Tasha settled herself in a corner of her living room and watched while Duncan wrapped Owen in a bear hug and pounded him on the back. She winced at the expression Owen wore as a result and was glad when Duncan stopped the pounding.
“You don’t look so good,” Duncan said to Owen. “But, man, am I ever glad to see you. What happened?”
Owen spared her a glance and shrugged his shoulders.
“Emma is on her way here. I doubt she’ll be alone. I’ll tell you all at once so I’m not repeating myself.”
Duncan locked gazes with Tasha. “How is he?” the man asked.
“Infected and dehydrated, exhausted, malnourished, with a bullet wound and multiple lacerations and bruises.”
“I’m fine,” Owen countered. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m good.”
“He slept forty-eight hours and just woke up thirty minutes ago,” she added, wanting to make it clear to Duncan and anyone else who walked through the door that Owen was weak and couldn’t be expected to do much of anything.
“You keeping anything down?” Duncan asked next.
“Just ate. I’m on the mend.”
Owen attempted to make eye contact, but Tasha avoided his gaze, unwilling to be drawn in. She was glad he was back. Thankful he was alive. But it didn’t change things between them.
A knock sounded on her door, and she got to her feet to answer it. Em hugged her the moment Tasha swung the door open, and Tasha held on a few seconds longer than necessary, needing her best friend’s embrace.
“Hey, you okay?” Em asked, always able to read Tasha’s emotions.
Tasha stepped back to let Emma and Ian inside. Ian followed Em with his hand on his wife’s shoulder, his white stick cane held out to the right to make sure he didn’t bump into anything.
Tasha turned back toward the door and saw Bethany on the porch, holding the baby carrier. Quinn was behind her, and as Tasha had suspected, two of Ian and Quinn’s Mad Dog Security dogs-in-training eagerly stared out the window of the oversized SUV parked in her driveway. “Come in,” she said, ushering everyone inside the house.
Em’s shocked gasp emerged first, before Bethany let out a cry and raced toward the couch. Owen barely had enough time to stand before Bethany barreled into him, a choked sob tearing from her chest.
“What’s happening?” Ian growled, his impatience with not being able to see what was taking place revealed in his tone.
“Owen,” Emma whispered. “He’s here. He’s alive.”
Tasha watched as Bethany fussed over Owen, and seeing them together, she was finally able to pick out subtle similarities between the siblings. Their noses, the shape of their eyes as well as the blue-green-swirled-with-gold color. Bethany’s hair was an auburn-brown, while Owen’s dark hair burned like fire in the sunlight.
“Start at the beginning,” Duncan said to Owen once everyone was settled around the room.
Tasha positioned herself on one of the stools at the snack bar and waited impatiently.
“I was investigating Bethany’s boyfriend’s—”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Duncan and Bethany said in unison.
Tasha noticed Owen looked taken aback by their intensity, but then he wasn’t yet aware of the fact Duncan and Bethany were now a couple. How would Owen feel about that?
“Yeah, ex,” he corrected. “I didn’t believe the guy committed suicide. After checking into his job and nosing around town, I thought I had a good idea of what he might have stumbled on. I believed Charlie was dead— but I thought he’d been murdered. Tasha told me he faked his own death.”
“He did. Owen, I’m so sorry,” Bethany said, leaning her head against Owen’s shoulder.
“Not your fault. Glad he’s not going to be around, though, and that you didn’t go with him into Witness Protection.” Owen bussed a kiss on Bethany’s forehead and turned back to the crowd of people in the living room. “Anyway, I went to the dock where your ex rented the boat the Coast Guard found floating and started asking around. Apparently I wasn’t the only one interested in why Charlie disappeared, though. Someone had beaten me to it. One of the dockworkers pointed me toward a bar down the street. I started walking there, and next thing I knew, I was in a van. I came to in Mexico.”
“Mexico!” Emma said.
“Vargas?” Duncan asked.
“You’re saying this does have something to do with Kara Winston’s rescue?” Ian asked, referring to the nineteen-year-old girl Duncan’s security company had been hired to retrieve from a drug lord’s hacienda earlier in the year, the same event that had ultimately ended with Ian being blinded.
“I didn’t think so,” Owen said. “But apparently Vargas was tired of having his possessions taken from him. I heard the guards talking, and from what I could understand, we weren’t the only ones in Mexico relieving Vargas of women. Vargas’s wife managed to escape his control. That’s where he’d gone, who he had gone after, while we were getting Kara out of the compound.”
“Did the guards say anything else about him?” Duncan asked.
“Again, my Spanish is pretty rusty, but from the way it sounds, Vargas is a time bomb with major anger issues. He’s tired of being made to look like a fool,” Owen told them.
“Which means he’s going to be even angrier when he finds out what happened in Redemption,” Tasha said, her fear tripling at the thought.
Owen glanced from her to Duncan for an explanation, and his boss filled him in on Vargas’s massive meth lab and money laundering operation being discovered.
“Wait,” Bethany said. “Does that mean Vargas knows Charlie was the one who exposed everything? Because he tried to blackmail Mr. Warren?”
“I doubt there is much Vargas doesn’t know when it comes to his business,” Owen told her. “Now tell me what else I’ve missed,” Owen ordered, his gaze on Duncan. “How did Charlie surface, anyway?”
“Quinn and I found him when we went looking for you,” Duncan said. “As far as I knew, Beth’s ex was dead, but when things in town weren’t adding up, I followed your footsteps around town checking out the businesses.”
“He said he thought by faking his death it would be over,” Bethany added. “But the guys after Charlie didn’t believe he’d committed suicide, either, and since they hadn’t killed him, they wanted to use me as bait to draw him out of hiding. But… Kyle couldn’t bring himself to kidnap me.”
A low sound emerged from Owen. “Kyle?” he asked, referring to a childhood friend from Redemption.
Bethany nodded. “Owen, you wouldn’t believe how many people were involved in some way or another. So many of the businesses in town were going under; the families had to have a way of supporting themselves so… Anyway, Kyle wound up sneaking into Mom and Dad’s. He tied me up and took pictures of me when I was pregnant to prove to Charlie I was, and threatened me so Charlie would return the information he’d stolen.”
“It wouldn’t have been a problem at all had her ex not planted it on her in the first place,” Duncan said, still sounding angry and bitter.
“On you?” Owen asked Bethany, receiving a small nod.
“Owen, what about you? How did you escape?” Emma asked, bringing the group back on track. “No offense, but you do look… awful.”
Tasha watched as Owen stared at his sister for a long moment before he dragged his attention away and focused on Em. “None taken. As to how… The guys guarding me got careless once Vargas wasn’t there. I was able to get away. I laid low and managed to hitch a ride to an area I’d heard of back when we were preparing to go after Kara. I made it back into the States there.”
“Why not call for help?” Duncan asked.
“He’s right,” Emma said. “We could’ve helped you and brought you home.”
“I needed to clear my head,” Owen said simply. “The walk helped.”
Tasha sat there and stared at Owen. Glared at him. The walk helped? She’d been worried out of her mind over him, and he couldn’t contact them because he’d needed a walk to clear his head?
“All that matters is that you’re here now,” Bethany said.
“She’s right,” Duncan agreed. “The Feds managed to connect the locals laundering money for the cartel thanks to the intel Charlie had copied and hidden on Bethany’s cell phone, but everyone sitting here knows you got lucky getting out of there alive.”
Tasha stared at her sneakers, unable to look at the others in the room. Mexico. They would never have found Owen there. Never known what had happened to him.
“Why take you from Virginia Beach to Mexico?” Quinn asked, joining the conversation.
“Good question,” Duncan said. “Owen? Any ideas?”
“Bad timing,” Owen said. “Vargas was on his way out of the country when they discovered my interest in Charlie. They didn’t have time to stay and question me, so they took me with them.”
“Vargas won’t risk traveling north given all the heat on him at the moment,” Ian said. He sat in a chair near the couch, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. “Every agency is looking for him, and the price on his head has quadrupled. With Charlie turning state’s evidence to avoid charges, Vargas will focus on tracking Charlie and eliminating the evidence.”
Tasha glanced at Bethany’s face and saw the woman swallow hard. Ian hadn’t stated anything they all hadn’t already figured out, but hearing that the biological father of her child had a death sentence had to frighten the woman.
“In case there is any doubt, you are safe now,” Duncan said to Bethany. “I’m not going to let anything happen to my girls.”
Owen pulled his gaze away from the sleeping baby and glanced toward his sister before shifting his attention to Duncan.
“Your girls,” Owen murmured, his eyebrows drawn low. “Am I missing something?”
Bethany nudged Owen with her shoulder to get his attention, but Owen didn’t budge nor turn to look at her. He kept his focus entirely on Duncan, much to everyone else’s amusement.
“We’re together,” Bethany said simply, holding out her left hand and the simple platinum wedding band on her ring finger. “Duncan and I are married.”
Owen stared at his little sister and then his boss, unable to comprehend the details. “Married?”