Touch of Betrayal, A (14 page)

Right now, I had a few of my own. “How’d you get here, Harlan? Where’s Millie?” I asked, running a washcloth under warm water. I wrung most of the water out and went to work patting the blood away from Harlan’s wound.

“Millie, she’s safe with some old friends.”

I held his gaze.

“No one knows about them, and no one ever will. I’ve been stayin’ away to keep everyone off her trail. She’s doin’ well. Healing up right nice.”

I applied a butterfly bandage to hold the wound closed, then smeared on a liberal amount of antibiotic just like Pierce had told me. “She knows how to create the poison, doesn’t she?”

Harlan flinched. “My Millie, she read all the notes your mama had made over the years and had me searching the garden for everything that was necessary.”

“And?” I wrapped several layers of gauze around his arm and secured it with tape.

“Your mama had planted the components in obscure places, safe like, where they’d never come into contact with each other. Millie, she never actually made the poison, but she learned how.”

He shuffled his feet. Damn, but he had to be hiding something. Backing away a few steps, I allowed the images I’d been storing while I worked on his arm to surface and fill the viewing screen in my head.

“You’ve seen, then?” Harlan said. “I knew I couldn’t keep it from you, Miz Everly, but it sure isn’t anything I ever wanted to have to tell you.”

The shakes started in my knees, and worked their way up as the images unrolled a sequence of events, my private, internal horror show. “You burned the house. The garden.”

Harlan dipped his chin, tears glistening in his eyes. “Had to, Miz Everly. It was too dangerous to leave any trace of the plants around, not with them killing that government woman.”

“She was killed and buried on my land before you blew up the house and burned the garden?” I demanded, needing to be absolutely sure.

“Yes. Millie and me, we didn’t know until it was too late to help her.”

I cradled his cheek with my palm, fingertips and all. “It’s okay, Harlan. You did the right thing. It hurts, but it was the only choice you had.” I let his pain seep into my heart, bonding us in a new and deeper way.

He swiped the tears from his cheek with the back of his good hand, and gave me a shaky smile. “I’ll be going to stay with friends. Not with Millie, but someplace away from her. Have to keep her safe until this is over. You take care, Miz Everly, and let Mr. Pierce and Mr. Adam handle this.”

I nodded, because arguing wouldn’t help Harlan. “Do you have a way to travel?”

My grandfather came into the bathroom and cupped his hand over my shoulder. “I will care for Harlan, Granddaughter. You do what you must, and know that I’m close. Only a single thought separates us.”

I hugged both of them. Hard. And then quick strides took me within inches of Pierce. “Who killed your agent friend?

“I don’t know, Everly. But probably the same person who murdered your parents.” He reached for the gun in my pocket.

I caught his hand, shoving him away. “I’m in this. I’m not going back to North Carolina until it’s settled, and I want to be armed.”

He blinked, and then sighed. “You won’t use it. If you freeze, you’ll end up dead.”

Pure, cold calm flooded my mind. “To save my family, I’ll use the weapon. What leads do you have on the killer?”

Pierce stretched his neck, digging his fingers into the muscles. “My only lead is Mitchell Hunt.”

FOURTEEN

“Mitch,” I asked the empty basement,
“how could you have done this?”
The tremor in my voice was humiliating. Good thing Pierce had hustled my grandfather and Harlan outside, ’cause I definitely did not want any of them to find the slightest weakness in me. They’d form a posse to lock me up someplace safe. The protection thing was a serious flaw in the male psyche, and annoying. Oh, was it annoying.

Pierce came up behind me, startled me, and my temper flashed. “Why aren’t you calling Adam to take care of this? It’s his job to deal with dead bodies, and you—I—
we
need to give law enforcement statements about what happened here. You killed a man, Pierce. No matter that it was to keep Harlan, Aukele, and me safe. You still killed him.”

“Yeah. I did. I’ll tell Adam about it, but the body is gonna stay with my people until we don’t have any more questions. Wanted him alive, but whatever he had to say wasn’t worth Harlan’s life.”

I blinked, stunned to utter silence. It was probably the most information Pierce had ever shared with me about his…activities. “Okay, then. So you’re saying you have staff, medical people, forensic people, all that stuff at your beck and call?”

He didn’t blink. “Yes. It’s not about having money, Everly, it’s about how you use it. I have to finish up here. Pick up some Chinese on the way back to A.J.’s, okay?”

My stomach did a loud rumble. “Yeah, sure.” I had trouble catching up with his segue from being infinitely wealthy to take-out Chinese, but then moved on to my next burning question. “I can do that. How come Adam isn’t here with you?”

“Wasn’t sure if they’d planned to hit both Aukele’s house and A.J.’s at the same time, so we split the detail.”

Well, damn. If Annie, trained sniper and all-around super-spy, needed protection, this situation had rapidly deteriorated, and was pushing to the top of my Bad Day list. And that was saying a lot considering some of the uncomfortable moments in my past.

I started for the stairs, stopped. “You want me to leave from the front or through the maze?”

Pierce did a silent chuckle. “All the shit you get into, and when you finally
ask
my advice it’s about what door to use?”

I jerked my shoulders in a couple quick shrugs. “Well, yeah. I don’t want to have to shoot anybody to get out of here. One DB a day is enough, doncha think?”

“Front door is fine. It’d take too long to work your way out of that maze.”

With a shrug, I started up the stairs. “It turned out to be effective protection for my grandfather. The dense vegetation forced the killer to use the front door and kept us safe. Mostly.” It was a true statement, but I conveniently left off the part about Pierce arriving just in time to shoot the intruder. Why give his already-solid ego another boost?

“Un-huh. Get some cashew chicken.” He ignored my yes-master expression and started punching keys on his phone.

I sprinted up the rest of the stairs, wanting to make my escape before Pierce had time to question me about handling the dead guy’s weapon. It was odd he’d let it go this long. And, yeah, not questioning me was a good thing, but those azure eyes didn’t miss much, and his brain usually worked faster than a super-computer.

After a quick scan of the neighborhood, I slipped out the front door of Kahuna Aukele’s house and made for the Jeep. Annie’s truck was parked in front of it, answering my question about how Pierce got here.

Since he had a track record for planting locators on my person, I’d have to ask him if he tracked me with devices on the Jeep, in my handbag, or both. Not that he’d tell me, but if I asked stupid questions it kept him on his toes, and hopefully off kilter about how quickly
my
brain worked.

Whether he shared the info or not, I had to find them, so that if I decided to go rogue, I’d be able to remove them quickly. For now, it would be best to leave all tracking devices in place and not give anyone grief about it. It was the sneaky thing to do.

I started the Jeep and headed toward the main North Shore road that ran along the waterfront. When I came to the first lookout point, I parked and took a few minutes to absorb the view, the sound of the waves, and the scent of ocean.

Two DBs in two days, added to my husband turning up with a shady past, had taken a toll on me. Not to mention being kidnapped and drugged. Just because the drugging had been inadvertently self-induced didn’t mean it was any less annoying. And the biggest question—aside from who killed my parents—how had I allowed my life to disintegrate so completely? Especially since I knew better.

After the rocking-chair vision a while back—the one where I saw my little old lady future unless I made some serious life changes—I’d vowed to never return to a life of hermit-hood. But I had. And I’d used Mitch’s protectiveness as a convenient excuse.

My stomach gave an unhealthy growl that was loud enough to interfere with my introspection, so I braced myself, dug in my pocket for my phone, and punched in Annie’s number.

“You okay?” She sounded subdued.

The hair on my neck tingled. Every other time I’d gone off in a huff to gather information, she’d blasted me immediately.

“Yeah. I’m okay. Are you?”

“Safe and secure. Since Sean isn’t here, Adam decided to stay. Not that I need protection, but with Maddie… Oh, and when we Skype tonight, I’m not telling Sean about this. He can’t leave the arson site, and he would. He’d put his us before his work. I wanted you to know so you don’t inadvertently mention it.”

Motherhood had changed my ex-sniper, super-spy, soul sister into a cautious woman. She wore it well. Happy-for-her emotions squeezed my heart, and I had to swallow down a few tears before I filled the silence.

“This is turning out to be a complicated mess, but I’m okay. I’m not usually around when you do your nightly chat with Sean, but I promise not to say anything. I’d want to keep it from Mitch, too. His work is like Sean’s, and I know neither of them can just walk away.

“Um-hmm.”

It was the most agreement I’d get from her, so I moved on. “Pierce wants me to pick up Chinese, so I thought I better check in and see where to go.”

After she gave me directions and a request for beef with broccoli and General Tso’s chicken, I merged back onto the main highway, my mind using the drive time to play with the best way to share the images I’d picked up from the gun in my pocket. Breaking it to them gently would probably be best, especially seeing as how Adam was employed by the Honolulu PD, and Hawaii didn’t recognize my North Carolina concealed carry permit. Then again, maybe he could fix that for me, so I could purchase a legitimate weapon instead of carrying this tainted one around.

Which brought up another issue. Why had Pierce allowed me to leave Kahuna Aukele’s house with evidence in my pocket? A shudder ripped through me. He must have thought I’d need it.

No, if he believed I was in imminent danger, he wouldn’t have let me out of his sight. And if he thought I was in sort-of danger, he would have switched the DB’s weapon for the .380 strapped to his ankle. Something wasn’t right.

My fingertip drifted to the diamond nestled in my navel, a gift from Pierce to celebrate solving my first case. After I got it, I touched it often, hoping to rub a bit of Irish good luck into my life. I hadn’t thought much about his gift for a long time, but with my life falling to pieces, it was probably time to go for all the help I could get.

It was rough against my fingertip, soothing, and I wasn’t above taking whatever whimsical support was available, even if was attached to Tynan Pierce. Didn’t mean I had to trust him. Now that would be a colossal mistake.

I parked in front of the Chinese restaurant and hurried inside to escape the heat, sighing with relief as I stepped into the air-conditioned comfort. The Jeep was open, so the wind cooled it off some while I’d been driving, but the mid-afternoon sun had been brutal after I parked.

The gentleman behind the checkout counter greeted me with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Just one?”

He shifted. The edge of his shirt rode up, uncovering the tip of a knife sheath.

I shivered, leaving chill bumps behind. What was with this guy? “Not this time, thanks. I’m picking up an order for Gray? It might not be ready yet.”

“Why don’t you sit down, Miss? I’ll check on your order.” He motioned to a row of chairs, his gaze steady on me as he passed through the dining area.

When I caught my reflection in the gold-veined mirror behind him, bedraggled was the first word that came to mind. And even I had noticed the tiredness in my voice. No wonder the owner, clerk, whatever he was, wanted me to sit. Probably wanted to avoid calling in the paramedics for a passed-out customer.

The chill bumps weren’t going away, and I brushed the slight bulge of the gun through the fabric of my shorts. There were gangs in Hawaii, so it was probably common for people to carry knives. Much easier than getting a gun permit.

The red vinyl was cold against my thighs, and sitting pressed the gun into my hip. Another shiver tiptoed along my spine, and the pricklies that had latched onto my neck started to tingle. Combined with the headache threatening the base of my skull, it was no wonder I looked like warmed-over hell and was overreacting to restaurant owners-slash-employees.

I hadn’t checked my cell for messages from Mitch since I’d discovered my grandfather’s maze, so I rummaged in my handbag for the phone. He’d probably be texting me with an arrival time soon.

My fingers trembled as I turned the phone on. How much time did I have before facing my husband and learning the truth? Or some facsimile thereof?

“Here you are.” The be-knifed man bustled into the foyer and set a fragrant shopping bag on the counter. “Your order, Miss. That’ll be thirty-five ten, please.” His voice held an edge that nudged my spidey senses to full alert.