Patrick: Stone Security Volume Two, #3

By Glenna Sinclair

This is the third book of Stone Security Volume Two and contains over 50,000 words of romantic suspense.

No one knew who he was, and that was a source of pride to him for a long time. But those secrets were growing heavy, almost too heavy to carry on his own. Patrick Shaughnessy loved his work at Stone Security, but he was wondering if it wasn't time to move on, to find a way to unburden himself from his past. But then this woman bursts into his life, a victim of a vicious attack that is too reminiscent of a time of darkness in his past that he's been running from for more than a decade. He offers this woman sanctuary, doing for her what he might have wanted for his sister or for the woman he loved. But when he catches her in a lie, can he continue to protect her and face the possibility of his carefully hidden past unraveling around them, or will he run?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glenna Sinclair
• Release date: Nov 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9798224597680

Glenna Sinclair

Experience the heart-racing novels of Glenna Sinclair, the master of romantic suspense. Sinclair's books feature strong male protagonists, many with a military background, who face real-world challenges that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Books2read.com/GlennaSinclair Facebook.com/AuthorGlennaSinclair GlennaSinclairAuthor at Gmail dot com

Book preview

Prologue

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Six Months Earlier

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They didn’t even know who I was.

This secretary was looking at me like she wanted to eat me. I wondered what she would think if she knew I had modeled for an agency in New York for nearly two years.

This operative sitting two desks over from me was staring daggers into my back. I’d gotten the preferable case last week—a stalker harassing a local cop—while he got a routine cheating husband. I wondered what he would think if he knew I’d been trained to kill him in five different ways without even leaving my chair.

I used to look at people like them and think it was amusing that they had no idea who I was. Now...I wished there was someone I could tell.

I’d been in America for more than ten years now, but I hadn’t made any close connections in all that time. At first, it was because I believed it was too dangerous. As time passed, it became clear that the danger was more in my own mind than anywhere else. But, by then, it had become a habit. Now I simply didn’t know how to connect to people.

If only they knew.

Patrick?

I turned to find Brent Stone making his way through the maze of desks. He smiled when he spotted me, almost as if he was relieved to find the purpose of his visit. He nodded to a couple of people who sat up a little straighter when the founder’s brother came into the room, but he was laser focused on me.

Good. That always meant a new case.

I’d just finished up the stalker thing and was ready to get my teeth into something new.

Brent leaned against the edge of my desk, a file folder in his hands.

You finished that cop thing, right?

Yes, sir. I was just working on the final report.

That can wait. Brent glanced around briefly. Jack’s in Arizona. He’s got into his head that he wants to start a satellite office there, but he’s run into trouble. He needs a little support, you know?

Yeah.

He asked for you specifically. Would you be interested in going? I can’t guarantee you’ll be coming back anytime soon.

I shrugged. It wasn’t like I had roots here.

No problem.

Brent nodded. We’ll provide you with a vehicle and travel money. He needs you ASAP.

I can leave in the morning.

That seemed to satisfy Brent. He stood and left the file he’d been holding on my desk. I watched him go, aware that I was once again under something of a microscope by my coworkers. The secretary was always watching me, but now some of the other operatives were deeply interested in what I was up to. Some had heard, and there was jealousy on their faces. Like they could pick up their lives and move to another state on a moment’s notice. I could, but I couldn’t imagine anyone else in this room could.

I’d worked for Stone Security for nearly three years now. I’d traveled the country, doing this job, taking that job. But I didn’t really enjoy any of it. It wasn’t until I found Stone that I found a job that kept me interested while allowing me my privacy. As long as I showed up and had my colleagues’ backs, I was good. I even worked directly with Jack Stone a few times, running cases that required two or more people on it for one reason or another. We did an investigative case together once, looking for this fool who thought he could blackmail a city councilman. I saved Jack’s ass when the guy unexpectedly showed up while we were checking out his house. The guy attacked Jack, but I knocked him out, giving Jack the chance to concoct a story that kept us both out of jail.

Maybe that was why Jack asked for me on this new thing he had going.

I finished up my report and grabbed my keys, slinging my jacket over a shoulder as I headed out. It didn’t matter if I came back to this place or not. I was only leaving behind a couple of paperclips and some workout clothes in the gym downstairs. Not a trace.

I’d learned early not to leave pieces of myself behind.

My car was a lease, my apartment a month-to-month deal with the old lady who owned the garage it sat above. No girlfriend, though there was a pretty lady who warmed my bed from time to time. She was married to an older, impotent businessman who was richer than God. She might miss me for a day or two until she found another boy toy to fill her evenings.

I walked into the apartment and grabbed a duffel out of the closet, filling it with my small wardrobe. That was my one hang-up. I liked my clothes. I liked to dress nice. I didn’t have much in the way of clothing, but what I had was expensive. I learned quickly and well when I was modeling what looked good. I liked to look good.

Suits by Armani and Brioni. Shirts and jackets by Gucci and Stella McCartney. Jeans by Damir Doma and Alexander McQueen.

If it didn’t cost at least four hundred dollars, I wasn’t interested.

Even the duffel was leather and cost me nearly seven hundred bucks.

Once the duffel was full, I looked around the room, trying to decide if there was anything else I wanted to take. The sad truth was, there was nothing.

I travel light. It’s always been my way. Baggage had a way of anchoring a person, holding them in one place, allowing his enemies to find him. I knew I had enemies from my past life. The first past life.

I had lived many lives over the past twenty years. The first was the most dangerous. The second was New York and my modeling career. I lived under a different name then. It was a good life, but my reputation grew too big for safety’s sake. I took another name, then there was a brief music career in Chicago and a pedestrian factory job in St. Louis. That name lasted until I got involved with the wrong married woman in Denver. Another name change, and I found Stone Security. I almost hoped they would find me out when they did their background check, but my credentials were—and would always be—impeachable. The people who provided them to me were the best.

No one would ever know the truth about me unless I chose to tell them. It was both a reassuring fact and a frustrating one.

It wasn’t that I wanted to be caught. I just...I was bored with the lies.

They called me Patrick Shaughnessy now. If only they knew how ironic it was.

There was one last thing I needed. I went to the desk pushed into a corner of the room, a desk that served as both a workspace and a vanity, should the occupant of this place be a woman in need of a place to do her makeup other than the narrow sink in the teeny bathroom. I caught sight of my reflection as I reached into a deep drawer for the satellite phone I kept hidden there.

Dark Irish. That’s what the modeling agent had called me. She couldn’t have been further from the truth.

I was dark. My hair was jet black, cut military style, my eyes, slightly hidden under heavy brows, a smoldering brown that could be black in the right light. I was slender, tall, athletically built with a well-defined six pack, but not overly muscular. My nose had been broken a few times so it was fuller along the bridge than it once had been, but it was set off by my narrow jaw. I wondered sometimes how people could look at me and take my new name, my bullshit backstory, seriously. I could see my true heritage in my face, in the basic nature of my mannerisms. I didn’t understand how they couldn’t.

I reached up and ran a hand over my short hair, touching the gauge that hung from my earlobe. Maybe I was just that good of an actor. Or maybe I had just overestimated the intelligence of American society. Not that I thought badly of Americans or their country. I loved it here. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

I would keep playing this game as long as it was necessary. But I looked forward to the day when I could finally tell someone the truth and not have to worry about the repercussions.

Chapter 1

The store was silent as I counted through the bills I’d taken from the cash register. We’d done good business today. Alli would be pleased.

I kind of liked taking care of Alli’s Little Shop of Pleasure. I hadn’t been all that excited when she first suggested it, preferring the store over accompanying her to Memphis, but not thrilled with the mundane work. But I’d since discovered I had a sort of affinity for it.

Maybe in my next life, I’d be a store owner.

I’d sent everyone home an hour ago, just after the place closed, preferring to go through the inventory and clean up on my own. This was my last task, counting the bank deposit. Just over three thousand dollars for the day. Things were picking up now that the Guardians were gone, and life in Ellaville had gone back to something like normal.

That would please Alli, too.

Alli Collins had been our client since before I came out to Arizona to help Jack. She was being harassed by this militant group who disguised their harassment of Alli and the shop with the morality of the church they were associated with. They called themselves the Guardians, claiming they were protecting their parishioners from those who threatened their immortal souls. The truth was, however, they were just a group of bullies who thought they could rid this little town of the people they didn’t approve of. But they made the mistake of killing Jack Stone’s friend.

We took them out instead.

That was five months ago.

Alli had gone to Memphis to see her kid graduate from high school. She was supposed to be gone two weeks. She’d been gone nearly two months now. The operative I sent with her was stabbed, then shot, in a series of events I was still a little fuzzy about. But Jack was supposed to get back to town at the end of the week. Maybe he’d have a few answers.

Not that I was in a hurry to hand over the reins of the store or of Stone Security’s satellite office out here in the desert. I was having fun being the boss for once.

Maybe that was the secret to success: being in charge, answering only to the client and the accountant.

I finished counting the stack of bills and was writing out the final count on the deposit slip when the alarm system began to make its little whiny buzz. I glanced up, the monitors suddenly coming alive and showing me the camera feeds from outside the building. A van was speeding out of the parking lot, kicking up a hell of a lot of dust as it did.

Probably just kids doing donuts.

But...it was my job to keep the place secure. I stood and slipped my gun into the waistband of my jeans, stepping out into the cool night air to investigate. The van was long gone by the time I got out there, probably already speeding into town down the highway that ran out in front of the shop. They had made a mess of the rock and dust parking lot. It needed to be redone, a fresh supply of rocks delivered, but that was a long-term problem I’d allow Alli to worry about. I kicked a few rocks and turned to walk back to the store, my thoughts already back on the money that waited in a little bank bag on the desk.

Help me!

It was a weak cry. Female. I stopped and listened, trying to decide which direction it had come from. Then it came again.

Please!

I walked slowly around the side of the building, realizing the van could have come from that direction. It was in a direct line with the side of the parking lot they’d sped out of. If they had come in through the wide alley out back—

Please!

A woman in her mid-twenties lay on the ground, tucked back against the metal side of the building. She was curled into a ball, her arms wrapped around her legs like a child might do when frightened. She had long, thick, brown hair that hung in tangles around her face, a face I couldn’t quite see in the shadows created by the building and that impossibly long hair. But I could see the rips on her blouse, the scratches on her arm. I could see dirt—or something dark and dirty—smeared on her clothes, her legs. She was wearing a skirt, but it was ripped, too, barely hiding the long, shapely legs it was meant to cover.

I dropped onto my knees beside her, not quite sure what to do. I touched her arm, and she cried out, jerking away.

I won’t hurt you, I said in the softest, calmest voice I could conjure despite the anger and outrage that was building in my chest. Can you tell me what happened?

She shook her head violently.

I’m sorry, I said softly, fully aware of what had happened. It was evident in her condition, in her reaction to my touch.

She started to cry softly. I wanted to comfort her, to give her words or a gesture that would make this better. But there was nothing.

I rose to my feet and pulled my cell out of my pocket. I was about to touch the last 1 in 911 when she suddenly looked up, these incredible gray eyes staring at me.

What are you doing?

You need a hospital. And the police should know—

No! She started to stand, but her knees refused to hold her. Please, don’t!

I knelt beside her again, gripping her upper arms to keep her still, to stop her from trying to stand again. You’re hurt. You need to be checked out.

But they’ll tell my family, and everyone will find out! My reputation will be destroyed!

This was not your fault. No one will blame you.

You don’t understand. My church—

That’s when it clicked in my head. This church that dominated this little town. It was a church of deep values, of stringent rules that its followers had to abide by. Women were expected to remain pure until their wedding night, and then indulge in the pleasures of the flesh only with their husbands for the purpose of providing him with children. A woman who was sexually assaulted was no longer pure.

Okay, I said somewhat reluctantly.