Mind Play (Bennett Sisters Book 3) (30 page)

Glenda stood again and walked to the sink. She pulled back the curtain and looked outside before letting it fall back in place.

“How much do you know?”

Claire sat down next to Butch
.
“I know that he met a man that you were in a relationship with. The man he tried to help you get away from. I know they were both killed
,
and I know you reported it
to the police. That’s all I know.”

Glenda took her seat again. “Thirty years ago, I was in a bad place. I was in an abusive relationship with a man that did drugs.
Every time
I got the courage to take your dad’s help, somehow he found out and beat the sense back into me. He warned me that if I ever left him, he’d kill me. Hell, I would have welcomed that until I found out I was pregnant
. A
fter that everything changed. He promised me he’d change for the baby, and it seemed that he had for a while. I set up the meeting with him and your dad. He was going to go clean. He told me that he was going to tell your dad everything. Who his supplier was, who was running the drugs, and how he was getting them.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “And I believed him. It was a chilly night
,
and he told me to wait in the car
while h
e met your dad in an
abandoned
warehouse on the other side of town. Ten minutes went by while they were inside before I heard the gunshots.”

Glenda pulled in a deep bre
ath and wip
ed the tear from her cheek. “I was just a kid back then. I was pregnant
,
and I was scared. I wish I’d
have
been braver and r
u
n inside, but I didn’t.
Instead,
I s
a
nk down in my seat and waited to see if one of them w
as
going to come out
…
Neither of them did.

“What I’m about to tell you can’t leave this kitchen
. I
f it does
,
I’m as good as dead.”

Claire grabbed Glenda’s hand and gave it a light squeeze. “You have my word
. I
t won’t leave
my
lips.”

Glenda hesitated
and nodded. “Neither one of the
m
left the warehouse, but someone else did. I saw him walking from the building with a gun in his hand.”

Butch pushed from the table. “Do you know who it was? Did you get a good look at him?”

Glenda
shook her head
. “I’d never seen him before that night
,
and I’ve never seen him again, but I still remember his face
like it was yesterday
. He looked like he
was
about
twenty-five
. He looked mean.” She glanced at Claire. “You know, like one of those men that
don’t
have a soul, the same look as a cold
-
blooded killer.”

Glenda’s ha
n
d trembled when she tried to pick up her coffee cup. The coffee sloshed over the top, so she placed it back on the table and locked her hands together in an obvious attempt to stop them.

“He had dark hair and was about six feet tall.” Glenda shivered. “As he climbed in his green sports car, he laughed.” Glenda glanced from Butch to Claire. “He actually laughed. He
’d
killed two men only minutes before
,
and the bastard had found that
fucking
funny.” Glenda stood and walked to the sink,
paused to take a deep breath, releasing the air out through her mouth and set her cup down..
“As much as I want to kill that man for what he took from me, I’m scared to death that he’ll be back.”

Claire walked over to Glenda and pulled her into an embrace, hugging her tight. “Thank you
,
Glenda, thank you for telling me.”

“I’m not sure how that is going to help you
,
but that’s all I remember.”

Butch walked over to her and pulled out his
Tactical
Maneuver
business card
and handed it to her.
“Glenda, call me if you need anything or if you remember anything else.
My partners and I
will protect you. We’re good at helping people disappear without a trace
,
and we’ll keep you safe.”

Glenda nodded and clutched the card to her chest. “Thank you.”

Butch held out his hand to Claire. “It’s getting kind of late
. W
e need to get going.”

Claire placed her hand into his and let him pull her out of the house. Her mind was spinning with who the hell that man could have been. She wanted to go back to the ballistic
s
reports to see what that told them. There had to be a way to find
the
third person involved. If Glenda had been right, they had a fight coming their way, one she wasn’t sure she could win against a
cold-blooded
killer
, and that scared the crap out of her
.

Butch helped her on the bike after she put on her helmet. She leaned into his back. The warmth that radiated from
him
helped the shiver that threatened her body. All she wanted to do was forget. Why had this man returned
? W
hat
the hell was going on?

Chapter 16

Butch pulled the bike to a stop at the end of Claire’s drive.

“What are you doing?”

“This can’t be good.” Butch nodded toward her house,
and
she peeked over her shoulder.

Red and
b
lue lights flashed in the night sky. There were about ten cops standing on her porch with more walking in and out of her house. “What the hell is going on?”

“I’m not sure,
angel
. Let’s go find out.”

Butch pulled up to the house
and helped her off the bike. She
’d
reached up to unbuckle her helmet when Jake walked toward them
,
carrying one large duffle bag. He threw Butch’s truck keys at him and handed him the packed back. “Take Claire to the hanger. The jet is waiting on us. I’ll follow you
,
and I’ll explain when we have her safe
in the air
.”

Butch nodded, no doubt use to following orders from her brother-in-law without questions, but she wasn’t.

“What are you talking about?
What the hell is going on
?”

Jake’s phone rang. He answered it and handed it over to Claire. He hadn’t had to give Emma
many details
on the phone. Her internal warning system was sounding off like an alarm. He didn’t need to hear Emma to know what one word she’d said. The one word that scared the hell out of all the Bennett women. Claire mumbled
,
“Broccoli.”

That was enough for Butch
to lift her into his arms and walked over to the truck.
She was
n’t going to fight him.
Those green vegetables mean serious business or worse. Her mind raced with what was happening. She’d tuned everyone out and let Butch deal with it, while she ran the scenarios through her mind of what might be happening.

****

Claire and her
siblings
had instilled a warning system of sorts to help them cope with their special abilities
.
It served to let each other know if they couldn’t talk or if they were in trouble. They had code words for their status.
The worst of the codes was broccoli. Butch remembered Abby explaining the code
s
to him when Emma had been kidnapped.
Chocolate, the easiest for all three girls to remember because it was a favorite, meant they couldn’t speak freely, but they were fine. Pecans were used to tell the others they were fine but should probably stay away from the house.
Lemons
meant trouble, the call-the-police
-and-get-them-here-quick
kind of trouble
,
and the last of the code words w
as
the most sever
e—
broccoli.
When
the green leafy vegetable was muttered
, everyone scattered to a prearranged destination until they’d all meet up again.
It had served and saved the girls their entire life
,
and he wouldn’t question it now, not when the one woman he loved might be in trouble.

Butch sat Claire in the truck, hooked her seatbelt
,
and rounded the truck climbing in the other side. He didn’t say a word as he sped to the airfield. His main goal was to keep Claire safe. They would figure out the rest later.

The
y arrived at the airfield in record time. Butch had w
oven
in and out of traffic not stopping for anything. The jet was out of the hanger with the steps lowered. Two armed guards stood watch over the plane. If Jake had called out the troops, then this was serious.

Mike stood at the top of the stairs with his guns drawn. Butch stopped the truck and pulled the bag and Claire from the truck.
One
hand was trembling
when the other reached for the missing pearls that weren’t on her neck.

Mike bound
ed
down the stairs and pulled her into his arms. Butch scanned the area while pulling
out
his
weapon
. “Get her on the plane.”

****

Mike
dragged
Claire up
the stairs
with a crushing grip to her hand
, only letting her
sit down
when she was safely
ensconced
in the steel carriage of the plane
.

“Where the hell have you been and where the hell is your phone?” Mike barked at her.

Claire reached down and pulled it from her waist. “Right here.”

She looked down at the black screen. “It’s dead. What’s going on?”

“God damn it. Where the hell have you been?”

“With Butch on his motorcycle. We were following up on a lead. Why
? W
hat the hell is going on?”

Butch boarded the plane and stowed the bag in an overhead compartment. “Yeah, someone want to fill me in on what’s going on
?
”

Mike started pacing in the confined space as Jake boarded the plane, hitting the button to retract the stairs.

The loud jet engines started to vibrate the plane. Jake took a seat next to Mike
,
opposite her and Butch.

Everyone in Claire’s family knew how to fly planes. She wasn’t scared of them. She was more scared
of
the look on her brother’s face. She’d never seen him so furious with any of her sisters.

She waited anxiously through takeoff and for the plane to level out. The seatbelt sign clicked off.

“Well
,
what the hell is going on
!
”
Claire demanded.

“When you and Butch went off follow
ing
your hunch
, m
y eyes started to cross from looking at the files, so I decided to take a break and hook up the monitoring system for the watches.” Jake glanced at Mike and then Claire.

“Butch and I decided that it would be best if we had it at more than one location
,
and until Butch decided on a house
to buy
, we picked Claire’s house.
I started digging into her electrical system
, and
I came across another linkup.”

“What does that mean?” Claire glanced at Butch, but he didn’t answer her
, only kept his eyes narrowed on Jake
. H
is mouth pulled in a tight thin line
.

“Someone else had tapped into your security system. I thought at first it might have been Butch, so I started digging into it.”

Jake leaned forward and took Claire’s hand. “Sweetie, I don’t know how to tell you this.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “But someone has been watching you.”

“What the hell
do you mean
someone has been watching her
?
”
Butch’s voice boomed through out the cabin.

Jake leaned back in his chair
.
“Not just her
,
Butch, but you and her.”

Butch narrowed his eyes.

Claire reached for an air bag and ran toward the bathroom. “I think I’m going to sick.”

Mike stood and followed. “I’ve got her
. F
inish filling him in.”

****

Butch leaned forward. “How do you know they were watching us?”

“Well
,
I would have been just guessing until I called in Mike
.
He had bugs all throughout the house. He had video
recorder
s placed in the ceiling. It wasn’t until Abby’s team showed up
that
they found a letter that
came
through the mail today. It was addressed to Claire with no return address. They’re running prints on it to see if they can find out where it came from.
”

“What the hell did it say?”

“It was typed, but it said some not
-
so
-
nice things about Claire being submissive for him to
o
. That if she wasn’t careful
,
all he had to do was push a button and she would die just like her father.”

“What the hell did he mean by that?” Butch was ready to hit something, or rather someone. He would kill the bastard for invading their privacy. He just needed to know who the hell it was before he could send them to an early grave.

“He did more than just plant bugs and cameras in the house
. When Abby’s team showed up, they did a thorough search
inside and out
. They found not only a tracking device attached under Claire’s car, but also a bomb. The timer wasn’
t activated
on it, but I believe he could have
,
and probably would have
,
used it if we hadn’t found it first.”

Butch ran his hands over his face
and through his hair
. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He hadn’t done his job. He should have done a thorough search right when he’d arrived
,
but he hadn’t. He’d been so fixated on winning Claire over that he’d lost sight of
what he needed to do and almost got her killed in the process.
It stop
ped
today
.
H
e couldn’t let anything happen to her. If that meant keeping his hands off the petite blonde
,
then so be it. He’d work on keeping her alive first and
think about
their future later.