Ache For Me (Romantic Suspense) (The Everetts of Tyler Book 4)

by Hayden Braeburn

  She shrugged. “True. Such a great color combination. For many things.” She brushed a kiss against his jaw. “I'm going to pin these to the board, and maybe a few more.”

  A few dozen more, but who was counting? “What about dresses?”

  “What about them?” Her brows were drawn together in an adorable way.

  “I want to marry you now.” He paused. “Soon. If the last few days taught us anything, it's that life is short. I want to start that life with you. Now. I don't want to wait.”

  She wiped what looked suspiciously like a tear away from her eye. “I'll ask mom, and maybe she and I can go looking for dresses tomorrow.” She smiled. “Maybe we can talk Cassidy into coming, too.”

  She needed some normalcy, and he just needed her. “I need to wake up with Camryn Jamieson every morning.”

  “Camryn Everett Jamieson.”

  He grinned. “Marriage is about compromise.”

  “Damn straight.”

  ~*~

  Camryn gave the love of her life a grin. Flowers on Pinterest were a good distraction, and she was happy to be distracted. Had she really only been rescued this morning? She sighed and pinned another bouquet. Blue was definitely her color, thanks to her giant diamond. She wiggled the fingers on her left hand, watching the blue diamond and its flanking stones catch the light, sparkling through the dimmed light of the basement. Sean O'Dell had let them out of the bathroom, but he'd kept them downstairs, away from windows and doors.

  She'd moved from dresses to wedding bands in her Pinterest searches when her mother brought her the house phone. “It's Tabitha, honey. She seems frantic.”

  “Tabi? What's wrong?” she asked as soon as she put the phone to her ear.

  Sobbing and gasping breath filled the line for a moment before a coherent voice broke through. “It's Holden. He went off with a gun, and I don't know what's going on.”

  “Where are you?”

  A pause, more labored breathing. “I'm at your parent’s house.”

  “Why?” popped out of her mouth before she could stop it. The teenager needed her, she should be more understanding.

  “We should call your mother, Tab. I'm sure she's worried about you.”

  A wail pierced her eardrum. “How are you always so patient? So perfect?”

  “Perfect?”

  She heard stomping. “So perfect, yet you threw it all away. You were a star, and now you're, what?”

  Happy. Even with all the horribleness of the last few days, she wouldn't trade what she'd finally found with Carter for anything. “What do you want?” she bit out. She didn't have time to go down this path with a teenager. “There are things you don't know, things that made it necessary for me leave. I might've had a starring role, but I knew a lot less than I do now.”

  “Tell this brute to let me in. Holden has a gun, and I'm scared.”

  She gave Sean a look, hoping she conveyed her dismay at this phone call. “Scared of what?”

  “Maybe he would shoot at you? Again. What is happening with the world, Ms. Everett? I don't understand.”

  “I don't, either, Tabitha, but I don't think we are allowed to let anyone in right now. I'll tell someone where you are, and we'll make sure you're safe.”

  She didn't think Tabi would hurt her, but she wasn't about to let her in the house either. Instead, she asked for Carter's phone, and sent a text to Chris Delmonico, letting him know what was happening at her parent's house. She turned to her mother, then. “Wanna go dress shopping tomorrow?”

  Carolyn Everett let out a laugh. “Of course.”

  “We can forget all of,” she gestured around the room, “this, and look at expensive confections of lace and satin instead.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  It definitely did.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chris looked at the display on his phone, reading the text. Tabitha at the Everett estate. Near hysteria, says Holden has a gun. He looked across the table at the kid. “Your girlfriend is scared of you.”

  “I was trying to help, I swear.” The attorney had long since stopped trying to get Holden to quit talking, instead sitting next to him with a pained expression.

  Chris stood still for a moment. Something wasn't sitting well with him. Suppose he believed the absurd notion that the Graves were shooting at Camryn Everett to ensure she had bodyguards. What was going on with the land deal and the millions of dollars? He wished he had Tiffany or even Davis around. Instead, he had a Fed, whom he had found to be quite unreliable. He left the room, turning to Kavanaugh as he did. “What do you think?”

  “I think my team has let me down in unspeakable ways today.” She looked exhausted and disgusted. “How is it everyone they have supposedly been watching has managed to be wherever they wanted to go?”

  Good question. “Inside information?”

  “I'm beginning to think that myself.” She looked around the hallway where they stood. “Call your Morgan and Detective Davis. I think we need to have a meeting of our own.” She pulled out her cell phone. “I have a call to make.”

  Unsure where she was headed with the thought, but agreeing with needing Davis and Tiffany, he made his own calls.

  Not even ten minutes later, Kavanaugh rushed into the room. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He hadn't known her long, but Kavanaugh seemed unflappable, and this outburst was out of character. “Sloane.”

  “Sloane what?”

  “Why didn't I see it?”

  She was texting as she was half explaining to him and he had to admit to being a bit lost. “Didn't see what?”

  “He's behind all of this. Every last fucking thing. He helped the Richardson brothers set this up, he tied it all in with Rob McClaren, he used his government bought and paid for skills to frame Abby Reed.” She raked her fingers through her short hair. “Rob McClaren was rushed to Johns Hopkins. He was in anaphylactic shock, and Sloane is gone.”

  “I knew something was up with that guy,” Davis said when he arrived.

  A clunking sound announced Tiffany's arrival. “So, now what? He's killed at least once, and he tried again.” She paused. “He's done well knocking off his cohorts. Dead, jail, jail, hospital, and hospital.”

  “True.” Kavanaugh looked at the ceiling for a moment. “He's not going to try to salvage the deal, but he might try to move some money.”

  “On it!” Tiffany declared before crutching her way back to her makeshift desk at the Aylesford PD. “How did he manage to put McClaren in the hospital, anyway?” she asked as she gingerly sat in front of her laptop.

  Kavanaugh shook her head, shoulder-length brown locks flying. “Believe it or not, he served the guy a sandwich with a bit of peanut butter on it.”

  “Shit.” Chris massaged the muscles on the back of his neck. “That means he knew of the allergy.”

  Kavanaugh slumped into a chair, steepling her fingers as she folded her arms on the nearby desk. “Exactly. We've been going round and round when the whole time the linchpin was right next to us.” She let out a small scream. “Fuck.”

  “Why Abby Reed?” Tiffany asked.

  “And what's the deal with Camryn Everett?” Davis put in.

  The other woman slammed her palms against the desk. “Fuck if I know.”

  “We'll just have to figure it out then, now won't we?”

  ~*~

  The peal of the doorbell startled Carter from the coffee he was brewing. Alec Cartwright gave him a look before going to the door to see who it was this time, especially after the outburst Tabitha had on the doorstep and the phone a little bit ago.

  “Mr. Jamieson, I'm Special Agent Todd Sloane. I need to take you and Miss Everett to an FBI safe house. Your lives are in imminent danger.”

  “We have bodyguards—close protection agents—here,” he found himself protesting, much more comfortable with Alec and Sean at the Everett estate than he would be with an FBI agent he didn't know.

  “True, but you've already been compromised here. Shot at, nea
rly killed. We need to keep you safe and under the radar.”

  “We should go,” Camryn said as she entered the room. “I don't want anyone shooting at my parents. They've already rebuilt the house once because of a crazy person.”

  “As long as you're safe, we don't care,” Carolyn Everett declared.

  Alec and Sean were standing together, representing not only a wall of muscle and strong jaws but experience. “What do you two think?”

  “In a perfect world, he'd let us go with you,” Sean O'Dell answered, “but I'm sure this world isn't perfect, especially since it's an FBI safe house.”

  “The bodyguard is right,” Sloane agreed.

  A few moments later they were in yet another SUV, this time with an FBI agent they didn't know, Sloane telling them Phil and Camryn's parents would be fine once the two of them were removed from the premises since it was they who were in danger. “My brother is an agent,” Carter found himself saying as they drove.

  “Oh, everyone is well aware of Tanner Jamieson,” Sloane replied, more than a hint of distaste in his tone. “Tanner Jamieson, hero billionaire. Only works as an agent for the need to help find people.”

  “Missing persons is his calling,” he defended, “and billionaire is a stretch for us. Our father, maybe, but Tanner is an agent first and foremost.”

  The stocky man shook his head. “Whatever, Jamieson. We'll get to the safe house before too long. You'd best just settle in for the ride.”

  He watched the foliage pass the windows, noting as the vehicle moved further and further away from the city. “Where are we headed?”

  “A safe house. I thought you were smart.”

  Touchy. “I know tensions are high, but you don't need to be rude.”

  “I apologize.”

  It had to have been more than an hour before they pulled into a garage. “The end of the line,” Sloane said as he turned off the engine. “This is your new home for the next however long. The fridge is stocked, there is no phone.” He leered at Camryn. “I'm sure you can find a way to occupy yourselves for the next few days. It goes without saying that you may not make any calls, and actually, I should just take your phone since we wouldn't want anyone to track you that way.”

  The words all made sense, but something seemed off. “Who knows we're here?”

  “Only those who need to know. There's no way we can ensure your safety if your whereabouts are widely known.”

  Again, plausible. “Cam doesn't have her phone, anyway.” He placed his own expensive rectangle of glass and plastic into the agent's upturned hand. “I trust this will be returned soon.”

  The agent nodded, then instructed, “You two need to hole up here for a few days. Give us a few more days to neutralize the threat, and then you'll be free of us.”

  “Whatever threat there is, neutralize away,” Cam told the man. “I'm done with being scared out of my mind if it's all the same to you.”

  With another tight nod, the agent turned, leaving the two of them inside a house somewhere within about an hour or so driving distance from Tyler. He opened the door from the garage into the mudroom, “Shall we?”

  “Do we have any other choice?”

  It wasn't until they were inside with the agent outside and a sound of lock snicking back into place that the alarm bells went off in Carter's head. “He just locked us in.”

  She gave him a look. “He's keeping us safe.”

  The cold fear in his stomach snaked up his spine. “I hope you're right.”

  ~*~

  “What do you mean they're not there anymore?” Chris knew he was yelling into the phone, but didn't do a thing to change it.

  “They were moved to an FBI safe house,” Alec Cartwright informed him. “Agent Sloane picked them up about an hour ago.”

  “Fuck!”

  Cartwright's reactionary curse was rough in his ear. “What's going on?”

  “Sloane is dirty.” He took a deep breath. “Where'd they go?”

  “Wouldn't tell us—and before you scream at me again, he wouldn't have if he was legit either.”

  The other man was right, but that didn't make it easier. “He's a hacker of the highest order. He's got two of the richest people on the eastern seaboard with him, and we don't know what his endgame is.” Fuck.

  “Tell me what you need, Delmonico. We'll do it.”

  The bodyguard was good at what he did, even if a dirty FBI agent could dupe him and his partner. There was nothing indicating Sloane was dirty, and agents wouldn’t have said anything in regard to location if they'd been moving the couple to a legitimate safe house. “Keep the rest of the household intact.”

  “Ten-four.”

  He resisted throwing his phone, and he was almost surprised he didn't crush it in his fist. He turned to the three people who could help him. “Where would he take them?”

  “He's got them?” Kavanaugh's expression darkened.

  “Snagged them about an hour or so ago. Said they were headed to a safe house.”

  “One of mine?”

  “Supposedly.”

  Brandon scrubbed a hand over his face. “It's got to be money.”

  “Money makes people do crazy shit,” Tiffany agreed. She tilted her head. “Does Sloane know Tanner Jamieson?”

  Kavanaugh assessed the small blonde with a broken leg. “Sure. They were in Missing Persons together for a while before Sloane took the computer training and ended up in fraud and cybercrimes.”

  “Interesting. Maybe this is personal.” She tapped her nails on the desk. “Where would he put them?”

  Boot heels clacking against the vinyl flooring, Kavanaugh paced as she thought. “We'll check our actual safe houses in the area, but I doubt he'd have hidden them in plain sight so to speak.” She turned at the wall, then paced back in the other direction. “I also doubt he's anywhere close by, aiming to get out of the country as fast as possible.”

  “But with this last hurrah before leaving,” Davis added. His shoulders slumped. “I can't believe we've been on a wild goose chase.”

  “Again,” Chris added. The last time they'd been chasing their tail, Haleigh Carlisle Everett's spy father had been manipulating them into doing what he wanted. This time it was an FBI Agent using people and discarding them like trash while terrorizing an innocent couple. He was starting to question his abilities as a detective.

  “This doesn't happen to the Bureau,” Kavanaugh told them, her back up and claws out. “When I get hold of that bastard...” she trailed off, the room well aware where she was headed with the thought.

  “Wishing him the pain of a thousand suns isn't finding our people,” Tiffany reminded them. “I'll start by trying to track Carter Jamieson's cell, then we'll move to something else if that doesn't help us.”

  “Should seriously look into getting these rich people chipped like Buster,” Brandon muttered.

  “Would make it easier to find them when they're kidnapped, at least,” Tiffany agreed. She paused. “Last ping was in West Virginia, right at the border.”

  “What are the chances he left them where he'd already held Camryn once before?”

  “Slim to none,” Kavanaugh snapped. “Fuck.” She stomped off to pace more, her cell phone to her ear presumably speaking to a higher up.

  Something snapped into place in Chris's mind. “Hey, do Fitbits have GPS?”

  “Sometimes,” Tiffany answered.

  He brandished his left wrist. “Does this model?”

  Brows furrowed, the blonde squinted at his device. “Sure does. Please tell me you and Carter work out together, and you know the information on his, so I can track him.”

  “I don't, but Caleb Everett does.”

  “Hallelujah!” Tiffany was already picking up the phone when she made the exclamation. “You might have just saved the day, Delmonico.”

  We'll see. It was a short call, Tiffany's expression visibly happy when she disconnected. “I have an address. Let's roll.”

  “You're not going,
Morgan,” Davis replied before anyone else could. “Run the show from here. You're the only one any of us can trust anyway.”

  She was miffed but hid it well. She gave them an address about an hour away. “Get out there.”

  “You two go,” Kavanaugh directed. “Sloane is my responsibility. Save your people.”

  She didn't have to tell them twice. He and Brandon Davis rushed to the parking lot and into Davis's vehicle quickly. They were speeding down the road before Davis asked, “Why didn't you think of that damn device earlier?”

  “Hell, I forget about the thing all the time. I only have one because Gemma gave it to me—said I wasn't taking care of myself or some shit. Carter's been working out with Caleb for the last year or so, but we don't talk all that much. We're friends, but without Haleigh marrying Caleb, and Dylan marrying Cassidy I wouldn't know half the shit I know.”

  “Well, if it's the reason we find these two, I might have to get one myself.”

  “Most of the time they're just annoying, buzzing to tell you to move your ass, but sometimes you realize you've walked a million steps and should sit your ass down and have a beer.”

  “We find these people, I'll buy you a beer.”

  “You're on.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “Now what?” Cam turned to Carter. “Television?”

  His gray eyes glinted. “Are you sure that's what you want to do?” He pulled her to him, kissing her breathless before he went on, “I don't know if we've just been kidnapped again or if we're actually safe, but we're together.”

  “Safe. We've got to be safe.” She squeezed him. “Please promise we're safe.”

  “I want to, Lark...” he trailed off.

  She waited for him to complete the thought, but he didn't continue. “Even if we are kidnapped, no one is shooting at us, so that's good.”

  She felt his sigh against her cheek. “No bullets are always the preference.” He paused. “We need to figure out where we are and get out of here.”

  Dammit. “I was afraid you'd say that.”

  “Can't help it, Lark. The only good feeling I have about this place is that you're here with me. Since we know the door is locked, let's try the windows and the other doors.” Carter's voice was calm, and she wondered if this was how he kept his client's from going crazy when they were accused of doing horrible things.