Keeper of the Peace (Graveyard Guardians #2) (14 page)

Lucy spoke before Jack could get a word in.
“Then don’t go back.”

He felt his lips curl into a small smile. “I
have to, there is nowhere else to go just yet. I need time to
plan.”

The three of them were silent for a moment
and then Lucy tilted her head, looking up at Jack. “Uh oh, I see
the wheels churning in there,” Jack teased her.

“I have an idea,” she whispered
thoughtfully.

They were all quiet again, waiting for her
to speak. “Well, tell us what it is?” Jack pushed her.

She moved her big brown eyes from Jack to
Aiden. “What if you continued to work for the Empress for a little
while, plan your escape and then when you are ready to come back,
we will give you as much protection as we can in exchange for any
information you can give us about what she is planning for me and
my family.”

Aiden stepped back, a little shocked for
several reasons. “You want me to be a spy?”

She nodded.

“No.” Jack raked his fingers through his
black hair. “I don’t like it.”

“Why not?” She elbowed him. “It’s a good
idea.”

“He could be pretending to spy on them, but
really be spying on us and taking information back to my mother
instead of the other way around.”

“They are already watching you, man. There
are Reapers all over this town.” Jack and Lucy shared a knowing
look, but didn’t elaborate on anything. “What? Did I miss
something?”

“No,” Jack mumbled. “We know they are here
though. We just don’t know how many, or how many more will be
coming.”

Aiden thought about his choices for a
moment. He could go back and keep doing shit jobs for the Empress
forever and maybe … just maybe, someday earn his rank back. Or, he
could spy for the Keepers, get out of the Reaper society like Jack
did, which would also mean that he would be poor.

Fucked or fucked, should be easy to choose
right.

“I’ll do it.”

Jacks head swung from Lucy to him.
“What?”

Aiden knew he hadn’t seen that one coming.
All his life he had been a loyal member of the Reaper Guard, it was
his life mission and nothing got in the way of that. “I’ll do it.
The Empress is going to turn on me sooner or later. If I can manage
to get through this without being caught, I accept your offer.”

“I didn’t offer you shit!” Jack
protested.

Lucy shoved him. “Well I did, so back
off.”

“Lucy this is dangerous.”

She rolled her eyes. “We are already in
danger, taking a chance with Aiden is worth it.”

“You are so stubborn.” Jack shook his
head.

“So are you,” she shot back at him.

Aiden held his hands up to stop them. “All
right, look. I probably shouldn’t be seen talking to you for very
long if this is the way thing are going to go. Tell me your cell
number so that I can call you from a phone that isn’t issued by the
Empress.”

Lucy rattled off her phone number, which he
memorized, and then moved just a little bit closer to him. She
looked up and their eyes locked. “Aiden, I can forgive what you did
to me, only because of what you did for Jack at the end. So, don’t
disappoint me. I may seem sweet and innocent on the outside, but I
can be a cold, hard killer too.”

Whoa, she was still feisty. No wonder Jack
loved her, he needed someone to tolerate his snark. “There is one
thing I don’t do, sweetheart, and that is lie. If I wanted to hurt
you right now I could, even with Jack here. So, if I say this is
how it is going to be, then this is how it is going to be. I’ll do
what you ask, and you help me in return, deal?”

She nodded. “Deal.”

Jack rubbed his face. “Fuck, your family is
going to be so pissed.”

“I’ll take care of them. Now let’s go.” She
went back to the cart and began pushing it away from the two of
them. Jack threw him a weary glance and then followed his woman
down the aisle.

It wasn’t until he had already turned to go
back to the front of the store when he heard Jack call out to him.
“Aiden?”

He turned back around. “Yeah?”

“I miss you too, bro.”

Aiden only nodded and spun back around. He
needed to get the hell out of this store, like right fucking now.
What in the world had he just agreed to?

On the way to the SUV, he spotted another
silver aura among the cars and then one of the Estmond sisters
appeared on the sidewalk.

He couldn’t remember her name, but like the
rest of the Estmond Clan, she had dark red hair and big brown eyes.
Her hair was pulled into a bun, tight at the back of her head, and
she wore jeans with a purple form fitting tee shirt. Her outfit was
plain as far as clothes go, but somehow she rocked the look.

She spotted him and her eyes widened. It
wasn’t fear or surprise he saw flaming in those pretty brown eyes,
it was anger. “You should know better than to show your face in
this town, Reaper,” she hissed as she approached him.

He ran his gaze from her toes all the way up
to the top of her head. Why was it that all the women in the
Estmond family were amazingly hot. His eyes settled on how her tee
fit snugly against her chest.

“Hey, Reaper, my eyes are up here.”

He shifted his stare so that their eyes
locked. “I’m not here for trouble. I had to bring Jack a message
from his mother. It had nothing to do with Reaper activities.”

She blew a breath out from between her lips.
“That is hard to believe. Everything that bitch does is Reaper
related.”

Aiden didn’t agree nor disagree.

“So what was the message? I’ll give it to
him and you can go right back to where you came from.”

“I saw him and Lucy in there.” He jerked his
thumb toward the store. “I gave it to him already.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are they still in
there? What did you guys discuss?” She obviously knew that he and
Jack were … well, had been close, so she suspected there was more
conversation than just delivering a message.

“You’re going to have to talk to Jack and
Lucy about all that.”

“So there is
something
to discuss
with them?”

He shook his head. “Do you only speak in
questions?”

She rolled her eyes, “Only when I want to
know something and the person I’m talking to keeps dodging it.”

“Well, as nice as it is to stand here and
look at you, you need to ask them if you want to know anything.” He
stepped around her so that he could continue on to his SUV, but she
grabbed his arm as he tried to pass. “Ouch, shit!” He jerked as the
electric sizzle cursed through both of them. She yanked her hand
back as if she had forgotten about the burn between Keepers and
Reapers.

“Do we need to be worried right now?” she
asked. “There have been Reapers in town, watching us.”

“You should always be concerned where the
Empress is involved.”

He should not be talking to her out in
public like this. He needed to move on for exactly the reason she
stated. There were Reapers watching and they might report back that
they had seen him having a friendly conversation with an Estmond
Keeper.

“What’s her plan, Aiden?”

She remembered him … or Jack talked about
him. “I don’t know her plan. After what happened in Napa, I’ve been
degraded to being nothing but a messenger boy. My rank is
gone.”

She closed her eyes as if to gather her
focus. “Because of what you did to save Jack, and everyone
else?”

He nodded. That was either the most heroic
thing he’d ever done, or the dumbest. Either way, life as he knew
it was on its way down, not up. “I have to go.”

“Then why do you stay with her?” The
Keeper’s voice had softened. “You know she is evil, the things you
do are evil. Jack has proven that you can live outside of the
Reaper society.”

“I’m not talking about this with you. I
don’t even know you and I don’t want to. I have to go.” He spat out
the retort in a cold icy voice.

“Then go.” She gestured toward the parking
lot.

He stalked away and felt her watching him
all the way to his car. Dammit, maybe this whole spy thing wasn’t a
good idea. The last thing he wanted to do was make nice with a
bunch of Keepers, especially hot, redheaded ones.

CHAPTER

13

HANNAH

Hannah turned into the gravel driveway
leading up to her family home. The yellow farmhouse was on the same
property as the cemetery, separated only by an expanse of lawn and
a white picket fence.

Tall pine trees and thick oaks lined the
edge of the property and were scattered throughout the graveyard
itself. The wooded area gave the house, as well as the cemetery a
lot of privacy.

When she pulled up to the house, the first
thing she saw was that the parking area in front of the house was
jam packed with cars. Even her brother Greg’s shitty little Escort
was out there. Of course the family would have called him. He was
the oldest of the seven siblings and just as much a part of
everything going on as any of them were. The only car she didn’t
see was her sister Liv’s car.

She found a place to park and headed into
the house.

The place was noisy, as it always was when
more than a couple of them were home. “Hannah, where the hell have
you been?” Steph demanded when she entered the living room. “We’ve
all been worried.”

Hannah opened her mouth to reply but was cut
off before she could get a word out.

“I know where she’s been.” Dan burst through
the swinging kitchen door with a bag of chips in his hand. “She let
David fucking Foster stay the night at her house.”

What the hell?

“Dan! You stalked my house?”

He smirked. “I didn’t sit out there all
night or anything, I just swung by after I left the bar and saw his
car there and then I stopped by this morning … but, when I went to
the door with every intention of knocking and being civil, I heard
the most horrific noises I’ve ever heard in my life coming from
inside.” He shuddered and closed his eyes as if trying to wipe the
memory away. “I got out of there as fast as I could after
that.”

Hannah felt the blood rush to her face and
knew she was blushing something fierce. All heads in the house,
including Jack and Lucy who had been at the bar, swung toward her.
“What I do with my private life is none of your business.”

“Uh, yeah it is,” Dan told her calmly.

Lucy stepped forward. “He’s right, Hannah,
we are all in this together. Everyone did the same thing for me a
couple of weeks ago and they are still doing it now. So you’re
going to have to deal with it. The biggest problem here is that
David is a cop.”

Hannah straightened her shoulders and tried
to calm herself down before she spoke. “I can handle David.”

Dan snorted, “Apparently.”

“Shut up.”

He moved toward her. “I’m not going to shut
up, your my sister and that douche bag hurt you back then and now
he’s back to do it again. I’m not going to sit by and let history
repeat itself.”

The rest of the family, including Ethan and
Jack, had their heads swinging back and forth, watching the
argument unfold.

“We talked. We’ve come to terms with each
other,” Hannah explained.

“Yeah, until he finds out what happened with
that Reaper.” Dan’s face softened. “He left you once for his work.
I don’t see him letting something like this slide for you.”

Dammit. He was right.

Tears burned at the corners of her eyes.
“Listen.” Her voice was unnatural and controlled, “I know that, all
right. I know that I’m probably going to go to prison so fucking
sue me for wanting one night, just one fucking night with the man
I’ve loved almost my entire life. It was my choice and I was the
instigator in all of it, not him.”

“I’m sorry,” Dan apologized.

She didn’t respond, knowing that if she
spoke that dam of tears would burst open. Greg pushed through the
crowd gathered in the living room and took Hannah in his arms. “We
are going to fix this, Hannah.” He squeezed her tightly against his
chest. “All of us, all right.”

She didn’t know what they were going to do.
There was nothing that they could do. She was going to get arrested
and go to prison … and that was that. It was all part of the
job.

Get it together Hannah, enjoy the time you
have.

She sniffed and examined the faces of
everyone around her. These people loved her, she was a protector of
souls, but they were protectors of each other. “I’m all right.” She
pushed against Greg so that he would release her from his brotherly
hug. “I just need you guys to leave me alone about David right now,
the situation is crazy enough as it is.”

Greg furrowed his eyebrows. “I didn’t even
know he was back.”

Hannah let out a sigh. With the way everyone
was reacting, it was probably best to leave out the part about
David being the detective investigating the murder. If she told
them, they would probably put her on lock down like they did to
Lucy. “Yeah, he’s working for the county police department.”

“Okay.” Lucy stepped backward and let Jack
wrap his arms around her, protectively. “We know that Hannah is all
right for now, so let’s leave her alone and finish getting lunch
ready. Liv should be here any minute with the bread.

As if on cue, Liv’s green minivan turned
into the driveway. “Perfect timing.” Steph clapped her hands
together once. “Let’s go finish up the pasta.”

Hannah watched Steph and a few of the others
head to the kitchen to work on lunch. Would this be the last lunch
she would ever have with her family? She knew the answer to that
was yes, it could very well be the last meal she had on the
outside.

Oh God, she so did not want to go to jail.
She wasn’t cut out for the big house.

Liv pushed open the door, balancing a brown
bag from her bakery and a coffee in one hand so that she could use
the other hand for the door. Hannah rushed over to close it for
her. “Hey Liv.” Then she took a closer look at her sister and
realized she appeared to be flustered or something. “Are you all
right?”