RYDER
Blake Security, Book 1
by Celina McKane
Copyright © 2016
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER ONE
RYDER
The door to the luxurious mansion was pulled open by a tiny blonde woman with a screaming baby on her hip. The woman was dressed in a silver cocktail dress and six-inch heels that still left her almost a foot shorter than me. I had to look down at her, and she tipped her head back to look up at me. Her hair and makeup were perfect, and if not for the shrieking baby on her hip, I might have thought she had just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. Her plump lips were moving, but my ears were unable to register any sound other than the screeching that came from the tiny little cherub she was holding. I had no idea something so small could make such a big noise. I’d heard IED devices explode in the Middle East that sounded like balloons popping compared to this kid.
“Ryder Grant?” the little woman yelled finally over the sounds of the baby.
“Yes ma’am,” I yelled back. I spent years trying to rid myself of the thick Cajun accent I’d grown up with, but when I was stressed, it sometimes snuck back in. I usually didn’t notice, but judging by the way this woman was looking at me, it was back. I tried to show her the I.D. I was holding in my hand, but instead of looking at it, she stepped back with a harried expression and motioned me inside. I thought that was odd, considering why I was here. Maybe security had called up from the gates, but it was still a risky practice considering there was a kidnapper on the loose. I followed her into a huge foyer as I wondered if listening to the baby shriek was what had driven the kidnappers away the first time. I was thinking of bailing myself. If not for the fact that Blake would kick my ass, I may have.
Blake Donovan and I have been friends since the fourth grade. We lost touch when Blake moved at the end of our junior year in high school. It was almost ten years to the day since we’d seen each other when I ran into Blake in a bar down on Canal Street one night. He had changed a lot since I saw him last. He was a lot bigger for one thing. He’d always been a tall, skinny kid, and now at his full height of six-foot four, he packed close to three hundred pounds of solid muscle. He almost matched me both in height and bulk, but I’ve been big my entire life. It wasn’t Blake’s size that stunned me as much as it was the change in his personality. He was always the life of the party when we were kids. He was the first one to laugh at a stupid joke or tell one. It was rare that he ever had anything but a smile on his face, and stress rolled right off of him. Now there was something so dark and serious about him that he frightened most people away with a simple glance. He had opened a security company called Blake Security after he got out of the army and before I met back up with him, but at that point it was floundering. Blake was smart enough to know that it was thanks in part to his inability to deal with the average citizen. He had hired Lucy, a bubbly little receptionist by then, but even her enthusiasm failed to cut through his rough exterior for most clients. Blake and I hung out a few more times after the night in the bar, and he ultimately offered me a position at the firm. I’d only been out of the navy for a few months at that point, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. One thing they didn't teach you when you’re a highly trained Navy Seal was how to be an average citizen when you got out. I was having trouble adjusting and thought Blake’s offer might be just what I needed until I got it all figured out. Now—two years later—between Blake’s grit and my inherent ability to charm almost anyone, business was finally beginning to pick up. We had recently hired two new guys, one a former Green Beret, who was originally from Oklahoma and talked almost as funny as I did before I lost my accent, and the other was an officer in the Iraqi army who had immigrated to the U.S. after his retirement from the armed forces. I’m sure we all had a lot of stories to tell, but for the most part we stuck to business and stayed away from anything that reminded us of what our choices had forced us to do up to this point.
I looked around the grand foyer I now stood in and was brought back to the present. The baby siren still wailed in my ears as I thought how my Granny’s house—that I’d grown up in out on the bayou—would have fit right inside of this one room. There were marble floors and an ornate spiral staircase carved out of thick mahogany and polished to a glassy shine that—as I boy—I would have loved to slide down. Hell, truth be told I’d like to do it right now, but somehow I sensed the occupants of the house might frown on that. A crystal chandelier hung down from the thirty-foot ceilings and refracted the light coming in through the stained-glass windows down over the expensive-looking vases and fresh flowers like a broken rainbow. I wondered what it would be like to live like this, and if the people who did had any idea what the alternative was like.
“Alicia!” the little blonde woman was screaming now. The elevation of her voice only seemed to make the baby yell louder. I tried not to wince but wished for the first time in my life that all of the noise I’d tolerated on my seven tours as a Navy Seal would have damaged my hearing. I tried to concentrate on the layout of the house and block it out, but at this point, I was ready to do something completely foreign to me…turn and run. It was about that time, however, that I looked up and saw what I could only describe as a wingless angel descending the staircase.
“There you are Alicia! Didn’t you hear me calling?” The blonde woman chastised the angel just as she reached the bottom step. The dark-haired beauty glanced at me, and when her huge hazel eyes locked into my brown ones, I was sure I saw my future there, or at least hers in my arms. She turned toward the woman and the baby was slid from the tiny woman’s hip into the angel’s arms and—just like that—my world was silent once again. The lucky baby burrowed herself into the beauty’s ample chest and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Branson. I was preparing her bath.” The dark-haired angel’s voice was heavily tinged with a Russian accent. I knew then that this must be the nanny. Blake had told me that she was from Moscow.
“It’s fine Alicia, just take her upstairs so I can think.” The woman shooed her away without even a “thank you,” as if she hadn’t just rescued her from a howling siren.
“Yes, ma’am.” The beautiful nanny glanced up at me once again, and this time I smiled. I could usually tell if a woman was affected by what could only be termed as my “legendary” grin, but not this woman. She kept her professional face on, as she cuddled the baby tighter to her chest and carried her up the winding staircase. As I watched her go, I wondered if that baby had any idea how lucky she was.
“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Grant,” Mrs. Branson was saying when I returned my attention to the matter at hand.
I concentrated on my accent as I told her, “It’s Ryder, and that’s fine, I understand.” I really didn’t. I was an only child and raised by my Granny with not many other kids close by. My socialization with people my own age came from school and church and the occasional crying baby in the pew was the extent of my exposure. Then I spent most of my adult life as a Navy Seal—up to this point. Kids were completely foreign to me, especially babies.
The woman smiled. She was really beautiful—now that she had been relieved of the scowl her face held when the baby was screeching. “My husband is waiting for us in the sitting room, if you’ll follow me, please?”
I nodded and followed her down the long hall. Family photos framed in gold decorated the rich, red walls, and dark mahogany wood—as shiny as glass—covered the floor. I almost felt funny, traipsing across them in my boots. She led me into a sunken room filled with opulent embroidered silk sofas, dark green wing-backed chairs, and expensive paintings. I knew for sure my boots and army-surplus khaki pants didn’t fit in here. The domed ceiling was at least a hundred feet high and made partly of glass so that the late afternoon sun shimmered down across us and cast almost ghost-like shadows against the walls. The walls here were dark green, and the room looked like it could be featured on one of those decorating magazines, but I wasn’t really impressed. The house seemed to be decorated more to convey the wealth of the family—and not the personality. It didn’t look lived-in, and it gave off a cold and unfriendly vibe. It was lacking warmth and that “lived in by humans” feeling.
A man waited for us in this room. He looked to be in his early thirties, immaculately groomed, and dressed in a suit made out of fabric that I was sure was much finer than anything I could ever afford. He stood up and held out his hand. I took it, and although he was an average-sized man, his completely disappeared in mine as we shook.
“Mr. Grant?”
“Yes, sir. Call me Ryder, please.”
“I’m Matt Branson, and you’ve met my wife, Julia?”
“Yes.”
“Have a seat, please.” I was afraid to sit on any of their furniture. It all looked like it was worth more than my house and not too sturdy. Granny always told me she couldn’t have nice things because I was like a bull in a china closet. I broke pretty much anything that wasn’t nailed down without even trying. I perched awkwardly on the edge of one of the chairs, and before sitting back down on the sofa, Mr. Branson pressed a button on the wall and said, “Jackie, can we get some coffee in here please?”
“Yes, sir, right away.” The woman’s voice sounded so clear it was as if she was in the same room. It made me wonder—not for the first time—what Mrs. Branson was doing answering the front door with the baby on her hip. I was sure they had plenty of staff to do that for them.
I waited for both of my clients to take their seats across the fine wood coffee table from me before asking, “I’m sorry, but I’m wondering why you answered the door, Mrs. Branson? I mean, considering the baby is who we’re worried about, it would seem to me you’d be slightly more cautious.” I didn’t mean for that to sound judgmental, or as if I was scolding her, but unfortunately—to my ears at least—it did.
She furrowed her brow and said, “I was just so frazzled by her screaming. I had called for Alicia several times on the intercom, and she wasn’t responding so I went looking for her, and you rang the bell as I passed through the foyer.”
“You answered the door?” her husband asked incredulously. “Do I have to explain to you again how serious this is?” I could tell that I’d touched on a sore subject between the couple. I filed that away to explore later and waited for the plump woman in a beige maid’s uniform to sit the coffee down on the table in front of us. Mr. Branson discharged her with a wave of his hand and picked up the pot and began pouring it himself. While he did that I said, “I’ve read the file, and I understand that you’ve been through these questions at least a dozen times. I apologize, but it will serve us all best if I can hear from the two of you exactly what happened that day.”
“Of course,” Matt said, handing me a cup. “I’ll let you add what you like.”
I’m not really a coffee drinker, but I took it to be polite. I sipped the dark bitter brew, as Mr. Branson went on to say, “It was three weeks ago, and Alicia, our nanny was getting ready to take the baby to the park. She had Celia’s bag packed, and she was waiting just outside the front door for our driver, Charles Bonaparte, to pick them up.”
Celia is the baby’s name; I read that in the file, too.
“When the car came around, instead of waiting for Charles to get out and open the door, Alicia pulled it open by herself. She was holding the baby, and a man grabbed both of them from inside the car and began to pull them in. That was when our gardener happened to come out of the garage and see what was going on. He called for security before running after them. By the time the car got to the front gates, security had them barred. The man in the backseat jumped out, and they wrestled with him, but he got away. Charles told us later that he’d been waiting in the car for him with a gun. Alicia and Celia were unharmed, but Alicia was understandably shaken up.”
“So neither of you witnessed any of this?”
“No, I was at the office, and Julia was…where were you again?”
“I told you a hundred times that I was at my garden club meeting at the Stokes Plantation.”
Matt rolled his eyes. I could feel the tension between the two of them, and I wondered if it had to do with the foiled kidnapping, or if they were having problems before that.
“I will need to speak with Alicia and Charles, as well as your head of security and his men who were here that day.”
“Absolutely. Vince Carter is my head of security; I’ll get you his information. I’ve had him fire those men, but he’ll have their contact information.”
“You fired them?”
“Of course I did. That man should have never made it on the grounds in the first place. They had no explanation for how he did that, or why he wasn’t spotted on one of the security cameras as he got into the garage or the car. We have one of the most state-of-the-art security systems in Louisiana. There is no excuse for what happened that day—other than human error. When you factor in that he was allowed to get away once again, well, there was just no way I’d be comfortable not firing them.”
“So you have an entirely new security staff?”
“No, he only fired the ones who were here that day.”
“What about the people here the night before, were they interviewed?”
“I believe the police spoke to them all,” he hesitated, and a thoughtful look crossed his face. “Do you think the kidnapper was here all night?”
“If I was going to sneak into a place this heavily armed with security, I’d want to do it under the cover of night.”
“Damn! Maybe I fired the wrong guys.”
I let that one go and said, “Since Alicia is here, can I speak with her first?”
I told myself it was strictly part of my job, but I couldn’t help anticipating the sight of her gorgeous face again.
“Yes,” Matt said. I couldn’t help but notice that Julia hadn’t spoken other than when she was directly spoken to. Matt looked at her then and said, “Julia, will you call Alicia down?”
She nodded slightly and got up and went to the intercom. “Alicia?”
“Yes, ma’am?” With her accent, it sounded like “Jes ma’am?” It sent a little thrill right through me that pooled in my core. I tried to will that feeling away. I was here in a professional capacity, and it was unlike me to deviate from that. If I met her in a club or a bar…or even the grocery store, all bets would be off. But my job, I took very seriously, as I did our reputation. For two years I’d resisted any kind of relationship with any of our clients, no matter how hot she may be. There was just something about the nanny that had gotten under my skin with just one glance.
“We need you to come down and speak with the�
�investigator?” She seemed unsure of what to call me. The firm had been retained as bodyguards for this job, but investigator would do. I nodded at her, as the nanny’s reply floated back through the intercom, "I was just putting Miss Celia in the bath…”
Julia’s eyes went wide. It was easy to see that I wasn’t the only one in the room with an aversion to babies. Considering Julia was the baby’s mother, however, I found her aversion sad. She quickly said, “Never mind then, I’ll send him up.”
I glanced at Julia’s husband, wondering if he noticed how his wife reacted to their child.
Matt’s face told me all I needed to know. He was aware, and it didn’t make him happy. I suddenly felt like there were going to be a lot of personal issues I’d have to sift through in this house before getting to the truth at the bottom of it all.
CHAPTER TWO
RYDER
The Bransons didn’t bother showing me up the stairs. Instead, they simply escorted me back to the foyer and gave me directions. Once again, I had to wonder what it was like to live in a house that you almost needed GPS to navigate. Before I went up the stairs, Matt said, “I’m sorry Ryder, but my wife and I have a gala that we have to put in an appearance at. After you speak to Alicia, she can call Charles up for you. Just give me a call after you speak to him and we’ll decide where to go from there.”
I raised an eyebrow, but I didn’t say anything. It was odd that they’d set up an appointment for me to come over when they were on their way out. So far “odd” was the vibe I’d gotten since I set foot in the front door. At least the gala explained the way they were dressed. I was wondering if they often sat around the house in formal attire. I thanked them for now and made my way up to the nursery with the directions Matt gave me. I turned right when I came to the end of the hallway and stopped dead in my tracks when my nostrils were assaulted by a horrific smell. The rest of the house smelled like flowers and spice. This part of the hallway smelled like something had died here and was in the process of decomposing already.
RYDER: A Standalone Military Romance (Blake Security Book 1) Page 1