Havoc by Shannon McKenna

14

Cait swept her gaze around the room, impressed. Good looks clearly ran in this family. The two older brothers were gorgeous, too, almost as tall as Mace, Eric a dirt-blond like Mace, Anton somewhat darker. The Marines battle buddy Nate was a hottie as well, with his shaggy dark hair and keen dark eyes. The women were likewise stunners. Fiona was tall and athletic with penetrating gray eyes and a mane of dark red hair. Elisa was tall and slim with big golden eyes and long, curly dark hair.

All of them stared at her in unabashed fascination.

Cait cleared her throat. “Excuse me. I’ll just grab some of that coffee.”

They made space for her. “Of course,” Elisa said. “Sorry to descend on you like this. We got so excited, we all forgot our manners.”

“No problem,” Cait said, searching for a mug. “And after last night, my definition of manners has been recalibrated. You guys are pretty rough on him, though.”

Eric let out a bark laughter. “He can take it. He was a goddamn bonehead, leaving us out of the loop. He could have gotten himself killed. And you, too.”

She finally found a mug, and poured her coffee. “But he didn’t. He saved me.

Elisa looked misty-eyed. “Aw, look at her. Defending him. That’s a good sign.”

“Maybe, if he fucking deserved it,” Eric said.

“He did deserve it,” Cait protested. “These guys were dragging me off to God knows what!”

“We know what,” Fiona said with a shudder. “That scumbag has nabbed us all, at one time or another.”

“Yeah?” Cait felt chilled. “But you got away unscathed?”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” Fiona said. “Anton got shot, and I got this.” She turned around, and tugged her loose sweater down, showing Cait an long red, half-healed scar, with angry marks from surgical stitches and staples. On her back, Cait saw still more shiny, long-healed scars, just like the ones on Mace’s back. They chilled her.

“How did you get away?” Cait asked.

“A combination of pure luck, and the flash grenade that Anton gave me,” Fiona said. “It also helped that Anton fights like a motherfucker. That saved us.”

“You saved me, too,” Anton said.

The smoldering glance that he and Fiona exchanged was so sexually charged, the hairs on Cait’s arms prickled up.

“Demi got abducted, too,” Elisa reminded them. “Eric rescued her.”

“Yeah, we’ve all had our close shaves with that dickhead,” Eric said. “But we’re still here. Unfortunately, so is he. At the moment, we’re at a sort of standoff.”

Cait took a sip of extremely strong coffee, grimacing. “Is there milk or cream?”

“Don’t open that fridge,” Mace called out, walking back into the room. “What’s inside there has risen from the dead and now thirsts for human blood.”

Eric frowned. “Clean your damn fridge, Mace, or hire someone to do it for you.”

“You think today is the day to lecture me about my housekeeping skills?”

“Cool it, boys.” It was a crisp, female voice from the doorway. “There are more important things to fight about. Mace’s housekeeping skills don’t make the cut.” A pretty woman with curly brown hair twisted up into a bun walked into the apartment. “Besides, a family fight is not the first impression we want to make on our new acquaintance,” she went on, her green eyes flicking to Cait with intense curiosity. “Be nice, please.”

“Oh, don’t hold back on my account,” Cait said. “I’ll just sit back and be entertained. By the process of elimination, you must be Demi. I’m Cait LaMott.”

Demi shook her hand with a smile. “Delighted to meet you, Cait,”

“What are you doing here?” Mace asked. “Why aren’t you at the restaurant?”

“I heard that interesting things were happening in your apartment,” Demi told him. “I figured you wouldn’t have anything to offer her for breakfast here, since you’ve been roughing it up on the Bluff. So I organized a breakfast buffet. We can go down to my place, since there aren’t any chairs here.” She winked at Cait. “Could you encourage him to furnish his damn apartment? You know, a woman’s civilizing influence, and all that?”

“I’m not taking it upon myself to civilize anybody,” Cait said. “I barely know this guy, and I suspect he might be a hopeless case.” She slanted Mace a mischievous glance. “For what it’s worth, though, I really do think that you need a table and some chairs.”

“You’re ganging up on me with them?” Mace looked betrayed.

“Sorry,” Cait murmured. “Cannot tell a lie.”

“I told them to rush it, so the food is probably downstairs,” Demi said. “And I have cream for your coffee. Come on, guys, clear out of here and give them some space. We’ll wait for you downstairs.” Demi shooed everyone out of the room. “Hurry down,” she urged. “Or the savory pastries will get cold. And the pecan cinnamon pull-aparts are fresh out of the oven right now, and very gooey.”

The door shut behind her, and she and Mace listened to the thumping and clattering of many feet on the stairs, slowly fading away.

Cait let out a long sigh. “Holy Moses,” she said. “Your family is a trip and then some. I see where you get it from.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, let’s just say, you are a memorable person, and this is evidently a family trait. Take it as a compliment. You might as well.”

Mace grunted. “You’re pretty memorable yourself, gorgeous. You handled them well, by the way. You have to play rough with them, and you’re not afraid to do it.”

“After last night, we’re all on the same wavelength,” she said. “Their intensity might have freaked me out if I had met them before last night’s attack. But now, their vibe makes sense to me. Are you the only unmarried brother?”

“Eric and Demi are the only ones who are actually married, but the others are right behind. Anton and Fi are getting married this weekend. Right in Kimball’s face.”

“You don’t approve?”

He shrugged. “I think we should put Kimball in the ground first. That way we can all relax and get drunk properly. Nate and Elisa will be next. Like always, I’ll be the dissenting voice, howling in the wilderness. They’re sick of putting their lives on hold because of the Prophet’s curse.”

“The Prophet’s curse,” Cait said. “You mentioned that before. It sounds like it’s a real thing, with you. Not a metaphor. What does it mean?”’

Mace turned to pour himself coffee. “It means different things to different people,” he said. “Our stepfather, Jeremiah Paley, founded GodsAcre. He was a real hard-ass. Everyone called him the Prophet. Always talking about the end times, and the army of the faithful. So it’s just a reference to that. C’mon, let’s head downstairs.”

Cait studied his profile, sensing more.

Mace turned when she didn’t answer. “What?” he asked. “Are you overwhelmed by my family? I wouldn’t blame you if you were.”

“I can handle myself,” she said. “They just want to feed me breakfast. I’m all for that. You think a few prying questions are going to faze me?”

“Great attitude,” he said. “Wish I could share it. They’re hard for me to swallow. I spend a lot of time alone up there in the woods, and when I come down, it takes a while for me to remember how to talk to people. Then they all go at me at once, and start scolding me, and boom, my head explodes.”

“Is that why you jumped me? You’re defaulting back to basic caveman instincts?”

“I’ll make up for that,” he promised. “For hours. Every night. With my tongue.”

She gave his taut ass a playful slap. “We’ll see.”

Wow. Her task today, on very little sleep, was to win the Trasks over to her side. Tricky, but it had to be done. She needed these people. “I should take down the research notes and the journal, and the tracking device, right? To show them what I’ve got?”

“If you want to partner with us, yes,” Mace said. “Show them what you have to offer. For myself, I’m already convinced.”

“And will they show me what you guys have to offer?”

“I hope so,” Mace said. “My own instincts say we should. But I can’t speak for them. I’m only one element, and there are some difficult, opinionated, paranoid people in this group. Democracy is messy. Let’s go down and take a run at it.”

Cait crouched down and gathered the relevant items from her backpack. Maybe meeting up with these people was Dad’s help, from beyond the grave. Her scientific training discouraged this kind of woo-woo, magical thinking, but it sneaked up on her from time to time when her emotions were involved. She was only human.

The Trasks were her best chance to learn more. A gift from Fate, if not from Dad.

She followed Mace down the stairs. Inside the entryway, a newly installed connecting door led straight into Demi’s house, so they never had to be outside.

Demi’s house was pretty and colorful. Cait followed Mace into the big front room. The bay window in front overlooked Shaw Lake, which was choppy and white-capped in the wind. The sky was heavy, rain streaking the window panes.

The house was packed with the people she’d just met upstairs, clustered around a dining table that was loaded with food. Platters of egg pastries, stuffed with spinach, ham and cheese, artichokes, asparagus, goat cheese and God knows what all else. Tantalizing aromas filled the air. Oven roasted potatoes, a bowl of fresh cut fruit, and a platter of gooey, pecan caramel cinnamon pull-aparts.

Tension had been killing her appetite lately, but today, the furnace inside had fired up to a roar. Cait loaded up her plate and found that the food was exactly as delicious as it looked and smelled.

After a while, she slowed down, licking sweet caramel pecan goo off her fingers and washing it down with coffee, tarted up with vanilla syrup and half-and-half.

“Delicious,” she told Demi fervently. “You made all of this stuff?”

“I supervised the making of all of it,” Demi said. “And I developed all the recipes.”

“So talented,” Cait moaned in bliss around a fresh mouthful of cinnamon roll.

“Glad you enjoy it,” Demi said.

When they were all stuffed, people moved to gather up dishes. Cait brought a pile of dirty plates into the kitchen, where Nate was loading the dishwasher and Elisa perched on a stool, nibbling a pastry. “These cinnamon rolls are treacherous, Demi,” she said. “I’m already full, but I’m still helplessly eating.”

“That’s music to my ears,” Demi said cheerfully.

“I ate your cooking last night, too,” Cait said. “Mace had some of your beef burgundy in the freezer at his dad’s house. Wonderful. So was that rosemary flatbread.”

“He took you to Otis’s house?” Demi and Elisa exchanged meaningful glances.

“Is there something significant about that?”

“It’s just a very private place, for all of them,” Demi said. “It’s quite something, that he would bring you there, and feed you dinner. He must really trust you. Eric only brought me there once. His memories of Otis make him too blue to go there.”

“Anton, too,” Elisa chimed in. “Nate told me that Anton can’t bear to go there for very long at a stretch, either. It just makes him too sad, thinking of how Otis died.”

“Was murdered,” Demi corrected. “By the Prophet’s curse. Like my parents.”

Cait’s ears pricked up. “Mace mentioned the Prophet’s curse,” she said. “He said it was a reference to their stepfather Jeremiah. But you two talk about it as if were a weapon. Which one is it? Or is it both things?”

Demi’s gaze slid away. “Maybe I should just stop talking until we’re all together.”

Cait sighed. So. She still made them nervous. Afraid to reveal too much. Which meant there was more to reveal, so great. She couldn’t blame these people for being nervous and scared, but for fuck’s sake. This was no time to waste.

When she’d finished her coffee, she noticed that the crowd had thinned appreciably. All four men were missing, and Fiona, too. She wondered if they had retired to some private room in the house to debate how much to tell her, or not tell her.

“Excuse me, but is there a bathroom I could use?” she asked Demi.

“There’s one off the kitchen in the back, but it’s a mess, with all the laundry,” Demi said. “The one upstairs is nicer. Straight down to the end of the hall and on your left.”

Cait climbed the stairs and made her way down the hall, listening. There was no murmur behind any of the doors, so she tiptoed up the next flight. Same configuration. Murmuring voices were just barely audible from behind the last door.

She leaned in closer, and recognized Mace’s voice.

“… instincts say that she’s for real,” he said forcefully. “She has relevant intel, and it would be insane not to take advantage of it.”

“With all due respect, you and your goddamn instincts haven’t gotten laid in months,” Anton said. “Kimball knows this, and he knows you. Your temperament, your strengths and weaknesses. He knows just how to play them. It’s his superpower. Getting into people’s heads and fucking with them there.”

“And it just seems too perfect to be true,” Eric said. “This woman, showing up out of nowhere, and hey, presto…she’s just your type.”

“What the fuck is my type?” Mace demanded.

“You know, classic pinup girl. Lots of curves, lots of hair, lots of attitude. You always went for that.”

“What would you know about my taste in women?” he demanded.

“Nothing Kimball hasn’t noticed, too,” Eric said. “It just seems too coincidental. This chick waltzes right into GodsAcre with new intel, hips swaying, tits bouncing—”

“Watch your mouth when you talk about her,” Mace said sharply.

Anton snorted impatiently. “I mean no disrespect. Just try to see it how we see it. Kimball sees an opening. A weak link he can exploit.”

“You have the nerve to tell me that, with your goddamn wedding planned this weekend?” Mace demanded. “That I’m the weak fucking link?”

“Try not to get defensive,” Eric soothed. “We all just want to get to some kind of life beyond this endless clusterfuck, where we can all be free, including you. Use your head. You built a successful multi-million-dollar business for yourself doing just that, so we know you can. Don’t let Kimball fuck you now, at the finish line.”

Cait flung open the door, and all five people swiveled their heads around.

“I’m not Kimball’s whore.” Her voice rang in the shocked silence.

Eric looked alarmed. “I didn’t imply that you—”

“Of course you did. You think I’m a mercenary sex worker trying to worm my way into your inner circle by fucking Mace.”

“We didn’t mean to offend you,” Anton said. “It’s nothing personal.”

“It feels pretty goddamn personal. You are dead wrong, and I will tell you why.”

“I’m sure you will. You go, girl.” Fiona’s eyes were bright with wry amusement.

“You looked me up online, right?” Cait demanded. “High school in Westlake Hills, won prizes at all the science fairs, got a Canbright Scholarship, studied at Stanford, highest honors, etc., etc. All of that is verifiable. Heavily photographed. Demonstrably me.”

“That’s how it looks so far,” Nate said.

“I got recruited by Research and Development of Sebold Labs. I worked hard to get where I am. I’ve published dozens of scientific papers. Feel free to read them. I’m a scientist. I don’t have the time or the energy to moonlight as a man-eating courtesan.”

Nate snorted with smothered laughter, then shrank back at her fiery glare. “Sorry.”

“This is no joke,” she warned him. “I went into virology, like Dad. Look him up, too. Thomas LaMott, Severus Biological Industries. He studied at Stanford, like me. His academic and professional life and his disappearance are all matters of public record.”

“Cait,” Mace said soothingly. “They didn’t mean to imply that you were—”

“Shut up and listen. From what I understand, this Kimball character is probably involved in my dad’s disappearance somehow, so I am incredibly motivated to follow every lead, using all of my resources. And you idiots are holding back because I might be a honeypot temptress? For fuck’s sake, people. I’m a biology nerd, not a femme fatale.”

Mace tried again. “Cait—”

“If Kimball hurt my dad, then I am taking him down. Hack me all you want. Dig in any databases. I’m not afraid to be caught in a lie because I have never misrepresented myself in my whole life. You’ve got your laptops.” She pointed at Eric. “You created Erebus, so I know you’ve got the tools you need. Go ahead. I’ll wait.”

A nervous silence, and Nate spoke up. “We did,” he said. “It’s just like you said.”

Cait looked around. “So what are we even talking about? What’s the hold-up?”

There was a silence, and Mace spoke up. “I’m already on board with her,” he said to the people in the room. “I looked her up. So did Josh. She looks legit. Tom LaMott did, too. I read about his disappearance.”

“Of course you’re on board with her,” Anton said sourly. “You’re in bed with her, too.”

Fiona stepped up, shoulder to shoulder with Cait. “I’m with her.”

“What?” Anton looked betrayed. “Fi? Seriously? Just like that?”

“A backstory as deep as hers would be incredibly hard to fake,” Fiona said. “Her story rings true to me.”

“Make some calls,” Cait said. “Verify everything. I swear to God. I want you to.”

“Thomas LaMott wrote some of the articles on my microchip,” Fiona told them. “I don’t feel a trap here. What I feel is a sense of missing pieces finally clicking together. My instincts aren’t suspect in the way that Mace’s are, and my instincts say she’s for real.”

“Same here,” Demi said, from outside the door. “Agreed.”

Eric made an irritated sound. “How long have you been out there? You were supposed to chat her up downstairs while we talked this out.”

Demi shrugged. “I couldn’t keep her chained in the kitchen. I vote for joining forces.”

“Me, too,” Elisa piped up from behind her.

Nate, Eric and Anton exchanged glances.

“Like I said, do more research if you need to,” Cait said. “Or not. I can just take my ball and go home if you’re not interested.”

“You can’t go back out there on your own,” Mace said swiftly. “No way.”

Cait shrugged. “I’ll seek protection from another quarter.”

“Yeah? Try and explain the situation to a cop from anywhere but here.”

“It wouldn’t be your problem anymore, Mace. I appreciate your help. You saved my ass last night. But excuse me if I’m miffed that your brothers all think that I’m a lying slut who’s in league with my own father’s murderer.”

“Don’t get uptight,” Eric said wearily. “You don’t know what we’re up against.”

“I’m up against it, too!” Cait pulled up her sleeve, showing the purple bruises over her wrists, then lifted the cuff of her wide-legged jeans over her ankle, showing the marks that marred her calf. “They’re my enemies, too! Do they have to kill me to convince you?”

“Those guys were trained up to be paranoid and suspicious since babyhood,” Demi told her. “They really can’t help themselves. It’s not about you.”

“I’m a Trask, too, and I do not identify with that,” Mace told them.

Eric locked eyes with Demi. “It’s too soon,” he said to her, his voice low and tense. “Too damn dangerous. Kimball’s trapped us before.”

“Yes, but we can’t miss an opportunity like this. We can’t just let this go on.” Her hand drifted down over her belly. “Cait’s info could be just what we need.”

Eric nodded slowly. “Okay.”

Fiona looked at Anton. “You?”

Anton made a disgusted sound. “Oh, fuck it,” he said. “The more the merrier. Throw caution to the winds, why don’t we.”

Nate’s eyes were fixed on Elisa. “I’m in,” he said.

“Good, then. We’re all on board,” Demi said briskly. “Let’s get to work.”

Back downstairs, Cait refilled her coffee cup. In the living room, everyone was taking a place on the couches and chairs around the fire. Mace reached out his hand and pulled her down next to him.

“Welcome to the nuthouse,” Elisa told her. “Glad to have you.”

“How did you get mixed up in this?” Cait asked her. “You and Nate aren’t Trasks. Was it just because Nate is their friend from way back?”

“Actually, Kimball is pissed at me and Nate personally,” Elisa explained. “I was on the run from a bad ex-husband. He’d locked up my brother to control me. Nate helped me spring Josh loose, but then Gil kidnapped me, so Nate used Kimball to attack my ex. He tricked Kimball into thinking he was selling a virus, and that Gil was the buyer.”

“Oh. So, Kimball…did he, ah…” Cait paused, wishing she hadn’t asked.

“Did he kill Gil? Yes, badly. But he didn’t find us. We hid in a bunker that my dad built. Near thing, though. So we made a fool of him, and he hates that, so now he wants to chop us into chunks. We’re all just so sick of it.”

“I bet you are,” Cait said.

“This is your life, too, now,” Demi warned her. “At least until we fix this. You would not believe the stuff that’s happened around here since Kimball wound himself up.”

“I can’t wait to hear it all,” Cait said. “But I’m curious about one thing. I’m doing this because I need to understand what happened to my dad. But what’s holding all of you to this place? Why don’t you all just scatter?”

It was Anton who finally answered. “We’re like you,” he said simply. “We all lost parents to Kimball. He killed Jeremiah in the fire. He murdered Otis. They were our two father figures. More or less successful, more or less paternal, but they were all we had.”

“He killed my parents, too,” Demi said. “Both of them.”

“And my mom,” Fiona added. “She died in the GodsAcre fire. We all have skin in the game.”

Cait looked around, sobered and chilled. “I’m so sorry.”

Eric nodded. “But even aside from that, we think this whole thing is bigger than just what he’s taken from us personally. Kimball wants more. And we think that when he actually finds the Prophet’s curse…that’s when the real killing starts.”

A cold shudder rippled up Cait’s spine as she studied the tension on their faces.

“The Prophet’s curse,” she repeated. “Somebody please explain what that means.”

“We’re not entirely sure,” Mace said.

“Give me your best guess, then,” she urged.

Mace looked like he was steeling himself. “We think that the Prophet’s curse is some kind of biological weapon.”