Smokescreen, page 8
“You mean does he get overprotective?” Riley nodded with emphasis. “Oh yeah.”
Taylor folded a white T-shirt and set it into her pile. “I’ve never had anyone act like this with me before. What’s even stranger is the fact that he wouldn’t even talk to me until I moved back here.”
“I’m afraid I can’t explain that.” Riley looked at Taylor with sympathy in her eyes. “Right after my wedding, he went on a few dates with some of the girls in the singles ward, but the last few months he hasn’t seemed to socialize with anyone but us and the other guys in his unit.”
“That’s pretty much what he told me,” Taylor nodded. “Still, I don’t know what to think. When we went out on our date, he acted like nothing ever happened between us.”
“I thought you said he explained why he stopped calling.”
“He did, but now I don’t know if he’s hanging around because he’s still interested in me or if he just thinks I need to be protected.” She picked up another shirt and then glanced up at Riley. “I mean, Dad wasn’t even this paranoid.”
“I have a feeling Dad would be plenty paranoid right now if he were here to know what’s been going on,” Riley told her. “I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that he won’t be back for a couple more weeks.”
“Knowing him, we’d not only be told we can’t stay home alone, but he’d probably also sign us up for another self-defense class.”
Riley laughed. “You’re probably right. I don’t know what it was with him and those classes.”
“I just remember every time he got deployed, he made us take another one.”
“He made Mom take one right before they left for Brazil.” Riley lifted a pile of shirts off of her bed and slid them into a dresser drawer. “I keep thinking that they’ll call us, but maybe it’s just as well that they don’t. They’d be really worried about you.”
“You’re probably right.” Taylor pulled her cell phone from her back pocket to check the time. “I’m surprised Felicia hasn’t called back yet. It’s already six o’clock. How long can it take to figure out which paintings are missing?”
“Apparently a long time.” Riley shrugged. “Why don’t you call her and make sure she hasn’t forgotten about you?”
“Maybe I should,” Taylor agreed. She scrolled through her contacts and then made the call. Felicia answered on the first ring.
“Taylor, I was just about to call you.”
“Do you have any news?”
“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” Felicia told her. “We’re having trouble locating the inventory photos.”
“You’re having trouble locating them, or they’re missing?” Taylor asked suspiciously.
“I’m sure they were just misfiled. No one has used them since you met with us last week,” Felicia assured her. “I did want to ask if there’s any way you could come up here on Monday.”
“What for?”
“If we can’t find those photos, the gallery manager wants to know if you can come and identify which pieces are missing.”
“I can probably do that,” Taylor agreed.
“Good. I’ll give you a call tomorrow when we have a better handle on the situation.”
“Okay.” Taylor disconnected the call and then relayed the conversation to Riley.
“I can’t believe all of this.” Riley shook her head. “It’s been one thing after another since you got home.”
“I know.” Taylor nodded. “But at least I’ll be able to get moved in to my own place tomorrow and start getting settled.”
“We aren’t going to have much help if the guys are out of town.”
“I know, but it isn’t like I have a lot of stuff yet,” Taylor reminded her. “Especially since Mom and Dad got rid of so many of my things when they moved into their new place.”
“What are you going to do for furniture?”
“I have a few things I got in Europe that should be arriving in a couple more weeks, and I already bought a kitchen table, a bed, and a dresser. I just need to pick them up.”
“You mean you want Tristan to pick them up.” Riley smiled at her.
“He does drive a truck.” Taylor grinned back at her sister. “And I can always use a sleeping bag for a few days if I need to.”
“I assume you want to borrow mine.”
“Unless you know where Mom put mine.” Taylor folded a pair of Riley’s pants and wondered briefly if her sister would notice them missing for a few days. Then she caught Riley looking at her, gave her a sheepish grin, and placed the pants in Riley’s stack of clothes.
After they finished putting away the laundry, Riley nodded toward her bedroom door. “Come on. Let’s go get you all packed up, and then we can run down to the grocery store and get you that cheesecake you’ve been talking about all day.”
“New York–style cheesecake?” Taylor asked hopefully.
Riley laughed. “Maybe with the guys gone, you can even have some for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Now that’s a plan.”
12
“What’s the plan?” Quinn asked as they climbed out of Tristan’s truck in the parking garage beneath his condo. “Did you want to head into the office tomorrow so we can do some more research on Taylor’s paintings?”
“We probably should, but let’s see what the girls have planned first, especially since you don’t have a car this weekend,” Tristan said.
Quinn nodded. When they had returned from their readiness exercise in Norfolk, Jay had discovered that his starter motor had gone bad. Knowing that Jay had plans for the weekend, Quinn had taken pity on him and let him take his car since he could walk home from Tristan’s place. “You know, I’m half tempted to bring Taylor into the office and have her help. She can at least tell us if she knew the people in her paintings.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Tristan agreed. “Of course, we’d need to get permission to bring her in there since she doesn’t have a security clearance.”
Quinn walked past the elevator and pushed open the door leading to the stairs.
“What is it with you and elevators?”
“Walking the stairs is good for you.”
“So you keep telling me.” Tristan followed him inside, and together they jogged up the first flight to the main level. “Hold on a second so I can grab my mail.”
“No problem.” Quinn followed him into the lobby area and then out the lobby door and to the left where the mailboxes were located for the building. A movement caught Quinn’s attention, and his eyes narrowed as he recognized the man coming toward them. “Do you know that guy?”
Tristan turned and looked at the dark-haired man Quinn had motioned to. “No, why?”
“I saw him in the stairwell last night.”
“In my building?” Tristan asked suspiciously.
Quinn nodded. The man stepped into the alcove next to the building entrance where the buzzers were located to call up to the individual units. Quinn took a step toward him just in time to see him press several buzzers, one right after the other. “Hey!” Quinn called out from several yards away. “What are you doing?”
The man looked up at Quinn, his eyes flashing with guilt and awareness. Then he turned and raced down the sidewalk. Quinn sprinted after him, gaining with each step even as he heard Tristan’s rapid footsteps behind him. Then without warning, the man darted into the street, barely evading a car as it slammed on its brakes.
Quinn followed him out into traffic, slamming his hand down on the stopped car to keep it from moving forward. He had only taken two steps before a dark blue van coming from the other direction slowed down right next to the man Quinn was chasing. The panel door opened, the man jumped inside, and then the van’s tires squealed as Quinn came within a yard of it before it sped away.
Tristan came to a stop in the middle of the road beside Quinn, both of them ignoring the honking horns from the drivers who had been cut off. “Did you get the license plate?”
Quinn nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”
“Let’s get inside and make sure the girls are okay. Then we’ll call the police.”
* * *
Taylor looked up at the door as it opened. Her smile was instant when she saw Tristan walk in followed by Quinn. “Hi, there. I didn’t think we were going to see you guys tonight.”
“It was just a readiness exercise,” Tristan said, but he looked past her to where Riley was sitting at the kitchen table with her work spread out around her. “Is everything okay here?”
“Yeah.” Riley looked at him suspiciously. “Why?”
Before Tristan could answer, Quinn pulled out his cell phone and looked at Taylor. “Do you have the phone number for the policeman who took your statement?”
“Officer Harbison?” Taylor asked, her eyebrows drawing together. “Yeah. It’s in my purse.”
“Can you get it for me?”
Taylor didn’t move. “What’s going on?”
“We aren’t sure yet, but I just chased a guy in front of the building. I think he was heading up here,” Quinn said, his focus still on Taylor. “I saw him last night after I brought you home. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
“You think someone’s after me?” Taylor asked, instantly seeing the answer in his eyes.
“Or he could be after something you have,” Tristan suggested. “Either way, you aren’t safe here.”
A chill ran through Taylor, but her voice was surprisingly calm and hopeful when she spoke. “If you chased this guy away, I doubt he’s coming back.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Quinn shook his head slowly, and then he crossed to her. “But why take chances?”
“Look, I already have the keys to my apartment.” Taylor held her hands out in surrender. “I can stay there tonight.”
Quinn shook his head. “It’s not a good idea for you to move straight from here to your new place.”
“Taylor doesn’t have that much stuff. She can stay over at our parents’ place tonight,” Riley suggested. “We can load all of her stuff up before she goes so she doesn’t have to come back here.”
“I’m not sure I want you staying here tonight either,” Tristan told Riley.
Riley looked pointedly at Tristan. “Fine. We can all stay at Mom and Dad’s place. I’m sure you can figure out some way to set up surveillance or whatever it is you do to see if anyone tries to break into our place tonight while we’re gone.”
“When do your parents get home?” Tristan asked.
“In two weeks.”
“Then we can stay there for a few days until I can make sure our place is secure,” Tristan told her. “Can you go pack a bag for us? That way Quinn and I can start loading up Taylor’s stuff after we call the police.”
Riley glanced over at Taylor and then nodded in resignation.
Taylor looked into Quinn’s eyes, surprised by the intensity she saw there. She swallowed hard and then motioned to her room. “I’ll get you that number.”
* * *
“You know, it’s been a while since I’ve done this kind of work,” Vanessa Johnson whispered to her husband as she adjusted the backpack hanging from her shoulder.
“It’s just like riding a bike.” Seth winked at her. “It’ll come back to you.”
“It had better,” Vanessa said wryly.
Seth dropped his pack onto the hard concrete in the parking garage of Tristan’s building and removed the first of the surveillance cameras that he was planning to place there. When Tristan had called and filled him in on his concerns, Seth had volunteered to help and had effectively volunteered his wife as well. He would have asked Brent to come along, but he and Amy had headed up to visit Amy’s parents in northern Virginia for the weekend.
Since it was already two in the morning, Seth expected that they could set the equipment up without anyone even knowing they had been there.
Seth calculated angles, and with Vanessa, he finished in the garage relatively quickly. They then took the stairs to the fourth floor, placing another camera inside the stairwell and yet another in the hallway near the elevator.
As soon as they activated the camera in the hallway, Vanessa whispered, “Okay, that should do it except for the lobby.”
“Tristan wants one inside his place, too, at least until they come back home,” Seth told her.
“Did he give you a key?”
Seth nodded, pulling a house key out of his pocket. He put his hand on the doorknob and immediately realized that the door wasn’t all the way closed. Knowing that Tristan was being overly cautious, he came to the unwanted conclusion that someone else was inside. He quickly stepped away from the door and pushed Vanessa back against the wall.
Vanessa’s eyebrows lifted, and she gave him a questioning look. He signaled to her the way he would to one of the other SEALs in his squad. He knew she wouldn’t understand all of the hand signals, but he was pretty sure she would get the gist of what he was saying: Stay here. Someone is inside.
Seth reached down to the weapon he had holstered at his ankle and handed it to Vanessa. He then pulled his second weapon from the small of his back. Silently, he shifted to the other side of the door and nodded with approval when Vanessa slid closer in case she needed to back him up. Seth then crouched down and slowly pushed the door open.
He stepped inside cautiously, scanning the darkness for anything out of place. There wasn’t the typical mess associated with a burglary, and nothing appeared to be disturbed. Padding across the floor, he checked the living room and kitchen before starting for the hallway. He reached the guest room first and peered inside. That’s when he saw the slight movement on the far side of the room.
Seth aimed and spoke in his deep voice. “Hold it right there.”
The figure spun quickly, and Seth jumped back behind the door frame automatically in case he had a weapon. The intruder held his hands out to his side for a brief moment. Then to Seth’s surprise, he turned back toward the sliding glass door, quickly opened it, and ran out onto the small balcony. Seth dashed forward as the man climbed over the wrought-iron railing and tried to lower himself to the balcony below. Just as Seth made it to the edge and reached out to grab the intruder’s hand, the hand let go and suddenly the man was plummeting to the ground below.
Vanessa rushed into the room, gasping when she saw the man sprawled on the lawn beneath them. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I tried to grab his hand, and he just let go.” Seth shook his head and turned to look at her. “I’m not sure if he slipped or if he jumped.”
“I hope he slipped,” Vanessa murmured. “Because if he jumped, that means he was more afraid of getting caught than he was of dying.”
The muscle in Seth’s jaw jumped as he considered the possibilities. “Call the cops. I’m going to check out the rest of the apartment, and then I’m going down there.”
Vanessa nodded, pulling out her phone. “Make sure you don’t touch anything.”
Seth nodded and then disappeared out the door.
13
Quinn didn’t know why he was here. He knew that Tristan could handle things at the Palmettas’ place, but he also knew he wasn’t going to be able to sleep at home anyway, especially without knowing who was after Taylor or why. After getting Taylor and Riley settled at their parents’ house, Tristan had offered to take Quinn back to his apartment, but somehow he had already known that Quinn wasn’t going home.
The license plate number he had given to the police had turned out to belong to a completely different vehicle than the one Quinn had seen on the street by Tristan’s place. As a result, the police were jumping to the same conclusions that Quinn and Tristan were. Whoever they had chased off wasn’t some random criminal off the street. It was someone who was smart enough to hide his tracks.
Quinn paced across the Palmettas’ living room, stopping to look at the framed snapshots hanging on the wall. The photos ranged in age, from a framed photo of Riley and Tristan at their wedding to a picture of Riley and Taylor wearing tutus when they were young. The corner of Quinn’s mouth lifted as he thought of Taylor as a little girl. He could only imagine that she had kept her parents on their toes.
Although the Palmettas’ house was much smaller than the one Quinn’s parents lived in, the feeling of it was similar. His own childhood home sported many of the same types of photos, all in mismatched frames of varying sizes. Many of those photos from his later teenage years had included Tristan, who had moved in with his family when they were both fifteen. Tristan’s mother, an admiral, had let him stay with Quinn’s family while she was deployed overseas and then had allowed him to stay to finish high school.
Then a few years later, Emily’s photo had appeared often as well. Those photos had all been taken down at Quinn’s request. Many were still at his parents’ house, some in boxes and others in albums, but most were hiding in plain sight on the bookshelf in Quinn’s apartment.
Quinn heard a sound behind him and turned to see Taylor step out of the hallway. She was wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and a loose-fitting T-shirt. Her hair looked like she had combed through it with her fingers after a restless night’s sleep.
“You should try to get some more sleep.”
Taylor’s eyebrows lifted. “I could say the same thing about you.”
“I took a combat nap a while ago before Tristan went to bed.”
“A combat nap?”
Quinn nodded, as though she should know that he had been trained to fall into a deep sleep at will in order to help him survive in combat situations. He watched her take a step closer and noticed the mascara smudges under her eyes. After growing up with three younger sisters, he knew immediately that she had been crying.
He stepped closer and put a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”
Taylor shrugged a shoulder but didn’t answer.
“Hey, come here.” Quinn pulled her closer and wrapped his arms around her. He could feel her tremble, apparently still trying to fight the tears. “It’s going to be okay.”
