Chapter 7 Try Not To Drool
Duncan
It took three days to track down Donald Lester.
The guy proved to be more resourceful than I gave him credit for.
He didn’t immediately return home, instead he chose to lay low in a small town ninety minutes to the southeast of Huntington.
Keaton and Noah made the trip early one morning.
When I tried to join them, Waverly pulled rank, telling me I was too close to the situation.
Karma was indeed a ruthless bitch, since I’d done the same to her during Finn’s stalker investigation.
A few hours later, they returned with confirmation.
Maeve Beckington was the one who hired the private investigator.
The guy had notebooks filled with everything from what grocery store they frequented, the route Sloane used to take the kids to school, even when she turned the lights off in the house at night.
According to Lester, his job was to keep tabs on Sloane and the kids, nothing more.
It should’ve given me a modicum of relief, but it didn’t.
Something wasn’t adding up, so Waverly––with my permission––asked Noah and Keaton to quietly start digging into Maeve.
I’d deal with the fallout if my girl ever found out.
Meanwhile, the rest of us got back to the investigation into the car accident.
Koen and Lanie combed through the police report as well as looked through photos of the crime scene.
I’d never seen any of them. It was one thing I couldn’t bring myself to do.
I didn’t need to look at pictures when I lived through the devastation and replayed it in my nightmares.
Waverly and I took the medical records to her office.
She read through mine, while I had Sloane’s.
I flipped through pages of lab and X-ray reports, not expecting to find much in those, until I reached the section labeled physician’s notes.
Each one read like a grocery list of injuries.
Sloane had numerous contusions, a broken rib, but the most serious was the skull fracture, which was complicated by cerebral edema, swelling on her brain.
They’d kept her in a medically induced coma for two weeks until the swelling was down enough to wake her up.
Once again, I had the overwhelming urge to drive back to Quantico and beat the shit out of Niall.
Waverly drummed her nails against the wooden table, breaking my concentration. After so many years of being friends, I knew when something was plaguing her mind. Finally, she put the file down, sat back in her seat, and grinned wide.
“Say it, Way.”
“Love looks good on you.”
“Feels good too.”
“How are things?”
“They’d be perfect if I could get a read on Rogan.”
My son and I were on shaky ground. There were times when I thought I’d finally made some headway, only to be knocked back down. He was hurt and confused, I just didn’t know how to help him through it, or if he’d even let me. How did you convince a seven-year-old that you weren’t going anywhere?
“It’s only been a few days. Be patient. He’ll come around.”
We went back to work. Another twenty minutes passed.
Pressing my fists into my back, I arched, trying to alleviate the tightness from sitting in one place for so long.
When that didn’t work, I opted for a walk.
My coffee needed a refill anyway. Getting up from my seat, I grabbed my mug and was half a step into the hallway when Waverly called out my name.
I turned, leaning against the doorframe.
“You never told me you were shot before.”
“Because I haven’t been.”
“Then why does this say they pulled a bullet out of your chest, along with shrapnel from the car accident?”
“There has to be some mistake.” I stormed to her desk on shaky legs, snatching the papers from her. “Let me see that.”
“D, what the hell is going on?”
I quickly scanned the report. Then I read it again, slower this time, except the words didn’t change.
My hand flew to the scar on my chest, to the place that almost cost me my life.
Memories from that day flashed through my brain, coming faster and faster until the room around me faded into blackness.
Physically, I was in Waverly’s office, but mentally, I was almost nine years in the past.
I gasped, coming awake abruptly. Fuck, that hurt. Everything hurt. Where the hell was I? I blinked, trying to clear away the fog blurring my vision. It was thicker than smoke.
Smoke!
No, no, no.
The accident. Where was Sloane?
Turning my head to the side, I saw her. She was fifteen yards away from me, lying so still I couldn’t be sure whether she was breathing or not. I had to get to her. I had to save us both somehow.
“Sloane!” I croaked.
No response.
“Fuck!”
Knives stabbed at my chest when I tried to roll on my side and my back felt like the skin was being ripped from the bone.
That’s when I remembered the small explosion that happened seconds after I pulled Sloane from the car.
The blast had thrown us like rag dolls, leaving its fiery imprint on my flesh.
It didn’t matter. Nothing did, except getting to Sloane. Not even the pain.
Black spots dotted my vision when I tried to move again. I couldn’t give up. If I did, we were both dead. On my third attempt, something moved in the distance, beyond Sloane. Someone was there.
“Help us, please,” I begged.
A figure stepped out from behind the trees, stepping over Sloane’s body, not stopping until they were standing over me.
The person bent down, picking up a piece of metal, which had landed off to the side, and laid it across my chest. I couldn’t see their face, it was shrouded in shadows, but I saw a gun and heard a voice.
“We could’ve done great things together.”
Then searing pain.
“Holy fuck.” I staggered as Waverly’s office came back into focus. “Holy fuck.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re white as a sheet.” She was in my face, nudging me until the back of my knees touched the chair I’d occupied earlier. “Sit down before you fall down.”
That sounded like a fantastic plan. I was numb from head to toe.
I’d never been able to remember what happened after I pulled Sloane from the car.
The doctors called it retrograde amnesia.
The surgeon who operated on me must have assumed the bullet he pulled out of my chest was from a previous gunshot wound.
And why wouldn’t he? I’d been involved in a car accident, not a shoot-out.
Reading his report triggered a memory my mind had blocked out, for good reason it seemed.
“I was shot.”
“No shit, Duncan.”
“No, I mean I was shot at the scene of the accident.”
The look of shock on Waverly’s face matched what I was feeling inside. Her high heels slid across the floor as she moved to the chair next to mine, lowering onto it. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before actual words came out.
“You remembered something.”
Swallowing around the knot in my throat, I answered, “I did.”
“Tell me.”
My blood was boiling as the numbness wore off, replaced by a rage so thick it threatened to strangle me.
Closing my eyes, I sucked in a breath, held it for three, then blew out any trace of anger.
Having my emotions on lockdown, I recounted every second of my assassination attempt, as if I were a bystander instead of the intended target.
Right down to the fact that whoever tried to kill me was smart enough to shoot through a piece of the car.
Doing so broke off shards of metal, sending them through my chest along with the bullet.
When I finished, my best friend was glaring at me like I was the one who pulled the trigger.
“Don’t do that, D.”
“Do what?”
“You’re allowed to be pissed. Someone tried to kill you, for fuck’s sake.”
“I’m fine.”
“Bullshit.” She stood, hiking her thumb toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Rather than argue, I followed her down the hall to the gym.
I’d insisted on having it when we opened the office almost seven years ago, not just for training.
With the kind of work we did and the depravity we saw, our team had to have a place to let loose, to decompress.
It came in handy on more than one occasion.
“Get changed.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was in the middle of the boxing ring, facing off with Keaton.
He was the first agent Waverly and I took under our wings, and he was the first to volunteer to help me work out my issues.
The other three were waiting in the wings, eager to take his place.
I’d spent countless hours teaching each one of them everything I knew about hand-to-hand combat. They were damn good, but I was better.
“You ready to rumble, old man?” he taunted, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Bring it on, kid.”
Keaton struck first, pivoting on one leg while kicking out with the other.
I blocked the hit, using his momentum to knock him off balance.
After that, it was game on. We circled each other, exchanging a mixture of punches and kicks.
Right cross. Left jab. It was exactly the release I needed to clear my fucked-up head.
He knew I was toying with him, waiting for the perfect opportunity to hand him his ass, but he countered every strike with confidence, pushing me harder.
Then it happened. The door to the gym opened, distracting my opponent for a split second, just enough for me to sweep the back of his legs. Keaton landed flat on his back.
“Son of a bitch,” he groaned.
“Holy crap.” That voice.
Spinning around, the source of our interruption was unveiled. The girl gang had arrived and they’d recruited a new member. Sloane stood at the back of the room, arms linked with Henley and Jade. She looked radiant wearing black jeans and a maroon turtleneck sweater.
“That was hot.” Henley fanned herself.
“Watch yourself, Little Bird,” Keaton fired back, still lying on the mat.