Her Brother's Keeper

By J.J. DiBenedetto

Jane Barnaby has planned the perfect Christmas vacation. Her father and his fiancé are joining her in Spain at her archaeological dig. They’ll see her work, meet her mentor, and they’ll all enjoy a few days of sunny Mediterranean beaches in the dead of winter.

But it all falls apart when Jane’s annoying brother tags along and lands in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

To clear her brother’s name, all Jane has to do is chase a wily female con-artist across Europe, catch her, and confront the woman and her accomplices. Oh, and outwit an ex-KGB agent and his personal goon squad along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.J. DiBenedetto
• Release date: Jan 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370457588

Book preview

They certainly acted like a happy couple, but how could they be?

Jane didn’t understand it. Her father and Cassie had been engaged for a year and a half, and as far as she knew there hadn’t been one word about setting a date in all that time. She’d asked both of them individually, looked each of them square in the eye, and neither of them seemed to have the slightest problem with this endless engagement.

As far as she could tell, both of them had been telling the truth. Daddy could never lie to her and get away with it, not about anything really important. And while she didn’t know Cassie nearly as well, Jane liked to think that she was a shrewd judge of character, and she was fairly certain the woman wasn’t lying to her, either. Besides, she’d watched Cassie lose $1,200 in less than an hour at a poker table in Atlantic City a few months back. The woman couldn’t bluff to save her life.

She had to accept that they meant what they said, but, still, it made no sense. Surely Cassie wanted to make things nice and legal? And surely her father wanted to officially take Cassie off the market once and for all – before she had any second thoughts about marrying a man almost twice her age?

Jane couldn’t imagine going that long without a plan for a wedding. Granted, she wasn’t even engaged yet herself, despite dating Mark for nearly three years now, but there were extenuating circumstances in her case. For two of those years, they’d been living on different continents, and during that third year when they were both in the United States, there were three thousand miles between them. They’d probably only spent three months actually together, if you added up all the individual days and weeks. So it was nothing at all like the weird situation between her father and his fiancée.

That was one reason she’d asked Bill Welldon if she could invite them to join the Christmas expedition on Mallorca. Sure, she wanted them to see the island for its own sake, and get a first-hand look at the work she planned to spend her life doing. But her secret hope was that the romance of a beautiful island, and the novelty of being able to wear shorts and go swimming in the Mediterranean Sea at Christmastime, would so overwhelm them that they’d get on with the business of getting themselves married already.

Or maybe it was a not-so-secret hope. If she was honest, she had to admit that she was as much an open book to her father as he was to her.

At any rate, she’d know soon enough. She was on her way to the airport to pick them up. Bill had dispatched her to collect them, as well as a couple of other volunteers who were flying in early. He hadn’t trusted her with the newer Land Rover, the one she’d driven halfway across Europe for him three years ago. Instead, she was driving the smaller, older one. She didn’t blame him for not trusting her with the nicer vehicle; she didn’t really trust herself with it, either.

The one benefit of dwelling on her father’s love life was that it kept her mind off of the treacherous two-lane mountain roads. Featuring very narrow lanes. And, naturally, no guardrails. Jane wondered about the person who had decided they weren’t necessary. She guessed it was some low-level bureaucrat back in Madrid who had chosen to save a few pesatas by skimping on safety. Someone who had never, and would never, actually drive on these roads, so of course they wouldn’t be worried about not quite making a turn and plunging a thousand feet to their death.

Thinking about the nameless man or woman who had decreed that driving to the airport ought to be a near-death experience occupied Jane’s attention for a while. She busied herself imagining what that person looked like, how they dressed, what they did with the bonus money they’d been paid for keeping the road construction project under budget. She was so wrapped up in contemplating the life of someone who might not even exist that she didn’t notice the tour bus until it was nearly on top of her. She swerved hard to the right, cursing the possibly nonexistent road engineer, and only straightening out when the driver’s side mirror was less than an inch from the rockface. The bus passed by on her left with maybe a foot to spare.

Thankfully, that was the only such incident; after that, she forced herself to focus her full attention on the road and made it to the airport without any further brushes with death. She hoped there wouldn’t be any close calls like that on the way back. Killing herself on a treacherous mountain road would be bad enough. The idea that she might take her father with her was too horrible to contemplate.

That cheerful thought stayed with her right up to the moment she wandered into the baggage claim area and saw him and his fiancée. Jane ran to him, but stopped short a few steps away. What had happened to him?

The man standing in front of her had her father’s face, but his hair – it wasn’t graying anymore. And his clothes – they were new. And pressed. And actually fashionable. She couldn’t recall the last time you could say even one of those things about her father’s wardrobe, let alone all three at the same time. She looked down, and, even half expecting to see new shoes, she couldn’t help but gasp at the sight.

Jane? What’s wrong?

She shook her head in hopes of clearing it, trying to make sense of her father’s makeover. I’m sorry, she said. I just – wow, Daddy, you look fantastic. She went the last few feet, threw her arms around him and hugged him close. If he wanted to look better, that was a good thing, right? If it was Cassie’s influence, or if he just wanted to impress her on vacation, good for him. If he was happy, she was happy.

I don’t look that different! Her father wasn’t really annoyed; it was that mock-impatient tone he sometimes liked to use. I buy one new outfit and everyone loses their minds!

It was more than one new outfit, Joe, Cassie said. Jane pulled back from her father to get a good look at her. She was grinning, but there were the beginnings of circles under her eyes. Clearly she hadn’t followed instructions and slept on the trans-Atlantic portion of their flight. But, yeah, I do kind of lose my mind over you.

Jane had never thought of her father – or, really, any man his age, as somebody that a woman might lose her mind over. Well, maybe Harrison Ford – he had to be somewhere around her father’s age. If Indiana Jones wanted to marry her, Jane had to admit she might be rendered incapable of rational thought. But the list of desirable older men began and ended with him.

She really does. It was a woman’s voice, coming from behind Cassie. Jane looked over to see its owner, a tall woman with either very dark blonde or very light brown hair; it was impossible to tell which, with its owner sitting in Cassie’s shadow. From the way Cassie cringed at the woman’s voice, Jane guessed that she was the reason her future stepmother hadn’t been able to sleep on the flight. You should have seen the way she looked at your father – he is your father, right? Of course he is, who else would he be, right? Anyway, she was just absolutely mooning over him when he fell asleep. I mean, I could hardly believe it.

That all came out with barely a breath taken. This woman talked even faster than her college friend Tishy did, and that was no easy feat. But if the weary sigh from the man sitting next to the woman was any indication, it was nothing new for her.

Be that as it may, perhaps we shouldn’t intrude on a family reunion. The man had an arm around her, and an apologetic smile on his face. The woman began to respond, but the man put a finger to her lips. No, Sheryl, we’ve talked their ears off for what seems like days now. I think we can leave them in peace for a few minutes.

This couple – they had to be a couple – were obviously the other volunteers she was meant to pick up. The next two weeks wouldn’t be boring, that was certain. Thanks, Jane said quickly, turning her attention back to her father and Cassie before the woman – Sheryl – could start talking again. So how are you guys feeling? You ready for a little country drive back to the house?

Her father shook his head. Not quite yet. We have to wait for someone else. He ought to be arriving any time now – his flight was supposed to land ten minutes after ours.

That made no sense at all. Who was he talking about? How would he even know any of the other volunteers on this trip? But before she could ask, the answer to Jane’s questions came into view. A young man with light brown hair, ripped jeans and a Cornell University sweatshirt stepped off the escalator at the other end of the baggage claim area and began walking towards her.

What in the world was her brother doing here?

Cassie had gone along with the idea against her better judgment. She’d been unsure about the whole trip; this was going to be their first true vacation together, and spending it with her future stepdaughter was a little bit weird. But Jane’s mentor was offering them free room and board, and how could she say no to two weeks on a beautiful island where she could go swimming outdoors in the middle of December, and all she had to pay for was the airfare?

She’d convinced herself there would be plenty of private time, even with Jane sleeping elsewhere in the house. She’d made her peace with that. But then Joe had suggested inviting his son along, too. It’s perfect, he’d said. You’ll really get to know each other, it’ll be great. You’ll see. By the time we go home, he’ll be ready to be best man at our wedding. I guarantee it.

He’d really believed it, too. He was absolutely convinced. And so she went along with it. Even with both of Joe’s kids in the house, surely there’d still be privacy, time to enjoy their first big trip together.

She hadn’t given any thought to Jane’s feelings on the matter, though, and that had been a mistake. It was clear from the way her face fell at the sight of her twin brother that she was not at all happy to see him.

Joe hated it when his children didn’t get along, never mind the fact that they were adults, and it wasn’t his place to make them play nice with each other anymore. So much for privacy; he’d be spending every free moment trying to convince Jane and George to get along.

And while he was doing that, she’d be hiding from her seatmate on the flight, Sheryl, who seemed to have appointed herself Cassie’s new best friend and confidante, and who was apparently incapable of going more than three seconds without speaking.

Some vacation.

Jane was trying to keep her mind on the road. It was kind of important, especially because she was now on the outside, guardrail-less, side of the road, and a mistake would send her and her passengers plummeting a thousand feet to a horrible, fiery death.

On the other hand, at least that would shut Sheryl up. She hadn’t stopped talking, except to take the occasional breath, the whole drive. And the woman had no filter at all. She’d already managed to insult everyone in the car - including her boyfriend, everyone who worked for the airline industry and virtually the entire population of her home town, and that was just in the first ten minutes.

On the other other hand, Sheryl’s monologue was distracting Jane, keeping her from having to take a close look at her own feelings, specifically why she wasn’t thrilled at her brother’s surprise appearance. She should have been happy to see him. He deserved a vacation as much as anyone else, right? They hadn’t been fighting recently, had they? He’d even come around on the subject of their father’s engagement, hadn’t he? So what was her problem?

Heck, he wasn’t even criticizing her driving, and he never passed up the chance to do that. She had to respond in kind. Jane swore to herself she’d do exactly that, once they got out of the car and away from Sheryl.

It wasn’t long before the twisty, terrifying mountain roads were behind her, and Jane breathed a huge sigh of relief. Only five or ten more minutes, she called back. I bet Bill’s got lunch waiting for us. That earned a response of thank God from somewhere behind her, and a loud rumble that had to come from her father’s stomach.

It actually took twenty minutes. Although the roads were no longer mountainous, they were still very narrow, and Jane nearly ran into a huge flatbed truck hauling construction equipment half a kilometer outside the little town of Deia. It took some very careful maneuvering to avoid disaster. Jane was not the only one who was shaking when she finally parked outside Bill’s house; she half expected her father to drop to his knees and kiss the ground when he got out of the car.

He settled for a glass of wine once they got inside. Jane didn’t even bother to offer a quick tour of the house. Once she opened the door and got a whiff of the aroma from the kitchen – tomato-basil soup and fresh bread – she knew there was no chance of interesting anyone in anything except food.

Go ahead, everybody, serve yourself. Nobody stands on ceremony here. That was an understatement; it was hard to imagine someone more informal than Bill Welldon. She wondered for a moment where he might be, until she found a note taped to the phone – he had some urgent business in Soller, the next town over, a few kilometers to the west, but he’d be back in a couple of hours, and could Jane please keep everyone entertained until then?

Jane did her best, but it was difficult to get a word in edgewise with the talkative Sheryl at the table. Even her boyfriend – or husband, she supposed, the absence of a ring didn’t necessarily mean anything – couldn’t slow her down. It took twenty minutes before she could break in and ask the man his name.

Jon, he said, giving her a smile that, had she not already had a boyfriend, would have melted her heart on the spot. Even though he was definitely an older man. Jane pegged him as being somewhere in his mid-thirties, so roughly ten years older than her. Which really wasn’t that big a difference.

To make it even worse, his eyes twinkled – it was nearly weapons-grade twinkling, really. And his hair! Long and flowing, and looking like it belonged on the cover of a Harlequin romance rather than a real, live person. But none of that mattered, because, as Jane reminded herself, she had a boyfriend of her own already. She had no business mooning over someone else’s, no matter how seductive his smile, regardless of how prettily his eyes twinkled.

Sheryl had nothing to worry about from her. But she might have other concerns when the rest of the volunteers arrived tomorrow. There were at least a couple of single women, both in his approximate age range, and if he turned that smile and those eyes on them, Sheryl would have a fight on her hands to keep Jon. Now that would be entertainment.

Despite the fact that she did have her own boyfriend, and had no interest in taking anyone else’s, Jane must have reacted involuntarily to Jon’s smile, or his twinkling, or his hair, because there was a momentary flash of jealousy in Sheryl’s eyes. Then she grabbed his arm and pulled him closer to her. He was clearly used to such behavior, because he shrugged and let her do it. Yes. Jon’s a psychiatrist, she said. Dr. Jon. Well, Dr. Hardy, really, if you want to be formal.

Jane had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something about how his psychiatric training was probably useful for dealing with her. She wasn’t the only one who thought it, either, if the expressions on her father’s and Cassie’s faces were any indication. The only one at the table who didn’t react was her brother. He hadn’t said much of anything since the airport. She supposed she ought to make the first move – they were on her turf, after all. And she was the elder sibling, even if it was only by three minutes. She had a responsibility to be the bigger person. She got up, walked around to George and put a hand on his arm. Why don’t I show you your room?

Thankfully, he took the hint. He let her lead him up the curving stairway to the second floor. Just down the hall, she told him, pointing towards an open door on the right. The room it led into was supposed to be hers, but she made an executive decision on the spot. He could have