Page 39 of False Flag

In his mind, he heard Staci say to Dillard, “I would prefer to skip the part where I explain sexism to you.” How long until Lloyd got that lesson?

But Lloyd wasn’t clueless. More likely he was baiting Jake. He knew Jake had crashed and burned when he hit on Anastacia in December. He’d laughed about it for weeks after.

Lloyd

She’s even more outta my league than yours and we all know how far you got with her. But I can play the long game. We’re going to be stranded on an island together. I figure I’ve got a decent shot.

Jake flopped down on the bench in front of his locker. Shit.

He should be filing away that stranded on an island together. Another OPSEC fail, but all he could think was that he should have said something about meeting Staci again. Now, if Lloyd found out about them, he’d feel betrayed.

Again.

If he’d just said something. But what could he say? He’d had the best sex of his life, then she bolted?

Not only did he never want to tell anyone that, ever, he’d meant it when he told Staci he didn’t kiss and tell. His vow had been underscored when Dillard started talking shit about her.

Now his brother was going to hit on her. It would be pure hell if she welcomed Lloyd’s advances. A gut punch like no other.

Lloyd’s pain and anger were relatable in a way he’d never wanted to imagine. But Jake had been a pawn in how things played out with Bonnie. With the Navy. Nothing was Jake’s fault, but somehow, everything was.

It had been a few years since Lloyd’s life fell apart, and Jake had somehow managed to be at the center of it. The only relief came when Lloyd threw himself into his obsession with Gerard Campbell. He’d found new purpose. Something that had nothing to do with the baby brother who unintentionally had the life Lloyd wanted.

Lloyd

She might be the one.

Oh hell no.

Jake tossed the phone in his locker and slammed it closed. He scanned the room, hoping to see a teammate who might be willing to spar. But no. He didn’t want to hold back. Better to beat the shit out of a bag.

It had been ninety-two hours since Anastacia walked out on him. He needed to stop tracking the hours. Stop thinking about that night. Stop wondering what he could have done differently.

He needed to forget Anastacia Allen. Forget what it was like to have her in his bed. Forget everything that had happened from the moment she lured him into a blind so she could shoot him and steal his artifact.

Because if she fell in love with his brother, he had to find a way to be happy for the only family he had left.

Chapter Fourteen

Thunder rumbled in the distance as Staci and Lloyd boarded the private ferry to Letora Island. An hour before, their flight had landed at an airport on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Canadian customs was handled quickly and efficiently, and the two of them had been whisked off to a marina while the other team members who’d shared the flight had headed to Victoria. Dahlia, Riley, and Phillip would return to Letora Island on Friday.

Upon arrival at the marina, she’d been given an information packet about the island that included a cultural history and archaeological inventory. The report was thick and would be her starting point for work tomorrow. Why they didn’t give it to her before the five-hour flight, she didn’t understand, but she had a feeling they wanted her as ignorant as possible until she was on the island and all her communication could be monitored.

For the short ferry ride, she focused on the geography and most recent history of her destination. Located at the southern end of what were commonly known as the Gulf Islands, Letora Island was the third largest in the chain that was situated in the Salish Sea, with Vancouver Island to the west and the Strait of Georgia to the east. Osborne’s family had first come to the region in the 1860s. His ancestors settled on both the US and Canadian sides of the straits, establishing homesteads in the US after the 1862 Homestead Act, while the Canadian branch of the family established itself after the Dominion Lands Act of 1872.

In the hundred and fifty years since the first Osbornes settled in the British territory, the family had amassed land and power. When Osborne’s parents and younger brother died in a plane crash twenty-five years ago, Casper had been the sole heir of all the family’s holdings, which included a significant percentage of Letora Island.

Over the years, he had acquired more and more of Letora Island, until ten years ago, when he nabbed the final tracts. Casper Osborne was now the sole landowner of the island.

The report left out how he managed to secure the final parcels. She intended to look into that, wondering if he’d managed to get the government to invoke some kind of eminent domain—or expropriation, as it was called in Canada—because the last hectares had been acquired from the Canadian government.

She made a note to look up when the government had acquired the land and who the previous owners had been.

The island boasted three large Queen Anne-style houses built between 1890 and 1920, in addition to a complex of newer structures that had been built over the last twenty-five years.

Staci knew from her rushed research that there was intense secrecy around construction on the island. Like the secrecy that surrounded Mark Zuckerberg’s purchase of huge swaths of land on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, there had been multiple headlines about the billionaire’s high-tech and highly secret compound.

As with Zuckerberg, all contractors and subcontractors working on any aspect of the estate had been required to sign NDAs. Staci herself had been required to sign one specific to Osborne and his properties as a condition of accepting the job. She was not to describe any aspect of any of Osborne’s holdings, including location and purpose of structures, floor plans, technical features, and staffing to anyone.