Remi was shocked to hear that.
“We ran in to Ty and the team. They discovered what I do and hired me to have Tank check out Ty’s house. This house. After that, things just fell into place. Owen has me training some dogs for him.”
“What happened to your friends?”
“They were roughed up pretty bad. Owen sent them home on his private jet.” She looked at Remi. “Greer hasn’t said why you’re here, but knowing what I do, I imagine it’s bad. You were at Mandy’s. You saw what the guys are dealing with. Their enemies blew up her equestrian center and they kidnapped her. They mobbed this house, fought a battle here. One of their leaders came in and tried to shoot Kit and Ivy’s daughter. If you’re here, it’s for a good reason. And it’s best that you’re here and not somewhere else.”
Eden studied Remi. “So, to answer your question, yes. We can leave. Any of us can. But there is no safer place for us than right here.”
And that was the crux of it all, wasn’t it? The secret to maintaining cult members’ adherence to the community culture. Convince them no one would understand them in the real world, no one believed as they did, none would be safe separate from the group. It was so easy to keep people subjugated. Geez. She’d gone in search of one secret society and found herself sucked into an entirely different one.
Remi looked at Eden’s dog absently as she tried to find holes in her observation about the group.
“This is Tank. He’s a working dog and my best friend.”
Remi smiled. “He looks like he eats baby hellcats for his meals.”
Eden laughed. “I thought that when I first met him, too. He’s a pit bull/bullmastiff mix. Now I just see a teddy bear. Unless you make him mad.”
Remi looked from the dog to Eden. “Are you happy, Eden?” she asked.
“Yes.” Eden smiled. “Meeting Ty, getting involved in the team, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me—both professionally and personally. I can show you around, if you want, while you wait for Greer. This is a ridiculously big house. And I want you to see my kennels and Mandy’s stable.”
“I’d like that.”
*
Remi and Eden came back to the living room at the end of their tour. Ty and Greer were just coming into the dining room. Greer checked her over critically, his eyes serious. He came down the steps into the living room. Eden said something as she went the opposite way, up to greet Ty. Remi didn’t take her eyes from Greer. He looked tired.
He walked right over to her, stopping so close to her that his body blocked the dining room.
“Hi,” he said.
She tried to smile, but the attempt was lost in the intense way he was regarding her.
“How are you this morning?”
“I’m okay,” she said.
“Did you sleep?”
“I did. Eden gave me a tour.”
“Good. Hungry?”
“I could eat.”
He started to turn, but she stopped him.
“I need to go to Cheyenne this morning.”
“Why?”
She sent a quick glance around him to the dining room. “I have my archives in an apartment there. I need to check something out.”
“We’ll go after breakfast.”
“I want to go alone. No one knows about the apartment, except my assistant. I’ll be safe there.”
“The WKB wants you dead. You don’t leave here without me.”
“Greer, my research is secret. I have a ton of files of confidential information. I swore to the people who provided me with their information that I would keep their identities confidential.”
“Like you did with the woodcutter.”
“Yeah.”
“You saw how much he cared about your high morals.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is the point. What do you want from there anyway?”
“After the shock of the night wore off, I remembered I have info on other white supremacist groups. I’d like to see how many have relationships with isolationist groups like the Friends.”
Greer nodded. “We’ll go after you eat.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to lose my data. I don’t want it sucked into this—” she waved her hand as she searched for the word.
“Let’s take a look at what you’ve got. If it’s something that will help the mission, we need to bring it in.”
“No. No, Greer. My data can’t be used for other things. I promised people that only I would have access to it.”
A muscle bunched in the corner of his jaw. “Are you going to support the woodcutters over us, over your country?”
“That isn’t a fair question. I have to apply the elements of trust equally across all informants and sources—I have to treat everyone the same or I have nothing. If I find something in my files that can help, and if I can keep my sources protected, I’ll share it.”
“Let’s see what you’ve got, then we’ll talk about it.”
Chapter Twenty
Remi’s apartment was on the top floor of a brick building in Cheyenne’s Old Town. It wasn’t a large building, only three apartments on each floor. She put the key in the lock, then looked at Greer before she turned it.
She felt more nervous now than she had the first time she got naked in front of him.
She’d never brought anyone here. In fact, her teaching assistant was the only other person who even knew about her archives.
Greer lifted his brows, waiting.
She steeled herself for his reaction.
Opening the door, she walked in first so she wouldn’t have to see his expression. Off to the immediate right was a short hallway with a door into the kitchen on the left, a bathroom on the right, and a bedroom at the end of the hall. Straight in front of them was the living room…and a lifetime of research in neatly stacked boxes where furniture should have been.
“What is all this, Remi?”