forehead against hers and begged, "Please ignore that."

  She looked at him and her heart broke a little. "It's my ringtone for Aubrey. She has Johnny. I have to take it. I'm sorry." He leaned back.

  "Aubrey, hey," she said, willing her voice to remain steady.

  "How ya doing babe? Have a hot night? How'd everything go with your big talk?"

  "Oh yeah, um, well, I can't really talk now." Althea was staring into Griffen's eyes as she clutched the phone.

  "I bet you can't," Aubrey said lasciviously. "Look girl, I wanted to let you know I got Johnny to school on time. It was just barely though because he left his favorite stuffed animal at your house so we went to go get it. I forgot to lock up but it's okay, I saw David pulling in when we left, so he'll probably lock up after himself."

  "What would David want?"

  "You weren't expecting him? Gosh, I don't know what he wanted, we didn't talk, I just saw his car."

  "No worries," Althea said softly, still staring at Griffen. "I need to go home to get ready for work. I can ask him when I get there." She hung up and bent over to start pulling on her shoes.

  "Come on Althea, don't leave like this."

  "I'm not leaving 'like this,' Griffen. I'm just leaving."

  "Let me go with you. We can keep talking."

  She stood and grabbed her purse on her way out of his hotel room, sadly remembering how happy she'd been when they'd kissed so passionately that she'd simply dropped it by the door. Griffen started to walk toward her but she put her hand up. "I need to think about this, get my head around it. I don't know what I think or what is right. Just let me go right now."

  He was clenching his fists, a muscle in his jaw twitching. She was half relieved, half disappointed that he let her walk to the door and open it.

  "Dammit," he grunted and stalked across to her. He pushed the door shut behind her, taking her face in his hands and kissing her tenderly, his tongue stroking her lips until she finally sighed and parted them, granting him entrance. Griffen pulled away first, stroking his thumbs up and down her cheeks as he looked into her eyes. His were so intensely dark and blue. "I'm so sorry I hurt you. That is the last thing I ever want to do. I'm new to this whole sharing your life with another person thing. I'll fuck up. I did fuck up. But know this. We aren't done here, Althea. Not by a long shot."

  "Okay," she whispered. "But I still have to go."

  With that, he finally released her and her heart immediately spasm at the loss. Her mind might need some time but her heart and body had clearly made their decision. She needed space from him — and their powerful connection — if she was ever going to figure out what she was going to do next.

  For the second time, Althea deserted him to a lonely hotel room. At least this time he was awake when it happened.

  "Dammit," Griffen shouted, pounding his fist against the shut door in frustration. He turned and leaned back against it as he replayed the conversation over in his head.

  His cell phone rang and he crossed the room to see Trey's name.

  Great, just what I want to think about.

  "Trey. What's up?"

  "Don't sound so thrilled to hear from me."

  "Sorry, Trey. It's been a shitty morning."

  "Well, I wanted to tell you I made it to the last encrypted piece of the flash drive. Jack downloaded it the afternoon before he died. I've got just one more level to go through but I can't crack it for the life of me. The password requires the use of a WAV file."

  "A what?"

  "Basically the file won't open without the use of the correct audio WAV file as a password, you know, an MP3. It's a neat trick."

  "Fuckin' Jack, always had to be so goddamn clever."

  "Can you think of any song that Jack may have used?"

  Griffen thought for a moment and quickly said, "Althea, by the Grateful Dead." Jack had always loved the Dead. Griffen would tease him about it mercilessly, no one would've ever guessed that Oakland Catholic High School's golden boy was a closet hippie. More so than that, Jack was sentimental as hell. He probably found every book, song, and crossword in the world that invoked the name of the woman he loved. "Can you get that song off the internet?"

  "Already downloaded it, dude. Let me give it a try. Holy shit, that did it! It was the opening guitar riff — sweet, I need to do that sometime."

  "Focus, Trey!"

  "Okay, Christ. All right, so it's more notes in Jack's handwriting — but it looks like it's just his thoughts. No specs or anything. It says he's tracked the accessing of the military files to David, but he needs to get on his physical computer to confirm before he can do anything with the information."

  "What the — did you say 'David?'"

  "Yeah, do you know him?"

  Griffen gulped. "Jack was his research assistant."

  "They would've shared a phone number, dude!"

  "Yeah, and he's the one who Jack said got him that bonus."

  "You mean the one that traces back to China? Holy shit, if he'd found Jack on his computer...it sure doesn’t look like Jack's death was an accident."

  "Not now it sure doesn’t. Which means David's capable of anything. Fuck! And he's at Althea's house right now. I gotta go. Pull everything together, look at it all again from the view of trying to figure out exactly what David was up to and go ahead and report this to DOD. I know they aren't your favorite people, but..."

  "No worries man, I got this. Go do your thing. I actually have an old friend in there and she'll be very happy to get my call."

  Griffen figured he didn't want to know why, all he knew for sure was he had to get in touch with Althea — as soon as possible.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Althea pulled away from the hotel entrance and immediately called Jenna through the Bluetooth in her car. She needed some of Jenna’s trademark sensibility to help her get her head back on straight.

  "Hello?"

  "Jenna? It's Tea. You got a minute?"

  "Sure girly. I don't have to be on rounds until tonight, so I'm just puttering around the apartment and fixin' to clean up after Aubrey's latest arts and craft disaster with Johnny."

  They always let their southern accents come through when it was just the two of them talking and it was helping to soothe Althea's nerves.

  "Oh lordy, I don't wanna know," Althea chuckled, grateful for the humorous image to distract her harried mind.

  "How'd it go with Griffen?" Jenna asked, bringing Althea back to her worries.

  "Well, the night was great, but when I woke up he threw this bomb on me."

  As she took her shortcut home, avoiding Liberty Bridge construction traffic, Althea relayed the whole story, preparing herself for an honest second opinion.

  "And where are you now?" Jenna prodded after a moment of silence.

  Althea sighed, "Headed home. I wasn't thinking clearly and didn't want to keep saying things I couldn't take back."

  "So you ran and pushed him away?"

  "I guess I know whose side you're on."

  "There aren't sides Tea, honey. What he did was totally messed up. He should've been honest with you the whole time, but at least he was eventually? And don't you think he's right — would you have really wanted to know he was doing this?"

  "He could've just not done it at all. Or asked for my help."

  "Seriously, Tea? You would never be receptive to any bad words about Jack. You would've flipped no matter when he told you."

  "Dammit, don't you ever get sick of being right, Jenna?" she grumbled. "Argh, that's Griffen calling again." She groaned. He'd been calling her throughout her conversat
ion with Jenna, but she wasn't ready to talk to him quite yet.

  "Are you just going to ignore him?"

  "No..."

  "Tea."

  "I know he and I should talk more, I just need to sort through it is all. It's a lot to take in and you know how secrecy from men really upsets me."

  "Well, he just tried to call me now. What do you want me to do?"

  "You can call him back. I'm almost home anyway. I need to see what David wants, then I promise I'll talk to Griffen. Thanks honey."

  "Sure."

  Griffen's head was spinning as he raced around his suite and prepared to run after Althea.

  He'd been so caught up in thinking Jack was guilty, he may have exposed Althea to real harm by snooping around CMU the day before.

  Why else would David be messing around at Althea's house without her knowledge? On this of all days?

  Of course David could've heard Griffen was there asking about his star assistant. He wasn't sure why David would be at Althea's house, rather than coming straight to him, but he didn't have time to wonder about that. All he could do was whatever it took to keep her safe.

  After calling to request the valet bring his car around, Griffen quickly dialed 911, giving them Althea's address and informing them an attempted murder was possibly in progress.

  He couldn't rely on the police to come in time, he needed to be ready to handle this himself. It'd been years since he'd put himself directly in harm's way, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to face down a badass or two.

  David may be desperate, but so was Griffen and he'd fought worse men and won.

  Only difference? This time the stakes were so much higher because he actually cared about someone — about anything. The only thing that mattered to him was that Althea was safe.

  Griffen was more than ready to lay his life down for her, even as the thought of harm coming to her twisted his heart and stomach into angry knots.

  He called Althea. No answer. His pulse pounded in his ears, drowning out her voicemail greeting.

  "Althea, it's me again, Griffen. I know you need space, but it's important. David's dangerous, you need to stay away from your home. Please! God, I hope you're listening to these."