Her Best Friend's Keeper (Finley Creek Book 1)

by Calle J. Brookes

He had tried his father’s personal assistant, but she hadn’t heard from his father either. And she was worried. He knew she cared about his father—more than just cared, if Houghton was honest. She’d loved his father for two decades now.

  Not that his father ever returned that affection.

  If Josephine was worried, there was probably something going on, wasn’t there?

  He’d filled out a police report that morning with the Texas State Police. And he’d put out private feelers with his own people, himself.

  He stood when three men entered his office.

  “Houghton Barratt?” a tall dark-haired man asked.

  “Yes. I understand you’re here about my father. Have you found him yet?” Houghton had years of experience at keeping his demeanor under control. To not let how he felt about anything show. It served him well now. The men introduced themselves quickly. FBI and TSP Major Crimes? What was going on here?

  Commander McKellen shook his head. “No. We haven’t. Mr. Barratt, have you been following the news reports about the missing Texas Ranger?”

  “And the autistic girl? I haven’t been following it, but I’ve seen some. What does that have to do with me?” He was confused. How did that have to do with the missing person’s report? His father?

  “That’s what brought us here, today,” the man from the FBI said.

  “Can someone tell me what’s going on? Is my father alive?” He refused to feel fear until he had the information he needed. It was just Houghton’s way. His father was his only immediate relative left. And the two of them had always been close. They were family—a small one, but a family nonetheless. The two dozen cousins he had spread over Texas were family, but his father was the center of his world.

  At least until he found the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  “Mr. Barratt, your father’s been named a person of interest in the kidnapping and assault of Brynna Beck and Chance Marshall. Do you know where he is?” the head of Major Crimes asked.

  “No, I do not. And I’ll tell you this—you’re wrong. My father didn’t hurt anyone. And if you have any more questions, you’ll need to speak with the Barratt family attorneys. We employ the law firm located on the first floor of this building; my cousin Alex is on retainer.” Houghton wasn’t the type of man to leap to conclusions or make rash decisions. His first priority was finding his father. No matter what.

  “Brynna Beck identified your father as one of the men who assaulted her. She’s in the hospital,” Agent Lorcan said. “We need to find him. To figure this out. It’ll be easier for him, with less damage, if he comes forward. You need to make that clear to him.”

  “Agent Lorcan, if I knew where he was, I wouldn’t have filed a missing person’s report hours ago—would I?” Not a damned bit of what they said made any sense. His father wouldn’t attack some woman, not for anything. His dad had raised Houghton to believe in helping your neighbor, not hurting them.

  Why would this woman lie about his father?

  Was she just another crazy out there? A gold-digger? Perhaps a former lover? Some of his father’s past liaisons had turned spiteful. Or greedy. But this was the first time the FBI had ever ended up involved. Something was definitely going on, wasn’t it?

  What the hell had his father gotten involved in?

  “Mr. Barratt, we understand that this can be upsetting to you. But we need to find him before someone else does,” McKellen said.

  “Like I said, our attorneys are on the first floor.” Houghton had some research to do. He was going to find out everything he could about a woman named Brynna Beck. Everything.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE.

  ***

  MEL stayed with Brynna at the hospital practically the whole day. Gabby didn’t know if that was because Mel didn’t trust the guard detail Elliot had on Brynna around the clock or because she was just as frightened as Gabby was.

  Probably the latter.

  Elliot had to go back to work after he took Gabby to see Brynna that first day, and she went with him on the second morning. She’d not wanted to leave her friend, but someone had to cover their department. Benny needed the help and it was going to have to be her. He’d given her an extra day with Brynna, anyway.

  No matter how much she didn’t want to leave Brynna. How afraid she was. Life didn’t get to stop when bad things happened. You just had to keep going.

  Gabby knew that for the truth, didn’t she? Elliot was nervous of leaving her downstairs. Benny had promised to take care of Gabby.

  She appreciated it. But she couldn’t let fear keep her from doing her job, or living or life, or anything like that.

  She could do this. She had to learn to take care of herself.

  It seemed like everyone wanted to stop by and see how Brynna was. Gabby spent most of her work day fielding questions.

  There had only been a few snide comments about her and Elliot. She thought she handled them well. All she’d admitted to was that her apartment had been vandalized and was a possible target for whomever had attacked Brynna and left it at that and Elliot—a friend she’d had since childhood—had offered her his spare room until they caught the vandals, and got the mess cleaned up.

  Most people seemed to think that because she was with Elliot, and Brynna had disappeared with his brother, that it had something to do with the Marshall murders.

  She couldn’t lie about that. It did have something to do with the Marshall murders.

  She just couldn’t figure out what. Brynna would have to help figure out that part.

  After her shift was over, she waited for Elliot in the reception area. He had ordered an officer to fetch his car, and they waited at the front entrance. Elliot kept her just inside the doors, where she was moderately safer.

  He was taking the idea of a threat to them all very seriously. Gabby was just trying to appear like she could handle it.

  “The house or the hospital first?” he asked after they were both in the SUV she recognized as his.

  There was no real question was there? “Brynna. I need to see that she’s ok. And I think we need to talk to her about the video. I didn’t want to ask this morning. She was too upset. But there was something on it. She’ll tell you, though. Maybe it will give us a place to start.”

  “Major Crimes interviewed Handley Barratt’s son this afternoon.”

  “What did they learn?”

  Elliot shook his head. “Not much. Guy said his father has been missing for more than a week. He’s slick and damned evasive, according to Lorcan. He’s not going to be much help.”

  “Do you think he’s involved?”

  “I don’t know. He was hiding something, planning something. McKellen and Lorcan both agreed on that. I’d bet my non-existent billions on it.”

  She shivered. “How are we going to figure this out, Elliot? I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here. At all. I have the memory card that Brynna’s sister gave me. But I didn’t want to run it through the TSP system.”

  “Can you run what’s on the zip drive at the hospital? Safely?”

  “I don’t know. Safer than anywhere else, I think, with a few tweaks to the hospital’s Wi-Fi for security purposes. And we can ask her what she found. But…” She looked out the window at everything rushing by. “But I don’t want to look at that video again.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “We’re going to have to, though, aren’t we?”

  CHAPTER FIFTY.

  ***

  THEY picked up his brother in the lobby. Chance had split his time between prowling the hall outside the Computer Forensics department and the evidence room located one floor up. Gabby knew he was going through everything he could find on the murder of his family. Hopefully there would be something to connect his father with Handley Barratt. Something to at least give them direction.

  From the stormy expression on his face, his search had turned up nothing.

  Chance drove, even though it was Elliot’s SUV. No
one spoke much; Chance’s obvious frustration kept Gabby’s mouth shut for once. Elliot looked at his brother for a long time before saying anything. “We need to talk to Brynna about what she found on that laptop.”

  Chance nodded. “She wouldn’t tell me much. Said she had to talk to her boss first, since it was evidence. Damned stubborn female.”

  “She’s a stickler for protocol. She never wants a case to get tossed because of something she did. We both are that way. We are good at our jobs,” Gabby said in her friend’s defense.

  Chance looked at her in the mirror. “I know. I gave up pushing her after the first twelve hours of her saying nothing about it.”

  “But she’ll tell Elliot.”

  “That’s why I’m coming along for this.”

  “Have you been to see her since she woke up?” Gabby asked softly. How did this man feel about her best friend?

  His hands tightened on the wheel. “No. I’ve been busy.”

  “I see.” She didn’t. Not really. Whatever they’d promised each other in that storm shelter, Brynna felt for him. Deeply. The least he could do was be there for her when she was in the hospital. She liked Chance, but…Brynna was her best friend. First loyalty was to her. “Mel called and said she’s doing ok. Even though she’s absolutely terrified of hospitals and germs. They’re trying to keep her as distracted as possible. But she’s starting to fight them, wanting to go home. Moving around more than she should. If she gets really worked up, they’re afraid she’ll pull out the stitches. Mel said she already popped two.”

  “She’s staying in the hospital until they say she’s better. Even if I have to tie her to the damned bed.” Chance’s words came out so low Gabby could barely hear him. Almost as if he was talking to himself. But if they’d made no promises to each other, why did he seem to care so much?

  “Mel and her dad can handle her, though. They’ve been doing it her whole life. Brynna has people who love her and will get her through this.” She didn’t like to see him hurting, either. And Gabby strongly suspected he was. Why? Did he care that much about Brynna, too? If he did, why wasn’t he with her right now?

  Chance Marshall was one man she was never going to understand all the way. Rather like his brother.

  She didn’t think she would ever fully understand Elliot.

  But…she and Elliot hadn’t made any more promises to each other than Brynna and Chance had, had they? Maybe once this thing with the Marshall murders was finished and life got back to somewhat normal, she and Elliot would find they didn’t have anything real between them, either? Maybe it would be her crying her heart out for a Marshall man?

  Maybe this was just an interlude in time, with all their emotions churning between them? Maybe the sex had been inevitable? But doomed to not be repeated long term?

  How did she feel about that? Damn it—what had they both done to themselves? Why hadn’t these questions hit her before now?

  Gabby sat back against the seat and thought about that for the remainder of the short drive between the Finley Creek TSP and the Finley General Hospital. She had no more answers for herself than she did for Brynna.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE.

  ***

  ELLIOT was the first in the room, and was in time to see how Brynna’s eyes flared and filled with love the moment his idiot brother walked in right behind him. Then a shutter came down and she looked away. When she looked back at them, no hint of how she felt was on her face. The relief at seeing Gabby was there, though.

  “Gabs.”

  “Hey, Bryn. I hear you’re giving Jilly and the rest of the nurses gray hair.”

  “Hardly. I’m being on my best behavior. This is my new friend, Handley Bear here. From Jarrod.” Brynna sat the stuffed animal beside her on the bed. “I even ate the yellow Jell-O Jilly forced on me.”

  “Yellow is not going to poison you, Bryn.” Mel said from the corner of the room where she sat with a notebook. “I promise. And are you really going to name that damned thing that? Rather morbid, don’t you think?”

  “Yellow tastes like lemon. Lemon as in Lysol. Why would I eat that?” Brynna grimaced, then shot her older sister a look filled with sisterly malice. “And yes. That is the bear’s name.”

  Mel laughed and looked at Gabby and the two men. “She’s being even more Brynna than usual today. I think she’s bored.”

  “Mel wouldn’t give me a laptop.” Brynna’s hostility at that was hard to miss.

  “You needed to rest,” her sister said. “Not work—of any kind.”

  “But…they took my laptop—sorry, Gabs, it was yours—and I’ve not been on a computer in days.”

  “Tough, toots.”

  “Gabby. Make her see reason. Please, I’m going crazy here!”

  “No way. I’m too smart to get between the two of you when you start bickering.”

  Two redheads turned toward Gabby and glared out of nearly identical eyes. “We do not bicker,” they said in unison.

  Gabby giggled and Elliot smiled to hear such a carefree sound from her after the last week. “You do, too. Remember the time you got so mad at each other Jilly dumped a gallon of Gatorade on both of your heads to shut you up?”

  “Rather hard to forget.” Mel said.

  Brynna shuddered. “Yellow Gatorade. It was horrible.”

  Mel turned toward the two men. “Brynna screamed and screamed and screamed. It took Jilly, Gabby, and me and a water hose to get her calmed down before someone called in a noise disturbance. Another noise disturbance. Our house has a bit of a reputation on our block.”

  “I still haven’t forgiven you three for that hose. It was freezing.”

  “Hey, at least it was summer and we were outside.” Mel reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand. Brynna turned hers palm up and squeezed back.

  “It scared off Jilly’s boyfriend, though. Apparently he thought she was the normal one of us and me the crazy one. Until she dumped the drink on us and started yelling. Boy, did he learn. He knocked over the mailbox when he drove off like that.” Brynna pulled her hand away from her sister. “I’m never going to like yellow, though.”

  “Well, I brought you a present, Bryn.” Gabby pulled her bag up on the bed near her friend’s feet. “And we all know you didn’t like the guy and were trying to scare him off with that whole crazy autistic fit act. I grabbed this out of my closet and took it to Elliot’s with me after the break-in. It’s my old one, but…I backed everything up to it after we made that breakthrough three months ago. It doesn’t have our recent changes yet. But I have this, and I have your regular one. I think we can figure out what was lost from my laptop and from Carrie.”

  Brynna practically squealed with delight. “Finally! Someone here who understands me. Give. Give. Give.”

  Mel sighed and made a face at Gabby. “Enabler. I had a bet going with Jilly and Carrie about how long we could keep her fingers off a keyboard.”

  “So who won?”

  “Carrie, of course. She predicted twenty-four hours from time of admittance. Jilly had her at a full week—she’s the family optimist, after all. I was hoping she’d hold out until tomorrow. I had a hundred riding on it.”

  Brynna sighed as she booted up the laptop. “See how they treat me? My very own sisters. I think I’m going to move up to St. Louis with Carrie. Apparently she understands me.”

  “Can we get down to business here?” Chance asked. Elliot looked at his brother in surprise. All he done since walking in to the room was try not to look like he was staring at the redhead on the hospital bed. And failing miserably.

  The glint of humor in Brynna’s eyes and her happiness over the laptop faded quickly. Elliot wanted to kick his idiot brother for his careless words.

  Brynna wouldn’t even look at Chance, would she? Elliot hoped the two of them figured out what was between them before something happened and they lost each other forever.

  Gabby shifted in the chair she’d pulled up next to the bed, bumping the hand he hadn’t realized
he’d placed on her shoulder. When had that happened? Was he so drawn to her that he had to touch her, even when he wasn’t aware of it?

  He wasn’t alone. He had Gabby now, didn’t he? But for how long? How did he know that she wouldn’t say thanks for the protection and then go her own way?

  Wasn’t that what he was expecting? Or did he want something more with her? Something more long-term, permanent?

  “So what are you three doing here?” Mel asked, bluntly. “What’s happening?”

  “We need to know what Brynna found on that video that sent her heading back to Texas so quickly.” Chance moved between Gabby’s chair and the top of the bed. He was less than a foot from where Brynna rested, yet he held his body completely rigid.

  Was his brother afraid he’d touch the girl and betray just exactly how he felt for her?

  Elliot had news for his brother, if he didn’t already know it. Chance’s feelings were as plain as day for him to see.

  Or maybe it was because Elliot was inundated with his own similar emotions where Gabby was concerned.

  Brynna shivered and looked over at Gabby. “Gabs? Do you want to be here while I tell them? Show them? Show them?”

  Gabby pulled in a deep breath. “Do I want to be here? Heck no. But it’s no more painful for me than it is for Elliot or Chance. If—if what happened that night has caused all of this. Has gotten you hurt, too, then I’ll be the first one to watch it. A million times over if I have to. I have lost one best friend because of these people—” Gabby’s breath hiccupped. “I can’t lose another.”

  Brynna was quiet for a moment. “I’m ok, Gabs. I promise. I promise. I am ok. So are you. So is Mel. We are all ok now.”

  “Then we can do this,” Mel said as she shifted her own chair closer to the bed. She leaned toward her sister as Gabby leaned toward Brynna from the opposite side. These three women were connected in that moment, unintentionally shutting him and Chance out. “We’ll do it together.”