by Jenny Penn
“Don’t thank me,” Nick retorted instantly. “I’m going to be sticking it to your wife every chance I get and you realize that as a teacher I’ll have summers off, giving me all the time in the world to wear her out.”
“Nick—”
“And I’m not just talking about riding her from behind either, bro. I’m going to fuck that pussy so often you can pretty much guarantee on the first babe being mine.”
“Nick—”
“In fact, we might as well just go ahead and agree to name our first son Nick Jr.”
“Nick!”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” They shared a look and for a moment Cooper could almost believe it would all work out. The hospital’s entrance sign reminded him of reality. “Sally called earlier, said that they were transferring Lindsay to a private room this afternoon but were planning on keeping her for at least another day.”
“Good,” Nick sighed. “That will give me time to get down to Humble and meet with Amos tonight.”
“You think he can have somebody up here keeping an eye on her in the next day or two?” Cooper asked as he eased the truck into the hospital’s entrance. “Because I’d feel a lot better if we had some help getting her safely home.”
“If all goes well, she’ll have an armed escort leaving the hospital in the morning,” Nick assured him, sounding confident in his assumption. His tone lightened as he shot Cooper an amused smirk. “Did I remember to tell you that she made me agree to get us bodyguards as well?”
“What?” Cooper’s mouth about fell open in shock as he slammed on the breaks, bringing the truck to a sudden, dead stop in the middle of the parking lot. “Oh, please tell me you didn’t agree to that bit of insanity.”
* * * *
Lindsay lay in her hospital bed watching the door with a slow-growing panic. She didn’t like hospitals, didn’t like lying there uselessly not knowing if Cooper and Nick were safe, not knowing what Carl was up to or if he was coming for her. If, Lindsay snorted at that bit of optimism even though she knew damn good and well it was when.
At least, she didn’t have to worry about Crugman. Even trapped in her hospital bed Lindsay had heard the rumors about the shootout at her cabin. Thanks to Sally’s constant update she knew about the dead deputy and the equally cold Crugman. She’d been expecting some of his coworkers to show up and question her but not even the sheriff had put in an appearance. Neither had Carl.
It was strangely, eerily quiet.
“You’re frowning again,” Sally admonished her. Cooper and Nick’s aunt had been kind enough to sit and keep her company, though she had to hold up the conversation for both of them given Lindsay’s throat still felt like she’d swallowed a bucket full of razor blades.
“Frowning will lead to wrinkles,” Sally preached as if she had some kind of PhD in the subject. “Not to mention it indicates worrying and worrying is stressful. So is healing, which leaves you with two choices—you can either get better or frown. The choice is yours.”
Lindsay forced a quick, fake smile for Sally’s benefit, earning her a sigh from the older lady.
“You know you really do remind me of Nicholas with that obnoxious attitude.”
“Hey, I resent that,” Nick objected, turning Lindsay’s smile into a true twist of joy as he sauntered into the room. “I am not obnoxious. I’m practical.”
“Yeah, you’re about as reasonable as a boil on the butt,” Cooper retorted, shoving past Nick to offer Lindsay a welcoming grin. “And how is our favorite girl doing?”
She’d have told him better now that they were there but every time Lindsay tried to speak they hushed her up, which kind of made Cooper’s tendency to ask her questions ironic. Still, she managed to convey her pleasure at seeing both him and his brother alive and well with a simple smile and the splay of her arms in open welcome.
“Hey, lil’ bit.” Nick’s face lightened with a grin as he crossed the room to give her a big hug. He settled down on the edge of the mattress as Cooper swaggered around the other side to drop a quick kiss on her brow.
“You feeling better today, little one?”
“Your girl is being difficult,” Sally answered for her, completely unconcerned by the glare Lindsay shot at her.
Neither did Cooper and Nick’s aunt appear rattled by both of her nephews’ obvious involvement with Lindsay. She’d made it quite clear earlier that she was aware of the three-way nature of Lindsay, Cooper, and Nick’s relationship. Other than ordering Lindsay to make sure the brothers didn’t fight, Sally hadn’t offered any opinion on the situation. Her mannerisms certainly indicated she wasn’t distressed by the situation. Then again, she did rat Lindsay out.
“She has only one thing on her mind. Go on and show them your pad.”
Sally nodded to the legal pad one of the nurses had provided for her so she could respond without speaking. Lindsay hadn’t actually used it for that purpose. She’d only written two words on the pad, two words that everybody seemed intent on ignoring.
“Leave? Now?” Leaning over so he could read what she’d written, Nick laughed and gave as blunt an answer as anybody would. “You wish.”
“I thought the doctor explained everything.” Cooper shot a frown in Sally’s direction. “You’d said he’d been in, that he said Lindsay had to stay a couple more days.”
“I did and he did.” Sally shrugged. “Lindsay just doesn’t want to hear it.”
No, she did not. She wanted to leave now, before Carl could figure out how to make her stay permanent. Lindsay emphasized that point by jabbing a finger on the pad but her demand only drew a snort from Cooper.
“You can even be stubborn when you can’t speak. Amazing.”
“I—”
“Ah, ah, ah.” Cooper placed a finger under her chin and forced her mouth closed before Lindsay could get more than that one syllable out. “Remember the doctor’s orders. No talking.”
Then don’t make me!
Lindsay scrawled that sharp comeback on her handy pad, though it lacked the harshness she could have infused if only he’d let her speak. Instead she had to settle for glaring at Cooper and hoping that conveyed enough irritation to keep the man from taunting her any further. It didn’t work. All her dirty look did was provoke a laugh from Cooper, who shoved away from her to take his aunt’s hand.
“Come on, Sally, let’s go see if we can find out what’s taking them so long to transfer the princess, here, out of this ward and into her own private pouting room.”
“Jerk.”
Cooper tossed her a wink over his shoulder, letting her know he’d heard her barely-there whisper. Nick heard it, too. He laughed and slipped an arm around her shoulders to give her a quick hug.
“Don’t be so hard on him, lil’ bit. He’s actually trying to be considerate and give me a chance to tell you good-bye in private.”
Lindsay’s mouth fell open on a silent “what” as she turned her shocked gaze to his, afraid of the very thought of him leaving her. She wanted him and Cooper where she could keep an eye on the both of them, but Nick misread her concern and offered her another quick, cajoling squeeze.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back before you miss me. I just have to run down to Humble…remember, you agreed to allow me to hire Callahan Security? And based on last night, I think you need some protection. Don’t you?”
Lindsay nodded, a slow gesture that buried her head deeper into his chest as she snuggled into his hold. She wouldn’t have argued with him even if she could. Guards would ease her worry, especially if they were guarding Nick and Cooper. She wondered if he remembered that part of their agreement.
She didn’t even get a chance to write out a reminder. Dropping another quick and horribly chaste kiss on her forehead, he assured her he’d be back for breakfast and disappeared. Not that she was left to languish in her worry. Cooper returned almost as soon as Nick left and within seconds a nurse followed him in and began to prepare her to be transferred.
The next
few hours flew by in a whirl of activity that had her passed out by the time she’d finished the milkshake Cooper brought her to celebrate her private room. She woke up once during the night to find Cooper tucked into her side, watching the TV mounted on the wall. It was a tight fit with him squeezed onto the bed and the baseball game was like watching some foreign film, but Lindsay didn’t have the energy to complain. She simply prodded him to adjust to a more comfortable position, drank some water, and fell back asleep.
By the time she awoke, the sun was up, Nick was back, and there was a scary-looking bald man standing at the foot of her bed.
Chapter 34
August 24th
“Name’s Amos Callahan.” Big, beefy, and very strong, Amos gripped her hand in a hold that held firm as he cast her a hard look. “And you must be Lindsay Howell. I’ve heard some tales about you and we need to get a few things straight right up front.”
Lindsay cast a glance over at Nick, certain of who Amos had heard those tales from. Despite his attempts to appear innocent there was no disguising the sparkle in Nick’s eyes as he smiled back down at her but that grin wasn’t working. Not this time.
“First,” Amos began, completely ignoring the byplay between her and Nick. “My men don’t work for you. They work for me and you’re hiring me to help you. That means they command and you obey. Understood?”
No, it wasn’t. Lindsay blinked up at him, taking advantage of the fact that she was forbidden from speaking and remaining pointedly silent. If she had been allowed to express herself, she’d have asked what exactly it was about men and the words ‘control’ and ‘obey.’ They liked them a little too much.
“Good.” Amos nodded apparently taking Lindsay’s silence as acceptance. “Now, of course, we will work to accommodate all your reasonable requests but, as I’m sure you can understand, it’s easier to keep a person safe when they stay still. So whatever vacation plans you might have had are cancelled and that RV you bought, it’s staying parked in the ranch’s yard. Got it?”
Lindsay blinked, not nearly as impressed by the man’s commanding tone as she was by the fact that he’d mentioned her RV. It must have survived the fire and been in good enough condition to drive given Cooper’s response.
“Actually we were thinking you guys might like to use that as your headquarters,” Cooper suggested. “I mean you guys can bunk down in the barracks with the hands but…there isn’t a lot of room to set up equipment down there.”
“That’s fine.” Amos nodded. “Not that they need much room. Other than protection and surveillance, the rest of the team will be working out of our actual headquarters.”
“And you’ll be keeping both us and my lawyer, Evan Chester, informed of your progress, right?”
That quickly they dismissed her. Lindsay chaffed slightly at their attitudes as Nick, Cooper, and Amos started going over all the details as if she didn’t have a right to have a voice in the discussion. Of course she didn’t have a voice at all right then, which left her grumpy and glaring at all three men. They ignored her, too engrossed in their own conversation to spare any attention for the woman they were all discussing.
It was a pretty detailed exchange. There were going to be seven men in her security detail. They were going to set up a surveillance system that would give them allow them to monitor every building within the ranch’s main complex and the yards between them. Given the number of buildings and the men that worked on the ranch, Amos wanted a list of where everybody was authorized to be and when.
That sounded outrageous to Lindsay but Cooper simply nodded and assured the old man he’d have the list to him by the end of the day. He didn’t even blink when Amos asked where Lindsay was allowed to go, like she was some child to be managed. She hated the comparison and hated that the only way to get that message across was to throw what the men would no doubt term a tantrum. That didn’t stop Lindsay from kicking her legs and thrashing her arms as she grunted at them.
“I guess maybe we should wait for Lindsay to recover before making that determination,” Cooper allowed while Nick came over to soothe her.
“Just until she can speak for herself,” Nick quickly tacked on, offering Lindsay a consolatory smile. “Alright, lil’ bit?”
No, it wasn’t but she didn’t have the patience to write out just what she was thinking right then. Instead she relied on her glower to back Nick off from where he held her hand in a patronizing attempt to soothe her rattled nerves.
“What about Carl Bryne?” Nick wisely changed the subject. “I assume you’re going to put him under some kind of surveillance.”
“Once we find him,” Amos assured them with a nod, only Cooper wasn’t so easily soothed.
“He’s missing?” Lindsay watched him perk up and knew instantly that he was alarmed.
“Last call from his cell phone came through your local tower, then nothing. No calls, no charges, no cash withdraws, and his secretary says that he’s visiting his daughter here in town.” Amos’s shrewd gaze shifted over to rest on her. “You wouldn’t happen to know where he’d have gone? Maybe he’s got a hideaway…or something.”
Lindsay shook her head. She didn’t have a clue. They’d never been that kind of close before. What she did know about him was that Carl wouldn’t retreat. He had to be around somewhere and definitely up to no good.
“Are you sure you traced all his accounts?” Cooper pressed. “A man as wealthy as Carl must have some money stashed somewhere that he could be using.”
“You’d think, but as far as our people can tell, Mr. Carl Bryne has liquidated almost all of his assets.”
“What?” Lindsay croaked, shocked into responding without thought. Nick instantly shushed her, pushing her legal pad and pen further up her lap. She snatched both up and began to scribble furiously. The three men waited patiently until she held up paper for them to read.
How many accounts? How much money?
“All of them,” Amos answered succinctly. “At far as we can tell, he’s drained every one of his savings, investment, even retirement accounts down to their minimum balances. He’s done the same with is overseas accounts, leaving him with only hard assets consisting of five houses and about a dozen cars. The only thing he didn’t touch were the business.”
It took her thirty seconds to scrawl out her two word retort. He wouldn’t.
“He did,” Amos shot back. “And as far as we can tell most of that money ended up in several South American banks except for the last one, which was a direct wire to a Russian bank for seven point five million dollars. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
Lindsay shook her head. No…This isn’t good news, is it?
“No.” Nick squeezed her hand as he drew her attention toward him with that blunt answer. “I’m sorry, lil’ bit. You trust went from millions to billions. You cut your stepfather off from it and he’s got to liquidate assets and transfer them to South America. None of that adds up to anything good.”
“I’m guessing Carl Bryne used your trust to launder drug money,” Amos injected. “When you took control of the trust you probably captured the cash, which he’s having to pay off now. The fact that he’s disappeared probably means he either didn’t have enough to cover the debt and somebody unpleasant caught up to him or he’s hiding so they don’t catch up with him.”
“And what does that mean for Lindsay?” Cooper demanded to know.
“It means my men have their job cut out for them. The most important thing right now is to find the money and return the money while keeping Lindsay in good health.” Amos pinned her with a hard look. “Of course, to do that we need an all-access pass to your accounts.”
Lindsay slowly nodded, still reeling from Amos’s conclusions. While a part of her had always known Carl was up to no good, she’d never thought he had the balls to do something as moronically stupid as go into business with drug dealers. She didn’t even know where he would have met any.
Lost in her own musin
gs, Lindsay barely paid Amos any attention as he warned her of the upcoming inquisition. She didn’t manage to avoid the matter for very long, though. No sooner had the big guy left then the uniforms and suits started showing up. From the state police to the state’s attorneys, everybody started showing up at her door looking for answers.
The only people who didn’t put in an appearance was the sheriff or any of his deputies. Apparently they’d all gone missing but for Travis Greene, who had been killed in a shootout with Crugman. Not that there was an official report on the matter, but local gossip claimed that Crugman had set the fire and then returned to the scene where he ran into Travis, who tried to arrest him and ended up getting himself killed instead. At least he’d managed to kill Crugman before he died.
While that appeased a good number of the locals, the whole story left Lindsay less than convinced. If Crugman had set the fire, he’d have fled. He wouldn’t have come back to the scene of the crime. Besides, something in her gut told Lindsay it wasn’t him. She only wished she could know that for a fact but every time she tried to think of that night, she drew a blank.
All Lindsay remembered was Nick leaving and a set of headlight shining bright in the yard. According to the doctors, when a person got bonked on the head it short-circuited their memories, like somebody unplugging the DVR—nothing got recorded. That left her frustrated and anxious, two conditions that did not improve with her discharge from the hospital.
Having an armed escort out to a waiting Hummer did not make her feel in the slightest bit calm or relaxed. Cooper and Nick hadn’t ridden with her but followed in Cooper’s truck, leaving Lindsay tucked in between two strangers and trapped in the large utility vehicle with four more. All six battle-ready men radiated an intense alertness that had her praying that none of them decided to snap and go on some kind homicidal killing spree.
It took forty-five minutes to get to the ranch and the whole time Lindsay sat stiff and still, hoping to draw no notice or attention. She couldn’t avoid it when they arrived home. The minute the vehicle came to a stop the men started moving, forcing her with their sheer bulk to go along. Before she knew what was going on she was standing in the yard, surrounded by men being hustled straight up a pair of porch steps and into a living room that no longer looked like the Garden of Eden.