Dylan (Bowen Boys) (3 page)

“You should have told me first thing. I can’t
know these things without someone telling me. I’ll have my aide come for the
file. You go home. I have a feeling the shit is going to hit the fan on this
one, and I will need all my good men with me.”

“Thank you, sir, and I will,” Kirby
said, letting out a sigh. “I’ll leave the file on the desk out front.” He took
down Marshall’s personal phone number in the event he needed it, hung up the
phone, and put the file on the front desk, not having a clue where his
secretary had gone.

All Kirby wanted from the man was to
leave him alone to do his job…not necessarily the one that Marshall had hired
him to do, but the one that made him the most money. The underground crew that
he’d hired to do the hits that the government needed done, as well as anything
he wanted taken care of. And that’s where the fucking bitch Crosby had crossed
the line.

Kirby was about to leave his office when
his aide came in with some news. He had to sit down to take it in after he
heard the first part. The bitch had known about the chip for longer than he’d
thought.

“The address we have on file is an empty
lot. We checked it against the county records, and it’s the same address she
has listed there, as well. But to look at the place, it’s been empty of
anything for a while. The post office box is a fake, too. Casey Snow is the
name on the mail. She can’t be reached at her home. We’re pulling records now
to see if we can find her place of business. But according to the post master,
her mail has been piling up for some time.”

Kirby had a feeling that the body in her
car wasn’t Miss Snow but one stolen from the morgue. He wanted to scream at the
man that he’d been duped but didn’t. The only person who had known about the
other woman was now lying on a slab in the morgue. He’d been one of the two men
that Crosby had shot on her way into the house.

She’d had a great deal more street smarts
than he’d first given her credit for. When he’d hired her over five years ago,
he’d told her she was joining an elite team that only answered to two people:
him and the president. Only the president hadn’t known anything about this
group, and Crosby had figured it out.

Crosby had been at the top of the list
of candidates. Her tests scores were off the charts, and her IQ was well over
anything he’d ever seen. She was also one of the most beautiful women he’d ever
seen, with dark hair and light gray eyes, and she towered over most men,
including him, in her stocking feet. He had known a few women that topped the
six foot two inch stature, but no one had carried it like she did. Willow thin,
she looked good in anything she put on, which was nearly always black on black.
The one time she’d needed to dress up, the black evening gown looked as if it
had been molded to her body. When she’d left the event, her target was taken
care of and no one had a clue that the woman who had made heads turn was the
one who’d taken him out.

But then she’d started asking questions…questions
that he wasn’t going to answer. When she’d removed the chip, they had made
arrangements to have her taken out. She’d been one step ahead of them on that
score, too.

He went home and walked into his house.
Since yesterday afternoon, he’d been careful when he entered and left
buildings. His house was no different. When his wife didn’t come to see him as he
walked into the living room, he drew his gun. Crosby was fucking with the wrong
family if she thought she would get to his. When he entered the kitchen, he saw
the note on the table and nearly picked up the phone to dial the police before
he recognized his wife’s scribble.

“Karrie had a dentist appointment, and I
needed a few things from the market. We should be home around six, if not
before. I’m sorry about dinner. Love, S.”

Dentist. He put the note down and
crumbled in the seat. Christ, he wasn’t going to make it if they didn’t find
her soon. Kirby had to do something to protect his family, and he was making
arrangements when his wife, Sally, walked in the door at a quarter of six. He
was sending them away on a trip. As far away as he could send them. And they were
leaving first thing in the morning.

“But I don’t understand why you can’t
come with us.” Sally took two slices of pizza he’d ordered for them and put it
on her plate. “You’ve not taken a vacation in years, and this would be so much
fun.”

“I can’t. I told you, if it wasn’t for
this thing going on at work, I’d go, and you know it. But with these murders
and someone out there that might…I would just feel better about working these
long hours if I knew that you and Karrie were safe.” He ate his slices and
reached for two more. “You and Karrie go and have a blast. Call me occasionally
and take lots of pictures.”

By noon the next day, he was sitting in
his office and his wife and daughter were on their way to France. He picked up
the newspaper and nearly fell over in his chair. There it was on the front page:
“
Woman Suspected in Murder of Prominent
Lawyer’s Family’s Death.”

Kirby read it twice and was relieved to
see that no one had mentioned her name. If she got wind that they had anything
on her, he’d be lucky if he ever even heard her name again, much less saw her. He
wondered where the hell she’d gone and why the hell he couldn’t find out one
piece of information she’d given them that was true.

~~~

Dylan sat in the chair by the bed and
watched her breathing. He’d been watching her most of the three days she’d been
there, and was beginning to think she might make it. He looked up when Khan
entered the room and sat down.

“You should go out and finish your
classroom. Mom said you only have until Friday to get the stuff out or the
school will trash it.” Dylan nodded but didn’t move. “I can sit with her. I
won’t touch her, I swear.”

“I know you won’t.” Dylan stretched out
his long legs and realized how stiff he was. “Caitlynne came by to take her
fingerprints to see if we could find out anything about her. She said she
didn’t have any.”

Khan nodded. “Walker told me. He said
that she’d had them burned off with acid. It must have been painful.”

The two of them sat there for a long
while before Dylan told his brother what he probably already knew. “She’s my
mate. I have a mate that has five gunshot wounds and numerous other cuts and
bruises. No fingerprints and no name. It sounds so surreal that it has to be
true.”

“Dylan, whatever is going through your
head is more than likely wrong. You have to believe that. She could just be a
woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, who will have her full
memory when she wakes.”

He looked over at the gun she’d had on
her, along with all the other weapons. There were three knives, two guns, a
thin wire that had been wrapped three times into a long cord, and a grenade. A
fucking grenade. He looked at Khan.

“You and I both saw her that morning.
She was armed and looked like one of those ninjas that you see in the movies.
She’d been hurt, not because she’d been in the wrong place, but because someone
had taken objection to what she was doing there. Christ.” Dylan stood up to
pace. “The fates have really fucked me over and given me a damned murderer for
a mate, and we’re going to be on the run for the rest of our lives.”

“You don’t know that.” Dylan looked at
his brother. “You don’t. And there may be a great explanation for it, too.”

“Who are you?” Khan flushed. “A year ago
you would have come in here and demanded that I toss her to the streets and
wash all signs of her from my life, and especially yours. Now you’re in here
spouting good news and a positive outlook. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for
you, but again…who the fuck are you, and what happened to you?”

“Monica happened to me. And you might
want to find the silver lining in this, too. She might just be the best thing
that ever happened to you.”

Dylan looked at the woman. “Silver
lining, huh? Okay. Silver line this, jackass. She is still armed better than
the Secret Service that Warren has around him, which is good. She can protect
him when he visits. The fact that she doesn’t know her name or probably
anything about herself means I can tell her anything I want and she’ll have to
believe me, because she doesn’t know any better. I can—”

“That’s not what I meant, and—”

“You said ‘silver lining,’ so shut the
fuck up and hear it,” Dylan continued. “I can tell her she’s the world’s
greatest housewife, and tell her that the house needs to be cleaned hourly so
that—”

He hit the floor. Khan was a big man and
stronger than him simply because he was their leader, but Dylan was pissed off,
which he figured gave him an advantage over him. As soon as Khan hit him in the
mouth, Dylan realized how wrong he’d been. Khan was simply bigger. And none of
the moves that Caitlynne had taught them were working to his advantage.

After several seconds: “You had enough?”

Dylan thought about shifting and taking
his brother down, but his next words made him rethink that.

“You shift and so help me, I will grab
that grenade and shove it so far up your ass you’ll never shit right again.”

Dylan believed him.

“I’m not letting you go until you think
about the silver lining.”

But he didn’t ask to be let go. He lay
there under his brother, who had both his hands jerked behind him and his knee
in his spine. He knew that if he didn’t come up with one silver lining he
wasn’t moving.

“She looks like she can take panther
sex.” His head hit the floor hard. “I can’t think of anything with you pounding
my body in the fucking floor. What the fuck would you think if that were Monica
laying there? I saw her bleeding to death. Help me, for Christ’s sake.”

Khan let him go. Dylan didn’t get up but
only rolled to his back and stared up at the ceiling. He didn’t close his eyes,
because every time he did, he saw her on the deck with the gun in her hand…and
then later on the operating table with Walker cutting into her.

“She has more bullet holes in her than
the five we worked on. There is at least one in her leg, as well as in her
back. There are numerous cuts on her that I figure are knife wounds. Some of
them are still pink.” He looked over at his brother. “I’m terrified out of my
mind that someone is going to come here looking for her, and I can’t protect
her. What am I going to do?”

Khan looked at the woman, then at him. “I
don’t know, but I can tell you this; she’s stronger than she looks or she would
never have survived getting here. And even though her mind is scrambled right
now, she knew enough to tell you not to call the police. For all we know, she
could be just what I said, a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Dylan nodded and stood up. When the door
to the room opened, he felt his panther run along his skin to help him. His dad
seemed to know this and moved back.

“Turn on the television. You have to see
this.” His dad reached for the remote, and after a few seconds of punching
buttons without any progress, he handed it to Khan. “Damn it, why can’t there
be a button that says ‘on’ instead of nine hundred that say stupid stuff like
‘list’ and ‘cbl’? What the hell does that mean, anyway?”

“Cable, Dad,” Khan told him with a
laugh. Then none of them said anything for the next several minutes. The news
was on each station and blaring the same thing.

“…to date, all we have is that the
attorney for the biggest trial of the decade, Vern Clements, was murdered on
Sunday night along with his wife Cindy and their five-year-old daughter, Ruby. The
police are asking that any information on this woman, Jack Crosby, be called
into the hotline.” A picture of the woman in his bed flashed on the screen. “She
is considered armed and dangerous. If you know her whereabouts, the police are cautioning
not to approach her but to call nine-one-one immediately and leave the area. Again,
Jack Crosby is wanted in connection to the murders of Vern and Cindy Clements
and their lovely daughter Ruby.”

“Turn it off.” Dylan took the remote
from Khan and turned it off himself. “I need for you all to leave now. This is
now too dangerous for anyone but me to be here.”

“I’m your father, and I’ll not leave
until—”

“Dad, don’t you get it? She’s a
murderer. She killed a little girl, and now the police are after her. When they
find her here they’re going to arrest me, too.” He looked at the beautiful
woman. “I can’t let that happen to you. None of you.”

They left a few minutes later. His mom
had been making lunch for them all in his kitchen and stayed to make sure he
knew how to finish it. She looked at him before she left, then hugged him.

“There might be something more to this
than we know. Even more than the police are being told. She might just be a
victim of someone’s revenge.” Dylan nodded. “Are you going to call the police
on her?”

“No. I’m upset, not stupid. If they find
her here before she wakes, I’ll work from there. If she wakes and remembers
something…well, I guess we’ll play that by ear, too.” He looked down at his
mom. “She’s my mate, and I can’t let her be hurt more than she already is. I
have to protect her, and if that means hiding her here until we can get
answers, then that’s what I’ll do.”