Day and Night

by Kaylie Hunter

  Day and Night

  Book Six of the Kelsey’s Burden Series

  KAYLIE HUNTER

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, businesses, incidents, etc., are the imagination of the author, and any resemblance to actual persons or otherwise is coincidental.

  Copyright 2019 by Kaylie Hunter

  Cover design by SelfPubBookCovers.com/Fantasia

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the author except when utilized in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews.

  Books by Kaylie Hunter

  Kelsey’s Burden Series

  Layered Lies

  Past Haunts

  Friends and Foes

  Blood and Tears

  Love and Rage

  Day and Night

  Standalone Novels

  Slightly Off-Balance

  Diamond’s Edge

  Dedication

  For Maggie… It’s not the same without you by my side. Happy Birthday.

  To my Readers:

  Do as you please, but if you are new to this series, I recommend starting with book one, Layered Lies. The cast of characters is lengthy, and it’s easy to get turned around remembering who’s who unless you met everyone along the way. For those who already know the gang but would appreciate a refresher, here it is in a nutshell:

  At the end of book five, Hattie and Pops were tying the knot in Texas, and then everyone would head home to Michigan. Kelsey was at a crossroads of what to do with her life in the aftermath of rescuing her son and saving herself from a madman. Grady and Donovan offered her a partnership, running an investigation team for their security company, Silver Aces Security. Kelsey seemed unsure of her path but willing to put one foot in front of the other. Her cousin Charlie, on the other hand, left in a cloud of rage after learning that their grandparents’ deaths weren’t an accident and that Kelsey was raped as a child. Charlie has most likely returned to their hometown to punish those responsible: the local sheriff, Charlie’s parents Cecil and Mark Harrison, and Kelsey’s parents Audrey and Thomas Harrison.

  Skipping forward, we restart our adventures back in Michigan where it all began.

  Badass-cowboy Grady still stands firmly by Kelsey’s side and has taken up the reins of helping to raise her son, Nicholas. Kelsey, Grady, and Nicholas live in the main house with Anne, Whiskey, and Anne’s computer-genius daughter, Sara, AKA little bug. Hattie, now married to Pops, splits her time between Michigan and Texas. Sassy Katie lives above the garage with Tech, both a member of the Devil’s Players and Kelsey’s investigative sidekick. Lisa, Donovan, and their new baby girl Abigail live in the house next door. Alex still colors everyone’s world with mixed fashions and lives in the third and last house on the dead-end street. Crazy Carl still resides with all of them as well, keeping them busy babysitting him so he doesn’t order thirty gallons of blue moon ice cream or nuclear missiles online.

  The girls and Alex work at the Changing Room, the resale store Kelsey owns, along with Goat, a Devil’s Player and the boy-toy to Kelsey’s party-girl friend Dallas. Bones, the sergeant of arms for the Devil’s Players, works at Silver Aces Security when he’s not chasing after Bridget. Wayne and Ryan, both guards that had protected the family back in Texas, work for Silver Aces and pop in and out of Michigan between cases.

  In addition to Bones, Whiskey, Goat, and Tech, most of the Devil’s Players are close by. Tyler is still a prospect but learning the ropes fast as he works personal security jobs for Kelsey. They report up to the club president, James, who isn’t much of a leader, but he looks hot with his surfer-biker style as he pretends to be in charge.

  Beyond that, you never know who you might bump into. Could be the local cops: long-time friends Dave and Steve. Dave is also Dallas’ son, though he doesn’t always admit to it in public. And he and his wife Tammy are new parents to their baby girl Juliette. Or you could run into some friendly Feds: The sexy profiler Maggie, the tightly wound Agent Kierson, or investigative guru Genie who with her pixie looks seems too innocent despite tracking down sex crime organizations for a living.

  Then there’s everyone else, like crime boss Mickey McNabe, Nightcrawler and Renato from the MC in the next town over, or Doc who runs the local clinic and does house calls when needed. Kelsey’s network has grown diverse and deep, and her friends and family continue to be loyal and dedicated to her cause—even when she’s facing darkness from her past.

  Chapter One

  This is a bad idea, I told myself as I picked the lock on the sliding door.

  Feeling the intricate springs release on the lock, I nudged the handle, sliding the door open a few inches. I removed my tools, tucking them into the back pocket of my jeans before stepping just inside the door to listen. Nothing. I couldn’t hear any movement in the basement or the first floor above.

  Leaving the door open, I walked through the basement gym and down the hall to the furnace room. Once inside, I pulled the handle to the newly installed drop-down ladder that led into my master bedroom upstairs.

  Just a few minutes, I thought. That’s all I need. In and out. No one will know I was here.

  Climbing the ladder, I pushed the panel upward until I could step aside onto the plush cream-colored carpet. I lowered the trapdoor, careful to manage its weight so gravity didn’t pull it closed. Once the door was closed, I turned to step out of the closet.

  “You’re in so much trouble,” Sara said from only a few feet away.

  “Shit!” I screeched, throwing myself backward into the wall.

  “Major trouble,” my son, Nicholas, agreed.

  “Damn it! What are you two doing home?”

  “We live here,” Sara grinned.

  Sara was eight, going on thirty, and as smart as most college professors, if not smarter. Nicholas, her partner in crime, would turn nine next month. And while not as intellectual as Sara, he was perceptive in ways that no child should’ve been by his age.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be on a business trip until Sunday?” Nicholas asked, cocking an eyebrow in a way that reminded me of Grady, my sort-of live-in boyfriend. At least, I thought Grady was still my boyfriend. Finding out our relationship status would require some form of communication.

  Nicholas adored Grady and vice versa. I was grateful they shared such a tight bond. It made running easier.

  “She lied,” Sara said. “She was hoping to sneak in without anyone noticing.”

  “Answer my question.” I pushed past them toward my dresser. “What are you two doing here?”

  “Mom hired a nanny so we could do our schoolwork from home,” Sara answered as she led Nicholas over to the bed and climbed on top of the comforter.

  “Again?” I asked, rolling my eyes as I pulled out piles of clean clothes. “And where is your new nanny? I didn’t hear anyone when I came in.”

  “You mean when you picked the lock in the basement and snuck into your bedroom through the trapdoor?” Nicholas asked, cocking that damn eyebrow.

  “I forgot my house keys,” I lied.

  Both Sara and Nicholas giggled.

  “The nanny is out in the garage,” Sara said. “She doesn’t think we know, but she’s on the phone with her boyfriend.”

  “He’s in a band,” Nicholas added.

  “And she’s going to have sex with him tonight to prove to her friend Ashley that it’s true love.”

  “But it’s not,” Nicholas sighed. “He’s still going on tour without her.”

  “It’s for the best,” Sara said. “The band is really bad. They don’t even know how to read music. I don’t know what she sees in him.”

  Watching the kids, I shook my head. I didn’t want
to know how they’d unmasked so much information about their new nanny.

  “Her soap opera starts in five minutes,” Sara said, checking her watch.

  I looked toward the bedroom door, contemplating giving the nanny an earful. But Anne should’ve consulted with someone less trusting than herself when hiring. While Sara and Nicholas were capable of doing their schoolwork unsupervised, they tended to dare each other to do things they shouldn’t. Sometimes dangerous stunts. Sometimes illegal stunts, like hacking into the DMV and creating fake IDs.

  “Didn’t Grady have a say in who watched the two of you?”

  “Sure,” Nicholas said. “But he told me not to set the house on fire and to call him if anything major happened.”

  “He’s hoping Mom will stop trying to hire someone,” Sara said. “He’s told her a crazy number of times that we can do our schoolwork at Headquarters.”

  “Makes more sense than leaving you alone with a stranger.”

  Sara was referring to the new building for Silver Aces Security, the company Donovan and Grady owned and had relocated from Chicago. The new office, often referred to as simply Headquarters, was located across the street from the resale store that my friends and I owned. The main building held the offices, the new war room, several conference rooms, and a large training gym. Two more outbuildings were located on the back of the property. The northwest building contained a dozen apartments for full-time employees who needed a place to call home between assignments. The northeast building had dorm-style rooms and a common area kitchen for the trainees.

  “What’s Grady’s plan to get rid of the nanny?”

  “I’m not sure he has one yet,” Nicholas said. “He’s not as good at scheming as you are.”

  I looked at the kids, then back at the bedroom door. “Sneak out and get your shoes and laptops before the nanny comes back inside. Be quiet about it.”

  Both kids grinned as they raced to the door and down the hall. I finished packing a week’s worth of clothes into a duffle bag. I felt a pinch of guilt, but only for a moment. The thought of fresh socks and clean underwear outweighed the guilt.

  For three months, I’d tried staying at home. I had worked eight-to-five shifts so I could cook dinner, clean house, and be a dutiful mother and girlfriend. Then one night I stared up at the bedroom ceiling, my heart pounding as Grady slept peacefully beside me. For hours I listened to everything around me: Grady’s deep steady breaths, the wall clock in the atrium ticking the seconds by, and the heavy thump-thump-thump of my heart slamming against my rib cage. By three in the morning I was sneaking out of the room, down the hall, and into the garage. I started my SUV and drove away, wearing nothing more than underwear and a T-shirt.

  The more miles I traveled, the more my heartbeat settled into a steady rhythm. I kept driving. I left everyone I loved. The man who stood by my side when I was at my lowest. The son who I’d adopted only to have kidnapped and rescued years later. The people who had become like family: Hattie, Pops, Anne, Whiskey, Katie, Alex, Lisa, Donovan, and Carl. And the people who had become my friends and protected my family: Bones, James, Goat, Tyler, and Tech.

  I left them all. But they were better off without me turning their lives upside down. I wasn’t capable of being a girlfriend, mother, or friend. After the years of warring monsters to protect everyone, I’d become a damaged shell of the person I used to be. Pretending otherwise felt like a prison sentence.

  I had thought running the new investigations department at the security company would help, but sitting behind a desk, talking on conference calls, wasn’t the same as chasing bad guys. And the longer I sat, the bouncier my knees became as my anxiety levels climbed.

  I tried exercise, but running three miles every morning left me feeling uninspired. I tried tossing the prospects around in training matches, but it soon bored me. I tried reading, then writing, but my frustrations only grew.

  I was burning on the inside—the flames flickering just under my skin. So I ran. I ran before I set fire to everything and everyone I loved.

  And, though I knew they worried about me, no one seemed surprised when I left. Hattie called me every morning to ask whether I was eating. Katie called with make-believe business questions. Anne called to complain about Whiskey. Lisa called to give me updates on the kids, including her beautiful daughter, Abigail. Donovan called to ask me to check on various security jobs. And Nicholas and Sara called several times a day, mostly to either tattle on each other or to share the latest family gossip.

  Grady was the only one who didn’t call. I knew he was hurt, angry. He wanted us to build a life together, to get married, and to raise a family. But I couldn’t. We were the equivalent of oil and water, whether he saw it or not, and as much as I tried, we’d never fully blend together.

  I wanted to explain it to him, but I didn’t know how. When we were alone, usually at night curled up in bed, everything seemed so natural, so perfect. But I couldn’t sustain that feeling. I couldn’t carry it into the other parts of my life. I couldn’t even dream peaceful dreams, often waking covered in sweat and throwing punches into the air.

  He’d hold me and tell me it would get better, but we both knew on some level it was a lie. Because even though I couldn’t say the words, no one, not even my cousin Charlie, knew me like Grady. He could read every facial expression, every twitch and turn, and know my thoughts. He knew, deep down, that I couldn’t be the mother to his children. He knew I couldn’t bring myself to marry him, committing to a life of happily-ever-after. He knew I was going to run, and he let me.

  An hour after I left, Grady had sent me a text: “Be safe, my love.”

  That was the one and only time he contacted me.

  The kids, returning to the bedroom, startled me out of my memories. I opened the closet trapdoor before taking their backpacks so they could climb down. Carrying the bags, I followed after them and then led them out the basement sliding door, past Lisa and Alex’s houses, and into the woods.

  “I parked about a mile to the east.”

  Sara stopped and looked around. Nicholas laughed at her and started jogging east. She giggled and ran after him. I double-layered their backpacks onto my back and held my duffle in my arms at my chest as I started a slow jog after them. Even with the extra weight I could easily outrun them, but I hung back so I could watch them playfully push each other about as they raced up a small hill.

  I missed them. I missed everyone. I just wasn’t strong enough to stay.

  Chapter Two

  “Aunt Kelsey?” Sara asked as we were loading the bags into my SUV.

  “Hmm?”

  “How scared will Mom be when she finds out we’re missing?”

  “Hopefully scared enough not to hire another stranger to watch you guys,” I answered as I closed the SUV’s back hatch. I waited for them to throw themselves into the back seat before closing their door and sliding into the driver’s seat. “No worries, though. I texted Uncle Alex and Aunt Katie. They’ll let your mom know that you’re with me when she starts freaking out.”

  “I texted Grady, too,” Nicholas said as he latched his seatbelt.

  My brain flashed through a hundred different thoughts. My heart started beating heavily against my chest, resonating in my ears. Keeping my voice level, I started up the truck and asked, “What exactly did you tell Grady?”

  “That my mom was kidnapping us, and we might be late for dinner.”

  I glanced to the rearview mirror and saw both kids grinning at me. “And did he text you back?” I pulled ahead, down the narrow two-track lane that ran alongside the back of the woods. I followed the tracks as they curved to the left.

  “He said he already knew. Tech saw you on the security feed when you entered the basement.”

  “What security feed in the basement?”

  “The one that Carl installed,” Sara answered. “The whole house is wired and monitored.”

  “The whole house?”

  “Well, Grady and Tech disconnected t
he ones in the bathrooms and bedrooms. They told Carl that if he tried that again, they’d move him over to Headquarters to live.”

  “That’s good, I guess. Where is Carl, anyway?”

  “He has to work with Alex now,” Nicholas laughed. “The nannies couldn’t keep up with him, and Sara and I can’t get our schoolwork done and watch him at the same time. The last time we weren’t paying attention, he blew up Hattie’s oven.”

  “The gas oven?” I asked, hitting the brakes and looking back at them.

  “It was a minor explosion,” Sara said, rolling her eyes. “Everyone made way too big a deal about it.”

  “Grady said it was a good thing that Hattie and Pops had flown back to Texas the day before so she didn’t see the damage to her kitchen,” Nicholas said.

  “And you two were home when Carl blew the oven up?”

  “It was cool,” Nicholas laughed.

  “He was testing a new product to see how it reacted to heat,” Sara added. “He said he’d have to start from scratch because you’d be mad if he blew up your SUV.”

  “What is this new product supposed to do?”

  “It looks like blue putty, but it leaves a chemical trace that can be tracked on a computer,” Sara said. “An invisible chemical lingers, and you can see it on live satellite images days later. Also, the residue changes colors as it ages; so you can tell how long ago the putty was at each point.”

  “Shit. Really?”

  “Language, Mom,” Nicholas said, raising that damned eyebrow.

  Sara giggled. “Carl had Donovan carrying the putty around to test it for a few days. But that was before the explosion. Donovan told Carl that he won’t be his guinea pig anymore.”

  “I don’t blame him.” Turning back in my seat, I followed the two-track lane again until I reached the end. Parked roadside, Tech was sitting on his motorcycle with two bags on his lap.