Chapter 13
The Watcher
The watcher knew they’d escaped again and that Hayden Dubois had outsmarted the hired men. But the watcher also understood that it wasn’t difficult to do such a thing. Smart men didn’t come at such a low price. Smart men weren’t so willing to rape and torture for only a fraction of the money the watcher had been willing to pay. Smart men weren’t so easy to control as these fools who would do anything the watcher asked as long as the money continued to flow.
Hayden Dubois was proving to be a better adversary than the watcher had anticipated. But that was okay. It meant there would be just that much more satisfaction when everything came to the desired end.
The watcher had planned this for a long time. The watcher bided time, waited until the perfect set of circumstances created themselves. When Hayden Dubois became head of operations at Dragon, the watcher had been there. When Hayden Dubois uncovered the rogue CIA agent that had caused such turmoil in the government, the watcher had been there. When Hayden Dubois went to bar after bar at night when the business day had come to an end; when he caroused with loose women, taking them back to the condo he once shared with the supposed ‘love of his life’, the watcher was there.
When he stopped going to the bars and began to stay up late at night, working at his desk at Dragon, the watcher was there. When he begged Megan Bradford-Murphy to fire Waverly Cooper, it made the watcher curious. An extensive background check into that woman revealed things the watcher had never imagined could be found, information that twisted the game into something new. It was then that the watcher knew what had to happen and how it had to happen. When Hayden Dubois began sleeping with that woman, it was simply the icing on the cake.
His fall would be epic. He would forever rue the day he took from the watcher. He would forever regret the innocent life he had destroyed with his own selfish actions. He would regret being born.
Death was too good for Hayden Dubois. What the watcher had planned for him was far better than death. If he thought he’d been tortured up till now, he had another think coming.
Epic. There was no other word for it, except maybe biblical.
Chapter 14
Megan
“You should probably see this, Megan,” Vincent called to me as I stepped off the elevator too early in the morning. I’d had less than two hours of sleep and felt like I’d been hit by a truck, but I turned on my heel and followed him into his office. On the screen of his computer was footage from one our many security systems.
“Where is this?”
“The safe house in Katy.”
My eyebrows rose as I leaned in closer to the computer screen. It took a second, but I could see movement in one of the top cameras that looked into the living room of the spacious middle class home.
“We don’t have anyone in our safe houses right now, do we?”
“No.”
A person was crossing the living room, holding a pen and a piece of paper. He set the pen down and turned toward the camera, Hayden’s familiar face filling the screen.
Attack at beach, he’d written on the paper.
“Shit!” I muttered under my breath. “Is Waverly there? Do we have confirmation that they’re both okay?”
Vincent switched the view to a single camera feed. Waverly was in the master bedroom, curled up on the bed under a heavy knit throw. Asleep.
“How long have they been there?”
“The feed came on about three hours ago.”
The cameras at the safe houses were designed to come on automatically whenever they sensed movement. We could manually override them here at the office, but it was a safety mechanism that kept us informed should someone discover the empty houses and compromise them in some way.
Hayden knew that. It was his idea.
Vincent switched the view back to the camera in the living room with Hayden. He’d written on a new piece of paper and was holding that up to the camera.
W’s phone compromised. Destroyed.
“Must be how they found them,” Vincent commented.
I nodded. “We should be careful in checking her hard drive. There could be a similar virus on it to what there was on Hayden’s phone.”
“They’ve got it locked in the Faraday cage. Nothing can get in or out.”
“Good.”
Hayden was holding the first sign to the camera. I watched a minute, fear dancing in my chest as I began to wonder if we were capable of keeping him safe. I knew Hayden could take care of himself in a face-to-face fight, but this copycat wasn’t playing fair. He could be blindsided and never see it coming. And that scared the shit out of me.
My world wouldn’t be the same without Hayden in it.
“I need to go talk to him.”
Vincent shook his head. “Not a good idea.”
“We need to know what happened.”
“We need to find out who’s after him. That’s the best way we can help him right now.”
“But I need—”
“If he thought it was safe to call you, he would have. If he thought it was safe to go anywhere else, he would have. He clearly thinks he’s still in danger, and the last thing he would want is to bring it to you. You can’t ruin it all by going to him.”
As Vincent spoke the words, Hayden held up a new sign.
Stay away. Will contact when safe.
Who was the damn boss here, him or me?
“He knows what he’s doing,” Vincent assured me.
I knew he was right, but I couldn’t help the need to go see for myself. I sighed, running my hand over my face.
“Okay. But you keep an eye on this and let me know the second something changes.”
“Of course.”
I left Vincent’s office and wandered down the hall to Hayden’s. I liked to stop there every morning I came into the office to talk to him about almost anything, not always exclusively about work. And he was always there, hours before me, hard at work on the paperwork and other busy crap that came with the job that he claimed to hate, but worked on diligently every day. I’d never realized how firmly I’d come to depend on him until he wasn’t here.
When Sam got sick, my only thoughts were about the loss I. I hadn’t thought twice about the other people in her life or about my brothers, Hayden, and her mother. All I’d seen was my own selfish need to have my best friend in my life.
When she was gone—so much sooner than expected—I’d been more of a wreck than I’d been when Luke disappeared the morning of our wedding or when I was told Peter had been killed in a car accident. I had depended on Sam. She was my rock.
Hayden turned to me in his grief and I turned to him. Even though Luke was back in my life at the time—in the guise of Dante Saladin—Hayden was the only one I could stand to let close, the only one who I knew would understand my grief just like he knew I understood his.
We were inseparable for months, leaning on each other like trees grown too close to one another in a forest. Even after I discovered the truth about Dante, even after we found my dead brother very much alive and being held captive by a rogue CIA agent, Hayden was my new rock.
In a way, he’d remained that way.
I’d never forget the ring he showed me the day of Sam’s funeral, the perfect amethyst for her. He knew her as well as I did. Better, even. He was my last connection to my best friend, the last person who still hurt from her loss the way I did.
“I’ll save him, Sam,” I whispered into the empty room. “I won’t let you down.”
Not this time.
Chapter 15
Waverly
The coffee shop was crowded, every table occupied. I stood against the wall, trying to look bored as I waited for my order to be completed. What I was really doing was watching Hayden walk casually around the tables, trying to guess the second when he slipped some unsuspecting person’s cellphone into his pocket so that I could call my contacts. I never saw it. Apparently, never did the poor sap who owned it, either.
“Wouldn’t be necessary if they still had payphones,” Hayden complained as we stepped out onto the porch.
I settled into a chair as he slipped the phone in my hand. I dialed a number from memory, hoping I hadn’t mixed any of the numbers up. A voice answered on the other end, announcing that I’d reached the New York Police Department, Precinct 2230.
“Noah Mendes, please.”
“Just a moment.”
I glanced at Hayden as I waited. He was coming toward me with two venti coffees in his hands, setting one in front of me as he straddled a chair beside me. Then a woman’s voice with a soft Brooklyn accent filled my ear.
“Noah Mendes.”
“Noah, it’s Waverly.”
“Hey, girl. I’ve been calling you all morning. How are you?”
“Good, good.” I pulled the little green stick out of the top of my coffee as I spoke. “What have you got for me?”
“Three people have asked for copies of that file in the past ten years. Hayden Dubois from Houston, Texas. The Dragon Security Firm, also in Houston, and Gina Collins from San Diego, California.”
“Gina Collins? You’re sure about that?”
“It’s right here. Ms. Collins requested the files about a year ago.”
“And the others?”
“One was ordered ten years ago, the other seven.”
I glanced at Hayden, wondering what kind of guilt and pain would cause a guy to want to look at the investigation report into a double murder he had witnessed. What kind of torture would that be? What kind of pain would that cause?
“Thanks, Noah,” I said.
“Any time.”
Hayden was watching me expectantly as I disconnected the call. I set the phone on the table and took a cautious sip from my hot coffee.
“Gina Collins.”
Hayden frowned before recognition flowed over his expression.
“One of the aliases.”
I nodded.
“When?”
“A year ago.”
He sat back and sipped at his own coffee. “I suppose it was too much to hope that the killer would have ordered the files in his own name.”
“I thought you were convinced it was my sister?”
“In her name.” He glanced at me over the top of his coffee cup, his eyes dancing with humor. “Any name other than the alias would have been convenient.”
I just shook my head and turned my attention to the phone. I sent a message over the texting service to a server checked often by a hacking network I once worked with. I knew that if this killer was also a hacker, someone there would know it. It would take a little time to get a response, but I had no doubt that it would come.
“We should go,” Hayden said, standing and holding out his hand to me.
“Aren’t the two of you cute,” an older woman sitting a couple of tables away said.
“Thank you,” Hayden said graciously, taking something of a bow before sliding his arm around me.
“How long have you been married?”
My eyebrows rose. I expected Hayden to panic at just the thought, but he simply drew me closer and smiled widely at the woman.
“Five years,” he said, pulling the number seemingly out of thin air. But that number had meaning to him and it made me wonder why he’d chosen it to apply it to us. And then I wondered if I was even a part of the equation.
He was thinking of Sam. He was always thinking of Sam.
“Well, I know true love when I see it, and the two of you possess it. You’ll have a long, happy life together.”
Hayden bowed again, winking at the woman.
“I know,” he said.
He tugged me away, leading the way back to the car. We climbed inside, our coffees immediately flooding the small space with the scent of fresh brewed coffee and the vanilla that I’d chosen to add to mine. Hayden, of course, insisted on simple, black coffee. It was almost a metaphor for all the differences between us.
“Where are we going?” I asked as he pulled the car onto the busy street.
“Shopping. We need new clothes if we’re going to live in hiding for the next couple of days.”
“And how do you plan to pay for it?”
He reached over me and popped open the glove box. Inside was an envelope that held a credit card and a stack of cash.
“Megan likes to make sure every circumstance is prepared for. She leaves envelopes like this in all the getaway cars.”
We drove deeper into Houston, eventually pulling into a parking garage under the massive Galleria mall. He held my hand as we made our way to the shopping floor. I wasn’t sure if he was holding on because he didn’t want to lose me in the busy mall or if he was afraid I would escape and stab him in the back somehow. He seemed to be in his own world, dragging me from store to store until he found what he wanted in a small boutique tucked into a back corner.
“Here,” he said, gesturing for me to go in first.
It was one of those places that carried fragile clothes that looked as though they could only be worn once or twice, a pop-up boutique for a want-to-be designer trying to make a name for themselves. He pressed his hand to the small of my back and pushed me toward a rack where simple black dresses hung, most with more cutouts than a child’s snowflake project.
“I hardly think these would be appropriate under the circumstances.”
He moved up close against my back, reaching around me to dig through the different dresses.
“It is for a steak dinner at an exclusive restaurant.”
“And when are we going to do that?”
“Someday.”
He picked up one and held it where I could see it. It was short and sexy, the cutouts along the side strategically placed to show just the right amount of skin in all the right places. It was beautiful, really, just the sort of thing I would choose for myself.
But not right now.
“Hayden …”
“We have time to blow.”
He picked another, this one with only one cutout—the entire back. I just shook my head as I slipped them out of his hand and made my way to the back of the store where the changing rooms were waiting. I didn’t even have the curtain closed on the narrow stall before I heard him explaining to the young female clerk that I would need help with my zipper.
I wasn’t wearing a zipper and there was no zipper on the dresses, but that didn’t seem to occur to the young woman.
He stepped into the changing stall and stood just inside the curtain with his arms crossed, watching. I sighed and turned my back on him, slipping my shirt up over my head to expose the low-cut purple bra I’d grabbed from my bag in the darkness of Megan’s bedroom back at the beach house. He reached for the clasp, moving up behind me as he popped the hooks from their rounded nests, pulling the bra free of my body.
“I think it would look better sans underwear.”
I caught his eye in the mirror, seeing the heat radiating from his eyes. It always made my thighs tighten to see that, making my juices run wild and my heart race. I didn’t need his hands to come around and cup my breasts or need to feel the pressure of his palm against my nipples to want him. But the sight in that full-length mirror was one of the most erotic things I’d ever seen.
He kissed my neck and my shoulder, as his hands moved slowly down over my flat tummy. He tugged at my jeans, popping the button and slipping his fingers inside, encouraging the material to slide down over my hips.
“I love your body,” he said against my ear.
I pressed back against him. “Yours isn’t so bad, either.”
“Yeah? You like it?”
I closed my eyes, pain slicing through my chest as words I couldn’t speak fell to the tip of my tongue.
I love it, just like I love you.
He bent a little against my body as my jeans slipped to my thighs. I wiggled a little, encouraging them to fall the rest of the way. His hands were already working on my panties as I stepped out of the jeans
, stepping out of the panties quickly afterward. I stood there, stark naked, nothing but this man’s hands and lips covering my body.
I opened my eyes again, watched his hands move over my narrow hips and my lower belly. He was careful to keep his hands away from those places that would make it impossible for either of us to walk away from this moment, but just the warmth of his palms against my skin made my body eager for that touch.
“Hayden …”
He pulled away, slipping one of the dresses—the one with all the cutouts—from its hanger. He dressed me like he was dressing a child, tugging it over my head and pulling it down over my curves. The dress barely covered my bottom, fitting so snugly that there were no secrets that were not revealed. But, somehow, it looked good on me.
I’d never seen myself as an overly attractive woman. I knew others looked at me with envy, but I always put it down to my Asian heritage, to the delicate bone structure and almond- shaped eyes. But when I looked at myself now, in this dress, I actually felt beautiful.
“Fuck me!” Hayden hissed as he stared at me in the mirror. “That’s not something I could ever let you wear outside of the bedroom.”
“Is that right?”
I met his eyes in the mirror and swore for a long moment that I saw a flash of jealousy there. What he had to be jealous about, I had no idea, but it amused me. It made me feel cared for in that one, brief, second.
He reached down and grabbed the hem, yanking the dress off of me before I could protest. He tossed it to the floor as though it offended him.
“Not that one.”
He picked up the other one and pulled it over my head. I did a little shimmy to help him pull it down, the cool air brushing across my bare back. This one was longer, coming down nearly to my knees, and the only cutout was my entire back all the way down to the top of my ass, so the front looked almost conservative, if a little tight. My hard nipples were insanely visible against the material.
“Wow,” Hayden said, his hand sliding slowly up my back. “This one was made for you.”
DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series Page 87
