Wren picked up his pen again. “I’m debating your sudden claim of a sibling.”
The steady tap of the pen hitting the table started all over again. Thud. Thud.
It took all of the control Matthias possessed not to reach over and snap the thing in two. “I have no idea what you’re saying. That sentence was a complete clusterfuck.”
“It’s so obvious you two spent a lot of time together. You know, back during your formative ass-kicking years.” Garrett shook his head. “It almost scares me how alike you are.”
“We’re nothing alike.” Other than the fact they both had dark hair and ran successful companies, Matthias didn’t see it. Of course, they’d also shared a mentor and an apartment for years . . . so there was that. “He deals in information. I prefer a much more pragmatic approach.”
“Shooting things.” Wren sounded amused at the idea.
Matthias wasn’t sure why. That was a valid skill and only one of many in his range. “Sometimes I use explosives.”
“Which makes it even better you two don’t go to cocktail parties together,” Garrett said.
“We’re getting offtrack.” Wren’s fingers tightened around the pen. “Back to the woman.”
“It’s a long story.” And that should be enough. Matthias really didn’t feel like coughing up the why and why-now angles. Just coming here, skulking around with his hand out for a favor, made him twitchy.
“And you’re not in the mood to tell it.”
Wren finally seemed to get it, which was a relief to Matthias. Took the guy long enough to come around. “Exactly.”
“I’ll make a deal with you.”
Not Matthias’s favorite thing. “I thought you were doing me a favor.”
Wren shrugged. “I’ll find the woman.”
“You? But Emery is—”
“She finds missing people by matching records and information in databases. She searches Jane and John Doe records. But what you want? This sounds more like what I do.” Wren flipped a page on his lined yellow notepad and started writing.
Matthias had no clue what he could be scribbling down. But even with his questionable people skills, Matthias guessed something else was happening here. “You still afraid to have your woman meet us? Us, your supposed oldest friends in the world?”
“Actually, you’re one of his only friends,” Garrett said. “Except for me.”
Wren didn’t look up as he wrote lines that filled the page. “I’d have no control over what you’d say to her. You—all of you guys from the original Quint crowd—are unknown variables in this type of situation. You know, with other humans.”
Matthias was pretty sure Wren was actively trying to piss him off. “What does that mean in English?”
Wren glanced up then. “You all have to be on your best behavior and there will be rules. I might make you all sign agreements.”
“You know that’s ridiculous, right?” Garrett asked. “For my own sanity I need to know that you know that.”
Matthias didn’t wait for the answer. “We’re talking about meeting your woman.”
“I would really like it if she didn’t leave me, so yes. The introductions can wait. But when they do happen, please refer to her by her name—Emery—not as my woman, because she will kick you.”
“You’ve gotten soft.” Matthias would laugh if the idea weren’t so absurd. But they were all talking about it, the group of five of them. They’d met in their twenties, taken in by a man named Quint who stopped them from wandering down their respective destructive paths and insisted they accomplish more. They’d added Garrett to their small group later.
Ruthless men. Tough men. Very private and incredibly capable. Some more dangerous than others, but all of them bonded to each other and walking as close to a legitimate path as possible. They’d been boys back then. Now they were men. Successful men, and they still relied on each other.
Garrett smiled. “He’s in love.”
“That’s fucked up.” And Matthias thought that was an understatement.
The idea of Wren being spun around by sex . . . or whatever . . . yeah, didn’t make sense. Not for Wren, the one who back then had been so wrapped around with hate and screwed up that he was determined to kill his own father. That guy, the same one politicians and heads of countries and billion-dollar businesses now came to for top secret help, had fallen in love. He was downright stupid with it.
Matthias had never seen anything like it and certainly didn’t want any part of it, but the whole group wanted to meet her. To spend an hour talking with the one woman allowed to call their friend Levi. Garrett promised they would all like her.
Wren cleared his throat. “Back to your woman.”
Maybe with his newfound understanding of women Wren was the guy for this task. Matthias still wondered if Emery might handle the situation better, but he’d go with this. “Okay, Mr. Fixer. You can give it a shot.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“For free.” This was supposed to be a favor, after all.
“Right. That seems fair to me.” Wren rolled his eyes. “I’ll need a name and some general information, like locations and dates, but we’ll handle it. And by we I mostly mean Garrett.”
“Lucky me,” Garrett said as he took a small notebook out of his jacket pocket.
Looked like these two were ready to go. That worked for Matthias. “I don’t know her name now, but I know what it was seven years ago.”
“When your brother—the same one I’ve never heard of before despite knowing you for more than ten years—died.”
Man, he was just not going to let that go. Never mind that Matthias didn’t know about the brother back then either. “It was so much worse than that.”
Wren’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”
“It’s more like while someone managed to take out an entire household of college kids, including two members of the lacrosse team, she—this woman—walked away without a scratch.”
Garrett winced. “Sounds like she’s a suspect.”
Damn fucking straight. “And that’s exactly how I’ll treat her when I meet her.”
“You plan on shooting her?” Wren asked.
“We’ll see.” And by that Matthias meant if she turned out to be the killer—then definitely.
Chapter 3
Matthias liked to eat as much as the next guy, but it was two in the afternoon and he couldn’t figure out what meal this was supposed to be. Also didn’t understand why he was at a dive café outside of Annapolis, Maryland, on a random Tuesday.
He looked around at the mostly empty tables. All twelve of them. Here, tucked into a row of shops at a marina, was this little restaurant. Lucky’s, though he somehow guessed the place didn’t live up to its name.
It was clean enough. The red fake leather booths bore the cracks from the passing years and too many sneakers and jeans roughing over them. A thick strip of tape held the cushion under him together. Every time he shifted his leg the wrong way he heard a slight tearing sound.
The best thing about the café, as far as he could tell, was the waitress. Tall with a big smile and the highest, tightest ass he’d ever seen. Like, holy shit fine.
She had her reddish brown hair pulled back. Not that he was looking at her head all that much. Which likely made him an asshole, but he tried to be subtle about it as she moved around with ease, serving the four old guys sitting in the corner booth and the two ladies huddled in a conversation about something over by the counter.
All that walking gave him a front-row seat to her legs. Damn impressive. Long and lean. Tan and muscled. She wore a waitress uniform that hugged every curve, and she had more than a few of those. The sneakers made him smile. They looked battered and well used. This was a woman on the move.
Garrett banged his spoon against the side of his coffee cup.
Oh, right. Him . . . “What are we doing here? Talk.” Matthias pulled his gaze away from the only interesting part of the room and scowled at Garre
tt.
Garrett’s eyes narrowed as he studied the dessert menu the pretty waitress had dropped off. “The pie looks good.”
Matthias smacked his hand against the paper and slammed it against the wobbly table. “I have a gun.”
“That’s charming.”
Being dragged out of his office and forced to drive through DC traffic made Matthias even less patient than usual. And that was saying something. The construction zone that decreased the average highway speed to a negative number didn’t help. “You should know I have more than one kind of weapon on me. And I lied—I actually have two guns.”
“Is Maryland even an open-carry state?”
As if he cared. “Answer my question, Garrett. There are cafés in Georgetown. Why am I down here?”
Garrett put a folder on the edge of the table. “As Wren promised, we found her.”
He meant the her. Damn, Wren worked fast.
“Already? It’s only been four days.” But Matthias noticed Garrett wasn’t exactly handing the information over.
“Don’t act so surprised. This is the kind of thing we do.” Garrett stopped to take a long sip of coffee. “You know, for a living.”
The waitress appeared at Matthias’s side. She smelled good. Like a mix of baked goods and flowers. Not his usual thing, but it was hard to resist a woman who reminded him of doughnuts.
“More?” She held up the coffeepot.
He didn’t want anything except intel, but since she asked. He nodded as he slid the cup closer to her. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her smile lit up her face. Actually turned her cheeks a soft pink. How fucking hot was that?
Once she left, Garrett rattled his cup again. “Aren’t you polite?”
“Seems to me getting people their food would be a shitty job. Imagine the complaining she must hear.” He’d never taken a lunch order in his life, but spending long hours on his feet then fighting with idiots who wanted to skimp on tips struck him as thankless work, which was why he overtipped. Always.
“You could let her have one of your guns,” Garrett said.
“I might.” Tempting as that might be, he was here about a different woman. He nodded toward the folder. “Is that for me?”
“It has information on your woman.”
That sounded like an answer Wren might give. One with a bunch of words that didn’t say much. “I prefer to think of her as ‘the woman’ for now. She might become a target as I find out more.”
Garrett smiled over the top of his cup. “Oh, she’s definitely the woman.”
He sounded far too impressed with himself. Matthias didn’t like that tone at all. “What are you saying?”
“The woman.”
The waitress came back. She glanced around the tabletop. “Anything else?”
Before Garrett could order half the menu, Matthias stepped in. He handed it back to her. “We’re good. Thanks.”
She slipped away a second time. Matthias let his mind wander, just for a second, to the swing of her hips. The steady back and forth. This woman made rushing around look calm and even. Even at an increased speed, she seemed to be in full control.
He watched his team on maneuvers all the time. Put them through drills. Had them run in almost unconscionable conditions. He was accustomed to seeing people snap to attention, scurry and race. Her cool manner, the ability to buzz around without looking harried, impressed him.
He could feel Garrett’s gaze and thought about ignoring it. But when the waitress also caught him looking and shot him a smile, Matthias knew it was time to get his head back in the game.
He looked at Garrett. “You have five seconds to tell me what I need to know.”
“You were staring.” And Garrett was smiling. Practically laughing.
“That ass is worth a second look.”
Garrett snuck a quick look. “No arguments here.”
Yeah, that was enough of that. The woman deserved better than to be drooled over by two idiots in a ripped-up booth. Matthias stared at the folder. “Give it to me.”
“Your woman dropped out of Syracuse University after the killings.” Garrett’s voice dropped to a whisper and stayed there. “She traveled around, changed her name three times and has run through a series of jobs.”
Racing, staying one step ahead of the people who might stop her and ask questions. He knew the type. Hated the type. “Sounds suspicious.”
“Or she’s running from something out of necessity.”
Sounded like the same thing to Matthias. “The police.”
Garrett shook his head. “Doubtful, since she’s not a suspect.”
“How can that be? She was the sole survivor. She gave excuses about strange noises and a fuzzy memory. Reality is, she walked away from a bloodbath and no one can explain that.” There was no innocent reason Matthias could come up with for someone to kill the others and leave her alive. Add that to the whispers about a lover’s triangle and jealousy and the answer seemed clear to Matthias.
“The police and private investigators on this over the years never believed she could overpower a female friend and two male college athletes, or kill them all without trouble.”
Many men in law enforcement underestimated women. They saw them one way. Matthias didn’t make that mistake. He had women on his team. Strong and smart. “This woman could be pretty tough.”
Garrett glanced at the waitress and smiled when she made eye contact. His gaze shifted back to the table. “Oh, I think your woman is definitely that.”
“The woman. Not my woman.” Matthias wanted that point to be very clear.
“She’d have to be to survive, don’t you think?”
The walking away condemned her in his eyes. “Is she a survivor or the killer? That’s the question.”
“Agreed, but my job was to hunt her down and get a location, not dissect her motives.” Garrett held the folder. Waved it around. “Unless you want me to tell Wren we should keep going.”
Matthias thought about reaching for the file but stopped himself. He was not the type to lunge and make a scene in public. “I can take it from here.”
“You sure?”
“Are you going to give me the damn file or no?” When the older men looked over, Matthias knew he’d yelled that last part. He waved a hand to try to calm any concern.
“Well.” The waitress appeared out of nowhere this time. She stood there with a frown on her face. “You two okay?”
Matthias wiped a hand through his hair. “Except for how annoying my friend here is, yes.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do much about that.” She winked at Matthias. “I’ll just leave the check, but let me know if you need anything else.”
She dropped the paper on the table in front of him. One of the older gentlemen derailed her walk back into the kitchen, and Matthias watched every second of it.
Garrett snapped his fingers in front of Matthias’s face. “You’re still staring.”
“It’s still a mighty fine ass.”
“It is.” Garrett slid the folder across the table. “And it happens to belong to Kayla Roy.”
“What?” Matthias’s mind blanked out. For a second he sat there, trying to match the ass-watching to whatever the hell Garrett was babbling about.
Garrett snuck a peek at the waitress again before his voice dropped even lower. “If you’d prefer to use one of her former names you could try Samantha Weldon.”
Matthias reached for the folder but his arms seemed to be moving in slow motion. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“Or you could go with the name you gave us to investigate—Carrie Gleason.” Garrett leaned in closer. “Though I doubt you could use it without her taking off again.” Garrett nodded toward the waitress. “She looks fast.”
Reality crashed through Matthias like a body blow. “Wait, you’re saying she’s—”
“The woman.” Garrett glanced in the waitress’s direction again then back to Matthias. “Right here in Annapolis. So close t
o your home turf.”
“Son of a bitch.”
Garrett nodded. “You’re welcome.”
They’d found her.
Private investigators or law enforcement of some kind. Kayla recognized the type. The suits, the way they held themselves. The constant scanning of the room and dropping of conversation whenever she came by the table.
She’d never seen these two men before but she’d spent what felt like her entire adulthood being hunted and questioned by ones just like them. It could be innocent, but this place served locals and boating types. They might actually be businessmen who decided they’d skip work in the middle of the afternoon in favor of cheap coffee and homemade pie and traveled way offtrack to get it, but she doubted it.
Her brain kicked into action. She performed the assessment she’d done so many times before—the pros and cons of stay or flee. Could she handle the renewed scrutiny and inevitable threats and hate-filled stares that came with a new round of questions? At first that pattern had won out. These days she ran.
She had to sneak out of here first.
With a fake smile plastered on her face, she refilled the cups of her regular customers then slipped past the counter. Her heartbeat hammered so hard she was surprised the men couldn’t hear it. But she did. She felt every nerve ending jump to life.
Her hand shook and the pot rattled as she set it down next to a tray of muffins. One turn and she disappeared into the kitchen. The cook glanced up, shooting her his usual how-dare-you-be-in-here glare. Fine with her since she intended to keep moving. She’d been doing that for seven years—what was one more time?
As soon as she let her mind wander about ripping up roots again, a sharp pain slashed across her chest. She pressed the heel of her hand against the ache. Stepped into the hall that led to the employee bathroom and the small office in the back. From there it was just a few steps to the alley and freedom.
Not that she considered anything about her life to be free, but she’d finally found a tentative peace here. She’d moved into that small studio above the boat rental place. Adopted a new name, settled into a new life. Even started taking classes at nearby St. John’s College.
The Enforcer Page 2