Oh, my god. It was so much worse than she imagined. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Do you need anything? I mean, um … from the house?”
“Yeah,” he gritted heavily. “Grab my go-bag. Just in case.”
It was hard to reply, but she did. Barely. “On it. Be there soon.”
And then she ran at high speed, taking the stairs two at a time while ripping the shirt over her head. The baby was napping, so she had a chance for a quick shower. Then she’d pack his stuff and drop Daniel off with Carmen.
All hands needed to be on deck. There was a Justice crisis and being involved was not optional.
Remy shifted her stool to the right just a smidge. The light constantly changed as the sun moved across the sky, and she was focusing on one particular spot, so a bit of movement was necessary.
The view from the arched doors opening onto a wide deck, from her second-floor apartment above the former Justice business center, offered a spectacular view of a mountain range she was particularly in love with. Setting up her easel to paint the amazing scenery surrounding her was how she relaxed.
It was also the best way she knew how to shut up the nagging voices talking at once in her head. Can’t mix paint and argue a point at the same time.
I should get a cat, one of her inner narrators chimed in.
Oh sure, she thought. A cat to shake things up at what was essentially a canine retreat. That sounded like a peachy-keen idea.
Shading and re-shading a section of sky, she concentrated on producing the right hue of blue-gray and tamped down the useless inner chatter.
Remy wished she were one of those people who could pop in a pair of earbuds and block out everything else.
“Hey, Rembrandt,” she heard Jace call out.
Standing, she went to the railing on the deck and peered down.
“You got the memo about this being my day off, right?” she snapped.
“Since when do I have to give a shit about your downtime?”
His smartass response was part of the reason she kept him around. Jace knew her, maybe better than most, and he never shied away from leveling the playing field when she got up on her high horse.
“What do you want?”
He held up a bag and wagged his eyebrows. “Mike did a run through In-N-Out. Animal fries and a double double. You in?”
When had she ever said no to a bag full of In-N-Out?
“You joking? Get your ass up here! And run.”
Her cousin laughed, saluted her, and headed for the stairs.
She went through the motions of a hasty cleanup and made sure her brushes were okay. As Jace came through the door, she hollered, “Pour me an iced tea, would you? I’ll be right there.”
It only took a few minutes to wash her hands and apply a good coating of lotion. The mineral spirits she used wreaked havoc on her hands. So did working on cars and the other thousand things she did each day.
Jace was already digging into his burger when she sat down. Wiping a glob of spread off his mouth with a paper napkin, he rolled his eyes and groaned. “Food of the fucking gods, man.”
“Say that in French and I might believe you.”
“Aw, come on, little lady,” he drawled in an exaggerated cowboy dialect. “What happened to our tequila-infused vow?”
“What?” She laughed. “You mean that half-assed blood cousins thing and the solemn oath to leave our Napoleonic roots behind?”
“Yeah! That very thing.” He chortled.
“Nourriture des dieux putains,” Remy murmured quietly.
“You’ve been at the Rosetta Stone again, haven’t you?”
She rolled a shoulder and dug into the gooey fries. “Never cared about learning the language before.”
“And now?”
“Bored,” she answered with a mouth full of melted cheesy goodness.
“I hear that,” he quipped in response. “Not a lot of social interaction out here. Well, not unless you count Busty’s for breakfast and Pete’s for drowning your sorrows.”
They ate quietly and then Jace muttered, “You probably need a date. Take the edge off.”
First, she stiffened and then, she nearly choked on her food. Hacking up a french fry caught in her throat, she glared at him through watery eyes as she gulped some tea to help wash everything down.
“Don’t,” she told him tersely.
“Don’t what? Don’t poke you from time to time as a reminder that you’re a grown woman and what happened to you is in the past.”
Before she could alter the pithy remark, she snidely barked, “Yeah, well, I don’t DO men.”
“And that, right there, would be my point, cuz. Being pissed off and angry is your right, Remy. You got handed a fucked-up deal. But what about now? It wouldn’t hurt, you know, to socialize a little. Maybe hang out. See what’s available locally. Man wise, I mean.”
Completely unbidden, a flash fire of hot embarrassment lit up her face.
“Shut your trap, Jace.”
He searched her face and snickered. “Hit more than a nerve. Care to confess something?”
Her appetite vanished along with whatever was left of her good mood.
Deciding her best option was to say nothing and give away less, she picked at her fries with a disinterested air. Fat lot of good that did her.
“Saw Finn earlier,” her cousin announced.
Her hand shot out without her control, hit the saltshaker, sent it flying through the air and onto the floor. When she jerked and tried to stop it from happening, her elbow landed in the cheese-covered fries.
Muttering darkly under her breath, she ran to the sink and wet a cloth to help wipe the goo off her arm. Jace continued to eat but watched her with a smirky expression.
“So. Finn O’Brien, hmm? Personally, I can’t stand the guy,” he bitched when she sat down. “Needs an ass kicking. But he sure has managed to ruffle your feathers, Ms. Bisset.”
If any other human being on the planet knew the true dirty about how damaged she was, it was Jace. No one, not the uptight military psychologist or that gum-chewing social worker she’d had to contend with, knew anything more than the cold, hard facts. The ones in the official report. The ones she recited in a military investigation.
But Jace? He knew it all. Or most of it. Some shit she still hadn’t come to terms with and carried deep inside with a crushing fear that it would happen again. He wasn’t going to let her brush off his direct challenge about Finn. And maybe that was a good thing.
“He rattles my cage,” she replied in a bland monotone. “I don’t like it.”
Chewing slowly, her cousin listened and nodded. “So what are you going to do about it?”
She threw her plastic fork down and angrily muttered. “Shit.”
“Uh-oh.” Jace chuckled. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Arrogant, pushy prick,” she muttered. Slamming her elbows on the table, Remy leaned her chin against her clasped hands and met Jace’s amused gaze. “He pushed me into a corner.”
“What corner?”
“Aargh!” she growled. “He’s making me go to dinner with him.”
Jace sat forward suddenly and playfully pretended to choke on his food. “How the hell did he ‘make you’ do anything, Remy?”
Refusing to look away, even though a growing sense of embarrassment continued to make her twitchy, she kept her chin on her hands and made a face of grudging surrender. “He asked. Well”—she snorted—“actually, he kind of yelled at me. There was no real asking.”
She saw her lunch companion try to hide a smile with his napkin. “Did he have some sort of Boston asshole episode or was it a case of temporary insanity? Why in the world would he make you go to dinner?”
“Some sort of business thing, he said.”
“What sort of business? They offering office space these days for spoiled brats with more stupidity than sense?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Hmph. You do know he’s younger t
han you are, right?”
Her hand slapped palm down on the table. “Fuck you, Jace. A couple of years is no big deal.”
Finding what she said fantastically funny from the way he belted out a laugh, he eventually fixed her with a knowing look and made a case, which only her cousin could.
“Let’s review, shall we?”
“Oh god,” she moaned. “Let’s not but say we did.”
He ignored her and kept on.
“Finn O’Brien rattles your cage. You don’t like it. Your answer to dealing with him is to go on a date. That he forced you into despite both of us knowing nobody forces you to do anything.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Soooo not true. There was that one time …”
“And that would be the reason why, Remington,” he said quietly when he saw where her mind went.
“Yet, somehow, this obnoxious fucker ends up with you on his arm and incredibly jumping to his unnecessary defense when all I said was that he’s younger than you are.”
“Wait,” she added with scathing mockery. “It gets better.”
“For real? Hmph.” He chuckled. “Maybe I should give the dick another chance. Especially if what gets better rattled your cage even more.”
She gave him the finger. “He made some stupid comment about me being a tomboy when what he needed was a real woman and then,” she said with a bit too much shouted excitement. “And then the obnoxious shit told me to dress like a girl! Can you believe the nerve of this guy?”
“So what are you wearing?” he asked matter-of-factly.
“Damned if I know,” she responded sullenly.
A pack of wandering coyotes in the next county could hear Jace bawling with laughter, that was how loud he was.
“No way!” He chortled with hiccupping glee. “You’re actually thinking about dressing like an actual human female, aren’t you?”
“What’s wrong with how I dress?” she asked grudgingly. “This is the desert, not a New York runway, for Christ’s sake.”
“Remy. Look at what you’re wearing. What the fuck is that outfit called? Penniless artist along the Seine? Shit, girl. Baggy overalls? Paint stained at that! And an AC/DC t-shirt?”
“I was painting,” she groused uncomfortably because she knew he was right.
“Your idea of getting dressed up is brushing your hair and putting on clean sneakers.”
“Oh, yeah?” she snapped when her feelings got hurt. “Well, you wear skinny jeans. Or used to,” she hastily added when it dawned on her that Jace had been through quite a transformation in the months he’d been in Arizona.
The guy who’d been her rock during a difficult time patted her hand and smile warmly. “Be that as it may, Remy. It wouldn’t hurt you to remember who you are. Who you used to be. Give it a try. Couldn’t hurt.”
A MORE STILTED or uncomfortable meal wasn’t possible, Drae thought as the five of them gathered around the table in Lacey’s kitchen.
Between Alex and Meghan exchanging pained looks, Lacey walking around like a ghost, and Victoria trying her damnedest to keep as much distance between them as possible, he felt like a helpless kid while all the adults in the room were acting strangely.
They were eating in awkward silence when he and Alex looked up at the same time. A notification was posting on Cam’s computer. Without any hesitation, they both jumped up and scrambled into the study.
“What is it?” Lacey asked breathlessly when she followed seconds later. “Is it Cameron?”
“Hold on,” Alex scolded with his hand up. Peering over the big man’s shoulder, they read the long, detailed message in unison. Their contact at State was responding, and it seemed initially as though the news was good. Or better than it could have been.
But as they read on, the real-time information got less detailed and more ambiguous. They were already aware of the Karachi to Paris transfer. What they really needed to know was whether the bombing in Paris had anything to do with the safe house and whether Cam was still under deep cover.
Victoria had her arm around a pale and shaking Lacey while Meghan stood on Alex’s other side and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Honey?”
Drae looked at his wife and tried to communicate with his expression—telling her it wasn’t great news, but it was good information. Then he waited to hear what the Major thought.
“I think he’s okay. There’s a lot of gray language in this, but I’m sensing there’s more to this situation with Cameron than meets the eye. Do you agree, Drae?” he asked with a hard glance at him over a shoulder.
He didn’t immediately respond. They were missing something. A key piece to the puzzle, and without it, none of this would ever make sense.
Looking at Lacey, he asked, “Honey, explain to us again exactly what happened the day Cam left.”
“Um, okay,” she said silkily. “Well, let’s see. It was quite early. Dylan gets up at first light, so we were still in our pajamas and had set up for breakfast in the kitchen when they showed up.”
“Okay, stop,” Drae instructed. “Nice and slow. Who showed up and how did they get here?”
“Oh,” she said with her fingers twining through her long ponytail. “Calder told me later he and Stephanie were on a sunrise ride when they saw a line of black SUVs speeding along the access road. They were already past the turnoff, so he figured from the get-go that with Alex gone, the attention would be on Cameron or you, Drae.”
“So from the first second, it was clear the agency wasn’t involved.”
“Right.”
He and Alex exchanged a dark look and seemed to both think, Fuck, at the same time.
“What happened when they got here?”
“Well, Cameron heard the cars approaching. Because it was so early, he went to check it out.”
“Did he seem concerned at that point?” Alex asked.
Lacey’s eyes widened. “Yes. I’ve never seen him like that. The minute he saw the caravan of black vehicles, something came over him. A hardness. He was … guarded. I remember he looked at the baby for a long time. And then he told me to stay put. That he’d go see what was up and come tell me if it was anything important.”
“Were you able to see or hear any conversations?”
“Not at first,” she explained. “Several people came to the door, and another group of men circled the house. They were outside the kitchen door,” she said with a nod of her head at the patio. “And then an agent in a black suit wearing an earpiece came into the kitchen and wouldn’t let me leave.”
Ah jeez, he thought. This was no simple seek and find. The black suits don’t drop by for a visit with no reason in mind.
“Calder and Stephanie tried to come to the kitchen and a ruckus broke out when the agents outside stopped them. It was scary. The guy watching me had a hand on his gun. I didn’t know what to think.”
“Take your pick,” Alex growled. “CIA. FBI. NSA.”
“Oh, no,” Lacey told them vehemently with a shake of her head. “They were Secret Service. And maybe a senator or something like that. Didn’t Cameron’s message to you, Drae, explain that?”
“Message? What message? I didn’t get any message.”
Alex sneered and gave a violent shake of his head. “Those motherfuckers blasted the area with white noise. Anything he tried to send while they were on property vanished into thin air.”
“When you spoke to Cam, what did he say?”
“Said they called him in. Oh, and there was an argument. Raised voices. He was mad. Really, really mad.”
Victoria spoke up. “Lacey, did you have your iPad that morning? Where is it now?
“Um, it’s in the drawer over there.” She pointed. “And, yeah, it was in Cameron’s office. I shredded my lightning cord, and he was charging it for me.”
Drae watched his wife retrieve the tablet and power it on. Then Alex suddenly perked up and barked, “Tori! You’re fucking brilliant.”
“What’s going on?” Drae asked.
“Lacey’s iPad pretty much never goes on the network. Cam would know that. If he tried to access his computer, he’d know right away about being blocked. Do the math.”
“I use it for school, not as a toy. Don’t need another distraction. When I want to upload a file or email an assignment, I connect to our Wi-Fi and then disconnect when I’m finished. And that morning? Cameron had me bring up his email, but it wasn’t working.”
Alex smiled for the first time all day. “If I know Cam, he left a message on the iPad and made sure it wasn’t connected or set to Bluetooth. No connection, no white noise wiping everything clean.”
“Found it,” Tori said. “It’s in Notes. Here,” she said, handing the small device to him and Alex. “Read.”
Five lines. And it was enough. All in their unique Justice code so even a prying busybody wouldn’t know the content.
“Whoa,” Alex muttered.
“Good lord,” Drae agreed. “No wonder there’s an information blackout.”
Lacey wanted to see the note, but the words made no sense.
“We were all correct about one thing. This is no ordinary seek-and-find. He’s deep cover to find a high-value target with American ties that would suggest it’s somebody pretty important.”
“Um, guys,” Meghan interrupted. “I was just checking on my phone for CNN updates about the bombing.”
“What’s going on?” Alex asked.
“Half a page beneath the top news stories, there’s a report about the Vice President’s grandson being in a car accident overseas. London, it says. He’s being med-evacked by the military and brought back to the States.”
Drae was incredulous. “That seems oddly coincidental, doesn’t it?”
“Sorry,” Lacey murmured. “Can someone explain what’s going on?”
“Sweetie,” his wife answered gently. “I think what this means is the high-value seek-and-find was the grandson.”
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