Hard Pursuit

by Sheryl Nantus

  It wasn’t a big announcement, which made it more powerful. A handful of lines, tucked into the bottom of the screen. Trey took a few minutes to read and reread it, see between the carefully crafted announcement and spy the harsh truth underneath.

  Sheldon Construction was in flux—partially due to Vincent Sheldon being arrested on unpaid parking tickets. He was out on bail already. That didn’t surprise Trey at all. By itself, the news shouldn’t have warranted a line in the financial section.

  Except that wasn’t all.

  Ally Sheldon had quit the company altogether with a publicly posted resignation letter that detailed her intention to claim her father’s half and break away. Henry Sheldon had come back out of retirement to run the company, but it was in the middle of an ugly financial divorce.

  There was no mention of the events in Las Vegas.

  Trey rubbed his eyes, trying to decipher what had gone on during his absence. Three weeks, and it’d all shifted.

  But one thing was constant—his desire for Ally. He’d thought about her a hundred times, a thousand times when he was alone, his thoughts driving him on.

  Now…he had no idea what to do.

  The next morning, he landed at McCarran airport, bleary-eyed and tired. He shouldered his duffel and headed through the terminal toward the taxi stand.

  “Hey.” Dylan appeared by his side.

  Trey flinched, doing a double-take.

  “Gotcha. The pot’s mine.” He beamed, obviously proud of himself.

  “How did you know when I was coming in?” Trey asked.

  The fellow veteran grinned.

  “Right. So, what’s so important you had to come and get me? Something come up?”

  “In a matter of speaking. Vincent Sheldon’s been arrested.”

  “I saw. Unpaid parking tickets, of all things. Bastard’s already out on bail—no idea why they even bothered to arrest him.” Trey jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Read it on the financial pages after I went to Sheldon Construction to see Ally.”

  “She wasn’t there.”

  “No shit.” Trey frowned. “What the hell happened? And why didn’t anyone call me?”

  “It’s complicated.” Dylan grinned. “Mac’s got a knack for that. I’ll explain as we drive.”

  It took a concentrated effort to follow him through the terminal to the truck waiting in the parking lot.

  “First, how was the visit with Nick’s parents?” Dylan said as he put the luggage in the back of the truck. “You look…” He tilted his head to one side, studying Trey. “I hate to sound all sorts of psychological, but you look settled. Content.”

  “Yeah. Getting a bit of that peace in my soul.” Trey said, climbing in the passenger side. “Spent some quality time with them. They didn’t want to know about Vincent, too worried about me and how I was doing. It was sort of odd.”

  The Brotherhood leader drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Always hard to guess how parents are going to react when they have to deal with something like that.”

  Trey flinched inside, remembering Dylan’s own experiences in that area. The healing was still fresh on that invisible wound, and he didn’t want to rip it open again.

  “It wasn’t the type of justice I wanted to give Nick’s parents, but turns out it was what they wanted.”

  “Great.” He turned the engine over. “I’m glad to hear the visit went well. It’s always hard to relive the past, but sometimes you need to go backward to go forward.”

  “Yeah.” Trey cleared his throat. “Right. Back to Sheldon. What did I miss?”

  Dylan maneuvered the truck onto the local highway. “A few hours after you broke Vincent’s nose and left town, Jessie got a phone call from Ally, asking if she had any law enforcement connections.”

  “What?”

  He stepped on the gas, merging easily with the rush hour crowd. “Seems she wanted to talk to someone about having Vincent charged with Nick’s death.”

  “And you didn’t call me?”

  Dylan glanced at him. “Why would I?” He returned his attention to the road. “First, she told Jessie not to tell you. Got to respect the woman’s wishes.”

  “But Jessie told you.”

  “Of course, she did, right after she got off the phone with Ally. She needed my permission to pull strings—wasn’t going to yank on anything without making sure I knew about it. Second, I wasn’t going to call you up and have you excited about something that might or might not happen. At that point, I was still throwing stuff at Mac, asking him to make magic. Anyway, she told Ally she’d work on it and came to me.”

  “But she…” His voice trailed off as he spotted a man standing near Patrick, helping the mechanic out.

  Edgar.

  The man looked at Trey as they exited the truck, lifting a wrench in salute.

  “We also hired a new employee,” Dylan explain. “And a member of the Brotherhood.”

  “Did I shift to an alternate dimension on the way home?” Trey mused out loud. He walked over to where the men stood, and eyed Edgar. “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “Had enough of Vincent.”

  “You quit?” Trey couldn’t keep the shock and surprise out of his voice.

  “Yeah.” Edgar scuffed his feet on the cement floor. “I’ve always been on the edge with that jerk, but I kept hoping he’d change, that there was a decent guy under all the mud. When he came here to taunt you, to belittle your loss…the confession.” He let out a grunt. “That was the final straw.” He looked over at Dylan. “Liked what I saw here. Came over and talked. Seems we had a lot in common.”

  “But…” Trey again found himself at a loss for words. “Here?”

  Dylan eyed him. “We can always use another set of hands. Edgar gave us excellent references, and all of them checked out.”

  “Also put my bit in when it came to Mac.” Edgar shook his head. “I signed an NDA with Sheldon Construction, but it’s one thing to stay quiet about him stiffing bartenders on the tab or stealing a bottle of booze while on the plane, another to keep mum about running someone down. Gave a sworn affidavit about the recording you made.”

  “Thanks,” Trey said. “Not sure if it’ll make a difference, but I appreciate you stepping up.”

  “Should have done something sooner. I consider it only part of what I owe. Which is why I’m here.”

  Dylan broke in. “He’s taking shifts on the dance floor—filled in a few for you while you were gone.” A mischievous grin appeared. “Already got clocked by Ace in the boxing ring.”

  The former British Marine rubbed his jaw. “Lucky shot. I’m ready for a rematch.”

  “Ally…”

  “She’ll be fine.” Edgar smiled. “She’s upstairs, waiting for you.”

  “What?” He blinked.

  “Damn it,” Dylan said. “I was hoping to surprise you. She came in last night, early flight. We thought you’d be coming in straight from Pittsburgh—your side trip put the surprise out of whack. Showed up bright and early this morning and has been waiting for you ever since.” He jerked his thumb at the door. “Get going.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Ally looked around the nightclub. The lunchtime crowd was back, a lot of the same people she’d seen weeks ago, when she’d been last here. The waitress had remembered her and delivered a club soda with a smile and a promise to let Dylan know she was back.

  Now all she had to do was wait.

  She ran a hand through her short blond locks, trying to center herself. It’d been a trying few weeks spent between Las Vegas and New York City, culminating in her going out on her own to build a future without her family.

  It was possible the next time she met any of them would be in court.

  She studied the surveillance camera, discreetly mounted in one of the lighting tracks over the bar. It hadn’t been hard to find once she knew what to look for, and she’d remembered the angle from her previous visit to Trey’s office.

  Ally turned t
he business card over in her fingers, relishing the feel of the embossed letters. She’d already handed out quite a few since arriving back in Las Vegas that morning, mostly to business associates who had expressed their interest in working with her.

  It killed her to witness the company she’d helped build and prosper getting torn apart. Except she was already reaping the results, the businesspeople from the presentation willing to take a chance on her new, smaller outfit to complete their project.

  The risk was worth it to be her own boss. She was running on a tight budget as the lawyers fought through splitting the company into two equal parts. Many of the employees had chosen to go with her, grateful for real leadership, even though she warned them it might be a long time before they would see a boost in their paycheck. They believed in her, and that realization held her steady through the negotiations and confrontations over the past few weeks.

  She was running on adrenaline and raw terror, the sensation of freedom making her almost giddy.

  Especially coming here.

  After landing at McCarran, she’d come straight to the club, looking for Trey. She wasn’t going to call him on the phone—this was something she needed to do in person.

  But he wasn’t at the Devil’s Playground.

  Dylan explained he’d taken a side trip, and Ally returned to her hotel.

  The next morning, she’d been the first in the door and hadn’t left.

  “Hey.”

  The single word brought her around on the stool to stare at him, her breath escaping in a combination of a sigh and a gasp.

  He looked…

  Edible.

  Gorgeous.

  Handsome as hell.

  He wore his usual black T-shirt and jeans, his hair a bit longer than she remembered.

  The memory of that one night together shot straight to her core, sending a surge of heat through her veins.

  “The card.” He stood beside her. “What’s it say?”

  “Oh.” She placed the card between them, the bright lights bouncing off the glossy front. “Phoenix Construction.”

  “Phoenix.” The single word hung in the air between them. “What possessed you to pick that name?”

  “Rising from the ashes.” It was hard to breathe, his presence sucking the oxygen from her lungs. “I heard you left town for a bit.”

  “I went to see Nick’s parents.” He leaned on the bar. “I told them I found the man who killed their son.” Trey shook his head. “I didn’t give his name. They didn’t want it.”

  The words caught in her throat before she forced them out. “What did they say?”

  “They didn’t care.” He sat in the empty chair next to her. “They didn’t care,” he repeated. “They told me they’d moved on and had forgiven him.”

  “Wow.” She blinked. “That’s incredible.”

  “I know.” He shook his head. “They took me into their home and showed me what they’d done in Nick’s memory, what they’d built to remember him for the good man he was. All I had to show was five years of anger and rage spent searching for the man who hit Nick.”

  “You found him in the end. You found Vincent.”

  “No,” he corrected her. “I found you when Jessie asked to meet you here.”

  She bit her bottom lip. “You found Vincent through me.”

  “That was my goal at first,” he confessed. “We can both agree it changed as time went on. I still wanted justice for Nick, but the situation got a lot more complicated.”

  “For both of us.”

  “True.” He moved forward again, well inside her personal space. “I also went to New York City to find you. Ended up at Sheldon Construction.”

  She chuckled. “Let me guess. It was like I never existed, and you came close to being tossed out on your ass.” She frowned, doing the math. “Damn. You barely missed the arrest warrants.”

  “I did.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Mind explaining that part to me?”

  Ally licked her dry lips, unsure how to proceed. She’d gone over this exact conversation in her mind a dozen times in the last few days, parsing out what she’d say to Trey.

  It was all gone as she stared at him, her hunger for him almost blotting out all conscious thought.

  He eyed her. “Let’s start at a bad place. How much did you overhear when I was talking to Vincent here in the club?”

  “Enough.”

  “I never meant to hurt you.” He shook his head. “I never, ever considered using you to get to him. I need you to know that. I was there only to see Vincent and confirm or deny he was the man I’ve hunted for years.”

  “I know.” She met his gaze as he lifted his head. “I’ve spent my entire life protecting Vincent. But you pushed me to the edge.” Her cheeks burned. “In more ways than one.”

  Trey smiled, his lips pulled into a tight line. “You left the club after seeing me punch Vincent.” He drew a shallow breath. “And put him in a chokehold.”

  “Yes.” She brushed out a crease in her skirt, looking for something, anything to keep her hands busy. “I couldn’t believe it.”

  The pain flashed through her heart, still fresh.

  “His bragging, his…” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “His attitude. My God, what he said, what he talked about doing…” She closed her eyes, and she was back to that day, listening to Vincent’s rants. “I never saw the darkness in him until then.”

  “He’s family,” Trey said softly. “No one expected you to.”

  “I just couldn’t deal with it.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Or with you. So, I ran.”

  “I understand.”

  “Well, that makes one of us.” She massaged her temples, pushing away the pain simmering under the surface. She’d had more stress headaches in the past two weeks than in the past two years. “I had to break away, get some space to myself to process what I’d heard.”

  “And Edgar quit.”

  “Right after they got back to the hotel.” She chuckled. “Just long enough for Vincent to have one last screaming fit.”

  Trey nodded, still intently raking her with his eyes. She felt naked under his stare, holding back the urge to cross her arms. “He left you alone with an angry and upset man.”

  It sounded like an accusation.

  “Yes.” She dropped her gaze to the business card lying on the varnished wood. She placed a finger on the card and began to move it back and forth, an outlet for her tension. “Vincent went into his room to pout and drink his pain away.” She paused. “Then I burned it all down. My family, my company.”

  “How?”

  She took another sip, using the cool drink to coat her dry throat. “Jessie put me in touch with this FBI agent. I told him my concerns. He passed me to a friend—a prosecutor in New York City who had this in their cold case file.”

  The bartender walked down and placed a fresh water bottle in front of Trey, snapping the lid off. She smiled and retreated.

  He took a deep swig, shaking his head.

  Ally continued. “After I threw you out of the suite, I’d called up one of my computer experts. Told him to check and make sure you hadn’t gone into our archives, busted through our firewalls. He came back and said you hadn’t.” She couldn’t hold back a bit of a smile. “But I know you could have if you’d wanted to.”

  He tilted his head to one side and gave her a sheepish grin.

  She pulled the smile back, remembering the topic under discussion. “But after that, I gave him a harder job—to see if there was anything to your claims. I gave him full permission to go into the family archives, use any and all resources at his disposal to see if there was any chance your accusations were true.”

  “He found something,” Trey whispered, the grin vanishing.

  “Yes. An insurance claim for Vincent’s car—the one that he smashed up before we went overseas. He cross-referenced the garage that processed the insurance claim and found it to be under police investigation. He coul
dn’t go much further—he wasn’t as good as you were at slipping between computer firewalls and hacking into different systems to see what was going on. But the rest of your timeline held true, all of it—now verified with my own expert. I called Jessie, and she handed the information over to the FBI agent, who then took it to the prosecutor who had the inside data.”

  The muscles around his neck tightened. Trey swallowed loudly.

  “Turns out my uncle used a garage with some shady connections to dispose of the car that Vincent hit you with. It’s known for being a chop shop—takes them apart and makes them disappear. Odd behavior for my family, considering the insurance claim was for Vincent simply hitting a light post. There was no reason for the car to be trashed, much less go to a garage with that type of reputation. The prosecutor tugged on that string, and it started to unravel.” She drew her finger through the condensation from her drink pooling on the bar. “Then there was the tape.”

  Trey nodded. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

  “I’m not.” She shook her head. “It might be technically inadmissible, but added in with all the other evidence I gave them…” She sighed. “It’s a long shot, but they’ve reopened the investigation and are digging again. If they can prove it’s the same car, they’ll have evidence against Vincent. They’re going to try. I gave an affidavit, as well, about how we rushed out of the country five years ago, plus about overhearing Vincent’s confession. My relationship with you might cloud things, but Mac said he’d do his best to see justice was done.”

  “The arrest…what was that for?”

  “The DA was worried he would flee the country during the investigation, so they brought up some old parking tickets Vincent forgot to pay years ago. He’ll be out on bail—but it’ll keep him in the country so my uncle can’t send him overseas. Not now with the construction site accident.”

  “The accident,” he said. “How’s that going?”

  She pressed her lips into a tight line, flashing back to the trailer. “I went to the district attorney here and told him about the discussion we had with the site manager and how Vincent told him to disregard the safety regulations.”