“Gravity?”
“Some part of it, most definitely.” But all of it? What about the courtroom?
“Kegs won’t keep your bed warm at night,” Mel said, making the next leap to the bedroom.
He chuckled. “I was going to say something noble about the carriage of justice, but marriage seems to have turned you into the matchmaker.”
She poked him in the knee with her heel, smiling and unrepentant. “I want to see my friends happy too.”
If that constant ache he’d felt in the vicinity of his chest the past month was any indication, Nic knew what would make him happy. But he wouldn’t let his happiness come at the expense of those he cared for.
“I need to know how to protect the future,” he said. “No matter what or who is in it.”
The seat belt light dinged off and the pilot interrupted to report they’d reached cruising altitude. When the intercom clicked off, Mel unclasped her seat belt and stood, gesturing to the chairs a row back on either side of a table. “Then I need to bring you up to speed,” she said, all business.
And the business wasn’t good.
Thirty minutes later, the table was covered with documents and Nic was pacing the length of the cabin, his hands in his hair, which had more gray in it every day. Warp speed, if this shit kept up. “That’s why they laid off.”
“Mostly likely. But this”—she nudged the damning deed of trust on his childhood home—“won’t keep them at bay forever. Not when Curtis still can’t pay his bills. The debts will outweigh the equity before long.”
“Did Vaughn take out insurance on it?”
From the folder of horrors that had produced only bad news, she pulled out another sheet of paper—an insurance certificate on the house. His gaze shot to the declared value box, and all the moisture in his mouth vanished. Double the assessed value, last time he’d checked the county land records.
He ran his hands down his face, groaning. “It’s as good as doused in lighter fluid.” He had to get his father and the staff out of there.
“Have you had any more calls?” Mel asked.
Nic shook his head. No more of the distracting calls from an Unknown number, the first having rung right as Vaughn’s goons attacked him. He pointed at the deed of trust. “Now we know why.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Swear to Christ, Cruz, you pull another nightmare out of that fucking hat”—he glared at the folder—“and I might just throw it out of this plane.”
“How you gonna do that?”
“I’ll get creative.”
She laughed, then pulled two pieces of paper from the Folder of Doom. He growled. “Easy, Price.” She set the papers on the table. “Jury’s still out on these.”
“Tell me where the calls originated from, and I’ll be the judge of that.”
She smirked and pointed at several highlighted entries on the first sheet—his phone record. “These are the unknown calls to you, all from a single burner phone like we suspected.”
“Did the calls originate from the same location?”
“Appears so. Took a bit of digging, but I traced them back to Jacksonville, North Carolina.”
Bracing his hands on either side of the table, he stared at the second sheet.
A map with a cluster of pinpoints, all in a familiar location.
“That’s Camp Lejeune.” He’d been based at Little Creek in Virginia, then Coronado in California, but he’d done joint special operations training with the Marines at Lejeune. Numerous times. “Someone from when I was in the service?”
“That would be the logical conclusion.”
Was a former teammate in trouble? He knew of at least one who was there in the area, an instructor now. Or a Marine he’d crossed paths with? From his time as a SEAL, then in the JAG Corps, he had colleagues across branches, and if there was one thing the military engrained in him, it was never leave a teammate behind. He had his own teammates’ names inked on his skin because they hadn’t left him behind when he’d been injured in the field. If one of them was in trouble now . . . And was that trouble the Duncan Vaughn sort? If it were, he’d either been betrayed or someone was up to their neck in shit with Vaughn. Shit they probably didn’t grasp the full danger and extent of. “You got enough fuel on this thing to take us to North Carolina?”
