“Son, I don’t need you watching my back.” Ray glared back at his son with fatherly reproof. “Put your back down, and keep Natches and the sheriff here company. Me and Miss Dane here will just have a little chat in the office.”

“Damn it, Dad—”

“And don’t curse in front of the women. I taught you better than that.” Ray glared back at him before turning to Chaya and inviting her into the marina office. “Come on in, Agent Dane. These boys can stand out here in the sun and let off some steam while we talk. It’s the best thing for them.”

She liked him. She had liked him the year before, the few times she had seen him. He was protective of his son and his nephews. He had protected them as well as he could when they were children, and he continued to do so after they were grown.

Ray Mackay, for all intents and purposes, didn’t have just one son, he had three.

“Right back here.” He opened the office door as his wife stood by worriedly. “Maria just made fresh coffee. Would you like some?”

“No thank you.” She felt like slime as she took the seat he offered her and waited as he closed the door and moved behind his desk.

Then he was staring back at her with too-perceptive blue eyes and a concerned expression. “You’re sure making a mess of my boys.” He sighed. “I heard Dawg and Natches almost came to blows at the diner yesterday. And Natches is fit to be tied right now.”

Chaya nodded. “I know. It couldn’t be helped.”

Ray Mackay was what Chaya had always thought a father should be. At fifty-nine, he was trim, his hair black and silver, his face weathered. And kind. He had a kind face, and that just made her feel worse.

She pulled the recording device from her briefcase hesitantly.

“I need to record this,” she told him.

He nodded in agreement.

She turned the machine on, stated the date and time, and looked up at him. “Your name is Raymond Douglas Mackay. You were Johnny Grace’s uncle. Brother to his mother as well as to Chandler Mackay.”

“I am.” He nodded.

She swallowed tightly. “Were you at any time aware of Johnny Grace’s illegal activities here in Somerset or outside the county?” She watched his eyes, and he didn’t turn from her, didn’t flinch.

“No, ma’am, I didn’t know Johnny was capable of such activities.”

She nodded to that.

“Mr. Mackay, as stated by Johnny Grace, he’s the half brother to his cousin James Mackay. A product of the incestuous relationship between his mother and her brother Chandler Mackay. Did you know this?”

“I suspected a time or two,” he said softly. “My brothers and sister weren’t my concern after I left my mother’s home, Agent Dane. I lived my life, and I stayed out of theirs.”

She nodded again.

“Would his mother be capable of aiding him in those illegal activities?” she asked him.

“His mother would have aided the devil himself if it meant destroying Dawg. If it meant destroying any of those boys outside there. She hated them. Even more than Dawg’s and Natches’s fathers hated them.”

“Was she also sleeping with her brother Dayle Mackay? Would he have aided her and/or her son in those activities?”

Ray stared back at her silently for long moments. “I’d like to say no,” he finally said.

“But?”

“But I learned with Johnny that nothing is impossible. Honestly, I wouldn’t know, Agent Dane. Dayle’s ex-Marine, always seemed damned patriotic to me. He preaches about it, argues politics, and votes in every election. Hates foreigners, and my first thought would be he’d never betray his country. But after Johnny . . .” He shook his head. “What the hell do I know?”

“There’s a million dollars in cash missing, and connections Johnny or Jim Bedsford couldn’t have had aided in the near sale of those missiles, Mr. Mackay. Who would have helped him?”

Ray scratched his cheek as he thought, then finally shook his head. “I just don’t know. Things like this don’t happen around here, Agent Dane. Somerset is a quiet little town, and this whole thing . . .” He shook his head again. “It’s spooked a lot of folks. Hell, I think it spooked me.”

“Wenden Frakes, Ralph Grace’s half brother, says Johnny spent a lot of time on the lake last summer. Did he use any of the boats off your marina?”

“Not one of my mine.” He shook his head firmly. “I didn’t let Johnny Grace rent out my boats for no reason. He had a tendency to tear them up. Those boats are hard to replace. Besides, Dayle had a boat he kept out at his cabin farther up the lake. Johnny used it some, I think.”

She nodded again and flipped off the recorder. She had what she needed here.

“Thank you, Mr. Mackay,” she said when he stared back at her in surprise. “I know the questions weren’t comfortable, and I apologize for that. They weren’t questions I chose; I want you to know that.”

Ray leaned back in his chair then and watched her with the narrow-eyed intent of a man who knew people and, sometimes, knew them too well.

“Dawg says you’re cold,” he stated then, surprising her. “That you’re just using Natches for whatever DHS has going on here. Is that true?”

Chaya slid the recorder back in her case before lifting her eyes to Ray. She let him hold her gaze, just as he had allowed her to hold his. “Natches is my weakness, Mr. Mackay,” she finally admitted. “And he doesn’t take no for an answer sometimes.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he said, his voice gentle as he smiled back at her. “Are you using my nephew, Agent Dane?”

“No, Mr. Mackay. I’m trying to protect your nephew.”

And to that, he nodded slowly. “And I believe you. Now I think you have some bridges to repair outside. Rowdy’s got a slow burn. He doesn’t do mad easy, but he’s getting close to mad. Dawg is ready to fight. And Natches will stand between them and you, but I’d hate to see that happen. Fix it, if you don’t mind.”

“And I’m supposed to do that how?”

“By being honest, Miss Dane. As honest as you can be. Those three boys ain’t no one’s dummies, no matter what that Cranston fellow wants to think. And after today, they’re going to block you unless you’re smart enough to work with them.”

“And if that threatens Natches?” she asked softly.

“Then now’s the time to warn him.” He rose from his seat and watched her with that fatherly look that demanded action. The right action. “Let him help you, Miss Dane. You’d be amazed how easy he can be to get along with then.”

And he was right. She couldn’t tell them the truth, because even she didn’t know the whole truth. But she could tell them enough to perhaps get them to back down. Because they had to back down, just for a little while longer.

He stared at the caller ID on the phone before answering it, his jaw clenching in anger.

“Yes?”

“They were here.” Nadine’s voice was shaking with fury. “We have to do something now.”

His lips thinned. “Settle down. Now’s not the time to do anything, peanut. We sit back and let her ask her questions. She can’t hurt us.”

“She knows something,” Nadine hissed. “I could tell. And she’ll get what she needs. If she finds out, she’ll fry us.”

“If you don’t calm down, you’ll fry us. You don’t know anything, remember that. Johnny was a good boy and you’re his mother. Period.”

“They recorded Johnny bragging about belonging to Chandler. They did DNA tests. That bastard Dawg gave them blood and they matched it. They know it’s the truth. If they keep digging, they’ll find the connection.”

Now that piece of information was worrisome. He hadn’t expected that. He’d managed to keep that information buried for too many years, he didn’t like it coming out now. Didn’t it just figure that Johnny had to brag? As though it were something to brag over.

“The connection is hidden, peanut. Take one of your pills and calm down. As soon as I can I’ll be there and we’ll talk. We’ll figure this out. Until then, remember, they can’t get anything unless you tell them.” He hoped.

“Do something,” she whispered. “You have to do something before they question anyone else. They’ve already been to Wenden’s and Ray’s. If they keep digging, they could dig up something else.”

If Johnny had revealed the truth about Chandler, God only knew what else he had let out. He grimaced at the thought of that. Hell, he had thought Johnny was smarter than that. He hated being wrong.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he promised her again. “If they show up again, don’t answer the door. Pretend you aren’t home. I’ll check into things and I’ll have something when I get there.”

He heard her breathing, heard the little sigh of relief.

“Will you stay the night this time?” she asked then, that little whisper of hope bringing a smile to his lips.

“I’ll try to arrange it. I’ll call you when I’m coming. Promise you’ll stay calm, peanut.”

“I promise. Until you get here.”

“Until I get there.”

He disconnected the phone, tapped his finger against it thoughtfully and began to make plans. It was sooner than he liked, but it was time to start cleaning things up.

TEN

Natches caught her as she came out of the marina office. His fingers latched around her arm and before she could do more than breathe a protest he began dragging her toward the Nauti Dreams.

He had no idea what the hell was going on here, but he was getting ready to find out. She wanted to question the rest of the damned town, that was fine and dandy by him, but when she started questioning family, then he expected answers.

And when she started dealing with that rattler Nadine, then he sure as hell expected those answers to be forthcoming.

“I don’t like being dragged around like a child, Natches,” she told him as he pulled her onto the deck of the boat and unlocked the door.

He pulled her into the houseboat, slammed the sliding door closed behind him, then stalked to the kitchen for a beer.

All shit aside, he’d seen a new side of Chaya today. For the first time, this morning, he’d seen the agent. Steel eyed, her demeanor cold, she refused to back down. And rather than turning him off as it should have, it had made him hard. Because he knew the woman underneath, liquid hot and burning for him alone. Dawg called her plain, and he’d wanted to smash his cousin’s face in for the comment despite the fact that he knew, had seen, the metamorphosis she somehow managed to undergo.

The agent, with her hair slicked back into a ponytail, her eyes cold and hard, her expression emotionless, blended into the background for most people. Not plain, but easily passed by for some reason. Natches had always seen the woman beneath that look though, because he knew her, in all her expressions, in many of her moods, and he knew there was nothing plain about her.

She was complex, complicated, and sometimes too damned sharp to suit him. And she was good at hiding. Hiding herself as well as her secrets.

He turned back to her after downing half the bottle of beer he’d pulled from the refrigerator, remaining silent as he watched her.

Dressed in jeans because she knew they made folks more comfortable and a light sweater beneath a dark blazer. And those boots. Those boots made her legs look longer, made them sexier. The gray sweater brought the soft golden highlights in her eyes free, and softened her delicate face.

And when she crossed her arms over her breasts and glared back at him, his cock throbbed in anticipation.

“The Mackays are going to have to keep their noses out of this,” she snapped. “You and Dawg following me around town all day, then showing up here. What the hell did you think I was going to do anyway? For God’s sake, Natches, you know how an investigation works. There are questions afterward, loose ends to tie up and, considering there’s a million dollars missing and possible co-conspirators, facts to find. You don’t just drop a case like this.”