DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “That was—”

  I touched my finger to Waverly’s lips to silence her. We had to get out of this mess before we had the luxury of discussing what we’d just heard.

  We made our way as silently as possible back toward the house. Just as we came to the edge of Megan’s property, we heard a car’s engine burst into life. We stood still, watching as a dark car made its way up the driveway from a spot just past a little curve in the driveway that had kept the car hidden from the house. The car peeled out onto the asphalt and was gone.

  There was one man left at the front of the house, still sitting on the hood of our car, but he was so focused on chewing his cuticles that he didn’t hear me come up behind him and raise the gun. I hit him with all my might with the butt of the gun, slamming it into the top of his skull. He went over like a ton of bricks, hitting the driveway with a muted thud.

  The second he was down, I gestured for Waverly to get into the car. I inserted the key and put the car in neutral, pushing it back from the house as Waverly reached over and worked the steering wheel. As soon as it was pointed in the right direction, I jumped into the car and started the engine, gunning it as we raced to the road. I saw a man come out of the house and raise his gun in our direction. But he didn’t fire.

  Why didn’t he fire?

  We never passed the other car. He must have pulled off somewhere, giving us the break we needed to get off the island.

  “That was the man who broke into my apartment,” Waverly said breathlessly.

  “I gathered as much.”

  “What was he talking about? What boss?”

  I shook my head even as I looked and studied her.

  “Do you have your cellphone on you?”

  She nodded, tugging it out of a pocket in her jeans. I snatched it out of her hand and tossed it out the car window, watching as it shattered on the asphalt.

  “Why did you do that?”

  She turned to look back at the road as though her phone would suddenly put itself back together and come running after us.

  “They were tracking us.”

  “How do you know it was me?”

  “I don’t. But we can’t take any chances.”

  She turned back around, crossing her arms over her chest. “This is about you, not me.”

  “Yet they broke into your house.”

  “To find the research I was doing for you.”

  “How do you know that? How do you know that was a secondary motive?”

  She shook her head, but the expression on her face made it clear she thought I was being stupid.

  “They had to have figured out we found the virus on your phone. They had to have noticed that they could no longer overhear you talking about my research. They must have wanted to see how close we were.”

  “Why? They’ve reached Houston; they went after Amelia. Why do they care what we know about them? Their end game is just around the corner.”

  She stared straight ahead as she thought that through. I could see the struggle in the expression on her face. Normally someone with a pretty good poker face, she was suddenly an open book to me. I knew she was frightened and confused by what was happening. But I could also see her intelligence shining through, trying to make sense of this.

  “You think they were after me for a different reason?”

  “It could just be because they know we have a relationship.”

  “I just assumed it was the research.”

  “Then why send that guy to hurt you? That feels a little more personal.”

  “We don’t know that he was trying to hurt me. He was just trying to subdue me.”

  “Really? Is that why he tore the front of your shirt?” I said the words flippantly, to protect myself from the knowledge of what had almost happened to Waverly.

  She blushed, horror flashing in her eyes. “You think he was trying to rape me?”

  The mere thought made my gut twist. “That’s what they do. They rape and torture their victims before killing them. Maybe they thought it would drive me out if they did that to you. Or maybe they were trying to hurt you for reasons of their own.”

  “What reasons?”

  “Maybe it’s not just me they’re after.”

  She shook her head again. She brushed her fingers through her hair, fingers that were shaking.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here, Waverly,” I said, reaching over to touch her thigh, “but I know that they won’t stop until they get what they want or until we stop them. To stop them, we have to trust each other.”

  “I know.”

  “I need to trust you.”

  She sighed heavily. “And we both know how difficult that is for you.”

  We crossed the long bridge that led to the island and made our way to a little community on the other side. There was an all-night burger joint open in the parking lot of a massive mall. I decided we were safe enough here to stop for a while. We both needed some caffeine. And we needed to talk.

  We ordered and took a seat at the back of the restaurant. I sat where I could see almost all of the parking lot through the large windows, the gun tucked into the waistband of my pants, just in case.

  “Did you check your phone when you checked mine?”

  “I did. I told you when I did it.”

  “But it was clean.”

  “As far as I could tell.”

  “Could someone have infected it later?”

  She started to shake her head, but then looked up at me with this expression of dumb awe.

  “It was on my desk when that guy broke in, when whoever went through my stuff. It would only take a minute or two to upload something to it.”

  “What would they have to have to do it?”

  She shook her head. “A device with the virus on it. Another phone, an iPad, a thumb drive. Nothing massive.”

  I sat back and watched as the employee dumped a tray laden with our food on the table. I waited until she walked away before asking my next question.

  “Who have you told about us?”

  Waverly was unwrapping her egg sandwich, more eager than she’d been when we first arrived, the smell of the food clearly reminding her we hadn’t eaten in hours.

  “I haven’t told anyone.”

  “Not even your friends? Your family?”

  “My mom is the last person I would tell about you. She’d insist on meeting you, and I couldn’t put you through that.” She glanced at me as she said it, not a trace of humor on her face. “And I don’t really have girlfriends like most women my age. The women I went to school with are mostly married and raising kids now. The ones who aren’t are career driven and don’t have the time for me anymore.”

  “You haven’t told anyone?”

  “The only person I know for sure who knows is Megan.”

  I was aware of that. If I hadn’t been, tonight had clarified things for me. Megan had likely known all along. She knew me that well.

  “Has anyone ever seen me go to your house? Neighbors?”

  “Probably, but they haven’t said anything to me.” She looked up at me over the top of her sandwich. “It’s not like we tried hard to keep it secret.”

  She was right about that. We hadn’t advertised, but I’d parked my car in her driveway too often to not pretend to myself that I was hiding our relationship.

  “Your sister? She’s never commented on seeing my car in your driveway?”

  “No. She’s got three boys under the age of six. She doesn’t have time to drive by my house in the middle of the night.”

  “What about—”

  “Why are you asking me all these questions? What does it matter who knew? It’s pretty obvious someone knew.”

  “Yes, but I’m beginning to wonder if the attack on you the other night had more to do with you personally than with someone who was after you because of our relationship. We’ve never advertised or been very public with it, so only people at Dragon really know.”

  “But your pho
ne was like a listening device. Whoever was listening would have heard us together before you realized what the leak really was.”

  “True. But they didn’t come after you until we found the virus, after the unsuccessful attack on Amelia.”

  “Do you think they were expecting to find you there?”

  That thought hadn’t occurred to me, but it suddenly made a lot of sense.

  “That would have fit their modus operandi.”

  She set down her sandwich and studied me. “If you’d been there, there would have been no reason to go through my desk or put the virus on my phone.”

  “But I wasn’t, so they improvised. “

  “Which means two things: they know your routine of coming to me in the middle of the night and they came to my house with the equipment necessary to put the virus on my phone.”

  “The routine can be explained by the virus on my phone. But the other?”

  “This killer is careful. He always plans ahead.”

  I nodded. “There’s no telling how long he’s been watching me or planning this. He’s not leaving anything to chance.”

  She lifted her sandwich again, taking a hardy bite as she mulled that over. I opened my own sandwich and bit into it, taking some strange satisfaction from the greasy burst of sausage on my tongue. Nothing tasted better at three in the morning than overcooked, overly greasy fast food.

  “We know it’s not anyone related to Willard Todd because he has no relatives. But he had a couple of jailhouse girlfriends. Maybe one of them?”

  “But none of them lasted long, right?” I asked. “Didn’t you tell me that he broke up with the first one over ten years ago and the other was more recent?”

  “Yes. Angela … something. She stopped seeing him three months ago.”

  “I can’t imagine she could be behind this if she no longer goes to the prison to see him. Suggests she lost interest.”

  “But that just brings us back to the other … or a stranger who’s fascinated with the murders.”

  “I really don’t think it could be some outside person. There’s too much anger in these murders, too much calculation. I mean … there are psychopaths everywhere, but this is too specific to me and my parents.”

  “But the other had no family except for me, my mom, and sister. And I can almost guarantee that my sister is too busy for such a thing, and my mom doesn’t care enough.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She tilted her head, studying my face like she thought I’d slipped a gasket.

  “I know them. My mother rages against the wealthy because she is insistent that they ruined society, but then she married a lawyer. And my sister … three kids, Hayden. Three miserable, undisciplined kids. She doesn’t have time.”

  “She never travels or disappears for unexplained reasons?”

  “Of course she travels. She goes with her husband to lawyer’s conferences all the time. And she wrote this book some years ago … a fiction thing that I never really read. She goes on book signings from time to time for that.”

  “When was the last time?”

  She shrugged. “I know she’s out of town this week. My mom called me the other night because she couldn’t talk to her.”

  That information sent bells ringing in my head. She saw it because her eyes narrowed.

  “It’s not my sister!”

  “How do you know? You said yourself that she idolized your father and thought he was wrongly convicted. You even said that he stayed with her before he came after me. How do you know she isn’t out to get a little revenge?”

  “A little? Seven people have been murdered, Hayden. That’s not a little revenge.”

  “You never know what another person is capable of.”

  “It’s not my sister.”

  I wasn’t going to budge her off her denials; I could see it in the determination on her face. But it was the best lead we’d had since this whole thing began.

  I got up and walked to the front counter. “Do you have a phone we can borrow?”

  The woman didn’t even look up. She just pointed to a phone on the wall. I went back, grabbed Waverly by the wrist, and pulled her to the phone.

  “Call your mother. Ask her when your sister was out of town these last six months or so.”

  “What’s that going to prove?”

  “It could prove your sister innocent. Or it could give us a timeline to check out.”

  She shook her head, but she picked up the phone and dialed anyway.

  I’d forgotten how late it was until I heard the slightly slurred, muffled voice on the other end of the line.

  “Hey, Mom,” Waverly said, shooting me a dirty look. “Sorry to wake you.”

  I watched as she listened to something her mother was saying, a little annoyance coming into her eyes.

  “I was wondering where Wanda is this week. You said she was out of town.”

  She turned slightly as she listened to the answer.

  “Was she out of town back in June and again in early August? What about last month?”

  She listened, apologizing every couple of seconds, muttering as it became clear that her mother was not pleased with her. Finally, she said, “I’ll talk to you later,” and she slammed the phone back onto its base.

  “She couldn’t remember. But she says Wanda’s at a conference in Portland with her husband right now.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  She shrugged. “With the nanny, I suppose.”

  “She has a nanny? I thought you said she was a stay at home mom.”

  “She is, but three kids are pretty hard to handle alone. The nanny helps out.”

  Waverly brushed by me to return to our table and our quickly cooling breakfast. I followed, pausing to refill my coffee before I took a seat across from her. She was picking at the sandwich, peeling the egg away from the bun. I put my foot up on the bench beside her leg and studied her.

  “We have no other suspects.”

  “But my sister was eight months pregnant when the second murder took place. Do you really think she would have been involved?”

  “I wouldn’t put anything past a murderer.”

  “My sister is not capable of killing seven people. Besides, she doesn’t have the right equipment to rape a woman, and all the female victims were raped more than once.”

  She sat back, laying her hands in her lap. “Okay, let’s look at it logically. Whoever is doing this knows a lot about the original murders of your parents. How would they have enough information about the case to know the exact details?”

  “They’d have to have access to the police files.”

  Waverly inclined her head. “I checked into that the other night. My contact was supposed to get back to me today. Maybe we can call him when the sun comes up.”

  “Okay.”

  She was quiet a long moment. “We know the person in charge knows a lot about computers and computer viruses.”

  “Or they were smart enough to hire someone who knew these things.”

  She inclined her head to accept that idea. “It’d almost have to be someone with hacking experience. Someone who’s likely to have caught the attention of the FBI and some of the hacking groups out there who keep track of this sort of thing.”

  “Can you check that?”

  “Yeah. I have contacts.”

  “Does your sister know how to hack a computer? Can she write virus code?”

  “She could. But as far as I know, she hasn’t touched a computer to do more than check her email in years.”

  I didn’t remark on that because I didn’t want to run the risk of annoying her any more than I already had. But I could see that it was there in her mind, anyway. She knew that my theory was stronger than she wanted it to be.

  “What else do we know?”

  Waverly dragged her fingers through her hair, still tangled in the back from the ponytail she’d been wearing earlier in the day. She’d removed the hair tie, but hadn’t had a chance to do
anything else with it. As she thought about killer, she combed her hair with her fingers, working out the big and little tangles with a determination that looked downright painful to me.

  “We know that this person is angry with you. We know that this person wanted you to know about the murders. He wanted you in California when the murders in Coronado took place. We know that this person was watching you, listening to you, trying to discredit you or me. We know this person is trying to destroy your life from the inside out.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of your testimony thirty years ago in the murder trial.”

  “But what if it’s not about that? What if it’s about something else?”

  The thought had never occurred to me, but I found myself wondering now. What if we were all wrong? What if this had nothing to do with Willard Todd or the other man who killed my parents, who came back and killed Sam?

  “It wouldn’t make sense if it was someone or something else.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this killer is clearly fascinated with you. And it can’t be a coincidence that the new murders emulate the deaths of your parents.”

  “But what if that was just to get my attention?”

  Waverly shook her head. “I don’t know. What if none of it means anything? What if the killer is just playing a sick game that has no rules and no meaning? What if it’s just a psychopath that you insulted once and he’s just decided that you have to be tortured before you die?”

  I felt suddenly as though we were going around in circles. I glanced out the window and happened to see a dark sedan pass on the highway that ran past the mall. I couldn’t be sure that it was the same sedan that had been at Megan’s, but I couldn’t rule it out.

  Time to move on.

  “We need to go,” I said, standing and taking Waverly’s hand. She came with me quite willingly, sliding her fingers between mine.

  We walked out to the car like we were a normal couple, a couple who just happened to crave breakfast at three in the morning. I helped her into the car, watching her legs as she tucked them inside, a part of me swelling with a desire to see them uncovered. And not the part that I expected.

  We left, driving back west and north, headed back to where we’d come from. I couldn’t think of anywhere safer to hide than in the middle of the one place no one would think to look: Houston. Why run when we could hide in plain sight?