“I had to go to counseling once when I had to shoot a guy in the line of duty,” he finally said. “Turned out I was repressing my feelings. And once I started to deal with the incident, I wanted to blame someone. Anyone. The counselor told me that I was simply redirecting my anger so I could learn to accept the fact that I’d killed a man.”
Now, she wanted to take his hand, this time to comfort him, but she resisted the urge. “And what did the counselor say about the anger? Surely, that wasn’t helping.”
“It wasn’t, and she said it was useless. It didn’t actually do anything. It sure didn’t help me get better or find a way to avoid it happening again in the future. She was a Christian counselor, and she said blaming God ultimately shows we believe that God is in our debt. That He has to do everything we ask of Him. It should be the other way around. Blaming God—that’s not faith.”
“Fine words, but…”
“Yeah, I felt the same way at the time. Then my pastor suggested that we should use the phrase, ‘God, make me,’ not ‘God give me.’ So I turned around my thinking. Decided to look at the death to see how it would make me a better person. I came up with all kinds of ways I could use it for good. That’s when I was able to deal with the guilt.”
She looked at him then. Really looked deep into his eyes. She saw the suffering this death caused, but she also saw hope. The determination to make life better because of the experience. He was an amazing man. A truly fine Christian. Someone she could strive to emulate and learn from while they were together.
She smiled at him. “Thank you for sharing.”
“I wish I could say I put this kind of thinking into practice all the time, but honestly, I fail a lot. Like with your dad’s death. Took me some time to deal with the guilt. But if you can get your mind right, it works great.”
“I’ll think about it for sure. But I doubt it’ll change my mind about a relationship with a co-worker. I know I’m not technically on the job, but this isn’t about technicalities. I want to keep things professional.”
The brightness in his eyes suddenly washed away. “Sounds like you’ve made up your mind.”
“Nothing is certain.” She’d learned the hard way that life was lived minute by minute. But one thing she did know for certain. She wouldn’t let herself become distracted like she had with her father and risk the life of this very fine man.
10
Clay sat next to Toni at the big dining room table where his family had gathered for so many years. They each had their laptops open in front of them. She’d already confirmed Jason’s Facebook page had been taken down, killing that lead right off the bat. They continued their search for information on Jason and Rader, but Clay’s disappointment in Toni’s rejection was taking his attention. Big time.
Not that there was any point in thinking about his pain. He couldn’t change her mind. Only she could do that. Besides, he was still smarting from the way the last woman he’d gotten involved with had betrayed him with another man. Yeah, sure, he hadn’t been madly in love with Grace or anything, but betrayal by anyone still stung. Toni didn’t seem like she would have a straying eye like Grace had, but Toni could give in to her growing feelings for him only to realize she couldn’t be in a relationship and break things off. That was betrayal at its deepest sense, as there would be no other party he could get angry with or try to blame.
Sure, he’d just said he shouldn’t be angry. Shouldn’t blame. But the other thing his counselor had said was that he had to go through these natural stages, and he couldn’t hurry the process. When the time was right, most people recognized when to move on. And the other thing he knew—he could talk about moving on. Talk about not feeling disappointed, not letting hurt get to him, but God also gave people feelings. Sometimes they took over until you could process, and no matter what you knew in your brain, your heart didn’t go along with it.
He heard a key slide into the front door lock, and he spun, going for his sidearm.
Toni looked at her watch. “Probably your brothers, right?”
“You can never be too careful.”
She rested her hand on her gun, but the minute the door opened and his brothers’ voices traveled into the room—they were calling dibs on the bedrooms—she lifted it back to her computer.
Drake entered first, his face hidden behind three boxes. “Where do you want these?”
“In the corner.” Clay said. “It’ll be easier to review the files here.”
“Good thing Mom isn’t here. She wouldn’t be thrilled to have boxes all over the dining room.” He dropped them with a thud, and Clay’s other brothers trailed in behind him and unloaded another stack.
Erik was last, holding four boxes. “Out of my way. I can’t see a thing.”
“Because you were the doofus who had to carry the most boxes.” Drake rolled his eyes.
Pong cautiously entered the room and looked to Erik for direction.
“Hi, Pong.” Toni looked at the dog with longing. She really did want a dog. Whoever she married, if she ever did, would have to love dogs. “Can I pet him again?”
“Sure.” Erik looked at Pong. “You can go.”
He trotted across the room and sat at her feet.
She leaned in to pet him. “You are the best mannered guy I have ever met.”
“Hey,” Clay protested. “You just haven’t spent enough time with me yet.”
“That’s right, bro, your manners are so well hidden it’ll take her a lifetime to find them.” Drake grabbed Clay by the elbow. “C’mon. There’s more where these came from, and you’re not getting away without carrying your share.”
Clay groaned, but he didn’t mean it. He was messing with Drake as his brother had been messing with him.
“I’ll help.” Toni started to rise.
“Nah.” Drake waved a hand. “We got this. You keep the pooch happy while we go.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yep.” He smiled at her, a rare occurrence for sure, telling Clay his brother liked her. Not in a romantic way. At least Clay hoped not that way, or Clay was the one who’d have to call dibs.
Outside, Erik caught his attention. “I’ve been doing some searching on the drive over. Want a report on what I found?”
“We can hold an update meeting right after you guys get settled.”
“This needs to be in private.”
“I guess Toni and I can meet—”
“It’s Toni I don’t want in the room.”
“What?” Clay asked. “You do a background check on her?”
“I’ll explain when we talk.”
Clay glared at his youngest brother. “I didn’t ask you to look into her.”
“Yeah.” He stuck out his chin in the defiant look that usually preceded a fight. “But you didn’t stop looking at her so I figured I better look into her.” Erik said nothing else, just grabbed two boxes and marched away.
Clay stared after him. Clay was half proud of his little brother’s initiative and half mad.
“He did the right thing,” Drake said on his way past with boxes.
“And you know it,” Brendan added.
Aiden shook his head. “Hard being the one in charge, isn’t it?”
Clay grabbed the last three boxes and took them inside. After he set them on the piles, he looked at Toni. “I need to talk to Erik a minute. Be right back.”
He spun and grabbed Erik by the arm as he moved past him.
“We’ve still got groceries to unload,” Erik said.
“The others can handle it.” Clay gave his brother a push down the hallway.
“Come, Pong,” he called over his shoulder.
“Must be serious if you think you’re gonna need your dog for protection.” Clay laughed, but it was forced. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what Erik had dug up.
Erik marched down the hall to the furthest bedroom, which happened to be the master. His silence put a pang of worry in Clay’s heart. He hoped Erik was being dramati
c.
Clay thought they were far enough away from Toni that she wouldn’t hear them and entered the room their mom had redecorated when they were kids. The nautical theme included blue walls, a blue-and-white comforter that looked like rolling waves, and a porthole mirror on the wall.
Erik dropped onto the bed, patted the space beside him, and the dog hopped up.
“Mom won’t like that Pong was on her bed.” Clay closed the door.
“She doesn’t have to know.”
“You’re gonna pick off the dog hairs one by one, are you?”
“Oh, right.” Erik motioned for Pong to get down. He slunk down to Erik’s feet but didn’t look happy about it.
“So out with the big secret,” Clay said, ignoring the dog’s sad eyes.
“Not a secret really. I just thought you’d want to know before I said anything in front of Toni. Her father had some trouble in 1990.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He made a bad decision as an agent, and it almost cost him his job. He got into a shootout in Virginia, where he was assigned at the time. Guy he shot was Andrew Martin, and he died.”
“An agent involved shooting.” Clay understood the toll that took. “It’s traumatic but it happens. So where’s the problem?”
“Her dad was related by marriage to Martin. He was the brother of his wife’s mother.”
“Oh, man. That changes things.” Clay clamped a hand on the back of his neck to rub away the tension that had been building all day. “Her grandmother’s maiden name was Martin, so maybe Long didn’t know about the connection.”
“Nah, he admitted to knowing before he went to interview the guy.”
Clay whistled, and Pong gave him a sharp look.
“Easy, boy,” Erik said, his tone assertive yet soothing.
“Even working an investigation involving a relative is frowned on. Killing one had to get him in serious trouble.”
“Like I said. He almost got fired.”
“How’d you find this?”
“An old news article on the web told me Long was DEA, so I called Devon, and he did some digging.” Devon Dunbar was a DEA agent and Kelsey’s husband. “He said the DEA kept her dad on because he spoke several difficult languages, and they needed guys with that skill.”
“I wonder if Toni knows about this.”
Erik’s eyebrow went up, and he looked so much like Sierra that Clay found it uncanny. “Toni hasn’t mentioned it, then?”
Clay’s gut twisted. It wasn’t like she’d lied to him, but not mentioning something so important was unsettling. If indeed she knew about it.
“I asked the guys to give you some time with her alone but didn’t tell them what was going on.”
“Hey, thanks, man,” Clay said. “I’ll talk to her and let the others know at our update meeting.”
Clay started for the door but turned back. “And thanks for taking the initiative to do the background check.”
“Welcome.” Erik slid forward, and Pong perked up. “FYI, Drake called Malone, and she didn’t have anything helpful, but she’ll talk to a few of her sources and call if she learns anything. You should also know Drake started reviewing your Safe Harbor files on the drive to see if he could pinpoint something you missed.”
At that, a flash of irritation bit into Clay, but he let it go in favor of making progress on the investigation. “It’s good to get a fresh pair of eyes on things. Oh, and I almost forgot. Can you run financials for Fritz Rader? We found a ton of cash at his place, but the place was a dump.”
“Will do.”
As Clay walked down the hall, he considered how he would bring up the topic of Toni’s father and tell her what Erik had discovered. Would be touchy for sure. No matter what he said, his brother had done a background check on her, and that would sting. Sure, Clay didn’t direct Erik to run the check, but Clay should have, as protocol in their agency would demand such a thing.
He passed the second bedroom, where his other brothers were hanging out. They looked at him as he walked past, but said nothing. He found Toni alone at the table, her laptop still open, the light reflecting on her skin. She looked up, her face pale, her eyes tight.
“What is it?” He hurried over to her. “What’s wrong?”
“I…I…this.” She stabbed a finger at the screen.
He stepped behind her, and caught a look at the ancestry site. “You looked up your parents?”
“I talked to my grandpa. He seemed evasive, so I thought it would help, but I…” She tapped a pink square holding a darker pink female silhouette. A caption next to it said, Lisa Long, sister.
“I have a sister.” Toni’s words held immeasurable distress. “How could my family have kept this from me?”
Toni had suffered tremendous heartache in life with losing so many family members, but discovering she had a sister—a sister who, according to the records in front of Toni, was still alive—tore a hole deeper in her heart than she could ever have imagined. And filled her brain with questions.
Were the records right and her sister really was alive? What did she look like? Did she resemble Toni? Did Lisa know about her? She would be how old now?
Toni glanced at the screen and tried to calculate her age, but her head was spinning, and she couldn’t make sense of anything.
Clay scooted a chair next to her and took her hand. “These sites can make mistakes.”
“I figured as much.” She resisted shuddering over the discovery and clicked on another tab. “Here’s the birth certificate listing my parents.”
He looked at the screen then stared at her as if he couldn’t think of a thing to say. She understood his reaction. Completely. She could almost see the crazy thoughts pinging around in his head. The discovery had generated crazy ones in hers too.
“What do you think happened to her?” he asked.
Happened? Right. Something had to have happened or she would’ve been in the family. “I can’t even imagine. The records say she’s still alive, but maybe she died and her death certificate got mixed up or something.”
“Could be.” Clay placed his other hand over hers. “We should do an internet search. See what we can find out about her.”
“Lisa Long is probably a very common name.”
“Erik has programs designed to find missing people. With your permission I’ll ask him to start on it right away.”
“Sure. Yes. Of course.” Was she about to find a long-lost sister? A hint of excitement rose up and mixed with her unease.
Clay started to rise, but dropped back down. “There’s something else. Now’s the worst time ever to ask about this, but I have to.”
She’d thought her stomach was already in the tightest knot it could form, but his tone made it clench even more. She took a breath and let it out slowly. “Go ahead.”
“Erik was doing some research on the way here. He found out in the early nineties that your dad killed a guy in a shootout on an op gone wrong. Guy’s name was Andrew Martin. He’s your grandmother’s brother.”
She gasped and pulled back. She couldn’t get out a single question, but her mind was brimming with them to the point that it felt like it might explode.
“I take it you hadn’t heard that either,” Clay said.
She shook her head, starting slowly then letting it frantically swing to try to push all the horrible thoughts out of her brain.
Clay took her hands and held them tightly. “I’m sorry this is so upsetting for you.”
“Upsetting?” She ground out the word through gritted teeth. “Did I even know my parents? And why all the family secrets? Why, oh, why didn’t they tell me about Lisa? And where is she?” The questions streamed out now, and she couldn’t stop them.
“Shh,” Clay said. “Take a deep breath.”
He locked gazes with her and drew in a long breath of air then let it out. He repeated it. Over and over. She joined him and finally caught his rhythm. Slowly feeling her mind calm. Her heart rate slowed.
But what was she supposed to do now? “It feels like my whole life is a lie.”
“No,” he said firmly. “No matter what your parents did or didn’t tell you, you’re this strong, amazing woman. Nothing has changed that. And I’ll be right here to help you get through this.” He squeezed her hands.
She’d forgotten he was even holding them.
“Families keep secrets all the time,” he continued. “Like my mom and dad not telling Sierra about her biological dad.”
It helped to be reminded of his parents. They seemed like good people, but they’d withheld information from their children for years. So she nodded but she didn’t put any force behind it as a single nod was all she could manage.
His eyes brightened. “Think of this as any other problem in your life. How would you go about solving it?”
Okay, yeah. She could distance herself. Shove away all the pain and hurt and step back to look at it logically. Like she’d been doing since her dad was killed. She hadn’t even properly grieved him. At least she hadn’t reached the stage of acceptance. She’d accepted the fact that he’d died, but not that he’d died for no reason. Not that his killer hadn’t yet been brought to justice.
“I’d learn as much as I could about the subject and make a game plan,” she said, answering Clay’s question and trying to move those painful elements to the back of her brain.
“So we’ll do exactly that, first by asking Erik to look for Lisa. He’s trained for this sort of thing. Then we’ll get everyone together and review the information we have and where we go from here.”
He let go of her hands and stood but remained looking at her.
“Thank you.” She came to her feet and took both of his hands, wishing she had a right to hold them and not feel guilty. But learning about her past made the likelihood of getting romantically involved with him even less likely.
She couldn’t be anyone’s girlfriend, wife, mother, or any of the logical stages to follow in her life, not until she found her dad’s killer and figured out what had happened to her sister.
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