by Paula Graves
Trask frowned. Missing bride, dead groom, professional-looking hit—nothing seemed to fit. “You said man of honor.”
The deputy flipped back a page or two in his notepad. “Owen Stiles. Apparently the bride’s best friend from childhood.”
Stiles. The name sounded familiar. “What do we know about Stiles?”
“Not much. His mother is here for the wedding. She’s the one who told us she couldn’t find him. By the way, according to the man of honor’s mother, their cars are still in the church parking lot.”
Trask looked up at the deputy’s words. “You’re telling me the bride and her best friend took a flyer and left their cars behind?”
“Looks like. We’ve already checked the tags and they’re registered to our missing persons.”
Well, now, Archer thought. That was a surprising twist. “Let’s get an APB out on both of them. Persons of interest in a murder for now. We need to check if either of them have another vehicle, too.”
“I’ll call it in.” The deputy finished jotting notes and headed out of the room.
Trask looked down at the dead man lying facedown on the floor. Poor bastard, he thought. All dressed up and nowhere to go.
* * *
“DO YOU, TARA, take Robert as your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold from this day forward. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others...” The pastor’s intonation rang in Tara’s head, making it throb. She wanted to run, but her feet were stuck to the floor as if her shoes were nailed to it. She tried to tug her feet from the shoes, but they wouldn’t budge.
Breathing became difficult behind the veil that had seemed to mold itself around her head and neck, tightening at her throat. She attempted to claw it away, but the more she pulled at the veil, the more it constricted her.
“Owen!” she cried, the sound muffled and puny. She knew he was here somewhere. Owen would never let anything bad happen to her.
“I’m here.” His voice was a warm rumble in her ear, but she couldn’t see him.
“Owen, please.”
Arms wrapped around her from behind. Owen’s arms, strong and bracing. The veil fell away and she could breathe again. Her feet pulled loose from the floor and she turned to face her rescuer.
Owen gazed at her, his face so familiar, so right, even in the shadows.
“You awake now?”
The shadows cleared, and she realized where she was. It was the old Boy Scouts camp cabin in the woods. Night had passed, and with it the rain. Misty sunlight was peeking through the trees outside and slanting into the cabin through the dusty windows.
And she was wrapped up tightly in Owen’s arms on the mattress they shared.
“Yes,” she answered.
“You were dreaming. Must have been a bad one.”
She forced a smile, the frightening remnants of her nightmare lingering. “Just a stress dream. You know, late for class.”
“You called out to me.”
She eased away from his embrace and sat up. “Probably wanted you to do my algebra homework for me.”
He sat up, too. The blanket spilled down to his waist, revealing his lean torso. She rarely saw him shirtless, and it came as a revelation. Owen might not be bulked up like a bodybuilder, but his shoulders were broad, his stomach flat and his chest well-toned. He’d talked often about Campbell Cove Security’s training facilities, which were apparently part of the company’s connected training academy, but she’d been so wrapped up in her wedding plans she hadn’t listened as closely as she should have.
“Did you hear it, too?” he asked in a half whisper, and she realized he’d been talking to her while she was ogling his body.
She lowered her voice to match his. “Hear what?”
“Voices. I think I’m hearing voices outside. Listen.”
Tara listened. He was right. The voices were faint, but they were there. “A woman and a man,” she whispered. “Can’t make out what they’re saying.”
“Maybe one of those kids did tell their parents about seeing us last night.” Owen rose, grabbing his shirt from where it lay on the floor nearby and slipping it on as he crossed to the cabin’s front window. Tara noticed that grime had smudged the snowy-white fabric.
“Can you see anyone?” she whispered.
He nodded. “They look normal.”
“By normal, I assume you mean nonhomicidal.”
He turned to flash her a quick grin. “Exactly.”
“Maybe we should go out and meet them. It’ll look less suspicious.”
“Good idea.” He glanced her way. “Wrap the blanket around your bottom half. It’ll be hard to explain half a wedding dress.”
Smart, she thought, and grabbed the blanket that had been covering them to wrap around her. She joined him at the door. “Ready?”
He took her hand. “Let’s not tell them what really happened. Too hard to explain. I’m just going to say we’re newlyweds whose car broke down in the storm.”
“Okay.” She twined her fingers with him and followed him onto the porch, surprising the couple approaching the cabin through the underbrush.
“Oh!” the woman exclaimed as they came to a quick halt. “I reckon y’all are real after all.”
“You must be the parents of one of the kids we scared last night,” Owen said with an engaging smile. “Sorry about that.”
The woman, a plump brunette with a friendly smile, waved off his apology. “Don’t you worry about that. Those young ’uns had no business bein’ out here in the middle of a rainstorm. But we figured we should at least come out here and make sure you weren’t in some kind of trouble.”
The man grimaced at the cabin. “Y’all had to sleep here last night?”
“Sadly, yes,” Owen said. “Our car broke down late yesterday afternoon, and then the rain hit, so we had to settle for what shelter we could find. And then, to our complete horror, we discovered we’d both left our cell phones at the church. So we couldn’t even call for a tow.”
The woman took in their appearances—the beaded bodice of Tara’s torn dress, Owen’s grimy white tuxedo shirt and black pants—and jumped to the obvious conclusion. “You’re newlyweds, aren’t you? Bless your hearts—this is where you spent your wedding night?”
Owen laughed, pulling Tara closer. “It’ll be quite the story to tell on our golden anniversary, won’t it? I don’t suppose we could borrow a phone to call for help?”
“Of course you could.” The woman dug in the pocket of her jeans and provided a cell phone. “Here you go.”
“Thank you so much.” Owen took the phone and went back inside the cabin to make the call, leaving Tara to talk to the friendly couple.
“Do you live close?” Tara asked.
“Half a mile. Kind of hard to see the place through all the trees. If it was winter, you’d probably have seen us and not had to spend the night here,” the husband said. “I’m Frank Tyler, by the way. This is my wife, Elaine.”
“Tara B—Stiles. Tara Stiles, and my husband’s name is Owen.” Tara smiled, even though her stomach was starting to ache from the tension of lying to this nice couple. But Owen was right. As crazy as the “newlyweds with car trouble” story was, the truth was so much more problematic.
Owen came back out to the porch, a smile pasted on his face. But Tara knew him well enough to know that his smile was covering deep anxiety. It glittered in his eyes, tense and jittery. He handed the phone back to Elaine Tyler. “Thank you so much. I’ve called someone for a tow, so we’re set.”
“Glad we could help. You know, we could drive you to where your car is parked.”
“Not necessary. I’ve arranged for someone to meet us on Old Camp Road. Easy walk from here to there. You should get back to your family.” Owen shook Frank Tyler’s
hand, then Elaine’s. “Thank you again.”
“Yes, thank you so much,” Tara added, smiling brightly to hide her growing worry. Who had Owen called and what had he heard?
When the Tylers were out of earshot, Tara moved closer to Owen. “What’s wrong?”
He caught her hand, his expression pained. “Tara, I don’t know how to break this to you. Robert’s dead.”
She stared at Owen, not comprehending. “What?”
“He’s dead. Shot, from what my boss told me.”
She covered her mouth with one shaky hand, not certain what she was feeling. Her fiancé was dead. The man she’d been close to marrying. Even if she had become convinced he wasn’t the man for her, it didn’t mean she hadn’t cared deeply for him.
And now he was gone? Just like that?
It was crazy. It had to be wrong.
“This has to be a mistake,” she said, her legs suddenly feeling like jelly.
Owen led her to the steps and eased her into a sitting position on the top step. Ignoring the uncomfortable dampness of the wood, she turned to look at Owen as he settled down beside her and wrapped one strong arm around her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
He leaned his head against hers. “Yes.”
She sighed. “Just get it over with.”
“Robert was murdered at the church around the time you and I were taken by the kidnappers. Nobody knew where we went, so—”
“So now we’re the prime suspects,” she finished for him.
Chapter Four
“How long do you think it’ll take your boss to get here?”
Owen looked away from the empty road, taking in the lines of tension in Tara’s weary face. “He should be here soon. It’s not that far from the office to here.”
He didn’t know how to comfort her when his own nerves were stretched to the breaking point. How had they gone from kidnap victims to murder suspects in the span of a few hours? And how could they ever prove their story? The only evidence left was a wad of duct tape still hidden in his tux pants, which was hardly dispositive. Any ether left in Tara’s system would be long gone by now, and any ether that might have been deposited on her hair and clothing would have been washed away by the rain.
“What are we going to do, Owen?” Tara looked tiny, wrapped up as she was in the drab camp blanket. “What did your boss say we should do? Turn ourselves in?”
“He just told me to sit tight and let him figure it out.” Owen didn’t like admitting that he didn’t have a clue what they should do, either, but he’d never been a suspect in a murder before.
“Do you trust him?”
How to answer that question? Owen technically had three bosses—Alexander Quinn, Rebecca Cameron and Maddox Heller, the three former government employees who now ran Campbell Cove Security Services. Cameron, a former diplomat, and Heller, a former marine, seemed nice enough, but Owen’s department, Cybersecurity, was mainly under the hawkeyed control of Quinn, a former spy with an epic reputation for getting things done no matter the cost.
Owen didn’t know if it was ever wise to trust someone like Quinn, who saw even his employees as expendable if it meant securing the safety of the country he’d spent decades serving. But Owen had no doubt that Quinn was dedicated to the cause of justice. And if he and Tara ended up in jail for something they didn’t do, how would justice be served?
“I think he’ll want the right person to go to jail for what happened to Robert,” he said finally.
Tara’s narrow-eyed gaze told him she hadn’t been mollified by his answer. “Well, he’d better get here soon, because it won’t take long for those nice people we met this morning to find out about Robert’s murder on the morning news and start to wonder about that half-dressed bride and groom they saw hiding in the woods.”
She was right. Owen checked his watch. Where the hell was Quinn? “I wish I had my phone.”
“Is that him?” Tara nodded toward a small, dark dot at the far end of the narrow two-lane road. It grew bigger as it came near, resolving into a dark blue SUV. It stopped about forty yards down the road, and a sandy-haired man got out.
Not Quinn but Maddox Heller. Owen didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved.
Heller motioned for them to come to him. Grimacing, Owen started walking. The rain had tightened the leather of his dress shoes, which were pinching his feet. Tara didn’t look any happier about the walk, wobbling a little in her grimy pumps and taking care not to step on the hem of her blanket wrap.
“Sorry,” Maddox said when they reached the SUV. “I wanted to be sure you weren’t being used as bait for an ambush.”
Tara pulled herself into the front seat and sighed deeply. “Twenty-four hours ago, my life was so simple.”
Heller gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry about your fiancé. Are you warm enough? Let me turn up the heater.”
Owen sat on the bench seat behind them, closing his hand over Tara’s shoulder. He felt her skin ripple beneath his touch, but when he started to pull his hand away, she caught it and held it in place.
“For now, I’m taking you to a safe house. We’ll get you some clothes and something to eat, and you can try to get some sleep. I can’t imagine you slept well in a cold cabin.”
“What about the police?” Tara asked.
“Quinn wants to look into that issue before we decide what to do. For now, he wants you to just stay put.”
Easy enough, Owen thought. He wanted nothing more than a hot meal, some warm, dry clothes and to sleep for a week.
“Do you know how Robert was killed?” Tara asked as Maddox reversed the SUV and headed back the way he’d come. “Owen said he was shot, but when? How?”
“The details are sketchy. We have some friends in the local sheriff’s department, but they’re hunkered down at the moment, as you can imagine, just dealing with the press and with your fiancé’s family.”
Tara rubbed her forehead. “I didn’t even think about his poor parents. Who would do something like that? And why?”
Owen squeezed her shoulder. “We’re going to find out. I promise.”
She looked at him over her shoulder. “You can’t promise that.”
“I promise to do everything I can to figure this out and keep you safe.”
She smiled wanly. “I know you’ll try.”
The drive to the safe house took about twenty minutes, taking them out of the woods and down a long country road dotted here and there with farms and pastureland where horses grazed placidly in the morning sun. Halfway there, Maddox Heller turned on the radio and tuned in to a local news station, which was covering Robert’s murder with almost salacious excitement.
They learned nothing new, however, and Tara bluntly asked Heller to turn it off.
The safe house was a small, neat farmhouse nestled near the end of a two-lane road sheltered on either side by apple trees. There were no other houses on the road, no doubt by design. Even the house itself was sheltered on three sides by sprawling oak trees that hid most of the property from view unless someone was driving by on purpose.
“It’s fairly rustic,” Heller warned as he led them up the flagstone walkway to the river stone porch. “But you’ll have what you need, and the property is protected by a state-of-the-art security system.”
“Will there be anyone protecting us?” Tara asked. “I mean, if those guys who grabbed us try to find us again.”
Heller glanced at Owen. “Owen’s trained for the basics. The security system should do the rest, and we’ll have an agent check on you regularly until Quinn decides how to proceed. You shouldn’t be here long.”
Tara glanced Owen’s way. He wasn’t sure if she was looking for reassurance
or expressing skepticism. He smiled back at her, hoping it would suffice as a response either way.
Heller showed them how to set and disarm the security system. “You can set your own codes if that makes you feel more secure, or you can leave the code as is. We have an override code in case there’s trouble, but only Cameron, Quinn and I know that code, so you should be very safe.”
He led them deeper into the house. It was rustic, as Heller had warned, but everything looked to be in good working shape. There was wood in the bin next to the fireplace, and the kitchen appliances proved to be up-to-date. “We stocked the fridge and freezer, so you’d have enough to eat for a few days if things don’t resolve sooner,” Heller told them as they left the kitchen and entered the hallway that led to a couple of large bedrooms near the back of the house. He guided Tara to the room on the right. “There are several sizes of clothing you can choose from in there. We took up a collection from all the women we could reach on quick notice. Hopefully, you’ll find a few things that work. Let me know if you don’t.” He nodded toward the other room. “I grabbed some of the stuff you had stashed at work, and got a few of the taller guys to lend you some clothes,” he told Owen.
Heller followed Owen into the room and closed the door behind them. “You okay? Quinn said you had a knock on the head. Did you lose consciousness?”
“Briefly,” Owen answered. “I’m fine.”
“I could have Eric come take a look at you, although Quinn wants to keep as few people as possible in the loop on this, at least until he can get a better idea what’s going on.”
“I haven’t had any symptoms. My head doesn’t even hurt where I hit it, except a little tenderness in the skin.”
Heller took a look at the lump on the side of Owen’s head, frowning. “Don’t take chances. Head injuries aren’t anything to mess around with.”
“I’m fine.”
“What about Tara? Any lingering effects from the ether exposure?”
“Not that I can tell. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
Heller opened the top drawer of the tall chest next to the bedroom door and withdrew a lockbox. He set it on the bed and opened it with a key he pulled from his jeans pocket. Inside, nestled in foam padding fitted snugly to it, lay a Smith & Wesson M&P .380. “There’s ammo in the drawer. Quinn said you’d been trained to use one of these.”