Chapter 21 #3
As soon as he asked, an idea knocked against my skull like a hammer. No. I tried to shoo it away because it wasn’t actually viable. I couldn’t.
“I mean, Olena obviously doesn’t know where it is, otherwise she wouldn’t be stalking you,” Bray went on, oblivious to my silent struggle. “If the Feds had grabbed it that night, it would already be locked up in evidence. We can’t ask Agent Wallace, obviously …”
His voice faded to a low buzz while my own thoughts overpowered his list of dead ends. There was someone we could ask. The only other person still alive from that night who didn’t want to kill me. Well, I assumed he didn’t want to kill me.
Bray was pacing the patio now, fingers pinching his lip as he rambled.
“There is someone,” I blurted, seeing it as the only option.
He stopped pacing and looked at me with his brows lifted. “Who?”
The words sat on my tongue like a grenade. I couldn’t bring myself to pull the pin. Instead, I gestured to my right.
Bray followed my arm with his gaze as if he expected to see someone standing there. “What?”
I huffed in frustration, wanting him to figure it out so I didn’t have to say it. I gestured again, this time with both arms like I was showcasing a prize on a game show.
He frowned. “The bay? You think someone threw it in the water?”
“Oh my God,” I grumbled and dropped my arms with a slap at my thighs. I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the patio’s end. “My father, Bray! He’s in that prison!”
“Oh. Oh!” he said when it sunk in. “Oh shit, he is?”
“Yes. I thought you read my file.”
“Yes, your file. That detail isn’t in there.”
“Well, he’s in there.” I pointed with my free hand and realized he was still holding my other. His thumb took a brief journey over my knuckles. It sent a hot zap straight to my chest.
“Do you think he knows where the diamond is?” Bray asked.
“I don’t know, but he’s the only person left to ask who doesn’t want to kill me. I think.”
His grip tightened on my hand, and he chewed his lip, thinking.
“There’s only one problem though,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m not going in there to talk to him.”
He slipped his grip free and closed the distance to the railing with a few steps.
He’d commanded me to do several unpleasant things since we’d met: become a nanny, make friends, go to work with a sprained ankle.
But I could tell by his pensive silence he put this task in another category.
Relief washed over me when I realized he wasn’t going to demand I do it.
When he turned back around, the fire lit the eager look on his face. “What if I could get him to come to you?”
“What? How?” I mentally stumbled in confusion. “Last I checked, they don’t give day passes to federal prisoners unless they’ve got a really good reason.”
He stepped toward me and looked like he wanted to take my hand again. “Saving your life is good enough reason for me, but don’t worry. I still have some strings to pull.” He reached in his pocket for his phone and lit up the little rectangle.
A grin tugged at my mouth while I watched him tap at his screen. “Taking matters into your own hands.”
“Indeed. I’ll have to make some arrangements, but it shouldn’t take long. Maybe by tomorrow. Would you be ready?”
The question hit me like a sledgehammer and left me winded. Would I be ready to see my father tomorrow? The answer must have been no because my brain refused to connect and make anything come out of my mouth.
Bray stepped toward me. “Erin, I know this is asking a lot, but it’ll be safe. I’ll make sure of it.”
I looked up into his big, hopeful eyes and wanted to tell him there was no such thing as safe when it came to my father. Even if it was a conversation in a padded room, my father would find a way to scheme, to outmaneuver. To create danger.
But Bray was looking at me like he’d take a bullet for me if it came to it. I may not have trusted my father, but I trusted Bray to make this work.
“Yes, I can do it. But, Bray, you have to know, whatever strings you’re going to pull to get to him, he’ll be ready with ten strings of his own. He’s always conning. Don’t forget this is the man who used his own daughter as bait.”
Sympathetic pain furrowed his brow, but he nodded. “I know.”
I shivered at the thought of what we were going to set in motion. Tomorrow. I’d be face-to-face with the man who’d derailed my life. The man who had given me life and used it for his own purposes.
Bray nodded toward the door, thinking I was cold from the temperature, not from the chill that had haunted me for years. “Let’s go back inside where it’s warmer. Agent Simmons will be here soon anyway.”
“He will? Why?” I asked and followed him inside.
“Because, as far as anyone at the station knows, he’s still on night patrol protecting you in Del Rio, which is only a half lie.
But in reality, he’s bringing supplies: clothes, toiletries, things you need to stay here for a while.
He’ll stay the night here with you too. I need to get back to the station. ”
I stopped short. Any fantasy I’d had of falling asleep on the couch with my feet in his lap, still wrapped in our sweaters—or better yet, the same bed after we’d removed the sweaters and everything else—evaporated like mist. He was back to business.
Treating me like an asset. Handling me in the unfun operational sense of the word.
Despite whatever moment we’d had on the patio, my fantasies were futile anyway.
He’d never cross that line. He was too heroic.
I quietly sighed in disappointment and removed my shoes. The condo looked like a please-remove-your-shoes home anyway, and I figured I should get comfortable if I was staying awhile.
“You’re bringing me clothes and products and setting me up in this fancy condo like a sugar baby. You’re not going to Christian Grey me, are you?”
He looked over his shoulder with a frown. “Who?”
“Never mind. Can I order food, or is the fridge stocked?”
He rounded into the kitchen and opened the fridge’s stainless-steel door. “Looks pretty sparse; my parents haven’t been here for a while. If you want something ordered, just tell Simmons.”
“My own manservant to boot, not bad.”
Bray rolled his eyes and nodded toward the hallway. “Come here, I’ll give you a tour.”
I diligently followed across the dining room complete with a teak dining table and intricate chandelier that could have been displayed in a museum of modern art.
“What, no geeky school portraits of the Bray children to line the walls?” I asked as we passed a pair of underlit oil paintings in the hall.
“You’d have to visit my parents’ house in Oakland for those. All you’ll get is custom art here.”
“I can’t imagine having two houses. I’ve never even had one.” The words slipped out in wonder before I realized it.
I caught his sympathetic, if not guilty, gaze as we rounded into a bedroom.
“You can have the main room; Simmons will take the guest room.” He pointed out the doorway back across the hall.
I ignored him and instead threw myself on the cloud of a bed.
The fluffy white comforter billowed around me like I’d jumped on a tent.
“This is even better than Del Rio.” I flipped over to make snow angels in the fluff and heard him laugh.
“Bathroom is through there. There should be plenty of towels. The floors are heated, and there’s a soaking tub and shower. Whatever you need.”
“I need this bed and a new identity so no one ever finds me here.” I hugged a marshmallow pillow, which smelled like lavender and jasmine.
He laughed again. “Come on, I’ll show you how the house system works.”
“There’s a system?” I reluctantly followed him out of the room.
By the time he showed me the alarm; how the touchscreens in the walls controlled the sound system, the lights, and could raise and lower the window coverings; and demonstrated how to navigate an unreasonable number of streaming options on the TV, I could tell caring for others was his true calling.
He thrived in this element. And having him care for me was setting my body abuzz with a warmth I’d never known.
Agent Simmons arrived at the end of my tour.
“Ms. Daniels,” he greeted me with a curt nod. He’d rolled in a suitcase and carried two bags from Nordstrom before he’d returned out the front door for more supplies.
“It’s still creepy you know my size in everything,” I said to Bray and pawed through one of the bags Simmons had set on the kitchen island to find a cashmere sweater and two pairs of leggings.
“More like convenient,” Bray said.
Simmons returned with another suitcase, presumably his own, and a black case he carried in his hand, this one smaller and with a lock on it.
“Thanks, Mike,” Bray said and took it from him. Simmons nodded and headed down the hall toward the guest room, giving away nothing about how breaking rules might be making him feel.
“Is he the type of babysitter to stay up and play boardgames with me all night? Or am I going to be prying words out of him like barnacles from a rock?” I asked with a smirk.
Bray smirked back. He’d set the small case on the island and placed his hand on top of it. “He’ll follow your lead, but I don’t think he’s much for Monopoly. He’s more of a chess guy.”
“Pity. I was ready to take him for all he’s worth.”
Bray took a breath, sounding serious once more. “Before I give this to you, I want to ask you something.”
I glanced down at the case, realizing it was the gun I’d been promised.
Thank God. The thought of a weapon nearby I could wield so I didn’t have to only rely on my protectors fizzed a wave of relief through me.
“I promise not to shoot you in the balls with it like I did the poster target in the range,” I said and held up a hand like I was taking an oath.
He lost the battle to keep the smile off his face. “Thank you, but that’s not what I was going to ask.”
“Oh?”
“No.” He cleared his throat and looked nervous. “Back at the range, you said you never wanted to be a weapon. What do you want to be?”
The question almost took me to my knees. No one had ever asked me before, save maybe an elementary schoolteacher asking the obligatory What do you want to be when you grow up? years ago.
As Bray looked at me with sincere interest in his eyes, the answer came to me easier than I would have thought.
“Free.”
My response looked like it nearly took him to his knees. It took him a moment to find his voice. “What would you do then?”
I hadn’t put a ton of thought into it because I never thought it would happen. But again, the answers came easily. “Go to college. Maybe study literature. Get a dog. Go on a date.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners, with sympathy or pity or something else altogether, I couldn’t tell. Words waited on his tongue; I could sense them there. I willed him to say them. To tell me I could be free. Soon. And maybe even that he’d take me on a date. Please. But his lips stayed closed.
I huffed a sad laugh and shook my head. “Pipe dreams.”
He gave me a weak smile and slid the gun case to me. “I have to get going. The combo is your birthday.”
I picked up the case and poked at the little numbered wheels lined up and ready to spin. “Is anything about me a mystery to you?” I asked as he turned to go.
He turned back and gave me a coy smile. “Many things, Erin. Many, many things.”
He left me in the kitchen with a gun, a new wardrobe, and the thought of his smile dangerously warming my heart.