The Protector

by HelenKay Dimon

  Cate frowned. “What exactly do you think this can be?”

  “A place to nurture talent.”

  Liza had the unique skill of being able to string words together and make them sound reasonable without really saying anything. Damon really hated that. “Are you being specific yet?”

  “People can come here and take the time to write the book they’ve always dreamed of writing, or paint or create.” Liza sounded as if she were in awe of her own words. “Philosophers, writers, artists, scientists.”

  “You sound like my dad.” She clearly bought into his dream. Damon didn’t understand how she failed to realize his father always had this same dream and that it never panned out.

  “Because he’s brilliant.” Without any hesitation, Liza slipped right back into lecturing mode.

  She could use whatever tone she wanted but he could not handle the blind hero worship. “He’s had some missteps, Liza. There’s a reason he lost everything.”

  Her head snapped back and she wore an expression that suggested she thought everything he just said amounted to garbage. “What did he lose? He has this place and people who are loyal to him.”

  Anger welled inside Damon. “My mom.”

  She shook her head as if she didn’t understand what he was saying. “What?”

  “His mother died here,” Cate said, rushing the words out.

  But Liza didn’t get the point. “I know. I told you I’m familiar with your uncle and everything that happened on his watch.”

  Damon fought back the urge to yell. Liza’s memory was almost as selective as his father’s. Of all the things that ticked him off over the last few days, this hit him the hardest. Despite the history and all the pain that happened on this property, his father still wallowed in denial. He focused on the intangible, ignoring the price real people paid for his desire to be some sort of benevolent academic figure.

  “Not to hit you with the truth, but—” He lowered his voice and forced his nerves to settle when Cate sent another glare his way and a couple walking by openly stared. “My dad was here when the killing happened. He was Uncle Dan’s business partner.”

  Liza scoffed. “You can’t believe he knew about the weapons and Dan’s secret plans.”

  So that was the line of crap being spewed now. Revisionist history at its worst. Damon didn’t even know how to respond to it without lecturing every person living there.

  “Speaking of which . . .” Cate put her hand against his chest and shifted so she stood slightly in front of him in the least subtle hint ever. “Why so many guns?”

  “So people can hone their skills.” Liza drew out the answer as if she were talking to a child. “Protection.”

  “Now you sound like my Uncle Dan.”

  Liza’s mouth clamped shut and her mouth fell into a thin line. “You’ll have to excuse me. I have a meeting.”

  Sure, she did. “All of a sudden. Imagine that.”

  “I’m sure you know your way around, you being a Sullivan and all.” There was nothing open and inviting in her tone now. She had flipped into full-on disapproving.

  That made two of them. “Formerly. My name is Damon Knox now.”

  She shook her head. “You’d give up all of this and walk away?”

  This time Cate grabbed a fistful of his shirt and took a bit of his chest hair with it. “He already did.”

  The answer didn’t stop Liza from leaving. She stomped off, pushing past a gardener without stopping to say hello.

  “I think I ticked her off.” He knew he should feel bad about the passive-aggressive battle. He didn’t make it a habit of fighting with twenty-somethings about history, but this was his history and her trying to slap a bucket of sunny paint on it made his head pound.

  “You could be less jerky.” Cate eyed him with a be-better expression as she smoothed out his shirt. “Next time try harder to stay in control.”

  It was fair, but still . . . “She was ridiculous.”

  “She’s young.” Cate sighed. “And she hates you.”

  “Was it the fact she almost ripped her notebook in half every time I opened my mouth that gave it away?”

  “That was a hint, yeah.” They started walking again, doubling back to the area Liza had seemingly avoided. The part with the guns. “But I have to admit she does seem kind of . . .”

  “There’s no way I’m finishing your sentence for you and risking being yelled at for being an asshole.”

  “Smart.” Cate stepped closer to him, until their arms rubbed against each other. “But the hero-worship-of-your-dad thing?”

  “Now imagine an entire school like that and you have what it was like around here when I was growing up.” Damon remembered what else sat at the back of the property and slowed down. The top of the water tower could be seen all over the campus but he wasn’t sure she was ready to walk right up to it and deal with the reality of what happened there.

  She ran her hand over the fold of the brochure Liza handed her. “If everyone was so loyal to him and loved him and loved this place, why didn’t anyone see what your uncle was doing?”

  That was the question that played over and over in Damon’s mind. He feared he knew the answer and it was life-shattering. The final step in dealing with the fact his father may have played an active role in the demise of so much.

  Damon tried to keep the answer neutral but he felt anything but. “Hard to imagine they didn’t.”

  “She worked with him, you know. Shauna did.”

  He stopped. “My dad?”

  The wind blew her hair across her face and she slipped it back behind her ear. “Your uncle.”

  That didn’t make sense. Nothing he’d read in Wren’s file talked about that. No one ever mentioned it. “What?”

  “Shauna had an interest in botany and agriculture. She wanted to open what would now be considered a natural food market.” Cate twisted the brochure in her hands as she talked. “I found some paperwork in the notebooks the school returned to my mom, memos from your uncle. Lists of books she should read. Provided by him.”

  “That doesn’t mean that—”

  “She wrote some papers and she must have had him read them because there were handwritten notes from him about them, but nothing in the official school paperwork suggested she took any sort of class by him.”

  Damon ran through every possibility, every reason for Dan and Shauna to deal so closely with each other, and had a hard time coming up with an option that didn’t put his uncle in the middle of the questions about her death. “You’re thinking she got close to him and realized something was wrong and then . . . what, he killed her to keep her quiet?”

  “Is it that absurd?” She stepped in closer, resting her hands against his chest. “I trust your opinion, so please tell me.”

  “At one point in my life I would have said there was no way. Now, who knows.” Which led him to an awful option he promised he would never do. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  He refused to lie to her. In a short time, they had opened up about so many things from their pasts. He didn’t want to close the door again. “That’s my reaction to the idea of having to go to prison and talk to my uncle.”

  Her fingers skimmed along the underside of his chin. “You would do that?”

  “If you needed me to.” And that was the truth. For her, he would. They were kindred souls in that way, both needed to settle the past once and for all.

  “You’re a good man.”

  His knee-jerk reaction was to deny but for just a little while he’d let her think that. He’d pretend he believed it. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew the wild arguments I’m coming up with in my head not to see my uncle.”

  “There are other ways we could try. We follow through with the plan to use us, this fake love affair, as cover as we talk with people and get into buildings.” She grimaced like she knew what she was about to say was provocative. “And at some point we need to talk to your dad.”

  “I kne
w you were going to say that.”

  “Liza did say everyone is supposed to be extra nice to the returning prince.” Cate leaned in and dropped a quick kiss on his mouth.

  “Do you see me frowning at you?”

  She took his hand and started walking again. “Let’s go find some people and be charming.”

  “That’s my least favorite thing ever.”

  “You’ll survive.”

  Chapter 15

  The water tower soared over the back half of the property. It was the focal point in the middle of the open fields. For Cate, it served as a flashing beacon. The last place Shauna ever stood.

  She tried to block that out as they headed for the gun range. The targets came into view. They ran in a straight line across, about twenty feet away. A few people wore headphones as they concentrated on firing, with what looked like instructors by their sides.

  Vincent and Roger stood by tables set up under a canopy and out of the sun. Open gun cases were spread out in front of them. They talked as they manned the bullets, keeping what looked like a watchful eye over everything around them.

  Roger was the first to see them. He smiled as his gaze flicked to their joined hands then back up again. “You’re here.”

  At least his tone was more welcoming than Liza’s had been near the end. Cate figured that could change at any minute. “Everyone seems really happy about that.”

  “Do you shoot, Cate?” He seemed ready to hear a denial.

  That only made it more fun to give him the real answer. “I’ve been to the range.”

  Damon glanced at her. “Really?”

  “I have hidden skills.”

  “Apparently.” He winked at her before dropping her hand and walking around to Vincent’s side of the table.

  “Shouldn’t you know that about your girlfriend?” Vincent asked.

  Damon shrugged. “We’re in the learning-about-each-other stage.”

  She loved that about him. His ability to maneuver his way through difficult and sometimes unexpected conversations. As a skill, it came in handy while they hunted down information.

  Vincent held out a weapon in front of Damon. “You want to try it out?”

  At the offer, Roger’s eyes bulged. “Vincent, maybe that’s not—”

  Damon waved off the concern. “It’s fine.”

  His tone sounded sure but Cate didn’t know if this was a guy thing, bluster or real. With his history, it would be understandable if he didn’t want to handle a gun here, on the property where something so awful happened. He’d put hers in the motel safe, but that was different from holding a loaded one on the Sullivan grounds and firing with purpose.

  She watched the conversation with all the nervousness of a first-time mother sending her baby to school for the first day. She wanted to rush in and fix this, turn the conversation to something else. But she need not have worried. Damon handled the gun and the magazine like a pro. Checked the chamber and adjusted his grip as he walked up to the line. Not a surprise in light of the kind of work she suspected he did now.

  With headphones on and his body locked in a stance that showed off that cute butt of his, he took a shot. The muscles across his shoulders bunched as he unloaded four shots. Each one hitting the target with deadly accuracy.

  Of course he could shoot. She’d yet to find much he couldn’t do except keep a healthy diet.

  “Huh.” Vincent took off his baseball hat and scratched his head. “You still can shoot. Guess some skills never go away or get rusty.”

  That suggested the brothers had no idea that Damon’s odd jobs dealt with danger. They might know when he rode into town, but they didn’t appear to know anything that mattered about who he was now.

  Damon held off on responding until they returned to the canopy and he went through his gun safety mental checklist again. Then he handed the weapon back to Vincent. “Did you think I would be afraid of a weapon?”

  “Wouldn’t be that weird for you to be spooked after . . .” Vincent swallowed the end of his sentence. “You know.”

  Cate decided that was enough of this conversation. She wanted to run through history with the brothers, but not Damon’s history. She looked at Roger and gestured at the array of weapons laid out in front of her. “Speaking of which, this kind of display, so out in the open, doesn’t worry you?”

  He shook his head. “It’s safe here and it’s good for people to keep in practice.”

  “If I open that door will I see a stockpile of your more lethal weapons?” Damon turned and pointed at the set of double doors going into a building that was built into the side of a hill. Beside the left one was a square pad and a guard stood next to that.

  Vincent shrugged. “Yes.”

  “No,” Roger said at the same time.

  Cate was starting to see why Damon had trust issues. Anyone hoping to survive would have run so far and so fast away from this place. Despite the greenery and leafy surroundings, nothing struck her as genuine. “Want to try again, guys?”

  “There are locks and protocols,” Roger explained.

  Damon made a humming sound. “You wouldn’t need those if you kept fewer weapons here.”

  “You know the answer to that.” Vincent shut the case in front of him with a hard thud. “This is hunting country.”

  “What are you hunting?” Damon asked without missing a beat.

  “Come on.” Vincent fiddled with the lock on the case, ignoring the clanking noise it made. “Nobody likes pests.”

  Roger stared at his brother with a blank expression before flashing her another smile. “Bet you’re happy to be here.”

  She wasn’t sure what he was getting at but she answered honestly. She’d spent years trying to gain this access to this land, sure that it would be sold and she’d lose her chance forever at some point. Only by pure luck, and maybe the strong will of Damon’s dad, that didn’t happen.

  She’d waited even longer for someone she could trust to walk with through every detail. Now she had that in Damon. “I actually am.”

  Roger frowned. “That’s not what I expected you to say.”

  “My sister was here, back when it was a school.”

  “And now you’re with Damon.” Vincent snorted. “Coincidence?”

  “Her sister died here, but I’m sure you both know that.” Damon cut off the sentence there but it sounded like he wanted to add the word dumbass at the end. “Shauna Pendleton.”

  “I hear there’s a lovely plaque in her honor around here somewhere.” She didn’t know if she’d ever get over that answer and the fact Liza thought it was a good enough tribute. “Did you know her?”

  The second the words left her mouth, the men started squirming. She met Damon’s gaze and saw his eyebrow rise, which suggested he picked up on the sudden air of desperation as well.

  “Uh, sure.” Vincent took off his hat again and folded the brim in his big hand.

  Roger nodded. “Yeah.”

  “That’s not very specific.” But it was telling. She wished she had a camera to capture this moment and the stunned looks on their faces. These gentlemen knew something and were fighting not to share it.

  Roger sat on the table next to the closed case. “She was sweet and funny. Loved to dance.”

  Cate’s mind went blank for a second before rebooting again. “Dance?”

  “We used to have these outside gatherings around the firepit on Friday nights.” Roger smiled as he described the memory. “People would play music and some would sing. Others danced. Your sister danced.”

  Vincent smiled. “She was really good.”

  “Were you here when she died?” Damon dropped the question and had the other two men looking at him.

  Roger shrugged. “A lot of us were. It was on a weekday with classes the next day.”

  “But she was out by the water tower.” The structure Cate was trying so hard to ignore even though it seemed to hover right over them.

  “Well . . . that’s not . . .” Vincent wi
nced as his voice trailed off.

  Roger sighed. “Students went there.”

  Damon looked from one brother to the other. “What are you trying not to say?”

  “To have sex. To smoke.” Vincent’s wince grew more pronounced as he spoke, as if he thought he was spilling some big secret.

  Damon’s eyes widened. “On the water tower? You mean under it, right?”

  “Sure,” Roger said. “But people would fool around and climb the ladder. It was stupid and no one does it now. There’s a locked gate around the entire structure.”

  “Does the plaque tell you not to go inside the fence?” Cate couldn’t hold back the sarcasm. The whole story made no sense when she added in the very real fact her sister couldn’t get on a stepladder without getting weepy.

  Vincent stared at her. “What?”

  “One of the professors found her.” Roger hesitated for a second then continued. “Connelly. The math guy. He’s at a think tank now.”

  Cate knew that much. The poor man had been repeatedly questioned. Turned out he had the unfortunate luck to walk his dog by the water tower early that morning, as he did every morning. The security cameras set up around the academic buildings showed him heading out. The image cut off by the tower because, of course, there were no cameras there, but picked back up shortly after. Everyone who analyzed the footage of him coming in and out agreed he only had time to walk the dog. And no motive. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid for it.

  “So, you think she was partying by herself and fell?” Damon asked Roger, clearly thinking he was the brother with the intel.

  “Some students talked about partying out there earlier that evening after a test. My guess is she went back or she forgot something or she was meeting someone.”

  This was new. No one ever mentioned a party before. There was no reference to it in all the notes and interviews she’d read. “Who?”

  Roger shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  “She didn’t date anyone seriously.”

  Damon laughed. “That was a quick fill-in answer, Vincent.”

  “We were questioned back then and a few years later when the prosecutor reopened the case to take another look.” Vincent looked from Damon to Cate. “Both investigations said it was an accident.”