Thirty-Two
Cole
She was different as she appeared at the top of the stairs. I’d seen Trina with a variety of looks over the last few weeks and in all the years I knew her before. This was something striking, beautiful, even as she appeared without makeup and barely having time to brush her hair.
She was gorgeous like she’d always been, and she still carried herself like she was one step away from stepping on a model’s runway, but this morning, there was a shimmer in her eyes. Something lighter. Something more peaceful surrounded her presence as she came straight to where I was in the kitchen, coffee carafe in front of me and five empty mugs.
“Hey,”
she said, and leaned against me.
Me. She put her weight against me. It felt like I had won a gold medal.
What made it even more beautiful was the lack of tension in her body. She was relaxed, pressing her shoulder against my bicep.
“Hello,”
she said, and it took effort, lots of it, but I tore my eyes off Trina’s soft profile to where she was facing the men across the counter from us. “I’m Trina.”
“Know who you are,”
Jim Bower said, the same guy who’d driven the van to take us to the airport. “You’re looking good. Well healed.”
Trina’s frame tightened, and I settled my hand at her lower back. “Jim helped get you out of the hospital.”
“Oh,”
she whispered. “Thank you, for that.”
“My pleasure.”
He dipped his chin. “Would also be my pleasure if he showed up in front of me so I can show him exactly what I think of a man who does that to a woman.”
So much for Trina’s relaxed stance next to me. She was now so tight it was like she’d stitched her body together, and one tiny move would split all her seams.
“Bower,”
I growled his name. “Maybe back off a bit?”
He shrugged and then grabbed one of the coffee mugs I’d filled. “I’m an honest guy.”
“Thank you,”
Trina whispered. “As scary as the thought is, thank you for that.”
“The other two men are Brock and Rocco.”
I gestured to each of them. Twins, with shorn close dark hair, eyes even darker, and bodies that could tear some of these mountain pines out of the ground with their bare hands.
“Brock,”
one said, and lifted his hand. “Nice to meet you, Trina. Rocco and I will be close to you at all times, but don’t worry if you can’t tell us apart.”
“Our mom still has a hard time doing the same.”
The other one grinned and had a gap in his mouth on the side.
I glanced at Brock, whose expression remained stony.
Hard to believe any woman carried these huge men, and at the same time. Seemed like they could have been created in a test lab for the scariest men on the planet.
At least they’d found their calling in security.
“Not to be rude,”
Trina said, “but I was told you two would be mostly invisible, and that doesn’t really seem possible.”
Brock broke his stony expression and winked at her. “We’re good at our job. Don’t worry.”
“Easy for you to say,”
she muttered and then glanced at me. “The girls okay?”
“Yeah. They’re still sleeping.”
She turned back to the men. “Um, is there anything besides coffee I can get for you? And well…where are you staying? Here?”
“Outside,”
Bower said, I snorted. It was dropping into the teens, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these men could sleep beneath the stars even in freezing temperatures.
“Really?”
Trina sounded much more shocked at the idea than I was.
“No,”
Brock said, back to being stone cold. “We got a place nearby, but you don’t need to know where it is.”
“Because it’s where you’ll keep the bodies?”
Trina asked. Her tone was full of lighthearted sass I wouldn’t have expected considering why these men were here and what was going on.
Brock’s expression remained tight. Rocco chuckled before he hid it behind a cough. Bower said nothing.
“It was a joke,”
she muttered.
“There won’t be any bodies to bury,”
I told her, and then made sure I met each of their gazes.
If something happened to Jonathan, it wouldn’t be buried and hidden on a frozen mountain.
“Right,”
Rocco said, but it sounded more grumbled. Like he wasn’t quite on my side.
I bumped my hip lightly into Trina. “Let’s get you some breakfast. Need anything else besides coffee?”
“This is good for now, but thanks.”
We all settled at the table. Bower went over the plan while they were in town. While Brock and Rocco stuck close to Trina, they’d also be switching off to make sure the girls and Marie were safe at their homes, schools, and work. Bower would mostly be on Jonathan, even if he hadn’t been able to find him yet.
He was close, though. He had to be considering yesterday’s threats.
Eventually, the girls’ bedroom door squeaked open, and the patter of one of my daughter’s feet headed toward us.
All the men turned to watch, which meant as June, and her mop of bedhead hair and Frozen nightgown reached the mouth of the hallway, all eyes were on her.
I’d meant to go in and wake them up to let them know we had company so they weren’t scared, given the size and burliness of the men at my dining table, but it hadn’t really been June I’d been worried about.
June proved my assumption right when she smiled at Trina, moved her sleepy eyes over the rest of the men, and settled on Brock.
Rocco’s earlier statement that their mom couldn’t tell them apart was an utter lie. They might have been identical, but Rocco wore a softer expression. He looked like he heeded his job and got it done efficiently but took no joy in any of the dark sides of it. Brock looked like he ate, slept, and breathed his work, and not only liked the darker sides of it, he enjoyed every slow, bloody, agonizing second of it.
“You look like the monster from the Frosty the Snowman movie,”
June declared, her gaze stuck on Brock. “But with less hair.”
If it was possible, Brock’s expression hardened further, but Rocco slapped his brother on the shoulder. “You mean that furry snow-monster?”
Rocco asked.
June nodded, serious about her decision. “His name is Bumble.”
“My name is Brock.”
June shrugged, glanced at me, and then back at him. “I like Bumble better.”
Jim didn’t bother to hide his laugh but let it boom through the kitchen. I flinched at the noise and excused myself from the table.
“Gotta get Ella,”
I muttered to Trina.
When I reached June, I squatted down in front of her, gave her a kiss on her cheek and hugged her. “As you can see, I’ve got some more friends visiting. I wanted you and your sister to meet them, so they don’t surprise you or scare you, okay?”
“More friends? Now are we having a sleepover?”
“No, Junie bug. No sleepovers yet.”
“Bummer.”
Her eyes went wide and round with mischief. “Can I have ice cream for breakfast since I still don’t get sleepovers?”
Another round of laughter echoed from the table. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. “How about we get you a healthy breakfast before school this week, and then on Saturday we can have it for breakfast.”
“My idea sounds better,”
she muttered.
I’m sure it did. If someone would have told me half of parenting would be bartering with a pint-size pipsqueak, I wouldn’t have believed it, but June knew how to get her way and was creative in going about it.
“Let me get your sister up and then I’ll make you some oatmeal with brown sugar. That work for you?”
“Sugar sounds great.”
I chuckled, kissed the top of her head and went to get Ella.
The day had already started with more excitement than I bargained for, who knew what the rest of it would bring.
“What do you mean he’s gone?”
Eddy slapped a stack of files to his desk and followed it with his iPad. “Gone,”
he repeated. “We can’t find him anywhere. Soon as that man left the lot yesterday, he was a ghost.”
“There’s cameras all over town and on the lights.”
He couldn’t have vanished. He didn’t fly in on the private airstrip. Scranton confirmed it with his own private cameras of the runway.
“I know,”
Eddy said, “and we got his vehicle turning right out of the parking lot and then left on Littlecastle Highway, but after that, there’s nothing.”
“That would have taken him to Crystal Mountain. So, what, he ditched the SUV and got in something else?”
“Could have. Still doesn’t explain the fact we’re scouring every single rental reservation made in the last three weeks for last night and not a single one of them checks out.”
I pinched my nose between my fisted hand and thumb, tugging down. This wasn’t right.
He had to be here.
“So, he changed his SUV, he’s staying farther out in Boone or something, or hell, I don’t know… he took off in a helicopter?”
I hadn’t heard a word from Kip yet that morning, but he’d been my first call on my way into work.
Hell, for all we knew, Jonathan was full of it and had driven back to Georgia. Maybe he’d lied about staying close to scare Trina. Who knew what went on in that man’s mind.
“I don’t have time for this crap,”
I muttered and reached for my iPad. “Not this week. Not when Trina’s finally starting to open up again.”
She was shutting down just as fast, but she was trying. And this morning, she came straight to me, rested her body against me like she actually felt comfortable with me. I could still feel the weight of her body against mine.
“Those men that guy sent are something else,”
Eddy said, and he glanced outside. Brock and Rocco and Jim had followed me into the station to meet our chief. Lannister wasn’t exactly thrilled they were here, but since they were technically just visitors, he couldn’t do much about it, even if I’d gotten an earful after they left to go do their protection thing.
“They bring trouble, it’s going to be hard to cover that up.”
“I think they’ll cover up their own trouble,”
I’d told him which had earned me a scowl. “What do you want me to do? Leave Trina unprotected?”
At that, he’d sighed and then relented. The only trouble they’d bring was finishing whatever trouble Jonathan started, and I figured they’d be gone before anyone could pin anything on them anyway. They were the size of mountains and moved like ghosts. Even as a cop, I’d never seen anything like it.
“I’ll keep them in check.”
Chief nodded and then rolled his eyes. “Make sure you call the first hint you need backup. We’re your family, too, Cole. Family protects family.”
I got it. Promised I would and then headed out of his office and back to work. Things were going to erupt soon, and I needed to make sure everyone in the department was ready.