by Jami Alden
She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She didn’t know if Sean would even care, but she had to make him understand what had happened, make him see she was nothing like her father or any other stereotypical scumbag lawyer. “When I was a junior at U-Dub, my college roommate and I went to a party after the Washington-Oregon game. It was at the Delt house, which is the football fraternity, so things got pretty wild. But Nicole and I didn’t go too crazy, at least not compared to some people.”
Sean kept his eyes on the road, but his curt nod told her he was listening.
“We were drunk, no doubt about it, but not sloppy, not to the point we were going to do anything stupid.” Krista let out another little laugh. “Nicole hated to throw up. Hated it. So she was always really careful when she drank not to push it too far. I wasn’t always as smart,” she said, watching her finger trace a circle on her leg. “But lucky for me, the couple times I got out of control I had Nicole there to hold my hair.”
“Nice,” Sean said with a faint smile.
“Anyway, it was the usual. We were drinking, dancing, flirting with the guys. Eventually the players showed up, and Jason Worley came over to dance with Nicole.” Just saying his name made her feel like acid was being poured down her throat. “He was the wide receiver for the Huskies and his father is a big-shot software mogul.”
“Ted Worley?” Sean asked, recognizing the name of the billionaire who’d only recently retired as CEO of one of the largest software companies in the world. She could tell from Sean’s face that he knew exactly where this was going, that maybe he even remembered some details of the case that had been splashed on the covers of the local papers.
But to his credit, he didn’t interrupt or try to speed her to the conclusion, as though he knew she needed to spew it all up at once before the black bile of what happened that night threatened to poison her. “That’s the guy. Handsome, rich, star football player. Who wouldn’t want to date him, right?
“Then”—she broke off as a lump in her throat threatened to cut off her oxygen. This was when the story got hard. “This guy I liked from my political science study group showed up. We went outside to talk. One thing led to another, and when I went to tell Nicole I was leaving with him I couldn’t find her. Another friend said she’d seen her go upstairs with Jason.
“So I took poli-sci guy home, and we fooled around a little bit until I decided it was time to send him on his way. Nicole still wasn’t back, but I just figured she was having a good time and would come home in the morning.”
She closed her eyes against the memory of what happened next. “She came home around ten-thirty the next morning, and right away I could tell something was wrong.” Nicole’s face had been gray, which could have been attributed to the usual hangover pallor had it not been for the haunted look in her big brown eyes.
“I asked her what happened and she just shook her head. But then she went to take her shirt off I saw…She had all these marks on her back and above her bra. I got closer and realized that he’d bitten her, hard enough to break the skin in a couple places. He’d also choked her. I could see the marks on her neck.”
The guilt gnawed at her, as fresh and bitter as it had been that morning.
Sean must have seen it. “You couldn’t have known that was going to happen.”
Krista shook her head. “We had an agreement. We were supposed to look out for each other…I knew enough about rape cases that I didn’t let her take a shower. So we packed up her clothes and went to the clinic. They did a rape kit and the police took her report. I thought that would be it.”
She shook her head, marveling anew at her naïveté. Now, after seven years in the PA’s office and dozens of rape cases, she knew firsthand how incredibly difficult they could be to prosecute. Especially cases of acquaintance rape.
But what Jason had done, the brutality he’d inflicted, had been so extreme, Krista couldn’t see how anyone could ever imagine that that was consensual.
“The police arrested Jason later that day.” Her one bright moment in the horrible ordeal. “And he retained my father as his lead counsel two hours later.”
Sean’s breath left his lungs on a harsh curse. “I had just gotten out of Ranger school right around then, so I only heard bits and pieces from the news. But I didn’t remember that part.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty screwed up, right? I begged him to drop Jason as a client.” She smiled bitterly as she remembered that exchange. Her sobbing, pleading with him on the couch, getting more hysterical by the second as she listed in gruesome detail exactly what Jason had done to Nicole. Looking back now, she realized it was the last time she’d ever lost control in front of her father. “He didn’t even bother feeding me the line that everyone has the right to an attorney. He just told me that Ted Worley had called him personally, and he couldn’t refuse such an important opportunity regardless of how I felt about the matter.”
“Selfish bastard,” Sean bit out and then clamped his mouth shut. “Sorry, I know he’s your father and all, but that’s stone cold.”
Shame at what came next made Krista drop her gaze to the polished hardwood floor. “He tore Nicole apart. I don’t know why I was so shocked when Jason got off. I mean, even then without any experience, I knew enough about acquaintance rape cases to know how it went. But what he did to her—” She swallowed hard, squeezing her eyes against the sting of tears. “The bites, the bruises. Sean, he tore her inside. How could anyone in their right mind ever think Nicole would have wanted that? But my father got all these witnesses to say how they’d seen her drinking and dancing with him, and how she’d followed him upstairs willingly. Even I couldn’t deny that.”
“He made you testify?” Sean’s voice was equal parts shock and fury, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel. “What kind of fucked-up sociopath does that to his own kid?”
Krista shook her head. “I volunteered as a witness for the prosecution before my father could get to me. And to be fair, he wasn’t nearly as tough on me as he’d been on some of the other witnesses. But it didn’t matter.
“He didn’t even make it to trial,” she continued. “The judge dismissed all the charges after the evidentiary hearing.”
“What happened to Nicole?” Sean asked.
“She dropped out and I heard she transferred to the University of Montana. The last time we spoke was the day she moved out of our apartment. She didn’t keep in touch, for obvious reasons.”
Sean’s hand gave her thigh a gentle squeeze. “What happened to her wasn’t your fault,” Sean repeated. “You couldn’t have known what he was going to do.”
Krista turned her hand so it was palm to palm with his, savoring the feel of callused skin and the warmth that traveled up her arm. “Logically, I know that’s true, but I can’t help but feel I should have seen or sensed something to clue me in to what he was capable of. But I didn’t. You want to know something sick? I was actually a little jealous that he chose her over me. Part of me wanted to be hooking up with Jason Worley that night instead of the guy from my poli-sci class.” She’d never admitted that out loud before. “I still wish he’d chosen me, but for different reasons.”
“That’s ridiculous and you know it,” he said with a firm squeeze of her hand. “What happened to her wasn’t her fault, and it sure as hell wasn’t your fault.”
Krista shook her head. He was never going to convince her. “Whatever. But do you get now why I shouldn’t be shocked that he’s up to his neck in all of this?” Hell, for all she knew, he knew who was trying to kill her.
Yet she couldn’t get the memory of her father’s devastated face in the news footage out of her head.
He was capable of many things, but he wouldn’t stand by and let her get murdered, would he? She swallowed thickly, tears stinging her eyes.
As though reading her thoughts, Sean said, “Maybe we should talk to him. If he knows that people he’s working with are behind all of this—”
Krista shook her head
. “I’d like to think his loyalty would be with me, but I can’t take the chance that it’s not. We have to find another way to get to the truth of this.” She stared out the window for a few minutes, wishing she could call on Mark, depend on his wisdom and connections to figure it all out. But whoever was after them would be keeping an eye on Mark, as they were no doubt watching Cole and Megan. They would expect them, once backed into a corner, to reach out.
They’d hit a dead end, and for the life of her, Krista couldn’t see a way out of it without endangering the people she and Sean loved.
“Who is Talia Vega?”
At Ibarra’s question, Krista’s head snapped up from the files on Karev she’d taken from her father’s place.
“She was the star witness during my trial,” Sean said, and though he kept his gaze locked on Ibarra, she felt a guilty flush rise in her cheeks. “Why?”
“It looks like she received several deposits from JD Partners over a period of four years,” Ibarra said. He’d left his mountain fortress shortly after she and Sean had, and started poking around in JD Partners’ money transfers again as soon as he’d arrived.
Sean strolled over to get a closer look at the screen. “What do you know? She got fifty grand the day of my conviction.” His green eyes glittered as his expression hardened.
Fresh shame coursed through her at the thought of how thoroughly she’d been played, and the horrible consequences that had on Sean. “I was supposed to have a meeting with her about two months ago, but Nate got to her first. I wonder if this was what she was going to tell me.”
“Then why the hell haven’t we been talking to her?”
“We can’t find her,” Krista said, exasperated. “She disappeared from the hospital and no one has seen her since. The last I heard, she and her sister were in Canada, but after that there’s been no trace.”
“You think they got to her, finished what Nate started?” Sean asked grimly.
“It wouldn’t surprise me. But if we can find her…” Krista paced. “There was a guy, Jack Brooks, who worked security with her at Club One. He was the one who convinced her to talk to me, and he showed up at the scene with Cole when Nate took her and Megan…”
Sean’s hands clenched into fists as though he was imagining closing them around Nate Brewster’s neck.
“Anyway, I tried to get in touch with him, but he’s another brick wall. He worked with these guys in California, Gemini Securities—”
“I know those guys,” Ibarra interjected. “Family business. Head of it is a former Green Beret,” he said to Sean.
“Jack contacted them to get Talia’s teenage sister Rosario someplace safe. That was the condition of Talia giving me a statement—we have reason to believe she initially testified against you in order to gain custody of Rosario from foster care. But when I called Gemini’s offices to find out if they had any information about Talia and her sister, they shut me down and told me that if I wanted any information I’d need a warrant.”
Ibarra stroked his chin. “I’ve worked with them before. Let me see if I can pull any strings.”
He picked up the phone and placed the call, but it was clear from the side of the conversation they could hear that Ibarra wasn’t getting any further than Krista had.
“Danny says he can’t help. All of their client information is confidential.”
“I don’t suppose you could find a way into their files?” Krista felt dirty even asking the question, but desperate times…
“Hell no.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly developed a conscience!”
“With people I like and respect and hope to continue working with, hell yes, I have a conscience,” Ibarra said, offense written all over his darkly handsome face. “And even if I didn’t, their tech security specialists kick my ass all over the place,” he said, the admiration clear in his tone. “With the systems she’d have in place, Toni Taggart would sniff me out before I even breached the firewall. However,” he said as Sean let out an irritated grunt, “he did let it slip—likely on purpose—that Jack has been doing some work for them here in Seattle and might have some pertinent data if we manage to track him down.”
“Let’s go find Jack Brooks then,” said Sean.
It was a little easier said than done. Jack Brooks didn’t exactly have his info posted on his Facebook page. But with a little digging Ibarra was able to get the info for Brooks’s last known residence, which was the Lake Union Marina where Jack rented a houseboat.
At this hour in the early evening, the parking lot was about half full. Many of the boats were probably used only recreationally, and many of those who lived here full time were most likely at work.
“Good, he’s not home,” Sean said when he noticed that the parking spot that corresponded to Brooks’s slip number was empty.
“Why is that good?” Krista asked. “The sooner we talk to him, the sooner we have a chance of making any sense of this.”
“Like you said, he wasn’t interested in talking to you before. He sees us coming, he’s likely to bolt.”
He started to climb out of the car.
“Where are you going?”
“You don’t think we’re going to wait in the car?”
Krista sighed and followed.
He quickly scanned the parking lot, which didn’t offer much in the way of security. A couple cameras were mounted to light posts, but they were the stationary kind that maintained the same angle. Anyone who noted their position could easily avoid getting captured on camera.
He led Krista around to the far end of the parking lot, well out of range. The ramps down to the houseboats were accessible by locked gates, but nothing a basic pick couldn’t get past.
Krista’s head darted around like a bird’s.
“Quit it,” Sean hissed under his breath as he slid the pick into the lock.
“What?”
“Keep still.”
“I’m keeping a lookout.”
“The only person I’ve seen is two docks down, and as long as you don’t keep scurrying around like you have something to hide, I don’t think they’re going to pay us any attention.”
“Sorry, I’m still not used to this whole ‘acting casual while we break the law’ thing,” she whispered. “And in case you forgot, if someone calls the cops, they’re not going to be on our side.”
“Thanks, I got that about three years ago.” A faint click, and the metal gate swung open.
He took Krista’s arm and led her down the dock. She managed to shrug off the nervous air, pulled her shoulders back, and strode down the walkway to Brooks’s place like she had every right to be there.
Sean did a quick sweep to make sure no one had taken any notice of them and then checked the front door. Locked with a sturdy dead bolt, which was doable but would take time. He was pretty sure there was an easier entry. “Stay here,” he said. “I’m going around the back.”
“Be careful,” Krista said unnecessarily as Sean slipped into the space between Brooks’s place and his neighbor. Sean had no desire for a dunk in the fifty-degree water, so he was careful as he balanced himself along the edge of Brooks’s boat and skirted his way around the back.
Like all of the other places, Brooks’s house featured a water-level patio extending out from the main living area, accessed from the interior by glass sliders whose flimsy locks posed no challenge.
Brooks hadn’t even bothered to upgrade the easy-to-subvert latches with sturdier bolt locks.
Interesting.
He ducked inside and let Krista in through the front door. She stepped into the foyer, slipped off her shades, and looked around, her darkened brows pulled into a V above her small nose. “Does it strike you as weird that a guy in the security business doesn’t have any kind of serious security himself?” she asked, echoing Sean’s thoughts. “Or have I spent too much time with Ibarra?”
Sean gave a little smile. Ibarra was definitely on the extreme side, but thank God he had their back
. “It is a little weird,” Sean said, but he had an idea of what might be going on.
He’d seen it in a lot of the guys in his company. When you entered the Special Forces, the military spent hundreds of hours and millions of dollars turning you into a highly trained fighting machine. When you saw regular combat, even if it fucked you up, it was easy to get a little addicted to the adrenaline rush of the fight, the intense surge you got from being in a situation that meant life or death for you and the men fighting beside you.
So when you were sent home and tried to resume civilian life, it was hard for a lot of guys to settle into the regular day-to-day of life in America where, for the most part, life was pretty cush and a firefight wasn’t likely to erupt outside your front door.
It was why so many guys ended up working private security, some domestic and a lot overseas, doing contract work that paid a hell of a lot better than the army and put you virtually right back into that life, but without the pesky rules and bureaucracy. A lot of people thought guys did it for the cash—and no doubt it was good, but most did it because on some level they were still itching for the next fight.
Sean suspected Brooks had some of that going on. Granted, he hadn’t hired on with an outfit like Blackwater or another firm that would have sent him right back onto the front lines. Instead, the work he’d chosen focused on stopping any violence in its tracks. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t still itching for a fight.
If he was worried about someone coming after him for meddling with Talia Vega, it didn’t show. Instead of tucking tail and heading out of town, he’d stayed put behind a pair of flimsy locks a five-year-old could pick with a bobby pin.
It was like an engraved invitation. Brooks was just waiting for someone to come mess with him.
He shared none of this with Krista. She was already jumping around like an exposed nerve. No need to ratchet her paranoia up any higher. As they waited for Brooks to show, Sean kept himself on high alert.