A nurse came into the room to take his vitals and ask him a bunch of head-injury questions. Victor flirted outrageously with her, and she tossed a maybe-smile in his direction before leaving.
When she closed the door, Dusty continued their conversation. “Someone is after Grace. She tells me you’ve been helping her out. I’d like in on it.”
His hand shaking, Victor picked up a Styrofoam cup of water, missed his mouth twice with the straw, then finally managed a sip. “You know the players?”
“Rush and his family, specifically Porter. John and El.”
Victor put down his drink. His eyes seemed to clear. “Specifically Porter?”
So the guy was going to feel him out first. “Yeah. Mukta has been using Gracie’s existence to bribe Rush for thirty years.”
Victor pressed the button on his bed and sat up straighter. “So why not Rush Senior?”
“Well, he’s been dealing with Mutka for decades. He’s got no reason to balk now. More likely the son, the campaign manager who would’ve had to vet his own father, discovered what was going on and decided to put an end to it.”
“Seems like you got it all worked out.”
“Come on, Victor. Get over whatever bug flew into your sweet tea and remember this is about Grace.”
Victor scratched at an itch in a somewhat obscene place. “John and El have a money market account. One of them took out fifty thou last week and put it into an offshore account. A similar transfer of money happened right before Gracie was shot at.”
That was an odd coincidence. But Dusty didn’t buy them as perps. Still, a niggling voice told him there was something there. “Anything else on them?”
“I spotted his wife, El, taking pictures of Gracie’s club.”
“The wife?”
“She has a history. Got into a fight with another girl over her ex-boyfriend a dozen years back. She might’ve used those photos to help someone plant explosives.”
“Outside the club? Doubtful.” But if she’d been looking for an architectural detail—could she have spotted something that would lead her to the elevator?
Victor shifted, made a face.
Dusty stood, reached out a hand. “Thanks. I’ll get out of here.”
Victor ignored the hand. “Don’t ask her to choose between you and her family. It’s not right.”
Dusty dropped his hand. “Get some rest.”
Out in the hall, Dusty considered the brick of truth that Victor had just lobbed at his head. He was right. He couldn’t ask Gracie to make a choice between him and her family. The choice was his. So could he stand by not just Gracie, not just her family, but her mother?
He honestly didn’t know.
Chapter 43
As the summer storm neared, the sky became a field of gray-blue. The wind picked up and whipped the late-blooming white flowers from the olive-barked Amur maackia. They drifted across the road, like petals cast before a bride on her way down the aisle.
Gracie usually loved this time of year, the magical drive through the flower-strewn country road that led to campus. Today, those petals reminded her of ash.
And lost limbs.
Including Victor, eight people had been injured badly enough to require hospitalization, though none as seriously as that woman who’d lost her leg. The straight shooter. All the way down to her drink.
Gracie closed her eyes, kept them closed. Pain pressed against her chest like a boulder.
Dusty drove, steadfast and intent behind the wheel of her car. They’d been awake for days, not just hours. And in that time they’d shared a lifetime. A heat like nothing she’d felt in her life, a connection, and then a crash back to reality. The anger and sadness when he’d admitted the focus of his investigation was Momma had been crushing. And then the explosion. He’d thrown her to the ground, saving her from worse injury. He’d then risked himself for those in the club and had stuck beside her afterward.
And if she was honest with herself, as much as it scared her, she was so glad to have him here, to have him by her side.
Gracie opened her eyes and shifted her head toward Dusty. He had healing cuts from shattering glass along his handsome face. He caught her looking, winked. “Looks worse than it is.”
True. And the explosion, as bad as it was, could’ve been worse. She was fairly certain it had been set to distract from whatever those two people who’d broken in upstairs were looking for. What had they been looking for? Had they known about her servers?
Dusty stopped at the elaborate wrought iron gate of the Mantua Academy campus. A security guard came out, checked the trunk, took their weapons and Dusty’s bat-belt, checked credentials, did a pass under the car, waved them through.
He looked over at her as he accelerated through the gate. “Hate to think what happens when someone who’s not family shows up.”
She smiled. “They don’t mess around.”
They paused at the first stop sign. She looked right toward the school, lined walkways, spires, and brick buildings framed by marble pillars. It hurt her heart to see it so empty. Since the drone bombing a few months back, students hadn’t been allowed to return.
“Which way?”
Gracie tried to answer but found her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She was doing it. She was bringing him to the house. Yes, he was no longer working on the case, but still…“Left here, right at the next stop sign, and then up the hill.”
He followed her directions up the big hill with the big house at the top. Big. It wasn’t just a McMansion or even a regular old mansion. It was the size of a palace.
It had to be to hide the operations center for the League of Warrior Women deep below ground. Hidden not just by earth but by a system that sent a false signal to any thermal imaging. Stealth technology that was closely guarded by her wealthy family. Because the idea behind the League—to help women—was simple, but the means to help them often complex.
She saw Dusty take in the huge home as they crested the hill. He looked over at her. “Bigger in person.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but a thread of alarm worked its way down her spine. Should she have brought him here? Her family was unlike any other in the world. This place. Her siblings. It could be overwhelming. John had hated coming here.
Dusty pulled around the fountain and parked in one of the empty spots opposite the large stone mansion.
Disconnecting her cell from the car charger, she got out. Dusty grabbed her suitcase from the back seat and followed her.
At the top of the stone steps, both massive front doors were thrown open. Between them stood Momma, with her sturdy body in a light blue business suit and matching niqab, and her arms spread wide in invitation. Gracie moved quickly up the steps.
Until that exact moment, she’d never known what it felt like to arrive here, like so many of her sisters had, broken and in need of respite.
For the first time, she understood exactly how this home, these grounds, would seem to those kids. A sanctuary, a place that called out, “Here. Put down your burden. You are safe. And welcome.”
She walked into Momma’s waiting arms, which came around her soft and secure. Momma smelled like Une Rose and home. She whispered, “It will be all right.”
Gracie didn’t realize she was crying until the second set of arms came around her. Leland. Then there were more arms. And she sobbed and lost herself in the feel of her large family.
She couldn’t see them with her eyes shut tight and trying to stop the tears. But she felt the love and warmth.
And then reality broke in.
“Stop stepping on my toes.” A scuffle. A shove. And some angry words in a foreign language. Chinese.
The group broke up, and everyone piled into the house. She sensed Dusty walk through the threshold behind her. Momma turned to Dusty. Her dark eyes, already so mysterious wh
en framed in her niqab, narrowed. “Aren’t you the young man who is investigating me?”
Sugar. She knew?
Chapter 44
Dusty had to admit it was a mite awkward, standing in the most lavish entranceway he’d ever seen, a multimillion-dollar mansion, while a family of rescued kids hovered on the stairs. And the woman he’d been intent on taking down for the last few years stood there, smooth as the silk covering her face, accusing him, pretty accurately, of spying on her.
Gracie’s head spun between him and her momma. His hand grew sweaty against the handle of Gracie’s suitcase. “I’m not investigating anyone right now.”
“What’s that mean?” one of the older family members said from the steps. He looked up at her, and she looked back, brazen as all hell. The woman in her twenties had a blue stripe in her shiny black hair and a tattoo along her neck that he couldn’t make out.
He heard Gracie whisper, “Troublemakers.”
Momma turned to the woman who’d spoken. “That is a good question, but not yours to ask.” She shooed everyone up the stairs. “Please find something else to occupy your afternoon.”
Once they all took off, Leland said, “I’m not sure I like him being here at all. There’s a lot we need to discuss.”
Dude’s voice was as rough as his attitude. Though he knew the guy from photos, they hadn’t even been properly introduced. Dusty squared his shoulders; being big had its advantages, like letting this guy know he wasn’t going anywhere. Not without a fight.
Mukta and Leland exchanged a long, wordless glance. Then Leland nodded and stepped back. What was that? Mind readers?
Gracie’s momma turned her gaze back to Dusty. “You both look exhausted. Why don’t you help Gracie to her room? I assume you’ll be staying together. We can talk when you’ve had a chance to rest.”
Mukta took Leland’s arm. They turned and proceeded down the long hallway.
Gracie watched them go with her lips pressed tight. She turned to Dusty. “I wonder how much they know or suspect.”
He wondered too. “Why don’t we follow their suggestion and get some sleep before we go kicking at a hornet’s nest?”
Despite wearing all her worries and her lack of sleep on her beautiful face, she gave him a small smile. “Good point.”
Together, they turned and headed up the elaborate three-story staircase, wrought iron railing decorated in gold leaf.
Somewhere above, hidden by the sweeping turns of the stairway, kids chattered. Their differently accented voices echoed. Probably weren’t many places in the world where this was possible. A regular Tower of Babel. But they seemed to make it work.
At the second landing, the floor branched off in a couple of directions. They turned right and then down the first hall on the left. “This,” she said, “is known as Spice Girls Corridor. It’s where Dada, Justice, Bridget, Tony, and I grew up.”
“Spice Girls? Bet Tony loved that.”
“He hated it. But we’d already had the name by the time he arrived. Momma had planned for our unit to have five. No one could’ve figured the last one would be a boy.”
Planned? This was a bit of Parish culture he’d never heard before. “She plans the group size before adopting the kids.”
“Yep. Momma is big into details. Of course, sometimes it doesn’t work out. One unit, known as the Troublemakers Guild—the dark-haired girl with the blue streak is of that unit—was supposed to have five. But those three are enough to handle on their own.”
“Units are divided by age, not when you’re adopted, right?” Something crossed her face, but he couldn’t decide what it meant. Anger? “Does it bother you that I know that?”
At her door—marked with her name in painted scrolling calligraphy on a beautiful hand-carved white-and-pink plaque—she stopped, shook her head. “No. Actually, makes it easier. And yeah, it goes by birth year. I was the first in my unit.”
Her voice sounded smaller, as if she had reached into the past to retrieve it. “I can remember each of my siblings being added. Tony was twelve. The last one. The day he came marching down this hall with a new backpack, we were all waiting outside our suites. He looked so angry. I was so excited, so happy. I told Justice, ‘We’re complete now.’”
Dusty’s breath came faster than it should. His head hurt the way it always did when he thought of Tony. Leave it be, man. Leave it be.
They walked into her room. Not a room. More, as she’d said, a suite. There was a sitting area, a wall of windows, and a round table with a colorful mandala painted on top. The suite had been freshly made up, but still had the feel of a teen. Posters, teenage memorabilia, and photos.
There were a series of inset bookcases filled with books and model planes and a couple of Muay Thai trophies.
Gracie walked over to the table. “Knights of the Round Table,” she said, picking up a red-framed photo of her unit from the center.
A tear fell from her eye. She put the photo down. He could feel her starting to close down, growing quiet. She turned and, without a word, went down a hallway leading off from the large sitting area. He followed past a huge closet and small bathroom. She stripped off her clothes, socks, bra, and tossed them willy-nilly onto the floor. She was losing it.
He placed her suitcase in the closet and picked up her clothes as he trailed behind her.
By the time he got into the bedroom, she was curled up on her side in her undies, on top of the blankets.
The bed was an exact match of the one he’d seen in her apartment. A huge bed with a wood canopy. Made him a little claustrophobic. But for her…
He took off his own clothes and put them, along with hers, on a chaise by the floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond the windows was a park of a backyard with shrubs crafted to look like animals, walkways lined with flowers, and multiple seating areas.
He tugged the blankets out from under her, climbed into bed, gathered her to himself, and kissed the tears from her cheeks.
Chapter 45
Twenty hours after they’d arrived, Dusty awoke. For a moment, the panic of his dream changed into the panic of not knowing where he was. And then as he realized where he was, who was curled up in his arms, relief swept over him.
Just a dream. He’d dreamed Gracie was trapped in a burning building. He’d broken down door after door only to find himself faced with another door. Unable to reach her, he’d rammed his fists against the walls, trying to beat them down.
It had felt so real. Now with her warm and tucked up against him, he breathed deeply and said a prayer of gratitude to his Lord. And he made a decision. He’d do whatever he could to keep Gracie safe. Even if that meant allying with her vigilante family and the head of that family, Mukta Parish.
He kissed her lightly on her cheek. Warm. Then on the side of her lips. Heat. This woman had no idea what she did to him. She did enough that he was going to meet with her mother, ask her straight out about the digital recordings of Sheila. He needed the truth before he brought it up to Gracie.
He rolled out of the bed with care. Tired as she was, Grace didn’t stir. He grabbed his jeans, T-shirt, and boots, took a pit stop in the bathroom, got cleaned up—bathroom was as well stocked as a posh hotel—and dressed. On his way, he grabbed an apple from a giant breakfast spread on the round table. He chewed as he went to find Mukta.
Though he’d never been here before, Dusty knew nearly every inch—well, every inch aboveground of the Mantua Home. The bureau had done a great job of taking photos and videos when they’d been here a couple of months ago.
The interior of the home was what his mother would’ve called a hodgepodge. Some folks called it eclectic. Mukta had done her best to incorporate a little from each culture in the decor. There was an almost comic mix of artwork in the wide hallway, with large floor lamps, ornate furnishings, tapestries, and thick hall furniture.
What he hadn�
�t known from those photos and reports was what he now found most interesting. The smell of the place, clean and floral. The way all these cultures and personalities meshed. How did Mukta get them to feel such loyalty and kinship? The way they’d hugged Gracie. Still made his throat go tight.
He jogged lightly down the front interior stairs as the sound of kids playing drifted up from the indoor gym. Though Gracie’s room had seemed a quiet oasis, the main part of the house was filled with laughter, teasing, and games.
Couldn’t get over the fact that they had a gym off their elaborate front corridor. Four open doors, molded with dark wood, showed two teams playing a game of dodgeball.
The one male Parish, Gracie’s younger brother—Romeo—played the role of referee. He had on an eye patch and was doing a fair Steve the Pirate from the movie Dodgeball, saying things like “Bollocks,” and “Gar, this sucks.”
Funny kid. He passed the gym and continued along the corridor with its hand-crafted red velvet gold-filigree designs.
The kind of money here…was insane. He drew up short as a little girl came running down the hall.
He called to her, “Where can I find Momma?”
She ran past, shouted, “In the library.”
Russian accent?
Farther down the hall, marble pillars marked the grand entrance to the even grander library, with two-tiered walkways and books from floor to ceiling.
The library was downright charming. Colorful, with statues of fairies and imaginative ornamental globes. Two large chandeliers of winged pixies with tiny colored mirrors reflecting light—like twinkling stardust.
There were several seating areas and tables for private or group study. Mukta sat at a long table with a bank of Mac computers. She rose and came around the table. She wore a pastel pink business suit and matching niqab. She shook his hand. “Welcome. Welcome.”
She had a good voice. Sort of whiskey and syrup. Sweet and strong. “Thank you. And thanks for your hospitality.”
Her dark eyes never wavered from his. A direct woman. “It was the least I could do to repay you for being there for Gracie. Come sit.” She sat and patted the seat beside hers.
The Price of Grace Page 17