Her Best Friend's Keeper (Finley Creek Book 1)

by Calle J. Brookes

  “Barratt? Houghton—the billionaire’s son?”

  “No. The billionaire himself. She got away from him while I was otherwise occupied.” His brother flexed his bruised and cut hands, the move telling Elliot exactly how Chance had been occupied. “You’ll have to ask her…when she wakes up.”

  “He the one who stabbed her?”

  “No. Another big bastard. I don’t know his name. But I’m going to find him. For her. She’ll never feel safe as long as they’re out there.” Chance had a wild look in his eyes Elliot finally understood. “I made her a promise that I would keep her safe, Elliot. And I’m going to keep it.”

  “We’ll get them. Do you know why they were on your tail? Were they? Or did you stumble into something? Possibly the grand jury issue? Were you followed?” Every scenario possible, he’d run through his mind over the past seventy-something hours. Only Chance and Brynna could give him the right one now.

  “They weren’t after me, El. They went for her first thing. Her laptop. They wanted what she had. What she knew. And they wanted her.”

  “Which was?” They’d entertained the possibility that it had been centered on Brynna, but the odds hadn’t been all that great that it was.

  “She ran the video taken ten years ago through some video software program she’s designed. And found something. Something new. This is about her. And it’s about Gabby. And it’s about us.”

  Elliot had considered it, but because it hadn’t been likely, he’d discounted it. But with the break-in at Gabby’s, and now this…“What was it?”

  “She didn’t know. She was coming back to have Gabby—and Russell—take a look.”

  “No. Not Russell. And this goes no further than you and I. No one outside of the inner circle.” Elliot said slowly as dominoes started to fall into place in his thoughts. “You, me, Gabby, the Becks, Erickson. That’s it. We can tap Journey and Foster if needed. No one else.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Brynna is isolated, practically sheltered as much as Gabby. More than Gabby in a lot of ways. If someone was after that girl—they were Texas State Police, Chance. It was the only way they learned of her. Most of her work has Russell’s name on it. She never even testifies before the grand jury.”

  Chance grabbed Elliot’s shirt front and pulled him closer. The rage and madness in his brother’s eyes shocked him at the intensity. “Then you find the rat on your ship, big brother. Before I do. Because I plan to kill him when I do. They touched her, El. And that one guy—he wasn’t just going to kill her. He was going to force her first, rape her. She’ll always have the memory of that threat. Of his hands on her body. He’s going to pay for that. You get my drift? Him—I’m going to find and rip apart with my bare hands. One cell at a time. Just for her.”

  Elliot looked at his younger brother and…he understood.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO.

  ***

  JILLY texted them a photo of Brynna sleeping. Gabby stared at it for a while before she practically dove onto the couch next to Mel. She hugged Gabby and they cried together for a while, with Mel’s youngest sister Syd caught between them. Their Dad was pacing around the room. Gabby knew Kevin wanted to be in there with her; but with Jilly back there, they had to be satisfied. It was the best they could do. And it mattered. They had proof she was going to be ok. That they had her back where she belonged. The worst of the nightmare was over.

  Kevin practically jumped Elliot when he came back in twenty minutes later. “What do you know?”

  Elliot looked at the dark-haired man Gabby knew was Mel’s brother-in-law. He’d told Kevin earlier that he’d worked with Elliot before. The respect was there; she hadn’t missed it. “No further than this room, Lorcan.”

  “Of course. Syd, I need you to go outside with Officer Journey.” The teenager obeyed her brother-in-law. That left Mel and Brynna’s father, older sister, and brother-in-law. And Gabby.

  The door opened again. Chance stepped in, without his t-shirt. Gabby gasped when she saw the bruises covering Elliot’s brother.

  Elliot shrugged out of his outer shirt and tossed it toward him. Chance slipped into and buttoned it quickly.

  “What do you know, El?” Mel asked. Her gaze was direct—and determined.

  “What happened to Brynna? To Brynna?” Carrie asked.

  Gabby watched Chance’s face when he looked at the oldest Beck daughter. Brynna’s half-sister looked more like her than any of the others; she was a little curvier and the hair was a darker shade of red, and styled differently. But the resemblance was strong. He stared at her for a moment like it hurt him to look at her. Chance pulled his gaze away. “Three men, two vehicles. They ambushed us at the stop sign. They hit on her side, enough to stun us both. Superficial injuries, bruises. They didn’t want to kill her right away. They dragged her from the vehicle—they wanted her and her laptop.” He paused and his glare deepened as he looked at Brynna’s sisters again. “They got the laptop. We escaped. Ran. Holed up in a storm shelter for a few days. When we came out, we were surrounded.”

  “Then what happened?” Kevin asked. Gabby had to admire how he was holding himself together.

  “We managed to get away again, but she was stabbed. We made it to the interstate. A trucker from Indiana picked us up there and brought us here. She wanted…the hospital where her sister works.” Chance prowled around as he spoke; Gabby hadn’t ever seen him that upset before.

  Except once. Chance finally stopped moving near his brother.

  “Chance, you think you can write down everything you remember?” Elliot asked, his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  “Yeah. I can do that. Elliot, you find our rat. Remember.”

  “What’s going on? Elliot?” Gabby asked. Something had passed between the brothers. “What rat?”

  “If someone was after Brynna, there would be only one way they’d even know about her,” Mel said, slowly. “Through the TSP. You think someone at the TSP did this, don’t you?”

  “But what did they want from her?” Kevin asked. “Is it case related?”

  Brynna’s oldest sister stood up and grabbed her own bag. She pulled out a memory card and handed it to Gabby. “She was working on this at my house. When…when…word came that Brynna hadn’t made it home, and as upset as she’d been, I duplicated her files off my hard drives. I have a backup system in place that keeps everything for thirty days. My systems are as secure as possible. PAVAD insured that. I didn’t look at it; not without permission. But everything she did on my system is right there.”

  “Thanks, Carrie.” Gabby looked at the memory card. “I know she was working on something for Major Crimes, but I think she finished that up before she left. Jarrod made the arrest. And she was playing around with that video software we were developing. Said she was going to run some things through your stuff.”

  “She did. But she has private access to my servers. I wasn’t able to be in there with her; I got called in to help find a missing ten-year-old.” She paused for a moment and looked up at her husband. “When Sebastian and I got back home, Brynna was upset and worried. We tried to get her to let us help, but she wanted to get home. To get home.”

  Did anyone else see Chance flinch whenever Carrie talked? Or was it just Gabby’s imagination?

  “I texted her for a while. I may have mentioned Chance was also in St. Louis.”

  “And that’s when—and how—she found me,” Chance said.

  “She was determined to get home and she would have made other arrangements. This still would have—could have—happened. She still would have been in their sights. Possibly with someone who couldn’t help her.” Brynna’s brother-in-law said. “You kept her alive.”

  “Did she tell you what she found that upset her?” Mel asked.

  Chance hesitated. “She was working on the video from ten years ago. The one of our family. She’d found something, but even she wasn’t sure what it was. She wanted Russell to look at it to see if he could spot it. She didn
’t want to show it to Gabby again if she didn’t have to.”

  “It was enough to upset her pretty significantly, though. And that’s not like her at all,” Carrie’s husband said. “Not Brynna.”

  Gabby had met Carrie a few times when she’d visited Texas, but most of their contact had been through video chat. She’d only seen pictures of the husband. Brynna thought her brother-in-law hung the moon. She’d said he really loved her sister and niece a great deal. “So why didn’t she say something?”

  “I think she was wanting to bring it straight to Russell and Elliot,” Chance said. “She didn’t trust it over the phone—or the internet. She would barely talk about it with me. She said it was for Elliot’s eyes only first. I’m not sure what she’d found or done was completely legal. She got jumpy when I asked her. Or she was afraid someone else might hack into her stuff. Scared.”

  “No. She wouldn’t have said anything without permission, even with family. She always follows TSP protocols if she’s working on something for CF. We both do. Brynna’s a bit paranoid about technological spying. We do it all the time in our job. She is afraid someone could get into her stuff too easily.” Gabby thought for a moment, about everything she knew Brynna had been working on recently. Everything she knew Brynna would have thought to do with old video through her sister’s more sophisticated computer setup. “But… guys…Brynna had my spare laptop with her in St. Louis. She and Benny were updating hers with some serious upgrades. The laptop they took was mine.”

  Elliot’s hand wrapped around her arm and he turned her slightly. “Do you think that’s significant?”

  “I don’t know. Brynna and I run pretty much the same systems on our personal laptops. They’re the ones we play with—” She looked at Carrie, suspecting Brynna’s older sister was the same way. “We code on them, we develop software. We game on them. Everything. When Benny couldn’t get Brynna’s finished in time for her before her shift ended, she took mine. It had the software we’ve been working on. We built the laptops together out of spare parts a few years ago.”

  “Is it possible someone was after that software design instead of what she found on that old video?” Kevin asked. “I know Bryn said it’s pretty high tech.”

  “It is,” Sebastian said. “And it’ll be in high demand, once it’s released. Everyone who worked on it will net a nice payout. Most of that money is Brynna’s.”

  “Eighty percent. We’re keeping careful watch on the project. Ten percent for Carrie, ten for me.” But it wasn’t about the money. It was about the technological advances in their field. They’d found a way to make the forensic video software better all around. And they’d been working on it for two years. “But it’s just the three of us. Me, Brynna, and Carrie. We certainly haven’t mentioned it to anyone outside of this room. Jarrod and Benny. That’s it.”

  “How much money are we talking about here?” Elliot asked. “Could that possibly be a motive?”

  “Estimation of it’s worth is over one point five million, conservatively. I’m expecting it to be more like two. Just for the basic prototype. We’ve also made some optional upgrades that could push it closer to three million,” Carrie said. “But…it’s a private deal, with Lucas Industries out of St. Louis. He’s a family connection. We’ve kept this under wraps for as long as I’ve known Brynna. She’s been working on it for years—long before I got involved. Very few people know about it.”

  “I’m telling you all, it wasn’t about that program she wrote,” Chance said again. “It’s about what she found on the video. Of the night our family was killed. She ran it through as a test. She found something, and I think someone else knew it. Knew exactly what she found and what she was working on.”

  “That’s next to impossible. Unless one of us, or all of us, were hacked. Spyware to see what she was working on? Is that possible? That a sophisticated enough spyware was used to get past all of our checkpoints. Including Carrie’s?” Gabby asked. “I don’t know how anyone would even be able to do that. I mean…of course there are ways. Nothing is completely secure. But…”

  Brynna’s oldest sister looked at her husband. “We can have PAVAD look into that angle. If it touched my system, we’ll get permission. I know we will.”

  “I’ve already got Brynna’s laptop back from Benny. He gave it back to me today,” Gabby said. “We’ll take a closer look at it. Maybe…we can find something we overlooked on hers, that may lead to whatever is on mine, as well.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.

  ***

  CHANCE waited until he saw her younger sister walk out of the private room Brynna was now in. He understood the need to keep people out of the recovery ward, but…he needed to see her. One more time. Before he left. Just to make sure.

  He was going hunting, and nothing was going to stop him from finding his prey. He owed her, and he’d made her a promise. Chance always kept his promises to the people who mattered.

  Security at the hospital was pretty damned tight—but the guy watching Brynna’s room was one he recognized. “Erickson.”

  “Marshall. You know I’m not supposed to let anyone but that pretty sister of hers in, right?”

  “Then just turn your damn head. I’m only going to be a minute or so.”

  “Unh huh. I’ll give you five, then I’m running you out. I’ll look like a hero to the sister, and maybe she’ll let me take her out for…coffee. Her scrubs have kittens on them. I’ve always liked kittens.”

  “Sure.” Chance had known the other man for a decade. Erickson had gotten Elliot through the shit right after the funerals. The two had been partners, and Chance appreciated how the man had stuck by his brother’s side while they’d dealt with everything. “And no corrupting the sister. She’s too good for you.”

  Erickson had been there when they’d pulled the plug on Slade.

  “I need to see her for myself, Gunnar. She…she saved my ass out there, and look what that got her.” He needed to touch her one more time. Convince himself she was alive and breathing.

  “She’s a fighter, then. It has to be the red hair. I’ll keep an eye on her tonight, Chance. I guarantee it. You have my word.”

  There were very few men he’d trust with that. Erickson was one of them. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  Chance stepped into the room. She was dressed in a yellow hospital gown that he knew immediately she wouldn’t like. Yellow was not a Brynna-approved color; she’d told him that during one of their endless conversations in the cellar.

  They had an oxygen tube on her and an IV ran into her left hand. There were a few monitors nearby that hummed and beeped steadily.

  He didn’t look at them. He looked at her. She was pale, and her hair needed combed. The blanket was tucked tight around her; probably her sister’s doing.

  Her chest rose evenly.

  She was safe. Alive. Protected.

  He walked closer. Chance brushed a hand down her free arm, feeling the soft, soft skin that he’d loved kissing and touching. He just stood there next to her for the longest time. Feeling her. She was real. Safe. Alive.

  He lifted her hand from the blanket and kissed the palm just once before he turned and walked out of the room.

  Chance had some hunting to do, didn’t he?

  He walked right past the redheaded sister standing in the hall next to Erickson, watching him with a hesitant look on her face. She looked at him, with surprise in the eyes just like her sister’s.

  Eyes that made him feel like a total slug.

  Eyes that reminded him of everything that had almost been lost forever.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR.

  ***

  ELLIOT brought Gabby to the hospital early the next morning. She hadn’t wanted to leave the night before, but it had made the most sense. Brynna was expected to make a full recovery. It would take her a few weeks to feel one hundred percent, but she was going to be fine, and back to work within two weeks—at the most. It was hard to believe.

 
Gabby had talked about nothing else from the time they’d rolled out of bed. Elliot had a time keeping up with her.

  He had no clue where his brother had ended up, but he suspected Chance had left the hospital sometime the night before. If he had—his brother was in pursuit of the assholes who’d ambushed them.

  In pursuit of Handley Barratt.

  Elliot was going to start with Barratt, as soon as he had Gabby someplace guarded and safe. Other than her apartment being vandalized, they had no proof of any threat to Gabby specifically. But he wasn’t taking any chances. Foster was relieving Erickson on Brynna’s security detail, and he had no doubt Mel and her father would also be at the hospital. Gabby would be safe there, with Kevin to guard her. Elliot suspected Lorcan would be prowling around the hospital, keeping his wife’s family safe, as well. People he could trust to keep Gabby safe, too. There weren’t many he could say that about in the TSP any more.

  He had to figure out who in the three hundred plus people in his organization could have arranged the attack on Brynna—and why.

  Now that he had his brother back, Elliot had some hunting of his own to do.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE.

  ***

  ELLIOT left her with Brynna and stepped out into the hall with Jarrod. Gabby had asked him what the next steps need to be. They had to find out who had targeted Brynna and why. She didn’t have a clue how to do that. She and Elliot had spent several hours after they left the hospital the night before going over the laptop she’d picked up from Benny.

  There had been no signs that she could find of anything on Brynna’s laptop that shouldn’t have been there. But that didn’t mean that the one Brynna had taken with her was clean.