Beauty (A Midsummer Suspense Tale) (17 page)

“So somewhere she’s wanted for crimes, even if they haven’t made them stick. We
temporarily
tuck you away somewhere, I get my people on it—or
people
of my people, as I wouldn’t really know where to start—and track her down. Make sure there’s enough for the actual authorities to nail her for good. Problem solved.”

She highly doubted it would permanently solve the problem—this woman would have connections, she’d find a way to Bryar somehow, even if not directly.

But maybe it was a start. Sawyer, at least, had contacts among people who dealt with this shit for a living. More than her aunts had all these years. Surely it would be safer going wherever he had in mind than what her aunts were planning, wouldn’t it?

All this time she’d unknowingly been in hiding. It kept her safe for a while but clearly that wasn’t an option now. So why not just...stop? Be a public person. Live her life. Dare The Dragon to rise and get her.

“So...where would I go?” she asked at last. “Temporarily.”

“I don’t suppose you have a passport?”

“Nope.”

“Okay. So we stay urban to start with, a major city. Any city you want. A secure suite at a five star hotel with excellent security. There, we meet with some experts, your aunts give them everything they know, and they come up with a plan. Maybe we stay there. Maybe we hit some mountain retreat. Maybe we get you that passport and go to Paris. But you’ll be protected while they get a line on this dragon woman. And your aunts will be safe too.”

They’d be leaving Midsummer behind, though. For so long that was all she wanted to do, but now she felt like she was finding a place there. And it was kind of screwing Gina over, though she imagined she’d understand.

“You don’t have to do this for me,” she said.

“I know.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I want to.”

“But you don’t even know me.”

Sawyer shifted more so he could look at her fully and cup her jaw in his hand, his thumb dragging across her cheek tenderly. “I know you. Bryar or Talia or whatever other name you want to throw at me. I know you, I like you, and I want to keep you safe. Let me help you. Let me do
something
useful and good for someone.”

She leaned forward and kissed him, their mouths parting for that familiar dance of tongues that left her panting for more.

“Okay,” she said at last. “When?”

“Now?”

Bryar nodded. Her aunts would be eager, probably wearing holes in the floor pacing for the past hours awaiting her return. “I have to go home and get things, and explain this to them.”

“Do that and we’ll get packed up here. Jeffrey can take you. I’ll give that guy Mike a call—he was already around to discuss some things earlier and I’ll just let him know we have a change of plans and I need his people to get us discreetly to a hotel and then the airport. It’ll be faster if we just get there and decide the rest on the way out of town.”

“Can he get everyone away from my house while he’s at it? So we don’t have cameras recording us leaving?”

“I’ll ask but I’m sure he will.” He gave her another kiss and then climbed from their warm cocoon of terrycloth to retrieve his clothes and phone.

Bryar sat up, towel clutched around her, and hunted down her own clothes in a hurry. Somehow, she’d convince her aunts this was the best plan, and they’d make this work.

They had to.

Chapter Eleven

Bryar didn’t find anyone camped out in front of the cottage—it was nearly eleven at night, after all, and presumably Mike had done his job—but she had Jeffrey pull down a dirt road a mile away anyway and swing around behind some fields for a path she knew. She wanted to get in without drawing any extra attention to herself just in case photographers waited around the area, talk to her aunts, spend God knows how long convincing them this was the best plan for now, and then give Jeffrey a heads-up to swing the SUV around to grab them. Sawyer was clearing out the beach house with the help of his sister and brother-in-law and Mike O’Hara would pick them up in two other vehicles, then they’d get to a secure hotel outside of town while. Once everyone had converged there, they’d make flight arrangements and fly to the other side of the country to regroup with some distance from The Dragon.

Unless her aunts decided to be stubborn. She couldn’t physically force them to go, but she was not putting up with any arguments about this. It was her life, now her plan, and a far better one than any of them had in mind.

Bryar climbed out of the idling vehicle into the dark. Jeffrey gave her a stern look—he didn’t like that he wasn’t taking her straight to her door—but she repeated instructions for getting back to the cottage once she’d called, and then took off in a full run. She knew these fields, knew the paths better than anyone else who might come looking for her. With any luck, no one would even know she was in the cottage until Jeffrey came to get them for good.

She’d need to call Gina at the bakery in the morning, either from the plane or whatever hotel they ended up in. Guilt burned in her—she liked the job. She liked Gina and Brennen. And she’d only worked there a week, what a horrible time to flake out. Hopefully she’d make it up to them at some point.

Tall grass brushed around her legs as she jogged, the path ahead of her dark but for the sliver of moonlight above highlighting the field. Through the trees ahead, she spotted the familiar white fence of the cottage. Light glowed, just one or two from the windows—good, they were still up. Not that she thought they’d lie down for a nap while she was out gallivanting about, but a scared little part of her feared they might’ve just...left. Left her, left everything, just said “screw this brat kid we’ve been dealing with, she’s on her own.” Sometimes she wouldn’t blame them.

But they’d raised her for twenty years. Obviously put their own lives in danger, did everything they could to keep her safe. She knew they loved her. They frustrated her, just as she did them, but they’d be there waiting until they knew she was okay.

Bryar burst through the trees, hopped the fence, and moved past the dead rose bushes for the back door of the cottage. She reached for the keys in her pocket as she stepped up to the door, then realized they were in her purse. Which was still on Sawyer’s deck from when he’d gone to retrieve the condoms.

Goddamn
. She knocked on the door instead, tapped her foot impatiently on the step as she waited.

No one answered.

All the curtains were drawn and she couldn’t see anything inside beyond the glow of light from the living room. Bryar knocked harder and called, “It’s me. I’m sorry. We have to talk.”

Nothing.

On a whim, she tried the doorknob.

It turned and the door popped open.

She froze as the door swung wide, creaking on old hinges. The cottage interior was silent, the narrow bedroom hallway in front of her dark. Bryar took a careful step inside, looking around. “Hello?”

They wouldn’t leave with the lights on, would they?

“Aunt Donna?” Another step. “Aunt Merry?” And another. “Aunt Lora?”

No answer.

Fear crept up her spine, even as she tried to thrust it back. Only the sound of her steps on the hardwood broke the silence as she ghosted forward. Her gaze swept back and forth to the open bedroom doors. Shadows met her, unmoving and cold. Boxes packed in some of the rooms. No sign of anyone.

She reached the archway between the hallway and the main living space, adjusting again to the foreign sight of all the boxes and lack of personal items that had previously been there for years.

Only it was different now—the coffee table was askew, couch cushions knocked over, and a previous tower of boxes were sprawled across the hardwood. One was on its side with the lid open, cutlery from the kitchen spilled across the floor.

Bryar swallowed a lump in her throat, halting there. She should run. Or call the police. Or do
something
. Maybe someone was still in the house. She couldn’t see into the dark kitchen from here. Couldn’t see around the couch, or in the dark corner behind some of the boxes.

Or the rooms at her back. A prickle ran up her spine and she tensed, fearing someone was behind her.

A low moan drew her attention.

It wasn’t the sound of an intruder—it was the sound of pain. Bryar shot forward without thinking, skirting the sofa in the middle of the room and around to see a body on the floor, tucked between an overturned chair and lamp. Her aunt Merry was on her side, one arm up to clutch her head.

Oh God
. Bryar knelt, gently moved her aunt’s arm back, and winced at the growing pool of blood on the floor. “Aunt Merry?”

Her aunt’s dark eyes blinked open, glassy with confusion. “Donna and Lora were out looking for you. I stayed here...in case...”

Bryar cringed guiltily. “In case I came back,” she whispered. She twisted around, found one of the kitchen boxes and jerked it open, rifling through until she found a tea towel, and crawled back to her aunt. The blood was coming from a gash across her forehead, and she held the towel there tight to stop the bleeding.

“They found us,” Merry whispered.

“Who?” Bryar asked, though she didn’t need to—she knew from the terror in her aunt’s eyes precisely who had been here.

“The Dragon wasn’t with them.” Merry rolled onto her back with a groan, her hand coming up to press against the bloody towel as well. “If she was, I’d be dead. They didn’t have orders to kill, just find you. You were gone. Oh, thank God you were gone.”

Except if I hadn’t left, we’d all have run by now
. Shit, she spent too much time at Sawyer’s. She should’ve called her family. Should’ve...should’ve done something,
anything
else, that would’ve kept them safe.

“Keep this on your head, I’m going to call the police.”

Merry didn’t argue—Bryar supposed, if they were under attack, there was no point to hiding from authorities now—while Bryar rose and scrambled for the phone hanging outside the kitchen. She lifted the receiver.

No dial tone.

She checked the line, couldn’t find a problem. Someone had cut the phone, probably outside the cottage. Shit.

Now would’ve been a
great
time to own a cell phone.

She couldn’t even call Jeffrey now to swing the vehicle around. On a whim, she ran to the front door and jerked it open, glancing back and forth at the empty lawn.

“Anyone here? I’ll give you an exclusive Sawyer interview if you lend me your goddamn phone!”

But no one responded. Fine time for Mike to be effective at making the paparazzi disappear.

She backed into the house again, letting out a frustrated sigh. Her aunt needed help immediately. Nearest neighbors were miles away.

Jeffrey was still waiting where she left him, however. She could head back to the SUV, get him to drive up to the house now that they knew it was clear, and get her aunt. Or call the police, wait for an ambulance, and hope like hell her other aunts arrived soon. Either way, she needed the fucking cavalry. And fast.

Bryar returned to Merry’s side and crouched again. “I’m going to get help—”

“You need to
run
.” Her plump fingers latched onto Bryar’s wrist, squeezing painfully tight, and her eyes were wide and frantic. “Please. She will do something horrible to you, dear. Just run.”

But Bryar covered her aunt’s hand with her own and shook her head. “No. I’m getting you help. Fuck this crazy dragon bitch. I’ll be back in a few minutes with cops and EMTs and SWAT if I have to. I promise. Just a few minutes.”

Aunt Merry sighed and reluctantly let go when Bryar pried her fingers loose. She stared up at the ceiling, eyes wincing with pain still, clutching the tea towel. Bruises were rising on her face and arms—Bryar didn’t want to even imagine what they’d done to her. Angry tears rose in her eyes, ones she blinked back. Crying wasn’t going to help.

Bryar stood and bolted from the living room, back down the dark hall and through the rear door, out into the night again. She blinked a few times until her eyes adjusted to the dark garden and then she ran, hopping the fence once more and bursting through the trees. Her breath fogged trails of white when she breathed and cool air nipped at her cheeks and nose. The trees now seemed more sinister than they had been, shadows thicker and more threatening. She kept her focus ahead, determined not to pause or freak out at every little noise. If someone had been waiting around the house, surely they would’ve already grabbed her or something. They showed up, hurt Merry, and left to go looking elsewhere.

Elsewhere
... Sawyer.
And
Gina and Brennen. Shit, it was the middle of the night, but she still had to warn everyone as soon as she got to a phone.

She crashed through the field outside the woods again, picking up the pace as soon as she hit relatively flat ground. All she needed was to hit a dip in the ground and twist her ankle but luck was with her as she flew toward the SUV.

The waiting vehicle was dark, just the silver light of the moon gleaming on the hood—Jeffrey must’ve turned off the engine instead of idling when her call didn’t come. Bryar pushed through the last of the tall dead grass, leapt over the ditch, and scrambled up the gravel shoulder to the passenger door.

“We need to get back to the house and call 911,” she began as she jerked the door open.

The interior light flashed on, casting a glow over Jeffrey’s corpse.

Bryar froze, her hand clamping over her mouth to cover a gasp. He was sitting in the driver’s seat still, as she’d left him, and might’ve looked alive at first glance as his eyes were still open and back was still straight. But a gaping dark hole cut through his forehead and blood splattered across the seats behind him.

Her gaze traveled from the hole in his head to the windshield, where the glass was cracked and had a similar hole. Someone out there shot him, then.

Her brain clicked off right about then, adrenaline dumping all thoughts from her brain and pushing her on autopilot. She moved without fully acknowledging the body, that it had once been a man, a person with a family, someone just doing his job—someone she’d spoken to not twenty minutes ago. She ignored that, ignored him, ducking down in the seat and fumbling around for a phone. His cell had to be on him but it wasn’t in the nearest pocket of his sport coat, which meant she had to go digging through the interior pockets next.