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“Burner phone,” Ember said into the silent room.
The news wasn’t a surprise, but Brandon leaned closer to look at her laptop anyway. A confusing jumble of code filled the screen, line after line of it scrolling past as she typed in new commands. “Can you get a general location where the call originated?”
“Yes.” She typed away, accessed another program and entered more commands, moving too fast for him to follow what she was doing. “Tampa,” she announced a few minutes later.
“That’s where Graystone’s head office is located.” How was this woman connected to them?
“I’m going to try to get an address or at least a specific area if I can.”
Travis’s phone rang. He glanced at it, winced as he looked up at him. “It’s Groz. I invited him down this afternoon. He’s probably close now. Want me to wave him off?”
It wasn’t ideal to add another person into this mess, but Groz was a fellow PJ. They had shed sweat and blood together in the line of duty, and Brandon trusted him completely. Not only that, but Groz could bring humor to damn near any situation, no matter how bad. Anything to lighten the mood right now was appreciated.
“Just warn him we’re in the middle of a situation, then he can decide if he still wants to risk it,” Brandon said.
Travis snorted. “That’s just gonna make him want to get here even faster, and you know it,” he said with a smirk before answering the call. “Groz, hey. Listen, we’ve got an ongoing security situation here, so not sure you want to show up right now... No, it’s Whit.”
Travis paused to listen, and going by his expression, Brandon could tell Groz was anything but put off. In fact, he was no doubt pressing harder on the accelerator, impatient to get here.
“You sure? Okay, man. See you soon.” Travis ended the call and shrugged. “He’s on his way here, fifteen minutes out.”
“Program’s working on triangulating the area around the cell tower the call originated from,” Ember interrupted. Brandon had no idea how she knew all this stuff, he was just glad she was helping him.
She adjusted her dark-framed glasses and looked up at him, a gleam in her amber eyes. “While we wait, let’s track down the IP address from that email.”
“I already tried. It’s probably scrambled or something, because nothing came up when I searched.”
“Ahh, but you didn’t have the bag of tricks that I do,” she said with a confident smile. “Let me take a crack at it.”
He gave it to her, completely out of his depth and needing all the help he could get.
“Your buddy’s here,” Boyd announced several minutes later, looking at his tablet.
Sure enough, the sound of a powerful engine came from out front seconds after his announcement. Brandon stood in time to catch sight of Groz’s candy-apple red Mustang swing around out front and reverse into a spot beside Travis’s SUV.
As Travis went to answer the door, Boyd strode to the fridge and started pulling out leftovers.
Groz’s heavy treads came up the front porch steps moments later, then their friend stepped inside, his dark gaze sweeping past everyone to land on Brandon. “Hey, man. So, what’s going on?” He started shrugging out of his jacket, revealing one of his cherished Lord of the Rings tees underneath, and the heavy black tats on his right arm that extended all the way down to his wrist.
Brandon waved him over. “Come sit down and I’ll bring you up to speed.”
Groz’s expression was full of curiosity as he crossed the room and sat beside Ember, giving her a trademark grin before tossing a wink at Kerrigan. “Hi, Miss Kerrigan.”
“Hi, Asher,” his sister said, shaking her head at him with a fond smile. Only Groz could flirt at a time like this.
Groz turned his attention back to Brandon, turning serious. Or as serious as Groz could turn. “So? Spill.”
No easy way to say it. “Yeah, so, apparently someone just sent a hit team after me.”
Groz’s deep brown eyes widened. “Are you shitting me? Here?” He leaned forward, clearly eager for more details.
“Down at Trav’s place.” He sighed, then briefly explained about the Graystone connection, the anonymous email and tonight’s phone call. “Cops are there now taking a look around. I’m waiting to hear back.” He paused. “The call could have been a lie to see what I’d do. Or...it could have saved my life. No way to tell yet.”
“Well, fuck.” Groz blinked and sat back to run a hand over the short, dark beard he’d have to shave off before their next training weekend. Boyd came up behind him and held out a plate loaded with ham, scalloped potatoes, veggies, and what had to be one of his homemade dinner rolls over Groz’s shoulder.
“Oh, yeah, outstanding,” Groz said, setting it on his lap. “Thanks.” He dug in with typical Groz enthusiasm, forking up a big bite of combined food and shoving it into his mouth.
He was the equivalent of a human garbage disposal. Ate like a damn teenager and never gained an ounce.
“What are you gonna do?” he asked Brandon.
“Not much I can do at the moment. Ember’s trying to get a location and name for the caller, but I’m not holding my breath. Not because I doubt your abilities,” he added to her.
The corners of her lips twitched but she didn’t look up from the screen, still focused on her task. “Thanks for that.”
“The call came from a burner. Everything’s murky as hell, so the three of us will have to hole up for a while until we get the all-clear.” He indicated Travis and Kerrigan with a jerk of his chin. “But I can’t go back to that house.”
Kerrigan shook her head and opened her mouth to argue but he cut her off with a sharp look. “No. That’s the way it has to be for now.” Going back to the house on Spyglass Lane wasn’t an option now. Which sucked, because he loved it there, and until tonight, had felt safe and the most at peace he’d been since his harrowing ordeal in Yemen.
“You can crash at my place,” Groz said around another mouthful of food. “It’s a one-bedroom, but the couch pulls out.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Yeah, ‘course.” He made a humming sound of approval as he ate another bite and nodded. “This is amazing.”
“Boyd made most of it,” Ember said, still typing away as she scanned whatever she was looking at on screen. “But I made rhubarb cake for dessert.”
“Oh, yeah. Looking forward to that.” He kept eating.
Brandon watched in bemusement as his friend demolished what was on his plate in less than two minutes. As Groz was scraping the last bits of potato off his plate with his fork, Brandon’s cell rang. “It’s Noah.”
He stood and walked out of the room to answer. “Hey.”
“You all right?”
“Yes. Did you find anything?”
“No. The house is secure. The power outage was due to the storm, not human tampering. Electrical and everything else here looks fine. I’ve got a few guys and a K-9 team out now searching the property and immediate area to see if we can find any tracks or whatever. You got someplace safe to go?”
“I’m at Boyd’s right now, with Travis and Kerrigan. At least for tonight.” After that, he might take Groz up on his offer as long as the threat level to his friend was negligible.
“Perfect. Stay put there for now. I don’t want to risk coming up there in case anyone’s got eyes on us at the moment, but if you’ll give me all the information you have on the caller and what led up to tonight, I’ll get my people working on it right away. But you realize I’m going to have to report this to the FBI.”
He sighed, suddenly exhausted at the thought of going through more interviews. Had this all been a hoax to scare him? See how he reacted? Or had there really been a team out there gunning for him tonight?
“I know.” Though given the police presence at Travis’s place, Brandon doubted any would-be hit men would stick around, or come back. If they’d even truly existed in the first place.
There were too many unknowns. The only way to get answers was to find out who the woman was, and how she was connected to all of this. Whoever she was, Brandon’s gut said that she was already ten steps ahead of him and everyone else involved.
****
One of her favorite movies was playing on the TV, but Jaia didn’t hear a word the characters were saying, too preoccupied with the thoughts circling through her brain to pay any attention.
She chewed at the hangnail on the cuticle of her right thumb, glancing across the room at the clock on her mantel. It was almost four in the morning. Almost one back on the West Coast. There was no way she was getting any sleep tonight.
She had no way of knowing what the outcome of her call had been, other than it had put her at an even greater risk of being caught. After being cooped up in her home for the past few days without even going outside and growing increasingly paranoid that there might be hidden eyes or ears spying on her, it felt like the walls of her cozy refuge were closing in on her.
She kept thinking of Brandon. She had seen pictures of him in the news after his rescue, so she knew his face, and in a strange way already felt attached to him somewhat. Protective even. None of this was his fault, and she wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if she hadn’t spoken up and tried to save him.
Was he still alive? She didn’t know who the company had sent to perform the hit, or how that sort of operation would even work. But maybe, just maybe, she’d warned him in time. And hopefully he’d taken her seriously enough to get the hell out of there.
Her eyes went to the burner phones sitting on the coffee table. She’d already destroyed the burner phone she’d made the original call with, in case he or someone else was trying to trace it.
He would have called the police about it. Maybe the FBI were involved now too, given the seriousness of the situation and his recent history. That meant highly skilled people could be trying to identify and track her.
The need to leave kept beating at her like the frantic beat of a trapped bird’s wings inside her ribcage. If anyone figured out who she was, the next logical step was to show up here, or at work.
They would start asking questions. If her boss wasn’t suspicious of her already, he would be after that.
Her foot bobbed up and down in a restless, anxious rhythm. She needed to know if Brandon was okay. Just wanted to hear his voice. Then she could at least be at peace with having protected him that much.
Then maybe she could think more clearly and decide which plan she needed to enact next.
Before she could change her mind, she reached for the middle burner phone, got up and strode to her en suite bathroom. Still paranoid about a hidden bug she hadn’t found, she shut the door and ran the shower before dialing the number she’d memorized over a week ago.
