Dirty Little Lies: A Men of Summer Novel (12 page)

“It’s like trying to untangle a ball filled with knots,” Grace muttered then, shifting between files. “There’s over twenty years of information here that I was never given.” She glared at Zack. “There was no reason to keep me in the dark.”

Nosy little minx. No wonder Vince had refused to allow her to know any of it until now.

“Not my decision, talk to your uncle,” he suggested with a tight smile.

“You knew.” She flicked him an angry look before returning to the file. “You could have told me, Zack. Don’t try to convince me otherwise.”

“Could have,” he agreed. “Maybe I wanted to protect you.” He used one of Jazz’s
maybe
s to keep from looking too deeply into why he hadn’t told her, even knowing she’d had the right to know.

A delicate little snort sounded from her before she pulled another faded file from the stack and opened it over the one she’d been reading. “This could take weeks,” she bit out, her irritation obvious. “I don’t have weeks to figure this out, do I?”

Zack glanced at the clock on the opposite wall, his eyes narrowing on the hands. No, she didn’t have weeks at all. Alexander and his team had landed in Memphis less than thirty minutes before. The Brigham family patriarch and his eldest son, Madden, daughter Victoria, and two of his best agents were already en route.

Vince, his three sons, and Slade would arrive about half an hour before the Brigham brood made it to the house. Jazz would return about the same time.

“You have about two hours, if I’m guessing right.” He finally shrugged. “If you come up with anything new before then it would definitely help.”

Grace became perfectly still, her expression incredulous before she lifted her head and stared back at him. “Two hours? What fantasy world are you living in today?” She asked the question with a now serious expression.

“One generated by a Maddox–Brigham fuckup twenty years ago,” he pointed out with another tight curve of his lips. “Alexander, Madden, Victoria, and two Brigham agents are about two hours out if my information’s right, as I said. A little breakthrough wouldn’t hurt any of us when they arrive.” It sure as hell wouldn’t hurt his position once he faced Alexander Brigham.

The bastard had a hard-on for the traitor who had not just created havoc in the organization for two decades, but also murdered the baby sister Alexander claimed to love—and if the information they were all searching for got into the wrong hands, it could destroy not just the fabric of the Maddox Clan but also others scattered across the United States.

It would detail each and every location supported by the second-phase defense network. Families—entire Clans, in some cases—whose main job was to search for and locate individuals, possibly foreign operatives, traveling through their designated territories. If the identities of those families were revealed, they’d be picked off one by one, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing that could be done about it.

Without those Clans, America was just too vulnerable to any group or groups of individuals attempting to slip terrorists into the nation or to overtake it. The military-trained family groups were effective in stopping the spread of violence because they or their locations were kept top secret.

“You should have given me all this information last night, Zack!” she snapped, the irritation even more apparent in her voice now. “There’s no way in hell I can sift through all this in two hours.” Her hand slapped onto the files, anger glittering in her emerald eyes, a frown creasing her brow.

His own brow arched. “It took a minute to hack the systems I knew some of the information was contained on.” He finally shrugged. “I didn’t finish until after six this morning. I’m not a miracle worker, baby.”

“And I’m not your baby!” she snarled back at him. “I have two hours to find something to keep those bastards from taking me? Just wonderful.” There was an edge of fear to her voice now, one he hated.

“No, I said you had two hours to, hopefully, find a new lead to make our positions stronger. But they won’t be taking you either way I promise you that.”

The Maddox males and his foster brothers would be inside the house with him, but trusted, loyal Maddox commanders would have his home surrounded within the tree line, just in case. He wasn’t taking anything for granted or leaving anything to chance when it came to her life.

“Madden and Tory’s presence indicates this is no more than a meeting to hammer out details, but the original reason for this little visit was to take you into custody for interrogation.” He wasn’t going to lie to her. The lies were over as far as he was concerned. “Madden and Tory were included last minute, so hopefully, Alexander has changed his mind.”

Grace believed she, Tory, and Madden were friends. As far as Zack was able to learn, the two Madden children had gotten into a screaming match with their father over any attempted interrogation of Grace, and Tory had even gone so far as to refuse the order to travel to Loudon with a team sent to collect Grace after the attack. All the Brigham offspring had more or less been raised socializing with Grace and the Maddox family. But so had Alexander, so who knew what the hell was going on.

“He’s trying to use Tory against me, then?” Disillusionment colored her tone as her attention seemed to turn back to the files. “That shouldn’t surprise me.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” he stated harshly. “He has the position as head of the agency for a reason, Grace. Because he has ice in his veins and a glacier for a heart. Remember that. And his children aren’t far behind him in that regard.”

She didn’t say anything, just continued to sift through the files, but he could see her expression. Hurt flashed across it before that damned stoic look came over her face once again. “I’ll keep everything you’ve said in mind,” she promised, her voice quiet. “Now, if I have only two hours to do this, leave me the hell alone so I can concentrate.”

Evidently, keeping peace between the Maddox and Brigham families was dependent on learning something, anything, before the Brighams and their agents arrived. There were more than thirty files stacked on the table. It would take weeks of work to detect any linking threads between them. If she could even find anything. Her skills in deciphering such subtle information weren’t nearly so well developed as it was rumored her father’s had been. He’d been a master at solving such puzzles.

How the hell had she landed in this position? Why in God’s name had her mother decided to throw her only child to the wolves? Her innocent child, at that.

Quickly scanning the printouts in the folders, some of which were an inch or more thick, she fought to find any thread of information not contained in the main file that itemized the clues gathered over the years. Not just the recovered files found on her father’s computer but also interrogations of those suspected to have been involved in the treason with Luce, those interrogated and found guilty of other crimes, as well as rumors, suppositions, and associations.

The sheer scope of the information boggled the mind.

There were also the pictures, many of which were taken by her father and by Zack’s parents. Groups and gatherings of Kin members as well as social events attended by the Maddox and Brigham families and some occasions that included the Kin, the Maddoxes, and the Brighams.

As she came across them, Grace began separating the snapshots according to the players involved. Pictures of events and gatherings that included the main Maddox family and in-laws, as well as several stacks that at first seemed to have no connection to the others in any way.

Threads. Every bit of information was a thread—she just had to unravel certain ones to find a common denominator. Unfortunately, that common denominator was leading right back to the members of her family.

“That can’t be right.” She shook her head, mumbling in frustration at the bigger picture she was seeing.

The main family consisted of her uncle Vince, the only Maddox member not included in the majority of the pictures, and his twin, Benjamin. Then there were four other brothers and their wives as well as a younger sister and her husband. Secondary family members would be in-laws, first cousins, nieces and nephews, and so forth, but no familial connection more removed than that of first cousin or husband and wife to such.

“What do you see, Grace?” There was no sense of urgency in his tone; anyone else would have detected only mild curiosity.

Pulling several pictures aside, she turned back to the first files she’d laid aside and began scanning them again. “Ties,” she muttered.

There were always ties. Whoever was behind this had managed to pull Luce in to the extent that she’d been willing to aid in the murder of her own husband as well as her only sister.

Grace frowned at that thought before grabbing the stack of miscellaneous pictures and pulling them to her. Riffling quickly through them, she found the one she was searching for: Luce along with the brothers sent to kill Kenni just after she moved in with Jazz. One, Kenni had killed with an antique corkscrew to the heart; the other was killed the next day after he was dropped off alongside the road outside Loudon. The Kin patrol waiting for him hadn’t let him get far.

Photographed along with Luce and the two brothers were two high-ranking Kin team commanders and several of their lieutenants. There were other pictures taken of the same men and other lower ranking Kin. Some of those within the group besides the brothers were already under suspicion by her uncle. But three others hadn’t even been suspected.

She stared at their faces in each photo, noted the defensive stance of their bodies, expressions, how they held their arms and seemed to be keeping a careful eye on those who came close to their group.

Something about the groups themselves had a thread of memory tugging at her, but she couldn’t follow it.

“Look at the men in these groupings with Luce.” She slid the pictures toward him, then quickly pulled free the reports on those who had already been questioned. “In all the photos, there’re a total of ten men. Only five are proven co-conspirators with Luce.” She said the remaining five men. “That leaves five more not even under suspicion.”

“They look damned suspicious in those pictures,” Zack murmured, confirming her earlier thoughts. “Why weren’t the others questioned?”

“Their names just hadn’t come up.” She shrugged, frowning as she tried to remember. “And we can’t send them to be interrogated simply because they’re in the same group photo, Zack.”

“No, but an investigation can be opened,” he told her. “Each of the men you’ve pointed out is tied by blood to those who have been proven traitors. That gives us a starting point.”

She kept staring at the pictures. There was more to this; she knew there was more. “Uncle Vince has files listing each Kin member and their commanders as well as their team members. I’ll need those, but the only access to them is via a closed system he uses. I’ll have to go to the office, but I’ll need these.”

After pulling the pictures free of the pile as well as the reports on those members already proved to have been working with Luce, Zack began stacking the other files.

“I was still working,” she snapped, staring up at him in confusion.

“Your uncle and cousins will be here within ten minutes, with the Brigham brood less than twenty minutes behind them. I told you I hacked several systems to get this information. No one knows about the files until we’re finished with them, or we won’t get to keep them.”

She sat back in her chair and glanced at what he’d left behind. She’d had no idea she’d been working so long until she tried to relax and realized how stiff her back had become.

“And how will you explain having the pictures and reports?” she asked.

“The pictures were actually in my father’s files, the reports on known coconspirators and the men involved in the attempt on Kenni and her mother’s death were given to me by Vince. They’re not a problem. Most of the rest of the information could become a problem, though.” His smile was tight and hard once again.

A shark’s smile, deadly, predatory.

Grace nodded slowly. “Okay, then. Need any help getting them out of here?”

“Got it.” He placed them in two large file boxes, stacked the boxes together, then lifted and carried them through the living area to the stairs.

They were stashed in his bedroom, and he was back downstairs within minutes, just in time for the doorbell.

*   *   *

Never let it be said that dealing with her uncle and cousins when they were in “warrior” mode was easy. Add to the mix Zack’s foster brothers, Jazz and Slade, and the tension in the air became thick enough to cut with a knife.

The Maddox males and Rigor foster sons were two perfectly balanced forces, each group having enough power within the Kin that should they come into conflict, it could potentially tear the Tennessee sect of the Kin in half. Thankfully, that had yet to happen.

The moment Alexander Brigham, along with his son Madden and daughter Victoria, entered the house, followed by the agents they’d brought with them, that tension became smothering.

Alexander Brigham stood just inside the door, and like Vince, he was in excellent shape for his age. A little over six feet, dressed in a charcoal gray silk suit, a blue and light gray striped tie lying perfectly against his white shirt. His son, on the other hand, had a more laidback style this trip. No tie, white shirt with the top two buttons undone, sleeves rolled back to his forearms, and jeans and boots rather than expensive slacks and dress shoes. Amusement gleamed in his brown eyes when he caught her gaze, though the rest of his face was as implacable as ever.

Victoria was Victoria, no matter whether the setting was casual or formal. Her long, cobalt black hair fell down her back like a thick, living ribbon. Piercing amber eyes were ringed with dark blue, while her expression was frankly disgusted. Dressed in a short gray silk skirt, white sleeveless silk blouse and four-inch heels, she looked like a very professional little pixie.

The two agents with them were tall, dark, but not nearly so dangerous looking as the Maddox men or Zack and his foster brothers.