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“No, Cranston, I had no idea. ”
Cranston nodded in reply. “I had your family investigated rather heavily once I met your sister. ” He grinned at some memory. “She’s a hell of a woman, but I had a job to do at the time. Of course, this was before your engagement. The thing I learned was that the Walker family was incredibly loyal, not to mention patriotic. When I learned you were engaged to the Genoa woman, I was rather surprised. ”
“It didn’t last too long,” John pointed out mockingly.
“Because Sierra saved your sorry ass,” Cranston grunted. “There were agents with the Office of Homeland Security at the restaurant that night who had Ms. Genoa under surveillance. The reports were fairly precise. Once I checked further into it, I learned that Ms. Lucas had been instrumental not in just breaking up your engagement but also in stopping a much-needed infusion of financial prosperity into the Genoa family, which would have boosted them back into the good graces of their extended family. Walker capital would have been used to launder some rather dirty money. ”
John could only shake his head. “Cranston, what makes you think that even criminals can’t marry for love?”
“Of course they can. ” Cranston stared back at him as though surprised. “They just don’t normally survive it. Which works out for all us hardworking law enforcement officials. ”
“I should have taken my uncle up on his offer to move to California,” John breathed out roughly, though he knew he could have never done so. Hell, he loved Somerset, especially on the days he didn’t have to deal with Cranston.
He was learning things tonight he didn’t really want to know. Things he really didn’t give a damn about.
“Marlena is no longer a part of my life, Cranston,” John pointed out.
“That explains why she was in town then, correct?” Cranston’s smile was benign, almost innocent.
No, that didn’t explain anything.
“She did leave this afternoon,” Timothy went on to say. “But not before, as I understand it, she made a trip here, to the marina. ”
Thank God, Sierra had slept the afternoon away, and John was certain there was no way Marlena could have gotten the information that Sierra was there. No one knew she was there but the Mackays, and they wouldn’t tell anyone, he was certain of that.
“What’s going on, John?” Cra
nston asked then, his tone completely serious. “There’s reports from Boston that Ms. Lucas was attacked after you left town, nearly raped, beaten. She disappeared after being taken in by your family, and now a member of the Genoa family is here, looking for you. After a year? Tell me, boy, do you believe in coincidence of that sort?”
Hell no, he didn’t, but it couldn’t be anything else, could it?
“You think Marlena was behind Sierra’s attack?”
“Personally, I wouldn’t put it past her to have made the attack,” Cranston grunted. “But Ms. Lucas seems certain her attacker was male. My point is, your ex-fiancée is here, after a year, within hours of Ms. Lucas’s arrival. With her connections, finding your friend wouldn’t have been hard, John. Find you, they find Sierra. A ten-year-old could have figured that one out. ”
“And why the hell does this even concern you?” John asked even as he let the information turn over in his mind and considered the possibilities. “Why are you involved in this, Cranston?”
The other man breathed out heavily. “It’s damned hard to retire, John. I see things. That was always my strength in Homeland Security. I could take coincidences and pin them together, and I could see the links when there didn’t appear to be any. ” He stared back at John soberly. “My gut’s rioting here. It has been ever since I recognized Marlena Genoa walking into the Mackay Café in town and learned who she was asking for. Her arrival here isn’t a good thing. ”
And John couldn’t defend her. He couldn’t protest. He couldn’t defend her and try to claim Marlena wasn’t capable of being involved in something as sinister as the attack on Sierra. He knew Marlena’s vindictiveness. If he added that to her possible criminal connections . . .
“Why come here herself if she has all these connections?” John asked Cranston, frowning as he tried to make the pieces of the puzzle fit in his mind.
“As I said, her family has lost financially, which lowered their cache within the family. Her marriage to you would have fixed that by providing a way to either launder money, or to embezzle funds to finance smaller investments for the family. Either way, her family could have moved back into the working stream. She’s doing her own dirty work because she has no choice. If she’s like other members of her family, then she’s after revenge now. The other girl is winning. ”
John snorted at that. “This isn’t fucking high school, Cranston. ”
“No, it’s real life, and where the hell do you think games like this begin, if not in school? These women learn from preschool how to manipulate and play payback. Don’t imagine life doesn’t often imitate those school yard games. ”
Making it fit in his head wasn’t so easy, though. Marlena wasn’t above social revenge, but staging an attack against Sierra?
“So you’re saying Marlena arranged the attack to get back at Sierra for informing me of her affair with Gerard? Why wait for a year after I break off the engagement then?”
“I’m saying my gut is burning,” Timothy growled. “I see her, hear her questioning people about you and any guests you might have living with you, and things start adding up in my head. And I’m a nosy bastard, John. Nosy and damned particular about things like this. Somerset is my home now, and I look after what’s mine. That means you and that innocent little girl you now have sleeping in your boat. From what I’ve learned, she’s a damned fine woman. Women are to be protected, JW, and that’s our job. That’s a job I take damned seriously. ”
He’d heard Cranston had taken Pulaski County as his own, and he was driving both Sheriff Mayes as well as Somerset’s Chief of Police, Alex Jansen, crazy with his interference. Crazy, because he was invariably right. And invariably, Cranston’s issues always revolved around women.
John pushed his fingers through his hair wearily. “If this is what is actually going on, then what’s the threat level I’m looking at?”
