Blind Rage (22 page)

“Another deer?” she said.

“Nope. Prodigal niece and the assistant you hired.”

She looked startled and frowned. “Why didn’t they just come to the door? What were they doing in the garage?”

“They were looking for something. I’m about to find out what. Join us, please.”

She rose and followed Travis into the kitchen. Tess sat facing them at the table in the breakfast nook. Oliver stood behind her, his stance relaxed but his eyes wary. Travis’s estimation of him went up another tiny notch—after all, the kid had kept Tess alive the past eighteen hours—but he shrugged it off. It didn’t make any difference now. Travis looked at Tess again. Her mouth puckered as if she’d eaten a lemon and her brows dove toward the center of her pert nose. She was pretty despite her sour mood, and Travis was suddenly struck by how much she’d matured in the past year. She was very nearly a woman.

Tess raised her chin. “Alice? Is that you?”

“Yes, Tess, it’s me.” She paused. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

Travis eased into the chair across from Tess. “Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do.”

“Why?” Tess shot back. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“What were you looking for in the Range Rover?”

“I was just showing Oliver—”

“Look, Tess,” Travis interrupted, more gently this time, “Alice told me about the e-mails. And the camera. You clearly got another one that made you think there’s something in the Rover. What was it?”

Tess squirmed in her seat.

Oliver stepped forward. “Sir, I think—”

Travis motioned him to keep quiet. “You stay out of this. Tess?”

Tess dropped her hand under the table and shoved the iPod into her pocket. She extended her other arm across the table and opened her fingers. A thumb drive lay in her palm. Oliver’s eyes widened. He stared at it. Travis plucked it from her hand.

“Thank you.” He rose. “Don’t move, either of you. I’ll be right back. Alice, keep an eye on them, please.”

Travis hurried down the hall to the small den. Marcus twisted in a chair as Travis entered. He started to rise. Travis waved him back into his seat as he rounded the desk and inserted the thumb drive in his laptop’s USB port. He double-clicked on the icon when it appeared. The only files on the drive were a few photos and what looked like some of Tess’s old homework assignments. His brow creased. He yanked the thumb drive out of the computer and tossed it to Marcus.

“Have someone check that,” he said. “See if there’s any deleted data that can be recovered.”

“I’ll get on it,” Marcus said.

Travis rose and headed for the door. “I’ll be back.”

He used the walk back to the kitchen to steady his breathing and slow his pulse. His relationship with Tess would have been strained under the best of circumstances. She’d barely known him before he’d suddenly become a permanent fixture in her life. He was her uncle, not a parent or even a sibling, yet he’d been thrust into the role of caretaker and caregiver all at once. He didn’t know how to be a parent. He’d been a soldier all his adult life, accustomed to the company of men and a solitary existence in the field. He’d been trained to take life, not nurture it, and the transition from soldier to civilian had been difficult. Raising a teenager was next to impossible, but raising a girl who’d been traumatized by the loss of her sight and her parents was something no one was equipped to handle. So he’d left most of the daily duties to Alice. A mistake, he saw now. He knew he would have to tread carefully if he wanted to maintain any sort of rapport with Tess, so he pushed his anger down beneath the surface.

“There’s nothing on that drive but old junk,” he said as he slid into his chair again.

“That’s not my fault,” Tess said.

“Empty your pockets.”

“What? I gave you what you wanted.”

“You heard me, Tess. Empty your pockets. I want to see all of it. I won’t ask you again.”

“You don’t trust me? I’m not a child. You have no right to treat me this way.” She dug into her jeans while she talked, despite the wounded indignation on her face. A tube of lip gloss and an iPod clattered onto the table. “There! Happy?”

“That’s it? No wallet? No purse?”

“Are you crazy?” Tess yelled.

“We bolted,” Oliver said. “We didn’t have time to grab anything. I have her phone, by the way, which I told her
not
to use so she couldn’t be traced. That’s why she didn’t check in.”

Travis peered at them both and glanced at Alice. She nodded. He sighed.

“Somebody’s playing a horrible practical joke on me,” Tess said. “It’s someone’s idea of a sick game.”

“This is no game, Tess!” Travis said. “They made an attempt on your life. Alice was attacked and hurt. People are dead, including one of your friends!”

“Carl was
not
my friend! He was just a big jerk!”

“He’s
dead
!” Travis roared. “And you could have been killed! This is real life, Tess.”

“This is
so
not close to real life, Uncle Travis, I can’t begin to tell you,” she said with such fierceness it surprised him. “The people I know don’t have men with machine guns burst into their kitchens. My friends don’t get chased down the street getting shot at. They don’t have to run away from home to keep from getting killed. That may be real life in
your
world, but not here, not in mine. This had nothing to do with me.”

Tears glistened in her eyes, and she clenched her jaw to hold them back.

“It has everything to do with you,” Travis said. “You’re involved, Tess, whether you like it or not. Someone made sure of that. I’m trying to help here. If you tell me what’s going on, I can run interference, keep you safe.”

“Like you did yesterday? Where
were
you?”

The tears flowed down her cheeks now, and Travis felt his own burn red with guilt.

“Tess, if I’d known you were in any danger, I never would have left on that business trip. I would have had the team in place before those men showed up.”

“And what about Rosa, huh? She worked here for a
year
. And you didn’t know? How are you supposed to protect me?”

Travis shook his head. “I know. I didn’t do my job. That’s going to change. But you have to help me, Tess. I can’t keep you safe if I don’t know what’s going on. I need to know what they’re after, what they want.”

“I don’t know!” she shrieked. “How should I know about any of this?”

Alice moved around the table and put a hand on Tess’s shoulder. Travis couldn’t remember when she’d ever expressed concern with that much emotion. She’d never been a very touchy-feely person. Travis had always respected her businesslike demeanor, but had found her difficult to
like
in a friendly way. She didn’t warm up to people easily. Oliver hadn’t moved, but Travis saw him strain to keep from going to Tess’s side, consternation clearly etched on his face.

“Okay, okay,” Travis said. “Calm down. We’ll figure this out. Alice said they were after your camera. Where’s the memory stick?”

Tess tipped her head back. “Oliver?”

Oliver hesitated, then stooped to rummage through a backpack on the floor next to him. He pulled out the memory card and leaned across the table to hand it to Travis.

“There’s nothing on that, either,” Tess said, “except photos. We checked.”

Oliver glanced at her, then directed his gaze at Travis, his face expressionless. Travis turned the memory card over in his fingers.

“I’ll have some tech guys check it out anyway,” he said. “In the meantime, if you get any more e-mails like that, tell me immediately.”

She dropped her chin and didn’t respond.

“Tess? You understand? Don’t make me hack your e-mail account.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Try me.”

So much for our relationship. If Tess didn’t already hate me, threatening her privacy probably pushed her over the edge.

Travis didn’t know what else to do.

“You’re so mean,” she cried.

Travis watched tears roll silently down her cheeks. The roiling they caused in his gut and the ache in his chest were far more painful than the shrapnel from a roadside IED explosion they’d dug out of his arm. Unlike that wound, he didn’t know how to deal with the pain from this one.

He clenched his jaw and spoke through gritted teeth. “Oliver, you can go. We won’t be needing your services anymore.”

The kid stared at Travis blankly, like he was in shock.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Alice piped up quickly. “Tess can’t drag the team with her everywhere she goes. And who will help her with homework? You don’t have time. And I can’t imagine anybody on the team relishing the idea.”

“Forget it,” Tess said. “He already quit.”

“What do you mean, he quit?” Travis said.

Oliver stepped forward. “Sir, under the circumstances I felt that I wasn’t very well-equipped to protect Tess. That’s why I brought her home.”

“Yes, but now that the security team is back in place,” Alice said, “there’s no reason you can’t continue in your duties, Oliver. Don’t you think so, Travis?”

Travis eyed the kid, his fingers drumming the tabletop. It would mean the team would have to protect two people, not just one. Travis wasn’t convinced, but Oliver seemed bright enough.

“Okay,” Travis said, “we’ll keep you on and see how it goes. But when it comes to Tess’s safety you do
exactly
what I tell you. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t I have a say in this?” Tess said, her voice shrill. “He doesn’t
want
to be with me.”

“Oliver?” Travis said quietly.

“I never said that, sir. I like the job. I told her I didn’t think I could protect her. There’s more you haven’t heard. Whoever’s after Tess nearly caught us last night.”

Little surprised Travis, but he’d assumed they’d gotten out cleanly, with no trouble once they’d left. He’d only worried about where they’d gone to ground, not whether they’d have to keep running.

I’m losing my edge—the instincts that had kept me alive in Afghanistan. The kid, though, is resourceful, apparently.

“Travis,” Alice said, “if these people are as resourceful as we think, they’ll identify Oliver eventually if they haven’t already.”

“You’re right,” Travis said. “We’ll have to keep a close watch on both of them. Oliver, I’ll want a full report later In the meantime, consider yourself still employed. And Tess, don’t think I’m finished with you. We need to talk about your visit to MondoHard and the unauthorized use of your old key card.” Tess froze, and Oliver shifted in his seat. “But not now. Tonight, when I get home from work.”

Alice briskly walked around the table. “Well, now that’s settled, I’ll rustle up something for you two to eat since we no longer have a cook. You’re late for school.”

Tess groaned. “Do I have to go? Can’t I at least take a shower and put on some clean clothes?”

“Of course,” Alice said. “Run along, and make it quick. Breakfast will be ready by the time you get back.”

Oliver looked from Alice to Tess and back, his face turning red. “Should I help?”

Travis glared at him. “Not under any circumstances, bud. Now yank those thoughts back into this kitchen before I change my mind about you.”

Oliver jumped back a pace. “Yes, sir!” The corner of his mouth twitched.

Travis suspected Oliver was mocking him, but the little smile, if that’s what it had been, was already gone. Tess got up and felt her way out of the kitchen and down the hall. Alice watched her go, and when Tess was out of earshot, she faced Travis.

“A little hard on her, weren’t you?” she said.

“She needs a wake-up call,” he said. “I thought we could breathe easy for a while, but the threat to James extends to her, too. You know that as well as I do, and her birthday isn’t far off.”

“Birthday? What happens then?” Oliver said, sliding into the chair Tess had just vacated.

“She becomes an adult,” Travis said tersely.

Alice came over and set a glass of juice in front of Oliver.

“Tess’s father owned the majority of the stock in his company,” she explained. “Since both of her parents died, the shares have been held in trust for her. Travis is the trustee. When Tess turns twenty-one,
she
becomes the majority stockholder.”

“Wow,” Oliver said quietly. “Cool. So she’s really rich.”

“Not cool,” Travis said. “Whoever wanted my brother out of the way may not want Tess to have control of the company, either.”

“So why haven’t any assassins tried to take
you
out?” Oliver said. “Maybe you’re the evil uncle, vying for control.”

Travis felt his face flush, and his fingers clenched into a fist.

Oliver suddenly grinned. “Just messing with you.”

“Probably not a good idea until you get to know me better,” Travis said, uncurling his fingers.

Oliver’s smile faded quickly. “Why would they go after her now? Isn’t she only eighteen? Which means she’s already an adult, by the way.”

Travis flushed with heat. “Don’t push it.” He paused as the import of what Oliver said slowly registered. “I don’t know why they haven’t attacked me, but my job is to protect her.“

He turned to Alice. “I’ll tell Kenny and Luis to take them to school. The cops are holding the BMW until they go over it for evidence, but I’ll get it released as soon as possible so Oliver has a way to get Tess around. In the meantime, she doesn’t go
anywhere
without one of the team.”

Alice nodded. “She’ll get used to it. You’ll see.”

Travis got to his feet. “I wish we didn’t have to put a guard on her at all. I know it sucks, but she’ll just have to deal with it. Anyway, I have to meet with Marcus briefly and get to work.”

He hurried down the hall, just as worried now that Tess was present and accounted for as he’d been when he’d gotten home and discovered she was missing and on the run.

Tess let the shower water cascade through her hair and run down her body. The scent of shampoo and soap filled the steamy enclosure. She let out a sigh. She felt safe here, cocooned in the water’s warm embrace. She stood unmoving for several minutes, hands clasped over her collarbone, thoughts running through her head as fast as the water down the drain. She wondered what would happen if she never got out of the shower.