“I would have told you . . . eventually. I knew the reckoning was coming. I just thought I could push it off a bit longer.”
He actually gave her a look that said duh, as if she was the one being unreasonable here. “Do you have any idea how big of a fight we’re going to have over this?”
Trevor winced. “Epic.”
“Understatement.” She didn’t break eye contact with Damon. “And then your dear dad invited us to stay—which is the mother lode in terms of our ability to collect information, and the whole point of this silly fake relationship plan—and you said no.”
“I said no to staying in my old room, because come on. Right there, in his house?” Damon shook his head. “We’re not exactly a close family even without the gunfire.”
Oh. My. God. “That doesn’t matter. You’re still not forgiven, so . . .”
When she hesitated, Trevor jumped back into the conversation. “Before you come up with an ending to that sentence, please go back to the part where you were invited to stay. Because the word went out that you were coming back for an extended visit and the order was for everyone to be welcoming and stay out of your way. The clear message was that you had free reign.”
Damon shook his head. “Steven will never really allow that to happen.”
He refused to get it and that frustrated her more than anything else. She decided to give her argument one more time. That’s it.
“I get that this is hard for you and your brain is all scrambled, but pretend you’re me for a second. I’ve been fighting this fight about my sister’s death and running into walls and tripping over annoying men in power who treat me like a mindless little girl.” When Trevor opened his mouth, she lifted one finger and that was enough to make him stop. “I’ve watched my mother fold in on herself at the mention of my sister’s name.”
Cate lowered her voice to a harsh whisper when a group of older teens walked by, bouncing a basketball on their way out of the property. “Over time, it got better, she cried less, but she still hesitates when she passes my sister’s photo. Still refers to her in the present tense.”
Some of the anger left Damon’s face. “Cate.”
But she wasn’t done. There was so much more inside her itching to get out. “Then I run into someone who was here back then, a person who may be tied to what happened to Shauna, and he inadvertently offered me a chance to dig into it. To finally get answers.” She put a hand on his chest. Let it rest there. “If you were me—even with the danger, uncertainty and risks—wouldn’t you kick open every door? Wouldn’t you take your dad’s offer?”
“Of course.”
“Then stop holding back information and help me.”
Trevor shook his head. “Buddy, you’re so screwed.”
Damon’s shoulders fell as the tension visibly ran out of him. “Fuck.”
“Look, I’m not asking you to make up with your dad or forget your pain, but you are my way into Sullivan. I can’t imagine how hard this is for you, but I’ve never been this close. We have to figure out a way through this.”
Trevor glanced around. “What if the intel you gather leads you back to his dad as the reason for Shauna’s death?”
“Will it?” She had to ask because if this was one more secret, she deserved to know the answer now and not later.
“I don’t know.” Damon shook his head. “I honestly don’t.”
Then she had her answer. “We need to find out.”
Damon stayed quiet on their way back to the car because he wasn’t a complete dumbass. That speech she gave still rang in his ears. Unlike his father’s old ramblings, hers came from the heart. She wasn’t giving a sermon or trying to play on his emotions. She opened up and told him the truth. Let him see the path she walked every single day. And he got it.
He screwed up by not being honest with her about why he was the one on the mission with her. At the time it made sense. He’d compartmentalized his life during and after Sullivan and never let the sides meet. With her, the sides collided.
He’d held back information to protect himself when his job was to protect her. He knew Cate planned to yell at him. He planned to take it because this time he, not his father or anyone at Sullivan, messed up.
They stepped into the gravel square filled with eight or so cars. It appeared to operate as a makeshift parking lot for Sullivan. There was actually a sign that said guest parking. Damon didn’t know if he should laugh or punch it.
He pressed the fob and the door locks disengaged with a beep. He’d barely put his hand on the door handle when a red pickup skidded into the lot behind him. He recognized Vincent and the man sitting next to him. “This day keeps getting better and better.”
Cate’s head popped up and she stopped typing on her cell. “What?”
Vincent parked next to them . . . because of course he did. He jumped down and slammed the door shut behind him. “Welcome back to Sullivan.”
He delivered the welcome with all the excitement of reading a menu.
“That’s not what you said at the diner.” Cate then turned to the other man walking along the front of the truck toward them. “And I have no idea who you are.”
“Roger, and I admit I’m a bit confused by this conversation.”
Damon filled in the blank. “Vincent’s brother, and this is my girlfriend, Cate.”
The words came out easier that time but still sounded odd to him. Not as odd as the brothers in front of him. They were two years apart and as different as two people could be, always were. Roger smiled and volunteered to help out. Vincent sulked. Watching them now, Damon could see they carried that streak into adulthood.
Roger reached over and shook Damon’s hand. “Good to see you. It’s been a long time.”
He actually sounded like he meant it. Damon had no idea what to make of that.
“Clearly the friendly brother,” Cate muttered half under her breath.
Vincent shot her a quick unreadable glance before talking to Damon. “I’m sorry about the heavy-handed routine at the diner. I was trying to save all of us a lot of grief by getting Damon to leave. His presence is going to make some people uncomfortable. He made accusations back then that . . . well, let’s just say it’s a problem.”
The lying. Damon was sick of all of it. “Is that code for my father told you to try to scare me away?”
Roger frowned. “What?”
“Nah, man.” Vincent balanced his boot on the rental car’s bumper. “That was all me. I was told you were back in town and panicked about how some people would react.”
“Like who?” Cate asked.
Vincent hesitated a few more seconds before finishing his thought. “When you left before it was rough on people. Especially on your dad. He becomes useless after he talks about you.” Vincent shrugged. “Our parents are gone. He’s always been good to us and I didn’t want him hassled.”
“Are you taking him up on the offer to stay?” Roger folded his arms in front of him as he sat on the hood of the car.
Cate looked at the brothers then to Damon. “There really was a property-wide announcement about this, wasn’t there?”
“Literally.” For the first time since he’d popped up at the diner, Vincent smiled. “We got a text.”
“Cults that text.” Cate shook her head. “Go figure.”
“This isn’t a cult,” Vincent shot back.
Debatable, but Damon wasn’t about to get into that with two believers who were born here, grew up here and likely would die here.
“We’re going to talk the offer over.” Damon knew from Cate’s earlier speech that they were coming back but he thought being hesitant played better for their cover. No one would believe he wanted to rush in and make up after all this time because of a woman.
“Give it a chance, M—” Vincent clamped his mouth shut before he could finish.
At the near-slip, Cate’s eyes lit up. “Were you about to say his real name?”
“This seems like a good time for
us to go.” Roger slid off the car and smacked the back of his hand against Vincent’s chest. “We’ve got a meeting with Steven, which I’m now thinking is your fault.”
“Despite what happened, I hope you stick around for a few days,” Vincent said in a smaller than usual voice.
Cate’s smile grew wider. “We will.”
“Good.” Roger winked at her. “See you soon then.”
Damon waited until the brothers headed out of the parking lot and started up the hill. Same color hair and broad shoulders. It was hard to tell them apart from the back.
But Damon had to face the person in front of him. He eyed Cate but she was watching the brothers. Not just looking but assessing.
“What are you thinking right now?” It was a dangerous question, but he’d been around her enough to know something was going off in that big, beautiful brain of hers.
“The scent.”
He froze as he reached for the button to unlock the car again. “What?”
“I smelled the same aftershave or whatever it was in my apartment just now.” She spun around to face Damon. Energy bounced off her. “On Vincent.”
Damon shook his head. “But you didn’t smell it before.”
“I did this time. Faint, but it was there. It’s a distinct scent.” She stopped moving around and stared at him. “Did you really not pick up on it?”
The woman had a pretty intense sense of smell. He picked up the scent of freshly mowed grass and that was about it. “Maybe he skipped wearing it at the diner but didn’t expect to see you today, so he felt comfortable putting it on again.”
She made a face. “It’s weird, right?”
Damon couldn’t really argue with that. “Everything around here is. But we’re going to be extra careful around him from now on. I’ll also have Trevor sneak around, try to see if he can find anything unexpected in Vincent’s room.”
The weird part was an understatement, but he needed her to know they had to be on guard, assume they were being watched and followed. Another unprovoked attack seemed less likely. If Vincent had taken his threats from the diner to the motel, he’d pull back now. There was too much attention on him. Hell, even Steven wanted to see him. But they would stay vigilant.
“And you know what else we’re going to do?” She leaned against the side of the car.
“I’m afraid to answer.”
“You also seem to forget that I’m still ticked off at you for the whole hidden dad thing.” She glared at him over the top of the car. “Get ready for it.”
Man, she did not forget a thing. And suddenly the truth hit him. She wouldn’t forget it if she learned this last horrible piece from anyone but him.
He inhaled, working up the courage to share a piece of his past he’d kept buried from almost everyone. “Ryan.”
She froze with her hand on the door handle. “What?”
He swallowed, knowing once he turned this corner he couldn’t go back. She would see him in a different light. A dark and cloudy one, but maybe that was a good thing. A wake-up call might make her forget about the condoms and her claims that he had these emotions he was denying.
If he told her the truth, she would care about what he did. There was no way she couldn’t.
“Ryan Michael Sullivan. I went by Michael.” A huge ball of shame lodged in his throat. “You wanted to know my real name. That’s it.”
She didn’t move. “But Michael was the name of . . .”
He took a deep breath to try to ease the strain of his hammering heart then took the final plunge. “Of the Sullivan who shot the FBI agent fourteen years ago on this property. Yeah, that was me.”
Chapter 12
Damon sure knew how to dominate a conversation. With a few lines, he shook her and left her with a hollow sensation in her stomach.
They’d driven back to the motel with her in stunned silence. As the mile markers whizzed by, she tried to remember the facts behind the first shooting at Sullivan. Everything she knew came from secondhand sources and articles. So much had happened there that her sister’s death became a footnote.
Some said the first run-in with law enforcement should have been a sign. Others blamed the ATF and FBI. She wanted to hear the truth from him.
They’d been back in the motel for almost an hour now. Neither of them had eaten. The bags he talked about packing sat empty on the floor. As soon as they stepped inside, he’d walked into his bedroom through the open connecting door and slipped out of sight.
At first, she heard the water run in the bathroom. Then she thought she heard the bed. A battle waged inside of her. Go in or not. Talk to him or let him start when he was ready, which might mean never.
She’d promised him a fight—and he sure as hell deserved one for leaving out the detail about who his father was—but all the anger had seeped out of her. Confusion moved into its place. It took all of her strength not to turn on her phone and look up every article about that original shoot-out at Sullivan. Maybe it would prepare her for what was to come, to the extent anything could.
She heard a noise and looked up to find Damon leaning against the doorframe between their rooms. He’d changed into a black T-shirt and the ends of his hair were damp. It looked like he’d washed his face but he couldn’t wash away everything. The guilt still lingered there.
She saw it all now. That rough exterior, the jokes. They hid a mix of pain and darkness. He didn’t think there was any emotion left inside him because he believed he deserved to suffer. Not that he used those words. He didn’t have to. She knew from experience how guilt could seep into everything, make it shrivel and warp.
Even now, his gaze traveled around the room, not landing on her. Skipping over the table to the window to her right. Everywhere but her face.
She didn’t know how to start but she dove in. The silence chipped away at her nerves until she felt like she could get the words out. But who knew if they were the right words?
“When my sister left for Sullivan I pretended to be happy for her.” She could no longer hear Shauna’s voice in her head. The way she lifted her voice at the end of a sentence as if she were asking a question when she really wasn’t. But she remembered Shauna’s infectious excitement when she got the Sullivan acceptance. It practically radiated off her.
Damon didn’t move but he was looking at her now. She took that as a sign that she should continue.
“We didn’t have money for extras growing up. Some weeks we didn’t have money for food, but my mom never gave up. She put herself through college. She got a teaching job that provided the important things I didn’t know or care about as a kid, like health insurance. Some sense of financial stability for all of us.” She stopped and breathed in nice and deep. Worked up the nerve to talk about what came next.
The more she talked, the more Damon’s expression changed. Fully engaged, he watched every move she made from shuffling her feet to rubbing her hands together. He didn’t stop her and for that she was grateful.
“Sullivan was the opportunity Shauna never expected to get. College at no cost. No loans. No trying to repay loans. She loved being around people and learning new things but strict classes and weekly tests weren’t her thing, so the Sullivan match made sense.” Cate sat down on the end of her bed. “This is where my pretending started. See, when she left for Sullivan, she left me. We were this threesome, the two of us plus Mom. We fought over stupid sisterly stuff like borrowing clothes but we protected each other. We leaned on each other and backed each other up with Mom. When Shauna left, I was alone. Lost. Angry with her for having fun without me.”
This time she waited for him to say something. He must have picked up on the vibe or saw it on her face because he stepped away from the doorframe and sat on the table, just a few feet away from her. Balanced his feet on the chair in front of him but didn’t touch her.
“My brother died when I was really young. I don’t actually remember him at all.” Damon stared at his hands for a few seconds before meeting he
r gaze again. “Acute myelogenous leukemia. It has better survival rates now, but not back then. My parents tried everything. Took him to clinics but the treatments didn’t take hold.” He shrugged. “That was my experience with a sibling. Hospital beds and faint memories of seeing my mother rock back and forth weeping. But then the other kids came to Sullivan. Not many. Most were kids of teachers or people who worked there. I hated when their parents moved and took them away.”
She moved forward until her knees touched the back of the chair he balanced his feet on. “I still feel guilty because in my late teen angsty moments, I would refuse to talk with Shauna when she did call. Mom visited here once, but I stayed with a friend. I was trying to make Shauna pay and then she died and those were my last memories of her. My awful behavior.”
“You were just a kid.”
Not a little kid. Old enough to know better and not be so selfish, but those traits came with age for her. She earned them the hard way. “How old were you?”
At first she didn’t think he would answer the unspoken part of her question. He put one leg down until his foot touched the floor then raised it again. She could almost hear his internal debate. Guilt seemed to flush through him.
“Believe it or not, my childhood was pretty great. The father I knew spent time with me. Explained things, went on walks. His discipline was to talk me to death.” Damon’s smile came and went. “When I turned sixteen, my uncle, who was my dad’s partner in Sullivan, the one with all the money, insisted that I spend time training with him.”
Her stomach went into free fall. “The guns.”
Damon nodded. “Dad wanted to talk books and theories. Uncle Dan was a work-the-land guy.” Damon stopped as he rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. “He listened to fringe radio programs and got spun up. He truly believed the government was out of control and taking people’s land by killing them then covering the whole thing up.”
“He’s in prison.” She remembered that much, but that happened much later. She could only assume he unraveled even further at some point.
“Where he should be.” Damon’s chest rose and fell on a harsh breath. “He started this passive-aggressive letter writing campaign with the FBI. He wasn’t really involved in the school but that’s not the impression the FBI got. Eventually, agents came in with guns ready. They scaled the fence at the back side of the property, which was higher back then, and moved in on Dan.”
The Protector Page 12