I wanted to argue, but he was already turned away from me, already on his way out. I watched him go, my heart in my throat. We’d just found each other again and now he might be taken from me. Again. And it would be my fault. Again.
I shoved the gun back into my waistband and covered it with my shirt. Then I climbed onto the top edge of the brick fence and sat with my hair covering the side of my face, trying not to look too suspicious as I watched the front of the building. I saw the car he mentioned, but there didn’t seem to be anything obvious about the man sitting in it. But there was a guy just sitting in it.
I wanted to call Dallas. I wanted to know if she was safe and if she blamed me for what was happening. I wanted to know that whoever did this to us, to me, to Kevin, to her, wasn’t after her, too.
And I wanted Kevin to come back.
I couldn’t just sit still and wait to see if my man was murdered breaking into his own condo. I jumped down from the wall and walked around the corner, remembering there was a convenience store there. I had a couple of bucks on me, cash my mother had always taught me to carry in my pocket no matter what I was wearing, no matter what I was doing.
I’d stashed sixty bucks in my bra when I dressed for the wedding at the church, sixty bucks I’d been carrying in my back jeans pocket for longer than I could remember around the ranch. Out of habit, I’d transferred into the pocket of the borrowed jeans I was currently wearing. That would be more than enough to buy a burner phone like Kevin had done in Florida.
I stepped into the store and searched the shelves for the right item. When I found it, I stood there for a moment, trying to decide which would be the best. It wasn’t like I was going to hold onto the phone. I was only going to use it once. But—
“Hello, Kirsten.”
I started to turn, but the gun pressed to the small of my back stopped me.
“I’ve waited a long time for this.”
“Why?”
She chuckled softly. “Why? How could you even ask that?”
“If it’s about money—”
“It was about money for Jason. Not for me. For me it’s about everything. It’s about the money, the ranch. It’s about Kevin.”
“Kevin?”
“It wasn’t enough that my mother raised you with a gentleness that she never showed me. Wasn’t enough that I grew up wearing your hand-me-downs. Wasn’t enough that my mother slaved away for you and your family, and then she pushed me into taking the same job with your family. But then he … you were out of his life, making him so miserable that he took up with that bitch who treated him like he was her personal playboy. But then, when I tried to show him what he could have with a real woman, you still had the power to pull him away.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No? Well, I don’t suppose it matters.”
She pulled me back, a hand on my arm guiding me through the nearly empty store. The dark car was sitting in the lot outside, right in the slot beside the door. The man who’d been watching Kevin’s place was watching us now, a creepy smile on his face that made my skin crawl. She shoved that gun hard against my back as we approached the door. I reached for it, stepping through with a prayer on my lips. I knew that if I got into that car, I wouldn’t see Kevin again.
“I could give you money, Elizabeth. I could change your life with one stroke of a pen.”
“I know that.”
“I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“You are. You’re going to sign over every damn thing!”
She shoved me forward again, desperation a knife in my chest. But then things took a turn I hadn’t seen coming. A man came toward us, his chin down against his chest, his hands in his pockets. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but then his head came up and he winked at me. And then exploded into Elizabeth, knocking her sideways.
“Run, Kirsten!”
I backed away as the man in the car jumped out, rushing toward me. But another man burst out of the shadows at the front of the store, knocking him hard to the pavement. He had to have broken an arm, the way he screamed upon impact.
Hayden struggled on the ground with Elizabeth. She was a slight woman, but she was fighting hard and dirty, making him grunt a few times as she attempted to get her knee into his crotch. The clerk from the store came out, yelling about calling 911. And then I remembered the gun stuck in the waistband of my jeans. I pulled it out and aimed carefully at Elizabeth.
I grew up on a ranch. I knew how to shoot what I wanted, even when it was moving. Sometimes it was easier when it was moving.
I fired, causing the clerk to turn and run back into the store. Elizabeth squealed like a stuck pig, immediately grabbing her knee. Hayden grabbed her wrists and put a cable tie on them, locking them together with the plastic restraint. Elizabeth cried out again, anger seething from between her lips, but it was over and she knew it.
“Thanks,” Hayden said. “If you ever want a job …”
“You couldn’t control her,” Kevin said.
“Neither can you.”
I went to him and buried my face in his chest, happier than I should have been that he was here, that he was safe, and that he’d come to my rescue.
“I love you.”
He groaned, pushing my head back so that he could see my face.
“Now she says it …”
Chapter 22
Kevin
I saw it from the upstairs window of my condo.
I went into the condo to leave a message for Hayden. I knew he would figure out there’d been a breach and he’d come here. What I didn’t expect was for him to walk up behind me while I was searching for a piece of paper.
“What is she doing?”
After my heart stopped racing, I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Look.” Hayden touched the window, pointing to the woman who’d gotten out of the black sedan in front of the building—the surveillance car that hadn’t bothered to check the back of the building or to notice that there was a service entrance that allowed entry into this condo from the alley. This was why I’d bought this particular condo in the first place and why I’d told Hayden about it. I knew I’d always be able to get in here no matter who might be after me.
I recognized the woman immediately. There was something about the way she walked, something about the way she held herself. It was the same blonde woman I’d passed twice at the hotel where Dallas and Jason were staying in Miami.
“Elizabeth Gasper. She’s the killer.”
“You think so?”
“I saw her in Miami when I first arrived and then the day Jason was killed. In fact, she was getting off the elevator as I was getting on to go find him.”
Hayden pulled out his phone and was in the middle of texting this information back to the office when he got a text.
“Shit!”
“What?”
He held the text up where I could see it.
Clark Marshall was an alias for Thomas Rogers, a known member of the Cholo Gang out of Chicago.
“Cholo?”
“They’re thought to be responsible for more than a dozen murders in this area and dozens more throughout the Midwest. They run guns and coke and just about anything else you think of. And they like to seduce young women, drawing them into the gang and using them as mules to transport drugs.”
“What does that have to do with this?”
“I don’t know,” Hayden said. “But I’d guess that guy down there, he’s Cholo. And if that’s true, he isn’t going after Kirsten to offer her a ride home.”
I looked down and the black car was pulling away from the curb, headed in the same direction both Kirsten and Elizabeth had gone.
“Shit.”
***
We got there in time. We saved Kirsten. But there were still so many questions left unanswered.
We spent most of the night at the police station, answering questions and wondering if we were going to be held overn
ight and taken back to Miami in the morning. But then the detective came in and let the three of us go.
“There was a camera on the floor Mr. Winston—or Marshall—was staying on. They have footage of Ms. Gasper getting off the elevator and going to room 1016.”
Kirsten offered a sigh of relief as she leaned into me. The cop almost smiled—I swear he did—and held open the door for us to vacate his interrogation room.
Hayden was waiting on the front steps of the police station.
“They’ve arrested several other members of the Cholos for the break-in at the safe house. They believe they were working on behalf of Ms. Gaspar.”
“She was a member of the gang?” Kirsten asked.
“No, but she’s apparently been involved with one of their lieutenants in Lubbock. He arranged for her to meet Jason Winston and she arranged for him to meet Dallas. They were expecting him to marry her and raid her trust fund before divorcing her and suing the family for half of the ranch. They needed the ranch as a stop-over between Texas and the Midwest for their drug and gun trade. Three Nines would have been perfect, but then Jason fell in love with Dallas and agreed to sign the pre-nup, so Elizabeth killed him.”
“And used it as an opportunity to hurt us,” I said.
Kirsten leaned into me. “I’m just glad it’s over. But I’m a little sad that I’ll have to tell Tina that her daughter’s going to jail for a very long time.”
That was a sobering thought.
“Do we know how the Cholos found out where we were?” I asked Hayden.
He shook his head. “Waverly’s been searching the computer system all night trying to find a bug or a virus that might have let someone past our security protocols, but she can’t find it. Which means it could be a person.”
I could see the idea that one of his employees might have betrayed him weighed heavily on Hayden’s shoulders. I was beginning to realize that Dragon was so much more than a business to Hayden, to Megan, and to many of the people who worked there. I was touched that they’d embraced me and Kirsten in our time of need. But it also made me realize that my family was elsewhere, and it was time for me to go home.
***
I stood just inside the massive doors of the stable, watching him brush down one of the thoroughbreds, his hands gentle, his voice low as he spoke kindly to keep the animal calm. He didn’t notice me for a long time, so wrapped up was he in the work. But then he did see me and tension suddenly exploded through his body, tension that was so palpable that the horse felt it, becoming agitated as he finished brushing the animal’s mane.
“You’re back,” he said.
“I am.”
“Is this going to become a habit?”
“I’m here to stay, Trevor. I quit my job back in Houston and I plan on asking Dad if he’ll hire me on as a ranch hand.”
Trevor stepped away from the horse and studied me from across the large expanse of the stable. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw set. It reminded me of the way I’d seen him last, the night before I left for Basic. He’d overheard my conversation with our father and confronted me, accusing me of running away.
That conversation had ended in a fistfight that I’m ashamed to say I lost.
“I don’t want to fight with you. I just wanted you to know.”
“That Kirsten’s taken you back?”
I inclined my head. “She has.”
“You break her heart,” Trevor said, stepping forward, his fists balls of anger at his sides.
“I always knew you loved her. I was so jealous that you had her ear, that she was still your friend after she’d pushed me away.”
“You frightened her. You pushed her too far too fast.”
“I know.”
“You never should have—”
“I know, Trevor. I knew it then and I know it now.”
“Then why did you do it?”
I shrugged. “Because I love her.”
Trevor snorted. “That should have been a reason not to hurt her.”
“If I’d understood then, I would have done things differently. But I was a kid.”
Trevor just shook his head, turning back to lead the horse to its stall. I crossed the hard dirt floor, waiting for him beside the tack room. He looked back at me, still angry.
“I accused her of being in love with you and she told me I needed to talk to you. I accused her of loving you more than me and she again said we needed to talk.” An overwhelming sadness came over me as I watched him lock the stall door, as he made more work out of it than it was to avoid looking at me. “And then I realized I already knew. I was just too wrapped up in my own heartache to see what was going on with you.”
He glanced at me, disbelief written all over his face.
“You never could see what was right under your nose.”
“I’m sorry, Trevor. I’ve never been much of a brother to you, have I?”
He shrugged. “You weren’t so bad when you were little. It was only after the hormones of puberty started raging.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
He came toward me, his hands no longer fists.
“Don’t break her heart.”
“I won’t.”
He studied my face for a long second, and then he hugged me. It was the first time in fifteen years that my brother had shown me anything other than contempt. It was a relief.
“Dad needs someone to help with the branding this weekend.”
“I can do that.”
He nodded, throwing his arm over my shoulder as he led the way out of the stable. He paused in the doorway, shuffling his feet a little.
“I’d like you to meet him. I think you’d really like him.”
“Maybe we could do a double date one of these nights.”
Trevor smiled, a true, genuine smile. “That would be fantastic.”
***
“Mom and Dad were relieved to see us sitting in the same room at the same time.”
“I’m sure they were.”
“I never realized how much tension our fighting had caused the family. I guess he was right. I was blind to a lot of things back then.”
Kirsten came over and climbed into my lap, her skin smooth and silky, still scented from the rose oil in her bath. I ran my hands slowly up her back, still finding it hard to believe that I would be lying in bed next to this beauty for the rest of my life. At least, for the rest of my life during which she was willing to put up with me.
“I talked to Mom and Dad today. They said Dallas left the house today.”
“That’s good.”
“She’s still crying at the drop of a hat, but she’s doing better. Mom isn’t quite sure what she’s grieving more, Jason’s death or the knowledge that he wasn’t who she’d thought he was.”
“He was a con artist, but I believe he really loved her.”
Kirsten thought about that for a moment. “I think he did, too. Surprisingly enough.”
“She’s going to be okay.”
“She is. Daddy thinks he’ll encourage her to come home now that things are settled. He thinks being on the ranch will be good for her.”
“Being with her sister will be good for her.”
Kirsten slipped her hands over my head, her fingers teasing my hair. “Having you here will be good. You always know what to say.”
“It’ll just be nice having us all together. We’re a family, you, me, her, and Trevor. We were all our own little family when we were little. It’ll be nice to get back to that.”
“It will.”
She kissed me, her lips lingering against mine for a moment. Then she pulled back and looked at me with a curious gaze.
“Why haven’t you asked me to marry you yet?”
“You don’t think it’s too soon?”
“I think it’s long overdue.” She kissed the tip of my nose. “Besides, don’t you remember the little ceremony we had when I was seven and you were eight? In my heart, we’ve been married since that day.
”
“Then I guess we should make it legal. How about we go to the courthouse tomorrow?”
She nodded, the smile on her lips bigger than all of Texas. And then it disappeared, replaced by a round O of pleasure as I pressed her down against the mattress and showed her just how eager I was to make her mine.
I was never going to let her push me away again.
Epilogue
Hayden
I was only half listening to the new client on the phone. She was talking quickly, talking in circles, struggling to stay on subject. Something about aliens and UFO sightings and other nonsense I was having trouble following. I guess her sister was missing. She wanted us to go look for her. It was routine, the important facts already written on my notepad. But then she mentioned the name of the town where her sister had disappeared and it hit a chord.
It was a little town not far from Coronado. I knew the town and area quite well. It was just a short distance from the base where I did my Navy SEALs training.
Was it a coincidence that all these places where I once lived seem to be making their way back into my life one way or another?
I mean, this was a client. The others … there were these odd murders taking places in the towns where I once lived. The town where my father grew up, the town where we moved after my parents were murdered. And now a small community not far from where I went for my SEALs training. No murder there, but it still seemed too coincidental to be a coincidence.
“We will send an operative out there in the morning, Miss Mathias,” I assured the client once she allowed me to get a word in edgewise.
“Thank you, Mr. Dubois. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
“Of course.”
As long as she paid the bill, we’d send an operative almost anywhere. That was our job.
I set the phone down when she finally offered an opportunity to hang up, my head feeling like it was about to explode. Automatically my thoughts turned to Waverly and I started toward the door, then stopped, remembering her reddened eyes.
I couldn’t go to her without coming to some sort of decision first. Only I had no idea how to choose between the woman who would forever own my heart, but who was dead and buried, and the woman who was warm and alive and who dared me every day to take just one more chance at trusting the land of the living.
DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series Page 46
