Audition (North Security 4)

“Is it?” Liam presses a few keys on his computer. “I’m looking at these reports you got from intel. Weapons smuggling. Human trafficking. Drug running. This guy isn’t playing around. I’m not sure a two man team is enough.”

“He’s probably not the perp.”

“Caleb Lewis?”

“No one.”

Quiet over the line. Both men regard me with similar expressions of subtle disbelief. There’s no way I’m fooling them, but I’m not about to open up my emotions, either. We had that shit beat out of us early. “You ever wonder what would’ve happened if we’d gotten together and killed that motherfucker?”

Neither of them have to ask who I’m talking about. There’s only one motherfucker we would have wanted to kill. Our father lived to terrorize us until the very last of us left. He was strong and merciless, but there were three of us. Even scrawny and half-starved we could’ve killed him—the way Caleb did his father.

Liam looks away from the camera. A muscle moves in his jaw. “Been thinking about him lately. You know that shit runs in families? Like green eyes or brown hair. Genetics or some shit. They’ve done papers on it.”

“You’re not gonna be like him,” Elijah says, his voice low and fierce.

I snort. “Samantha would probably kill you if you were.”

We all go quiet at that, remembering a mother who stood up for us only to get beaten back down. It happened one too many times.

One day, she wasn’t there anymore. Liam and I got home from school, and Elijah was in the house, only three years old, sitting at the kitchen table. Alone. I walked into the house two seconds before Liam, and I’ll never forget the way those wide green eyes blinked up at me. He wasn’t crying. Even then, he knew no one would be there to answer him. We never saw her after that day. Further proof that Liam will make an amazing father. He took care of me and Elijah until the day he enlisted.

Liam runs a hand over his face. “She has us seeing some shrink who says a lot of new age shit about manifesting our future, but I don’t know what wishful thinking has ever done. There’s only guns and knives, and neither of those help with a diaper.”

“There’s violins,” I say, because my brother looks seriously distraught. “We all choose our weapons. And yeah, none of that shit is gonna help with a diaper. You’re gonna figure that out on your own, and you’ll do great, and when you don’t do great, you’ll pass off the little runt to Uncle Joshua.”

Liam grunts. “No way you’re coming near him.”

“Is it a boy?” Elijah asks.

“Nah, we don’t know yet. I’m just trying to manifest it, because what the hell would I know about a girl?”

“You literally raised one,” I say, not even trying to hide my amusement. He got custody of Samantha Brooks, the prodigy violinist, when she was only twelve years old. Not a baby, sure, but he bought plenty of pink shit.

He frowns at me, because he still has guilt about fucking her when she was all grown up. Good thing Samantha has them going to that shrink. “If the new age shit doesn’t work I’ll just pummel some sense into you.”

“Get in line,” Elijah says, because he grew up bigger and meaner than both of us. He really could pound us into the concrete. Not that he’d need to. Liam took care of me and Elijah and Samantha. He’ll carry the whole fucking world on his shoulders. Of course he’ll take care of this little infant. The bigger question is whether he’ll give himself even a moment to actually enjoy the experience. Probably not.

The door to my office opens, and I swing around.

Noah’s holding a manila envelope like it’s an IED primed to go off.

“I’m out,” I say to the mic before clicking off the call. The expression Noah wears makes my heart pound. Liam can wait. He’ll probably call me back in thirty seconds, pissed that I cut him off, but I don’t care. “What is it?”

He steps closer and hands the folder over. “The results from the analysis lab.”

I have the envelope torn open before he finishes the sentence. The fucking flower. If we’re going to find the bastard, we need to know where the flower came from. It’s much harder to trace paper these days, with copy shops on every corner. You can have a document printed from anywhere in the world, to any UPS store, and all that’s left is a cold digital trail.

The information I need is right there. Black-and-white. “They found it.”

Noah leans in. “Where?”

“Edge of the Garden District.” The name of the shop isn’t as important as the interview. I’ve used this private investigator before, and she does her due diligence. It’s why I’m willing to pay her high fees. She identified the type of tulip and interviewed florist shops until she found the right one.

I flip through the pages and drink in the transcript from the phone call. “‘I remember this guy,’” I read aloud. “‘He had a scar in his hair. Dark hair, but the scar I remember.’” Noah and I lock eyes over the desk. There’s only one person I know with a scar running through his hair in a way distinctive enough for the owner of a flower shop to mention it twice. Coincidence? Not fucking likely. “Connor.”

Fuck. The past is coming back to haunt her. To haunt us.

Noah folds his hands in front of him. He looks pissed off. A scary motherfucker. That’s why I like him in my goddamn corner. “Want me to tell her?”