Chapter 17
17
T hey finished their drinks in silence, a moment of remembrance. Something teased the back of Viper’s mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. And the more he tried, the more elusive it became.
“Do you mind if we take a walk before we head out?” he asked Clint.
Clint blinked. “You’re staying the night. You heard Maya.”
“We really should get on the road,” Lina said. Jackson fought a grin. The last thing Lina wanted was to sit down to dinner with Maya.
“You think so, but I?—”
“Boss.” One of the men they’d seen earlier on horseback strode in.
“Yeah,” Clint replied, twisting in his chair to see him, straightening as he came into view.
The man, hat in hand, glanced at him and Lina before turning to Clint. Viper’s heart sank. Some weird-ass shit was about to go down, and he had a sinking feeling he knew what.
“Maco got out and landed a good kick on the front wheel of their car,” he said, nodding to him and Lina. “It popped the tire. We can fix it, but the part we need won’t be here until tomorrow morning.”
“Thanks, Cody. Maya already invited them to stay. Let me know if you need any help when the part arrives,” Clint replied.
Cody nodded to the room, then turned on his heel and strode out. Clint swung his gaze to them. A beat passed, and he shrugged. “I can’t explain it, but we’ve all learned to listen to Maya.”
Beside him, Lina sighed. “We could use that walk.”
Clint inclined his head, and they all rose. “We have maps of the trails in the barn. Cody will get you one. It gets cold when the sun goes down, so be back before sunset.”
After a quick stop at the barn, they found themselves meandering alongside the wide stream, heading toward a copse of trees in the distance. According to the trail map, an ancient Native American settlement, long abandoned by the time the European immigrants arrived in the area, lay on the other side.
Before reaching the trees, they came to a cluster of boulders. Lina motioned him to one and he took a seat beside her. Opening her jacket, she withdrew the envelope tucked inside.
“What do you think this is?” she asked.
“The answer to life, the universe, and everything,” he suggested.
She smiled. “Everyone knows that’s forty-two.”
He grinned, wrapping an arm around her. She leaned into him, her hair falling over his shoulder. “Only one way to find out.”
She let out a deep exhale, then slid her finger under the flap and gently pried it away. A single sheet of paper lay tucked inside, and she carefully withdrew the tri-folded sheet.
A death certificate.
“Do you know an Annibel Rutgers?” he asked.
She frowned and shook her head. “Her place of death is Muncie, Indiana. I’ve never been there. And I don’t recognize the name.”
“She was only thirty-three when she died,” he said, pointing out the date of death.
“And cause of death is given as a hemorrhage.”
“During birth,” he added, reading another line.
“We need to find out more about Ms. Rutgers,” she said. “As far as I know, my dad never saw patients outside of Seattle, but he was a hematologist, and she died of a bleeding issue, so maybe that’s a connection?”
He pulled out his phone as a warm breeze swept the meadow they’d walked through. Lina’s hair lifted, brushing his cheek, and the scent of dried grass and alfalfa swirled around them. Dialing a familiar number with one hand, he brushed the strands of her hair behind her ear with the other, his hand lingering at the nape of her neck.
“Viper,” Leo answered. Aside from being Joey’s boyfriend, Leo worked for HICC, one of the best private security companies in the world. The cyber expert was freaky good and recently helped Stone, his Falcons brother, with an issue that the woman he loved stumbled into. Viper didn’t want to take advantage of Leo’s skills, but he had to at least ask.
“I heard Lina called and needed help,” Leo continued. “If that’s why you’re calling, you better not be hesitating to ask for my help because I’ll kick your ass.”
“You could try,” Viper said on a chuckle.
“I’ve been training with Tucker and Teague. Together.”
Shit. Tucker and Teague—brothers and HICC operatives—were fucking huge.
“We need help,” he said, putting the phone on speaker.
“Now that’s better,” Leo replied. “What can I do for you?”
“Can you get us everything you can on Annibel Rutgers?” he asked. “She died nearly six years ago. We have a copy of her death certificate. I’ll send you a picture.”
“Of course. Give me a day or two. Anything else?”
“Can you look into my dad, too?” Lina asked.
“Oh, hey, Lina. Thanks for protecting Joey and helping save my life. I never got to say that since you left town a hot minute after I got shot.”
Viper chuckled again. Leo didn’t typically get annoyed, but he definitely did not like that he hadn’t had a chance to thank Lina.
“Nice try, Leo. I’m not going to feel guilty because there’s nothing to thank me for. Although,” she added, “I may be headed your way soon. I’ll let you and Joey buy me a drink.”
“Deal. Now, why do you want me to look into Dr. Kato? And before you start wondering how I knew his name, I could have found it in the two minutes we’ve been on this call, but Mantis called after Viper left and asked me to look into the situation, and that’s when I came across his name. And…murder. I’m sorry, by the way,” he said.
She mumbled a “Thank you” before telling him about the tin and the items inside. “Given one of those items led us to Annibel’s death certificate, I assume there must be a connection between the young woman and my dad. Maybe one that holds the key to this puzzle,” she said.
“Added to the list. Anything else?” Leo asked. When neither answered, he promised to call when he had something, then signed off. Lina remained leaning against Viper’s shoulder, his arm holding her against his side.
When Mantis and Charley first met, followed by Stone and Juliana, sparks had flown right and left. For each of his brothers, the moment he’d laid eyes on his partner he’d known she was the one. Did it mean anything that he hadn’t felt that kind of certainty the first time he’d seen Lina? There’d been plenty of chemistry. There still was. But were they edging toward something physical because it was comforting and a little familiar when so many things were uncertain for her? Or had there been a spark of certainty that they’d doused because neither of them, each for their own reasons, trusted it?
Or maybe people fell in love differently, easing into it rather than plunging?
“Whatever you’re thinking, you’re thinking hard. Care to share?” she asked.
He considered it but stopped himself before saying anything. It felt cowardly not to take the first step or at least open the door to something more between them. On the other hand, it didn’t strike him as the best idea to start that conversation when he didn’t know enough about his own feelings. He liked Lina. A lot. Smart, capable, confident, quick to laugh. What wasn’t to like? It didn’t hurt that her face intrigued him—all smooth skin and delicate lines—or that her body seemed made for his hands. And that he itched to touch her whenever she was near. But did it mean more? He didn’t want to risk losing her friendship, and if he tried to move their relationship to a different level when he wasn’t certain about what he wanted, he would.
“How old were you when you delivered the car?” With thoughts of Lina occupying his mind, the idea that had been eluding him suddenly took shape.
“Eleven.”
“You talked about the trip the three of you took after you dropped it off. You said it was one of the few times your dad traveled with you. Since the receipt is from around the same time, do you think it might be connected?”
Her brow puckered as she considered the question. “Possibly,” she said, pulling out her phone. Bringing up a picture of the receipt, she held the screen so they could both study it. “It’s so faded.”
“Give it here and let me try a few things,” he said. She handed the phone over and he opened the editing features. “Where did you go after dropping the car?” he asked as he began futzing with the settings.
“Down to Walla Walla, then up to the Gorge. We saw a concert. My first,” she said with a smile.
“Who was playing?”
“A big festival,” she said. “Green Day, Foo Fighters, Oasis…it was quite an introduction to live music. Nothing’s lived up to it since. I think I got every band T-shirt we could find.”
“Did your dad go with you?”
She barked a laugh. “Uh, no. Too many people, too much noise. Not to mention the food and sanitation conditions. We did bring him a shirt, though. One of the bands had a quirky one with a science reference on it—I can’t remember what. He wore it all the time.”
“Where did you go after that?”
“To Leavenworth,” she said. “It’s a small town east of Seattle. We stayed for a week. Again, my dad mostly stayed in the hotel, but my mom and I hiked and rafted and did all sorts of outdoor activities. It’s a kitschy little village but a beautiful spot.”
“I think we should go to Leavenworth tomorrow,” he said, tipping the phone for her to see what he found.
“What’s that?” she asked, eyeing the screen.
“I changed the contrast on the picture and could mostly make out the name of the restaurant. Then I searched it. This is it. And guess what?”
“It’s in Leavenworth,” she said, her voice soft with anticipation.
He nodded as he locked the phone and handed it back to her. “On another subject, neither of us asked who Maco is; any idea?”
She snorted a laugh. “I heard Cody talking to one of the other guys. Apparently, he’s their prize bull and he’s a real asshole.”
He laughed, too. “Glad I wasn’t part of wrangling him back into whatever space they keep him.”
“You and me both,” she agreed on an exhale. “So Leavenworth is next on the agenda. But how in the world are we supposed to know what to look for?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. But at this point, what do we have to lose?”
She made a humming noise in the back of her throat but nodded in agreement. “My dad’s brain worked differently,” she said, her voice laced with both resignation and frustration. “This treasure hunt was probably all so logical to him when he set it up.”
“Any chance you can put yourself in his shoes?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “I wish.” She fell silent, a thresher working in a nearby field and the lowing of a cow the only sounds. When she spoke again, doubt wove through her words in a way he’d not heard before. “My mom and I were so close. I wonder if that closeness interfered with building some sort of connection with my dad. Looking back on it, I think I held the amazing relationship I had with her over him. Maybe to make him jealous in the hopes it would spur him into being more like her.” She sighed. “In the end, I wonder if excluding him from my life because he wasn’t like my mom stopped me from appreciating him for who he was.”
Viper thought that was possible. But she’d also been a kid, and to his way of thinking, neither parent had done her a service by creating such disparate relationships with her. Her mom could have helped her navigate her relationship with her dad, and her dad could have tried a little more. But like many things in life, it was too late for either of those now.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But he still trusted you to figure this out. Whatever this goose chase is that we’re on, he designed it for you .”
“And so we’ll figure it out,” she said, a thread of certainty returning to her tone. A thin one, but he heard it. “Step by step, follow the clues, follow the intel,” she continued. “Which means tomorrow we head to Leavenworth.”
“After dinner with Maya and Clint.”
She groaned. “I don’t even want to think about that.”
“Not a believer?”
She snorted. “Are you?”
He considered his answer. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s all bullshit. But sometimes it’s…well, the possibility of it is intriguing—fun—to think about.”
“Yeah, well,” she said, straightening off his shoulder and rising from the boulder. “Let’s see how much fun you think it is after this dinner.”