Chapter 1 #2
She’d spoken to Dmytro before they’d left the headquarters building of the Brotherhood Protectors International—before she’d been whisked away alone in a car, and before the crash that had freed her.
“I have come bearing information.” Dmytro held up a satchel. “Do you want it now, or do we eat first?”
Hammer waved a hand toward the table. “Please, have a seat. Let’s get you all something to drink and order food before we dive in.”
“Thank you.” Cate sank into the chair Draco held for her, her legs still wobbling from the wild evening. She ordered a glass of wine and quickly settled on Zürcher Geschnetzeltes, thinly sliced veal in a creamy white-wine sauce.
Her father smiled. “I almost ordered that for you. I know it’s your favorite when in Zurich.”
“I’m not sure I can do it justice, but I’ll give it my best shot. Do you want half?” she asked her father.
He shook his head. “You were so long, the rest of us ate. I had a steak.”
She turned to Draco. “Will you eat half?” She fell back into their easy friendship from before he’d disappeared.
“Sure,” he said, patting his stomach. “After everything that’s happened this evening, I’m not terribly hungry.”
Once they’d ordered, Hammer raised a glass. “Before we get into our next case, I’d like to toast Dr. Marta Hale. If not for her, we might all have been in quarantine, facing a pandemic far worse than the one we saw with COVID.”
Everyone around the table raised a glass or a stein and shouted, “Hear! Hear!”
Marta’s cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “Thank you, but I couldn’t have done any of it without your support and rescue.”
The wait staff appeared, carrying platters of bread, a cheese board, glasses of wine, and steins of beer.
Suddenly, Cate found the stomach that had deserted her during the wild ride into the crash.
She ate, thankful Hammer didn’t hit her with more questions.
He let her quench her thirst and satisfy her hunger while Hammer quizzed Phantom about his next assignment and Marta described the antiviral work she would do with another scientist named Priya.
Crusher’s gaze remained glued to Marta as if she were the oxygen he breathed.
The warmth of the restaurant and the camaraderie of those around her lulled her into a sense of security.
She felt safe among her newfound friends and protectors.
They threw themselves into whatever danger came their way for the people they cared about and for complete strangers.
It was routine, something they encountered every day.
Cate admired them for their dedication, selflessness, and commitment to righting wrongs.
Her gaze slipped toward Draco more than once.
Even he made her feel comfortable in the environment, surrounded by so many people she didn’t know.
When the wait staff came to clear the table, Cate decided it was time to come clean with her current job as a private investigator for a friend facing a life sentence behind bars.
“Mr. Hammer, if I could...” she said softly.
Hammer gave a single nod toward Cate and then tapped his knife to his beer stein until he had the attention of everyone at the table. “Ms. Marsh has something she’d like to say.”
All eyes turned toward Cate, making her cheeks heat and her palms grow moist. She’d promised to tell Draco everything, not an entire roomful of people.
But looking into the kind eyes of Dr. Marta Hale, the woman who’d taken her under her wing in captivity, and into the equally patient, helpful gaze of Hammer, a man who’d dedicated his life to helping others, she had no qualms about sharing her case with them.
Already, they’d offered Dmytro’s help, and Draco had insisted on accompanying her on her journey.
“Please,” she said quietly, “be patient. I need to start at the beginning.”
Everyone waited in complete silence, with their gazes gently urging her to go on.
Her gaze met and held Draco’s for a long moment.
“I promised I’d tell you everything. I keep my promises,” she said softly.
She dragged her gaze from Draco and swept the room, her attention focusing on everyone individually, recognizing them as people who’d had her back and would have it again, should the need arise. Her gut told her they would.
“My best friend, Dana Calloway, was my roommate in college,” she began slowly, warming to the story.
“While I followed in my father’s footsteps into the State Department and eventually into private investigation, she became a third-grade teacher whose students and staff adore her.
She is the kind of person who would stop traffic and risk her life on a busy day to move a turtle out of the road.
” A lump settled in Cate’s throat. She swallowed hard to dislodge it and continue.
“Right now, she’s sitting in a cell at the adult detention center in Alexandria, Virginia.
She’s been charged with the stabbing death of her husband, Marcus Calloway. ”
A long silence greeted her declaration.
Draco broke the silence, his brow furrowing. “You don’t think she did it?”
Cate shook her head. “No, Dana doesn’t have a mean bone in her body.”
“Was her husband abusive?” Marta asked.
“No,” Cate responded. “At least she didn’t indicate so.”
“Witnesses?” Crusher asked.
“None,” Cate said. “As far as the murder goes, some neighbors testified to hearing loud arguments. Dana admitted to them, but she swears she wouldn’t have killed Marcus. She’d hoped they could salvage their marriage.”
Hammer’s eyes narrowed. “Murder weapon?”
Cate gave a brief nod in response to Hammer’s question. It was valid. “If there truly was a murder, the weapon they’re considering is a butcher knife.”
“Butcher knife?” Hammer’s brow dipped low.
“According to Dana, she was drinking wine and chopping vegetables one moment. The next thing she remembered was waking up on the kitchen floor with the butcher knife by her side. The knife and her clothes were splattered with blood. She doesn’t remember anything. She called 911 immediately.”
“Do you have the report from the medical examiner?” Draco asked.
Cate shook her head. “That’s just it. There was no body.”
Marta’s brow wrinkled. “How can they charge her with his death if they don’t have his body?”
“The knife was covered with her fingerprints and Marcus’s blood. The neighbors had heard them arguing loudly. They found his car in a nearby lake. They’re calling it a domestic homicide with no body. The authorities believe they have enough evidence. Her attorney wants her to plead self-defense.”
Draco leaned closer, his gaze locking onto Cate’s. “You don’t think there was a murder at all, do you?” He remained frozen, so still that Cate could imagine him exactly as he’d be as a sniper, waiting for the kill shot.
“I think Marcus Calloway is alive.” Cate met Draco’s gaze and held it. “I think he staged his fake murder so that he could disappear with whatever he was trying to hide.”
“That’s a lot of work for someone to fake his own death,” Hammer said.
“And a hell of an accusation,” Crusher said.
Cate lifted her chin. “It’s a hell of an accusation for a woman to be accused of—a woman who rescues turtles from the road.
” Her voice cracked as she pictured Dana in orange on the other side of the plexiglass, dazed, confused...
defeated. She pushed back her feelings, squared her shoulders, and said, “That asshole is alive. I just know it.” Her gaze moved from person to person at the table, stopping when it reached Draco.
“Somehow he collected his own blood, smeared it on the knife and at the scene and then framed his wife to take the fall.”
“Why?” Marta asked.
“I think he did it so he could disappear with whatever he was trying to hide. He needed to be dead to keep anyone from looking for him. Framing his wife would take the heat off him and put it on Dana. He’d be the victim. Dead. As the woman who survived, she’d take all the attention off him.”
“Marcus worked in the State Department,” Cate’s father said, his brow furrowing. “He was in procurement, logistics, the kind of work that sends a man overseas with signature authority for a lot of other people’s money.”
Cate nodded, already aware of what her father had stated. “Dana said he talked a lot about his colleague, Garrett Sterling.”
Her father nodded. “Garrett Sterling is in contracting oversight. He works two floors up from my office. I can contact him and see if he knows anything about Calloway’s whereabouts.” Her father’s brows drew together. “Cate, what kind of mess have you stumbled into?”
Her lips pressed together, Cate shrugged.
“I don’t know yet.” She drew a breath into her constricted lungs and let it out slowly.
“When I went through Marcus Calloway’s home office, I found a bill of lading hidden behind a photo frame.
It was from a freight company in London, with a phone number scrawled across the bottom in Marcus’s handwriting.
Before I went to London, I called the number.
A man answered—Freddie Hackett—a chatty Brit.
He told me Marcus was in charge of a project and would be in the office the next day.
” She gave her father a weak smile. “I booked a flight and arrived in London the next day, determined to find Marcus Calloway, alive and well.”
“And did you find Calloway?” Phantom asked.
Silence stretched as Cate relived the day she’d arrived in London and taken the train out to the office of the freight company on the bill of lading. Her heart beat fast. That day had been burned into her memory.
“You didn’t find Marcus Calloway, did you?” Draco asked softly and reached for her hand.
She shook her head, words lodged in her throat as her fingers curled around hers.
“You walked into a kidnapping,” Draco said, tugging on her hand to pull her close enough to wrap her in his arms. “Am I right?”
She nodded, a single tear sliding down her cheek.
“What was it—a bag over your head?” he tipped her chin up.