Grace Anne

chapter 21



Michael stared at the house from his cover behind the cruiser. Grace was less than twenty yards from him and he couldn’t get to her. He glanced over when Sin slid in to his right side. She glanced at the house before she settled her back against the car.

“Hey. Cain wants to speak to you. Here,” she said as she shoved the phone at him. “And just so you know, we all agree with him. But I’m going to help you or I’m beating the shit out of you.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a tad violent? You should have some anger management classes as soon as this is over.” He put the phone to his ear. “Listen, Cain, do you think this could wait? Grace is—”

Cain cut him off. “Go get her. Go into that house and bring out my sister,” he said with a hard tone. “You do whatever it takes to get her to us.”

Michael looked at Sin again as what Cain was saying sank in. “Cain, she’s your mot—”

“No. No, she stopped being anything to any of us the second she started this whole thing. She is a woman who killed and hurt to get what she wanted. You do whatever it takes, do you understand me, Michael? Whatever it takes to bring Gracie back home and this nightmare to end.”

“Yes, I understand. But do you? Do you know that Grace is going to be my wife? I have no problem bringing her home, but you’re the one who is going to have to live with what you’re telling me to do here. Not just today, but for the rest of our lives.”

“I’ve made my peace. My mother is gone as far as I’m concerned. The woman inside there? She’s a monster and, what’s worse, she’s a sick monster.” Cain signed heavily. “She hated us all. I can see that now. She hated us so much she stole from us, lied to us, and murdered to get what she thought was hers. Yes, Michael, I can live with this. It’s all I’ve thought of since this started.”

Michael wasn’t sure what to say to him so he simply closed the connection. He handed it back to Sin and leaned his head back against the car. He looked around the mess that was here.

He could see several media vans parked just beyond the yellow tape some agency had put up. Beyond that there were several dozen cars and vehicles parked along the road all trying to see what was going on. Within shouting distance to him and Sin, there were several vans with letters embossed on the sides, men with the same lettering on flak jackets and vests. There was a tent set up with people milling around a large console and more phones than he’d ever remembered seeing in one of his offices. Michael looked over at Sin when she cleared her throat.

“When I had just joined the Army I met you. I doubt you’d remember. I think they had you pretty doped up on something at the time. You’d been injured, we’d been told, and we weren’t to ask you about it. Do you remember being at the base in Texas?”

He’d been hurt a great deal in the years he’d been in the Special Forces. Nothing to the extent that she’d been, but hurt all the same. Shamus had told him that his wife had also been a probable target of the women in the house and he was lucky to have her alive afterwards.

“I’d been held captive for several weeks. I’d been beaten and starved for the better part of that time and, when they weren’t doing that, they were trying to get information from me by other means. I just managed to get my ass out when I was mowed down by someone who couldn’t read Red Cross on the side of the chopper I was in.”

Sin grinned at him. “Yeah, seen that a time or two when I was out of country. Not a pretty thing to see one of those monsters go down like that.”

He waited for her to say whatever it was she had been leading up to, but she simply grinned again. When she did finally speak he was more confused than before.

“My husband is very smart, did you know that? I don’t tell him often enough, but he is.” She pulled out her gun, checked the magazine, and then the other clips she had in her belt. He did the same, hoping the two of them weren’t going to have a show down. He just wasn’t in the mood today. She started talking again as they each shoved their weapons in their holsters.

“Payton said that if she lives she’ll be institutionalized. My mother, not Gracie. Drugged up every day and then maybe someone will write an epic story about her life and times. People will copy her and she’ll be famous.” She grabbed his chin and brought his face to hers. “I want her dead, not famous.”

He nodded and stood when she did. He took the vest she handed him and slipped it on as she did the same. When he pulled his Glock out and fit it in his hand he was as ready as he was ever going to be.

“I go lead. You okay with that?”

She nodded.

“The boys aren’t going to be happy with us when we come out. You know that, right? They’ll be pissy about our messing with their show. Gonna take some fancy talking to keep us out of jail.”

“Nah,” she laughed. “You’re lead a*shole, remember? I’m just making sure you don’t get dead in the process. You’re gonna have to talk yourself out of more than this one if this goes down the way it should.” She nodded to a very well-dressed man that had been staring at them for some time. “That’s my boss. He’ll cover both our asses.”

There stood Lieutenant Colonel David Patterson and, before Michael could make any sort of comment, David saluted him. And out of respect for his retired status, Michael returned it. He turned back to Sin with a huge grin. “You do know everybody, don’t you?”

They turned as one and strode toward the house. Both ignored the shouts and men scrambling behind him. In less than one minute they were on the porch. With a single kick to the door from Michael they were both inside.

A glance around the room showed a couch, chair, and nothing else. When the first person came through the door in front of them, Sin took him out with a single shot to the head. He dropped to the floor without so much as a whimper.

Michael signaled for her to go to the right and he went to the left. Michael walked into what appeared to be the kitchen. Grace was lying on the floor with a woman standing over her with a gun pointed at her.

“Move and she’s dead.”

Michael nodded once, raised his gun, and fired. He felt a bullet hit him full in the chest seconds before he dropped to his knees. He heard someone shout, but couldn’t wrap his mind around the pain and the fact that the woman hadn’t shot Grace. He closed his eyes thinking this was a way to go.

~~~

“Do I look like I give a good damn who the f*ck you are? And just in case you can’t f*cking tell, let me explain to you that I don’t. Not one f*cking bit.”

Trace watched the police woman pace as she yelled at the man in the suit. She sure had a potty mouth, Trace thought. And the man she was yelling at seemed to think she was really funny. Grownups were weird. He looked over at his grandma and grandpa while the nurses and doctors ran around the room.

They didn’t say much. Trace knew that his uncle Thomas was dead. He’d heard one of the other officers talking about the mess on the highway, but didn’t really understand. He almost asked his grandparents, but changed his mind thinking he might not want to know.

The man in the suit sat down next to him on the couch. He sighed really big like his dad did after he got home from work. Trace looked over at him and tried to smile. He was worried and didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

“My name is David Patterson. You must be Trace.” Trace took his offered hand and shook it. “I understand from your dad’s doctor that he’s got a couple of busted ribs and his arm is fractured.”

Trace sat back and closed his eyes. He hadn’t heard that part. He just knew that someone had called the big house and he was put in a car and brought here. The little kids stayed with the nanny. He kind of wished he had, too, until now.

“That’s not so bad,” he told David. “My mom? Do you know how she is? The man at the desk over there seems to think she’s in bad shape. I need for her to be okay so that she and my dad can get married. She isn’t going to send me away like my friend’s new mom did.”

Trace flushed. He hadn’t meant to sound so whiny, but the man didn’t comment. He’d noticed that around this family. They never made you feel bad or stupid if you said the wrong thing. He liked them all a lot. Trace hoped he got to stay close to them when this was all over.

“Grace is a Waite. She’s too mean to do anything but get better.”

Trace wasn’t sure how to take that. He wasn’t sure if the man was insulting his new mom or not so he didn’t say anything.

“Mr. Patterson, there’s a call for you at the desk. It’s Washington, sir. They said it’s urgent.”

Trace looked up at the man who was dressed in the nicest uniform he’d ever seen.

“There’s been a crisis and you’re needed.”

“There’s always a crisis somewhere.” David glanced over at him before he spoke to the man again. “Take a message. Then call the President. Tell him that I’m at the hospital with one of my men and that I can’t be bothered right now. Tell him I’ll call him back when I can.”

Trace stared wide-eyed at the man sitting next to him as the man saluted and walked away. “You can do that? I thought you had to do whatever he wanted you to. Wow, you just told the President to take a hike.”

Trace flushed again when David laughed. “So I did. He’s not so bad, you know. He and I go way back. Your new family, they know him as well. I think your Aunt Alyssa has told him to fu…well, she’s told him to take a hike a few times as well.”

Trace looked over at his aunt. She was very pretty, but she too could cuss like a sailor, his grandma said. He grinned at her when she winked. To be honest, she was kind of scary too. Not like his Aunt Sin was, but close. He looked over at his new uncles. Two of them were detectives and another was a lawyer. His Uncle Nathan was on a trip in Japan on business and was flying home today, they’d told him. And Uncle Cain was a doctor. He had just about any kind of help if he ever needed it. Grinning, he looked over at David. “I never seen so many people come around for somebody being hurt before. When I broke my arm last year my dad and grandparents were there. Grace sure is loved, isn’t she?”

“It’s not just Grace, but your dad as well. He impressed them a great deal by barging into that house to get her for them. And the fact that he got hurt doing it makes them love him all the more.” David nodded toward the people sitting on the couch next to the rest of them. “There are the Grants. Couldn’t ask for a better group of people either. You’re getting yourself a good family, son. They’ll do right by you.”

He certainly hoped so. He wanted them to like him. He was afraid they’d want them all to go back to New York and not return. This was scary stuff. Thomas had been a bad man for a long time, almost as long as Trace had remembered. He was always drunk or high too.

There were things he knew they tried to hide from him. The fact that Thomas was a drunk was one of them. He was also mean to some of the people who worked for his grandparents. He didn’t know why he was, but Uncle Thomas seemed to have enjoyed being mean, like it was his job or something. Trace bowed his head. He shouldn’t be talking about him like this, he realized. He was dead, after all.

Trace looked up when David stood up. The doctor was coming toward him and right behind him was a wheelchair with his dad in it. Trace tried not to cry, but seeing his father, even as bad as he looked, was the best thing he’d ever seen. Rushing toward him, he started to hug him when he stopped suddenly. His dad pulled him close and wrapped his good arm around him.

“Christ, I missed you,” his dad said and Trace started crying. He didn’t realize how scared he’d been until that minute. Holding him and being held by him was the greatest feeling.

“Mom is still in surgery. The doctor said that she had been beaten up pretty bad. They won’t tell me anything ‘cause I’m just a kid.” Trace wiped at the tears and moved back so that everyone else could get a hug.

“Let me see what I can find out,” Cain said. “I’ve been up to check twice now and all they’ve been able to tell me is that she’s still in surgery.” He walked away and to the desk.

“Calling her Mom now, are you? You’re moving faster than me.”

Trace laughed at his dad.

“Next thing you know, you and she will be eloping and I’ll be left holding the bag.”

“Then you’d better get your game on, old man. I need a mom and you’re slacking.” Trace laughed when his dad cuffed him lightly on the chin. “She said it was okay. Should I have asked you first?”

“Absolutely not. You and she are going to have to work on your own relationship. I’ll just try real hard not to piss her off too much.” His dad was moved over to the couch where he’d been sitting. “You still okay with her and I marrying?”

Trace nodded, then leaned in to whisper to him. “I told you I’d protect her and I didn’t. I told…if I had gone to the airport with her instead of staying at the house with her family then—”

“Then you’d be hurt too. Don’t think like that. You did what needed to be done. That woman would have had you both and I would have been insane without knowing. Well, insaner anyway. I need you as much as I do Grace, son.”

They sat for another two hours before they got to see Grace. Cain had told them that she was in recovery and would be for a bit. She came through surgery like a trooper and they didn’t foresee any problems with her injuries. Trace laid down on the couch and fell asleep. He’d had a really long day.