Keeper of the Peace (Graveyard Guardians #2) (22 page)

Since the case was going to be examined, it
would certainly turn up that she acted in self-defense. She could
sit in jail until the end of the trial, it wouldn’t be that long.
There was no way she would let anyone spend that much money on her
if she was getting out eventually.

Back at the jail, she returned to her cell
and paced back and forth in front of her bunk, hoping her family
would request a visit with her before posting any bail.

“What’s a matter with you?” Sophie, who was
sprawled out on her bunk, peered at Hannah over the top of the
paperback.

Hannah rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“What isn’t wrong, right now, is the real question.”

Sophie shrugged and returned to her reading
while Hannah continued to pace the floor. “Just asking.”

Realizing she was being kind of a bitch, she
stopped and turned toward Sophie. “Sorry, I’m just stressed
out.”

“Don’t be sorry, I understand.”

Hannah eyed the other girls too. They hadn’t
even tried to talk to her since she’d come in the night before. “I
know I haven’t been very friendly … or nice even. I just have a lot
going on.”

Nicole sat on the bed with Shanna on the
floor in front of her. She was silently pleating Shanna’s hair into
delicate little braids. Brandy lay on her bunk, pretending to
sleep. At Hannah’s words, her eyes twitched but she didn’t open
them.

“No worries,” Nicole assured her. “A lot of
people come in here and don’t want to talk. It’s totally fine.”

Hannah shook her head. “No, it’s not all
right. This isn’t the kind of person I am.”

Just then, the door clicked open and a
deputy entered the room. “Estmond. Your bond has been posted. Let’s
go.”

Dammit.

After being allowed to put her own clothes
on and then an excruciatingly long process of paperwork, Hannah was
escorted to the door leading out into the lobby. They clicked the
locks and the deputy opened the door to one of the best sights
she’d seen for a long time.

There, taking up most of the uncomfortable
plastic chairs in the lobby was her family. Mr. Ainsworth was also
there, standing idly by the coffee machine and staring at his
phone. Her eyes filled with tears, blurring her vision and causing
her to gently dab the corners of her eyes.

Lucy was the first to lift her head and see
her standing there, staring at them. “Hannah!” she cried out,
jumping to her feet and rushing toward her sister. Jack, her dark
haired Reaper, was right at her side.

The rest of her brothers and sisters hopped
out of their chairs and hurried toward her, as well. Ethan was with
them, as always, and, to her utter surprise, Aiden was also with
them.

She didn’t have time to wonder why he was
there, that was something they would have to talk about later. At
the moment, she wanted to get the hell out of there and then cut
into them for paying all that money.

“Hannah!” Greg was one of the first to reach
her and he opened his arms wide, taking her into a tight embrace.
“We’re so sorry you had to stay here for so long.” The rest of her
siblings murmured their agreement and encircled her, joining in,
until they formed one large mass of hugging family.

When it was over, everyone detangled
themselves from the group hug and stood back. “Come on.” Dan threw
his arm around her. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You guys should have never paid that bail
money,” she whispered, tearing up again. “It will take me forever
to pay you back.”

Dan shook his head and pulled her toward the
glass doors leading out to the parking lot. “Don’t worry so much.
We only pay a percentage of it and after all your court appearances
we shouldn’t have to pay anything else at all.”

“What? Really?” She hadn’t known this, still
even a small percentage of two hundred thousand, was a hell of a
lot to come up with.

“It’s going to be fine,” James assured her,
giving her arm a squeeze.

Well, that was a relief. At least that was
one less thing she had to worry about at the moment. But, even with
all of her family there with her, she let her mind go to David.
Where the hell was he? The way he’d been acting, she figured he
would have been as close to her as possible this whole time.

Anger simmered below the surface of her
calm. That Estmond trait was never one that any of them could bury
within themselves for very long. Maybe Dan was right when he’d said
that David had left her before and he would again.

No. He said he loved her, that he wanted to
be with her. Something wasn’t right.

The group moved through the doors, pouring
out into the parking lot, with her lawyer, Mr. Ainsworth trailing
behind the group. Obviously, he was waiting for the family to
finish with their reunion hugs before he approached her.

Once they were outside, with the hot, midday
sun pounding down onto them, she took a moment to eyeball Aiden.
Oh fuck it.
“What’s he doing here?” She directed her
question to Jack and Lucy.

Jack looked over his shoulder at his friend.
Well, sort of a friend, who kidnapped her sister and threatened to
kill more than one member of her family. “We can trust him,” Jack
told her. “He’s going to help with your case. We have to talk about
it later.”

Aiden chose to stay silent and let Jack do
the talking for him, but he offered her a small grin.

“I don’t know if I
can
trust him,”
she responded.

Lucy guided her further down the sidewalk.
“He said we will talk about it later, not here, all right.”

“Fine,” Hannah breathed out, she just wanted
to go home and crawl into a steaming hot bath to relieve the
tension in her muscles. It was then that she caught sight of
David’s car on the other side of the lot. Exactly where he’d parked
when he brought her in the day before. “What the hell?”

Her voice was soft, but Jack and a few of
the others heard her. “What?”

She stopped and then after a minute
decision, changed direction. “That’s David’s car.”

Liv fell into step beside her. “So?”

“So, it’s in the same spot as it was when he
brought me in yesterday.”

“What the fuck?” Dan hissed. “He was the one
who arrested you?”

She looked up at her brother, meeting his
angry stare. “Don’t. He had to. We were at dinner at the Davis farm
when both he and Sheriff Davis got a call that one of the seniors
saw me at the scene
and
they found a piece of fabric from my
clothes there. There was nothing he could do except bring me
in.”

“That son of a bitch,” Dan mumbled as they
drew nearer to the Chevelle.

“Stop it, Dan.”

“Fine. But I still don’t like that
bastard.”

She circled the Chevelle, rounding the front
of the car and looking closely for any clue that he’d been gone at
all. If he had been at the station the entire time, he surely would
have come in to see her. As she approached the driver’s door, she
noticed that it wasn’t closed all the way. It had been open just
enough that any passerby probably wouldn’t notice unless they were
looking closely.

“Shit.” She hurried forward, reaching for
the handle. “He wouldn’t have left his door open like this … not
with this car.”

“So, what does that mean? Steph asked. “Did
someone break into it?”

“I don’t know.” Hannah bent and peered
through the window. It looked exactly as it had when they had
exited the vehicle, including her file folder on the seat. “This
isn’t right.” Hannah shook her head.

“Look.” Jack pointed down at the pavement.
“That looks like blood.”

Sure enough, Hannah looked down and a small
spatter of blood not far from where she stood beside the car. “I
knew it, something isn’t right here. He’s in trouble.”

“What do you think happened?” Jack asked her
with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t know, but I better go tell his
boss.” She started back toward the station and panic began to take
hold. “Maybe they can like … trace his cell or something.”

She knew the entire group was following her
and she could hear their voices mumbling in the background. “Wait.”
Jack hurried to fall into step with her. “Don’t, we might be able
to help without bringing the police into it.”

She stopped and spun on Jack, “And why the
hell wouldn’t we want to get the police involved. It looks like
someone attacked him … took him.” Her voice caught in her throat.
“What if it’s more Reapers?”

Jack didn’t touch her, because unlike with
Lucy, it still burned when he touched any other Keeper. “That is
precisely why we want to keep the cops out of it, Hannah. What if
it is more Reapers and we have to … uh, anyway, you can tell the
cops if you want, but we have a few resources at our disposal as
well.”

“I don’t know.” She narrowed her eyes as she
thought about the choices.

Mr. Ainsworth, who had been silent thus far,
stepped in front of Hannah. “The young Reaper is right. If it is
his kind whom you’re up against, it makes more sense to fight fire
with fire. The authorities, as wonderful as they can sometimes be,
won’t be as much help this time.”

Not exactly convinced, Hannah considered his
words. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I believe that in this case, you
must handle things on your own.”

Hannah didn’t respond. She was still unsure
of what to do. But, she knew that David was in trouble and she
wanted to do whatever she could to help him. If Reapers did take
him then it was her fault anyway.

“I must go, Miss Hannah.” Mr. Ainsworth
handed her a card. “We still have much to discuss about your case.
I will give you today to rest, but tomorrow we have to meet. Call
me in the morning and we will figure out the details.”

“Yeah, okay.” She took the card from his
outstretched fingers. Her mind was somewhere else completely
though. “Thank you so much for helping me out, Mr. Ainsworth.”

He gave her a nod and then backed up.
“Thanks to all of you,” he addressed the entire group. “It’s been a
pleasure.”

Her family exchanged goodbyes with the
lawyer and then he was headed across the parking lot. “So, what
should we do?” She turned to Jack and Aiden.

Aiden offered her a small smile. “I need his
cell number, first of all.”

Hannah hadn’t had David’s cell number long
enough to know it by heart, so she had to get out her phone and
search through it for his contact information. Once she rattled off
the numbers, which Aiden wrote on a scrap of paper, she waited for
him to tell her what he was going to do.

“All right, I’m going to step over there and
make a phone call. I don’t have any access to a secure computer, so
I’m going to contact someone who does.”

She raised an eyebrow. “How do I know you’re
not going to call someone and tell them you have us all together
and that they can come and get us? A massacre of Estmond
Keepers?”

He tilted his head to the side and slid his
eyes over her body, from the top of her head to the tips of her
toes. “Because, Red, I’m a man of my word.”

Hannah scoffed at the ‘Red’ remark. She was
a thirty year old, red head, like she’d never heard
that
one
before.

Liv stepped up beside Hannah. “We don’t have
time for this. Let him do whatever it is he’s going to do. If he
wants to help, we should let him.”

Oh great, everyone in her family was
becoming a Reaper lover. Good lord.

Aiden waved the paper in front of her and
pointed to a bench over by the entrance to the station. “I’ll be
back in a few.” With that, he strode away.

Immediately, Hannah turned to her family. “I
know you all aren’t crazy about David, but we have to put that
aside right now. If it’s my fault he’s gone …” her voice trailed
off.

The rest of the group looked at each other
as if they were confused. Finally, Dan was the one who spoke. “I
may not like the guy very much, but that doesn’t mean I want him
dead, Hannah.”

Steph nodded. “We’re just looking out for
you.”

The few minutes it took before Aiden
returned to the group was almost painful, but she managed to keep
herself from running over there and pestering him.

They were all staring when he finally
clicked his phone off and jogged over to the group. “Well, we can
be thankful that his phone wasn’t dead. I have an address.” Again,
he waved the little paper.

“Let me see that!” Hannah lunged forward and
swiped the paper out of Aiden’s hand. When she looked down and saw
the address scrawled across the paper, confusion settled over her.
“This can’t be right. This is David’s old house in The
Springs.”

Greg threw his arm around her and led her
over to where all of their cars were grouped in the parking lot.
“Listen, we are going to go there, ready for anything. Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“But first,” Jack added, “we need to make a
weapons stop.”

CHAPTER

22

DAVID

Slowly, muffled voices began to clear. David
realized that he must have passed out at some point during the time
Marcus and Aaron were beating the crap out of him. He was still
handcuffed to the chair, but the two men had left him alone after
he lost consciousness.

His face hurt like hell and he didn’t have
to see it to know it was bad. Plus, his clothes were covered with
blood, which wasn’t a good sign.

From the sound of their voices, they were in
the tiny kitchen, discussing the situation. David didn’t open his
eyes because he would rather them think he was still out of it, but
he listened carefully to every word that passed between them.

“Dude, Julian is going to be so pissed,”
Aaron muttered in a low voice.

“Yeah, he will be, but not as bad as you
think. He knew that finding Coop, or the money, was a long
shot.”