Reckless Hours: a Romantic Suspense novel (Heroes of Providence Book 3) (10 page)

“The timing was right. I was getting ready to reenlist for another four years. Had the paperwork all filled out just not submitted to my CO. I decided to come stateside instead. It wasn’t until I got here that I saw how right Sonny was and how foolish I’d been not to take her concerns seriously.”

Dylan seemed so naked when he talked of his family and Tammie was struck by how comfortable he seemed to be that way. Even with her. It was clear that he loved his family and held them in great regard. It was refreshing. Too often, she’d met men who preferred to strike out on their own. Family life became a token visit once a year during the holidays or for a family function. But there was no real connection.

Tammie had grown up as an only child. While she had close friends, she’d missed the kind of relationship one could have with a sister or brother. She’d always wondered if that would have helped with the loneliness she felt after her parents’ deaths.

“If he didn’t say anything to you and he didn’t tell your sister, how did you know?”

Dylan’s face changed. She tried to read his expression, but he showed his pain for only a brief moment and then it was gone.

“When I came home, I confronted him about Sonny’s concerns. He wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

When she didn’t say anything, he shook his head and went on. “You have to understand, we’re brothers. No matter what, Cash and I had never kept secrets from each other. We were partners in crime growing up.”

He seemed to wince at his own words, as if he’d realized what he’d said, and he paused for a moment. His voice was low when he continued.

“From the time we were able to walk, we shared everything. We roomed together, from the cradle all the way through college, until I went into the Marines. You learn things about a person when you’re lying in the dark like that. You’re not afraid to say things when you think no one is looking at you, judging you.” He pointed to her eggs. “You should eat before that gets cold.”

Tammie had been so engrossed in the conversation that she hadn’t even touched her breakfast. She picked up her fork, but just pushed the food around on the plate.

“Do you have any sisters or brothers?”

Tammie thought of Serena. “I didn’t grow up with any siblings.” Just saying the words pierced her heart. What family she knew was dead. Except...

She wouldn’t go there. There was no evidence, other than what she’d seen at the Davco mansion. Looking like Serena and Serena’s mother didn’t make them immediate family. There were lots of cases of doppelgangers walking around, not knowing that there is someone also walking around who looks just like them. For all she knew, Serena was a distant relative. She couldn’t get her hopes up that Serena was her sister.

Dylan nodded. “Family is important. It has a way of keeping you steady. When you grow up with a brother or a sister, you just know things about them that aren’t expressed in words. Something was up with Cash, something he didn’t want anyone to know. And Serena Davco is at the core of it.” His face grew hard, but she knew his anger wasn’t aimed at her. He clearly blamed Serena for his brother’s disappearance.

“I don’t get it. Why do you think I’d judge Cash?”

He looked at her directly now, a flash of anger striking his eyes and then disappearing. “Because he’s being judged by everyone, and now hunted down like a dog because of it.”

“You’re talking in riddles.”

Dylan sighed, dropped his fork and sat back in his seat. “A few months ago I learned he was being investigated for drug trafficking.”

“Oh, I see.” She hadn’t expected anything like that.

“No, you really don’t. Right before he went missing, he was arrested. None of us knew about it. He told no one. No one but Serena Davco.”

“Serena?”

“Yes. At first, I thought it was all a mistake. Cash must have been undercover and this was just a ploy to get more information about drugs coming into the US. But the DA in Miami said they had a strong case. Fingerprints and video. He didn’t do what they said he did.”

“Your loyalty to him is admirable. I’m sure I would—”

“He didn’t do it,” he insisted. “You see, it’s not just that I love my brother and know he could never be a party to giving drugs to kids. It’s more than that.”

“That is what they’ve accused him of?”

“More or less.”

Trying to remain neutral, Tammie tried to take the side of reason. “You said they had fingerprint and video evidence that led the authorities to that conclusion.” When he just stared, she added. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m just wondering how the authorities could have charged him with a crime as serious as drug trafficking if they didn’t have some kind of evidence against him. I’m just trying to understand it from your point of view.”

That would be impossible, and Tammie knew it. She didn’t know Cash. She didn’t love him the way Dylan did. And she didn’t have the unconditional trust that came from living and sharing a home with someone all your life.

Dylan seemed to understand the tactic she was taking. “My brother was DEA. Had been for years.”

“You mentioned he was in the DEA earlier.”

“He’d made a trip to Colombia not long ago. He said it was business, but...” He scratched his head. “The people at the DEA said he didn’t have business in Colombia. Or Miami which is where they’d arrested him. He didn’t say anything to me about it and I never questioned him traveling. He traveled a lot for his job. So it wasn’t unusual. The prosecutor is claiming that the only business he had in Colombia was to arrange to bring drugs into Miami.”

“The prosecutor just pulled that out of thin air?” she asked delicately.

Dylan leaned back in the seat and scrubbed his hand over his head, leaving his hair slightly disheveled. “No. They found a stash in his car. A brick of cocaine. The bag had been pierced as if someone had used it as a sample. Cash was framed.”

“You know that for sure?”

“I’m a police officer and I’d been in the military for years. My instincts are spot on. When someone offers a brick of cocaine as a sample of goods, they leave it for the buyer. They don’t take it with them. Now, the prosecutor could easily say that he’s the buyer, but Cash doesn’t have that kind of money. I’ve been to his apartment. Since I’ve been back in the States, I regularly watch his place when he travels.”

“Collect the mail and feed the fish?” she asked.

He smiled for the first time since the conversation about his brother started. “Something like that. I’ve seen his bank account. The papers were on his desk. He always was a bit of a mess.”

Dylan chuckled and shook his head. Then he sobered. “I knew Cash was in trouble before he even got home. I went over to his place, like usual, and it had been raided. At first I thought it was a break-in. But the DEA came in while I was there. They were pissed I was there, as if I’d somehow interrupted something. I showed them my badge before they had a chance to use some muscle on me. They had a warrant. That’s how I found out Cash had been arrested. I’m not sure he would have told me if I hadn’t confronted him.”

“Maybe he just didn’t have a chance. You said he was down in Miami.”

“Everyone gets a call. He didn’t call me. Why? I saw the police report. I made sure I went over it with a fine-tooth comb. The report is clean. Too clean. It’s like someone scripted the whole scene as a test to give new officers. But he’s looking at getting locked away for life for something he didn’t do.”

She took a sip of her coffee, which had started to get cold, held both hands around the cup and stared at it.

“You don’t believe me.”

Tammie raised her gaze to him and shrugged. “I don’t really know you or your brother at all. But I believe you believe he’s innocent.”

“Because of the charges, and the fact that he traveled so extensively, the judge set bail at a cool million. Serena Davco paid it. She put up one hundred thousand dollars for Cash to be released. You don’t do that unless you know something.”

Tammie didn’t know what to say. “The woman I saw at the mansion was incapable of walking. I can’t imagine how she could have handled getting funds for a bail bondsman to free Cash.”

“The last thing Cash said to me was that he was coming to Eastmeadow because Serena needed him. She wasn’t safe. He’d never uttered her name before. He didn’t tell me who she was or what she was to him. Just that he had to go. I’ve never seen him like that. No one has seen him since.”

“I can understand now why you were so eager to talk to Serena.”

He drained the rest of the coffee from his mug and set it down. “She knows something. She has to. There’s no other explanation.”

“Serena was…

“What?”

“She was talking a lot of gibberish last night.” Tammie got up from the table. “Do you mind if I make another pot of coffee?”

“I could use another,” he said. “Did you talk with her?” As Tammie tossed the old coffee grounds and placed a new packet of coffee in the machine, she recalled the events in Serena’s room.

“Not really,” she finally said. “She was having a nightmare and was pretty out of it. It woke the whole house up. She kept crying over and over, ‘They’re stealing babies.’”

“Babies?”

“Yeah. It didn’t make any sense.” With the coffee-maker filled with water, Tammie hit the on button and sat back down.

“I’ll admit I didn’t expect her to be like that,” Dylan said. “I didn’t expect any of this.” He said the last part quietly, looking out the window into the campground.

Some of the other campers were starting to rise, making their way out of tents and building campfires.

“Do you think Cash skipped the country?”

“Cash? No way.” He laughed, but it held no humor. “He’s not the type to run from trouble. In fact, he’s more the type to go straight into it with both guns cocked. Cash doesn’t run from trouble. He runs to it.”

She raised an eyebrow.

He responded to her look by repeating, “Cash doesn’t run from trouble. He runs to it.”

“Did anyone see Cash here in town? I mean, if he came here to help Serena, someone might have.”

“If they did, they’re not talking.”

Tammie thought of her parents, and the strange way they were behaving in the last months before their deaths. “Then what?”

He closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. “I’m afraid to even think sometimes, but it’s hard. He was in trouble. And for someone to have it in for him enough to do the kind of damage they did, bringing in the drugs, making sure the DEA had him as a suspect, they’d have to be pretty heavily connected to organized crime. I hate even thinking of him caught up in that. It’s the kind of thing he’d fought against in his job.”

“How do you think Serena is connected to Cash?”

“I think Cash was in love with her—is in love with her.”

Her breath hitched. Had Dylan already given up hope that his brother was still alive?

“Yeah, I know,” he said, misinterpreting her reaction. “But a relationship with Serena is the only thing I can figure. He never mentioned her at all. Not until the last day I saw him. It’s like he was giving me a message that day. A riddle of some sort that he wanted me to figure out. Except hard as I try, I can’t.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he just come out and tell you what was going on?”

“He said he was afraid for her. She was in danger and he had to get her out of here. The look on his face...”

“He never mentioned why?”

“No. I was so bowled over by the drug-trafficking charges at that point and what to do about them—how to prove his innocence— that I didn’t pay it much mention. I warned him about coming out to Eastmeadow, since he was on bail and he didn’t need added trouble. He assured me it was going to be fine and that it was only going to be for a day or two.” Dylan looked out onto the campground, regret etched in the lines of his face. “I should have come with him.”

Dylan abruptly got up from the table and picked up his half-eaten plate of eggs. She hadn’t done much better on her plate. He tossed his paper plate into the trash and stood by the camper door.

“What do you really think happened, Dylan?”

“I thought maybe Serena had something to do with his disappearance. But after meeting her, seeing how out of it she is, I think he stumbled into someone’s territory and they didn’t like him being there. He’s not one to back away easily just because someone intimidated him. I know you’re skeptical about his innocence.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to. I’ve read the expression you gave me many times. No one thinks he’s innocent. But I know better. He never would have disappeared to get out of punishment if he was due. And he never would have let someone else pay bail like that and then leave them hanging. If he doesn’t come back, Serena Davco will owe the bondsman one million dollars.” Dylan sighed. “Something happened to him that kept him from coming home. In my heart, I don’t want to believe it. I don’t even what to think of the possibility. But I think he’s... I think he’s dead.”

He turned to her then, and she saw the pain in his face at the thought that his beloved brother was gone. She knew that feeling all too well.

“You have a ray of hope I don’t have,” she said delicately.