One Secret Night by Jennifer Morey Read Free Book Online Page B

she was, the disappointment had been crushing. He had no business being disappointed.
    “You should have stayed home and away from here,” he said.
    “I have a flight home tomorrow. I think you should leave now,” she said. “I won’t bother you anymore.”
    “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. Kai is still alive and whoever wants him dead went after you. That means two things. Kai needs to debug himself, and you know too much.”
    “I don’t know anything. Least of all about you .”
    That made her mad. He heard it in her voice and saw it in the fire of her eyes. “You know about Creighton.”
    “So do you.”
    “Yes, but no one knows who I am.” They had to be well aware that someone was helping Kai, and by now maybe even that he was someone to fear. All the more reason to protect Autumn. She was a witness to an attempted contract killing.
    Raith would have liked nothing more than to leave her and finish this investigation alone, but she was defenseless without him.
    His phone rang. Seeing his FBI contact’s number, he answered.
    “I’ve got something for you,” the agent said. “All this time we’ve been looking for Tabor Creighton and we should have been looking for Leaman Marshall. He was operating under a false name. I discovered that when I found a death certificate on Creighton and checked it out. He’s been using that name for so long we had no reason to suspect it wasn’t his birth name. Marshall lived in Houston. I can’t spend any more time on this than I have, but you should have no trouble locating his family. Creighton had none still living, which made him a perfect cover for Marshall.”
    “You have an address on Marshall?”
    The agent gave it to him and then said, “The only reason I help you at all is because I think you’re an okay guy. But I’ve got cases.”
    “Understood.” Raith thanked the agent and disconnected.
    “Be careful.”
    In other words, don’t do anything illegal and don’t get caught. “I always am.”
    Except with Autumn. And now he had to take her with him to his home, where he had a secure network set up and access to the resources he needed to locate anyone close to Leaman. He never took women there. This was a first.

Chapter 4
    K ai Whittaker pulled into the four-car garage, checking the rearview mirror again. The bodyguard Raith had assigned to him parked right behind him outside. As instructed, he waited for the man to get out and come to him. When all was clear, Kai was free to get out of his own damn car. Having a big, expressionless brute tag along with him day and night had its annoyances, but it was better than being dead.
    He’d talked to Raith on the way home for status on his investigation. Not much progress had been made. Kai couldn’t push him the way he could push his employees. He claimed to be having difficulty locating anyone who knew Tabor Creighton, but Kai wondered if the distraction of Autumn Ivy had slowed his progress.
    Inside, Thor checked for abnormalities while Kai put down his computer case and keys. Thor wasn’t his real name, just a small source of private entertainment for Kai.
    “You’re home at a decent time.”
    Seeing his wife approach, his day improved. Ten years younger than his fifty-two, she looked twenty-nine. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, she still had her beautiful shape after two kids. The silky gold pantsuit dipped low enough to show off her ample chest.
    He leaned in for a kiss as she put herself against him. “You’re better than a tall, cool drink.”
    She smiled at his compliment. “I love you, too.”
    Thor returned to the living room, looking like a hulking star of a bad TV crime show, not rode hard enough and not having seen enough terrible things to be a believable character. He’d hover until they went to bed. Maybe he was simply out of place in a suit and in Kai and India’s five-thousand-square-foot home in downtown Houston. They had this house here and a second one outside the city limits