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“And you think Callie figured out who it was from that information?” he asked.
Teddy sighed. “I just know what she said and how she said it. And I knew Callie. She knew something. And I think that something got her killed. ”
Zeke was pretty damned certain it had. He considered the information Teddy had given him. There wasn’t a name to go on, but there was definitely information here that Timothy Cranston needed to know.
The suspended Homeland Security special agent could have information there that Zeke could use. Zeke knew there were files that the DHS agent had on suspected homeland terrorists, though Zeke hadn’t been given the privilege of going through those files.
“Did you hear anything else, Teddy?” Zeke asked.
Teddy shook his head. “Nothing about the girl they were seeing. They started talking about being thrown out of their cousin’s bar. Said Rogue had a mean knee. ” Teddy’s gaze lightened with a hint of laughter then. “Jonesy taught her how to use that knee, I hear. Jonesy used to be a hell of a fighter. ”
“That’s what I’ve heard. ” Zeke nodded, moving to rise to his feet.
“You know your dad and Jonesy used to be good friends,” Teddy said.
“I know that. ” Zeke nodded.
“Yeah. ” Teddy rubbed his hands together slowly. “Jonesy, James, and Thad, they were all real tight at one time. Until your dad started hooking up with that Dayle Mackay.
Jonesy never could get along with Dayle, you know?”
“I didn’t know that, Teddy. ”
Teddy nodded. “Your dad was a good man when he was younger, until he hooked up with Dayle. ” Teddy grimaced soberly. “He changed. But I guess all men change when they grow older in some ways. Some for the better, some for the worse, huh?”
“So it would seem, Teddy,” Zeke answered. “So it would seem. ”
Teddy nodded again before wiping his hand over his jaw. “You had a good mother though. She loved you like crazy. She was always taking those pictures of you and your dad. Everywhere she went she took pictures. Memories, she called them. ” He grinned at that. “She used to say they were her memories, and when she was old they wo
uld serve her good. I saw her once when I was hunting, taking pictures in the mountains by herself. Your daddy and some friends were fishing out by the old cabin he kept. She didn’t see me. She was taking pictures of your dad and you, I guess. There were a lot of folks there. She liked her pictures. ”
Zeke tensed. Memories flashed in his mind, comments his mother used to make, arguments she’d had with his dad. And one odd comment that stuck in his brain and shot adrenaline through his body.
His mother and her damned pictures. Her insurance, she had told his father when Zeke had been twelve, maybe thirteen. It was her insurance and if Thad was smart he’d save his own insurance. And he knew where his mother had hid her insurance. Son of a bitch, all these years, time spent investigating, searching, and the proof he needed could have been right under his nose all this time.
TWENTY
Rogue watched her brother warily as he prowled theliving and kitchen area of her spacious apartment. He made the walls shrink in the once-airy rooms. Pacing like a caged tiger, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had started growling at her.
“You know, Mom and Dad are not going to be pleased. ” He threw her a fulminating glare as he turned and faced her from the other side of the couch. “Why the hell do you think I showed up? Dad is within days of arriving, Caitlyn. He’s not happy over this situation. ”
“He’ll have to live with it. ” She shrugged. “It’s no more his business than it is yours. ”
She didn’t need family interference right now. She’d managed to keep her father off her back for the past five years by putting up with Jonesy, which she had considered the lesser of two evils. Now, she had her brother here looking for all the world like a younger version of her father, albeit with blond hair rather than her father’s red gold.
“Dad is not just going to live with it, Cait,” he warned her.
“Rogue,” she corrected him. She’d lost count of the times she had corrected him. He just threw her another glare, just as he had each time she had reminded him before.
“Look, just come back to Boston for a few weeks. ” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at her as though that look alone would get him his way.
Rogue almost smiled. Why was it that men thought all they had to do was cross their arms over their chests and stare back at a woman with determined eyes to get their way? It didn’t work on her.
“And do what?” She grinned. “Are you going to take me out with you at night and make certain I’m entertained?”
His expression didn’t change.
“Of course you aren’t,” she answered her own question with a mocking edge of humor.
