Train Wreck: Bennett Dynasty Book 6

by Allenton, Kate

  Chapter Fourteen

  HUGH

  This wasn’t happening. Not now. Not when he was so close.

  “I’m going to search for a flashlight and hope the batteries still work.” Honor’s voice was calm and soothing across the room as if this happened to her all the time.

  He followed the sound of her voice and rested his hand on her arm, making her stiffen beneath his touch. “Let me help.”

  “I don’t need help.” Her voice was as strained as the muscles in her body.

  She slipped away from his touch. The sound of her grunts and stuff hitting the ground were followed by light illuminating under her chin from the flashlight. She was trying to make a scary face.

  “It still works,” she squealed like she’d won the lottery.

  “We aren’t going to find anything until the lights come back on,” Hugh said.

  “Ye of little faith,” she said, crossing the room. The yellow light bounced over the floor and then the boxes on the other side of the room, only stopping when she got to one labeled Never Again.

  He could only imagine what she would have packed in that type of box.

  She was lifting things out and depositing them at her feet. First, a clarinet. Then a delicate musical tinkling filled the air, only it wasn’t from an instrument but from a skirt.

  “You tried belly dancing?” He couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice.

  “Tried, conquered, and moved on when I discovered my love for tacos,” she teased.

  “Ah…here we go,” she said, lifting a package out of the box. She tore into some plastic and pulled out a long cylindrical object. A crackling sound happened next, and then a neon glow lit her face.

  “Glow sticks?” he asked.

  She tossed him the lit one and pulled out more, cracking and placing them around the area, giving them light. “Better this than the glow-in-the-dark paint I once wore to a nudist community’s masquerade party.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I would have paid to see that.” He chuckled and took his stick back to the box he’d been search through. “So why did the glow sticks make your never-again box?”

  “Sharks. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  It was starting to make sense now why Teddy didn’t want Hugh and Honor to meet. He’d wanted to keep her for himself, and he almost had.

  Some things never changed, and some things never stayed the same. Teddy fell on one side of the spectrum, and Honor fell on the other.

  “What are you going to do with the ledger once you have it?” Honor asked.

  “Turn it over to my boss and hopefully put Victor away for a long time.”

  “They couldn’t tie him to Teddy’s murder, could they?” Honor’s voice was somber and quiet, but Hugh had heard it just fine. “You’re trying to get justice for him. Something he couldn’t do for himself.”

  Hugh lifted his gaze and turned in her direction. “We were brothers, even if it wasn’t by blood. He gave his life for that intel to try and help me close a case I’d been working on for six long years.”

  Hugh swallowed hard, biting back the memory that hit him like a ton of bricks.

  She was watching him with her sharp gaze. Something flashed in the depths of her eyes as if she’d just put the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together. “You were trying to bring this Victor guy down for six years, and Teddy only showed up on the scene when? About two years ago?”

  Damn. He hadn’t meant to let that slip.

  “Something like that,” Hugh said, turning his gaze back to the box and hoping she’d drop it.

  “You said you visited him in jail, but you started talking to him again long before that, didn’t you? You pulled him into your case. It was you who put him up into working for Victor.”

  Hugh dropped his gaze and clenched his eyes tight. “I didn’t ask. He offered.”

  “And you just didn’t tell him no,” Honor growled. “How could you do that? How could you let your brother go to prison for your case?”

  “I begged him to let me help by telling my superiors. But he knew if the truth came out, my cover would have been blown, and then the work that we’d both done would have been all for nothing. He wanted Victor as badly as I did.”

  Hugh was met with silence from his admission. Was she mulling it around in her head, trying to make sense out of it?

  Damn, if Hugh could do it all over again, he would have never let Teddy play this game of cat and mouse.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Why what?” Hugh asked, abandoning his box. He turned the full weight of his gaze in her direction. “Why did I let him? Why did he offer? Why not just come clean?”

  She shook her head. “Why did he want Victor just as badly as you? What was his reasoning that he’d risk his freedom and put his life on the line? Especially, after you said, he’d kept running away. He didn’t owe you anything, so why was this so important to him?”

  Honor Elizabeth Bennett wasn’t just beautiful; she was smart and not just book smart but street smart. He wouldn’t get away with brushing off her question, and she wouldn’t be satisfied until she got the truth, no matter how it would change her opinion of him or Teddy.

  Hugh dug his fingers into the tension building in his neck before he answered. “Teddy’s mother died because of Victor. Back when Victor was working his way up through the gang hierarchy, he’d been tasked with collecting money from shops around town. They paid for what everyone was calling protection at the time, only Victor never did protect them. Teddy’s mother paid, though. She was smart like that. Victor had been there to collect the ‘insurance money’ when someone tried to off Victor, and Teddy’s mom died in the crossfire.”

  Honor’s mouth parted, and she snapped it closed.

  “Teddy wanted payback, and I was trying to get it for him. I wanted more than anything to give him closure so he could see that justice got served…but at every turn, I was cut off. It was as though they knew I was a cop.”

  Honor pulled in a deep breath. “How did Teddy get involved?”

  “Victor had been trying to look out for the kid. He’d offered him odd jobs, including some not-so-legal ones. So, when Teddy found out I was digging for dirt, he offered to help, and I tried to talk him out of it, but you know Teddy….”

  “He would have done it regardless,” Honor said. Her gaze lost focus, as if tuning back into her memories.

  “And he did,” Hugh said, clearing his throat and biting back the anger he’d felt when he found out that Teddy had inserted himself in with Victor’s league of goons. “So now you know everything. Now you know why this ledger is so important and why I need it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  HONOR

  I turned back to my box, letting Hugh’s words sink into my brain and mulling them over. The ledger had new meaning. It wasn’t just about the money. It was about so much more. It was about Teddy getting justice. It was about years of hard work. It was about doing what was right.

  “We’ll find the ledger,” I said, swallowing around the lump in my throat. We had to.

  Thirty minutes later, all of the boxes had been searched, and we’d still come up empty-handed. There wasn’t a single thing that remotely resembled like a ledger containing a ton of numbers. Nothing to suggest that Teddy wasn’t more than just an accountant who liked to play guitar.

  I sat on the hard-concrete floor, back propped up against one wall, my feet crossed in front of me.

  Hugh sat next to me, his feet on the ground and his arms crossed and resting on his knees. “I don’t get it. He said he left it with his stuff.”

  “Maybe he lied,” I said, turning to look at the confusion on Hugh’s face. “Maybe it was all a setup to get us to meet and a way of keeping you safe.”

  “Me safe?” Hugh tsked and shook his head. “No…no way. He wouldn’t have sent me on a wild goose chase. You saw Victor’s guys with your own eyes. They knew about you. They must think you have the ledger.”

  Silence fo
llowed while I picked apart his answer. “How did they find out about me? How did they know where to find you?”

  Hugh’s brows pulled together, and he frowned.

  “Who did you tell?”

  He opened his mouth and snapped it closed. “I haven’t told anyone since Teddy told me at our last visit.” His brows dipped. The corner of his mouth slid into a frown. “I haven’t even told my boss.”

  “Yet they knew about me, and they knew where to find you,” I said, guiding him to the logical conclusion I’d already made. “Hugh.” I swallowed hard. “What if some of the guards or his lawyer was on the take? They were the only ones who would have had access to overhear the conversations, right? Who was around you when Teddy was telling you about all of this?”

  “No one. We were in an interrogation room. It was just Me, Teddy, Teddy’s lawyer and one guard that was stationed near the door.” His gaze turned darker. “I even made sure they weren’t recording by checking to see if the lights on the camera worked. They weren’t recording.”

  “They must have gotten to the lawyer, or maybe the room was bugged,” I said.

  Regardless of how it went down. I was now certain of two things. One, Teddy had kept Hugh and I apart on purpose. And two, this guy Victor had eyes and ears everywhere.

  This wasn’t going to require just one sister’s help. It was going to require them all.

  “We need to find a way out of this building and to my sister’s house,” I said, shoving to my feet.

  Hugh rose with me and winced. His shoulder must have been paining him. “Your sister isn’t going to be able to help me.” Hugh gestured to the boxes. “The ledger isn’t even here.”

  A smile curved on my lips. “Just because we haven’t found it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Teddy was smarter than you ever gave him credit for, and my sisters are going to help me finish this, not just for him but for you too.”

  I grabbed several of the glow sticks, closed my storage container, and locked it up again before heading down the twisty hall to the exit door.

  The glass inserts in the window showed that the rain had started to let up. The lights were off in the security office we’d pass, and the other businesses down the street were out too.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Hugh offered.

  I located the map of the two-story storage facility hanging on the wall with the list of units and their locations.

  “Looks like there’s three exits,” I tapped my finger on the one we needed. “All of the ones at street level will be locked, but if we’re lucky, this one, on the roof, won’t be.”

  “Why wouldn’t it?” Hugh asked, following me through the corridor toward the stairs.

  “Call it a gut feeling. The bottom is to keep the riffraff from looting the place when there’s a power outage. Keep your fingers crossed,” I said, trying each of the emergency exits as we passed.

  They’d all been over-ridden. If, God forbid, this place caught on fire, we’d be screwed. The first call I’d make was to code enforcement when this was all over.

  I jogged up the stairs to the second floor and found the emergency exit. I pushed on it, and it opened. I’d never been so happy to be rained on.

  “Freedom,” I called out, twirling in place before heading to the side of the building to look over the edge. I caught sight of the stairs and grinned. “I hope you aren’t afraid of heights.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Getting to Mercy’s house took longer than I’d thought. The roads were empty, and we were having to stick to the shadows to get there or risk being picked up and thrown in jail. County- and city-mandated curfews were no joke. Police would be looking for people like us, people who had no business on the streets, so I had to leave Grams’ SUV at the storage unit.

  “How do you know she’s even home?” Hugh asked, resting his hand over the bandage on his shoulder.

  “She’ll be there. And on the off chance she’s not, she’ll have made her way to our parents’ home. Regardless, her soon-to-be husband is a cop and can drive us over without us getting arrested.”

  I came up the back way to Mercy’s home, jumping her fence and cutting through her backyard. The for-sale sign had been removed from the yard. The sale was pending. The house was cloaked in darkness, but dim light flickered behind the curtains.

  “Someone’s home,” I said and snuck around the side of the house and up onto the porch while checking up and down the street. The nosy neighbors weren’t outside. No one was.

  I could hear the voices just on the other side of the door.

  “Mercy, think about this,” I heard Clark Weller say. “There’s a curfew. You leave and you're breaking the law.”

  “Okay,” she said. “There’s money in my cookie jar for you to bail me out of jail. I refuse to wait another day. Honor could be in serious trouble. I need to get to her.” Mercy growled in a way I’d never heard before.

  I’d lifted my hand to knock as the door flew open. Mercy was standing on the threshold, wearing a rain jacket, and her fiancé was behind her with an umbrella in hand.

  “Thank God.” Mercy’s relief came out in a rush even as her gaze landed on Hugh and the bandage sticking out from beneath his wet shirt.

  “Get in here before you get arrested,” Mercy demanded, opening the door wider, then stepping aside to allow us to pass.

  Mercy’s fiancé, Clark Weller, wasn’t as welcoming with Hugh. He was the sheriff of a frozen little town in Colorado who had followed Mercy home in the hopes that she’d return with him. There was never any question that she wouldn’t. She’d fallen fast and hard for the guy.

  Clark and Hugh eyed each other like cops, sizing each other up as I made the introductions.

  “Sheriff Clark Weller of Colorado, this is Hugh…” I glanced at him, unsure of his last name.

  Hugh held out his hand. “Special Agent Hugh MacCabe.”

  Mercy rested her hand on her hip. “MacCabe? As in Senator MacCabe?”

  Hugh’s jaw clenched. “Yeah, that was my dad.”

  “You got ID or a badge?” Clark asked.

  “I was undercover. I don’t have anything on me.”

  Mercy’s hands rested on her hips as if she was fighting the urge to reach out and touch him to find out how he was going to die.

  I rested my palm on her arm. “It’s okay. I believe him.”

  “You must be Mercy,” Hugh said, holding out his hand.

  Mercy smiled and reached for it, but I knocked Hugh’s hand down before she could touch it. Not even I wanted to know how I was going to die. Hugh probably wouldn’t either. “Not everyone wants to know.”

  Hugh’s brows dipped, but he didn’t question it.

  “Fine. Let’s get you both dried off and cleaned up so you can tell us what’s going on.”

  Mercy led me down the hall to her room after grabbing a flashlight. She took some towels out of the closet and tossed me one before disappearing down the hallway.

  Mercy’s voice carried down the hall as she spoke with Clark and Hugh. “You got some spare clothes he can borrow?”

  “Sure,” I heard Clark answer.

  “You boys play nice,” Mercy said before reappearing in the room. She rummaged through her closet and drawers and tossed a few items onto the bed. “Those will have to do. I’ve already got a lot of my stuff packed.”

  I slipped out of my clothes and changed into something dry. My fingers had started to prune, and an unforgiving chill had been lingering throughout my body ever since I ran from my house.

  “So, spill it,” she said.

  “Mercy, I love you, but I think we need everyone here. This is bigger than I can handle.”

  Mercy paused at her dresser and turned to look at me, her gaze assessing. “You need our help?”

  “Yeah, didn’t you just hear me?” I asked.

  Her mouth snapped closed. “In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never once asked for our help.”

  “Really?” I wrinkled my no
se, trying to think back as to whether she was right.

  “Really,” she answered. “Okay, no need to worry…” She turned in place as if she were on the verge of worrying and wasn’t sure where to start.

  “It has to do with Teddy,” I said.

  My words had the impact of hitting the stop button on a merry-go-round. She stopped panicking on the spot. “I haven’t heard you say that name in a while.”

  “He had a ledger and stole money from a really bad guy. It’s a long story, but now the crime boss guy is after me. They’ve already shot Hugh, and I don’t know what to do. You recognize Hugh, don’t you? My Mr. Right?”

  My heart clenched tight. I prided myself on being in control, on being grounded and able to handle things on my own. I was independent. I was smart. I was that girl.

  Until now.

  “I recognized the face. So, don’t worry. We aren’t going to let anything happen to either of you,” she said, touching my arm. Within seconds of using her ability to see how I was going to die, she patted my arm and smiled. “You aren’t dying anytime soon. I’ll take care of everything.”

  “How?” I asked, turning my gaze to the window. “We can’t even call the others.”

  “Leave that to me,” she said. “Now let’s go take a look at Mr. Right’s shoulder and see if I packed up my pain meds. I’m sure he could use them about now to help him relax.”

  “I’m not sure Hugh knows how to relax.”

  Her lips twisted into a smile. “Alcohol will help with both of his issues. Just leave it to me.”

  The rest of the night was a blur between the bottles of wine and beer. Clark had cooked dinner on the grill. I’d turned several times to find Hugh watching me from across the room. His eyes glittered with soft unspoken emotion. When Mercy showed us to the guest bedroom, it had few furnishings beyond a bed and dresser. Everything else had been packed up.

  Hugh stared down at me. I could read the hesitation in his eyes, the fact he had something to say even though he never opened his mouth.