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“Help?” I repeated the word automatically. It wasn’t a word Henry used often.
“Yes.” He gestured over his shoulder at a large duffel bag on the kitchen island. “This money needs to be delivered to Grand Fir Bank tomorrow morning after you drop Jackson off at school. The money is to be deposited into this account,” he paused to hand me a small white card with a long series of numbers scrawled across it in Henry’s bold print handwriting. “No stops. No errands. You take the cash directly to the bank. Yourself. Not with George. Got it?”
I nodded dumbly, trying to figure out what he was playing at. He never asked me to do anything involving his business—legitimate or otherwise. So, why now? My head was still spinning from the snippets of conversation I’d overheard and overshadowed my attempt to make sense of it all.
“Good.” Henry flashed a catlike grin at me before turning to leave the kitchen, an easy swagger to his narrow hips.
When his footsteps faded, I stepped into the kitchen to get a peek inside the bag. My mouth dropped open as I peeled back the top flap of the duffel bag and saw rows upon rows of hundred-dollar bills. Math was never my strong suit, but even I knew that ballpark—I was staring at probably close to a million dollars in cold, hard cash.
I zipped the bag back together before Henry could come back and catch me looking at it. Before I could obsess any further, I stashed the bag in the pantry, shut the door tight, and scurried upstairs and barricaded myself in my room.
After a night spent tossing and turning, I’d put together and picked apart a thousand theories, each one more insane than the last, and when my alarm clock rang, I knew I was no closer to the truth than I’d been when I gone to bed hours before.
All I knew was that if I delivered that money, something very, very bad would happen to me.
3
Chase
“You still bumming around on the beach?”
I smirked at my older brother Matt’s question. “Yes, sir. You jealous?”
“Desperately,” Matt deadpanned. “Listen, I know we need to catch up, but this is actually not a social call.”
The serious tone of his voice had me sitting up at full attention. I scanned the pool area where I’d been lounging for the past hour, working my way through a King novel and a pina colada. “What’s wrong?”
“I need your help.”
“Yeah, man, what do you need?”
“Well, I have a client. She’s married to a real asshole. High power guy in the real estate biz. She’s filing for divorce, infidelity, this guy is a real winner. Anyway, she has a suspicion he’s going to try and have her killed before she gets a chance at half of his fortune.”
“Shit. That’s not cool.”
“Yeah. I don’t know all the details yet, but she called me this morning in a panic. She was begging for help. I don’t know what else to do. She can’t go to the cops. She doesn’t have any proof, at least not anything tangible, but I’ve been working with her for a few months now and I’ve never seen her come unglued like this. I think she’s right about this guy.”
Matt was one of the most level-headed, logical men that I knew. If he thought there was a chance this woman’s hunch checked out—then it probably did. My heart went out to whoever she was. I could only imagine how terrified she must be.
“And she has a five-year-old son,” Matt added.
My guts twisted into a knot. “Double shit.”
“I need you to get them out of town for a while. I have a PI on the case to see if she’s right about this. If she is, once my guy dredges up enough evidence, we’ll take it to the authorities and I’ll get in touch to have you bring her and her son back.”
The fact that he wasn’t leaving me wiggle room to turn the job down spoke volumes. I knew my brother well enough to know he wouldn’t ask me for such a huge favor if he wasn’t backed into a corner. “When do you need this to happen?”
“Now. Today.”
I blew out a puff of air and set my paperback on the table beside my beach chair. “Damn, bro. No pressure, huh?”
Matt chuckled. “Well, I need the best for this job, and you fit the bill.”
I grinned at his compliment. Even if it was only intended to butter me up.
I’d spent eight years as a Navy SEAL, and since getting out, I’d served as a consultant with the CIA, did some private eye stuff, and taken a few private security gigs to finance my love for the beach. Truth was, I didn’t need the money. I took the jobs as they came, mainly for the taste of action they usually provided.
