Queen's Ransom: A Fog City Novel

by Layla Reyne

  “It’s a possibility,” Chris said. “But I think it’s unlikely.”

  “Who’d the Bentley belong to?” Helena asked.

  “Bill Patrick. He just sold his ranch in Paso Robles. The Bentley was a retirement present to himself. First car he’s ever owned that wasn’t a truck.”

  “What about your ex?” Hawes said.

  Now there was a possibility more likely than the IRA, except… “I haven’t seen Dex since last year, and why would he shoot up the shop? If he’s not gonna pay child support, I have to have the means to take care of our kids.”

  “Let me rephrase,” Hawes said. “Does Dex have trouble with anyone?”

  A bitter laugh escaped her lips. Of course, Dex strikes again. Not in person, but no less damaging.

  “We’re gonna need names,” Chris said.

  “You know that internet meme with the guy who unfurls a scroll-length list?” Cringes greeted her all around; yeah, they all knew which one. “That’s what we’re talking about here and that’s just the people I know about.”

  “Write them down,” Helena said with another gentle squeeze of her shoulders. “The sooner we figure out who did this, the sooner you can get back to fixing the princess.”

  So Helena had caught her earlier choice of words. Celia, though, was stuck on the first part of Helena’s sentence. “Why can’t the police figure this out?”

  “They can,” Hawes said. “But we may be able to do it faster.”

  And make it go away? Like they had Dex?

  “Until then,” Helena said, “get comfy. We’ve got plenty of food and plenty of room.”

  “Are you sure?” She directed her question at Hawes and Holt. “Chris and Helena came up with this plan at the scene. We didn’t get a chance to ask you.”

  Holt’s tired face cracked, a genuine smile peeking out. “Not gonna say no to an army of babysitters.”

  Hawes slid off the arm of the chair and knelt in front of her, a hand on her knee. “We’re family, Celia, and we take care of family.”

  Chapter Three

  There was zero chance Celia could hear them from the main floor, but Helena waited for Holt, who was monitoring her progress onscreen, to confirm she’d reached the dining room. Given the all clear, Helena turned to her brothers and to the unpleasant truth none of them had spoken in Celia’s presence. “So, who wants to address the elephant in the room?”

  Hawes didn’t hesitate; it wasn’t his way. “We might have been the target of that drive-by.”

  A grim reality that had taken root in Helena’s mind as soon as she’d secured Celia’s safety. This was exactly why she’d pulled away from Celia last fall, why she’d stayed away while conducting her negotiations, and why she knew better than to go to the shop today. And yet she’d still gone, unable to resist. She’d missed the spark of attraction, the banter, the friendship, the hours spent with someone outside their world. And after months neck deep in it, she’d needed that. Desperately. But had she risked Celia’s life to get it?

  “Did you pick up any tails on the way over there?” Hawes asked.

  “None that I noticed.”

  “Why were you at the shop anyway?” Chris said. “I tuned up the Duc last week.”

  Kicking out a foot, she shoved the base of Chris’s chair, for the sass and to make room to skirt by and flop onto the couch. “Your sister is a better mechanic.”

  He scoffed in mock outrage.

  Hawes shoved him from the other side. “She’s right.” He moved off the arm of the chair and into the seat, crossing one leg over the other and painting on his pondering face. “You’re sure all the meetings went well?” he asked Helena.

  She slumped into the couch cushions, tapping each of her fingernails against her thumbnail—right hand, left hand, repeat. She’d strived to break the nervous habit but wasn’t always successful. She didn’t hide it from her family. They all had their ticks: Hawes pacing circles, Holt typing frenetically, Chris muttering to his dead partner, Brax running a hand over his head. “As far as I knew,” she said, “we were square with most everyone. Negotiations took time, but there were no objections to our realignment. Some grumbling from those who have to solicit new contracts, but for the others like us, it helps their businesses.” With the Madigans more selective of their targets, there were more contracts on the table for the less selective.

  “Regardless, we need to make our own list,” Hawes said.

  “Start with Rose’s contacts,” Chris suggested.

  Except those were the first meetings on Helena’s roadshow. “We’ve settled those accounts. They backed the wrong horse. They know it.” She scooted over, tucking a leg under herself and making room for Holt, who’d abandoned his command center to join them. “And again, we’re helping their bottom line, not hurting it.”

  “You think,” Chris said.

  “You think this could be Rose?” Holt asked.

  Helena suspected his rumbled question would have been a growl if her brother weren’t so damn exhausted. As the months had passed, Holt’s every mention of their incarcerated grandmother grew more hostile. There was a storm brewing there, and God help them all when it finally blew ashore.

  “We can’t discount the possibility,” Hawes replied.

  “Behind Rose,” Helena said, acknowledging the possibility but wanting to move on from it before Holt exploded, “the most likely parties would be those who are adversely affected by our shift in objectives.”

  “Those most likely to be your targets,” Chris said.

  Helena smirked. “Bonus points for Mr. Hair.”

  “You get on those lists,” Hawes said to her. “And include anyone your meetings didn’t go well with. You said most earlier. I want to know about the outliers. Full debrief tomorrow.”

  She nodded and crossed her legs. “I’ll loop in Avery,” she said, referring to their top lieutenant who had served as her second at all the meetings. “She may have noticed something I didn’t.”

  “Good,” Hawes said, then angled toward his fiancé. “Now, tell us about Dex.”

  Like Hawes earlier, Chris didn’t hesitate, his low low opinion of his ex-brother-in-law on the tip of his tongue. “He’s an abusive, neglectful, self-centered asshole.”

  Helena flitted a hand. “Old news.” She was more interested in where she suspected Hawes’s train of thought had been going. “Was Dex tangled up with someone who might do this?”

  “You asked Celia—”

  “And you’re the trained investigator. I don’t believe for a second you didn’t dig into him and what he’d been up to during your absence.”

  He narrowed his dark eyes. “You’re annoyingly perceptive.”

  “Which is why she’s now in charge of this whole shebang,” Hawes said, flitting his hand in a similar fashion. “Answer her question.”

  Chris slid his narrow-eyed glare to the side. “Traitor.” Helena had to stifle a laugh, but the tiny bubble of hilarity popped with Chris’s next words. “Celia doesn’t know the half of it.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Dex was always into this scheme or that. Fucker can drive. That’s what brought him around the shop in the first place, and that’s what made him the getaway driver of choice for certain low-level criminal elements. Celia thinks it’s all loan-shark kinds of shit, of which there’s plenty, but that wasn’t all of it. Dex was the king of bad decisions. I half suspect that’s why he ran off so often. To lie low.”

  “That,” Helena said, “and he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.”

  “That too,” Chris conceded. “I’ll supplement Celia’s list.”

  “Why didn’t any of this come up during the divorce?” Hawes asked.

  “We didn’t need it.” Helena uncrossed her legs, folded one back under herself, and braced an elbow on the inside of her knee. She held up a hand to count off on her fingers. “One, he didn’t contest the divorce. Two, we had pictures and witness statements to prove physical and emotional abuse. Three, we had evidence
of the adultery too.”

  “What about the garage?” Hawes asked. “Does he have any stake in it?”

  “Fuck no,” Chris spat. “The business part of it is incorporated, and the property sits on land held in a family trust. Dad set all that up.”

  “And Celia did nothing to commute it,” Helena further explained. “All accounts are separate. We did the full accounting for the divorce.”

  “Doesn’t exclude the shop as a target,” Hawes said.

  Helena agreed, even if Dex didn’t have a stake in Perri Auto Works. She mentally kicked herself for not doing more to secure the place and keep Celia safe. Yes, she’d been training Celia in self-defense, but more was needed. “Security?” she asked Chris.

  “Some but nothing like the package here or at MCS headquarters.”

  “I’ll rectify that,” Holt said.

  Her brother’s sudden reentry into the conversation startled Helena. Holt had always been the quietest of them, but quiet was too generous a description for him lately. Even when she hadn’t been there in person, she had sensed his withdrawal over calls and video. It worried Helena, reminded her of his withdrawal after their parents’ death when no one had been able to reach him. No one except Braxton Kane. Fourteen years ago, Brax had snapped Holt out of his malaise, and until last fall, Brax hadn’t gone a week without talking to or seeing his best friend, despite the conflicts of interest inherent in a friendship between the chief of police and a digital assassin. After Lily was born, Brax had barely gone a few days without a visit, the top cop adorably enamored with his goddaughter. The fact he’d become a ghost the past few months made zero sense, and Helena didn’t buy his work excuse for a minute. End of year was always busy for SFPD; this one no different than the last. Something else was going on with Brax.

  “So, we make our lists too,” Hawes said, snapping her back to the present problem. “Work them all.”

  Everyone nodded, the meeting effectively adjourned. Even if there had been more to say, Lily put a final stop to it, her cry transmitted over the one-way baby monitor connected to Holt’s setup.

  He bolted to his feet, parental instinct on high alert, especially with Lily teething lately. “That’s my cue.”

  “I’ll head down too.” Chris stood and patted his belly. “There better be some pizza and pastries left.”

  “I’ll join you,” Hawes said and accepted Chris’s offered hand.

  Helena rose and crossed in front of them. She’d stashed some legal pads in the corner desk. “I’ll get started on my lists.”

  Hawes grasped her wrist, stopping her midstride. “No.”

  She reined in her defensive instincts and arched a brow instead. “No?”

  “You were almost shot today.”

  “Not the first time.”

  Hawes’s gaze flicked to the couch and back. “You spent the last twenty minutes fidgeting on that couch.”

  “The past three hours,” Chris said. “But who’s counting?”

  She wrenched her wrist free so she could flip off her annoying future brother.

  Chuckling, Hawes gently covered her hand. “You need to blow off some steam, Hena.”

  “So does my sister,” Chris added. “She’s not obvious about it, but she rarely is. Everyone else comes first for her.”

  Helena smirked. “What are you suggesting, Mr. Hair? House is a bit crowded for—”

  Chris blushed and sputtered. “Sparring! Training!”

  His mortification was all the revenge Helena needed, but she played it up some more for fun, jutting out her lip in mock disappointment. In reality, no matter how much she wanted to do more than spar with Celia, she shouldn’t make another move until Celia was safe, including from her.

  Embarrassment tempered, Chris clasped her shoulder. “Make sure my sister can defend herself,” he said sincerely. “In case Dex or any of his friends get closer next time.”

  At least Chris wasn’t laying the blame at their feet. Whether for his own sake or theirs, Helena would take the offered out and the offered chance to help. “I can do that.”

  Chapter Four

  Kids fed and settled into the living room with Gloria, Chris, Hawes, the box of pastries and a movie, Celia followed Helena downstairs to the basement. Much like her mother on first arrival, Celia found something new to admire about the old house with each visit. The intricately carved and restored crenellations and crown moldings, how the tall narrow structure seemed to endlessly sprawl inside, the way all that space somehow managed to feel warm and homey despite its elegance, the blond who moved gracefully through its halls like the family cats.

  Celia diverted her attention from the sway of Helena’s hips in skin-tight yoga pants. “For future reference, if you ever want to distract my brother, cannoli are key.”

  Chuckling, Helena led them around the corner and into the state-of-the-art home gym, flipping on the overheads as they entered. “He did seem laser focused on that pastry box.”

  “He always wants first dibs. Our cousin, Angelica, can get him to do practically anything with the promise of cannoli.”

  “Anything?”

  Celia pitched her hoodie into the corner. “She’s still driving the vintage Mustang he rebuilt for her.”

  “So cake tasting Sunday is going to be off the hook?”

  Celia grinned. “You have no idea.”

  Helena returned her smile, and the hummingbirds took flight in Celia’s stomach again. She rotated away before her thoughts ran off with her actions, distracting herself by taking in the home gym. Not much had changed about the room since she’d last trained there. One half of the room was filled with fitness machines and training stations: a magnetic wall strip with knives and stars behind a throwing lane that dead-ended in a cork strip on the wall; a rowing machine and spin bike; and a bolted-down cage that included TRX bands, a bench press, and free weights. Mats occupied the other half of the space and a mini fridge was tucked in the far corner. Sitting atop the fridge was a stack of folded towels and a basket of combat gear: gloves, garrotes, telescopic sticks, and more. The scent of chlorine lingered, floating in from the infinity pool in the smaller room next door. Neither the gym nor the pool were the original intended use of the house’s basement—a food cellar, then an earthquake shelter, then a war bunker, if Celia remembered her local history correctly. The upgrades made it so the Madigans had anything and everything they needed to work out at home. Important on nights when family drama was top of mind, and there seemed to be a lot of those nights. And now it was Celia’s family drama, on top of whatever other Madigan drama she probably didn’t know—or want to know—about.

  “We don’t have to do this tonight,” she said. “You’ve done enough—”

  “Hawes didn’t give me a choice.” Helena withdrew two water bottles from the fridge and set them on the floor next to the mats. “He ordered me out of the lair. I’m too keyed up, and I imagine you are too.”

  She wasn’t wrong, but if Helena didn’t want to be there… “But you don’t have to—”

  “I’m right where I want to be,” she replied, voice gentler, as she lowered herself onto the mat. “I meant what I said at the shop. I owe you better… as a friend.” Before Celia could reply, Helena stretched her torso over one leg, hands clasping her foot.

  Celia curled her fingers, fighting the desire to reach out and push aside the curtain of gold that hid Helena’s face. In part to see her expression, in part to feel if the long blond strands were as soft as they looked. It was a fascinating, attractive dichotomy. Something that appeared so soft, so ethereal, on someone who was otherwise so sharp in her features, words, and focus. Celia wanted to understand the contrast, wanted to understand Helena better, but there were reasons not to reach out. Helena’s prior disappearing act, the fact Celia was newly single, the limits around what she could and should know about the Madigans.

  But there were also numerous reasons to act. Helena had played a key role in keeping Chris safe and in keeping their fami
ly safe last summer, hustling Celia, their mom, and the kids out of town to a safe house when things got dicey. She’d played a bigger role in getting Dex out of her life. Celia didn’t think her ex would stay gone—he never did—but for the first time since high school, Celia had space and freedom in her world. She’d thought maybe Helena would like to fill some of that space, help her exercise some of that freedom. Celia was interested, but then Helena had pushed her away, then disappeared altogether.

  Stretching the opposite direction, Celia contemplated the vast differences in her life between last January and this one. The fact she was even contemplating acting on her interest in someone the same gender, in someone besides Dex, the only person she’d ever been with, was nearly mind blowing. The attraction part wasn’t new. On the rare occasions she’d let herself consider a life after Dex, Celia hadn’t limited herself to one gender. Not when she’d seen her brother experience attraction to men and women and not when she herself had felt attraction to all different kinds of people. But acting on it… She’d never had the chance, and now that she did, she was nervous. She felt a bit like a fraud. Could she really call herself pansexual—that was the term she felt best described her sexuality—when she’d only ever been with Dex?

  Did she have any business worrying about her sex life at all? Yes, she was single for the first time in a decade and a half, but she had been shot at tonight and had two teen kids, a senior parent, and a business to worry over. She needed to focus on taking care of those things first, and working out and sparring with Helena helped make her better able to do that. To protect the people and things she loved and cared about most. She just had to ignore the attraction that fluttered in her belly whenever Helena was in the same room. Focus instead on being a good friend.

  “You know,” she said, “the friend thing cuts both ways. You’ve had a lot of family stuff to sort lately too.”

  Helena tossed back her hair and switched legs. “So have you.”