DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “And he left?”

  “He left. I gave him some money and he disappeared.”

  She believed everything I’d just said. I could see it in her eyes, the trust that radiated there, the relief.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  I kissed her and she submitted to me, her body melting to fit the angles of mine. Her hands slipped along the sides of my body, slipping up under the bottom edge of my shirt. There was something almost insatiable about the touch of our bodies. I wanted her more and more every time we kissed.

  “How can this be possible?” I asked, almost bewildered. “How can I want you so much when we’ve only just met?”

  “We’re soulmates, my love. Two halves of one whole.”

  I ran my thumb over her bottom lip and nodded. “We are.”

  We kissed again, our tongues dancing a dance that only true lovers can appreciate. I wanted to take her to the bed, take her there again and again and again. But she pulled back and smiled slyly up at me.

  “Would you mind going and getting me a sandwich? I’m so hungry!”

  I laughed. “We never did get around to eating before, did we?”

  “Not really. And it’s dinner time. I think I might faint away if I don’t eat soon.”

  “Only you could think of food at a time like this.” I sighed, stealing one more kiss before I pulled away. “Make sure you lock the door behind me.”

  “It locks automatically.”

  “Indulge me.”

  “I promise I’ll lock up behind you.”

  I guessed her again, my lips lingering against hers. I walked away, my feet barely touching the ground.

  Hayden was in the restaurant downstairs, ordering his own sandwich.

  “I called the police station in Smyer,” he told me without preamble. “They’re willing to meet with us at ten.”

  “I’ll get Karma on the plane at seven and meet you in the lobby at eight.”

  “Works for me.”

  I watched him accept his order and wander over to the condiments to cover it in mustard. I followed, wondering if I should say what was on my mind or keep it to myself.

  But I couldn’t quite help myself.

  “Is there something going on here that I should know about?”

  Hayden shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You flew all the way out here to handle something I could have done. And you told Randy that you needed an excuse to go to the police station in Coronado.”

  “And?”

  “I’m just wondering why you needed to go there when that case has nothing to do with ours.”

  “I have reason to believe the murders are related.”

  “You think whoever killed Rosalie killed that couple?”

  “I think it’s related.”

  “Why?”

  Hayden stepped back, his sandwich in his hands. “Because someone called Rita Matthias and told her to get me involved in this case. A day after I hear this information, a couple is killed in Coronado while you happen to be there investigating the man who was dating Rosalie Matthias. It could be a coincidence. But I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “Rita Matthias was told to get you involved?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it a good idea for you to be here, then? What if the killer is after you?”

  Hayden seemed to think about that for a moment.

  “I think whoever is behind this is playing games with me. If he wants me dead, he probably knows exactly where to find me.”

  “Does Megan know about this?”

  “Megan doesn’t need to know. And neither do you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I ordered the sandwiches and headed back upstairs, wondering for a moment if I should call Megan and give her a heads up about this. But then I realized that Hayden was my boss and it was my duty to follow any instructions he gave me. That included what he’d said downstairs. If he wanted to put himself in danger, then who was I to tell him he couldn’t?

  This seemed like a personal crusade for him, though I had no idea why Rosalie Matthias’ death should have anything to do with Hayden, let alone the murders of Mr. and Mrs. John Keen. But I was sure he had his reasons for believing it was all about him.

  Sometimes you had to leave a man to work out his own battle with his own ghosts.

  Karma was curled up in the bed when I returned, her empty stomach forgotten as exhaustion took control. Disappointment flooded my chest, but affection was just as overwhelming. I pulled the blankets up over her and settled in a chair to eat while I watched her sleep. Never had I seen a more beautiful sight.

  This was what Hayden needed. I’d heard the rumors about Waverly and seen the way Amelia looked at him in the office. What he needed was to pick a woman and stick it out with her, find this sort of affection, this sort of wholeness of the soul. He needed to have something else to occupy his time.

  He needed pleasure in his life.

  ***

  It was a cool morning. Karma stood close against me, trying to block the wind as we walked across the tarmac. I slid my arm around her. The flight attendant smiled as she gestured for us to board the plane.

  “This is your company plane?”

  “I don’t get to use it often. But it’s nice when I do.”

  Karma looked around, whistling under her breath as she took in all the luxuries of the plane. “Lucky.”

  I gently pushed her into a seat toward the front of the plane.

  “Remember what I said. Go straight to the hotel from the airport. Tell the man at the front desk that you’re with Dragon Security. He’ll know what to do.”

  “What if it’s a woman?”

  I groaned. “It’s going to be a man named Howard Kyle. I’ve already let him know you’re coming.”

  She reached up and kissed the tip of my nose. “You realize I was only teasing, right?”

  I kissed her. “I’m going to miss you.”

  “You’ll be there soon.”

  “Tonight, hopefully. If not, I’ll let you know.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  I sighed against her lips. “I miss you already.”

  We kissed lingering moment. As we did, I deeply regretted letting her sleep last night. But it gave me something to look forward to tonight.

  “Stay safe.”

  I didn’t really expect anything to happen to her. We had no reason to think anyone would want to hurt her. But I had this sick feeling deep in my gut just the same. For some reason, I was convinced that the moment Karma was out of my sight, she’d be in trouble. Stupid thought, but I couldn’t shake it.

  I stood by the car and watched the plane take off. I imagined I saw her wave from the window, but it wasn’t possible. The plane was turned the wrong direction.

  That sick feeling grew once she was gone. I was simply too attached. Just a couple of days and already I felt as though I couldn’t live without her. Insane, wasn’t it?

  But it felt right, too.

  Chapter 20

  Hayden

  “We can’t tell you much of what we’ve learned,” the cop was saying. “The woman in question was found in the woods wearing a pair of men’s silk boxer shorts. Her body was freshly tattooed with the same image over and over again, one we have yet to identify. And the ground around her body was flattened to also reflect his image.”

  “I understand it was some sort of symbol,” I said, glancing at Kasey. He’d described it to me on the drive over here, but I needed to see it for myself to get a picture of it in my mind.

  “It was,” the cop said. His name was Mack Miller, a fairly generic name for a man who looked pretty generic. He seemed bored with us already, bored with the case and everything he’d generated in investigating it. It was pretty obvious to me that he didn’t care about Rosalie because she was part of the group of alien investigators that had invaded his town.

  “What kind of symbol?”

 
; The man shrugged. “I have no idea. Like I said, we haven’t been able to identify it yet.”

  I leaned forward a little. “You understand that we represent the family. They are very interested in having this case solved as soon as possible. Is there anything you can offer that we can take back to them? Any hope at all?”

  The cop’s rheumy blue eyes settled on my face, boredom out shadowed only by indifference.

  “Most murders that aren’t solved within the first twenty-four hours are never solved. This one ... someone went to a lot of trouble to make it appear as though it had something to do with an alien abduction. That tells me it was probably someone who came here with this group of crazies who were investigating the UFO sightings. And most of those people are gone now. The chances that we’ll be able to pin it on one of them, or even get enough evidence to find the killer, is pretty slim. Can’t investigate people who don’t want to be seen or heard from. And we can’t run an investigation when the best witnesses have all fled.”

  “But you are still investigating?”

  “The case is still open.”

  Kasey stepped forward. “Someone told a friend of the victim’s that she didn’t think she’d left voluntarily. That she’d been kidnapped. That seems pretty obvious now, doesn’t it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you have security footage of the abduction?” Kasey gestured toward a camera that happened to hang from the ceiling just above us. “There were cameras all through that hotel, not just in the hall outside her door. Did you check any of those?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “Did it show anything?”

  “Not a lot more than the ones in the hallway.” He dug through the files on his desk, looking for something in particular. “We took an image off of one of them, but the man wasn’t anyone we’d interviewed and no one recognized him when we showed the image around. It’s fairly useless to us at this point.”

  He finally found it, tugging it out from under several other sheets of paper. He handed it to Kasey who studied it for a long moment, then handed it to me, shaking his head just slightly. But the moment I set eyes on it, I knew who it was. And the reality of it was not as surprising as it might have been if Kasey hadn’t suggested the possibility just yesterday. But it was still a shock.

  It was Adam Price, Rita Matthias’ husband.

  Shit.

  “The symbols ...”

  The cop searched through his pile of paperwork again, cursing under his breath as he struggled with his own propensity toward disorganization. I glanced at Kasey and he immediately stepped forward, knocking over a mug of coffee that happened to be sitting on the edge of the desk.

  “Fuck!” the detective shouted. He jumped back, narrowly missing getting most of the coffee on the front of his pants. But enough splashed on him—and his paperwork—that he felt the need to leave the room. He didn’t even excuse himself or try to clean off the reports that were now soaked in the brown fluid.

  I walked calmly around the desk and pulled a handkerchief from my back pocket, wiping the worst of the coffee off the reports. Then I began to search through the pile, looking for anything and everything on the Matthias case. When I touched the glossy edge of a photograph, I quickly jerked it free, concerned Miller would return before I saw what I needed to see.

  And there it was, the body of Rosalie Matthias laid out in front of me. She was beautiful ... what a terrible shame. And the symbol tattooed into her body confirmed what I’d already known.

  “We need to get back to Houston,” I announced.

  “Why?”

  “I think Karma might be in danger.”

  I didn’t need to say anything more. Kasey was headed to the door before the words were completely out of my mouth. I followed, folding the picture and sliding it into my back pocket as I went.

  A reproduction wouldn’t do this time. I needed to have this photograph so I could to go back and reference it. I needed to know that I was not insane when I remembered what I saw in it.

  Every step I took in this investigation proved to me I was not being paranoid. Someone really was reenacting the murders of my parents. Someone truly did want my attention.

  And this was proof.

  Chapter 21

  Karma

  I did what he told me. I stepped off that beautiful, luxurious plane thinking that this was the kind of world I might have lived in if my father hadn’t pissed off my grandfather in whatever manner he’d managed to do it. This was the life I would have lived if my grandfather hadn’t disowned my father and left us destitute to live a life of shame and poverty and crime.

  Would it have been a better life? I had no way of knowing that. But it would have been a life lived in a bit more luxury and that, I thought, I could truly handle.

  My dad was gone before I was really old enough to know him. My mother was a bitter woman who never agreed to live the life she ended up living. She was a teenage beauty queen who married into what she thought was a life like that plane, a life of luxury. Instead, she ended up with two kids, no husband, and no money. She ended up angry and unprepared to survive.

  My brother, five years older than me, remembered the life my parents lived before my grandfather cut them off. He remembered my mom before she became bitter. He did all he could to fix what had happened, to make her the happy woman she’d been before. I think that’s where the idea of taking my grandfather’s money came from.

  Mom, talked about how Randolph Myers-King had so much and we had so little. She cursed that man with every breath she took the last five years of her life. She died of liver disease before we made enough money to give her back some of what she’d lost. I always thought that was kind of poetic, but the thought still made me feel guilty now, even after everything I’d learned about my mother and father in the years since I’d left Randy’s overbearing shadow.

  They were not good people. My father took his father’s legacy for granted and gambled his trust fund away. He drank and partied and never attempted to learn his father’s business. He expected to inherit it all without lifting a finger to earn it. And my mother? She thought giving birth to my brother was all she had to do to earn what she got out of the deal. I was a mistake that came along too late to use as leverage against the old man. She never let me forget it, either, always calling me the result of one night of overindulgence.

  Never should have let that man touch me that night.

  That’s what she always said to me. It became something like a term of endearment until I was old enough to understand what it meant.

  My parents were lazy. They were ungrateful. They were greedy.

  I was proud not to be any of that anymore.

  And here I was, stepping off of a luxurious jet plane.

  I called an Uber because it seemed like the thing to do. The hotel was also quite luxurious, not the kind of place I would have found myself a day or two ago. Yes, I took my share of the money we made stealing from my grandfather’s companies. But I’d given back almost as much as I’d stolen, buying equipment for the Society, paying for meals and motel rooms for investigators down on their luck, making donations to Christmas funds and food banks and various charities whenever I had the opportunity. I was trying to make it right, trying to spread as much good karma as bad. Trying to right the scales.

  What more could I do?

  A man with a name tag that read Howard smiled graciously as I approached the front desk. When I spoke my name, he cut me off and immediately sent me to the elevators with a bellhop named Danny. He let me into a suite on the top floor of the hotel, a living room with such a spectacular view of the city that it took my breath away.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, ma’am?”

  I couldn’t even speak. I just shook my head, feeling both like a fraud and a greedy fool as I did like the luckiest girl in the city.

  It almost felt as though my life had come full circle. My mom was never shy about telling me how I was conceived in a bed that
cost more than a midsized car. She bragged about the house where she and my father had lived, how it cost ten thousand dollars a month just to keep the gardens maintained. The only home I remembered, however, was a five hundred dollar a month two bedroom apartment with something dead and rotting in the attic crawlspace above my head. Yet here I was, in the same city, in the same part of town where my grandfather’s business once owned every street corner, every business, every building, staring down on that city from a hotel suite that probably cost more than I made in a year working for the Society.

  Full circle.

  The only thing that would make this perfect would be if Kasey were here.

  I wandered around, touching things that I was afraid of breaking, touching a vase that looked as though it was made of pure crystal, a picture frame that shone a brilliant silver. I played with the teeny liquor bottles in the bar and flipped through the channels on the big screen television. I even stepped into the bedroom and laid my head down for just a moment on pillows covered in slips that were made of one hundred percent Egyptian cotton. I knew it was because there was a card on the bedside table that said as much.

  Luxury. I could get used to this.

  Starving—always starving—I took advantage of the moment and ordered myself a pure bison beef hamburger from room service. When the doorbell—a doorbell on a hotel room door!—rang, I almost sang my greeting as I pulled the door open. Could I be any happier? Life with Kasey would be one adventure after another if this was any proof. I couldn’t wait to experience it. To hell with the dark clouds that hung over my life. You think positive thoughts and only positive things will happen in your life.

  That was, of course, before the crazy man with the gun plunged a hypodermic needle filled with God knows what into my neck.

  Chapter 22

  Kasey

  I drove like a madman to the airfield thirty miles outside of Smyer where the jet had landed ten minutes ago to pick us up. They were saying on the phone something about refueling, but I couldn’t hear exactly what was happening because Hayden was handling it. My only job was to drive and I was possessed with this sense of doom that had been haunting me since I put Karma on that damn plane this morning.