by A. C. Arthur
“What? Go? Now?” she asked after looking up and down the hallway to see if there really were reporters nearby.
One of the women that had been in the room with her microphone in Jade’s face wasn’t too far away, standing behind a barrier of deputies. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, at least Bailey hoped she couldn’t. But she was watching them, probably trying to read their lips.
“I have to be here for Trent,” she said, holding her head down so her mouth was no longer visible to the astute reporter.
Devlin had taken a step back from her. When she’d spotted the reporter, he had too. “Trent has more family here than I suspect he wants right now. You’re the one that’s been held captive. I’m sure Trent and the other members of your family will understand if you leave to get a shower, some food and a few hours’ sleep.”
“Tia,” she whispered.
“There’s nothing you can do for her by sitting in that waiting room,” he insisted. “I’ll take you to a hotel. You can rest, change your clothes and come back.”
She couldn’t leave and yet, as she continued to stare down and noticed the blood on her shirt she shivered.
“He’s right.”
Bailey saw her shoes first—black leather with a gold clasp to the side. She touched Bailey’s shoulder as she continued, “You do need to rest. We’ll take care of Trent and we’ll call you with any news about Tia,” Beverly said.
“I don’t want him to think we’re abandoning him,” Bailey told her aunt.
Beverly was already shaking her head. Her neatly styled white gray hair sparkling in the otherwise dreary hallway.
“That’s nonsense and you know it,” Beverly admonished in that way that only a loving aunt could. “You take her to the nearest hotel and use this.”
Bailey and Devlin looked down as Beverly dug into her black Chanel bag with its gold chain strap and pulled out her wallet. From there she retrieved a credit card and handed it to Bailey.
“Don’t mumble another word, just do as I say,” she told Bailey when she looked at the card skeptically.
“With all due respect, ma’am,” Devlin began. “I can pay for her hotel.”
Beverly glanced up at him with a look Bailey knew all too well. She took that moment to accept the card from her aunt and slipped it into the pocket of her sweat pants.
“I know very well what you can do, Devlin. You watched my son’s back all those times when the two of you were gallivanting around overseas. You’re a good friend, one that’s starting to look more and more like family each time I see you. That means, you listen to what I say, when I say. Don’t make me angry right now, I’m upset enough as it is.”
With that said, Beverly lifted a hand to pat Devlin’s cheek. Tears filled her eyes as she shook her head. “Just do as I say now, please.”
Devlin was smart, a fact Bailey had already concluded. He touched Beverly’s hand, holding it tight in his own as he nodded.
“I’ll take her to the hotel and get her settled,” he told her.
Beverly nodded as well and then turned to Bailey. She wrapped her arms around her niece and hugged tight. “I want you to listen to whatever he says, Bailey. Now is not the time to play tough. Your father couldn’t take it if anything happened to you and neither could I,” she whispered.
With her eyes closed tight and the feel of warmth and love around her, Bailey conceded. “Yes ma’am.”
Her aunts, Beverly and Alma, had been everything to her in the years after her mother’s death. They were her friend when she needed them, her mother when she swore she didn’t need one, and her champion when the men in the family still wanted to treat her like a baby. She loved and respected each of them, especially Beverly with all that she’d been going through lately.
When they separated, Beverly pulled Devlin into a similar hug. Bailey watched as Devlin hugged her aunt, albeit a little reluctantly. There was something there, she thought, a spark of normalcy she wasn’t sure Devlin was used to. The love her Aunt Beverly had for this man who had continuously shown up to help their family was apparent. Yes, Bailey thought absently, there was definitely something there.
“Protect my niece,” she heard Beverly tell him, when the hug was over.
“With my life,” he replied while looking directly at Bailey.
Henry took a seat next to his middle son. He didn’t touch him. He knew better than that.
Trent had always been the reluctant child. The headstrong and independent one. It had been that way since he was born. Trent was the one who was trying to hold his bottle when he was just three months old. By the time he was a year old, he was tearing off his diaper and waddling to the bathroom determined to use the toilet instead of his potty chair. Henry resisted the urge to smile at that thought.
“She wanted to have another baby,” Trent said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I said no. It wasn’t the right time.”
Henry nodded. “Time never seems to be right when you want it to be.”
“I couldn’t do it,” Trent continued. “The dreams. They seemed so real and now look what happened. Exactly what I thought was going to happen! She’s in there dying!”
Henry cleared his throat, willing his own voice not to crack. “I know about those dreams son. I used to have them myself.”
Beside him Trent scrubbed his hands over his face. He leaned forward once more, resting his elbows on his knees and fisting his hands beneath his chin.
“I dreamed I was going to lose her,” Trent said as if giving clarification to Henry.
But Henry only shook his head. He’d known exactly what his son was referring to. He knew because he was living the same trauma that Trent was.
“I used to dream about my wedding to your mother. About us having children and a big beautiful home just like the one my parents had when I was growing up. I dreamed of Christmas Day when my children would come barreling down the stairs and into the living room to find everything they’d asked Santa to bring them. Of Sunday dinners where there was generous amounts of food and family sitting around the table laughing and joking, enjoying life, enjoying each other.” He stopped because the words had heat forming in his chest, dread and guilt burning like bile in his throat.
“I wanted all that more than anything else in the world. And when I finally had everything that I wanted, I messed it all up. I could blame it on the dream, but I was the one who decided. I kept the secret that paved the way for all this to happen,” Henry admitted to his son.
“I’m the reason she’s in there fighting for her life and it’s killing me, son. Knowing that is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to digest.”
“I can’t make you feel better,” Trent told him. “I have to call Camille and talk to Trevor, but I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t know how to say to him that we might lose her. So, I’m sorry, dad, I can’t make this easier for you. I can’t make it easier for anyone right now.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Henry told him and this time he let his hand fall on Trent’s back. “Its past time I did what’s right for my family, no matter what. It’s just time I stand up and do what’s right.”
Trent turned to him. “And what’s that going to be, dad? Are you going to call Roslyn up and tell her you’ll be with her after all these years? Because that’s probably what it’s going to take to put a stop to this. She’s always wanted you. That’s how it started.”
Henry nodded. “You’re right, son. That’s how it all started. So I guess that’s how it has to end.”
Chapter 3
Dev had driven to the closest hotel from Woodland Trauma Center. Well, it had been the closest one he thought a woman like Bailey Donovan should stay in. And he’d used his own credit card to pay for it, despite the warning gaze Bailey had given them when they were at the front desk.
“Aunt Beverly does not like being disobeyed,” Bailey had said with a lift of one beautifully arched brow.
Dev had only shrugged. “I’ll take my cha
nces.”
That had been an hour ago. It was almost two a.m. by now and he was sitting at a table on the balcony of the bungalow suite at the Pelican Hill resort. He wished he had his tablet, but at the moment he would have to make do with his phone. He did a quick Google of Jaydon Donovan, re-familiarizing himself with her story, or at least the story she’d told when she married Parker Donovan.
They’d met in college. She’d said she was from Chicago but that she’d had no family. Parker had a huge family. Jaydon was pretty and smart. She and Parker were a power couple on campus. They’d been one in business as well until a year after the marriage they decided to call it quits. It was a mutual agreement and they remained friends and colleagues as Jaydon continued to run Donovan Network Management and Parker worked as a producer at Donovan Network Television. A year ago, Jaydon resigned from DNM to pursue her own business.
That’s what it said when Dev googled her name. Now he figured there were very important parts to that story which had been left out. Jaydon did have family—a violent one at that.
It was a few minutes later when Dev was reading another article about Jaydon’s representation of several A List actors that Dev’s phone rang.
“Yeah?” he answered gruffly.
“They’re dead,” York spoke through the other end. “The guys from the team, all three of them and Apollo.”
Dev had figured as much, but he wasn’t happy to finally hear it. “How?”
“Gunshots, all of them. In the woods they must have surprised them. Our team had their weapons drawn already and there’s evidence of two different types of shell casings in the area. As for Apollo, you’re not going to believe this.”
“I’m having a hard time digesting how a soldier as decorated as Apollo and as lethal as he was with any weapon of his choice, was killed on a job like watching a woman, her child and their house,” Dev said.
He’d begun frowning so hard his head was hurting. Or had that been happening already? To say this day had been stressful would not be accurate enough. From the argument with Trent, to finding Bailey, Tia being shot and then that damn text message…at this moment Dev felt like growling with fury instead of sitting in this chair fighting for calm.
“Exactly. So my guess is he knew his killer,” York stated.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I found his body slumped over in the front seat of his car. The car that was still parked across from Trent’s house. His keys, wallet with identification, credit cards and cash, were still on him.”
Dev squeezed his eyes shut. He really did not want to think too hard on what York was saying. Even though it didn’t take a lot of thought to jump to the next conclusion.
“We don’t have leaks,” Dev said finally. “Every one of our guys are the truth and nothing but.”
“Uh huh,” York said. “I’m with you on that. We’ve all been in hairy situations in unfamiliar lands with killers more dangerous than this chick we’re chasing and we’ve never had an infiltration. But I’m telling you that there is absolutely no way that someone snuck up on Apollo, climbed into the front passenger seat of his car and shot him at point blank range in his temple, unless he knew them.”
York was right. Apollo was stealth and thorough in every job he performed. He would never have gotten into his car without checking to make sure it was clear first and he certainly would not have sat in that car with his doors unlocked. Could the perpetrator have walked up to the car and pointed their gun at him demanding he open the doors? Yes, but before the locks on any doors were disengaged Apollo would have had his own weapon drawn and that perpetrator would have been falling to the ground with a bullet between his eyes. That’s just how Apollo operated.
“So who else is there?” Dev asked York.
“I don’t know. There were no prints in his car but I’m hoping we can get something off the type of gun they used.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had all their bodies moved to an operational facility. Dan Cleary’s the captain in the area so I gave him a call. He’s gonna have his team do autopsies and run those bullets.”
Dev agreed wholeheartedly with York’s decision to take the bodies of their team mates to an unclassified operations facility. As private contract Special Ops Team members they weren’t permitted to go through the regular law enforcement channels or hospitals for that matter. Everything they did, who they dealt with and what happened to them even on United States soil, had to go through field captains. Trent used to be their field captain, before he left to work solely with his own private investigation firm. Still, they were a family of sorts and so Dev had no problem authorizing everything they did for Trent and his family, even without getting another captain’s approval.
“You think there was something different?” he asked York.
“The casings I found in the forest and the one in Apollo’s car, they each have the same nick on the edge. It almost looks like a boomerang.”
“Like a special signature,” Dev stated grimly.
“Bingo!”
Dev nodded as he stared out to the night sky. The ocean was only a short distance away, palm trees swaying in the warm breeze.
“Yeah, you should definitely follow up on that,” he told York. “I’ll stay on Roslyn Ausby’s trail.”
“I circled back to the cabin again after Cleary’s team picked up all the bodies. Cops were everywhere, so I hung back until they taped the place off and left. There was nothing. No clues as to who was actually there or where they would have gone. I can pass Ausby and the other two names along to Cleary and see what they come up with.”
“No,” Dev answered immediately. “I’ll run all the background checks. I don’t want Cleary involved more than he already is.”
In fact, if those dead bodies hadn’t been of his teammates, Dev would not have involved the field captain at all. What they were doing was under the radar. There’d been no government or other sanction to go after Roslyn Ausby. No quiet deposits into their bank accounts for obscene amounts of money designed to compensate them for risking their lives. This was strictly a favor for a friend. To that end, Dev wanted to be the one to close this out.
“I’m going after Dane Donovan,” he told York. “Ausby is his mother and that woman we shot was his sister. He knows more than he’s saying and it’s time we find out what.”
“You think he’s just gonna tell you what he knows after what happened in that cabin? What’s the status on his sister now?”
Dev sat back in the chair and shrugged. “I don’t know. Trent’s dad knows the Chief of Trauma at the hospital, that’s why he had Tia flown out here. While I was there I asked if Jaydon Donovan had been admitted and they said no. So right now I’m not sure where she or Dane are.”
“I’ll get the transport logs from the choppers that picked them up,” York offered.
“Good. But before you do, take Apollo’s keys and go back to Trent’s place. I need my tablet from the first floor office. I’ll text you the alarm code and an address where you can ship it to me. Lock that place up tight when you leave,” Dev instructed him.
“Got it,” York said before hanging up.
Seconds later Dev hit send on the text message with the security code to Trent’s house. He’d give York three hours to get in and out, and at first light he was calling a locksmith and the private security firm he knew Trent had used, to have new locks and a new security system installed. The new keys and temporary code could be delivered to Trent at the hospital. Dev knew Trent would understand what was going on, even if he couldn’t be personally involved in the investigation right now. Trent’s place was at the hospital with Tia, there was no question about that. So Dev wanted to wrap this mess up soon, because the less stress on the family right now, the better.
Speaking of stress, he thought as he heard the water from the shower turn off. What the hell was he going to do with Bailey Donovan?
That was a loaded question, on top of the una
nswered one regarding what Dev had been doing with Bailey since Savian Donovan’s wedding.
The answer was always the same—he had no idea.
There’d never been a girlfriend for Dev. His option for sexual release had always been professional services, using the membership he’d obtained at The Corporation sex club for all its perks and international convenience. He’d been safe and discreet in fulfilling his darkest sexual desires and in the morning he’d been able to walk away with no questions, no strings. He made monthly payments to the club from one of the many bank accounts he’d opened over the years. There was good money to be made in Special Ops and even better money in the side jobs Dev had been contracted for in the years since Trent had resigned. Some would call him a mercenary, but Dev decided that he was a businessman. He made the best moves to suit his financial situation. If he were born a killer, as some had assumed, then he might as well get paid well for his talent.
Bailey didn’t know any of that about him. All she knew was that he was Trent’s friend. A soldier. And now, her part-time lover. Dev wasn’t quite sure why that thought left a sour taste in his mouth, but the sound of her opening the bathroom door halted the thoughts. He stood and moved through the patio doors he’d left ajar so that he could hear what was going on in the room while he sat outside. She was just walking into the living room area of the suite, wrapped only in a white towel.
“I don’t have anything to wear,” she said, using one hand to hold the towel securely around her and the other to finger through her long wet tresses.
“I got a text from Trent’s phone, but I think the message was from Jade. She wanted to know where we were staying. She said she called Camille and they were going to have some clothes and things delivered here for you,” he said.
When Bailey continued to look at him skeptically, Dev followed up with, “I don’t think Trent’s mind is on clothes at the moment. And I figure Beverly would have gone back to the waiting room to tell them all that she’d ordered me to take you to a hotel to get some rest.”