“At the police station.” David gestured toward the house. “The detectives are just finishing up here. When they’re done, they’ll go to the station and interview her, then let everyone know how they plan to proceed.”
“Okay.”
There was something about the way Knox was looking at me…I found myself wondering what else was happening here.
“I understand that Knox explained to you what was happening from the beginning of this case. That Mrs. Montgomery hired her?”
I forced myself to look at David. “She did,” I said, supporting her partial lie.
“Knox was hired through our security firm by Mrs. Montgomery. In telling you, she violated our policy. And by inviting another operative onto the case without alerting us, she violated even more of our policy. For that reason, she’s been taken off your case. You’ll have to find someone else to care for your kids, Mr. Spencer.”
Disappointment washed over me like water over a waterfall. I now understood—at least I hoped I did—the emotion on Knox’s face, in her big, green eyes.
“Knox was only following my instructions by trying to force Julep to leave. And as far as telling me why she was applying for the nanny position—that was my fault, too. I cornered her.”
Knox shook her head. “Don’t Dunlap.”
David glanced between the two of us, a new tension appearing in the lines of his face. He took a deep breath and sighed.
“It doesn’t matter. She broke policy.”
The other man came up behind David. “The cops are wrapping up inside. We should go speak to them before they go.”
David seemed reluctant, but he nodded. “We’ll go back to the compound in a few minutes,” he said pointedly to Knox.
She nodded, watching him disappear back into the house.
“Knox…”
I went to her, touched her face with all the affection that was bursting to get out. She leaned into me for a second, but then pulled back.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize either of them had a gun.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is. I set this up and the girls were upstairs. If Stevie had—”
“But she didn’t.”
She shook her head, but she didn’t express the negativity that was clearly roiling around inside of her.
“You should know,” she said quietly, “that Stevie saw you the night Colby died. She saw you pull her out of the water.”
I stiffened, completely unaware of that fact.
“How do you know?”
“She told me.” Knox looked up at me. “You should also know that she heard someone else on the porch that night. You should take a look around. It’s been a while, but there might be something…”
I suddenly felt rooted to the porch. I stared at her, wanting to ask a million questions, but unsure where to start. She pressed her hand to my chest for a long moment, then stepped back.
“And Julep? She’s hiding something about her husband. Something he did to Colby. And she knows that you know about it. That’s why she’s trying to hurt you.” She studied my face a moment. “I’d be careful around her if I were you.”
“Of course.”
She glanced through the open door of my home. “Tell the girls I said goodbye.”
“Knox—”
“And tell your lawyer that Julep had a pill problem. I saw her purse when she dropped it during the altercation. There’s a whole pharmacy of pain killers inside.”
“Okay.”
“That should be enough to get her to back off. If this shooting isn’t, that is.”
“Knox, this doesn’t have to—”
But then David and his companion were back, along with the woman who’d been with my girls. She came over and took my hands.
“You have two very beautiful little girls, Mr. Spencer.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled. “I’m Ricki, by the way. David’s wife.”
“It’s nice to meet you.”
“We’ll be in touch, Mr. Spencer,” David said, moving up behind his wife to slip his arm around her waist. “I really apologize for what happened here today. It will be dealt with swiftly.”
“Knox was a godsend. Please don’t punish her for doing what I asked her to do.”
David inclined his head. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I watched them go, feeling sick deep in my stomach at the sight of Knox climbing into her SUV and driving away. I needed her not to leave. I needed things that I had no right to want this early in this…was it right to call it a relationship? Or was even that too much too soon?
I didn’t care. I wanted her in my life.
I spoke to the cops for a few minutes then went to find my girls. They were both eating some sort of pasta concoction that someone—I assumed Ricki—had made for them. Stevie talked a mile a minute, talking about drawing pictures for me and eating her lunch with Knox and everything but the drama that had taken place in the living room this morning. Knox had done a great job protecting her from the reality of what had happened here today. Thank God.
I took them upstairs, settled them in the nursery, and then headed out to the back porch. I didn’t know what Knox was thinking, but the idea that Stevie had seen everything that happened that night made me quite literally sick. I wanted to double over the porch railing. But I managed to keep it together, looking up at the master bedroom balcony, wondering exactly how much Stevie had seen that night and why I didn’t see her. I studied the covered hot tub, trying not to relive what I’d done that night.
Colby….
We had wrought iron furniture tucked into a corner of the porch at one point, but Colby was always tripping over the chairs because they were so wide. I’d had them removed after she died, because we never came out here anymore. And because I didn’t want to see them and be reminded of my wife. This whole house was a constant reminder of my life with Colby, but those chairs, for some reason, brought it back more intently than anything else did.
I walked around the spot, moving quicker than a search might find conducive. I didn’t want to be back here. But then the sun glinted off of something and my heart kind of jumped in my chest.
There was a broken glass stuck in the dirt and grime that ten months of weather had created against the back wall of the house. A broken glass that matched the same set from the bar in the living room, the same set that the glass Colby had with her in the hot tub belonged to.
Was someone else here that night? Had Stevie heard Colby’s murderer?
Not possible. Colby…if this was true, then what might have happened if Stevie had alerted this person to her presence? What if that person had still been there when I came outside? What if I’d come straight out here when we got home instead of taking the girls upstairs and taking the time to call Julep’s house? Could I have saved my wife?
I didn’t know. But I wanted to.
It was a long little while before I could pull myself together. I went upstairs and hung out with the girls for a while, getting a kick out of watching Mattie babble about whatever it was that was important in her little world. Then I bathed both girls and read them a story before putting them to bed. It was late when I finally made a call to my lawyer.
“She just handed us the golden ticket, Dunlap,” he assured me. “No judge in his right mind would allow her custody of anyone’s children after she shot a man while trespassing in your house.”
Things were finally looking up for me. The past ten months…the nightmare that I had to admit to myself began long before Colby’s death…was finally coming to an end. I should be happy.
So why did I suddenly feel like my world was crashing around me?
Chapter 9
Knox
“You fucked up.”
That was it in a nutshell. I knew it just as much as he did, so I didn’t argue. David studied me from across his desk, making me feel like a child in the principal’s office. Then he sighed, leaning back in his chai
r.
“Tony could have been killed. Mrs. Montgomery could have been hurt. You could have been hurt. Those two little girls—”
“I know.”
I kept playing it over and over in my head. I should have seen the guns coming out, should have prevented things from playing out the way they did. It happened so fast…but that was no excuse. If one of them had fired into the ceiling, one of those beautiful babies would be dead now. And that was on me.
“Fire me. Kick me out. Have me arrested. I don’t care.”
“Knox—”
“This is all on me. I should never have called Tony. I should have handled it on my own.”
“You should have.”
“I just…she wouldn’t leave, and Dunlap didn’t want her there. I thought that Tony could back me up—”
“But regulations say that you inform me and let me determine if another operative’s presence is necessary.”
“I just thought it would be a quick, easy thing.”
“But that’s why there are protocols in place.”
I nodded, thinking about those little girls coming down the stairs and seeing all the activity that was taking place. I was so afraid they would come down while Tony was still bleeding on the floor, or while Julep was being taken out the door in handcuffs. But they didn’t come down until it was all over, until I’d already scrubbed the worst of the blood from the carpet. And Ricki—thank God for Ricki!—she distracted them with food.
“I’m sorry, David. I was wrong.”
“You were. And I should fire you. I’ve already fired Tony.”
Those words were like a knife slicing through my chest. We’d only worked together six months, but Tony and I were good friends. I hated to see him go. And me? Where would I go? I left the CIA because there was a huge upheaval after a former agent was arrested for running his own terrorist group out of France. I was going to be assigned desk duty because I once ran an operation in France with that guy. One operation and suddenly I was a dirty agent. I wasn’t doing that. But leaving caused me to have to cut ties with a lot of people, people who might have helped me find work elsewhere. What would I do without Gray Wolf?
I couldn’t go home. I didn’t have anybody who’d take me in. Gray Wolf was my family now. I couldn’t…I had nowhere to go.
“David, I—”
“We’re not firing you, Knox.”
Relief I had no right to feel burst through me.
“Thank you.”
“But the next time you break protocol—”
“Don’t worry. There won’t be a next time.”
David got up and came around his desk, perching on the edge in front of me. “You’re the best operative we have at the moment.” He studied my face a long second. “I’d hate to lose you.”
“I’m here until you do fire me.”
He inclined his head slightly. “What happened today, it was on Tony. He shouldn’t have pulled a gun on a woman like Julep Montgomery. And he shouldn’t have responded to her hostility with more of his own. He should have known better. But…”
I nodded. “I know. It’s on me, too.”
“Go write your report and we’ll put this to bed.”
“Thank you.”
I quickly left the room, pausing outside his office, alone in the hall, and struggled to get ahold of my emotions. I couldn’t believe how much went wrong today. And I couldn’t believe that they’d spared me. I hated this, hated that I’d put those babies in danger. And I hated that I had to be taken off the case. I’d never been taken off a case in my entire career. But I made a mistake—and I wouldn’t do it again.
I wrote my report quickly, feeling the eyes of the others in the room on my back. The two girls who ran the background checks and Annie, the office manager, were watching me, wondering about what had happened today. I was grateful that the other operatives—Elliot, Alexander, and Ingram—weren’t there. The last thing I wanted was to see judgment in their eyes.
I snuck out after I pushed send, taking the long drive into the city. I parked in the garage beside the large private hospital where David had Tony transferred. He might have fired him, but he was making sure he went back out into the world as healthy as modern medicine could get him.
“Hey,” I said, tapping lightly on his door. “You up to a visitor?”
Tony smiled from his hospital bed, a sheet over his legs, but his chest bare, save for the wide bandage that covered the wound below his left nipple.
“Come on in,” he said, waving his arm, the line from his IV bouncing in the air above him.
I crossed to his side, pulling up a chair.
“I’m really sorry.”
“Hey, don’t be. It was my fault. Who would have thought grandma would have a damn twenty-two in her bag? Or that she’d go after my 9mm?”
“Not me.”
He laughed, but then grimaced as pain shot through his chest. He touched the bandage lightly, coughing a little.
“Hurts?”
“Only when I laugh.”
I smiled, but I didn’t really feel it. He touched the top of my head, tapping on it to get my attention.
“This wasn’t your fault, Knox.”
“David said he fired you.”
“He did. And he was completely in the right.”
“What will you do now?”
Tony shrugged. His expression lost some of the joviality that had been there just a second ago. “David gave me a more than generous severance package. He’s paying for all this,” he said, gesturing around the room. “Thanks to him, I’ve got six months or more to figure things out.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve already called a friend with the bureau. He suggested I come back, and I’m considering it.”
“That’s good.”
“I was always better there than in private security anyway.”
I inclined my head slightly, hating that he was in this situation because of me. I seemed to ruin everything just by being nearby. I didn’t want him to suffer because of me. And I didn’t want him to do a job he didn’t want to do because of me.
“It’s okay, Knox,” he said, brushing a finger against the side of my face. “I’m okay with this.”
I stood and kissed his forehead lightly. “I’ll see you around, Tony.”
“Yeah,” he answered softly. “See you.”
I drove around for a while after leaving the hospital, my thoughts scattered, my emotions out of control. I hated being out of control. I hated feeling as though I’d let someone down. And I hated hurting.
I thought about going to a bar. That’s what I would normally do. When I got back from the Marines after my first tour in Afghanistan, when I arrived at Drake’s dorm to surprise him and found out that he no longer resided there, when I went home and my momma sat me down to tell me the truth, I went to a bar. I went to a bar and poured my story out to the bartender—how cliché is that?—and let him take me into the back room and do what he wanted with me. That’s how I lost my virginity. I went into a storeroom behind a bar and let the bartender bend me over a box of tequila.
I’d saved myself for Drake and my sister stole him away the moment I turned my back, giving herself to him when I wouldn’t. And I’d been punishing myself ever since, going to bars and letting the man of the moment have what Drake never would.
And then I met Dunlap—and now everything was so fucked up I could hardly breathe.
So where do I find myself? At a bar? No. Pulling up in front of Dunlap’s house well after midnight, well after the time when a visit would be appropriate.
If David found out I was here…
He didn’t say a word when he opened the door. He simply took my hand and pulled me inside, tugging me down onto the couch beside him.
“I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. “I fucked up.”
“No, Knox. It was Julep.”
“You didn’t do anything. It was Julep.”
I turned my head and looked at him. “You should hate me.”
He brushed a piece of hair from my face and pressed his thumb to my bottom lip. “I can’t,” he said simply, as though it should be obvious.
I turned away, climbing to my feet and moving over to the French doors that looked out over the back porch. My eyes fell on the covered hot tub, and I found myself thinking about the things I’d begun to suspect before Julep showed up and rudely interrupted.
“You told me that the coroner said she was drunk and that’s why she fell.”
“Yeah.”
“But she had very little alcohol in her blood.” I turned and looked at him. “But she had enough Oxy in her blood to put down a horse.”
Curiosity sparked in his eyes. “Where did you hear that?”
“The coroner’s report. David gave me a copy of it when I was assigned this case.” I turned back to the doors. “What if someone gave her a glass of liquor that was spiked with Oxy? What if she didn’t know what she was taking?”
“I don’t know.” Dunlap came up behind me and laid his hands on my shoulders. “I talked to my lawyer. He’s going to speak to Julep, tell her that if she drops her attempts to take the girls, then I’ll drop the trespassing complaint against her.”
“She said she paid for this house.”
“And I’ve paid her back threefold,” he said, a little exasperation in his voice. “My construction company may be small, but we’ve been operating in the black almost since we opened our doors. I don’t need Julep’s money.”
I turned, intending to ask him more about Julep, but the way he was looking at me, the way his hands moved from my shoulders to my throat, his fingers barely touching me, but sending fireworks through my body just the same, made my thoughts evaporate. I reached up and kissed him, only intending to allow my lips to brush against his. But it turned into something much more passionate, into a kiss that stole my breath and sent me soaring along a path whose direction was new, but familiar.
He pushed me back against the doors, his hands sliding over my body. I could feel him searching for the waistband of my jeans, for the hem of my blouse. I could feel him trying to find access to my bare skin. And I wanted it…this was what I’d come here for. His touch was electric; it was like nothing I’d ever known before. And he wanted me. I could feel it in his kiss, his touch. This wasn’t just about sex. I’d known men who only wanted sex. Most of the men I’d been with only wanted sex. But this was different. It had been from that first night—and something inside of me had known it all along.
TAMING KNOX (Gray Wolf Security, Texas Book 3) Page 7