by Zoe Dawson
She looked at him, quiet for a moment, and the hazy memory still had the ability to cause her horror and terror to return.
“It sounded like firecrackers.” She stared at nothing, the images flying through her mind—not like ghostly specters, but with a clarity she’d never allowed to materialize. “I can still remember the sound of a bullet hitting bone and flesh.” She huddled into herself and swallowed the bitterness in the back of her throat. “Then they swept through the town, firing at anyone that moved while I laid in a pool of my family’s blood.”
Scarecrow was up, cradling her against him, his warmth like a lifeline. She was crying as she pressed her face against his neck, the album beckoning to her.
“It was a massacre, and The Butcher of Timavir was born.” She sniffled, and he swiped his thumb across her cheeks. He laid back and took her with him.
“I’m sorry this happened to you.”
“The woman who came into the residence when I was crying, looked so sad. I’ll always be grateful to her. She gathered some keepsakes for me. That photo album was one of them. I haven’t opened it ever. Then my parents adopted me, and I grew up here in this beautiful house with beautiful people I couldn’t ever let in. They died too young and I was alone again.”
“You are a survivor, Scarlett. We always find our way.”
She nodded and looked up at him, smoothing her hand over his stubbled cheek. “You are a beautiful soul, Arlo.”
“So are you, sugar.”
New Orleans, Louisiana
They landed at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and went through the terminal to rent a car. As she moved beside Scarecrow, his touch on her spine was comforting and a reminder of last night. Though she didn’t need it. He was imprinted all over her body in such a profound way. For a breath, he met her gaze and understood where her mind went to play.
When Stone and Kessler had tracked her down, MI-6 had had a chopper waiting for them in Bellise and had flown them to the airport where they caught a plane to Heathrow. It was an hour and forty-five minutes back to Scarecrow’s hometown, but they had to stop in Palisades, the small town where Susan lived, to pick up his mum. She looked forward to seeing Rosemary.
This time he drove, his big hands steady on the wheel. She remembered the wild motorcycle ride with him holding onto her, his trust evident. He never questioned her once. Well, except for challenging her about that London Tube employee caught in the crossfire between them and the MBFF arses.
When they pulled into Susan’s driveway, they got out. She’d learned that no one went anywhere in the South without sitting a spell and visiting. She expected Susan and Rosemary would have lunch waiting.
Scarecrow knocked, and Susan opened the door with a startled expression. “Arlo? Hi.” Her confusion was evident.
“I came for my mom. I texted her that I’d be here to pick her up.” His expression tightened. “Is she all right?”
“Yes, but Hank picked her up this morning. He said it was time she went back home. Was that wrong?”
“No, that’s fine, Susan. I guess we must have gotten our wires crossed.” She didn’t look convinced.
“Would you like to rest for a bit? I have lunch cooking. I’d love to have you join me.”
“I’m sorry,” Scarlett said. “I’m so very tired. I hope that’s not rude.”
“No, I’m sure you must be after that quick trip overseas. I hope everything turned out okay.”
“Right as rain,” she said, well aware that there was no way in hell Scarecrow was going to spend even five more minutes here let alone a half an hour.
He got back in the car, and his once loose grip on the wheel was now a vise. He looked lethal and pissed. In her book, that was never a good combination. But their immediate concern was Rosemary.
She reached out and set her hand on his forearm. “Don’t let him bully you anymore, love. He’s doing this as a power play.”
“He probably shut off her phone. I tried calling her a couple times, left messages. I should have known he would do something like this.”
He drove just over the speed limit. His mom’s welfare heavy on his mind. There was something going with Hank and he was more determined than ever to take his mom away from his influence. Her assets would be safer that way.
When he pulled up to the house, Hank’s convertible was in the driveway. He didn’t bother with his luggage but strode up the walk and into the house with Scarlett right behind him. “Mom?”
Hank came out of the kitchen eating a sandwich. “She’s sleeping. Keep your voice down.”
Scarecrow barreled across the room and grabbed Hank by his lapels and slammed his back against the wall. He dropped his sandwich.
“Hey!” he said. “What the blue blazes—”
“Shut up. What is it you want with my mom? She’s my responsibility, not yours.”
“You could have fooled me. You’re never here, Arlo. Been on leave for a few days and then off you go.” He glared at Scarlett. “We barely know her. She’s not family, yet she’s the one you help instead of your own mother.”
“You have no idea what is going on with Scarlett, not that it’s any of your business. Don’t you ever go behind my back again where my mom is concerned. You’ve worn out your welcome. Get out.”
Scarecrow let go, and Hank straightened his light blue suit. He grinned smugly.
Scarecrow recognized it.
That smile was imprinted in his mind, and he felt a chill in his soul. He only smiled like that when he had something over Scarecrow. Hank knocked Scarecrow’s shoulder as he passed. He wasn’t going to let Hank push his buttons anymore. The door closed behind him.
Scarlett picked up the remnants of the sandwich and dumped it into the sink. She went to wipe off the counter and tenderness flooded him. She knew how tidy his mom liked things.
His mother came into the kitchen.
“I thought I heard your voice. How was the trip?”
“It was good, Mom. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. Hank came to get me early. That was nice of him, wasn’t it?”
He plastered a smile on his face. “Sure.”
“You both must be starving. Let me get lunch started.”
Later on, after his mom went to sleep, he slipped out of the house and walked across the road to Scarlett’s porch. She opened the door as if she’d been watching for him.
When he closed the door, she moved into his arms, offering him a comforting smile as he cupped the back of her head, drawing her nearer. She went eagerly. His mouth covered hers, a brief, hot slide of lips and tongue that drove a thick spill of desire, and she clung to him, drinking in his kiss, her body soft against him.
“I can’t stay. I don’t want to leave her alone tonight. She was agitated when she went to bed like she has something heavy on her mind.”
“Rosemary is tougher than both of us,” she said.
Later on, alone in his bed, he missed the heat of her body, her larger-than-life presence. She’d had the courage to start her own change, yet The Butcher still dogged her steps. Was he hidden here in Bellise? Was a town’s legacy buried somewhere here like a pirate’s chest full of booty?
What would it do to her if she didn’t get closure? The fact she was planning murder didn’t faze him. He was a man who had done things for the good of others, no matter the cost. He was Uncle Sam’s boy, part of the brotherhood. He would defend the US with his last dying breath.
But he wanted Scarlett, wanted her like he wanted his next breath. There was no quarter there. All he had to do was reconcile with himself that impossible things were possible, even with complications, even with family messiness, family needs.
Even with the unresolved feelings about his dad’s death.
He’d opened that photo album after she’d fallen asleep, her tears still wet on her cheeks. He’d seen her as a child, studied the faces of her parents and siblings, absorbed the beauty of her as a little girl with a stubborn chin. H
e wanted her to let The Butcher go, stop punishing herself for being a survivor.
God help him. He wanted her to give them a chance.
He closed his eyes as his chest filled. He’d come home expecting to find conflict and regret.
He’d found both.
What he hadn’t expected was to find her and have her define for him the lie he’d lived with for so long. Violence didn’t define him; his own moral code was the master that ruled him. And until she’d stepped into his life with her cute accent and her jaded wisdom, he’d had no idea how much beauty there was. The blinders were off.
He had to find his own courage, come to terms with his mom’s decline, his dad’s death.
She’d lost two families, one to evil, the kind he fought every day, and the other to happenstance. Shit happened every goddamned day. He had one goal now. Protect his mother. He’d made one promise to her: find The Butcher.
He intended to make good on both.
16
Scarecrow had been up since dawn, he’d already completed his run and was now up in the attic sorting through all the stuff up there. Most of it he intended to sell. He’d already called an estate broker who was going to be out later on this afternoon.
The house would go on the market next week, and he had secured an assisted living slot for his mom in a retirement community close to his apartment in San Diego. He had two weeks of leave left and then he had to go back to work.
He’d also done a thorough check of her finances and made sure all her bills were up to date. He was appalled at the cost of the air conditioning. It was normal for it to be high in the summer, but for the size of the house, he had to wonder if the unit was working correctly. Something else he added to his list. The HVAC guy would be here sometime in the next hour.
He paused and took several long gulps of water but noticed that it was cool enough up here he’d barely broken a sweat.
His cell phone rang, and he pulled it out of the pocket of his worn jeans. “I hope you left me that message to call you back because you want to join The Company?” Kat said, her sultry voice neutral. He wondered what had changed her mind about him.
Wicked?
“Hey, Kat. No, the CIA isn’t for me. I’m a SEAL.” The finality of his tone made her sigh.
“That’s what I thought. Then what can I do for you?” Her brusqueness was tinged with weariness. It wasn’t lost on him that she had looked worse for wear when he’d seen her in London. Even the night of the embassy party, dressed in a black velvet tuxedo dress complete with a bow tie, Wicked hadn’t taken his eyes off her all night. He had also noticed she’d thrown his teammate plenty of admiring glances. He had to smile. The ladies loved a man in a tux almost as much as a man in uniform.
“I need a favor.”
“Okay.”
“It’s for Scarlett…Yana.” Damn, that was a beautiful name, and he was thinking of her more frequently by it. She had adopted Scarlett, but it was, like most of her life, a cover. He hoped she could see what was real. Be open to the here and now once The Butcher was dealt with.
“Anything for her. Is she in trouble?”
“No. Not exactly.” He explained briefly what he needed.
“I had no idea she had been part of that bastard’s war crimes. Misha ‘The Butcher’ Federoff is an international fugitive. Both he and his sister, Olga, dropped out of sight. It’s rumored she ran off with a forger, Alexander Levin, went by the nickname of Sasha. She’d hired him to forge papers to get away from her brother. They were both in their early forties at the time… That would make him—and her, if she survived—in their late sixties. She didn’t approve of her brother, hated him for what he’d done to the townspeople of Timavir. In fact…” There was some keyboard tapping, then she said, “She was due to testify against him but never showed up. She’s presumed dead. Her brother wasn’t known for his benevolence, even when it came to family.”
“Could you use your contacts to see if you can track down where he went after he fled Kirikhanistan?”
“Sure, but that was close to thirty years ago.”
“I know. Do the best you can.”
“You have a thing going with her. That’s evident. Don’t hurt her, straw boy. I wouldn’t want to have to hurt you.” With that said, she disconnected the call.
He heard a knock on the door and came down out of the attic. He’d had Susan pick up his mom to get her out of the house. He didn’t want her to be upset as he moved forward with what he had to do.
“Hi, there. I’m here to take a look at your unit. You having problems with the air conditioning?”
“No. No problem, but the bill is higher than I would expect for a house this size.”
“I’ll take a look.”
He turned and walked off the porch heading for the back of the house and the HVAC unit. He went back upstairs and continued working on the attic. When the knock came again fifteen minutes later, Scarecrow opened the door.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with the unit. You just got yourself a state-of-the-art piece of machinery. I’m not sure why you need that kind of power, but it’s the most recent unit, used in commercial buildings, offices, museums, art galleries. Are you storing any art?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“I see here that your daddy had it upgraded just about every two or three years.”
“Really?” Confused, Scarecrow tried to figure out why his father needed that much power.
“Could I bother you for a drink?”
“Sure, my mom makes the best lemonade.”
“That sounds great. Thanks.”
He opened the fridge and stopped when he saw something white peeking from under the refrigerator grate.
He bent down and picked it up. It was a white round pill. It had a stamp on it. He frowned. It didn’t look like any medication her doctor had prescribed her.
Pulling out his phone, he tapped the information into Google.
Up popped several websites telling him that the pill was acetaminophen and codeine. He frowned. He was positive that she wasn’t taking this. He knew every one of her medications. He scrolled through the websites, and his attention snagged on one that described medications that could mimic dementia.
He clicked on it. He read through the article, and when he got to the paragraph on how pain medication, especially opioids, which included codeine, affected short-term memory, he clenched his jaw, a sickening realization dawning on him. Hank always in the refrigerator, always with a full glass of lemonade, but never drinking it. It was his mom’s favorite form of beverage, something she drank every day starting at lunch time, right around the time she started having memory problems. Further research revealed that codeine didn’t stay in the bloodstream very long. Because her doctor appointment had been in the morning, there was nothing detected in her blood test.
“Son of a bitch.”
Then his attention snagged on corticosteroids and how they could induce delirium, mood changes or even psychotic symptoms. His gut twisted up into knots. His dad took prednisone to manage his arthritis.
Had Hank upped the dose? Is that why his dad was having those terrible episodes? Was Hank preying on his parents? For what reason? The only one he could come up with was money.
He grabbed a bottle of water and went back out to the HVAC guy. “Sorry, it’s all gone.”
The guy accepted the bottle, thanked Scarecrow, turned and left.
As soon as he was off the porch, Scarecrow put in a call to Hank’s accountant. He was the one who not only had managed his uncle’s dealership but had also handled his parents’ finances.
He answered on the first ring. “Hey there, Arlo. How are you, son?”
“I’m doing fine, Bob. I’m home visiting my mom. It looks like I’ll be taking her back with me to San Diego.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. I know how much she loves it here.”
“Yeah, it’s difficult, but it’s necessary.”
“Of course. What can
I do for you today?”
“Is Hank in financial difficulty?”
“Well…maybe you should talk to him about that.”
Bob’s tone told him exactly what he needed to know. “The business is failing, isn’t it?”
“Yes. He’s spends too much money. I told him to slow down, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s laid off most of his employees.”
“Thanks, Bob.” He hung up.
Reeling from the information he’d found out about the drugs, he dumped out the lemonade, then left the house and headed for the car. He paused, remembering the estate broker was going to be there soon. He made a beeline for Scarlett’s house.
She was watering her flowers and smiled when she saw him. “Good morning.”
He kissed her and slipped his arm around her. “I missed you last night, sugar.”
“It’s surprising how fast we got used to that, yeah? Do you want some breakfast?”
“No, I can’t. I have to go kill my cousin.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
He flexed his hands. “I don’t know.”
“Arlo—”
“I think he’s drugging my mother to extort money from her. He might have been responsible for my dad’s death.” He had to find Hank, confront him. Make him accountable if he had harmed his dad. Taken him from them.
“Oh, my God. How do you know that?”
He explained to her what he’d found out today. “And to top it off, my father installed some commercial air conditioner. I have no idea why.”
“Damn it. It has been a crazy day.”
“It has. Look, I need to track down my cousin. Get to the bottom of this. Could you go over to my house and let the estate broker in? He just needs access to the attic. And, just in case my mom comes home. I don’t want Hank to get her alone.”
“Of course. Please keep me updated.”
Scarecrow started down the driveway but turned around. “Oh, and I contacted Kat about The Butcher. Hopefully she can find some clue.”