“Why not fly?”
“Have you taken a look outside lately? I doubt any planes will be going up anytime soon.”
The thunder gave truth to his brother’s words. The storms had rolled in an hour after lunch with Gabby, and were predicted to be bad for a good third of the country. “Just be careful. I need you here.”
“I know. I get you. I’m not happy about it, either. But this woman kidnapped—she’s not any older than Gabby, El. Big blue eyes just like her. Her life was destroyed by what happened. I promised her I’d get the sonofabitch. I need to keep that promise.”
Elliot understood. He didn’t have to like it, but he understood. “Go. I have the entire TSP at my disposal. I’ll handle this thing with Gabby. Grand juries are nothing to ignore. Stay safe.”
“Watch your back. And Gabby’s. I feel a little itchy—something is going to happen. And soon.”
Elliot felt the same damned itch—and now his main backup was leaving for who knew how long. A lot could happen in a day or two, and they both knew it.
***
GABBY was completely exhausted when Elliot got her back to the house. “We’ll grab dinner, Gabby. Then you can rest.”
“I didn’t sleep very well.” She sighed as she said it, then bent down to pick up her cat. “I kept having nightmares.”
“You’re safe here.”
“I know. I’m not worried, Elliot. Well, no more than usual. I can help with dinner.”
“That would be appreciated.”
So stilted, so formal. Was he regretting his offer for her to stay? Gabby would be the first to admit she wasn’t very good at figuring out men and what motivated them. Not at all. “I should probably go home soon.”
He looked at her, obviously startled. He shook his head. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Give me a few more days to see if I can figure out who’s behind the break-in.”
Gabby wanted to stay right there where she was—how could she not? The thought of going back to her apartment scared her. She wasn’t too proud to admit that. “People are talking about us. I tried to explain what happened, that you feel big-brotherly toward me, but I don’t think they believed me.”
“I don’t care about gossip, sweetheart.”
Gabby sat on his couch and the cat curled up on her lap. She looked over at him. Elliot wore a dark blue suit that made his shoulders look twice as broad. Made him look strong and important and one of those men who women were just drawn to. That was probably behind some of the looks and questions, wasn’t it? The way people had stared after they’d shared a lunch in his office. “I don’t like being the center of gossip, though.”
“Gabby, I wasn’t thinking about gossip when I took you home with me. I was thinking that I couldn’t stand the thought of someone getting close enough to hurt you. And they’d already proven once that they could get past your building’s security.” He knelt down in front of her, his hands on either side of her knees. Gabby looked into his green eyes and her fingers itched to reach up and touch him. She settled for putting one hand on his shoulder and the other on his chest. Elliot’s chest had just gotten better with age, hadn’t it? “And despite what I didn’t say last night with my idiot brother, my feelings for you are anything but brotherly.”
“Really?” Gabby’s eyes widened and she knew she gawked at him like an idiot.
He smiled. “Yes, really. Stay here with me, sweetheart. Just for a few more days. Until Callum and Evers have a chance to figure out who it was. Whether there is any more danger. Screw the gossip-mongers. Only you and I need to worry about what’s happening between us. No one else.”
“I don’t want you to lose your job.”
“I won’t. No matter what happens. And if I do, so what? I won’t lie and say it won’t hurt, but I’ve had other offers. Even the FBI, if I choose to. Let me keep you safe.”
She nodded, unsure of what else to say. He smiled, then leaned forward, a look of intent in his eyes that she recognized.
His lips were on hers and it was nothing like the kiss he’d given her that morning in front of his brother.
After setting her mouth and entire body on fire, he pulled away. “You make a man forget how to breathe, Gabby. You should come with a warning label. I think we need to focus on dinner. Do you like Italian?”
She nodded. It was official, he’d kissed her speechless, hadn’t he?
So what was she supposed to do about it?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.
***
THE phone rang and rang and rang. Finally an angry voice answered. Nausea rose in his throat but he forced the words out. “We have a problem. One of my techs, Kevin Beck’s daughter—she’s been digging.”
And he couldn’t call her off. That would just bring unwanted attention his way.
“Deal with her.”
“I can’t. She’s too close to me. Someone will look into anything that happens to her.” And the thought of anything hurting that sweet little Brynna maddened him. “I—I don’t want the girl hurt.”
“You won’t have a choice. If she’s anything like her father—”
“Her friend is going around with Elliot Marshall.” He had told no one about Gabby or her apartment. He figured he could handle her and any minimal threat she’d presented. But Brynna with a computer and that video—she was far more threatening at the moment. “If anything happens right now he’ll be all over it.”
“We should have found him and his brother ten years ago and eliminated any problem from that quarter.”
He knew arguing was useless. If the man on the other end of the call thought it had to be done, he’d wipe the entire Beck family off of the map. And this time he wouldn’t leave witnesses or family still alive. Kevin Beck and every daughter he had would be targeted and removed quickly. Even the man’s granddaughter in St. Louis. Because he had done it before.
He sickened Benny.
“Where is she?”
Benny bowed his head and said a quick prayer for his damned soul. “Brynna’s on her way to St. Louis. She has a copy of the original video from the Marshall incident.” He gave the rest of what he knew just as the familiar sound of his middle daughter’s little car—he needed to replace the fan belt soon—pulled into his drive.
Alyssia’s ‘Hi Dad!’ and smile reminded him of what was ultimately important.
If Brynna threatened the security he’d always provided for his family, then he had to stop her, didn’t he?
No matter how much it hurt him.
He made it through the rest of the evening but excused himself to the garage he’d converted into a computer lab twenty years earlier. He’d been dedicated to his field for his entire career. He’d taken it seriously long before the money was there to fund the lab that was now his solace.
He booted up his laptop and hit a few buttons. He didn’t know why he did it. There wasn’t much point in it any longer, was there?
Brynna’s laptop sat next to him. He was supposed to be upgrading it, adding protection. Brynna was so frightened of someone spying on her digitally. She trusted him to keep her safe.
She trusted him.
Benny closed his eyes as light brown eyes and a slightly crooked smile flashed into his mind. He opened Brynna’s laptop and waited until the familiar wallpaper popped. Brynna, Gabby, and Melody smiled back at him. They looked young, sweet, and beautiful.
Trusting.
Once again, he’d betrayed that trust like the monster he was.
Benny grabbed his laptop and threw it against the wall. He watched it shatter.
He collapsed on the floor. And wept.
For his Brynna.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.
***
HE hated grand juries, but Chance made it through. The sick sonofabitch who’d hurt his own niece because he could was going down. It was just a matter of time. The ADA was damned good at what he did, and Chance respected how hard the guy was working.
There were a few lawyers—more th
an a few—that he could say the exact opposite. He was tired from the drive up; the storm had added an additional two hours to his drive time, and testifying always pissed him off some.
He wasn’t looking forward to driving back to Finley Creek, but he was itching to get back to his brother. Something was stirring overhead and it wasn’t the blanket of storms covering pretty much all of Tornado Alley. It was more than that.
He stepped out of the courthouse and headed to Coby’s deli three blocks up and two over. He was starved, and his testimony had lasted until almost five. He’d called a contact of his in the St. Louis field office and set up a meeting with an agent who’d worked with Art Kendall back on his family’s case. He wanted to make this trip as useful as possible. Then maybe he wouldn’t feel so damned guilty for leaving his brother in the lurch.
Elliot was taking this threat to Gabby seriously. Chance wasn’t entirely convinced the apartment was related to what happened ten years ago. But he could see it making sense. As deeply as his brother felt for the girl, he could also understand Elliot’s hovering.
Gabby remained a lynchpin for a lot of the case, still. If someone wanted to make sure nothing else was found, taking her—and him and his brother—out would be one way to do it. If they did it in a way that didn’t draw suspicion.
All they had to do was make it out that Gabby had pissed someone off in her work with the TSP or make it out that Elliot had—and they could take them all out. Even Chance, if he was there with them when it happened. It would be just another chapter in the Marshall Murder saga. Elliot and Gabby being together just made targeting them all that much easier.
Collateral damage. Chance was convinced fully that that was what Sara, Slade, and his mother had been.
Collateral for his father’s job.
He just hoped Elliot got that. There was a blonde bundle of collateral counting on his brother to keep her safe.
His brother must have balls of steel. Chance knew he’d never put himself in such a position. Elliot was different, though. Elliot was the optimist of their little family. Damn it, he hoped his brother and Gabby figured things out between them soon. They both were entitled to some happiness now. Didn’t the damned fates realize they deserved that?
He ate, idly watching the crowd exit the FBI buildings just down the street from Coby’s. They look just like he’d expect of a bunch of feebs.
Chance had two hours before he had to meet his contact.
He hadn’t told Elliot, but he had a line on a guy who’d heard rumors of a corrupt asshole—possibly in the Texas governor’s office.
Chance doubted it was Gov. Marcus Deane. His cousin was a politician to the core—but not a crooked one. At least he didn’t think so. Nothing would surprise him anymore, though. Not anymore.
He grabbed his bag and left a hefty tip on the table for the waitress—she was cute, and good at her job, so he was more than generous—and headed out. His contact worked just across the street from the fancy building with the words PAVAD looming over the entrance.
He snorted. Everyone had heard of PAVAD, hadn’t they? Chance admitted to a sense of professional curiosity, but hell, PAVAD—all traditional law enforcement agencies—were no longer the path for him.
Chance liked it that way. He liked the freedom of the life he had built. No sense in changing what wasn’t broken.
His meeting with the feeb went well; it wasn’t as informative as he’d have liked—but it was a start. He had a few lines of inquiry to check out that he hadn’t had before.
Rain poured overhead as he made his way across the parking garage shared between the PAVAD: FBI and St. Louis Field Office buildings. He’d had to get a visitor pass and practically give a blood and urine and DNA sample before he’d been allowed in the lower level just to park.
The rain and thunder was magnified in the concrete structure and made it nearly impossible for him to hear anything.
“Mr. Marshall?”
He almost missed her words. But he sensed her. Chance turned toward the woman who’d come up behind him. He hadn’t carried a weapon into the FBI offices—that would be kind of stupid of him—but his first instinct was to go for the gun now locked in the glove compartment of his rental.
The girl next to his rental car didn’t look like much of a threat—but that didn’t mean shit, did it?
He studied her—five-foot-eight or so, one hundred twenty pounds. Red hair. He’d have remembered the red hair if they’d met before. It was so…carrot. Soft looking, long, shiny—but definitely carrot.
He couldn’t see her eyes; she had them covered with big sunglasses. In an enclosed parking garage. How did she see with those things on? Was she trying to hide herself behind them? Deliberately?
“Are you Chance Marshall? I think you are. You look just like Elliot does. Like your dad did before. Except your hair is a lot darker.”
“Who the hell are you?” It was the mention of his father that threw him off. She would have been a young kid back when his father was alive. Was this woman even twenty-one? She didn’t look it.
“You probably won’t remember me. You dumped pancake batter on my head when I was six and you were sixteen, I think. Your mom made you wash my hair. I screamed at you then. Do you remember me? I’m one of Kevin Beck’s daughters. And I need you to take me home with you. Now. Tonight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.
***
THE next evening, Elliot had one major concern—how long could he keep his hands off his houseguest? She’d brushed against him when they’d been making dinner together, and Elliot still couldn’t get the scent of warm woman and flowers out of his head, out of his lungs.
Gabby didn’t seem aware of the impact she was having on him, not at all. Was she completely innocent of the effect she had a man? On him? He’d had a hell of a difficult time stopping when he’d kissed her the night before. His hands had trembled and every instinct he had was shouting at him to scoop her up and keep her in his bed for as long as it took for her to realize just what he was feeling—and where she belonged.
He’d never felt like such a caveman with a woman before. So why her?
Elliot had known he was giving in from the moment he’d kissed her in his kitchen, four feet from his damned brother.
Elliot had thought about her almost every minute they’d been apart at the TSP. He’d wondered, and he’d worried.
They hadn’t been able to eat lunch together, but Journey had offered to spend her own lunch break with Gabby. He’d appreciated it.
When six o’clock had rolled around he’d made his way down to the CF lab and waited while she finished her end of shift routine.
Elliot had felt like a damned high schooler waiting for his freshman girlfriend to get out of gym class or something. The sly looks sent his way when people thought he wasn’t looking didn’t help.
Gabby had looked up at him when he’d walked in with sweetness and relief in her big blue eyes. Elliot had felt the worry slip away right there.
He didn’t doubt that every damned person who worked in the Finley Creek TSP knew exactly where Gabby Kendall was spending the night. He knew the kind of speculation that was on their minds. But what was he going to do about it? She hadn’t said anything about it yet but he suspected she’d bear the brunt of it. No matter what he said or did—she was younger, lower on the totem pole, and with far less power than he had. How was he supposed to protect her?
He looked at her where she sat, tapping on her tablet, messaging one of her friends. She actually wasn’t fidgeting as much as she had earlier, and he took the moment to study her. Her hair wasn’t pulled up or braided; it waved over her shoulders and reached almost to her waist. Soft and beautiful and just tempting him to bury his fingers in the gold and pull her to him. He’d spent most of the evening before in his bed, thinking of doing just that. He couldn’t recall ever wanting a woman more. He’d pull her toward him and lean down…
To taste the soft pink bottom lip she was chewing on wit
h his tongue. He’d start with that, then guide her back on the couch and take it from there.
She must have felt him staring. Gabby looked up at him from the bluest eyes he had ever seen. The glasses she wore made them look even bigger. Bluer. She wet her lips. “Elliot? What’s wrong? You’re kind of staring.”
Wrong? Nothing was wrong, except he was sitting there thinking about Gabby in a way she probably wouldn’t like. And what would come of it, anyway? He wouldn’t be offering any woman a future anytime soon. Even if he was so inclined.
His dad had practically lived for every breath his mother had taken. Once, Elliot had liked that. Had respected his father for the love he’d had for Elliot’s mother.
But…letting a woman into your heart like that and then possibly losing that woman? Elliot had lost so many people he loved already. He flat out didn’t want to love a woman. Even Gabby. Especially Gabby.
He hadn’t been a celibate over the last decade, but the affairs he’d had had been with women who were as focused on their careers as he was, and who hadn’t wanted anything permanent, either.
One look at Gabby and a smart man knew she was the permanent kind. And he should stay far, far away. At least…keep the part of him that wanted to strip her naked and push her back on the soft couch and show her how much he wanted her as far away from her as he could. For his own sanity, at least.
“Elliot? Are you ok?” She reached a hand out toward him—a soft feminine hand that he wanted to touch. Needed to. He wrapped his hand around hers. It was the need he felt for her that did it. Made the ultimate choice for him.
Her Best Friend's Keeper (Finley Creek Book 1) Page 11
