Deadly Ties

by Vicki Hinze

  “No words on a piece of paper change what’s written in a man’s heart, Joe, or the evil he’s put in his mind.” A shiver snaked through her veins, heated her blood. “The truth is, Dutch hates me, but now that I have my license, he’s on a deadline.”

  “A deadline?”

  She nodded at Joe. “Dutch hates anything he can’t control, and he has to win.”

  “Win … how?”

  “By getting me out of commission before I can get my mom out of his clutches.” Shame heated her face. “Embarrassing to admit, but he’ll do anything to avoid losing. If that means killing me, he’ll kill me.”

  Joe blinked hard, stopped midchew, and looked at Mark. Understanding passed between the men.

  Lisa expelled a staggered sigh. This battle was inevitable and had been since she was sixteen. Now it must be fought. And while it terrified her, she was every bit as determined that Dutch lose as he was to win.

  Help me, Lord. I can’t save Mom or myself on my own. Please, help me.

  4

  T here’s been a slight change of plans.” Dutch cut across the thick green lawn, holding the phone to his ear. He stared out across the sun-spangled water in the cove. The tang of salt stung his nostrils, and he twitched his nose. “You’ll have to take down Annie earlier than planned.”

  “Why? We’re all set up to go at Three Gables and then make the grab at—”

  “Trust me, Karl. You don’t want to hit anything at Three Gables.” What was wrong with him? Karl Masson knew Benjamin Brandt’s estate was heavily guarded by Mark Taylor and his security staff, that Taylor’s old military buddies were in town, and that he was Annie and Lisa’s self-appointed protector.

  Dutch swatted at a bee buzzing the jasmine. Killing that man would be pure pleasure. Of course, first Taylor had to fail to protect Dutch’s women, and then he could die. Utter humiliation, then death. Nothing less would be enough.

  The man was long overdue at learning to keep his nose out of other people’s business. Especially Dutch Hauk’s. But Taylor would get the message soon enough.

  “Why not?” A hard edge grated Karl’s voice. “You know how the boss feels about changing plans on an active mission.”

  “Yeah, I do.” Overhead a gull screeched and then dove for a fish. It missed. The water splashed and then settled into a ripple, and the bird flew on. “But the place is a fortress. Brandt upgraded security when the boss was after Kelly Walker. You remember her, don’t you?”

  Dutch knew Karl wouldn’t forget the woman who had seen him conspiring with Gregory Chessman and his whacked-out sidekick, Paul Johnson, on Chessman’s terrace. After botching NINA’s operation smuggling bioterrorists into the country, she had NINA freaking out. That landed Johnson and Chessman in jail and spurred a serious crackdown on NINA’s local operations. Kelly Walker also gave the FBI a sworn statement that slapped an artist’s rendition of Karl Masson in the number-three slot on its Most Wanted list.

  NINA typically functioned in stealth mode, quiet and behind the scenes, under Homeland Security’s nose but also under its radar. Exposure was the last thing NINA wanted.

  “Don’t be flip,” Masson said. “Of course I remember Kelly Walker. She’s the reason I personally took on this job.”

  Interesting. NINA’s notorious cleaner, who removed obstacles and made worries disappear, was going rogue to take out Walker himself. NINA didn’t like rogue actions, but in Walker’s case, it would make an exception.

  In Karl’s position, Dutch would do the same thing. Without Walker’s testimony, the feds had no case. If the heat hadn’t been on full force, NINA probably would have already eliminated her. But the heat was scorching hot, and Walker and the man in her life, Benjamin Brandt, had loads of money and Mark Taylor, and that gave them the ability to keep the heat on for a long time to come.

  “Yeah, well don’t let your personal business interfere with your job. I’m paying good money for priority handling on this bit of business.”

  “Not a problem.” The sounds of Karl swallowing came through the phone. “I’ll avoid the fortress.”

  Dutch glanced back toward the house to make sure Annie hadn’t come outside. Most afternoons, she liked to read in the hammock. A pang of worry rippled through him. Karl would knock her around a little, but she’d be fine in a week or two. And she’d know the consequences of not doing as she was told. It was her fault. He couldn’t have her ignoring his orders. “Where are you going to do it, then?”

  “It’s better that you don’t know.”

  “But—”

  “Leave my job to me. You have your alibi in place?”

  Dutch glanced from the empty hammock back to the house. No Annie. Probably still packing his clothes. “I’m leaving for Georgia in a few minutes.” He checked his watch. Nearly three o’clock. “Checking on my stores up there.”

  Dutch owned a chain of thirty-seven convenience stores that ran from Georgia across the south and down to the Texas-Mexico border. None of them made much money, but that was insignificant. His income stream was staggeringly high regardless of the economy and mostly tax free. He smiled. Recession, depression, and inflation proof.

  “Sounds good. Just forget everything and go to Georgia. The bottom line is, nothing can interfere with the shipment,” Karl said. “Anything goes wrong here, it goes wrong all the way down the line.”

  “I know.” Dutch toed a lump of grass. “The boss wouldn’t like it.”

  Karl’s cackle held no humor. “You’re talking a loss of roughly ten million. Uh, no. The boss wouldn’t like it.”

  Heads would roll, including his own. “Do what you have to do, but try not to kill Annie.” Dutch hated the weakness in his voice. Stupid. Loving a woman who can’t stand the sight of him. “I mean, if you have to, then do it, but if you don’t, then let her live.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” Impossible. Dutch didn’t understand his own conflicting thoughts about Annie.

  “Of course. It’s simple really. You hate your stepdaughter more than you love your wife.”

  The line went dead, and Dutch slipped his phone in his pocket. Karl was wrong. He did love Annie.

  Annie. Dutch would never forget the night Charles Harper had brought him into his home for dinner. Even then Lisa had been a brat, whining about not wanting to dress for dinner for a man she didn’t know. Annie had defended him.

  “He is our guest, Lisa Marie, and you will treat him with respect.”

  Dutch had known right then Annie was different. She’d given him a chance. No woman in his life had defended or respected him. He’d made up his mind on the spot not to just take Harper’s money, but to take his life and claim it for his own—his money, his life, his wife, and his respect.

  Unfortunately, Lisa Marie came with Annie. And after the way Annie had grieved for Charles, killing the brat was out. Annie would never get over it. So Dutch had settled for getting the kid out of the way and then keeping them apart before Lisa could remember anything. If she ever did remember, he would know it and could handle her before NINA did and held him responsible.

  All that extra trouble just for Annie. Not that she knew the pains he’d suffered for her. But he had loved her as much as he could. It was hard for a man who’d been told from birth he was evil and had it beaten into him until he believed it. Annie was good to him, but she’d never loved him. She honored their vows because she made them.

  And because if she didn’t, Dutch would come down on her and Lisa like a hammer.

  The key to respect was money. That’s why he’d hooked up with NINA. All he had to do was let them run people—all kinds of people—through his stores and launder a little money now and then. It cost him nothing and he’d made a fortune, enough to buy Annie’s respect if not her love. Respect meant more. It lasted longer. She had respected him out of necessity and then out of fear. Not for herself, for the brat. But that would change. Soon.

  Lisa Marie Harper would learn that she had picked the wr
ong man to mess with—and she’d have an entire lifetime to regret it.

  Killing her was too easy. He wanted her alive …

  And suffering.

  5

  M ark set out snacks for the guys, then dusted his hands. “Ready?” He lifted the remote while the guys positioned themselves in his media room. “Hit the lights, Joe.”

  The lights dimmed, and the first slide filled the wall screen. In it, a smiling couple stood near a bench nestled between moss-laden oaks. In the background, a three-story gray stone house rose like a stately tower. Somehow it retained the warm appeal of a home and not a museum. “This is Three Gables. The couple is Benjamin Brandt and Kelly Walker.”

  “I thought he’d be older. He’s our age?” Tim asked from his seat on the sofa, looking stylish enough to have stepped off the pages of GQ. Not a strand of brown hair out of place, not a crease daring to wrinkle his brown slacks.

  “Early thirties. Same as most of us. You kind of remind me of him, Tim,” Mark said.

  “We don’t favor each other.”

  “You’re the only two guys I know who can look sophisticated in fatigues.”

  “Oh, he’s one of us?” Tim’s interest piqued.

  “No, you both just have that same sense about you.”

  “What sense?”

  “Perfect, rich, and probably useless,” Joe cut in.

  Mark lifted a hand. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Just needling you, bro. You and Brandt have it all together. Now that you’ve gotten your ego stroked, can we press on?” Joe never minced words. He ditched his chewing gum and sat at a bistro table. “I have a feeling I picked a lousy time to quit smoking.”

  “No such thing. Any time’s a good time for that.” Sam snagged a chair opposite Joe, spun it around, then straddled it. An Alabama boy, Sam looked a lot like Larry the Cable Guy with his goatee and trucker hat. Yet there was a lot more to him that he didn’t let many people see. He was extremely smart, if not brilliant, and he had uncanny senses. The man never quit.

  “Just don’t get any ideas about my pipe,” Tim warned Sam.

  “Keep it outside, bud. Smoke wrecks my sniffer.” He tapped his nose, and the ragged edges of his T-shirt sleeves clung to his arm. He tugged his cap down low on his forehead, shadowing his eyes. “Shoot, Mark.”

  “Give me a napkin,” Nick told Tim while dragging a carrot through the ranch dressing.

  Tim passed it over and Nick took it. Their lanky friend was a loner. Even with the team, he had his chair slightly apart from the others. Nick prized privacy, respecting it in others and demanding it for himself. Lightening up a little could benefit him. But there was nothing light about Nick. His hair and eyes were as dark as his typical thoughts.

  Anyone who didn’t know the team would consider them all relaxed, maybe even bored, but Mark knew them well. They were all highly trained, diversely skilled and experienced, mentally alert, and totally engaged.

  Sam made a get-on-with-it circle with his hand. “Three Gables, the knockout Kelly Walker, and Tim-like Benjamin Brandt. Got it. Go.”

  Mark bit back a smile. “As some of you know, Ben owns Crossroads Crisis Center. Kelly came here after a run-in with Gregory Chessman and NINA.”

  “Our NINA?” Sam gulped down a large swallow of drink.

  “The Nihilists in Anarchy NINA,” Mark said. NINA’s involvement in all kinds of illegal behavior made it familiar to everyone in the intelligence community. Prevailing thought was that NINA intended to destroy the country from the inside out using a combination of criminal activities to fund its ideology and political manipulations. “Our archenemy. That NINA.”

  “That’s what I meant.” Sam grunted. “Wait, I remember these two.” He waved a finger at the people on the slide. “NINA meant to hit Walker but killed Brandt’s wife instead, right?”

  Mark felt the familiar stab of Ben’s grief. “Just over three years ago.”

  “What was the wife’s name again?”

  “Susan.” Tim scratched his ear. “But it wasn’t NINA. Edward Johnson and his partner, Harry, made that hit.”

  “Yeah.” Sam exaggerated a nod. “I remember now. There was confusion on it because Gregory Chessman hired Johnson, and Chessman was a high-level NINA operative.”

  “That’s right. He’s in jail now.” Mark looked at Sam. “Edward and Harry killed Susan and her son, Christopher.” Collateral damage. Losing them had devastated Ben, and when he discovered his family had been assassinated by mistake, it nearly killed him.

  “Despicable, hitting a kid.” Tim sniffed his disgust.

  “Aren’t both of the Johnson men dead now?” Joe spoke up.

  “Maybe.” Sam shrugged. “They were reported dead.”

  “False report?” Tim asked Mark.

  “Not totally. One of them is dead. Edward.” Mark motioned with two pointed fingers to his own eyes, signaling he had seen the body firsthand.

  The whole situation had been kept pretty hush-hush to avoid jeopardizing the case, but Mark wasn’t surprised the team knew as much about it as they did. Once you were inducted into the intelligence world, you might leave it, but you were never really out of it. The reality of black ops and covert operations just didn’t work that way. You know too much, and too many continue to come after you to find out just how much you know. “The other Johnson, Paul, is in jail with Chessman.”

  “Gregory Chessman. Now there’s a piece of work.” Tim cleared his throat. “I challenge anyone to name an illegal activity he wasn’t involved in.”

  “There isn’t one.” Joe dragged a chip through the bowl of salsa. “Jerk’s corrupt to the core. He was even working with the mayor’s wife.”

  Darla Green. Mark nodded. “She and Paul Johnson killed the mayor. Chessman thought his secret partner was the mayor, but it was his wife. Now she’s in jail too.”

  “For how long?” Nick asked. “She probably got a slap on the wrist. Don’t look at me like that, Tim. She had money, connections, and a local judge. Of course she got a slap on the wrist.”

  “Unfortunately, Nick’s right.” Mark didn’t like it any better than the rest of them. “She got five years. Normally a third would be cut off, but I hear there’s something in the works to get her down to time served.”

  “Sickening.”

  “Predictable, Tim.” Sam downed a swig from his glass and hiked his chin to the screen. “Those two seem pretty chummy.”

  Ben and Kelly had been through a lot together. Trial by fire can do that. “They are close.” Mark moved to block the glare streaking across their faces and studied the slide. “One day they’ll end up married, but it’s going to take some time to work through their issues.”

  “I can see where it would.” Nick stroked his thin brown mustache. “She looks just like his wife.”

  “Kelly and Susan do resemble each other, but they’re different. The more you know of them, the less alike they seem.”

  “How?” Sam asked Mark.

  “Susan was softer, gentler, and more reserved. Kelly’s stronger, blunt, and takes big chances. I think a lot of them both.” Mark advanced the slide.

  A grainy image of Annie appeared on the screen. In her midfifties, she had a head full of gray curls. Her weariness etched lines into her face that dragged at the corners of her mouth. “This is Lisa’s mom, Annie Harper Hauk.” His voice went husky. “She’s a good woman in a bad situation.”

  Sam slid Mark a sidelong glance. “Well, why haven’t you gotten her out of it, bud?”

  “Tried. She refused. Still trying.” It was complicated, and he didn’t want the guys to bog down on this, but they needed to understand the complexities to grasp the threat. “Lisa’s dad was a doctor, and they were supposedly well off. Good Christian family. Everyday average Americans. But when Lisa was seven, she heard about this orphanage in Haiti that needed a roof. Charles went down to tend to the kids and help out. In short, he fell off the roof and broke his neck.”

  “He died?”
r />   Mark nodded at Tim. “The second he hit the ground, gone.”

  Sam looped his arms on the back of his chair. “So if they were wealthy, what’s the deal? Why’s Annie in a bad situation?”

  Mark rubbed the back of his neck. “They really weren’t wealthy—at least not at the end. Charles lost everything in a Ponzi scheme. He borrowed against his life insurance policies to stay afloat.”

  “He doesn’t sound like the kind to be suckered in. What happened?” Nick asked. “Drugs? Gambling? Women?”

  Leave it to Nick to go down the dark road. “Nothing like that. He just fell for a con with a slick tongue and no conscience.” Mark grabbed a handful of Sam’s pretzels. “He left Annie and Lisa penniless and crippled by debt.”

  “Oh man.” Sam groaned and stared at the ceiling. “Annie got jammed into marrying the jerk.”

  “In a way. She’s got a weak heart. Working was out. All she had left was the house, and it was about to go into foreclosure. Dutch had plenty of money but no respectability. Seagrove Village is a close community. Dutch wanted land for his convenience stores. He’s got over thirty of them. No respect, no land sales for stores. Annie was respected in the village, so he courted her, they married, he took care of her and Lisa. And Annie got him the respect in the community he wanted.”

  Nick took a long swallow of his soda. “So what’s bad in that situation?”

  “He turned mean. She’s a virtual prisoner.” Mark chewed the pretzel.

  “Wait a minute.” Joe grabbed a bottle of juice from the fridge. “You said Lisa has been living at the Towers since she was sixteen. Why?”

  “Something happened. I’m not sure what—neither Lisa nor Annie will say. But it was bad enough that Annie got Ben’s wife, Susan, to intercede. That’s when Lisa moved into the Towers. Ben owns it too.”

  “And Dutch just let Lisa go?” Tim stretched out his long legs.

  “He tried to stop her,” Mark said. “But Annie had already signed over custody of Lisa to Susan and refused to revoke it. Dutch and Susan got into it, and she told him to take them to court. The Brandts are seriously loaded. Dutch couldn’t outspend them, and Susan vowed she’d use every dime she had to keep him away from Lisa.”