Damage: (Lakefield Book 5)

by Jennifer Vester

  Her signature was a series of loops, but her printed name said Melody.

  “Hey, Melody, are they looking for any help at the shop you work at?” I asked.

  “Always! Gotta go!” she yelled as she raced down the sidewalk again and climbed back in her non-descript white van. She backed out of the driveway with a lurch and nearly slammed into a Ford Explorer that was driving along the street.

  “What a mess,” I said to myself, as I shoved the receipt in my back pocket and closed the door. She needed to cut down on the caffeine before she killed someone.

  Turning toward the vase full of half a flower shop, I started poking through the flowers to find a card.

  I couldn’t think of anyone that would send flowers other than Cade, and that seemed like a stretch on his good days. But stranger things had happened. Like him dying, and coming back to life, without looking like a zombie or vampire.

  It was sweet, but entirely too much.

  My fingers finally found the card stuck in the middle, but not before several flowers and some baby’s breath managed to tickle my nose.

  I sneezed, then sneezed again, as there was yet another knock on the door.

  It'd better not be more flowers.

  I opened the door, and peered up at a tall man wearing a Yankees baseball cap. His brown eyes swept the room behind me before settling on my face. He was clean shaven, with a square jaw and appeared athletic.

  He wore a blue polo shirt that had the top two buttons undone. The small peek at his skin there hinted at a hairy, but lean chest. A pen was hooked on his shirt near the last button.

  He gave me a slight smile and I noticed he had a dimple. “Suzanne?”

  “Uhm, yes?”

  Cade walked up behind him and flashed a smile at me.

  I frowned and glanced back at the man in front of me.

  “Agent Mick Galloway. I thought I might come over and talk with you today.”

  “Oh, and ask me not to mention that a dead man is walking around Bakersville by chance?” I chuckled.

  Cade rolled his eyes behind Mick.

  Mick nodded. “Yeah, that. Can we come in?”

  I opened the door for them and watched as they scanned the room. Cade was built like a bouncer, with his muscles straining at his tight t-shirt. Mick was tall and athletic, with leaner muscles, but still looked like he was just as solid as Cade.

  Cade’s eyes landed on the flowers beside the door, but he didn’t say anything. He examined me and gave me a half smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He must have been waiting on me to acknowledge them, but I would drag out my thanks until later.

  “Uhm, sit down,” I said, gesturing to the living room.

  Both of them took a seat on opposite ends of the couch while I sat across from Cade in a recliner.

  Mick took off his cap and set it down on the coffee table along with a thin folder. His hair was cropped extremely short and almost reminded me of a military cut. Compared to Cade, the hairy barbarian beside him, he looked like an all-American guy next door type.

  “So, obviously Mr. Shepard and I were talking—”

  I laughed, and he glanced at me. “So, sorry! I just haven’t heard anyone call him Mr. Shepard. Ever.”

  I laughed again.

  Cade sighed. “Mick just needs you to sign a document that says that you won’t discuss my identity. Blah, blah, and a lot of legal jargon.”

  Mick looked over at Cade. “Blah, blah?”

  Cade shrugged. “I told you she’s not going to say anything, so why does it matter?”

  Mick glanced back at me and shook his head. “I swear to God, all of you guys are a pain in the ass. How the hell you manage to find women to put up with any of you, is a miracle. Suzanne, you’re gorgeous, you seem nice and you have a clean record. Stay away from this guy.”

  Cade grumbled something I didn’t catch as Mick pulled some papers out of the folder in front of him.

  He looked back at Cade with a grin. “Are we seriously still having this discussion? A record is a record.”

  Cade gave him a dramatic expression and blew out a breath. “There weren’t any significant charges.”

  Mick rifled through his papers, like he was putting them in order. “Breaking and entering. Drunk and disorderly. Assault.”

  I arched my eyebrow at Cade. “Really?”

  Cade shook his head. “All minor offenses. Drunk and disorderly when I was in the military. The rest while working with Holden’s crew. Shit, I technically assault anyone I have to throw out of the bar, whether they end up with a black eye or not.”

  “Breaking and entering?”

  He smirked. “That was technically Brock’s fault. He forgot to turn off the alarm on a building—”

  Mick waved his hand around dismissively. “Please don’t mention the devil’s name in polite company. He’ll probably hear it and manifest somewhere. Let’s just not mention him at all. I don’t want to know the specifics.”

  Cade shrugged and gave me an “I told you so” look. Mick really did seem tense about Brock for some reason.

  I’d met all the guys, and Brock seemed the least intimidating among them. He wasn’t around much, but the few times I’d spoken to him, he seemed like he was a natural playboy, rather than anyone the FBI would call the devil. Now that he and Andi were together, that circle of friends seemed complete. With the exception of the dead man sitting across from me.

  I still had the card from the flowers in my hand.

  Trying to ease the tension, I motioned toward Cade. “Thanks for the flowers. She delivered them at exactly ten o’clock like you requested.”

  Cade frowned and leaned forward. “What?”

  Mick stared at me, his body suddenly tense. “Did you say exactly ten o’clock?”

  “Yeah, that vase on the table with the flowers. I said thanks. It was nice, but a little overboard.”

  Mick stood up, studying the card in my hand. “Have you read it?”

  Cade came closer to me, frowning down at the card in my hand like it was going to combust.

  I opened the envelope and pulled out the card.

  Both men yelled not to touch it, and I flinched. The card dropped to the ground in front of me, face up.

  There was something that resembled a watercolor painting on half of the card. I frowned down at it. The more I stared, the more it looked like a face. A face in pain, but artistically painted.

  The message on the other half didn’t make any sense. I read it twice before Mick bent down with a pair of tweezers and slipped it into a plastic bag.

  When I glanced up at both men, I said, “Perfect number ten, five by five. I’ll make you remember me.”

  “Fuck,” Cade said.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Mick answered slowly, “Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, Suzanne.”

  Chapter Nine

  Cade paced around my living room like a man possessed. Walking five steps one way, then pausing to run his hand down his face, he let out a growl. Then he turned and paced the other way to do the same thing. His reaction was far more terrifying then the tight feeling in my gut while I tried to absorb what was happening.

  Pace, growl, turn. Pace growl, turn. The expression on his face, told me far more than I really wanted to digest.

  “I’m sure you’re wrong, Mick. This is probably just some prank,” I said as I eyed the man sitting on my couch. He held up a finger for me to wait as he dialed on his phone.

  Standing up, I went to the kitchen hoping all this was just a stupid joke. An evil one, in poor taste, but I couldn’t think of any other explanation.

  Why would I be targeted? The idea was ludicrous, at best. There was absolutely no reason why I would suddenly be thrust into this situation. I’d worked bars and restaurants my entire life, with very few run-ins with trouble, other than the few times I’d dealt with drunks. And drunks were drunks. Loud, mouthy, sometimes handsy. But they weren’t serial killers. Not that I wou
ld know, of course, but the thought of them doing anything like that was a little bit of a stretch.

  The smell of coffee hit my nose as I entered the kitchen. I needed a massive caffeine fix if I was going to deal with this.

  Two cups sat on the counter, and as I reached for one of them I felt a tingle up my back. Glancing behind me, my eyes landed on Cade who was standing at the doorway. His face was still a mix of frustrated emotions and I could tell he was struggling to keep himself under control.

  “Do you want a cup?” I asked, as I turned back to the counter.

  He didn’t answer as I poured my own cup and stared blankly through the window above the sink. His silence wasn’t helping my frayed nerves by any measure. It only seemed to amplify my own confusion and deep fear.

  What if this was actually happening? Wasn’t a joke. What the hell did I need to know about this that they weren’t telling me?

  I set the cup on the counter and faced Cade once more. He stood a few feet away watching my movements, thinking, observing. The way his lips moved in miniscule ways made me think that he was contemplating what to say. Maybe he just didn’t know what to tell me. Regardless, his stance, expression and overall vibe had all the warmth of a predatory animal, ready to rip something apart.

  “Cade?”

  He flinched once, then his eyes finally focused on me. “This isn’t happening.”

  “What’s happening? I really don’t understand. This is a joke, right?”

  He shook his head slowly from side to side. “It’s not a joke. They all start like this.”

  “What starts like this? Neither one of you has explained anything here. Mick said it was a message from your killer, but neither of you have said why or how. If it’s a message to me, then what the hell does it mean? Why would I even be involved?”

  Cade glanced through the door for a brief second. The sounds of Mick talking on the phone drifted in, but the conversation was lost. He moved toward me slowly with a scowl still plastered on his face.

  He put a finger to his lips before he reached me and wrapped a hand around my hip. Any other time his touch might have ignited a deep desire to pull him in closer, but today it only felt comforting in its familiarity.

  “You can ask as many questions as you want, but he’s probably not going to tell you much,” he said in a tone close to a whisper. “Not the important parts anyway.”

  Leaning closer to him, I whispered, “So you tell me. You know what’s going on here.”

  “I do, but he isn’t going to be on that phone for long. It’s going to take more than a minute to explain. What I need you to do is refuse to help.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  “Refuse to help. You have a right to refuse. Don’t get involved in this. I’m going to make damn sure you get the protection you need, and it’s not going to involve the FBI. They’ve done a shit job in finding this guy and you are not going to fucking end up like those other girls.”

  The intensity of his last sentence hit me like a sledgehammer. Those other girls. The dead ones that I didn’t know about. How they died was a huge question that I was afraid to ask.

  “Cade,” I whispered.

  His hand came up to brush the side of my face. “Just refuse, baby. Just do what I’m asking, and I’ll fix this. Stall if he asks, act like you don’t know what to say.”

  He brought his phone up and grabbed my hand. “You’re going to press the two button then tell Logan to get Brock.”

  “They’re the FBI, Cade.”

  His jaw flexed, then his scowl became even more fierce as he pressed the phone into my hand. “They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing and I’m not going to risk you. I’ll explain later. Just make the call.”

  My fingers curled around the phone, as I stared into his eyes. There was something he couldn’t tell me, but his face said a lot. Something wasn’t right. Or he was just so insanely protective, that he wasn’t seeing reason. Either way, there was truth in the expression he gave me. He was worried as hell.

  I gave him a simple nod and he drew me closer to him. The top of his chin rested on my forehead as he held me tight.

  There was a noise in the living room. Two people talking.

  “What about my mom?” I whispered.

  “I’ll take care of it. Just make the call when you step out.”

  “Step—”

  “Cade?” I heard Mick call from the other room. “Need both of you in here.”

  Cade’s lips found mine for a brief kiss before he hauled me along with him to the living room.

  There was a second man standing in the living room who had plastic gloves on. He was wiry and thin compared to the two giants that were staring at him. He was dressed in a shirt that had a local pizza insignia on the back.

  As he picked through the flowers for a moment, Mick’s gaze slid up to me. His eyes were blank. Absolutely no emotion was expressed. Cold. Calculating. It was the most frightening look I’d ever seen. As if, he wasn’t seeing me as a person anymore, just someone that was now the subject of an investigation.

  The look, said a lot about his nature. He’d been friendly when he needed to be, but his switch had flipped into something else now. Maybe it was that he took his job seriously, as seriously as his expression implied, but his gaze was giving me chills.

  I slid my eyes to Cade, who was standing beside me. In comparison, all I saw was raw, heated frustration and anger. The expression of a man on the edge. Emotions brimming over in fury, and what I knew was concern for me.

  His distrust of Mick’s abilities, seemed out of place. Maybe it was just the inability of the institution itself, and not Mick. But the way he was glaring at Mick, made it look like he was placing the blame of several months of frustration with no results, squarely on Mick’s broad shoulders. It didn’t seem fair in a way.

  I was truly frightened by the possibility that this wasn’t a mistake. But why would I not trust Mick and his abilities to get things done properly? At least the FBI knew that I was a target. Knowing from the start, would be better than being a random victim in a bar, right? None of it made sense.

  The wiry man finally finished what he was doing and placed a plastic cover over the bouquet. When he was done, he nodded at Mick, and carried it through the front door. If I didn’t know what was in the bag, I would have thought that he was carrying a gym bag of some sort.

  “Who was that?” I asked. My eyes followed the man, as he walked by the living room window, and got into a black van.

  Mick gave me a tight smile. “He works in a local branch.”

  “Of the FBI?”

  “Correct,” he said, as he took a notepad out of his briefcase. “He’s going to process that. I need to know some information from you, for the record.”

  “Sure,” I replied. Cade tensed beside me but didn’t say anything.

  “I need the description of the car that delivered your flowers. Name, if you know the company. Some other details.”

  I shrugged and gave him the information he needed. Simple enough. Which was why I wondered about Cade’s reaction. Surely, giving Mick some details wasn’t going to hurt. Had he meant that I wasn’t supposed to cooperate at all or something else?

  “I have some questions,” I said and moved further into the room.

  Cade’s hand rested on my back. A light touch, but supportive nonetheless.

  Mick looked up from his notes and nodded. “You’re wondering what’s going to happen next?”

  I frowned. “Well part of it, yes. And what all this means.”

  “Well, it’s pretty standard. We’ll have some more people here soon that will secure the area. Your flowers will go to the lab. You’ll be moved to a different location for a while.”

  “Woah. I can’t do that. My mom lives here too. Are you talking about just me? There’s no way I’m leaving her here. Besides the fact that she probably won’t even go.”

  Mick regarded me for a moment, then glanced down at his notes
again. “If you feel like that would be an issue, there’s a way you could still stay here.”

  “No,” Cade barked.

  Mick’s head turned toward Cade. “It’s not your call. It’s hers.”

  “The fuck it isn’t.”

  Mick held up his hand, as my eyes darted between the two of them. They were in some sort of nonverbal argument that excluded me, but I could feel the tension in both of them.

  “The last time I checked, you weren’t married or related. Not that it would make a difference either way. She has to make the decision.”

  “You motherfucker.”

  Mick narrowed his eyes and looked like he was about to say something equally as nasty.

  “Wait,” I said, as I tugged at Cade’s elbow. “If you two want to fight, do it out back, not in here. What’s the damn choice?”

  Keeping his glare on Cade, like he didn’t trust the man not to hit him if he glanced at me, Mick said, “You could work as a decoy. We change nothing here. You and your mom can technically stay, although I would suggest for the short term sending your mom on a vacation or to stay with a family member.”

  “Basically, work to lure the fucker in,” Cade ground out between clenched teeth. “Why don’t you ask Mick about the last time he tried this shit.”

  My hand went to my stomach as I stared at Mick. Urging him with my eyes, to answer before I had to ask.

  He said nothing. Simply gave Cade a murderous glare.

  Cade broke eye contact and glanced at me. “He lost the last girl who tried to help. Not something he wants to talk about.”

  I watched the steady gaze of Mick, as he continued to stare at Cade. “I didn’t lose her. She went off on her own and went against what we told her to do.”

  Cade turned toward Mick and all but sneered his reply. “Then who’s fault was it?! Hers? For doing her job? While the keen and watchful eyes of the almighty FBI let her walk out of a bar to help the delivery guy with his weekly load of alcohol. The same load that was delivered the week before, with the same driver and the same number of boxes. And yet, you said nothing. Not a thing to her about walking out of the bar to do it.”