MARCUS (Dragon Security Book 4) (15 page)

Marcus

“Are you sure you want to do this now?”

Cadence glanced at me. “We have to do it soon. He just buried his wife. I don’t want to leave him hanging on the surrogacy thing.”

I waved a hand at our attire. “But we’re not really dressed to deliver bad news.”

She glanced at herself, self-consciously tugging at the front of her formal dress. We were on our way to Cole Bradford’s wedding reception. It was an invitation from Megan that I felt we couldn’t ignore, but I hadn’t known she would want to make a stop at Blake Zimmerman’s mansion on the way.

“He’s not going to be pleased to see me.”

“He probably won’t be pleased to see either of us. But we have to do this.”

I gritted my teeth as I made the turn onto Blake’s block. Paparazzi, dozens of them, were sitting outside the house. They’d been there for months, ever since Blake announced his retirement from football because of a knee injury. There were constant rumors that he was going to return to the NFL and become a free agent after the doctors cleared him to play again. The paparazzi wanted to be the first to break the news. But then his wife died and that just increased his popularity. They were lining the street, blocking other residents’ driveways.

“Vultures.”

I glanced at Cadence. “That’s Vincent’s code name.”

She smiled. “Really?”

“I guess Megan has a thing for birds.”

“What’s yours?”

“Grosbeak.”

“Healer of the heart.” She smiled. “That’s fitting.”

“Yeah? Is that some sort of symbolism or something?”

“Birds are often used in art as symbols for something else. A grosbeak represents healing of the heart, and family dynamics.” She reached over and touched my knee. “Fitting.”

I smiled. “Megan’s pretty smart, I guess.”

I pushed the button on the gate. They rolled open without any exchange from the house.

We drove up to the circle drive and got out. Blake was waiting on the doorstep, looking like ten miles of bad road. His clothes were wrinkled, his face creased from lying down. There was a drink in his hand.

“Marcus Hanson. They told me you were the Dragon bodyguard, but I didn’t believe it.”

“It’s me.”

He walked up to me, and I braced myself, not quite sure how to respond to him. But then he threw his arms around me and offered a huge bear hug.

“It’s always good to see old friends.”

I nodded, wondering if he remembered anything that went down between us all those years ago.

He turned to Cadence, sadness filling his eyes. “You look beautiful.”

She touched her hip, smoothing her hand over the material of her dress. “I’m sorry, Blake.”

He shook his head. “My own fault. I should have seen how far over the edge Annie had gone. I just didn’t want to.” He studied her a moment, then he sighed. “I don’t suppose you want to continue with the contract.”

“The thing is,” she said slowly, “I can’t.”

He nodded. “I get it. After what Annie did, I’m surprised you could even come here.”

“No,” she said, glancing back at me. I came up beside her and slipped my arm around her waist.

“Oh,” Blake said, eyeing us both. “I see. You finally got me back, huh, Hanson?”

“It’s not about that, Blake.”

“No. I wouldn’t think so.”

He swallowed the last of what was in his glass and turned to smash it on the marble steps. Then he faced us again, a smile glued to his lips that didn’t reach his eyes.

“I’m happy for you, Cadence. This one…” He punched my arm. “He’s a good guy. I burned him the worst way a buddy could and he only took a swing at me. But he should have done a lot worse.”

“I really wanted to help you, Blake. I did.”

His expression softened, his eyes moving over Cadence. “I know. You’re the only truly good soul I’ve ever known.”

She smiled. But it was a weak smile.

“Let’s go,” I said, turning her toward the car.

“Goodbye, Cadence,” Blake said.

I put her in the car, closing it tightly before I turned to Blake again.

“She’s pregnant,” I said. “It wasn’t intentional and she feels bad about it. Don’t make it worse.”

“She’s pregnant?”

“It’s mine.”

Blake took a swing. I easily ducked and landed one in the center of his belly, then raised my knee into his crotch.

“You’re right. I should have done that a long time ago.”

I left him there on the ground, rejoining Cadence in the car and driving off like nothing happened. She didn’t utter a word.

She didn’t have to.

Cadence

I was lost in a sea of decadence. The reception was held in the home of Megan Bradford’s parents. They were obviously people of means. Their house was larger than Blake Zimmerman’s and so full of luxuries I’d never knew existed, therefore never known I’d missed. It was like stepping into a fairy tale or something.

There was cake and cupcakes,
hors d'oeuvres made of such decadent things as caviar and paté. There was champagne flowing everywhere, chocolate fountains and ice sculptures. It was like something I’d seen in the movies, but never truly believed could exist.

I clung to Marcus’ hand. I knew no one there. They knew him, though, and people kept coming up to talk to him, congratulating him on surviving my case. And they smiled when they saw me.

We’d been there almost an hour when this woman, just out of the blue, came over and grabbed my hand. She dragged me to a corner of the back deck where other women were standing.

“I’m Quinn Smith,” she said with a quick smile. “I’m sure you’ve been told about me. I’m the porn star who seduced Vincent Caplin on his first case for Dragon.”

I blushed, not sure if it was her brazen introduction or the fact that I
had
heard about her that caused the reaction.

“And this is Amy Greene Gil, she’s Dominic’s wife.”

“Wife?” She sighed. “I’m still wrapping my mind around that title.”

“We’re all new girls on the block, so I thought I’d drag you over here, introduce you, and let you know you aren’t alone.”

“Thank you.”

Quinn laughed. “Don’t worry, honey, you’ll get used to all this. This is what it’s like being a member of the Dragon family.”

“Are all the parties like this?”

“No. Megan’s a little subtler than her parents are. But they’re close.”

“She threw Dominic and me a wedding,” Amy said. “We were just going to the justice of the peace, but she insisted on doing it at her house. She was so generous; the dress alone was worth so much more than what we had planned….”

They filled me in on everything Dragon family. When they were done, I had to admit I was a little overwhelmed. But I also had to admit to feeling a little privileged for being a part of all this. And when Marcus found me later, I was a little more confident as we mingled with the other guests.

Sam

I found myself stepping back from the crowd, more comfortable as an observer than a participant. I was a little dizzy, feeling a little off. It was becoming my new norm, this feeling of being on the verge of becoming quite ill. It was something I was beginning to think I was going to have to get used to.

I should go to the doctor. But, based on warnings he’d given me months ago, I was afraid to confirm my worst fears.

I wasn’t ready.

“Hiding?”

I glanced at Hayden. “Come to make fun of my dress?”

“No. You actually look pretty good in lace.”

I glanced down at the lace and silk dress I was wearing, a vintage piece I’d picked up at a secondhand store. It had a high collar on which I’d pinned a cameo. The waist was high, cinched tight with a thick piece of ribbon, and the skirt fell clear to my ankles, my heeled boots barely peeking out when I stood still. It was conservative and old fashioned, but I liked the way it fell over my curves, accentuating them in an interesting way.

“We need to talk.”

“What about?”

“I was checking into that man who was after Dominic and Amy last month. The one Dante killed?”

“I thought we couldn’t find an ID on him.”

“The cops couldn’t. But I did a little more digging. I think Dominic was right. I think he was former CIA.”

“Former?”

“A friend of mine in the agency said that a bunch of agents went rogue like two years ago. He said they were involved in some shady business and they suddenly all left the agency at the same time, for various reasons. He thinks this guy might have been one of them.”

“Was Luke another?”

Hayden looked sharply at me. “Why?”

“He was involved in this thing somehow. His name was in Emily Greene’s files. I think he was on the taskforce she worked on. And I think he knew something, or did something. Something that got him on her radar long after he left the agency.”

“You think this has something to do with why Luke ran off.”

I looked toward the crowd, to Megan where she was standing with her brother, talking happily about something. This was so hard for her. She was smiling, but I could see the strain on her face. It was killing her, bringing up all these memories of Luke.

“There was a reason. I knew him—knew them together. He never would have left her if he didn’t have a good reason.”

“I agree. But this? That’s an awful lot of coincidences.”

“Not really. Peter went to him about his investigation into the sale of unlicensed versions of his software. We know Peter traced that back to this same terrorist cell. Luke disappeared three months before Peter died in that car accident that we now know was connected to his investigation.”

“We don’t know for sure.”

“But we’re close enough to say it.”

Hayden shrugged.

“Then someone went after Amber, clearly looking for something Peter had that could prove something, though we’re still not sure what that is. Something in those papers he gave her, but we haven’t figured it out. And his computer hard drive…”

“…that’s corrupted. Like someone came up behind him and cleaned up.”

“Yeah. Luke would know how to do that. And he’d know where to look.”

“But he was gone.”

“Away from Megan. Not necessarily from the state.”

I turned and faced Hayden. “You know that virus that corrupted my computer at the moment I was about to find out something we could use? I think it was on the hard drive from Peter’s computer and someone activated it at that exact moment, knowing what we were doing.”

“How’s that possible?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone had to have been in the office at that moment, someone who heard us talking, someone who had the knowledge to do it.”

He nodded, his eyes jumping to Dante. Exactly where my thoughts were going, too.

“You don’t trust him.”

“There’s something not right about him.”

“He was there that night.”

He nodded. “I’ve been keeping an eye on him. He lives a simple life, spends most of his time either at the Dragon offices or with Megan. I’ve never seen him make an odd phone call or meet with anyone outside of Dragon personnel. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t when I wasn’t around to watch.”

“I’ve been researching his background. Nothing has come up, but it all seems too perfect.”

Hayden nodded. “Keep digging.”

He touched my arm, his touch more than just a gesture of friendship. I looked up at him, catching a rare softness in his eyes.

“Dance with me.”

I smiled as I followed him to the dance floor. He pulled me gently into his arms, his hands resting lightly below the bow that held my lace belt together. I could feel eyes on us and knew some of them were envious. I wasn’t the girl who made people envious. It was…nice.

I looked up into his eyes and I wanted to disappear there. I wanted to live forever there.

Megan

I couldn’t sleep after the wedding. I went to the office and settled down to the paperwork that never seemed to be finished. It piled up day after day, always waiting, laughing at me when I tried to ignore it. I yelled at my people for not filing their reports, yet I was here procrastinating over the things that kept our business legal.

After a while, I couldn’t concentrate anymore. I turned my attention to the list of names Sam had given me. Peter’s accident had taken something of a backseat these last days. I was still determined to prove he didn’t run into that concrete barrier because he was distracted. There was more to it than that.

He’d left behind a manila folder filled with papers from Bradford Telecommunications, the business he ran with our father. I found it now, hidden in a locked drawer, and pulled the papers out. He’d risked something to give these to Amber, but there didn’t seem to be anything more than proof against the man who was selling the software unlicensed—the investigation that started Peter down the road he’d unwittingly traveled. But there had to be more. We knew that Peter knew more.

No matter how long or how often I looked at them, I couldn’t see it.

And the hard drive? All the proof we had seemed to have been corrupted or changed in some way. But who would want to do that other than the people who’d caused his death in the first place?

It was frustrating. I felt like I’d been slamming my head against a brick wall from the moment Amber had come into our lives—from the moment she’d opened the door to all of this. And there was nothing I could do to make it stop.

A part of me felt that if I could prove Peter’s death was a murder, it would somehow bring me to some sort of closure with Luke. I don’t know how the two were connected, but in my heart—the same place that wouldn’t let me let go of him—I knew they were.

I sighed, sliding the name list in with the other things and putting them all back in the locked drawer. Then I grabbed my bag and headed out.

But the thought of going to an empty house just made me feel lonely.

I drove to Sam’s, thinking I could roust her out of bed and take her to an early breakfast. We used to do things like that, sneaking out of our mutual homes and going into the city for the day when we were girls. A day out with my best friend seemed like a wonderful way to spend the day.

She had a condo in a nice little neighborhood. The last time I was there was when Dominic was on the run and I was trying to get him out of trouble. That was, what? Three weeks ago? Too long.

I didn’t bother to knock. I knew Sam was a heavy sleeper. I used my key, let myself in and headed for the stairs. But as I passed her office, I could hear the strange beeping of one of her computers. It sounded like something was pressed against the keyboard, holding down a key that had reached the end of its usefulness.

“Sam?”

I stepped into the office and stifled a scream.

She was hunched over her desk, her face pressed to the keyboard. I ran to her, my fingers instantly searching for a pulse in her neck. It was there. Faint. But it was there.

I dug out my phone to call 911. I should have called 911. But I knew how crazy she was about her privacy and her health issues. I knew she wouldn’t want anyone to know.

Fuck!

Thank God she was a small woman. I managed to get her over my shoulder and carry her to my car, parked—again, thank God!—in the driveway. I lay her in the backseat and drove like a bat out of hell all the way to the hospital. An orderly was outside having a smoke break when he saw me drive up. He came with a wheelchair and helped me get her inside.

“Does she have a history of heart disease?”

“She has lupus.”

The nurse glanced at me and nodded. “You’ll have to wait out here.”

They disappeared through the swinging doors, poor Sam was white as a sheet as her head lolled against the back of the wheelchair.

It was the worst two hours of my life, pacing in the waiting room, not knowing what to do. I should call her mother, but if it wasn’t serious, Sam would kill me for calling her. Sam and her mother had a difficult relationship. She’d probably rather have my mom here. They were closer than Sam and her mother.

I could have called Dante. Hayden. Even Cole. He would have come despite being off on his honeymoon. But I kept telling myself that if I had to call someone, then that meant it was serious. I desperately didn’t want it to be serious.

I’d already lost my fiancé and my brother. I wasn’t ready to lose my best friend.

“You can see her now,” a different nurse said, touching my arm to get my attention. “Your friend? She’s conscious and asking for you.”

I followed her through the maze of rooms, so relieved when I saw Sam’s smiling face that I know I made a strange sort of sound as I rushed to her. She hugged me; her breath was warm and reassuring against my throat.

“Don’t ever do that again!” I cried, slapping her shoulder lightly. “You scared the fucking hell out of me!”

“Sorry.” She smiled sort of sheepishly. “I guess I overdid it yesterday at the wedding.”

“I saw you dancing with Hayden. That’s enough to make anyone faint.”

Sam laughed, color flooding her cheeks. “Yeah. He’s a pretty good dancer.”

“I don’t know about dancing. But the way he was looking at you? Ooh la la!”

A dark cloud moved over her eyes. “We’re slowly becoming friends. Nothing more.”

“All the secret conversations. The dancing. The looks. I think you underestimate him, babe.”

She shook her head.

A nurse chose that moment to come in, just as I was about to ask her what was going on. Sam was always a little low on the whole self-esteem scale. Her mother was an ultra-conservative Christian who berated Sam over every little issue. But she’d been better about that sort of thing these last few years. I was a little surprised to see some of it still lingered.

The nurse checked the bag of fluid flowing into Sam’s veins.

“They should be down soon to take you upstairs.”

“Upstairs?”

“She’s being admitted,” the nurse said as she left the room.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“They called my regular doctor and he wants to do some tests. It’s really no big deal.”

“Yeah? What kind of tests?”

She shook her head. “Blood tests. X-rays. Nothing new, just the same battery of tests they do whenever I have a lupus flare up.”

“So this is related to your lupus?”

“I think so. So do they.”

That offered me a little relief. If it was lupus, that was okay. It was a common illness, something she’d been dealing with since she was fifteen or sixteen.
That
they could fix.

I followed as the orderly wheeled her up to her new room. They got her in the bed and came by to ask a million questions, making sure everyone knew what she was there for and what she might be allergic to. I pulled one of the nurses aside and did something I rarely did.

“Make sure she has everything she wants. Whatever her insurance won’t pay for, I will. Okay?”

The nurse’s eyebrows rose, but she nodded.

It was arrogant and a little unethical, considering HIPPA laws and all that. But I felt compelled to do it anyway.

I sat in a chair at her bedside as they came and took blood, and then came and took her off for this test or that test. Two days. They did every test known to man, I think.

“I’m turning into a pincushion,” Sam joked.

She looked much better the second day. The medications that they were putting in her IV several times a day were making a difference, whatever they were. I hadn’t realized how shallow her breathing had been until it was normal again. And I really hadn’t appreciated how pale she was until color came back into her cheeks.

“I should call Hayden to come see you now. He might appreciate you in that hospital gown.”

Sam shook her head. “He’d still think it was too conservative. It doesn’t show any cleavage.”

I laughed. “True.”

We did crossword puzzles together. She was always better at the technical stuff—ironic since my family made their fortune on technology—and I was always better with words. She only passed English because I helped with her homework. I only passed BASIC because of her. My daddy still thought I was a genius programmer. He had no idea.

“Do you remember our junior prom?” I asked late in the night on the second night, as we lay side by side in the narrow hospital bed.

“Of course. I felt like a third wheel going with you and Luke.”

“I still have those pictures. The ones we took when we left the prom and went to my parents’ place on Galveston. Remember? I found them the other day.”

“I remember. You and Luke sat in the sand and you got the bottom of your dress all wet.”

“And you and…Tyler Owens, right?”

She giggled.

“You were up on the deck, making out like a couple of horny teens.”

“We were a couple of horny teens.”

“I was a little afraid you’d lose your virginity that night. Before me.”

Sam glanced at me. “Were you really? Do you really think I could have gone home and faced my mom if I’d lost my virginity on the back deck of your summer house?”

I shrugged. “We don’t always tell our parents everything.”

She smiled. “True, true. I never told my mom half of what we did.”

“I remember Luke threatened to go over and knock Tyler’s teeth out. He didn’t like that he was taking advantage of you.”

“He wasn’t. I’d wanted to.”

“I know. I tried to tell him that without making it sound bad.”

“Luke was…he was a gentleman in a time when those didn’t—
don’t
—exist.”

“He was. Even then.”

She took my hand, her fingers ice cold even though the room was warm. I sighed, rubbing her hand between both mine.

“Luke wanted to wait. He said it was cliché to lose your virginity on prom night.”

“So, you did it the night before he boarded a bus for basic training. Isn’t that cliché, too?”

“Yeah, but we couldn’t wait any more. And we didn’t know when we would see each other again.”

“And it was good. So that’s okay.”

I smiled. “It was better than good. He was a gentleman outside the bedroom, but he was every bit a man in it.”

Sam groaned, turning from me a little. “Don’t give me details. I’ve told you over and over, I don’t want that image of my best friend and my best male friend doing things like that.”

I laughed. But then this profound sadness came over me.

“How much more loss do you think we’ll have to face before it’s all said and done?”

Sam didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

I was packing Sam’s things the next morning. They’d finally decided to release her, so it was time to pack up the things I’d just managed to retrieve for her the day before. Not that I minded. I wanted her out of this place; I wanted her home and safe.

There was just something unnerving about a hospital. Even when the patient wasn’t really sick, like a woman who’d just given birth, it was still an uneasy place. It made me think of the night Peter died. The night Amber gave birth and Cole was here, in this same place, covered almost head to toe in her blood.

Enough. It was time to focus on good things.

The doctor came in just as Sam emerged from the bathroom, her hair wet from the shower.

“Hey, Dr. Reynolds,” she said with a perky smile.

My Sam was back.

He studied her with that serious look doctors seem to learn in medical school.

“Could you have a seat, Samantha? I’d like to talk to you about your test results.”

“I thought we were going to do that in your office on Monday.”

He glanced at me. “Could we have a minute?”

“No,” Sam said, the color she’d gained slowly leaving her cheeks again. “She can stay.”

The doctor sighed, gesturing for Sam to take a seat. She did, though there was defiance in the way she did it. I moved up behind her, taking her hand. She held mine between both of hers, holding so tight I knew that she was frightened. I was too. There was something about the doctor’s demeanor that was just…well, he sucked at the whole bedside manner thing.

He talked about lupus’ effect on the body, the way it often attacked the internal organs. He talked about infections and irritation and things that simply made no sense as my mind struggled to grasp the message that was hidden in all that jargon.

I was stunned when he walked out the door. So was Sam. We just sat there for a long time, clinging to each other. And then the shock dissipated. And the pain hit.

And it was a hell of a lot of pain.

~~~