Shattered Valor (26 page)

She walked over to the far side of the bed. There was a dresser against the wall, leaving a small space for her where Ty crouched. Eden slipped down the wall, sitting at a right angle to him. Her calves touched his as she tucked herself in tight.

She’d never felt fiercer or more angry at anyone or anything than she did in that moment at whatever demons were shredding Ty.

They sat in silence for a long, long time. Her legs had begun to cramp, but she didn’t dare move. At last, Ty quit rocking. He lowered his head to knees and wept. She reached over and forked her hand through his hair.

“My dad was rich and crazy,”
he’d said. He never mentioned his mother. What the hell had they done to him? After a while, she became aware of his silence. Tank walked over to them. He checked Eden, then poked his big nose at Ty. When Ty lifted his head, the dog wagged his tail and licked his face. Ty leaned forward and hugged him.

“I guess he missed us,” she said quietly.

Ty looked at her. He took hold of her hand and turned it to kiss her palm.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

“No.”

She nodded. “Feel better?”

“Maybe.”

Eden scooted away from the wall, then got to her feet. Ty stretched his good leg out, but had to use his hands to ease his left leg. “Christ, that hurts.” He looked up at her. “I’m not as small as I used to be.”

She smiled at him and offered him a hand. “Let’s go to bed.”

He took hold of her hand and the corner of the nightstand, then hoisted himself to his feet. He limped a step toward her and pulled her into his arms. “I don’t know what I did right that life let me find you, but I’m goddamned glad it did.”

Eden wrapped her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his chest. After a bit, she drew back to look at him. Holding his face in her hands, she met his eyes. “There is no place that you can go, in life or in your mind, that I won’t come find you, Ty.”

He smiled. “Fierce little thing, aren’t you?”

She met his look. “You don’t know the half of it. Nobody screws with me or mine.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Ty walked around the den the next evening, trying to get into his father’s head. Where would he have hidden his secret ledger? Angel had been over the house, looking for other passageways, hidden entrances, secret hidey-holes. He’d found nothing. Neither had any hidey-holes been revealed on the house’s original blueprints that he’d had sent to him, although it was interesting to see that the bunker and the access steps in the den had been part of the house’s original plans. Apparently, the Air Force officer who had built the place had been neck deep in Cold War fears.

Ty was certain that whoever had been searching his house had not found what they were looking for. Which meant it was either still here or had never been here.

His father was someone who played his hands close to his chest. If he had critical information or possessions, he would most likely keep it near him rather than off site and out of his control. He’d have it in a room he could secure, a place where his many visitors were unlikely to enter. Ty looked at the desk.

When he and the team had first come through here after the raid, the drawers had been emptied and tossed away. The WKB had searched the desk, but they didn’t know his dad like Ty did.

Ty pulled the drawers out and set them aside. There were six empty slots in the desk, with four equally sized spaces between levels of drawers. Ty knocked on each of them. They all sounded the same. He pushed and pulled at the spacers, but they were fixed in place.

He gripped the desk from inside the empty top-drawer slots to turn it over on its side, discovering two buttons, one on each side of the desk. He pressed them, but nothing happened. He tried again, pressing the button while he pulled on the top spacer on the right side of the desk.

It popped out as if pushed forward by a spring. Ty drew it out of the desk like another drawer about two inches wide. He slid the false top off, revealing a soft foam liner. Beneath it were ten MiniDV tapes and another layer of foam.

He stared at the tapes, his stomach tightening. He knew what was on these tapes. He pulled them out and lifted the bottom sheet of foam. A thin ledger lay there. He took it out, replaced the foam liners, then closed the compartment and returned the secret drawer to its slot.

He tried to open the slot on the other side, but it didn’t budge. None of the others were removable. He pulled a manila envelope out of one of the bottom drawers and dropped the ledger and tapes into it. He put the drawers back in their slots, then went down to the bunker. Hopefully Max had a camcorder that could play the tapes.

When he stepped off the last stair, the long, main room of the bunker stretched before him, silhouetted by the florescent hall light at the end of the way. Max and Greer were at the consoles in the command room.

“Hey, Blade, what do you need?” Max asked without turning around.

“Do you have a camcorder that plays MiniDVs?”

Max went over to a cabinet and pulled out a small, handheld device. “Whatcha got?”

“I think I found what the WKB was looking for when they ransacked the house.”

Max’s eyes widened, his gaze flashing up to meet Ty’s. Greer rolled his chair over to them. “What is it?” Max asked.

“Tapes and a ledger.”

“Want us to check it out?”

Ty looked at Max, feeling strangely distant from what was happening. If the tapes were what he thought they were, he had the proof he needed to get the juvenile WKBers away from Holbrook. It also could be the end of his work with the team, depending on how they reacted to its contents.

“Let me start with the videos. You guys take the ledger. There’s a list of names in there. You know the drill—I need to know who they are and how they were connected with my father or the WKB.”

Ty went back to the main room and sat at the white folding tables that had been set up for Rocco and Kit to review Amir’s abandoned documents. He slipped the first tape in the camera and hit play. A man stood in the den. Ty knew who was running the camcorder. His dad. He knew the man being filmed, too. Jefferson Holbrook. Ty fast-forwarded the tape.

With numb fingers, he switched to the next tape, then the next. And then he just sat there, unmoving, staring at nothing. He wasn’t cold. He wasn’t nauseous. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t anything. He was a void.

Someone was talking to him. He didn’t look at whoever it was. “Was this you, Blade?” Max knelt beside his chair. “Blade? Was this you? It was, wasn’t it?”

Ty looked at him, but words failed him.

“Fuck. Greer—call the team down here.”

Eden was heading out of the kitchen with a cup of tea when several of the guys ran through the hall on their way either to the den or to the master bedroom, both of the entrances to the bunker. She set the tea down and caught Kit’s sleeve as he hurried past. “What is it?”

“Something’s wrong with Ty.”

“What do you mean ‘wrong’?”

He pulled away and continued down the hallway. “Eden, I don’t know.”

She ran at his side, fighting to keep up with his long stride. “Well, I’m coming with you, then.”

Kit frowned at her a long minute, then nodded. They went to the elevator and rode down together, Tank staying close to Eden. When they stepped into the main room of the bunker area, the scene looked surreal. The men were standing in the room, watching Ty. Rocco and Max stood next to him. No one was talking. Only Greer moved as he set up a projector and hooked a camcorder to it.

Ty looked pale, his face caught in a frozen, emotionless mask. Eden started toward him, but he turned away from her, halting her where she stood.

Kit looked from Ty to Owen. “What’s going on?”

“I found what the WKB was looking for,” Ty announced to the room.

“Eden,” Owen said as he looked her way, “please excuse us.”

“No,” Eden snapped at Owen, looking at him briefly before turning her attention back to Ty. “No, I won’t excuse you.”

“She stays.” Ty countermanded that order though he still wouldn’t look at her.

Angel pulled a screen down on one wall. Greer flipped the lights off. She looked around the room at the tense faces of the guys. Whatever had Ty so amped couldn’t be good. She folded her arms before her. The tape flickered to life. It was video of the den. There was a man standing behind the desk with a black ski mask on. He wore a long-sleeved black leather jacket and a white T-shirt.

There was a strange sound, like cat that was mewling in rage. Eden’s heart began staccato beating. God, why would Ty’s dad have made a video of an animal being tortured? She covered her eyes. But she could still hear the terrible choking cry. So human-like. She shut her eyes and covered her ears.

She should leave. This was terrible. Why were the guys watching this? She glanced toward the door where the elevator was. Owen was watching her. She shot a look at the screen. The camera had panned down. It wasn’t a cat that the man was holding, but a boy, barely into his adolescence.

He was naked.

Her hands fell away from her ears as she stared in horror at the scene that was unfolding on the screen. The boy fought, but the man, so much larger than he, had no trouble bending him over the desk, shoving his face into the wood. The man freed himself from his pants, grunting as he tried to hold the boy still as he raped him. The boy’s face burned red as he choked on his unvoiced scream. He slammed his hands on the desk, dug his nails into the wood.

One of his flailing hands landed on a letter opener. When the beast behind him leaned both hands on the desk, the boy stabbed him. Twice. Instead of ending the proceedings, it made the man climax. He pulled free of the boy and put himself back together. The boy, an adolescent Ty, looked straight at the camera, hatred and vengeance pouring from his eyes. A couple of men who’d been off camera came over and dragged young Ty from the room. When they were gone, his molester yanked his ski mask off and grinned at the camera.

Jefferson Holbrook.

The video ended. No one put the lights on. Light from the projector illuminated the room. Max crossed the room and slammed out of the door leading to the stairs. Eden covered her mouth with both hands. She felt as if she’d swallowed a glass of anti-freeze and was waiting for the poison to melt her insides.

None of the men moved. No one spoke. All stood in rigid silence. At last, Ty looked at her. His face might have been a mask, so little emotion did he show. Her own horror had to have been written all over her face, for he dropped his head and sighed.

“When I saw Holbrook the other night, he was in a barracks full of kids. He said he was training them for the Armageddon.”

“What Armageddon?” Owen asked.

“No idea. We have to take this tape to the sheriff. Those boys need help.”

“Maybe we can get them help without the tape, Blade,” Kit suggested.

Ty and Kit exchanged a long look, speaking in the silent communication of long-time friends.

Max came back into the room, carrying an ax. He walked over to Ty and handed it to him. “Go upstairs and kill the fucking desk.”

Eden watched Ty contemplate the ax and Max’s directive. After a minute, he sighed and set it down. “It’s just a desk, Max.”

There was a new edginess about the men. Eden could see it in the hardness of their eyes, paleness of their faces. It was clear Holbrook had signed his death warrant.

“What’s next, Kit?” Angel asked. “Tell me we’re going to kill the bastard.”

Kit didn’t answer Angel. He sent Eden a meaningful glance. The message was loud and clear. What would happen next was not something she could be privy to.

“Blade, take Eden upstairs,” Owen said.

Ty walked toward the hall exit, leaving the door open for her to follow or not. She sent a glance around the room at the guys who were like brothers to Ty, relieved that none of them judged him. Every one of them looked as if his heart had been cut from his chest. She started toward the door, but Kit stopped her, grabbing hold of her arm.

“You keep him safe, feel me?”

She had time only to blink the tears from her face and nod before Ty came back into the room. He crossed to the table and snagged the ax, then took her arm and dragged her with him to the elevator.

“Ty, you don’t have to come up.” She faced him. “Stay here and work on the plan with the others.”

He didn’t answer her. When the elevator doors opened, he held them open for her and Tank, then stepped into the cab with them. They came out in the master bedroom. Ty marched her down the hall, past the media room, the game room, the living room.

Fee and Mandy were in the living room playing a game while Zavi watched TV. Mandy did a double take when she caught sight of them.

“Ty? What’s going on?” Mandy asked. He didn’t answer her. Eden gave Mandy a shake of her head in warning, but that didn’t deter Mandy. “Eden? What’s happening? Do you want me to get Rocco or Kit?”

“No, they sent us up here,” Eden told her. “It’ll be all right. We’re fine.” She sent Ty a quick look, hoping they were in fact fine.

He made an abrupt turn at the stairs to the basement, pushing her ahead of him. “Go,” he ordered, gesturing with the ax.