Hide and Seek. Desiree Holt
Logan?” Avery was standing by the coffeemaker.
“Not right now. I want to get the stuff into the house. Devon, what’s the deal with a remote for the garage door? I don’t want to leave my truck sitting outside.”
“There are some in the garage,” she told him.
“Some?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Most people just have one.”
“I know, but my father was obsessed with them. Every so often he’d change the codes. He showed me how to reprogram them and if I was coming to visit, he would give me the new code. I asked him about it once, and he said people coming to the house could clone the remote so he changed the code after every visit.”
And wasn’t that just interesting. People only did that if they had something to hide and wanted to control whoever had access to them. Logan had been through that before.
“What kind of visitors did he have?” Avery asked. “Do you know? And how long did it go on?”
Devon scrunched up her forehead. “Let me see. It started about two years after he built the house, and I haven’t the foggiest about visitors, beyond Cole International people. He never discussed them with me. Why?”
“Because that shows a high level of paranoia. That could be when things took an unexpected turn for him.”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
“God.” She swallowed. “Okay, the inside door to the garage is right off the front hall.”
It took him a few trips to bring in all his and Devon’s things from his truck. She pointed him to her room and he chose the one across from it for himself. Better surveillance, giving him a direct line into her room if he needed it.
By the time he came back into the kitchen, Devon had a fresh mug of coffee and was making an attempt to eat a muffin. Then he excused himself while he scoped out the rest of the house. What he found—or didn’t find—troubled him.
“You’re right,” he told Avery. “This house could have been wiped by a professional. Something’s way off here.”
Avery had just handed him a mug of coffee when Sheri’s phone signaled. She listened for a moment, shock suddenly freezing her face.
“What is it?” Logan demanded.
“The boat.” The way she looked at each of them made every one of his warning signals go off. “The Princess Devon is on fire.”
Devon’s face turned white.
“On fire? But—But…” She looked up at Logan, who had moved to stand behind her chair, his hands resting on her shoulders. “How? Why?”
“We don’t know,” Sheri told them, “but the Coast Guard has to be notified, and I need to get down to the marina. The fireboat from Almonte County Fire Department is already there.”
“I’m going, too.” Devon jumped up, almost knocking over her coffee.
“No.” Logan tried to push her back into the chair. “You don’t need to be there.”
“Damn it.” She pushed his hands away and leaped up, almost knocking over her chair. “That’s my father’s boat. He disappears and suddenly his boat catches fire? Something doesn’t add up, and I want to know what the hell is going on. Please, Logan.”
“Devon, you’ve got a big target painted on your back,” Avery reminded her. “What if someone did this to draw you out? Besides, you don’t have a car.”
“I don’t care what you say,” Devon snapped. “I’m going. Someone can take me or I’ll walk.”
Avery’s reasonable voice wasn’t going to work here. Logan could feel Devon vibrating like a tuning fork, and he was filled with an overwhelming need to protect her. Which might, considering the circumstances and her attitude, be a difficult job.
“I’ll take her,” he said. He’d rather have her glued to his side than running off even more recklessly. “She’s going, so save your breath. We all need to get moving.”
“Stay. Go. Whatever.” Sheri threw up her hands. “I need to get down there.” In seconds she was out the door.
Devon reached for her purse and turned back to Logan. “Well?”
“Okay.” He held up a hand when Avery opened her mouth again. “Save it. I know when arguing is useless. Would you call the office and get a couple of our techs out here? Have them figure out the most complete security system we can install. And tell them to keep their eyes peeled.”
“Done.” She had already pressed speed dial for the office. “Go ahead. I’ll meet you down there.”
Logan could barely keep up with Devon as she raced into the garage and got into his truck. He had a feeling that if he hadn’t punched the button to open the garage door, she’d have insisted he just drive through it.
“Hurry,” she urged, hands clasped tightly in her lap.
Logan burned rubber backing out of the garage and heading down the driveway. Despite Devon’s urging to hurry, he took care to look both ways and scope out the surrounding area as he reached the road. And a damn good thing, he thought, as he spotted a black SUV almost hidden in the trees across the road. When it pulled out behind them he grabbed his gun from his waist and pushed Devon’s head down.
“Stay like that and don’t move under any circumstance.”
“What’s happening? What—”
“Trouble. Just do me a favor and hang tight. Please.”
He had to give her credit. She shut up and bent way down, just as he’d told her to do, even though he could feel the fear and anger vibrating from her. They hadn’t gone fifty yards before something cracked against the rear of the truck cab, and he knew damn well it was a bullet. Last year he’d protected a very high-profile oilman whose life had been threatened. He’d taken his truck to Tactical Armoring Corporation in San Antonio and had it fixed up inside and out. Now he had bulletproof tires, and a vehicle reinforced against everything up to and including armor-piercing rifles.
He pressed harder on the accelerator, keeping one eye on the road and the other on the side-view mirror. If they could make it to the end of the road and take the turn to the marina, he figured they’d be okay because then they’d be in traffic. He hoped these idiots weren’t stupid enough to engage in a firefight with a bunch of other people around.
A heavy thud sounded against the back of the cab, and Logan knew from the sound it was an armor-piercing bullet. Whoever these guys were, they came well equipped.
He watched the speedometer creep up to eighty, then ninety, then a hundred. He was sure the men behind them wanted to pull up alongside and try for the windows, but he kept ahead of them with his powerful engine. They were almost to the end of Seacliff Road.
“Hang on. Brace yourself.”
He wrenched the wheel around, skidding into the turn, and then they were on the busy road to the marina.
Traffic forced him to slow down and when he looked in his mirror, he saw the other vehicle had turned off the other way. Smart. They didn’t want people around for what they had to do. He had to tell Avery so they could revisit the security needs. A high-end system might not be enough.
“You can sit up now,” he told Devon.
When the SUV pulled out behind them, she hadn’t freaked, or panicked, or done anything he might have expected. She just did what he told her and left him to take care of business. He was afraid that wouldn’t work at the marina, though, with tension rolling off her in waves.
As they neared the marina the traffic became thicker, and when they turned into the parking lot, he saw a thick cloud of black smoke rising into the air. The place was jammed, and not just with boat owners. Things