"They do run a kingdom, so your analogy works for me," Patrick said.
"They seem like they're a tight family unit, but maybe they're not. How could Alan not know what Reid has been up to all these years?"
"When companies get as big as MDT, a global leader in defense technology with over twenty-five thousand employees around the world, there are a lot of places to hide money and people and everything else."
"They've certainly been successful at it so far," she agreed.
"So back to the cabin, Dani?"
She hesitated, thinking that back at the cabin it wouldn't be as easy to ignore the bed they'd spent the night in together. It had been easier to keep the memories at bay while meeting with Tania, chasing down the file, and then filling her family in on what was happening. But now, it was just her and Patrick again. Sometimes she thought he might be the biggest danger of all.
But in the end, all she said was, "Sure, let's go back to the cabin." It was starting to feel like home. Actually, that wasn't true. It wasn't the building that felt like home; it was Patrick.
Twenty
It was half past six when they got back to the cabin. Patrick couldn't believe how fast the day had gone. It seemed only a short time ago that Dani had left to meet Tania for breakfast. A lot had happened since then. He wondered if Dani had really processed it all yet. It had been easier when they'd been with her family, when they'd been going over everything that they knew. Since they'd left her mother's house, Dani had been quiet, and he was a little worried about her. But he reminded himself that she was a strong woman. She'd been dealt a big blow, but she was handling it, and he would do everything he could to make things easier for her.
The sun was drifting behind the trees as they entered the house. Patrick turned on the air conditioning while Dani headed into the kitchen, muttering something about getting some water.
While he knew he should get to work, he was feeling a little overloaded on information, so he walked into the living room, sat down on the couch and turned on the television. It seemed like a million years since he'd done something normal. Flipping through the channels, he saw the usual reruns of sitcoms and old movies, cable news and sports.
The Texas Rangers were in the tenth inning of a tied game against the San Diego Padres. It was bottom of the tenth with Texas at bat, one out, two strikes. The next ball came in high, and the batter took a look: ball two. Then came a curve ball that the batter looped just over the second baseman's head. It was a lucky hit, but the home crowd was thrilled.
"Who's winning?" Dani asked, taking a seat on the couch next to him. She handed him a glass of water.
"Thanks," he said, as he took a sip. "It's tied. But we just got on base, so we have a chance. We just need another hit." He groaned as the next batter watched two strikes go by.
"He's going to have to swing if he wants to get a hit," Dani said lightly.
"No kidding." Fortunately, the next pitch was a ball. The one after that, the batter hit deep into left field. For a moment, he thought it might get out of the park, but the outfielder made a great catch. "Damn."
"It's only two outs. A hit will win the game."
"I'm sure the pitcher is thinking three strikes, and he'll win this game," he replied.
"It's all about perspective," she agreed. "Kind of like our investigation. Someone keeps trying to strike us out, but we keep on swinging."
"Yes, we do," he said with a smile. "How are you holding up, Dani?"
"I'm trying not to feel too much right now. I don't want to get overwhelmed with emotion. I need to be able to think."
"You got some devastating news today. Anyone would be overwhelmed."
"I'm going to deal with the emotional part of all that later."
He had a feeling Dani was very good at keeping her emotions in check. In this circumstance, it was probably a good thing.
He watched the next batter foul off a dozen plus pitches.
"He's battling," Dani commented.
"Hopefully, he wins the battle."
Finally, the batter connected dead center on a ball, and this time there was no doubt that the ball was going into the stands for a two-run homer. The announcers went wild.
"Yay," Dani said with a smile. "They pulled it out."
"My father will be very happy." He changed the channel, not needing to hear the recap of the game. He paused on a game show. "My cousin Marcus is so good at these game shows. He has an amazing amount of trivia in his head."
"I bet you're good, too."
"Only at sports and current events. Anything having to do with art or dance or fashion—not my thing."
"Me, either. I'm also really bad at scientific questions. But I could probably match you in current events and pop culture."
"Let's see, shall we?"
"You're on."
They played along with the game show for the next thirty minutes. Dani knew far more than she'd given herself credit for, and the competition between them grew a little intense. Then again, everything they did was intense. He could feel heat rising between them even while they were playing the game. Of course, the game was really just a distraction so they wouldn't fall into each other's arms and make love on the couch. He knew that as well as she did.
Although, why would that be a bad thing? As he considered that question, he completely lost track of the game, and Dani took the final round.
"Beat you," she said with a cocky smile.
"You're such a gracious winner," he replied with a laugh.
"You should say congratulations, or does that word stick in your throat? No one beats Patrick Kane, right?"
"It wasn't a fair contest."
"What? Why?"
"I started thinking about kissing you, and I didn't hear the question."
Her eyes glittered at his words. "That's just an excuse."
"It's the truth. I've been thinking about it all day."
"Really? You've been thinking about kissing me while I was meeting with Tania, while we were trying to find the ranch, while we were talking to my family?"
"Yes, yes, and yes. It never crossed your mind? Last night was good, Dani; I want to do it again."
She drew in a breath and let it out. "That was a one-night thing, Patrick."
"Why?"
"Because…" She couldn't seem to finish her statement.
"That's not an answer," he said.
"We have a lot to do right now. We shouldn't even be taking this break. We should be on our computers, researching the Packers and everything else we've learned."
"We'll get there. We've taken in a lot of information today. Sometimes it needs to settle a bit. We need time to think."
"Think," she said, jumping on the word. "Not kiss, not have sex—no matter how good it would be. We need to think."
"I can multitask." He leaned over and stole a quick kiss. "You taste so damn good."
"Patrick, no." She put a hand on his chest. "If we start this now, we'll lose the whole night."
"So, you're not saying no—you're saying later?"
"Let's talk about what Tania said instead."
He sat back against the couch. "We already rehashed that with your family."
"Not the part about my dad—the other things she mentioned. She made a point of saying that men lie, that you can't trust anyone, even the people you think care about you. Was she talking about Reid? About their love affair gone bad? Or was she referring to someone else?"
He thought back to that phone conversation. "Actually, her words seemed pointed to you, Dani. I wondered if she was talking about your relationship with the senator."
"The senator?" she echoed doubtfully. "I don't know. She never mentioned him by name, well, at least not today. She did say something about him when we were riding yesterday. She told me that he knew a lot more than I thought he did. I hate to think he's involved in this. I know all politicians spin and probably lie, but I've always felt he was a good person down deep, you know? I wouldn't imagine th
at he could be involved in murder."
"Maybe his involvement didn't go that far. We need to find a way to talk to him. Perhaps we'll have better luck here in Texas—at his Fourth of July party tomorrow."
"I told you I'm not invited. It's his friends, high-level donors, and top staff only. If I show up there, Erica will probably fire me."
"I wonder if the Packers will be there tomorrow," he mused.
"They're always invited, so I think there's a good chance. Unless we can convince Agent Wolfe to bring Reid Packer in for questioning before then."
"I doubt he'll do that with the minuscule amount of evidence and hearsay information we have."
"You're probably right."
"Dani, I think we should go to the senator's house before the party starts. He's not going to throw you out."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that."
"You can tell him what Tania said. We can act like we're doing him a favor by warning him of a potential problem, which, in fact, we are doing. If he's not involved, he'll be grateful for the tip. And if he is involved, he'll be nervous. Either way, we'll get a reaction. And I don't think Erica will fire you if we play it that way. We'll make it clear we're looking out for the senator's best interests."
"That might work," she said slowly. "It's risky, though. And what about Tania? We'll be revealing her desire to help us."
"That might not matter anymore," he said heavily.
"I wish I didn't think that might be true," she said, her brows furrowed with worry.
"There's nothing we can do about it. Getting back to the senator, Dillon might thank you for the information you're sharing with him. It may give him the opportunity to play the hero. He can distance himself from MDT and perhaps even turn on them. This could make his career—if he's innocent."
"You're very persuasive, Patrick."
He smiled, thinking he was nowhere near as persuasive as he'd like to be. "I don't know about that. We're a long way from the bedroom, Dani."
She shook her head. "You have a one-track mind."
"Only since I met you." He paused, getting back to the business at hand. "So FBI in the morning, then Senator Dillon in the afternoon?"
"Sounds like an awesome day," she said with a cynical sigh.
"We can find some fun in there somewhere," he said suggestively. "Is it later yet?"
"No," she said, grabbing the remote out of his hand. She moved through the channels, stopping on a re-run of Saturday Night Live.
Patrick kicked his feet up on the coffee table as they watched the show. By the time it was over, it was dark outside, so he turned on a lamp by the couch while Dani decided to see what else was on.
As she paused on a local news show, a breaking headline ran across the bottom of the screen, and he sat up abruptly. He almost didn't hear Dani gasp through the thundering roar of blood rushing through his veins.
"Oh, my God," she said. "Is that Tania?"
He stared at the scene of a car tipped onto its hood, headfirst into a ditch. Dani turned up the sound just in time to hear a reporter say that a female executive for MDT was killed in a solo car crash earlier in the day.
"It's Tania," he said grimly as the reporter gave her name, which obviously meant that next of kin had already been notified. The FBI and police knew as well—something else to talk about with the agent in the morning.
Dani jumped to her feet and paced back and forth in front of the television. "It's my fault. If I hadn't talked to her yesterday, if I hadn't met her today, if I hadn't convinced her to help me, she wouldn't have left that file for me at the ranch. She wouldn't be dead."
He got to his feet, grabbing her by the arm as she headed for another adrenaline-fueled walk. "Dani, stop. It's not your fault."
She stared at him with wide eyes. "How can you say that? I went after her. I got her to trust me, to talk to me."
"And I was behind you every step of the way," he reminded her.
"Then it's your fault, too."
"Look, I'm not happy about it. But the truth is Tania wasn't innocent. She told you that on the phone. She said she was tired of the lies and the game that she'd gotten involved in so many years ago. A completely innocent woman was not killed today, but other innocent people have been killed by the people we're trying to stop. You have to keep your eye on the ball."
She stared back at him for a long moment, and he could see that she wanted to believe him. "Even so, Patrick. She is dead because of me, whether she was innocent or not."
"She's dead because someone killed her, and that wasn't you."
"They ran her off the road and into that ditch."
"I know. Another solo car crash, just like the one that took the life of my mother's chief-of-staff."
"And a woman that TJ worked with, the woman he thought set him up to be kidnapped—she also allegedly killed herself by crashing her car. This has to stop, Patrick. Maybe we shouldn't wait for the FBI. Maybe we should go to the local police now. We can tell them that we saw Tania earlier, that we were talking to her and that people were following her."
"No," he said firmly.
"Why not?"
"Because MDT owns this town. You know it, and so do I. We have to wait for the FBI. There's nothing we can do for Tania now. We'll tell the Feds everything we know in the morning, and they'll share whatever is important with the police."
She blew out a breath. "All right, but I can't quite believe she's dead. We just talked to her. And I had so many more questions I wanted to ask her. She was our only real lead."
"We'll find someone else."
"Will we? You don't think Tania's death is going to make everyone even more cautious? Because I do."
"We'll use your father's file to get attention from the FBI, along with what Tania told us. We'll keep talking to people, too. We can go back to our source. We'll talk to Dillon tomorrow. I can contact Congressman Parker again; the more people who know what we know, the better. They can't kill everyone."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," she said darkly. "They've been pretty successful so far."
"Their operation is unraveling; it has been ever since Alicia followed a lightning strike to Jerry Caldwell last year. And then the Senate investigations after Mexico took away some of their funding. People have been kidnapped. People have died. It's coming apart at the seams."
"What if I've put my family in danger?" she asked. "Should I call them? Should I tell them Tania is dead?" As the questions flew out of her mouth, she twisted her great-grandmother's ring around her finger. "I don't want them to worry, but if something happens to them…"
He didn't think anyone would go after her family now, but if they did, Dani would blame herself for that, too, and there would be no coming back from that guilt. "You should tell them. I don't believe they're in danger, because they're already known to MDT. Their names were in the investigations, in the Senate hearings. If something happens to them, it's going to go straight back to MDT. If they'd wanted to take them out, they would have done it before now."
"They might not care at this point."
He thought about that, wondering if the isolated house was still the best place for them to stay the night, especially after what had happened to Tania. "Why don't you call your brother and sister? I'll pack up our things and then we'll find a hotel to stay in tonight, one with lots of people around."
"Good idea."
* * *
After Patrick went upstairs, Dani called Jake. Her sister was staying with her mom, and she thought it was better to start with her brother. "Tania is dead," she said bluntly when he asked her what was wrong. "It's on the news—single person car crash. You can probably see it online."
"Damn," Jake muttered. "Hang on."
She could hear him talking to Katherine in the background, then he came back on the line.
"What do you want to do?" he asked.
"I want our family to be safe, but I don't know how to make that happen."
"I do. Katherine and I will go
over to the house. We'll just say we want to spend more time with Alicia and Michael before they go back to Florida."
"That could work."
"Michael and I will make sure everyone there is safe, but I don't think they're going to come after us. I'm more worried about you, Dani."
"Patrick and I are going to stay out of sight tonight."
"Are you staying at his place?"
"We're going to leave in a few minutes and find a hotel. I'll text you later."
"All right. By the way, I heard from Agent Wolfe; he'll be at my apartment at ten a.m. tomorrow."
"I'll see you then. Be safe, Jake."
"You, too."
As she ended the call, she got up and went into the dining room. She closed her computer and put it back in its slipcover and then into her tote bag.
Her ring finger was starting to throb. She didn't know if all the tension was making her fingers swell, but there was a definite pain in the area where the ring was. She tried to move it, but it wouldn't even budge. She felt a desperate need to get it off her finger. She felt almost panicked at the thought that she couldn't do that.
Moving into the kitchen, she decided to try to use soap and water to get it off her finger. As she flipped on the light switch and moved toward the sink, she saw a fiery orange and red light outside the house. It took her a moment to realize it wasn't light; it was fire. The woods around the cabin were ablaze.
Thunder suddenly broke the air. Or was that the sound of the trees exploding with fire?
Her heart raced. "Patrick," she screamed, running out of the room.
He was coming down the stairs.
"There's a fire outside," she said.
"I just saw it from the bedroom. It must have started from the lightning."
"Was there lightning?"
"I thought I heard thunder."
"Was that thunder?"
She'd no sooner finished speaking when another loud boom rocked the house. The front door blew open and flames leapt into the house.
Patrick grabbed her hand. "We'll go out the back."
Summer Rain (Lightning Strikes Book 3) Page 25