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Jac moved to replace Carter in front of Becky. He, too, went down on his haunches to lessen his appearance of control. He clasped his hands together and leaned his forearms on his thighs. Becky wondered, not for the first time, how these big men could hold that position.
“I have. And I only have one thing to add: if you hear anything or remember anything or know anything, you have to promise to tell us.”
Becky nodded. “Jac, I might have overheard something important. Even if it’s not important to what happened to me, it might be important to you.”
Jac patted Becky’s hand and said, “Okay, tell me what you know.”
Becky thought that Jac would stand up and walk away but he didn’t, he stayed right where he was, and the only thing Becky could think of at that exact moment was his knees were gonna hurt. If it weren’t so serious, she would have giggled. Becky proceeded to explain what she had overheard in the car.
“I’m being very clear about not knowing the context. I don’t really know what they were talking about. I just know what it sounded like, and it sounded like they were talking about you Jac, because he did use your name once. I also know Ramirez stared at me pretty hard before telling his driver to drive away.”
Jac seemed to contemplate for a moment, then patted her hands one more time before standing and briskly walking over to where the monitors were. He started moving things around on the smart board, throwing out some information and leaving some still on display except in a different position. He looked at Kaden.
“I need you to screenshot these and shoot them to Sharlee. Carter, you’re on Rebecca duty until further notice. Garrett, can you do more digging and find out what we don’t already know about Ramirez? Concentrate on his recent dealings. And get Callie to check her sources for this period since she signed the contract with me two days ago. She’s on my clock now, so it’s time to get her feet wet.”
Garrett murmured something about making his life harder. Jac just smiled and pointed at the board again. “When they’re all pulled together, send the info to Sharlee for compilation. Levi will be on another unrelated job for a few days. Kaden, just for tomorrow, I need you to hit the local safe houses and make surethey’re stocked and have everything that they need.” Jac looked around the room. “We’re going to meet for a few minutes every day to debrief on this issue but unfortunately, it isn’t the only one we have on our books and so you’ll have to do your part in between new assignments as of tomorrow.” Jac turned to Becky and said with all sincerity, “We will figure this out and, in the meantime, if you stick with the plan, we will keep you safe. And if you don’t...”
“I get it. That means I can go back to work?”
“Carter?”
“She has to be 24 hours without a headache and that won’t be until at least Monday, maybe Tuesday, but then she can go back to work if she’s feeling up to it.”
“Rebecca, Carter is my new gauge as to whether working is good for you or not. So, if he says you can work, then you can work. But if Carter says you need something or something is too much for you, there will be no question from me. If I have to, I’ll ban you from the office. So don’t push me, sweetheart. Understood?”
Becky opened her mouth to assert her ability to know whether she was fit to work, but at Jac’s look and then Carter’s face of warning, she sighed.
“Understood.”
Chapter 7
Aweek after the snowplow incident, nothing seemed to happen, and the guys thought they could add a few more jobs to their plate because they had nothing to go on. There were no new leads, no new incidents, nothing.
After another week, Carter went back to work on other assignments away from home. The team discussed and agreed they would return to normal operations except for Becky, who still had a couple of restrictions that, according to Jac and Carter, were “just to be safe.”
Becky was allowed some freedom, like driving home, well, to Ivy and Kaden’s house until Carter arrived home. It had meant one overnight at Ivy’s because Carter had an overnight job, but she could handle that if it ensured that soon Carter would allow her to resume normal operations.
EARLIER IN THE MONTH, Becky had found some paperwork that didn’t seem right. Inventory numbers seemed excessive for the amount of storage space. Now, after reworking things she was still just as confused as ever. She’d mentioned it to her dad at the beginning of the month but now she was ready to tackle the problem.
“Dad, I can’t see how this is possible. I mean, look at your numbers from when you started the business. Remember when you filled the place with inventory, which was entirely too much,so you had to rent additional storage until you sold enough backstock?”
“I’d forgotten that. Kids remember everything. I remember the time you—”
“Dad. Listen. I have a three-day weekend coming up. Why don’t I come and re-run the numbers for you? I can’t run the inventory, but I can recheck most of it and do a better estimate. If it is close, I’ll accept the packaging of things is less, so you can hold more.”It would have to be considerably less, but she’d keep that info to herself for now.
“Should I tell your uncle to do anything?”
“No, just tell your warehouse manager I’ll be there in a few days.”
“You got it, sweetheart. Is your beau coming?”
“Carter, Dad. His name is Carter. I think he’s on the job.”
“What does he do again? He can’t make much money as a security guard. Big guy like that, a pilot and ex-military? He should be able to get one of those high-tech, flashy, security team jobs. You know, like mercenaries or something.”
She bit her tongue. If her father knew that on a high-profile client, Carter could make ten grand in a weekend, she knew her father’s new favorite hobby would be to get them married quickly.
“He does pretty well, actually.”
