Wait for Morning (Sniper 1 Security #1) (6 page)

Marissa had known from experience that
Trace would ignore her as he always did, which was the exact reason she had
gone out there that day. Hoping that would change. Hoping that would be the day
he opened his eyes and realized there was chemistry between them. She
remembered that he’d done his best to stay far, far away from her in the pool,
but more than once, she’d caught him glancing at her. At the time, she’d sent
up numerous silent prayers, hoping he’d give in and at least talk to her as a
man talked to a woman.

No, that day, Trace had managed to shatter
her heart, all thanks to her attempt to get his attention. At Clay’s prompting,
the two of them had engaged in a conversation about some girl Trace was
supposedly “dating.” While Marissa had floated on a raft, Trace had gone into
detail about the girl he was interested in. He’d purposely pushed her away;
she’d picked that up quickly. And for a while, it had worked. Her anger had
taken precedence over the feelings she’d had for him.

But as the years passed, Marissa still
found herself inexplicably drawn to the man. The heated glances remained an
ongoing thing between them, but it was after that incident that Marissa had
given up trying to get his attention. It wasn’t that she didn’t think he was
interested. She was pretty sure he was. However, convincing Trace of something
he didn’t want to believe in was like trying to light a candle in a hurricane.

And that was the sole reason Marissa knew
she had to ignore the desire he invoked in her. Her life was hard enough to
deal with at the moment; she certainly didn’t need rejection as a cherry
topping on her shit sundae.

●«»●«»●«»●

Barry couldn’t believe that rich fucker
had attempted to double-cross him. After hiring him and tasking him with
snatching the girl, the asshole had hired someone else to take her out, and if
he had to guess, him as well.

“Un-fucking-believable!” he yelled,
slamming his hands onto the steering wheel.

Fuck that shit. He didn’t take kindly to
being set up.

It wasn’t enough that he’d had to leave
Darrell—
and
the guy’s stupid white
coat—behind after the idiot got himself knocked out in a scuffle with Trace.
There’d been no time to drag Darrell’s big ass into the car, so Barry had opted
to go on without him, all while Darrell’s buddy Jim bitched and complained from
the passenger seat.

Resolving that had been easy enough. Barry
had simply stopped the car. At that point, Jim had found himself on the side of
the road. Let
them
figure out how to
not freeze to death while reuniting with one another. He didn’t really give a
fuck.

But those two idiots were the least of his
worries. Now he had to formulate a plan that would make this go his way. The
little shithead might believe he possessed all the power, but that damn sure
wasn’t the case anymore.

In fact, he now had a new game plan. One
that involved getting the girl and taking her to the big man in charge, because
he knew there had to be someone above this shithead. Hell, the guy was
associated with the Southern Boy Mafia, even he’d picked up on that. Which
meant he likely worked for someone else, someone who called the shots, pulled
the reigns. Surely this asshole wasn’t the brains behind this operation.

Regardless, Barry was going to find an in
with the Southern Boy Mafia one way or another. It’d been his plan all along,
the sole reason he was putting up with this egotistical asshole.

Trace watched RT and Clay as they
approached the table in the small diner where they’d agreed to meet. The place—with
its typical diner décor: red plastic booths, black stools, and white everything
else—was empty except for two police officers sitting at the counter, drinking
coffee, and talking to a gray-haired guy wearing a white apron over a grungy
white T-shirt—both stained with grease. From the moment they’d stepped into the
place, no one had bothered to look at them, which raised Trace’s hackles
slightly.

When the bells over the front door stopped
clanging, the only waitress in the place walked toward RT and Clay,
intercepting them before they could get to the table. “Can I get you something
to drink?” she asked both men directly.

“Coffee’s good, darlin’,” RT said with
that good ol’ boy charm he’d been known to bestow on the unsuspecting people he
came into contact with, not bothering to look at her before grabbing a chair,
spinning it around, and dropping into it at the end of the booth.

Clay slid into the opposite side from
where Trace sat beside Marissa—the optimal spot to keep his eye on the door. As
Clay got comfortable, his eyes continued to dart back and forth between Trace
and Marissa.

When he reached across the table, Marissa
reached back. “I’m glad you’re safe,” Clay said softly.

Marissa squeezed Clay’s hand and smiled.

Clay Trexler was Trace’s closest friend,
other than Z. They were the same age, had grown up together, graduated from
high school together, even spent four years in the Marines together. Hell,
Trace considered Clay more of a brother than a friend. But based on the way the
other man’s blue eyes scanned over him, he wasn’t sure Clay was feeling a ton
of love for him at the moment.

“Been here long?” RT asked casually.

“Ten minutes,” Trace informed him, meeting
the hardened gaze of Marissa’s oldest brother. Before he could say anything
more, Marissa spoke up, drawing everyone’s attention her way.

“What do you know?”

Trace wasn’t shocked by her blurted
question. She’d been on edge ever since Trace had woken up to find her hovering
on the corner of the bed, staring at the ceiling, wrapped in her coat. He’d
actually found that particular situation amusing, especially when he’d returned
to the bathroom to get dressed, forgoing the towel he’d discarded earlier. Her
shocked inhale had made him laugh, but it hadn’t done anything to dispel the
desire he was still attempting to fight.

“That’s the million-dollar question, sis,”
RT said, his tone reflecting the irritation Trace had glimpsed in the other
man’s eyes when he’d arrived. “But I think it’s better if
you
answer that one.”

Trace glanced over at RT, studying him for
a moment before he said, “You think she knows something?”

“Think? No. I
know
she does.” RT rested his forearms on the chair back, his eyes
intensely focused on his sister. “And it’s time we stop playing this game.”

“Does the name Adorite ring a bell?” Clay
questioned, his tone as terse as RT’s had been.

Okay, so obviously Trace was the only one
not in the loop here.

The hair on the back of Trace’s neck stood
on end from the mere mention of one of the most powerful families in the great
state of Texas. The Adorites weren’t the normal, run-of-the-mill, wealthy family,
either. They were Texas’s very own Southern Boy Mafia—a name given to them by
the media because of their good ol’ boy personas, a name that had eventually
stuck—with deep pockets and even deeper roots into a world that Trace’s family
had spent years fighting against. Despite the way the name sounded, the
Southern Boys weren’t backwoods rednecks—hell, they weren’t rednecks at all—but
they wanted people to believe they were. And Trace knew for a fact that Casper,
Bryce, and the Adorite patriarch, Samuel, were on a first-name basis. Not
exactly friends. More of a live and let live sort of relationship or so he’d
been told.

Marissa didn’t say a word, which spoke far
louder than anything she could’ve said.

RT pulled a piece of paper from his pocket
and slid it over to Trace. It was an article cut out of a newspaper, dated
February tenth, one year ago. Rather than read the contents, Trace glanced at
Marissa.

“What’s this about?” he asked, the
question not exactly pointed at her, but he’d take any information he could
get.

No one spoke.

“Did you write this article?” Trace
questioned.

“No,” Marissa stated stubbornly, shaking
her head.

Trace’s gaze shifted back to the article.
Who the hell was Douglas Forthnet?

“But you played a huge part in the story?”
RT asked, dragging Trace’s attention back to Marissa as he waited for her to
respond.

Marissa nodded.

“Do you know Douglas Forthnet?” It was
Clay’s turn to interrogate.

“He’s a journalist. He writes for the
Dallas Morning News
,” Marissa said.

“He
was
a journalist,” RT said, sitting up straight. “He’s dead, Marissa.”

Trace watched Marissa’s throat work as she
swallowed hard, and her eyes turned glassy with what appeared to be tears. Did
this Douglas guy mean something to her? The mere thought of Marissa with some
other man made a knot form in his chest. Rather than dwell on what that meant,
Trace shoved the thought away.

The waitress returned with two white mugs
of coffee and a carafe that she used to refill Trace’s cup.

“Can I get you something to eat?” the
waitress asked, her eyes roaming over each one of them before returning to RT.

Marissa shook her head at the same time
Trace rattled off his order, informing the waitress to make it two. Marissa was
going to eat, whether she liked it or not.

RT and Clay chimed in, telling the
waitress to bring them the same, and she was off once again. When she was out
of earshot, RT continued. “Your buddy Doug was in a fatal car accident two
weeks ago. DOA. No witnesses.”

Trace didn’t need for RT to continue; he
got the gist of what the man was saying. Douglas Forthnet had been a casualty
in this war that seemed to be going on around them, and it seemed that RT was
tying that unfortunate incident to the most recent attempt on Marissa’s life.

“Do you think the Adorites are
retaliating? Maybe they think she knows something?” Trace turned his attention
to RT.

“It’s a possibility. One I fully intend to
get to the bottom of as soon as we make it back to Texas.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Marissa
inquired.

“I plan to go talk to them.”

“I want to be there when you do,” Trace
demanded.

RT met his gaze but didn’t say anything.

“Right now, before we do anything rash, we
need to know everything Marissa knows,” Clay added.

“I really don’t know anything more,” she
said, her voice pitched higher than before.

“What I want to know is why you didn’t
bother to tell us this in the beginning,” RT grumbled. “We could’ve had this
taken care of a long damn time ago. Not spent the last twelve months chasing
our own fucking asses.”

Trace leaned closer to the tense woman
sitting beside him, feeling a tad protective of Marissa. Sure, RT had a point.
She’d kept this information to herself when it would’ve at least given them
something to go on. But that didn’t mean she’d done it on purpose.

“How’d you figure this out?” he asked RT.

“The shooter. The one in the Tahoe. Dude
had some seriously loose lips,” RT said, shifting in his seat, his defensive
posture softening somewhat.

RT nodded his head to Clay, suggesting he
move over as RT got to his feet and then moved into the booth alongside the other
man. Clearly he’d determined that there wasn’t a threat to them there. Trace
wasn’t so sure he agreed, but from where he sat, his back to the wall, he had a
perfect view of the two cops now chatting with the waitress. They seemed a bit
curious from their perch at the counter if the sideways glances were anything
to go by.

“He specifically mentioned the Southern
Boy Mafia?” Trace probed.

“Not in so many words, no,” RT confirmed.
“But no smart man would.”

True. If Trace were in the hot seat, the
last thing he’d do was lay the blame at the Adorites’ feet. Only a fool would
be so stupid. “What about the driver? Get anything from him?”

“Nada. Bastard didn’t say a word.”

“What about the Malibu?” Marissa inserted.

RT glanced at Marissa, answering her with,
“They fled.”

“Shit.”

“What?” Clay asked Trace.

“I’m more interested in what they’re
after. That Malibu was at the first motel we stopped at. As though they were
one step ahead of us.”

RT glanced at Clay, but before Trace could
ask them what they were keeping from him, the waitress reappeared with their
food.

Not only that, but an older couple
arrived, choosing to take the booth directly behind them, which meant their
conversation had just come to a jarring halt.

It was then that the cops got to their
feet, their eyes slowly moving in Trace’s direction. With a subtle head nod,
Trace warned RT and Clay that they were about to have company.

Come
on over, boys. Let’s get this over with.

□«»□«»□«»□

Ryan thanked the waitress when she
delivered their food. He even started to eat as the two police officers he’d
noted when he’d come in approached their table. He pretended not to notice when
they stood just inches from the end of the table, hips cocked, hands resting on
their police-issued weapons.

“You boys don’t look like you’re from
around here,” the taller, skinnier of the two said.

“Just passin’ through,” Clay told Skinny
off-handedly as he kept his attention riveted on his food, shoveling in a
mouthful before offering them a brief once-over.

Ryan set his fork down and lifted his
coffee cup, turning his full attention on the two smug bastards, who seemed to
believe that badge on their shirts made their balls a little bigger than they
really were. “Heard the food was good.”

“Yeah? Who’d you hear that from?” Stumpy asked
skeptically, a smirk on his lips as he glanced over at Skinny.

“The police chief,” Ryan offered, grinning
behind the rim of his coffee cup.

Well, that certainly got their attention.

Glancing at his watch and then looking
back up at the two men, Ryan said, “You can call him if you’d like. Although I
bet you’d be interruptin’ his supper with his wife.”

Ryan wasn’t lying. He knew that Stan
Albert was the police chief of this small town just outside of Harrisonburg,
Virginia, where they found themselves tonight. He also knew that Stan and his
bride of fifteen years, Marsha, were likely having dinner at the Texas
Roadhouse, only a few blocks down the road. According to the information his
cousin Dominic had given him, the chief and his wife preferred the restaurant,
mainly because they allowed the head of their ten-man force to eat for free.

It paid to know the details. And Ryan was
nothing if not prepared.

“We’ll be happy to wait while you give him
a call,” Trace offered, his fork held halfway to his mouth, his eyes scanning
the two men.

“No?” Ryan asked. “Well, we’re just gonna
finish our dinner, and then we’ll be on our way. I’m not sure how y’all do
things ’round here, but we prefer to eat our meals without an audience. Unless,
of course, you gentlemen have somethin’ you’d like to ask.”

Ryan noticed Skinny’s sneer, but he
pretended not to. The guy obviously got off on exerting his authority. Too bad
Ryan had no desire to have a dick measuring contest at the moment. He was
hungry and tired and ready to get back to Texas. The sooner the better.

Neither officer said anything before
turning and walking away. Ryan watched Trace’s face as the other man’s gaze
tracked the pair out the door. Once they were outside, Ryan peered out the
window, noticing both cops were checking out their license plates. Good for
them. He hoped they followed up on it, too.