Thank God Slash was from Italy where most of his family resided, except for his mom and stepfather—who I’d never met. Yet. They’d moved from Italy to London when Slash started working at the Vatican. Either way, their location in another country was a plus for me, and possibly for him, too. An ocean away was a comfortable distance, in my opinion. In my case, it meant I had to deal with only one set of relatives at a time.
I reached for the wine when the doorbell rang. Slash and I exchanged a glance. He held out a hand and I took it. Together we walked into the foyer and opened the door. Grayson Reese stood there smiling. She was a CIA analyst and one of the few people willing to discuss quantitative research with me. Maybe we could hide in a corner and talk about the new trends in research statistics and evaluation. Just anything non-wedding related. Her brown hair was loose and curled and she wore a cute black dress and heeled strappy sandals. Her boyfriend, Hands—his Navy SEAL nickname—was nowhere in sight.
“Lexi! Slash!” She launched herself into our arms for a hug, and I caught the faint scent of strawberries. “It’s been way too long since I’ve seen you guys. Congratulations on your engagement and the new house. I can’t wait to hear all about your wedding plans.”
I swallowed my disappointment as my dream of huddling in the corner with her and talking about anything except a wedding vanished in a poof. “So, where’s Hands?” I distinctly remembered him being on the list that had RSVP’d for this evening.
“I’m sorry,” she said shoving a bottle of wine into my hands. “He got deployed unexpectedly. I hope it’s okay I came solo.”
“It’s more than okay,” Slash said with a smile, ushering her into the house. “We’re glad you could make it.”
The next half hour was a whirlwind as people continued to arrive in clusters. Suddenly my house was full of people and more were still arriving and I had to recite the periodic table backward so I didn’t freak out. Slash handled everything with amazing calm and charm, so I gladly let him do most of the talking. I envied him that, in spite of his own deep introversion, he could dazzle people so effortlessly.
I disappeared into the kitchen to chat a while with my older brother, Beau, a detective for Baltimore Police Department, about a case he was working that had some interesting cyber elements. When I walked out into the living room again, I clutched my wineglass and looked for Slash. He immediately made eye contact with me, clearly assessing my mood. It warmed my heart that he could gauge my anxiety level so well without us even having to speak.
He smiled as I approached and slid an arm around my waist, pulling me close and taking my hand, giving me the chance to squeeze my way out of the party. I was doing okay, so I didn’t signal, but I loved him for thinking of it. I gave him a brave smile, leaning into him and soaking up his warmth. He brushed a kiss against my cheek. When he did that, it felt like it was just the two of us in the room.
He’d been speaking in Italian to a couple who were friends of Slash’s family. As soon as I arrived, they switched effortlessly to English. I admired people who could do that without missing a beat. I chatted with them for a bit until my mom and dad pulled me aside.
“Lexi, you and Slash did a lovely job with the party,” my mom said. “I have to say, the caterer is to die for. The house is lovely as well. You’ll have plenty of room to grow here, especially when you have children.”
I choked on my wine. “Mom, we haven’t even got married yet.”
“And your point is? You don’t have to be married to get pregnant, you know. Although we’d better not have to go shopping for a maternity-style wedding dress. But as soon as you’ve walked down that aisle, you should start working on my grandchildren. I don’t intend to be an old grandmother.” She glanced around the room. “Where’s Slash? He needs to hear this, too.”
I opened my mouth to respond when I heard a sound like popcorn being popped, only louder.
“Get down,” Slash yelled as the lights went off.
I turned toward his voice just before he slammed into me, my mom, and dad, bringing all three of us to the floor in a jumble of limbs.
My elbow smashed into something soft and I heard my dad yelp. I gasped as my hip banged against the floor. “Ouch! Slash, what’s going on?”
“Stay down.” Slash rolled off me and came to a crouch.
I crawled toward my mom, lying protectively on one side of her, with my dad on the other. She was shaking. I patted her shoulder awkwardly.
“Lexi, are we going to be okay?” she whispered.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see Slash creeping toward the window, his hand resting beneath his sports coat, where I knew he had a gun.
Why the heck was someone shooting at us during our engagement party? Did someone want to hurt Slash?
I swallowed my concerns, tried to be the calm and collected hostess. “Don’t worry,” I whispered to my mom. “Slash has everything under control.”
My dad made a noise between a grunt and a sigh. Not quite disbelieving, but not happy either.
I just held my breath and hoped I was right.
Chapter Three
Slash
Slash swore softly in Italian as he headed for the window. He and Lexi didn’t live normal lives, but he’d promised her father he’d keep her safe, and this wasn’t helping his case.
“Everyone stay down,” he ordered, his hand resting on the gun in the shoulder holster beneath his jacket. He’d already loosened the strap, but he didn’t want to draw it and scare everyone. He first needed to determine the level of danger. The noise had faded and all he could hear were faint pops. Not firearms, but something else.
Something familiar.
His phone was vibrating but he ignored it. He figured they were multiple warnings from the security camera feeds warning him that the side perimeter of his house had been penetrated, and the audio and motion-activated feeds he had surrounding the house had been tripped. He also would have received alerts from his Secret Service detail. He didn’t read any of them; none of them were more critical than a situational awareness of what was happening at the moment.
As soon as the noise had sounded, someone, probably Beau, had hit the lights in the living room. Someone else had turned off the lights in the dining room and kitchen, plunging the house into darkness.
Offer no easy or illuminated targets—an operational countermeasure.
He scrutinized the front windows, illuminated by the moon outside. No evidence that any bullets had tried to penetrate the glass, not that they would have succeeded. The windows in the house were all bulletproof, one of the concessions he’d made to the government so the agents who followed him around were not also assigned to live in his basement.
“Stay calm and don’t move yet,” he urged the guests as he approached the window. “I’m just going to check things out.”
He cleared his mind, listening and assessing the noise outside. It came from the left front of the house in a rapid staccato before abruptly dying off. He immediately pictured the entire schematics of every inch of his yard, including bushes, hedges, trees, and located the approximate position of the noise.
When he got to the window, he saw what had made the sounds, confirming his earlier suspicion. He rose from his crouch, letting his hand drop from beneath his jacket. “It isn’t gunfire.”
“Car backfiring?” Beau asked from across the room.
“Firecrackers,” he said. He walked away from the window toward the kitchen. It was time to check it out for himself.
“Firecrackers? That’s unusual,” Beau said. “Not part of the party, I suppose.”
“No.” Slash considered the potential threat firecrackers could hold. It was little to none, but required investigation just the same. “However, out of an abundance of caution, please stay where you are and keep the lights off until I give the all clear.” He strode toward the kitchen
and Beau followed him.
“What’s going on?” Beau asked him as he rooted around in a drawer for a flashlight and snapped it on.
“I don’t know. The Secret Service agents are already checking it out. I’m going out.”
“Whoa. Is that your best move?” Beau asked. “Someone could be trying to draw you out.”
He withdrew his gun from his shoulder holster. “I’ll be ready. Stay here and secure the front and rear accesses to the house. Let’s make sure the firecrackers aren’t a distraction to something else. You have your service weapon?”
Beau lifted his jacket. “Armed and ready.”
“Good.”
Slash disabled the alarm on the kitchen door and went out low. As he crept closer to the wooden gate that opened up to the side of the house, the soft voices of the agents became audible.
He spoke quietly, calmly. “It’s me, code-named Capri. I came out to see what’s going on.” He carefully opened the gate and stepped into the side yard.
The two Secret Service agents were waiting for him, John August and Mick Calhoun, their guns aimed his way. As soon as they saw him, they lowered their weapons.
“What are you doing out here, sir?” August asked. He holstered his weapon while taking a defensive position in front of Slash.
“Sorry to startle you, gentlemen,” Slash said, keeping his back against the house. “I appreciate your professionalism, but I saw the firecrackers and came to investigate. I need to be front and center in getting this sorted out as quickly as possible.”
The agents stared at him and didn’t move. Were they really going to make him say this aloud?
He cleared his throat, glad it was dark and they couldn’t see his face well. “My future in-laws are in there, and they aren’t impressed.”
A look of understanding, perhaps even sympathy, crossed their faces, but they were trained agents and didn’t budge from their positions. “I understand, but this isn’t protocol, sir,” August argued. “You should be inside. We have backup on the way.”
He had no intention of going back inside until he had a thorough understanding of what had happened. Even if they didn’t like it. “Until backup gets here, let’s evaluate the situation. What happened?” A quick glance confirmed there was little left of the fireworks other than a charred box, the soft rise of smoke and the acrid smell of sulfur. His mind rapidly sorted through several things at once. The number of firecrackers, the wooden container and the precise location it had been placed—close enough to the house to be both seen and heard.
Not a threat. A message.
“As you can see, someone set off fireworks,” Calhoun said. He kept staring at Slash, as if weighing how successful he’d be if he forcibly tried to drag him back into the house and to safety. Wisely, he decided not to try. “We didn’t see any vehicles on the street and no one on foot, but the fireworks didn’t set themselves off. Could have been kids.”
“Could have been,” Slash said, although he didn’t agree with that assessment. “I felt the vibration of the perimeter alarms on my phone shortly before the fireworks went off. I’ll check the security camera feeds when I go back inside.”
“Excellent. We’ll wait for the back-up agents, then review them with you, if that would be acceptable.”
“It would. For now, let’s spread out and see if we can find any clues.” Slash clicked on his flashlight.
“You’re really not going back inside, sir?” Calhoun asked.
“I am not.”
August looked disappointed. “You do know that if anything happens to you, our careers are in the toilet.”
He didn’t say it aloud, but if he didn’t get a handle on this situation, his relationship with his future in-laws would be in the toilet. They had so far dealt with the risks that were a part of his job with as much grace and aplomb as they could. But the additional risk he brought to the table that came with his position at the NSA was proving to be a sticking point, especially with her father.
Slash clapped him on the shoulder. “Then, let’s get to work to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Chapter Four
Lexi
Grayson crawled over to me. “Lexi, what’s going on outside?”
“I don’t know,” I said in a low voice. “But I’d bet money Slash went outside to find out.”
“What if he’s the target?”
“You think that would stop him?”
“No.” Gray lowered her voice. “Don’t let Slash see you.”
I started to crawl toward the window. “I’m just going to go see if he’s okay.”
“Whoa, young lady.” My dad grabbed my ankle. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m checking things out, Dad.” I shook my ankle, trying to get free. “Let go.”
“Slash said we’re supposed to stay where we were.”
“I’m not going outside. I’m just going to peek at the window to see what’s happening. I’ll be careful. I promise.” I knew what I was doing. I’d been getting shot at on a surprisingly regular basis these days, so Slash had been working with me to prepare for such occasions, just in case. But I could hardly tell my dad that without freaking him out, so I had to hope he’d take my word for it.
After a moment, he released me, so I continued my crawl. When I got to the window, I peeked over the sill and saw three dark figures. I spotted Slash by the shape of his silhouette. He was standing a bit away from the others, holding a flashlight and looking around on the grass. He picked something off the ground and put it in his pocket. I wondered what he’d found.
A few minutes later, everyone came back in. Slash flipped the lights on. “False alarm, folks. It was firecrackers. Kids playing around. Everyone can get up.”
The guests chuckled in relief, but I didn’t. Something wasn’t right. My eyes met Slash’s across the room. Although he smiled, I saw the tension in his jaw. I stretched out a hand and helped my dad pull Mom off the floor. She stood, brushing down her dress. “Lexi, you do know this kind of environment is not conducive to raising children.”
“Mom, this was not my fault! And can we please stop talking about children? Why don’t you ask Beau or Rock why they haven’t produced any yet?”
“Neither of your brothers are engaged yet,” my mother pointed out.
“You just told me that wasn’t a prerequisite for children!”
Before she could answer, Slash came up beside me, slipping an arm around my waist. “How’s everyone doing?”
“Peachy,” I said, glaring at my mom.
“We’re fine.” My dad straightened his tie. “So, it was some kids playing with firecrackers on your lawn?”
“Looks like it,” Slash said. “I apologize for bringing you all down, but safety is always my first concern.”
“Of course,” my dad replied. “Although at this point, we’re almost expecting it every time we get together.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Dad,” I said heatedly. “Not every time.”
“I’m glad we didn’t have a real threat to worry about this time,” Slash said smoothly, but his arm around me tightened slightly.
“Well, I’ll wear my kneepads next time...just in case.” Dad gave me a peck on the cheek before he moved away to talk to my other brother, Rock, and his new girlfriend, Paulina. The poor girl looked kind of freaked out about what had happened. I guess hitting the floor because of potential gunfire wasn’t the norm for most parties, not that I’d been at a lot of parties for comparison. Still, I felt sorry for Rock. I wasn’t sure how long she’d stick around after this.
I turned to Slash. He was staring into the backyard, his expression distant. I wanted to ask if he was okay, but a guest chose that exact moment to put on some dance music in an apparent effort to lighten things up. I couldn’t even hear myself think, let alone carry on a conversation.
<
br /> The furniture in our living room was pushed to the wall and people started dancing. I should have been relieved that the party was revived, but I wasn’t. I was worried. Although Slash was as gracious, charming and attentive as always, his thoughts were clearly elsewhere.
At one point, he excused himself to speak with an additional detail of Secret Service agents who arrived to discuss the incident and review the security camera tapes from our alarm system. They disappeared upstairs with Slash, presumably to review in our home office. Twenty minutes later, the agents left and Slash rejoined the party.
I was dying to find out what they’d seen and discussed, but from the look on Slash’s face, I had to wait until the party was over. I was even more curious about what he’d found on the ground and slipped into his pocket without showing the agents.
A part of me hoped all of this was just a couple of kids playing around. But it was wishful thinking, and I knew it.
Our life would never be that simple.
Chapter Five
Lexi
As soon as we closed the door on our last guest, I turned around and leaned back against the frame. “So, what did you see on the security camera?” I asked Slash.
He stacked several paper plates and a couple of plastic cups and carried them toward the kitchen. “A dark figure entering the yard from the side of the house and setting off the firecrackers. He, or she, already had them in a box.”
“So, it was clearly thought out.” I followed him into the kitchen, snagging two empty beer bottles on the way.
“Apparently. A single figure, well-prepared.”
No Stone Unturned: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery, Book Eleven Page 2