DOMINIC (Dragon Security Book 3)
Read DOMINIC (Dragon Security Book 3) Online
Authors: Glenna Sinclair
Copyright © 2016
All Rights Reserved
. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Amy
“Don’t forget your homework! I want everyone to turn in a paper on Monday morning!”
The students weren’t listening. They were walking in clumps, three or four to a group, laughing and talking about the trouble they planned to get into over the weekend. I remembered Friday afternoons like this when I was in high school. I often went running off with my friends, going to parties and hanging out at the mall, having too much fun to worry about homework until Sunday night. It wasn’t until college that I took school seriously. But when you could coast through, why bother?
I just shook my head as I settled back in my chair. I’d always told myself that when I became a teacher I would never give large amounts of homework on a Friday night. But that was before I fully appreciated the weight of standardized testing on a teacher. There was only so much time to get done everything that had to be done before testing in March. I wasn’t sixteen anymore. I couldn’t look at things through the eyes of a child—no matter how much I wanted to.
Besides, I had my own homework this weekend that I had to schedule around dinner with a friend tomorrow night and Sunday brunch with my parents. Lesson plans had to be created and submitted to the administration weeks in advance— along with long lists of paperwork that had to be completed for each student, particularly the ones who weren’t passing. There was enough work to keep me going—day in and day out—all school year long.
Kids thought they had it bad with a little essay due Monday!
I opened my laptop and sighed at the sight of the long list of emails requiring my attention. I was halfway through them when my phone vibrated. I glanced at it, not really intending on answering. But then I saw the name written across a picture of a very familiar face. It might have been my own face but for a few, small differences. Her jaw was slightly wider, her nose turned up just a little more on the end. Her eyes a little closer together.
My twin sister, Emily.
My heart sank and I seriously considered ignoring the call. Emily and I hadn’t spoken in almost two years. Not since I saw a video of her kissing my fiancé. Not since she confirmed that it
was
her and refused to apologize. Not since she broke my heart into more pieces than I’d ever thought possible.
But there was this part of me that still remembered when I never did anything without Emily close by.
I answered the call with a heavy heart.
“Hello, Emily. What can I do for you?”
There was nothing but background noises. It sounded like the hum of a car engine. A few road sounds, like passing cars. But nothing else.
“Emily?”
I heard a soft noise, like a sigh. And then her voice, low and quiet.
“Dom…”
“Emily? You have to speak up. I can’t hear you.”
“Dominic,” she said a little stronger. “Dominic will…”
“Emily, this isn’t funny. Did you call to rub in my face what you did? Why would you—?”
The line went dead.
I set the phone on the center of my desk and stared at it. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. I was…could someone really be angry enough to blow a blood vessel? I felt like I might be approaching that moment.
How could she do that? Two years we hadn’t spoken, and the first thing she says to me is Dominic’s name? How cruel could she be?
Dominic Gil. He was the love of my life. The man I was supposed to marry.
It hurt just to think his name, let alone hear it on the lips of my sister, the one person I should have been able to trust more than anyone else. The person who kissed my fiancé at an outdoor café in Paris.
Dominic and I met in college. We had our lives all planned out. We would marry after graduation and buy a house, have a couple of babies and live happily ever after. A nice, quiet, middle-class life like my parents had. But then Dominic decided he’d had enough of school and dropped out to join the Army. I was so angry at first. We were living together, going to class together, living every minute of our lives together. And then he went off and did this thing without talking to me first. But then…I could see it in his eyes, how he’d finally found something that he felt he could do and do well. It was like he’d been infused with all this confidence overnight. How could I begrudge him that?
We were still engaged, still planning a future, but a slightly altered future. When I graduated from college, I’d go live wherever he was based. I was frightened to learn he would be deployed to Afghanistan, especially after he joined the Green Berets. He couldn’t tell me half of what he was doing over there because the Army had him doing all this covert stuff that no one could know about. Not even me. But he wrote me every week and told me how much he loved and missed me. And I did the same. I thought things were good between us.
At the same time, Emily went off to Paris to study at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle. It was a huge deal, something my father never failed to brag about to his friends. Dominic and Emily had been friends when we were all at the University of Texas at Arlington. But they never seemed interested in each other. It killed me to see what I saw that day.
Dominic was supposed to be in Afghanistan. How he got to Paris…if he was on leave, why didn’t he come home to me? Why sneak around, lie to me in his letters, tell me he was one place when he was really somewhere else? How long had their relationship been going on behind my back?
It was all a terrible coincidence, really. Emily called home the week before and told Daddy how deeply she missed us all. He was worried, so he bought me a plane ticket. He couldn’t afford one for the whole family, so he figured sending her twin was the best solution. And I was out of school for spring break anyway. I was excited. I’d never traveled out of the country before, though I’d gotten my passport in the vague hope I’d be able to meet Dominic at some foreign Army base. Emily didn’t know I was coming. I wanted to surprise her, but I was the one who got the surprise.
I was lost, searching for her apartment. And there they were, in an outdoor café, sitting at a table with a handful of strangers. I raised my hand, ready to call out to them, my mind not really wrapping itself around the fact that Dominic was there. She leaned into him, laughing at something someone said, and then she reached up…it seemed so natural. Like watching a scene from a movie. They kissed so intimately that I almost felt dirty for watching.
My sister and my fiancé.
The memory of it was burned on my mind’s eye. For the longest time it was the first thing I saw whenever I closed my eyes. I was just beginning to move past it, just beginning to think I might be able to move on with my life, and she calls.
Dominic.
Why would she do that? Why start the first phone call we’d shared together with his name? It was cruel.
I turned the phone off and turned back to my work. I had better things to do than to worry about what my sister might be up to.
I worked until it began to get dark then drove home in light traffic. There was a dark sedan that seemed to stick close to my bumper. But then he turned off just before I reached my apartment complex. Strange.
I was still thinking about Emily as I drifted off to sleep that night. I missed her, I really did. But I wasn’t sure how I could get past what had happened. She didn’t even apologize.
“You have to understand, love,” she’d said that day, “there’s often more than what you can see. Sometimes blind faith is the only thing you can hold on to.”
It hadn’t made sense. Still didn’t.
I felt as though I’d only been asleep a few minutes when there came a pounding on the door.
“Amy Greene?” the uniform cop asked. “Do you have a sister named Emily Suzanne Greene?”
Oh. So this is what it feels like when your world stops turning.
Dominic
“Hey, brother!”
Hayden slapped me on the back, pushing me forward a few inches.
“You’re in a good mood.”
“I’m always in a good mood after a successful mission.”
I half nodded in agreement. We did have a good night. The corporation who hired us to find out who was stealing information and selling it to their competition was pleased when we revealed last night that it was one of their vice presidents of production. The guy was quietly arrested just after midnight last night thanks to a little game Hayden and I played on him.
“Have you briefed Megan yet?”
Hayden shook his head. “She’s been preoccupied with other things, but I’ll get her up-to-date after the morning meeting.”
We walked into the office. Most of the others were there already. Vincent Caplin, fresh from the completion of his first case. Dante Saladin and Marcus Hanson were talking quietly at the back of the room. And then, of course, all the monitors at their stations, each one with a computer and phone, monitoring ongoing cases, security systems, and Megan only knew what else.
Megan Bradford owned Dragon Security, the company we worked for, and ran it with her best friend, Samantha Wagner. Sam. She was sitting at her desk across from the front doors, her hair pulled back from her face, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. She dressed as if she was fifty, but had the body of a very toned twenty-something. We all had a little of a flirtation going with her, but only Hayden seemed to get her attention.
“Good morning, Grandma,” he called to her now.
Sam looked up, immediately tearing her glasses from her face. “Quit calling me that, Hayden.”
“Why? If the shoe fits…”
“Ignore him,” I said, watching her watch him walk over to one of the pretty girls working in the monitor pit.
“I try. But he’s so annoying.”
I smiled. “They always are, aren’t they?”
“Who?”
“The ones we like the most.”
I nudged her shoulder lightly, winking at her. She blushed so deeply that I thought for a second that she might rupture something. Megan chose that moment to step out of her office, a handful of file folders in her hand. I walked over to stand with Cole—Megan’s little brother and sometime employee—and Marcus. I leaned against the wall and pulled my cellphone from my back pocket. It’s my habit to turn off my phone when I’m working to avoid the possibility of an ill-timed call giving me away to the target. It was something I learned while working with the CIA in Afghanistan. And it was late when we wrapped things up last night, so I didn’t bother to turn it back on before falling into bed.
I half listened to Megan as I watched the screen go through the power-up cycle. When it was done, there was an icon that alerted me to several text messages and a couple of missed calls.
“We provide security,” Megan was saying. “That requires that we spend a lot of time with our clients, sometimes in intimate situations that could blur the line between professionalism and romance. You will refrain from crossing that line. Do you understand?”
Marcus nudged me. “Think she’s talking about Vince?”
I looked up, catching the warning glance from Cole. Cole and Vincent served together, so he would be the one to know. And that glance pretty much said it all.
But I wasn’t one to gossip.
I just shrugged and turned my attention back to my phone. The first text message was from Emily Greene. Just the sight of her name got my attention. We’d been working on something, and I was hoping she’d made some progress.
Need to talk. Think it would be good if I came to you.
The second message was less than five minutes later.
I think someone’s following her. Really need you to text back, let me know you’re on board.
Tension started to move through my spine, infusing my shoulders with a tightness that was almost painful.
I think someone’s following her.
Did she mean Amy?
There was a third message.
Dom, we might have brought our trouble home. Please call me the second you get this.
That was the last message. I checked my call log, thinking she might have tried to call me. But instead of her number, another number, one of the last I would have expected to see, was listed.
The Arlington Police Department.
What the hell was going on?
I moved to the back of the room—as Megan finished up her meeting—and listened to the voicemail that was left at six o’clock this morning.
“Dominic? This is Paul. I really shouldn’t be doing this, but we have a history and I thought…well, it doesn’t matter….you’ve just been named a person of interest in the murder of Emily Greene. You should probably turn yourself in, or hit the road…whichever. Just thought you should know.”
I don’t know what hit me harder, the knowledge that Emily was dead, or that someone could think I was capable of such a thing. No…definitely Emily.
Did Amy know?
Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!
The meeting was wrapping up. I crossed the room and approached Megan.
“I need to take a couple of personal days.”
She looked at me, that look that seemed to say a million things and nothing all at once focused on me.
“Everything okay?”
“I don’t know to be honest.”
She inclined her head slightly. “Call in if you need help.”
I slipped out ahead of the others, jumping into my truck—a massive Dodge Ram that people broke traffic laws to get away from—and racing across town. I had an apartment in a small complex not far from downtown Houston. It was on the Spartan side, not quite the homely space I’d shared with Amy in college, but it served its purpose.
I parked in the back and used the service elevator, letting myself in somewhat cautiously. I didn’t know if the Arlington police had already been in contact with the Houston PD just yet. I was sure if they hadn’t been, they would be soon, so I didn’t have much time. I grabbed a duffle and shoved some jeans and a couple of t-shirts inside, along with the toiletry case I always kept packed just for situations like this. Moments when I needed to move fast. And then guns.
I never really had an opinion on guns. I grew up in West Texas, a little town outside of Lubbock where everyone owned a gun and everyone went hunting on the weekends. But I was never quite impressed by them, and my mom, well, anything that brought my dad to mind, she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. They teach you respect for guns in boot camp. And they certainly come in handy when in a foreign country full of hostile people. I learned to appreciate their usefulness. But I still had great respect for them, too.
I tucked a couple of back up pistols in the bag with a couple of boxes of ammunition. And a rifle. You can never be too prepared.
I threw the duffle over my shoulder and headed out. I was just stepping off the service elevator when I spotted a couple of suits coming in the front door. Clearly cops. I didn’t need to see the holster under their jackets to know that, but the bulge was pretty obvious.
I ducked into the laundry room because it was closer than the back door. A young woman with a baby was in there, folding tiny t-shirts while babbling to the kid in his stroller.
“We’ll have lunch in a little bit, bubbie,” she was saying as I quickly crossed to where she was. I shoved my duffle under the folding table where it wasn’t visible from the door and slipped my hand over her waist.
“I need your help,” I whispered next to her ear as I heard footsteps approaching.
She looked up at me, shock widening her eyes. But she didn’t argue.
I kissed her, pressing my lips roughly against hers. I felt her melt almost immediately, her lips parting just ever so softly. I almost felt bad. This was probably the first time a man had looked twice at her since whoever left her pregnant and alone walked away. I’d seen her around and knew there was never a man around, but I didn’t know her name.
What an asshole I was.
The footsteps came close, paused, and then retreated. I waited a long minute after that, making sure they didn’t return. Then I pulled away.
“Sorry.”
“No problem,” she said, a soft blush moving over her cheeks.
I grabbed my bag and headed out, looking both ways before slipping into the hallway. I tore out of the parking lot and raced for the interstate, nearly there when an alarm went off on my phone. All of Dragon’s assets had security systems installed in their homes. Mine was set to let me know whenever someone entered the apartment when I wasn’t there. That alarm was telling me that someone had just unlocked the door.
I was passing through College Station when I put through a call to Paul.
“What’s going on? What happened to Emily?”
“I’m sorry, man. I would have thought—”
“She texted me yesterday afternoon.”
“The cops on the case put her death between three and six yesterday evening.”
My heart sank. That would have been about the time she was texting.
“What happened?”
“She was attacked in the front seat of her car. Right out in the open, five blocks from her apartment.”
“Do they have any idea—?”
“They think it’s you, brother.”
“Why?”
“When they found her, she had her phone clutched in her hands. It looked like she’d been texting her sister.”
“Amy?”
“It was your name, over and over again.”
I cursed softly. “And?”
“And…when they went to get Amy to identify the body, she told them that Emily called her and said only one thing. Your name.”
“I didn’t know they were talking.”
“Were you in Arlington?”
“Of course not! I was in Houston, working. I have people who can corroborate that.”
“Like Megan Bradford?”
“Yes.”
“The Bradfords…that’s a strong alibi, brother. It should smooth things over.”
“I’m sure it will. But what about Emily? How was she killed?”
“Knife wounds. And her blouse was torn. It looks like she put up quite the fight.”
“She would have.”
There was this one occasion when Emily and I were in a bar and this group of guys thought they would help themselves to her, coming over and touching on her, whispering things in her ear. I was about to go over and intervene, but then she turned and very subtly grabbed the leader by the balls and whispered in his ear. I didn’t need to hear what she said to see the effect it had on her companions. They immediately backed away, not only slipping away from her, but leaving the bar entirely.
Emily had never been one to sit back and let someone take advantage of her. And she knew how to protect herself.
“She texted me a little after four yesterday. Said that she thought someone was following Amy.”
“Who would be following Amy?”
“I don’t know, but I have an idea. I’m on my way to Denton, but do you think you could run out there and check on her for me?”
“I’m an Arlington police officer, Dominic. I’d lose my job if they found out I was even talking to you.”
“I understand that. But she was your friend, too.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you, Paul.”
I disconnected the call and pressed the accelerator to the floor. But then I caught sight of a trooper parked on the side of the road. I quickly slowed. The last thing I needed was to get arrested before I arrived in Dallas. I couldn’t help Amy from a jail cell.