Night Watch Read online

  “That’s crazy.” Erik leaned forward, bringing him closer. “You never mentioned it.”

  “I didn’t know. Not until right before we broke up. I’ve been in the program since I was two, but my parents kept it a secret.” Her mind flashed back to the day she’d confronted her father. Her emotions were raw, and she felt too close to Erik so she moved to the couch. “I was looking for something in boxes in the garage, and I found a hidden bin. It contained legal documents with my mom’s and dad’s pictures but under different names. I asked him about it and that’s when he told me we were all in WITSEC.”

  “Witness protection. Wow.” Erik shook his head as Pong settled at his feet. “Just wow. That’s a surprise.”

  She nodded. “It’s something I couldn’t tell anyone. Not even you.”

  “No. Of course not.” He got up to sit next to her, and Pong trailed and rested his head on Erik’s foot. “That’s how the program works.”

  “But when I saw you after Dad told me, I couldn’t look you in the eyes. I felt like I was lying to you. I tried to make it work for a few days, but I just couldn’t.”

  His fingers curled into fists on his knees. “That’s why you ended things with me.”

  She started to reach for his hands to smooth them out and relieve his tension but stopped and wedged her uninjured fingers under her legs. “I didn’t want to do it. You deserved the truth, and I couldn’t give it to you. But now that both my parents are gone, I figure the threat to me and Finley is reduced, and we can share with select people.”

  Erik massaged his temples and narrowed his eyes. “Are you still in WITSEC or did you leave the program?”

  “Finley and I are still in the program. But I just violated my family’s agreement by telling you, and I’ll need to call the deputy and let him know.” She crossed her arms like a hug to protect herself from everything that was happening. “Finley and I haven’t even talked about this, so I’m not sure if she wants to stay in the program or not. Or even if there is enough danger for us to remain.”

  Erik arched a thick eyebrow. “After all this time, you decided to violate the rules and tell me. Why?”

  “I think you deserve to know. I really do, so don’t take offense when I say this, but I wouldn’t violate the rules today to tell you any more than I would have years ago. I’m telling you because maybe the person who killed my mom or who broke in tonight could be related to my dad’s past.”

  “Yeah.” He went silent for a long, uncomfortable moment. “Could be.”

  “If it’s a possibility that they killed my mom, I needed you to know so you can investigate.”

  “I’ll have to tell my brothers. You know that, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, tapping his thumb on the armrests before dropping his gaze back to her. “You had a good reason for breaking things off, but it doesn’t change anything between us.”

  “No. No. I didn’t think it would, and that’s not my intent in telling you at all. But maybe, now that you know why I did it…I hope you can forgive me.”

  “Sure…yeah…yeah, sure. I can do that.” He picked at the cuticle on his thumb, his eyes the color of coffee darkening.

  Pong perked up, his eyes alert, likely knowing his owner needed protection.

  “But the pain of the breakup is still there,” Erik said, lifting his tormented gaze to her. “If it hasn’t gone away in six years, I doubt it ever will.”

  Kennedy sipped on a bottle of water and tried to act casual. Even with the drink quenching her thirst, it was hard to relax with three strapping guys looking at her with varying degrees of interest and tension. She assumed she was responsible for the unease in the room as they waited for Aiden to arrive to start their meeting.

  Maybe they wanted to know why she and Erik had broken up. Or maybe they were just tired. It was nearing midnight, after all. She couldn’t imagine being called out for a meeting at this time of night, but these guys acted as if it was no big deal.

  She heard the entrance door from the hallway open and everyone looked in that direction. Aiden stepped into the room. He was tall with dark hair and had blue eyes, resembling most of the other brothers.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Aiden dropped into a chair at the end of the table. “Harper called, and it’s hard finding a time when we can talk, so I didn’t want to let it go.”

  He turned to Kennedy. “My wife’s an Olympic downhill skier. She’s out of town training right now.”

  “Sounds fascinating. And exciting.” Kennedy smiled.

  “Sometimes too exciting, even for our fearless brother.” Erik cast a fond expression at Aiden.

  Aiden shifted his attention to Kennedy. “How’s the hand?”

  She glanced down at the bandage circling her palm. “It’ll be just fine.”

  Erik locked his focus on her. “The wounds are pretty deep, but the doctor left it open to heal. Less risk of infection that way. I’ll be changing the dressing to keep the risk of infection down.”

  Drake snorted. “Nurse Erik. I can see the uniform now.”

  The brothers laughed, and the image playing out in Kennedy’s brain had her half tempted to laugh with them, but she didn’t want to hurt Erik.

  He didn’t laugh along, just rolled his eyes. “You all good to get started here?”

  “I’m assuming you’re taking lead.” Aiden leaned back in his chair and cast a challenging look at Erik.

  “Of course.”

  Aiden rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and steepled his fingers together. “Then you know what I’m going to warn you about.”

  “I do and no need to say it.” Erik gave Kennedy a funny look that she couldn’t decipher, but he clearly didn’t want Aiden to say more.

  Erik took a long breath and shifted his stance. “It’s easier for discussion if we call your mom by her first name. But if you don’t like it, we can change.”

  “Go right ahead,” she said, actually glad they would do so. She never thought of her mom by her name, and hopefully, that would make this discussion easier to bear.

  Erik stepped up to the whiteboard. “Let’s create a timeline and take things in order.”

  Erik wrote Silas Walker Death, Wanda Walker Death, Wanda Home Break-in in large black letters. He turned to Kennedy. “Could you give me the dates for your parents’ deaths?”

  Her father had died about three years before, and her mother nearly a month before and she shared that information. He noted the details on the board as well as the dates for the other items.

  “Do you think Kennedy’s dad was murdered too?” Aiden asked.

  Erik recounted the WITSEC situation. The brother’s all swung their gazes to her, but thankfully their expressions didn’t hold judgement of her dad, only curiosity.

  “I looked Waldron up,” Erik said. “He’s serving time in a federal prison in Texas.”

  Clay swiveled his chair to face Kennedy. “What about your father’s death? Any reason to believe he was murdered?”

  Kennedy shook her head. “He’d had a pacemaker installed after a heart attack a few years prior to his death. Before he died, he called 911 complaining of another heart attack. Our inspector at WITSEC didn’t think there was anything suspicious about Dad’s death, but he wanted to close the case without doubts so he ordered an autopsy.”

  “Did they do a tox screen?” Clay asked.

  “A basic one, yes,” Kennedy replied. “It included prescription medications and drugs of abuse. I haven’t seen it, but my mom said it came back negative for any drugs that could’ve been his cause of death.”

  Erik zoned in on her. “If it was just a basic screen, there could’ve been other drugs, or even plants, used to cause a heart attack that weren’t tested for. If your mom was murdered, maybe he was as well.”

  “You think so?” Kennedy rested her hands on the table as she gave it some thought. “I know of many medications that someone could’ve used to kill him, b
ut Waldron’s in prison. Even if he managed to locate my dad, he couldn’t have done it.”

  “Does he have a wife?” Drake asked. “Or adult children?”

  “Yes.” She stared at her hands and one by one lifted her fingers and pulled them apart as the thought of her dad potentially being murdered sank in. “You think Waldron would ask her or his kids to kill him?”

  “Could be, or she could have decided to do so on her own,” Clay said.

  “Poison fits with a woman’s MO,” Erik said. “They’re more likely than men to use poison to commit murder.”

  Kennedy still couldn’t believe they were really talking about this. “So, you think she somehow found out where Dad lived and poisoned him?”

  “It’s a possibility we can’t rule out,” Erik said. “And we would be remiss if we didn’t at least consider a correlation.”

  “So you think this pyramid scammer, what’s his name—Harrison Waldron—might be behind all of this?” Brendan asked.

  Erik shrugged. “We need to look into him, which might include visiting the prison and talking to the guy. And finding out who’s been visiting him.”

  “I’d be glad to take a quick trip to Texas to do that,” Drake said. “Can use some of my tricks from fugitive apprehension to see what I can find out about him and his family. And I can find out who’s been coming to see him. Maybe he contracted someone for a hit.”

  “Pardon me for saying this.” Brendan faced Kennedy. “But are you considering exhuming your dad’s body for further testing?”

  She gasped.

  “It’s too early to consider that,” Erik said. “Even if we wanted to do it, we don’t have any legit reason to do so.”

  “I don’t know,” Drake said. “I think a good lawyer could make a case for it to see if Silas had the same drugs in his system as Wanda.”

  “Let’s first get the autopsy report for Silas to see which drugs were tested for and what else they found,” Erik said.

  “I have a contact at the county ME’s office,” Brendan said. “I should be able to get the complete report.”

  “Great.” Erik noted that and added Drake following up on Waldron on the board in red ink. “Wanda taught chemistry part-time at PSU and did pharmaceutical research full-time.” He changed his focus to Kennedy. “Go ahead and tell them about your mom’s current research project.”

  Kennedy felt his eyes on her as she shared her mom’s work. “I think this is more likely why she was murdered.”

  “If she was murdered,” Drake said.

  There was no good response to that. “I think it’s a better line of inquiry than the WITSEC aspect or even her teaching.”

  “I don’t know,” Clay said, a half-smile on his face. “Plenty of students these days might think murder would be a good way to solve a grade issue.”

  “You joke, but there was a guy at UCLA who killed his professor over grades a while back,” Aiden said.

  Erik wrote Motives on the board and listed out three items beneath it. Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals, WITSEC, and Bad Grades. “These will be our investigative priorities until we find something to change them.”

  “Like, maybe the information on Silas’s autopsy or on Waldron,” Drake said.

  “Exactly,” Erik said. “Or the forensics from Wanda’s place. We just came from Sierra’s lab. She’s recovered footprints and fingerprints plus a stray hair. As of now, we have no way to run them against law enforcement databases, so I’ll be calling PPB.”

  Drake narrowed his eyes. “Hopefully they’ll cooperate and run the prints for us.”

  “I’ll do my best to make that happen.” Erik drilled his gaze into Kennedy. “At this point, it’s logical to assume the break-in at your mother’s place could be related to either of your parents’ deaths, and that’s the direction I’ll take this investigation unless we discover something to change our focus.”

  Kennedy nodded, but her stomach clenched. With her work on crime scenes, she could easily imagine the things that could happen to change the focus. Things that might include the intruder coming back and ending her life.

  Erik sucked in a generous gulp of air outside Drake’s condo before heading inside. Wouldn’t do for his closest brother to figure out that Erik’s emotions were whirling like the blades on the helicopters he liked to fly. Sure, everyone in his family would know he had to be uneasy, but they didn’t need to know the extent of his lingering pain.

  Shoot, he hadn’t even known until he’d seen Kennedy again. After she split with him, she’d transferred to another university, and he hadn’t seen her again. Except in his dreams. And honestly, most waking hours, too, for a very long time.

  He’d be out in the quad and think he saw her. Charge over to talk to her and startle some unsuspecting woman. That went on way too long.

  He didn’t even date seriously again until recently, when Aiden’s wife Harper set him up with her friend, Grace. They went out for a few months—until he discovered that Grace cheated on him. The breakup was painful, but didn’t hurt as badly as it should’ve. Meant he didn’t care all that deeply for her. Still, it told him women couldn’t be trusted. At least not easily.

  “Not a word about how I feel, boy,” he said to Pong as he unlocked the door. He stepped in and saw Drake sitting on the couch watching TV. The buttery smell of popcorn filled the air.

  “Whatcha watching?” Erik asked to focus the topic away from Kennedy.

  Pong made a beeline for Drake, who tapped his remote to pause the show and ruffle Pong’s scruff. “Documentary on gun control.”

  “And, let me guess.” Erik set the bag containing Pong’s food and dishes on the kitchen island and lowered a tote bag and computer case to the floor, then plopped down on the couch next to his brother. “You’re hating every minute of it.”

  “Not all of it. I mean, I’m all for banning bump stocks and ghost guns.” He frowned, and Erik knew, despite his brother’s love of firearms, he didn’t want devices that could turn a handgun into a rifle or gun parts bought on the internet that could be put together to make unregistered guns readily available.

  Drake cocked his head. “So Kennedy, huh?”

  Erik looked away to keep his very perceptive brother from reading his mood. “Yeah.”

  “How was it seeing her again?”

  “Not what I expected.” Erik left it at that.

  “You good to work her protection detail?” Drake released Pong, and the lab scooted onto the couch between them, his head on Erik’s knee.

  “Yeah.”

  “I would suggest you back off, but I know you won’t any more than I did with Natalie.” Drake smiled when he mentioned his girlfriend’s name. The agency had protected her not too long ago, and Drake had fallen for the compassionate social worker.

  Just like all of Erik’s older brothers. They were now off the market. Aiden and Brendan were married, Clay engaged. Drake was moving toward engagement, too, but Natalie was a bit skittish. Sort of like Erik, but for different reasons.

  “So where is the love of your life?” Erik asked, hoping to change Drake’s focus.

  Drake peered at him as if he knew Erik had purposefully redirected the conversation. “She has a big day tomorrow in court, so she went home.”

  Erik stood before Drake could ask questions about Kennedy, and Pong hopped down and gave Erik an expectant look. “I need to do that deep dive on Kennedy’s mom before we meet in the morning.”

  “Let me know if I can help.” Drake picked up the popcorn bowl sitting on the couch next to him.

  Erik snorted.

  “What?” Drake arched a dark eyebrow, looking very much like their father. “I can do it. My computer skills are just fine.”

  “For the superficial stuff, yeah, but you’re better off sticking to weapons.” Erik grabbed his computer case.

  “Don’t mind that. Don’t mind that at all.” Drake grinned and turned the documentary back on.

  Wishing he had his more powerful desktop computer
at his disposal, Erik unpacked his laptop onto Drake’s dining table. Erik couldn’t go back to his condo to work in his office, since he didn’t want to spend any more time with Kennedy. This machine would have to do.

  Pong dropped down on the floor and rolled onto his side to stretch out, and Erik opened a special program available to private investigators and entered Wanda’s social security number, which he’d gotten from Kennedy. As he’d anticipated, the record for Kennedy’s mother came up clean for any arrests or convictions. He printed out the report, containing her prior addresses. WITSEC created bogus records for their protectees, so he wasn’t surprised to see address information, wedding and graduation dates, etcetera, for Wanda and Silas Walker going back to their births, along with Finley’s and Kennedy’s milestone dates.

  While it printed, he accessed Wanda’s financial records. Kennedy had given him online access to her mother’s accounts before he left. A very good thing. Not working in law enforcement any longer made it nearly impossible to access that information. At least not using legal methods.

  He studied the bank statements and found regular monthly payments made for items needed to maintain a floating home, such as utilities and moorage rentals. No rent or house payment though, so she must’ve owned the floating home. He found her income from the college along with large deposits for the last two months to the tune of twenty thousand dollars wired to her account from a company called inDents.

  He sat back.

  Twenty grand a month. Not chump change, but she wasn’t using it to live on. Just growing her account. So what was inDents, and why were they paying her?

  He entered the name in an internet browser. The only item returned was a domain registration but no website developed. He looked at the other registry information, but it was private.

  Why would they register an internet domain name without that domain being associated with any services such as email or a website? Could be associated with illegal activity or could be innocent, and they just hadn’t gotten to developing a website yet.