COLE (Dragon Security Book 1) (17 page)

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*** Donovan is the first book in my

GRAY WOLF SECURITY SERIES

Kate

The bank was locked up for the night. I curled up in my office chair, my shoes kicked off, and went over the last few applications of the day. It never failed to fascinate me, the millions of reasons why people wanted a loan. Some of the applications told a better story than the bestselling novels piled up on my bedside table waiting to be read. Like this one from an older man whose wife died six months ago. I guess he was feeling a new sense of freedom because now he wanted a small business loan to start a small social club for “the social-security-aged youth” of his community. It made me chuckle, some of the colorful ways in which he made his case.

Finally done, I shut down my computer and straightened the surface of my desk. Mrs. Talbot, my manager, was a hard ass about the way our desks looked.

A bank is not the place to leave your panties hanging off the back of a chair.

That was her favorite mantra. Made me wonder what her house looked like. Probably so sterile she could eat off the floor. Either that, or she was a hoarder like on that television show. Boxes and papers and paintings and clothing stacked all over the place.

I slid my shoes back on and grabbed my bag, tugging it over my shoulder. Joe, the security guard—they were all named Joe, weren’t they?—pushed open the door.

“Have a good night, Miss Thompson.”

“You, too, Joe.”

I stepped out onto the front steps of the bank and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath of the cool, salty air. Santa Monica in January. There was a little chill to the air tonight. Nothing that would have my teeth chattering before I could get to my car though.

I made my way to the sidewalk, my thoughts still on that old man who wanted funding to open what would essentially be a brothel for older gentlemen, again chuckling under my breath. Then I turned the corner and the chuckles died.

What was going on? Something wasn’t right.

I hesitated before stepping into the dark alley where the employee parking lot sat. There was just something not right here. I thought about going back, asking Joe to walk me to my car. He’d offered often enough that I knew he’d be more than happy to walk me. And then there was movement, deep in the back of the lot, near where my car was, and…

I ran.

At the Compound

The office for Gray Wolf Security was actually at the home compound of Ashford Grayson. He bought the property with the company in mind after spending nearly a year wandering the county aimlessly, trying to figure out what to do with himself after he left the military—the Green Berets to be exact. He loved being a soldier. Adjusting to civilian life again was…difficult.

The security firm was born out of not only a need to find a purpose for himself, but to find a purpose for a few soldiers—like him—who also needed a direction. A purpose. Therefore, it was his business plan to hire men and women like himself, retired soldiers looking for something stateside that would have some of the adrenaline of the military without so many of the risks. A few risks. Sometimes more than even he could anticipate. But nowhere near what they’d risked in their day-to-day lives in Afghanistan and Iraq and Korea and wherever else they served.

The main house, a rambling cabin-like structure, served as the office space for the company—with Ash’s living space upstairs. The living room, kitchen, and dining room were advertised as “open-concept living.” Now they held a half dozen desks where Ash’s main operatives were expected to keep up with the paperwork that came along with a job of this kind. That included David, his brother, who spent most of his time working on the bank of computers arrayed in one corner of the room as their tech guy. The dining room housed a large conference table where clients were often given the dog-and-pony speeches over why they should hire Gray Wolf, or the explanation of what was done for them and why they should pay their bill that was often in the thousands.

Twenty-four-hour security was not cheap.

The kitchen was still just a kitchen. Ash had been known to make four-course meals there for his people after a particularly tough case was completed. Kirkland Parish, one of Gray Wolf’s operatives, also liked to cook, but you couldn’t always call what he made edible.

Ash had good people working for him. Each was handpicked for reasons that went beyond their ability to do the job asked of them.

Donovan Pritchard was a member of Ash’s own Green Beret unit. They worked closely together during Ash’s last deployment to Afghanistan. They saw things together that other people couldn’t even imagine, let alone see in their nightmares. Donovan was an expert at explosives. He could work with any material, blow up anything, and predict accurately how it would fall. He could take out a dozen insurgents but avoid the civilians right next door.

Kirkland Parish was also a Green Beret. Although he was with a different unit during Ash’s days with the Army, Ash had heard stories about him. He was something of a character, outgoing and something of a lady’s man. If there was a woman within a fifty-mile radius, Kirkland could find her and get her in his bed in a matter of minutes. Charm didn’t even begin to describe Kirkland. There was just something about him that instantly set people at ease. It was a skill that often came in handy with the kind of frightened, wired clients Gray Wolf served.

Joselyn Grant Hernandez, Joss, was a tiny but fierce soldier who stood up to and conquered every obstacle thrown at her during basic training. And then she served two tours of duty, leaving the Army only because she fell in love and wanted to experience a normal life. She was on Ash’s radar when he began building his company, but she was happy living with her schoolteacher husband and being a stay-at-home mom to her six-year-old daughter. But when her husband and child were killed in a car accident, Ash and his Gray Wolf team stepped in, made sure the driver of the other car received his just punishment, and gave her a place to turn to when she was ready to get back to work.  She took it and she was good at her job. The fact that she wouldn’t speak didn’t seem to bother anyone.

And then there was David.

Ash and David grew up in Austin, Texas where their father was a longtime member of the Texas legislature. They were a close-knit family, one of those that politicians often parade out in public with big smiles on their faces. The only difference was, it was true in their case. When Ash graduated college with a degree in political science and decided to join the Army, his parents couldn’t have been more thrilled. The dream was that he would one day follow in his father’s footsteps. David, too, was serving his country. After college, he joined the FBI.

And then things changed.

Their father was elected to Congress. There was a celebration that ran late into the night on Election Day. Ash couldn’t be there because he was deployed, but he managed to speak to his parents for a few minutes via satellite phone. If he had known it would be the last time…

David was driving the car. Dad was too tired, and he’d had a few too many to drink. And Mom, well, she just didn’t drive. The car hit a patch of black ice. It was Austin. In November. Not a common occurrence, but it was known to happen. The car flipped. Mom was declared dead on the scene. Dad lingered a few days, the press thick outside the hospital, waiting with baited breath. And David crushed his lower spine. Bone fragments were removed and his potential recovery was optimistic. However, they missed a few, and the inflammation caused paralysis from his upper thighs down. The doctors thought they could restore movement, maybe allow him ninety percent mobility, but he refused to undergo the procedure. He said the risk wasn’t worth it.

Ash thought it was guilt. And guilt he understood.

“Listen up!” Ash called, as he made his way through the room, a handful of file folders in his hand. “Assignments.”

Like good soldiers, his people immediately gathered around the conference table. Donovan in jeans and a t-shirt, dark circles under his eyes. Kirkland looking dapper in slacks and a silk button-down shirt. Joss stood off to one side, still in the wetsuit she wore each morning to conquer the waves on her surfboard. David was always last to join them, moving efficiently in his fiberglass wheelchair.

“Kirkland, you’ll be working with Detective Warren today, tying up loose ends on your stalker case. He’ll meet you downtown at noon.”

“Hope he plans to buy me lunch.”

There were a few titters around the table, but they disappeared when Ash looked up again.

“Joss, there’s a doctor at Cedars-Sinai who’s having some trouble with an ex-husband. I’d like you to go over there, keep an eye on her for a day or two.”

She nodded, as she stepped forward to take the file he held out to her. She stepped back again, glancing through the file as Ash continued the meeting.

“David, you should keep working on those background checks. We need those by tonight.”

“Yes, sir,” David said, snapping a weak salute that made Donovan reach over and smack his shoulder.

“And Donovan…you’re behind on your paperwork. You need to spend the day getting caught up.”

Donovan groaned. “Really, can’t David or Rose do that for me?”

“The paperwork has to be done by the operative himself. You know that.”

“What’s the matter, Donovan? Intimidated by a simple little computer?” David asked.

“Shut up,” Donovan said, feinting a punch at David, laughing when he flinched. “You may be in a wheelchair, but I’m not afraid of kicking your ass.”

“Boys,” Rose said from across the room.

“Sorry, Miss Rose,” both David and Donovan muttered, their hands properly tucked into their laps.

Ash hid a chuckle behind a cough. Somedays he didn’t know what he’d do without Rose. He’d hired her to be the office manager, to take care of the administrative crap he didn’t have the patience to deal with, but she’d become something more than that, almost like a mother figure to this rag tag band of misfits.

“Okay, people. You have your assignments. Go do your jobs and don’t get dead.”

Ash watched them leave, then he went to his own desk, his thoughts going to the same place they always seemed to go to on quiet mornings. Or busy mornings. Or lazy afternoons. It really didn’t seem to be any particular time. She was always on his mind.

He pulled a file folder out of his desk drawer, one that was so thick and so worn at the edges that it was obvious it was opened often. The top sheet was a picture that he shouldn’t have, one that wasn’t supposed to exist. Her name was Alexandra, but she liked to be called Alexi. She thought it sounded exotic. And exotic went a long way toward describing her. Despite a mundane Midwestern upbringing, she’d reinvented herself in the military. She was a lot like Joss, tough but feminine, strong but gentle. Tall, with dark hair and haunting, golden-brown eyes, she was beyond words. Ash tried to describe her, but he always failed. There was just something about her that wormed its way under his walls and made him feel things he never thought he would.

She was his fiancée. Only no one knew it but the two of them.

Alexi was CIA. They worked multiple missions together in Afghanistan. The last was a recon on a corrupt politician that went wrong. They got separated. He made it to the extraction. She didn’t.

It was two years now that she’d been missing. He’d gone over their plan, over all the things that could have happened to her, but every lead died out. As far as the United States government was concerned, Alexi was dead. However, Ash couldn’t believe that. He knew how talented she was. He knew what she was capable of. For her to have been killed on that mission, her body never found, someone had to have gotten her unawares and taken advantage of her distraction. And that just didn’t happen with Alexi. She was not distractible.

He knew in his gut that she was still alive.

He was going to find her. He didn’t know how or when, but he was going to find her.

“Ash, phone,” Rose called.

He sighed, closed the file, and placed it carefully back in the drawer of his desk.

Time to get to work.

Donovan

“It’s your lucky day,” Ash said when he came to my desk and told me he had a case for me. However, he wouldn’t say a damn thing about it on the long ride from the office to the UCLA Medical Center.

“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” I finally asked, as we boarded an elevator.

“A new case.”

“I got that. What’s the case?”

Ash handed me a piece of paper that was a computer printout of a news story that was on the
Daily News
website that morning. I’d glanced at it but didn’t really read it.

Bank Security Guard Gunned Down,
the headline read.

“This isn’t really our thing, is it? I mean, there wasn’t some executive involved was there?”

“No. But there was a witness, and her father has hired us to stay with her until the police get everything figured out.”

“A witness?”

“A young loan officer who works at the bank. Apparently, she was on her way out when the attack occurred.”

That caught my interest. I actually knew—or once knew—a woman who currently worked at a bank downtown. I’d caught sight of her a few times…Kate Thompson. We had history that was complicated. But again, life is often complicated, especially when you leave your hometown for eight years in the military and then come home again with no intention of rekindling old friendships. Needless to say, I kept to myself when I wasn’t on the job.

I scanned the article, but it didn’t say anything about a witness. Just that the security guard appeared to have been blindsided while doing a walk around, shot in the chest during a possible attempt to get inside the bank. However, a passerby reported the shots and police arrived within minutes. No one, as far as they could tell, made it inside the bank.

“This seems pretty open and shut for the cops,” I said, as the elevator doors opened and Ash strode into the hallway.

“Then it should be an easy one for you. Just a couple of days.”

That sounded good. I had a trip planned to Vegas. Nothing fancy. A hotel room, some cash for the blackjack tables. Maybe drag Kirkland along, see if standing next to the Louisiana charmer might rub off on me a little. It’d been a while. Not a lot of time to date when I was following around wealthy execs who’d pissed off the wrong employee or the wrong ex one too many times.

“You said that the father requested me specifically?”

Ash nodded, not even pausing as he moved quickly down the long maze of corridors. “Didn’t say why.”

“What’s the name?”

“Thompson. Daniel Thompson.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, feeling like I’d walked into an ambush. It took Ash a second to realize I wasn’t with him anymore. He turned around, impatience on his face.

“What is it, soldier?”

I shook my head, not at his term of address, but at my disbelief that this was actually happening.

“Are you sure about the name?”

“Of course.”

I shook my head again, all these memories flying through my head. Ash grabbed my arm, shook me a little.

“What is it?” he asked again, his tone a little kinder this time.

“Joshua.”

Understanding washed over Ash’s face. He knew me. We’d spent far too many nights in the desert together to not know everything there was to know about each other. So he knew why this was not an ideal situation for me.

“Can you put Joss on it?” I asked, hating that I could even consider backing out of an assignment. But this was the only assignment that I knew I simply could not do.

“No,” Ash said, glancing over his shoulder as if he was afraid someone would catch us loitering here, in this public corridor. “Joss is on a plane headed to Washington with her target.” He chewed his bottom lip for a second. “I could call Kirkland. Put him on this.”

“No. She’d tear him to shreds.”

Ash’s eyebrows rose because we both knew what a charmer he was with women. But he had no idea what Kate Thompson was like. I did.

“It
has
to be Joss.”

“There’s not enough time to bring her back. The target gets released from the hospital in an hour.”

Ash pushed me back a little, out of the center of the corridor, laying both hands heavily on my shoulders. “If you tell me you honestly cannot take this case, I will handle it myself.”

And I knew he would. Ash would do whatever it took to protect his people. It was that military mentality, that inability to leave a single man behind. A part of me was willing to let him do it, but the idea of going back to the office—like a child afraid of the dark—didn’t sit well with me.

“No, sir. I can do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Ash studied my face a moment longer, then he slapped my shoulder and nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s do this.”

He pushed past me and led the way down the corridor again. I hesitated only a second before I rushed to catch up.

Daniel was waiting out in the corridor when we turned the corner. He stepped forward immediately and held out his hand to Ash.

“Mr. Grayson,” he said.

“Mr. Thompson.”

And then he turned his eyes on me, and I saw nothing but pleasure in them.

“Donny,” he said with something like a sigh. “It’s so great to see you again.”

He offered me a hug, and I accepted it, closing my eyes briefly as I remembered the last time I saw him. He’d hugged me then, too, but then he was sobbing like a child on my shoulder.

He pushed me back and looked at me, assessing the entire length of me. Then he shook his head with something like disbelief.

“You’re so grown up. The last time I saw you…” And then he choked a little, swallowing tears he didn’t want to shed. “I often wonder what Joshua would look like now.”

“If we could focus on the case,” Ash broke in, much to my relief.

Daniel stepped back, clearing his throat as he did.

“We’re not real clear on what’s going on. All I know is that Kate was at the bank late. She does that a lot on Monday nights, clearing out the loan applications that come in on their website over the weekends. And then we get this call that there had been a shooting, and she was found unconscious at the site.”

He glanced at me, and I could see what he was thinking. It was too much like the phone call he’d gotten ten years ago—on graduation night. The night Joshua was killed. The phone call I made.

“Everyone assumed she’d been shot, but the doctors could only find a lump on the back of her head. They think someone hit her, or she fell. She has a concussion, but it’s fairly minor. Physically, they say she’ll be alright.”

“But…?” Ash asked.

“She has no memory of the last twenty-four hours. The doctors think it could either be a temporary side effect of the bump on her head, or it could be from the trauma of watching the security guard get shot.”

“She doesn’t remember what happened?” I asked.

“Not a thing. Her last memory is of getting out of the car at the bank yesterday morning.”

“What about security cameras?”

Daniel shrugged. “There are a couple at the front of the bank and a few along the side, but whatever happened, it happened down the block, in front of a closed storefront.” He shook his head. “The cops are confused, too. They really would like for her to remember what happened.”

I glanced at Ash, but he already had his cell phone out.

I touched Daniel’s arm. “I’m sure Rose or Ash has already explained to you what we do. We don’t investigate, we simply protect the client.”

Daniel nodded. “I know.”

“But we do have a relationship with a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. And she has close contact with the Santa Monica Police Department, so we can be kept appraised of the investigation and let you know when a suspect has been identified and arrested.” Relief filled Daniel’s eyes. “I’m sure you can imagine how concerned I am. After losing my Louise and then Joshua…if anything happened to Kate…”

“I know.”

“That’s why I asked for you specifically. I remember how close you and Joshua were. And you and Kate.”

I nodded again as Ash joined us. He held up his phone so that I could see the screen.

No surveillance footage. But working on several leads.

It was from Detective Emily Warren.

“If you gentlemen will excuse me,” Ash said, “I’ll go in and explain the process to Kate. And I have some paperwork I’ll need her to sign.”

“Of course,” Daniel said. “Thank you, Mr. Grayson.”

Ash glanced at me even as he was nodding to Daniel. His concern was typical. And appreciated.

I nodded to assure him I was okay.

I pulled Daniel across the corridor to a bench that was conveniently sitting there. Once we were settled, I found myself filled with more questions that I should not have had. It was none of my business to know how Kate was, how she’d been since the death of her brother. Her twin brother. I left because I didn’t want to know. I joined the Army the day they buried my best friend. I had no right to even be here.

But there were things I needed to know.

“You said this happened at her place of business?”

“Kate is a loan officer at First Premiere Bank downtown.”

“In order to protect her, I need to know her normal routine, the people she often spends time with, where she lives…that sort of thing.”

Daniel nodded. “I made a list of her friends,” he said, reaching into his pants pocket for a slip of paper he handed me. “The cops wanted to know as well.”

I glanced at it, recognizing a few of the names on a list that was about fifteen long. And experience told me that the target would par the list down and add a few names Mom and Dad didn’t know about. I even had one who struck every name off the list her father gave me and added a half dozen her father knew nothing about.

“And her daily routine?”

“Monday through Friday, she’s usually at the bank until five or six. Later sometimes, especially Mondays. And her evenings are either spent at home, at the house with me, or out with friends.”

“The weekends?”

Daniel shrugged. “Usually out with friends, I think.” He glanced at the closed door of Kate’s hospital room. “We go to the cemetery together some Sundays.”

I nodded, looking down at the list again so I didn’t have to look this man in the eye.

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Daniel said. “They told me you would need to know that, too.”

“Okay. That makes things simpler.”

“Oh? How?”

“A boyfriend would want to be involved. He’d want to have a role in protecting her.”

Daniel snorted. “Her last boyfriend wouldn’t have. Guy was such a loser; he probably wouldn’t even be here now even if she called and begged him to come.”

“Yeah?”

“He was some hotshot with the bank. Didn’t like to pay for meals out, didn’t like to hang out at her place. Always wanted the opposite of what she wanted.” Daniel leaned close to me as if Kate could hear us. “Tell you the truth? I was glad to see the bastard go.”

I smiled because I couldn’t help myself. But I also wondered how much of the ex-boyfriend’s behavior was based on Kate’s behavior. At eighteen, the girl had been a handful. Tortured the boys who liked her and pined after the ones who didn’t. Treated everyone like they were her subordinates and she their queen. Drove Joshua crazy. But again, I’d never seen a brother who gets along with his sister as well as Joshua did with Kate. I always put it down to the whole twin thing. He would laugh when I said that though. He thought I didn’t see the real Kate, the person she kept locked down deep inside. The one he adored unconditionally.

If he only knew how hard I’d tried to find that Kate.

“So I think that’s all I need,” I said, slapping my hands against my denim-covered legs. “Ash said they’re going to release her soon?”

“Yeah, pretty soon.”

Daniel grabbed my arm as I tried to stand.

“Sit and talk a minute, Donovan,” he said with a sad smile. “It’s been so long.”

I nodded, suddenly unable to look him in the eye.

Daniel put his hand on my shoulder. “It was hard on everyone. But you especially, I think.”

“He was your son.”

“But he was your best friend. Had been since preschool.” Daniel laughed softly. “I think you spent more time at our place than you ever did your own.”

And that was for good reason. My parents…let’s just say, they were more interested in their careers than they’d ever been in having a child. I often thought I was just an experiment that had gone horribly wrong. I think they were relieved when I went to school and found other things to fill my time rather than making demands on theirs.

“I was sad when I heard you’d joined the Army. But I was also quite proud. And I think Joshua would have been, too.”

That was the first time anyone had said they were proud of me for my choices. I stared at my hands where they were still resting on the tops of my thighs. My fingers were spread, and they looked so powerful. So capable. But it was these hands that weren’t able to stop what happened to Joshua that night. And it was these hands that stood in the corridor of this same hospital and waited to find out just how badly I’d let my friend down.