Fighting Chance (Misty Grove Book 1) (28 page)

Lee Monroe’s arrogance was his downfall. Trent looked at the man’s corpse with renewed fury. He had seen him hurt his woman and it was all he could do not to rush out from cover. Trent called on his patience and focus as a trained sniper for that fighting chance of saving his woman. Colt was the one who took the bastard down because Trent’s target was Hugo, but he sure wished he had the time to put a bullet through that son of a bitch himself.

A familiar gentleman weaved in and out of the crowd. He was dressed casually in cargo shorts and a linen shirt, and to any ordinary civilian, he would have been inconspicuous. It was the admiral. The puppet master controlling all the agencies’ strings. Porter’s gaze fell on Trent and he nodded. Then he turned away from the scene and walked up to Millie’s Diner. Matt was already making his way through the crowd. Trent searched for Colt, who had gone directly to Kate the way Trent had gone to Cassie. He was nowhere in sight and neither was Kate. Dr. Moses Devlin had immediately been put under heavy guard and whisked away by the FBI. He had escaped the feds once before; they were making sure that fiasco never happened again.
 

*****

It was surreal, watching Piper’s body being handled by the coroner. Cassie tried to recall the earlier years with her younger sister when they grew up with that connection only siblings could have. Training together, having their meals together, they’d even been allowed to bunk together. But all that changed when Cubby died. Piper had withdrawn and nobody could reach her, not even Kate.
 

Kate.

Their eldest sister had stood a few feet from Piper’s body as the investigators catalogued the scene. Grief had been wiped off her face to be replaced by a stoic facade. Cassie feared she’d returned to that automaton state of the past few weeks. Colt was standing grimly behind her.

Kate inhaled deeply and didn’t even spare Cassie a glance before turning away.
 

“Kate,” Cassie whispered, hurt piercing her heart. Turning to Lucas, whose own gaze was following Kate’s retreating figure, she said, “Do you think she blames me?”

Startled, Lucas stared at her. “No, Cassie. God no.” His hand gripped the back of her head and pulled her to his chest. “If anything, she blames herself, but she shouldn’t either. Piper had many chances to redeem herself, but she didn’t.” He exhaled a shuddering breath. “I feel guilty that I hate her.”

Cassie raised her head and stared into her twin’s eyes so much like her own except they were now simmering with rage.

“Piper was misguided.”

“I fucking know that,” Lucas growled. “But she pointed that damned gun to your head and I felt so fucking helpless. That’s going to give me nightmares for a while. I’ll protect you first, Cassie. Always. You matter the most to me. Not Kate, not Matt.”

The strong mystical bond shared by twins. Forged in the womb, strengthened by blood, linked for eternity.

And now, as she watched the coroner zip up the black body bag with finality, Piper’s face was serene in her death.
 

“She’s at peace, Cassie,” Lucas said beside her as the gurney was loaded into the vehicle. “She’s with Cubby now.”

Linked for eternity.

Whatever spiritual musings Cassie might have had were interrupted when Matt walked up urgently to them. His face was almost unrecognizable with its puffiness, both eyes almost swollen shut like a boxer who had gone ten rounds in the ring with Goliath. An angry bruise wrapped around his neck.

“Have you guys seen Kate?”

“She was with Colt,” Cassie answered.

Matt looked around. “I don’t see Colt either. I was held up by the EMTs and then questioned by the damned feds, and I lost track of her.” His speech was impeded by the injuries to his face and throat, but Cassie was able to make out what he was saying.

“You need to go to the hospital,” Cassie pointed out, wincing at her own suggestion.

She felt his irritated glare through the small slits of his eyes.

“Where could Kate have gone?” Lucas asked.

“Dammit.” Matt looked ready to come out of his skin. “Porter is here and wants to have a word. I think he wants to make sure we get our stories straight before the press descends on this shit.”

Without another word, he stalked off into the crowd, heading to Millie’s Diner.

Cassie looked back at the van as the coroner shut the doors.

“Good-bye, Piper.”

*****

When Trent entered the diner, Cassie’s chest tightened with a swell of emotions. They had nearly lost each other today. That he had been foremost on her mind when she thought defeat was imminent only underscored what her heart already knew. She was deeply and irrevocably in love with Trent Stone.
 

He walked right up to her now with the same determination he had when he stepped out of Crowder General Store like an avenging angel. Cassie rose unsteadily to her feet, blocking out everyone in the room. She knew her man enough to decipher the fierce expression on his face. Trent’s self-control was about to snap, and so was hers. They needed to touch, to feel that the other was alive. The whole world be damned.

He swept her straight into his arms and kissed her deeply, and yet his arms were gentle around her. The kiss ended abruptly, but he never let go of her. Instead, he sat down at the edge of the booth, dragging her on his lap with an arm settled possessively around her belly.
 

“I need to be close to you. I can’t be away from you a second longer,” he murmured into her ear.
 

“Where’s Colt?” Admiral Porter interrupted their intimate moment, jarring them back into the reality before them.

“Here.” Everyone’s eyes swung to the diner’s entrance.

The ex-Navy SEAL/rancher had the look of a man who had lost everything.
 

“And Kate?” Matt demanded.

Colt looked steadily at their eldest brother. “She’s gone.”

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Matt exploded.

“She had me take her back to the ranch, borrowed the truck, and left.”

“And you just let her leave?”

Colt’s gaze never wavered from Matt. “She needed space. I gave it to her. I’m giving her a few hours head start, and then I’m going after her. Now. Can we get this fucking debriefing started so I can do just that.”

“You got the tracker on her?” Porter asked.

Colt nodded.

Matt seemed to have settled down, but had one thing left to say. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Montgomery.”

“What was that all about?” Trent asked. “Colt and Kate have a thing?”

Cassie had her suspicions, but she never pried. Colt kept a picture of his brother Eric, Kate, and himself in his bedroom. Cassie always thought it was because of Eric, but she wondered if it had also been about Kate. Both brothers in love with the same woman. She didn’t think Kate had been involved with either of them. It had been a case of unrequited love times two. In fairness to Kate, how could she think about falling in love when she was intent on saving her siblings?
 

“Ah... not exactly.” Obviously, Colt wanted that to change. “It’s a long story.”

Trent didn’t probe any further as Admiral Porter directed a question at him.

“Sheriff, can you relate to us how the call out to your office happened? I understand Monroe had unleashed a signal jammer and had cut off the landlines.”

“I couldn’t get a text message to Cassie,” Trent said. “I tried to call her. When that didn’t work, I called the diner and the garage. They didn’t ring. It was too much of a coincidence, so I geared up for Misty Grove.”

“Good thing he’s obsessed with our girl,” Millie remarked.

“I came across Millie who had parked on the shoulder about five minutes from Edington,” Trent continued. “She said she had passed a convoy of bikers and a semi. She finally got a cell phone signal and called the ranch’s satellite phone. When I got to her, she had already talked to Mac, who had gotten Colt into the loop. Luckily, the general store is closed on Mondays and John was at the ranch at that time. He and Colt snuck into town and set up at the general store, which had a great vantage point of the garage. Before Mac met me right at the outskirts of Misty Grove, I called for backup. Mac updated us on the situation. We decided to leave my cruiser, deeming it safer for Mac, Millie, Brooks, and I to trek on the road that ran parallel with the main street. By the time we got to the general store, Colt had already instructed John and a couple of ex-assassins he had rounded up on a plan. There wasn’t a second to lose since Matt was getting beaten to death.”

“Kate taking Dr. Devlin certainly threw a chink into our plans,” Colt added. “But then Piper had to point a gun at Cassie’s head, and Trent here was ready to take her out.”

She felt Trent stiffen behind her before hugging her closer. Cassie was sorry he had to witness that, but she was glad he didn’t pull the trigger. That would have been disastrous for them on so many levels.
 

Porter leaned forward in his chair. “And there was no other avenue other than taking Monroe and all his men out?”

“Monroe was ready to end Matt and the biker had his gun pointed at Lucas,” Colt replied angrily. “We shot anyone who returned fire and anyone who would threaten whoever was ours. Most of Monroe’s crew are dead. What did you think happened?”

“Simmer down, Montgomery,” Porter rebuked. “I’ve got a minimum of three agencies I have to deal with. The FBI, the ATF, and the DEA, not to mention the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Buckland County Sheriff’s department. Right now we’re spinning this as a drug vendetta that crossed state lines, so we eliminate the GBI and Trent’s department, but there will be questions from the press.” The admiral turned to Matt. “You, unfortunately, are going to be under scrutiny for a while. There were already rumors that you’re involved with the Dixie Mafia.”

“And you forget that years ago we needed to get in with the Colombia drug traffickers to get intel on Harold Baxter’s operation?” Matt’s deformed smile didn’t stop the sarcasm that dripped with his words. “You were supposed to clean up my record, Admiral, and yet you left it suspect.”

“Ah, you’re right,” the admiral agreed without remorse. “Well, I guess I was hedging my bets that those rumors would become useful, and I guess I was right.”

“Fuck you, Ben!” Matt said. Cassie would have been worried if not for his relaxed stance. Maybe they’d given him too many pain killers and they were finally kicking in.

“Wait a minute. Is Matt coming under scrutiny from the DEA for this?” Cassie asked. She was hoping the admiral would make it go away like he’d always been known to do.

“We’ll have to play that game for a while if we don’t want bureaucrats to stick their noses where they shouldn’t. We’ve got fifteen dead or critically injured bikers on American soil and two dead ES subjects. Monroe and Piper are classified, so we can certainly refuse to explain their presence at the scene.”

Cassie furrowed her brow. Something wasn’t adding up. Not something, as realization hit her. Someone. She shot up from her comfortable perch on Trent’s lap. “Nurse Pia.”

“Pia Larkin,” Trent said. “The missing nurse? What about her?”

“I didn’t see her body,” Cassie elaborated. “In fact, I don’t remember seeing her after Kate appeared on the scene.”

“I didn’t see her,” Colt said.

“Me neither,” Trent added. “And I would have remembered since I’ve been hunting her down these past few weeks.”

“She was there,” Lucas confirmed. “Holy shit, Cassie. You’re right. She disappeared.”

“I noticed a woman with Monroe and Piper. She did look very familiar,” Matt said.

“She had been blonde,” Cassie touched her hair. “Now she’s a brunette.”

“Seems she has a talent for disappearing,” Millie commented.

“Send me what you have on her, Sheriff.” The admiral rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t like these loose ends.” Standing up, Porter looked at Cassie. “Good job everyone.” His eyes roamed the room. “With Harold Baxter’s demise and Dr. Devlin back in custody, threats to this town and its citizens are mostly gone. But continue to exercise caution and judgment when interacting with the outside world. You’ve all made enemies in the past, and as we’ve seen today, they could come back from the dead and bite you.” His gaze landed on Matt. “You’ll be hearing from a DEA agent, Matt. I believe you’re already acquainted with Grace Levinson.”

Matt swallowed an expletive and shook his head. “Of all the DEA agents, it had to be her?”

The admiral raised a brow. “Problem?”

“You know what the problem was, Admiral.”

“I trust you’ll handle yourself more professionally this time. I’d hate to lose connections inside the agency.”

“Is she CIA or DEA?” Matt demanded.

“I really can’t answer that.”
 

Cassie smiled inwardly. This admiral was a sly fox and would use any personal connection to his advantage. She stilled when the man in question leveled his gaze at Trent.

“Sheriff, might I impose on your time a little bit more and use your office to wrap this thing up. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”

Trent sighed. “Sure. My men should be done soon and I have to file a report.”
 

Cassie turned her head to look at Trent. The need and smolder in his eyes made every cell in her body ache. “I’ll see you at home?”

His eyes warmed to orbs of tenderness. “Home. I love the sound of that.”

She did too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It was 10:00 p.m. when the last of the federal vehicles left the scene. Cassie closed the blinds in Matt’s garage loft and walked back to the living room. Matt was sprawled on the couch with a beer in hand.

Cassie’s eyes narrowed and glared at Lucas. “Should he be drinking that?”

“Probably not,” her twin replied dryly. “But you think he’s going to listen to us? He’s our elder.”

“By only six years, asshole,” Matt grumbled. “And stop talking about me like I’m a child you both need to care for. I’m fine. I’ve got my painkillers and a beer. Go home.”

Cassie stomped over to where Matt sat and snatched the beer from his hand.