Chapter Eighteen #2
Grant came around the hood to open Rayne’s door, and they met the rest of the team on the walkway leading to the front door. He pressed the doorbell and waited.
A long minute later, someone unlocked the door. When it opened, an older woman stared at Grant for a moment before her gaze drifted over the rest of them. “You’re prompt, I’ll give you that,” she said.
Grant stiffened.
Rayne squeezed his hand, reminding him of her support. No question but that this woman was Grant’s mother.
“Good to see you, Mom.”
Her gaze returned to him. “Bring your friends to the backyard. With so many people joining us at the last minute, we decided grilling out would be easiest.” She hurried toward the back of the house, leaving the door wide open.
A muscle in Grant’s jaw twitched. He glanced over his shoulder. “This way.”
Seth caught up with him. “Your family is outside?”
“Evidently.”
“Not the best plan for security.”
“I’ll try to convince them to move indoors, but I doubt they’ll cooperate.”
Rayne caught glimpses of various rooms and the decor in each as they hurried through the Bowen home.
They emerged into a large, lush yard with an enormous patio and an oversized outdoor kitchen, including a large grill.
Children ran and played further out in the yard while Grant’s brother and sister and their spouses sat around the patio with his parents.
The men manned the grill while the women talked in low tones.
All conversation ceased when they noticed Grant and the rest of the Fortress operatives.
A man with salt and pepper hair handed a stainless steel spatula to one of the other men and faced Grant and the others. “It’s about time you made it home, son.” He inclined his head toward the operatives. “Introduce us to your friends.”
“This is my father, John, my mother, Helen, my sister, Isabella and her husband, Tony, and my brother Gabe and his wife Cilla.” Grant introduced the members of their team, leaving Rayne for last. “And this is my girlfriend, Rayne.”
His family murmured polite greetings, then silence fell again.
John motioned to the chairs scattered around the patio. “Please join us. The hamburgers are almost finished, and then we’ll eat. After dinner, when the kids are busy watching a movie, we’ll talk.”
Rayne watched Grant’s father. You had to admire the way he controlled the people in the yard.
He hadn’t left them much room to maneuver.
John hadn’t wanted the meal interrupted with talk of danger.
She agreed with not scaring the children but, like the other members of her team, Rayne was concerned for the safety of Grant’s adult family members.
Seth, Teagan, Iona, Elias, Andre, and Riley moved the chairs so they were spread around the patio in pairs, each couple scanning a different quadrant for danger. That left her and Grant facing the quadrant where the children played.
Rayne scanned and memorized the area beyond the kids. She hoped that if something changed, she would catch it fast enough to sound the warning. But there were so many places to hide, many of them perfect for a sniper to set up a nest. Maybe that’s why her skin crawled.
Rayne glanced at Teagan. Her friend looked grim as she studied the landscape beyond the yard itself. Andre’s attention was on the forested hills at the back of his quadrant. His expression mirrored Teagan’s. Guess the sensation of being watched wasn’t just her. That didn’t make her feel any better.
John rose and checked the burgers, then declared them ready to eat. “Round up the kids. They have to be starving by now.”
“Dad, it would be better for us to eat inside the house,” Grant said, his voice low.
“We’re not running scared. No one may make us afraid to live our lives on this farm the way we see fit.”
“It’s not about rights, Mr. Bowen,” Seth said. “It’s about the safety of your family.”
Gabe snorted. “So we’re supposed to hide like scared kids because Grant brought his work home with him?”
“Do you want to survive?”
“What kind of question is that?” Tony demanded.
“An honest one. You aren’t the only ones in danger.”
John held up his hand as the kids ran onto the patio, begging for food.
Grant said, “Dad, please. Do it for them.”
“Enough.” He looked at his wife. “Go on. Do what we decided.”
Rayne’s stomach tightened into a knot. This was bad on so many levels. Why was John Bowen being so stubborn? What did it matter if he ate one meal inside when the reward was the safety of his family?
With no recourse, Rayne and the rest assumed the role of protectors for the Bowen family. Too many people and too many places to hide. Would they be able to spot danger before something happened to a person Grant loved?
They spread out, standing back and surveying the area yet again. Rayne’s hands fisted. Something was off. She knew it in her bones but couldn’t pinpoint the location.
As she scanned their quadrant, the fading sunlight glinted off something metal or glass at the farthest edges of the property that she could see. “Grant,” she whispered.
“Where?”
“Ten o’clock. Is there a metal structure or something with glass out there?”
He remained silent for a moment. “I see nothing.”
She turned back and studied the area again, frowning. He was right. Nothing was there. Was she imagining things? As she stared at the same area, the light glinted again. “Gun!”
A shot rang out.
Rayne dove for Helen, rolling in mid-air as she took the older woman to the ground, then flipping their position so her body covered Grant’s mother. Weapon drawn, she quartered the area, searching for the shooter. Nothing. No movement, no more glinting of glass. Zip.
“Dad!”
Helen gasped. “John?” She shoved at Rayne. “Is he all right? Get off me. I must go to him.”
“Not yet. We have to be sure you’re safe.”
“It’s too late for that, isn’t it? Get off me.”
Rayne easily controlled the irate woman until she was satisfied the shooter was in the wind. She scrambled to her feet and held out her hand to Grant’s mother.
Helen slapped away Rayne’s hand, got to her feet by herself, and rushed to her fallen husband. “John!” She dropped to her knees and gasped at the sight of his blood-soaked shirt.
Grant caught the towel Andre tossed to him and pressed the cloth to his father’s chest.
Rayne knelt beside Grant. “How can I help?”
“Take over here. Andre, we need more towels. Seth, how far out is that ambulance?”
“Two minutes.”
Rayne didn’t have to ask how serious his father’s injury was. She could see the worry in Grant’s eyes.
Andre returned with an armful of towels.
“Help Rayne.” Grant surged to his feet and turned toward the area from which the shot originated.
“Where are you going?” Gabe demanded. “Our father’s been shot. You can’t just take off.”
“I’m going after the shooter.”
“Are you crazy? He’s gone by now. You’re a hotshot Special Forces soldier. You should know that much.”
“We don’t know that he’s left the area,” Teagan said. “He may set up for another shot. Every minute we waste arguing with you is another minute he has to choose another sight line to shoot someone else.”
Cilla hurried their children to Gabe. “She’s right. We have to get the kids inside where they’ll be safe. Hurry.”
Grant’s brother glared at him. “This isn’t over, bro.”
“Go. Protect your family. Isabella, take your kids inside along with Tony.”
“What about Dad? Don’t you care about him at all?”
Sirens grew louder. “The ambulance will be here in a minute. I’m not a medic, Izzy. I can’t help Dad here, but I can and will track down the man who shot him.”
“Yeah? Good luck with that.” Isabella’s voice was frigid. She turned her back on Grant and, with the help of her husband, began herding frightened children to the house. “Mom, come with us,” she urged her mother.
“I’m not leaving his side. We’ve never been separated during our marriage. I’m not starting that now.”
“I’ll watch out for her,” Seth said to Grant. “Do what you need to do. Teagan, go with him. Find the nest and get back here. Watch your back, baby.”
“Don’t I always?” She winked at her husband. “We won’t be long.”
“Grant, remember the rules for preserving the crime scene.”
“Copy that, sir.” After brushing his lips over Rayne’s in a light kiss, Grant and Teagan jogged toward the hillside where the sniper had likely made his nest.
Rayne hated Grant going without her. Teagan, however, was the logical choice of a temporary partner since she was a trained sniper.
Refocusing, she grabbed another towel from the pile in Andre’s arms and pressed down on the fallen man’s chest wound. John Bowen was losing too much blood. If the paramedics didn’t arrive soon to transport him to the nearest hospital, he might not survive.
Who was carrying out this vendetta and why? Rayne and the rest of the team had spent hours scouring through the files of the five men who died during Red Dawn and the men who had passed away since their return from the field. Nothing stood out.
She sighed. They must work faster and dig deeper. The answer they needed was in the bits of data and information Riley had gathered. They just had to find the one fact, the one connection that tied everything together and revealed the killer.
A moment later, the medics rushed to the patio led by Gabe. A flurry of activity followed their appearance. Within a few brief minutes, the paramedics lifted John onto the gurney, strapped him down, and hustled toward the ambulance.
Gabe wrapped his arm around his mother, who followed the procession, weeping. “We’ll follow them. You won’t be far away from Dad.”
Seth signaled for Elias and Iona to go with them. He motioned for Rayne, Andre and Riley to follow him inside the house.
Once in the kitchen, the remaining family members stared at them. Finally, Isabella said, “You shouldn’t be here. Haven’t you done enough to our family?”
“Izzy,” Tony murmured as he wrapped his arms around her. “They’re here to protect the family. Let them do their jobs.”
“They’ve done a horrible job thus far. Why should I trust our safety to them?”
“It’s not their fault,” Cilla said. “If anything, the shooting is our fault.”
“What? Why on earth do you say that? We had nothing to do with the creep who shot Dad.”
“Didn’t we? Grant asked us to move indoors for our own safety. None of us agreed. We made protecting the family twice as hard by stubbornly refusing to go inside. So, no, I don’t blame them.”
“Well, sorry for not toeing the party line, Cilla, but I blame Grant. He brought this trouble to our doorstep. Dad wouldn’t be in the hospital if Grant had chosen a different line of work.”
“Honey, you’re understandably upset.” Tony pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Let’s not talk about this anymore. The kids don’t need to hear this.”
Cilla clapped her hands to get the attention of the children. “Come on, guys. Let’s go into the den to watch a movie.”
“But I’m hungry,” one little girl whined.
“We can bring the food inside,” Riley said. “How about a picnic in the den?”
“Yeah!” The children raced from the kitchen, voices pitched high in excitement.
“If the den has carpet, maybe Miss Helen has an old sheet we can spread out to protect the floor.”
“I know where one is located,” Cilla said. “Tony, why don’t you and Izzy fill plates for the kids. Maybe if we give them bottles of water, they won’t spill too much.”
“Excellent idea.” Tony went to a pantry and began grabbing small bottles of water while Rayne and the others ferried the food, paper plates, and eating utensils from the patio and set everything on the spacious kitchen counter.
Within minutes, the children were occupied with a movie and their meals. Just in time, too. Rayne eyed the two detectives who were speaking with Isabella about the shooting.
“Your brother Gabe and your mother are at the hospital with your father. So where is your other brother, Grant?” the older detective asked.
An excellent question. She glanced out into the backyard. Where were Grant and Teagan? She just hoped they wouldn’t run into any trouble.