by C. J. Miller
Susan held on to Brady. Brady was a good driver. The truck wouldn’t flip. They’d stay safe. Brady kept the truck on the road and didn’t hit anything—or anyone.
Brady adjusted his speed. Susan quashed the urge to tell him to hurry, the panic inside her chest urging them to be as far from the motorcyclist as possible.
“Any chance you saw who was on the motorcycle?” Brady asked.
It had been too dark, the glare of lights blinding. “I couldn’t see much. He was wearing a helmet. Someone is trying to kill us. I almost got you killed. Again.” Horror and regret slammed into her. She’d pulled Reilly into this mess and she might have ruined his career, marring an otherwise glowing service record. And now, she’d dragged Brady into a situation where his life was at risk.
She turned and relief washed over her. She didn’t see the single headlight of the motorcycle tailing them.
Brady’s hand clamped on her side, rock-steady, strong and supportive in the way she needed. “We’re okay. I’m not that easy to kill. I’ve been trained to avoid it.” He tossed her a small smile.
“I’ve tried to avoid it, as well. Although I lack the official training.” She moved closer to Brady. “Did you hear their conversation? They think I killed Justin. What do they think I know? What was Justin doing that has someone so eager to see me dead?”
“Whatever it is, they want their secret to stay buried with Justin.”
“How did anyone know we’d be at the marina?” The sick feeling in her stomach wouldn’t let go. “I don’t understand this. Any of this.”
Brady’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Think hard about your relationship with Justin. Go over every moment that made you think twice, any time your gut told you something was wrong or any reference Justin made to the names we saw in those notebooks. Some involvement he had with the military or former military friends.”
Susan was lost and couldn’t offer a lead to help them. Since Justin had been killed, Susan had tried to make sense of it. Tried to guess who would want him dead and had tried to put together the pieces of that night. Where did she start?
The first time Susan had met Justin’s father, she’d known he didn’t approve of her. The look on his face and that he wouldn’t shake her hand had made her feel small. She’d tried extra hard to make Justin’s family like and accept her. As many times as she’d seen them, nothing had changed. No amount of thoughtful gifts, polite conversation or invitations to spend time with her had changed their opinions of her.
It was completely different from how it had been with Brady’s family. His parents had hugged her the first time they’d met her. Brady had stood at her side with his arm around her. It hadn’t been so much of an “I don’t care what you think” attitude, but more “I’m proud to call this woman my girlfriend.” Susan’s gifts were received with appreciation and her phone calls and emails returned.
In some ways, Justin’s and Brady’s families’ vocations were similar: protect and defend others. But when she was with Justin, she felt as if Justin needed to protect and defend her. With Brady’s, she’d never felt under attack. She’d felt welcomed with open arms.
“He had plenty of involvement with the military. Look at who his father is. And he had friends from the time he served. They wouldn’t have confided anything in me. His family and friends never seemed thrilled I was dating him.”
She couldn’t ask Justin’s coworkers for their thoughts. Since Justin had died, she wasn’t the grieving fiancée. She was the prime suspect in his murder. Susan had trusted the police to do their job and question people in Justin’s life who might have information to help. The detective and his team had certainly questioned her enough. Were the investigators on the case as corrupt as the men chasing her? She didn’t know who could be trusted anymore.
Susan took their clothes and flattened them on the seat so they would dry faster. The cab had heated nicely, and snug against Brady’s body, her core temperature rose. She tried to open the notebook, but the pages were too wet, sticking together and tearing with pressure. Maybe if it dried, they could salvage information from it.
Brady ran a hand through his hair. “We’re talking in circles. Did anything trip your memory while we were on the boat? You have to give me something to go on here. Anything. A name. A reason.”
Susan could sense Brady’s frustration and it added to her own. “I want to find whoever is doing this. I’m trying. I am.” She was letting Brady down. She was letting Justin down. She hated that. Justin had clearly gotten involved in a bad situation, but until she had evidence of his guilt, she wouldn’t write him off as the police and general public had done to her. Susan let her head fall against the seat. “I have no idea why someone would want to kill me. I don’t know why Justin was killed. I didn’t know Justin like I should have. I don’t know anything.” It ached to admit. It made her feel stupid, as if she’d missed something she shouldn’t have.
Silence from Brady. She could see the wheels turning in his head.
“Can you dial a number for me?” Brady asked.
She threw the brakes on her despairing thoughts. “Yes. Of course.” She took his phone from the cup holder.
He rattled off a series of numbers and Susan dialed.
“Can you put it on speaker?” he asked.
“This can’t be good,” a voice on the other end answered. It took Susan a moment to place the tone and timbre. Harris, Brady’s oldest brother.
“How’d you guess?” Brady asked.
“A lucky hunch based on strange text message pictures. Is Susan safe?”
Brady was close with his family and the Trumans stuck together. Did they blame her for getting Reilly into trouble at his work? They wanted Susan to help clear Reilly’s good name, but what would they think of her if she couldn’t? When Justin’s body was found and she was arrested, she wouldn’t have the power to help anyone. Why couldn’t she remember the most important night of her life?
“She’s with me now and you’re on speaker,” Brady said. “Say hi.”
“Hey, Susan,” Harris said without a hint of animosity. “Too bad you hooked back up with the troubled brother again. That can’t lead anywhere good. Why don’t you ditch him and come see me? I could use a night out with a decent woman.”
Teasing, of course. The Truman brothers’ good-natured ribbing was part of their relationship.
“If I didn’t drag trouble everywhere I went, I’d consider it. What would your mom think of me if I got all three of her sons in trouble?” Susan asked.
“Our mom adores you. She wouldn’t blame you for this,” Brady said.
“Tell me what you need,” Harris said. When he spoke this time, his voice was all business.
“I need you to look at the pictures I sent you and see if you can tie it to a business or a personal account,” Brady said.
“Clue me in here,” Harris said. “What are we looking for? Gambling? Drugs? Fraud? Money laundering?”
“Don’t know. Justin had some questionable ledgers in his private safe. The ledgers have dates and dollars amounts, high amounts. The pictures I sent you might help.”
“It sounds like he was either getting or giving payments to someone,” Harris said. “I’ll dig up what I can and look at finances as a possible problem. Maybe I can make sense of these.”
“I was thinking along the same lines,” Brady said.
Was Justin having money problems? From what Susan knew about Justin’s finances, he was meticulous about paying bills and wouldn’t have gone into debt without a good reason. Aside from a few large purchases, like the boat, he wasn’t a big spender. If he needed help, he could have turned to his family. “I’d be surprised if Justin was receiving payments from someone,” Susan said. “He never behaved like he had an excess of money.”
“The guy had a yacht,” Brady said. “
The money had to come from somewhere and boat maintenance takes cash every month. His cash flow might be heavy in and heavy out.”
Brady and Harris seemed quick to believe Justin was in financial trouble. Susan’s thoughts veered. Could Justin have been stealing money from a client? Was he involved in money fraud?
“Maybe he was worried about money because he was making payments to someone. Was he being blackmailed? Did he have obligations to a family member? Someone with a drug or gambling problem?” Harris asked.
Justin had been an accountant at a top firm in Denver. He and Susan had never talked about the money they earned in detail, an omission Susan had found odd, but had chalked up to Justin being private about his finances. Many people were. He’d seemed content with her modest living. He’d never mentioned payments owed to anyone. “If he was making heavy payments or needed money, he didn’t mention it to me,” Susan said. She had been his fiancée. She had been the person in whom he should have confided about anything. If Justin had been in trouble and hadn’t told her, perhaps their relationship had been in a worse place than she’d believed.
Brady and Harris volleyed around more ideas. The more they spoke, the more uncomfortable Susan became. Despite ending her relationship with Justin, Susan had cared for him. Digging up ugliness from his past didn’t sit right with her.
“Let us know what you find,” Brady said to Harris. “Oh, and one more small problem. To darken the water, this might involve former military. The guys who’ve come after us are skilled and trained. Let’s keep any digging under the radar and not draw more attention our way.”
Harris whistled. “Reilly’s bored out of his mind at the present. Concerned and angry, but bored. I’ll have him do some discreet digging, as well. He might have some ideas about who these guys are and why they’re after Susan.”
“Are you sure it’s good idea to get Reilly involved?” Brady said. “We’ve been trying to keep him out of this.”
Harris snorted. “Do you think he’s sitting home on his laurels waiting for something bad to happen? We can keep him out of it the best we can, but you know he’s working twice as hard to get into it. He wants to clear his name and Susan’s.”
“Tell him to be very discreet. We don’t know the scope of this,” Brady said. “And while you’re at it, ask Haley and Reilly to go out to dinner for a few hours.”
“Will do. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Susan was never surprised at the lengths the Truman brothers would go for each other.
“I’ll be in touch with a number where you can reach me,” Brady said.
“What’s wrong with your cell?” Harris asked.
“I don’t trust it. I’m going to ditch it and pick up a throwaway.”
“How deep in are you? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. Call if you need anything else. You know how to get ahold of me privately and securely.”
Brady disconnected the call. “We can’t take chances someone will track us. Credit cards, ATM cards, they have to go. Justin’s killer wants to find you. We have no way to know who we’re up against and what resources they have to track you.”
Susan swallowed hard. “I lost everything in the fire. They won’t find me through any of my cards or devices. But how will we pay for things? Food? A place to stay?”
“We’ll find a way,” Brady said.
He sounded confident and sure. How could he be? The problems were compounding at an alarming rate. Susan was holding on to her sanity by a thread. She took several deep breaths. Brady would take care of her. He might not be in her life for the long haul, and she might never trust him with her heart again, but he wouldn’t let her down in this. Because in this she was the mission.
Susan didn’t press him for more details. Like with Harris, when it came to Brady, some information she was better off not knowing.
Chapter 6
The difficulties Brady had had in his life were rapidly achieving train-wreck status. Being discharged from the military and meandering without a career or clear direction was bad. Breaking into a dead guy’s yacht with the prime murder suspect, losing his weapon at the scene and then going on the lam with said prime suspect was infinitely worse.
Reilly needed his help and Harris had made it sound simple. Talk to Susan. Help her remember what happened to Justin. Clear Susan and therefore, clear Reilly. Done and done. He’d made his choices and now that he’d seen the threats to her life firsthand, he was more committed than ever to helping. The deeper they got into this situation, the worse and more complex it became. It didn’t stop him from wanting to help. It didn’t scare him. Protecting people was what he was born to do. He hated that his injury had made it impossible for him to work as a pararescueman and he despised feeling weak. But now, for the first time in months, he didn’t feel worthless. As much as she needed him, he needed her.
Brady was a man who stood by the people he cared for and he was a man who’d protect them with everything he had. If he walked away from Susan, she wouldn’t just go to jail for Justin’s murder. She’d also be easier prey for Justin’s killer and the people hunting her—which he now knew were not one and the same—and Brady couldn’t live with that outcome. A sliver of doubt worked into his thoughts, slamming against the measure of worth that he’d built and amplifying his fear of being weak.
“What’s the plan now?” Susan asked.
He didn’t have a specific plan, but he’d tell her what he could. “We’re dealing with two separate groups. Someone who murdered Justin and someone who wants you dead. Doesn’t change our plans. We still need to keep you safe. I’ll do my best to make that happen.”
“You’re making it happen. I’m still alive. Without you, I don’t think that would be the case.”
Had she caught the insecurity in his voice? “We’ve had some close calls. In the water, you saved me,” he said. His knee had frozen and he’d needed to rely on Susan. He’d been lucky when he had been able to swim on his own. How long would his luck hold?
“I’m not keeping score. We’re in this together,” Susan said, something she hadn’t really felt before now.
But Brady was keeping score and he didn’t like the odds stacks against him. “I’m weaker than I was.”
Susan threw up her hands. “So what? Brady, enough with the self-doubt. Even in the state you are now, you’re still stronger than most men. Your brothers believe in you. I believe in you. The only person who’s questioning your abilities is you. Do you know how lucky you are to have your family believe in you?”
Susan’s insecurity was showing now. Her mother had never been the picture of support, and after her father’s death, it had gotten worse. Susan worked hard to please the people around her. Too hard.
“I believe in you,” he said. Would she take his words to heart or dismiss them? As easy as she was on others, she was hard on herself.
“Then stop focusing on the negative, and let’s keep each other safe,” she said.
Brady liked Susan’s spunk. She called him out the same way his brothers did. He needed that: a strong voice to keep him from wallowing and keep him focused.
As they drove along the highway, Brady prioritized their needs. First up, dry clothes. Clothes required money. Brady had some cash in his wallet, but not enough for the supplies they needed.
Susan was putting on a brave front, but he sensed her losing control. Right below the surface, she was shaken and raw. He’d see what he could do to calm her down. Sleep would help. Talking it out. Drawing. Getting her somewhere safe.
Starting at Reilly’s was the simplest solution. “We need to switch cars with Reilly.”
“If you think that’s a good idea,” Susan said, sounding doubtful. “We’re supposed to keep Reilly out of this.”
“I can’t think of another way to get supplies. We need shoes and dry clot
hes. We have next to no money. We’ll have to raid Reilly’s place. It’s the simplest solution.”
“Reilly could get in a lot of trouble for helping us,” Susan said.
“He won’t know he’s helping us. He can’t be blamed if I take action without his knowledge.”
Susan gave him a look. “That’s a gray area. He’ll put it together and then you’ve placed him in the impossible position of deciding if he should tell someone we stole his car.”
“If he reports it stolen, Reilly won’t tell them who he thinks is responsible. He doesn’t have a reason to speculate about who stole it.”
Reilly’s home was in a quiet suburban neighborhood of modest-size houses. Brady parked a block away, and he and Susan entered Reilly’s from the back, running through the backyards of the houses on Reilly’s street. Actually, it was Reilly and Haley’s home. His new sister-in-law would have to forgive the intrusion. The night wasn’t what he’d expected. Trekking around in the dark in wet boxer shorts was a low point.
The warmth of the house stung his freezing skin. Brady rubbed his hands together. Brady hated to involve his brother deeper in this problem, but his truck could be recognized. The people looking for Susan were dead serious about finding her. He’d take Reilly or Haley’s car for now, and look for something else to drive soon.
“Let’s make this fast,” Brady said, feeling guilty. He shifted his body to hide the worst of his leg injury from Susan’s sight. Seeing it in the light made him feel more exposed. Since being injured, he’d worn long pants to keep it covered. The sight of it still surprised him at times. He could only guess how repulsed it made others. His eyes tracked to the bare skin revealed by the gap in the blanket Susan was wearing. Soft, touchable skin his fingers itched to stroke.
Susan adjusted the blanket around her body. “Do I have time to shower? It will help me feel warmer and the stink of lake sludge is making me nauseated.” She shifted uncomfortably.