Tall, Dark and Lethal (9 page)

That would explain the tangos with the grenade launcher aiming at the garage instead of his bedroom. They weren’t aiming for him. They were aiming for her—not to kill her, just to bring her outside. If he hadn’t grabbed her first, she would probably be out of the country by now. And if she couldn’t produce the weapon she had promised, she would be dead.

So none of this had to do with his old enemies. Or Abhi. He crossed that off his mental list. Which meant his hunt was still on, just as soon as he could get back to it. He had waited too long already.

Three months ago, he could barely wait to get out of the hospital in Germany and go after Smith. He had moved into his uncle’s place to recoup and at one point, his plans had lost some of their urgency, thanks to Bailey. There had been garden flags to push around and sparks flying and fights to be had. For a couple of weeks, he hadn’t thought as much about Pachaimani. He had made promises to that ten-year-old kid, promises he meant to keep.

He looked at Bailey. A fine distraction. And suspected domestic terrorist. Damn. He hadn’t seen
that
coming.

He could call the Colonel and have her picked up. He was retired. She wasn’t his problem to deal with. Within an hour, he could be back on track and meeting with Abhi. Except that every instinct he had said that something was off here.

And damn if he could see himself handing Bailey over to anyone. Not just yet.

“While I was looking around in cyberspace, I also might have accidentally opened some memos from your old pals,” Carly said.

He grinned. Gotta love Carly. “Anything interesting?”

“They tracked your friend’s communications back to your address, too. They’d asked for permission to put the house under surveillance and were going to start this week. There is a report on both of you. Cade, Cade, Cade,” she tsked.

He wondered just how much the FBI knew about his preretirement activities. Nothing, if the Colonel had anything to do with it. And yet they must have known that he’d been in the SDDU, because they’d gone to ask the Colonel about him. Damn.

“So they knew the location of the communications, and they had you pegged for it.”

Made sense if they’d compared his rap sheet with Bailey’s. There was nothing remotely shady out there on her. He’d looked. Her record was pretty much her résumé. It was either genuine or the best cover-up job he’d ever seen.

“You need help bringing her in?” Carly asked.

“Give me some time to figure this out.” He thanked her before hanging up.

“Anything new? Can we go home yet?” Bailey was shaking the dust out of something that looked more like roadkill than a pillow. She looked sexy. And innocent. The picture of domesticity.

She was not a weapons dealer, he was pretty sure about that. He’d checked her out thoroughly before moving in next door, for his own safety. He might have missed a thing or two, but he wouldn’t have missed something like that.

And yet he’d been fooled before, and had the bullet hole in his left thigh to remind him. He walked to the table and said, “Let’s sit down and have a little talk.” He sank into his chair, and when she sat down opposite him with a puzzled expression on her face, he put his gun on the table between them.

S
OMETHING BAD HAD
happened. She could see it in the way he grew more focused, more calculated. Bailey sat still. “Who was that on the phone? Is something wrong?”

“Gig is up. It’s the end of the road. Is there anything you would like to tell me?” His words were carefully measured.

I find it sexy when you go all tough-guy, but at the same time, it scares me a little.
Nope. Definitely not that. She pressed her lips tight and waited a beat. “Like what?”

“How about your little side business?”

“You hate my garden statuettes.” He rarely missed a chance to mock them.

“Anything else you do on the side for extra cash?”

Something in his voice put her defenses up, and all of a sudden she was no longer distracted by his wide shoulders and broad chest. Any wayward image that might have floated into her mind while making up the futon was banished from her head. “Maybe this would be quicker if you just came right out and told me what you’re accusing me of.”

“Where did you learn your computer skills?”

She blinked. “What?”

But he didn’t explain his odd question. He just looked at her with his caramel eyes turned hard candy.

“Delaware County Community College. I took a few classes when I started my own business.”

A long moment passed while he considered her. “How are you doing with money? Are you in financial trouble? Any kind of trouble?”

“How are
you
doing with money? Is this going anywhere?” Her blood pressure was inching up. “And, hello? My house was blown up, and the FBI thinks I’m armed and dangerous. Of course I’m in trouble.”

She wasn’t sure if she caught a moment of hesitation in his body language or if she’d just imagined it. A long moment passed before he put forth his next question. “How well do you know your nephew?”

“Very. I’ve known him since he was born.” She felt her defenses harden like a shell around her. He was going too far. “Leave my family out of whatever paranoia you are weaving here.”

“How good is your nephew with computers?”

“He’s a genius. He’s been taking college-level courses since sixth grade. We’re all very proud of him. He’s already been offered a full scholarship to MIT.”

“Sonuvabitch,” he said under his breath, looking decidedly unhappy at the news. “Has he ever gotten in trouble?”

What did Zak’s personal history have to do with anything? “Kids will be kids.”

“What happened?”

“Why do you want to know?” She was getting the distinct sense that she was being interrogated—he’d put that gun on the table intentionally. Was he trying to intimidate her? After he’d spent the day convincing her that she shouldn’t be scared of him, and after she’d finally believed it? After they’d kissed?

“Bailey,” he growled.

Definitely trying to intimidate her.

Oh, fine. Let him have his stupid answers so they could finish this hundred-questions game already. “He hacked into the school server once and changed his English grade. He’s not that good at composition.” For heaven’s sake, nobody could expect him to be a genius at absolutely everything. “He was punished, and he hasn’t done anything since. He’s a good kid.” She emphasized that last part.

Cade leaned back in his chair without taking his gaze off her for a moment, his lips set in a tight line.

“Could you please tell me what this is about? Did the FBI question him and my brother? Did they say anything?” She was getting worried. And more than a little mad. What right did he have to question her like this, anyway?

“It’s not fair that they should have to go through all this and be all upset because of
your
enemies. I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but I don’t want my family involved in this. You don’t know what they’ve been through already. Zak is a really good kid. He needs a break.”

Cade closed his eyes for a second. “There’s a good chance that he’s selling weapons to terrorists.”

“Who?” What on earth was he talking about?

But instead of answering her, he dialed his cell phone. “Where does your brother live? What’s his name?”

“Bob.” She gave him the address with some reluctance and listened as he talked to whomever he’d called.

“Could you do me a favor? I need you to pick up Bob and Zak Preston.” He repeated the address she’d given him. “As fast as you can. Someplace safe. And take your brilliant wife with you. She’s going to have some questions for the kid.”

“Who was that?” she asked when he hung up. “You need to explain all this to me.” She stood. To hell with the gun. They were talking about her family. “I want the truth and I want it now.” He couldn’t have meant what he’d said about Zak and weapons. He was just trying to scare her. But why? Total confusion reigned in her mind.

“That was a friend I trust.”

“Is my family in danger because my house blew up? Because of me?” She felt the blood drain out of her head. If anything happened to Bob or Zak, she could never forgive herself.

She should have known something was off with her new neighbor. She’d known he was strange. But she’d written off his oddities as simply annoying. She should have been more vigilant. She should have known somehow that he wasn’t just an ordinary man. She should have moved away. Should have, would have, could have…

“Because of you and whatever it is that you do, our house has been blown up.” She was losing control of her anger. “And because of that, I’m now connected to
your
shady past. And because of that, my family is in danger!”

“Try the other way around.” His expression turned even grimmer. “We’re in danger because of them.”

A
N HOUR LATER
, B
AILEY’S
head was still spinning, and she wasn’t any closer to believing the nonsense Cade was telling her.

“Impossible.”

“It’s a fact. It was done on your PC. So you tell me. It’s either you or Zak.”

“You had me help you steal my own hard drive from the FBI so you could investigate me and get incriminating evidence in a domestic terrorism case. And all the while you pretended you were trying to help and protect me!”

If he hadn’t put the gun back in his waistband, she would have been tempted to go for it. Maybe she should, anyway.

“If you were guilty, you’re damn right I would have done anything to get proof and bring you in.” To be fair, he didn’t look too happy about it. “I was hoping I’d be wrong. Believe me, I didn’t expect this.”

The wheels in her mind were spinning like her handmade whirligigs.

Zak. Oh, God.
“Zak can’t possibly have a weapon. You don’t know him. He’s not like that.”

“Someone could be using him to send precoded communications. He might not even know what he’s doing. Does he have a part-time job that has to do with computers?”

“He’s too young for a job.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s not taking on some online work and getting paid via PayPal or something like that. It’d be easy enough for him to fudge his age in cyberspace. Does he seem to have too much pocket money?”

“I don’t know. Not that I’ve seen.” She didn’t want to tell him more, afraid that any information she revealed he’d try to use against Zak. But if Zak was in trouble, they had to help him. And Cade was her best hope. Her only hope.

“We are not as close as we used to be.” She had to tell him. “But I know that for a while he was obsessed with terrorists and how they communicated, what they wanted, how they did what they did. But just because of 9/11. He’d been through hell. He would never do anything to help them. If you knew him, you would know how ridiculous the thought is.”

“He might not have been aware of what he was doing, Bailey.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Zak was such an unreachable kid—had been for years. It was hard to say what went on in that supersmart head of his. Could he be tricked? In some ways, he
was
naive. Still, though he might have lacked social skills, when it came to his computer skills, he didn’t lack confidence. He’d offered to automate her whole house when he’d arrived at the beginning of summer. She’d begged him not to, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to keep things straight and would end up unable to turn on the lights.

In hindsight, she might have been better off giving him something like that to occupy himself. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been trolling online for something to do.

The floor seemed to shift under her feet. If anything happened to Zak and Bob…They were the only close family she had. “Can I call them?”

“Not a good idea. I’ll be notified when they’re someplace safe. You’ll have to make do with that for now.”

“Thank you.” She drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry about the things I said before.” She’d berated him for dragging her into this situation when the truth was, she’d dragged him in.

She suddenly realized that he could walk away. She stilled as a million thoughts ran through her head, each more confusing and frightening than the one before it.

He had nothing to do with this.

Nothing. He could leave her to deal with all this all on her own.

Which she couldn’t. This was so far beyond her, she couldn’t come up with one idea about extricating herself from the mess her nephew had gotten them into. She was too scared to go to the authorities and too inexperienced to even think about hiding from them.

She was talented at a great many things, but knowing how to run from the law and evade capture was not one of them. She’d never even gotten a parking ticket in her whole life. Besides, running only worked if she could figure out the truth behind what had happened and use that information to bargain with the FBI.

Fear tightened her throat. Cade might have annoyed her to no end, and his kisses might have scrambled her brain, but she felt safe with him. He was always prepared for everything, always knew what to do next. She had as much self-confidence as the next woman, but with terrorists and the FBI after her, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t last a day on her own.

If he didn’t have way more money than she did—she’d seen the thick roll of twenties in his bag—she would have considered paying him to help her out of this mess. To help Zak. As it was, she had nothing to bargain with.

Except…

He wanted her.

He had wanted her in the water—she’d felt the proof pressed against her belly.

She had wanted him. But that was now beside the point.

The point was, how far was she willing to go? What was she willing to give for her life and the life of her family?

She would give just about anything not to have to be scared of the terrorists who blew up their house. Cade had connections. From what she’d seen of him so far, she believed that he could protect her and her family better than anyone else, including law enforcement. Neither the police nor the FBI would assign long-term bodyguards to Zak. And there were people after them with grenade launchers. But if Cade could be persuaded to help…