Framed Shadows: Shadows Landing #6, Kathleen Brooks [great novels of all time TXT] 📗

“Can,” sniff, “I,” sniff, “have a tissue?” sniff.

Curtis ignored her question but motioned for Mark to step back. “Do you know this man?” Curtis held up his phone. It was Paxton’s FBI employee picture. She couldn’t deny it. Mark had seen him in Shadows Landing.

Tinsley nodded. “That’s Paxton Johnson, my employee.”

“That is FBI Agent Paxton Kendry,” Curtis told her.

She shook her head. He was watching her closely. “No, that’s . . . oh no.” Curtis raised his eyebrow, waiting for her to finish her thought. “He has the combination to the vault.” She swallowed hard as Mark cursed. Tinsley flinched and whimpered.

Tinsley didn’t need to fake the flinch. Mark looked ready to kill her. Tinsley started to plead with him, but the hit came anyway.

“Enough.” Curtis said to Mark, standing up from his chair. “We need to talk.”

Tinsley struggled to slow the tears. She waited until they were a few steps away before she spoke again. “Paxton mentioned a place to me. Maybe he moved the paintings there? I was working when he told me about it so I have to admit I wasn’t paying close attention. I’ll try to remember it,” she lied.

Curtis looked her over and gave a little nod. “Thank you, Miss Faulkner. Remembering would be a big help to not only me, but to you as well.”

Tinsley let out a shaky breath as the men moved away and left her alone. Now all she had to do was buy more time. She had a couple of ideas that played into her delicate sensibilities to use to get free. Because, she reasoned, if there was ever a time to fake a case of the vapors, this was it.

27

Faulkner Shipping was a sprawling commercial port in its own right. It took up at least two miles of coastline. Massive cargo ships lined the piers as cranes worked to pull the containers from the holds and move them into the shipping yard.

Men and women swarmed the area, working on the unloading, loading, and the mountains of paperwork that went into each shipment. There was a central, stadium-sized parking lot where Granger and the caravan from Shadows Landing parked to wait for everyone else to arrive.

Ryker had told them they could go inside and use one of the conference rooms, but no one wanted to take even one step farther away from the Myriad headquarters than they had to.

Whitlock and his team had arrived five minutes after Granger had pulled into the parking lot. A large map that highlighted known Myriad houses and businesses had been produced and spread out across the hood of a car. Now they were looking at the map and waiting for the Davies family to arrive.

“Which one is the headquarters?” Paxton asked.

“We’re not entirely sure,” Whitlock answered and Paxton frowned. What he really wanted to do was to hit something but instead he saved his anger for Curtis.

“Then what are we doing here, Whitlock?” Paxton snapped.

“Waiting and preparing. I have informants coming in. This is the area where they’ll have Tinsley. We need to get our supplies ready because I can guarantee they’ll be heavily armed.”

“Peter’s on his way with weapons,” Paxton answered. More waiting.

“I have some you can use,” Ryker said as he shoved his suit coat off and rolled up the sleeves to his fitted button-down dress shirt. “The shipping business is a very dirty business to be in. Lots of ports are run by organized crime or have deals in place for free rein of them. Containers are stolen. Drugs, stolen goods, and people are imported and exported. Intimidation, theft, and embezzlement happen everyday. The mafia hasn’t gone away. They’re still here. They’re just not the new kids on the block anymore. These street gangs are. Where do you think Myriad gets their drugs to sell?”

“South American mafias,” Paxton answered.

Ryker nodded. “Who work deals with the mafia groups who have control over the ports in New York and New Jersey. But with more shipping companies using East Coast ports, there are now three more large ports on the coast—Virginia, Savannah, and right here in Charleston. So yeah, I have weapons. I protect what’s mine.”

A kid on a bike, a twenty-year-old chipped gray sedan, and a newer minivan all pulled into the lot. Right behind them was Peter in an SUV and then two other SUVs Paxton didn’t recognize.

“Here are my informants,” Whitlock said.

“Here’s our boss,” Paxton said.

“And our family,” Ryker told them, answering the unspoken question of who was in the last two SUVs. “They caught a private flight here from Atlanta.”

Cy was the first out and was already shaking hands with Peter. Paxton wanted to demand they hurry up. He wanted to demand they get to work to save Tinsley, but he knew they had to have a plan first. They weren’t moving slowly. They were already walking toward him as they all eyed each other, not knowing who the others were.

The Faulkners embraced their uncles and their friends from Keeneston. Before Paxton could tell them to hurry up, Robyn was pawing at his leg. He looked down and swore he saw sympathy in her whiskey-colored eyes.

“That’s my dog,” a low, gravelly voice said.

“Ahmed, I’m Paxton. Thank you for coming.” Paxton looked at the scary man with his own vizsla in a baby sling across his chest. “Who’s that?”

“This is my baby, Nemi. She’s Robyn’s daughter. Robyn is trained in tracking, but I have trained my Nemi for much more than that.”

Joining them, Bridget said, “Robyn isn’t our dog. She’s our friend’s dog. So if we’re going into a shootout, I have to keep Robyn in the car. It’s not what she’s signed up to do.”

“She’s done her tour of duty, haven’t you, my sweet girl?” Ahmed baby-talked to Robyn who wagged her tail. Even though she responded to Ahmed, she kept her paw on Paxton’s leg and her eyes on his. It was as if she were reading Paxton’s thoughts and even his soul.

Cy approached him and Paxton hoped he