by LENA DIAZ,
“To what?”
“To save him.”
He groaned and let his head fall back against the headrest.
She relentlessly continued her assault. “If EXIT the tour company is really a front for some . . . assassin side of EXIT, and innocent people are dying, then someone else is involved, pulling the strings. I know my father has his faults. And I can’t ignore that it looks like he’s probably done some bad things. But I also know he wouldn’t hurt innocent people if there was any way he could stop it. Someone else has to be behind that. If we work together, we can find the real person responsible.”
He stared at the roof of the car above him. “And what if the person who’s responsible for everything is your father?”
“I’ll . . . I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
He lifted his head. “What exactly are you offering?”
“I want us to work together, as a team, to make sure that no one else dies. If you think about it, the only thing we disagree about is the identity of the person who caused or ordered those people’s deaths. We both want the same thing. Justice.”
“Justice.” He laughed bitterly. “Do you think we’re going to gather evidence, send it to the police, and they’ll make an arrest? Is that the justice that you think is going to happen?”
She swallowed hard. “Isn’t that what should happen?”
“Ideally, yes. But EXIT is a clandestine organization, a powerful company that could destroy the reputations and careers of a lot of powerful people within the government if its secrets are revealed. There won’t be any arrests. EXIT’s allies, and its enemies, would never allow that to happen.”
Her mouth dropped open again. “What are you saying? That once you find the person responsible, you’re going to . . .” She curled her fingers around the edge of her seat. “You’re going to . . . kill him?”
“If I just wanted to kill him, I could have done that already. My goal is to figure out how to shut down the entire organization—including your father. If stopping him means that I have to kill him, then yes, that’s what I’ll do. Without hesitation. Without regret.”
The look of horror on her face, an instant before she turned away, had him despising himself all over again. His angry words had spewed out like venom. When had he become such an unfeeling jerk?
She smoothed her hands across the denim over her thighs and cleared her throat, twice. “I need to show you something.” Her voice was so quiet that he had to lean toward her to hear her.
“I need you to understand the type of man that I see when I look at my father. Please. Give me two hours. That’s all I ask. Two hours, and an open mind.”
He sighed heavily. “Melissa, there’s no point. Whatever you want to show me doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything.”
She pinned him with an accusing glare, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “The man you hate so damn much is my father, Jace. My father. He’s the only family I have left, the only person in the world who loves me. All I’m asking is for two hours of your precious time. Surely a life, any life, is worth two hours before you condemn someone.”
He winced, unable to deny the wisdom of her words, unable to deny her. “All right. Two hours.” He shifted into reverse. “Where are we going?”
She let out a ragged breath and settled back in her seat. “To the cemetery.”
Chapter Nine
Granite and marble headstones in gray, black, and pink marched in somber rows across the winter-dead grass. As Jace weaved his way through the graves behind Melissa, he couldn’t help thinking there was nothing sadder and more depressing than touring a graveyard when everything around it looked just as dead as its inhabitants.
The trees had dropped their leaves long ago and looked like lifeless, arthritic sentinels keeping watch over the souls interred here. And what few flowers had been placed against the headstones had succumbed to the frost and were now curled and drooped over the edges of their marble vases.
But the tombstones didn’t hold his attention for long. It was the thick trees behind the iron perimeter fencing that had the hairs sticking up on the back of his neck. Because if he were the man in the ski mask and wanted to kill Melissa, those trees would be the perfect vantage point for a rifle. One squeeze of the trigger, and the gunman could melt into the trees, knowing the fence would give him the head start he needed to get away.
Thinking like a SEAL, or in this case a bodyguard, was second nature. And it was still his job, as far as he was concerned, regardless of what happened at the end of the two-hour reprieve he’d given Melissa.
After scanning the trees and bushes for a potential assailant, he looked back at the graves they were passing. He couldn’t help noticing that the tombstones were getting smaller and smaller. Many of them had little white lambs etched into them, or statues of angels with their wings spread protectively and marble tears running down their sad, cold faces.
His heart stuttered when he realized this section of the cemetery was essentially a baby graveyard. He stopped and read the poem on the stone at his feet, noting the heart-wrenchingly short life span carved into the black granite. He scanned the entire area, shocked at the sheer volume of little markers, all segregated from the rest of the cemetery. Why? Why weren’t they mixed in with the larger graves of the adults who’d once loved them?
“They’re orphans, mainly.” Melissa’s soft voice broke the quiet as if reading his mind.
“I don’t understand.” His voice sounded gritty. He forced a cough to clear it.
She waved her hands toward the dozens of little tombstones. “These are the forgotten and abandoned children that no one claimed. Or babies of families with no money to bury them. Children who were never adopted and spent their short lives in foster care, with no loved ones of their own to lay them to rest in a family plot. The state springs for a tiny bit of land for each of them, but little else. The coarsest coffin. No headstone or vase, just foot markers to show where each grave ends.”
“But there are headstones on all of these graves, expensive ones from the looks of them. Statues, poems carved into granite. These don’t look like they’ve been abandoned or forgotten. They’re just . . . alone.”
She pressed her hand against his chest, right over his heart, making him suck in a breath in surprise. Even through his jacket, he swore he could feel the heat of her fingers, burning him. He should have stepped back. But her hand felt too damn good for him to dredge up the will to move. And after their heated arguments earlier, he craved the softer emotions between them, if nothing else than to make him feel better about the hurt that he’d caused her. And would cause her.
“My father was at a charity dinner years ago when someone spoke about losing a loved one and burying them in this cemetery. They were shocked to see a forlorn section back here with overgrown weeds and barely anything to mark each little grave. My father couldn’t bear the idea of children being forgotten like that. He immediately established a trust to rehabilitate this part of the graveyard. That trust continues to this day, ensuring that each child buried here will always be treated with respect, and love, and given the best that humanity can offer as their final resting place. Does that sound like an evil man to you? Someone capable of killing innocents?”
He reluctantly peeled her hand from his chest and took the step back that he should have taken earlier. He’d seen the true evidence of Cyprian’s character. He’d read the names of the people who’d died in the reports from Mason and Devlin. He’d listened to his fellow Equalizers’ firsthand accounts about what Cyprian and his men had done to them. And he’d met Austin Buchanan, seen the scars, seen the wheelchair that he was sentenced to use for the rest of his life, all because of Cyprian.
He waved his hand to encompass the small tombstones surrounding them. “Your father sounds to me like a man with a lot of money who thought of a great way to generate goodwill toward his company and get a hefty charitable tax write-off along with it.”
Her hand curled around the wings of an angel statue. “You’re a cynical man, Jace.”
“I’m a realist.”
“Then let me show you something else that’s real.”
She headed toward another section of the cemetery. The rows between the graves gradually widened. The size of the tombstones grew larger. The occasional mausoleum dotted the landscape, often surrounded by ornate, black wrought-iron fences with arched, decorative gates. This was the wealthy section of the graveyard. The dead here might not have been able to take their riches with them when they died, but they’d purchased a fine piece of land for their final resting place.
Melissa opened one of the gates and led Jace inside a whitewashed-stone building with CARDENAS carved over the entrance.
Even though he already knew that Melissa had lost her mother and twin brothers when she was a little girl, it was still a shock to step into a mausoleum and be faced with three marble squares on the wall with the names of her dead family members.
Pictures of them were sealed in glass and affixed to the marble squares. Knowing that his future actions might destroy what was left of this family had him feeling guilty all over again, like an intruder. Being here felt . . . wrong.
“I can wait outside if you want to spend some time in here alone.”
“No. I want you here. I want you to see. Turn around.”
Dreading whatever he was about to see, he turned. Pictures and cards, scores of them, filled every available inch of wall space, many of them overlapping. There were birthday cards, anniversary cards, Christmas cards, Easter cards . . . every holiday, every special occasion was represented. Many were faded, yellow, brittle with age. But he could read the flowing script inside some of the newer ones. And they all bore the same signature—Cyprian Cardenas.
Melissa rested her right hand on his jacket sleeve as she studied the wall. He doubted she was even aware that she was touching him. Her need to touch, to connect with what was around her, seemed instinctive, a part of who she was. As if she needed an anchor when the world around her was in turmoil. And he hated that her every touch seemed to reach a little deeper inside him. He needed to stay objective, to guard himself against caring for her.
“It’s been over twenty years,” she said, her voice solemn. “Twenty years since they died. And in that time, my father has never once missed a holiday, a birthday, an anniversary. Even if he’s in the middle of an important trip, he always comes back to leave them a card, a note, some kind of memento: because he loves my mother and brothers, his wife and sons. He’ll never let their memories die. You can’t tell me that a man who loves this deeply could be the monster behind all those deaths on my boards.”
It amazed Jace that two people could look at the same thing and have completely different interpretations. Where Melissa saw a devoted husband and father with a caring heart, Jace saw a man obsessed and unable to move on with his life. He saw the kind of fanaticism that helped explain why Cyprian was so driven to keep the secret part of EXIT going even after so many things had gone wrong and so many innocent lives had been lost. This mausoleum wasn’t his tribute to his family, EXIT was. EXIT was their legacy, Cyprian’s way of fighting back, of getting revenge for the losses he’d suffered.
He probably justified every death of an innocent as necessary collateral damage, an unfortunate price of making the world safer for others so no one else would suffer the way he still did. If anything, seeing this wall made Jace even more wary of what Cyprian Cardenas might be capable of. And it made him wonder, if his daughter ever came between him and his tribute to his dead wife and sons, if she ever threatened EXIT in any way, what would Cyprian do? Would he remain the loving father she believed him to be? Or would he turn on her, like a rabid dog turning on its owner?
“What about your birthdays?” he asked.
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Does your father drop everything he’s doing to come see you every year on your birthday like he does for the dead?”
Her eyes flashed. “Dad and I run a company together. I wouldn’t want him to stop important business in another state, or on the other side of the world, just to come back for my birthday. But if I did want him to, he would.”
Listening to her justify that her father cared less about his living daughter than he did about the family he’d lost over twenty years ago sickened him. But what bothered him more was that Melissa didn’t even seem to realize that she was being slighted. Damn it, she deserved better. And she needed to understand that Cyprian was not the man she believed him to be.
“If he’s such a good man, if you really think he’s innocent and that he would never hurt anyone, then why are you hiding those boards? Why not march into your father’s office and put them on his desk? Why not demand that he explain all the connections between the living and the dead? And why they all point back to him?”
Her eyes widened.
Jace grabbed her upper arms. “You can’t, can you? Because you’re afraid. You’re afraid that if you show him those boards, you’ll see the truth in his eyes. And then you won’t be able to deny what’s in front of you anymore.”
“Let me go,” she demanded.
He released her, fully expecting her to break down, or slap him—which he deserved, or maybe even stalk out of the mausoleum. Instead, as she had several times already, she surprised him. An eerie calm settled over her, and she held out her hand.
“There’s one more thing that I have to show you.”
He hesitated. “Melissa. I don’t think—”
“Just one more thing. Then I’m done.”
He looked at the walls of photographs and cards, not sure how much more he could take of Melissa’s ill-placed faith in her father, a man who deserved no such faith. “Okay. Just one more thing.”
He put his hand in hers, and she pulled him with her through the entryway. She led him up and down the rows to another section of the cemetery. And then he saw them—a grouping of three graves set slightly apart from the others, all with the same last name etched into the granite. His mouth went dry. No. Keep going.
She slowed. Then stopped. Right in front of the first marker. And slowly traced her fingers across the name.
Thomas Hightower.
She looked up at him. And the truth was in her eyes.
He grabbed for his pistol, then froze. Too late. The derringer in her hand was small, but just as lethal as his SIG Sauer nine millimeter. She must have had it with her all along, probably in her jeans pocket when she’d come downstairs with the boards. Mason Hunt had been right about her. She knew what had happened to the Hightower family, and she couldn’t be trusted. Jace slowly raised his hands and laughed bitterly. “I should have known that when you told me you only had two guns, you were lying. After I found those two in your office last night, I should have kept searching.”
“You wouldn’t have found this one. It was under my pillow.”
“Like any good Cardenas.”
Anger flashed in her eyes again. “Like any woman who lives alone in a remote area. I keep it for protection.”
“And you need protection from me?”
“At the moment, yes. Back up.” She motioned with the derringer.
He moved a few feet away from her.
“A couple more,” she said. “I don’t want you lunging at me before I’m finished.”
“Finished with what?” He stepped back two more feet.
“With my story. I still have twenty minutes.”
He scanned the graveyard, the stands of trees, the mausoleums down the hill. Her heavy sigh drew his attention back to her.
“There isn’t anyone else here,” she snapped. “I didn’t bring a team of assassins with me.” Her lips curled with bitterness. “You know, like any good Cardenas would.”
“Melissa—”
“Toss your gun.”
Stupid. He’d been so stupid. He never should have let his guard down around her. He dropped his hand by his holster.
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She steadied the derringer dead center at his chest. “Slowly.”
Very carefully, he pulled the SIG out, then threw it a few yards away. “Now what?”
“Now, you listen.”
She gestured toward the Hightower tombstones. “Thomas died first. His parents died several months later. I never met them.” She fisted her free hand at her side. “I’m not sure if I loved Thomas or not. I could have loved him. Eventually. I certainly fell for him, hard. We dated for several months. And then he was killed, in a mugging, downtown.”
“He was killed by an enforcer, with orders from your father. No point in sugarcoating it.”
Her gaze snapped to his. “You may be right. I don’t know. But I’d never heard of enforcers until you told me about them.”
“You expect me to believe that? While you’re pointing a gun at me?”
“I expect you to listen.”
He gave her a curt nod, and watched, and waited for his chance. For that moment when she’d be distracted, and he could get the gun away from her—hopefully without getting either of them killed.
“It was only after Thomas’s death that I found out that he’d played me for a fool,” she continued. “He was married.”
Jace let her talk. It didn’t matter. None of this was news. Mason had already told him everything about the Hightowers, because Sabrina Hightower was Mason’s wife.
“My father never met Thomas. I’d mentioned him, of course. And I’d hoped to get them together one day, but their schedules never worked out. Of course, now I know it’s because Thomas was using a fake last name and didn’t want my father to find out. He was using me. I was just a . . . a fling to him.”
The fingers of her free hand made swirling motions on her jeans, plucking at the loose threads and letting them fall. But the derringer in her other hand never wavered. “The Hightowers are a prominent family in Colorado. The grandfather made a fortune in mining. So when his grandson was killed, the story went viral. That’s how I found out the truth—I saw Thomas’s picture on the news, along with his true last name.”