“I think we should go back to figuring the San Diego Convention Center is the target,” Malichai said. “If Anna had to be silenced because she wanted to tell the cops, then she did, in fact, overhear something no one wanted her to repeat. Callendine, Salsberry and Mills were using the magic shop and Miss Crystal’s apartment in the back of the store as their headquarters.”
“They removed Miss Crystal by making her believe she’d won a trip on a cruise. They paid for everything,” Ezekiel said. “So they didn’t murder Miss Crystal. Why, when they so readily killed others over the last two years?”
“They needed her magic shop open,” Amaryllis said without thinking. She didn’t even open her eyes. “If they killed her, the shop would close. There was no one to take her place. She’d said so dozens of times. But if they just had her go away for a time, they would have the shop and be able to do anything they wanted from it.”
Ezekiel nodded. “Thank you, Amaryllis. I believe you’re correct. They needed her alive more than they needed her dead.”
“Callendine trusted someone to do the intel on Miss Crystal. He would never have been so sloppy as to say she was visiting a son. That was just idiocy not to say she was on a cruise,” Malichai said.
“They practiced a script,” Mordichai guessed. “Just like we rehearse a mission, over and over until we know exactly what we’re going to do, they had to have rehearsed a script. My guess, in the script they first used, she was dead, they killed her, so they came up with various reasons why she wasn’t there. Midstream, they sent her on a cruise and everyone got confused.”
That was plausible. Amaryllis didn’t like to think that the people she knew were so easily disposable to others, but it was obvious that they were to Callendine. He had hired a man to rid the world of Marie, Jacy and Amaryllis.
“Rubin, you can’t go to the magic shop pretending to look for Shevfield because they aren’t there. I’m going to have you arrested and put it in the papers that you’re a suspect in Anna and Bryon Cooper’s deaths. Callendine will look into you. He has to have someone at the police department or a hacker helping him. You will be suspected of being a hit man, but no one has ever been able to convict you. The police will have to release you because there is no evidence against you and you’ll be staying here.”
“Lovely,” Amaryllis murmured. “Our reputation is growing.”
“A thrill a minute, baby,” Malichai assured. “People love that. The B and B will be more popular than ever.”
Ezekiel ignored them. “Shevfield’s body will be found so Callendine will have to use one of his men to create his diversion or contact the supposed hit man at the B and B. That puts Rubin right in an enticing situation. Callendine won’t be able to resist the fact that you’re exactly where you need to be to carry out his diversion.”
“You don’t think it’s too big of an apple falling in his lap?” Malichai asked.
Ezekiel shrugged. “We have to take that chance. We don’t have any other play. When Amaryllis is feeling better, she can unlock the attic. Trap and Cayenne want the basement. Cayenne will be more comfortable there. We’ve still got to go through the house and find any bugs. There weren’t any in this room. We’ve gone over it several times. Even so, we’ve got a jammer in here, so when we need to talk, let’s use this room.”
“I thought you wanted to move us to Amaryllis’s room,” Malichai said.
Ezekiel shook his head. “No, I’ll put one of the men in there. Probably Gino. Draden and Shylah will take one of the two rooms Marie has been renovating. That will give us, including you and Amaryllis, eight here at the inn. Bellisia is joining me at the house I rented. Mordichai is already there and Joe will be coming in. So, we’ll have three more of us within minutes of you.”
“Only Wyatt and Diego home?” Malichai asked. “That’s not good.”
“Jack and Ken Norton have some of their team members on the way to Louisiana right now,” Ezekiel said. “Everyone will be safe while we take care of whatever is going on here. Jack and Ken will back us up along with half of their team members here if we need to call on them. In addition, we have access to the base.”
“I don’t like the fact that Callendine is legitimately a soldier and was a good one at that,” Malichai said.
“Decorated,” Ezekiel supplied.
Malichai swore under his breath. “This has all the marks of a major clusterfuck, Zeke. If they’re here on what is supposed to be legitimate business . . .”
“Hiring a hit man?”
“You know what I mean. Under orders. And he’s a decorated officer? His men?” Malichai shook his head. “We’re under scrutiny already in the White House. They’re looking for any excuse to terminate us.”
Amaryllis gasped. Shocked. Whitney didn’t mind terminating the girls. To him they were throwaways. He acted as if they should be happy to give their lives in service to their country through his experiments. But the soldiers? They were miracle workers on the battlefield. They ran covert missions and saved lives like no others. Someone wanted them terminated? How did that make any sense? She could see why they were building fortresses. It wasn’t about Whitney. It was about any others who might consider them the enemy. Malichai had said that to her, but she hadn’t really comprehended that someone in power, someone in the White House, maybe even the president of the country, might decide to give the order to have them killed.
“We can’t let these people kill innocents, no matter who they are. They don’t get a pass. That’s why you let Mills walk out of here with you when you could have taken him. We don’t operate that way and we never will.”
Amaryllis decided she didn’t mind connecting her life to Malichai’s, not when his GhostWalkers thought that way. They stood for the people she wanted to stand for. She wanted to be like they were and she was going to throw her lot in with them.
14
Trap Dawkins glared at Malichai. “What were you told about trying to do exercise on that leg? Are you deliberately trying to make it worse?”
Trap was difficult at the best of times. He was an undisputed genius and owned so many patents Malichai had lost count. Draden and Wyatt were best at handling him, although all of the GhostWalkers on their team had gotten fairly good at being around him and not taking offense. Trap was very high-functioning Asperger’s. His father had murdered his mother and siblings and then his uncles had taken his remaining aunt, the one who had raised him, and raped and murdered her. Trap had retreated even further into his mind and really, who could blame him?
He’d joined the military to learn to be strong, to make certain no one could ever take anyone from him again. He’d gotten that way, but he’d also developed habits of not speaking when he didn’t want to and losing himself in his work for weeks on end. He was abrupt, rude and didn’t give a damn if anyone liked him or not.
Malichai knew, under all of that roughness, Trap was dedicated to the men and women in their unit and family. And then he’d met Cayenne and fallen like a ton of bricks. She had never been out of a cage, not unless she was being experimented on or they were testing her abilities to defend herself against a team of supersoldiers. It was always a life-or-death test and at the end of the day, Cayenne was alive, and the team was dead. Eventually, the man who was running the laboratory had become so fearful of her, he had scheduled her for termination. Trap had been the man to set her free.
The last few days, when Trap had come with just a few of the team, he’d mostly remained silent, and stayed away from everyone, just doing his job, but now, he seemed to have strong opinions.
Malichai ignored Trap and concentrated on Cayenne. She was a little thing, deceptively so. Her hair was shiny black and if you looked closely, you could see the red hourglass running through the back of it when the silky strands settled a certain way.
“How are you, sweetheart?” he asked, because he liked her. They all did. She was elu
sive, but she was kind and sweet and loved Trap with everything in her.
She gave him a tentative smile. “Good. I’m so sorry about your leg, Malichai. We’ve all been very worried. Nonny sends her love and says to tell you she’ll be cooking something very special when you get home.”
“I really appreciate you coming, Cayenne, but I’m worried about your safety. You could give birth at any moment.” It was a shot in the dark, but he was a doctor and he’d thought a lot about the possibility of when Cayenne could have gotten pregnant.
Trap was insane for her. He probably hadn’t taken the time to protect her from pregnancies and she would know very little, if anything, about birth control with her background. If she’d gotten pregnant immediately, she would definitely be close to giving birth. When Malichai had asked Trap directly, he hadn’t really given an answer.
“Any of us are capable of delivering a baby,” Trap answered gruffly. “Stretch your leg all the way out. Zeke told me that your woman is a psychic healer.” He glanced at Amaryllis, who was staying absolutely still, almost holding her breath.
Trap damn well knew Amaryllis was a psychic healer. He’d been there when she was with Rubin trying to save his leg. He was diverting attention from Cayenne and her pregnancy on purpose. Malichai wanted to strangle him. Malichai threaded his fingers through Amaryllis’s to give her reassurance. Trap had shut down any other questions directed at Cayenne over the birth of their child so he just shrugged and moved on, answering for Cayenne’s sake. “Yes, and she saved my leg a couple of times.”
Amaryllis couldn’t let Cayenne think that and Trap knew better. “Rubin really saved his life. And we both worked on the leg together,” she corrected.
Cayenne sent her a small smile but didn’t respond.
Trap ran his hands over the damaged leg from the top of Malichai’s thigh to his ankle. “What did you find?” he asked Amaryllis.
“You know what she found, Trap,” Malichai said. He didn’t want to go through the entire thing again.
“I want her to tell me again,” Trap said stubbornly. “It’s important. I’m trying to figure out what the hell is going on and I can’t get the visual in my head. It keeps happening over and over and fast now. I want Amaryllis to tell me. I don’t want to hear it over a speaker while I’m on a plane. I want her to tell me.”
That surprised Malichai. Trap rarely addressed anyone he didn’t know.
Amaryllis answered without hesitation before Malichai could protest Trap’s tone. “There were hundreds of little fissures running through the bone. The cracks widened fast. I had the feeling the field dressing Malichai used in order to stop the bleeding and get the necessary strength to get out of the situation caused some peculiarity in his bone, although that’s only because I didn’t find it anywhere else, and I expected to. There was just no other reasonable explanation. Rubin thought that same thing.”
“I don’t need to know what you thought, so much as what you actually saw. Did this same thing happen again when Mills kicked him?”
“Yes, but there was no chance that the bone was completely healed. Malichai told me the physical therapist wanted him walking daily as well as swimming. I didn’t necessarily agree with that, but Malichai is impatient to be back on his feet one hundred percent. He doesn’t mind working hard, but I think he actually needs to rest the leg.”
She was watching Trap’s hands as he inched his palms over the calf. Malichai felt heat sliding over his skin. It wasn’t like when Amaryllis worked on him, which she had for the last two days. The energy she generated was so powerful that he always expected to see blisters on his skin, although the last time, it felt as if she’d been able to tone it down somewhat.
Amaryllis was often busy in the kitchen, and thankfully Mordichai and Ezekiel helped her, while Rubin spent his time in jail, and then was let go. He stayed to himself in his room as a rule. Gossip swept through the inn and reached Malichai through Burnell and Jay. They came to visit him and would happily tell him that Marie’d had to take Jacy to a hospital and there was a suspected hit man in their presence. They whispered the word “hit man” and yet emphasized it at the same time.
Craig came in and played chess with him occasionally and regaled him with tales of the other guests’ reactions to the suspected hit man. He asked all kinds of questions about Malichai’s injuries and how he got them and whether there was permanent damage, all of which Malichai fielded easily.
“I hate staying in bed when Amaryllis clearly needs help without Marie here.”
“Everyone’s here,” Trap said. “She’ll have plenty of help now. Draden and Shylah are a huge help in the kitchen. Shylah can actually cook—well—she can follow recipes according to Nonny, which most of the women can’t.”
Cayenne winced visibly and turned away from the bed. At once, Trap dropped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. “Baby, you’re too damned emotional. It’s the fucking hormones. I don’t give a damn if you ever learn to cook. You know I don’t. I like you going to the lessons because you enjoy being around Nonny and the women, not because I want you to learn to cook. Stop being so damn sensitive.”
Malichai winced. Trap clearly was showing his woman he loved her and it was obvious he really didn’t care whether she could cook or not, but he sounded gruff, even a little mean when he swore at her.
Trap framed Cayenne’s face with his hands, forcing her head up, and he took her mouth hard. Devouring her. Kissing her until neither of them seemed to breathe. Until her arms slid around his neck and she leaned her body completely into his, relaxing totally into him.
He lifted his head first. “You good, baby?”
Cayenne nodded. She didn’t seem the least embarrassed that there were witnesses to Trap’s hungry kisses. Malichai couldn’t help smiling at Amaryllis, who smiled back.
“Yes.”
“I’ve got to make certain Malichai is healing. If I don’t know what’s going on with his leg, I can’t boss him around adequately, and you know how pissed off that kind of thing makes me.” He rubbed his chin on top of Cayenne’s head and then turned back to Malichai. “It’s official, you know, in case your brother didn’t tell you. Mordichai finished his work in emergency care. He’s been taking time off to do his clinicals, which is hysterical since he’s been doing them for the last few years in the field. But he’s officially a doc now. No one can give him a bad time.”
That was just like Mordichai not to say a word. Anything to do with GhostWalkers was always so secretive. Malichai had known his brother had been going to school for several years, but they often interrupted him in order for him to go on regular missions. He’d gotten most of it out of the way, but he was persistent and continued even though it had taken much longer than normal.
“Trap, you never once admitted you had any healing ability,” Malichai said. They all did in one capacity or another, but Trap had always insisted he didn’t, that it was nonsense.
Trap abruptly pulled his hands off Malichai’s leg. “I don’t. I can ‘see’ sometimes, but I can’t heal. I’m taking Cayenne downstairs. We don’t want to be caught in here. But you stay off this leg and let the damn thing heal.”
“Will do,” Malichai said, uncertain if he meant it.
Amaryllis went to the door and looked out. They’d swept the other rooms for bugs and found several, all in the rooms of those attending the Ideas for Peace convention. The only other room to have one had been Malichai’s. Malichai was fairly certain Callendine had paid someone to plant the bugs—most likely Billy. Malichai had destroyed the listening device and now, several times a day they swept the room just to be safe.
The hallway was dark, and Trap and Cayenne immediately disappeared into the shadows in the way the GhostWalkers did. Amaryllis watched down the hall to make certain no doors opened. The B and B was full, every room taken, and there was excitement over the upcoming convention. Often gr
oups of guests congregated in the meeting room or front room to talk about the various ideas they had and what they were most looking forward to. Judging by the friendly way the strangers treated one another, no one would ever think a deadly threat could be hanging over their heads.
Amaryllis closed and locked the door, turned back to him and leaned against it. “I find it interesting that your GhostWalkers think nothing of visiting you in the dead of night, never thinking they might get seen by a guest.”
“They rely on other senses to tell them if anyone is around, and they’re used to working at night. Trap would have known if anyone was in the hallway.”
“Some of the guests have a habit of sneaking down to the dining room and raiding the cookie stash there.”
“Why are you way over there?” Malichai studied her face. She was nervous around the GhostWalker team members, and he couldn’t blame her. Essentially, she had to rearrange her thinking from looking at them as supersoldiers—those belonging to Whitney’s private army—and the GhostWalker teams serving their country.
Amaryllis continued to stay across the room from him. “I think all of you take too many chances, Malichai.”
“All of you” meant him. She wasn’t happy that he’d been testing his leg already. She might not swear at him the way Trap did, but she was equally as upset, maybe more. He didn’t want his woman to be the one looking out for him. He did have some pride, especially now that the others were there, and she could see all the various things they were capable of.
Trap and Wyatt were geniuses and they had more money than they knew what to do with. Draden had been some hotshot model before he was a GhostWalker. Women tended to fall at his feet and worship. Gino was an extremely dangerous man. It had been Malichai’s observation that women had a tendency to think dangerous men were every bit as hot as a model.
What was he? His mother was an addict willing to sell her kids for drugs. He’d grown up on the streets, Ezekiel watching out for him. He was a doctor, but he wasn’t gifted the way the others were. He was what he was—a soldier.
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