Until then all she could do was huddle against the ledge and try to stay calm.
Turning the windshield wipers off, Finn muttered when the ninety-second rainstorm gave way to brilliant blue sky. “Typical.”
“Not like Boston, eh, son?”
He chuckled at his father’s astute observation. “Not at all.”
They bumped along on the road to Justice, stopping briefly to check in at the guard gate, and chatted aimlessly about everything from desert wildlife to a discussion about why real estate is a sound investment.
He’d gotten over the shock of finding his dad standing on his doorstep with absolutely no advance warning but it hadn’t been easy. One look at Patrick O’Brien’s face let Finn know they were in for a classic father-son showdown.
And it hadn’t been pretty. Or without contention. But they worked their way through it due in no small part to his da’s indefatigable belief in the absolute of family and his Irish determination to make things right.
They’d been joined at the hip ever since and he’d been happily showing off every nuance of his new life from his cool apartment and the bitchin’ truck, to the redesigned and currently kicking ass Whiskey Pete’s. He hadn’t realized how much his father’s approval and support meant.
Hell, they’d even gone to the Justice shooting range with Alex and had a bit of bullet-riddled fun followed by an eye-opening tour of Camp Justice—something that sobered him and his dad. Nothing like getting an up close look at the world of private security and everything those words implied to make a guy stop and think.
There were pockets of fucked up all around the globe. He’d been a first responder the day of the Boston Marathon bombing—an event that opened his eyes and altered much of his world-view thinking. But what Alex did was next level shit.
No. Scratch that. Justice wasn’t just next level. The stuff they saw bordered on science fiction mashed up with Hollywood imagination. Finn couldn’t count the number of times his dad looked at him wide-eyed with a Holy Shit expression.
No denying it. Major Zorro was a serious badass.
Today their visit to the villa was to drop his dad off for lunch with Meggie and for Finn to deliver a bushel of avocados that he’d picked up at Ria and Carmen’s insistence.
He snickered silently. Here was yet another new wrinkle in his life. Getting sucked into the world of Family Justice meant signing up for constant interplay with a whole crew of people. And the exchange went both ways. When he’d casually mentioned to his sister that finding a cleaning crew he didn’t want to strangle was turning into a drama, she made three calls and within a few days he’d been hooked up with probably the best commercial cleaners Finn had ever encountered—and that included some pretty bang-ass businesses he remembered from Boston.
When the tribe of pregnant Justice females made avocados a craving-staple, Ria and Carmen turned to him and his food-service connections to make a weekly delivery of the popular fruit. Considering how much guacamole the bar and dining room needed, he was seriously considering investing in an avocado orchard, so adding another basket was hardly a big deal.
They found Meghan and Angie inspecting boxes at the rear of his sister’s Explorer. He was intrigued by Alex’s little sister. She always looked at him like she knew. Like she understood the bullshit that hung around a younger sibling’s neck.
There was a middle sister in the Marquez family. Sophia. He remembered meeting her at the wedding. Like Angelina, she was beautiful but so uptight and frigid he avoided dealing with her. There was one lady with some serious fucking issues.
“Da!” Meghan cried out when he pulled to a stop. “Finn! Come see. Look,” she exclaimed. “I’m a t-shirt.” Her laugh was exactly as his childhood memories recalled. Loud, boisterous and infectious.
Holding up a shirt in one of those vintage colors that made something new look old, he joined her laughter when he got a load of what she found so funny. She wasn’t kidding about being a t-shirt. He should know. One of the first things he did after taking over Pete’s was invest in a veritable shit ton of branded items with t-shirts at the top of the list.
Angie greeted his father warmly and started scrambling through the boxes to find him a shirt in his size.
“Double M. Very nice, sis. And how awesome that you get to continue your Marilyn Monroe fantasy with your married insignia.”
She laughed and elbowed him in the side. “Shut up, you. I know all about the autographed top hat you keep in a locked vault. Your loyalty is only measurable if Slash isn’t in the picture.”
“Hey,” he snickered in a hushed voice that only they could hear. “Somebody had to rock out with an O’Brien cock out because Dev was too straight of an arrow and Mike, well, sheesh. Katy Perry? Seriously?”
They broke up laughing. He felt their father watching. A rush of brotherly affection for his older sister made Finn wrapped his forearm around her neck to haul her into a headlock for an expertly applied noogie.
She was good though and kicked backwards at his leg hard enough that when the headlock loosened, she quickly wiggled away.
“Daddy!” she yelled. “Finn’s being mean to me.”
They engaged in some playful hand slaps with both of them going for a full, “Nyah, nyah,” with tongues stuck out and everything.
Their audience stood by shaking their heads and rolling their eyes.
“Red!” Angie hollered. “Come on. I gotta go. Leave Beantown alone.”
“Beantown?” His father bellowed. “Ya’ do know that’s a pejorative term right?”
“Of course,” Angie chuckled. “We’re equal opportunity insulters around here. Between you and me, Mr. O’Brien, it’s a lot better than some of the other names people use.”
“She’s right, Da,” Finn jokingly agreed. “My own damn fault too. Touched a nerve with Major Zorro.”
After a bit more nonsense and foolish banter everyone went on their way. Angie was late for a family center meeting and bolted like her ass was on fire. Meghan explained that since she was being subjected to an information blackout, Angie was shouldering the entire grand opening burden.
He left his dad and sister walking arm-in-arm into the villa. The two had always been close. Finn supposed what people said was true. Daughters were special. And Meggie was more than special. Now that his head had been pried free of his ass and nearly all of his rage and anger at his family put to rest, he was in a better frame of mind to give credit where it was due.
Double M was a magnificent human. She gave way more than she asked in return and he no longer resented that everything she touched turned to leprechaun gold. After all, working hard, doing your homework and being a good person weren’t traits reserved only for Meghan. His whole family were cut from the same cloth and leprechaun gold was not off limits to any of them. Something his banking and investment accounts backed up.
Getting back into his truck, he pulled away from the main house and took the meandering service road that’d lead him to the Justice business operation and cookhouse. Luckily for him Ben was standing outside when he pulled up so all he had to do was stop, let the man grab the bushel of avocados and his delivery task was done.
Since he drove all the way the fuck out here and had some time to kill, maybe he’d stop by Remy’s office and take a stab at whatever explaining she’d allow. He’d been churning internally ever since the Halloween party. Having done plenty of wild and sometimes way-too-public fucking around in his day it bothered the crap out of him that of all the people to catch him with his pants quite literally around his ankles, it had to be her.
He wasn’t ready to pick apart why he cared what she thought, or admit that the stricken, hurt expression he remembered on her face when the office door opened had gutted him.
It didn’t look like much was going on at the big garage where she sometimes hung around so he continued around the building to her adjacent office. Halfway disappointed that she wasn’t lolling about in the driveway so he could pretend t
hey met accidentally, he pulled up and parked in a visitor spot.
When his booted foot hit the top step and he reached for the door handle, he was instantly concerned by what he found. His days as a paramedic made him particularly aware of building excitement. Tension. Anxiety. Something was terribly wrong.
Jace was pacing back and forth, a worried frown on his face. He was stabbing away at a phone and carried the air of a man dealing with a massive crisis.
“What’s wrong?”
The man jumped a foot in the air when Finn’s fierce bark of a question startled him. Jace whirled around and immediately began talking.
“She’s not answering her phone. Not calls, not texts. She doesn’t go silent. Something isn’t right.”
He didn’t pretend not to understand. “When was the last time anyone saw her?”
“The motor pool guys said she took her Ranger out but that was hours ago.”
“Did they know where she was going?”
“No, but one of them said he thinks he saw her loading camera equipment into the Polaris.”
“Shit.”
He could feel the worry radiating off the man. Now that he didn’t want to punch the guy’s lights out every time he saw him—the result of discovering he was her cousin and not a competitor for her affections—Finn had to admit Jace wasn’t all that bad. In fact, they had something in common. Both of them were mad wicked out of their comfort zones when they first turned up in Arizona but seeing either of them today, anyone would assume they’d been south westerners their whole lives.
Think, Finn. Think.
He plotted out several possible scenarios for why Remy was off radar and none of them had happy endings.
Jace was agitated and them some when he suddenly burst out with a surprising admission.
“I’m gonna get in an ass load of trouble for saying this but do you think I should call security? It’s her day off and everything but something’s not right.” He shrugged and the look of uncertainty in his expression worried Finn. “After all, they can track everything that moves. Put GPS tags on all our vehicles.”
He felt one brow slowly arch. For real? Glancing out the window at his truck he smirked and let out a rough chuckle. Instead of being pissed off that his privacy was more or less open to GPS scrutiny, he had to give Alex mad props. If it had come to a vote he would have raised his hand in favor of physically tagging everyone too. There was no such thing as too much precaution. Too much safety.
Calmly accepting the confidential tidbit without comment, he gave Jace a sardonic snarl instead. “Somehow I doubt Remington would be thrilled that you put her in a spotlight. Even if it is a security measure. There has to be another way.”
“How about her phone? She always has it with her. Won’t it ping a location?”
“Gimme yours,” he demanded with an impatient gesture.
Thank fucking god he paid attention because he was fairly confident that even with his rudimentary understanding of how this stuff worked, he could use Jace’s phone to pinpoint her whereabouts.
Going through the steps as he remembered them, it took a few minutes but eventually he hit pay dirt. A map appeared with a dropped pin indicating the location of Remington Bissett’s phone. The pin wasn’t moving, meaning she was stationary. Or the phone was stationary. One of those two things.
His mind did a swift mental inventory of what was on hand in his truck. Knowing what they had to do he started issuing directions.
“Find a blanket. Make that two.” His mind was moving at high speed. One blanket to wrap her in and another in case she needed to be carried. “And rope. I’ve got about ten feet but let’s be smart and take more.”
Jace sped off. Finn looked around Remy’s office. She was one of those neat-as-a-pin types although it did occur to him that what he saw was military smoke and mirrors. Maybe her personal space at home was a shit show. The snarky thought was quickly dismissed. All indications suggested that having her shit buttoned up tight and on lockdown was not an act.
Other than a denim jacket on a coat rack by the door, there wasn’t a single personal touch. She was either in the witness protection program or trying overly hard to be invisible. Neither scenario worked for him.
On her desk stacks of paper were neatly piled. He wanted to mess everything up just for the hell of it. About to turn away he noticed a doodle on a post-it note stuck to a sheet of paper. It seemed out of place. Lifting the sticky edge, he pulled the yellow note off. His head immediately snapped rigid.
What the fuck?
It seemed out-of-whack that someone so rigidly controlled would indulge in doodling. That’s why he was curious in the first place but seeing what she scrawled rocked Finn, big time.
Shamrocks. Big. Little. Colored in. Just an outline.
Shamrocks.
An odd sensation, like a buzz, tingled along his nerves and rang in his ears.
“Okay. Got everything,” Jace muttered when he reappeared and broke Finn’s reverie.
They stowed the extra gear and climbed in the truck. Using the GPS coordinates as their guide, they started out. Eventually they left the road. As the truck bounced along his eyes kept moving to the shamrock hanging from the rear view. With every swing and sway the four-leaf charm pointed like a direction arrow taking him and Jace further into the desert.
If his hands weren’t gripped so tightly on the steering wheel, he’d have a couple of fingers crossed that they found her soon. And unharmed.
Her stomach rolled from the shock she was trying hard to contain. Moving painfully, Remy leaned away just in time as vomit surged from her gut. Spitting to rid herself of the vile taste, she groaned miserably and collapsed in a heap.
The shaking was starting to get violent. This wasn’t good.
Cold from the rain drenching her clothes, she curled into a ball and prayed.
Afraid she was drifting in and out she started singing as a way to stay alert. They’d been taught in a training exercise to use the effective technique for managing just this sort of situation. By focusing her brain on musical ditties she’d stay mentally focused and aware. Something that’d be crucial when she was found.
First she ran through the alphabet. Then the alphabet again only this time in French.
“Maintenant, je sais que mon abc de la prochaine fois ne vous chantez avec moi.”
Singing and groaning through her greatest hits, she managed to stay conscious although not necessarily calm. She was fading fast. Dehydrated and banged up with a good size knot on the side of her head and an arm that wouldn’t move, the shock and long hours were joining forces to slowly drag her under.
Every time she tried to sit up she almost blacked out from pain. It didn’t help that the entire ledge was only about the size of a small patio. If she moved too much or went in the wrong direction, she’d be free falling to certain death.
Half way through God Bless America she heard the faint murmur of an engine. That had to be a good sign, right?
With her eyes closed to limit her senses, she focused like a laser on the sound. It was getting closer.
Keep breathing, she recited silently. Just keep breathing.
“Remington!”
Nothing came out when she tried to answer. Frustrated, her head flopped back and hit the hard ledge.
With great effort she squeaked, “Here.”
It was Jace’s voice calling her name but it was Finn’s face that appeared above her, peering over the ledge. Fearing delirium was setting in, she trembled all over.
“Remington,” a deep voice barked.
Her answer was a thin whimper.
“Remy. Let me know you hear me.”
The voice was insistent. She responded from habit to the sound of authority. Opening her eyes, she looked up and squinted till her vision focused. It was Finn hanging over the ledge. A burst of relief fired off inside her. Overjoyed to see him, somehow she knew he’d make everything all right.
“Yes,” she croaked.
>
“Okay, honey. Good enough. Now don’t move, okay? I’m coming to get you.”
Finn was coming. He’d get her out of this mess and make her safe again. The exhaustion began to claim her as the tight grip of tension started to back off. Remy knew she had to stay focused. Slipping into unconsciousness wouldn’t help the situation.
“Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are.” A husky grimace rolled from her throat. She just didn’t have anything left.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Finn’s gruff voice barked. “Remington. Look at me.”
A sound, his fingers snapping, acted like a signal getting her eyes to open. “I need you to stay with me. Do you understand?” He was right beside her.
“Yes.”
“What hurts?”
It was hard to swallow. Like magic a bottle of water was pressed to her lips. She took several quick sips, licking her lips in between and not caring when water dripped down her chin.
“Arm,” she told him in a hoarse murmur. “Head.”
Crying out when he touched her shoulder, she couldn’t stop a helpless, frightened whimper.
“Sh, sh, sh. Sorry. How about the other arm? Is that one okay?”
She raised her hand an inch or two and wiggled her fingers.
His hands gently cradled her head. It only took a few seconds for his fingers to locate the painful knot.
“Look at me, Remy. Right here,” he said with two fingers pointing to his eyes.
She squinted and focused. “How many fingers?”
Looking at the hand he held up, she grunted, “Fuck you,” and let her neck relax. Asshole. Only Beantown would find a way to give her the finger in a life or death situation.
His quiet chuckle made her heart smile even though the emotion didn’t spread to her face.
“I think it’s safe to say you’re going to be fine.”
Ten minutes later after yelling for supplies from Jace, her injured limb was duct-tapped securely to her torso with her good arm and hand left free.
Finn fussed with some rope and finally got her standing with one arm banded tightly around her middle. She felt safe crushed against him.
Unforgettable (Family Justice Book 5) Page 38