“It sounds good in theory. What kind of things are you passionate about? I know you like art.”
She nodded, settling back down into the kitchen chair. “I am, but I think my real love has always been photography. I used to take photos all of the time and wanted to have my own gallery showing someday.”
“I don’t know what’s involved with that but it sounds like an ambitious goal.”
A smile curved her full lips. “I’d love to take some pictures of you at work. All the cops, actually. Real life police work with real life police. Do you think I could do that?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “It would probably be fine, but I think you don’t perhaps realize how incredibly boring police work actually is.”
“Do you miss it?”
She was staring down at her coffee as if it was fascinating. “Ask the real question, because I’m doing cop work right now.”
She looked up, her eyes wide. “I don’t want you to lose your job. What if this goes on for a long time? Eventually you’re going to run out of vacation time.”
Snorting, he took another sip of his coffee. “I have a hell of a lot to burn but you’re right. At some point, decisions will have to be made.”
“Willow suggested hiring a security firm.”
He shook his head. “We quickly discarded that idea. Trust no one, remember? People can be bought and Evandria has deep pockets.”
She threw up her hands. “Then what will we do? I want you to be able to do your job and I know you want to keep me safe. I’m not sure you can do both.”
He’d thought about this very question, late at night after everyone was asleep. The few options they had weren’t ideal but they were…possible.
“There are ways,” he began slowly, not sure that this moment was the best for revealing schemes that were clearly on the insane side. “We could go underground. Get new identities and start a new life.”
That she didn’t laugh out loud at him was a plus. Maybe the idea wasn’t as absurd as he thought it was. “New identities? I thought that was something that only happened in books and in movies.”
“You’d be surprised. As a cop, I’ve heard of criminals getting a whole new life when they’re on the run. I’m told there are specialists out there that can create a new person on the computer and insert them into databases all over the world as if they were there all along. For a price, of course.”
Her brows pinched together. “You could be a cop with a fake identity?”
“Stranger things have happened. The government does stuff like this all the time for people in Witness Protection.”
“I imagine they would do a better job than some criminal in a basement churning out fake passports.”
Chuckling inwardly, Ellis didn’t ruin Peyton’s naïveté, but he was almost positive that those people were one and the same. Government guys who picked up a little cash on the side for their “retirement”.
Ellis smiled. “How do you know they’re in a basement?”
“I don’t know—that’s just how I picture it. Sweaty guys poring over ill-lit desks in a dark room, furtively hiding from the law.”
Holy hell. “You’ve watched way too many movies.”
She was quiet again and he could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she played with the handle of her coffee mug.
“You’d be giving up a lot,” she finally said. “I’m not sure I could ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking me,” he said easily. “I thought this up on my own. Listen, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, okay? But if it does, just know that I’ll walk into it with you and not look back. It might be kind of cool to get a second chance at my life. Maybe I’ll be smarter and more handsome next go around.”
That drew a laugh out of her. “Definitely. I’d like to be taller.”
He reached for her hand. “Chase, Josh, and I are going to talk about this when they get here. They’re a hell of a lot smarter than I am so they will have thought about this too. I’m sure of it. My whole thinking is that we need to disappear but they could have much better plans. Let’s just see how things go over the next few weeks.”
The sound of a car engine outside instantly had Ellis on alert. It was probably Chase and Josh but he couldn’t be too careful. “Stay here while I see who it is.”
He stood but she captured his arm and pulled him down so they were face to face. Her arm went around his neck and their noses brushed just before their lips did the same. The kiss was full of hunger and he gladly let her take control of it, content to follow her lead. He was only beginning to plumb the depths of this woman’s passion. Greg Nelson was a fucking idiot but his loss was Ellis’s gain.
He lifted his head and enjoyed the pink on her cheeks and her slightly swollen lips. “I better go see if it’s Chase and Josh before they come barging in here. I’m going to have them park their vehicle in the garage and come in the back way.”
It was good his friends were here. The case had stalled, they were hiding out for their lives, and no one would tell them the truth. He needed to make something happen or they’d be stuck here going nowhere. Waiting for someone to kill them.
Chapter Seventeen
Dinner was eaten and the dishes washed. The men were in the living room discussing the state of the case and Peyton was in the kitchen with Willow and Bailey, working on the puzzle. Or drinking wine and working on the puzzle. The dogs were snoozing on Josh and Willow’s bed.
“Chase has been in a terrible mood these last few days,” Bailey confessed, her voice low so she wouldn’t be overheard by anyone but the women. “He can’t get the senator to return his calls. The frustration practically radiates off of him.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “As mellow as Josh is, he’s even been a little testy. That whole thing where they tried to break in has him walking the house, locked and loaded. He’s paranoid as hell, too. Soon he’s going to be looking for the black helicopters.”
Fiddling with the stem of her glass, Peyton snuck a look out of the kitchen to the living room where Ellis was deep in conversation with his friends. She wanted to know what they were talking about.
“We’re all paranoid as hell,” Bailey sighed. “I used to be a normal person that lived a normal life—now I can’t even go to the ATM without wondering who’s watching.”
“Everybody,” Peyton said with a grimace. “The government, the banks, and Evandria. I’m pretty sure they watch everything.”
Willow looked around the old-fashioned kitchen. “Except here. There’s no Wi-Fi, not even a cordless phone. There is a landline hooked to the wall but it doesn’t work. There’s no cable television, only rabbit ears. This safe house is seriously old school. Good job on finding it.”
“We didn’t really find it. It’s my mother’s, something she’s apparently kept a secret from my father and everyone else.”
“Did she grow up here?” Bailey asked.
The idea of that made Peyton laugh. “Not at all. She grew up on an estate in Rhode Island. Ellis and I have our theories as to why she owns this house and held on to it for so long but I think the most probable one is that it was an investment.”
It was Willow’s turn to frown. “If this is an investment, she needs a new property manager. No one in their right mind is going to rent this place unless they’re looking to reenact the Bicentennial.” She shook her head. “This has all the earmarks of a sentimental act. Maybe someone she knew and loved lived here.”
“Your grandmother, maybe?” Bailey suggested. “Or a close friend?”
“My grandmother’s family had big money so they wouldn’t have lived here. Maybe a nanny?” Peyton mentally ran through what her mother had said about her past and realized it wasn’t all that much. Just a bunch of family stuff about honor and tradition but few specifics. “As for friends, this is going to sound terrible but I don’t think she has any. Not close ones. She has ladies she lunches with and sits on charity boards with, but no one that I kn
ow of that would be someone that she would confide in.”
“She has to have at least one close friend,” Willow declared. “Every woman does. Think back to her childhood. Did she mention anyone?”
Peyton shook her head. “I swear she didn’t. I’m sure she has a close friend but she doesn’t talk about it. Mother always said that ladies didn’t speak of personal matters so she wouldn’t mention a confidant.”
Bailey’s brows went up. “Maybe she had a close friend who passed away and they lived here. That would explain why you never heard about it and this house was never updated. Sort of like a shrine to their friendship.”
Peyton’s mother was not one for shows of sentiment but it was possible. “Maybe we could do some sort of deed search on the house and find out who owned it prior to my mother.”
“That’s a great idea,” Willow agreed. “There has to be some sort of online search for that.”
Bailey laughed and looked around the retro kitchen. “If only we had the modern convenience of the internet, but we don’t even have a dishwasher.”
“We do,” Peyton giggled. “Ellis.”
“What are you ladies laughing about in there?” Josh yelled from the living room, drawing more giggles from the three women. “We could use a chuckle.”
“We were laughing about you,” Willow yelled back, a smirk on her face. “You stay out there. No boys allowed in our clubhouse.”
“Have you made any progress on the puzzle?” Bailey asked, digging cookies out of the pantry.
“None,” Peyton admitted with a sigh. “As Ellis keeps reminding me, it might not even be a puzzle. It just bugs me. Why would Alex have a list of names and addresses where the streets all don’t exist? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“None of this makes any sense,” Willow replied. “As for that list, it might have made sense to Alex or he might not have even known the addresses were bogus. Toward the end he wasn’t very coherent. He could have messed up those addresses because he was drunk.”
“He could have,” Peyton conceded. “I just think it’s worth looking at.”
Josh, Chase, and Ellis appeared at the entrance to the kitchen wearing grim expressions that made Peyton’s stomach tighten with apprehension. Chase held up his phone and then handed it to Bailey.
“I think you need to look at your email, babe.”
Although they were all using burner phones at this point, they were still checking their email occasionally. Bailey reached for her wine glass instead of the phone.
“I’m guessing you’ve been monitoring my inbox, so why don’t you just tell me?”
“Nigel sent you an email. He wants to talk to you, to all of us,” Chase replied, holding out the phone again. “Will you call him back?”
This time she did accept it. “I will. Speaker again?”
Ellis leaned against the wall. “Please. Let’s try and find out where he is and what state Evandria is in. Also, see if he knows about the attempts to take you.”
“And if he’s aware of where we are now,” Josh added. “We think we’re under the radar but I’d like to know for sure.”
Ellis and Chase nodded in agreement.
Nodding, Bailey dialed Nigel’s number. He picked up on the third ring.
“Uncle Nigel, it’s Bailey. I got your email.”
“I’m glad you could call me back, child. I only have a few moments to talk though. We’re very busy here getting things set up. Are your friends there?”
Ellis nodded.
“Willow and Peyton?” Bailey asked. “Yes, they’re here.”
“Good. I’m going to something quite unorthodox here but this situation is so out of the ordinary it seems to demand it. I’m going to invite you to Archer’s trial.”
Everything else Bailey was supposed to find out seemed completely unimportant. They were all huddled around the kitchen table, leaning in to catch every word Nigel Holmwood might say.
“That’s…that’s amazing,” Bailey stuttered in surprise. “I didn’t know something like that was even possible.”
“It’s not our usual process but clearly this is a delicate situation and we want to be sure that you see that Evandria is taking this seriously. It’s tomorrow at seven sharp. Will you be here? Are you even in Florida?”
They all nodded but of course he couldn’t hear them so Bailey answered out loud.
“We can be there. Is that where you are, Uncle Nigel?”
“Yes, my dear, there is much to do before tomorrow night. I do need to go now. They’ll have your information at the gate. I’ll see you then.”
He was gone before Bailey could ask him any more questions. Stunned, no one said anything for awhile, trying to digest what had just happened.
“It could be a huge trap,” Ellis finally said. “They may not know where we are and they’re trying to draw us out.”
Josh crossed his arms over his chest. “Or they really are inviting us to the trial. But I doubt it’s out of the goodness of their hearts. There has to be a purpose for them to do this.”
“A show of Evandria power,” Willow murmured. “These people are all about the power. What better way to display it than to take down their leader right in front of us and their members?”
“So what do we do?” Chase asked, frustration in his tone. “If we go, we risk being found and all that goes with that. If we stay, we miss the possibility of getting into Evandria and seeing this go down.”
“Actually,” Bailey piped up. “They didn’t invite all of us. They invited the three of us.”
Ellis shook his head. “Hell, no. You ladies are not going in there by yourselves.”
“It’s up to us,” Willow said softly. “They were our husbands and this is our decision.”
Peyton nodded in agreement and Ellis groaned his disapproval. She wasn’t going to make his life easy and say no.
“You said so yourself that this case is at a dead-end,” she pointed out. “This is our chance to make something happen. See what we can find out. I don’t think we can afford to turn this down.”
“You could get yourself killed,” Ellis growled, his brows pulled down. “Don’t ask me to stand by and let you do that.”
Bailey raised her hand. “I’m in.”
Chase scowled, his jaws snapping together.
“I’m in, too,” Willow said drawing instant ire from Josh, who paced the linoleum floor muttering under his breath.
Everyone had turned to Peyton but she was ready. “I’m in. This might be our only chance.”
Ellis turned and strode out of the kitchen, and her heart sank as he disappeared around the corner. She couldn’t turn her back on this opportunity, even if it meant turning away from the man she was falling in love with.
She picked up the wine bottle and refilled their glasses. They were going to need it.
“Now, what’s the plan?”
Chapter Eighteen
The plan was risky but worth a try. None of the men wanted the women out of their sight, so at about midnight when they were all cranky and exhausted from arguing about it, Peyton had thrown up her hands in frustration.
“Just come along with us,” she said, rubbing her forehead and yawning. “What’s the worst thing that can happen? They won’t let you in and you wait outside the gate for us.”
That was enough of a compromise to let them move forward. There were plans and contingency plans, and emergency plans but it all boiled down to one fact.
This was a huge risk and they could all end up dead.
Despite the danger hanging over her head, Peyton had managed to get some sleep but had awoken early just as the first bars of morning sun filtered through the curtains. Pulling on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, she softly crept into the living room to see Ellis on the couch still asleep, a rare occurrence. Once he smelled the coffee, though, he’d be wide awake.
She was sipping her first cup when he joined in her in the kitchen, his dark hair delightfully rumpled. “It’s not often yo
u beat me out of bed.”
“You were exhausted last night, not just from the activities of the day but from arguing with me for five hours. Chase and Josh gave up at three and a half.”
He sat down at the table, his large hands dwarfing the mug. “I have more stamina.”
“We have to do this.”
He groaned and rubbed the stubble on his face. “I haven’t had enough caffeine to shoot down that argument, princess. But I did do some thinking after everyone went to bed and you’re right.”
Scalding coffee burned her tongue. “Did you just say that I’m right? I cannot have heard you correctly.”
“Haha, very funny. You’re right in that we have to make something happen. We’ve lost momentum and we’re spinning our wheels. Do we need to march into the lion’s den like six walking T-bone steaks? Not necessarily.”
“I’m open to better ideas.”
His shoulders slumped. “I don’t have any. As a cop the only thing I know to do is go back and start at the beginning. Go over the evidence and see if there’s something we missed. I think we should do that anyway, no matter what happens tonight.”
“I agree, but Nigel has had the opportunity to kill us and he didn’t do it. Why would he wait until now?”
It was as if what she’d said had electrified him. He was fidgeting in his chair, his feet and hands moving nervously.
“It’s funny you should mention that. This entire case has me twisted into knots. It’s something else I was thinking about last night. Something that’s been bugging me for days. For a world class organization with basically unlimited resources they are lousy at covert operations. Just terrible. They suck. Think about that for a moment.” He hopped up from his chair, pacing the small space. “They tried to bug your homes but we found them. They tried to kill Holmwood. They failed. They tried to kill Hollister. Another failure and they failed to hurt us along with that. We were slowed down by some traffic that night. A cop car and a firetruck blocked the lanes but when we got up to them there wasn’t any accident that I could see.”
Kiss Midnight Goodbye (Midnight Blue Beach Book 3) Page 12