COLE (Dragon Security Book 1) (9 page)

Megan

“I think it’s time to look through Peter’s things.”

Sam nodded, concern filling her eyes. “Are you sure you’re up to this? I can do it for you.”

“No. I think I should be there.” I slipped the paper I was looking at into its folder, shoved it into a drawer, and stood. “And there’s no time like the present.”

The office was buzzing as we walked through the reception area, but it was always buzzing. We didn’t just provide bodyguard services. We handled corporate and private investigations. We installed and monitored security systems. We ran operations in tandem with local law enforcement to help stop everything from stalkers to corporate espionage. We were a full service firm—and that required personnel in the building at all times. Daddy said I was biting off more than I could chew when I began the firm, suggesting that I limit myself to bodyguard services. But Peter believed in me. That was why the firm was called Dragon Security. We used to call Peter “Dragon” because of that old movie,
Pete’s Dragon
. It was one of his favorites when we were kids.

“Night, boss,” Hayden called from across the room. “And Grandma!”

“Shut up, Hayden,” Sam mumbled, hardly loud enough for me to hear, let alone him. But I saw the blush on her cheeks. If she didn’t have a crush on him, she certainly felt something close to it.

My house was quiet, the air a little stale. I have a maid who comes in once or twice a week, but it still felt unused to me, somehow. When I bought this place, I had dreams of filling it with babies. Luke wanted a boy and a girl. I convinced him that two boys and two girls would be twice the fun. But…there would be no babies for me any time soon.

“I have his things in the spare bedroom.”

“I’ll get them.”

I watched Sam go down the hall, aware that she was trying to spare me as much grief as possible. What she didn’t realize was that I was already grieving harder than anyone could know. Every morning I reached for the phone to call Peter. Every night, I went to bed wishing I could tell him how my day had gone. I think it might have been easier if I’d had someone to talk to about it, but that was taken from me, too, not three months before Peter died.

When it rained, it poured.

I went to the kitchen and got a bottle of red wine and a couple of glasses. I was perched on the edge of the couch, pouring it, when Sam came back with the plastic bag the detective handed me when he came to announce that they’d closed the investigation and ruled it an accident.

I stared at it, stared at the red evidence tape stuck across the top. Seeing that reminded me of the trips I made to the police station in the aftermath of the accident, of the conversations I had with the detective. I wanted to see the car. I wanted to go to the place where it’d happened. But the cop, a seasoned detective with more than thirty years on the force, told me I would only be interfering and he really didn’t want to have to arrest me. So I backed off. I ignored my instincts, and I let the local cops do their job.

I was regretting that decision now.

What if Peter’s accident wasn’t an accident after all? What if someone murdered him and that person is still free because I didn’t listen to my gut and send one of my guys to check it out? If that was the case…I let Peter down. And that made me sick.

“Do you know what’s in there?” Sam asked.

I chewed on my lip for a second. “His personal items from inside the car. His briefcase. His cell phone. Paperwork for the car. They gave me an itemized list when they returned it to me, but I don’t remember all that was on it.”

“His cell phone? That wasn’t on his body?”

“No. Peter always put his cellphone on the passenger seat or in the console when he was driving so he’d have easy access to it. He was always texting when he was driving even though I told him a million times how dangerous that was.”

“Didn’t he have a car with a voice system?”

“Yeah, well, Peter didn’t like using it. He said it was creepy to talk out loud when he was alone.”

I picked up my glass of wine and took a long, deep swallow. I’d been drinking far too much lately, but it tasted so good and the buzz was the only thing that I looked forward to at the end of the day. So what if I finished an entire bottle before bed? At least it helped me sleep.

Sam sat back, playing with the stem of her own glass. Concern was written into every line of her familiar face. I’d known Sam so long that I couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t a part of my life. Sometimes I forgot how beautiful she was. When she was blushing earlier…I’d have to get her and Hayden on better terms somehow. I think they were both interested. They just needed to get past this game they were playing with each other.

“Why are you looking at me that way?” Sam asked. “What scheme are you hatching?”

“I’m not.”

“Sure you are. I know you. Every time you have to do something you don’t want to do, you distract yourself with some scheme that usually involves me. So confess.”

I laughed, taking another long swallow of my wine.

“You’re right. I am trying to distract myself.” I set the glass down with determination. “Let’s get this thing going.”

Sam reached for the bag, but I smacked her hands away.

“I’ll do it. Just…give me a second.”

My hands were shaking. I pressed them together and stared at the bag, trying to keep the tears that were building up in my throat from choking me. Sam didn’t say anything; she didn’t touch me. She knew me better than that.

I hadn’t seen any of Peter’s things since his death. I didn’t go to his house when Daddy had it packed up. I couldn’t bear to walk through those rooms, knowing that Peter would never be there again. I knew his things were sitting in a storage building somewhere downtown; I knew that Daddy would give me the key if I wanted to go look at his pictures, touch his clothes, smell his cologne. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, just like Daddy couldn’t bear to clean out his office at Bradford Telecommunications. It was just too hard.

But this…this could give me a clue as to why he died. I wanted to believe that he wasn’t at fault for his own death. And I wanted to believe that Amber was telling the truth because I could see how hard Cole was falling for her. And how hard we were all falling for that baby.

I bit my lip, took another long swallow of wine, and picked the heavy bag up.

“We need a knife.”

Sam pressed a pair of scissors to my arm. “One step ahead of you.”

I smiled gratefully at her, but the smile quickly disappeared as I touched the scissors to the evidence tape. I knew basically what I was going to find in there, but I was still afraid. I cut slowly, watching the tape slowly separate. When it was loose, the fold in the large, clear, plastic bag came undone.

The briefcase was the first thing to poke through. It was a dark leather satchel that I bought Peter in Germany during a brief stay there on my way home from Afghanistan. It had his initials next to the lock. I ran my fingers over it after I slipped it out of the bag and before I set the satchel aside. Then I lifted out a sweatshirt. It was one of Peter’s favorites, one he wore just about everywhere, even when he had on a suit underneath. I pressed it to my face, and for a second I could feel Peter underneath. His scent still lingered ever so slightly. But when I lowered the shirt, I saw blood splatter across the front.

It felt like my heart was in a vice. That was Peter’s blood. My Peter. He was really dead.

Sam moved up behind me and placed her hand on my shoulder.

I carefully folded the sweatshirt and set it beside the satchel. Peter’s keys were there, the insurance papers from his glove box, a cracked travel mug that still smelled of the ridiculously strong coffee he loved to drink, a few mints and other odds and ends. And his cell phone. The screen was cracked and the battery was dead.

“I have a charger,” I managed to choke out.

“I’ll get it.”

Sam walked off, giving me a moment to compose myself. I held the phone between my hands, thinking of all the times I’d teased Peter for not upgrading his cell phone. He had one of Bradford Telecommunication’s phones, but it was like three generations behind everyone else’s. Bad advertising for the company. He always said he didn’t have the time to process the upgrade. But the man was always so attached to his things…he had a pair of roller skates that he used to wear when he was twelve. He simply didn’t get rid of things.

I set the phone aside, closed my eyes, and told myself to get a grip. I needed to do this. I needed to know what Peter was up to in the months before his death.

I grabbed the satchel and twisted the lock on the little tag that held the whole thing closed. Peter never locked it—even though he had the key on his keychain. His date book was inside—another archaic thing he refused to get rid of—and a couple of files from work. I looked through them, but they were just ordinary files with ordinary stuff written in them. There wasn’t much else, just some pens and pencils. I stuck my hand deep in the pockets and found a picture in one of them. It was a picture of me in my Army uniform.

That tore my heart in half.

“Here’s the charger,” Sam said, coming into the room. She plugged one end into the wall and handed me the other. I was a little surprised when the phone chirped to let me know it was charging.

There really wasn’t that much here to go through. I sat back and poured myself another glass of wine, thinking that we’d wasted our time. I just had to be patient and wait for Cole to come back with whatever it was Peter had given Amber.

“We should have Hayden or Dominic check into the crash. Maybe have them get the police report and go out to the site?”

“I can do that.”

I glanced at Sam. “Thanks.”

“What about his office? Do you think there might be something there?”

I studied the front of the satchel and thought about it for moment or two. “Naw,” I finally said. “If it wasn’t here, then whatever he was doing must be in the stuff he gave Amber.” I sipped at my wine. “Whatever it was, it must have been important if he left it to her. I don’t know why he wouldn’t come to me with it directly.”

“Maybe he wasn’t done with whatever it was he was doing.”

“Maybe. But he still could have come to me.”

I sat up again and picked up the cell phone. It was still charging, but it had enough of a charge from the cord to start up for me. I ran my thumb over the cracks, grateful it didn’t have blood on it. It must have gotten knocked away from him during the accident.

They said he died almost instantly. He missed a curve and his car wrapped itself around a concrete barrier. They said he hit his head on the frame of the car just before the airbag deployed, breaking his neck. I tried not to think about it, but the image of my brother’s body jerking around inside that car flashed through my mind every time I climbed behind the wheel of my own car.

Luke…he always used to joke about what bad drivers we Bradfords were. He said we were the worst drivers he’d ever seen. Every one of us. Whenever we went out together, he insisted on driving, saying he wanted to arrive at our destination. It was a joke. But somehow it felt too real now.

Did Peter do this to himself? Was he distracted? Did he really miss that curve? Or did someone or something make him miss it?

“Do you know his password?” Sam asked.

I’d almost forgotten about the phone. I looked at it, at the polite little request for a password. I didn’t have to think about it. It was a combination of Cole’s and my birthday, which he used for just about everything.

When the lock screen disappeared, the home screen with a picture of Momma and Daddy at their fortieth wedding anniversary party popped up. I started to search his call history, but noticed the little mark over the message icon that indicated he had a draft waiting to be finished.

Was he texting while he was driving? Is that why he missed the curve?

I hesitated to touch it. But then…I needed to know.

He was texting me. My name and number appeared at the top of the screen. And a message, half written, appeared at the bottom.

Important you speak to Kurt Sanchez. Campo compromised. Call 936-245-0

It just stopped, right in the middle of the phone number.

“What’s this area code?”

Sam pulled out her own phone and looked it up.

“Huntsville.”

I shook my head. “Ada. He was giving me Amber’s number.”

“You think so?”

I nodded. “We need to talk to Kurt. Call Hayden, tell him to meet us first thing in the morning at the TxTel offices downtown.”

“Okay.” Sam got up and headed toward the kitchen. She paused in the doorway. “What is Campo?”

“I’m not sure. But I think it has something to do with the software that bald guy mentioned to Cole.”

“Sounds like Cole didn’t do as bad a job as you thought he might have.”

I nodded. Maybe not.

Amber

We drove in silence. I stared out the window, my lips still swollen from his kiss. I bit my bottom lip and imagined I could still taste him there. I could still smell him, smell the light scent of his cologne from where his hands left it on my skin. There was this deep ache in my belly, this desperate need that wouldn’t listen to logic from my head. It only wanted what it wanted.

What was I doing? Why was I letting Cole and his family tell me what I needed and what I should do? And then that kiss…what was that all about? What did he want from me?

Just because I was with Peter…did he think that I owed him something? All that talk about working something out between us…?

I wasn’t a prostitute. I wouldn’t be like my mother, going from man to man just to find the one who could give me what I needed. I could stand on my own two feet. I just needed a job and some money and some clothes and diapers for the baby and…shit! How was I going to get a job when I had a two-week-old baby depending on me for everything? How was I going to get out from under the thumb of the Bradfords if I couldn’t even leave the damn apartment?

“Amber…”

I glanced at Cole. He was studying me in the darkness of the car, only the occasional street light illuminating his profile as he navigated the interstate.

“I’m sorry about what happened back there. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I was asking for more than was my right.”

I turned back to the window, my thoughts still whirling. I didn’t know what to say to that.

“That wasn’t part of the deal. I know that. I was just carried away.”

I wished he would just stop. I didn’t want his explanation.

I curled into myself on the car seat, thinking about the baby, wondering if he was getting by all right at his grandparents’ home. It was amazing to me, the thought that my baby even had grandparents. I never did. My mother’s parents were long gone by the time I came along. And I didn’t know who my father was, so I never met his parents, either. The concept of grandparents was fodder for fantasy when I was a kid. But PJ had everything I’d ever dreamt of having.

Was I really sitting here feeling sorry for myself when I was on the verge of having everything for my baby that I never had? Was it really worth stealing all that from PJ for my own self-worth?

“I don’t expect anything of you, Amber,” he continued. “What happened back there was just…it won’t happen again.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

Cole glanced at me, tension radiating from every inch of him. I wanted to touch him, but I also wanted to pull away. This part of me that had responded to his kiss wanted nothing more than to crawl into his lap and do things that I’d only read about in the steamy romance novels I sometimes got from the library. But when those thoughts moved through my mind, I felt this overwhelming sense of shame that was connected to all those times I heard my mom doing those things so that she could get a couple of dollars for her next bottle of gin or her next hit of heroin. I so desperately didn’t want to be like her that even thinking about Peter, about how gentle and kind he’d been, made me feel a little ashamed that I enjoyed it so much.

But Cole…it was so different with Cole.

I was in over my head, and I felt like I was drowning. I didn’t know what I was going to do.

We passed the Houston city limits and turned west, quickly leaving Houston for the suburb of Katy. I watched the streets become less commercial and more residential, the houses become classier and classier as we drove deeper into the suburb. When Cole stopped the car at the curb in front of this tall, brick house that was something of a cross between a colonial and a Victorian, I couldn’t stop myself from staring at it with my mouth half open. Seeing the house Cole’s parents lived in was impressive enough—but I’d been expecting something impressive. But this house, Megan’s house, was just as impressive.

I wondered where Peter lived, what his house looked like. What kind of life did he live that I wasn’t a part of? What would it have been like if he’d known about the baby, if he’d done what they all thought he would have, if he’d taken the two of us in? Where would we be living now? I’d dreamt of living in a house like this one.

Cole came around and offered a hand to help me out of the car. I was less clumsy than I was during my pregnancy, but I was still recovering my balance, my grace. It was nice to have a helping hand, but touching him, even something this innocent, was almost overwhelming.

He held the envelope as we walked up to the front door, walking politely just behind me. I was suddenly very conscious of everything I did, every move I made.

But then Megan opened the door with a wine glass in her hand. She was clearly several glasses in, if the glaze to her eyes told me anything—and it told me a lot because I’d seen it nearly every day of the time I spent in my mother’s life. And that surprised me a little. Megan seemed pretty together. I didn’t think she’d be the kind of person to lose herself in a bottle.

“What have you been doing?” Cole demanded the moment we walked into her living room and he spotted the satchel and other things spread over her coffee table. I recognized the sweatshirt on the couch, blood splattered lightly across the light gray fabric. It was Peter’s.

“I had to look through his things, find out if there was anything there that could help us.”

“Alone? Megan—”

There was raw concern in his voice, concern that cut like a knife through my heart, making me wish that someone would care that much for me.

“Not alone,” Megan said. “Sam was here. She just left a few minutes ago.”

“Still, Meg, you shouldn’t have done that.”

He went to his sister, towering over her as he gently brushed a hand over her cheek. Again, there was so much affection there that it just about killed my soul. My mom had never cared that much about me. I was a nuisance to her, an inconvenience. I was just another reason why she never had enough money for her booze and, later, her drugs.

To be cared for like that must feel amazing.

Megan pulled away and settled back on the couch. She finished what was in her glass and leaned over to get the bottle, but it was empty. Cole just watched her, a war going on in his eyes.

“You found the envelope?”

I crossed my arms over my chest, watching as Cole handed it to her. She pulled out the stack of papers that were inside. They made little sense to me. I’d looked through them half a dozen times after I learned that Peter died, but they just looked like a bunch of business stuff, things that only Peter, or someone working with him, would understand. Even Megan seemed a little confused by them.

Cole sat on the edge of the couch beside her and looked at them, too.

“What is this?”

Megan shook her head. “Information on software from Bradford. But I don’t really understand what it relates to. There’re invoices from companies that paid to use it and a copyright. I don’t know; I’ll have to take it to Daddy and ask him tomorrow.”

“Do you think that’s what all this is about? Some software that someone stole?”

“Could be.” Megan leaned forward and picked up a cell phone from the coffee table. I recognized it, too. It was also Peter’s. He always had it with him at the diner, sitting there next to his hand.

She handed it to Cole. Curiosity got the better of me. I moved behind the couch so that I could read what was on the screen over his shoulder.

“He was texting me when the accident happened,” Megan said softly, lifting her glass to her lips before she realized it was empty.

“That’s my phone number,” I said.

Megan nodded. “I think he was trying to tell me he’d left his stuff with you.”

I nodded. “It wouldn’t have done you any good, though. My phone was turned off a day or two before he gave it to me.”

Megan glanced back at me, pity in her eyes. I stepped back, crossing my arms over my chest. I didn’t want her pity.

“Are you going to see this guy?” Cole asked, gesturing with the phone. “Kurt Sanchez? Isn’t he the guy who bullied Peter back in high school?”

“He is. And he was at the funeral.”

“Why would Peter tell you to contact him?”

“I don’t know. But he works for TxTel, so maybe he knows something about this software.”

Cole nodded. “You’re not going alone.”

“Hayden and Sam are going with me.”

Cole ran his thumb over the edge of the phone, then set it down carefully. He touched the soft leather of the satchel sitting on the table, running his hands over all the things that were scattered out on the coffee table.

“I wish you’d told me you were going to do this.”

“We didn’t really find anything. Just ordinary things.”

“That’s not my point.”

He looked at his sister and grief just seemed to explode over both their faces. I suddenly felt like I was intruding on something I was never meant to see. I slipped out of the room, walking out to the car with tears inexplicably burning in my throat. As much as I cared about Peter, I never was as close to him as they were. I didn’t really know him; I didn’t know what was ordinary about the things in his car when he died. I had his baby, but I wasn’t the one he was texting in the seconds before he died; I wasn’t the one he was thinking about. I wasn’t the one who knew what he was thinking as he wrote those words.

I had never been close to anyone to feel the grief that I could see on the faces of Cole and Megan in there. I suddenly felt incredibly alone. I’d held on to that one night with Peter because it was the one good thing that had ever really happened to me. But it wasn’t all I’d blown it up to be, was it? I was holding onto the ghost of possibility. It wasn’t real. It’d never been real. I was just in the right place at the right time that night. Nothing would ever have come from it. Peter was a good man, but he wasn’t in love with me. He would have done the right thing because it was the right thing, but he wouldn’t have loved me the way those two in there loved him.

I’d been fooling myself for all this time. And now I felt like an idiot. I felt completely unmoored, like a ship with no power, no way to direct itself.

How stupid could I have been?