Chapter 7 #2
“Well,” Kyle said. His voice came out a little thin. “This simplifies things.”
“Hey, boss,” Mac said. “Just doing some community outreach.”
“I can see that.” Kyle’s eyes moved from Mac to Colin to Maren and landed on Juni. “Maren, Juni. I’d like you to meet Colin and Mac.”
“We already met,” Juni said, like Kyle had missed a memo.
“Yes, ma’am, I am seeing that now.” Kyle cleared his throat.
He glanced at Lachlan, who raised an eyebrow.
“Colin. Mac. I’m assigning the two of you to Maren and Juni’s protection detail for the foreseeable.
Colin primary. Mac secondary. We’ll brief in about ten minutes once these ladies are ready. That work?”
“Yes, sir,” Mac said, without hesitation.
Colin said nothing for half a second too long. “Yes, sir.”
Nobody in the yard missed the half-second, though Kyle’s ice-blue eyes held a warning.
So did Gina’s. She looked at Colin for approximately one second longer than he was comfortable with, and then she looked at Fleur, who sat politely beside her left boot and offered no opinions.
Juni looked up at Colin. She tilted her head the way she had at the gate.
“Are you the man who’s gonna protect me and Auntie Mer?”
“I am.”
“I like your eyelashes.” Juni crossed her arms as she looked him up and down. “Okay, you’ll do.”
Mac coughed into his fist.
Colin—who had been a Ranger, who had walked across four countries’ worth of bad situations in full kit and never once felt his chest do what it was currently doing—looked down at the preschooler who had just bested him.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.
Mac snorted.
Juni went back to the puppy.
“Juni?” Jodie said. “How about you and I hang out with Pretzel while Aunt Maren and the rest of the grownups go talk about boring stuff.” She stuck her tongue out. “Bleh.”
Juni giggled. “Okay.”
“Pretzel?” Kyle asked.
“Pretzel,” Jodie affirmed. “That’s this little guy here.”
“Negative. His name…is…” Kyle trailed off as three sets of eyes—Jodie’s, Maren’s, and Gina’s—dared him to say one more word. “…Pretzel. Of course.”
Maren’s smile lit the entire yard and damn near stopped Colin’s heart.
Stand down, soldier.
It didn’t take.
The briefing was in ten minutes.
Colin caught a glimpse of Charlie and Shane through the cubicle area on the way in—Shane at his desk with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor, and Charlie standing with her back to the room staring out the window.
“Shane and Charlie,” Colin started.
“Leave them for now,” Lachlan said, with the finality of a closing door.
Colin left it. But he filed it away as one more piece of the puzzle. Mac looked at the two of them like he wanted to send flowers.
Their IT specialist, Flint, was there, laptop open, a half-empty coffee mug at his elbow. He gave Colin and Mac a nod. Mac dropped into the chair beside him.
“How’s Harper?” Mac asked.
Flint immediately warmed at the mention of his wife. “Great. She’s already planning the summer for when our son gets out of kindergarten.”
“That’s Harper,” Mac said, grinning.
Kyle sat beside Arden, who looked like she’d been crying, but she gave Maren a warm smile.
“Where’s Juni?” she asked.
“She’s with Jodie and one of the puppies.”
“Pretzel, I’ve been informed,” Kyle said with a grin.
“And I see Camo’s decided to stay with her.” Arden sounded almost wistful.
“Affirmative,” Kyle said softly. She nodded.
Lachlan took a seat at the head of the table while Gina and Fleur remained standing. Colin wasn’t surprised—Gina almost never sat for a meeting.
Colin pulled out a chair for Maren, then took the last seat, which was beside her.
“Thank you,” she told him softly. “I want to thank all of you.” She looked at each face one by one.
“I would have called my brothers for help, but they’re on a mission.
Marine Raiders. I’m the only one in the family who didn’t go off on a life of adventure.
” Maren laughed bitterly. “I used to think it was just our brothers. Boy, did Mira have me fooled.”
Colin’s heart went out to her. He knew that feeling down to his soul, and it hurt.
Don’t let it show.
“So thank you. I know Juni and I are strangers, and you don’t have to do a thing for us.”
“Of course we do.” Arden reached across the table and grabbed Maren’s hand.
The speaker at the center of the table crackled.
“Elissa?” Gina asked. “Are you there?”
Elissa’s voice came through the speaker. “Yeah, I’m here. I can hear everyone. And just for the record, if someone mutes me again like last time—”
“No one muted you,” Kyle said.
“You absolutely did. I was talking for a solid thirty seconds—”
“Focus, Elissa,” Lach said.
Elissa sighed. “Focusing. But I’d like to remind you, Lach, you’re no longer in charge. Kyle and I are.”
Lach grinned as he looked at Gina. “They grow up so fast.”
“Don’t ever accuse me of growing up,” Elissa shot back.
Colin hid his smile.
Lach’s attention shifted back to Maren. “Elissa is our agency owner in Los Angeles. She’s very good at tracking things down.”
“That’s Lach’s polite way of saying I’m a hacker,” Elissa broke in.
Lachlan smirked. “Gina filled Elissa in on the overall details, lass, but maybe you could start from the beginning.”
Maren nodded once. “It was just an ordinary day. I went to pick up Juni and when we got home, my house was ransacked. So I got back in the car and called the police.”
Maren went on to describe a nightmare of a day. Maren’s voice stayed level through all of it.
“I was trying to sew up Juni’s teddy bear when my phone rang, but it was a private number,” she said.
“I let it go to voicemail, but then I listened to it just in case it was a detective calling back.” She paused.
She pressed her hands against the surface of the table.
“It was a man who said that if I was listening to this message he was dead.” That was the only time Colin noticed her voice hitch slightly.
“He knew Juni’s name. He said he’d worked with Mira.”
“Mira?” Colin asked. He and Mac exchanged looks.
“My twin. Juni’s mom. She died in a hit and run before Juni was even out of diapers.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her smile was a quick reflex—there and gone. “Thank you. The man on the phone said…” She stopped and swallowed, then started again. “He said her death wasn’t an accident.”
Nobody moved. Even Gina stopped pacing. The room went very quiet.
“He told me to come here, to Watchdog,” she said. “To find Arden Volker. He told me not to trust anyone else.”
Colin watched her hands. Still steady.
She’s been carrying this alone since San Diego.
“Where’s the phone now?” Flint asked.
Maren winced. “I—got rid of it. In a dumpster outside the hotel in San Diego.” She looked at Flint and then at the speakerphone in the center of the table.
“I’m sorry. I got a burner instead. I thought—I watch a lot of crime shows and I thought they could track me through my phone, whoever it is.
” She grimaced. “I’m an idiot. Will you still be able to trace the call from voicemail? ”
“You are not an idiot.” Elissa’s voice was warm and direct and she sounded slightly amused. “You’re actually the opposite of an idiot. You did exactly the right thing.”
Maren blinked. “I did?”
“Losing your original phone means your current location isn’t broadcasting from a device that’s already been flagged,” Elissa said.
“The call record still exists with the carrier regardless. Number, timestamp, cell tower routing—I can pull all of it without the physical device. What I lose is some metadata on your end, but I can work around that.” A brief pause. “Good instinct, Maren. Seriously.”
Colin watched Maren’s shoulders relax just a fraction, as if she’d been braced for impact and now she realized she wasn’t going to get hit after all. It killed him to watch.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, good. I can still call my voicemail if everyone wants to hear it?”
“We do,” Gina said.
Maren pulled out her burner, and a minute later, the conference room filled with the voice of a dead man.
“Maren, you don’t know me, but I worked with your sister.
My name’s not important. Probably better if you don’t know.
If you’re getting this recording, It means they got me.
I’m sorry, but you and Juniper are in grave danger.
Your sister was brave and she loved you and her daughter more than anything.
She was part of an NCIS investigation and her death was no accident.
By now someone may have found you. Don’t go home.
Take Juniper and go to Watchdog Security in Lyons, Colorado.
There you’ll find Arden Volker. She’s Sean Volker’s sister and Sean is Juniper’s father.
Trust no one else.” Another pause. “I’m afraid Sean is dead, too. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”
By the time the recording finished, Colin was all-in, kid or no kid. He could only imagine how terrifying it was for a civilian to receive a call like that.
“What can you tell me about your sister’s employer?” Elissa asked.
“She worked for LRH Defense Systems. She was in contract administration.” Maren pulled in a slow breath.
“She’d worked there about six years. She liked it, or—I thought she liked it.
She never complained.” She looked at the table.
“I’m realizing there’s a lot of things I thought I knew about my sister. ”
“Did she ever mention anyone she worked with?” Flint asked. “Names, departments? Maybe we can track this guy down that way.”
“We’ll look into NCIS, too,” Gina added. “He said Mira was working with them, but he might have been, too.”
“She never really talked about the people she worked with. She kept work and home pretty separate.” Maren’s jaw tightened briefly, then relaxed.
Colin watched her work through it—the anger surfacing and being stuffed back down. She was furious at her sister. She was also doing her level best not to show it in front of strangers. He recognized that tightrope walk because he’d done enough of it himself.
“Her accident,” Gina said, gently. “Tell us what you were told.”
“They said it was a hit and run.” Any residual anger Maren might have been holding drained out of her voice. “She was walking through a parking garage at night when someone hit her. They never found the driver.”
“Cameras?” Elissa asked.
Maren looked up. “Broken, and no parking attendant on duty. The police said there was a lot of vandalism in the area. Nothing they could do.”
Elissa’s sigh came over the speaker loud and clear. “And that long ago, It would be hard to find any footage from cameras belonging to other companies, but I could try. Send me the address of the parking garage.”
“I will.”
“Was this a place where she usually hung out? Or, was it out of the ordinary for her to be there? Nighttime alone in a parking garage sends up all sorts of red flags for me.”
“I wish I could tell you if it was out of the ordinary, but again, Mira had gotten pretty secretive about her life. Now I know why.”
“That sucks. I’m so sorry,” Elissa said. “So, Flint,” Elissa said. “First pass—LRH Defense Systems, Mira Walsh.”
“Already started,” Flint said.
“Of course you did. You were trained by the best.” Then she added in a mock-whisper, “One of them was me.”
Flint grinned but didn’t look up. “Keep telling yourself that.”
“Sassy! I love it. Now, I’ll also grab whatever I can find on the call routing, and even though it’s a long shot, old footage around the parking garage.”
Kyle cleared his throat. “Maren. For tonight—and for the foreseeable—we’re going to set you and Juni up in one of our safehouses on the property. It’s not far from here, just further up the main road past the offices.”
Colin caught Kyle giving Arden the briefest look.
She did not look happy, and he could probably figure out why.
Arden was notorious for hosting parties, and nothing made her happier than house guests.
What Colin couldn’t figure out was why Maren and Juni weren’t staying at the ranch.
Then Arden’s gaze flicked to Gina and he knew.
They don’t trust her yet.
Shit. That’s gotta hurt.
He met Mac’s gaze and clocked his partner’s reaction—they’d come to the same conclusion.
“Arden’s had it set up for exactly this kind of situation,” Kyle went on, and Colin recognized the hint of regret in his voice. “You’ll have your own space, your own rooms. Colin and Mac will be there with you.”
“And I’ll be by with anything you need after you settle in,” Arden added quickly. “I want…we all want you to feel comfortable here.”
Maren nodded. “Okay. Thank you. Both of you.” She looked around the room and her gaze landed on Colin last. “All of you.”
She drove all night with her sister’s kid and a dead man’s message echoing in her brain and she’s sitting here answering questions without flinching for people who don’t fully trust her. Right after learning she shouldn’t have trusted her sister.
He pushed down his anger. Every instinct told him Maren was innocent, that she needed their full support, not doubts.
Well, if they couldn’t give it to her, he would.