29. Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
Amber’s stomach pitched like a dinghy in a hurricane at Spencer’s statement. If she were honest with herself, she’d expected this all along. Even so, the news sucked the breath from her lungs.
“We won’t let anything happen to any of you,” Spencer said, taking her hand and leading her to the couch. “Security here is good, and I’ve already asked HICC to come in and work with Superman to see if we have any blind spots.”
She nodded automatically, hearing his words but not really processing them.
“I also called your lawyer to let him know what’s going on,” he added as she sank onto the couch.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Clara said, taking a seat on her other side.
Adrian joined them on the other side of her mom.
“I know it seems scary now, and admittedly, it would be easier if Anthony hadn’t taken it into his head to try to track any of us down.
But there is a silver lining.” Amber looked over.
“He’s nervous. Nervous people make more mistakes. ”
Adrian huffed. “Mom, you sound like a bad movie. What she meant to say, Amber, is that he only has one PI looking for you. For the four of us. Whereas we have this.” She cast her arm out and waved it around the room.
There weren’t that many people in it, but Amber got the point.
One PI against all the Falcons wasn’t much of a threat.
“And we don’t know anything about the PI,” Spencer added.
She turned her head and searched his eyes in question.
“There are plenty of shitty people out there; everyone in this room knows that. But for the most part, the majority aren’t.
We don’t know what Anthony’s told him about Clara and Adrian.
He may think he’s looking for someone who stole something from Anthony.
Or maybe he’s been told Clara and Adrian are long-lost relatives.
If he manages to find us, we should be prepared for his intentions to be unfriendly, but we shouldn’t assume it. ”
“Meaning he may not know the kind of person Anthony is?” she asked.
Spencer nodded. “I’m sure he did a basic background check on him before taking the job, but we all know nothing would pop up on that. He may think he’s dealing with a stand-up guy.”
Clara snorted, and the odd sound pulled a smile from Amber. “What do we do now?” she asked.
“Leo’s already looking into him,” Spencer answered.
“And he and my lovely goddess of a wife are on their way over as we speak,” Philly said, holding up his phone. Amber was too far away to see the screen, but she assumed he flashed a text thread from Callie.
“What about Sabina?” she asked. She didn’t doubt Callie’s and Leo’s abilities, but Sabina wasn’t the boss for nothing.
Philly typed the question into his device. A few seconds later, it dinged. “She’s caught up in something, but Leo has an update from the lab on the drugs.”
“Okay,” Amber said, drawing the word out as she rose. “Since we have a few minutes, I’m going to make a little snack. I managed to keep Zoe fed today, but sort of forgot myself. Anyone else want anything?”
“You sit, I’ll get it,” Spencer said.
“It’s fine,” she said.
“Let him get it, honey,” Clara said. “It’s good for him to feel useful,” she added with a wink in Spencer’s direction.
Her eyes caught his, and he flashed a wry smile. “Stay and catch up with the ladies. We got this,” he said with a nod to Philly and Dulcie, who dutifully followed him into the kitchen.
“When’s the wedding?” Clara asked. “Not that you need to get married, but he seems the marrying kind.”
Amber drew back both at the abrupt change of topic and at the topic itself. But before she could respond, Dottie spoke.
“He is. He may not need it, but he’ll be a hell of a lot less anxious with it,” she said.
“Abandonment issues?” Adrian asked Dottie. Amber’s head ping-ponged between the three women.
“Former foster kid,” Dottie answered. Clara and Adrian nodded as if that explained everything. “He’s strong enough to have a relationship without the legal commitment, but having it will give him that little extra sense of permanence.”
Three sets of eyes landed on her, as if gracing her with the opportunity to speak. She wrinkled her brow at them. “I don’t think you should be talking about him like this. It’s kind of private.”
“Since when does privacy mean anything to the Falcons?” Dottie pointed out. “Besides, he may not shout the fact that he was a foster kid from the rooftops, but he doesn’t hide it. The rest is my opinion, which I’m free to share.”
Dottie did have a right to share her opinion, and Amber had no doubt that the women spoke with only the best intentions. But it still felt too close to gossip for her taste.
“Hey, Juan,” Dottie called, startling Amber.
A second later, he popped his head through the door.
“To allay Amber’s fear that we’re talking behind your back, I said that because you were a foster kid, you have some abandonment issues, which is why you’d prefer, but won’t require, to actually marry her. You have any problem with that?”
Heat crept up Amber’s neck as his eyes darted to her. Not having a mirror, she had no idea what she looked like, but given the way her heart raced while her body froze, she suspected she and a “deer in the headlights” were pretty close to twins.
“No, it’s pretty spot-on,” he said. “The only thing I’ll add is that while marriage doesn’t necessarily guarantee the parties will stick around, if Amber takes that step, I know her well enough to know that she will have thought it through.
Considered all the pros and cons at least a hundred times.
So if she does agree, her decision will carry a weight that maybe isn’t the case for other people.
She knows how bad marriage can be, and if she still chooses to trust me enough to try again, well, that’s no small thing to protect.
I’ll know the value of what she’s giving me.
” And with that, he ducked back into the kitchen.
Amber’s heart twisted in her chest at his words, the strength of his vulnerability and honesty humbling her in a way nothing had before. If she hadn’t already known she loved him, she would have fallen over that cliff right then and there.
“That there is definitely a keeper,” Clara said, her voice soft, almost tender. Dottie and Adrian murmured their agreement.
Amber sighed like a lovestruck teenager, her eyes lingering on the door Spencer had disappeared behind.
“He is,” she said, mostly to herself. Then, with a shake of her head, she pulled herself back to the absurd conversation they’d been having before Spencer flipped her world on its side.
Again. “We’ll figure it out once the dust settles,” she said, hoping that would be the end of it.
That would be too easy. Adrian and Clara beamed at her while Dottie asked, “Can I be your maid of honor?”
An uncomfortable laugh bubbled from her chest before shifting into a shy, hopeful smile. Deciding to give herself away, and the fact that she’d already been thinking about all this, she answered. “I was kind of thinking you could walk me down the aisle.”
Dottie blinked, and her eyes filled as she smiled. Her response was cut off, though, as Callie and Leo walked through the door.
“Today is a good day,” Leo announced, setting his bag down on a table and pulling out a chair.
“Anthony kicked the bucket and Satan welcomed him home?” Clara asked.
“Not that good,” Leo replied, humor and regret coloring his tone.
Philly, Dulcie, and Spencer rejoined them.
“What’s not that good?” Philly asked, kissing his wife before setting down a tray of cheeses, crackers, veggies, and hummus.
“Anthony is still taking up oxygen,” Clara replied.
Spencer shot her a questioning look as he placed a tray of glasses on another table. Amber shrugged.
“But we’re one step closer to ensuring that future oxygen intake will be behind the walls of a federal penitentiary,” Callie said.
“Then it is a good day,” Dulcie said, pouring lemonade from a pitcher into the glasses. He didn’t bother to ask if anyone wanted any, making Amber smile. Not once had any of the Falcons, or their partners, turned down her lemonade. A little bit of cucumber water and mint went a long way.
“What’s the tea?” Clara asked, taking a glass from Dulcie and drawing a snort from Philly.
Adrian rolled her eyes. “Mom, how many times have I told you to stick to slang from your own generation. Then it comes out charmingly quaint instead of painfully awkward.”
“Pfft,” Clara said with a wave of her hand. “I said what I said.”
“Quick updates first, then over to you?” Leo asked, directing his question to Callie. She glanced up from the plate she’d been stacking with cheese and crackers, froze, as if caught doing something she shouldn’t, then nodded.
“You’re eating for two, but even if you weren’t, no one’s going to judge,” Amber said, joining her with her own plate.
“We might judge if she ate the whole thing,” Leo said.
Philly smacked him in the back of the head.
“I lied, we wouldn’t judge. Much,” he muttered under his breath with a smile.
Leo was no slouch, but no way would he ever go up against one of the Falcons.
Especially not one protecting his partner.
Not that it would ever come to that. Over the years he’d been coming around, he’d almost become one of the guys.
Not a brother, not like the original fifteen, but more like a cousin.
A very helpful, committed cousin. More than once, he’d stepped in to offer a hand. An ally everyone appreciated.
“What are the quick updates?” Spencer asked, holding her glass of lemonade as she resettled in her seat with a plate of food.
“Our lab confirmed the scopolamine came from batches grown and extracted by the Bios Therapeutics affiliates and provided to the Bios lab. They are still working on whether those batches are tied to the over-usage in Johanna’s research, but at least we know where the drugs came from that were used in the killings,” Leo said.
“Will the lab be able to tell if Johanna used drugs from those batches?” she asked before popping a cracker with Brie on it into her mouth.
Leo nodded. “But we want to figure out how many other researchers used it, too. If it’s a dozen, it might be harder tying it to Johanna, but if it’s three? Well, with all other evidence, the argument is stronger that her ‘over-usage’ was intentional and made its way to Anthony.”
“ETA on that is a couple of days,” Callie said before Amber could ask.
“Other quick news. I tracked Philip Calder, the PI, and ran a basic background. He’s not entirely clean, but he’s not rolling in mud either. He’s got decent contacts, and it won’t take him long to track down Amber since, presumably, she’s filed taxes and gets mail.”
“And I have a driver’s license,” she said.
“And your driver’s license,” Leo acknowledged. “But the good news is, he only works with one other person. His tech guy.”
“Meaning he doesn’t have the manpower to send an army out here?” Spencer clarified. Amber didn’t think he’d been too worried, but even so, she heard the relief in his voice.
“He doesn’t,” Leo confirmed. “And he doesn’t have the contacts to raise one, either.
Even when he finds you,” he continued, his eyes holding hers, “he won’t pose a threat.
” He waited until she acknowledged the statement with a nod before adding.
“We’re tracking him now, so he won’t make a move without us knowing. ”
Swallowing the bite she’d just taken, she nodded. “Okay. If those are the quick updates, is there a longer one?”
Callie set her glass down and grinned. “Not a longer one, but a bigger one.” She paused dramatically, and Amber threw a cracker at her. Callie caught it with a laugh. “We’re 99 percent sure a judge will issue a warrant tomorrow to search Anthony Ely’s home.”