An Embarrassment of Monsters: A Dark Romantic Suspense Novel (Alace Sweets Book 3)

by MariaLisa deMora

  Another quick look over his shoulder reassured Owen the kids were asleep. Shiloh slumped far over in her booster seat while Kelly leaned on the door, forehead pressed against the glass, his mouth dropped open and emitting infrequent snores.

  “We’ll get there tomorrow, even if we decide to stop for the night.” He began by stating something they both knew. It was approximately twenty-six driving hours, barring any traffic delays from construction or accidents. They’d probably drive straight through, but had ample time if they didn’t. “There’s no strict timeline, though. My partner knows we’ll be there this week, but I didn’t detail our plans.” The “partner” bit was Alace’s decision; she hadn’t wanted the doctor to know her name until she’d had a chance to meet him. Owen understood and thought Doc probably did, too. Follow her gut has always been Alace’s go-to process.

  “I know.” Marchant’s nonchalant tone was maddening for reasons Owen couldn’t articulate.

  “I know you know, I’m just…” His ribs expanded with a deep breath. “They matter to me. My partner does. They’re married. Happily. To a highly intelligent Neanderthal I happen to like, too. So I want you to like them. I want to work with you like we’ve talked about. If we were still in Jersey, we could do what we want. But in their backyard, they’ve gotta like you, too.” The seat belt rubbed his neck as he shook his head. “I’m rambling.”

  Looking at his lap, Owen stared at his phone, perplexed. The light next to the camera was blinking. In sequence.

  Blink. Blink. Blink. Pause. Four blinks and a pause. Two blinks and a long flash and a pause. A long flash and a pause. A repeat of the two blinks and a long flash, then a pause, and a blink, flash flash, blink.

  S H U T U P

  In Morse code.

  “Are you fuckin’ kidding me right now?”

  Flash, blink pause, flash flash flash.

  N O

  Again, in Morse code.

  “What?” Marchant’s question rode over the information in Owen’s brain, but he ignored the man.

  “You want me to stop talking. About what? You? Want me to stop talking about you?”

  Flash, blink, flash flash. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

  Y E S

  “Oh my fucking God.”

  “What’s going on?” The tone of the question caught his attention, and Owen glared at Marchant, who was staring at him as if he’d grown a third head. Which he might as well have done, since there were apparently three adults in the vehicle, albeit one only electronically.

  “Nothing.” Staring down at the phone, Owen tried to figure out how to tell Alace to stop eavesdropping on the conversation. Squeezing his eyes closed, he wished for the subvocal microphone setup. With the earwig in place, he could have had an entire conversation with Alace without Marchant being any wiser. The phone vibrated, and he looked down to see the light blinking again. She spelled out, “Talk. Just not about me.”

  Owen lifted his chin and glared at the trees flashing by on the nearby hillside. The phone vibrated again, and he shook his head, denying her request. Another, longer vibration had his chin jerking around and down, turning his irritated glare back on the phone. Blinking, he spelled out his response to her, knowing she’d be able to decipher his intent.

  Blink blink close blink. Blink blink close. Close blink close blink. Close, blink, close. Close, blink, close close. Close close close. Blink blink close.

  F U C K Y O U

  He turned the phone over and removed the back, unseating the battery and putting it into one pocket. A quick nudge with the tool that came with the device slipped the SIM card from its slot, and he lay it loose in the battery compartment, closing the back of the phone. He watched the screen for a few breaths and then looked out the window again.

  Why the hell did this whole thing make me so angry? He’d known she had his phones bugged. She’d been upfront with him about it since the beginning of their relationship, and things had gotten even more real after they’d worked on the mission to save her man’s best friend. Something buzzed in the back seat, and Owen twisted around to dig through Kelly’s bag, honestly not surprised to find the culprit was the boy’s tablet.

  A video call from Unknown was waiting to be accepted.

  “My partner is resourceful.” He flashed the screen at Marchant and caught the man’s smirk in response. “Why are you grinning?”

  “They didn’t like it when you killed the phone, huh?” Thumping the back of the tablet with a heavy finger, Marchant laughed quietly. “Better answer the boss.”

  Pushing out as much irritation as he could alongside a big huff of air, Owen tapped the tablet’s screen. It took a moment to connect, and Owen had a second to wonder how it even had a connection, because neither of the tablets had data plans attached to them, dependent on Wi-Fi for access to the Internet. Alace. It always comes back to Alace. As the video resolved, he thumbed the volume down a notch, hoping to allow the kids to stay asleep as long as possible.

  Finally, the pixilation dissolved, and the whirling circle disappeared, leaving Alace’s unsmiling face in its place. He glared at her, noting she’d pulled on her ice queen mask most often used when she felt threatened. Best to basically jump in with both feet. “Your control of things is not being usurped. I’m not backing away from our agreement. On missions, I’m still going to want you in my head, want you to be my eyes, need to know you’ve got my back.” Her expression softened slightly, and the tiny micro-change told him volumes. Nail on the head. That was part of the problem, though. “Me wanting to have a moment where I’m not being listened to isn’t me telling you to stop trying to keep me safe. The problem is when your best tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. There were other ways for you to get what you needed.”

  He’d kept the tablet angled towards the window, away from Doc’s view, hand covering the glass where the reflection would show. Pay attention, Alace. This is me protecting you as best I can.

  If she didn’t speak, Doc wouldn’t know for certain even her sex. If she didn’t name herself, the man wouldn’t have a clue who Owen’s partner was. As if she could read his mind, Alace shook her head side to side, once. Left, right, center.

  “Darren Marchant, my name is Alace Sweets.” Owen cocked an eyebrow at her, and one corner of her lips twitched. She appeared to like knowing she had surprised him. “Turn the tablet, Owen, so he can see the boss.” He narrowed his eyes, and she released a tiny huff of air, nostrils flaring slightly. “The digital assistants are always listening. I’m just paying attention to what they’re hearing.”

  Well, one mystery solved. He was surprised she’d given him that much. Alace had always been one to hold tight to her secrets. He twisted the tablet, steadying it on one knee so he could see both Alace and Doc.

  Marchant lifted one hand laconically as he gave the digital version of Alace a nod. “Pleased.”

  “Same. You do good works.”

  Marchant frowned. “You mean work?”

  “No. I say what I mean. Works. The efforts you expended on behalf of those children in Thailand was remarkable. The fact you haven’t given up hope of returning shows a dangerous stubborn streak, but the works you’ve done both in the country here and outside of it all speak to the kind of man you are.” Alace’s lips closed, touching but not pressing, her unaffected mask in place. Owen could detect no stress points in what he could see, no furrowing of the brows, no tightening of the skin near her eyes or ears; her entire face appeared as relaxed as if she were in the middle of a meditation session. “I’m still unconvinced you can stomach what Owen and I do, but your care for his kids is remarkable. I’m pleased he had you in his pocket to call on when he needed someone to assist.”

  The pause in conversation next was uncomfortable, and Owen found himself wanting to fill the silence. A miniscule shake of her head held him quiet, waiting. Finally, eventually, Marchant took the bait, responding.

  “I’d like to think I’m morally aligned, especially where childre
n are concerned. They are what matters to me, always. I believe I find myself more flexible when it comes to what happens to the ones we’re fighting against.” Interesting how he’d already settled into the “we” territory. It had taken Owen a lot longer. He and Alace had worked together for months before the Worthington mission when things had come together for them to take the relationship farther and create the true partnership they now had. “I’d like to caution both of you, and Owen’s already heard this from me, but I don’t think I can take an active part in what he calls the missions. That’s not my skill set, and I think I’d be of much better use continuing to employ the talents I do have than trying to develop new ones. I’m an old dog, Alace Sweets. I don’t learn new tricks easily.”

  “But you’re saying you can be taught?” Alace’s lips pressed together, preventing a moue from developing. Tossup if it was in annoyance or humor. “Regardless of your response, I tend to agree with you. In these things, it is always much simpler to stick to what we do well. In my case, that’s morphing from my previous highly active role into a directed focus on a second primary skill, investigation and organization. What happened to your sister?”

  Owen blinked. Alace hadn’t changed inflection, hadn’t indicated she was going to ask a question, and when he glanced at Doc to find him frozen at the wheel, eyes unfocused and staring, he gawped.

  “Darren?” Alace’s rendering of his name seemed to snap the man out of it, and Owen saw the muscles in his jaw flex and dance under the skin, noticing a tiny triangle of scruff missed in his most recent shave.

  “No one knows.” Doc cleared his throat roughly, Adam’s apple bobbing deep in his throat with a hard swallow. “She disappeared years ago. I was barely out of school, had only recently started my first residency rotation.”

  “You’re pretty sure it was the rodeo serial killer, though, am I right?” Owen split his attention between Doc’s evident distress and Alace’s impassive interest. “The authorities never nailed down a strict timeline, but you knew she was attending to watch a friend compete.”

  “Where’s this going? And did you have to do it now? There’s a lot of miles yet between us and you, and if we’re going to be there anyway, can’t this wait?” Doc’s hand lifted from the steering wheel, and he dashed his fingers underneath one eye, annoyance clear on his expression. At least one of my partners is easy to read.

  “I know a guy who knows a guy. I can ask around, see what I can find. Why did you leave the Ark-La-Tex area?”

  Doc’s head jolted as if he’d taken a hit. Eyes squinting in apparent pain, he didn’t answer, that muscle jumping in his jaw again.

  “You keep it up and I’ll use your middle name.” Owen stared at the camera, willing Alace to feel his irritation. “I’ll turn off every electronic in the car, and unless you actively bugged the car, you’ll be without even a tracking signal to know where we are. We could turn up in your driveway at any moment, and you wouldn’t know until I was hammering on your door.” A change in her expression gave it away, and he groaned. “Oh, Jesus. You did. You bugged the car.” He turned the tablet to face him, lowering his brow and glaring at her. “Jesus, Alace.”

  “Not the way you’re thinking. Just something for a location with a mechanical signal. So I’ll know if you’re broken down or simply stopping for food. Turn it back around, please. I need to apologize.”

  “Doc, you okay if she apologizes to you right now?” Without shifting the tablet, he looked towards the man in the driver seat, noting the white knuckles and tense line of his shoulders. She genuinely shook him with those questions. “Because if you aren’t, I’ll make her wait and do it in person.”

  “Yeah. It’s fine.” His fingers curled around the wheel and tightened, then slipped back and relaxed. Curled around and tightened. “Whatever.”

  “You get one chance.” Owen held up his index finger and pointed it at the camera. “Don’t screw this up.” Tablet turned, he stared at Alace, watching as she softened her posture, gentling her expression. A show, or real? Owen guessed it didn’t matter, as long as Doc believed.

  “I apologize, Darren—Doc. I was out of line, and you have no reason to trust me yet, so you wouldn’t know I’ll always have your best interests at heart. Just as I do with Owen. My friends—and I don’t have many of them, so they’re precious to me—come first. I didn’t mind my mouth, and I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Doc didn’t turn and look, keeping his gaze aimed out the windshield at the lane ahead of them. “Yes, she disappeared at a rodeo. Yes, I believe that bastard killed my little sister. Believe, but couldn’t prove it. I got out of there and headed to Boston, soon as I could. Then Boston wasn’t far enough, so I took a mission trip. Thailand happened, and it felt so different to what I’d done before, I stayed. For as long as they’d let me, I stayed. I think she’s in the woods somewhere between Tulsa and Siloam Springs. That’s where a bunch of the competitors were headed next. I stayed away because I never found her. I stayed away because I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t save her.”

  “Few things hurt more than losing those we love.” Owen’s voice cracked, and he couldn’t find it inside himself to be embarrassed. “Makes things heavy. Then places get heavy. Sometimes staying away isn’t about feeling like you’ve failed, but because of self-preservation. If a place, a memory is heavy enough, it can become life-threatening.” The memory of cold metal in his mouth, the cool wood of a stock against his bare sole, pressed in, circling around him until all he could feel was the curve of the trigger against the pad of his toe.

  “Owen.” He opened his eyes and looked at Doc, not surprised to see tears wetting his cheeks. “You’re mourning someone very special, and I can only imagine the kind of pain that loss left behind, but you didn’t fail them. If I didn’t fail my sister, then you can’t assign yourself the same kind of guilt you’re denying me.”

  “Heavy.” His breaths came short and staccato, building like a steam engine making headway pulling loaded cars. “Shit always gets heavy until it’s easy to get lost in the memory, overwhelmed by the might-have-beens.”

  “Heavy,” Doc agreed and reached over to pat Owen’s thigh. The light pressure was like a palate cleanser, wiping away the remaining physical reactions to the memories. “Good thing we’ve got each other.”

  “Yeah, good thing,” he echoed, ignoring the flare of reaction he had to the man’s touch. He glanced at the tablet, unsurprised to find Alace’s head tilted just the slightest amount, a loud interrogatory from her.

  Nope. Not going there.

  Chapter Eight

  Alace

  She nodded at Owen and disconnected the video call, sitting back in her chair with a sigh of relief. “Oh.” She scrubbed a hand across her cheek and jaw, wrapped fingers around the back of her neck, and pulled hard, kneading the muscles there.

  “I could have told you he’d be pissed off.” At Eric’s statement, Alace squeezed her eyes closed tightly, blocking out the light. The sound of the baby fussing had her opening them right back up, turning to look at where he stood in the doorway holding Lila. “Just sayin’, Alace. He had a point.”

  “Did you listen in on the whole conversation?” His lips curled down as he nodded. “Then you heard me apologize.”

  “I heard you tell the doctor you were sorry for bugging his car. Not tell Owen you were sorry for listening in on his private conversations.” With a headshake, he scattered her arguments. “No, Alace, you know I’m right. I suspect you’ll have some fence-mending to do with Owen.”

  Lila fussed again, a noisy mewling cry that had threads of pain lacing through Alace’s breasts as her milk drew down. Wordlessly, she held her arms out, and Eric tipped his head to the rocking chair, kept in the bedroom instead of the nursery they still weren’t using, Lila sleeping in her bassinette next to the bed each night. Alace glanced at the computer and sighed. The dot representing Owen’s phone had reappeared, indicating he’d reassembled the device and turned it on. She grabbed her p
hone and sent a text, then leaned closer to the desk, reaching for the mouse. A few clicks later, the other location indicators disappeared, and she opened a folder to select a file, using a keystroke combination to do a hard delete.

  “What’d you tell him?” Eric bent and placed Lila in her arms as she got comfortable in the rocking chair. Shirt and bra swept to the side, she settled her daughter against her chest, Lila latching on, causing those threads of pain to peak and then dim to a satisfying burn of warmth.

  “That I’d stop listening in and would only keep the tracker on in his phone to show me where he is.” Eric crouched in front of her and edged closer to press a kiss to Lila’s cheek. His close proximity to her, to their daughter, to their child nursing at her breast, caused an unexpected flood of arousal through her, and Alace stroked along his cheek, carding her fingers through his hair. She clenched down and winced, her body reminding her again why the six-week rule was in effect. “I like how much he’s invested in those kids. And adding a doctor to our team is smart in a lot of ways.”

  “You gave him your name. Are you so sure of him?” Eric reached up and trapped her hand against the side of his head, covering and gripping tightly. “Sure enough to risk that?”

  “Everything I’ve found out about him underscores the fact he’s a decent guy who doesn’t tolerate bad behavior where it impacts kids. After hearing about his little sister, I think I’ve got a handle on who he honestly is deep down. He might not think he’s much like me and Owen, and he’d be right—mostly. But in another way, he unquestionably is. He has channeled his hatred of those who do wrong into helping the survivors. Me and Owen, we’re all about the bad guys. Even at the last warehouse gig, neither one of us followed the kids into the system. But we’ll gladly track down the bad guys without mercy. That’s who we are. He’s…” She shook her head, rejecting the term which naturally came to mind, knowing Eric would find the connotation offensive. “Different.”