She sighed and shook her head. “The tree was beautiful, though. Thank you for having them send it to my house.”
I frowned. “I didn’t have it sent to your house.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Then how did you get it here? You were the one to go pick up all the stuff. How did the washer get here?”
I frowned. “I brought it over with your other stuff and left it on the porch. I then called your dad to tell him that I needed him to make sure he helped you get that inside. I… the tree? I didn’t bring that over here. In fact, that tree wasn’t even in the pile of stuff that I saw. I thought they tossed it, honestly.”
She tilted her head. “One of the men from the hotel brought it over here. Maybe from the CDC?”
A thought filled me with dread. “What did the guy look like? The one that brought it over here?”
She frowned hard and stopped the process of making us sandwiches to pull her phone out of her pocket.
From there she started to go through it, pulling up an app, and then turning so that I could see the video that she’d pulled up.
“Here,” she said as she showed me the video. “That’s him.”
My stomach all but sank.
“That’s Brad,” I said.
He was older than the last time I’d seen him, and he looked like he was moving a little stiffly, as if he was hurt.
His eyes, though, didn’t miss anything.
He knew the camera was there because he looked at it full on and made sure that I knew that he knew it was there.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s Brad? I guess I thought he was from the CDC.”
I nodded. “That’s him.”
I stiffened slightly at the way that Brad literally just waltzed up to Carolina and walked straight into her house. Carolina didn’t even know that she should be afraid.
That was the truly scary thing.
Brad may or may not be the one who hurt my dad and murdered my mother, but I sure the hell knew he was a killer when he had to be.
Brad joined the secret service after spending years as an Army Ranger. Then as a police officer after that. I knew damn well and good that Brad could do things that most people could only dream of.
I walked away from where Carolina moved back to finish making the sandwiches and walked over to where the tree stood in her living room.
I’d seen it upon walking in, but Smoke had taken up a lot of my concentration.
Speaking of, I walked to the back of the couch and looked over it at him to find him sleeping peacefully. His chest rose and fell, a soft snore leaving his lips every few seconds.
Seeing that he was fine, I walked to the tree and stared at it in curiosity.
My eyes took in all the numerous glass balls, Swarovski icicles and random other things that Carolina had put up there, but then my eyes snagged on what looked to be a black ball, in the middle of all the white and gold, that hadn’t been there before.
Son of a bitch.
I reached for it, remembering when Brad and I used to go through all of the White House Christmas trees—or, more honestly, me while Brad supervised—and add random plastic balls to all of the expensive trees that didn’t match at all.
It used to drive my mother insane to find those random plastic balls, but every single year, Brad supplied them for me, and every single year, he would laugh his ass off without actually smiling in any way while I went on my crusades.
With shaking fingers, I reached up and pulled the black ball down, unsurprised to find that it was a cheap plastic one.
I was also unsurprised when I pried the silver topper off and found a note inside.
However, after doing my level best to shake it out, I couldn’t get it out.
Walking back into the kitchen, I found Carolina plating two sandwiches for me.
Having learned my preferences when we’d lived together for half a month, I knew that she’d done it exactly right.
She turned with the plates in her hand to find me standing there with a black ornament in my hand.
“Where’d that come from?” she asked.
I held it up for her to see. “It was on the tree.”
Her eyes widened. “Is there something in there?”
I nodded. “I can’t get it out, though.”
She put the plates onto the counter and turned to hold her hand out for it.
I gave it to her, blinking in surprise when she dropped the ball onto the floor and then stomped on it.
The ornament cracked with a viciousness that honestly surprised me.
For them being ‘shatterproof’ they sure shattered really well.
The moment her foot moved, a white piece of lined paper fell free, and she bent down to retrieve it before handing it to me.