GRAY WOLF SECURITY, Texas: The Complete 6-Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Because he’s innocent.”

  “But even your own mother believes he’s guilty. You know that, right?”

  She blushed, the high color bringing even more beauty into that lovely face. “Mickey and our mother had issues. But that doesn’t make him guilty.”

  “When will you believe that he did this? When are you going to believe that he took my three-year-old daughter and strung her up like some sort of animal in her own bedroom?”

  She winced. “He didn’t do it.”

  “There were details in his confession that could only have come from the killer.”

  “He could have heard it somewhere else.”

  “Then why would he confess?”

  I’d asked her that before, but she never had an answer. I started to turn, assuming today would be the same. But I was wrong.

  “I think he’s taking the blame for someone else. I think he’s been paid to do it.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  She pulled a file out of the satchel she had over her shoulder. She came close to me, opening the file and pointing to a piece of paper that looked like a copy of someone’s bank statement. The name at the top was Roger Fuller.

  “This isn’t his.”

  “Roger Fuller is an alias he uses sometimes. I think that someone paid him and he squirreled the money away, thinking he would get out sometime. I don’t think he believed they would sentence him to life if he pled guilty.”

  “Then he was a fool.”

  “Mr. McKay, I know this is hard to believe, but I have more evidence. If you would just sit down and discuss it with me….”

  I shook my head. “As far as I’m concerned, that man murdered my family and I’m not going to do anything to help you prove otherwise.”

  I turned and my stomach froze as I watched Mickey Connors marched toward the courtroom with his shackles restraining him. He stared me in the eye, never flinching.

  Those were the last eyes my wife ever saw, the last eyes my daughter saw.

  I felt sick as that thought rushed through my mind. I would make him pay. I didn’t know how and didn’t know when, but I was going to make that man pay. I didn’t care how many sisters he had out here, fighting for him. He was a murderer and he would pay.

  Finding purpose with Gray Wolf Security didn’t change my need for revenge. It just tempered it a little. And that was okay for now.

  I had twenty-five to life to find a way. Mickey Connors wasn’t going anywhere.

  ~~~

  CHASING PEPPER

  Prologue

  Pepper

  He tugged at my hip, pulling me closer to him in the tangled sheets of his bed.

  “You know, I think you’re probably the most beautiful girl I’ve ever been with.”

  “Oh, that’s romantic. Just how many girls have you been with?”

  “Dozens. But you’re at the top of the list.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He laughed, tugging me even closer. “I think your beautiful face could distract even the pope from his daily prayers.”

  “Then I suppose I should wear a veil if I ever go to St. Peter’s.”

  “And if you could distract the pope, surely a simple security guard would be no problem.”

  I twisted around, trying to see his face. “What are you talking about?”

  “I have this problem and I thought…since you care so much about me…”

  I slapped his shoulder. “What makes you think I give a shit about you?”

  “You’re in my bed, aren’t you? And didn’t you tell me before that you’d only slept with one other guy?”

  I blushed, embarrassed that he was throwing that back at me. “I only told you that so you wouldn’t think I was some sort of slut.”

  “I knew you weren’t a slut the first time I set eyes on you. And this little blush—while cute, it gives away all your little secrets, my love.”

  He ran his hand slowly over my belly. “Listen, this guy took some things from me and I just want to get them back. But he has them at his office downtown and there’s security everywhere.”

  “And you want me to distract the security guard?”

  “Just long enough for me to get inside. That’s all. Five minutes at the most.”

  “How did this guy get your stuff?”

  He shrugged. “It was a poker game gone wrong. Then I found out he was cheating, so really I never should have lost my stuff to him.”

  It seemed logical to me. But to take it without permission?

  “I can’t help you rob someone.”

  “This is a thing we do. We’ve done it before. He cheats me, I steal it back, he gets mad for a while, but then he comes around again and we start all over again.”

  “Sounds silly.”

  “We’ve been doing it since college.”

  He shifted, pressing me down against the mattress as he rose to tower over me. He pressed his mouth to my throat, his teeth sharp against my skin. I laughed and groaned all at the same time, moving my hips so that he could slide inside of me again, his cock long and thick and touching things inside of me that made my lower belly quiver. I wrapped my legs around his waist, kneading my fingers against his back muscles.

  “Tell me you’ll do it,” he groaned against my ear, stilling the movement of his hips.

  I moved my hips, trying to encourage him. “Please…,” I whispered.

  “Tell me you’ll do it.”

  “Unfair.”

  He groaned. “To you or to me? You’re driving me mad.”

  “Okay.”

  He started to move again, and I was lost in seconds, my body a ball of overstimulated nerves, my lower belly shaking so hard that it was like an earthquake in the core of my body. Sex.

  Fuck, I didn’t know it could feel so good!

  I didn’t know my body was capable of that much pleasure. My first experience was less than enjoyable. Painful, really. But this? There was no comparison to it. If he promised to lie with me like this every night for the rest of my life, I would probably agree to do just about anything. Murder, even. I had already done things I never imagined I would. What was distracting a security guard? Besides, if this guy was a friend and they’d done this since college…what was the big deal?

  Whom were we hurting?

  Chapter 1

  At the Compound

  David Grayson grabbed his son, Chase, as he ran toward the bed where his wife was currently stretched out. He was wearing an Iron Man costume, complete with the mask that bit into the underside of David’s arm as he caught him.

  “I want to show Mommy!” Chase demanded.

  “I know, but she’s resting.”

  David backed out of the room, carrying the boy down the long corridor that led to the public areas of their shared second floor, converted apartment. Kipling McKay was sitting in the living room, a stack of paperwork on his lap and spread out on the couch beside him.

  “Burning the midnight oil?”

  He looked up, something like a grin touching his stern expression as his eyes fell on the squirming toddler in David’s arms. “Just going over the new client contracts Tierney drew up yesterday.”

  “It’s Halloween. You should take the night off and go out with everyone else. I heard they were heading to a party at that bar downtown.”

  “Not my scene.”

  David nodded, lifting Chase onto his hip. “Yeah, wasn’t mine before this little man.”

  “Are you going trick or treating, Chase?”

  Chase nodded. “Me and Adam and Ingram and Daddy!”

  “That’s awesome, kid. You should probably go find a pillowcase to put all the candy in.”

  Chase jumped down from his father’s hip and ran back down the corridor to his bedroom. David watched him go then went to settle on the couch beside Kipling.

  “Listen, I’ve been meaning to thank you for all the extra stuff you’ve been doing since Ricki was put on bed rest.”

  “It’s not
a problem.”

  “I didn’t hire you so that you could take over my job. The timing was just—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kipling said, gathering the paperwork and setting it on the coffee table in front of him. “How is she?”

  “Resting right now. But this being stuck in bed is driving her crazy.”

  “Did she have this sort of trouble in her first pregnancy?”

  David shook his head. “No. No high blood pressure, her blood sugar was stable. The doctor says that every pregnancy is different, so this couldn’t have been predicted. And he says that it’s possible her next pregnancy will be as complication-free as the last. It’s just an anomaly.”

  “But she’ll have to be on bed rest till she’s due?”

  “Yeah. Fifteen weeks. Doesn’t seem like a long time until you start looking at it as fifteen weeks being stuck in the same place, looking at the same walls, doing the same things day in and day out. She’s been in there three weeks and she’s already ready to give up.”

  “I can’t blame her.”

  David ran his hands over his face. “I want to hire a nurse to help her out and to keep an eye on Chase. Bailey’s been a big help, but she’s almost as far along in her pregnancy, and she’s got Adam to take care of, so I feel bad asking her to help out so much. But when I suggested to Ricki that we hire someone, she threw a glass of water at me.”

  Kipling chuckled. “She’s an independent lady.”

  “She is. And determined not to be a burden, but I can’t just leave her up here alone while I deal with things downstairs.”

  “Gray Wolf takes care of itself.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t ask you to do everything for the next fifteen weeks, and there are other things…the body camera that Ricki was working on. I need to work on the software for it before the company making the prototype is done. And I need to meet with clients. How would it look if a client came here for a meeting and didn’t meet me? The client would think that we weren’t on top of things like we should be.”

  “They would understand.”

  “I don’t want to advertise my personal situation to everyone.”

  “But the thing is, family has to come first. The business…it’s important, but at the end of the day, it’s your wife and children who really matter.”

  David glanced at Kipling. He knew the man was dealing with the aftermath of his own personal struggles. His wife and daughter were murdered, and the man who did it was running through the lengthy appeals process despite the fact that he confessed and pled guilty just weeks after the crime. He was—right now—waiting for the results of new DNA testing on items taken from his house after the murders.

  Chase came running back into the room then, a pillowcase with Iron Man, the Hulk, and half a dozen other super heroes printed on it streaming out behind him.

  “I’m ready to go, Daddy!”

  “Are you sure? You have everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have your pillowcase?”

  “Here!” he said, holding it up.

  “Your flashlight?”

  “Here!” he said, pulling it free of the utility belt around his waist.

  “Okay, then,” David said, setting his son on his feet and getting up himself. “I guess we should go.”

  He glanced at Kipling. The worry must have been written all over his face because Kipling dropped him a wink.

  “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  David followed an excited Chase down the stairs. The large, open space that was once a living room but was now the main office of Gray Wolf Security 2 was alive with activity. Three employees were settled at their desk computers, working through the background checks that Gray Wolf contracted to do for multiple businesses around the state. Annie, the office manager, was holding court with the operatives—who were dressed in a variety of costumes—and their significant others. Knox, dressed as a vixen, was holding onto the arm of her boyfriend, Dunlap Spencer, who was dressed as a hunter. His kids, Stevie and Mattie, were dressed as foxes. Mattie was chasing after Adam—who was Batman—as he giggled and held out a little doll that Mattie clearly wanted. Alexander was a vampire, his girl, Tierney, an angel. Elliott and Brooks were dressed as Sherlock Holmes and his lady, Irene Adler. And then Ingram was leaning against his desk, watching his wife wobble around the room dressed as an egg. He was a spatula.

  It was really entertaining, and it left David wondering what would happen to their reputation if a client were to walk in at the moment. Would he think they were creative, interesting people, or find them frivolous and untrustworthy? He wasn’t sure, but he was grateful no clients were due to come by tonight.

  He walked up behind Annie and kissed her temple lightly.

  “Where’s Nolan?”

  Nolan Everett was their new hire, a retired Marine who’d only been with them a few weeks. He was struggling to fit in, always sitting alone in meetings and working quietly and alone at his desk during the workday. David could see the way the others looked at him; he could see them measuring him. It was important that all his operatives trusted each other because you never knew when they might have to rely on one another in the field. He could see they didn’t trust Nolan. Not yet. But he had faith that they would eventually.

  “Not here,” Annie said. “I know he knew about the party, but I think he chose to spend his evening elsewhere.”

  David nodded, a little disappointed. He’d hoped Nolan would take the opportunity to socialize.

  Ingram came over, gesturing to the kids.

  “I think we better take them out. They’re getting anxious.”

  Adam and Chase were standing in the large entryway of the old house, pacing in front of the door. David laughed, struck with the comparison of his brother, Ash, pacing outside his wife’s hospital room the day after she gave birth to their daughter. The poor man had been so caught up in everything the day before that it had just occurred to him what his wife had gone through and how his future was molding itself. David had never seen him so uncertain in his life. That was what Chase looked like now, like trick or treating would forever change his life.

  For a four year old, maybe that was a fact.

  He was about to wrangle the boys together when the chime for the front gate suddenly sounded. His fear that a client might show up sent trickles of frozen water rushing down his spine. He went to Annie’s desk and pulled up the video footage of the front gate, revealing an old Jeep that looked like it’d seen better days. There was duct tape on the roll bars and a dent the size of a person’s head on the back quarter panel—and an attractive, young woman, who was dressed a little too casually for the brisk wind that was blowing tonight.

  “Can I help you?” he said into the intercom.

  “Is this Gray Wolf Security?”

  “It is. And you are?”

  “I’m looking for a woman who works here. Ricki Dennison?”

  David leaned close to the screen, trying to get a better look at this woman who was looking for his wife. He was cautious when it came to strangers just showing up to see Ricki because she’d had a stalker who had tried to kill her some years ago and because she was once a well-known hacker and the owner of a large social media website that had garnered her both fans and enemies. The fact that this woman used her maiden name meant she didn’t know Ricki well, and that was a warning sign. She looked harmless, but so had the woman who had nearly killed Ricki.

  “I’m afraid now is not a good time. Could you come back tomorrow?”

  “I would, but I really have no where else to go. Is Ricki here? Could you tell her it’s her sister, Pepper?”

  That stopped David for a second. He studied the woman’s face, using the toggling controls on the security system to focus more on her features. He knew Ricki had a sister named Pepper, but he also knew that she hadn’t seen her since she was sixteen. Ricki ran away from home at sixteen because her stepfather was a cruel man who singled her out and treated her with distain f
or reasons he didn’t think even Ricki fully understood. She never looked back, never tried to contact members of her family after that.

  So how did this girl find her?

  “Come up to the main house,” he said, pushing the button that would release the gate. I watched her climb back into her Jeep, moving a gracefully as Ricki ever might have. There was some physical resemblance between the two women. Pepper was small, like Ricki, petite and graceful. And she had the same button mouth—at least, as far as he could tell over the security feed. He couldn’t quite make out the color of her hair or her eyes, but they appeared darker than Ricki’s dirty blond and bright blue eyes. But that could easily be explained by the fact that Ricki and Pepper shared a mother, but had different fathers.

  “Ingram, would you mind taking the boys yourself? I need to deal with this.”

  “Of course,” he said, immediately corralling the kids. Knox volunteered to go with him in order to take her boyfriend’s kids along. The others filed out after them, headed to the party downtown. The house was reasonably quiet, as David stood on the front steps, waving his family off and waiting for Pepper. She pulled her old Jeep to a stop at the top of the circular drive, pausing to watch the line of SUVs pull away, a bemused look on her face.

  “Doesn’t that kind of give it away?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “The SUVs. Don’t they give it away that this is a security firm?”

  “We aren’t trying to hide it.”

  She kind of nodded, like that was obvious.

  David gestured for her to enter the house, walking behind her, taking in the clothing she wore that was just as battered and worn as her old Jeep. Jeans with holes in various spots that were clearly not put there by the manufacturer to be hip, a jean jacket with patches in various places, canvas shoes with bright pink socks sticking out on the corners. She had a bag slung over her shoulder, a small duffle that had also been around for a while. It was stained with various fluids and whatnot. But she was clean, her deep brown hair pulled back into a ponytail—ironically, just like Ricki’s had been when David first met her—a soft rose scent wafting behind her as they made their way down the long corridor that led to David’s office.