A Gift of Grace

by Sarah Wynde

  Noah’s lips twitched. There was an irony. One of his damn hallucinations offering to turn the volume down. And wouldn’t his life be different if it was that simple?

  But he set the remote down, pointed toward the television, and showed no reaction when the Rose voice said happily, “Thank you, thank you.”

  Spoiled grape juice or not, he was ready for that drink.

  8

  Grace

  He hadn’t come.

  Grace’s disappointment felt irrational, like she was a child who’d been deprived of a treat, instead of a mature professional. But, of course, she was worried about Dillon. Or at least so she told herself.

  She turned off her computer with one last glance at the clock on the screen. After seven already. She wouldn’t be the last person in the office: some of the researchers routinely worked late into the night. Olivia would be long gone, though, and there was no way Noah would show now.

  Her stomach growled and she pressed a hand to it. She should call her brother. He would have had a busy day himself but she knew he’d want to know what she’d found out. He wasn’t going to be happy when he learned the answer was absolutely nothing.

  She picked up her desk phone, then set it down again at the gentle knock on her office door. Her father didn’t wait for an answer but peered around the edge of the door.

  “Busy?” he asked her.

  “Just wrapping up.”

  “You work too hard.” He came in and took a seat in one of the comfortable chairs in front of her desk.

  She gave him an affectionate smile. His words were rote, too familiar to hold any weight. But her smile faded as she took a closer look at him. He looked distracted, almost worried. “What’s wrong? Is it Nat?”

  Her sister had been shot and nearly killed several weeks ago. She was doing well — out of the hospital and recovering steadily, much faster than all the doctors’ predictions — but the sensation of unsettling fear that had gripped Grace at the time hadn’t fully faded yet.

  “No, no.” Her father waved off her concern. “But…”

  “But?”

  “I may have made a mistake today,” he said with a sigh.

  “What sort of mistake?”

  He didn’t answer her right away, so she waited, puzzled. Max’s intuition didn’t often steer him wrong.

  “I think I need you to hire someone.” He said the words slowly, as if thinking them out, but then finished with a decisive nod and a real smile. “Yes, that’s it. I need you to hire someone.”

  “Okay.” Grace grabbed the pad of paper that always sat on the corner of her desk and a pen. Pen poised, she asked, “Name, job, contact info?”

  “Oh, I don’t know any of that.”

  Grace set the pen down and gave him a Look. Her brothers and sister would have winced and apologized immediately, but her father didn’t even have the decency to look abashed.

  “I’m sure you’ll stumble across him somewhere. I just need you to give him a job when you do. Something that will keep him in Tassamara.” Her father’s smile turned hopeful.

  Grace didn’t even know where to begin. “Stumble across him? What, am I supposed to start offering jobs to any strange guy I see?” And then a thought struck her. “Wait. What do you know about this guy?”

  “Ah…” Her father grimaced. “Nothing. Not really. But I recognized him and…” His words trailed off and he looked away from her, tugging at his earlobe and shifting in his chair.

  “And?”

  “I just think I may have made a mistake,” he muttered. “Scared him off. You know how it goes.”

  Grace did know how it went, at least for her father. Normal people — the ones who didn’t believe in psychic abilities, magical powers, or a world beyond the one their eyes could see and their hands could touch — tended to start giving her father wary looks and hurrying away from him when he got started.

  “What did you do?”

  “That’s not important.” He waved off her question, still not meeting her gaze.

  “How did you recognize him?”

  “Also not important.” He looked back at her and gave her a bright smile. It was similar to one Natalya used sometimes, a warning that all further questions were going to be met with noncommittal non-answers.

  Grace sighed. “Is this guy, by any chance…” She paused as she thought how to phrase the question. “…good-looking?”

  “Absolutely,” her father agreed promptly. “Almost too much so. The kind of looks that would make one want to write him off as shallow right away. He’s not, though. Shallow, that is.”

  Noah Blake. It had to be. How had her father met him?

  “What do you know about him?” Grace asked.

  “Not important.” Max stood, apparently feeling that their business was settled. “So you’ll do it? Find him and offer him a job?”

  Grace picked up her pen again, then set it down. “How am I supposed to find a guy whose name you don’t even know?”

  “I have faith in you, Gracie.”

  Grace forbore a roll of her eyes, but with difficulty. It was just like her father to expect her to accomplish the impossible.

  Still, she did know Noah’s name. Soon enough she’d have contact information for him. Even without more information from her father, she probably could track Noah down, whether or not he ever followed up on her invitation to General Directions.

  And since she needed to discover what was happening with Dillon, she would have been looking for Noah anyway, even without Max’s prompting. The only thing that had changed was that now she needed to hire Noah, not just talk to him.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Three days later, Grace was not so sanguine.

  She had Noah Blake’s phone number. Unfortunately, he wasn’t answering his phone.

  She had his address, too. Her father and sister had seen Noah speeding out of Tassamara, but no one had seen him back at his apartment. Wherever he’d gone, it wasn’t home.

  She had his employment history, his credit rating, and his military records. She knew his birthday, his social security number, and where he’d graduated from high school.

  None of that was helping her find him.

  Neither was her brother. Gritting her teeth, she did not hang up on Lucas with an effort that deserved a gold star on some invisible karma board somewhere. “We’ve discussed this,” she said into her headset. “There’s nothing that you can do here that I can’t do just as well. And the FBI needs you where you are.”

  “I’m worried about my son.” Lucas didn’t quite growl the words, but it was close.

  “I hear that, I do.” Grace glanced at her speedometer and lifted her foot off the gas pedal. She wasn’t afraid of getting a ticket on the road into GD, but she’d feel like an idiot if she got into an accident because her brother was annoying her. “So am I. But I’m doing everything that can be done.”

  “Not everything,” Lucas muttered.

  “We’ve discussed this, too. Discussed it to death, in fact.” With the information she had, Zane could find Noah in minutes — but not from Belize. It was too far away. He’d need to fly back to the U.S. to be close enough for his talent to work.

  “I know, but…”

  “But nothing,” Grace said. “You agreed. We are not disturbing Zane and Akira on their honeymoon. They need this time.”

  Lucas sighed.

  Patiently, Grace said, “I’ve got an investigator sitting on Noah’s apartment, waiting for him to appear.”

  “Noah? Getting a little familiar, aren’t you?”

  “I am familiar with him. At this point, I probably know more about him than his mother does.” Lucas gave a skeptical huff, but Grace continued. “As soon as Noah shows up at his apartment, I’ll fly up there and talk to him. We’ll find Dillon.”

  “I’ll fly there,” Lucas said. “I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. Her brother could be so damn
bossy. Sometimes he acted like he was still a teenager talking to his baby sister. Tapping her fingers against the steering wheel, she slowed for the guard at the security booth and hit the button to roll down her window. “Hi, Bill. How’re you doing today?”

  “Good, good. Been a quiet morning.” The guard nodded at the kayak strapped to the roof of her car. “Heading out later?”

  “Looking forward to it,” Grace replied. The weather report had been perfect — the late afternoon should be clear, with a light breeze but no rain, the best possible weather for kayaking. Later in the year, afternoons would be muggy with almost daily thunderstorms, and the bugs would be a nightmare. And even though she was starting to think she’d never catch up on her email, she needed the break. It had been a long week. “How about you? Anything going on this weekend?”

  “Ah, the wife’s got a honey-do list a mile long. She keeps me busy.”

  “Well, don’t let her work you too hard.” With a wave, Grace passed through the gate and continued toward the office.

  “Finished with the small talk?” Lucas asked, his voice dry.

  “Yep. And finished with this conversation, too,” Grace replied. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “He could be dangerous.”

  “He’s not.” Grace’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. She was not going to yell at her brother. They weren’t children anymore. They were two adults, having a professional difference of opinion, and she was not going to yell at him.

  Maybe if she kept telling herself that…

  “Can’t you get anything more out of Nat?” Lucas demanded.

  Grace snorted. Her sister was being, if possible, even more aggravating than her brother and father. When Grace asked for advice, Natalya just smiled beatifically and said it didn’t matter, that everything would be fine in the long run. What good was the long run when Grace needed to know what to do today?

  “Feel free to call her yourself,” Grace said.

  “Maybe I’ll do that.”

  Grace envisioned her brother and sister managing to mutually annoy one another as much as they were annoying her. It was almost as good as counting to ten. “Good. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “The second you learn anything,” Lucas ordered.

  Grace bit back the sigh that wanted to escape. She was not going to yell at her brother, not, not, not.

  “And no offering Blake a job until we get there,” he added. “I don’t care what Dad says, I want to find out what he knows about these ghosts before you do anything.”

  Grace bit harder. Fortunately, he said good-bye and hung up before she snapped at him, but she was still fuming as she entered the building.

  Olivia wasn’t at her desk. Grace frowned and glanced at her watch. “Olivia?” she called.

  The young receptionist emerged from the open door behind her desk that led to the security station. “Good morning, ma’am,” she said with a bright smile.

  “Ma’am?” Jensen, the guard tasked with watching the monitors during the day, stuck his head out of the security station. “Something you should see in here.”

  Grace raised her eyebrows.

  Olivia nodded in confirmation. “You need to check this out.”

  Grace followed the two of them into the station. The wall of monitors looked almost as innocuous as usual: scene after scene of empty corridors, closed doors, and tall fences. But one of the screens was zoomed in on a close-up of Noah Blake as he raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes.

  “Ahhh.” Grace released a sigh of satisfaction. She put her hands on her hips. “There you are.”

  “You know him?” Jensen said, taking a seat.

  Grace nodded, eyes intent on Noah. “I was expecting to see him here a few days ago. His name’s Noah Blake.”

  “That’s him? The no-show?” Olivia asked.

  Grace nodded again. “Damn, but he’s pretty,” she added under her breath. He’d shaved, so the stubble was gone, but if anything it just made him more appealing.

  “He is, isn’t he?” Olivia fanned herself. “So hot!”

  Grace smothered her chuckle with a cough.

  Olivia glanced over her shoulder with an unrepentant grin. She fluttered her fingers at chest-height. “What can I say? He makes my heart go pitter-patter. Other parts, too.”

  Grace laughed, then sobered. “We shouldn’t be talking like this. Sexually suggestive comments create a hostile work environment,” she said, quoting from the three-hour sexual harassment seminar she’d made the entire company take after she found out that her brother was sleeping with an employee. “Sorry, Jensen.”

  “Don’t mind me, ma’am,” Jensen said, not looking away from the screen. “I’m not blind. I don’t swing that way, but if I did, he’d do it for me, too.”

  Olivia looked like she was trying not to laugh, but she managed an apologetic, “Sorry, Grace, Jensen.”

  Grace shook her head, her own smile escaping. She looked more closely at the screen. “Where is he?”

  Jensen tapped a couple of keys on his keyboard and the screen zoomed out so that Grace could see the forest surrounding Noah. He was outside the fence that enclosed the grounds, in the public lands. Grace recognized the area.

  “How did you pick him up out there?” she asked. “That’s state land, isn’t it?”

  “He triggered one of those camera traps the wildlife service asked us to put up,” Jensen replied.

  “Gotcha.” Grace watched Noah set the binoculars down and raise his other hand to his mouth. He took a bite, then tossed something over his shoulder. Grace pointed at the monitor. “What was that?”

  “Apple core,” Jensen reported. “He’s got food out there.”

  “Yep,” Olivia agreed. “He was eating an apple. It was very… tempting.” She and Jensen exchanged glances. Olivia muffled her chuckle with her hand, while Jensen’s smirk told Grace that whatever commentary she’d missed a few minutes ago would have sent the sexual harassment instructor into hysterics.

  She ignored it, frowning. “That’s not good.”

  “Nope. You want I should go out there and run him off?” Jensen sounded eager.

  “No, no,” Grace said hurriedly. Folding her arms across her chest, she tapped her foot on the floor, and considered her options. She had no idea what Noah thought he was doing out there. What was he going to learn by skulking in the forest?

  Theoretically she didn’t mind if he spent the next few weeks watching the General Directions parking lot while they waited for Akira to finish her honeymoon. Communicating about his problem would be a lot easier if Akira could tell them what the ghosts had to say.

  But it was February and leaving food waste in the forest was a terrible idea. Not to mention illegal.

  “All right. I’m going to go talk to him,” she said.

  “Ma’am?” Jensen spun in his chair, turning to face her so quickly that the coffee in the cup he was holding slurped out and onto his shirt. He jolted to his feet, swiping at his chest.

  “I’m going out there,” Grace repeated. She glanced down at her clothes. Her outfit was, frankly, adorable. A crisp raspberry power suit with pencil skirt and matching heels, it was sophisticated, bright, daring, but conventional at the same time. Not, however, the best choice for tromping around in the woods. Maybe she should change into the casual clothes she’d brought for kayaking later.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” Jensen said. “I’ll go talk to him.”

  Grace paused. That might be easier. But she didn’t want to scare Noah off. He might disappear at the sight of a uniformed guard heading in his direction and she wasn’t going to lose him again, not if she could help it. “That’s all right,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  Jensen’s mouth set in a mulish line. “We don’t know what he’s doing out there or why he’s watching the building.”

  “Well, no.”

  “He could be a criminal, scoping out the place for a robbery. Or a stalker, after someone at the company. A terrori
st, maybe.”

  “He is not a terrorist.” Grace was tempted to tell Jensen some of what she’d learned about Noah: military vet, decorated war hero, surprisingly good financials. But none of that was Jensen’s business.

  “You don’t know that,” Jensen said. “Please let me do my job.”

  For a moment, Grace was unsure of herself. And then Jensen continued, “Besides, Lucas sent out an email. He said you weren’t to be alone with this guy.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Jensen flushed, possibly sensing the danger in her tone, but said stubbornly, “It was a direct order, ma’am. I can’t disobey.”

  “Lucas said that I was not to be alone with Noah Blake?”

  “I didn’t know that’s who he was until you said so, but yeah.” Jensen shot a glance in Olivia’s direction. “He sent out an email.”

  Grace’s voice was absolutely even as she said, “Please forward that email to me.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Is there something ambiguous about what I said?”

  “No, but…”

  “I want the recipient list. I’ll be sending an email of my own.”

  “I — yes, ma’am.” Jensen stayed on his feet, making no move to obey her.

  “Now,” Grace said softly.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jensen sat down as fast as he’d stood, jostling his coffee again. This time he ignored the splash onto his pants. He spun in his chair and set his coffee down on the desk, pulling the keyboard toward him.

  Grace watched over his shoulder as he opened up his email, found the message, and forwarded it to her. The room was silent apart from the tapping of his keys. Olivia shifted beside Grace as if she would say something but fell still when Grace glanced in her direction.

  “Done.” Jensen didn’t turn back around.

  “Thank you. I will send out a follow-up email. Meanwhile, you can consider that order revoked.” On the last word, Grace’s voice finally sharpened into a snap.

  She wasn’t going to blame Jensen. It wasn’t his fault her older brother was a presumptuous, arrogant, over-protective asshole. But how dare Lucas damage her authority with the security team? If he wanted to be CEO, they could fight it out in the boardroom, but the whole family had agreed that the job belonged to Grace six years ago and she did not need their employees second-guessing the company’s power structure.