Dirty Little Lies: A Men of Summer Novel (17 page)

And though she hadn’t been the cause of the doctor’s visit, she wasn’t above taking credit for it. It tended to make them more wary of her.

The poison ivy that had somehow gotten into the insides of their jeans had created havoc over the course of a day. By the next morning, as she’d heard her uncle laughing uproariously, it had created havoc in their male parts.

“And you know, you never know when it might happen again—accidentally, of course,” she sighed patiently. “That stuff just spreads like wildfire outside the house unless someone keeps up with it.” Her eyes widened as she glanced at the two in turn. “Maybe I need to do some weed control for Jack.” The aging gardener would appreciate the help. He always did. Even while laughing at the probable reason for the help.

“You little gremlin,” Deacon growled. “That’s just wrong, Grace.”

“No.” Bracing herself on each of their knees, she pushed up from the couch and turned to face them. “Just one bruise on Zack, no matter the reason, is uncalled for. And teasing me about my personal life is right up there with it. So be warned.” She smiled with sugary sweetness. “I do know how to get back at you. One way or the other.” She turned her back on them and went over to the files.

“She’s the reason I had to start wearing damned underwear again,” Sawyer bit out beneath his breath, though she caught enough of the statement for a smug grin to shape her lips.

“No kidding,” Deacon half groaned. “Try boxers, it’s better protection.…”

She ignored the little debate that rose up over boxers versus briefs and concentrated on the files. She still had to get her uncle to unlock his computer to access the files there. It was a request she rarely made, but she had to have the information she knew was contained there. She could feel the puzzle pieces of information she’d gone through the day before. Once she went through the files Vince had, she could return to Zack’s, make the notes pertinent to what she was searching for, and begin laying everything out in order.

If she’d only known sooner, she thought wearily, perhaps other lives could have been saved. Not her father’s or her aunt’s, but those of friends who had begun to suspect Lucia’s activities and suffered the consequences.

What else had they begun to suspect? she wondered. And how hard would it be to get information on that as well? A thought began to slowly form.

She frowned at her cousins. “We haven’t had a family reunion since Dad died, have we?” she said softly. “Do you think we should have one?”

Their silence was telling, first blank stares and then both of them standing up and heading for the door. “Hang on there, cuz. We forgot to take care of something—we’ll be right back.”

Her mouth nearly dropped open at the bizarre response. That quickly, that suspiciously, they were gone.

And they thought they were getting off the hook that easily?

She so didn’t think so.

*   *   *

Grace was adamant that she needed her car. Why she needed it? That one Zack hadn’t figured out yet. It wasn’t as though he’d be crazy enough to actually let her get out in it by herself, especially with the top down.

The sporty little black cherry Volkswagen sat in the garage, to all appearances as secure as a babe in its crib. Until Cord had checked the vehicles after a ten-minute lapse in the security feed earlier that morning.

Suspicious by nature, even bordering on paranoid, Grace’s cousin had checked the vehicles, first thing. Finding the danger to Grace’s car wasn’t easy, but gut instinct and a belief that his cousin was seriously in danger had his training kicking in. Cord had found the problem hidden in the intake box: a small, powerful explosive rigged into the speedometer to detonate at a certain speed.

They were still waiting on a bomb detail already on quick egress out of Memphis to the farm. The squad was still about twenty minutes out, though.

The experience and training needed to set an explosive in so small a window of time indicated they weren’t dealing with an amateur. This was professional.

“This isn’t good, Zack,” Cord sighed as they stared at the small explosive. “All we’d have found of her was ashes.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Zack muttered, crossing his arms over his chest, never taking his eyes off the vehicle’s motor.

He’d already imagined what would have happened to Grace if the explosive had triggered, and the thought sent chills racing down his spine.

“Someone’s serious about this,” Cord growled, pacing around the car. “Why kill her if the objective is the information Lucia said she has?”

He’d considered that question closely himself, since the first attack against her. Why kill her if that information was so important?

“Someone’s afraid it’s going to reveal who’s behind the attempted thefts of information and what was behind it twenty years ago,” Zack murmured. “That’s all it can be. She’s potentially more dangerous alive if that information is found by any of us. Or in their eyes, if she gives it to one of us.”

Cord was silent for long moments, his expression icy. “How far would they go to kill her?” her cousin asked then.

“They’ll put a sniper on her next,” Zack predicted. “I want her out of here, Cord. I want her back at the house, where she’ll be safer.”

The windows of his home were bulletproof to a certain degree, but the electronics installed in them would help in keeping thermal sights from getting a bead on her. Keep the windows closed and eyes and ears open in the mountains, and they might have a chance.

“She’s determined to go to Tory’s party,” Cord pointed out as he stepped back from the car. “She’ll fight being hemmed in.”

Would she? Grace wasn’t suicidal, she’d see the danger she was in now, and he didn’t think she’d fight the steps to protect her. As long as she wasn’t kept ignorant of the investigation, he didn’t think she’d fight as hard as Cord obviously thought she would. And if she did?

If she did, then he’d see to it that she was too tired to fight him.

“Let me get Sawyer and Deke out here.” Cord breathed out heavily as he reached up to activate the earbud he wore. “The bomb team will be coming over the mountains any minute now. I’ll have them put Baer and Banyan with Grace.”

Zack shook his head. “I’ll get Grace. Get a team ready to move out in my truck, and Grace and I will follow in yours. I want her back at the house, Cord. Now. We’ll meet there and consider our options.” He gave the other man a hard look. “And check the other vehicles before we leave. Let’s make sure Grace’s was the only one they got to.”

chapter twelve

Sawyer and Deacon hadn’t run out of the room because she’d mentioned anything about a reunion; they left because Cord had ordered them to on a private channel that linked into the tiny earbuds they wore for ease of communication in the event of problems.

A channel separate from the one Grace herself wore.

And they’d been called out because her car contained a bomb.

If everyone was so damned convinced she held vital information, then why kill her? It didn’t make sense. Even if the information contained evidence against a traitor, then it still didn’t make sense. If she had such a thing, then Vince would already have it in hand.

Unless she intended to sell it, as Luce would have done.

Huddled on the couch in her office, she nibbled at her thumbnail, frowning at the problem she faced. Richard James had believed she was trying to help Luce betray the killer, which was a killing offense.

Where would her father have hidden a Microdrive? A place that hadn’t been searched? Perhaps a place she should be able to remember?

Dammit, she’d only been five when he died, and though they’d been close, she hadn’t even been aware of what he meant when he said
Kin.
She’d thought he meant “family,” the usual definition when the word
kin
was used.

The door to her office opened quickly, revealing Zack as he moved to her. “We’re rolling. Let’s go,” he ordered, gripping her wrist and helping her from the couch before one arm went around her shoulders.

“I needed to check the files—”

“Later.” His voice was harder, colder than she’d ever heard it before as he led her into the hall. “Let’s get you to the house first, then we’ll discuss everything with Vince and your cousins. I want you safe.”

She tried to object again. “I’m safe—”

Stopping in the middle of the hall, he swung Grace around, his head bending until he was almost face-to-face with her as he gripped both her shoulders firmly, holding her still. “Now is a really bad time to argue with me, Grace.” Icy rage filled his tone and burned in dark, slate-colored eyes. “We’re going, and we’re going now, before someone has time to stop us.”

She didn’t have a chance to respond before he was pulling her along again, once again holding her close to him as though shielding her.…

Shielding her from a bullet. She was suddenly sick at the thought. And waiting at the door were her cousins and several Kin. Sidearms rested at their hips, and in their hands they held powerful automatic rifles.

God, this was so bad.

Tears filled her eyes as they surrounded her and Zack and accompanied them quickly to Cord’s black pickup. It sat between Zack’s, which was almost a replica of it, and another behind it.

After lifting her into the backseat, Zack slid in beside her, while Cord and his most trusted commander, Que, slid into the front, with Que driving.

The black-haired SEAL was one of the most aloof and, Grace had always suspected, most dangerous of her uncle’s men.

“We’re rolling!” Cord barked, obviously using a private channel on the earbud. “Keep a car length between each vehicle, and let’s move fast.”

The three trucks tore out of the driveway and hit the main road before increasing speed and racing several miles along the twisting two-lane road before hitting a narrower, less well cared for road.

They were taking the back roads and trails rather than the main roads, with Cord snapping out turns just before coming to them. Before long, even Grace was uncertain exactly where they were, but the bumpy, twisting lanes became little more than dirt trails for a while before the vehicles hit the main road less than a mile from Zack’s home.

The drive took longer than a straight route would have, but she knew the reason for their detour. In case of a potential ambush. They wouldn’t be expected to move along the back roads, especially if she was in her car, which would have exploded soon after leaving the house.

“Get her in the house with me, then roll out!” Zack ordered as they turned into the driveway. “I’ll expect you back tonight, covert cover, one at a time. And bring that fucking computer so she can go through those files. I’ll be damned if she’ll risk herself by going back to that damned office anytime soon.”

The trucks came to a hard stop, and the method they’d used to get her to the vehicle was repeated to get her into Zack’s house, where she was pulled to a stop.

“Stay right here,” Zack ordered. “Sawyer’s with you.” He gave her cousin a hard look and nodded toward Grace. “We’ll check the house, then you can leave with the rest of them.”

Pulling the pistol free of the holster at his hip, Zack was moving through the house along with Cord, Deacon, Que, and Que’s second, another SEAL, Garret.

The higher-ranking Kin commanders were part of the mountain force Grace rarely saw. They were normally on security detail at the cabins or lodges scattered over the mountains, and rarely at the main house.

“It’s gonna be okay, cuz.” Sawyer moved closer, obviously using his larger body to cover her as the others moved through the dark house. “We just want to make sure you’re safe.”

“By risking yourselves?” she whispered painfully.

Could she survive if Zack or one of her cousins or any of the men who followed them gave their life for her? Could she live with that blood on her conscience?

She couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t.

Thankfully, the shadowed foyer allowed her to hide the tears she could feel welling in her eyes.

“Look, we wouldn’t really hit Zack, you know?” Sawyer told her softly, for what reason she wasn’t certain. “We know how you feel about him, Gracie. But, he’s hard, ya know—”

“Stop.” Lifting one hand helplessly, she could only shake her head at him. “I don’t want to talk about this, Sawyer.”

She couldn’t joke right now; there wasn’t anything light enough inside her to allow laughter.

“This is serious,” Sawyer protested. “Don’t love him, Grace. He’ll hurt you. Then we’ll have to get mean and take the consequences when you get pissed. Because he knows not to break your heart. If he does, then anything we do is on him, not you.”

A teardrop fell. “My heart will break if he’s killed because of me,” she whispered, the pain so tight, she had to press a hand to her stomach to hold it back. “My heart will break if a single man loses his life for me. Who will pay for it then, Sawyer? I’d gladly have it shattered because he walked away from me instead, don’t you know that?”

“But, Grace, you’re our sister, the same as Kenni. And we’ll do whatever we have to do to protect you, no matter who or what the pain is.”

She knew that tone of voice. There was no talking to him. She’d seen Sawyer when he came home after taking a bullet in the shoulder during the four years he’d spent in the marines. He’d laughed about it, joking that the kid he’d taken the bullet for was still in shock. He felt it was his duty, just as Cord and Deacon did, to protect those who were weaker. To protect those they loved. And Zack was no different; he’d proved that when he covered her body with his own while moving her through her uncle’s house.

“Clear,” Cord called from the kitchen. After the announcement, each man called his own out, upstairs and down, with Deacon exiting the basement Grace had yet to see.

They met at the foyer once again, lights still out, though the sunlight spearing from the windows in the ceiling lit the house beautifully despite the tightly closed curtains.

“We’ll be back after dark, cuz. I think Jazz and Kenni are bringing groceries. I put in an order for submarine fixins, if you’re in the mood.” Cord’s trademark cocky grin was in place as he bent and laid a kiss on her forehead. “Be good till I get back, now.”