Ball & Chain

“Nick, how long ago was Fraser contacted?” Zane asked.



“He said three weeks.”



“Three weeks. And Livi, you met Nikki Webb when?”



“Two months ago.”



Zane glanced at Emma, narrowing his eyes. “When did your team get shelved?”



“A month ago. Why?”



“When did Deuce ask you to bring your cameraman?”



“Last week, when he invited me to the wedding.”



Zane nodded, narrowing his eyes at Marley King.



The man’s eyes grew wider and he pointed to himself. “I’m a vegetarian,” he said. “I don’t kill things. Hell, I don’t even like cutting my grass, man. That fresh-cut grass smell? That’s plants in distress!”



Kelly moved closer to Zane, lowering his head and crossing his arms. “Burns’s knuckles were fucked up, man. Whoever he fought with would have bruises starting to show. See if any of them are wearing makeup.”



Zane peered at him. “Makeup?”



Kelly nodded, completely serious.



“What if it was Kline?”



Kelly shrugged. “Got to start somewhere, right?”



Zane took a deep breath. “Anyone got any makeup remover on them?”



Catalina Cruz raised her hand, as did Ashlee, who was sitting beside her. They dug in their purses and produced several disposable wipes. Kelly collected them with murmured thank-yous, then turned to Marley as he took one of the wipes out of its packet.



“I’m not wearing makeup,” Marley told them, chuckling nervously. He waved a hand at his face. “Nobody on this island can match this perfect skin tone.”



Kelly was smiling, but he still gave Marley’s face a few swipes. He examined the wipe, then showed it to Zane.



“Looks like you’re free to go, Mr. King,” Zane said. He was pleased, because he really liked Emma’s cameraman.



“Are you fucking serious with this?” Theo Stanton asked. “Makeup remover?”



“Anyone want to confess and make this go faster?” Nick asked. He was leaning against a side table near the door, arms crossed over his chest.



John English stepped forward. “No, but I’ll volunteer to get my damn face wiped off next.”



“Me too,” Matthew and Christian said in unison.



Zane caught English throwing Ty a wink and a smirk. He knew what needed to happen here, and it seemed he was helping out. Ty appeared to trust the man, so Zane would as well. For now. If he threw Ty another wink they’d be having problems, though.



Kelly went to each man, wiping their faces with the makeup remover wipes. When he approached Theo, the man stood and glared at him.



“You’re not touching me with that.”



Kelly cocked his head, and a slow smile developed on his face.



“Why is that?” Ty asked Theo. “Allergies?”



“No, it’s called civil rights, and I have them. I haven’t killed anyone, Jesus Christ.” He waved imploringly to his father and sister. “This is ridiculous, you both know I’d never do this to our family!”



Nick cleared his throat. “Kelly, put him down.”



Kelly moved with shocking speed, wrapping Theo up and pinning his arm. Then he stepped between Theo’s legs, turned, and dropped to his knees, letting gravity hurl Theo over his shoulder and flatten him on the floor.



Theo lay gasping for breath, shocked into immobility. Livi screamed, and Stanton shouted a wordless protest, but no one else moved.



Zane stepped forward and pulled his gun, pointing it at Theo’s face. “How about you answer some questions the easy way, hmm?”



Theo nodded, still gasping for breath.



“If company secrets were sold, what would happen to the company?”



“We’d lose the DOD contracts. Shareholders would start selling off left and right. We’d be forced to liquidate everything in the following year. In eighteen months, we’d be bankrupt.”



Zane glanced over his shoulder at Stanton.



“He’s right.”



“If I were part of this, I would be digging my own financial grave. The company’s worth billions of dollars; no rival could offer me enough money to give that up, much less betray my family,” Theo said through gritted teeth.



Zane relaxed and stuffed the gun back into his pants. He and Kelly helped Theo up. “Next time just let him wipe your damn face,” Zane said. He gave Theo a shove toward his family and turned to the remaining suspects.



Hamish Boyd pushed to his feet, using his cane to make his way toward Zane. “If you are truly considering me or Mackie as suspects over these hired thugs, you must be a sad example of a Yank policeman.”



“No, that’s me,” Nick broke in. He’d drawn his weapon and had it pointed at Hamish’s head.



“Nick,” Zane whispered.



“His cane is a gun, Garrett.”



Zane’s eyes darted to Hamish’s cane.



“Are you serious right now?”



“I’ve seen them before,” Nick assured Zane. “It’s a gun.”



“That’s preposterous!” Hamish shouted. He raised the cane to wave it around, and Ty hit Zane from the side, tackling him to the ground and covering his body with his. There was a sound like someone opening a biscuit can, and then the room devolved into madness. Zane rolled to his feet, drawing his weapon.



Solomon Frost, the blond Snake Eater who seemed to have made friends with everyone, had tackled Nick to the ground, and they were now wrestling over the gun in their hands. It went off, punching a hole through the wood paneling near Deuce and Livi’s heads. Livi screamed and Deuce lunged in front of her, shielding her and forcing her low to the ground. He reached out for the woman next to him, Miyoko Mason, who was holding her bloody arm and screaming that she’d been shot. The bullet fired from Hamish’s cane gun had hit her instead of Zane.



Hamish was frantically groping for something on the handle of his cane, and just as Kelly was about to take a run at the old man, he found the switch and a short knife flipped out of the bottom of the cane. Kelly skidded to a halt and took a step back.



“What the fuck kind of butler are you?” he shouted.



Hamish grinned and pointed his cane at Kelly’s face. “A bitter one.”



Zane didn’t know which way to turn or who to help first. Ty hadn’t gotten off the round yet. He was curled on his side, holding his arm, but it wasn’t clear if he’d been shot or if he’d merely aggravated his already hurt shoulder.



Nick hadn’t yet gained the upper hand against Frost, but he had managed to land an elbow or two to the man’s face and wrap his legs around Frost’s waist so he couldn’t roll off and get away.



Kelly had his gun out, pointing it at Hamish and ordering him to stand down. But he didn’t seem like he wanted to pull the trigger, and the old butler could see that.



“You had your own wife murdered,” Kelly said to him.



“You’ve obviously never been married.”



Kelly pursed his lips thoughtfully, shrugging like he might understand that reasoning.



English and Park pounced on Frost, burying Nick under yet another dog pile of limbs. Zane turned his gun on Hamish, only to fire off to the right at the last second when he saw a man standing directly behind Hamish, shovel raised high.



Chester took a mighty swing and whacked Hamish in the back of the head. The butler collapsed to the ground, his cane falling harmlessly at his side. English managed to subdue Frost, holding him in a headlock as Nick scratched and clawed his way out from under their weight.



Zane still stood in the middle of the chaos, every sense alert to every movement, every fiber of his being telling him there was still danger.



“What the fuck just happened?” Deuce shouted.



Chester laid his shovel over his shoulder and grinned at Zane. English and Park finally got Frost on his face, holding him down with a knee to his back. Kelly was helping Ty off the ground, looking at his shoulder and nodding. Nick was still sprawled on the floor, staring at the ceiling.



“Anyone have any rope?” English called out.



Kelly pulled out a pair of handcuffs and thrust them at Park.



“Why the hell do you have those?” Ty asked.



Kelly shrugged and grinned. “They’re Nick’s.”



“Oh God, no,” Ty blurted, covering his eyes.



Nick laughed. He rolled over and pushed himself to his hands and knees, but he remained there, either unable or unwilling to stand. He glanced up at Ty and Zane. “He likes the uniform, too.”



“No no no!” Ty cried.



“Well, that’s just unnecessary,” Earl said from the doorway. He had grabbed Mara and the two uninjured bridesmaids when the shooting had started and shoved them out of the room to safety. He also had the antique rifle from the dining room in his hands.



Hamish moaned and began to move. Zane shoved him to his back with the toe of his boot and pointed his gun in the old man’s face. “Start from the beginning.”



“I don’t know who paid us,” Hamish said groggily. His head was bleeding freely, but no one cared. “And you know the rest.”



“Humor me.”



“Jockie came to me with this plan. He said a man in a tavern had approached him. This island belonged to our families for centuries, and look at us! We’re servants on our own home!”



“Who else was involved?”



“No one! My wife had second thoughts and said she was going to tell Stanton, so we voted to get rid of her. That woman Nikki killed Aileen, then she and Maisie cut open Milton’s body to make you think Aileen was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”



“Gross,” Ty grunted.



“It worked,” Kelly added.



“Who killed Milton and why?” Zane demanded.



“I think we have that answer over here,” English called. He had his gun in Frost’s mouth, and he took it out and pressed it to Frost’s cheek. “Talk.”



“Nikki figured out Milton was working for the government. She told me she needed backup for their meet,” Frost told them. He sounded both ashamed and sorrowful, like the entire thing had been something he’d been convinced to do rather than wanted to do. “I’m sorry, boss.”



“Shut up,” English snarled. “Lenny’s dead because of you. You’re dead to me too, for all you’re worth.”



Frost blinked up at him, his jaw tightening.



“Keep going,” Park ordered. They were the first words Zane had heard the man speak.



“Milton gave Nikki a flash drive. She gave him a suitcase of money. Then I hit him in the head and we left him there. We didn’t realize until later that the flash drive was corrupted. It put a virus on the computer we uploaded it to and erased everything.”



“Did you put that flash drive on my laptop?” Zane asked, remembering the inexplicable failure of his brand-new laptop.



Frost nodded.



“Did you kill Nikki?” Zane asked him.



“Yes. That was my job, to clear her after she’d done hers. I thought I was the last man standing, so when people kept dying I started freaking out too. And I didn’t even fucking know Kline was with us until she went crazy and put a gun to Stanton’s head. I swear to God I didn’t kill the guy upstairs!”



Park stood and walked away from him. He took his sunglasses off and rubbed his hand over his eyes, revealing one that was milky white and another that was dark as obsidian. Then he put the glasses back on.



English shoved the gun harder into Frost’s face. “What else?”



“That’s all I know!”



“Who hired you?” Zane shouted at him. “Was it Richard Burns?”



“No! That was the name we were instructed to give, to cause chaos because he was on the island. The locals all thought he was the guy, okay? He was being set up. We were supposed to take him out at the end, but I swear I didn’t do it! It had to have been Kline or that fucking gardener!”



“Give us a name!” English demanded, digging the gun under Frost’s cheekbone.



“He was South American! The guy who hired me. De la Vega, okay? I never saw his face!”



Zane’s entire body flooded with ice. He lowered his weapon, blinking as the edges of his vision began to darken. De la Vega. The head of the Vega cartel, the man who’d tried to kill them in New Orleans. He’d come after Zane through Ty, and when that hadn’t worked, he’d come through Deuce’s in-laws.



Zane turned to meet Ty’s eyes. Ty shook his head.



“Is that the guy from NOLA?” Kelly asked.



“Yes,” Ty whispered.



“The guy who got Kelly shot?” Nick asked through gritted teeth. He had finally climbed to his feet.



“The locals, they all thought this was about money, about getting their island back. But that was just because we needed a smoke screen. It wasn’t even about the stuff on the flash drive! Our job was to retrieve the information, then plant it in Garrett’s computer so he’d go down for the theft,” Frost admitted. “All de la Vega wanted was for Garrett to go down. That’s it. I asked him, why not just kill the guy? And he said he wanted Garrett to suffer. That’s all he said.”



Nick and Kelly were both staring at Zane, but Zane’s world was narrowing as he listened. Ty’s hand came to rest on his back.



Frost’s voice was going higher, pleading as he explained. “But when the flash drive scrambled his laptop, the mission should have been aborted. I swear to God, Boss, that’s when I retreated. These fucking island hicks don’t know when to stop or we’d have just walked away!”