The Puppeteer (10 page)

“We?”

“You said ‘when
we
were born.’ I assume you mean your sister?”

“I do mean my sister, but I'm not going to say anything else about her,” Dani replied.

Her answer was final but it seemed more protective of her sister than dismissive of him. He could live with that, god knows he knew what it was like to feel protective of family.

“We're here,” he said, pulling onto a gravel drive and maneuvering around the side of a closed and locked gate that was meant to keep cars—not motorcycles—out. He shifted down as they headed up a hill. The driveway was lined with trees and other brush. It was getting cool and the air was crisp.

“It's beautiful,” Dani sighed. Ty had the distinct impression she'd forgotten he could hear her so he didn't respond.

They pulled to a stop and both climbed off the bike. Dani looked around, curious, but Ty knew she would never ask. So he offered.

“I bought it about ten years ago. I was in the military and was deployed so often that I could never spend the money and combat pay I made, so I bought this, thinking I might settle down here. Turns out that didn't work out. If you go another little bit up the road, you'll see a small house. My folks stay there when they're in town.”

Dani glanced up the road and stared for a while before turning back to study him. “So why did you decide not to settle here?”

The question was expected, but still he was surprised Dani ventured into the personal. “Long story,” he replied with what he hoped was a careless shrug.

“Let me guess,” she half smiled at him. “Some girl broke your heart? Shattered your dreams of settling down?” she teased. As cliché as it was, it was also the truth.

“More or less,” he responded.

Her eyes studied his face. Then her eyebrows raised in curiosity, prompting him.

“I was engaged to a woman I grew up with,” he complied. “We planned to marry when I discharged. A couple of months after I got out, she died.”

Dani's head drew back in surprise and, for the first time, he saw her expression soften.

“I'm sorry…I didn't,” she paused, shook her head and gave a small, self-deprecating smile. “I was going to say I didn't know, but that's a pretty dumb thing to say. Of course I didn't know,” she paused again and Ty sensed that her statement meant more than what she was saying. “I am sorry though, Ty. It must have been difficult.”

Ty hadn't come here to rehash the events of five years ago, but he found himself wanting to talk about it. He wasn't sure if it was because it had been a while since he had done that or because he and Dani were actually
talking
. Her dark eyes fixed on him and he held her gaze as he continued.

“It was. It's not uncommon for military spouses and significant others to need a stress outlet. The leaves are so long, the tension is always high. Many turn to people outside of the relationship to make things better.

“She sought out distractions and entertainment from her friends. She looked to them to help her deal with the stress. I didn't even know the crowd she was spending time with,” he turned away from Dani and stared out toward the trees, which were starting to bud in the mid-May weather.

“I don't know that it would have made much of a difference even if I did know them. I think, by that point, she probably wouldn't have listened to me anyway.” He glanced back at Dani who was standing with her hands resting in the pockets of her jacket, her expression thoughtful, not pitying.

“Anyway,” he sighed, turned, and continued. “One night she got in a car with a couple of friends who were both drunk and high. I don't know if Carrie ever partook of the drugs, but I do know that the night she died, she didn't have a thing in her system that would have impaired her. A couple minutes after leaving a bar, the driver wrapped the car around a tree. No one survived.”

“Jesus, Ty. I'm sorry,” Dani said. They were quiet for a few minutes and then Dani asked, “Is that why you went into vice?”

He shook his head. “No, I'd planned that long before coming here. I'd seen enough dead bodies during my tours that I knew I didn't want to go into homicide. I figured vice was the best way to try and help save people.” He knew his grin was an uncomfortable one, but he'd never admitted this to anyone before. Not even his parents. “I figured if I could help keep the drugs off the street, then maybe that would mean one less OD, one less body, one less family with one less member.”

“I like that reason,” she replied. Her voice was soft and personal.

Ty felt a wave of tension leave his body and his breath fall back into rhythm. After such a short time, not even twenty-four hours, her acceptance, her approval shouldn't mean much. But it did.

They were quiet for a few more minutes and then Dani asked, “You don't blame yourself do you?”

Surprised at the question, Ty turned and searched her eyes. There was an odd expression on her face, maybe a little sympathetic, maybe a little worried, and maybe a little something like curiosity. Ty frowned and shook his head.

“I did, but I got over it.”

Dani muttered something that sounded like “good for you,” but she wasn't looking at him so it was hard to tell.

“Strange enough,” he continued, his brow furrowed in thought. “It was her parents who absolved me. For a long time I wondered if there was something I could have done to change things, or if there was something I should be doing to fix things. What I could ‘fix,’ wasn't ever really clear even in my own mind. But it seemed like I should have been doing
something
to make things right.” His voice trailed off remembering the pain of doubt in those first few years after Carrie's death. He looked down at his feet as the sounds of the ocean nearby filtered through the trees.

“But,” he continued. “Carrie's parents helped me remember that she was an adult and she made an adult decision. Granted, we all wished like hell it hadn't happened, it was such a waste of life, but the truth is, Carrie could have made a different decision that night. She could have made a whole lot of different choices. She
didn't and she paid the ultimate price. It wasn't my decision or her parents' or her friends' to make for her, but hers alone.”

Ty looked up at Dani again, standing there, in her jeans and black leather jacket. The end of her ponytail was lifting with the breeze and she looked nothing like the woman he'd seen all day. Gone was the trained agent, gone was the intense passion and focus. Standing there, with her hands hanging loose in her pockets, her head cocked to the side, she looked almost like a lost child, confused and scared.

Ty didn't take his eyes off of her. Whether she sensed his thoughts or not, she turned and made a pretense of looking up the road, toward where the house lay, unseen from where they stood.

“Want to go see the site?” he asked. His heart was pounding and, even though he had bared his soul, he felt an inexplicable urge to reach out and comfort her. To run his fingers down her cheek and pull her close. But whatever it was that was going through her mind, he sensed she needed to let it settle before she would let him near her personal side again. He was beginning to realize that Dani was not a woman comfortable with emotions. And he'd just laid a lot on her.

When she nodded, he grabbed a bag from his bike and motioned toward a small path in the woods. They walked in silence for about ten minutes and then, as they neared the edge of the woods, he held an arm out to stop her.

“The view is from the cliff. If we walk out there, we might as well have a flare and a homing beacon. We can either crawl on our bellies to the edge or climb the tree and get a little higher. Both work.”

Dani scanned the landscape then nodded toward the tree. Then she surprised him with a little smile. “I haven't climbed a tree since I was twelve.” And she was off.

Before he could offer to help, she'd swung up, hooked her legs, and pulled herself into a sitting position. Her butt planted on a lower branch while her arms hooked over a branch above her.

Ty chuckled and, not quite as gracefully, clamored up a branch on the other side. Once they were both seated, he pulled out two pairs of high powered glasses and handed one to her. She took them without a word. For a few minutes they absorbed the view.

Dani let out a low whistle. “It's gorgeous, Ty.” And they both knew she wasn't talking about the house. The view from the tree
was a clutch recon position. From their perch they could see the entire south side of the house and all the south-facing windows. The windows were mirrored which made things a little more difficult, but they had a clear view of the pool, the terraced yard, and most of this side of the peninsula.

“With the equipment you guys brought, we should be able to get some prime photos. Confirm who's in the compound with him, and how many guards.”

“You do know how to make a girl's heart go aflutter,” Dani murmured from behind her glasses.

Ty chuckled, if she thought this was good, he couldn't wait to show her the next site. And then he laughed out loud. It was a sad day when he was wooing a woman by showing her surveillance locations.

“You can't see the boathouse from here,” Dani commented, ignoring his laughter.

“No, it's on the north side of the peninsula. But, we've got it covered,” he answered. Dani lowered her glasses and looked at him from around the tree's trunk.

“You have a location where we can watch the boathouse?” she asked, her voice as close to incredulous as it probably ever got.

Ty grinned. “Stick with me kid, I'll show you places.”

“I will truly love you forever if you can get us good surveillance of the boathouse. It's our weakest point.”

“Then I hope you're ready to commit,” he teased. “I think you're going to like what you see.”

Dani swung down from the tree and surveyed the surrounding area. “We'll have better visibility of the water from here, too,” she noted.

Ty nodded. “It should be pretty good, and could be very good, depending on the equipment Cotter has.”

“He has the best,” Dani said.

“The recon team will have to watch each other's sixes, but other than that, it should be a good spot,” he commented. It was true, whoever took recon on the south end of the bay would have to watch the back of the man, or woman, on the north side, and vice versa. But it wasn't anything anyone hadn't done before, so it would be duly noted, but not a concern.

“This is great, Ty,” Dani smiled as she took her GPS unit out of her pocket and noted the location. “When we get back, I'll give this info to Cotter and walk through the locale with him. So, I take it you're granting us permission to use your land?”

He made a grand gesture with his arms that encompassed the woods and water. “It's all yours, but try to be kind to the trees. My mom likes to gather the sap from the maples in early spring.” Dani smiled at the comment and glanced around. “The picture is more charming than the reality,” Ty continued, “though I can't complain with the results; there's nothing quite like the taste of homemade maple syrup. Come on, we've got one more place to go and it's getting late.”

They'd just turned onto the road when Dani surprised Ty once again. “Do you have any siblings?” she asked through the radio headset.

Ty paused, wondering if he'd heard right—if he'd really just heard her ask another personal question. “Yes. I have a brother who is three years older than me and a sister who is a year older.”

“So you're the baby.”

“Yes, but I'm the biggest.” He could almost feel her smile.

“Do you see them often?” she asked.

“As much as I can. My brother lives in Seattle. He's a tech guy but he runs his own security company.”

“As in personal security?”

“No, as in testing the reliability of security systems, which may or may not include people, machines, robots, computers, phones, and a whole host of things I can't even begin to imagine.”

“Hunley,” Dani said, making the connection.

Ty nodded as they passed through the quiet neighborhoods heading from the south point of the bay to the north.

“And your sister?” she asked.

He took a tricky curve before answering. “She's a social worker. She lives in Taos, New Mexico, where my parents are.”

“I thought you were from here?”

“We moved here when I was twelve. My dad got a job, and my mom thought we'd get a better education here. We loved it, but after I moved out and my dad retired they decided they missed New
Mexico, so they moved back.” They were clipping along the coastal road, the ocean to their side, the breeze against their bodies. Almost like a real date with real conversation.

“Do you see them often?”

“They come in the spring and then again for a couple months in the fall, and I make it out as often as I can. It usually ends up being a couple of times a year,” he answered.

“Sounds nice.”

“It is. What about you? Do you see your sister often?”

“Like you, as much as I can, which isn't as often as I would like. We're close though, we talk at least once a day when I'm not on assignment.”

“Once a day?” Ty asked with mild incredulity. In his mind the phone was pretty much good for making business calls or ordering food for dinner, beyond that, it was a nuisance.