Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(67)

“He was wearing a black hoodie. About five foot nine, big build. I didn’t see his skin tone. I should come with you.”

“No. Stay here. Ten’s orders are for me to keep you safe. Do it.”

“I already called security.” Jesse Murdoch had a nice pink flush to his face. “Sorry, Erin. I thought she was walking into the lobby and then I got a call from Tag. I took eyes off her a minute and then it was too late.”

Erin sent him a look that could have frozen fire and took off toward the parking lot in the general direction the thief had run.

It looked like her life wasn’t so far from the one with her father as she would like. She stared at Murdoch for a moment. “Are you supposed to be watching me?”

Ten had told her the whole thing was over. The guy who had tried to hurt her had been a lone crazy person.

Then why would he send one of his friends to watch her?

Murdoch shook his head. “It’s not like that. I was watching all three of you. I took responsibility for all three of you when I agreed to be the driver. Phoebe’s my wife, but you and Erin belong to my friends. I know you don’t understand the military, but Ten and Theo are my brothers. I watch out for their women. The only reason I’m letting Erin go off after the guy is she’s trained, and she would probably put me on my ass if I tried to stop her.”

It was perfectly reasonable. So why was she suspicious?

And why was that phone call from her father still nagging at her?

A uniformed security officer rolled up in a golf cart. “You Murdoch?”

Jesse nodded and started to take care of the official details.

Phoebe stood beside her. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I meant to make this day a bonding experience. I’m just worried about my brother.”

Some of the words Phoebe had said previously were penetrating her brain. It had been an awkward talk, but she understood Ten better now. After everything he’d been through, he might require more patience than other men, more time.

Or he might be a lost cause. God, she hated those since she never seemed to be able to let go of them.

She sighed and put an arm around Ten’s sister. “I’m never uncomfortable.”

It was a lie, but only a tiny one, and most of the time it was true. Seeing the things she’d seen it was hard to get truly uncomfortable in a situation where no one was trying to kill her.

“I like your brother,” she assured Phoebe.

Phoebe leaned in, obviously happy with the affection and willing to give it back. “I’m glad because he likes you, too. I like you, Faith. I think you could do a world of good for him.”

Despite the clusterf*ck of the last twenty minutes, the world seemed a bit brighter. Doing good was kind of her stock-in-trade.

She let Jesse handle the details and wondered how Ten would take the news.





CHAPTER ELEVEN



“Are you still mad?”

Ten turned and saw Faith in the doorway to the bedroom. She was wearing one of his shirts and looking so f*ckable he could hardly breathe. “I was never mad at you.”

He might crush his brother-in-law’s balls however. Apparently everyone had gotten upset over some conversation the girls had been having and Jesse had allowed Faith to walk out of the damn restaurant.

“It’s all right. Now I have a new phone and that guy Hutch said he would make it so no one could use the old one. He’s a weird guy. I offered to pay him but he wanted Red Vines from the corner store. That was all.”

“He’s never gotten over his smoking habit. He simply traded cigarettes for candy.” One habit for another. No one ever really got over their addictions. “And I’m glad you like the new phone.”

She thought it had been a crime of opportunity. He wasn’t so sure about that. Erin had missed catching the guy in his car, but managed to get a plate. Naturally it showed up as stolen.

“I got it just in time, too.” She walked in, a brush in hand, running it through her silky strands. “That was the lab. Apparently my flu vaccine was actually flu vaccine.”

He stopped. This was the first he’d heard about a lab. “What do you mean? Why would it be something else? You sent your vaccines to a lab?”

She sat down on the bed. It was a massive king-sized thing Phoebe had ordered for him when he realized he would be staying in Dallas for several months. He never stayed in one place for too long. At first the condo had been stifling, a symbol of all the freedom he’d lost when McDonald had him burned. Now, it felt cozy. Nice. Now Faith had places she liked to sit and her side of the bed. Now when he looked around, he saw her.

“I got somewhat suspicious,” she explained. “Paranoid, as it turns out. Several of the patients I vaccinated in the last year came in complaining about odd side effects. Memory issues.”

“They lost time?” There were certainly drugs that could do that.

“No. It was weirder than loss. It was like time had slowed down for them. They thought more time had passed than actually had. The effect went away after a few days.”

“Some form of group dementia?”

Faith shook her head in the negative. “No. They were lucid. And these weren’t the types of people to take drugs. I have to wonder if something didn’t get into the water. If I have the time, I’ll do a study of it when I get back because it obviously wasn’t the vaccine.”