RYDER: A Standalone Military Romance (Blake Security Book 1) (7 page)

              “Invincible?”

              “Like she’ll live forever,” I told her.

              “Oh, I guess that could be a dangerous way to think.”

              “Yeah, when it comes to gators, I’d have to agree. She has this idea that if something or someone is going to hurt her, she’ll get a feeling about them before they have a chance.”

              “She’s superstitious then?”

I thought about Blake and the dime.

              “Yeah, very.”

              “She sounds like a lot of fun,” she said sincerely.

I nodded and said, “That, she is.”

“Is she your only family?”

              I thought about my mother. I don’t often wonder where she is, but that’s usually because I avoid thinking about her. “Yeah, she’s all that’s left.”

              “When I was a girl, I often wished I didn’t have so much family.”

              I raised an eyebrow. “I can imagine. With four brothers, even going out on a date must have been a chore.”

              “It might have been, but we were too busy worrying about things like survival to go out on dates. My brothers were involved with some…shady people by the time they were grown, just from being forced out to the streets in order to survive. I was the youngest, so they did what they could to make sure I was taken care of.”

              “So what about when you moved from Georgia to Moscow?”

I saw her visibly tense.

              “What about it?”

              “Were your brothers still heavily involved in your life?”

              “Yes,” she said, simply. Standing up she said, “I think I’m going to call it a night, Ryder.”

I stood up, too. Damn, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted this case to be over so I could fall asleep at night in my own bed knowing that baby was safe, and so I could kiss Alicia. I got the feeling she wouldn’t object.

“Ryder, you know that I wouldn’t knowingly do anything that put Celia in danger, right?”

              I thought that was an odd statement, considering we weren’t even talking about the case. “I know that.” I did believe that. It was just a feeling I had in my gut. I did hope the feelings I had about her in other parts of my body weren’t getting in the way of that. “When I talk to you about your family, that’s just because I really want to know more about you. When I ask you questions about the Bransons, your connections with them, and your possible connections to the men trying to take Celia, that’s my job. I hope you understand that it doesn’t mean I don’t trust you. I just have to be sure everyone that is near to that baby is being completely honest about everything.”

“I’m not the one you need to protect her from.”

              “I believe that, but I need you to believe that in my job, the more information you have, the better.”

              “That’s fine,” she said. “I don’t have anything to hide. Good night, Ryder.”

              My gut told me she had plenty to hide. My heart was trying to override it. “Good night, Alicia.”

              I watched her go, and after trying to relax for a while and being unable to, I pulled out my tablet and signed into the file Blake had on the house staff. I pulled up Alicia’s file and began to read:

             
NAME: AISHE “ALICIA” MELUA-RAPAVA

              AGE: 24

              OCCUPATION: NANNY

              MARITAL STATUS: DIVORCED

              Divorced? In all of the time we’ve talked, she hasn’t mentioned an ex-husband at all. It only fed my notions that she did in fact have a few things she wanted to hide. She’d been in the states for almost two years. That would make her married and divorced by the age of twenty-two. I wondered how old she’d been when she married and if that was why she’d moved from Georgia to Moscow. I skimmed through the part that listed out a few jobs she’d had working as a caretaker for children, and at one point, for about a year, she worked in a nightclub. It didn’t say what her job title was there, but it was owned by an “Abel Rapava,” her ex-husband. She didn’t have any type of criminal record, which was good, but the next page was a list of her family members and known associates, and they had plenty.

             
FAMILY:

              MOTHER: EKATARINE MELUA

              AGE: 44

              OCCUPATION: NONE LISTED

              MARITAL STATUS: SINGLE

              Mom had a list of arrests almost as long as my arm, and that was pretty damned long. Solicitation, felony drug charges, public intoxication, indecent exposure…it went on and on. I felt pretty lucky I’d never met my mother at that point.

             
FATHER: UNKNOWN

              BROTHER: DAVIT MELUA

              AGE: 30

              OCCUPATION: NONE LISTED

              MARITAL STATUS: SINGLE

              Davit had arrests for armed robbery, illegal weapons, drug trafficking…currently incarcerated and serving a ten-year sentence for assault. Damn! I looked back up at Mom’s age. She was fourteen when she had him. I guess that might explain some of her problems, unless that was a symptom of them as well.

             
BROTHER: DANIEL MELUA

              AGE: 29

              OCCUPATION: BRICK LAYER

              MARITAL STATUS: WIDOWED

              Daniel had only been arrested twice. One time he was arrested for assault and served two years in prison. The other time he was arrested for drug trafficking. Blake added a note in red out in the margin about his wife’s death being investigated as “suspicious.” The third brother’s records looked about the same. I skimmed through those, and when I got to brother number four, I stumbled across another one of those things Alicia hadn’t mentioned. Her youngest brother—Aleks—is two years older than her, and he currently lives in the United States. He left Moscow and came over on a student visa when he was twenty-one. He’s an environmental engineer, and he’s working in the research department at Ole Miss and living in Mississippi in a town only about an hour away. Yesterday I wondered where she went on her days off, and I’d casually asked her something about it when she got back. She’d done what she often does and quickly changed the subject, never really giving me an answer. It had made me wonder if she had a boyfriend. I wonder now if she was with her brother, but why would she want to hide that? The file also said that he is currently in the process of obtaining his legal citizenship, and unlike his other brothers, he has no criminal record. Why wouldn’t Alicia want me to know she was visiting her brother if that was, in fact, the case? It would make sense that was where she stayed on her days off. He lives in Gulfport, Mississippi. That’s only about an hour drive from where we sat now. Maybe I’d rather believe she was keeping things from me than that she had a boyfriend.

I made a mental note of several questions I wanted to ask her about her brother and moved on to what I was suddenly most interested in, the ex-husband. This guy sounded like a real piece of work. First of all, his age is listed at forty-two. I had to wonder if Alicia married him willingly, or if it was some kind of arranged thing as I read on. His name is Abel Rapava, and he’s a successful union organizer amongst agricultural workers. His practices have been watched closely by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Georgia for over a decade because of multiple disappearances and suspicious deaths of protestors and the whiff of bribes in high places. No charges brought against him have ever stuck, so his record is clean, but it sounded to me like he used his money to clean it up. The file also listed him as the employer for two of Alicia's brothers, which is what led me to wonder if maybe the marriage was arranged or at least strongly suggested by her family.

Blake left a note in the margin of this one that said the divorce was handled privately, and the details of it were “sealed” by the court and not a matter of public record. I wasn’t sure if that was simply the way they did things in Moscow, or once again, if there was something there that Alicia and her family were trying to hide.

RYDER

              I didn’t sleep much although the radio was quiet all night. I couldn’t stop thinking about Alicia and her possible connection to all of this. I spent most of the night online doing research. I didn’t find anything that Blake hadn’t already, and I wasn’t sure what I was even looking for, but my gut was telling me there was something we were missing. My plan was to call Blake as soon as the sun came up and find out what his thoughts were on the ex-husband and the brother that lived less than a hundred miles away. It was just after five in the morning when I finally fell asleep. At seven, I heard Alicia and Celia up and moving around across the hall, so I got up and washed up and then began dressing. It was hot, and I didn’t want to wear a jacket, so I tucked my Sig Sauer into my boot and the radio into my back pocket. I was making my way to the nursery when there was a sudden deafening noise that came from outside in the direction of the garage. It sounded like an explosion. It rocked the house so hard that it sent my big body hurtling across the hall. I used the momentum to keep moving. Celia was screaming in her crib, and Alicia was standing frozen to her spot and pale as a ghost. The radio in my back pocket was full of chatter now, but my main goal at that point was to get Alicia and the baby off the second floor of the house in case there was another explosion.

“Grab Celia! We have to go.”

Alicia looked like she was in shock. “What was that?”

“I don’t know yet, but I do know that we need to get out of here. Grab the baby and what she might need for at least a couple of hours.” Slowly, like a person in shock, she picked up a diaper bag and began stuffing things into it. I could hear voices and yelling from downstairs, and my patience was thinning as I watched her move like a zombie. “We have to go now, Alicia.”

I reached in and plucked the baby out of the crib. Holding her in one arm like a football, I hooked my other arm around Alicia’s waist and pulled her toward the door, propelling her toward the stairs with the baby bag slung over her shoulder. As we descended, the sounds of the chaos seemed to actually calm the baby. She’d stopped screaming and now was simply whining and hiding her little face in my chest. I just prayed she wouldn’t begin wailing again until Alicia snapped out of whatever was going on with her.

We met one of the security staff coming up the stairs just before we hit the bottom. “Is there anyone else up there?” he asked.

“I have no idea. What happened?”

“There was an explosion in the garage.”

Alicia made a little whimpering noise and asked him, “Charles?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Are Matt and Julia accounted for?” I asked him.

“Yes, they’re being taken to the pool house by my partner. The housekeeper and cook as well. Vince wanted everyone out of the house before it became filled with smoke.”

“Has 9-1-1 been called?”

“Yes, sir. Vince called them.”

“Good. Will you take Alicia and Celia out there, too? I’ll double check the top story to make sure no one else is up there.”

“Of course.” 

I looked at Alicia. “Are you going to be okay?”

She nodded slowly and took the baby out of my arms. With wide eyes she asked me, “Where are you going?”

“I need to find out what’s going on out there. Stay with everyone, okay? Don’t leave.”

“What about Celia’s breakfast?”

“Alicia, listen to me. I will be back as soon as I can. Breakfast can wait.” She nodded again, and I watched them go before running upstairs to make sure everyone was out of the house.

********

After making sure the whole house was empty, I found Vince, standing about six feet away from the fiery ball that used to be a three-car garage. The side of the house attached to it was already fully encased in fire, and the groundskeeper and some of the security staff were hosing it down. Vince had a look of disbelief on his face, and I realized as I got closer that he was holding his hands out, palms up. They were obviously burnt and beginning to blister.

He looked at me before I could ask any questions and said, “My man watching the security cams said Charles went in about two minutes before it blew. I couldn’t get inside.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. The pain in his hands had to be excruciating, but I knew from personal experience that his mind wasn’t on his own pain at that moment.

“Do we know what happened?”

He shook his head. “My guess would be that either the garage was wired, or it was in the car. I do know that no one has been on the grounds.” After the last breach, perimeter alarms were installed and set to pick up motion on the property. Unfortunately, two squirrels and a rabbit had already set them off, but at least we knew they worked and they were loud. “Maybe they got to the car yesterday when it was parked in the garage at Mr. Branson’s office. I’ll have the security footage pulled from there.”

The sounds of sirens at a distance began to float toward us then, and Vince’s radio crackled to life. “Sir, did you give permission for someone to head this way in one of the golf carts?” The property was so large that the staff often used a small fleet of golf carts the family owned to get around.

“Hell no! There should be no movement on or off of these grounds except for emergency services!”

“I’ll take care of it, sir. I won’t let anyone off the grounds.”

“I want to know who it is and what they think they’re doing,” Vince demanded. He looked like on top of the burns on his hands that he may be nursing a migraine as well.

“Yes, sir.”

The radio went silent and I told Vince, “I’ll make sure everyone at the pool house is accounted for.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

“Have EMS look at that.” He looked down at his hands, and I saw him wince. When I was in Kuwait, three of my teammates had been killed in a chopper explosion. While trying to get them out, I’d sustained burns similar to his on my hands. It was all scar tissue now, but when I looked at them and let myself think of the horror those men endured, they still hurt.

              The gates to the back were still locked so I showed my I.D. to the young officer at the door of the mansion and went through the house to the pool house out back. I took the gun out of my boot and tucked it into my waistband where I’d have easier access to it if I needed to. When I got to the door, I knocked and called out to Jim, the officer inside with the family. “It’s Ryder, Jim!”

The door cracked open, and I saw the gun before I saw Jim. He stepped back and motioned me inside. The pool house was three rooms. The one I entered into was like a huge, round sitting room and furnished almost as nicely as the rooms inside the house. There was also a small kitchen and a bedroom that was almost as large as the living area. The bathroom was attached to that. Matt was pacing back and forth, bouncing a fussy Celia up and down. Julia sat perched on the edge of one of the sofas, looking bored almost to tears. The housekeeper and the cook both looked like they’d rather be anywhere else in the world but here.

“Where is Alicia?”

“Good question,” Matt Branson said, sarcastically. “She went into the kitchen to fix the baby a bottle and never came back.”

I looked at Jim and he said, “She told me she needed to go up to the house and get the formula.”

“And you let her go alone?”

“The house is being guarded. She was supposed to come right back.”

“Damn it! How long ago?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes,” he said.

I ran my hand through my hair, frustrated. “You were supposed to be watching them! Why the hell weren’t you watching her?”

“With all due respect, sir, I thought the baby was the one at risk. It didn’t even cross my mind to leave the room she was in to follow Alicia. Alicia was insistent on leaving. The only way I could have kept her here was at gunpoint. I didn’t have those instructions.”

I wanted to curse at him, but I knew that he’d done the right thing. Celia was the one that he was supposed to have eyes on at all times. “Why didn’t you at least radio Vince and let him know?”

“Vince told us to stay off the radio unless it was an emergency. I called my partner on his cell and let him know.” Jim had all the right answers, just none I wanted to hear. I’d had a feeling that was her in the golf cart, but the question was, where did she think she was going?

“I’m sorry I blew up at you. Did she say anything at all before she left?”

“Just that she was going to fix the baby a bottle. She said something about her missing breakfast. Before that she was all shook up over Charles. I guess I kind of thought she was looking for a distraction.”

“Okay, stay here with them, and let me or Vince know if anyone else tries to leave.”

He nodded, and I left and made my way around the pool and back toward the house. The smoke was thick in the air around the house, and my eyes and lungs were burning. Once back inside the house, I checked the kitchen and made a cursory check of the house again, just to be sure. Alicia was gone. As I went out through the front door, I saw there was now a police officer where the security officer had been only moments ago. I had to answer a lot of questions about what I was doing in the house and wait while he scrutinized my I.D. and called it in to the detective in charge. He finally let me pass, and I headed toward the front gates on foot. The firefighters were now fully engaged in fighting the fire, and the police were setting up a perimeter around it. I could see Vince talking with a large man in a gray suit.

There were a lot of uniformed officers around. I saw Brett, Lucy’s husband. He waved, and I waved back. The fire chief was standing a few feet away from him. This was a lot more manpower than they’d normally send for an incident like this. I guess it pays to be disgustingly rich when these things happened.

I jogged past my own car that was parked in the circular driveway and down the path toward the front of the property. When I topped the hill that led down to the gates, I saw the golf cart and the glint of the sun off of Alicia’s shiny, dark hair. She was just sitting there in the golf cart. The guard standing next to it looked like he was at a loss for what to do. I saw why when I got closer. Her face was covered in tears, and she was sobbing uncontrollably. He looked at me with eyes that pleaded for help, and I dismissed him back to the guard house with a toss of my head. I climbed into the passenger seat and didn’t even think about it before I reached for her. I was actually surprised when she crumpled into my chest and I held her there for the next ten minutes while she sobbed.

My heart hurt for her, and I told myself that the stress and chaos of the day were just getting to her. It seemed to take her a lot of effort, but when she finally calmed down, what she said made less sense to me than her taking off in the first place.

“Charles is dead because of me. This is all my fault.”