Deadly Coincidence (Brantley Walker: Off the Books Book 4)

by Nicole Edwards

  Reese was returning to the main room when his cell phone rang.

  Snatching his phone from his pocket, he glanced at the screen, saw Baz’s number.

  “Hey,” he answered quickly. “How’s JJ doin’?”

  “Better. And you? I heard you took a hard hit.”

  Reese peered at Brantley, who was walking to the door to open it for their new arrivals.

  “It’s nothin’. Just a scratch. About to head over to the governor’s mansion, let them know what’s goin’ on.”

  “You’ve got confirmation the blood and the finger belonged to Dante?”

  “No, unfortunately. But I think it’s safe to say somethin’ happened to him from what little we do know.”

  “And the crime scene…? Gone, huh?”

  “All of it,” Reese confirmed. “There was nothin’ left to salvage at JJ’s.” Reese exhaled, turning away from the people filing in. “Even her SUV’s a total.”

  “Fuck.”

  Reese echoed that sentiment, but he kept it to himself.

  “Unfortunately, we can’t worry about any of that right now. We have to find Dante. He’s somewhere, and since he hasn’t come to one of us, we have to assume he’s been kidnapped.”

  And that was assuming the man was alive, something else Reese kept to himself.

  “I checked all the hospitals and clinics in the area,” Baz relayed. “Dante hasn’t received medical care.”

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath. “I think we have to assume the injury’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “So all that blood…”

  “Unless they gutted Dante from neck to navel, they wouldn’t get that much blood,” Reese told him. “And since we only had a finger…”

  “Point taken. What else do you want me to do?” Baz inquired.

  “Well, since we can’t rule out that JJ was the target and they used Dante to get to her, I’d say it’s best if you keep her there. At least until we know more.”

  “JJ the target? Then why not take her instead of Dante?”

  “Good question. One of many.”

  “I guess it might explain why Dante made her get her gun,” Baz said.

  “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  “She told me he insisted she get her gun from the safe, said she needed to keep it on her at all times.”

  “I didn’t find it at the scene,” Reese said, thinking back.

  “Why would they take her gun?”

  “Another good question. I need some time to process this, and we need to talk to Governor Greenwood. So for right now, sit tight. We’ll let you know when we have somethin’, Baz, I promise.”

  “Easier said than done. You know JJ. Once she starts feelin’ better, she’s gonna want somethin’ to do.”

  “Understood. I’ll let you know as soon as we know.”

  He could tell Baz wasn’t happy with that answer, but at least the man had the decency to hold his tongue. For now.

  When the call ended, Reese tucked his phone back in his pocket, turned around to find Brantley was standing over Luca, watching as the man’s fingers flew over a keyboard.

  Reese didn’t know much about Luca Switzer, aside from the fact his family had been in Coyote Ridge almost as long as the Walkers. And by family, Luca’s father and uncle had been the terrors of the county back in the day. At least according to rumor. Luca had a wild streak himself, but everyone said he managed to keep it under control because of Holly. Since their father was a grade A asshole, Luca had been responsible for raising her, and in order to do so, he couldn’t get into too much trouble.

  “Hey, Tavoularis,” Luca called out, eyes never leaving the computer screen. “How’s it goin’?”

  “It’s goin’. We appreciate you doin’ this.”

  This time Luca did look over, his navy-blue eyes intense. “Anything for a friend.”

  “Hey, Reese,” Holly said with a small wave.

  “Hey. He wrangle you into this?”

  She smiled. “I didn’t give him a choice.”

  “She’s bossy like that,” Luca joked, eyes on the screen.

  “What is it you’re doin’, anyway?” Reese asked, coming to stand beside Brantley and Trey.

  “I’m makin’ friendly with some of the cameras at the local businesses.”

  “Makin’ friendly?” Reese laughed. “What you mean to say is you’re hackin’ into them.”

  “Call it what you will.” Luca continued to stare at the screen. “What time frame are we lookin’ for?”

  Reese glanced at Brantley, waited for him to answer.

  “Try around twenty-one hundred last night. Baz said he was at the diner with JJ. He got to Moonshiners shortly after that.”

  “Nine o’clock,” Luca said. “Got it.”

  They stood there for several minutes, watching images play across the screen. Nothing worth noting happened, unfortunately. Thanks to it being New Year’s Eve, there were a lot of people out and about. Even small towns celebrated holidays like this one.

  Not that Reese expected them to get lucky enough to catch Dante and his captor chatting it up on the street.

  “What about JJ?” Luca asked. “Doesn’t she have cameras?”

  “She did,” Brantley confirmed. “House blew up.”

  Luca whistled long and low. “Heard about that.” His fingers moved faster on the keyboard. “Shouldn’t matter, though. If I know JJ, she’s got them recordin’, and that information would be saved in the cloud.”

  Brantley peered over at Reese, forehead wrinkled to reflect his confusion.

  Reese merely shook his head, letting him know they’d get into that later. While Brantley was good at a lot of things, technology wasn’t his strong suit.

  “All right. Here we go.” Luca’s fingers stopped, his hand moving to the mouse. “Anyone ever tell JJ she’s paranoid? She’s got half a dozen cameras rollin’ twenty-four seven. Might be considered overkill.”

  Reese didn’t respond to Luca’s musings.

  Luca pointed at the monitor. “That looks to be JJ pullin’ into her driveway. Parkin’. Gettin’ out.”

  They watched on the screen as JJ walked up to the front door, unlocked it.

  “That’s Dante,” Brantley noted, stepping closer.

  Sure enough, that was Dante Greenwood joining her on the porch. The camera was a bit grainy and a little glitchy, so every move they made looked pieced together, but it was easy to discern what was going on. Once inside, they watched as Dante gave one more look out the door before closing it.

  “Pull up another camera,” Brantley ordered, his impatience beginning to bleed through.

  Luca skimmed the other camera recordings until he found the one that overlooked the living room.

  For the next ten minutes, they watched things play out just as JJ had said. Dante moved from room to room, they shared a brief conversation, then JJ disappeared down the hall in the direction of her bedroom. When she returned, she held up her gun, clearly showing Dante she had it. They spoke again and then JJ was walking off. Then the camera feed blipped and went fuzzy.

  “What happened?”

  “Looks like it got turned off.”

  “Why’d she have her gun?” Brantley asked.

  “She said Dante told her to get it,” Reese answered. When Brantley shot a questioning look his way, he added, “I just got off the phone with Baz. She doesn’t seem to know why. He just told her to keep it on her.”

  “Maybe he was hopin’ she would protect him?” Holly pondered.

  “She have a view of the kitchen?” Reese asked.

  Once again, Luca was skimming the recorded feeds, but this time he was shaking his head.

  “She does,” Luca confirmed, “but not from that time period. Looks like it had a critical system failure.”

  “Meaning?”

  Luca shrugged a shoulder. “Could be anything.”

  “Someone disabled it, too?”

  “Possibly, but not likely.
I’d say old equipment. Doesn’t look like she’s upgraded these in a while.”

  Of course it couldn’t be they’d get lucky enough to see who else was in JJ’s house.

  “You think whoever set this in motion is skilled?” Luca asked, twisting in his chair to look at them.

  “They’re somethin’,” Brantley bit out, pivoting and pacing.

  Reese remained where he was, staring at the screen that showed a list of files.

  “Go back to the camera at the front of the house,” he instructed Luca.

  Luca spun around. “What’re you lookin’ for?”

  “To see if they disabled the other cameras after Dante arrived.”

  Luca keyed in a few things, then they were watching from JJ’s front porch once more.

  “What time is that?” Reese asked when the porch light was flipped off.

  “Nine thirty-seven,” Luca noted.

  They continued to watch, although it was nearly impossible to see. JJ clearly hadn’t invested in night-vision cameras, because this one reflected nothing more than a dark screen with a few pinpoints of light every now and then.

  “Hold up. Is that…?”

  There was a sliver of light, and Dante appeared in the doorway, then he stepped back and another figure stepped inside.

  “Son of a bitch,” Brantley grumbled. “Dante opened the fucking door. That motherfucker.”

  Reese peered at Luca. “Any chance you can get into any other camera feeds nearby?”

  “Like what? This is Coyote Ridge. Not like we’re spyin’ on the residents.”

  “What about doorbell cameras?” Holly suggested.

  All eyes shifted to her.

  “Damn good thinkin’,” Reese told her.

  She smiled, a light blush infusing her cheeks.

  Before Luca could get to work, Brantley’s cell phone rang.

  “It’s the governor’s wife,” he said, his gaze swinging from one face to the next.

  Reese moved a step closer. “Answer it.”

  Brantley did, and for a few seconds, he was silent before saying, “Hold on, Trina. Slow down.” He pulled his phone from his ear, tapped the screen so the call would come through the speaker. “All right. Tell me what happened.”

  “It’s Dante,” the frantic woman explained. “He’s been kidnapped!”

  “Trina, I need you to calm down.”

  “Please, Brantley. Please. You have to come over. They … they said they would call back with instructions.”

  Reese looked over at Brantley, saw the anger flash in his gaze, and knew he was thinking the same thing Reese was: Dante Greenwood had stooped to an all new low.

  *

  After JJ finished her coffee, she excused herself back to the room Baz had brought her to, crawled back in bed, and slept. If it hadn’t been for Baz’s poking and prodding her every hour—doctor’s orders, he reminded her when she’d all but bitten his head off—she would likely still be snoozing.

  Maybe. Her stomach was grumbling loudly enough to wake the dead. And since the clock on the bedside table said they were inching toward dinner in the very near future, her grumbling stomach was requesting sustenance even if she was hesitant to feed it. Now that the nausea was gone, she didn’t want to risk it coming back.

  On the plus side, the sleep had helped to alleviate the majority of her headache. However, once she started to feel more human, she’d started sulking, pacing, and trying to wrap her head around everything. Only she wasn’t letting Baz know that, because if she had time to sulk and pace, she knew she had time to work. Which meant she needed to help the team figure out who had Dante and where they’d gone. It was the only way she would figure out how she’d come to be a pawn in this and what it really meant for her.

  Sadly, she couldn’t muster the energy to care.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She cared. In fact, she was worried about Dante, but right then she felt helpless.

  Sure, it was probably another pity party, brought on by the fact that she had smelled perfume on Baz’s shirt. Something flowery and fruity, which was making her brain work overtime trying to imagine the type of woman who wore shit like that. It wasn’t sexy, but it wasn’t something a grandmother would wear, either. Maybe young? Flirty?

  Was that who Baz had been with last night? A young, flirty woman who’d had the pleasure of his company, gotten close enough to transfer her scent? Did JJ know her? Did she live or work in Coyote Ridge? Would JJ be subjected to seeing Baz with another woman from here on out? Was it serious?

  All the questions had her stomach roiling, her heart cracking open just a little more.

  He’d been with another woman.

  And yes, her entire world had literally been blasted apart a short time ago, her ex-boyfriend was possibly lying dead somewhere, and whoever took him clearly had it out for her since they’d blown up her house. Hell, she could’ve been inside at the time. Had it not been for Baz whisking her away, she very likely would’ve been.

  And despite all that, all JJ could think about was Baz and some floozy.

  As she stood at the French doors that led out onto a small private patio overlooking what she’d normally consider a rather lovely pond, the only thing she could do was imagine what Baz looked like in the throes of passion with another woman.

  It would’ve been easier if she could scrounge up some anger, but since this was all her fault, the only thing she managed was a few tears leaking down her cheeks.

  JJ didn’t want to cry about it. She didn’t want to think about the fact she had effectively pushed Baz into the arms of another woman by being … her.

  “It was inevitable,” she whispered under her breath.

  From the beginning, JJ had known she would fuck this all up. Every time she found something she gave a shit about, it was ripped right out of her life. And her actions or words were generally at the epicenter of the explosion that leveled things around her.

  Interesting metaphor considering that was exactly what had happened to her house.

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, but when she did, her mind conjured up the image of Baz standing in the kitchen admitting to her that he’d been with another woman last night. He’d looked so guilt-ridden it had pained her to see it.

  But he shouldn’t feel guilty. JJ had all but ordered him to move on with his life, not to wait for her. And it wasn’t like she was mad about it. No, that wasn’t the right word. It was more along the lines of heartbroken.

  A soft knock sounded from behind her, drawing her out of her thoughts.

  When she turned around, gripping the blanket she’d pulled over her shoulders to ward off the chill, JJ found Baz standing in the doorway. His dark blond hair was still wet from his shower, his hard-angled face clean-shaven. But his eyes were what she noticed most. Not the intense color this time, either. It was what was in them that had her heart pinching in her chest.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked, facing off with her from across the room.

  She wanted to move toward him, to simply walk into his arms and let him hold her until the cold seeped out of her bones, but she knew she couldn’t. Not anymore.

  “I’m good,” she lied. “Did Brantley and Reese find anything?”

  He shook his head, stepped forward. “Nothin’ yet. Do you know a Luca Switzer?”

  JJ frowned. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Trey said he’s helpin’ them with some research.”

  That cold that had filled her marrow flashed hot for a moment, then froze over again.

  “That rat bastard,” she muttered, turning away from Baz, and for the first time since she woke up in her blood-sprayed house, something other than fear slammed into her.

  “You don’t like Luca?”

  “I’m not talkin’ about Luca,” she snapped back, staring out the window as though that might possibly help. “I’m talkin’ about Brantley, the rat bastard traitor. I should’ve known he’d do this.”

  Baz’s voice sounded close
r when he said, “Do what exactly?”

  “Replace me.”

  “I … uh… JJ, I don’t think that’s what he’s doin’.”

  She spun around, grateful for the energy that came along with all those emotions beginning to churn through her. “I am damn good at what I do, Baz. No, I’m better than damn good. I’m … I’m brilliant.”

  A smile pulled at his mouth. “Modesty’ll get you everywhere in life.”

  JJ ignored his teasing. “And I know a lot of brilliant people who can’t quite do what I do.”

  “Okay. We’ve established you’re brilliant. What’s the point here?”

  JJ narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “Luca Switzer is … the asshole’s a freaking genius.”

  Baz’s eyebrows dipped low. “I’m confused. You’re brilliant, but Luca’s a genius.”

  “Yes, damn it. And Brantley traded me in for an upgraded model.”

  Now Baz laughed, a sharp echo in the enormous room. “I seriously doubt that’s what happened. I think he’s just trying to figure out what’s goin’ on, and he doesn’t want to put that burden on you.”

  “I deserve that burden,” she argued, her tone that of a petulant, bitter child. “It’s mine to have if I want it.”

  Baz continued to stare at her, amusement glittering in his otherworldly eyes. “And I assume this means you’re gonna take it?”

  “Damn right I am.” JJ yanked the blanket off her shoulders, tossed it onto the bed as she strolled toward the door. “I need a computer.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was déjà vu.

  The first and only time Brantley had come to the governor’s mansion had been when Dante called at his mother’s request because Katrina Greenwood believed her daughter had been kidnapped.

  She’d been right.

  When William Dugan felt the Off the Books Task Force was getting too close to figuring him out, he’d resorted to drastic measures. Corinne had been taken right out of her apartment by a man who had a penchant for keeping young women, sometimes girls, against their will, brainwashing them into believing he was their husband, then murdering them when they were no longer of use.

  Katrina’s instincts had been spot on, and because of that, they’d managed to find Corinne as well as Lauren Tyler, a girl who’d gone missing from Coyote Ridge ten years earlier.