Barracuda security compl.., p.44
Barracuda Security Complete Trilogy, page 44
part #1 of Barracuda Security Series
I wondered too if Paxton had managed to keep my five year old to a regular schedule during their adventure. My guess was not, but I was grateful for her care.
flashing. Some were dark cars that were that probably that belonged to the three federal agencies involved in the investigation. As the SUV came to a stop, I caught sight of Maclean coming down the long drive. He looked exhausted.
“I want to get out.” I told Kai.
“Are you sure?”
“I want her to see me when they walk her to the patrol car.”
. He popped open the door and climbed out. He held out his hand and I clung to it as we walked through the police barricade that had been set up to keep civilians back.
“Kai Gabriel! Why am I not surprised to see you here?” a pretty reporter followed us right up to the barrier, looking for all the world like she might come through it, but she stopped just short. “Another big story you’re in the middle of?”
“Maybe it’s the same story, Ms. Johanson.”
“Are you saying this is connected to Ms. Gruffydd’s kidnapping?”
Kai hunched his shoulders and we continued toward the driveway.
“What about you? Mrs. Pierce?”
I glanced over my shoulder at her, wondering how Kai knew her. “It’s Cox,” I announced. “Briar Cox. No one calls me Mrs. Pierce but criminals and insensitive people who don’t bother to inform themselves.”
That shut her up for a moment. By the time she found her tongue again, we were too far away to hear her questions. My tough Kai looked down at me and smiled, clearly impressed.
Paxton and Ayden had followed with Molly. They stayed close, and we turned into a unit when we joined Maclean and Rylee.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, moving close to Rylee. She just shrugged, letting me slide my arm around her waist as she rested hers on my shoulders. “I should have been here for you sooner.”
“You were a little busy.”
“A little.”
We waited for what seemed like a lifetime. When the door finally opened, my heart jumped into my throat. We were told that the feds were searching the house and had kept her up there in order to question her about items they found. But they must have decided her usefulness had come to an end because they were bringing her out.
Marigold Pierce: the woman who’d run this town since she first married the man who would become her husband; the woman who’d driven that same man into his grave when he was still relatively young; the woman who had raised two children, and who had turned one against the other, was also the woman who’d used and funded a private military contracting company to add more money to the millions she already possessed. For personal gain, this woman had plotted to prolong a war that should have ended over a decade ago, a war that had destroyed whole villages and innocent lives in a country she’d never seen and knew nothing about.
This was the woman who’d coldly ordered her own son’s murder and then plotted to steal his child from her mother.
“How did they even meet?” Rylee asked.
“Through someone your mother knew in Vegas,” Kai answered.
Rylee nodded. “I wonder if that’s why…”
“What?” I asked.
“Why she encouraged Roman to go into the military.”
“I thought he did that to escape jail or something.”
“He never would have done it if Mother hadn’t told him she thought it was a brilliant idea. Said it would make a man out of him.”
“He never was a man, but it wasn’t the Army’s failing. It was because she kept him under her thumb all that time.”
“He was her puppet. But she decided he’d outlived his usefulness.” Rylee sighed. “I just thought she’d push him out, one day—disown him, like she did with me. I didn’t think she’d ever kill him.”
“I don’t think anyone did.”
where the patrol cars waited. I was interested to see she had been taken into custody by a local Walnut Estates cop who stood on her left, an FBI agent on her right. As they approached us, the cop caught Kai’s eye and nodded.
And then Marigold caught sight of me.
Happy now bitch?” she said, venomously. “You were always jealous of my money and then you caused my son’s death.” Kai pressed my hand warningly. But I ignored it.
“You killed your son in more ways than one, and then you were going to do the same thing to my child?”
“She had a chance with me—not with trash like you who set out to deliberately snare my son for his money—whore!”
“She would never have been yours.”
“She could have been. All I had to do was make the right phone calls.”
Something inside of me snapped and I stepped forward, but Rylee beat me to it and she slapped her mother’s face as hard as she could.
Marigold Pierce screamed in fury. “That is assault. You all saw. My own daughter assaulted me!”
The cop intervened. “That is enough Mrs. Pierce!” and he hustled her roughly into the car.
“Take your filthy hands off me”, she screamed and went on screaming and swearing from the back of the car. The police and other officials ignored her.
“Captain Gabriel,” the patrol cop said, coming back to join our little circle. “Good to see you again.”
The cop put two fingers to his head, and I suddenly realized this was the cop who’d let Kai go the day he was arrested. I thought he looked familiar.
“Jimmy,” Rylee said, holding out a hand to him, “I owe you a debt I will never be able to repay.”
The cop shrugged. “Just doing my job.”
“You weren’t when you helped me out,” Kai reminded him. “I appreciate what you did for me.”
“So do I,” I said, startling him by stepping up to him and hugging him. His arms were slow to come around me, but when they did, it was probably the sweetest hug I’d ever received.
“Just doing my job,” he repeated, backing away with a blush coloring his face.
When the police cars had gone and we had fended off reporters, we all headed over to Rylee’s house. She wasn’t as down as I’d expected her to be. Seeing her mother arrested must have been a shock, but her focus was more on Roman and his funeral.
“It is a fitting end to a terrible day and a terrible funeral,” she told me as we gathered glasses and drinks together in the kitchen to take out to the others in the living room. “She murdered my brother and yet brought in a quartet and had some priest who Roman could never have met, to give his eulogy. I don’t think any of the people who came knew him and they certainly didn’t care about him. It was a society funeral that had nothing to do with religion or remembrance.
“He would have hated the whole thing. But he would have put up with it if he thought it was what she wanted.”
“He would have.” Rylee sighed. “I’m struggling with this more than I thought I would. I hated him for his drunken behavior and what he did to you, but he was still my brother.”
“I know.”
“A part of me clung to the hope that he’d wake up one day and realize he could be a better man than all that.”
“I think maybe…I think it’s possible he did.”
She glanced at me. “What do you mean?”
“You know he was killed because he had information on a USB drive that he hid from Black Jacket, right?”
“Maclean said it had some security stuff on it they needed for that heist.”
“That’s what we all thought. But we were wrong.”
“What was on it, then?”
“Proof of Marigold’s involvement in Black Jacket’s darker investments. Proof that she was the mastermind of the whole thing.”
“Where did Roman get it?”
“From her personal computer. I think that’s why he gave up his apartment and moved in with her. He wanted to be closer to her, and wanted to have access to things he wouldn’t have otherwise. Abraham Black was working with military intelligence and he approached Roman, asked him to get the information.”
“That’s why she had him killed? Because he was going to expose her?”
“Yeah. He was doing the right thing for once, and she killed him for it.”
Rylee was quiet for a long moment. She gripped the edge of the sink as she stared out the window. Her shoulders trembled.
“He was trying,” I said as I went to her and pressed a hand against the center of her back.
Rylee began to laugh. “There’s irony in all this,” she said after a moment. “She drove my father into an early grave because he loved her too much to walk away from her. But the boy she’d groomed in her own image; the boy I thought she loved more than life itself, was the one to finally see through her. And when she realized he was going to bring her down, her greed got the better of her and she put the nail in his coffin. But he also died because he couldn’t quite walk away.”
I lay my head on her shoulder. “And here we are, the two who did walk away. And we’re still alive.”
“Somehow, I’m struggling to see the comfort in that.”
We hugged for a moment, and then went out to the others to share a few drinks and stories of what had gone down.. Molly interrupted us now and then playing with glee to her captive audience of adults who had all fallen for her charm. I was the one who finally called it a day when I could no longer hide my exhaustion.
Kai had recovered his precious Buick Skylark and said he’d take us home. I immediately fell asleep in the front seat, vaguely aware of Molly perched in her seat behind me, chatting away, excited by her first ride in a convertible. Kai woke, me when the car had stopped, gently lifting me out of the car as if I were a child.
“Where’s Molly?”
“Sound asleep on the couch.”
“I didn’t think she’d sleep ever again.”
“It’s been an exciting week for her.”
When Kai opened the door, I realized we were in an unfamiliar place. “Where are we?”
“My place. Your house needs a little work before it’ll be habitable again.”
I nodded, recalling now what Black had said about searching my house. I rested my head back on Kai’s shoulder, wanting to look around, but too tired to do it now. He carried me to the couch and set me down near Molly. He had set a pillow under her head and covered her with a blanket.
“There are more pillows and blankets here. I don’t have a spare bedroom…sorry.”
I tilted my head. “You’re not inviting me to share with you?.”
“I just thought you’d prefer to be out here with Molly.”
I lay back, resting my head on the couch as I looked up at him. He was so tall!
“I’m really tired and I’ve had too much to drink, so this is probably the wrong time to say all this, but I’m going to do it anyway.” I reached up and brushed a piece of hair from my eyes. “I’m glad you were the one who got my letters. I’m glad that you came to live here and that you were there when Roman tried to keep Molly from me. I’m glad you started coming around, bringing us groceries we didn’t need and candy my daughter really shouldn’t have had.” I smiled softly, glancing at Molly. “I’m glad because the first time I set eyes on you, I knew you were different. You weren’t the same kind of man Roman was. You had a shitty childhood and you went through some things that even my crappy, drug addicted parents were smart enough to keep me away from. But you survived, and you became the kind of man you never should have become. You are a hero to me, and I don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t walked into my life.”
“Briar,” he said, his voice harsh with emotion. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” I pulled myself up off the couch and moved close to him, resting a hand over his heart. “I swore to myself the last time Roman hit me that I would never let a man become the focus of my world, that I would never let a man dominate me ever again. I thought that meant that I could never love another man, that I would never have the family I’d always dreamt of having. But now, with you, I can see that having a good man is the same as having a partner, as having a man who can share his life without having to control mine.”
He touched the side of my face. “You changed my life with those letters. I wouldn’t be who I am without them.”
“And I got my wish. You are the man those letters were meant for. I just didn’t know it until now.”
He pulled me close and kissed me with a tenderness that threatened to break my heart it was so full. This was where I was always meant to be.
He picked me up again and carried me into a large master bedroom with a sexy bed made of drift wood and the softest linens my skin had ever felt. When he lay me down, my body sank into those linens and instead of being overcome with exhaustion, every nerve in my body came alive. He backed away, but I reached for him, pulling him onto the bed with me. His mouth was on mine again, his hands searching for the bottom edge of my blouse. It was just as passionate as the first time, our bodies moving together as if they’d been meant for one another. We made love. This was the way it was meant to be, the way it had always been meant to be.
When exhaustion finally overcame me, I fell back with Kai’s naked body pressed against my back, and his hands moving gently over my skin. Then he pressed his lips against my ear.
“I love you,” he whispered. And then I was asleep, drifting on the sweetest cloud, aware it was mine forever, one I would never fall off again. This. Perfection.
Epilogue
I
Dear Kai,
This seems silly, even to me, because you’re lying in the bed beside me, sleeping with your arm slung over your eyes like a child, or a cat, lost in sweet slumber. I love to watch you sleep, love to see your face free of all the stress and worries that crease it during the day. I’ve never known a man as beautiful as you. It’s not just the sexy features of your perfect face, the muscles you work so hard to keep so well defined, but something from inside of you that refuses to be silenced, that refuses to disappear. You are the sweetest thing I’ve set eyes on since the birth of my precious daughter.
I’m not sure why I wrote this letter, but it seemed like it was time you read a letter from me that was written for you. While I didn’t know you when you were in the service, and I never knew you when you were reading my other letters, I do know you now. I’m getting to know you a little better every day. You are more than I ever could have imagined in a man. I hope you know that Molly and I adore you and whatever might happen in the future, I will never regret getting to know you. All I regret is that my first set of letters weren’t properly addressed to you.
All my love,
Briar
II
Kai
Six months later…
Summer had come and gone. The beaches were finally ours again, empty of the tourists who flocked there, determined to make the most of their summer break. I could sit on my back deck now and enjoy my whiskey like before. I could enjoy the cool air on my face and air out my stump after a long day in the office—the usual routine stuff—helping victims of stalkers, setting up business security systems and looking for missing persons.
held champagne flutes rather than whiskey tumblers. I swallowed the last of mine before handing it over to a hovering waiter.
“You’d think having gone through this once before, I wouldn’t be this nervous.”
I tugged on Maclean’s tie, straightening it a little before turning him to face the right direction. “If you weren’t nervous, I’d worry about you.”
“You weren’t nervous.”
“I was a fucking wreck. I just hid it better.”
Maclean laughed, but it was a little shaky.
The gathered guests cooed over Molly as she started down the aisle, tossing flower petals onto the sand. I winked at her and she smiled brightly. “Hi, Papi!”
She’d started calling me Papi a few weeks ago, a few days after Briar and I returned from our brief—much too brief—honeymoon in New York. Molly had spent those two weeks with Rylee, who told us afterward that Molly wanted to call me something but couldn’t call me Daddy because of Roman. So they had come up with the Spanish for father. I was happy with this compromise, especially coming from such a young child. She was never without surprises.
She was thrilled that Briar and I married. We’d decided that, since we’d already practically moved in together, we might as well make it formal. Two months ago, we went to the justice of the peace, just the three of us with Cady, Paxton, Ayden, Maclean, and Rylee. Lili had made us a cake despite our wanting to keep the whole thing small and private. But it was a lovely cake, almost as pretty as the beautiful three-tiered cake she’d made for this wedding.
I always thought marriage was something I could never do. But I liked it. The feel of the ring on my finger, the sight of my wife and stepdaughter in my living room when I came home at night, was something I was really getting used to.
Behind Molly came her mother. Briar was wearing a soft pink dress that was full from the bust down. It made her look like a graceful bell. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she made her way to the altar.
“Gorgeous,” Paxton whispered near my ear as she moved close to me. “You’re a lucky man.”
“I know it.”
I touched her hand, grateful to have her here. There’d been a raid on Vaughn Motors not long after Marigold Pierce had been taken into custody. The guy who’d come after Paxton was arrested, as was Tom Nichols’ aunt. Ayden was arrested, too, but because of the information he gave to Homeland Security he was able to make a deal. He got a suspended sentence and was put on probation. He would always have a felony on his record, but it could have been so much worse.
managed to persuade the authorities to let him settle in Walnut Estates. He was now working as a mechanic at a local auto shop. . Business was a little slower now that summer was done, but the owner of the shop liked him so well that he kept him on. I was grateful to the shop owner, grateful to the legal system, grateful to everyone who allowed Paxton to remain on my payroll. She was essential to Barracuda. But she was also a friend I cherished.
