Close Range Christmas by Nicole Helm (ebook reader for laptop TXT) 📗

eventually moved slowly to the door, but she stopped there before opening it. “Dev?”

“What?”

She paused, that awful vulnerability and openness crossing over her face. “I know exactly what and who you are. I’ve always known. It’s never changed how I felt about you, or what I thought you were capable of. I thought maybe I couldn’t reach that part of you—not that it wasn’t there.” Then she left.

I thought maybe I couldn’t reach that part of you—not that it wasn’t there.

Not always so confident and sure of herself. Not always a steamroller going after what she wanted. He rubbed at the pain in his chest, knowing that realization would haunt him.

Even when the present danger was taken care of, he’d have a whole lot more to tackle with Sarah. And his heart.

Chapter Ten

The sound of crashing glass had Sarah’s eyes flying open. There’d been a scream, she was sure of it. She whipped the covers off her and struggled to get out of bed quickly. It had come from somewhere upstairs, but not here in her room.

Once she got up, she ran for the door. By the time she made it to the hallway, everyone upstairs was crowded around the door to Cody and Nina’s room.

Liza pushed through. She gave Sarah’s arm a quick squeeze. “Everything’s okay but I’m going to check on the girls.”

“What happened?” But Liza had already moved down the hall to where the girls were sleeping.

Sarah grabbed the nearest person since she couldn’t get close to Nina and Cody’s door.

“A brick. Through the window. No one’s hurt,” Jamison said grimly.

A brick.

“Now, now. We aren’t going to solve anything standing here with no room. Let’s go downstairs and talk this through,” Grandma Pauline ordered. She started shooing people down the hall.

Sarah backed up into her bedroom doorway as everyone who’d been upstairs started to file down the hall and to the stairs, including the dogs. Sarah moved to obey, but Dev crested the stairs. He patted Grandma Pauline’s shoulder and headed for Cody and Nina’s room.

Sarah followed him. He’d had his boots on, which Sarah realized was purposeful when he walked through the glass. Nina was still in bed, and Cody was standing next to it.

Dev carefully picked up the brick. He pulled a rubber band off of it, shook out the piece of paper wrapped around it, then handed it to Cody.

Cody’s expression got even more grim. “I guess I’ve got my sentencing,” Cody said.

Nina made a noise and Sarah thought about moving to offer some support, but there was window glass all over the floor and her feet were bare.

“Grab us some shoes out of the closet?”

Dev nodded and went to the closet. He pulled out pairs of shoes for Cody and then Nina and handed them over. Cody and Nina slid the shoes on in silence.

“We’ll need to clean this up, but let’s all go downstairs and talk things through first, yeah?”

Nina nodded, and she and Cody slid their arms around each other. Sarah moved out of the doorway again as Cody and Nina exited.

As Dev came out, he rubbed his hand over his beard before looking down at her. “You could go back to bed,” he said, gently enough she didn’t bristle. “It’s the middle of the night. Nothing changes if you go back to bed.”

“He knows what rooms we’re sleeping in, Dev.”

Dev expression went lax. He looked stricken, as though that hadn’t occurred to him yet.

“The brick went through Cody’s window and the paper was for Cody. None of us are safe in our rooms.”

He swallowed and then slid his arm around her shoulders and started leading her to the stairs. “Okay, you’re right.”

It was the first time he’d admitted she was right and she couldn’t take any pleasure in it. When they got downstairs everyone was in the kitchen, and the dogs were settled under the table, making Sarah think no one was still outside. Grandma was already reheating leftovers even though the clock said it was three.

“We didn’t see anything,” Cecilia said. She was sitting at the table, frowning at her hands.

Brady put his hand over hers. “None of the security lights went off. We were awake and paying attention. I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t... There was no warning.”

“He’s probably cut those too,” Cody replied, his voice eerily calm as he encouraged Nina to sit down. “If he got the cameras, why not the motion sensors? I keep trying to rewire, add new passwords, but he cuts through all the tech. I hate to admit it, but I’m out of my league here.”

Nina reached up and put her hand over Cody’s on her shoulder. “We can’t think of everything. It’s impossible in a situation like this.”

Dev nudged Sarah into an empty chair, then stood behind it. Grandma Pauline put a mug of hot tea in front of her. Duke paced the kitchen, and Jamison stood by the kitchen sink, looking out the window, as if he could see anything in the dark.

Liza was still upstairs with the kids, but everyone else was sitting around the table.

“Well, what does it say?” Duke demanded. “Just like Jamison’s?”

Cody looked down at the paper. “Same setup. Slightly different wording.”

Cody Wyatt

Crimes:

The subject has been the perpetrator of a wide variety of crimes since childhood, but the most egregious of these is his involvement with the terrorist North Star Group. Murder, kidnapping, treason, terrorism.

Sentencing:

For these acts, I do hereby sentence Cody Wyatt to death. This will be meted out at the judge’s discretion through the method C. Wyatt deemed acceptable through his own connection to the terrorist group.

—AW

“Terrorist group,” Cody muttered. “What a bunch of bull.”

“It makes sense though,” Sarah offered. “If you look at it from his standpoint. North Star’s mission was to take down the Sons. That’s terrorism. To them.”

“I don’t understand where an affiliation with the Sons would come from if he was never in the Sons,” Dev said, not dismissively but thoughtfully as though he were trying to work it