Chapter 14
Black Knights Inc.
The place was humming.
Not with the sleepy, fluorescent whir of a typical after-hours office. Oh, no. It was the electric buzz of adrenaline running, nerves jumping, and gears turning. The kind of charge that raised goosebumps and warned: something big is coming soon.
A huge part of Lura wanted to stay. To see it through to the end. But she’d lingered as long as she dared.
Leonard Meadows had spent the afternoon sending her texts like, Where did you put the latest report on Palestine?
Then he’d proceeded to spend most of the evening sending her gruff reminders—yes, text messages can be gruff, especially when they come from the chief of staff—that tomorrow was a big day, packed with morning meetings with the Joint Chiefs, a luncheon with the press secretary, and the state dinner honoring the prime minister of Japan.
His last text had flat-out demanded, Come back, Lura.
Got a seat on the red-eye, she’d hastily typed into her phone. I’ll be in the office at 7 A.M. Per usual.
She’d waited for the three blinking dots to tell her he was typing a response. But to no one’s surprise, they never appeared.
Leonard Meadows didn’t show gratitude, even when he’d browbeaten someone into doing exactly what he wanted. Especially then.
She paused inside the big metal door that acted as the front entrance to the Black Knights’s headquarters. Blast proof? she wondered absently as she checked her Uber app and saw her ride was still fifteen blocks away.
A quick search on her phone’s traffic map assured her I-90 was clear to O’Hare. Unless the security line was three hours long, she should make her flight no problem and—
“Are you following me?” Sam Harwood turned to look over his shoulder. Graham was three feet behind him in the dark hallway leading from the motorcycle shop to the kitchen.
“No. I try to stay upwind of ya when I can,” Graham rumbled in that slow, Southern drawl that reminded Lura of home.
She still dreamed in that accent.
Isn’t that strange? she thought. Or maybe not. Maybe people always dream in their native tongue. And mine is pure Southern Appalachia.
“Downwind of ya, and I’m liable to choke on the smell of brimstone,” Graham added.
Sam snorted. “If I’m the devil, what’s that make you?”
“God’s gift to women?” Graham spread his massive arms wide.
“Pfft.” Sam shook his head. “All those growth hormones that flooded your system during puberty did something terrible to your head. It’s twice as big as it should be. Too bad more of those same hormones didn’t go to your dick, huh?”
Graham, completely nonplussed, threw back his head and laughed. “You know you’re talkin’ nothin’ but shit. You’ve seen it.”
Lura cleared her throat just as both men stepped out of the hallway. When they spotted her standing by the front door, Sam had the good grace to look guilty. But Graham?
He was as stony-eyed as ever.
Even as a teen, he’d had a poker face to impress Lady Gaga. But after his mother died, he might as well have been carved from granite for all the emotion he’d shown.
In the years since, he’d clearly perfected that mercilessly blank mask.
“Did you…uh…” Sam scratched his head. “Any chance you’ve gone temporarily deaf?”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, the gravity of the entire day, and the solemnity of what would happen next, Lura felt a laugh bubble in the back of her throat.
“I’ve come to two conclusions today,” she told him.
“One, you’re some of the most impressive people I’ve met.
And that’s saying something since I work at the White House.
And two,” she finished with a tongue stuck in her cheek, “you like nothing better than to cast aspersions on the size of each other’s dicks. ”
Again, Sam looked properly chagrined. “My sense of humor stalled out at age fourteen. What can I say?”
Before she could respond, he walked over and shook her hand. “Headed out?”
“Waiting on my Uber to pull up.”
“Thanks for everything. We couldn’t’ve done it without you.”
“Something tells me you’d have found a way.”
His grin said she wasn’t wrong. “You did say we were some of the most impressive people you’ve ever met.”
“And you think he’s got a big head?” She hitched her chin toward Graham, who still hadn’t moved from the mouth of the hallway.
“Don’t judge me too harshly.” Sam shook his head in mock sorrow. “A swollen ego’s an occupational hazard.”
She laughed as they said their goodbyes. Then, after Sam ambled away, she turned toward Graham.
He crossed the shop’s floor with steps both confident and efficient. He’d changed into black tactical pants, which he’d tucked into a giant pair of scuffed combat boots. A snug, long-sleeve Henley accentuated a frame that hardly needed the help. And a sidearm was strapped to his thigh.
The man radiated casual menace.
Graham Coleburn, she thought. He’s gone and grown all the way up.
When he stopped before her, his shadow spilled over her face.
At five feet eleven, she was used to meeting a man’s eyes. But she had to tilt her chin back to meet Graham’s implacable gaze.
Way back.
“Sorry we didn’t get more time to catch up, Lura.” His warm drawl hit her ear like a song she’d heard a million times and would never tire of.
“You’ve been busy.” Her voice was softer than she meant it to be. “All of you have.”
He ran a hand through his hair. It was still that same sun-streaked brown that she’d stared at longingly across the cafeteria.
“Understatement of the century.” He grimaced. “But also, just another day at the office ’round these parts.”
Since the Knights had returned with the money, and since Kerberos had delivered their cryptic message, Ozzie had cleaned up the recording of the ransom call. He’d focused on Sabrina’s scream—how it had echoed, how it had rung—and had decided she was being held somewhere big, hollow, and empty.
A warehouse? A parking garage? A storage depot?
Then he’d picked up the distant sound of a train whistle, which had been enough to give the Black Knights something to chase.
Combining the midnight drop deadline with the promise of a phone call at eleven P.M., they’d determined Sabrina had to be within an hour’s drive of the BKI compound.
Given all of that, the team had mobilized. Everyone had grabbed a screen, a map, or a laptop. They’d analyzed, scanned, and filtered until finally, after a few tense hours, they’d whittled down the options where Sabrina was being held to six possible locations.
“Six needles in a haystack full of nightmares,” Hew had muttered, chewing the inside of his cheek and radiating fury as Ozzie queued up satellite surveillance on all six sites.
Then had come the prep. Weapons had been polished. Magazines had been loaded. Radios had been checked with a kind of ease that didn’t belong in the middle of Chicago.
And what had she done through it all, you may ask?
Well, besides answering her boss’s texts, she’d mostly stayed out of the way.
That and watched Graham Coleburn more than I’ll ever admit to anyone.
“I’ll admit,” she told him now, “I was shocked to walk through that door and come face-to-face with someone from back home.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Ya didn’t know?”
“Leonard Meadows made it very clear I wasn’t to go snooping around about this organization.” She waved a hand to indicate the old factory building. “It already stuck in his craw that I found out you guys exist. It would have sent him into an apoplectic fit if I’d asked who worked here.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners, weather-worn lines that showed the years that had passed and all the sunrises he’d squinted into since the last time she’d seen him. “That must’ve nearly killed ya, bein’ such an inquisitive little thing.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “I was nearly six feet by the tenth grade, Graham. I have never been little.”
He looked her over slowly. Not in a crude way. In an appreciative way that made her stomach flip and her knees go wobbly.
“Always did like tall women.” His voice was as soft and as hot as the sand on Tybee Island right before sunset.
Is he…flirting with me? she wondered, feeling fifteen all over again.
Is Clayton, Georgia’s golden boy—the homecoming king himself—actually looking at me and seeing something he likes?
Before she could recover enough to fire back something flirty or clever—oh, who was she kidding? Her brain had short-circuited. She couldn’t have come up with a pithy retort to save her life—he cleared his throat and stuck out a hand.
“Thank you, Lura.” The teasing was gone from his tone. Now, it was all business. “For comin’ all this way.”
His hand was large and warm. She felt every rough edge of callus against her skin and had a fleeting thought of what it would be like to have those big, square hands skating over her body.
“Glad I could help.” She quickly withdrew her fingers lest she actually swoon. “And I’m glad I got to see you again, Graham. I’ve thought about you a lot over the years.”
His gaze sharpened. “Have ya now?”
“Sure.” She tried to play it cool with a shrug. “I wondered what happened to you when you disappeared. Now, I know. Mystery solved.”
His lips parted, and she held her breath, waiting for…what? What did she want him to say?
But then his attention flicked over her shoulder. “Your Uber’s here.” He nodded toward the television on the brick wall beside the door. It showed security footage of the front gate.
She glanced around to see a black SUV nosing to the curb next to the guardhouse. When she looked back at Graham, his implacable expression had fallen into place.
“Well,” she cleared her throat. “You all be careful out there tonight.”
His cheek muscles moved slightly. She supposed it was what passed for a smile. “Careful is my middle name,” he said.
“Really?” She canted her head. “I seem to remember it being Alexander.”
His eyebrows shot up.
Yes, I remember your middle name, she thought. I remember everything about you.
She turned before she could say anything else—anything foolish—opened the door, and stepped into the thick summer night. As the heavy metal shut behind her, a question curled like smoke inside her.
Is this the last time I’ll ever set eyes on the legendary Graham Coleburn?