London sighed, nodding. She understood more than she could let him know. She’d rehashed the moments she’d received both packages of pictures over and over again.
“The mailman brings mail every day,” she said, stating the obvious but guessing that was what Marc wanted to hear. “Obviously most of it is for the lodge, management, bills, magazines for the lobby—that sort of thing. Occasionally there are packages or letters for guests. Those are set to the side, sorted through, and the guest is contacted. Sometimes the guests know they’re getting mail and they let us know. Either way, we have a special spot on the side counter where this mail goes until one of us contacts the guest and brings their mail to them.”
“So you get all this mail, sort through it. Was I the only one who got mail today? How much mail did you pull out for guests?”
London stared at him. He held the empty box in one hand and the deformed wedding-couple figurine in the other. He was calm, nonthreatening, when he spoke, but there was something different in his eyes, something she hadn’t seen before. London accepted there were many layers to this man she didn’t know yet, and probably never would. She wasn’t sure what made his gaze darken, his blue eyes appear more focused. Looking down so she wouldn’t obsess on him, London answered his questions as she stared at his hard abs.
“I didn’t sort through the mail today. Jerry is our mailman. I remember him coming and leaving. Meryl talked to him for a minute or two, I think. He’s a pretty nice guy.”
“The same mailman always delivers the lodge’s mail?” Marc put the wedding couple on the desk and started studying the box.
London watched him turn the box over, open it farther to look inside it, then close the flaps and study the mailing addresses. He didn’t look up at her when he asked but seemed fascinated with the box.
“Jerry has been bringing our mail as long as I’ve worked here.” She didn’t want to look at the figurine. The whole thing was just weird. “Marc, I need to get back downstairs.”
He snapped his attention to her. “Of course.” Dropping the box on the desk with packing paper and the figurine, Marc reached for her, rubbing her arms until she met his gaze. “Don’t worry about this. I’ll figure it out.”
Her laugh sounded fake even to her. “Right. Someone wants you to marry a headless woman,” she offered, taking a stab at trying to make the situation humorous. Maybe it was to Marc. If she freaked out, he might wonder why she’d get so upset about Marc receiving something weird in the mail.
She worried there might be a connection between this package and the pictures she’d received, but until she got out of this room and away from Marc, and after she finished working for the day, she needed to keep her cool about it.
Marc pulled her into his arms. But he didn’t kiss her. He held her in a comforting embrace. He held her as a friend or someone more, a lover holding the person he cared about. London relaxed in his arms, resting her cheek against his chest. When he started stroking her hair, she closed her eyes. What would it be like to have someone like him for real? Someone who would stand in her corner and be there for her when times got tough. The thought was so damn appealing she lost herself in it.
She could talk to him about anything, knowing he would hear her and care about what she said. What if she told him about the pictures? Would Marc tell her not to worry about those, too? Would he brainstorm it out with her, weigh all options, and help her figure out why they were being sent to her?
London squeezed her eyes shut, feeling all that steel muscle surrounding her. It would be incredible to have someone in her life who was always there for her. The truth of the matter, though, was that simply wasn’t the case. Confiding in him would mean getting closer to him. She couldn’t risk losing her heart to someone who would leave and never return.
“I need to get going,” she whispered, and forced herself to back out of his arms. “I’m sorry you got a mangled wedding-cake figurine in the mail,” she offered, making a face at him when she met his gaze. “Someone has a really sick sense of humor.”
“You’re right about that.” He walked her to the door, turned her, and gave her a quick kiss before escorting her into the hall. “I’ll find out who and let you know when I do.”
London hurried back to the front desk, grateful to find Meryl flipping through a magazine. She pulled her attention from whatever she’d been reading and offered London a lazy smile.
“So was it good?” Meryl asked, wagging her eyebrows.
London made a face. “You are so bad.”
“Well, you were gone long enough I figured you got yourself some. But don’t kiss and tell. See if I care.” Meryl shrugged and returned her attention to the magazine, an incredibly sheepish look on her face.
“I’m sorry I was gone so long.” London walked over to the corner, behind the counter, where items were put for guests. “That package I took upstairs to Marcc,” she began.
“He’s not Mr. King anymore?” Meryl teased.
London was glad she had her back to Meryl. “He doesn’t like to be called Mr. King.” It was a good save. “Anyway,” she continued, catching Meryl staring at her as she sat on the one stool behind the counter and balanced the magazine on her lap.
She frowned when London stared at her. “Something wrong?”
“Probably not.” London forced her expression to relax and smiled. “He said he didn’t order it and the item was broken.”
“He opened it while you were up there?” Meryl closed the magazine and slid it under the counter, then slipped off the stool. “What was in the box?”
“A bride-and-groom figurine and the bride’s head was missing.”
Meryl stared at her, the look on her face showing she didn’t find anything humorous about what London had just said. “God, that’s terrible. Who the hell would send something like that? That’s almost scary,” she finished, whispering her last sentence.
London agreed. “He asked me all these questions about how the mail arrives and where things are put for guests.”
“Did you tell him?”
“Yeah. Jerry brought the mail today and you sorted it.” London shrugged.
“I didn’t sort any mail today,” Meryl said. “There wasn’t any to sort.”
“But that box,” London interrupted, glancing at the corner of the counter where she’d taken the box from before calling Marc. “You put it over here. When I was through checking in that last couple, I saw it and called him.”
Meryl frowned at the corner of the counter and started shaking her head slowly. “I didn’t put anything over there.”
Chapter Five
Marc walked out of the Aspen post office, ducking against a brutal wind and picking up his pace to his car. After he’d received the deformed figurine in the mail, two decisions were easy to make. He needed to secure his phone and touch base with home. Also, it was a smart move to arrange for mail he knew he wanted to be sent to a different address. He’d opened a post office box at the post office first thing that Monday morning, then ordered the necessary scrambler device for his new cell phone and had it shipped there.
Climbing into his car, he cranked on the heat before opening the small package from the place where KFA bought a lot of their equipment. Charging it to the business credit card would cue his parents into the fact that he was taking steps to talk to them. It was time to find out if they had a case that might have had a trickle-over effect on him. He didn’t receive that wedding couple in the mail by accident.
Marc disassembled his new phone, pulled the small, flat disk out of the little bag it was shipped in, and slid it alongside the SIM card in his phone. It wasn’t a product his cell phone service was thrilled about. The scrambler didn’t hinder their ability to track his calls, text messages, or any other use of his phone they would charge him for. There wasn’t any legislation outlawing this kind of equipment. What mattered, though, was that once it was installed Marc could use his phone and place calls without worrying about anyone picking
up on his frequency and listening in to his phone conversations.
Once he turned his phone back on, Marc pushed the auto-dial to call home and shifted to pull out of his stall.
“KFA,” Natasha, Marc’s cousin, answered.
“Hey, Natasha. It’s Marc.”
“Hey, stranger,” she said cheerfully. “We figured you were lost in the mountains.”
Natasha King was Marc’s uncle’s daughter. Uncle George was a bum, but his daughter was hot as hell. She was Marc’s cousin, though, and they grew up together. There was a time when Natasha was an early teen that Marc had enjoyed a fantasy or two about her. They were short-lived and he’d even felt guilty for having them. She was as much the sister he’d never had as she was his cousin. Today Natasha held a black belt in karate and worked in the office out of his parents’ home, answering all calls for KFA and handling all paperwork. She was on top of her act and there wasn’t a man on this planet worthy of her time.
“I am lost in the mountains,” Marc told her, checking traffic and turning right, in the direction of London’s house. “It’s gorgeous out here. You can’t possibly believe how intense these mountains are until you see them.”
“Well then, where in the hell are my pictures?” she demanded.
“Yes, Mom,” he said, grinning.
Natasha laughed and a beeping sounded in the phone. “Hold on a minute. I have another call.”
She didn’t wait for him to answer before putting him on hold. Marc switched the phone to speaker and glanced at the time. It was just after five. If London went straight home after work she would be there soon. She’d said he could stop by unannounced. He continued toward her house, thoughts of attacking her the moment she got out of her car encouraging him to hurry to get there.
“Sorry about that,” Natasha said when she came back.
“It’s okay. I’m secure now,” he told her. “What’s going on at the home front?”
“The usual, mainly,” she said. “How secure are you?”
“I just installed the scrambler I ordered. There aren’t any new cases since I’ve left?”
Natasha didn’t answer right away. There was some background noise and Marc’s father came on the line.
“Are you still in Aspen?” Greg King asked, his deep voice vibrating through the speaker on Marc’s phone.
“Yup. Figured it was time to touch base. Anything new on the home front?”
“You remember Marty Byrd?” his father asked.
None of them would ever forget The Byrd. It was the case they all worked almost a year ago when Marc’s mother returned to them after being in the Witness Protection Program for five years. It was a bittersweet experience. Nothing topped having Mom back in their lives. Yet after they hunted down his mother’s boss first, that led them to a hunt to find Marty Byrd, one of the world’s most renowned assassins, they’d almost lost their dad in a bloody showdown.
“You know I do,” Marc said, feeling his pulse pick up speed, the familiar sensation he always experienced when he tasted a challenging hunt coming on. “What about it?”
“Remember when we learned Byrd was abducting men and women who were the best in their field, private investigators, criminals, people from both sides of the street?”
“Yup.”
Marty Byrd had tried abducting Greg King, but Marc’s mom prevented them from taking him. Marc had been pissed as hell when his father later allowed Byrd to kidnap him, without Marc or the rest of the family being filled in on the plan. His father almost lost his life just so he could get on the inside and learn Byrd’s master plan.
“I remember going to that god-awful hospital for over a week just to stare at your ass lying in a bed when you about got blown to bits,” Marc added. “And we never did learn Marty Byrd’s sordid secrets.”
“Sometimes getting blown to bits is all in a day’s work,” Greg said casually.
Marc didn’t doubt for a minute that if he or Jake decided to take on such a mission just to hunt down a man, Greg King would go ballistic.
“Uh-huh.” Arguing with him was almost as much a waste of time as trying to win an argument against Marc’s mother. “What about it?” he asked, pressing the conversation forward. “Are people disappearing again?”
“Not quite. Something isn’t right in the air, though.” Greg was a master at drawing out a discussion about a possible case until Marc wanted to shake the giant brute senseless and force him to speak his mind. “We’re receiving some odd messages,” he said, apparently sensing Marc would start yelling if he didn’t explain what was going on soon.
“What kind of messages?”
“Last week, I guess it was right after you left, we received some pictures in the mail.”
“Pictures?”
“Yup.”
“Pictures of what?”
“They were shots of your mother and me when we went on our second honeymoon a few months back.”
Marc’s parents were worse than teenagers in love the first few months after Haley came back home. Giggling like children and whispering secrets, running upstairs to their room in the middle of the day and having sex louder than any parents should be allowed, would have been intolerable and unacceptable if it weren’t for the fact that Marc and his brother were just as thrilled to have their mom back home. Marc and Jake were happy for their parents and more than a bit relieved when they decided to take off for a couple weeks for a romantic cruise. His dad needed to take more time off.
Life returned somewhat to normal when they got back. They were still head over heels in love. It was the type of relationship most only dreamed of having, but Marc’s parents were proof that true love did exist and could happen if two people were willing to work hard for it.
“I look forward to seeing them. Nothing kinky, though. I’m not sure I could handle that.”
Greg laughed. “I don’t have a problem showing any of them to you. But you don’t get it. They weren’t pictures we took. Someone mailed pictures to us. There was no return address on the package and they were taken without us knowing.”
“You mean like someone is letting you know they’re watching you?” Marc tightened his grip on his steering wheel as he clenched his jaw. There wasn’t a worse feeling in the world than believing someone he cared about might be in trouble and he was too far away to do anything about it.
“Exactly,” Greg said, his voice tightening.
Marc focused his thoughts. “What’s that got to do with the Marty Byrd case? He was killed, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I’ll never forget that.” Marc’s dad’s voice rumbled through the phone. “Because he died we never learned what game he was playing.”
“And he told you he was playing a game,” Marc remembered.
“He told me he was lining up his players by abducting people he believed to be the best in their fields. We never learned why, or who he was playing against.”
“If he was playing against anyone,” Marc reminded Greg. When that case had ended and after he recuperated in the hospital, Greg had been convinced after talking to Marty Byrd that the assassin was taking people to mold into players for some morbid war-type game. As Marc’s dad had said at the time, it was like the game of Risk. Byrd had planned on training those he’d abducted from their lives so they would be killers. He had been building an army to take part in some masterminded sick adventure. None of what Marty Byrd had told Greg King could ever be confirmed, though, since Byrd was blown to bits when his house was destroyed.
“If he was playing against anyone,” Greg said, although his tone suggested he was simply appeasing his son. “Those pictures pissed me off and scared your mother,” Greg continued. “I wouldn’t have thought they had anything to do with The Byrd, but then we found another package, this one in the Avalanche.”
Marc listened and didn’t comment. He imagined his mother was probably out for blood more than scared. It also didn’t make sense anything would be found in the Avalanche. His dad bought
that truck a couple years ago and treated it like his newborn son. It was never left unlocked. The King men took care of their cars. Marc wanted the rest of the story, though, so remained quiet, silently encouraging his father to continue.
“Jake found the package while he was helping his mother and your cousin unload bags from a shopping spree they’d gone on. He stopped unloading for a few minutes when one of his girlfriends called.”
That explained how something could be put in the Avalanche, although Marc felt the rage his family would have experienced knowing someone was cocky enough to slip something into the truck right under their noses. The Avalanche was always parked on the circular drive by the front door.
“That’s the only way we can figure out how anyone slipped it in the truck. Both women swear the truck was locked every time they went into a store.” Greg paused, saying something to Natasha when the phone started beeping. “Hold on, Marc,” he said, and once again the line went silent.
Marc needed to know what was in the package they found in the Avalanche. Although he would learn in a minute or two, not knowing immediately was hell. Right now it was a stretch matching the figurine he’d received in the mail to anything his father was describing. Marc had made it across town during his conversation and slowed in front of London’s house. Her green Jeep wasn’t here. It was quarter after five. The drive from her home to the lodge would probably take half an hour. She might not leave the moment she got off work, either. He put his Mustang in park. He would wait it out.
“Okay, I’m back,” Greg said, his voice hollow as if he’d switched to speakerphone.
Marc held his phone between his hands, which rested against his steering wheel. “What was in the package?” he asked.
“The one we found in the Avalanche?” Greg made it a rhetorical question, since he continued talking. “You know the movie The Incredibles, right?”
“Yeah,” Marc answered slowly.
“There were two action figures in the box, Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, or Bob and Helen Parr.”
“Were they damaged in any way?”
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