Razed (Barnes Brothers #2)(86)

Zane narrowed his eyes. Travis didn’t let anything show on his face. If any of his brothers would ever see through the smokescreen, it would be Zane. Not his parents, not Zach, sure as hell not Seb, not even his twin. But Zane, because he always looked deeper.

A few seconds passed and Travis let himself shrug. “Look, I spend my days digging around for people who are skimming money and finding various ways to screw people over. I’ve got a good bullshit meter. It started to spin out of control when that guy fed his lines to Zach.”

“Why?” Zane asked, his voice implacable.

“Because he said a parent wanted to see her. And I know it’s not her father—he died when she was a kid. So if he’s being straight, then it’s her mother.” It was Zach who took that one, his voice just as hard as Zane’s. “You ever talk to her about her family?”

A mask fell across Zane’s face, a muscle pulsing in his cheek. “A little.”

“Then you’ve probably noticed that she shuts down real fast if you ask her about her parents, especially her mom. So I’m not buying this line that suddenly her mother wants to reconnect—out of the blue.” Zach shrugged, but despite the casualness of the movement, the tension was still there.


*

Her mother.

Lowering the printouts to his side, Zane managed to keep himself relaxed through sheer will alone. “Her mother,” he said slowly. “Somebody called looking for her, saying it was about her mother?”

“He’s trying to locate the daughter of a client. His words.” Zach’s gaze was hooded, revealing very little. But everything else about him said he was worked up, maybe almost as aggravated as Zane.

Zane’s mind spun, moving to the next logical step. Normally that came easy. He handled logic and plans very well, but what was the next logical step here?

He needed to call Keelie. No. He needed to go see her, first to tell her about the call. Then he wanted to know what this shit was with her name.

Katherine.

Was that her real name?

What the hell?

Wait . . .

He shot Zach a look. “You hired her. You get social security numbers. Wouldn’t something weird pop up if the name and social security number didn’t match?”

“It did match.” Zane shrugged. “Plus, I do the criminal history background. None of that would stop me from hiring—depending on what it was and how I felt about the person. Javi did grand theft in his teens. Did his time, turned his life around. But there was nothing that showed with Keelie. The name checked out, the background was clean.”

So that only made it all that much more confusing.

“I got to go.” He looked at the information in his hands, then at Zach and Travis. “I need this. I’m going to—”

Zach’s phone rang and he pulled it from his belt. “That’s Keelie,” he said, glancing up. “Do I tell her?”

“No.” Zane shook his head. “I will.”

Zach looked like he wanted to argue, but he just answered the call.


*

Keelie swung a look around her apartment, one last look before she locked the door behind her.

The phone rang a second, then a third time, and she was almost relieved. Voice mail—the coward’s way out, maybe, but just then, she didn’t care.

Then Zach answered.

Shit.

Bracing herself mentally, she plunged in, feet first. “Zach, I hate to do this to you, but I have to bail for a little bit. Hopefully just a week, but something personal has come up. It’s urgent and I have to deal with it.”

There was a pause, and then Zach said softly, “Are you okay?”

No.

“I’m fine. I just . . .” This was where she fumbled. I have to go talk to the cops about this guy I know—he’s my stepbrother and he’s a rapist and I know it and he’s done it again. Not a great thing to drop in on a conversation. It’s a family emergency. Not entirely a lie. It was family. In her opinion, dealing with that son of a bitch was pretty high up there. In the end, though, none of it felt right. “Look, I don’t want to go into this on the phone and I have to get to the airport—”

“Airport?”

There was a rush of noise and the sinking feeling in her gut intensified. Sighing, she shoved her suitcase into the trunk, already knowing the reason behind the silence on the phone.

“Keelie, what the hell is going on?” Zane was on the phone now. His voice was a blade to her heart. At the same time, she wanted to just go to him, tell him what she was doing. Ask him if he could come with her. He would. She knew it without asking. He’d drop everything if she told him she needed him with her. He probably would have done it a couple of months ago when they were just friends—he was the kind of guy who’d offer that to his friends.

But now things were different.

She couldn’t do it, though. He was in the middle of trying to get his life where he needed it to be.

And she . . .

I want to be part of it, she realized abruptly. She very much wanted to be a part of it, but she couldn’t do that until she found a way to make peace with the life she’d dropped like a bad habit.

“Keelie?”

It dawned on her that she’d just been standing there, silent, while he waited. “I’m here,” she said as she slid into the car. The pent-up heat was enough to sap her energy. She took a second to roll the window down and then she started the car. “Zane, I have to take care of something. It’s . . .”