CHAPTER FOUR
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Brody leaned against the passenger side door of his black 2013 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. He liked the unique cross between the utility and the amenities of the top end model. He even vacuumed out the interior earlier today in deference to his future houseguest, who he was currently patiently waiting to appear from her apartment building.
Brody found himself analyzing the building’s safety and noting the angles that the various security cameras were recording. Interestingly enough, the camera that should have been recording the approach to the aboveground garage used by the association’s tenants had exposed, freshly-cut wires hanging from the mounting bracket. It was something that he would have to look into at a later date, definitely well before SSI’s newest protectee returned to her ordinary life.
The agency had been contacted by Ralph Forsythe, the owner of Forsythe Advertising. As a new client of SSI, Ralph had requested a time and place where Brody could meet his newly assigned charge and begin their service coverage as outlined in their contract.
Remy Kinkaid was five minutes late exiting her apartment building, but he didn’t mind the delay. He was on the clock. Waiting and anticipating played a large part of his job responsibility.
Ms. Kinkaid had no idea that he’d arrived an hour earlier and parked across the street, monitoring her arrival and the surrounding areas for any sign of David Varan. This man was nothing more than an apprentice compared to the highly perceptive serial killer SSI was currently dealing with, but Varan was still deadly in his own right. Men like him weren’t to be underestimated or cured. They were considered a singularity in human civilization who needed to be safely contained or destroyed.
The dossier that SSI had on David Allen Varan was quite extensive, including a wide array of court-ordered psychological exams documenting his mental state during and prior to his trial and subsequent incarceration.
Varan was not in the building, nor was he anywhere in the immediate vicinity. Brody had done three sweeps of the complex, as well as scouting the immediate area. A brief phone call into the service hired to maintain the court’s required GPS tracking, which in turn reported to the state’s outpatient supervisory board, found that the man of the hour was currently at a job interview.
Varan was at a private electronics firm’s HR office. They apparently needed an accountant for their payroll department. It was highly unlikely Varan would be awarded a position within any reputable firm, but it appeared he was not only delusional, he also had an overdeveloped sense of self-worth making up a massive chunk of his genetic makeup.
Low thumping vibrations caught Brody’s attention. The muted bass sounds were coming from a beat-up old vehicle turning into the small visitor’s parking lot of Ms. Kinkaid’s apartment building. A quick glance told him it was a young man in his early twenties who was clearly expecting to meet up with someone returning home from work sometime soon. Most likely they were going to an early dinner or maybe a sporting event, considering the anxious glances around the area, his informal apparel, and the continual checking of his watch while waiting in his beat-up Chevy Cavalier.
Brody crossed his right sandal over his left one, wondering why kids this age didn’t just join the service. He could give back to his country, earn some life experience, and save some money toward paying for a college degree in the process. He wouldn’t have to make ends meet by working endless hours every week in a dead-end job, most likely living off the pizza he delivered to customers every evening. All he was doing now was carving out the occasional evening to enjoy a few free moments with his friends and piling up debt if he was in fact already going to school for that associate’s degree in liberal arts.
Sure, there were inherent dangers associated with any type of military service, but it was also hazardous to cross a city street at any time of the day or night. Six of one, half dozen of another. Chances were that the kid would end up paying on the debt he’d collected now until he was forty. Fate held the only leverage on choosing when one’s hourglass ran out of sand.
Running around the world, working side by side with people you’d die for, and experiencing a little adventure wasn’t a bad way to go.
Brody turned his attention back to the main entrance of the apartment complex. His future boarder had arrived twenty minutes prior in her modest, white Ford Focus driving into the aboveground parking garage attached to her building and talking briefly with the building security man on post at the entrance. She had quickly made her way into the building’s garage, without taking note that someone other than Varan was watching her every move.
Ms. Kinkaid had checked her surroundings as she’d approached the garage’s monolithic entrance, all the while keeping her right hand down off the wheel. He presumed her fingers were either inside of her purse or resting on it. The problem was that she’d only been focused on searching for just the one man, and had dismissed all others as incidental. That type of selective filtering was likely to get her hurt at some point in the future.
It didn’t surprise him that she was armed, seeing as the file he’d read over this morning had mentioned she’d gotten a Florida state concealed carry permit four years prior. Brody didn’t mind that she carried a weapon, especially since she had purchased the additional training package offered by the firearms dealer and kept up with what her range membership offered as far as follow-up courses for situational shooting in cases of self-defense.
“Any time,” Brody muttered underneath his breath. It wasn’t because he was personally in a hurry. It had everything to do with the fact that Forsythe had explained she would meet Brody outside of her apartment building at sixteen thirty hours. That time had come and gone. Nothing Brody said had changed the man’s mind. Why? He could have easily met Ms. Kinkaid at Forsythe Advertising Agency. Meeting her under controlled circumstances would have ensured her personal safety from that point on. That instruction alone told him that Ms. Kinkaid might not be so keen on having her every move monitored. “Trouble. She’s going to be trouble, mark my words.”
There was nothing more frustrating than protecting someone who went to extreme lengths to maintain their own personal distance…and it appeared Remy Kinkaid was going to prove that point in this case.
That instinctive assumption wasn’t enough to dull his good mood. The sun was still shining, the light breeze kept the rays from being too warm, and he’d succeeded in getting the logistics in place to allow the rest of the team to settle into where they needed to be for their mission. Brody was now on-call and would provide whatever technical support the investigative group on the ground needed while doing his own online digging, trying to decipher every step Moss had taken since his escape from federal prison.
The irony wasn’t lost on him that he was supposed to protect a woman going through something very similar to what Shailyn Doyle was currently experiencing…only he wasn’t so sure that Ms. Doyle was even aware her past attacker was currently a fugitive on the lam from his prison cell. Calvert didn’t want the team involved with the federal agency’s part of the operation, which would contact her and provide her with surveillance and protection. He wanted to reduce the probability that their efforts would lead Moss to his intended victim. That was a reasonable consideration, but it did limit their ability to coordinate efforts should Moss locate Doyle on his own prior to their efforts determining his current whereabouts.
Speaking of locating his target.
Remy Kinkaid just made an appearance at the entrance. He pushed aside the thought that she was her own little ray of sunshine arriving on the scene all cheerful and smiling, though it did seem her demeanor was briefly dimmed by a few overhead clouds as she glanced up at the sky.
She was still wearing the black pantsuit she’d worn upon arriving home from work, along with those very distinctive red high heels he’d noticed right away. Nothing like calling attention to one’s self in public when you were afraid of being stalked by an insane and highly violent psychopathic killer.
She was rather petite, but he was already aware that she stood at five feet and four inches from her personal data in the profile he’d been given. She was a pixie. He wondered why she hadn’t changed into something a little more comfortable, but maybe she just wanted to get to the next location before letting down her hair. He couldn’t blame her if that was her rather understandable precaution.
Brody lifted his aviator sunglasses to observe his new houseguest who would be staying at the team’s compound with him for the next couple of weeks. A couple strands of her blonde hair wisped across her face from the warm breeze as her blue eyes immediately sought his. He was gathering his first impression of his primary responsibility who would occupy his time during the foreseeable period.
Loneliness.
Anger.
Pain.
Those were the raw emotions Brody witnessed in those baby blues of hers, and he had to remind himself that he was only the hired help and not her personal savior. It wasn’t in his job description to erase her past wounds. He already worried about one young woman in his life—his sister. There wasn’t room for another right at the moment. He settled his sunglasses back in place before pushing off his vehicle and stepping forward to gain her attention.
“Ms. Kinkaid?” Brody would have offered his hand, but Remy had an apparel bag hanging over one arm with a small suitcase in the other. She also had her purse strapped to one shoulder, while using her other to carry her laptop portfolio. He relieved her of three of those items and then gestured toward the Jeep. “I’m Brody Novak from SSI. I’m sorry we had to meet under these trying circumstances, but I think you’ll find that you’ll be quite safe at our new location at the estate.”
“Um, it’s nice to meet you,” Remy greeted him rather hesitantly, her eyes sliding from his Jeep to the garage where her car was located on the second level of the four-story parking structure in confusion. “My car’s in the garage. I can just follow you and—”
“I think it’s better if you ride with me. If we need another vehicle, we have access to whatever you might need at the estate.” Brody lifted her suitcase and apparel bag over the back hatch and set her luggage inside the small storage compartment. The only time he ever had the hardtop on was when it was scheduled to rain. The rest of the time he ran a mesh Jeep bikini top. He didn’t have to look at her to know that his suggestion of taking one vehicle was going to be a problem. “Varan will most likely think you’re out of town on business once he sees your vehicle hasn’t moved in days. Trust me, this is for the best.”
“He might think the same thing when he can’t locate my vehicle,” Remy pointed out with a slight edge to her tone. Brody sighed in acceptance and gave himself a mental high-five for calling this one right. She technically didn’t want SSI’s services, but something had made her and Forsythe Advertising believe she needed it. Calvert’s warning that she might consider taking matters into her own hands didn’t quite ring true, though. She didn’t remind him of the type of woman to seek revenge and throw away her life on someone who didn’t deserve her time or energy. She was independent and didn’t like being told what to do. That trait probably didn’t exclude following rules established for her safety. He could adapt to that, though he would set some ground rules later. He decided to change tactics when she adjusted the strap of her black purse on her shoulder before crossing her arms around her middle. It was a defensive gesture and one he’d seen many times as clients struggled with restrictions. “Please. I’d like to have my vehicle with me.”
Brody was used to picking his battles with women. He’d been raised by a single mom and a baby sister who’d had him wrapped around his finger from the time she was born. Choosing the right battles could award him the victory of the war, and he was nothing if not smart. He studied Remy and while she certainly wasn’t his sister, he could see that the next thirty seconds would establish a trust between the two of them.
“Hop in, and I’ll drive you into the parking garage,” Brody relented, reaching for the door handle. He opened the passenger side door and waited for her to accept that there wouldn’t be a struggle for control. Her lips parted and the sunshine glistened off her pink lip gloss as she nodded slightly at his willingness to compromise. A smidge of tension eased from her straightened shoulders. It was a start. “I’m assuming your car has a GPS navigation system? I’ll give you the address, and you can take the lead as we drive out there. I’ll follow close behind. I just need to make sure we aren’t followed.”
It was easy to see that Remy didn’t understand his request. She didn’t need to, though he had no doubt he’d fill her in on the short drive to her car. Brody would erase the history on the hard drive of the GPS after he disconnected it from the network once they reached their destination, but he had no control over what could happen if she were behind him en route to the compound. The only choice he had if he were going to let her drive to Sorrento was to have her in front of him so he could have a clear view of any attempted attacks or efforts to track her to her destination.
Brody held out a hand to assist her into the Jeep, but she chose to use the handlebar on the side by the doorframe. She hoisted herself up effortlessly, telling him that she kept herself in good shape. That much was obvious from her petite frame, as well as the fact that she actually utilized her gym membership every morning before work. She never missed a day, if at all possible. Was it strictly because of her dedication to her own good health, or was it because of something else entirely?
He closed the door once she was safely inside, noticing she set her purse on her lap. He tried not to take offense that she was that insecure. To her credit, she didn’t know him just yet.
“Varan’s not anywhere in the vicinity,” Brody reassured her, settling into the driver’s side and immediately turning down the radio once he’d started the engine. He shifted into drive and checked his side mirror for an opening. “He’s at a job interview as we speak. Granted, he won’t be hired, but we’ll be long gone before he even realizes you’ve left the area.”
Remy didn’t say anything to that bit of newfound information. He merged with the traffic waiting to pull into the garage and then immediately flipped out his credentials for the security guard. It wasn’t long before he pulled his Jeep in line with the back of her Ford Focus two floors up. He didn’t miss the downturn of her perfectly shaped eyebrows, or her previous once-over of his attire. She didn’t like Hawaiian shirts? She must not like to watch reruns of “Magnum PI” either. That was too bad. Brody loved the ’80’s era series.
Brody glanced down at her hands, which were still resting on top of her purse. She’d had a French manicure within the past week, and he was aware she had a hair appointment on Thursday. She’d also tucked those flyaway strands behind her ear and smoothed out her suit jacket. Every movement she made was measured, and she paused before replying.
Was her life always so orderly? Her profile hadn’t included any diagnosis of OCD with her medical evaluation.
Oh man, these next two weeks were going to be fun-filled.
Brody turned the engine off before palming his keys. She was still watching him closely and most likely trying to figure out what he was doing. He didn’t say a word as he exited the vehicle and then came around to open her door.
“You didn’t have to shut off your engine,” Remy pointed out, with a slight gesture toward the steering wheel. “You can tell me the address and—”
“Ms. Kinkaid, you’re under twenty-four hour protection. That includes sweeps of potential chokepoints, clearing likely avenues of approach, and certain gentlemanly gestures which in fact are actually meant to be protective measures. I’m solely responsible for your health and welfare,” Brody pointed out, holding out his hand and receiving an arched brow. It was engrained in him from the time he was a small boy to be a gentleman, and he wouldn’t stop just because she didn’t appear to be used to it. He briefly wondered what kind of men she dated. “And you never, ever leave your keys in the ignition when you’re not in your vehicle.”
Remy gave the slightest tip of her head in acknowledgement of his small discourse masquerading as if it were a recommendation, almost as if he’d passed some sort of test. Brody refrained from saying anything else as she laid her soft hand in his, though that didn’t diminish the physical strength he could sense from her grip as she jumped out. She was certainly full of contradictions.
“Keys?” Brody requested, waiting patiently while she reached into a side pocket and pulled out her keyring. There was no digging in her purse the way his mother and sister did when they were trying to find something. Again, he noted her penchant for organization and concise actions. “Let’s get you situated.”
Brody didn’t waste time and pressed the unlock button on her key fob. He’d already given another sweep of their surroundings and the interior of the vehicle as he opened the driver’s side door of her Ford Focus. He settled in and started the engine, instantly taking note of the GPS system. He pressed the necessary choices and had her destination entered in under forty-five seconds, all the while surveying the interior of her vehicle.
There wasn’t a fucking speck of lint anywhere on the fabric of the four-year-old car, and that included the seats in the back. He could just picture her out here with a lint brush every morning before leaving for work. She was wound far too tight, and that only told him this current development could very well send her over the edge. Maybe Ralph Forsythe knew his employees better than Brody had first thought.
“You’re all set in here.” Brody unfolded his large frame, not expecting Remy to have been leaning down to inspect what he’d been doing. She stepped back, suddenly off balance, but he put his hands on her upper arms to steady her. She’d used a pink lip liner underneath her gloss and it had been applied perfectly. Damn, but he had to fight his inner demons with the urge not to mess this assignment up. “You lead the way. I’ll be right behind you to ensure no one follows us out to Sorrento. You might not see me at different periods, but I’ll be right there behind you if you need me.”
Brody saw that she was safely inside her car with the door closed behind her before reminding himself that this was business. Sure, she was a beautiful woman with an obvious taste for fine quality clothes and accessories. But she was nothing more than another brief assignment and he would do well to remember that while they were out at the compound all alone at night. Besides, she really wasn’t his type.
Ms. Remy Kinkaid was twisted way too fucking tight for his liking.
Like a fine cigar, a woman needed to be loose enough to draw through. Not even the best tobacco leaf could guarantee the resulting quality. She was going to be a hard draw.
It wasn’t long before he was shifting into reverse and giving her room to back out of the space she’d parked in, finally getting them on the road when they should have left here at least twenty minutes ago.
It did dawn on him that for someone so methodical in the way she lived her life, Remy most likely prided herself for being on time. So why had there been such a long delay in meeting him out front?
Brody didn’t like being kept in the dark, especially when relevant information was being withheld from him. Lack of pertinent facts would only affect his ability to protect her, and therefore only place her in that much more danger. They’d have to have a brief sit down later tonight to go over the house rules.
His cell phone chimed, the tone indicating an incoming call versus a text, but he’d turned down the radio earlier. He glanced at the monitor in the middle of his dashboard, reading Sawyer’s name. His plane must have landed earlier in New Orleans.
Brody pressed the black unencrypted button that would allow the call to come through the speakers without the added time to sync up the preamble of a secure call.
“We need to talk to Calvert about hiring a secretary,” Brody greeted as he pressed on the brake to slow down to a stop as Remy came up to a stoplight. She was watching him carefully in her rearview mirror. “I ended up making everyone’s housing arrangements and rental car requests. I’m turning into a fucking travel agent.”
“Executive administrative assistant is the latest PC title, I believe,” Sawyer corrected, his amusement coming through loud and clear. “And why would we hire someone else when you’re so good at your job?”
“Bite my dick.” Brody accelerated forward, taking notice of the cars and trucks around them, watching out for any suspicious vehicles that had been with them for more than a few lights. The coast was clear and it wasn’t long until they were on I-4 East. He should have told her to take FL-408 West and then cut up SR429, but she was only following the instructions of the GPS was spitting out. “I take it you landed uneventfully?”
“That I did.” Sawyer sounded a little too pleased with himself, leaving Brody wondering what he’d missed since being away from his monitors for the past couple of hours. He didn’t have to wait too long to find out, and it sure as hell wasn’t about work. “You aren’t going to believe who I just bumped into while hailing a cab.”
Sawyer was one of those people who intentionally dragged out conversations for others to anticipate his point. It sure as hell wasn’t the other way around.
“Sawyer, spit it the hell out.”
“Your sister. Camryn.”
“I know my sister’s name,” Brody snapped, clutching the steering wheel so he didn’t say something he’d regret. He told himself numerous times that Sawyer didn’t have a thing for Camryn. He was only goading Brody, and this time it wouldn’t work. “Did you talk to her or did you just drool? What’s she doing in New Orleans?”
“She’s looking great, man. She mentioned something about a television pilot and…hold on a second.” Whatever Sawyer said after that was to someone else and Brody couldn’t make out his muffled words. The son of a bitch was probably doing this on purpose. What was Camryn doing in New Orleans anyway? She was supposed to be in Daytona working on her new movie. “Hey, I’ve got to go. I’ll touch base tonight.”
Sawyer disconnected the line before Brody could ask him any more questions, but that was alright. He would give his sister a call this evening and talk to her himself. Sawyer was just trying to get under his skin, just like he’d been for the past month and a half. No one on his team would think it was all right to actually go after one of their sisters, right? He reserved the right to kick the shit out of any of his teammates who made a move on his sister. Sawyer had to know that.
Brody fought to stem his irritation as he glanced down at his speedometer, noticing that Remy was driving at quite a good clip. Wasn’t that interesting? He’d have to update her profile on that particular trait.
He couldn’t prevent a small grin at the irregularity in her behavior, making a mental note to be extra observant over the next two weeks to record her small foibles. She might be methodical in her everyday routines, but there was a wild side that could be totally unpredictable given her normal modus operandi.
With that little morsel of information, Brody would do well to take some extra precautions in safeguarding his charge.