Her Undercover Defender

by Debra Webb

  She grinned, watching him leave and wondering how it was possible to find what might be the right guy at what felt like the wrong time.

  “Who was that?”

  She jumped at the sound of her brother’s voice. He was leaning against the open doorway, studying her with a dark, surly gaze.

  Maybe he didn’t understand it yet, but she was the one who would be asking the questions.

  Chapter Seven

  “Flowers for a patient, huh?” Trey’s lip curled. “Is the dude why you’re so late?” he demanded, jerking his thumb toward the driveway. “Where’s your car?”

  “It’s still at the parking garage.” She glared at his back as she followed him inside. Slipping out of her coat, she hooked it on the hall tree and then turned to lock the front door. She didn’t understand where all this hostility was coming from. When they were younger he’d get waspish when he was stressed-out, but by his own admission, he’d pulled himself together. Patience was the key, she decided, recalling the counselor’s advice. It was possible that even though he said he wanted to be home, it made his survivor guilt worse. Regardless, he was all the family she had left. They’d find a way to talk through his issues.

  “There was some trouble at the hospital this afternoon.” She carried the flowers to the kitchen and set the vase on the table. “My friend,” she said, putting a gentle emphasis on the word, “drove me home.”

  “You couldn’t ride with Suzette?”

  “Why do you care? Were you wanting to talk with her again?” she countered, pleased when he shook his head quickly. “What’s with the Harley out front?”

  “I got a bonus,” Trey said. “Cade Sutter had an ad on craigslist. Worked out for both of us.”

  She remembered Cade. He’d been Trey’s friend and teammate on the high school baseball team. “Nice.” What else could she say? “How’d you earn the bonus?”

  “According to the email, I do excellent work.” He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out two longneck beer bottles. “Surprised?”

  “Of course not.” When Trey wanted to succeed, he did. His recovery and determination to go to school out of state proved that.

  He popped the top off one bottle and handed it to her. “You look like you could use it.”

  “No, thanks.” She moved past him to clean out her lunch box. “How did you spend your afternoon?”

  “Apparently not having as much fun as you,” Trey said, slouching into a chair at the kitchen table. “What’s his name?”

  “David,” she said without thinking. “And I wasn’t late because of him. Without him I probably wouldn’t be home yet.” She showed him the picture she’d taken with her phone. “My car was vandalized just before the end of my shift.”

  “No way.” Trey scowled at the damage and sat up straighter. “Who has a problem with you?”

  Hope flickered in her heart at his immediate support. This was the brother she knew. “I doubt it was personal. Several cars were damaged and are part of a crime scene until further notice.”

  “Then I’m glad I bought the bike. I can drive you to work tomorrow.”

  “I’m off tomorrow,” she said. “When did you get your motorcycle license?” she asked, knowing the likely answer was Arizona.

  “This afternoon,” he replied, surprising her. “I took a class while I was... I got certified. The DMV here validated the class, gave me a road test and I’m good to go.”

  “Motorcycle certification was part of getting your head on straight?”

  “It was a way to pass the time when meditation failed.” He softened the defensive retort with a wry smile. “Do we have to talk about it?”

  “Yes.” She leaned back against the countertop and studied him. “Considering the time and money I invested in your education, I think I deserve the full explanation.”

  “You want me to pay you back? I can do that.”

  That wasn’t at all what she meant. “Trey, I’m concerned about you, not the money.”

  “I will. I’d planned to do that anyway,” he continued, ignoring her. His beer bottle hit the table with a smack and he pushed to his feet. “Let me get my checkbook.”

  “Trey, you know—” She trailed after him, that flicker of hope she’d felt moments ago turning to ash.

  “Trey, you know—that’s all I ever hear.” He stopped at the stairs and glared at her. “What I know is you’ll never let me forget the sacrifices you made.”

  He might as well have hit her. His brittle words, the old complaints, sapped any lingering sympathy. “Cut the crap.” She stalked after him. “What happened to the new, mature you? Forget the damn checkbook. I’m not putting up with one more tantrum. If you’ve grown up, prove it and communicate with me like an adult.”

  “Just because I found a better solution than a traditional four-year degree—”

  “Trey,” she warned. “I’m not playing.” She took a deep breath. “Mom and Dad raised us better than this. We’ve had our disagreements and plenty of ups and downs. We always stuck together, right up until you disappeared. I love you. I will always want what’s best for you. End of story. If this job is so great, tell me about it. If it’s stressing you out now that you’re home, tell me about that, too.”

  She hoped her immense relief wasn’t too obvious when he came back down the stairs and flopped down on the couch. The move reminded her of simpler days when the Barnhart family of four would settle in front of the television for movie nights.

  “Fine.” He took a big breath and let it out slowly. “Rediscover lets me design and create. It started as a kind of occupational therapy, but I guess I was a natural at the programing.”

  Finally, she had a name to research. “What does Rediscover do?”

  “They’re big on diversity,” Trey said. “The team center is mostly self-sufficient with solar energy and organic gardens. There’s only enough for staff and the team, but it’s an awesome setup near the dining facility. They have programmers, like me, and all kinds of classes. The more I learned about them, the more they learned about me—it all just fell into place. Everyone works together in areas that interest them.”

  She couldn’t help thinking of communes and cults again, but she kept that opinion to herself. This team had encouraged Trey to come home. She would focus on that. “You’ll go back when?” Having him away at school was one thing, but she’d always expected him to settle nearby when he graduated. If not in Charleston, then at least in this part of the country. She wasn’t ready to be this alone. David’s image immediately came to mind, refuting the idea that she was alone.

  “I’m not sure. A month, more or less,” he said with a shrug. “While I’m home, can’t we keep things the way they were?”

  Something in his tone made her edgy. “What do you mean?”

  “That David guy. I don’t like him.”

  “You don’t even know him.”

  Trey rolled his eyes. “I don’t think it shows much respect for you standing on the porch locking lips like that.”

  Terri opened her mouth and snapped it shut again, clinging to the fraying edges of her patience. David had been nothing but respectful since the moment they met. Thoughtful, considerate and even protective. “David has been a perfect gentleman.”

  “Not according to what I saw.”

  Trey wasn’t teasing. She could’ve handled that. He was baiting her—she could see it on his face. “I don’t want to argue. Let’s just agree that you don’t get a say in how I spend my free time.”

  “If your brother doesn’t watch out for you, who will?”

  “I watch out for myself,” she said, trying to keep up. Talking with him was like flipping a coin, and none of it made sense to her. One second the words were kind, and the next they were mean. One minute he wanted to share his experiences, and the next he dismissed her questions. Had this strange team or company he’d found put him on drugs? “What’s the real problem?” she blurted.

  “Is it so much to ask for some u
ninterrupted time to reconnect with my sister?”

  “Not exactly...” She ran out of words. This was absurd. She’d put her life on hold since the accident and not once had she allowed her grief or career to interfere with her brother’s recovery. Franklin had been all too right about that one. She was ready to socialize again, ready to inject some fun into her life. Whether David was Mr. Right Now or Mr. Right, she wasn’t going to set a precedent of pushing friends away whenever Trey didn’t agree with her choices.

  Her heart ached under the weight of her brother’s selfishness. He and his team process had let her worry rather than clear up the questions of his safety, and now he wanted to judge and dictate what she should and shouldn’t do?

  As she’d told him last night, forgiving him for disappearing didn’t erase the aftermath. Her love life—though her current situation stretched the definition—wasn’t any of his business. Now that a kind, handsome guy was interested, it seemed cruel that Trey would ask her to put that part of her life on hold. Again. “I’m ordering a pizza,” she said. It was better than continuing a pointless argument. She pulled out her phone to make the call.

  “I could eat,” he said. “Don’t be mad just because you know I’m right.”

  She had a mental image of that coin flipping again. “Right about what?” She planted her hands on her hips.

  “Watching out for you. I know what I saw,” Trey blurted. “You had that dopey look on your face. Like the year you were crushing on the catcher.”

  She’d been fourteen. “Dopey?” Furious now, she started up the stairs, pizza forgotten. At twenty-six years old with an established career, she didn’t have to put up with this. “You are unbelievable.” She tried to rein in the explosion simmering under the surface. “This is not the day to mess with me.”

  “Tell me about him and maybe I can support you.”

  “Maybe?” She stopped at the top of the stairs, all too eager to throw every example of her excellent judgment back in his face. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and counted to ten. Twice. “He’s kind. He is new to the hospital and Charleston, but he was raised in Georgia. He comes from a big, close family and he loves the ocean. He has superb manners and he is my friend.”

  “With benefits,” Trey muttered.

  That coin flipped again. “That’s it,” she said. Her temper hit the flash point. She walked into his room and began gathering the few personal items he’d brought home.

  “Wait!” he shouted, pounding up the stairs behind her. “What are you doing?”

  “Kicking you out.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Wrong.” She closed his laptop and slid it into the protective sleeve. She coiled up the power cord and dropped it into the backpack emblazoned with a Northern Arizona University logo. Seeing that emblem, one that had made her smile with pride in August, only fueled the cold rage inside her now.

  She gave him credit for creativity as Trey did his best to break her silence, baiting her with wild accusations about her sex life while she plucked his dirty clothes out of the hamper in the bathroom and tossed those into the backpack, as well.

  “This is insane!” he roared. “You’re choosing some guy you just met over me?”

  She zipped his backpack and shoved it into his chest. “No. I’m choosing me over you. When you can be civil, you’re welcome in my home.”

  “Terri, don’t do this.”

  “Maturity is accepting the consequences, Trey. I love you and wish you well in all of your endeavors.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking truly contrite for the first time in years. “I was rude. Out of line. Please don’t kick me out.”

  She hesitated.

  “Dan—”

  “David,” she corrected.

  “David sounds like a winner,” Trey said. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  How ironic that David had made a similar statement about Trey. Maybe she should be the one to leave. She had options, but this was her home. “Why do you assume the worst about me?”

  “Not you, him.” Trey set the backpack on the floor and pulled her into a big hug. “If he’s so great, he’ll give us the space we need.”

  “What about the space you took for yourself without any regard for my feelings?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She believed him, despite her certainty that the coin would flip again sooner or later. What would he say if she blurted out how much space she wanted from him and his impossible moods? She sighed. She’d never figure out what had happened if she gave up on him now. “I’m still going out with him if he asks me.”

  Trey frowned. “God, you’re stubborn.”

  “I get it from my brother.”

  Regret tugged at his features, making him look older than he was. “I learned from the best,” he countered, slinging the backpack over one shoulder.

  “Wanting it to be like old times isn’t a bad thing,” she said quietly. “We just have to honor how we’ve both changed.”

  “Fair point,” he said. “Can I please stay?”

  She shouldn’t say yes. “Why don’t we order that pizza and put up the Christmas tree tonight?” If they got through that without another fight, she’d consider it. “Then we’ll see.”

  “Cade and I were going to grab a beer—kidding!” She tossed a shoe at him. “Just kidding! Pizza and Christmas sounds good.”

  With a nod, she went to her room to change clothes. Hopefully, it would be another fresh start. If the memories didn’t put them at each other’s throats again.

  * * *

  THE MOMENT HE walked in the door, David powered up his secure laptop and checked messages. He didn’t like the idea of Terri staying alone with her brother. For the first time since he’d planted the bugs in her house, he cued them up to listen in real time.

  Not one of them responded. Great.

  He supposed a mass malfunction was possible, but it felt like a stretch. Irritated, he went to the kitchen for a beer. Returning to the den, he debated his options while he wrote up an after-action report on the blackout for the director. He included everything, from Trey’s visit to Terri’s floor at the hospital to his movements before and during the blackout. Unfortunately, David couldn’t prove he’d fought with Trey, though it seemed the most likely explanation.

  He hit Send and barely had time for another swallow of beer before his cell phone rang.

  “How many men did you see with Trey Barnhart today?” There were no pleasantries when Director Casey called during a case.

  “Only one.” And he had the stitches to prove it. “I can go back through the—”

  “No. I have someone on it.”

  David was happy for the backup and he waited for further questions or instructions. He’d never heard Casey this agitated.

  “They didn’t get into Dr. Palmer’s ward,” Casey said, clearing up David’s worst fear. “The patient is fine and the two nurses who were attacked are stable.”

  David blew out a breath and sent up a prayer of thanks. He felt guilty that he hadn’t been there, even though his job had been to follow Trey. “Aside from Trey and his pal who got me, do you know how many were on the attack crew?”

  “Everything we have here says four. It doesn’t fit,” Casey said. “Everything we know about Rediscover says they strike in teams of five.”

  “Could the fifth guy have been in the getaway car?”

  Casey swore. “So far we haven’t located a getaway car on any of the feeds from the video cameras around the hospital.”

  Not good. Charleston was a great walking city, but the idea of four or five men rushing away from a hospital crisis would be obvious. “Do you have a theory on the vandalism?” David asked.

  “Distraction.”

  That confirmed David’s sense of today’s events. “You think this was just a test?”

  “I’m sure of it. I’ve spoken to Dr. Palmer already. They didn’t get anything. A camera in the corridor shows that one man,
not the brother, by the way, entered through the stairwell after the lights went out. He subdued the two nurses stationed outside Dr. Palmer’s ward and then made several attempts on the security panel, but didn’t break the code.”

  “Why send in only one guy?” David wondered aloud.

  “Has to be a test run,” Casey said. “Unless the goal is murder rather than recovery of the biotechnology.”

  That was a reasonable guess, but both David and the director wanted facts. “Trey cut the power and someone else vandalized the cars,” David said. “I saw Barnhart go into the parking garage, but he wasn’t there long enough to do that much damage. He doubled back to the hospital to help the guy in the basement.”

  Casey sighed. “Have you figured out how they recruited him?”

  “I have last night’s conversation in the archive, but today the bugs are dead.”

  “That’s too coincidental to ignore.”

  “Agreed. Do you want me to go in with a direct approach?”

  “Not yet. If we burn Barnhart we lose our only contact inside Rediscover.”

  None of this eased his reservations about Trey staying with Terri. “I’ll get closer. He picked up a motorcycle at some point today. The picture is in the report. I’ll find the pressure point.”

  “This is a delicate stage for Dr. Palmer’s research,” Casey said. “If Rediscover blows it, we won’t have another chance for five years at best.”

  “Understood.” Though David wasn’t technically alone in this, he was coming damn close to overwhelmed. Given another chance at Trey in that dark corridor, he’d be more aggressive.

  “I expect Dr. Palmer will call on Terri to fill in for the injured nurses,” Casey said. “That may be exactly what Rediscover hoped to accomplish today.”

  David absorbed that detail. The logic of it chilled him. “Trey’s involvement with today’s blackout makes it pretty clear they recruited him for her access to Dr. Palmer.”

  “Speculation doesn’t give us enough evidence to round them up just yet.”

  In the Coast Guard and as a Specialist, David had played with high stakes before but never with an innocent civilian smack in the middle of the game. He had to find a way to get closer to Terri without breaking cover. “Give ’em enough rope to hang themselves, you think?”