It’s all about the watch.
Sierra and I take the subway back to the apartment and I continue the mental path that I’ve been on since her reaction to me simply looking at my watch: time matters. I know all too well, from experience, that too much or too little of anything, most specifically time, can get a person killed. That, along with the vivid image in my mind of Devin Marks shooting two children and an innocent mother, killing them all, becomes a stark, sharp reminder that he wields a blade that he will use to cut anyone in his path. Sierra knows this. She’s afraid and that fear is driving her actions. They can’t drive mine, no matter how hard I have to push her.
We exit the subway and our path to the apartment takes us past the door of Walker Security where I pause. “I need to talk to Luke, and Blake, too, if he’s back from your apartment, and then we can run by the grocery store.”
“I thought we were going by the Walker offices in the morning?”
“Tomorrow we’ll have a room full of people focused on Ju-Ju, as they should be. I need to discuss Kyle and Myla, among other things.”
“Of course,” she says. “But the office looks dark.”
I unlock the door. “We’ll walk through to the stairs. It’s the only way to get to the living quarters outside of the garage.” I flip on the light and hold the door for her.
She enters, and in a few minutes, we’ve locked back up and we’re on the other side of the building, flipping the office lights back out and climbing the wide, wooden steps. “Do the brothers all live on the same floor?”
“Used to,” I say. “With a baby coming, Royce and Lauren wanted more space. They just remodeled an unfinished floor and moved in. Kyle and Myla took their old place.” We reach the floor that is our destination. “This is it.” We take a few steps to the forked hallway directly in front of us. “Left is Blake and Kara. Right is Luke and Julie. Down the hall behind us is Kyle and Myla, when they’re here.”
I lead her to Luke and Julie’s place and ring the bell. Almost immediately, Luke opens the door, in his typical uniform of jeans and a Walker T-shirt. “Come in you two,” he says, his tone welcoming. That’s Luke. Easygoing. Cool as fuck until you give him a reason to be deadly. Most people will never see the latter. I have, and right about now that latter is what I like most about him. “Julie and Lauren are in the kitchen.” He backs up and I urge Sierra forward.
“Do I smell cookies?” I ask as Sierra moves down the hallway.
“Yes,” Luke says. “Because apparently now Lauren and her baby can eat only cookies, cucumbers, and ranch dip.”
“What happened to the ice cream?” I say as I join him in the hallway.
“It makes her sick now.” He shuts the door.
“Sierra!”
At the sound of Julie greeting Sierra like she already knows her, I give Luke a quiet, “We need to talk in private.”
“I assumed as much,” Luke says, as our women disappear around the corner. Luke and I follow, bringing his newly remodeled apartment into view, the new floors some kind of dark grayish brown wood. The entire place looking like a spread from a magazine I’ve never read, nor will I ever read. The formerly flat ceiling is now inset low. The living area to the left is done in muted white couches and a boxy table. We head in the other direction toward the open kitchen where Lauren sits at the head of a long teakwood table, I’ve never seen before, with a glass of milk and cookies in front of her. I look at Luke. “To think you used to just have some brown couch and a glass table someone told you to buy.”
Luke laughs. “Marriage changes things, man, and not for the worse.”
“You want a cookie?” Julie asks, looking every bit the Marilyn Monroe twin people call her, as she carries a tray to the table.
“I would love a cookie,” Sierra says, sitting down on a chair next to Lauren that looks like a damn tree trunk. Who wants a tree trunk in their house?
“I really need a damn cookie,” I say, walking to the table and taking two, before giving Sierra a wink and then joining Luke at the island a few feet away. Both of us sitting on some fancy silver stools, facing the girls. “That’s the new Prada release,” Julie says, fawning over Sierra’s new bags. “I didn’t know this was out already.”
“Can I see it?” Lauren asks.
Meanwhile I down my last cookie and interrupt with a more urgent matter. “Do I have to be pregnant to get milk around here?”
Sierra looks up at me at the same time Lauren does, both of them brunette beauties. A fact that has me flashing back to Royce’s furious reaction to Blake taking the Ju-Ju case when the women look like Lauren and Kara, and now, Sierra. I’d thought he was overly protective. I don’t anymore. Funny how a shot of mace and the woman who tortured me with it have quickly changed my perspective.
“About that milk, Asher,” Lauren says, snapping me back to the present. “You get milk if you’re pregnant or an asshole. You qualify as at least one of those two things.”
“You’ve been hanging around Blake too much,” I say. “You used to be so nice.”
She laughs. “You know I love you and you can have all the milk you want. It’s Julie and Luke’s. I have my own.” She looks at Sierra. “I hear you have a Ph.D. in psychology? And you’ve actually interviewed several living serial killers.”
Sierra’s gaze shoots to mine and Luke hands me a pint of milk. “That’s my big mouth talking there, Sierra,” Luke says. “Lauren’s a criminal defense attorney. I told her I thought you might help her on a few of her cases.”
“What’s said in this room stays in this room,” I tell her.
Lauren covers Sierra’s hand with hers. “What happens in this building is like Vegas. It stays here.” She smiles at Sierra. “Sometimes it’s even just as exciting.”
And there it is. One of the reasons I brought Sierra here tonight. I wanted her to feel the bond that is this family unit, be it family by blood or those extended members like myself. Sierra shares a look of understanding with me before she smiles at Lauren. “Thank you. And no, I don’t have a Ph.D. Not yet. Close. Or maybe never.”
“Never say never,” I say. “Not in the Walker clan.”
“We’d love to hear about the interviews you’ve done,” Lauren says. “And we’re going to help make calls on the Ju-Ju case tomorrow. Julie has client meetings, but I’ve been so sick that I’ve been taking Mondays and Fridays off when I can.”
“You both practice criminal law?” Sierra asks.
“Isn’t Royce back tomorrow?” I ask quickly, trying to avoid the topic of Julie’s legal specialty of high profile divorces, that might hit a hotspot.
“He got delayed,” Lauren tells me. “He won’t be back until Wednesday.”
Which means I’m going to need to call him. The doorbell rings and before Luke can even get up, Blake and Kara are walking into the room. “Do I smell cookies?” Blake says, making a beeline for the kitchen.
“Do not eat all of my cookies, Blake,” Lauren warns while Kara sits down next to Sierra.
“Of course I won’t eat all of the pregnant woman’s cookies,” Blake says, already at the table and taking two of them. “Why would you think I would be that cruel?’
“Because you’re a pig,” I say. “We all know it.” Lauren and Kara chime in in agreement, and there is laughter that pretty much sums up the room’s agreement on that point. There is also an exchange between Sierra and Kara that ends in more laughter, with their heads tilted low in conversation, in a budding friendship.
Conversation flows for a good fifteen minutes, and there is a point in the midst of many voices and more laughter when Sierra’s lashes lower, a bittersweet look on her face. She likes them. She trusts them, but she’s confused in some way. I eye Luke and he says, “Now?”
“Now.”
“Blake?” he asks.
“Just you right now,” I say, wanting to talk about Sierra, but also Kyle, and to do so with someone objective about Alvarez, which Blake is not.
We both stand and Luke indicates the cantilevered wood and steel staircase. I pause behind Sierra, my hands on her shoulders, and lean down to her ear. “I’ll be just a few minutes.”
She covers my hand with hers and nods, and I catch Lauren’s warm look at our intimacy. They get it. I’m crazy about her. I have to free her. I lean in and kiss Sierra before I leave her there and follow Luke up the stairs that are just wide enough for one. We enter what equates to a den with a corner bar, pool table and a brown leather couch framing a stainless-steel fireplace, two matching chairs on either side of both.
Luke and I claim the pair of chairs that face the stairs, keeping any company in view. “Are we talking about Kyle or Sierra?” Luke asks.
“Both,” I say. “What’s your opinion on the Kyle-Alvarez situation?”
“I’m torn, man. The buzz about Alvarez being alive could be nothing more than the cartel trying to play a game with law enforcement or a rival cartel.”
“In other words, these rumors could float around for a lifetime,” I say. “Kyle and Myla can’t hide for the rest of theirs.”
“Agreed,” he says. “But I do think that the two of them being in Europe while we investigate is a good idea. And Myla was traumatized by that man. At least when we tell her, we can give her the facts.”
“We can’t let this drag out.”
“Agreed again,” Luke says, “But right now, we have Ju-Ju to deal with and whatever is going on with Sierra.”
We.
Not: me.
Not: my problem.
Not: her problem.
This is the part of the Walker clan I hope Sierra is starting to understand downstairs right now. “I need one of the Walker planes.”
“When?”
“Sunrise. I want to get there and get back as soon as possible and it’s not a short trip.”
“What can you tell me?”
“I’m going to Dallas to get the ammunition I need to make Sierra’s problem go away. But when I’m there, I’m going to talk Adam into joining us. Does that recruitment bonus still stand?”
“Hell yeah. We need him.” He narrows his eyes on me. “Do you need him while you’re there?”
“Yes.”
He studies me a few beats. “Do you need me?”
“I need you to protect Sierra.”
“That would be easier if you told me what was going on.”
“She doesn’t trust anyone but me and believe me, man, when you find out what this is, you’ll understand.”
“That’s why you brought her here. To get her familiar with everyone and how we operate.”
“Yes. It is.”
“Give me something here,” Luke says. “Give me a scale. On a scale of missions—Cambodia to Syria, how does this rank? How bad is this?”
Sierra steps into the room. “Bad enough for me to go to that safe house you offered me.”
I stand up and so does Luke. “You don’t need a safe house, Sierra,” I say. “You have me.”
“And me,” Luke says.
“I believe you,” she says. “I believe everyone in this house would help me.” She looks at me. “I know that’s why you brought me here and thank you. It worked. They’re great. They’re wonderful. They’re all wonderful.”
“Whatever you’re running from,” Luke says. “We can—”
“I’m not running,” she says. “I want to fight. I want to shut him down forever, if that is even possible, but I can’t do that while placing other people in the line of fire. I need to go to that safe house, Luke. You have to be the one to take me there. He can’t see it because he’s—we’re—It’s just—it’s the right move.”
“We’ll talk about it,” Luke says.
“We can talk on the way out of here,” she presses.
“Sierra,” I say.
“No, Asher,” she says. “No to whatever you’re going to say.”
“Whoever this is,” Luke interjects. “Or whatever this is—”
“Devin Marks,” Sierra shocks me by saying. “I’m his wife, who he wants dead. Are you ready for me to leave now?” She holds up a hand. “Don’t answer. Don’t be the hero like Asher right now. I’m going to do the right thing, the thing two SEALs would do. I’m leaving before someone gets hurt.” She turns and heads down the stairs.