Framed Shadows: Shadows Landing #6 Read online

  “Would you boys care for some lemonade?” the leader of the elderly trio called out as she set down her knitting needles.

  “That would be lovely, ma’am,” Cy responded for the group as he headed toward the patio lined with colorful flowers.

  “What is he doing? Doesn’t he know they’re dangerous?” Connor asked.

  “It’s a knitting club,” Peter scoffed.

  “Shadows Landing doesn’t have a knitting club? Everyone knows they’re more dangerous than the CIA,” Connor answered as Paxton nodded.

  “Could you say no to Miss Winnie or Miss Ruby?” Paxton asked Peter.

  “Oh, crap. I’ve got to rescue them,” Peter answered frantically as Cy climbed the stairs to the patio with Dare right behind him. Granger and Kord stood at the bottom of the steps and smiled up at the ladies as they passed out lemonade.

  “Why don’t you have the boys in the van join us?” the knitting club leader asked, although it wasn’t a question. It was a demand and Paxton found himself already reaching for the door before catching himself.

  “What boys in what van?” Cy asked. The ladies stopped knitting and stared at Cy, ready to give him a scolding.

  “Bless your heart, you’re not a good liar,” the leader said as she wagged her finger at Cy.

  “Why does everyone say that? I’m an excellent liar,” Cy huffed as he tossed his hands up in the air.

  “No one likes a fibber,” one of the other ladies told him.

  “Sorry, ma’am.” Cy motioned for the men to come out of the van. Their cover was already blown, but now it was going to be blown to smithereens, set on fire, then stomped on.

  One of the ladies in the rocking chair narrowed her eyes at Paxton. “I know you. I thought you were killed. It does my heart good to know you’re still alive.”

  “Hello, Miss Ethel. It’s nice to see you again,” Paxton said to her as she set down her knitting and waved him forward. She lifted her face and waited for Paxton to buss her cheek. “Miss Josie,” he said, kissing the other cheek of the third woman sitting on the patio before stepping forward to the leader. “Miss Trudie. It’s good to see you again.”

  Miss Trudie huffed. “We were very upset when we thought you were dead. Then you saunter onto our street without even a ‘how do you do?’”

  “I’m not supposed to be here. I don’t want to put you in danger,” Paxton told them.

  “Those useless men won’t bother us. I’d stab them with my needles. Now you,” Miss Trudie said, turning to Cy, “you’re welcome to sit a spell with us and tell us about why you’re here.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Call me Cy.” He took Miss Trudie’s hand and kissed it.

  “Wow, they’re good. I’ve been with you all day and he’s never told me his name,” Connor whispered.

  “There’s no whispering, Sergeant Gibbs. That’s just bad manners,” Miss Josie snapped.

  “How do you know who I am?” Connor asked with horror.

  “You’ve had six stakeouts on this street in the past year, and you’ve never introduced yourself. Really, were you raised in a barn?” Miss Ethel and her friends shook their heads in disappointment and clucked unhappily at him.

  “Now, young man,” Miss Trudie said to Cy as she handed him a tray filled with cookies. “Why are you here tonight and bringing the dead with you?” she asked as she looked toward Paxton.

  “Two Myriad members going by the names Maurice and Murray,” Cy started to say before turning to Paxton. “Show them the pictures.”

  Paxton held out his phone to display images of Maurice and Murray. The three women nodded with recognition.

  “They’re trying to sell stolen art and my niece, the sweetest darlin’ you’ve ever met, has been put in the position as the art broker. We traced them back here and are trying to find out what the Myriad is up to and what it has to do with art.” Cy cracked faster than an egg ready for an omelet.

  Paxton noted the women didn’t look surprised, but they also weren’t sharing. The dangers of the knitting club. They gathered information but rarely parted with it.

  “Do you think you can help us?” Paxton asked.

  Miss Trudie looked up innocently from where she was knitting. “Oh, we don’t know anything. We’re just three old ladies.”

  Cy’s lips twitched up in a smile. Kord busted out laughing.

  “Ladies, we all know that’s an even bigger fib,” Kord said with a smooth smile on his lips. He gave the women a wink and they all smiled back at him, proving you were never too old to flirt.

  “How about an exchange? You give us information and I’ll help you out,” Dare suggested.

  “We do not need payoffs like low-life drug dealers,” Miss Josie said with a sniff of displeasure.

  “Oh, I wasn’t going to trade money for information,” Dare said, looking down at Miss Josie’s knitting. “I was going to show you how to clean up your stranded floats. Then I could show Miss Ethel why she’s having trouble attaching the I-cord, and then help Miss Trudie with that intarsia technique.”

  The women all looked down at their knitting and back up at Dare. He’d surprised them so much they forgot to mask it on their faces.

  “You knit?” Miss Josie sputtered.

  “I do. I’m part of my town’s knitting club. So, do we have a deal?” Dare asked as Paxton and Connor glanced at each other, clearly holding their breath.

  “Sit a spell and let’s chat. My, what a fine group of men you have with you, Paxton,” Miss Trudie said. Cy walked back to the van and pulled out two folding chairs. Granger and Kord sat down on the steps. Cy and Dare sat in the chairs on each side of the knitting club. Peter leaned against the white iron railing and kept lookout while Connor did the same on the other side of the steps. Paxton walked up the four cement steps and took a seat on a porch swing.

  “See, there have been new men in town. They arrived the day you were killed,” Miss Ethel told them as she nodded to Paxton. “They’ve been strutting around like they own the place ever since. Never once stopped to introduce themselves. To anyone. Peewee is a thorn in our side, but he has good manners at least. He never sells to kids and he even takes out our trash cans for us.”

  “But these new men don’t. They aren’t from here either. They’re from Argentina. We heard that no-good Curtis Engle talking the other week. Stopped right in front of our house where we were knitting in the living room with the window open,” Miss Josie said, picking up the story. “He said the Argentinians are demanding they fence the paintings and get them their cash by the end of summer or they’ll pull their support of the Myriad’s expansion.”

  “That’s right,” Miss Trudie said, nodding with a sour look on her face. “That no-good Curtis was talking to Maurice and Murray, or rather, the Spiller brothers, as everyone knows them. The Spiller brothers are almost always together. They slithered into Curtis’s favor after all that shooting went down and Curtis lost most of his inner circle. Was that you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Before I took three shots to the chest and was run out of the gang unit,” Paxton told them.

  “Run out, you say?” Miss Ethel asked.

  “That’s right. I was transferred out of state and my subordinate was promoted.” Paxton pulled up a photo of Mark on his phone and showed it to the ladies. “Mark Trevino.”

  “We haven’t seen him, but I think we’ve heard talk about him,” Miss Trudie confirmed. “See, when Curtis was talking to the Spillers, he said they needed the sell the paintings immediately and said the Argentinians wanted half the sales price in cash for them. The Spillers said they had a fence in Shadows Landing, South Carolina. Curtis said, ‘Be careful, our man inside said an enemy came back from the dead in Charleston.’”

  “I should never have applied for that transfer back here,” Paxton cursed. Peter gave him a sympathetic look. They’d unknowingly stirred the hornets’ nest.

  “Anything else useful we should know? Guns? Drugs? Anything you’d like to see stopped that we can help
with?” Dare asked.

  “They’re selling drugs to kids down at the basketball courts in the park. Someone tried to sell my grandson a dime bag. He’s thirteen,” Miss Josie told them as the others shook their heads with disgust.

  “I’ll take care of it. You have my word,” Connor swore to them.

  “There’s also a van with this license plate,” Miss Ethel said, handing her phone to Connor. “They sell guns out of the back of it. Here’s video.”

  Dare leaned over and watched the video. “I can take care of that for you, ladies.”

  “I have no doubt. Now, those two are clearly cops,” Miss Trudie said, pointing to Granger and Kord. “And our back from the dead boy is FBI and that fella looks like FBI, too,” Miss Trudie said, pointing to Paxton and Peter. “You, I don’t know. But you probably wouldn’t tell us anyway,” she said to Cy who gave her a wink. “But you don’t fit,” she said to Dare.

  “ATF, ma’am. Now let me show you how to fix your knitting.” Dare emailed the video to himself and handed the phone back to Miss Ethel. “Let’s knit, ladies.”

  18

  Tinsley didn’t think protective service would be so much fun. However, she’d had a blast with Mallory and Blythe. Now they were curled up in Ryker’s home theater watching a movie and eating popcorn.

  “So, you and Paxton. I heard it’s an opposites attract type thing,” Mallory said with a wink.

  “I thought he didn’t like me when we first met. I thought he was an arrogant know-it-all,” Tinsley said, laughing at how badly their first meetings had gone. “I was very wrong.”

  “I understand that. It wasn’t all roses for my husband and me either,” Mallory said. “But now we’ve been married forever, have our kids, and couldn’t be happier. What about you, Blythe?”

  “My girlfriend’s name is Veronica. I think I fell for her while I was hitting this guy with a stun gun and Veronica calmly called the police. She even winked at me while she was talking. It was like ten thousand volts of electricity hitting my heart. Well, except it was fifty thousand volts I was shooting into a very bad man.”

  “You scare me a little. Want a job?” Ryker asked Blythe from the doorway of his home theater.

  “Thanks, Ryk. That’s nice of you, but I’m happy in Keeneston,” Blythe called out from her recliner.

  “Are you joining us?” Tinsley asked. They used to do movie and game nights as kids right up until Ryker’s incident. Then he had shut them out. Gone was the happy-go-lucky boy he’d been. When he dug and buried himself, it was Tinsley who had pulled him from the black hole he was stuck in. He wasn’t the type to ever sit back and laugh anymore. No more board games. No more movie nights. No more laughter.

  “What are you watching?” Ryker asked.

  “To Catch a Thief,” Mallory answered.

  “How appropriate,” Ryker said dryly as he walked through the darkened theater and took the recliner next to Tinsley on the far side of the room.

  Tinsley reached out and placed her hand gently over his on the armrest and gave it a little squeeze.

  “You ever shot anyone with fifty thousand volts, Ryk?” Blythe asked, using the nickname no one else was brave enough to use.

  “Can’t say I have, Miss Kencroft,” Ryker answered. Tinsley looked over at him. His face was partially in shadows, but she saw the twitch of a lip.

  “You want to?” Blythe asked. “I bet if you just smile at that young assistant who is walking around here like she’s your girlfriend, she’d let you stun her.”

  “She totally would let you do it,” Mallory added with a snort of amusement. “Heck, I almost got her today.”

  “What did Bianca do?” Ryker asked them, looking confused. Ryker probably didn’t pay attention to lowly assistants.

  “I guess her name is Bianca,” Tinsley said slowly. “Well, Bianca doesn’t realize I’m your cousin. She cornered me in my room and told me, quote ‘Ryker will tire of your sluttish ways by the end of the week so you better not unpack.’”

  Ryker growled deep in his chest and his hands fisted. “Did you tell her you were my cousin?”

  “No. I just slammed the door in her face. I figured she’d find out soon enough. Sorry, Ryker. I know you have a lot on your plate right now. That’s why I wasn’t going to bother you with it.”

  “You’re family, Tinsley. You never bother me. I’m here to protect you and that includes harassment from out-of-line assistants.”

  “Actually, we’re here to protect her,” Mallory reminded him with a grin. “However, Tinsley wouldn’t let us stun that Bianca chick.”

  “What are you three doing in here? This is off limits to your kind,” Bianca interrupted, with her hands on her shapely hips in the dark doorway.

  “Speak of the devilette,” Blythe muttered.

  “Kind? What kind are we?” Mallory asked innocently as she leaned forward to block any view Bianca might have of Ryker.

  “You’re after Ryker, but you’re too late. He’s mine.”

  Tinsley almost felt sorry for Bianca. Almost. Mallory leaned back in her chair as Ryker leaned forward so that Tinsley, Mallory, and Blythe no longer hid him from view. “Bianca, I take it you haven’t met Tinsley Faulkner, my cousin, who is closer to me than any sister could be?”

  Tinsley waved. She even gave a big smile, hopeful the dim light in the theater room would let Bianca see it.

  Bianca’s face fell as she realized Ryker had heard everything. “These are her bodyguards, Blythe Kencroft and Mallory Westin-Simpson. Yes, that Simpson family. Marge will have your final check ready in the morning. You can pick it up at the Charleston office when you turn in all business-related items in your possession. Your services are no longer required.”

  Ryker leaned back into his recliner and took a deep breath. “Blythe, pass the popcorn, please.”

  “Sure thing, Ryk.”

  Blythe passed the popcorn and Bianca stomped her foot. With a little cry of disappointment over losing out on any possibility to bag Ryker, she stormed from the room. Tinsley smiled at her cousin. He might not notice the small changes, but she did. Ryker was finally starting to peek out of the bunker he’d been hiding in since that night so long ago now.

  Paxton had staked out the Myriad headquarters for two days, but he hadn’t seen the Spiller brothers once. He had seen men moving drugs and guns for Myriad, though. It had felt good to go on a bust again. Kord and Granger were having a grand old time working undercover. Kord bought some drugs and Granger got a gun at their separate takedowns. Connor arrested the drug dealers and a basket of homemade muffins was brought to the surveillance van by Miss Josie’s grandson. That afternoon, Granger had approached the gun dealer and bought some weapons before the team went in and busted him. Dare handed him off to a local ATF agent. Miss Trudie and Miss Ethel sent their grandkids to the van with seven matching knitted caps for next winter and a plate of brownies.

  They’d been in Atlanta for three days, slowly taking down sections of the Myriad and gathering intelligence. What he hadn’t done was call Tinsley. As they watched Cy set up the gun dealer’s now empty van to ram into Myriad’s headquarters, he asked Dare about it. “Do you call Harper when you’re undercover?”

  “Nope. But if you’re wondering if you should call Tinsley, then maybe you should reach out to see how she is so you can focus back on the case. Look at that creative engineering. I swear you can do anything with duct tape and bungee cords.”

  Paxton looked to where Cy finished rigging the van and set a brick on the gas pedal before leaping back. The van tore off down the street. It jumped the curb, raced up the wooden steps, and slammed into the house that served as the Myriad

  headquarters. Cy stood out in the open, and as the first men started pouring out of the house, he gave them the middle finger.

  “Tell Engle I’m coming for him!” Cy yelled before getting in the SUV and taking off.

  “He’s crazy,” Connor muttered, shaking his head as they took pictures of everyone running ou
t of the house. “But it worked. There are lots of guys we haven’t seen before. I’ll run all the pictures through our database.”

  “I’m not seeing the Spillers, though,” Paxton said with a sigh, before he perked up again. “Hey, there’s Curtis.”

  Paxton watched as the head of the Myriad strode out of the house in a towering rage. He was on the phone and yelling orders to everyone around him, including whoever was on the other end of the phone call. “Let’s see who shows up and where Curtis goes. He must have another location where the drugs, weapons, and art are stored. If we want to put Curtis away, we need those items in his possession when we bust him.”

  Dare and Connor worked on getting the photos uploaded to their various departments, but it was the SUV pulling up that drew Paxton’s attention. “Get that SUV and anyone who comes out of it on camera.”

  “Who do you think it is?” Peter asked.

  “I think it’s Trevino. It has F-E-D practically stamped on it.”

  Paxton leaned forward and zoomed in the telephoto lens. Unfortunately, the driver’s window never rolled down. However, he snapped a picture of the plate as the SUV tore away from the house and in the direction Cy had driven.

  The back door to their van opened and Cy jumped in. “So, did I stir up the hornet’s nest enough? You think they’ll move forward quickly now?”

  “I do. The license plate for the SUV is registered to the federal government,” Connor said.

  “There goes Curtis.” Paxton pointed as the man jumped into the passenger seat of a massive pickup truck. “Go. Kord and Granger, gunmetal gray truck,” Paxton said into his coms. Kord and Granger were in two different undercover vehicles on various side streets, waiting for Curtis to pass them.

  Cy picked up his phone and dialed a number. “Hello, Miss Trudie. Do you know anyone who wants to report a van running into a house at 555 Peachtree? Yes, ma’am that is the Myriad’s headquarters.” Paxton could hear Miss Trudie’s laughter from across the van.