Gemini (20 page)

There’d been nothing wrong with the plan. Well, at least with the conception. It wasn’t so outrageous to think the guys would want some assurance that Gemini wouldn’t go for just anybody in pants. If they were talking some kind of four-way commitment, they had a right to know it wouldn’t be five or six way, too.

He wasn’t in love with the term Gem had come up with—ménage. What the four of them had between them didn’t need a name. But he was totally okay with the idea and had been from the start. He could see it easily—him with his buddies, his pals for life, like the brothers they were.

And Gemini. With all three of them. He was fine with that. Like it was natural and right.

He’d woken thinking about it as the sun came around to cast sharp blades of light into his bedroom. He shot a look to the shades that he’d forgotten to lower when he’d glumly hit the sack last night.

After a bit of a look, he realized one shade was slightly crooked, just enough for an edge to be visible from behind its valence.

Since he’d moved into the place, he took the time to open the shades just right. He loved the look of his space when the shades were tucked right up into their wood valences. Someone had put some thought and effort into it—good shades that darkened the place really well for sleep, but totally disappeared into the décor to let his rooms shine in light during the day.

He appreciated the effect and was always careful to draw the shades up correctly.

He got out of bed and pulled his SIG from its holster on the side table. That was enough to keep him from feeling entirely naked.

No doubt whoever had been in his place had been there and gone before Clay had gotten home last night, but he always felt better with the gun in his hand.

Once he’d confirmed the place was empty, he took a close look around. He found other small evidences of a search—a drawer that wasn’t entirely closed, his hanger clothes pushed a bit to the side. And after he checked the safe, he started looking not for what had been taken, but what had been left.

He found it in the back of his bottom bathroom drawer. Like he wouldn’t do a better job of hiding it than that. A little baggie of white crystals. A pipe and a lighter. A meth kit.

He called Quinn first. “We’ve got trouble,” he said by way of greeting. “You’ve got Gemini there?”

“No. She went with Jace.”

“Did you see Jace?”

“No, Gem said he—”

Clay hung up the phone and dialed Jace. He didn’t answer, so Clay sent him a 9-1-1 text.

A half hour later, they were all three in Quinn’s apartment. Emma was downstairs tending the last of the lunch crowd alone.

Clay ignored Quinn’s and Jace’s questions as he started the search in Quinn’s bedroom. He pulled a Nike box down from the top shelf of the closet, peeked inside, and then dumped it out on the bed.

“What the fuck is that?” Jace’s eyes just about bugged out of his head.

“What the hell is going on? Clay, where’s Gem?” That was Quinn, with the more significant question.

Clay looked at Jace, then Quinn.

“Tomlinson has her. And this is a meth kit. There was one just like it in my place.” He nodded his head at Jace. “We have to search your house, too.”

Then he looked at Quinn. “Tell me exactly what happened this morning.”

Quinn hung his head. “She stayed in bed late, so I went downstairs without her.”

“It’s not your fault,” Clay said, though he knew it wouldn’t help. Quinn was going to suffer over this.

He looked up. “I left her.”

“She was here, for sure? You saw her?”

Quinn sat on the bed. “She didn’t come out of her room. So I poked my head in before I went down to open the bar. She was okay. We talked a little.”

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “I told her to come down. And she did, maybe forty-five minutes later. She told me Jace was outside, that he was going to take her to lunch and then to the office for some paper work.”

Quinn looked up from one to the other. “She had on the clothes she wore that first night she came here. I didn’t get that right off. I let her walk right out the door.”

Clay clapped a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll fix this,” he said, and hoped he spoke the truth. “Come on.”

He led the way to Gemini’s room. “Did she have a bag with her?”

Quinn shook his head. “No.”

“Was there anyone strange in the bar?”

Quinn was silent for a minute. “A tough guy in a biker jacket. He nursed a beer at the bar for maybe an hour. He left a few minutes after Gemini.”

“Could he have been carrying?”

Another grudging silence. “Could have been.”

Clay nodded and searched Gemini’s room briefly. Her dresser was full of the clothes they’d bought since she’d joined them, and wet towel lay on top of it. Her cell phone was on the bed. He inspected the closet then he went to the bathroom. He spilled the small trash basket there into the sink. At the very bottom, he found a pregnancy test stick. They were all quiet as he shoved it and the spent tissues back into the basket.

“Jace,” Clay said grimly. “Let’s see what we find at your place.”

On the way out to Clay’s Outback, Quinn left instructions with Emma. If she couldn’t get help to cover the night, she should just close up the bar. In the car, Jace made a call to cancel his afternoon appointments, and Clay called Chris Norton to cover his evening shift.

Halfway to Jace’s, they tossed Quinn’s meth kit into a random dumpster, just as Clay had done with the one he’d found at his place.

From the back seat, Quinn argued that they should forget Jace’s house and just go after Gemini.

“Don’t think I’m not tempted,” Clay said. “But she left because she thought Tomlinson could hurt us. We’d better make sure he can’t before we go get her back.”

Jace had turned in his seat so he could see both men. “You know he’ll hurt her.”

Clay drove, wishing he had something to punch. “She could have come to us, but she went with him instead.” He looked hard at Jace. “She knew what the risk was. She chose that over letting harm come to us. We should honor that choice.”

Jace’s disagreement showed in his face.

Clay finished his thought. “And we’ll take Tomlinson down in the end.”

* * * *

Quinn found the box in Jace’s garage. He’d searched like a fiend, like anything he could do now would make it better for Gemini.

He was torn with guilt. Clay had said more than once that Tomlinson would have found a way no matter what. But Quinn had been the one to leave Gem alone. And he’d let her walk out the door of the bar.

He was only partially convinced by Clay’s argument. Mostly, he wanted to smash a fist into Tomlinson’s face. Quinn probably wasn’t going to feel better until he had Gemini safely in his arms and Tomlinson’s blood on his knuckles. And even then, he’d have a hard time forgiving himself for being so careless with something that meant so much to him. Some
one
.

What he found was a fishing tackle box stuffed full with large bags of meth. He held it over his head like a victorious warrior when he carried it into the house. Clay came from upstairs and Jace from the basement in response to his shouts.

“Found it,” he said, as he set the box on the kitchen counter.

Clay hefted a bag, one of about six or seven in the container. “This isn’t for personal use. He wants to set us up as dealers.”

Silence fell while they each took a stool and looked at the box.

Finally Jace spoke. “So either we have a very good supplier, or we have a lab somewhere.”

Clay nodded. “A lab. It would be easy enough to plant, and it would seal the deal in the eyes of the DEA.”

“Where?” Quinn asked. “He couldn’t leave it in sight.”

“My basement is empty,” Jace said. “You’d have seen it, if it was in the storeroom at the bar, right, Quinn?”

He nodded. “It’s not there.”

Clay’s brain was working. “He could leave it nearby. Have it in a storage unit, or even in a trailer somewhere. One phone call, and it could be moved into one of our places.”

Jace leveled a look between the two others. “And the phone call comes anytime Gemini doesn’t do what he wants. We have to get to her.”

Clay lifted a finger. “Wait.”

“No,” Quinn said. “Let’s go.”

Clay stood. “She’s stronger than we’re giving her credit for. Let’s think this through.” He pointed at the drugs and then at Jace. “We’re looking at losing our jobs, here. You losing the bar, Quinn. The guy is playing hardball. We really want to make sure we win.”

Quinn stood, too. “I’d give up the bar to save Gem from what she’s going through right now.”

Clay didn’t back down. “Yeah. And we’ll be writing her letters from the state pen. Let’s be smart. Gem bought us this time. Let’s use it. Put away how guilty you’re feeling and use your head.”

Quinn sat back down, but he obviously wasn’t happy.

Jace had been watching—and thinking, apparently. “Wherever he has it, it’s already in place. Tomlinson isn’t going to hold back, waiting for Gemini to misbehave. He’s going to want to hurt us now. The only phone call he’s going to make is to the DEA. He’s probably already made it.”

“Pack a bag, quick,” Clay told Jace. “Throw in some extra clothes for Quinn. We need to get out of here fast.” As a group, they went to Jace’s bedroom. Clay took a spot at the window, like that would help if agents were already at the door. “We need a vehicle.”

Thinking a minute, Quinn came up with an answer. “Mrs. Konik’s Lexus. She let me borrow it the last time I had my car in the shop.”

Quinn helped his old neighbor out once in a while. A couple times a month, he fired up the Lexus—twelve years old with seven thousand miles on it—and drove the old lady to the grocery store. She lived above the bakery she and her husband had owned, but there was no one in the family to take it over now that she was widowed and struggling to keep up with it on her own.

“That’ll work.”

They grabbed the tackle box on their way through the kitchen and, while Clay drove, Quinn wiped the prints off the one bag Clay had handled. As they crossed Monument Creek on their way back to town, Clay pulled over. Using a pair of exam gloves from a cubby, Quinn got out and emptied the bags into the water. He tossed the bags, too, with a quick apology to the environment and the fish that might be a little loopy for a while. He wiped the box and left it there on the bridge.

Inside the car, Jace was still working that brain of his. “My family’s cabin,” he said. “When my grandfather moved into senior living, he deeded it to me. Tomlinson could have searched the property records.”

Clay nodded. “Has anyone been up there since the three of us spent Memorial Day weekend there?”

Jace shook his head. “I don’t think so. If anyone in my family was going to use it, they’d have let me know.”

Clay rolled with it. “It’s isolated, nobody’s there much. If you were going to plant a meth lab that looked like it belonged to us, that would be the place. No one would buy that we’re cooking it in your basement or in the storeroom of Mach One.”

Quinn leapt out of the backseat as they got to Mrs. Konik’s place. He took the stairs at the side of the bakery two at a time. Just short of rudeness, Quinn turned down the offer of bad tea and great cookies. Inside of three minutes, he was backing the Lexus out of Mrs. Konik’s garage. Clay drove the Outback in, and they pulled the door down behind it. As Jace and Clay climbed into the Lexus, Quinn said a little prayer that Mrs. Konik wouldn’t suffer for their deception.

By the time they reached the far end of the alley, behind them, an unmarked car pulled up to the back of Mach One.

Gemini was alone in the mansion she’d considered home for nearly three years. Well, she was alone if she didn’t count the two guards who rotated shifts every twelve hours. One stayed outside, manning the gate at the bottom of the drive. The other followed her wherever she went, standing at the door of the room she was in—outside the door only if she was in the bathroom or her bedroom. He didn’t speak.

They’d flown from Colorado Springs to Sacramento, she and Bryce and Ron Purdue. Bryce had barely spoken to her, and Purdue not at all. At the airport, they’d transferred to another limo. Purdue had driven them to the mansion and waited in the car while Bryce took her into the house, a hand at her elbow.

He’d walked her straight upstairs to her bedroom. It was a small guest room at the far end of the hall from his suite. She’d moved there about a year and a half into the marriage. It had taken that long for her to stop believing him when he explained he hadn’t meant to hurt her and it wouldn’t happen again.

Gemini had paid for that act of defiance, but Bryce hadn’t made her move back. She was pretty sure he wasn’t always alone when he slept in his room.

It wasn’t like she cared.

Bryce left her there alone on Wednesday evening. On Thursday morning, she ventured out, making breakfast for herself while the guard watched, and learning that the phones and computers had all been disabled. Bryce’s office, which likely contained functional communication devices, was locked.

Late that morning, Purdue came and took her to Dr. Mathis. He was the OB/GYN who had treated her through her pregnancies and miscarriages, and who had injected her once with fertility drugs. The two of them had long since given up pretending that he was her physician. It was clearly Bryce he answered to.

And so she didn’t speak to him, even as she let him poke and prod. It was beyond her to care, and whatever Dr. Mathis did to her, at least it was impersonal and less painful than what she was sure Bryce had in store for her, once the test results were back.

She figured she had one more day for that, maybe two.

Back in her room, she read. Or she took up the needlework she’d started learning her last months as a midwife. It was a time-honored tradition, the midwife knitting while waiting for a baby to come.

Mostly, what she did was discipline herself to not think about the men she’d left in Colorado.

They wouldn’t let her go, she knew. Even if they hadn’t loved her, they would consider themselves her protectors in Capricorn’s stead. She was certain they would come for her if they could, and she could only hope they would protect themselves as they did.