DOMINIC (Dragon Security Book 3) (7 page)

“She must have found something important if they killed her for it.”

Dominic glanced at me. “That’s probably the understatement of the year.”

I smiled again, recognizing one of his favorite sarcasms. He glanced at me and smiled, too. And, for a minute, it felt as though we were back to who we were six years ago. And it was nice.

Megan

I walked into the office, a stack of files in one arm, a coffee cup in my other hand. Sam came around her desk and took the files, setting them on the edge of her desk.

“Have you heard from Dominic?”

Sam shook her head, a dark cloud of worry crossing her expression. “Do you think he’s okay?”

“He’s smart. I’m sure he’s keeping one step ahead of whatever is going on.”

“The police seemed to really think he was involved in that girl’s murder.”

“He did take off.”

Sam frowned. “It doesn’t look good. But I’m sure he had a good reason.”

I went into my office and sat hard in my desk chair. Sam came in a moment later with a cup of coffee of her own. She settled in a chair in front of my desk while I glanced over the messages that cumulated over night from the monitors who watched over our security systems. Three had gone off in the night, two were false alarms. One was a break in at a business complex downtown, but our people arrived in time to stop a theft.

“Heard from Dante yet?”

“He was in just after you left last night. Said he had a personal thing to take care of and would be in touch sometime today.”

I frowned, glancing at her. “I had a case for him.”

“Sorry. I didn’t think you would mind.”

“Did he say how long this personal thing would take?”

“No.”

“What about Hayden?”

“He’s across town today, finishing up that corporate thing he did with Dominic.”

I shook my head, setting the file folder on the case to one side. Maybe Marcus.

I pulled up my emails, perusing the subject lines as I tried to organize them by priority. A boom at the front of the office caught my attention. I got up, Sam right behind me, and went to my office door just in time to see a squadron of uniform cops come through the main doors.

“What’s going on?”

“Megan Bradford?”

“That’s me.”

The man in the cheap suit who came along with the uniforms held out a piece of paper.

“Warrant to search these premises.”

“For what?”

“Read the warrant.”

He began barking orders, telling the monitors to move away from their stations. I opened the warrant and read the important parts as quickly as I could.

“Hey! This doesn’t include our computers. Or client files.”

The detective turned. “Don’t interfere, Ms. Bradford.”

“This is for phone records belonging to the firm, email belonging to the firm, and anything related to Dominic Gil. That does not include those computer stations.”

The cop’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave the building, Ms. Bradford.”

“And I’m going to have to ask you to restrict yourself to your own warrant.”

The cop glared at me. But he didn’t argue.

“Alright, gentlemen,” he called out, “please collect all cellphones that belong to Dragon Security, along with computers that receive email owned by Dragon Security.”

“No. You only get the emails, not the computers. We’d be happy to print them out for you.”

The detective narrowed his eyes as he came close to me, thinking he could intimidate me by standing toe to toe with me.

“You are interfering with a police investigation. That is a misdemeanor.”

“No. I’m following the letter of the warrant, as you should be doing.” I pressed the warrant to his chest. “Why don’t you go see if you can get a judge to sign off on what you really want.”

He glared at me, but he knew I had him trapped. He gave up, gesturing for the uniforms to leave the building.

“I want the printed emails ready in two hours. And your personnel records on Dominic Gil, along with anything else that might be helpful in locating him.”

“Yes, sir.”

He studied my face for a long moment, then turned on his heel and left.

I quickly ducked into my office and pulled my personal cell out of my back pocket. First I called my father—CEO of Bradford Telecommunications—and then I called the number Dominic had left for me.

“Do not call the office. Do not use the codename Crow. Do not attempt to contact anyone but me and only on this number.”

I disconnected the call, hoping my father was right about being able to make numbers disappear from my private cellphone records. I didn’t want to be the reason Dominic was found by either the police, or anyone else who might be looking for him.

Dominic

We drove into town a little after midnight. Amy was asleep, her head cradled on a pillow of her hands. I considered just leaving her there, but decided that this was a moment she needed to be a part of.

“Ames,” I said, leaning close to her so that my lips were close to her ear. “Time to wake up.”

She peeked at me from under her lashes, a soft groan slipping from between her lips.

“Where are we?”

“Arlington.”

She sat up, leaning forward to stretch out her back. I moved out of her way and watched, finding the whole thing a little familiar. I used to make fun of her for working her body out like a cat might do every morning when she first woke. She was doing it now, stretching her back, then stretching her arms and legs.

“Okay now?” I asked when she finally settled.

“Great.”

She looked out the windshield up at the apartment building we were parked beside.

“What is this?”

“Emily’s apartment.”

She turned so quickly that it must have hurt the way she moved her neck.

“Excuse me?”

“This is Emily’s. We need to go up and see if we can find the information she had that these people were so threatened by.”

“She lived here?”

“Yes.”

“How are we going to get in?”

“Elizabeth will let us in.”

I got out of the car and waited for her to follow. She was still staring up at the building, as if she was expecting for it to have a big sign that said, “Emily lives here!” It was actually a very ordinary looking building, three stories and painted a simple beige. It wasn’t unlike the apartment complex where Amy and I lived during college. That complex was still overflowing with college students, still near all the hottest nightclubs.

“Amy?”

She finally got out and followed me as I led the way up the stairs. Elizabeth and Emily were on the second floor. I grabbed her hand as I led the way down the narrow corridor to the right door.

Elizabeth opened the door, her dark hair falling over her face to hide the red splotches from her tears.

“Hey,” I said, pulling her into my chest with my free hand. She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face against me. I felt a sob vibrate through her. I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to someone who’s just lost the love of her life?

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, pulling back to wipe the tears from her face. She caught sight of Amy, and she froze, the color draining from her face.

“Oh, my God!”

“Lizzie, this is Amy.”

Elizabeth stared at Amy another long second, then shivered, shaking herself back to reality.

“I’m sorry. You just look so much like her.”

Amy nodded, a soft smile touching her face. “We got that a lot.”

Elizabeth eyed her a minute longer. “Hell, sorry,” she mumbled, stepping back. “Come inside.”

“Thank you for this, Lizzie,” I said.

“Of course. Anything you need.”

It was weird walking into Emily’s apartment without Emily there. Every time I’d been there in the past, she was here, greeting me with a big hug and a kiss. Emily was a personality that couldn’t be held back. She was always talking, always laughing. She was a light that I thought couldn’t be snuffed out. And Elizabeth…this wasn’t the Elizabeth I knew. She was just a shadow.

“Edgar mentioned that she might have been prepared to mail something to him. Do you think—?”

“Anything she might have prepared to be mailed would be on her desk. Or in the bedroom next to her side of the bed.”

I crossed the room to the small alcove that Emily had called her office. There was a desk, a computer, and a pile of paperwork from her job at the insurance company. I dug through the paperwork, feeling like a grim reaper. I could feel Elizabeth watching me, chewing her nails as she did. I glanced at her, and she tried a smile, but her chin was quivering.

“I’m sorry,” I said, going to her. “Do you want us to come back?”

“If this is going to help you find who did this, I want you to search as much as you need to.”

I kissed her forehead lightly. “I’ll make them pay.”

She looked up at me, her dark eyes intense as she stared into my eyes. “I know you will.”

I turned back to the stack of papers, but there was nothing there. I checked the drawers, under the computer, but there was nothing. I sort of turned, looking around the room. There was nothing out of place, nothing that looked like what I wanted. Elizabeth gestured to the bedroom door.

“Go on.”

Amy was watching the whole thing, leaning back against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest as she took it all in. I touched her arm as I walked past her.

Emily wasn’t the most organized person in the world. I could tell which side of the bed was hers compared to Elizabeth’s. Emily’s night table was stacked high with books and papers, a few envelopes, water bottles, snack food wrappers, and things I didn’t think I wanted to recognize. I sat on the edge of the bed and began to carefully rifle through it all. It was kind of obvious that the police had been there because there was actually some organization to the mess. And fingerprint dust—though I wasn’t sure why that had been necessary.

There was nothing on top of the table, but I pulled open the drawer underneath and found an envelope with Edgar’s pseudonym on it.

Oscar Philips.

It didn’t look disturbed. I pulled it out and tore a corner open. When I turned it up on end, a flash drive fell out.

Bingo.

“Find what you were looking for?” Elizabeth asked from the doorway.

“Yeah. I think so.”

I walked over to her and lifted her chin. She was crying, the tears falling silently.

“I can’t sleep,” she whispered softly. “I can’t eat. I can’t…I miss her so much I can’t breathe.”

“I know.”

“She told me that she was leaving it all behind. She said that she just wanted to finish this last little bit, and then it would be over. That we would go wherever I wanted. We were planning a life, Dom.”

“I know. She told me about it. The Caribbean.”

She nodded, her tears flowing freely. “It was supposed to be soon. She just had this little bit.”

“Can you tell me what it was like the last couple of weeks? Did she say anything about someone following her?”

“No. But she wouldn’t have told me if she’d known.” She wiped the tears from her face with the sleeves of her bathrobe. “But she did mention that she thought she’d done something stupid. She said she’d been going to Denton, watching her sister come and go from work. She thought that maybe someone had seen her do that.”

Amy gasped. I was torn between comforting the sobbing woman in front of me or the frightened woman behind her.

I chose Elizabeth.

I tugged her into my arms and held her close. “We’re going to make this right, Elizabeth. It won’t bring Emily back, but it’ll keep you safe.”

“Just get justice for Emily. That’s all I care about.”

I hugged her close for a long minute.

“I think this will be a huge help.”

***

Another motel room, this one not far from the airport. We were basically back where we’d started.

Amy didn’t say a word from the moment we left Emily’s apartment until we walked into the motel. I watched her set her things on the end of the bed and then pace, moving in a slow circle on the far side of the bed.

“Say it.”

She stopped and looked at me. “There was only one bedroom in that apartment.”

“Yes.”

“The pictures on the wall…they were close.”

“They were.”

“Where did Emily meet her?”

“Afghanistan. Elizabeth was stationed at the same base in Fallujah that I was at.”

“She was a Marine?”

“She was.”

“And she and Emily were…”

I crossed my arms, watching the disbelief slowly melt from her face.

“She was with Elizabeth before you and she went to Paris?”

“She was.”

“And you knew?”

“I did.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? You came home, you were here, with me, weeks before that happened. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it was Emily’s story to tell.”

She stopped, just stood and stared at me as if she couldn’t believe I was just standing there, as if she couldn’t believe that this was actually happening.

“You let me believe for two years that you and my sister were lovers. Why didn’t you try to tell me the truth?”

“Because I couldn’t when it all went down. It would have compromised Emily even more. And after…you wouldn’t answer my calls, Amy. I called you every single day for weeks, and you refused every one of them. And then I sent emails and snail mail letters and you must have ignored all those, too.”

“Not all of them.”

“You never answered any.”

“Because you broke my heart!” She stared at me, anger burning from every inch of her petite frame. “I went to Paris to surprise my sister and found my boyfriend, who was supposed to be in Afghanistan, kissing her! What was I supposed to think?”

“You were supposed to trust us!”

“Trust? Would you have trusted me in the same situation?”

To be honest, I wasn’t sure. I wanted to believe I would have, or that I would have given her a chance to explain. But I didn’t know for sure that that would be the case. You never really know what you’d do in a given situation until you were there.

I shook my head, not sure what to say to her.

“You’re still breaking my heart, you know? She was my sister, the one person who knew me better than I knew myself, the one person I knew better than myself. But you knew more about her than I did.”

“Amy…”

“I lost my sister, but the longer I stay with you, the more I realize that I lost her a long time ago.”

“She loved you. There was never a time I saw her that she didn’t ask about you. You were all we talked about some times.”

“I miss her.”

She said more, but the words were lost in sobs. She wrapped her arms around herself and just crumbled, tears rushing down her face like a river rushing to the ocean, her body shaking with sobs. I went to her, brushed the tears from her face. She buried her head against my chest, her sobs bursting from her lips in hot puffs against my chest. For a long minute she gave in to her grief, sobbing against me as I wrapped my arms around her. But then she pulled away, brushing at her tears with the backs of her hands almost as if she were embarrassed by that normal, healthy show of emotion.

“I need a minute,” she said, waving a hand at me as she strode to the bathroom.

I followed, pulling her back with a hand on her shoulder. She punched me in the chest, a solid punch that hurt more than I cared to admit. She hit me again, another sob slipping from between her lips. And again and again.

I caught her wrists and pushed her back against the wall.

She screamed, struggling against me.

“Stop it, Amy!”

“Let me go!”

“Not until you calm down.”

She pulled against me, trying to free herself, crying out again when I tightened my grip on the wrist bruised by the handcuffs. She pulled down with her arms, then lifted her leg, trying to shove her knee into my crotch. I sidestepped her, maneuvering to the side and pressing my hip into hers.

“You’re hurt. I get it. But you don’t have to do this.”

“You’re an asshole,” she said, trying to buck against me, but I held her too tight. “I hate you.”

“Yeah?” I moved so close that our noses were nearly touching. “Does it make you feel better to admit that?”

“I hate you. I wish I’d never met you.”

“My life would be a lot easier if I’d never met you, too.”

Anger and hurt flashed in her eyes. “But then you wouldn’t have met my sister and become this super spy! Mr. Big Ass, stealing cars and driving to fucking California just for a five-minute conversation!”

“Maybe.”

“If you’d never met me, my sister wouldn’t have gone chasing you to Afghanistan. She would have stayed here and been miserable with me!”

I don’t know how right she was about that. But I knew it was possible. I did know that Emily never even thought about what was happening in the Middle East until I started talking about it.

“Yeah, and I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to join the Army. I wouldn’t have known the woman who made me want to be a better man.” I leaned closer to her. “I wouldn’t have thought of you every minute of every day for the last eight years.”

Pain burst through me, pain that I’d been pushing away, trying to pretend didn’t exist. I watched her eyes, the way she looked at me and remembered what it was like when the only thing in her eyes when she looked at me was love. Now…it hurt to see what the passage of time, what my choices, had done.