Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
T en days. A week and a half without answers. Without action.
Holt was beyond twitchy. He knew how to wait. How to hold out for the right moment to execute a directive. But this wasn’t the sort of fight he’d been trained for. He didn’t have the computer or investigative skills necessary to undo the damage that had been done. So he had to rely on others. Some, like Cash, he trusted. Others, like the FBI agents allegedly working to prove Raynor’s current felonious activity, in addition to shoring up whatever weaknesses existed in the original case, he didn’t. Oh, he was sure they were doing their jobs. But it wasn’t their families, their livelihoods on the line, so they weren’t motivated in the same way. Holt needed to put an end to this. And while he knew countless ways to track down and neutralize the threat Raynor posed, he was a civilian now, without orders or just cause for taking a life.
So he waited, filling his days with flour, sugar, and butter in the exacting, methodical fashion that had come to soothe him during his tenure in Dr. Graham’s program. Baking was a thing he could control, with results he could predict. And it was the only way they were going to keep their business afloat.
Customers were coming. Not in the droves of the very beginning, but steady enough. There’d been plenty of Looky Lous fishing for information about the break-in. They were sticking with the party line that the vandal hadn’t been caught, and the police were looking into it. So far, nobody had been brave enough to ask or opine to their faces about any connection to the trouble they’d had during the renovation.
Without the refrigerated display cases, he and his partners had switched to baking things more in shifts rather than prepping the whole day’s wares at once. Since the bulk of his contribution to the bottom line were the custom cakes he had, thankfully, gotten a steady stream of orders for, he came in later, which meant he was around for the morning routine at home, getting Maddie off to school. That part of the change he liked, and not just because he felt like she was better protected if he saw her to and from the elementary school.
For her part, Cayla had taken to working out front in the bakery, both for planning and client meetings, when she could arrange it. She didn’t like it, not when she’d only just gotten her office ready for clients. But Holt hadn’t forgotten how Raynor had cornered her there, and he didn’t want to give the slimeball a chance to do it again. Here she was protected, both by dint of being in public and by always being within shouting distance of the three of them. And he had to admit, he enjoyed being able to glance through the pass-thru and see her tapping away on her tidy little laptop or making notes in the composition books she preferred at one of the four-top tables.
This morning she sat with the newly engaged Marisol Sanz, discussing options for an engagement party. It amazed him how easily she could just reach out to strangers to offer her services. She came off as the well-organized friend who just wanted to take something off their plates and make life easier, which was, he’d decided, the secret to her success. Marisol fairly glowed with happiness, her hands waving as she talked with apparent enthusiasm over whatever Cayla had suggested.
The door opened, and another customer came in. Holt pegged the guy in his late twenties. He wore jeans and an untucked Oxford cloth shirt, with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. One hand curled around the strap of a messenger bag hung across his narrow chest. The heavy-framed black glasses gave him a vaguely Clark Kent vibe, though he was too wiry to fool anyone into thinking he was Superman. He glanced around the bakery before stepping up to their new counter. Mia had improvised a clever display out of reclaimed wood and old windows. It wasn’t refrigerated, but it did the trick of displaying their wares in a more professional fashion than the card tables and baskets they’d been working with, and the price tag had been minimal, which was a concern these days.
Because it was his turn, Holt pushed past the swinging door to go out front. “Help you?”
“Yeah, can I get one of those apple cinnamon scones?”
“Sure. For here or to go?”
“To go, please.”
Holt opened the door on the back of the case and reached in with a square of parchment paper to grab a scone off the end of the tray closest to him. “You want this heated?”
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks.”
Holt bagged the scone and rang the guy up, accepting the cash payment and making change. “Have a good one.”
“Thanks, man.” The guy stuffed his change into his pocket and opened the messenger bag to put his purchase inside. As he turned, his eyes landed on Cayla and brightened with recognition.
Someone else she’d gone to high school with? The age was about right. Holt watched as the guy strode over to her table.
“Cayla Black, right?”
She looked up, confusion flickering over her face. The lack of recognition on her side had some instinctive alarm sounding, and Holt was already moving out from behind the counter as she said, “Yes?”
He dropped an envelope on her laptop. “You’ve been served.”
Holt growled, his hands curling into fists.
The Clark Kent wannabe took two stumbling steps back, face paling as he caught sight of Holt. “Just doing my job, man.”
“Get out.”
He booked it out of the bakery. Cayla looked at the door, at Holt, and then finally down at the envelope as if it were a snake about to strike. She’d gone sheet white. Because this was the thing they’d been waiting for. This was what they’d been expecting for weeks. It had to be.
Marisol looked acutely uncomfortable. “I think we’ve got enough for now. I’ll talk everything over with Shayne and be in touch.”
Cayla worked up a smile, though it was brittle around the edges. “Great. And I apologize for the interruption.”
As soon as the girl left, Holt locked the door behind her. Brax and Jonah came out from the kitchen, hovering near the counter. Holt sat down across from Cayla, who was still staring at the envelope.
He kept his voice gentle, understanding her fear. “Do you want me to open it?”
She shook her head, reaching for it with trembling fingers. Ripping it open, she slid out the contents and unfolded them. As her eyes read over the paperwork, her face paled further. Without a word, she handed it to him.
Holt skimmed it, not absorbing the details beyond the fact that Raynor was suing for full custody of Maddie. Struggling not to crush the petition in his hand, he set it aside and reached for his wife. Her fingers felt icy in his.
“We knew this was probably coming. He let us get complacent. It’s why he waited. To have maximum impact and upset you more. It’s gonna be okay. Another pain in the ass, but we’re going to get through it.”
Some alert sounded on her phone. She picked it up to check. At the sight of the notification, she went almost gray. Yanking her hand from his, she fumbled with the screen, opening some app and scrolling through, clearly checking several things.
“What is it?”
She closed her eyes, tears leaking out as she struggled to speak. “The identity theft protection service I use. He’s cracked my and Maddie’s identities and done the same damned thing to both of us.”
“I swear to you, we’re doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this,” Special Agent Marquez insisted.
Cayla bit back the bitter laugh that wanted to spill out. “I came to you six years ago because I believed you’d be able to see that he was stopped and punished for all the people he’d hurt. You assured me you would. Yet here we are, with him out of the cage on some kind of technicality, free to go back to exactly what he was doing before. Except instead of strangers, he’s doing it to me. To my husband. To my friends. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t think your best is currently good enough.”
Was her accusation harsh and unfair? Maybe. But she was beyond giving a damn. The past couple of weeks had shown her exactly how poor the protections she’d put into place really were. Arthur might not be able to lay hands on her physically, thanks to Holt, but he could get to her every other way. And she knew he’d continue to prove it until someone stopped him.
Special Agent Marquez sighed. “I know this really means nothing, under the circumstances, but I really am sorry. I wish things were moving quicker. But we’re trying to be thorough. To make sure we don’t have a repeat of this appeal when we put him away again. And we will put him away again. We just need time.”
“Unfortunately, that’s something we may not have. Please keep me informed.”
After listening to his empty assurances, Cayla hung up and dropped her face into her hands. She’d known before she called him that the FBI wouldn’t be able to do anything. But she’d reported the details, exactly as she’d promised. She’d contacted the FTC and the credit bureaus, starting the same process Holt and the guys had already begun. What more could they do? They were meeting with an attorney in Johnson City tomorrow to go over the petition and formulate a response. That was the next logical step. But financially? She didn’t know how they were going to weather this.
She’d dipped into savings to finish outfitting her office as a business growth tactic. Certainly, she had business coming in—thank God—but would it be enough to cover them with the bakery being in a precarious financial position itself? In all reality, Arthur had financially hobbled them. They could limp along for a while longer, but if anything else happened, they’d be completely screwed. Not to mention the question of how they were going to afford the attorney if the custody suit had any real grounds.
From the living room, she could hear the low rumble of Holt’s voice. He’d been on the phone with Cash for the last twenty minutes going over the latest. She wasn’t exactly clear on what it was Cash was doing, but Holt had let slip that he was former Army Intelligence, so maybe he had some skills or access to information the FBI couldn’t tap. At this point, she didn’t care who put Arthur behind bars again, only that they do it soon.
Her phone rang. Unknown number.
With a sense of foreboding, she hit answer. “Hello.”
“Hello, Cayla.” Arthur’s familiar, supercilious voice sent a chill down her spine.
“What do you want?”
“I only want what’s mine. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“And what exactly do you consider yours?” She knew, but this was how the game was played.
“Well, you’ve gotten the custody paperwork by now.”
Her hand curled tight around the edge of the table, knuckles going white. “Yes.”
“Your case isn’t going to look very good. You’re not very financially stable to provide for our child.”
It wasn’t an outright admission, and there was no way to start a recording on her phone. A recording wouldn’t be admissible in court either way. This wasn’t evidence. But she knew.
Banana Bread padded into the kitchen, laying her head on Cayla’s knee with a whine. She curled her hand in the dog’s fur, appreciating the support. “And what would you know about my financial situation?”
She could practically hear him smile. “Enough. Unfortunately, these sorts of things usually get worse long before they get better. Bad luck seems to spread like a virus.”
Was that a threat? It sounded like a threat. Did he mean he could make the situation worse for her? Or was he talking about expanding his targets, going after more people in her circle?
“There is one way to fix it,” he continued.
“And what’s that?”
“I can make all this go away. I’m good at making things go away. All you have to do is agree to come back to me and bring our daughter with you. I’ll wave my magic wand and everybody’s happy. You’re back where you belong; I get a chance to get to know my daughter; and the cripple and his little friends can go back to their little bakery. It can rise or fall on its own. I don’t actually care. They’ve got enough problems without me needing to add to them. Think about it, sweetheart. I’ll be waiting for your answer.”
He hung up before she could reply.
For a moment, fury burned through her so bright and hot she couldn’t hear a thing. This arrogant, entitled asshole had done everything he could to back her into a corner. And he’d succeeded. She knew exactly how much worse he could make it on her. How much worse he’d made it for other people before she’d sent him away. She was out of options. Because he’d keep doing what he was doing, attacking everyone connected to her, not giving a damn that they weren’t actually involved. He didn’t care about collateral damage.
But she had to care. She couldn’t allow this to continue. Couldn’t allow more people to be hurt on her behalf. Not when she was the one person who actually had the power to end this.
But could she actually do it? Go back to him? She’d never stay, but maybe she could get close enough, ingratiate herself back into his life far enough to get the information the authorities needed. Except Arthur wasn’t a stupid man. He wasn’t going to be careless again. And there was the issue of Maddie. If it was just Cayla herself, she might do it in the name of the greater good. But in no universe could she imagine willingly exposing her daughter to that man.
Which left her where?
Holt appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “I just—What happened?” He hurried across the room. “Cayla? Honey?”
BB lowered to her haunches nearby, her tail giving an uncertain thump as she looked back and forth between them.
Cayla sucked in a slow breath and told him, her voice a flat monotone. Because all the fight had gone out of her.
Holt dropped into a chair and took her hands. “We’re going to figure this out. It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not,” she whispered. She understood that now.
“What are you talking about?”
She extracted her hands, folding them tight in her lap as she fought back tears. Because she didn’t want to say any of this, and she knew what she wanted no longer mattered. “You took on this battle because you believed that you could protect us from whatever he did. But he’s not an insurgent. He’s not someone posing a physical threat. This isn’t a war you can win.”
Cayla watched the shutters come down over his eyes and hated herself.
“What are you saying?”
“He holds all the cards. I have no doubt he’ll ruin the lives of every single person around me. Where’s it going to stop? The FBI doesn’t have any more leads or enough information to actually get him off the street and stop him. You’ve seen how much damage he’s done in just six weeks. What if he goes after my mother next? After Jonah’s mother? After your sister? After who knows who all of my business contacts? He can and will destroy everything. I can’t live with myself if I let him do that.”
Holt’s blue eyes turned glacial, his hands curling to fists. “You’re not going back to him.”
“No. No, I’d never expose Maddie to that.” And she was shamed enough by the fact that she’d considered it, even for a moment.
“So… what?” he demanded.
“I don’t know!” Her shout echoed through the kitchen. She sucked in a breath, swiping at the tears that burned down her cheeks. “I don’t know anything except that nothing and no one is safe, and apparently no one can stop him.” Holt would realize it, too, sooner or later. And he’d hate her for all the ways she’d ruined his life.
“You can’t just give up.”
When he reached for her, Cayla rose and stepped back. She couldn’t bear him touching her right now. She had to find the strength to stand on her own again, before he cut his losses and walked away.
“I can’t live like this. Every day full of dread, waiting for the next bomb to drop.” She reached for her purse.
“Where are you going?” There was temper and something that sounded a lot like fear under the question.
“To pick up my child from school and to pray for a fucking miracle. Because I don’t see any other way out of this.”
Without another word, she strode out, leaving her bruised and battered heart behind.
“She’s giving up.” Holt laced his fingers behind his head and paced another tight circuit of Brax and Mia’s living room. He needed to do something. Preferably something that would eliminate the threat Cayla’s ex-husband posed. Permanently.
“Okay, you look about two steps away from a berserker rage. Maybe you ought to start at the beginning now that we’re all here,” Brax said evenly.
With the part of his brain that wasn’t currently plotting Raynor’s demise, Holt appreciated his friends’ rapid response to the SOS he’d sent out. Jonah sat in the armchair, elbows braced on his knees. Brax and Mia occupied the sofa, sitting thigh-to-thigh, as they often did since reconciling. As if, after all those lost years, they couldn’t bear to be even that far apart if they were in the same space.
He’d found that with Cayla and damned if he was willing to give it up.
Sucking in a breath, Holt struggled to get a lock on his temper. This wasn’t him. He was trained to stay in control. To remain emotionally numb. Objective. But there wasn’t a part of him that had been emotionally numb since the moment Maddie had kissed his bad knee above the prosthesis to make the boo boo better. And he hadn’t been truly objective since he’d said, “I do.” They’d both gotten under his skin and well into his heart.
“The bastard called her this afternoon, after we jumped through all the hoops to report the latest fraud for both her and Maddie. He’s basically given her an ultimatum: she comes back to him and brings Maddie, or he continues to expand his reign of terror, indiscriminately financially ruining everyone she touches.”
“Wait, did he actually say that?” Jonah demanded.
“He alluded to it, but the message was clear enough. And Cayla believes him.”
“She’s not actually going to go back to him,” Mia insisted. “She’d never do that.”
“No. But I’ve never seen her like this before. It’s bad. I don’t know what she might do—what the guilt and the desperation might drive her to.” He speared both hands into his hair and tugged. “I swore I’d protect them both, and I’ve failed.”
“Man, it’s more complicated than that,” Brax put in.
“No, it’s not. This was the mission I gave myself, and it’s gone all kinds of sideways. He came at us in ways I wasn’t prepared for. And the consequences for that oversight may be our business and my family.”
If they were surprised at the claim, no one voiced it. Because this was no longer a mission. No longer pretend. This was his life. His wife. His child. And he didn’t know what to do to save them all.
Mia sat forward. “Have you two spoken to an attorney yet? Does he actually have a case for winning custody?”
“We don’t know. We haven’t gotten that far yet. We’ve got a meeting with somebody in Johnson City tomorrow.”
“I think I can get you an answer tonight. Let me call Maggie.”
Holt frowned. “Porter’s wife? I thought she did something with running the small business incubator thing.”
“She does. But she’s also an Ivy-League-educated attorney. She doesn’t have an active legal practice in Tennessee, but she could at least give the opinion of a trained legal professional.”
The cool-eyed blonde showed up fifteen minutes later. “How can I help?”
Holt took her through it with considerably more calm and less profanity, explaining the whole situation: how Raynor was out of prison, how that had prompted Holt and Cayla to get married, all Raynor’s suspected illegal activities, and how he was suing for full custody. “Does he really have a case?”
“Do you have the paperwork with you?”
“Not on me. I can get it. We just live a little down the street.”
“I can’t make any definitive claims without reading it, but I will say that this is just the initial petition. You and Cayla will respond to the claims, and that opens up a dialogue of sorts—mostly through your attorneys—until both sides mutually agree on terms or a court date is set. Even if your financial situation is problematic, it’s been documented that you’ve been victims of fraud. That isn’t necessarily a black mark for you. I mean, of course, it’s awful that you’re having to go through it, but it’s not an automatic mark in his favor. The fact is, in most cases, judges will side with the mother. He’d have to show evidence proving abuse or profound neglect to wrangle full custody. That’s simply not going to happen. You’re both active, engaged, loving parents, and there are many, many people who’d testify to that fact. Whether he has a case to push for some sort of visitation rights, I can’t say. But I think that’s the worst you have to fear regarding a custody suit.”
A little of the crazed fear leeched out. “Okay. Thank you.” Holt let out a slow breath. “So, what are we supposed to do about the rest of it? Cayla’s resigned. She feels like nobody is going to be able to stop this fucker. Everybody who was supposed to protect her has failed. Including me. I’m this close to hunting his ass down and finding a deep, dark hole to hide the body.”
Maggie covered her ears. “I didn’t hear that.” She moved toward the door. “I’m getting out of here so I can retain plausible deniability. I’ve got to go pick up Faith from daycare, anyway.”
“Thank you for coming. It gives me a little more peace of mind over all this.”
She laid a hand on his arm and offered a sympathetic smile. “Anytime. I hope all this gets straightened out soon.”
“You and me both.”
Once she was gone, Brax stood. “Raynor doesn’t have much of a custody case, so he’s using a form of psychological warfare to press other points of leverage. An emotional terrorist trying to break her down on every level.”
Holt resumed his pacing. “He’s just going to keep at it until the cops catch him, or until somebody beats him at his own game.”
Jonah rose to join him. “Okay, so let’s think that through. What is his game? What does he want?”
“Control. Power. He’s the kind of guy who enjoys playing God. Manipulating everybody around him. He thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. And that’s not entirely without merit or he wouldn’t have pulled off what he has. But the guy’s not infallible. The more people he targets, the more likely he is to make some kind of mistake.”
“So, how do we get him to make that mistake?” Brax asked.
Holt stopped pacing, the fragments of a plan beginning to coalesce in his brain. “We make him think he’s getting what he wants.”
Mia frowned. “How do we do that?”
“We think like he does.” He grabbed his phone. “I need to make some calls.”