When the evening ends, and we settle into bed to sleep, and in what I hope is a sign of better days, the recent storms have passed, and the moonlight has turned the room from the inky black of late to a dim gray glow. Laying there in Rick’s arms, the thrum of his heartbeat beneath my hand, I have the realization that we leave tomorrow. This may be the last time we share this bed. “I don’t want to sell this house.”
“Of course not,” Rick says immediately. “It was your grandmother’s. It’s a connection to your mother. We can use it as our Texas getaway. And we’ll hire someone to maintain it.”
It’s a perfect answer. We’ll be back. Together. It’s also a statement that assumes that is possible because Gabriel will no longer be a problem. I don’t know if that means he ends up in jail or dead, and guilt stabs at me when the idea of him being dead comforts me. But the man used me and convinced me he didn’t. The level of deviousness is hard to ignore. He’s former CIA. He has deeply rooted resources. Will him being in jail be enough to keep us safe?
At least it’s a barrier between us and him though. He has to go to jail.
I drift into the haze of sleep and the past, not to a past with Gabriel but to a moment in time with my father and just a few weeks after my mother’s death.
Weeks of my father’s withdrawing has me worried and today I’m going to do something about it. I arrive at his house with a boxed chocolate cake in hand and the hope that I can get my father to actually come back to life. I check the lock to his door and it’s open. Stepping inside the foyer, I call out “Dad!” but the creak of wood and the whisper of a ceiling fan is all that greets me.
Hurrying through the house the low rumble of his voice has me pausing outside the cracked door of his office to find him behind his desk on his cellphone. “Tonight. No deviation.” He’s silent a moment. “No. This has to happen tonight. You know the orders. They were clear. He can’t be given a chance to leave the country. No. The directive is to do it in DC during the PR stunt. Everyone will be thinking about football.”
My brows furrow. Football? I don’t understand what I’m hearing. Unless, wait. Are the Superbowl winners headed to the White House?
“Do the job,” he growls angrily, and then he hangs up, standing as he does. He grimaces, and leans forward, pressing his hands to his desk, as he draws a deep breath.
Unease rolls through me. Whatever this was I wasn’t supposed to hear it. Whatever this is brings a side of him out I don’t know, but he’s a General. I’m quite aware of how demanding that is, and how hard he must be at times. I back up almost to the living room and call out, “Dad! Dad!” I near the office and he steps into the hallway. His eyes light immediately. “Honey. What are you up to?”
I indicate the box. “Chocolate cake makes everything better. Right?”
He presses fingers to the bridge of his nose and then drops them. “If only that were true.”
“Well we will each eat half and maybe it will be true.”
My eyes open, the light of a new day lifting the darkness in the room to a haze rather than a cloak. Rick is instantly sitting up beside me. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“I had a dream.” I rotate to face him. “No, more of a memory. My mind is trying to tell us something. I’m not sure what it means, but we need to know if someone important died in DC a few weeks after my mother died.” I press my hands to my face. “And Lord help me, let this be a legit mission that somehow exposes Gabriel’s illegal involvement.”
“What else would it be?”
I repeat the incident to him and conclude with, “That was three weeks after my mother died.”
“You’re afraid it’s related to your mother’s death.”
“Yes. What if my mother was killed as payback for something my father did, and he got revenge? We need to know who died that week in DC.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Candace
In response to my fears over my dream and what it tells me about my father’s actions, Rick grabs his cellphone from the nightstand. “I think this was much more likely a part of the black ops program, baby, but I’ll get the team doing some digging.” He punches the call button on his phone to dial Asher. I hang on every word.
When he disconnects, I prod, “Well?”
“He’s looking into it.” He sets his phone aside and takes my hand. “Three weeks after your mother died, Tag wasn’t a part of the picture. Whatever you overheard, was likely a US operation.”