“But why trust us now?” Dylan asked, clearly skeptical.
“Because I didn’t tell the cops I know what he looks like,” Kit admitted.
“What?” Baylee and Quinn said at the same time.
“He’s the guy who came into the shop the afternoon Baylee moved into Gloria’s guest house. He was fascinated with Ella Canyon’s painting, thought he was going to have a heart attack right there in the Book & Bean because of it.”
“Woman Rising? Mr. X is an art lover? You’re joking?” Quinn cracked.
“He thought the blonde on the canvas resembled his late wife. You should have seen him that day. He acted like he was having some kind of seizure or something. I’m surprised he didn’t faint.”
“Get out. You were in the shop with this guy alone and never said a word to us. That’s holding back,” Baylee grumbled.
Jake tried to explain. “I was right there with you about her not saying anything to anyone about the man’s odd behavior. But after he saved Kit and then kept the Book & Bean in one piece, Kit and I agreed to take a wait and see attitude about telling the cops anything at all about him. Then when he made it three for three with Baylee, we decided to keep what he looked like to ourselves.”
“Why mention it to the cops when he did us a favor we’ll never be able to repay?” Kit clarified.
Dylan agreed. “I suppose he could somehow realize how grateful we are and he’s willing to trust us now to help him out.”
“Actually, it’s the other way around,” Quinn said matter-of-factly.
When they all turned to stare at her, she added, “Consider it this way. Mr. X has already admitted he can’t be in two places at one time. So if we don’t manage to find a way to keep track of the Nutty Brothers ourselves it could cost one or more of us our lives. The next time they decide to blow something up or do a drive by, one of us sitting here at this table might not be so lucky. Our safety depends on not only figuring out a way to track down the two of them, but also to lure them out into the open.”
Impressed with her acumen, Reese tamped down the jolt of lust to his system that was starting to become a habit. “Mr. X has some ideas on that.”
He slanted a long look at Jake and Dylan. “And it involves a skill you two possess better than any two people I know. Apparently, he’s a fan. But I should point out you’d be breaking several laws, because our hit man is suggesting we make their funds disappear.”
Jake looked stunned for a moment before cocking his head to stare at Reese. “You want us to hack into their bank accounts and make their fortune go bye-bye.”
“Not me, but I wish I’d thought of it. Mr. X figures if we cut off their non-exhaustible cash source, including all of their hidden overseas assets, which are considerable according to the documents you now hold in your hands, they’ll get desperate and have to surface. And when they come up for air, our friend will be there to take them out.”
“That’s brilliant!” Dylan bellowed. “I’m in.”
Jake rubbed his chin, considering. “It can be done. But it means we create a huge paper trail that leads nowhere, which means bouncing the money to all kinds of different offshore accounts before setting up several fake corporations,” Jake reasoned. “And what does our mystery man want us to do with all this cash?”
“He leaves that up to us.”
Kit chimed in, “Well, I know I don’t want anything to do with Alana’s estate, knowing where it came from. I say we find out if this Noah Parker has any heirs and give Alana’s money to them, maybe even all this other cash. After all, it’ll take months to liquidate Alana’s assets while we could be giving away the Boyd family money instead.”
Jake put his arm around Kit and kissed her squarely on the mouth. “And that is why I’m crazy in love with you. I vote to find Parker’s family, too.”
Quinn looked around the table, saw the nods of approval. “It’s unanimous then. But what if there are none, what if this Noah has no heirs?”
“Then we give the money back to all the people BBG&G swindled and cheated over the years,” Dylan suggested.
“That could be a very long list,” Baylee pointed out. “They had to be scamming people right and left for years. How in the world are we going to know exactly who got ripped off?”
“True. Plus, that’s a lot of power to wield,” Quinn concluded.
Dylan nodded. “Okay. Then we’ll pick a charity. Donate it to a better cause.”
“It’ll be like Robin Hood. We steal from the asshole Nutty Brothers and give it to the needy. I like it,” Quinn weighed in. “We need to give our Op a name though. Any suggestions?”
“Operation Neuter,” Baylee deadpanned.
They all stared at her for about five seconds before busting out with laughter.
“Perfect.” Dylan planted a kiss on her mouth. “And that is the reason I’ve found the love of my life, people. The woman I plan to marry.”
Reese stared at his friend. “You? Settle down with one woman?”
While everyone exchanged looks, Baylee’s cheeks blushed. “I know we haven’t known each other very long but…when you know, you just…know.”
After taking a moment to absorb the shock, Kit went to Baylee first, then Dylan. “Congrats. I’ll say one thing for both of you. I’ve never seen two people more suited to one another.”
“Really?” Baylee beamed. “That’s what I said about you and Jake. I was worried you’d think it was too fast…”
Quinn grabbed Baylee in a hug. “If you’re sure, honey, I can get behind this, even if it is moving lightning-fast. No offense Surfer Boy, but Baylee’s got a kid.”
“None taken,” Dylan replied jovially before getting serious. “You forget, Sarah’s already mine. I’ve got a piece of paper that says so. But even if I didn’t, I love that baby like she came from a part of me. And Baylee, well Baylee is the first woman I’ve ever truly loved, heart to heart…”
“And soul to soul,” Baylee finished.
Quinn eyed the friend she’d known for more than seventeen years. Baylee looked as happy as she’d ever seen her. More moved by Dylan’s declaration than she wanted to admit, Quinn said simply, “Then welcome to our humble little family, such as it is.”
Upstairs, getting ready for bed, Quinn walked into the pristine guest bathroom to brush her teeth. She had to give it to Jake’s determination to hire the best carpenters and plumbers to bring Crandall House into the twenty-first century.
In record time, he, or rather his contractors, had taken an old shell of a house and made it not just livable but a thing of beauty. She ran her hand along the sleek, tempered glass countertop that gave the room a clean, modern look and pulled open one of the drawers in the vanity.
She picked up a brand-new toothbrush along with a regular size tube of toothpaste. She shook her head. Leave it to Kit to provide all those necessary but forgotten small amenities she hadn’t remembered to shop for and no longer owned.
So far she’d managed to keep the tears from flowing. But alone now, Quinn’s eyes blurred. She took a minute to consider why she had absolutely nothing left of her very own. Cade Boyd had been trying for years to make her pay for that crappy, brief six weeks of bad judgment. And now, he’d finally committed the ultimate. He’d taken the lives of innocent people he didn’t even know just to get back at her.
And for what?
Because he’d had a history of getting his own way for too long, a history of having never been denied anything in his irresponsible, miserable life, she thought now.
It certainly wasn’t revenge for his brother’s death. No, if that were the case he’d be going after the person responsible for killing Jessica and Sumner and now Connor. No, blowing up her apartment building was personal and meant to make a statement.
She finished washing her face and dried the tears away.
Crawling between the crispy clean sheets, she remembered those six short weeks of dating the man. She sighed with frustration. For years she’d carrie
d around that pang of regret.
But now as she closed her eyes with fatigue left over from the grueling night before, it was long past time to put a stop to bemoaning her mistakes.
Together, all six of them would do their best to locate Cade and his stupid brother, Collin.
And put an end to this destruction for good.
CHAPTER 8 Book 3
The smells in dingy, dumpy motel rooms never varied.
Regurgitated beer pretty much smelled the same in the Valley as it did in Riverside. The same could be said for the stench from cheap perfume and cologne, ditto for how stale cigarette smoke managed to linger and foul up the already rank air no matter how much air freshener you sprayed out of the can.
Not that anyone ever thought to pick up a can of anything that might make the rooms smell better.
Because of that, five-year-old Quinn learned a long time ago not to complain about something so trivial. There were other, more essential things to deal with, like getting a decent meal on a regular basis.
She’d even gotten used to playing on all the threadbare carpeting, dirty from years of over-use, or sitting on the stained, shabby furnishings, out of date by decades. That never seemed to change either. It seemed seedy motel owners rarely set aside money to redecorate.
Then there were the constant piles of dirty laundry that seemed to follow them from place to place because Ella consistently reminded her daughter household chores were not her thing.
At least the cheap motel rooms were better than sleeping in Ella’s beat-up old Monte Carlo, Quinn reasoned. She craned her neck to stare up at the television set which almost touched the ceiling because it was attached to a stand bolted high onto the grimy wall.
But Quinn wasn’t tall enough to reach it even if she stood on a chair. Instead, she had to lie back on the bed or sit and hold her neck at a funny angle looking up at the thing where some soap opera diva held court to the masses and had for hours.
Because the TV stayed on practically twenty-four-seven she picked up the remote to lower the volume. Since this time of day yielded no cartoons, the soap didn’t hold Quinn’s attention for very long.
Besides, Ella was enough of a drama queen to deal with on a daily basis without watching more of it play out on the tube.
Left alone for almost five hours now and bored, Quinn picked up her tousled, dark-haired, Starlight Carousel Barbie and went over to the window. She climbed up on the slice of a ridge above the AC unit so she could keep an eye out on the parking lot.
Surely Ella would be coming back soon. She’d been gone since noon and Quinn’s stomach was beginning to rumble with hunger. The dried corn flakes she’d eaten for breakfast that morning a mere memory now, Quinn absently stroked the tangled hair of the doll whose tattered blue dress had long since lost its sheen.
Not spotting any sign of Ella, she crawled off the sill and went to grab the only other toy she owned, a stuffed, bug-eyed, polka-dotted frog, she’d nicknamed Broggy. It too, like the doll, was a bit frayed around the edges. But Broggy’s sad shape didn’t deter Quinn from taking it wherever she went.
Out of habit, she crossed to the dresser and opened each drawer, going through the contents of one before moving on to the others, making sure there were no crackers left. But just as she already knew, the box was empty. She tossed the carton into the over-filled wastebasket and went back to the window—to wait.
Holding Broggy tucked under one arm while clutching Barbie in her other hand, Quinn kept a vigilant watch out for Ella. She could only hope that when Ella came back the woman would be alone and not dragging one of her male friends from wherever she’d found to spend the afternoon.
Quinn chewed on her thumbnail, little worry wart she was, and bit her lip. It was getting dark outside. How much longer would she have to wait for something to eat?
All at once she spotted Ella’s familiar gait walking between the cars in the parking lot. It was hard to miss that drunken sway. But as soon as Quinn spied the white sack she carried in her hand, the one with a well-known fast food logo on it, she let out a whoop, almost tumbling off the window sill.
When the key fit into the lock and the door opened, Ella burst in. “Hi ya, kiddo. Look what I brought you, a burger and fries for supper.”
Ella threw the sack in Quinn’s direction. The little girl dropped Barbie and Broggy and made a dive for the food. She had already crammed her mouth with two bites when she looked up and realized Ella wasn’t alone. A grubby looking guy with dark eyes and dark hair rubbed at a grease-stained shirt that barely covered his belly.
“Why don’t you take your burger into the john for me, Quinn honey? Give me and Reuben a little alone time. How about it, baby doll?”
Quinn began to wrap her burger back up and put it into the sack.
“Hey, the kid can watch if she wants,” Rueben suggested as he already began to strip off his clothes.
Ella giggled and told him, “That’d cost extra, now, wouldn’t it? Go on Quinn, get a move on, I don’t have all night. And thank Reuben here for the burger.”
“Thanks,” Quinn muttered as she dutifully moved toward the bathroom, taking her food with her. She pushed the door shut and turned the lock.
The sounds they started to make penetrated the thin door.
Quinn sat her sack down on the edge of the tub and took out her burger again, which by now was stone cold. As she did her best not to listen to the mattress sounds the adults were making in the other room, she wished she had thought to grab Broggy and Barbie so she’d have something to play with and wouldn’t be alone.
Because there was no telling how long Ella would be going at it with dirty old Rueben.
Quinn rolled over in bed and groaned when she saw the time on the clock. Two-fifteen.
Usually when the hellish dreams from the past took hold this time of night, they never wanted to let go. She rolled her neck and shoulders a couple of times, hoping to get her tense body to relax, did her best to shake off the walk down memory lane.
Good thing she was used to going without much sleep. Out of habit, she swiped her hair back and bundled it into a ponytail before crawling out of bed. She reached for the robe she’d borrowed from Kit.
Maybe a two a.m. snack would get her mind off those miserable days of yesteryear with Ella the junkie.
As she made her way downstairs, resentment simmered along her nerves. How old did she have to get before those nasty memories stopped trying to weasel their way back in? Would it always be a battle to shed those years she’d spent with Ella doing without, going hungry? How long before she quit remembering the sounds and the smells?
Rounding the last of the stairs into the spotless kitchen she’d helped clean up only a couple of hours earlier, she spied Reese sitting at the table hunched over his laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard.
She went to the pantry, dug out a box of Cocoa Puffs, found a bowl and a spoon. “It’s a little late to be sending out the bat signal in computer code to mystery man, don’t you think?”
Reese visibly jumped at her voice. “No, he makes sure we can’t reply to his e-mails. I’m working on…something else.”
No way was he going to tell her he was sending an e-mail to Nick Tyler telling him not to bother showing up after all. He’d gotten the man’s personal e-mail addy from Jordan Donovan, who’d gotten it from a musician friend who had asked a music industry insider for a favor.
He had to believe if he went to the source it would keep Tyler from getting curious and keep him the hell away from L.A. and the daughter he didn’t know.
Reese took the time to look up and study Quinn’s face, her eyes. Those deep chocolate pools said it all.
“How long have you been bothered by dreams, Quinn?”
She stopped in mid-pour as the cereal fell into the bowl in a heap before reaching in the fridge for the milk. “Who says I had a dream?”
Defensive, Reese decided as he got up and took down a bowl for his own cereal. “You tossed and turn
ed in your sleep less than twenty-four hours earlier. Now here you are up in the middle of the night—restless.”
“Look, I’ve got a lot on my mind, okay? I’ve been kicked out of the job I love, lost the only home I’ve known since I was sixteen. If you ask me, that’s plenty cause for loss of sleep.”
Reese wasn’t buying it. He took a deep breath. “You don’t want to talk about it? Fine, but don’t stand there and evade the question or lie to my face.”
Did the man always have to be so…damned know it all? She grumbled and took a seat at the kitchen table. “God, do you always have to sound like a lawyer, cross examine everyone? I don’t want to talk about my fucking dreams, how’s that?”
“Good enough, at least it’s an honest answer. So you’re up at two in the morning because you had a craving for Cocoa Puffs?”
“Geez, a woman can’t get a bowl of cereal without getting grilled. Do you ever go off the clock and act normal?” Looking at the stubborn set to his jaw, two could play hardball, Quinn concluded. “Why are you on your laptop this time of night? Signs of a workaholic? Hiding something? Scratching your online porn itch? Stretching your billable hours to the limit maybe?”
They were butting heads again, Reese thought. “Who’s the workaholic here, Quinn?” He put up the free hand that wasn’t holding his bowl as if he wanted peace. “How about we head to neutral corners for two seconds, okay? Let’s start this round over.”
“Hey, I just wanted a lousy bowl of cereal. You’re the one who went into lawyer-mode and started the twenty-questions routine.”
“Out of concern,” he added. “Jesus, hasn’t anyone ever just worried about you, Quinn?”
“Nope, just Kit and Baylee. And I like it that way.”
“Because you like shutting down anyone who tries. Oh, believe me, I get it, loud and clear.”
She threw out both arms in gesture. “Maybe it’s because I don’t want to get hurt. How about that? I opened myself up once and look where that got me.”
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