by Nicole Snow
That's how I built Enguard compared to the bloated beast that's Crown.
It means we can keep it tight and coordinate well with a trusted group of handpicked pros. Even before I’d left, Crown Security was starting to get sloppy. Careless.
Dallas is too ambitious, too focused on expansion, and not even personally involved ensuring the job gets done right on every contract.
Dallas is the problem. Not me.
I have to remember that, and not let him get under my skin, or inside my head.
Especially not when he’s sitting on intel that could point to my father's killer.
Information I’ve been after for five dreary years. And I’ll be damned if that smug, bouncy, hyper-competitive asshole gets to the truth before I do.
* * *
Five Years Ago
After dad's funeral, flowers will always make me choke.
As long as I live, I'll always associate their bright colors, their perfumes, their circle-of-death arrangements with my old man's stiff face in the casket.
And the same goes for a few select fork-tongued words.
“It's all right, Landon, you shouldn't look so worried. My dad's talking to your mother right now. He's a good guy. We'll make sure you're both set for the rest of your lives and –”
“Fuck you, Reese,” I snarl, tearing his hand off my shoulder. “If you think it's money that's got my balls in a knot, think again.”
He sniffs, taking several protective paces away from me. “Yeah. Sorry. I was being kind of an insensitive jerk, right?”
“It's cool,” Steve speaks up, a few paces behind me. I whip around and glare, knowing he's just trying to keep the peace, and fucking hating it.
“Landon, he's just trying to help,” my friend says, leaning to my ear.
“Fuck him again. I don't need –”
“Landon. Dude. Micah's barely in the ground. I know that's got you torn up, your head all kinds of bad, but the whole world isn't your enemy. I'm here. Your mom's here. So are my parents. And even that creepy kid you're not too keen on is just trying to lighten the load.”
I grit my teeth. He's right, and I hate that too, along with everything else.
“I heard that,” Dallas says, spinning around, tugging at that dusting of a blonde beard he's trying to grow on his face, red hairs sticking out of it.
Steve mumbles an apology. Asshole Dallas just laughs.
“Forget it, man. We're all entitled to our feelings. I don't expect to be best friends with either of you overnight. Just saying, don't be shy. I'm here to help. What happened to Mr. Strauss has got all of us on our backs. Only way we get back on our feet is if we help each other.”
Sage advice. And so damn unwelcome right now, coming from him, I want to gag.
“Yeah,” Steve says, always the peacemaker. “I'm sorry, again. We're all here for Landon and Mrs. Strauss. God. I can't fucking imagine.”
Fortunately, Steve doesn't have to. I'm living the nightmare for him.
We're quiet, an icy truce between us, when the screen door swings up. I hear mom sniffing loudly from the kitchen. I plod forward, ready to comfort her for the millionth time this week, only to slam into a wall of darkness and dense cologne.
“Shit, boy. Watch where you're – oh. Oh, no. Clumsy me.” Reg Reese spins me around, helps me catch my balance, and then steps onto the porch past me. “Uncle Sam's really putting some meat on those bones, I see. Micah would be proud of you, Sampson.”
I can't even manage an awkward grin. I don't know what the fuck my old man would think about anything happening right now. I'm not even sure I care.
Steve pulls the door open, following me into the house, and I hear a growl that makes me look over my shoulder one last time.
“Are you stupid, kiddo? I said, 'let's go!' We're gonna be late and there's a whole pile of paperwork waiting at the office.” I see Reg give Dallas a satisfying, annoyed slap to the shoulders, so hard it almost sends him to the ground.
Dallas freezes. It's just a split second, but I see a rare anger in his eyes, a redness behind his patchy almost-beard like humiliation itself licking his face. “Dad –”
“Car. Now. Fuck's sake.”
“Landon?”
“Coming,” I tell Steve, but my feet aren't moving. For some messed up reason, I stand there watching the two Reeses.
A surly Dallas as he slips into the passenger seat of a sleek black Mercedes, his face hung low. Then Reg, taking the driver's seat. The car doesn't start for several long seconds while he points his finger at Dallas, too close to his face. The skin on the back of Reg's hand is mottled from a birth mark or scar or something.
An evil part of me wants to be glad I'm not the only one going to pieces since mom relayed the horrible, world-ending news about why dad didn't come home. But a fucked up part of me almost feels sorry for Dallas, who looks at the house one more time, as Reg backs onto the street and then floors it.
Maybe the kid I've never liked is right. My father's death has punched a hole in everybody's world, letting in a blackness that's souring everything.
* * *
Present Day
Sonoma is a miserable place. Strange words, I know.
There's no good reason the bright, cool, sunny beating-heart-of-wine-country weather should make any sane human miserable, except for the company I'm in.
Maybe it’s just that Milah Holly is a miserable person, and I’m regretting this job for more reasons than one.
It’s not that I can’t handle the gig. It’s that I can’t handle her type: pampered, constantly drunk, a complete hot mess falling all over herself and knowing she's doing it.
Always with her groupies behind, the reeling, sloppy-drunk worshipers she keeps around for an ego stroke known as the Siren Crew. Milah was wasted before she even went on stage for her first show at a private VIP event before her main concert venue.
Her Sirens were worse. High as fuck on lines of white dust snorted up before they were all over each other, chasing tongues and sometimes clawing at each other over stupid fights, while I had to do some rapid two-stepping to get those bags of coke out of their hands, out of the Green Room.
Anywhere else where they couldn’t be traced back to me, Milah, or anyone on my crew. Only saving grace is my lead, Skylar, tracking down their local dealer and making sure he was banned from the premises.
It’s been worse since the third small show at the private afterparty, more skin than clothing visible everywhere I look. A near constant contrast with amber whiskey bottles and freely flowing, very expensive local wine, most of which sloshes out on the floor and sends several Sirens toppling on their rears. Still giggling.
I can’t believe these are adults.
Reb would never behave like this. I wish I could transplant her maturity into them.
It’s weird for thoughts of Kenna to be a comfort during this clusterfuck, but when it comes to the lesser of two evils, I’d rather have that sexy little mess of emotional baggage than this fucking mess, period.
Their antics are wearing on everyone. I catch Skylar outside chugging coffee during a break, her pale blue eyes a quiet, tired fury.
“We having fun yet, Pixie, or what?” I growl. She gives me the evil eye whenever I use that nickname. Too bad it's stuck with the entire crew because it's fitting.
She's small, and usually a little scary.
“One more day,” I tell her, brightening her mood. “Then this shitshow will finally be over.”
“Thank God,” she whispers. I can tell by the coy, but tense expression it's not just Milah that's got her counting down the seconds until her next day off.
“Any news? Don't tell me this crap up here is putting you off any important family business?”
She shakes her head furiously. As expected. Even if it were true, she knows I'd send her straight home if I ever caught wind of finding her missing niece.
“Nah. Nothing like that. The leads are cold as ever, boss. This is a shitty distractio
n, but I'll take it. Work works miracles.”
I nod slowly. I decide not to press her, angrily digesting how impossible her case seems. The girl disappeared months ago. Snatched right under Skylar's nose while she was out with her sister, the mother. They think it's the asshole ex, the good-for-nothing sperm donor responsible for her, but nobody knows for sure.
Skylar's dead ends with the police and FBI are reason number one hundred why I took matters into my own hands, digging into Crown. You leave this kind of shit in the hands of the system, you might never get answers.
“Just be sure you're not running yourself ragged. I know what it's like, a fucked up personal situation, something with no clean end in sight.” I stop short of dumping more advice. She's smart enough to know I'm not following my own rules for life, being as mired as I am in the bad blood my old man left behind.
“I know you do,” she says quietly, sucking a few last dregs of coffee through the plastic lid loudly. “I also know you get it, boss. How a person can't let go. Even if it's one crappy thing after another, it keeps coming full circle, until there's an answer. Some closure. Something.”
I slap her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “You'll have your something, Skylar. Soon as we're done with Miss Holly, let me put you down for some off time. Can't tell you not to spend your free days chasing every rabbit hole, trying to bring the kid home, but I hope you'll do something you actually enjoy for a few hours.”
She shrugs, staring blankly at her empty cup. “There's always coffee. Great for multi-tasking.”
It's so deadpan, so awkward, and so completely Skylar, I just laugh. “Let me get us both a new cup. Lord knows we could both fucking use it today.”
By the time the last show and afterparty end late on Saturday, I’m ready for home.
I might have to face the music with Reb and I’m not looking forward to the estimate on repairing the guest house, but it’s better than the stink of drunken, wet sex and stale champagne in the rooms under our watch.
I’ve just got to get Milah – Miss Holly, and just saying it makes me think of Dallas and makes my skin crawl – on her plane and then this is mercifully over.
Airport parking is a nightmare. Security, even worse with Milah throwing tantrums, alternating between bending over for the TSA agent with a slurring little giggle, and then demanding if these peasants know who she is.
It’s hard to stand stoic and stone-faced while she makes a complete spectacle of herself, but sooner or later we get her through check-in and to the boarding area. She's missing her private jet this time. Can't stand first class. I hear something about her having a lien on the old plane thanks to her year in rehab, which clearly did no good, and she never paid for.
We only have to stay until she’s on her flight, and they should be calling it any moment.
I’m ready to be gone and I’m about to tell my crew to pack up and get ready to head out, when I feel a hand on my arm.
I’m so keyed up and tired I flinch away instinctively, ducking out of reach. It’s an old military habit ingrained in me.
Don’t retaliate; just create defensive distance to assess the situation. And the situation I assess, right now, is a pair of wide blue eyes that perfectly fit the picture-perfect image Milah Holly projects to the media. The fake one where she's this innocent, leggy blonde Barbie with that whole sweetly-dirty schoolgirl thing going on.
And I’m not buying it for a second. Because by now I know everything that coy, mock-innocent smile hides.
I feel like a feral cat backed into a corner, and she hasn’t even said anything. But I know she wants something, and from the way she catches her tongue between her teeth and the way her eyes dip over me, it’s not hard to tell what it is.
“Listen, Landon.” She’s doing her baby-girl lisp, the same thing she peddles in front of the cameras. I’ve seen her practicing it in the mirror. It has no effect on me. “Since you’re working my Bay Area gig next week, too, sweetie, why don’t I stop by your place before we set up? I can’t think of any place in the whole wide world safer than with you. Oh, and I'd so love to relax on the coast for a bit.”
I stare at her flatly. I have to be professional, but for a moment, it takes all my willpower to keep my face as neutral as possible.
“I don’t know how safe my place is,” I deflect. “Reese told you about the fire, didn't he?”
She lets out a fluttery, false little laugh. “Who cares? It’ll be fiiine. Lightning never strikes the same place twice.”
I choose not to correct her.
I also choose to keep my goddamn paycheck, even if it’s starting to feel like it comes at the cost of my integrity. All of it. I grit my teeth, but force myself to nod. I'll let her interpret what that means.
I also remind myself this is part of the gig, and she can’t possibly be serious.
She’s probably still coked out of her mind. Or buzzed from her morning diet of mimosas and toaster waffles – go figure.
So much that she won’t even remember this tomorrow.
I can only hope.
Hope, and signal my crew to get on the move so I can escape this hell and get home as soon as possible.
9
Homecoming (Kenna)
It hasn’t been a half-bad day of writing.
Maybe all I really needed was a little fresh sea air. I’ve spent most of the day plotting story structure, but I think I’ve got a good framework for working out the basic pacing and character development.
More, though, I’ve got the framework and peace of mind to figure out how I’m going to deal with Landon when he comes back.
I’ve just got to stand my ground. I wouldn’t be able to respect myself if I did anything else.
I’m perched at the kitchen island with a cat in my lap and another on the counter, chewing on the cap of my idle pen, when a rustling sound catches my attention from outside. It doesn’t really penetrate at first.
Just the wind in the bushes lining the house in neatly trimmed lines, I think, until there’s a sharp crack!
Like a twig snapping. I look up quickly.
A black silhouette straight out of a nightmare looks back at me, standing at the kitchen window and staring in.
I nearly scream like a baby and fly out of my skin, while my bladder shimmies up inside me in a tight knot.
The cats take off like bats out of hell. I scramble off the barstool, stumbling back a step, desperate to remember where the nearest intercom is and how to work it, but when I look again that dark shape is gone.
Of course, it's gone.
It was a man. No mistaking it.
A man in a hoodie and dark glasses.
Had I imagined it? No, there's no way he could've moved that fast.
I skitter toward the door and yank it open, peering outside, first up one side of the house and then down the other.
Nothing. Nada. No one in sight.
I taste my own fear, bitter in the back of my throat. Maybe it was just a flasher on my eyes, imprinted after staring at the page for so long. I take another step out, turning slowly, looking toward the drive, then toward the back of the house, scanning one step at a time and –
– and nearly collide with the tall, looming shape suddenly there, hovering over me, large and menacing and silent.
This time, I do scream, stumbling backward, my heart a jackhammer that's about to make me pass out from the shock.
“Who are you?!” I demand, scrabbling for the kitchen door.
I’ve got to get inside, get to the security panel, hit the police button. He says nothing, only watching me in grim silence; I can barely see the shadow of his lips beneath his hood. “Answer me!”
He stays silent. Tall, imposing, and creepy as hell.
But then he takes a slow, purposeful step forward, startling me into scrambling back so quickly that suddenly the door is out of my reach. He's blocking my path, closing me off from safety.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
I rabbit back a little m
ore, then trip and tumble down. Another step closer. I kick out with one foot.
“Stay back!” I shriek, flopping back on my butt, trying to get my feet under me. I hear a car coming up the drive, I realize.
Oh, thank God. Landon.
He's home just in time. I manage to grapple upright again and put a few more feet of distance between myself and this silent, staring man.
“Wh-what do you want?” I try to draw myself up, finding courage in the approaching engine grumble. “I’m not afraid of you!”
Ugh. Clearly a lie, and I also sound like I'm twelve.
Then the man stiffens, looking sharply over my shoulder as a car door slams, ready to take off.
I smile triumphantly, lifting my chin. Yeah, jerk-face, you'd better run.
“Really now,” a strange voice says. “Is this appropriate behavior toward a lady?”
It belongs to another stranger. Not Landon.
All right.
I admit it.
I scream again. This time, bloody glass-breaking murder.
And it’s like the sound repels the man in the hoodie. He's gone like a leaping gunshot; he turns and bolts, while I’m almost on his heels.
I’ve had enough of strange men sneaking up on me for one day. Something boils up in me, and I still don't know if I'm chasing him or just fleeing in the same direction.
I tumble against the side of the house, skittering away from the new voice, and catch a glimpse of a tall blond man in a perfectly pressed suit before I collapse against the wall and lean over my knees, practically hyperventilating.
“Oh God. Oh, God.”
Threat number one disappears.
I need a minute before I can assess if this new man is threat two, or just the lucky break I needed today.
My chest hurts, my heart is racing so fast. I take several gulping breaths, trying to calm myself. The blond man leans in, trying to catch my eye.
He’s tall, handsome, clean-cut, with a neatly trimmed beard and hazel eyes that darken with worry, his movements polite and restrained.