A Little Harmless Secret (13 page)

She forced herself away from the window and tried to get her thoughts in order for the meeting. It wouldn’t do to look like an idiot in front of Devon and Conner.

She pulled off her shorts and shirt, then grabbed the one sundress she had with her. After slipping it on, she looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She looked like hell. She might have had a decent amount of sleep the night before, but no amount of rest could erase the fine lines of worry on her forehead. This life on the run was aging her more every day.

She ran a hand through her hair and tried to calm raw nerves. Being in peril was her main issue, which was a definite. Seeing Devon again…that was just making it even worse. The conflicting emotions she had during breakfast and just now made it hard to concentrate. She wanted this done with so she could decide what to do about the man who had always tangled her up.

She had to get her head screwed on straight. If she didn’t keep her wits about her, there was a really good chance that she would miss something. From the start of all her troubles, she had known there was something off about the whole situation. Her father always confided in her. Always. They never hid anything from each other, but for some reason, he had done that with this case. She knew he trusted her, so there had to be an aspect he didn’t want her to know.

What was his involvement?

Before she could work through her thoughts, there was a soft knock at the door. Then it opened and Bridget’s head popped through the crack.

“Mummy, Dev says it’s time for the meeting.”

“Dev is it now?”

Bridget smiled and walked across the room. “That’s what everyone else calls him, and he said I could call him that. It’s okay, right?”

“If he said so, then it is. You’re going to have to stay here while I have this meeting, but there are a lot of toys in your room. Will you be okay up here?”

Bridget smiled. “Yes.”

Without a thought, her daughter turned and ran to the other room. Alicia was chuckling when she turned to look at herself one more time in the mirror. She ran her hands down the front of her dress then realized she was stalling. The sooner she talked to them, the sooner this might be resolved.

As she walked down the stairs, she heard the low murmur of male voices. Then, there was a female voice she recognized. She stepped off the last stair, and made her way to the living area that opened up to the back lanai.

The first person she saw was Dee. Devon’s sister turned and smiled. “Hey, there, Ali. I got a couple suits that might work for Bridget and I thought I would come over to help with Bridget. Plus, Alana here was wanting to play today and I thought they would wear themselves out.”

Bridget laughed. “Spoken like a true mother. She’s upstairs. I’ll go get her.”

“I know where. You stay here.” Alicia gave her a grateful smile as she watched Dee try to keep up with her daughter.

“Alicia Hughes as I live and breathe.”

She turned toward the sound of the voice and laughed. A vision from her past stepped forward. He was dressed in a custom made suit, no tie—of course, and he had the same smirk she remembered from ten years earlier.

“Sean?”

He came to her as he always did and gave her a huge hug, picking her off the ground. By the time he set her on her feet, Devon was standing beside the two of them.

“I take it you two know each other.”

Sean smiled but didn’t take his gaze from hers. “Yes. Alicia here and I worked a few jobs together. And when did you get rid of the blonde?”

“Oh pooh. You worked with my father. I was just along to observe.”

One elegant eyebrow rose. “I think you did a little more than that.” He looked up at her hair. “When did you go brunette?”

“Three or four years ago.”

Sean studied her. “I like it.”

“My life is now complete that I got your approval,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her tone.

Sean smiled.

“And is there a reason you seem to need to keep your hands on her waist?”

She finally looked at Devon and frowned at him. She opened her mouth, but Sean just chuckled. “No worries, Stryker.”

“I didn’t know you’d moved back here. I heard you were working privately.”

“Now that you two have had time to catch up, I assume I’m here for a reason.”

She turned and realized Conner Dillon was there. “Sorry. It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Dillon.”

“Please call me Conner, and the honor is all mine.”

“Yeah, Conner here has a security crush on you,” Sean said, slinging one arm over her shoulder.

“What?”

“Your designs. His heart went all aflutter over them.”

“Oh, well, most of that my father taught me.”

Conner didn’t exactly smile, but she had the impression that he was amused. “What I want to know is just how they found you in Seattle and broke through all those wonderful designs to keep you safe?”

“I would like to know that, but I had been there over two years. Maybe I stayed too long.”

He shook his head. “Is there anything you changed in the last few weeks, something that would draw attention to you?”

“No. Same routine, nothing different except…”

She trailed off and glanced at Devon.

His face looked like it was made of stone, then his jaw flexed. He was grinding his teeth. “Me. I’m the only factor that changed in your life in the last few weeks. Shit, I probably led them right to you.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As they gathered around the table, Devon fumed silently, but not only because that big, stupid spy wouldn’t take his fucking hands off Ali. Most of it was directed at himself. He couldn’t believe he was acting like such an ass about this. Kaheaku was an old friend of her family. What’s more, he’d come to help. And now, dammit, he still wanted to beat the living shit out of Kaheaku. Instead of doing that, he concentrated on what was happening around the table.

Even dressed in a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, Conner still looked like an FBI agent. Short cropped hair, the perfect posture, not to mention the lean hungry gaze, made him appear to still be working for the FBI. He pulled out his computer and started to discuss what little he’d been able to find out.

“I don’t have your computer skills, but I pulled in Maura to work on it.”

There was something in his voice that Devon picked up on. “Pulled her in?”

Conner’s lips twitched. “Well, she pointed out that she’s smarter than I am. Several times in fact.”

Ali chuckled. “I think that’s why Maura and I get along so well.”

“You’re both smarter than Conner?” Kaheaku said.

Ali shook her head. “No, we don’t give a bloody damn about men’s egos.”

“Anyway,” Conner said, “I can’t seem to find any connection between you and Walter Hughes. I went through everything you gave me, and Maura played outside the lines. Nothing. There is nothing that either of you worked on, officially.”

“But I do know that my father was looking for him.” She looked at Kaheaku. “You know how he would get.”

Sean nodded. “Walter could become obsessed over something. And it didn’t always have to be about work. Remember when Facebook started? Walter spent weeks on there.”

“On Facebook?” Devon asked.

Ali nodded and a smile curved her lips. “Only in the interest of research. He found it fascinating that so many people would reveal even the most personal things online. Anyone could see it. Where they lived, what they were doing…it was actually a little disturbing to him.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Kaheaku said. “I think he was the first person in the industry to write up a memo about it. Breaches in security were bad enough, but with the invention of social media, so many people never gave posting what looked like useless information online a second thought. It has been a nightmare.”

“But to get back to the discussion, Ali said. “Father was looking for Devon, but I still don’t know why. He was obsessed with it like he always would get, but this was different. Almost unorganized and desperate.”

“What do you mean?” Devon asked.

“My father was a man who organized everything. It was almost pathological. He organized his underwear drawer by color and style. So, when I arrived at the house after the funeral and found his office a mess, I was shocked. Notes everywhere and Devon’s name was all over the place.”

“Well, that’s where it gets sticky,” Conner said. “I have a couple of questions.”

“Okay.”

“First, with his advanced age, do you think he might have had a slip mentally?”

Devon expected Ali to get mad, but she surprised him. She pursed her lips, a sure sign she was thinking about it.

“No. There was something weighing on him, something that might have affected me too.”

“Why do you say that?” Conner asked.

“With me still being fully active with MI-6 at the time, he wouldn’t want to compromise me. But there is something more.”

“The other option is the one that I really hate to broach, but we have to look at it just in case,” Conner said.

Ali frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Your father was reviewing old cases. Maybe he either stumbled upon information that he could have, let’s say, used against someone. There is also a chance that he realized something he did as an agent was about to be revealed.”

For a moment, he knew she didn’t understand. Then, comprehension moved over her features. Her eyes narrowed.

“My father was a lot of things. He was a bit OCD, and he wasn’t always the best father and husband. But there is one thing he was not—and that was a traitor.”

Conner sighed and looked genuinely apologetic. “We don’t always know what our family will do in certain situations.”

“I am not saying that my father didn’t cut a few corners, especially when they investigated my mother’s death, but he would never betray his country.”

“I never said that. But the cases he was researching were all the ones he oversaw. In fact, he went back fifteen years.”

She sat back. “If he was looking back that means he wasn’t looking for something on himself. Why would he have to? Sean can tell you. My father had a mind like a steel trap. He could remember everything he saw.”

“I have to agree with Alicia here. Hughes wasn’t slipping, even in his old age. If anything, he was probably getting sharper. I do know that one thing he liked to do was go over old cases that went wrong.”

She gave Kaheaku a grateful smile. Devon tried his best not to get pissed at the man for knowing her, but it was damned hard. He might not have anything to do with the lifestyle at Rough ‘n Ready, but he handled a lot of the computer issues and he knew the clientele. Kaheaku had a reputation there as being a very sought after Dom. He had his pick of women
and
men.

“Yes, my father believed that we would always learn from our mistakes. I do know someone had given him files, so whatever he was doing was somewhat official.”

“And maybe he was looking for one of his own. Perhaps Devon stumbled across it.”

She glanced at him and he shrugged. “I doubt it. The only thing I check on is my name—to make sure they aren’t still looking for me.”

“When you were with the CIA, what did you do?” Kaheaku asked.

He still didn’t like the bastard. In fact, he really hated him. Every time he and Ali shared a secret glance, he wanted to bash the bastard’s face in.

“I was in a trainee program.”

“I remember hearing about that. It was scrapped not too long after you disappeared. I think they thought that car wreck was a result of your computer hacking.”

“Eli says you’re pretty good.”

“I’m one of the best. But, I don’t think I found anything when I was there. I can start to do some snooping.”

“That would be good,” Conner said. Then he turned to Ali. “I know what you and Sean say, but I want you to be prepared that your father might have done something that caused his death.”

“You want me to accept that my father was a traitor and then tried to cover it up? That is never going to happen.”

Conner opened his mouth but she stopped him. “Conner, I respect you, but you didn’t know my father, did you?”

“No. I knew the name but that was it.”

“He stood for honor. He believed in what he was doing, but he didn’t do anything outside the bounds of his duty to the crown. He might have ticked off those above him in the chain, but he did not compromise. Nothing you can say will ever make me think that the man I knew was a traitor. Excuse me.”

She shoved away from the table and walked out the door to the lanai.

Kaheaku shook his head. “Without any kind of proof, she’ll never believe you.”

“Was he a man who would do something for money?”

“No. The truth is, they were loaded, and probably still are. There’s a reason she could hide so well. Hughes’ father held patents on some kind of gadget they used during World War II, and I know Ali’s mom came from an old money background. He’s the one who taught me where to keep my money so I would be safe from anyone tracking me. Alicia probably has access to it.”

“But if he were a traitor, the crown could freeze his assets,” Conner said.

Kaheaku smiled. “If they could find them, but I am pretty sure they won’t be able to even now. So, money wouldn’t be the object. Truth is, the only reason Hughes would turn traitor was to protect what he saw as his most valuable asset.”

“And that would be?” Conner asked.

“Alicia. He adored her. Without a doubt, her father would kill anyone if he thought they were a danger to her.”

* * * *

Ali stood on the dock and listened as the waves lapped gently against the wooden planks. Her anger had finally faded, but she was still irritated. She had spoken the truth. There was nothing in this world that would ever convince her that her father had sold out. Even if they had a picture of him handing off a classified file, she knew it would be doctored. Her father cut a lot of corners, but one thing he would never do was turn his back on his country.

She heard a creak of wood behind her and knew who was there.