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“Tris, it’s me. Call me when you get five. Thanks.” Sitting in his rental vehicle parked out in front of a hotel near the waterfront, Decker ended the call and dialed his other brother.
“Wow, to what do I owe this honor?” Gavin answered, giving a little dig about how long it had been since they’d last talked.
An uncomfortable weight settled in his chest. When was that, anyway? Had to be over a month by now. Gavin had left him a message but he’d never gotten around to calling back. He’d been so wrapped up in getting his life sorted out after receiving his honorable discharge, everything else had been shoved to the background.
Including his siblings, the only family he had.
He winced inside, vowing to do better going forward. Circumstances at home while they were growing up and the five-year age gap between him and the twins had permanently altered their relationship, and not necessarily in a good way. Their sibling dynamic had shifted—unnaturally forced, to be honest—into something else long ago and they’d never moved past it. “You got a minute?”
Gav must have picked up on the tension in his voice because he dropped the mocking tone. “Yeah, I’ve got ten. What’s up? Where are you?”
“In Crimson Point. And there’s something going down with Marley.”
“Is she okay?” A note of alarm tinged his voice.
“Not really, no. There’s an unknown threat against her and she just went into hiding—with a guy she used to date who she thought was dead up until a few days ago when he barged into her house unannounced.”
“Say what?”
“Yeah. Did you or Tris know about her and this guy named Warwick? They were apparently together last year for a while.”
“No, never heard of him. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” He sighed. Set his jaw as he gathered his thoughts. It was his fault Marley hadn’t told him any of it before. He’d been fulfilling the role of head of the family for so long, acting the part of father until he didn’t even know how to be a brother anymore. “He’s a Brit. She was really into him for a while, then he went back to the UK for a job, and she was notified not long after that he’d been killed. This whole time she thought he was dead, and then he shows up at her place out of the blue the other night—right after someone shot at her place, and it’s all linked to him.”
“What the hell?” Gav blurted, sounding shocked.
He quickly explained the rest in a condensed version. “Someone jumped him outside his rental this morning and now he’s taken her somewhere to supposedly protect her.”
“And you just let her go with him?” The accusation in his voice was unmistakable.
“She didn’t give me a choice. You know that look she gives where you know anything else you say or do is a complete lost cause?”
“Yeah.”
“That, but on steroids.” Marley had a million amazing qualities, but she was also as stubborn as hell. Maybe it was genetic, because that was one of his faults too. “Her mind was made up and there was no budging her. So she’s with him right now and I don’t know what the fuck’s going on or how to help her.” Just...fuck.
“Okay, damn. I wasn’t expecting to hear anything like this when I saw your number come up.”
“For real. I just wanted to tell you what’s going on. I tried Tris but he didn’t pick up.” Okay, he’d needed to talk to someone he trusted. No matter what issues he and his siblings had, they were still family and he trusted them all completely. “She said she’d get in touch when she could.” Hardly comforting under the circumstances.
“Who is this guy?”
“Former British military. Not sure what branch, but from what I’ve seen, he can handle himself.” Maybe even SOF. Didn’t matter, he hated entrusting Marley’s safety to someone he didn’t know or trust.
“Well, for her sake, I hope you’re right.” Disapproval dripped from every word.
Another stab of guilt hit him. Christ, he shouldn’t have let her go without a fight, but she’d seemed so determined and he’d been so torn about pushing it. He might not like Warwick, might want to deck him for everything that had happened, but he at least believed the guy would keep her safe. The way he’d looked at Marley had convinced Decker that he cared deeply about her.
An incoming call came through. “Tris is calling. I’ll keep you posted, okay?”
“You better.”
He answered the other call, filled Tristan in and then headed inside to the lobby with his bag while they talked, fielding a barrage of questions from his brother while he checked in at the front counter.
Afterward he took the stairs to the fourth floor, paused outside his room to fish the plastic key card out of his pocket. “Look, I don’t know anything more right now, okay? I’ve told you everything I can, and I can’t do anything more until she contacts me.” Even if it rubbed him raw inside.
“I can’t believe you just let her go with him.”
Yeah, that was the consensus. “Like I told Gav, she didn’t give me a—” He stopped when the door to the next room opened and an Asian woman stepped out. She was pretty, with long black hair.
And then he saw the other side of her face as she turned toward him.
She froze when she saw him, looked ready to bolt.
He zeroed in on the bruising on her skin, noted the way she was hunched over slightly, one hand pressed to her side as if she was in pain.
Something flared to life inside him, hot and quick like a match strike. A blend of outrage and protectiveness.
She stared back at him for a moment, body tense, expression almost wary, then quickly disappeared back into her room and shut the door.
“Deck? You still there?”
“Yeah.” He let himself into his room, bothered by what he’d just seen, and thinking of Marley. And how sick he’d feel if someone ever hurt her like that.
TEAGAN STOOD AT the closed door for a few seconds, listening as the man’s voice trailed away into his room and the door shut behind him. Her heart was racing.
She didn’t know the man in the next room. Hadn’t recognized him. But he was big. Something about his size, about the hard look on his face, had triggered the instinct to flee.
She closed her eyes, rested her forehead against the cool wooden surface. This sucked. Everything was so damn confusing. She knew her first name but not her last, couldn’t remember her birthday or anything else significant.
She’d had no ID on her when that stranger had pulled her from the water. Had no recollection of where she was from, what she was doing here, or how she’d ended up on that beach with a knife wound in her side. Someone had freaking stabbed her, and she couldn’t remember a damn thing.
All she knew was, she was afraid.
The doctors had told her amnesia wasn’t uncommon after suffering from shock and hypothermia, and the knot on the side of her head might explain it too. They’d said her memory could return in a rush, maybe in pieces, or maybe not at all, and ordered her to rest while she recuperated.
Real hard to rest when someone had apparently tried to kill her, and she didn’t even know who the hell she was.
She straightened, winced as the stitches across her ribs pulled and the throbbing in her head suddenly intensified, and went back to the bed. Gingerly stretching out on her other side, she gazed out the large window at the ocean. The waves rolled in one after the other, crashing on the beach in rhythmic thuds that should have been soothing.
Except she was beyond soothing.
From the moment she’d woken up in that hospital bed she’d been struggling to fill the holes in her memory. There were flashes of things from her childhood. Her parents’ faces. A sparkling Christmas tree surrounded by brightly wrapped presents. Birthday cakes. Her first car. Wearing a cap and gown to her graduation.
And then there were recent, murky memories of being on a boat. It was dark out. The deck rocking. She remembered turning around suddenly. A blaze of pain across her side, followed by a flash of terror as she plunged over the railing. Then the moment she’d hit the surface of the icy water.
Nothing else. Not what she’d been doing on the boat in the first place. Or who had stabbed her or why.
She didn’t remember getting to shore. Lying on the beach. Had no recollection of her rescuer finding her, carrying her to his car and taking her to the hospital.
Warwick James, the sheriff had told her. That was the name of the man who had saved her.
Someone knocked on the door.
She jackknifed up, one hand going to her hip, reaching for something that wasn’t there. Then she sucked in a breath as pain raked across her ribs at the sudden movement, pressed a hand to her side and sat there, heart pounding.
They’ve found me.
“Teagan? It’s Sheriff Buchanan.”
The sudden spike in fear receded, but that last thought was disturbing. Who were they? What was her subconscious trying to warn her about? “Coming.” She got up, checked through the peephole before letting the sheriff in.
He stepped into the room, gave her a polite smile as his gaze scanned her in a clinical way. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” She wasn’t sure why she’d just lied to him, because she definitely wasn’t fine, mentally or physically.
“I came to bring you this.” He pulled a phone from a pocket inside his uniform jacket. “It was tucked inside your wet suit. The bag it was in was punctured, so it was damaged by the seawater.” He handed it to her. “Unfortunately, your prints aren’t in any state or federal databases, so it’s unlikely you have a passport or anything.”
She pressed the power button. When the screen remained black she turned it over in her fingers, hoping it would spark some kind of memory. But her mind remained as frustratingly empty as the screen.
“There’s a tech place in the next town north, about fifteen minutes from here. Or you could take it in to Crimson Point Security here, just a few blocks away. They’ve got a good tech department, and someone there might be able to at least recover the data on it. I can call them if you want, let them know to expect you. Maybe tomorrow morning?”
“Yes, that’d be fine. Thank you.” Even her voice sounded foreign to her ears. She didn’t have much of the cash left that had been tucked into another hidden, waterproof pocket inside her wetsuit. She was only in this hotel room because the man who’d pulled her out of the water had left a donation for her. She couldn’t believe he’d done that on top of everything else.
“You’re welcome.” Buchanan watched her for another moment. “We’re continuing our investigation into your assault, and we’ve sent your picture and prints to the FBI. Is there anyone you can think of who I can call who might be able to help you?”
“No. The doctors said I just need to give it time.”
He smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure everything will come back to you soon.”
“I hope so.”
She thanked him and let him out, took the phone back to her bed and gazed back at the ocean, trying to suppress the bubble of rising panic as she watched the waves. Something about the water made unease curl in the pit of her stomach. Was it because she’d nearly drowned? Or was it something else?
She was starting to fear she’d never know. And with her past a blank slate and no known family, she was all on her own.
