Chapter Seventeen
KNOX
Everything was far from okay, but I wasn't going to tell either of them that.
I hit the garage remote and backed out, eyes alert for any movement in the driveway. Nothing. Just because I couldn't see them didn't mean they weren't out there somewhere, watching.
I turned the Land Rover in the direction of Bar Harbor, a city on the coast. Dawn barely kissed the horizon. We had a three-hour drive. Three hours to shake our tail if we had one. Three hours to get in touch with Cooper to find out what the fuck was going on.
I thought about doubling back towards town and taking a circuitous route around the lake to flush out anyone following us. If we were in a more densely populated area, I would have done that.
Here? Waste of time.
There were innumerable back roads around Black Rock Lake, but there was only one road to Bar Harbor. It was the only road to anywhere. If someone wanted to follow us, all they had to do was wait by the highway, and they'd pick us up eventually.
At this hour, traffic was light. Based on their performance at the house, I doubted Tsepov's men could hide if they were following us. I'd pick them up on way to Bar Harbor if they were there.
Lily was quiet as we drove, talking to Adam here and there, calming him but saying nothing to me. We needed to talk. I was done playing around, done with her hiding things from me.
First, I had to get in touch with my brothers. I called both Cooper and Evers twice, getting nothing. Finally, when the sun blazed in the sky and we were almost to Bar Harbor, Cooper answered.
“Knox. You guys okay?” Cooper was never easy going, but his voice was drawn tight. Something was wrong in Atlanta.
“In one piece. Six men attacked the house before dawn. We're fine. What's going on there?”
Cooper let out a gust of air. “It's a fucking clusterfuck. Tsepov hit Rycroft Castle. Smoky Winters let them in. He took Summer.”
“Fucking hell.” A quick glance in the rearview mirror. Adam was asleep. Good. “What's the plan?”
“We just traded her for Evers. It's under control. Are Lily and the kid okay? You okay?”
“I took a scratch to the arm, but we're fine. Got out of the house, headed to Bar Harbor. Summer?”
“Fine. Pissed as hell that Evers traded himself for her.”
“What's the plan to get him back?”
“We're on it. Go to Bar Harbor, stay visible. Public. Alice will call you with arrangements. We need a few hours here to deal with the situation. Agent Holley is on his way. The FBI should have Tsepov by the end of the day. Just hang tight.”
“Can do. I'll wait to hear from Alice.”
“Don't do anything stupid with the widow,” Cooper growled.
“I'm not the one trading myself to a mob boss,” I said, dodging his comment.
“It was his fucking idea, the idiot,” Cooper spit out.
“Of course, it was.” If I'd had more time to get my head around their predicament, I would have guessed that.
Evers was head over heels in love with Summer, had been for over a year. The moron just couldn't admit it to himself. Bad enough that Tsepov got his hands on her, but to have it happen on his own job? Of course, he’d trade himself for Summer.
“Stay safe,” I said.
“Yeah, you too. As soon as the situation stabilizes, I’ll call.”
“Got it. Later.”
Lily met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Is everything okay?”
I debated what to tell her and settled for the truth. “Tsepov hit the team in Atlanta. Grabbed my brother’s girlfriend. They have it under control, but we need to stay moving until everything is resolved.”
“What does that mean?” Lily asked.
“Hopefully, it means Andrei Tsepov is headed for jail. More than that, I don't know yet.”
Ten minutes later my phone beeped with a text. I glanced down to see an address. House of Blueberry: Pancakes & More. I tapped the link and let the maps app on my phone guide us to breakfast.
A second text beeped. Alice.
Call me when you get there.
I glanced in the rearview to check the backseat. Adam was still asleep, his hand gripping his mother's, a faint line between his eyes. Lily sat stiffly, her eyes bouncing around, unable to settle.
We needed to talk. Adam was a wrench in the plans. Nothing we had to say should be spoken in front of him. It could wait. If Cooper was right, the FBI and Evers were about to buy us some time.
The pancake house wasn't far. I pulled in a few minutes after Alice's text, the gentle sway of the car parking jostling Adam from sleep. He blinked slowly.
I asked, “Who likes pancakes?”
His eyes cleared and he bounced a little in his car seat. “I do! I like pancakes. We're having pancakes?” A sudden thought occurred to him, and he slanted his mother a suspicious look. “Did you make the pancakes?”
A startled laugh burst from Lily. She leaned over and kissed her son on the cheek. “No, baby. We're at a pancake restaurant.” She started to undo her seatbelt, but I stopped her.
“Hold on a second, Lily. Alice—she manages our office in Atlanta—she wants me to call before we go in. She's the one who found the pancake place. Let me check in with her and then we'll get some food.”
Adam squirmed with excitement at the thought of pancakes not cooked by his mother. Lily unfastened her seatbelt but stayed where she was.
Alice answered on the first ring. “Hey, Knox. You guys okay?”
“So far, so good. How are things there? Cooper didn't tell me much.”
“You know, same disaster, different day. Cooper is pretty solid on getting this settled in the next couple of hours, but he wants you to stay away from Black Rock for now. I checked out Bar Harbor. You have the little boy with you?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed.
“Cool. I looked it up, and there's Acadia National Park nearby with a big sand beach. Why don't you have breakfast at that pancake place and then take them to the beach? It's public, it's in the open, and this time of year there will be park rangers all over the place.”
The beach at Acadia National Park. That would be perfect. Adam could play and relax. Lily and I could talk.
“Listen,” Alice cut into my thoughts, “if you need to leave the park, call first, okay?”
“No problem. We're going to need a team up here when everything is settled.”
“Gotcha. Someone will call as soon as things are stable here.”
“Good luck.”
I hung up. I didn't like my brother with Tsepov. I liked the idea of Tsepov having Summer even less. Evers was former special forces. Tsepov trafficked women.
Between the two of them, Evers was safer in his hands than Summer. A hell of a lot safer.
If the men Tsepov had in Atlanta were as half-assed as the ones he'd sent to Maine, Evers would be fine. I'd still feel better when I heard my brother's voice. Even better when I knew Tsepov was with the FBI.
In the meantime, a big stack of blueberry pancakes would go a long way to improving the morning. I gave Lily and Adam a nod and they piled out of the Land Rover to follow me into the restaurant.
Lily picked at her single pancake and bowl of fruit. Adam, with the resilience of a five-year-old, had no such trouble. He went for the chocolate chip stack and dug in with enthusiasm, jamming forkful after forkful of pancakes into his mouth.
He seemed to be over the trauma of seeing a man hold his mother at gunpoint. It would come back to him, but it was good to see that shocked look chased from his eyes by chocolate chips, whipped cream, and a tall glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.
I tucked into my own stack of pancakes, liberally dotted with fresh Maine blueberries. Smaller than regular blueberries, they stained the pancakes blue, popping in my mouth with bursts of sweetness.
We were halfway through breakfast when I said to Lily, “Did you pack bathing suits?”
She nodded. “I grabbed a little bit of everything. Why?”
“Alice says Acadia National Park is close by, and it has a nice beach. Until I hear back from Cooper, she thought it would be a nice way to spend the morning.”
Adam looked at me over a heaping forkful of pancake, grunting an inquiry through a full mouth.
“You want to go swimming, bud?”
He nodded, swallowing so he could say, “Can I build sand castles?”
Lily looked up from her mangled pancake. “I didn't pack your sand shovel and beach stuff. But we can play—”
“Don't worry about it,” I said. “There's got to be someplace around here that sells sand toys. We'll grab some stuff and have a morning at the beach.”
Lily gave me a grateful smile. “Thanks, Knox.”
“Eat something, will you?” I asked, giving her plate a pointed look. “You're supposed to put the pancake into your mouth, not stab it with your fork.”
Adam giggled. “Yeah, Mom. Eat your breakfast.”
She made an effort, but her plate was only half clean when we left the restaurant in search of supplies for the beach.
I went a little overboard at the tourist trap where we stopped for sand toys.
While Lily and Adam debated which prepackaged kit of sand molds and shovels to get, I grabbed two beach chairs, towels, a sun hat for Lily, sunscreen, a long-sleeved rash guard shirt for me, and a pair of swim trunks since I'd forgotten to pack my own.
I threw in a handful of snacks and bottles of water.
July in Maine isn't as hot as Atlanta—not even close—but sitting in the sun all morning called for water, and any trip to the beach called for snacks.
A laugh bubbled from Lily's throat when she saw my pile of stuff at the register. Interrupting her debate with Adam, I grabbed the biggest pack of sand toys and tossed it on top.
“I've got it,” Lily said, fumbling for her wallet.
I handed my card to the clerk, blocking her from doing the same. I should have let her pay. She was the client, after all.
Should have, but wouldn't.
I was taking Lily and Adam to the beach.
We were going to have a nice morning. I was going to watch Adam laugh and have fun and finally straighten this shit out with Lily.
She wasn't a client anymore.
She was mine, and I was paying for the fucking beach toys.
She didn't argue, still off balance. I loaded our gear into the back of the Rover and hit a drive-through coffee place because the weak shit at the pancake house was not enough.
We reached the menu to order, and I looked at Lily. “Iced s'mores Latte?”
Her eyes lit with pleased surprise. Knowing her coffee order was a friendly intimacy. In the big picture, not that important. It felt like more than a coffee order. It felt like a secret language.
She took her drink from me and sipped, staring out the window in contemplation.
Adam twisted and bounced in his car seat, every mile between us and the beach stretching into eternity.
Thanks to our pre-dawn departure, we were early, and the state park wasn't crowded yet.
Lily and Adam changed while I got our chairs and towels set up.
I didn't like leaving them for the few minutes it took me to put on my trunks and rash guard, but stripping down on the beach seemed like a good way to get kicked out.
The rash guard covered my bandaged arm well enough, and unlike a regular long sleeve shirt, wouldn't look out of place on the beach.
Adam ran to the edge of the water and stuck in his foot, then screeched and raced back, shrieking, “It's cold! It's cold! It's so cold, Mom!”
How cold could it be?
When my feet went numb a minute later, I knew exactly how cold the ocean in Maine could be.
Pretty fucking cold.
Fighting the urge to screech and run from the icy water like Adam, I forced myself to stroll out casually, praying the sun would warm me up. Every bone in my feet had turned to ice.
It wasn't anywhere close to hot enough to go swimming in that fucking water.
Hell wouldn't be hot enough to swim in that water.
Lily was biting her lip, smirking at me.
“You've never been in the ocean in Maine, have you?” she asked mischievously.
“That obvious?”
“Pretty much. I'll swim in the lake this time of year if it's hot out, but I almost never go into the ocean.” Lily opened the bag of sand toys and passed them out to Adam.
The beach wasn't too crowded yet, and he'd found himself a spot closer to the water where the sand was hard-packed and wet enough to build with.
Lily sat in one of the beach chairs. I took the other. We sipped our coffee, watching Adam dig in the sand as the silence stretched between us.
Satisfied Adam was out of earshot, I asked the question that had been plaguing me since my first day in Lily's house.