Falling For A Donovan (The Donovans Book 14) Page 17

  “I don’t work for your husband,” he said as he picked up the help button which had been hanging over the bedrail. He unraveled and moved it so that there was no way Tia could reach for it.

  “Then what are you doing in here? You apparently know Trent, so you have to know that he’s going to raise hell about anyone being in here that doesn’t belong,” she said, speaking much more boldly than she actually felt.

  There was no way she could jump up out of this bed and run to the door yelling for help. She suspected this guy knew this, so she remained still and attempted to stay calm, all the while trying to figure out what she could do to signal someone that he was in here.

  “You’re right I know who your husband is and all the rules he’s put in place since you’ve been in the hospital. I’ve approved overtime and allowed my men to keep watch on your room for the past week because I know how to do my job,” he said and then extended his hand to her. “I’m Sheriff Wendell Summit. Like I said before it’s good to see you awake.”

  He’d lowered his hand to hers and Tia gave it as much of a shake as she could manage.

  “I’m investigating your case and I wanted to talk to you about what happened that night,” he continued.

  Tia shook her head. “Nothing. I mean, I don’t remember anything about that night.”

  “Nothing?” he asked skeptically.

  “I remember being at Camille’s house. Trevor and Josiah were playing. And then I was here,” she said before sighing. “I’m still here.”

  “Okay,” he said after staring at her a few moments. “Let’s try something else. Do you know the names Roslyn Ausby and Jaydon Donovan?”

  “Of course I do,” Tia answered. “Jaydon used to be married to Parker, Trent’s cousin.”

  “And how do you know Roslyn Ausby?” he asked.

  Tia went quiet, not because she suspected this was a trick, but because she was circling back to all the times she’d heard the woman’s name. It felt as if she knew her, even though Tia was certain she’d never come face-to-face with her before.

  “I want you to look at these pictures and tell me if you recognize them,” the sheriff said and opened a folder Tia hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

  He placed a picture on the bed in front of her. She looked down and immediately replied, “That’s Jaydon. This picture was taken at my wedding.”

  She recalled the ivory colored walls and dark gold drapes of the hall where they’d had their reception. The sheriff placed another picture on the bed.

  Tia knew who it was instantly. After the bomb attack on Albert’s house and then the fire at Henry and Beverly’s house, Trent and Devlin thought it was a good idea for all of them to know what Roslyn looked like just in case she got bold enough to simply walk up to one of them one day. As crazy as the woman was, Tia did not put that past her. This was an older picture than the one Trent had showed her, but it was still her.

  “This is Roslyn Ausby,” Tia said slowly.

  “And how do you know her?” the sheriff asked again.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Trent said when he came through the door. He was frowning as he stalked over to Tia’s bed, pushing past the sheriff to stand next to her.

  “I’m questioning a witness,” the sheriff said as he glared, equally as irritated at Trent.

  “She’s the victim and I distinctly said no visitors were allowed when I wasn’t here,” Trent shouted.

  The sheriff shrugged. “I think I’ve told you this before, Mr. Donovan. I don’t work for you. Now, I’ve got a shooting victim here and no suspect in custody.”

  “The suspect was shot that night as well. You already know she was airlifted the same time as Tia,” Trent continued.

  “Then where’s her body?” the sheriff asked Trent.

  Trent shook his head. “That’s your job to figure out, sheriff.”

  “There was another witness,” Sheriff Summit said instead of backing off the way Tia suspected Trent wanted him to do.

  “Just down the road from the cabin there was a husband and wife, retired teachers, spending their glory years driving around the country in their RV,” he told them and reached into his folder to pull out another picture. “She said a few days before the shooting she saw an SVU, a Cherokee to be exact because their daughter drives the same vehicle. Inside the SVU was a woman and a man. The woman was the one your wife just identified as Jaydon Donovan and this is a sketch of the man.”

  The sheriff lay another picture down beside the two that were still spread out on the bed.

  Tia gasped and Trent cursed.

  “I see we’ve hit the jackpot,” the sheriff stated. “Anybody want to give me the name of this person?”

  Tia was first as she slowly touched the picture, rubbing her fingers softly over the face that she’d seen before. The person she’d smiled at and had polite conversation with.

  “He’s the new landscaper,” she said quietly. “He worked on our front and back lawns.”

  “When?” Trent asked. “When did you see him at our house?”

  Something in his tone had Tia glancing up at him. He looked fierce and agitated and ready to kill.

  “Tell me when you saw him, Tia,” Trent stated again.

  She swallowed slowly and took a deep breath. Letting it out seemed like it took a century and her head throbbed with the process.

  “The morning that I went to see Camille. Apollo had left the house to take Trevor’s bag to the car. I was just coming out the door with Trevor right beside me. This man came from around the back of the house and said Norton, our regular lawn guy, was on vacation. He seemed nice enough. He even asked if I preferred pink hydrangea over blue.”

  “So this guy right here,” the sheriff said touching a finger to that same picture, “was working at your house the morning of the shooting?”

  “Yes,” Tia said. “I’m sure this is him. I remember the deep dimple in his chin and the frosty color of his eyes.”

  “Who do you know him as?” the sheriff asked when he turned his attention to Trent. “Because you look like you’re definitely about to explode. My guess is because you know this guy and he’s not the new landscaper.”

  “What? Trent, you know him? Who is he?” Tia asked.

  On a heated curse Trent reached across Tia and picked up the sketch of the man. “This is not a landscaper,” he told them. “He’s an ex-Navy SEAL and his name is Orinthian Weatherby.”

  Chapter 12

  Greenwich, Connecticut

  Devlin had just turned onto Putnam Green when Bailey stirred. She’d fallen asleep shortly after they’d pulled out of the garage in New York, when she realized Devlin wasn’t going to talk about what had just happened. If he wasn’t going to talk than neither was she. Only Bailey wasn’t used to being quiet and she was still tired from getting very little sleep the night before and having already endured one car trip to the cemetery to meet with Dane and back.

  Now, she was home, she thought as she sat up in the seat and looked out the window to the familiar bungalow style homes that made up her apartment community. Instead of one tall building, they each had their own connected units that weaved through gorgeous foliage and tall mature trees. Even in the winter the neighborhood was pretty and charming, both reasons why she’d decided to rent here. She’d forgotten that Devlin had told her he’d been here before when they’d first realized she’d gone missing, and she was about to ask him how he knew her address. She refrained and decided to get the other more important questions she had ready to be presented.

  Devlin hadn’t wanted to talk while they packed in the hotel, nor when they’d gotten into the car to drive here. That was fine. Well, no, it wasn’t. But Bailey had decided to let that be. If he felt like he needed to digest all that was happening, before talking about it, then okay, she had given him that. The fact still remained that someone had been in their hotel room and Bailey had a feeling Devlin knew who and why. So before they did another thing,
took one more step or kissed each other another time, she was going to ask him some questions and dammit, if it was the last thing she did Bailey was going to get some answers!

  He stopped the car near the end unit where she lived, putting it in park in the spot that had been designated for her. Bailey released her seatbelt and stepped out immediately. She opened the back door and pulled her duffel bag out, placing the strap over her shoulder. She was already walking towards her front door when it dawned on her that she didn’t have the keys to her own apartment. Before she could curse, Bailey turned to see Devlin had walked up right behind her. But he had not retrieved his bag from the car.

  First things first, she thought and shook her head slightly.

  “You have my house keys?” she asked him.

  He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a set of keys, holding them in the air in a way that had them jingling in the quiet of night.

  Bailey frowned and attempted to grab them out of his hand. Of course, he pulled them out of her reach.

  “I’ll open the door.”

  “It’s my house and those are my keys,” she argued. “Why do you have my keys and why wouldn’t you have given them back to me if you had them all this time?”

  Devlin used the key to open the top and bottom locks on her front door. He did so as if he’d been doing this for the last four years, which was how long Bailey had lived there. He pushed the door open and walked through. He’d paused momentarily and looked over his shoulder like he was contemplating telling her to stay back. She guessed he thought better of that foolishness as she came in right behind him, reaching over to push the light switch that was on the wall between the door and the window. All things considered, she probably should have come in a little slower and performed a cursory check of her place before switching on the lights and announcing she was home. But she was home and after all these weeks of being away. Bailey simply wanted to savor that for a moment.

  On the other hand, Devlin didn’t know how she was feeling and didn’t seem to care as he continued moving throughout the first floor of her place. They’d entered through the small foyer which led to a powder room straight ahead. To the left was the kitchen and to the right was her dining room. Through the dining room and toward the back of the house was a large living room with a cathedral ceiling that had reminded Bailey of her family home in Houston. There were glass doors leading to a patio from this room. Since Devlin went directly into the dining room, Bailey checked the powder room and the kitchen. She hadn’t drawn her gun this time, but did proceed into each room with caution, checking the small closets that could possibly fit a human inside in both rooms.

  She heard Devlin on the steps and followed him up to the second floor. Bailey had selected the one bedroom duplex since it was only her and she had no plans of living with anyone else anytime in the near future. Her bedroom was toward the front of the house and also had a cathedral ceiling. Her bathroom was right beside it to the left of the stairwell and beside that was the loft space that Bailey used as her home office. Devlin was checking her bathroom when Bailey finished in the bedroom. They met again in the loft area. He looked at her for a second and the moment she opened her mouth to speak, he went down the steps.

  Sick of his quiet act and ready to burst with wanting to know what the hell was going on, Bailey took the steps right behind him. He went into the living room and she followed, stopping only when she heard a familiar voice.

  “Home! Home!” Peaches screeched.

  Some would call it a full on yell or scream, but Bailey preferred the word screech when referred to the speaking pitch of her adorable pink Moluccan cockatoo.

  “That’s right,” she said going to the huge cage which sat in one corner of her living room. “Bailey’s home.”

  Moluccan cockatoos weren’t really known to be very talkative birds, but they did mimic certain words. So when Bailey first brought Peaches home, she’d been sure to say specific words or phrases frequently so that her bird would know them and could communicate with her to some extent. Otherwise Peaches was simply a very affectionate bird that had been successful in becoming one of Bailey’s closest friends, outside of her family.

  “I’m home, Peaches, darling,” Bailey cooed as she stood next to the cage.

  She opened the cage door and knew that Peaches would immediately fly over to sit on her shoulder. Whenever Bailey was home Peaches was near her. They sat on the couch together and on the patio on nicer days. Peaches was known to move about on the small island in Bailey’s kitchen while Bailey used the counter near the sink and stove to prepare her meals. When Bailey went to bed at night, there was another cage in her room. Peaches slept there most nights, with the door open because she loved having her own freedom to move about the house as she pleased.

  “Home! Home!” Peaches continued.

  “Yes, baby. I’m home,” Bailey said, reaching up to rub along the bird’s dark beak.

  “Your neighbor to the left said she would take care of it while you were gone,” Devlin said, his voice tight as he stood across the room, hands tucked into the front pocket of his jeans.

  “It’s a girl and her name is Peaches,” Bailey told him.

  “I think your neighbor—” he began.

  Bailey interrupted. “Her mane is Mrs. Donatucci and she’s very nice. She often takes care of Peaches if I have to go out of town for work. Before now, she’d looked after her when I had to go home to Houston to see about my dad, as well.”

  “Okay, good. Well I’ll be leaving now,” he said and was about to head for the door.

  Bailey stepped directly in his path. Stopping abruptly only seemed to agitate Devlin more and as he scowled at her, Peaches moved about. Her tiny clawed feet going from one part of Bailey’s shoulder to the other.

  “No!” Peaches screeched. “No! No! No!”

  “What the hell is…she…saying?” Devlin asked, his brow furrowed.

  “She is telling you no. That whatever you’re doing she does not like.” Bailey shrugged as she smiled at Devlin. “I agree with her.”

  “Bailey, I don’t have time for this,” he said with an exasperated sigh.

  “You don’t have time to tell me what’s going on?” she asked. “Shouldn’t I know if someone is still after me? If this has to do with my family, shouldn’t they know as well? Despite what you may have been trained to do or how good you think you are, you cannot save the world all by yourself, Devlin!”

  Unlike Peaches, Bailey wasn’t screeching, she was all out yelling at him.

  “I’m not trying to save the world,” he replied and stepped around her.

  Bailey turned then and grabbed his arm. Peaches, apparently saying she wasn’t in the mood for all this activity, no matter how long she’d been left alone, flew to the other side of the room.

  “You are not going to walk away from me,” she told him. “I can handle myself, Devlin, but not if I don’t know what’s coming at me. So you need to tell me just who you think broke into our hotel room and why. And you need to tell me right now!”

  He did not pull out of her grasp and head for the door as Bailey expected him to do. Instead, he sighed and attempted to move past her once more. This time as if he were an insolent child. She released his arm and he walked into the living room again.

  “Do you think it was Roslyn?”

  “No,” he answered immediately.

  “Then who? Someone working for her? Someone who might also be looking for her? If not Roslyn, then who would want to come after me again and to be so bold as to break into our room?”

  “They weren’t coming for you,” Devlin said slowly.

  He’d folded his arms over his chest and was looking toward the patio doors, instead of at her. Bailey moved closer until she was standing directly in front of him. “What are you saying?” she asked.

  When he didn’t reply, Bailey touched her fingers to his chin. She turned him until he faced her.

  “This is about me,” he told her.
“Someone has been tailing us since we left Big Bear and it’s because of me.”

  Bailey dropped her hand away quickly and bit back a gasp. She cleared her throat. “How do you know this? What else haven’t you told me?”

  Because there had to be something else. Devlin sounded convinced. There was no doubt in his eyes, or questions in his voice. He even acted as if he knew who it was.

  “I don’t know who it is,” he said as if he could actually read her mind. “It started with text messages when I was at the hospital and when we got to the resort. By the time we arrived in New York I’d turned off my old cell and started using the burner. So the messages stopped, but I knew he was still out there.”

  “That night in the pub,” Bailey said. “That’s who you were looking for. I knew you were watching the door. Everyone who came in and went out, you were watching them all. And then at the rest stop…wait a minute, do you think that was him?”

  She shivered with the thought. Had she been that close to the man that had been following them? And if she was, why hadn’t he taken her then, or done whatever it was he wanted to do in the moments that Devlin hadn’t been there?

  “This has nothing to do with Roslyn Ausby or my family does it?” Bailey asked him. “This is someone who has a gripe with you.”

  He nodded, the action tight and defensive.

  “Now, you think they’re ready to strike. The messages have stopped so they took the next step by breaking into the room. You thought they might have bugged the place. And, now, you want to leave because you think by being with me that you’re bringing danger directly to my doorstep,” Bailey surmised.

  “You’re a lot smarter than Trent or anyone else in your family gives you credit for,” Devlin said. “I’ll be sure to tell him that when I see him.”

  “I’m no safer alone than with you here,” she told him. “If he’s been following us all of this time, he knows we’re here. You leave and then what?”