But I trusted Rhett. Something about her told me that I could. Instinct, I suppose you could call it. And, for the moment, I was going with it.
Not to mention the fact that every time I looked at her, my thoughts immediately went to a very non-professional place. To be perfectly honest, the idea of sleeping this close to her, to being this close as she went about her daily grooming duties …
I hadn’t been close to a woman since I was released from the hospital. Maybe it had been far too long. And maybe Rhett was just my type. I didn’t know what it was, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how creamy her skin was, how rounded her hips, how perfect her rare smile.
I wanted to touch her. Had I ever felt this sort of instant attraction to a woman before? I had no idea. Maybe this was my modus operandi. Maybe I desired every beautiful woman I met. But I didn’t think so. I had this sense that my attraction to Rhett was unique. And that made it feel that much more intense.
She tapped on the door between our rooms.
“I just talked to the home office. They haven’t had any breakthroughs on your case, but Waverly is still working on it. She said she had a few ideas that she was hoping would come up with some answers in the morning.”
“Good.”
I sat up and studied her pretty face. I got the impression she’d had a hard life. I didn’t know what it was. She gave off this air of independence, but there was a little wave of something else underneath. Not vulnerability—I fully believed she could kick my ass if I gave her a reason. But something like it. Something that suggested she wouldn’t be completely averse to a little empathy.
“How about some food?” I suggested. “I think I saw a diner across the street.”
She sighed, exhaustion showing in her eyes as she reached up to run her fingers through her dark hair. “That sounds great, actually.”
I led the way, holding the door open for her and making sure it was secure before I followed her down the stairs. Then, again, at the diner I held the door and ushered her through. She smiled politely, but it was pretty obvious she wasn’t used to being treated like a lady.
I liked that. I liked offering her something she didn’t get elsewhere.
“Tell me something about you,” I said once we were settled in a booth, our meals ordered.
“About me?”
“Yeah. I’m tired of talking about me.”
She smiled softly, a smile that looked almost unnatural on her lips, like she didn’t do it often.
“I suppose you are,” she said. “But my life story isn’t really all that exciting.”
“That’s fine.”
She blushed. “Well, my dad, my grandfathers, my great grandfathers—on both sides—were all cops. It was kind of the family business, you know. When my dad had all girls, I think he was terribly disappointed that his kids wouldn’t carry on the torch. But when I went into the academy … I’d never seen him so proud. Not even when I graduated high school.”
“Did you enjoy being a cop?”
She nodded, her face lighting up. “I loved it. I loved putting on that uniform every morning, loved being in the patrol car. There were times when it was tough—it’s still an old boys’ club, if you know what I mean—but I loved it. And when I made detective, my dad was over the moon. So was I. Youngest female detective in San Diego. It was quite a title.”
“Then what happened?”
She was quiet for a moment, running the tip of her finger around the lip of her glass. “Things changed after my dad died.” She glanced at me, a new shadow in her eyes. “He was shot one night while sitting in his patrol car. Wasn’t talking to anyone, wasn’t doing anything. Just sitting there, working on his paperwork. Someone walked up and shot him in the head.”
She dragged her fingers through her thick, wavy hair, making it fall a little haphazardly around her heart shaped face. “He lingered in a coma for a while, then passed. The guys on the force started acting differently, treating me different. It just … it lost its appeal.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked up, her eyes moving slowly over my face in a way that made me feel less broken and more whole. Our gaze lingered and I felt a heat build deep in my chest. She was beautiful, what with the way her tongue just barely touched her bottom lip as she ran it slowly over it, the way she kept touching her hair like she was nervous just sitting here with me. I wondered what would happen if I slid into the bench beside her, if I rested my hand on her thigh and whispered in her ear.
Her eyes dropped to her water glass. “My mom had a hard time with my dad’s death and she was taking it out on my younger sisters. When Dragon called and offered me a job, I couldn’t pass it up.”
“You like working security?”
She nodded. “It’s interesting work. And the people are pretty awesome.”
“You said sisters. How many do you have?”
“Two.” She slipped her phone out of her pocket and pulled up pictures, sliding it across the table to me. It was a wedding photo, Rhett and two other girls who looked enough like her that there was no doubt they were related. One was in a wedding dress, her hair blonde, her smile electric. The other was in a blue bridesmaid’s dress, her hair dark like Rhett’s, her eyes a soft brown. “Jesse and Kari,” she said, touching the picture.
“They live in Houston, too?”
“No. Kari and her husband moved to Colorado. His parents have a small ranch up there.”
“Then it’s just you and Jesse now.”
She nodded, taking the phone back, a sigh slipping from between her lips as she glanced at the picture. I watched, the affection she clearly held for these young women written all over her face.
“Do you think you might have family out there somewhere?” she asked as she slipped the phone back into her pocket.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. The private investigators checked missing person’s reports all over the state, but couldn’t find one that fit my description. They seemed to think that meant I don’t have family.”
“Not necessarily. It could mean you traveled a lot or made a habit of disappearing for one reason or another. Or it could mean that your family lives out of the area and haven’t had reason to miss you yet.”
“It’s been a year.”
“Or maybe you live outside the country? You sound American, but that doesn’t mean you make your home here in Texas.”
“I suppose. But why would I have a security identification from a local business?”
“You think it was local?”
“I’m assuming.”
She nodded. “I asked Waverly to make a check of businesses in this area that require employees to wear gray coveralls. That could be a lead.”
The waitress arrived just then with our food. She lingered a moment, asking me more than once if I needed anything else, but ignoring Rhett’s request for a bowl of ranch dressing. I smiled apologetically at her, but then caught sight of something outside the window I was hoping not to see for a few days.
A generic black SUV was sitting in the parking lot.
I stiffened, staring at it as Rhett dug into her burger and fries. There was a man sitting in the front seat, watching me through the windshield. He didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t watching me. It was a little creepy, the intensity in his gaze. Again, a little piece of me wondered if I knew him, if he was someone important in my life. But instinct told me he wasn’t.
“What is it?” Rhett asked.
I didn’t want to make a big movement, to alert the man to the fact that I’d seen him. I made a little movement with my head.
“The black SUV. That’s the one that’s been parked down the block from my apartment these last few days.”
Rhett was casual in her glance, only looking for maybe a second before she focused on me again.
“I’m going to get up in a minute and go to the restroom. I want you to head back to the motel, lock yourself in the room and stay there until I come back. Understand?”
“Do you trust me, Richard?”
I nodded. I did.
“Do what I say.”
Rhett picked up a French fry and crunched it between her teeth, then stood, wiping her hands on a napkin and dropping it in the center of her plate. She walked off, disappearing down the short corridor where the bathrooms were hidden. I waited several heartbeats, then slipped out the side door, walking as calmly as I could across the parking lot and back to the motel on the other side of the street. Our rooms were around the back, so the man in the SUV couldn’t have seen where I went unless he got out of the car and followed me on foot.
I hated leaving Rhett behind to deal with this. I knew that’s what I’d hired her agency for, but it seemed emasculating to leave a woman in that position. I hesitated outside the motel room door, glancing over my shoulder, thinking I should go back and make sure she was okay. But I was pretty sure she had a gun in an ankle holster—but don’t ask me how I knew. I had nothing I could use as a weapon. Maybe there was something in the room I could use, the handle off of a toilet plunger or something.
I pushed the card key into the lock and stepped inside, not paying as much attention to my surroundings as I probably should have. If I had, I would have seen the woman with the silencer on her 9mm pistol come up behind me and press it into my back, would have known better than to stand in the open doorway of the room long enough to give her the chance to shove me inside.
I spun around the moment my shins hit the frame of the bed and found myself face to face with a tall, dark, exotic woman.
“Hello, Xander,” she said softly.
Who the hell was Xander?
Chapter 4
Rhett
I slipped out the back door of the diner and around the side, crouching behind a couple of parked cars as I approached the SUV. I couldn’t see the driver from my position, and I was hoping he couldn’t see me. Surprise was always the best way to get the drop on someone. I slipped up behind the SUV, pulling my gun free of my ankle holster. It was just a little .22, but it would do the job, especially in close quarters. But the moment I snuck around the corner of the vehicle, I felt a gun pressed into the back of my head.
“I’m pretty sure we’re on the same side here,” a deep male voice said, “but I would feel a lot better if you put that gun down.”
“Who are you? Why are you following my client?”
“Just doing a job. Like you.”
“Who are you?”
“Put the gun down and I’ll show you my identification.”
I hesitated. He didn’t sound like a cop, but he had that confidence that spoke of some sort of law enforcement. I held up the gun, making a show of relaxing the hammer. He slipped it out of my hand and pushed my shoulder, allowing me to turn around.
“I’m Ingram Porter. I work for Gray Wolf Security out of Austin.”
I tilted my head slightly. I’d heard of Gray Wolf. In this business, it wasn’t unusual to run into other firms working the same or similar cases as you. Gray Wolf had a stellar reputation all over the Southwest. But this was my first experience running into one of their operatives.
“You’re with Dragon?” he asked.
I nodded. “We’ve been hired to protect Mr. Chandler and to help him investigate his past.”
“Mr. Chandler?”
“The man you’ve been following.”
“We know him as King. Xander King.”
My eyebrows rose. “Well then, I think we have a lot to discuss, Mr. Porter.”
He studied me for a long moment, then he inclined his head. “Why don’t we go inside? I’m starving.”
***
Porter set a grouping of pictures on the table between bites of burger. I picked up a couple of the pictures, recognizing Richard immediately in each one. They were the kind of pictures you mind find on someone’s Facebook page. Family pics taken at social events, class photos, formal portraits. And they spanned several years.
“Where did you get these?”
“Our client.”
“And that would be …?”
He smiled, a little crinkle appearing at the corner of his blue eyes. “You know I can’t reveal that.”
“How long have you been after him?”
“Eighteen months.” Porter set down his burger and gestured toward the pictures. “Xander King was a day trader working out of his home in Denver until eighteen months ago when he abruptly signed out of his accounts in the middle of the afternoon and walked out of his house without looking back. No phone calls to family members, no emails to colleagues. Nothing.
“We were hired to track him down, but each time we’d find him, he would have moved on by the time we got there. Then, a year ago, he simply vanished. We had no clue what had happened to him until one of our operatives happened to be in Houston and saw him walking through the Galleria. I tracked him to his apartment in downtown Houston and I’ve been trying to figure out how to approach him ever since. But then he showed up at Dragon this morning and … here we are.”
“A day trader?”
Porter nodded, devouring a couple of fries. “Smart with numbers.”
“Did he take anything with him when he left?”
“Nothing. Not even clothes.”
“Was there a wife? Kids?”
He glanced at me. “You know I’m limited on what I can tell you. We promise discretion to the client.”
“You can’t even tell me that?”
“I can if you’ll go get your client and let me talk to him. I need to verify a few things before I take him back to Gray Wolf headquarters and call the client.”
I nodded, aware of the privacy complications of these things. I’d run into it myself on some of the cases I’d done with Dragon. But this case was even more complicated than just confidentiality.
“I don’t know how well my client can answer your questions.”
“Why’s that?”
I rolled my head on my shoulders a little. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. But I will go get my client and see if he wants to speak to you.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
I picked up one of the photographs as I slid across the booth’s bench, studying it for a long second. There were pictures behind him, the kind of pictures that people display in their homes. One of the pictures behind Richard/Xander made my heart skip a beat for a second.
What was I getting myself into, working with this man?
“Stay here. I’ll go get him.”
I crossed the parking lot quickly, my thoughts full of what I’d just seen and heard. Xander King. It seemed to fit him. He was definitely the kind of guy who wouldn’t have a simple, generic name like Richard.
Xander. Unique. I liked it.
I let myself into my room and was about to call out to him through the connecting door when I heard a woman’s voice.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out you were still alive, Xander? Did you really think I wouldn’t come looking for you when I did hear? Did you really think I’d go to all that trouble and just let you walk away?”
I stopped, my heart pounding in my chest. I couldn’t see them, but from the sound of their voices, they were near the bed. I slipped my gun out of my waistband where I’d put it after Porter and I confronted each other. I closed my eyes as I cocked it, hoping the sound wouldn’t give me away.
I moved closer to the open connecting door, leaning against the wall where the door was pushed to enough to hide me. And then I waited for the right moment, curious what else this woman might have to say. She seemed to know Richard/Xander. Maybe she had some information we could use.
“The night of that last heist, you knew it wasn’t going to end well. It was never going to end well.” The woman snorted, the sound of her agitated pacing the only sound beyond her voice that filled the room. She must have had a gun or something, to keep Richard quiet. He wasn’t even breathing hard as far as I could tell, like this wasn’t his fir
st time being held at gunpoint.
“They might have been threatening Sabrina, but it was your life that was always in danger. You had to have known that, too. You were a puppet. The fucking idiot who thought he could walk away without consequence.”
She paced some more, her breathing agitated. I closed my eyes, tried to picture exactly where she was. I didn’t like the idea of going into a situation with so little information. What kind of gun did she have? Where was Richard? Was I walking into a trap?
The woman stopped moving. I was pretty sure she was standing beside the bed.
“You should have stayed dead, my friend. It would have been simpler that way.”
“Why don’t we pretend that I did stay dead? You can walk away, Rebecca.”
That stopped me for a second. Rebecca? How did he know her name?
The woman chuckled, but it was a completely humorless sound. “I can’t walk away. If they find out I let you live …”
I slipped over the threshold. Like I thought, Richard was sitting on the edge of the bed. The woman had begun to pace again and was near the door, her back to both Richard and me. I watched her a second, assessing the situation the way they taught us at the police academy.
Richard made a motion and she suddenly turned, tipped off by a small sound or something. Her gun—a massive .357—came up, her finger already on the trigger. I instinctively fired. The lamp to her left exploded. Fuck! I hadn’t fired a gun in a long time, but I was a certified sharpshooter. I should have hit her without thinking about it.
She ducked to the right, firing her gun. I stood my ground, firing again. But then Richard was there, standing between us. I cried out for him to move, turning as she fired a second, and then a third, time. He knocked her to the ground as I came up behind him, my gun trained on the center of her forehead. She cried out in frustration as he twisted her wrist, forcing the gun out of her hand. It fell and he quickly turned her onto her back, using the cord of the broken lamp to hogtie her there on the floor.
DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series Page 19