Big Easy Temptation (The Perfect Gentlemen #3)(98)

“I think you should see her.” Holland didn’t like the idea of Judith rattling around that big house with only bodyguards and her housekeeper for company. “After we nearly got burned alive last night, you should check on her. Talk to her. Pick her brain. Search your father’s office. It might spur something. I know it’s been years. Maybe something was overlooked.”

“By NCIS? I doubt it,” Dax replied, then sighed. “But I should make sure all is well and no one has come near my mother.”

“Besides, she needs to lay eyes on you. I’m sure she’s heard about the fire.” Holland would be worried out of her mind if she were Judith. She would want to see Dax, reassure herself that her baby boy was all right. She wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise. “Did you even call her to tell her you’re okay?”

His face turned a dull red. “Fine. I’ll visit her, but I’m going in quietly. I don’t want anyone to follow me back here. I know an indirect route in. As a teenager, Gus was really good at sneaking in and out of the house. She taught me well. Connor, take care of my girl.”

He was gone before she could protest that she wasn’t his girl.

He would probably just argue anyway.

“So we’re staking out an old folks’ home. That sounds like a blast.” She’d be alone in a car with Connor for hours. Yeah, nothing could possibly go wrong.

Connor sat back. “We should definitely get there soon. You know, I could tell you some stories about Dax on the way. That will be entertaining.”

Holland suspected that was Connor code for I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions you don’t want to answer. She sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon.


*

Dax eased into the house, the bodyguard at the backdoor nodding his way.

“Hello, sir.”

Dax held out a hand and shook the other man’s. He was a big guy dressed in an impeccable if nondescript suit, despite the fact that he would spend almost all day indoors. But that was how the Secret Service tended to roll. Dax had pegged the agent the minute he saw the guy. Gus hadn’t sent out mere paid guards. She’d talked Zack into sending the big guns.

“How have things been around here?” he asked.

“Quiet, sir. Though your mother took me and Bentley for fifty bucks apiece when we played cards last night.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. That was fake money. I never play for real money. Buying shoes is what real money is for,” his mother said as she walked into the kitchen, her arms wide. “You come here, boy. If you weren’t too big I would turn you over my knee for scaring me like that.”

So Holland had been right. His mom had heard about the torch and burn at Holland’s place. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. Obviously we escaped but things were a little crazy. I didn’t realize you would know that Holland and I were involved. They didn’t mention names on the news.”

“Holland’s uncle called looking for you. He was worried about his niece. I had to tell him I had no idea where you were. It’s not the same thing as when you’re deployed, Daxton. You have to call.”

He stepped toward his mother, pulling her slender frame in for a hug. “Sorry. I promise. Can we talk for a few minutes? I have to get back out to Holland, but you should know we’re not alone. Connor is with us.”

She patted his back. “Well, that makes me feel better. He’s a good man. Shall we go to the parlor?”

“Dad’s office is more appropriate.”

Her face tightened. “Oh. This isn’t a social call.”

He hated having to grill her, but she was the only one still alive who could talk—and he wanted to keep it that way. “No, Mom.”

She nodded and turned, her shoulders squared, a true Southern belle about to do her duty. He loved his mom. Holland reminded him of his mother at times. She had that same steel in her spine.

She was silent as she walked into his father’s office. The shades were drawn and she drifted to the windows as if to open them, but stopped with a shake of her head.

Instead, she sat in the seat across from the desk, her hands in her lap. “What do you need to know?”

He hated the fact that she couldn’t open the blinds. She couldn’t let sunlight into this room. When this was over, he was hiring someone to redecorate, to make this into a room his mother could love again. “Dad took a trip to London shortly before the scandal broke out. Do you know anything about it?”

“It was a conference of some kind.”

He shook his head, hating that he had to tarnish his father’s memory more and further disillusion his mother. “He didn’t actually attend a conference. We think he went overseas for personal reasons. Have you ever heard of an institution called Homewood? It’s a small hospital in the English countryside.”

She frowned. “Was your father hurt?”

“No. He went there to request the records of a patient named Jane Downing.”

“I know that name.” She put a hand to her forehead as though trying to recall where she’d heard it. “Downing was a family name. Oh, why can’t I remember? Hayes. Downing was Constance Hayes’s mother’s maiden name. They were a very genteel family. From Sussex, I believe.”

His mother had an interest in genealogy. “Was there a family member named Jane?”