“It was nice,” Julia said. “You should have come with us. We could have done the dishes after the sun went down.”
He reached for a stack of dessert plates and set a large knife on the counter, then uncovered the apple pie in the center of the island.
“Who wants pie?”
“Um, who doesn’t want pie would be a better question,” Julia said.
He chuckled and started cutting. Things had been tense between them after their last visit when Julia had been ambushed by her mom, but she could never stay mad at her gramps for long.
He had just set a large slice of pie on one of the plates and was handing it to Elise when the laptop in the living room dinged an alarm.
He looked up, a question written on his face.
“Is that the perimeter alarm?” Nick asked.
“Sometimes the deer set it off,” her gramps said, cutting another slice of pie.
Nick walked into the living room and opened the laptop on the coffee table. Less than two seconds later he was striding toward the kitchen with his gun drawn.
He looked at John. “Get your weapon."
21
Ronan thought about Julia as he drove home, Damian’s comment about his twins playing in his mind. Ronan had never given much thought to whether he wanted children. His mother’s death had ended his perfect childhood as surely and solidly as a closed book. Everything that had come before it — the family meals crowded around the big table, the chaotic but joyful holidays, days spent on the beach, their mother slathering them all with sunscreen and feeding them homemade sandwiches from a cooler — had faded in the wake of his pain.
Now he remembered it all, remembered what it felt like to be held, to be part of something bigger and more important than himself. For the first time in a long time, he could see his future: Julia as his wife, their children chasing each other around the house, someday maybe even cousins to join them.
The ring he’d planned to give Julia burned like a totem in his dresser, a promise of everything possible, but he wouldn’t start their life together under the shadow of Manifest, wouldn’t ask that of her. When he gave her the ring, when he asked her to be his wife, they would be clear of the past once and for all, ready to write their future on a brand new page.
His phone chirped from the console and he glanced down, seeing a notification from John Taylor’s security system.
He pulled to the side of the road and picked up the phone. John’s system was fairly sensitive, tripping anything bigger than a dog that breached the system around the clearing. Ronan had set it up to send notifications to his phone when John had been getting used to the system, wanting to make sure he was paying attention when the alarm tripped.
He opened the app on his phone, prepared to clear the alarm, and made a mental note to remove the app from his phone now that John was used to the system. So far every trip had been a deer, and once a trio of bears, but when he pulled up the camera feed and came to the one positioned at the road, he froze. A car was there in black and white, parked at the end of John’s driveway, two men disappearing into the trees.
Ronan dialed Julia and pulled back onto the road, making a U-turn that sent horns blaring in his wake. He pressed the gas on the Audi and watched the speedometer climb.
22
Julia looked at the display on her phone, Ronan’s name spelled out on the screen. She turned off the ringer and slipped it into her pocket, then grabbed for her gun inside her purse.
There was no time for a conversation. As far as she knew, her gramps’ security system was still connected to Ronan’s phone. He would know they were under attack.
He would come.
“Wi-Fi’s down,” Elise said. “I can try to call 911 but the signal isn’t great out here.”
Julia was unsurprised to see Elise holding her own gun. She never went anywhere without it now, and Julia had had nightmares about her sister, traumatized and disoriented from all that had happened to her, firing on someone getting up for a drink of water in the middle of the night.
“They probably cut the cable, but try anyway.” Nick moved around the house, shutting windows and locking doors, drawing shades and curtains. He dragged the couch into a new position, one that would give them cover facing the door. “Whoever’s on their way has to know the security system is in place, which means they're going to come in fast and hard, try to take us out before the police get here.”
Her gramps came out of the bedroom with a shotgun and a handful of ammo. “Either of you girls need a weapon?”
“We’re good,” Julia said.
His eyes dropped to her gun, then skittered to Elise, holding her own. He nodded.
Nick looked from Julia to Elise. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into hiding.”
“No,” Julia said, taking up a position behind the sofa.
“I’m done hiding,” Elise said.
Nick nodded, but Julia saw the fear in his eyes. “Elise, take cover behind the island. We don’t know where they’re coming from. We need to spread out and cover all the windows.”
“I’ll cover the door with Julia,” her gramps said, lowering himself next to her behind the couch.
Nick hesitated, and Julia knew he was calculating the danger of allowing Julia to cover the front door versus other places in the house where she might be safer.
“I’ll take the back of the house,” he finally said. He looked at each of them. “They’ll be wearing tactical gear. Aim for their heads if they’re not wearing helmets. Otherwise the neck. I know this looks bad, but we have the advantage. We know they’re coming.”
Julia nodded.
“And remember,” he continued, “that sofa isn’t going to protect you from bullets. It’s just going to give you a couple seconds cover when they first come through the door.”
He disappeared down the hall and Elise moved into the kitchen.
Julia hated that she was here. That she had to be party to another assault. That she had to defend herself.
She watched her sister disappear behind the island and looked at her gramps.
He looked into her eyes. “I’m proud of you.” He hurried to continue, the rest of his words coming out in a rush. “I don’t know if I’ve told you enough lately, but you’ve become a strong, capable woman, Julia. You can do this. You can do anything.”
“Thanks, Gramps.”
He set the ammo between them and settled into position. “I’ll cover the door. You take the windows in case they decide to make a more dramatic entrance.”
She checked her weapon to make sure the safety was off and got into position, focusing on the living room windows.
She was beginning to wonder if they were really coming, if maybe there had been some kind of mistake, when the sound of shattering glass sounded from the back of the house. A split second later it seemed to come from everywhere all at once.
The windows in the living room blew inward followed by something thrown through the broken glass, landing with a metallic clink somewhere in the living room beyond her line of sight. Smoke poured up and out from the floor, shrouding the room in seconds, blocking Julia’s view to the windows and doors.
“Don’t panic. They can’t see us either,” her gramps said, peering over the couch, weapon aimed into the smoke “They’ll have to get closer. Wait until you see them.”
Gunfire sounded from the back of the house as Julia trained her weapon into the smoke, her eyes burning as she forced herself not to blink against the assault.
More gunfire, this time from the kitchen.
Elise…
She put it out of her head. She couldn’t afford to be distracted. She would have to trust Elise to take care of herself.
She heard the discharge of her gramps’ weapon before she saw the two figures in black moving toward them through the smoke. The gunfire exploded like a landmine next to her, a high-pitched whine ringing through her ears.
The figure advancing on her gramps kept coming, but she
couldn’t afford to worry about him: another figure was making his way toward her, firing in her direction, the bullets coming so close she heard a rush of wind, smelled hot metal as they flew past. Fabric and stuffing from the couch burst into the air, the bullets embedding themselves there either muffled by the material or by Julia’s still-ringing ears.
“Get back into the hall,” her gramps said.
She scrambled in a low crouch to follow his directions as he tipped over the sofa, obviously hoping to buy them time to find new cover. The house was a cacophony of gunfire, an arrow of fire biting into Julia’s upper arm as she dove.
But there was nowhere to go. The hall was open to the living room in the small house, the only other cover offered by the bedrooms in the back, gunfire still echoing through that part of the house.
The two men were still advancing when her gramps crawled on hands and knees to meet her. “Get behind me, Julia.”
“What?” She tried to shove him aside. “No, I’m — ”
“Get behind me.”
It was his drill sergeant voice, the one he hardly ever used with her and Elise, even when they’d been kids.
She dropped behind him.
He reloaded his weapon and stepped out of the confines of the hall and what limited cover it offered. She screamed as he walked purposefully forward, continually firing his weapon as he advanced on the two men.
They fell at the same time, the men dropping to the ground, disappearing into the smoke like monsters into a mythical mist, her gramps falling right in front of them, folding in on himself like a skyscraper imploding from the inside out.
“Gramps!” she rushed toward him.
He was lying face down, and she struggled to turn him over, only dimly aware that everything had gone quiet, the gunfire coming to a stop as she felt her gramps’ body, trying to assess the damage under the areas of blood seeping out over his chest, neck, and thighs.
“Gramps?” It was Elise somewhere behind her. A moment later her sister was on the floor on the other side of their gramps’ body, her hands fluttering over his face, her breaths coming in sobbing gulps. “You’re okay, Gramps. You’re going to be okay.”
But Julia knew he wouldn’t be okay. She couldn’t find a pulse, couldn’t hear his heartbeat when she lay her ear against his bloodied chest.
Something crackled from the two dead men on the floor, static sounding foreign in the tomblike quiet of the house. She watched with a sense of detachment, observing but feeling nothing as Nick approached the two bodies, pulling off one of the men’s headsets.
A voice erupted into the room from the headset. “Is it done? Nathanson, report.”
Julia stumbled backwards, slipping on the bloody floor as she tried to get away from her gramps’ body, from the irrefutable proof that he was dead.
She just wouldn’t accept it, that’s all. It just wasn’t true.
She was still trying to get away from his lifeless body, the sound of the man speaking into the headset crackling into the room, when strong arms lifted her off the floor.
She struggled, beating at whoever was trying to take her away.
“It’s me, Julia. It’s me.”
Ronan’s voice in her ear, his arms around her. He was holding her too tight, and she struggled to get away, fighting against him.
“It’s okay,” he said, murmuring into her hair. “It’s okay.”
He was a liar. It would never be okay again.
She lay her head against his chest and wept.
23
Ronan held the umbrella over Julia, Elise, and their mother as the sisters leaned against the railing of the boat. Lisa Taylor held the urn containing John Taylor’s ashes. Nick and Declan stood behind them, the boat quiet now that the engine had been cut.
Fall had descended fast and hard, the golden light of late summer disappearing overnight and leaving them with a cold drizzle that felt as if the heavens themselves were mourning the loss of John Taylor.
Ronan couldn’t think of anything more appropriate. He’d known the man less than a year, but in that short time John Taylor had become a kind of surrogate father, a wise and practical version of Ronan’s father, one who not only supported MIS’s mission but who had embraced it in the name of protecting the people he loved.
Ronan had struggled with his own feelings of loss in the three days since John had been killed, pushing it aside in an effort to help Elise and Julia, as much as Julia would let him help anyway.
John Taylor had been the best of men. He had left his mark on the world in the two good, strong women he’d helped raise. The world felt darker without him in it.
“I’m not ready,” Elise said, her voice catching on a sob.
Her mom put an arm around her and squeezed, tears streaming down her own face. She tried to replicate the gesture with Julia, but Julia shrugged off her mom’s arm, her expression stony, eyes flinty.
Ronan hoped Lisa Taylor wouldn’t take it personally. Julia had been like this since the night of John’s death.
“Take all the time you need,” Ronan said.
He watched Julia with concern, wondering how much more she could take. He’d been struck with panic when he’d come upon the scene at John Taylor’s house, smoke leaking from the empty window frames, glass littering the porch that John had kept scrupulously tidy.
All Ronan had been able to think about was Julia.
Then he’d stepped into the living room and had seen John bleeding on the floors, Elise hunched over him, sobs wracking her body.
He’d searched frantically for Julia, remnants of the smoke grenades still trailing through the house. When he’d finally spotted her, she’d been on the ground, her arm bleeding as she frantically trying to put distance between her and John’s body, her eyes wide with an expression Ronan had only seen on shell-shocked innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
She’d fought him, half out of her mind with grief and panic, before going limp in his arms, sobs wracking her body in great heaves that felt like they might rend her in two.
It had been the last display of emotion she’d shown.
“I want to do this,” Julia said, her voice flat. “It’s time.”
Her mom nodded. They’d found a will in John’s private documents that specified his wishes in the event of his death. Ronan had been unsurprised to hear that John wanted to forgo a military funeral — or any funeral at all — in lieu of cremation and a small burial at sea with only family present.
Ronan was honored that he and his brothers were included, that Julia, Elise, and Lisa considered them family.
Lisa cradled the urn close to her body while she unscrewed the top.
“Thank you, Dad. For being there for me when I couldn’t be there for myself, for being what I couldn’t be to my daughters, for showing me my whole life through what a good man looked like, even when I didn’t listen.” Tears streamed down her face. “I love you.”
She dipped a hand into the urn and let go of a handful of ashes before handing the urn to Elise.
Elise inhaled a shuddering sob. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you, Gramps, but I know you’d want me to be strong, so I’ll keep doing that. For you.”
She tossed a handful of the ashes over the railing and handed the urn to Julia.
She took it, but Ronan had caught the flinch in her body, the way she’d cringed from the offering of the urn in the moment before she accepted it. Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses in spite of the gloomy day, but Ronan knew they weren’t red-rimmed from crying.
She’d moved past crying and was settling firmly into a rage Ronan knew all too well: the rage of those left behind. Her face was pale and drawn from lack of sleep, but her spine was so straight Ronan thought it might snap in two, her chin lifted in defiance of the reality of her grandfather’s death.
She looked down at the urn, then out over the water. “I… I can’t…” She shook her head. “I can’t do this.”
She turned the urn over and the re
st of ashes were carried by the wind, disappearing into the light but steady rain that continued to leak from the sky.
She stood there for a few seconds before turning toward Ronan. She pressed the empty urn into his hands and headed for the cover of the bridge. “I’d like to go home now.”
24
Julia paced the conference room as she waited for the others to arrive.
What was taking them so long?
She felt like a toy that had been too tightly wound, like she couldn’t stop moving even if she wanted to, and she only had herself to blame. Ronan had offered to give her the news at home, but she hadn’t wanted to hear it there, hadn’t wanted Manifest to contaminate the only refuge she and Elise had left.
A twinge of pain shot through her arm and she pressed down on the bandage under the sleeve of her T-shirt as a kind of test. The bullet had grazed her skin, leaving a bloody mess that hadn’t put her in any real danger. It was hard to not wish it had been worse, penance for the fact that her gramps had died protecting her.
“Hey,” Nick said, entering the room. “Where is everybody?”
“Elise is getting a coffee from the break room. Ronan’s checking on something in his office. We’re waiting on Clay and Declan,” Julia said.
Nick nodded, his gaze lingering on her face. “Can I get you something? Tea? A drink?”
Julia bit her thumbnail and shook her head. “I’m fine.”
The expression on his face made it clear he didn’t think she was anywhere near fine, but he took a seat at the conference table and pulled out his phone.
“What made you do it?” Julia asked, her eyes on the phone.
He looked up at her. “Do what?”
“Record the voice.”
She hadn’t learned about the recording on Nick’s phone until after her gramps’ burial at sea. When Ronan told her that Nick had recorded the voice broadcasting over the headset of the dead men who had attacked them, she hadn’t believed it. She’d searched her mind, replaying the last moments of her gramps’ life and the moments immediately after, looking for Nick, wanting to pluck the memory from the morass of devastation that had been that night.
Murphy’s Love: Murphy’s Law Book Three Page 9