Kansas Nights [Kansas Heat 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (28 page)

“Doesn’t work, huh?” Collin pointed out the obvious, irritating Kathy’s already agitated mood.

“No.” That didn’t make any sense. Kathy knew for a fact her daddy hadn’t changed his just as she knew she had the right numbers. “All those idiots used the same code. It was their failsafe.”

“All what idiots?”

Figuring she must have typed in the code wrong, Kathy tried again, and then three more times and then four different versions of the code. She struck out each and every time until she finally gave up. Straightening up with a scowl, she ran right into Collin’s expectant expression.

“All what idiots?”

Kathy cast Collin a dirty look for repeating himself, but it didn’t change his expectant one. She could read his intent to keep on asking that same question until she answered. After last night, she knew how persistent he could be. It wasn’t worth the battle.

“My dad and all his war buddies, or should I say drinking buddies,” Kathy corrected herself as she pushed down the shelter’s outer door. “They all went in on this land and buried a whole bunch of shelters around here. I think there are about nine.”

“Nine shelters, that’s like an epidemic.”

“They had a little club, you know a ‘sit around and share conspiracy theories, shoot guns, and watch sports, all while drinking’ kind of club.”

Kathy played it off like every father belonged to one of those kinds of groups though she knew good and well they didn’t. It was a wasted effort anyway. Collin wouldn’t let her get away with that kind of dismissal. Trailing behind her as she headed back to the car, he persisted in being nosy.

“So your dad drank beer and buried bomb shelters with Eddie, and let me guess, Mr. George’s dad was in on the action, too.”

“Benny’s dad was a good man.” Kathy hesitated by the driver’s door to confront Collin. “They were all good men. They served their country and came back to work hard and provide for their families. They didn’t beat us or hurt anybody, but by all means, ridicule them because they don’t fit your mold of the perfect, nuclear family.”

“I’m not ridiculing your father, Kathy.” Collin stiffened up as if she’d insulted him. “And I’ll thank you to remember that I served this country, too, so I get it. You recognize, though, that this is all a little odd. Eddie’s supposed to be in Florida, not buried beneath the ground.”

After so many years of listening to people snicker and belittle her dad and his buddies, Kathy knew she’d grown a little sensitive on the subject. She could even admit she might have overreacted. That didn’t make it any easier to get over her anger, but she managed to ground it down to a sulk as she wrenched open her car door.

“Yeah, and he changed the locks, too,” Kathy muttered as she slid into her seat. “And I’m betting Jack’s buddies will have it picked in the hour.”

Then there wouldn’t be anything left for her to find. The air stayed thick as Kathy headed back toward town, mulling over her depressing options. The Feds had probably already searched Eddie’s house. That didn’t mean they knew what to look for, or so she could hope.

“We’re not going back to the library?” Collin finally asked, giving in to the curiosity Kathy knew had been eating at him for the past few minutes.

“Thanks to your oh-so-subtle interest, Sarah Anne told me to take an hour lunch and enjoy.” Kathy pulled the car to a stop in front of a small, little stone house before shooting Collin a bright smile in an attempt to chase the dire atmosphere away. “Wanna guess where we are?”

“I don’t know.” Collin returned her grin with one of his own, matching her enthusiasm and assuring the tension was all but dispelled. “Eddie’s house?”

“Smart is so sexy.” Kathy tossed him a wink and pushed open her car door. She’d meant it as a joke, but Collin’s gaze darkened as it slid slowly down over her in a heated caress that sapped the mirth from her, replacing it with a simmering need that had her melting in all the wrong places.

“It most certainly is.”

The quickness and depth of her response to Collin’s flirting unnerved Kathy. The emotions churning in her stomach were too deep and strong to be controlled, to be protected against. The only thing that could help soothe her anxiety was distance, which Collin didn’t give her.

Matching her step as she headed up Eddie’s driveway, he stayed close enough to her side to keep Kathy’s senses fogged by his warm, musky scent. As if being sinfully tempting to look at wasn’t enough, the man even smelled delicious. If only she could have abandoned her investigation and taken Collin home, then she could have dedicated herself to the task of fucking this wanton need out of her system.

Maybe she should do that after work anyway. It would be easier to focus if she wasn’t so distracted by her raging hormones. Not to mention it would be nice to walk around in dry panties. Of course, she had to figure Eddie had more than one bed in his house, but that would be all sorts of wrong given they were breaking into it, a fact that she hoped Collin could cope with. He didn’t seem too easy with anything right then.

“So, we’re hoping Eddie’s home?”

“No. I got to figure this will be easier if he isn’t.” Kathy rounded the back of the house and headed up the little steps that led to the small back stoop. Despite her words, she lifted a fist and pounded on the door. “
Hey, Eddie!
You home?”

Collin cringed at her shout, glancing around nervously. “You have to make all that noise?”

“Better to be loud than to be shot.” Kathy paused, thinking over that statement and how true it was.
“Hey, Eddie!”

“Jesus.” Collin winced. “It’s like you’re trying to call pig homes from Mars. I think he’d have heard you if he were in there, right along with all his neighbors. Now what are you doing?”

“Looking for the key.” Kathy stretched up on her tiptoes to feel around the top of the door frame.

“Don’t tell me a paranoid vet who has a bomb shelter hidden in a field keeps a hide-a-key on his back stoop,” Collin muttered, still glancing around as if expecting somebody to pop out from the sunlit afternoon and shock him. His unease didn’t disguise the diversion in his voice, a fact that had Kathy sharing a dirty look with him as she began looking under the potted plants.

“It wasn’t Eddie’s key but Maria’s, his wife. Now there was a sweet lady. She made the best pies.” Kathy paused to sigh and smile over that memory. “I used to think her peach pie was the greatest thing in the world, and then I found out about sex and it became number two.”

Kathy lost her smile as she strained to lift a particularly heavy plant and peer beneath it. “But Maria did have a flaw. She liked to lock herself out of or into things. The house, the car… She once got trapped in the garage for three hours. I guess it’s not right to laugh, but it was kind of funny.”

“Sounds it,” Collin snickered, not bothering to offer any kind of help with Kathy’s search. “But my file on Eddie says his wife died ten years ago. You don’t think maybe he’d have removed the extra key she might have hidden by the door?”

“Probably, at least the ones he could find.” Kathy wouldn’t be shocked, though, if Eddie had never thought to look. “But you’re not getting it. Maria had duplicates of duplicates of duplicates of every key she owned made and hid them all around. Hell, I bet if we got a metal detector, you’d find about hundred in this backyard. There has to be one left.”

“No, there does—”

“Ah, here we go.” Kathy lifted up a heavy-looking rock and knocked it against the metal railing bordering the back stoop. “Hollow. Fake, and what is this inside? Oh, come on, sweet meat, give it to me?”

Kathy held the key up, grinning victoriously as she gloated over Collin’s scowl.

“I’m not giving you anything,” Collin retorted peevishly, crossing his arms over his chest as he lorded it over at her. “And just because you found a key doesn’t make it legal to go into that house.”

“I guess my conscience will just have to suffer for the greater good.” Undisturbed and undeterred, Kathy fit the key into the back door and turned it until the lock clicked and the door swung inward. She only paused to glance back at Collin for a second. “You coming?”

* * * *

Collin didn’t want to, certain this would end with Jack yelling at him. Still, upsetting Jack would be better than pissing Kathy off. After all, he never played with Jack’s fun parts. Kathy, on the other hand, had great parts, amazing parts, parts that were ruled by that beautiful, crazy head of hers. He hadn’t been lying when he’d implied the sexiest thing about her was her mind.

It was also the most frustrating. He tried to make that point known by heaving a heavy sigh and stomping up the steps after her, but Kathy appeared oblivious. Having already violated the law by letting herself into Eddie’s house, she shockingly showed no concern over possibly being caught rifling through his stuff.

Collin would have helped her, except that he didn’t see any point in it. Jack’s team had undoubtedly done a thorough search of Eddie’s place, possibly even his bomb shelter. If they hadn’t, they’d be getting to it soon, right along with promoting Kathy to the top of their suspect list. The woman really needed to learn to act less guilty.

“So exactly what are you looking for?” Collin asked, watching as Kathy moved from one kitchen drawer to another.

“I don’t know.”

She didn’t spare him a glance as she answered, but made quick work of her search and headed off through the door leading to the dining room. A small, rolltop desk was pushed into the corner, drawing her attention immediately. Ambling over to study the collection of commemorative presidential plates and national memorabilia, Collin had to figure that Kathy was right about one thing. Eddie hadn’t run off to Florida, and Jack probably knew that, leaving Collin the only one out of the “know.”

“If you don’t know what you’re looking for, then what makes you think there is something to find?” Collin turned to confront Kathy directly with that question, a gesture she returned.

“Well, I know that Will had a pill problem. Somebody had to be his connection, and Benny says that Will didn’t have any regular visitors other than Amanda. Since I know she wasn’t supplying him squat, that means that Eddie, who he worked with him every day, is either it or knows who is.”

“And you don’t think the Feds haven’t already checked that angle?”

“I don’t know.” Kathy shrugged, sounding like she didn’t care as she turned her attention back to going through Benny’s papers. “But if they did, they didn’t do a good job because they still ended up with Amanda as their only suspect.”

“You ever think that maybe that’s because she is the only suspect?” Collin regretted the words the second he muttered them. Their effect could be felt instantly in the sudden freezing drop in the room’s temperature. The cold echoed in Kathy’s frigid tone.

“It isn’t even an option.”

Kathy jerked out of the desk chair and stormed out of the room, leaving Collin uncertain if he should follow or give her time to cool down. He came down on the side of lingering, choosing instead to scan through the papers Kathy had left ruffled on Eddie’s desktop. Bills and catalogs—he found nothing of interest in the pile.

The picture on top of the desk did catch Collin’s eye. Lifting it up, he stared at the father and son grinning broadly at the camera in an image that was near identical to the same picture Collin’s dad kept on the mantel. Collin imagined most fathers who had a son follow in their footsteps ended up with the same boot-camp-graduation photo of their sons sitting somewhere proudly. It was one thing
Cecelia had been adamant about. No son of hers would be wasting his life on the Marine Corps.

Of course, they never did have the kid. Cecelia had always claimed to be too busy with her career. While there might have been some truth to that statement, if Cecelia had wanted a child, she’d have managed. There wasn’t anything that Cecelia wanted and didn’t get. Setting the photo back down, Collin couldn’t help but think that Kathy and Cecelia shared that trait. Turning to spy on Kathy searching through the living room, Collin couldn’t help but smile at the way she muttered to herself.

Fueled by too much emotion, Kathy couldn’t keep her opinions in. Cecelia, on the other hand, would never have been so open. She would have seen it as a weakness. Practical to the point of being methodically calculating, Cecelia prided herself on making the most logical decisions.

That trait made her cold in a lot of ways, her ambition turning her into a bitch. Kathy, on the other hand, got led around by heart and her fear of losing it. Collin could understand why somebody who gave so much of themselves would end up twice as crazy as Kathy. A person couldn’t be that sane and be truly loyal to their family, their friends, their family’s friends, as Kathy was. Devotion came with a price. Collin feared in the case of Amanda, Kathy’s friendship might end up costing her her life.

That grim thought darkened Collin’s mood as his whole world narrowed into the sight of Kathy frowning at the mantel. She was so small, so delicate, but glowed with such radiance that he couldn’t help but be drawn to her. Like a moth to a flame, he moved in closer.

Coming to stand behind her, he surveyed the mantel, trying to figure out what had her delicate features all scrunched up in a frown. Other than a few photos, nothing of interest caught his eye.

“Something wrong?” His question jarred Kathy out of her silent contemplation. She flashed him a quick smile to go along with her denial. Unfortunately, he didn’t believe in either of them.

“Nothing but me wishing there was something.”

She was lying. Collin could sense that truth all the way in his gut. It didn’t make him mad, though. Instead his cock swelled at the thought of how he might coax her into telling him the truth. He could see no reason not to tend to the matter immediately before she managed to get into even more trouble.

“Really?” Collin brought his hands up to rest against her shoulders, a silent reminder that he could and would do whatever he wanted with her. Still, he gave her one last chance. “Are you sure about that, sweet meat? You’re sure there’s not maybe one little thing you’re forgetting to tell me about?”