Ball & Chain

Kelly came over to help Ty go through the suitcases. “He brought an awful lot of stuff for a week.”



Ty nodded, frowning at the three large suitcases full of clothing, shoes, toiletries, and electronics. “It’s almost like he wasn’t planning on going back home,” he said. He and Kelly shared a glance.



Kelly pulled out a Dopp kit and unzipped it. It was brimming with toiletries and medicine bottles. “Why would this all be packed up? He had six more days, why not take it into the bathroom, lay everything out?”



Ty’s frown deepened. He turned to the large wardrobe. It was empty. No suits hanging, nothing folded into the drawers. All of Milton’s things were neatly packed. “He either never unpacked, or he was planning on leaving last night.”



Kelly was scowling when Ty met his eyes. “This guy’s starting to feel shady, man.”



Ty grunted in agreement. “We need to get into that laptop. Gather it up, we’ll take it with us.”



“What about his phone? Did he have it on him?”



“Yeah, but it got wet. It’s useless.”



Kelly shrugged. “Let’s go put it in some rice.”



“Rice?”



“Yeah, it soaks up the water.” Kelly bundled up the laptop and stuck it under his arm. “I dropped mine in the toilet once. A little rice, a little Clorox. Good as new!”



Ty swiped a hand over his face as they left the room. “That is so gross.”



Zane approached the table where Burns and Earl were sitting, drinking coffee and playing some sort of card game. He could feel Nick behind him. He was a very physical presence, and Zane now completely understood why Ty had always trusted the man to have his back.



“Earl. Director Burns,” Zane said with a nod at each man.



“Hey, Zane, Nick. Take a load off,” Earl invited with a jerk of his head to the empty chairs at the table. “We heard there was another murder.”



“Yes, sir,” Nick said softly. “I’m afraid we didn’t come to play cards. Director Burns, we’d like to speak with you about a few things.”



Zane glanced at him, surprised he’d gone the direct route. His jaw was tight and his green eyes were hard and sparkling. Zane groaned internally. Ty had been right. Zane was going to have to pry Nick’s fingers from Burns’s neck, he knew he was.



Burns and Earl exchanged frowns, then Burns placed his cards on the table and nodded. “What do you need to discuss?”



Nick’s hard stare remained on Burns, but Zane looked between the two older men pointedly. “It has to do with work. It’s probably best we speak in private.”



Burns pursed his lips and stood. “I’ll be back,” he said to Earl. He came around the table, watching Nick with an almost curious expression.



Zane turned to lead them both into one of the unoccupied rooms that lined the great hall. They settled in the parlor. Burns sat in one of the chairs near the large stone fireplace, and Zane and Nick sat opposite him on a small sofa.



“What’s going on, boys?”



“Was Milton one of your men?” Nick asked, his voice hard.



Burns’s only reaction was a rapid series of blinks.



“The watch he wore,” Zane said. “It was just like Ty’s, the one you gave him with the GPS in it.”



“He’s also dead, just like most of your recruits,” Nick practically snarled.



Burns cleared his throat. “This is going to be unproductive with him present. Unless he intends to use his alternative interrogation skills,” he said with a point at Nick. He stood to go.



Nick was on his feet so fast Zane didn’t even have a chance to grab for him. He blocked Burns’s path, and the two men stood eyeing each other, trapped in the space between the chair and the coffee table.



“Son, you don’t want to make a mistake here,” Burns said almost kindly. “You need to get out of the way.”



“I don’t take orders from you. Sir. Sit down.”



Burns narrowed his eyes and jutted his chin out, but he must have seen just as plainly as Zane could that Nick wasn’t going to let him leave this room. He gave a curt nod and returned to the chair by the fireplace.



Nick remained standing, his arms crossed over his chest like a bouncer at a club.



Zane gave him a wary once-over before turning his attention back to Burns. “Was he one of your men?”



Burns cleared his throat and nodded. “He was.”



“Was he planted with the Stanton company?”



“He was already part of the Stanton company,” Burns said. “They’re developing highly classified equipment for the military, we needed a watchdog. We recruited him.”



“Why the hell didn’t you come out and say that when we found his body?” Nick demanded.



“Because Stanton can’t know. I don’t have to tell you what a mess it would be if it got out that a government agent had infiltrated a private company like that. You can imagine how that would make Stanton and his board of directors react if they found out.”



“Did you put him up to introducing Deuce and Livi?” Nick asked.



“What? No, why would I do that?”



Zane rubbed his fingers over one temple. “So, his sole job was to guard this technology being developed?”



“For me, yes.”



“That means whoever killed him probably did it for the information he was protecting,” Nick said to Zane.



“You should have told us this,” Zane said to Burns.



Burns shook his head. “It’s need-to-know, Garrett.”



“That woman’s life, the cook? Her blood is on your hands,” Nick growled. “All your cloak-and-dagger bullshit, all it does is get people killed.”



Burns didn’t answer. He sat staring at Nick, his expression unreadable.



“O’Flaherty,” Zane said gently. “Why don’t you go find Grady and Abbott, see what they found?”



Nick continued to glare at Burns, his nostrils flaring and his jaw jumping as he clenched his teeth. He finally nodded and turned to leave. The door slammed shut behind him.



When Zane returned his attention to Burns, the man was still watching the door. His face had softened, and he seemed almost melancholy. He sighed heavily when he met Zane’s eyes. “I admire his loyalty. And his fire. That was why I tried to recruit him.”



“Director Burns,” Zane said, continuing with his questioning despite the surprise of learning that Burns had actively sought Nick out as well as Ty and Elias Sanchez. “Why would someone take the watch off one of your operatives? Is information stored in it?”



Burns frowned deeply. “No. No, all it has is the GPS. And that’s all a live feed; it doesn’t store information. For that, you’d need the accompanying software system.”



“And where is that?” Zane asked.



Burns shrugged. “My office.”



“Is there any way to reach it remotely?”



“I suppose you could go through my tablet or laptop. Neither of which I have here. I’ve honestly never tried.”



Zane nodded, even more confused than he had been. “Would breaking the watch corrupt the GPS?”



“Not the information that’s already been sent. Why crack the watch open?” Burns asked.



“We have no idea. The watch makes no sense right now, and it’s gone, so . . .” Zane ran a finger over his nose. “Who would even know it was special?”



“The watch?”



“Yeah.”



“Anyone who knew it had GPS. Another operator. Anyone who’s done black ops or dark ops and used a similar system, including Grady and O’Flaherty. I would suspect even you would have known to do that, had you recognized the watch for what it was.”



Zane narrowed his eyes. “So, whoever knew the watch was a tracking device is who we’re after.”



“I would suppose, yes.”



“And you didn’t think that was need-to-know?” Zane asked through gritted teeth.



Burns sat forward. “Zane, you’ve always been a big-picture kind of guy. That’s a unique ability. You shouldn’t lose it.”



Zane couldn’t find his voice to respond.



“Is that all?”



Zane met his eyes. There were so many things he wanted to say to this man, and most of them would probably end with a punch being thrown. He almost wished he’d unleashed Nick just so he could witness it. He had to remind himself, though, that Burns was also the reason he and Ty were together at all. The reason they had remained partners long enough to solidify their relationship, even if it had been for ulterior motives. Burns was the one who’d given Zane his second chance. He couldn’t find it in himself to truly hate the man even though he wanted to for the underhanded things Burns had done.



He swallowed hard and nodded. “That’s it.”



Nick practically pounced on Ty and Kelly as they were making their way through the great hall toward the kitchen stairs. His sudden appearance damn near kicked Ty’s instakill into action.



“What’d you find?” Nick demanded.



Ty examined him with a growing hint of apprehension. He was as taut as a bowstring, and Ty could tell the next person to pass in front of Nick’s target area was going to seriously take one for the team. “Did you do violence to anyone?”



“Only in my mind,” Nick growled. “What did you find?”



Kelly held up the laptop. “It’s password protected. We’re going to let Zane take a stab at it.”



Nick stared at him incredulously. “Take a stab at it? Really?”



Kelly blinked. “Oh. Oh, that was an unintentional pun. That was bad form, I’m sorry.”



Nick just shook his head.



Ty snorted, though, feeling guilty for doing it. “We were heading for the meat locker to get Milton’s phone, see what we could pull off it,” he told Nick. “What’d Burns have to say?”



“Milton was one of his.”



Ty’s blood seemed to run a little colder. “Seriously?”



Nick nodded curtly. “Garrett made me leave before I heard anything else.”



Ty could imagine why Zane had kicked Nick out if he’d been half as wound up in there as he was now. “Okay,” he said carefully. He and Kelly shared a glance. Ty’s eyes drifted down to Kelly’s little bag of medical tricks, still slung over his shoulder. Kelly gave him an almost imperceptible nod. “You two go see what you can do with the phone, I’ll take the laptop to Zane, see if he can get past the security on it.”



“That really the best use of our time right now?” Nick asked.



Ty came up short, frowning at Nick. “You got something better to do?”



Nick snorted and turned to stalk off toward the kitchen stairs. Ty hissed at Kelly and pointed to his bag as Kelly handed off the laptop. “Sedate the fuck out of him if he goes off the rails.”



Kelly snorted and gave him a smart salute, then jogged after Nick.



“Holy shit,” Ty whispered to himself before turning and going off to find Zane.



“Ty.”



Ty skidded to a halt on the slick marble floor. He’d walked right past Zane, coming out of the parlor door. Ty turned on him, eyes wide. “Milton was one of Dick’s guys?”



Zane nodded grimly.



“What’d he tell you?”



“Okay, so Burns says Milton was guarding some sort of new technology or information, he isn’t sure which.”



“That’s what they cut him open to find, huh? Thinking he swallowed it? Has to be a memory chip or . . . a flash drive wouldn’t go down easy.”



“Likely not. Abbott’s convinced they didn’t find it, though. That’s why they took the watch.”



“For the GPS?” Ty guessed.



“Yep.”



“Because he probably stashed it somewhere, and the watch can tell you where he’s been.”



“Yep.”



“But they can’t read it without the proper equipment. Why would they take it? And why fucking smash it?”



Zane shrugged. “They might not know any of that. Thought it was a transmitting chip. I don’t know. What’s with the laptop?”



Ty held it up for Zane. “It’s Milton’s. Password protected. You think you can get into it?”



“Yep,” Zane said again without hesitation. He took it from Ty and glanced around the great hall. “Let’s go find somewhere quiet.”



Ty trailed after him, a smile playing on his lips. “You’re kind of sexy when you take charge like that.”



“Shut up, Ty,” Zane said, but his voice trembled with laughter.



The kitchen had mostly been cleaned up by the time Nick and Kelly got back down there, but Nick still hesitated, just as he’d done that morning at breakfast. It was embarrassing as hell to completely lose it like he had, even if it had happened before in front of Ty and Kelly, even if he had pulled both of them through similar episodes of their own. Nick didn’t like not being in control of himself, and he definitely didn’t like the idea that he’d taken a swing at Kelly without even realizing what he was doing.



Kelly placed a hand at the small of his back in silent support before he made his way over to the freezer where all three bodies were being stored. There was no guard down here, but why would there be? Milton’s body had already been picked clean of everything the perpetrators wanted, the cook had merely been collateral damage, and Nikki had just been placed in there. Who would have thought to guard the dead bodies in the first place?



For that matter, who would have expected dead bodies at a wedding? Ty and Zane, that’s fucking who.