She sat down beside her husband and began crying. No one wanted to hurt her.
As she mourned what she’d learned, Rogue felt horrible. Behind her, on the nightstand, he saw an old picture.
It looked like Stella from years ago. It had to be her mother.
“It’s okay, baby,” Zayn said. “Are we sure?” he asked, needing to know.
“No, we’re not one hundred percent sure, but we can’t find anything else. There’s no other reason. We are following the money.”
“But the ransom?” he asked.
“What better way to make nine million dollars go missing?” Sarah asked. “For all we know, it’s in the Cayman Islands by now in a secret account.”
“He’s my dad. I can’t believe he’d hurt me or my sister.”
They noticed she didn’t say stepmother.
“We’ll keep looking, okay?” Sarah offered. “We might find something else.”
She was good with that.
Stella had to believe her father was above murder. She had to believe he loved them.
“How about we go out and track Chesky?” Zayn asked. “I’d love to put some lead in him. Give me what you have, and we’ll start.”
Dakota took the tablet. “We may have to take that route at some point. We have absolutely nothing new, and now that Chesky has gone under… he won’t go there again.”
“That sucks.”
“I do have this one card. He was one of the gamblers, and he seemed to know what Chesky did. He danced around it, but that’s a lead we can take.”
“Let’s go kill him or at least torture him.”
Rogue laughed.
“It’s good to see married life settled you down, Chief Shoot-‘em-up.”
Sarah laughed.
“Sorry, I pictured it. It was totally cliché.”
That broke the ice.
“We’ll do this right. We’ll start researching all of his aliases, and that man’s number. Sarah and I had to hunt like this before and we were good at it.”
Zayn relaxed.
He trusted them.
They hadn’t let him down…yet.
“He’ll use an alias,” Rogue offered, “And then we’ll have him.”
“Yeah, he will. Okay, do your thing. I’m going to do mine,” Zayn said.
“And what is that?” Rogue asked.
“Honeymooning.”
The man laughed.
Speaking of honeymooning…
“Hey, you two will be the next to know. I asked Sarah to marry me.”
Stella squealed. “RING! Let’s see it!”
In that moment, Dakota was glad he gave her that one. It was gorgeous, and she deserved it. To a man, it was just a piece of jewelry. To a woman, it was a statement.
Sarah showed them.
“Holy shit! Were you mining?” Zayn asked, busting his ass. “You were a civil servant. Did you kill someone and not share with us?”
“Let’s say he won big in poker, and he got the girl,” Rogue said, wanting Dakota to be able to keep some dignity. He didn’t want his name in it.
This wasn’t about him.
This was about Sarah and Dakota.
“Well, congrats! It’s Rogue’s turn,” Zayn said, grinning wickedly.
“Shut up.”
“I think we can dig you up a date,” Dakota said. “We know lots of criminals.”
“Oh. You’re funny.”
They all laughed.
“Well, go enjoy your honeymoon. We have dirt to dig through to find the truth.”
Stella had an idea. “Zayn is teaching me how to cook. Why don’t you come over and we’ll have something to eat when you’re done?”
Sarah loved that idea. “We will!”
Both men stared at her.
“Uh, you realize we’re looking for a killer, right?” Rogue stated.
“Yeah, we don’t have time to…”
Sarah cut them off.
“I’ll bring wine.”
“Well, this is cozy,” Rogue stated.
Stella stopped smiling. “I know you’re all busy, but I have to be honest.”
“What?” asked Rogue.
“In a matter of weeks, I lost my whole family. I can’t do this alone. Zayn is my all, but I would really love to have some family. I would really love to have all of you as my own—especially for Christmas.”
Rogue melted.
He was a sucker for a sad woman. Call him crazy, but he felt the need to protect.
“I’m in,” he said. “I only have my mother, and she’s dying. I’m going to be alone too.”
Sarah dropped her arm over both their shoulders. “My dad is in San Fran, and I’m alone here.”
Dakota cleared his throat.
“Well, with my sexy man toy, but you know how that is…,” she teased.
He stared at her. “Really? Would using the word fiancé kill you?”
She laughed.
“Then you know what you have to do.”
He sighed.
“I only have my brother,” Dakota said, “and he’s a cop. I certainly can’t let him loose around you guys. I’ll be trying to get bail.”
In that moment, Zayn loved them.
They were being kind to his wife when she was suffering, and that was precious. He did have a family.
THEM.
They were his now too.
“Well, I’m alone—except for the missus,” he said, giving her a kiss. “Come over. Stella will make us dinner.”
She beamed.
He stared into the camera and mouthed, ‘Bring Dinner. She’s horrible in the kitchen. Food poisoning.’
They laughed and Stella stared at him. “You see that box in the corner of the screen that has us in it?”
He smiled sweetly.
“Yes?”
It made her laugh.
“See you later!”
He hung up.
While they went to work, he did too.
“Now come here, Mrs. Thundercloud,” he said, grabbing her.
“I’m not alone, am I?” she asked.
“No, sweetness, we aren’t. It looks like in a few days we created a second miracle. We made a family out of a rich girl, two ex-feds, and two killers.”
She smiled.
Stella was at peace with whatever happened. If her father was behind this, that was on him.
She was nearly thirty, and she couldn’t pay for his sins. They were on him.
Stella wanted a life filled with love.
“Want to add a baby to that family?” she asked, as he grinned at her.
His heart skipped.
“Oh, hell, yeah!”
“Then you’d better get to work.”
With a job like that?
Who the hell couldn’t love his work?
As they hung up, they pulled up all of Chesky’s aliases. If there was something to be found, they’d locate it. With Sarah at the helm when it came to research, Dakota had no doubt.
“What do you want me to do?” Rogue asked.
“We are going to research Stan Glover, Patrick O’Malley, and Lewis Carahah. Those are the names he’s been known to use on that gambling cruise. You get out the video from the boat. Someone tipped him off. Sarah had a totally different hair color and didn’t look the same. Any man on there was looking at her breasts and not her face.”
God knew he was.
“He either saw me, or…?”
Sarah got it.
“His partner was somewhere on the boat, and he was tipped off.”
“Yeah, and if we find that person, we may find the man.”
They all got down to business.
They had a sicko to kill…
Err….catch.
* * * H U N T E R * * *
It was time.
Danforth stewed all night, and he was pissed. Pulling out his phone, he called the man who he’d paid to follow them.
He dialed the number.
“Where the hell a
re they right now?” he asked. “I need to be able to find my daughter.”
The man rattled off an address.
“You keep looking.”
“I didn’t get paid yet,” he said. “If you want me on the job, you had better cut me some cash.”
“I will! I will! God! I’m good for the money,” he said, hoping he could find his daughter and his millions that she’d stolen from him.
“Fine,” the man said. “I’m not working unless I get money. Have it to me or lose my number.”
Good help was so damn hard to find.
“You’ll get paid.”
He hung up.
Heading outside, Danforth got into his chauffeured car with the intent of strangling his daughter.
This was a mess.
None of this was supposed to happen. How could she run off and marry that…mercenary? He’d spent nine million dollars to get her back.
Ungrateful little bitch.
She was just like her mother.
“Get me to this address, and then leave. I’ll call you to come get me, Rocco.”
Yeah, he didn’t want witnesses. It wasn’t like he didn’t trust the man, but up to yesterday, he trusted Stella too.
“Yes, sir. Business, sir?” he asked.
Oh, he could say that.
The business of murder.
* * * H U N T E R * * *
Chartres Street
As he was watching the video from the boat, something caught his eyes.
Rogue was good with faces, and for some reason, he saw someone he knew.
Other than Sarah.
Rewinding the video, he saw her again.
Who the hell was this?
Wait!
Before he said anything, he opted to do a search. He saw her in three places. Now he needed to make sure he was right before he got the team excited.
Heading to the DMV search on Sarah’s tablet, he entered in her name.
You know, just to be sure…
Shit!
Yeah, this was huge, and they’d missed it from the start. Rogue could see why they loved their jobs. Hunting…it was a freaking rush.
“Uh, guys, we missed something,” he said, not able to believe what he was seeing.
He’d been right.
“What?”
“The other day, remember when I told you about the woman at the park? You know…the one I swore was waiting for me to do the drop?”
“Yeah, she ended up being some lady enjoying the day, right?”
“Uh, no.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
Now he had Sarah’s attention too.
“Can you show me how to do that thing you do when you send it to the big screen?” he asked Sarah.
She showed him.
Rogue pulled up the video and sent it to the TV so they could get a play by play.
“I don’t get it,” Dakota stated. “She looks like a normal woman taking a break in the park.”
Oh, he wasn’t done.
“Now look at this one.”
He pulled up the video of the boat and the woman drinking not far from the poker game.
He sent it to the still shot of the park lady.
“She recognized us. Look at her face.”
Dakota immediately recognized her.
“She got in my way as I was trying to get to Sarah.”
He got it.
“His partner isn’t a man, it’s a woman! She alerted Chesky!”
Yeah, that wasn’t even the biggest part of it. Rogue was about to drop the bomb.
“Who is she?” Sarah asked. “You said you recognized her. We have facial recognition software if you need it.”
“I don’t need it. I just saw her picture, and we’ve heard her name.”
“What? Where?”
“We just saw her at Zayn’s home. On the nightstand was a picture. She kind of looks like Stella.”
He sent the last piece of evidence to the screen. Sure enough, all three pictures matched.
“Oh, shit!”
He pulled up the name on the DMV pic from twenty-five years earlier.
“Maxine Harrington.”
They couldn’t believe it.
“She’s had facial work done. She’d be about…fifty. She looks like she’s in her forties.”
Holy shit.
She never died.
That’s when it hit Dakota. “The holding cell we searched, the one that smelled like a public toilet?”
“Yeah?”
“It said ‘wife’. That wasn’t Maia saying who was in there. She was saying who was holding her. She was trying to help us catch her killer.”
Well shit.
This was bad.
Thank god she and Chesky didn’t know where Stella was. If they knew, Stella was likely going to be a target again.
“But why?” Sarah asked. “Why would she kidnap her own daughter, who she left?”
“Money,” Rogue said. “It’s almost always about money.”
He had a point.
“We can’t let them find Stella.”
Yeah, that was the last thing they wanted. They didn’t, for one second, believe her mother wouldn’t hurt her.
She was a crazed killer who set this all up.
Maxine Harrington was the one who hired Chesky to kidnap Danforth’s new wife and his two daughters.
Now they had to figure out how she escaped death.
AND FAST.
“We had better call them and give them the heads-up.”
He was already dialing.
Bad shit was coming.
And fast.
* * * H U N T E R * * *
Danforth was finally there, and the closer he got to the man’s hidden home, he only got more and more pissed.
He wanted his money!
That was his!
While he’d pay to have his kids back, he wouldn’t let one steal from him. He’d given her that trust fund with the promise that she’d let him access it.
Those millions were his, and he was not happy.
As he walked down the alley, to the back entrance, and to the courtyard where the PI found the Indian lived, he was ready for a fight.
This wasn’t going to end well for the man. He’d killed before, and he was NOT afraid to protect what was his.
The second he turned the corner, there was a gun in his face.
Recognition dawned, but how?
“Maxine? Jesus!”
“Well, well, how are you, Danny boy?” she asked. “Did you miss me?”
She was smiling at him.
He wasn’t smiling back.
“Did you see a ghost? BOO!”
He jumped.
It was clear he was freaked out.
“Thought you killed me, huh?” Maxine said, grinning wickedly at him.
“I did kill you.”
She laughed.
“No, you thought you did. Only, you didn’t know I could swim. When you knocked me off that boat, I went under all right, but I went to the other side and held onto the anchor that was hanging over the side.”
He couldn’t be more scared if he tried. His past was coming back, and he knew he was going to jail.
He’d killed this bitch!
Now he’d have to kill her again.
Somehow.
“Telling everyone I was boating and fell over was funny. I love how you paid that man to say he was with me. How much did that cost you?”
He said nothing.
“Pussy got your tongue?” she asked, patting his cheek. He actually flinched. “Know whose pussy did get taken? Your second wife’s. I made sure my new lover’s men had some fun with Maia. Oh, dear, sweet, Maia. She took that bullet for her own child.”
He stared at her.
“You’re evil.”
She laughed.
“That’s a hoot. You killed me, remember?”
“I don’t recall it happening that way.”
She la
ughed.
“Again, how much did you spend to buy that man off?” she asked. “Oh, and I killed him first. My revenge is swift.”
He wouldn’t speak.
“I’ll shoot you here.”
“One million.”
“Well, at least I was a decent price.”
“But how?”
“Oh, it wasn’t easy. When you rushed back to the marina to change places with him, you moored the boat. I stayed under the dock. When you left me in the gulf to die, you sealed your fate.”
He got mad.
“Then you shouldn’t have threatened to divorce me.”
She was amused.
“Yes, we didn’t have a prenup. That would have sucked for you to lose all that money because it was just lust at first sight. By the way…you look like shit. You’re a fat, balding man. Death was a better option for me.”
He stared at her.
“I see you didn’t get any smarter. When I questioned Maia, she said she didn’t have a prenup either. That’s funny. You thought the nanny could replace me? How very unoriginal. Did you love her?”
He refused to say anything.
Honestly, he was in shock.
Maxine was done messing around.
The click of the safety had his attention.
“Spill it or I spill you, you murdering bastard. Oh, and I loved your little rant at the mercenaries for being killers…cute. How did you keep a straight face? You took my blood before they ever did. How did you look at your child and tell her?”
“Fuck you.”
She pistol-whipped him.
“I’ve been working out. You…you’ve been popping Viagra and eating donuts. I’ll tell you this…wife three…she wouldn’t let that tiny dick of yours anywhere near her.”
He touched his forehead, and it was bleeding.
“Now, did you love her? She told me, yes, but she didn’t really love you. You knocked her up and were screwed. Good one.”
“Not at first, but I needed someone to raise Stella. You left her. At least her pussy wasn’t a dried-up boneyard at your age. She at least could get me off.”
She hit him again.
“Keep doing it. You’ll draw a crowd.”
She glared at him.
“I didn’t want that kid. Please. I wasn’t mother material, and you know it. But oh, you wanted that baby. I gave you a child. I gave you what you wanted and all you had to do was divorce me, give me my money, and I was gone! No. Instead, you had to plot my murder. You’re an idiot.”
Atonement: The Hunter Mercenary Series (Book One) Page 40
