Wildfire

  “I understand you and Rogan have a history,” he said. “A tumultuous, violent history, very exciting but full of danger, fear, and uncertainty.”

  “Yes.”

  “Has he requested your profile?”

  “No.”

  “Then he is a blithering idiot.”

  I tried my snapper to keep from responding. It melted on my tongue.

  “I probably shouldn’t have said that,” he said, “but it’s too late now.”

  I smiled. “Are you afraid he overheard?”

  “No. But you obviously care for him, and I don’t want to alienate you. I’ve made some inquiries. I’m sorry about your father.”

  Well, that was a 180-degree turn. “Thank you.”

  “You took over a struggling PI firm on the brink of failure and you saved it. You didn’t overextend and grow too fast, hiring people to churn through as many cases as you could. Instead you concentrated on quality. You were instrumental in saving Houston from Adam Pierce, yet you stayed out of the limelight. I suspect that being quietly competent is much more important to you than being the flavor of the month. Am I right?”

  “Yes. We didn’t need that kind of attention. Our caseload is small but perfectly manageable. Our business puts food on the table.”

  “You take care of your family. I do the same thing. I took over after my father was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. I was eighteen. When I’d done an audit and realized how deep the problem lay, our firm was in serious jeopardy. For the next twelve years I lived and breathed Shaffer Security. I know exactly what it costs. You put your life on hold, and you get up every morning and plow through it, fixing it, building it up block by block, case by case, client by client. You lay awake at night, wondering how you’ll pay the bills. It takes dedication and perseverance. So when some idiot with a microphone comes along and shoves it in your face, wanting you to give him a good ten-second sound bite about a case you worked for eight months, you walk away, because that’s not what your work is about.”

  “Baylor Investigative Agency prides itself on discretion. Our clients expect confidentiality.”

  He nodded. “Going on TV and making the talk show circuit would send the wrong message.”

  “Yes.” He did get it. “Did you save your company?”

  “Yes. We’re the second-biggest security firm in the United States. MII is the third. Augustine Montgomery has been snapping at my heels for years.” Garen smiled. “Unfortunately for him, he’s destined to stay an ankle biter.”

  The snapper went the wrong way down my throat. I coughed.

  Garen grinned. “I thought you might like that. On a serious note, my personal net worth is over four hundred million and it’s rising. The company is valued at over a billion.”

  “Why did you tell me that?”

  “Because we promised to be honest with each other, and I want you to have all of the pertinent information, so you can make an informed decision.”

  I paused with the glass in my hand. “Is there a decision at the end of all of this?”

  “Yes. I’m asking you to marry me.”

  It was so good that I wasn’t drinking when he said it. “You don’t know me, Garen. I don’t know you. Help me understand this.”

  “Marriage is a partnership. I think we will be good partners. We’re similar. We both value family, integrity, and competence. We do the same type of work, and we dedicate ourselves to it. We care about reputation rather than fame. We’re both careful, because we know what’s at stake. I think we would be a good match.”

  “And genetics have nothing to do with it?”

  He sighed. “Genetics have everything to do with it. If you were a flighty opportunist, I still would’ve seriously considered it, given your set of genes.”

  “The pickings are slim, I take it?”

  “Yes. We’re a rare breed, and when we step outside of our own type of magic, there is always a risk of diluting the power.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been wise to at least wait until the trials, so you would know for certain?”

  He put his fork down. “I don’t need the trials. I know you’re a Prime. You drew the Tremaine wave without even knowing what it is. That suggests that your ability is genetic, and it will be passed on to your children. That is gold.”

  “Mhm.”

  “Does it bother you that we’re discussing this as if the two of us were a rare type of cattle we’re considering breeding?”

  “Of course, it bothers me. I’m a human being, Garen. I have dreams and expectations. I want to marry for love, not for my genes.”

  “So do I.”

  True.

  He sighed. “But there is always that catastrophic moment when expectations meet cold, hard reality. I can guarantee that our children will be powerful Primes. That’s a rare opportunity for both of us. You’re an emerging House. You’ll need to form alliances to survive. You’ll need to invest in security and personnel for yourself and your family members, which means startup capital. You’ll need to learn to navigate the shark-infested waters of the Houses. You’ll need training. You may be naturally stronger than me. We won’t know this until we truly grapple. But in a life or death struggle, I would kill you. I have the knowledge and experience of using my magic, and you lack both. Marriage to me would guarantee that all of those needs would be taken care of.”

  A lot of what he said made sense. “And what’s in it for you?”

  “A partner who truly understands me. Someone who will be loyal, who will work with me toward common goals. Someone who will grow with me, who will be an asset. A fascinating, intelligent woman. Someone who will be a remarkable mother.” He paused. “The relationship with me will be honest, Nevada. I won’t lie to you. I can’t, but even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. We both know it’s a double-edged sword, but it’s best we put it all out here now.”

  “I don’t love you, Garen,” I said gently.

  “I know. Like you said, we don’t know each other. But you’re attracted to me. I’m attracted to you. It’s a good start. Given time, we’d come to love each other. I’ve seen it happen before. That’s the way it happened for my parents. My childhood was idyllic, because my father loved my mother and treated her with respect, and she loved him and offered the same respect back. Neither of them had affairs. They lived happily, until my father’s illness and eventual death three years ago. Arranged marriage can succeed.”

  “I don’t want to marry because I tick all of the right boxes.”

  “Isn’t that the criteria for all marriage? You marry someone precisely because they tick all of your boxes.”

  “I’m in a relationship with someone else,” I said.

  He pushed his plate away and leaned forward. “I said I didn’t want to criticize Rogan, but I may have to go back on my word. I really want this, Nevada. This is my opportunity of a lifetime.”

  Wow. So slick.

  “Rogan is larger than life. High impact. Dangerous, and that danger can carry a certain allure. But he’s also unpredictable and ruthless. He measures everyone by his own standards. He’ll put you in danger assuming you can handle it, and he’ll fail to notice the moment you can’t. I would do everything in my power to keep you from being put into a dangerous situation in the first place, because that’s what a husband is supposed to do. Ask yourself, would he be a good husband? A good father? Would he be able to control his temper? We both come from large families. You know how crazy your younger siblings can make you. Think of him in the role of a caregiver. Think of all that stress. Would you feel safe leaving the children with him? Would you feel safer leaving them with me?”

  He was really good at this. Much better than I expected.

  “I offer security, stability, and comfort. He offers excitement, danger, and risk. I offer marriage, a formal agreement which gives you rights and protections. He hasn’t even considered it.”

  Garen lea
ned forward and touched my hand with his elegant fingers. The personal connection.

  “Nevada, the bottom line is that Rogan and I want two different women. I want the smart, confident, cautious woman who built her own business, who understands loyalty and integrity. He wants a warrior, someone who can go toe-to-toe with him into whatever latest high-risk venture he wants to plunge into. He wants someone people will be afraid of. To put it crudely, he gets off on it. If you accept me, you’ll become the head of a Fortune 500 corporation with me, with all of the influence and security that position brings. If you stay with him, you will become your grandmother. You have to decide who you want to be. In the end, it’s all about family.”

  Chapter 11

  Garen offered dessert, but I declined. He didn’t insist. He did walk me out to the parking lot and watched over me while I got into my car. He missed the three people who conveniently exited Molly’s Pub at about the same time and got into a silver Range Rover.

  I pulled into traffic. “Call Bern.”

  The car dialed the number.

  “Here,” my cousin said.

  “I survived. Where is Cornelius?”

  “He just left the restaurant.”

  “Did Rogan make it back?”

  “Yes.” There was a hint of amusement in my cousin’s voice. “We’re all in the back, in the motor pool.”

  “I’ll be there shortly. I need to make a brief detour.” Something Garen said ate at me. It was all about family. If I had a secret, a terrible secret that I didn’t want anyone to know, I would trust my family. Olivia Charles was a Prime. She would trust her family. The ransom had to be somewhere in Rynda’s house.

  Traffic was surprisingly light. My escort stayed about a car length behind me the whole way until I pulled in front of Rynda’s house. I stepped out. The doors of the SUV behind me opened and three people jumped out: an Asian man in his early twenties with a faded scar on his left cheek; a dark-haired, serious-looking man in his thirties; and Melosa, Rogan’s personal aegis.

  “Why aren’t you in Austin with him?” I asked her.

  “Because he considers your safety a higher priority,” she said. “Why are we here?”

  “I need to search Rynda’s house.”

  “It’s already been searched,” the dark-haired man said.

  “I know.” I headed for the door.

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Melosa ran in front of me and blocked my way. “Delun?”

  “On it.” The Asian man moved toward the door and punched in the code. The door swung open under the pressure of his fingertips. He moved inside, stepping lightly, and paused.

  A long moment passed.

  “Clear,” he said. “It’s empty.”

  He turned and flipped the lights on. I walked into the house. Someone had cleaned the mess. The bloodstains were gone from the tiles and the overturned Christmas tree had disappeared.

  I stopped in the living room. Bits and pieces of past conversations floated up onto the surface of my memory.

  . . . She was a wonderful grandmother to my children. She loved them so much . . .

  . . . It’s not in the computer. It’s somewhere in the house . . .

  . . . but Olivia saw it. She adored him. She framed every painting he made . . .

  . . . in the end, it’s all about family . . .

  I stepped over to the nearest painting on the wall. Two trees, standing close to each other, their trunks almost touching. The lines of the painting were obviously drawn by a child, slightly shaky and basic, but the colors, the vibrant greens and rich browns, drew the eye. The sunlit crowns of the trees almost glowed. It made me want to go outside to breathe in the air and run my hand across the bark. I would hang it in my office and smile every time I looked at it.

  I took it off the wall. A plain black frame, rectangular, wooden, the kind you could get in any craft or art supply store. Gently I pried it open and pulled the frame apart. No secret code, no writing on the mat, no piece of translucent rice paper hidden between the mat and the painting itself. I plucked the heavy piece of watercolor paper out and held the painting up so the light shone through it.

  Paint and paper fibers. Even if I reached into left field for some improbable spy solution to this mystery, an invisible ink still left traces. A pen would’ve left scratches on the smooth dense paper. A brush would’ve left patterns as it soaked into the texture. Watercolor paint came in varying pH and posed a significant risk to reacting with the ink, not to mention that watercolor painting required a lot of water. Soaking the paper with the hidden message on it was risky. No, the painting was exactly what it pretended to be.

  I knocked on the frame, looking for hollow spots. Only solid wood answered.

  “What are you looking for?” Melosa asked.

  “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “I’ll go see if I can find more,” the dark-haired man offered.

  I laid the painting on the floor and tried the next one. A picture of the house, two adults and two children, and a ghostly outline of a dog. Was the dog dead? Was Kyle wishing for a puppy? I took the painting off the wall, just as the dark-haired man and Delun brought in four more. They moved on upstairs, while Melosa and I took the next frame apart.

  Half an hour later all twenty-four paintings lay on the floor. I had gone through every inch of paper and wood with a fine-toothed comb. Nothing.

  The disappointment crushed me. I had been so sure.

  The paintings ticked all the right boxes, ranking right there with hollow books as a cliché hiding place: most people wouldn’t think of it, so those who did thought they were being really clever and enjoyed knowing that their valuables were hidden in plain sight. It was just the kind of thing I would’ve expected Olivia Charles to do. She framed all of Kyle’s paintings.

  “Do you want to look anywhere else?” Delun asked.

  “Not tonight.” I’d come back in the morning with an ultraviolet light and give it another go. “Let’s go home.”

  The escort faithfully followed me all the way to the parking lot in front of the warehouse, then they veered toward Rogan’s HQ. I parked the car, got out, and walked around the warehouse. It was easier than punching the code in and going through all the doors inside.

  I turned the corner. A twisted wreck that might have been a car at some point lay mangled in the street. Someone had taken a car frame, crushed and twisted it, like a piece of aluminum foil, and then tossed it onto the street. Odd.

  Ahead the commerce-size garage door stood open, spilling yellow electric light onto the street and another dented wreckage. This one looked like some giant pressed the car into a ball and decided to practice soccer tricks with it.

  I sped up.

  The motor pool was mostly empty. Someone had conveniently moved the vehicles to the side, leaving an open space in the center. Smaller chunks of metal, wrenched and twisted, littered the concrete floor. Grandma Frida leaned against Romeo. He was Grandma Frida’s pet project. He’d started out his life as an M551 Sheridan, a light armored tank, armed with nine antitank Shillelagh missiles, and other fun things. However, Grandma Frida had made modifications, and ever since Romeo saw some action almost two weeks ago, she’d been tinkering with him nonstop.

  At the far end, near the inner wall, Rogan loomed, like the living embodiment of manly darkness, by two large screens, studying the footage of Garen. On the left, Bern sat in a chair a few feet away from the screen with his keyboard on his lap. Bug had straddled a chair backwards on the right and leaned over the back of it, his chin on his forearms. My mother sat near Bug, Grandma Frida’s knitting on her lap. As I approached, she picked at it with a crochet hook and unraveled another tangled row. Two blankets lay on the floor, next to a half-finished bowl of popcorn. My sisters must’ve been in attendance.

  I paused by Grandma Frida and nodded at the metal carnage.

  “He was watching your date and the walls started buckling. I needed some old frames scrapped so I gave him something to do.” r />
  “And the girls?”

  “They went to bed. While you were having your adventures, we’ve been running tornado drills all day. They’re sick to death of running across the street into the basement. Don’t worry, they watched the whole thing. You’ll get an earful tomorrow.”

  I rolled my eyes. That’s what was missing in my life, the teenager perspective. “What’s Mom doing?”

  Grandma Frida gave me the evil eye. “That yarn cost thirty-eight dollars a skein. I want her to salvage it. I tried doing it myself, except I have frayed nerves today. I was going to set it on fire for closure, but your mother took away my blowtorch.”

  I nodded and went to stand by Rogan. “Did you catch all that?”

  “Yes.” The voice was glacially cold.

  “I especially liked the part where he casually threatened me.”

  “I caught that too,” he said.

  I leaned forward to look at his face. The dragon was out in all his terrifying glory. I grinned. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  Lie. “You can’t kill Garen Shaffer.”

  “Technically, I can. I choose not to. And I wasn’t thinking of killing him.”

  “If you go over to his place and break his arms in five places, it would look bad. People will be afraid to do business with me.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of breaking his arms either. I was thinking of hamstringing his corporation, ripping it apart, and selling it piece by piece while he watched.”

  Mad Rogan, the Scourge of Mexico. A civilized and considerate enemy. “You can’t ruin every man who threatens me.”

  “Yes, I can. Besides, I would only have to ruin the first couple and the rest will get the hint. Except for the Maderos, who are particularly stupid, apparently.”

  “It’s okay. I had a nice chat with Frank and Dave’s grandpa. We understand each other now.”

  On screen, Garen reached out and touched my hand. The carved biceps on Rogan’s arm visibly tensed. Behind us, a chunk of metal rose in the air and crimped, contorting with a harsh screech.

  I had to thaw him out. “See how he maintains eye contact. A gentle, yet firm touch, just brief enough to underscore sincerity. Reassurance that he’s on my side, he’s in charge, and he will take care of everything.”