Nailed (Marked For Love #1) (17 page)

"We're not sneaking the cat into the store. We'll just call a vet first thing tomorrow and get him x-rayed."

"I'll call Dr. Burnside." Danielle leaned over and dug a cell phone from her purse.

"Maybe a vet we don't know would be better." Wynn stood and crossed to the chicken, giving it one last flip and peeling open the foil containing vegetables that were steaming.

"Don't be silly." She stood up and trotted inside, closing the door behind her.

From where he stood, Wynn could see her at the counter, talking, and waving her hand, stopping every once in a while to pet Clyde who'd joined her.

"Doc said bring him in at eight tomorrow morning." She was practically bubbling over when she rejoined them. "So I'll just get here around seven thirty."

"You're not going," John said.

"Don't be silly. Of course I'm going."

"He's right." Wynn set the platter of chicken and roasted vegetables on the table. "You can't go."

"No he's not, and yes I can." Dani stood up and got herself a fresh beer.

"Oh let her go," Julie said. "Can I help? With dinner."

"There's plates and stuff on the counter, and some beans warming on the stove."

While she went to get them, Wynn did his best to convince Danielle not to get anymore involved. "We appreciate your help, Sis, really, but it's a bad idea for you to get anymore involved than you already are."

"Well, if I'm already involved, a little more shouldn't matter."

"Dani, you can't help."

"Why can't she?" Julie set the plates on the table and handed out silverware.

"Because," she huffed, cocking her hip to one side, "Dad doesn't like me to be involved in the family business." She sat down and stabbed at a chicken breast with a fork, putting it on her plate, then turned her attention to Julie. "Do you know how hard it is to bring home boyfriends when your brothers and dad are thugs?"

"I resent that," John said.

"The last time the family got together to meet my boyfriend was after he threatened to leave me if I didn't take him home to meet the folks. We'd been dating eight months. John here shows up toting his gun, and he and Daddy took Rog, my boyfriend, out shooting. I got dumped a week later."

"At least they brought him back," Julie said with a snicker.

Danielle, being Danielle, joined in. Before too long both girls were laughing too hard to eat. Even John managed to crack a smile.

"I can just imagine what the family arguments were like."

"Lord honey, try to imagine being grounded! Try to imagine how scared my prom date was after Dad got done showing him his Cuban cigar collection."

"Oh you poor baby."

"Lay off, John." Wynn frowned at his brother, in no mood for another fight.

"And I thought having sisters was tough."

***

Despite all of Wynn's pleading, Danielle was at his house at 7:30. The fact she'd gotten up so early, dressed to the nines in designer slacks and a matching blouse, her long hair caught in a casual updo, her makeup in place,
and
managed to get to his house
on time
was, in a word, shocking. Dani wasn't exactly known for her promptness, but she was so loveable no one cared.

"Morning, Wynnie."

"If you call me that again, I'll let John shoot you." Only his mom was allowed to call him Wynnie, and only because he couldn't make her stop. He shoved the coffee pot on the warming plate.

"I heard that." John joined them in the kitchen already dressed in perfectly creased khaki pants and a perfectly pressed white polo shirt.

"Where's Julie?"

"She's coming," Wynn said.

"You know, I've been thinking..." Dani gave them her sweetest smile.

Wynn tensed up in preparation for whatever harebrained notion was getting ready to come out of her mouth.

"I'm scared." John picked up Clyde, who'd been happily munching away on kitty kibble, and shoved him in his carrier.

"Very funny. Why are you even here?" Dani demanded.

"Because Dad hasn't called me about any jobs, and if I go home—"

"He'll get the truth out of you about calling the Feds. Dork," Dani finished with a smile. "Anyway, I was thinking that maybe just Julie and I should go."

"No way," John said.

Dani leaned in closer and took a good hard look at John, then circled the counter and patted him down. "You're taking your gun to the vet?"

"Is there anything he doesn't do with that gun?" Julie asked, breezing into the kitchen. The dark circles under her eyes were nearly gone, and she actually looked rested dressed in her usual jeans and t-shirt.

"I don't even want to know the answer to that," Dani said.

"You know why they don't want us to go," John said, giving Wynn a deadpan look he couldn't interpret.

His gut tightened, a sure sigh he wasn't going to like the answer and more importantly, neither would Dani. "Huh?"

"They wanna scan the cat. See if he makes the cash register go nuts."

"Actually—" Dani grinned, her eyes lighting up, "—we were planning on sneaking him into Target and just using one of the scanners in the store."

Chapter Twenty-Seven

While Dani and John bickered, I fixed myself a cup of coffee for the road and picked up Clyde's cat carrier. He hissed at me, but his weight settled in the back, a sure sign of his unhappiness. Two car trips in two days was a lot. Poor guy. Even he didn't deserve treatment like this.

"What do we tell the vet?" I asked Wynn who'd followed us outside.

"Oh don't worry, honey." Dani swept past, patting my arm as she went. "We'll just make it up as we go." She clicked the alarm on her BMW—this one a Six Series—and opened the passenger door, pushing the seat forward so I could put Clyde in.

I stopped and gave Wynn an I-don't-know-about-this look. As crazy as Dani and John's idea was about the evidence being
in
Clyde was, it did make sense.

Karen was a doctor, she could have done something like that. I sure as hell wish she'd been a bit more specific when she'd told Lisa what we were looking for though.

"I still say we just slice him open."

"Shut up John," Dani and I chorused as we slid into the car.

***

We sped down the street, turned a couple times and headed down Mockingbird Lane, crossing the highway, which was wall to wall cars. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen that much traffic.

"How exactly did you get involved with my brother?"

My stomach clenched, but Dani didn't get a chance to work up a response before she'd started talking again. I got the feeling that happened a lot with her.

"I know you're a job, but my brothers don't usually bring their work home with them, if you know what I mean." She flashed me a quick grin, then turned her attention back to the road.

"I'm a job, all right," I sighed. "If there's a chip or something in Clyde, it could have the information that Wynn's been searching for. And if he finds it, then my sister and brother-in-law are safe."

"Where are they?"

"I have no clue. They disappeared three year ago, and up until Wynn showed up, I thought they were dead." While she drove, I filled her in on the rest of the story. She peppered me with questions, and she was thorough, which meant leaving anything out was impossible. "You should have gone into the family business."

"Don't even joke about that." She eased to a stop at a red light and slipped her sunglasses down her nose, giving me a serious expression.

"I didn't mean you'd—" I left it just hanging there between us, unable to even finish the sentence. To say the words.

Dani had no problem finishing it for me. "Kill people? I know. But I have issues with the family business, and more importantly, my father's cavalier attitude about the family business."

"I can imagine," I said, remembering Wynn's story about how Dani donated money to charity in her father's name.

"I just want to be an English teacher," she sighed. "To be honest, I'm surprised Wynn's still in it. I figured he would have gotten out a long time ago."

"What do you think he would have done if not...what he does now?"

"Wynn could have been anything." Her gentle, easy smile said how much she thought of him. "A teacher, a lawyer, anything."

"He said he was a disappointment to his father, but you know, that's a tough occupation to expect your children to follow you into."

"He expected all his boys to follow in his footsteps, and me to marry and spit out babies. I might have gone into law but then he'd have been forced to disowned me."  She gave me another look, one I couldn't interpret, and turned into a low-slung brick building. "I guess you and Wynn are pretty close."

"Yeah." Pretty close seemed like a mild way to put it.

"What are your intentions toward my brother?"  She gave me a pointed look, one fine eyebrow arched.

More than anything, I wished I could return her grin but as much as it hurt to think about, my time with Wynn was almost over. "I don't think your brother and I have any kind of a future."

"Hmmpf. I guess we'll just have to see about that. As soon as we get old Clyde back there taken care of."

Clyde meowed when he heard his name, a pitiful sound that announced his frustration to the world—or at least to Dani and me.

"Let's get this over with, and then maybe we can run by PetSmart and get Clyde some treaties." Dani unhooked her seat belt and slipped out from behind the wheel, then ducked her head back inside. "Come on. Let's go!"

Carting Clyde, I followed her inside and took a seat while she checked us in. He started growling the first time he heard a muffled dog bark, and from the sound of it, there were plenty of them locked up somewhere we couldn't see.

Luckily we were first and didn't have long to wait before a veterinary assistant escorted us into a tiny room. At her instruction, I took Clyde out so she could weigh him.

"Pet's name?"

"Clyde."

She never blinked. I could only imagine she'd probably heard worse. "Last name."

"He doesn't have a last name," I said, glancing at Dani and trying not to laugh.

"What's your last name?"

I stared at her for two long heartbeats, then said, "James. Clyde James."

"And what exactly are we seeing Mr. James for?"

She was so not cute! "We're trying to find out if he has a chip in him."

"A micro-chip?" she clarified with a smile.

"Yeah. We weren't sure if he needed an x-ray or what?" I explained, shooting a quick, guilty glance in Dani's direction.

"Oh no, we have a special scanner. I'll be right back." She left the room, returning a minute or two later with a hand-held scanner, similar to the hand scanners at the grocery store. "Hold him down, please."

While I kept a firm grip on his sides, she ran the scanner over his body, coming back to his neck, her cheerful expression turning into a frown. "It's registering something, but it's not an identification chip."

"Maybe we should have taken him to the grocery store," Dani said with a giggle.

I snorted, nearly losing my grip on Clyde.

"Let me go get the doctor," she said, ignoring Dani's joke.

This time our wait was longer, and I was forced to let Clyde go. He prowled the room, his hackles raised, sniffing at everything and backing into a corner when the door opened again.

"Morning, Dani," Dr. Burnside said as he slipped a pair of half onto the bridge of his nose. "What do we have here?"

I picked Clyde up as the assistant explained the problem. Nodding thoughtfully, the doc waved the scanner over Clyde's neck again and came to the same conclusion. "There's something in there all right. Let's do a quick x-ray and—"

 "Can you take it out?" I asked. Whatever was in Clyde's neck obviously shouldn't be there.

"Are you sure that's what you want?" The doc's eyebrows crinkled in concern, his fingers gently kneading the scruff of Clyde's neck.

"We're sure." Dani vigorously nodded her head.

"All right then. You two wait outside, and we'll get this guy fixed up in no time."

I followed Dani out, stopping at the doorway to ask the vet one more question. "Can we see it, after you take it out?"

"If you'd like, sure. I have to admit, I'm a bit curios myself as to why someone would put a chip in your cat." He smiled, shrugging slightly bent shoulders. "Besides an ID chip, of course."

Nodding slowly, I said, "You and me both."

***

Ten minutes later we were out of there, Clyde in his carrier and a chip the size of a crumb tucked safely in my purse.

"Do you know what's on it?" Dani asked as we sped back to Wynn's.

"No clue. Something about forging tests on some drug. I don't even know what kind of drug."

"You mean like...
lying to the FDA
?"

"Yeah. Exactly like lying to the FDA." Because Kevin's bosses had lied to the FDA, I'd lost him, both my sisters, my livelihood and my home just so some greedy assholes could turn a profit. "Bastards."

"Do you want to know what's on that chip?"

It wasn't just about the chip. If I blindly turned the chip over to Wynn, I'd never know why Karen and Kevin were forced to run away—other than the aforementioned lies of course. Whether I turned it over or not, I ran the risk of never actually having a life again. In other words, I had nothing to lose. "Yes. I want to know."

Dani slipped the Mustang into the right lane and shot onto the freeway. The car settled between an Escalade and a Lexus, and we cruised along at a slow pace in bumper to bumper traffic.

The further we got from Wynn's the more I worried they'd worry and come looking for us. "Where exactly are we going?"

"To see a man about a chip."

***

Fifteen minutes later we were still in Dallas but about as far from the refined neighborhood Wynn lived in as possible. The area was old, with narrow streets and businesses jammed between converted warehouses, all of it tucked away in the shadow of the city's high rises.

"Interesting. Where the hell are we?"

"Welcome to Deep Ellum." She parked the car outside an older brick building jammed up between a bunch of others. "Don't forget Clyde."