“The sheriff asked me to bring this to you.” Decker held up a bag.
“What is it?”
“Your sister’s effects.”
I looked into his eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.
“Take your sister’s stuff, and we’ll go back to Boston. When the sheriff says it’s okay, we can come back.”
I looked over at Adler and then back at Decker. “How long do you think it will be?”
“It’s difficult to say.”
When I turned back to Ad, he was studying something on his phone. Why was he on his phone? “There’s a flight in two hours,” he mumbled. “If you hurry, we can catch it.”
Decker took a step closer. “If you need a place to stay, there’s a guest house at the ranch.”
“The ranch?”
“King-Alexander. It isn’t too far from here.”
Adler was still preoccupied by his phone. Here was a man I hadn’t seen since I was a child—and barely knew then—being kinder to me than the man who had been one of my closest friends for the last four years.
“If you’re sure,” I said to Decker, again appreciating how sensitive he was being.
“I’m sure.”
“Give me a minute?”
He nodded and stepped away.
“I’m staying here. At least until they can determine my sister’s cause of death.”
Adler finally looked up from his phone. “I don’t see the point, Mil. Whether you’re here or at home, isn’t going to change anything. Let’s get back to Boston, and when there’s something more you’re needed for here, you can come back.”
“Something more I’m needed for? Adler—” God, I couldn’t even talk to him. Needed for? My sister was dead. I had a funeral to plan, a burial, and then I had to figure out what to do with my grandfather’s house. Wasn’t any of this dawning on him? “I’m going to stay, but you should go home.”
His eyes opened wide as though something I’d said surprised him. Again, I was stunned by his insensitivity. Had he always been this way and I just never noticed? Or had I noticed and just overlooked it because it had always been easier just to accept that Adler was always around, always doing things for me?
“I’m not leaving without you.”
“I’m sure you’d be welcome to stay at the ranch.”
Adler grabbed my arm. “No, Mila, I’m not staying at the ranch or anywhere else. I’m getting on the next plane to Boston, and so are you.”
“Let her go.” Decker stalked over to us and got in Adler’s face until he dropped my arm. I hadn’t noticed before how much taller than Adler he was. He had to be at least six feet five, maybe more.
“This is our ride,” Adler said when a car pulled up. He’d called a car service? Was that what he’d been doing? “Are you coming with me or not?”
“I’ve told you more than once that I’m staying here.”
Adler looked at me and then at Decker, who stood next to me with his arms folded.
“Last chance,” said the man I’d believed to be my friend. When I shook my head, he climbed into the back seat of the waiting vehicle and slammed the door.
I stood where I was until I saw the car round the corner.
“Ready?” Decker asked.
“I’m sorry about what you just witnessed. He isn’t usually like that.”
Whatever Decker said in response, I couldn’t hear, and I didn’t care. It was hotter than hell, I was exhausted, an emotional wreck, and my sister was dead. Adler Livingston, for all I cared, could go fuck himself.
5
Decker
“Do you need to stop anywhere before we get on the road?” I asked once we were back in my truck and I’d started the engine.
“I don’t think so.”
“I should’ve asked when we were inside, but do you need to use the facilities?” I felt my cheeks flush, and she smiled.
“You just stood by my side while I identified my sister’s body, but asking if I need to use the restroom embarrasses you?”
I turned my head and looked out the window, feeling like a jackass. “Well, do you?”
“No.”
“You probably aren’t hungry.”
“I’m not, but if you are…”
“I’m not, either.”
I backed the truck out of the parking space and got on the road.
“It’ll take twenty or thirty minutes to get out there.”
“I remember where it is,” she said, resting her head against the seat.
“I’m gonna take the back way, if that’s okay.”
“You’re driving, Mr. Ashford. It’s up to you.”
God, she was adorable, not that now was the time for me to have thoughts like that. “Name’s Deck, Miss Knight.”
“And my name is Mila.”
I pulled out of the parking lot, and by the time we got out of town, her eyes had drifted closed.
Once I was certain Mila was asleep and wouldn’t catch me, I stole several glances at the woman sitting next to me. Given what she was dealing with, the last thing I should be thinking about was how beautiful she was, or how I wanted to pull her soft body against mine and give her comfort. I couldn’t help myself, though. She was breathtaking.
Her long blonde hair was pulled up in a ponytail. Not surprising in this heat. She wore a sleeveless blouse that tied at the waist and a skirt that brushed the top of her knees. Her legs were long and toned, like her arms, and the sandals she wore gave me a glimpse of her blue-painted toenails.
Her head fell forward, and I wished I had one of those neck pillows to give her so she’d be more comfortable. I didn’t have as much as a damn blanket in my truck that I could roll up.
She adjusted her body, turning so she was facing me, and it was like I was struck by a lightning bolt.
I’d never known her name, but the girl who had haunted me for most of my life was sitting beside me. I’d bet my life on it. There’d never been anyone I reacted to in the same way—before or since. It had never been her looks; it had always been her soul, what I saw when I peered into her eyes.
I doubted she remembered me; we were so young at the time. The connection I felt to her from the moment I looked into her eyes at the airport made so much more sense now. It wasn’t guilt over not being able to save her sister’s life. This was me getting hit directly in the heart by something I couldn’t explain and knowing, like I had for years, that I’d never get over it.
6
Mila
Twenty-five minutes after we left the county building, we pulled up to a gate and waited for it to open.
“There are security systems in place here at King-Alexander that I’ll need to go over with you.”
“Sorry, I dozed off. I feel like such an imposition.”
“You’re not.”
He pulled up in front of a large house but didn’t cut the engine. He pointed to a smaller one sitting behind it. “That’s where you’ll be staying, but first, we need to get you into the system.”
“The system?” What was he talking about? Why did a ranch need a security system?
Decker nodded. “We can do that at my place.”
He drove farther down the same road that led to the main house, and about a mile in, he turned off. The ranch didn’t look any different than I remembered, not that I’d ever come inside the gates. I could tell by the number of outbuildings, though, that it was a large operation.
We came to a house similar to the one I’d be staying in and waited for the garage door to open. After he parked and climbed out, he came around to open my door.
“I wouldn’t normally handle it this way, but I don’t have much choice since you’re already on the property,” he said, leading me inside.
He opened another door just off the kitchen and stepped into what looked like an office with an elaborate surveillance system set up—the kind one might see in a movie.
“What is this place?” I mumbled, not meaning to say it out loud.
“As I said, there are security systems at the ranch—”
“Cattle ranching must be a lot different than it used to be,” I commented, eyeing the number of monitors in the room.
Decker took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s because of who owns it.” He motioned to one of the computer screens and pulled out the chair. “Come over here.”
Once I was seated, he set a trackpad by the keyboard. “Put the fingertips of your right hand on this.” Decker put his hand on mine and adjusted the way my fingertips rested. “Hold them like that and look right here. Keep your eyes open.” He pointed to the screen. “Okay, you can relax.”
He pulled out the chair, I stood, and he ushered me out of the room. After closing the door behind us, he pulled out a stool near the kitchen counter and motioned for me to take a seat there.
“We mainly use facial-recognition software here at the ranch. There are certain areas, though, where the security is more complex. It’s unlikely you’ll be in those areas, but just in case.”
“This is not what I envisioned a ranch manager’s job to be,” I said, trying to lighten the seriousness of our conversation.
He smiled. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll be back out on horseback, chewin’ a piece of straw, and countin’ head of cattle.”
“Somehow, I think your life is far more complicated than that.”
I motioned to the toothpick I just realized had been in his mouth since we got into the truck. “Nervous habit?”
Decker rested his arm on the back of my stool. If he leaned forward and took the toothpick out of his mouth, he could easily kiss me.
I felt my cheeks flush. Where were these bizarre thoughts coming from? I tried to look away, but he put his fingers on the side of my face, holding me where I was. The only thing more bizarre than my thinking—or maybe hoping—he’d kiss me, was that I hadn’t flinched once when he touched me. Was it because of what he’d done years ago? Decker Ashford had been as much my hero then as he was now.
“There’s something about you,” he murmured.
“I make you nervous?”
“No, not nervous.” As if the spell was suddenly broken, Decker walked away, stood on the opposite side of the counter, and rested his palms on the tile. “Do you want to ask me any questions?”
Are you single? No, that wouldn’t be appropriate.
“You said earlier that you were the one to find my sister. Where?”
“I was on my way home late last night and found her on the side of the road.”
“Was she in an accident? Was her car—”
“There was no car. Nobody around, but your sister seemed to think someone was after her.”
I grasped the back of the stool hard enough that my fingernails pushed into the wood. “She was…alive?” It never occurred to me that Sybil had been found alive. The idea made me sick to my stomach.
Decker came back around the counter. “God, I’m sorry. I just dropped that on you. Come with me,” he said, taking my hand and leading me over to the sofa.
I started to sit on the end, but he led me to the middle, sat on the coffee table in front of me, and took both my hands in his.
“What I’m about to tell you won’t be easy to hear, especially today.”
“Go ahead,” I whispered, my eyes locked on his.
“Your sister believed someone was trying to kill her.”
My eyes filled with tears. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I asked who, but she wasn’t able to tell me.”
“Because she died?”
“Yes. She lost consciousness, and then she died.”
I tried to pull my hands away, but Decker held them tight.
“I know the medical examiner said he needed to wait for the autopsy results to tell you the cause of death, but your sister died from a gunshot wound.”
“Oh my God!” I gasped. “Why would anyone want to kill Sybil?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
I closed my eyes and thought back to the last time I was with my sister and how I’d felt as though something was wrong.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I had a bad feeling.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. Last night. Before I got the call.”
“Why were you worried about her?”
I shook my head. “I said I had a bad feeling.”
“Again, why?”
I didn’t have a reason, I just felt it. “I can’t explain it. Call it intuition.”
“It wasn’t based on anything?”
I put my hand on my abdomen. “Do you ever get a feeling right here, in the pit of your stomach? Something so powerful that it feels like you’ve ingested a boulder?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Then you know what I’m talking about. It doesn’t have to be based on anything.”
7
Decker
I knew exactly what she was talking about because it had kept me alive on many occasions.
“Mila, you should know that with any murder investigation, the victim’s life, as well as that of the people close to her, is picked apart, scrutinized to the point of violation. Until law enforcement finds the answers they’re seeking, they keep probing. Oftentimes, families feel as though the victim becomes the suspect.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? Because if there is anything about your sister’s life that led to someone wanting to murder her, it will be uncovered.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“They’ll look into who she associated with, her finances, her employment history, even her sex life will be dissected.”
Mila nodded slowly, analyzing everything I’d just said.
“Your life may be dissected as well.”
“Mine? Why mine?”
“Family are usually among the first suspects. Although I guess the politically correct wording now is ‘persons of interest.’” I heard my phone buzzing in the other room, not the one I left near where I’d been standing in the kitchen. This was the one in the office.
“Excuse me a minute.” I stood and walked over to the door, touched the handle with the tip of my index finger, and it unlocked.
When I picked the phone up from the desk, I saw a familiar name on the screen.
“Hello, my friend,” Rile said when I accepted the call after closing the office door.
“Rile.”
“I just left Z’s office. He got an alert that you scanned someone new into the ranch’s security system.”
“That’s right,” I said, but what I really wanted to ask was why that was any of Rile’s business.
“Is there anything we can do to assist?”
“With what?”
“Your investigation.”
“I’m confused, Rile. Less than twenty-four hours ago, I found a woman on the side of the road, who died a few minutes later. Today, her sister flew in to identify the body. There is no investigation.”
“Yet.”
“How do you know so much about it when the cause of death still hasn’t been released?”
Rile chuckled. “You will find that’s almost always the case.”
“Are you going to clue me in?”
“When the time is right.”
I didn’t like the game Rile was playing one fucking bit, and I said so.
“You remain need-to-know, my friend. Sign the contract, and perhaps that will change. In the meantime, see what you can get Miss Knight to tell you about the gentleman who accompanied her to Texas.”
I knew plenty already without having to ask Mila about Adler Livingston. He was an arrogant, narcissistic bastard who didn’t give two shits about her.
“Decker?”
“What am I looking for?”
“Whatever you find.”
I slammed the phone down on the desk after ending the call. This kind of shit was the reason I’d stayed an independent contractor as long as I did. It was also
the reason I hadn’t gone into intelligence full-time. Cattle never made me want to punch a hole in a wall. Well, maybe sometimes, but never as much as humans did.
“Everything okay?” Mila asked when I came back and sat on the sofa next to her.
“Tell me about your friend.”
“Adler?”
“Yep.”
“There isn’t much to tell.”
“How do you know him?”
“He’s a neighbor. He lives in my building. Actually, it’s the other way around. I live in his building. His family owns it.”
“Are you lovers?” That probably wasn’t something Rile needed to know, but I did.
Her eyes opened wide, and she stared at me.
“I warned you.”
“You warned me that my sister’s sex life would be scrutinized, not mine.”
“So you are lovers.” Even I knew I was being a dick about it, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t let it go.
Her shoulders tightened. “I didn’t say that.”
“You also didn’t say you weren’t.”
“It isn’t any of your business.”
I decided to take a different tack since Mila was obviously not willing to give me a straight answer. “What does he do?”
“For a living?”
I nodded.
“I don’t really know.”
“No job?”
I caught a momentary flinch, which Mila quickly masked. What was that all about?
“He manages the building.”
“Maintenance? That sort of thing?”
“He hires people to do maintenance. He also travels on business from time to time.”
“What about you, Miss Knight? What do you do for a living?”
“I was a music instructor.”
“You aren’t any longer?”
“I lost my job yesterday.”
I’d circle back to that later. “How’d you meet Adler?”
“I told you, his family owns the building I live in.”
“Is he friends with everyone who lives in it?”
Decked (The Invincibles Book 1) Page 3