by Lexi Blake
Jax had the computer open again in a flash. “Here he is.”
She looked at the picture of the police officer. It was his professional photo, showing a man in his middle years, beginning to gray at the temples. He stared out of the photo, wearing his pressed blue uniform.
She’d never seen that man in her life.
“That’s not the man who came after me,” she said, recognizing the edge in her voice. “He was younger. Damon told me earlier that they’d figured out the man who tried to kill me wasn’t really a police officer. He was posing as one. Why would they kill an actual officer?”
“I can think of several reasons,” Jax offered. “Officer Keller might have seen too much, might have interacted with the killer at an inopportune time. He might have recognized that the killer wasn’t an officer and had plans to expose him.”
“Or they need a way to put pressure on you,” Robert pointed out. “They need a way to force you out in the open. They’re counting on the fact that you’ll want to clear your name.”
“I do.” She was going to have to talk to someone. “If I don’t face this, they’ll assume something worse. The police, that is. I need to give the police a description of the man who came after me. He’s probably the one who killed the officer.”
“Or he knows who did. It could have been a member of his crew, too. Don’t forget that man who came after you in the alley by the hotel is linked to organized crime.” Jax stood up and walked over to the white board. “See. It’s on the board so it’s true. And it’s a bad idea to go to the Seattle PD until we figure out who’s real and who’s working for whoever hired this dude.”
He pointed to a picture they’d blown up from one of the crime scene photos. It was grainy, but that was the man who’d shown up at her motel that night. Minus the devil horns someone had drawn on him. And she was fairly certain he hadn’t been carrying a massive penis at the time. Someone had drawn a big dildo in his hand.
Robert sighed. “Please don’t mind the juvenile pranks. My men are idiots, but they’re actually quite good when it comes to investigating.”
“It takes our minds off all the bad shit,” Jax agreed. “Owen and Tucker are out there right now researching your family here in England. I didn’t get to go on the field trip though. Apparently there’s some kind of Interpol warning out about me and Sasha and Dante, and Damon won’t let us go have fun. So see, we’re in the same boat, sweetheart. Stuck in this place with nothing to do.”
“What are you wanted for?”
“Nothing I remember doing,” he admitted. He gave her a charming smile as he changed the subject. “You want to pass some time with me? Maybe Netflix and chill?”
“I’m really freaked out about all of this so the only way I want to pass time with you is going to be by shoving my foot into your crotch and seeing how far I push your dick into your body cavity,” she said, staring at the wall. It wasn’t the first time she’d been around a guy like Jax who didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer. It was absolutely best to put firm boundaries out there.
“Damn, that’s cold,” Jax said. “All right, then. Good to know.”
“Why do you need to talk to my aunt?” She could imagine how that was going to go.
“Because I’m not sure she’s actually your aunt,” Jax replied casually.
The hits kept on coming. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Go carefully on this topic,” Robert warned. “We’re not sure of anything yet. This investigation is very new.”
“Yeah, but this feels right to me. The truth is in the details. Am I correct in saying this branch of your family wasn’t one you grew up with?” Jax asked. “From what I read you didn’t actually meet them until you were what? Fourteen years old?”
“Yeah,” she managed, her brain still reeling. “My dad first introduced me to my cousin Desiree in Las Vegas when I was fourteen. It was summer and after this mega fight, Mom agreed to let me go with him for a few weeks. I ended up staying with him for almost the whole summer. He was playing some tournament in Vegas when Des showed up.”
Robert leaned against one of the desks. There appeared to be six of them, one for each of the “lads,” as the others seemed to call them. “This was eleven years ago? So Des was working for MI6. From what I remember from her file, she joined up young. They liked her social connections.”
And her beauty and charm. Des could get most men to do anything she wanted when she was on her game. God knew Hayley had watched her manipulate Nick. “She didn’t talk about that to me, but I wasn’t surprised to find out that’s what she did. I never bought that she was someone’s secretary.”
“Interesting. So your father introduced you. How did he explain how he found the connection?” Jax had lost his himbo smoothness and now sounded like a competent agent.
“He’d been researching our ancestry. Lots of people do it these days. He found the connection to the Brooks family in England and reached out to them. I think it amused him that we were connected to such upper-crust people. He met the family in London after that and they kept in touch. Our grandfather was a Brooks and he emigrated from England after World War II. I wish he’d kept the documentation, but my father traveled light. He lived mostly out of a suitcase. It was the nature of his job.”
“Which was playing poker.” Robert was watching her with intelligent eyes.
She was well aware her father’s choice of how he made his living wasn’t the most respectable. “That was my dad. He tried playing on the circuit for a while, but he preferred the back rooms. Once they started taping the big events, he dropped off the circuit and basically hustled in ring games.”
“You can make a lot of money on the circuit,” Jax mused. “I looked into it today.”
“Yeah, you apparently looked into a lot of things.” It was hard to believe he’d done so much in the day since she’d walked in the door.
“Jax is a speed reader and he has eidetic memory. If he scans something, he can bring it back and recite it to you. He never forgets. Unless a crazy doctor fills him full of drugs that erase his mind,” Robert said, a hint of a smile on his face. “We’re hoping that never happens again. My point is, he acts like a horny teen most of the time, but he’s got a genius-level IQ. There’s nothing he can’t learn and quickly. Well, except manners.”
“Manners are meaningless.” Jax crossed his muscled arms over his chest. “All I’m saying is a man like your father should have viewed the explosion of poker players as celebrities as a way to make even more money. I’m intrigued.”
“Why does any of this matter?” She was tired of the seemingly endless speculation about her family. They’d been weird but they were hers. “My father was incredibly private and he was always in trouble with someone. None of it matters because he’s dead. And this doesn’t tell me why you think my aunt isn’t my aunt.”
“Because I pulled some records and your father’s grandfather wasn’t named Brooks. He was named Johannsen. He did emigrate, but not from England. He came over from Sweden before World War II. He enlisted and fought in the Pacific theater. He came home, married a woman named Belinda Wells, and they had a daughter who married Antony Dalton. That’s your grandfather. You’re Swedish and German. There’s no British side to your father’s family, although your mom’s side is oddly close to the crown. Not like in line or anything, but on her side you’re like fourth cousins with Wills and Harry.”
Normally that would be the leading story, but now all she could think about was the fact that her father had lied to her. “Why would he tell me I was related to Des if I wasn’t?”
Jax shook his head. “No idea, but again I’m intrigued.”
“There could be any number of reasons why he would do it,” Robert said carefully.
She knew what he meant. “Because he was a con man? Don’t mince words with me. I know who my dad was.”
He’d been a dick most of the time, and then he would stop pretending and actually be her freaking f
ather and she would need him so much. Her dad had been there for her after the Nick debacle. He’d taken her with him to Monaco and for once he’d paid more attention to her than he had his gambling. Oh, he’d disappeared for a few days to play in an underground tournament, but he’d left her in the happy hands of the spa staff.
He’d been there when she’d cried. He’d told her she was better off without Nick. She’d almost believed him.
“Yeah, I think that’s totally what he was saying,” Jax agreed. “Your dad was trying to con the Brooks family. You know he had an arrest record across a couple of continents.”
“Like I said, he got in trouble a lot. How quickly do you think I go from person of interest to main suspect?” The fact that her father had attempted to con an entire family was a side issue she would deal with later. She was going to lose her job. She’d already lost her house, and if the insurance company decided it wasn’t a gas leak, she wouldn’t be able to afford another one. No job. No home. Maybe facing jail time. Serious jail time for a crime she hadn’t done.
“I’m going to update Damon in half an hour. We’ll start working this from a legal standpoint, but you need to understand that there’s no way we allow you to go back to the States until we figure out why this is happening,” Robert said calmly. “If we let you walk in there now, there’s every possibility that you end up getting arrested, and you’re completely vulnerable in that jail cell.”
“You think that’s why they killed him?” The idea that a police officer had been killed in order to manipulate her into a vulnerable position made her fists clench. Who had he left behind? Did he have a wife and kids who were mourning him even now? “To force me to come in so they can kill me?”
“I don’t think they want to kill you. At least not at first. I think they believe you know something,” Robert replied.
“I don’t know anything.” It was how she truly felt. She no longer knew a damn thing.
Except for one amazing moment this afternoon she’d felt complete. When Nick had ordered her to her knees, she’d understood what she’d been missing before. It wasn’t about giving over her soul to him. In that moment, she’d trusted him enough to forget about everything else. He’d then been a complete dick, but she was smarter than he was. He’d been a dick because he’d gotten scared.
Had he gotten scared the first time?
Since the moment she’d met Desiree, she’d compared herself and found herself wanting.
That had been a child’s vision. She was a woman and it was time to recalibrate. It was time to look back at her own history.
Nick hadn’t been a dick because he’d wanted to leave, because he’d had all he wanted and was done. He’d been a dick because of what his past had taught him.
Maybe she should look at more than her relationship with Nick through fresh eyes.
She needed to look at everything again. Some of what Ariel had said to her the day before whispered through her brain. Sometimes when a person lost everything it could be freeing. She was an academic, a lover of history, but every historian knew one thing. Those who forgot history were often doomed to repeat it. This was her history. She needed to let go of emotions attached to it and try to see it without all the baggage of having to live through it.
“I think sometimes my father used me as a shield,” she said quietly.
“Because he got in trouble?” Robert asked.
“I think so. I heard about it in one-sided conversations.” She needed to be honest with herself and with them. It was too important to cover up. Especially if he’d lied to her about their relationships. “He owed money to people and he did some favors for them. I’m not sure what. He was fairly good about keeping me out of it. I know he’d met Des before he introduced her to me. He said they’d been talking for a while before he met her in Vegas. Honestly, it’s possible he met her when he was in Europe and he convinced her it would be fun to prank her family with horrible American relatives, but I’m still having a hard time with this. She seemed so genuine.”
“Desiree was an excellent actress,” a familiar voice said.
She winced because Nick was behind her and she wasn’t in a place where she could turn around and run into his arms. She’d just found out her father had been lying to her. Lying to him.
Unless…
“Did you know she wasn’t my cousin?” She wasn’t sure what she would do if he said yes.
His hands cupped her shoulders. “I did not. If this is a lie, I was lied to as well, dushka. I’ll look through the records and see what I can find.”
Her skin warmed where he touched her. She didn’t want him to have to deal with that. “Don’t bother. Apparently Jax is some kind of genius and he remembers everything except all the crap he’s done. He’s going to remember that I have a quick knee to the crotch.”
Those hands suddenly wound around her chest, drawing her back against his body. “Excuse me.”
There was distracting him and then there was pointing a massive weapon and pulling the trigger. “Nothing, babe. Do you see my wall? I like all the lines to and from the people I’m either related to or who fucked me over. It’s awesome. Also, has anyone told you I’m almost wanted for murder in Washington state? Do you know how awful that is? We’re the serial killer capital of the world.”
“No, I wasn’t informed. I was busy with Walter discovering that Desiree left a message for us inside your necklace.” Nick’s voice had deepened. “Don’t get excited that we’re closing in on what she was hiding. The damn thing’s in code. Walt didn’t recognize it, but Penny is excellent with codes so she’s going to take a look at it. Hopefully we’ll know something in a few days.”
So Des hadn’t kept the necklace out of some affection. She should have known. “So I’ve been wearing the information we probably need?”
“I don’t know. We can’t be sure of anything and Penelope said she didn’t recognize the code, so it could take her a while to break it,” Nick replied. “In the meantime, I’m going to need a briefing on this new information. How far has the story gone?” Nick didn’t move from behind her, but something about him got Robert moving.
“I can debrief you on everything we’ve discovered so far,” Robert said, his hands on the keys of his laptop. “I’m also sending you the intel through the private server.”
“Right now the story’s local only,” Jax explained. “They covered it on Seattle stations last night and the police are looking for her as a material witness and possible kidnapping victim. That can change quickly.”
Robert straightened up. “I’m worried the nationals will pick up the story in a few hours. Given where America is right now, any murder of a police officer is going to be national news. When they flash her picture across the screen on CNN’s morning news, they’ll find people who’ve seen her.”
“I was careful,” she insisted.
“Keeping your head down and a cap over your hair won’t cover those eyes.” Jax looked her over with a sigh. “If I’d been sitting beside you on a long-haul flight, I would remember you. Someone will talk and soon.”
“Whoever is behind this is using the press to do their dirty work.” Nick’s arms tightened, squeezing her close. “I’m going to fix this for you. Don’t think otherwise. You’re going to be fine, Hayley.”
She could only pray he was right.
Chapter Nine
Nick pulled his boots on, the hum of the locker room surrounding him. The night was starting up, the men of The Garden getting ready to play.
All he could think about was the woman across the building in the other locker room.
Was she scared? Was he doing the right thing by not calling off tonight’s session? After all the shit she’d been through earlier, how would she be able to focus? Hell, he wasn’t sure he could.
Then there was the fact that if Penny was as good as everyone said she was, this could all be over in a matter of days. If Penny could decode the information from the microdot and figure out who was
after Hayley, she could be back in Seattle, ready to rebuild her life by next week. He should want that for her. He should want her safe and happy. That was what he’d sacrificed for all those years ago.
He’d thought he would have longer with her.
“Any word on the code, mate?” Brody sank down on the bench beside him. He was already dressed for play, his big body covered in leather pants and a vest that showed off his muscular chest. The Aussie still wore his hair close cropped, as he had when he’d been in the SASR. The only time Nick had ever seen him with his hair longer had been those months in Africa. He’d claimed it was all part of his cover, but Nick had heard the doctor Brody had been protecting talk about how she loved his hair.
“No, and Penny’s taking a break tonight.” Damon had come to him an hour before explaining that he felt they needed a night together despite the new intelligence. Apparently their son had been particularly needy while they were in Loa Mali. The Knights, it seemed, needed a vacation from their vacation, and with childcare in place here, they could spend some quality time.
“Is that a good idea?” Brody asked. “I thought we were kind of racing the clock here. The news story went national a few hours ago.”
Nick thought it was a spectacular idea, despite the fact that her face had been plastered all over American morning news programs. “I know the clock is ticking, but she’s safe here and no one knows where she is. It’s going to take a while. Des was good at hiding her secrets. I’m not going to ask Penny to give up her life to solve the puzzle. It’s a job. She needs time off like the rest of us do.”
“Ah,” Brody said, his mouth curling up slightly.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Brody held a hand up. “Hey, it means we should all take our time with this one. Wouldn’t want to make any mistakes. That’s all.”
Nick leaned forward. Why was he so fucking defensive? Brody was his friend. Damon was his friend. Owen had been a brother to him. Walt and Kayla were like family and yet he pushed them all away. He was tired of it. “I don’t want her to leave.”
