Deadly Secrets (Hardy Brothers Security Book 11) (11 page)

“Someone is moving by the window,” Mandy whispered.

“I can see that. Can you see who it is?”

“No. The curtains are in the way.”

“Look harder.”

“I’ll just use my X-ray vision,” Mandy snapped.

“Shush.”

“You shush.”

Ally slapped her hand over Mandy’s mouth and dragged her down into the bushes as a figure inside the house moved to the window and pushed the curtain open. Ally’s mouth dropped open when she recognized the figure.

Both women froze as Cara stared out into the dark night. For a moment, it seemed as if she was staring at them. She was saying something, but the glass muffled whatever words she was uttering.

After a few minutes, Cara turned and moved back into the living room, leaving the curtains partially ajar so Mandy and Ally could see inside. Ally’s face was a mask, rage and fear fighting for supremacy as she tried to collect herself.

Mandy placed her hand on Ally’s arm, soothing her. “It might not be what you think.” The words were hollow because even she didn’t believe them. There was no reason for Cara to be in Jake’s house. She was supposed to have left days before. Jake had called in sick to work for a reason – and that reason was sitting on the arm of his chair and talking to him. They looked … intimate.

Mandy and Ally watched Jake through the window, both disgusted with and drawn into the tableau playing out in front of them. They wanted to look away, and yet they couldn’t. So they just watched.

“BEFORE
you make that call, let me just ask you one question,” Cara said, stilling Jake with a hand on his arm.

“What?”

“Can you really see yourself with this woman one year from now? What about five years from now? Ten years from now? You should give this some serious thought, because if there’s even a chance you’re going to break up with her, you should do it now.”

“I’m not going to break up with her.”

“Not now,” Cara said. “She’s your shiny toy right now. You’re enjoying playing with her. All of that cuteness is going to dull over time, though.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about,” Cara said. “You need someone with … substance.”

“She has substance.”

“She dressed up and spied on you at Detcon.”

“So what?” Jake was starting to get agitated.

“That shows a decided lack of maturity.”

“I don’t really care,” Jake said. “Maturity is overrated. Ally is fun. She’s beautiful. She makes me laugh. She’s all I want.”

“What if you had another option?”

“I don’t want another option.”

“Are you sure?” Cara leaned over and pressed her lips to Jake’s.

He immediately pulled back. “What are you doing?”

Cara tried to lower her mouth to his again, but Jake jerked his head back and grabbed the side of her face to still her. “Stop that right now.

“OH, GOD.”

Ally’s face was ashen as she turned to Mandy, the sight of Jake’s hands on either side of Cara’s face ripping her heart to shreds. “I knew it.”

Ally’s heartbreak was fueling something else in Mandy: anger. “Let’s go beat his ass.”

Ally burst into tears and Mandy reached for her, trying to pull her in for a hug. Ally slapped her hands away. “Don’t.”

“Ally … .”

“I have to get out of here.”

“Ally, wait.”

“I just … I can’t believe he did this to me.” Ally turned and fled into the night.

Mandy started to follow, but her temper got the better of her. She reached down, rooting around on the ground until she found a large rock. Without thinking, she reared back and hurled the rock as hard as she could, shattering the glass and startling the occupants inside of the house.

Jake’s surprised gaze met Mandy’s furious countenance over the distance, and Mandy knew the rock wasn’t going to be enough to make her feel better. She wasn’t sure anything would make her feel better, but screaming at Jake couldn’t hurt.

“HOLY
shit,” Cara said. “Is that … ?”

Jake pushed her away and got to his feet. “Mandy.”

Mandy was moving away from the window and toward the front of the house so Jake raced in that direction to head her off. He had a feeling she wasn’t alone. His life was about to implode and he had to do something … anything … to fix it.

Jake threw open the front door and ran onto the lawn, coming face to face with Mandy as she rounded the corner. “What are you doing here?”

“You are the most disgusting piece of filth I’ve ever met!”

Jake sucked in a calming breath. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think we’re doing here?”

“We? Is Ally here with you?”

“She was.”

“Where is she?”

The sound of a car engine firing up down the street caught their attention. Jake recognized the vehicle and started moving in that direction. Ally must have seen him in the mirror because the car started pulling forward, the tires squealing as she pulled away.

She was gone within seconds, leaving Jake with nothing but Mandy’s fury.

“Where is she going?” Jake asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

“It doesn’t matter to you,” Mandy said. “You’re never going to see her again.”

“Don’t say that,” Jake snapped. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about,” Mandy said. “We saw you. We saw you through the window. We saw you … kissing … your new friend. We saw it all.”

“You have no idea what you saw.” Jake’s heart was pounding so hard he thought he was going to pass out. “I have to go after her.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Mandy said, gripping his arm harshly. “You’ve done more than enough.”

Jake yanked his arm away from Mandy, fighting the urge to shake her. He was frustrated, and while he knew it wasn’t her fault, he didn’t know what else to do – and he had to do something.

“Mandy, you have no idea what’s going on here,” Jake said. “Ally has no idea.”

“I think we know enough.”

“You don’t know anything!” Mandy flinched as he yelled, taking an involuntary step back. Jake immediately regretted his actions. He’d never meant to scare her. He lowered his voice and tried again. “I swear to you that it’s not what you think.”

“When Ally told me what she was feeling, I kept telling her she was imagining things,” Mandy said, her eyes filling with tears. “I kept telling her that it wasn’t in you to betray her.

“I’m starting to wonder if I kept telling her that because I believed it or because I was the one who pushed her in your direction,” she said. “I didn’t want you to be a bad guy because that would mean that I was the one who broke her.”

Mandy’s tears ripped through Jake’s heart, and not just because she was hurting. No, Jake was in pain because he knew Mandy’s despair was only a sampling of what Ally was feeling. “I didn’t betray her.”

“You did. We saw.”

“Mandy, I’m begging you to just … give it a rest.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mandy said. “I’m going to give it a rest. You can go back inside with your little friend, and I’ll be out of your hair. Send the bill for the window to James.”

“How are you going to get home? Wasn’t Ally your ride?” Now that Mandy was determined to leave, Jake found he was desperate for her to stay.

“I’ll walk.”

“It’s dark.”

“I don’t care,” Mandy said. “I’ll walk up to Gratiot and call James.”

“What are you going to say to him?”

Mandy barked out a hoarse laugh. “Are you worried I’m going to tell him you cheated on his sister?”

“I didn’t cheat on Ally,” Jake gritted out. “If you would just let me explain … .”

“What? What are you possibly going to say to me? Do you have a reason you told everyone that Cara left town and yet she’s staying at your house with you?”

“I … it’s complicated.”

“God … I just realized … you snuck out of Ally’s bed and went to Cara, didn’t you?”

“Mandy … .”

Mandy was crying freely now. “Ally said something was breaking in her heart, and I didn’t believe her. I thought she was overreacting. I thought she was imagining things. She was right, though.”

“She’s not right,” Jake said, choking as his own sobs erupted. “I swear. You have to let me explain.”

“I don’t want hear it.” Mandy straightened her shoulders. “You broke her heart. I don’t ever want to see you again, and if you go near Ally I’ll kill you myself.”

Jake watched as Mandy turned on her heel and started walking down the dark street. Her shoulders were squared, but he could see them shaking as the distance between the increased.

“Wow. That was dramatic.”

Jake glanced over his shoulder, his gaze landing on Cara as she stood in the doorway. She looked pleased with herself.

“You’re happy, aren’t you?” Jake’s sadness was quickly turning to rage. “Did you get what you wanted?”

“How is this my fault?”

“You saw them through the window,” Jake said, realization washing over him. “That’s why you were over there so long. That’s why you left the curtains open even though it wasn’t a smart thing to do in case Cameron is around. That’s why you kissed me even though you knew I wasn’t interested in you.”

“I didn’t see them.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I can’t believe you’re accusing me of this.” Cara’s fake outrage fell on deaf ears.

“I know what you did. The thing is, it’s still not going to get you what you want. You purposely hurt Ally, and it makes me hate you.”

Cara balked. “I … .”

“Go inside.” Jake’s voice was deadly calm.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to call James.”

“Are you bringing him in on this?” Cara asked.

“His wife is wandering around alone in the dark,” Jake said, his eyes flat. “This isn’t a dangerous neighborhood, but it’s still not safe for Mandy. She’s not going to get in a vehicle with me. Someone has to pick her up.”

“Aren’t you just a little Boy Scout?”

“Go inside,” Jake repeated.

“What are you going to do after you call James to pick up his ridiculously dramatic wife?”

“I’m going to a hotel.”

“What?”

“I’m going to a hotel.”

“Is that because you don’t trust yourself alone with me?” Cara asked, her eyes going from harsh to flirty in an instant.

“It’s because I don’t trust myself not to kill you,” Jake said. “It seems I might be a murderer after all. All it took was someone purposely hurting the one thing in this world I was desperate to protect.”

Cara’s face fell. “I … I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

JAMES
found Mandy walking dejectedly down Gratiot fifteen minutes later. He was furious. He just couldn’t decide if he was angrier with his wife for putting herself in this situation or with Jake for forcing Ally’s hand.

He turned off on a side street and parked, climbing out of his Explorer and waiting for her at the intersection as she moved forward. Even from twenty feet away James could tell she’d been crying.

“You should not be out here walking alone.”

Mandy lifted her head at the sound of his voice, and the desolate look in her blue eyes shook James. “Baby?”

Mandy broke into a run and threw herself into his arms, her face finding the hollow between his neck and shoulder as she burst into a fresh torrent of tears.

“Oh, baby.” James picked her up off the ground and held her tight, rubbing her back as he tried to soothe her. “It’s okay.”

Mandy couldn’t form words, so she just sobbed in his arms. All fury fled from James as he carried to the Explorer. He couldn’t be angry when her heart was breaking. He didn’t have it in him.

Jake found James alone in his office at the security building early the next morning. He wasn’t looking forward to the conversation he was about to have, but he couldn’t put it off.

“Where is Ally?”

James lifted his head and eyed Jake, anger rolling off him in huge waves. “I don’t think that’s any of your concern.”

“Where is she? She didn’t go home last night.”

“How do you know?”

“I waited for her all night. Did she spend the night at your house?” Jake was sick with worry. He hadn’t slept a wink the night before, and his threat to go to a hotel had been an empty one. Instead, he’d sat in his truck in her driveway the entire night, hoping against hope she would return home.

She didn’t.

He’d texted her until his phone died. Then, after charging it with the engine of his truck, he texted her again. All of them went unanswered.

“I don’t know where she is,” James said, his voice cold. “I know she’s all right, though. Wherever she went, she called Mandy to apologize for leaving her before turning her phone off.”

“How can you not know where she is?”

“I’m not my sister’s keeper.”

“But … she’s upset.” Jake hated how pathetic he sounded, especially given the anger James was so obviously trying to bottle up.

“So is my wife,” James said. “I’ve never seen her so … broken. I want to thank you for that. If Mandy is this upset that means Ally is wrecked.”

“And yet you don’t know where she is,” Jake pressed.

“Mandy knows where she is, and she says she’s fine,” James said. “She wants to be left alone right now, so I let it go. Mandy is a little worked up right now, and this is not a battle I’m willing to fight with her.”

“Is Mandy at work? I could go up there and talk to her.”

“Don’t even think about it,” James said. “Mandy did not go to work today. She called in sick. If you show up at that courthouse, though, we’re going to have a big problem.”

“I did not cheat on your sister,” Jake said.

“In between all the crying jags and thrown shark stuffed animals, I did manage to get the story out of Mandy last night,” James said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of room for misunderstandings. They saw Cara at your house, and they saw you kiss her.”

“First off, I did not kiss her,” Jake said. “She saw them through the window and purposely tried to upset Ally. I didn’t realize what she was doing at first. I told her no.”

“She was still at your house,” James said. “I thought she left town days ago.”

“She didn’t. She’s been hiding there.”

“Hiding?”

“I … we have a situation.”

James leaned back in his chair, his eyes thoughtful but still hard. “Does this have anything to do with the search you ran?”

“Yes.”

“I looked over the report,” James said. “Cameron Mitchell is not a good man.”

“There’s a lot more about Cameron that never made it in any reports,” Jake said. “He’s even more of a monster than you could ever imagine.”

James cocked his head to the side. “You’d better tell me. This … situation … is a cluster of crap that’s going to take a lot to fix. I need to know everything. No more secrets.”

Jake nodded, swallowing hard as he sank down in the chair across from James’ desk. “Remember I told you about the op where I was the only one to leave in one piece?”

“I remember.”

“Cameron Mitchell was part of that op,” Jake explained. “He was the reason everything went so … wrong.”

James waited, letting Jake tell the story in his own time.

“We were on a simple run in a small village outside Mosul,” Jake said. “It was … nothing. It was one of those ‘heart and love’ outings. We were taking clothes, CDs, food … you know the drill … to the villagers.”

“I remember having to do that.”

“We were having a good time,” Jake said. “I wasn’t really paying attention to the guys, and that’s on me. I should have known where all of them were at all times. One of the gifts was a basketball, and we helped set up a hoop and we were teaching the kids how to use it and then everything just … shifted.

“I heard a scream, and I ran to check it out. I thought maybe some kids were playing around, or maybe it was something simple,” he continued. “I found Cameron on top of a small girl. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old. He was raping her.”

James swallowed hard. “Oh, man.”

“I dragged him off her, and I was beating the snot out of him when some of the other villagers arrived,” Jake said. “Things went south really quickly. People started firing on us. Cameron was wounded in the gunfire, and a lot of the other men died before we could calm things down.”

“Why wasn’t Cameron locked up for the assault?”

“I was told that, despite my testimony, it was still his word against mine,” Jake said. “The Army didn’t want to make a big deal about it because they didn’t want the negative press.”

“Is that when you were shifted into the military police?”

“No, that came later. I was still on general duty for three months. Cameron had been transferred out of my unit, and I thought he was back stateside. Then I saw him one day.”

“What did you do?”

“I beat the shit out of him, and I accidentally hit a female soldier who tried to separate us in the process. I broke her jaw.”

James pursed his lips. “I would have killed him.”

“I was well on my way to it when I was taken into custody,” Jake said. “I spent two weeks in lock-up before they released me. That’s when I was shuffled over to the military police unit.”

“How long were you there before you ran into Cameron Mitchell again?”

“A year.”

“Did you go after Mitchell because you thought he was doing something nefarious, or did you go after him as some sort of revenge?” James asked.

“Both.”

“It must have been gratifying when you caught him with the heroin.”

“It was,” Jake said. “We built a strong case. We had him dead to rights. He was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five to life. He was beyond pissed at the trial. He threatened to kill both Cara and me if he ever got out.”

“And now he’s out,” James said.

“He showed up at Cara’s apartment a few weeks ago,” Jake said. “He approached her in the hallway. He was looking for me. He’s been having trouble tracking me down because my name is so common and I’ve been under the radar for so long.”

“Did Cara purposely find you at Detcon?”

“She says no.”

“Do you believe her?” James asked.

“I did. I’m not so sure now. She’s been less than subtle where her intentions are concerned. I let her stay at my place because I felt guilty.”

“You think that she wouldn’t have been involved in any of this if it hadn’t been for you,” James said.

“She wouldn’t have.”

“Dude, this is a mess,” James said. “You should have come to me the second she told you all of this. I could have helped you. Hell, we could have put her up in one of Peter’s safe houses.”

Jake balked. “I never considered that. I just … it was my problem. It’s still my problem.”

“Jake, you’re my friend,” James said. “You’re more than that. You’re a part of our family. The way you’ve handled things is beyond stupid. By hiding everything, you’ve wrecked everything. Ally has a broken heart. My wife is … a mess. You could have eliminated all of that by telling the truth.”

“I know.” Jake dropped his head into his hands, miserable. “I never meant to hurt Ally. That was the one thing I was trying not to do.”

“I believe you,” James said. “I’m not your target audience, though.”

“How do I fix this?”

“Well, first off, you’re going to have to tell her the truth,” James said. “Then I think you’re still going to have to beg. My sister can hold a grudge like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I’ve begged before. I can do it again.”

“You’re going to have to get through Mandy first. You know that, right?”

Jake scowled. “I think she hates me more than Ally.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” James said. “Mandy is dug in, though. She’s going to protect Ally with everything she’s got. She blames herself because she told Ally you were a good guy and pushed you two together.”

“I’d like to think I am a good guy,” Jake said. “I swear this is the last thing I ever wanted.”

“I get what you were trying to do,” James said. “You still did it all wrong.”

“I need to fix it. I need to see Ally to do it.”

“We have to find out where she is first.”

“Can’t you just call Mandy?” Jake asked.

“Absolutely not. I am not pushing that woman right now. She will rip my head off.”

“You’re scared of her?”

“You have no idea how upset she is,” James said.

“I have a small idea. I was with her last night.”

“Thanks for calling me, by the way. She would have walked the whole way home.”

“She wouldn’t get in a vehicle with me. I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter.”

James opened his mouth to respond and then snapped it shut when the bell over the front office door jangled. He leaned to the side so he could scan the lobby, and his face drained of color when he saw who was there. “Uh-oh.”

Jake straightened. “Please tell me it’s Ally.”

“Nope.”

Mandy strode into the office, her face blank until she caught sight of Jake. “What is he doing here?”

“Baby, I need you to remain calm,” James said. “He’s here to talk.”

“I don’t care what he’s here for,” Mandy said.

Jake couldn’t help but notice her red and puffy eyes, which were on display because she wasn’t wearing makeup. He felt horrible. “Mandy, I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t you dare speak to me,” Mandy said, extending her index finger in his direction. “Don’t you even look at me!”

Jake glanced at James, hoping for help.

“Baby, Jake and I have had a discussion,” James said. “He’s explained everything. I think there might have been a big misunderstanding here.”

“There was no misunderstanding. I know what I saw.”

“I don’t think you saw what you think you saw,” James said, his voice soft.

“Are you actually taking his side?” Mandy swiveled, fixing her sea-blue eyes on James. “Are you picking him over your own sister?”

“That is not what I said.”

Mandy shook her head, disbelief flooding her face. “You’re being loyal to him instead of your own sister.”

“I’m doing no such thing,” James snapped. “I’m saying there’s been a mistake. I’m asking you to listen to what Jake has to say. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

“Well, I do,” Mandy shot back. “I know where my loyalty is, and it’s with the best friend I’ve ever had. I choose her over the guy who hurt her. I guess that makes me a silly female, though. I would have fired Jake the second he walked into the office.”

“Mandy … I’m not doing that.”

Mandy turned her head away and focused on Jake. “Stay away from Ally. I swear to you, I will set you on fire if you even think of going near her. You’ve done more than enough.”

Mandy stormed out of the office.

“Well, that’s just great,” James said.

“Do you really think she’d start me on fire?”

“Probably.” James got up from his chair and grabbed his keys. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Jake was confused.

“We’re following her.”

“We are? Shouldn’t you let her cool off?”

“Probably,” James said. “The problem is, she’s upset. That means she’s only got one place to go.”

Jake realized what he was saying. “She’s going to Ally.”

“This is going to be our only chance to find her. Come on.”