The agent stared at Shelly as if he’d never seen the girl in the throes of a strong emotion and couldn’t believe his eyes. Which gave Silo the full skinny about the other man’s place in Shell’s life.
“Why ain’t you asking her old man or that other fucker?” Silo couldn’t remember the name of the other man that had come looking for Lulu before the Ghosts had kidnapped her. “What’s the name of Lulu’s ex-fiancé?”
“Jon Treviel the third,” Shelly intoned, again crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at the bureaucrat standing in front of her. “You should be hounding them, not me!”
“I’m sorry if you believe my recent visits were to hound you, Miss Palmer,” the man replied stiffly while staring at the obviously angry woman who was challenging him. “I assure you that both then and now, I was only seeing to your welfare.”
Silo knew bullshit when he heard it, but glanced to Shelly to determine if she was buying into it.
She wasn’t and it seemed to make the agent very uncomfortable. Silo watched the other man closely as he turned his head towards the dining room window. But he must have seen something inside that caught his attention. “Are you moving?”
“Ain’t none of your fucking business,” Silo advised and wondered what it was going to take to get the FBI man off his property a-fucking-gain.
“Certainly it is, if Miss Palmer is going with you,” the federal agent replied derisively, pulling himself to his full height. “As the lead agent in charge of her father’s case…”
“Can it, pencil dick,” Carly cut in. “I’ll make it easy for you since you seem to like to play with your words. Is our girl under suspicion?”
“Well, no…”
“If she’s not under suspicion and has told you all she can about what she knows, then she’s done. As in stick-a-fucking-fork in her, done. Got me?” Carly moved to stand right in front of the other man and Silo saw they were almost the same height. “Now I suggest you get your skinny government ass off Silo’s porch before he physically tosses you off it. Because I can guaran-damn-tee you, it’ll fucking hurt!”
The agent’s eyes went to Shelly’s and he seemed to be silently asking her for something. When she didn’t respond, he looked down at his shoes before bringing his eyes back to Silo. “You’re sure you can keep her safe?”
Silo glared at the man without responding, but his answer was clear in how he crossed his arms on his chest and braced his legs and set his feet wide apart.
“It’s time for you to go, Agent Moore,” Shelly announced firmly before turning back to the door, but not until after she’d patted one of Silo’s arms. A move that seemed to cause the bureaucrat’s face to redden and hands clinch.
But the man did move to the stairs and without a backward glance, stepped down the sidewalk to his rental car.
Silo bent and picked up the bag at his feet while reaching into his pocket for his cellphone. He stayed outside though, watching until the taillights of the agent’s car went around a corner and were out of sight. “Brand? Yeah. Listen, that FBI fucker came around my place again. I think we need to talk.”
*.*.*.*.*
I stormed back into the house with Carly close on my heels.
“That asswipe’s been around before?” I flopped down on the couch and propped my feet on the coffee table, realizing I hadn’t told her of the federal agent’s visit from a few days prior.
“Yeah. He showed up when Silo first brought me home. Although why he followed me all the way to Montana, I couldn’t tell you.” I felt my face scrunch up as I tried to think. What was so important about me that had me on his radar?
“I think he likes you,” Carly said as she opened her huge purse and took out her lip gloss to perform a swift reapplication. “As in likes you, likes you.”
“Pffttt!” I made a hand movement, along with the sound, to show how ludicrous her idea was.
She put the gloss back and grabbed her keys from the bag’s depths before zipping it close. “Either that or he really likes the idea of the missing money.”
I stilled, considering what she’d said.
“Do you know how much has yet to be found?” She dangled her keys from a finger and I caught her look of question.
“No. But do you really think a man sworn to bring my father to justice would care about the amount?” Her second idea made a lot more sense in the whole scheme of things, even though I’d often suspected David Moore of having more than just a professional interest in me.
“It might,” she said slowly, and I could almost see the gears moving as she thought it through. “Especially if he thought he could get a piece of the action.”
My eyes shot straight back to her. “You mean…”
“Suppose someone asked him to find their money, you know, like an outside someone who’d given their money to your dad. And what if they were willing to give that uptight Fed a piece of the recovered green? Betcha that’d be enough incentive to follow your fine ass all the way to Montana.” Carly’s face held a quirky grin as she jiggled her large key-ring. “Greed is a common enough vice, right?”
“One of the seven deadly sins,” I answered, but my voice didn’t have any real volume since I was way up in my head considering, caught up in her line of reasoning.
“Right up there with lust,” and I glanced up to see her little grin had worked up to a cheesy smile at her own words. When added to her wiggling eyebrows, I had no choice but to smile along with her. “Gotta hit it, honey. I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll finish up the kitchen and do the bathroom. Also heard some recruits are going to be moving the heavier, bigger stuff so don’t worry about that, okay?”
I lifted my hand when she turned back at the door. “Thanks for your help, Carly.”
The sound of her and Silo exchanging goodbyes carried into the house through the door she’d left open. He came in unzipping his jacket as he placed a white paper bag next to my feet on the coffee table. “Brought sandwiches for lunch, baby.”
I looked at the bag before glancing up at him. “Thought we were trying to eat up all the stuff in the fridge in case the new house doesn’t have appliances.”
He shrugged and threw his jacket over the top of the recliner before walking into the kitchen. “We’ll get to ‘em another time.”
Silo came back in and handed me a water. He sat next to me, uncapping a bottle of beer. “Looks like you and Carly are making progress.”
I pulled the sandwiches out and began unwrapping them. “That’s three full cabinets cleared, both top and bottom.” I glanced at him as I took the lids off a small Styrofoam container that held potato salad. “You sure have a lot of dishes, though.”
He brought the bottle down from his mouth after taking a long deep gulp. “Ugly as shit, too.” At the glimpse of the smile I tried to hide, he went on. “Most of that is my nana’s stuff. After I got my grandfather moved, neither one of us had the time nor the reason to get rid of the fucking stuff we didn’t use or need.”
Which completely explained the drawers full of mangy dishtowels and potholders. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I kept my opinion to myself. But he must have seen something in my face because he added, “after we get settled, Shell, you can go pick out your own.”
He picked up a half of one of the sandwiches and I watched as he bit off more than a third of it in one go. “Carly said they’re throwing you guys a going-away bar-b-que?”
“Yeah,” he agreed from around his large bite. “Supposed to be a blow out. Can’t wait for you to meet the brothers that we’re taking with us to Billings.”
“I’m sorry, Si’,” I offered in advance. “I’m not going. I don’t want to run into Lulu.”
“Now, baby…” he began but he really didn’t have to. I already knew he was going to pick up the thread of one of our last arguments. He wanted me to get with Lulu, saying that she’d be able to help put me ‘back together’. But I didn’t want to drag her into it. Not after she was beginning to build a beautiful l
ife for herself with Mel and Mel’s little sister. There was even a teen-aged brother I’d met, but who was now at a boarding school in Texas.
Rather than re-hash it all again, I brought up Carly’s theories. Silo listened as he ate, finishing up his sandwich and upending the last of the bottle of beer. “She might have a point.”
“And if she does, I don’t want Lu anywhere near Agent Moore,” I agreed. And then another thought occurred to me. “Is Carly coming over just to help pack up your house?”
I saw the color bloom on his face as he wadded up the paper and shoved it back inside the bag. “What’d you mean?”
“Is she coming over to protect me when you aren’t home?”
His eyes caught on mine and I wondered at what was going on in his head. “Yeah. She is.”
I took a deep breath as the flash fire of my temper again rose to the surface. I swear there wasn’t one day, not one single day that the big guy didn’t piss me off in one way or another. He shifted on the cushion next to me and I thought he was going to start talking, but he surprised me when he leaned over and put his mouth on mine. It was a simple kiss, not filled with any sort of heat to speak of. More like one you’d give as a hello or a goodbye to someone that meant something to you.
But when combined with his next words, I knew the reason for it. “You are mine to protect, Shell. And if I ain’t fucking here to do it, I’ll find either a Hellion or Honey who’ll stand in until I’m back home.”
And I couldn’t argue with his reasoning.
*.*.*.*.*
It was all David Moore could do not to let his temper, the sheer humiliation at the scene on that low-life biker’s porch affect his driving. Who were they, both the big man and the tall redheaded slut to question him? And in front of Michelle, for god’s sake?
He released one hand from the tight grip he had on the steering wheel in order to run his fingers through his hair, causing the carefully controlled curls to spiral up. He slammed a palm on the console and clenched his teeth.
Yeah, it had been the tall girl that had gotten just a little too close to the truth about why he was making an effort to be with Michelle. Way too close for comfort. Although when Michelle herself had accused him of ‘hounding’ her, it had cut him deep.
Since when had concern been considered a bad thing? And he was worried about her safety. He didn’t know exactly who had scared her before, but was convinced that whoever it was would be trying again. Especially if Drago had enlisted others besides David to try and get a line on their missing money. Something he knew was not out of the realm of possibility.
Before accepting their proposal, the federal agent had done a little research to see exactly who he was going to be doing business with and had discovered Drago Milosevic and his brothers controlled a number of different enterprises that stretched from west Texas to California, going as far north as Washington. And while none of the five brothers or their sons had ever been convicted of a crime, their names were frequently mentioned in the reports when their henchmen had been brought to justice. And in giving up names, those same men were soon found dead, either by their own hand or another’s, while in custody.
One report had gone so far as to call them the Serbian Mafia and David couldn’t disagree if all that he’d read had been true. And Palmer Investments was the perfect sort of firm that would enable the group to clean up the dirty money they’d acquired and make it appear to be legitimate. Mike Palmer had been no fool though and had, from what David had found, squirreled away quite a bit of money in unseen, undisclosed places, helping Michelle’s father keep control of situation. And by retaining that control, the Milosevics had found an admirable adversary and partner. It was only when the local RICO team had begun researching the Palmer accounts that it was discovered Michael hadn’t been playing by the rules the government required of all investment firms. They’d gotten enough information on shady deals, bogus accounts and dodgy clients that they were able to make an arrest.
It was David’s job to obtain as much evidence, to gain as much solid data as possible in order to put the man and his co-conspirators away for life. And he’d been just starting to catch on to the disparities when he’d been approached by the Milosevics regarding the missing ten million dollars.
Which had made Agent Moore wonder if there were other undisclosed millions hidden someplace he’d yet to uncover. And had made him think that Michelle knew, and once she fell in love with him, would share their whereabouts. Something he had no intention of sharing with his superiors at the Bureau.
But every tact he’d taken, every question he’d asked her, had not produced results.
He swerved around a slow-moving truck with the back wheels of the rental car squealing in protest, much like his thoughts.
There was no way the little minx couldn’t have known of her father’s business. She was a part of it, for Christ’s sake! That job she’d been given, which had been handed to her on a silver platter, couldn’t have been real. Manager of Palmer Charities? What the hell was that? She threw parties to get others to give money. That wasn’t a job, a career! It was simply a way Palmer had used to keep her close, busy and in the loop, in David’s mind.
He turned sharply into the driveway of the motel’s parking lot, barely even slowing and practically skidded into the space near his door. Yanking the gear-shift into park, he fumed.
Had she been playing him? Were all the ‘I don’t know’ and ‘it wasn’t a part of my job’ answers a lie?
What about the soft looks and infrequent but warm smiles? The handshakes that lasted just a touch too long, the way her eyes would stare into his, had given him hope that she valued him as a man, one that she wanted by her side. Were they faked?
David stormed into his rented room, jerking at his tie but his shaking fingers were too stiff from his grip on the steering wheel to capture the knot. He slammed the door behind him, only slightly appeased by the reverberation of its boom that rattled the cheap picture on the wall.
He’d been so close! He was sure she’d been softening towards him, had been coming to care for him before she’d disappeared.
It was all that dirty biker’s fault! Everything had been going along according to plan until she’d brought him into it.
Giving up on his tie that had begun to feel like a noose, David wrenched his arms from the sleeves of his jacket and, even in his pique, moved to hang it up. And, as he did, another plan began to form in his mind, a way to rescue his Michelle from the clutches and depravity of the Hellion Motorcycle Club.
Soon, darling, his mind promised, his hand stroking the expensive cloth of his suit. Soon, we’ll be together just the way I envisioned.
Chapter Thirteen
I watched as Silo checked all the ropes holding the last of the boxes, his bed and his motorcycle in the back of the HC truck. Seeming satisfied, he made his way to where I sat on the steps.
“Think we’re ready, princess,” he said, before moving his eyes over the now empty house. “I gave Trey the other set of keys already, so I think we’re good to go.”
I couldn’t tell if he was happy or sad, worried or okay with moving to a different city. He seemed to be in ‘let’s get this over with’ mode which more than mirrored my thoughts exactly. I’d never liked moving and all the disruption that went with it. That and the fact that he’d warned me we’d be driving for seven hours. Seven hours!
He stretched out a hand towards me and I used it in order to stand up. “The recruits should’ve dropped off the furniture and kitchen shit last night. I had the utilities turned on so we should be fucking good to go once we’re there.”
I nodded and watched my steps over the uneven sidewalk. Silo’s realtor had found a house for him that was owned by the bank. Until the sale actually went through, he was going to rent it from them which I knew was a sweet deal since the house was empty. He opened the truck door and lifted me up to the seat.
His eyes held mine and whatever he saw there made him still
. “It’ll all be good, Shell. It’s just another fucking adventure, yeah?”
“Yeah, Si’,” I agreed, ducking my head as I did up the seatbelt. But I wasn’t so sure. I knew my unexpected presence had caused a disturbance in his life and may have even forced him to choose to go to Billings when he didn’t want to, but he’d never complained about it. Nor had given any indication that I wasn’t a priority in his life. And Silo wasn’t a man that seemed to hide his feelings. When he was happy, he smiled and laughed. Roared when he was angry—well, actually the volume of his voice was just naturally loud and only got more so when he was pissed off. And when he was unsure or vulnerable, he’d let me see that as well.
So I was going to believe him when he told me moving to Billings was going to be an adventure.
Our ride, for the most part, was quiet only broken by the occasional conversation.
“Here’s something you may not fucking know.” Silo was the picture of relaxed, driving with one hand as he leaned closer to me over the huge console. “The council voted to shorten Hardwood’s recruit year and make the fucker a full-fledged member.”
“And that’s a good thing?” I didn’t know who Hardwood was nor did I really care about the internal workings of the Hellions.
“Almost fucking unheard of.” His voice held an incredulous note as if every person in the known world was aware of that fact. “But the kid has more than fucking earned it.”
“So what will you be doing in Billings?” I tried to make an effort to join the conversation.
I saw him shrug out of the corner of my eye. “Same shit I did in Missoula, I guess. Heading up the plumbing division, serving on the Billings chapter’s council.” When I turned my head, he was looking at me, his mouth tilted up in a grin. “Raising hell at parties and drinking my weight in beer.”
A Civilian for Silo Page 13