Page 12 of Danger Close (Mourningkill #3)
He’s Trouble
Cobra
“Where the fuck did she go?” Panic rose up my throat when I opened the door to find no one outside.
The moon rose high, fully illuminating the ground in a silver shine. Either she was hiding in the shadows, or she was gone.
“She went with VD.” Griff’s eyes scanned up and down the drive, to the red-painted barn.
Greg Vedder’s beat-up, orange Ford truck had been there when we arrived. Now, it was gone. Fury burned its way through me. She’d left with someone else? Without even talking to me?
“He’s back to his old ways, huh?” That sounded ominous.
“What the hell does that mean, son?”
“Vedder’s trouble, is all,” Griff grumbled, as his eyes cut to my daughter.
Trinity avoided his gaze. Curious…
My daughter turned to go back inside, and Griff lunged for her. He pulled her back to his front, putting his chin on the top of her head. She struggled against him, rolling her eyes before he whispered something in her ear.
She blushed but settled down.
I did the Simone Biles-level mental gymnastics necessary to believe that my daughter’s future husband hadn’t just said something dirty to her. I didn’t feel like puking at that moment, and I definitely didn’t have time to be nauseous while my wife— fuck! I meant, my ex- wife—was missing.
“There’s only one place they could have gone, and it’s to the bar in town,” Griff said.
“What’s the bar’s name?” I pulled out my smart phone from my back pocket, so I could look it up. I never made calls on this thing, opting for the burner in my other pocket. But since old-school Garmins and GPS were obsolete, I needed it to get around.
“The Bar,” everyone on the porch said in unison.
Trinity squirmed out of Griff’s tight hold, as she grumbled, “It’s the only one in town, so they didn’t bother to name it.”
She went into the pocket of her leather jacket—similar to the one I’d left on Teri’s shoulders—and pulled out car keys that I assumed went to Griff’s GMC Sierra Denali.
“I’ll go get Mom,” she said in an irritated sigh.
“Nah.” I shook my head. “I’ll get her, kiddo. She’s my problem.”
I’d fucked up somewhere along the way. I was gob smacked by how quickly things had spun out of control.
Who knew that herding Teresa Louise Guerro to our daughter’s wedding would be more of a headache than heading a multi-layered counter-intelligence operation against an international criminal organization!
After all the shit I’d done, and all the bodies I’d dropped, was she going to be the one that finally defeated me?
Despite my frustration, I couldn’t help but laugh.
The memory of walking hand in hand in Paris, as I complained about the insane things I would do to spend time with her struck me hard like a blow to the gut.
She’d turned to me, dead serious, and said, “Oui, mais c’est l’amour.
” Yes, but that’s love. She burst out into the greatest fit of beautiful giggles, and I had to pull her into an alley on La Place du Concorde and kiss her silly.
“Have yourself a nice dinner, kids.” I nodded to the front door of the large Victorian farmhouse. “I’ll make sure she behaves when we come back… if we come back tonight.”
I crossed my arms, staring up at the large, silver moon in the sky.
Farm life looked sweet. The scarce light pollution made the stars almost as bright as they were in Central Asia, where sparse cities allowed the constellations to paint the sky the way they had when they were first named.
I’d call it romantic, if it wasn’t for the headache threatening to knock me on my ass. A headache named Teresa.
“What disaster are you dragging me into?” I pondered out loud as I spun my keys on a ring around my index finger and walked to my car.