Honeymoon To Die For (37 page)

Could his brother really be involved with terrorists?

Why?

When he heard the clack of keys being hit inside the office, Ryder gently pushed the door open to make sure someone wasn’t waiting with a weapon.

Janeen sat at Terrence’s desk, typing away, oblivious to anything else.

Ryder stepped into the office. “What are you doing?”

She jumped and grabbed her chest. “What the hell, Ryder? You scared the piss out of me.”

Was that because she was guilty of something?

Before he could say more, Janeen slapped her hand on the desk. “Don’t you dare tell anyone about my being here.”

That definitely sounded guilty. “It depends on why you’re sneaking into the office after hours.”

“Because I can’t come in during the day and do this.”

He noticed her sparkly outfit. She’d come here from partying tonight? Or she just
looked
as though she’d been out on the town? “You need to explain what you’re up to.”

“No, I don’t. Not to you.”“Maybe Hubrecht would like to know about you coming in.”

“So you and dear ol’ Dad have bonded? Gotten to be buddies in just a couple of days?”  She sat back, showing the rest of her dazzling outfit. “Why would you create problems for Terrence?”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“Of course he does.”  She angled her head and sat forward. “I don’t like your tone. Are you implying that I’m
guilty
of something?”

“Are you?”

“Yes. Working for free.”

“Why?”

“Because no one has enough brains to hire me here and someone has to watch out for Terrence. You sure as hell didn’t. You just did your usual and walked away, not giving a damn about the fallout left in your wake.”

His shoulders tensed at that after all he’d gone through. “If you mean when I went in the Army, I did that
for
Terrence.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Our father was harder on Terrence than ever once you were gone.”

“I thought leaving would give him a fair chance. He wanted to be here. I didn’t.”

Janeen’s gray-blue eyes accused Ryder of being the hub of all the family trouble, just as Lady Anne had dumped on his head every day of his life. “If that’s the case, then why’d you come back? Especially after all the trouble you caused with Kearn.”

“
Me?
I wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time if not for once again trying to help Terrence.”

“Don’t try to convince me that Terrence knew what you were going to do.”

Ryder started to protest that Terrence had called Ryder asking him to meet with Kearn, but Janeen knew about that. She was getting at something entirely different. “You think
I
killed Kearn?”

She stared him down, not giving an inch.

He had nothing to say to that. She really believed he was a murderer.

Bianca zipped inside the office and stepped up next to Ryder, hands fisted in her crossed arms. “What kind of sister are you? Do you have reason to believe Ryder could have killed anyone in cold blood?”

“That’s precious coming from you,” Janeen taunted. “Didn’t you testify at his preliminary hearing? Weren’t
you
the one who laid out a convincing string of evidence on how the bullet was a 300-grain
Scenar
, heavier than the bullets normally used for the .338 Lapua round because Ryder preferred it for his
custom
McMillan rifle? A very
unusual
rifle, of which
all
had been accounted for except Ryder’s? You sold
me
.”

Ryder tasted the disgust in his mouth. “You were at that hearing.”

Janeen’s smile came out as a sneer. “You think I’d waste my time and sit among the unwashed to do that? No. Sam got the transcripts. He and Kale went over everything. Kale had his doubts, but Sam believes you did it.”

Screw Sam. “I didn’t have the weapon once I left the Army.”

Janeen snapped her fingers. “That’s right. It was
stolen
from your issued gear the same week it was shipped home. The week
you
arrived home.”  She cocked her head as if mocking a confused person. “Another amazing coincidence, right?”

Bianca took a step forward, but Ryder put his hand out to stop her. He had real concerns about Bianca’s safety around his sister at this point.

Bianca shot him a don’t-interfere look then swung all that compact energy at Janeen. “I did lay out that evidence, but then I found conflicting evidence that cleared him of the charge.”

“Just because he found a way to your heart through your panties doesn’t mean you’re going to convince me.”

Bianca’s cheeks were flush with color.

Janeen smiled knowingly. “What Sam and I can’t figure out is how Ryder got out of prison, because neither one of us is buying this marriage crap. Did he promise you plenty of money or is he paying up at night?”

Ryder was done with listening to this poisonous spew. “When did you become such an evil bitch?”

“Oh, I’ve always been one. I’m just more impressive now.”

“You haven’t explained why you’re here at night.”

“And I don’t intend to. Not to you.”  Janeen smiled. “Sam knows I’m here. That’s enough.”

“Maybe Hubrecht needs to know.”

Janeen wasn’t frightened. No, her face contorted with a snarl. “You just can’t let Terrence get a break, can you? Telling Hubrecht will ruin any hope Terrence has with this company. Do you have to destroy all of his life? If you must know, Terrence has trouble concentrating. It’s the medicine he’s on now. Every time he comes back from Switzerland he’s on something different. I stop in and process his international shipments so nothing hits a snag.”  Janeen’s voice had softened when she spoke of their brother.

Another reminder to Ryder that he had never belonged in this family. Janeen had been civil as a sibling when they were younger, even used to take him to the range with her now and then, but every time Terrence had a conflict in school or struggled to please Hubrecht, Janeen and Lady Anne had left no doubt about whose fault that was. Ryder’s.

Bianca asked Janeen, “Why don’t you just work for VDE? Then you could be here during the day to help him.”

“Because my father won’t hire me. Doesn’t see my value or potential.”  Eyes teeming with resentment, Janeen turned to Ryder. “Not like he does for the bastard son who walked away then returned after a stint in the joint. Isn’t that what convicts call it? The joint?”

Instead of rising to her bait, Ryder turned the attack back on her. “How’s Hubrecht supposed to see any potential when you party all the time and never finished college?”

“And you finished?”

No, but he’d gotten another education in the Army. “We’re not talking about me.”

“And we’re not talking about me.”  She turned to the computer, typed a couple of keys, then grabbed her sparkling handbag off the desk and stood up on four-inch heels. She headed toward the door. “Just so we’re clear, I don’t need a degree to design weapons. I know them inside and out. I’m the one who found the flaw in the XM-28 Woden
.
I caught it before they had the final molds made for the production lower receivers.”

Ryder had never known that about her. “You want to design?”

When Janeen reached Ryder, she paused. “Find that hard to believe? Shows how little you know about me, too.”  She shifted her attention over to Bianca. “I’ve heard about your mad computer skills, but I just locked down Terrence’s computer. I’ll know if you touch it.”  

Bianca had a half-smile on her face. “Actually, you wouldn’t, but I have no interest in his computer.”

Janeen muttered something to herself that sounded like arrogant government agents and told Ryder, “If you tell our father about this, you will regret it.”

“Threatening me?” he asked in a barely audible tone.

“Yes. And you know I can back it up.” She sashayed past him and out the door.

Ryder walked out of Terrence’s office with Bianca at his side. She asked, “Is your sister capable of ordering a hit on a competitor?”

“She wouldn’t have to.”

“Because she could do it herself?”

He hesitated, then backtracked mentally. “I could be wrong about that. Not about her taking the shot. That, she could do. But as much of a bitch as she is now, it still takes more than shooting skills to carry out a hit. It’s the stealth and evasion techniques that are harder to come by. The discipline and patience to wait for the target to show. Hard to imagine Janeen with those.”  He kept walking back toward his office. “Let’s get your stuff and get out of here.”

“I want to get back on the computer. She said something about finding a flaw in the weapon prototype, and that she knew the weapons design inside and out. That would mean she had access to the plans, right?”

“I’d think so.”

“If that’s the case, then we will probably see the plans accessed late at night from Terrence’s computer.”

“What are you getting at?”

“She said Sam knew she was here. Sam was in Colorado when the diplomat was killed. The same shooter was at both locations, which begs a question. Where was Janeen during the time of both shootings?”

Ryder enjoyed a brief moment of hope before it was overshadowed by what this would do to Terrence and the rest of the family if Janeen was involved. He didn’t like the woman she’d become, but could she actually have killed Kearn? The sight of blood had always turned her stomach. Plus, she was always so righteous in her beliefs about right and wrong.

But could she have
ordered
the hit? If she hadn’t, who had?

And why, because it appeared that what Hubrecht had said was true about Kearn being the one in trouble, not VDE.

CHAPTER 40

Bianca should be falling on her face after so many hours on her feet, but she couldn’t tamp down the excitement she felt from what they’d learned tonight.

Ryder drove out of the parking garage onto streets that were quiet even though it was barely Saturday morning. He rolled down his window and stretched his arm out in the cool night air that buffeted the inside of the car.

Punching in a local country station on the radio, he asked,  “How tired are you?”

She’d just stretched her arms up and behind her seat. “My body’s tired, but my mind is racing. Why?”

“I need some fresh air.”  

He had hardly been outside of a building or vehicle since he’d left the prison. Sensing how much he craved freedom tugged at her and made her want to fight even harder to prove his innocence. She’d never be able to give him back what he’d lost, but she wanted to give him his future. “You mean go somewhere outside we could talk without background music?”

“Exactly.”

She wanted quiet, too, and outdoors was always the perfect choice. “I’m all for it.”

They rode in comfortable silence for twenty minutes. She caught him checking his mirrors constantly and assumed his relaxed posture meant no one was following them. Her faith in his abilities was such that she rolled her window down and dropped her head back to enjoy the breeze blowing her hair.

When Ryder slowed the car and the terrain changed from smooth highway to bumps, she sat up. “Where are we?”

“At the Chattahoochee River.”

It was dark as the bottom of a well at night and all she saw in the glow of the headlights was a dirt road and thick trees. “I don’t see a river.”

“You will once we get out and walk about fifty feet.”  He parked in the narrow stretch of ground that appeared to have been beaten down by thousands of vehicles parking here over the years. Maybe hundreds of thousands.

Ryder grabbed a flashlight from the glove box and climbed out.

Bianca grimaced at the loud sound of opening and closing their doors. It had to carry a distance in this stillness. “Can you see where we’re walking?”

“Not afraid of snakes, are you?”

“They shouldn’t be moving around with it this cool, but I still don’t want to walk up on a Cottonmouth.”

Ryder had rounded the car without making a sound and flicked on the light that blazed with plenty of candlepower. “You
do
know about being in the woods. You ever do any hunting?”

“Took my first eight-pointer when I was thirteen.”  Skinning it had been a chore, but Daddy had been so proud of her. She’d taken the meat to a family of six who’d needed the food. Her daddy never killed an animal for sport, only to put meat on the table. She lived by the same rule.

Ryder’s voice rumbled next to her face. “Damn, you just get sexier by the minute. Like when you use your true accent.”

She stilled, feeling like she’d been caught. “What are you talking about?”

“You sound entirely different now than when you’re around Murdock.”

She relaxed. “Oh, you mean sounding Southern? I thought it would work better with your family.”

He chuckled. “You do pull off Southern, and it’s sexy as hell, but I hear country come out sometimes—”

“No, you don’t.” She clamped her lips shut because she sounded defensive.

“Yes, I do. I’ve caught it a couple of times when you were talking to your mama.” He took her hand, leading them toward the tree line. “And I like that accent best. It turns me on.”

She hoped her blushing cheeks didn’t glow in the dark because they were so warm. Ryder said the most outrageous things. Bernard had thought she was a country bumpkin because she liked being out in the woods, and he’d said a woman hunting was a total turnoff. But Ryder found it sexy. He liked her country roots.

She wanted this man and knew he cared for her, but she wouldn’t ask for something he was in no position to give.

Ryder was too honorable to make promises he couldn’t keep.

Until he was cleared of the charges against him, he wouldn’t consider talking about a life with her. Plus he’d been wronged so badly throughout all of this, that he had no reason to trust anyone, especially someone with the FBI.

But she made a vow to herself that regardless of what happened by the end of this operation, she would not stop until she cleared his name and gained him the freedom he deserved.

Then she’d find out whether he was willing to explore what they had together.