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

by Calle J. Brookes

  “Thirty-five years is asking a lot, El.”

  “Focus on anything connected to Bennett Russell. There’s something there. And someone needs to find it.”

  “You know I’ve got your back. But keep your ass safe, too. And that pretty girl of yours. Bravest woman I’ve met in a long time. Well, one of the two, anyway. Too bad you saw her first. And Chance her best friend. Still, there’s always one of the sisters. Congrats, man. You’re a lucky bastard.”

  “Thanks. I just want to get this cloud over our heads gone, so that we can focus on what we need to do next. I’m never letting her go again.”

  “Can’t say I blame you.” Erickson paused for a moment. “So shouldn’t you get your ass in there with her? We both know time is fleeting. Screw this shit, let her know how you feel now.”

  Elliot thought that was damned fine idea.

  ***

  GABBY knew when she opened her eyes just exactly who it was that she would see. He had his fingers in her hair—like he’d done so many times before. Elliot definitely liked blonde hair. Or maybe it was just her hair he liked so much? She smiled at that thought. “Hi.”

  “Hi. How are you feeling?”

  “Better. How’s Brynna?” From the angle of the sun coming in the room, Gabby guessed it was early morning. She hadn’t meant to sleep for so long. The doctor had given them word about Brynna near ten the night before.

  “She woke a few hours ago. She’s in pain and groggy. But she was able to give Erickson and one of the regional commanders a statement about what happened. It corroborates with yours. And the security cameras were left intact. We saw what happened.”

  “And Benny?”

  “He died instantly, Gab. He didn’t suffer.”

  “Is it bad that I almost wish he had? What kind of a person does that make me?

  “No. I think it makes you human. Real.” He slipped his arms under her back and knees and lifted her over the bedrail. “You did well. You and Brynna both. You stayed alive.”

  “Do we have any idea why he did what he did?”

  “No. Not yet. But we have him. We know he was involved with what happened ten years ago. And we know Handley Barratt was involved somehow. We are connecting the dots now.”

  “I guess I just don’t understand why.”

  “Maybe we never will. But we’ll find the answers. I can promise you that. This is more information than we had ten years ago. Places to start, anyway.”

  She heard the determination. He wasn’t going to stop with just Benny or the Raymund guy, was he? He was going to find his answers, and she couldn’t blame him. “So what do we do next?”

  “We? You are stepping away and staying nice and protected. The regional commander is getting pressured from the commissioner to get this cleaned up. Or they’re talking of closing the Finley Creek district.”

  “We can’t do that!” The TSP was the smallest branch of law enforcement in the state, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t an important part of the law enforcement community, providing support to the other organizations and handling their own heavy caseloads. To close the Finley Creek post—that would have a huge impact. “What would happen to everyone at Finley Creek?”

  “Those that pass the Internal Affairs review will have the option of transferring to the Dallas/Ft. Worth or Abilene or Lubbock or Amarillo posts.”

  “Hell of a commute. I don’t want to move, Elliot. I like where I’m at.”

  But then again... where she was at didn’t exist anymore, did it? “He destroyed the lab, didn’t he? Everything.”

  “Yes. But he didn’t destroy you or Brynna. And that is what matters.”

  “How much damage did the rest of the building get?”

  “Not much. Russell accomplished his goal—he took out every piece of computer equipment in the lab. And a third of the evidence storage above.”

  “But what about what wasn’t in the lab?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Brynna was there—but she always has more than one computer. She cloned her laptop hard drive and mine and gave them to her sister Carrie for safe-keeping. Yesterday evening, before we came back to work today, we wanted to just be sure we didn’t lose anything we’d worked on. Whatever we had in the lab, she gave to her sister. Everything. We just didn’t feel safe having it at the TSP. So if there was something Benny wanted hidden, we’ll find it. Eventually.”

  “It’ll take time. But that’s professional, Gab. We’ve brought in people to help us. And we’ll do it. But right now, I want to talk about something else.”

  His words were so serious that for a moment Gabby started to panic. “Are Brynna and Mel ok? Did something else happen? You’re scaring me, Elliot.”

  He smiled. “Nothing else has happened. This is just not professional. It’s personal.”

  Gabby sat up. His hands were there to help her, just like she’d expected. His touch lingered. “What kind of personal? You’re not going to pull what your brother did with Brynna, are you? No strings, no matter what?”

  Green eyes widened. “Hell, no. Chance has his own demons to deal with. Just like I’ve had mine.”

  “Had?”

  “The demons of the past will never be able to compete with what I want for the future. For us.”

  Dear heaven, what was he saying? Gabby was certain she was about to start babbling again, wasn’t she? “And...and what do you think that’s going to be?”

  “Simple. You, me. This huge old ranch house that needs a family again. My family, if you’re willing. I believe you know the one I’m talking about. We’ve both been there before. That is...if you can see yourself living there after what happened there.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Because I have some ideas, but I don’t want to say something totally stupid, if it’s not close to what you mean.”

  “I think we both know what I am trying to say here, sweetheart. You and me...I...you make me alive again, Gabby.” He put both hands on her cheeks and kissed her lightly.

  Gabby lost all ability to talk. To even think of words. “That... How...Elliot...I...”

  He laughed. “Can’t think of anything to say, sweetheart? What I am saying is that I want you to move in with me. To marry me. Be with me forever. To show me that there is more to life than the damned TSP. To fill that house with love again. The way it should be.”

  “You’re serious.” Her heart threatened to jump right out of her chest and land at his feet. She couldn’t think of anything she had ever wanted more than to share that kind of love with a man just like Elliot. With Elliot, forever.

  “Why wouldn’t I be? You mean the world to me, Gabby. I didn’t realize that was what I needed until I almost lost you. I know we haven’t been together very long. But we both know what can be lost by waiting. I’m not going to wait another minute to tell you how I feel.”

  “Then don’t. Use lots of words.” Gabby wrapped her arms around his neck and tucked her head on his shoulder. “I want to hear lots of them.”

  He laughed. “I love you, Gabby Kendall. I want you to move in with me, marry me, and help me make my family home into my family’s home. Do you think you can do that?”

  “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do more.” And she couldn’t. She loved the man holding her, and always would. And he was right, they should seize every moment together they could. They both knew how precious time with someone you loved actually was.

  Gabby wasn’t ever going to let him go. Ever. And she told him that, over and over.

  EPILOGUE.

  ***

  BRYNNA managed to avoid the pneumonia from what they’d inhaled, but Gabby hadn’t been quite as lucky. Probably because Brynna hadn’t been breathing as deeply while in the Tunnel of Hell, as Gabby would probably always call it when she thought about it. The hospital kept her for three days.

  Jilly had begged and pleaded with someone—probably Fin—to get Gabby into the same room as Brynna. They were both going to
be under guard for quite a while, if Gabby had read Elliot’s expression correctly. He was going to do whatever he could to keep her safe. And she was going to let him. Hopefully with the TSP after Handley Barratt and Benny dead, the rest of the killers would take off instead of coming after her and Brynna again.

  She and Brynna were both bruised and battered and had concussions—Gabby’s was actually more serious than Brynna’s. But they were going to live. Both of them.

  Brynna woke fully on the afternoon of the second day.

  Calling for Chance.

  Gabby had pretended to be asleep while Elliot’s brother had reassured Brynna that she was safe. Gabby watched the two through her lashes. The depth of emotion in Chance’s eyes when he’d looked at Brynna had floored Gabby.

  It was the same expression that had been in Elliot’s whenever he’d looked at Gabby since he’d pulled her the rest of the way out of the rubble. One of devotion and hope and fear and intensity. Love.

  Elliot loved her.

  She didn’t doubt that at all, even though they’d been with each other less than two weeks.

  And Gabby loved him.

  Everything else was going to figure itself out, somehow.

  Elliot had stalled on connecting Benny to Handley Barratt. But he hadn’t given up, and she knew he wouldn’t.

  It was going to take time—to make the connections, to rebuild the computer forensics department, for her and Brynna to heal.

  But they would.

  And Gabby wasn’t going to let fear guide her through life again.

  Love was a much better choice, she thought as Mel came in. Her friend hugged her and then her sister. “Well, so now what do we do? Where do we go from here?”

  “We just keeping going forward, Gabs. One day at a time.”

  That sounded like good advice to Gabby. They’d all just have to keep going. Together.

  Keep Reading for an exclusive look at the next two books in the Finley Creek TSP series,

  Shelter from the Storm & The Price of Silence.

  SHELTER

  FROM

  THE

  STORM.

  Finley Creek TSP Book 2

  Coming Fall 2016

  Brynna Beck had plans for her future, and those plans did not include working for the Finley Creek branch of the Texas State Police forever.

  Nothing was going to deter her from her goals. Until a ten year cold case resurfaces. One with massive implications for the entire Finley Creek TSP.

  ​

  Brynna had loved the family that was murdered almost as much as she loved her own. And that mattered enough to have her changing her plans—just for a little while. When Brynna discovers new information she gains the notice of men who would stop at nothing to protect themselves. Even if it meant silencing Brynna forever.

  ​

  Former Texas Ranger Chance Marshall had spent ten years searching for them men who’d slaughtered his family, and had found nothing. Until a woman barely old enough to drink approaches him in a dark parking garage, demanding his help.

  ​

  She’ll share what she knows—if he agrees to drive her home, three states away. She has the information he needs, but she’ll only share it with her boss, Chance’s brother.

  ​

  A band of killers stops them, determined to keep Brynna from sharing just what exactly she knows.

  ​

  If Chance wants to stop the killers, he’ll have to keep the beautiful, maddening, redhead safe…while the storm rages around them.

  Chapter 1

  “Get out of my damned car,” Chance Marshall leaned over the redhead who had instilled herself in the passenger seat of his rented SUV. She didn’t back away.

  There was no way in hell he was taking this woman back to Texas with him tonight. He didn’t even know who she was. Not really.

  Just a vague family connection that she had claimed. If he did know her, it had been well over ten years since he’d seen her, hadn’t it? And now she had climbed into his car and refused to get out. What was he supposed to do with her?

  “No. And don’t curse at me. I don’t like it.” The eyes that made him feel like a slug closed. She leaned her head back against the seat. “Get in the car. Or don’t you care that I found something that may help you?”

  Chance had never laid his hand on a woman before in his life—with a few notable exceptions while on the job with the Texas State Police and the Texas Rangers back in the early days of his career—but this woman left him no choice.

  He grabbed her arm with one hand, then slipped his other hand under her long skinny legs. He pulled.

  She got caught in the seatbelt. He cursed again. Then again when she laughed. “I do not need this right now. Get out.”

  She smiled, then pushed the sunglasses up to rest on the top of her head. “Tough. Gabby’s my best friend. One of my only friends, to be honest. If she’s in trouble, I’m going to be there.”

  Gabby was the woman his brother had feelings for, the woman his brother was going all ape-shit overprotective over. The fact that this girl mentioned Gabby and the trouble the other woman was in told him that she probably was a genuine family connection. And a very loyal one, apparently. He admired the sentiment, but the stupidity…it was beyond foolish. “Don’t be a damned idiot. What are you going to do to protect her?”

  Light brown eyes bore right through him. “Whatever I have to. Gabby’s my best friend, Chance. And I love her.”

  For the life of him he thought the girl meant it. And she was a girl in a lot of ways. At first glance he’d thought she was younger than she actually was, but she was still a good decade younger than he was. And innocent. Very naïve.

  What the hell was she thinking getting in a strange man’s car this way? Didn’t she have any more self-preservation than this? “What’s your name? Why did you track me down?”

  “You don’t remember me. That’s ok. I’m Brynna. I was just a little girl when we knew each other. My father and mother were good friends with your parents. But you were a teenager when I was there the most. And then…after you moved out, I was there quite a bit. We didn’t see you very much. Which was ok, because I know you never liked me.”

  He vaguely recalled a bunch of redheaded girls in his parents’ home once or twice. Had she been one of them? “Why are you really here?”

  She stared at him for a moment out of those disconcerting eyes. This girl-woman had eyes that could twist a man’s gut into real knots, didn’t she? “I’ve found something, I think. And Gabby said you were nearby.”

  “So why are you in St. Louis?” How the hell had this creature found him? He’d always paid cash for everything, and there wasn’t anyone other than his brother that he’d told where he’d be. And even that was just an occasional occurrence. He wasn’t exactly the type that was easily tethered.

  “My sister is here, with PAVAD. Have you heard of it? I tracked your cell phone to find you, after Gabby told me you were up here when we were chatting online.”

  Of course he had heard of the FBI’s PAVAD division. He had contacts in every federal agency in the country—contacts he’d deliberately cultivated in his work—and he’d heard quite a bit about the relatively new FBI unit that was supposedly unstoppable.

  He’d used this trip to speak to a St. Louis field agent who’d worked the murder of Chance’s family ten years earlier. Chance had been called up to speak to a grand jury about a previous kidnapping case he’d worked as a private investigator.

  Damn it, the girl-woman needed a keeper.

  Ten years ago he’d been assigned to the same team as Art Kendall. Chance had wanted to get the guy’s impressions about that day.

  He wasn’t so sure he trusted the reports the Texas State Police had given him.

  And Chance would be following every lead, no matter how long it took. “Aren’t I just the lucky one?”

  He’d met with the field agent after the man’s shift had ended, which was why Chance wa
s in the FBI parking garage at nearly eight at night. The parking garage shared with PAVAD. Had the girl been waiting for him all this time? In a dark garage, alone? With little defenses?

  She blinked at him. What was it with those eyes of hers? They were gorgeous, but made him feel like a damned slug. “I don’t really understand sarcasm. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. Why are you lucky?”

  Was she for real?

  “Never mind. Other than Gabby’s friend, who are you exactly? What do you know about my brother?”

  “I have something that is extremely pertinent to the murder investigation that I know you are still working. But I need to speak with my bosses before I can share it. But I didn’t want to wait to talk to Benny. I wanted to talk to the chief of my TSP post. Your brother. Elliot. What I found is going to be hard on Gabby. I was chatting with her to check on her and she said you were up here, too. I don’t drive. You are going back there. It was logical that we ride together. So I found you myself.” She grinned at him, revealing a beautiful smile complete with a tiny gap between her front teeth and dimples.

  “So you came up this way to show me?”

  “No. Not exactly. I was here anyway, I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law, who both work with PAVAD. I need to get back to Texas tonight. And I need to check on her. She tends to freak out over scary stuff like this. Since it’s about your family it made the most sense that I find you and you drive me home. See. Logical.”

  “Let me get this straight...Gabby’s with my brother. I know that part. But you aren’t capable of finding your own way home? How exactly is that working out for you?”

  “I have found my way home. You. I don’t drive. I never learned. We have a common purpose. You want to catch the bastards who killed your family.”

  Why did the word bastard coming from her lips sound so wrong? Because of the sweet doll-like appearance? The obvious innocence on her face? Chance pushed those thoughts away. This girl was bound to give a decent man fits. An honorable one. He wasn’t the least bit decent. He didn’t have the time to fuck around with this girl.