Chapter 5 A Brother’s Request

CHAPTER 5: A brOTHER'S REQUEST

Holt pocketed his phone without showing Bonnie what he'd texted to his team when he forwarded them his snapshots of the letter.

Can you verify the adoption? Bonnie plans to confront her parents tonight.

Bonnie was pretty quiet while they waited for their dinner to be served. Though he continued to share tidbits about his job, she merely nodded and answered in monosyllables. It was clear to him that she dreaded the coming visit with her family.

Shayley arrived with their plates. "Here you go."

"Thanks. Everything looks great." He narrowed his gaze at her. "You look familiar. Have we met?"

"I don't believe so." She looked amused by the question.

He shook his head at her retreating figure, wondering why she looked so familiar if they hadn't met.

"Would you like to say grace?" Bonnie's soft voice reclaimed his attention.

"I, uh…" He wasn't a regular church attendee, but it sounded like she was.

"It's okay," she demurred. "I'll say it." She bowed her head and blessed their food.

Right as she said amen, his phone buzzed with an incoming call. According to the caller ID, it was Foster Kane.

Holt gave Bonnie an apologetic look. "Sorry, but I've gotta take this. It's work." He hoped like crazy it wouldn't take long.

"No problem." She pushed a bite of lettuce around her salad bowl with her fork.

Holt accepted the call and lifted the receiver to his ear as he stepped away from the table. "Holt speaking. I'm headed toward the rear exit."

"Don't." Foster's voice stopped him in his tracks. "Meet me in the kitchen instead."

Holt glanced over his shoulder at the silver swing door their waitress had been coming in and out of. "How did you know?—?"

"I'm married to Shayley." Foster's voice was dry. "Thought you knew that already."

The only Shayley Holt could think of was the woman who'd taken their orders this evening. "You mean our waitress?" He felt like slapping his forehead. No wonder she looked so familiar. He'd seen her in the family photo on Foster's desk.

"That's the one." Foster's voice held a laughing note.

Bonnie didn't seem to notice Holt changing directions. She continued to blindly push her salad around with her fork as he skirted the far side of the room. He reached the Authorized Personnel Only door and pushed it open.

Stepping inside the kitchen, he was assailed with too many delicious aromas to name.

Foster was waiting for him at a granite bar surrounded by stools.

Before Holt reached him, Shayley flew up to him to deliver a kiss on the lips. "Are you working late tonight?"

"Not if I can help it, darling." Foster kissed her back and watched her whirl away to fill her next order.

Holt awkwardly cleared his throat as he finished closing the distance between them.

Foster waved him onto a stool across from him. "Under normal circumstances, we don't exploit the resources at K&G Security for personal reasons. It was in the fine writing on your contract." As usual, he was in his company uniform — a black shirt, cargo pants, and combat boots. This evening, he'd added a black ball cap.

Great. Holt reached for his wallet, instantly knowing they were talking about the request he'd sent to the covert ops team about Bonnie's adoption. He was embarrassed that he hadn't read his employment contract more closely. "I'll pay whatever it costs to get the information my girlfriend needs."

"Put away your wallet." Foster waved it away. "It's your lucky day."

"Doesn't feel like it on my end." Holt didn't like his boss's expression.

"Turns out your woman is right smack in the middle of a case we're assisting in. I apologize in advance for what I'm about to tell you, Holt." Foster drummed his fingers on the counter between them.

Holt's shoulders tensed as he waited for him to continue.

"It's true that she's adopted."

Not good. Holt had been hoping to find out the opposite was true. "That was a quick turnaround on my question."

Foster inclined his head. "Like I said, it's an ongoing case."

Right. Holt could only imagine how hard Bonnie was going to take the news. "Anything else you can tell me?"

"The adoption agency was called Real Sons. They went out of business right after all the top dogs went to jail for kidnapping, child endangerment, financial fraud, and a laundry list of other sins. Some of them too complicated for me to understand." He snorted. "Long story short, they were performing psychological and medical experiments on children, infants in some cases, using everything from hypnosis techniques to experimental drugs to manipulate their behavior." His lips twisted with distaste. "Along with some regular old down and dirty scare tactics and intimidation. If you ask me, jail was too good for them."

Holt could certainly understand his boss's response to crimes against children. Foster was the father of two boys under the age of five, and the crimes he'd just finished describing sounded unusually horrific. Holt's chest hurt, just thinking about the things Bonnie must have suffered while in the clutches of Real Sons.

"What about Bonnie's parents?" he probed. "Were they involved in any way?"

Foster shook his head soberly. "All evidence points to the adoptive parents being kept in the dark. From their perspective, it was a regular ol' adoption."

Holt's jaw tightened. "It still doesn't explain why they kept the adoption a secret from their own daughter."

Foster spread his hands. "I've never met the Yates, so I can't comment on that. They have a good reputation around town, though."

Holt wasn't ready to let them off the hook just yet. They had a lot of answering to do to Bonnie. He sensed it wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation.

"The real problem here," Foster continued, "are the embedded triggers in each of the adoptive children."

What? Holt scowled in confusion at his boss. "What do you mean by triggers?"

"Embedded responses to certain stimuli." Foster steepled his hands on the granite bar. "Or pre-programming. I'm not sure what to call it. All the medical professionals can determine is that each kidnapped child has been predisposed to certain behaviors when appropriately triggered."

"What sort of behaviors are we talking about?" Holt already knew he wasn't going to like what he heard.

"To commit bank robberies and corporate espionage, to serve as imposters and pretend to be long-lost heirs. And those are the ones we know about. There could be more." Foster gave him a hard look. "Sorry to break it to you, Winchester, but your girlfriend is a ticking time bomb."

"That's preposterous!" Holt jumped to his feet. "She's a good person. Someone I trust.."

"I am aware." Foster waved him back to his stool. "That's why we agreed to let you share a few details about your job with her. But that was before we knew about her adoption." He drew a heavy breath. "Her embedded trigger, whatever it may be, could pose a real problem for us once it manifests itself."

Holt sank back into his seat. "She's an adult now. Maybe the experiment didn't work on her." He couldn't fathom anyone remembering something from their infancy. Not even some fancy schmancy embedded trigger.

"Just keep your eyes and ears open," Foster warned. "Like I said before, it's an ongoing case."

Holt couldn't believe the guy was essentially asking him to spy on his own girlfriend. "Is there anything else you can share with me about the case?"

"Sorry, newbie. This one's above your pay grade. For now, at least." Foster shook his head ruefully. "You're not the only one contractually bound to keep secrets. The rest of us at K&G are bound by the same rules."

Holt's frustration level rose at the realization that his boss knew more about Bonnie's family than he was telling him. "She asked me to drive her to see her parents after dinner. She plans to confront them about the adoption. Do you have any guidance for how I should proceed?"

"Let her confront them." Foster sounded regretful. "As hard as it is on you, it might be best to let things play out naturally with the Yates."

"What about the couple claiming to be her birth parents?" Holt found it interesting that Bonnie's gut reaction was not to trust them.

"I'd like more time to look into them before Bonnie makes contact." Foster held his gaze. "Can you convince her to hold off for now?"

"I can try." Holt couldn't make any promises, though. She was a grown woman and didn't answer to him. "I'll keep you posted."

"Appreciate that."

On the drive to Yates Ranch, Holt did his best to prepare Bonnie without breaking Foster's confidence. "No matter what happens next, I have your back."

She tipped her head against his shoulder. "That's the same thing your sister said while my life was flashing before my eyes on the rope bridges."

Her sense of humor was back. That was good. "Sounds exactly like her. She thinks the world of you, you know."

"I have no idea why." Bonnie gave a self-deprecatory sigh. "All I've ever done for her is chew gum and answer the phones."

"And helped her double her sales," he added. "You've taken a lot of the busy work off her shoulders. More than I think you realize."

"She and I do work well together," she admitted with a giggle. She fell silent when he turned onto the gravel road leading to her family's ranch. They passed beneath an ornate log entrance with a large iron Y swinging in the breeze.

"They're outside. All of them." Bonnie straightened as he pulled through the circle driveway in front of her parents' enormous two-story log home. The windows and doors were ablaze with lights.

A middle-aged couple was sitting on the porch swing hanging from the ceiling of the wrap-around porch. Three cowboys perched on the porch railing, and two others lounged against the porch columns. Bonnie's brothers, he presumed. He pushed open his door and leaped to the ground.

Reaching back in the truck for Bonnie, he lowered her to the ground beside him. They walked hand in hand toward the porch, facing her family together.

"What a surprise, Bonnie," her mother called out in a bright voice that didn't match her tear-stained features. She and her husband were middle aged and clean cut. They rose to meet Bonnie and Holt at the top of the porch stairs.

"My parents, Pearl and Preston Yates," Bonnie intoned politely from the base of the stairs. "Mom and Dad, this is my boyfriend, Holt Winchester."

His heart sang over her willingness to acknowledge their relationship in front of her family. He hadn't been entirely sure she would do so.

To their credit, they didn't so much as flinch. If anything, her mother looked relieved. Though she wasn't Bonnie's biological mother, the dark hair beneath her straw Stetson was braided like Bonnie's. Her willowy figure was encased in jeans and boots like her sons. They were sprawled across the front porch, hanging on every word of the exchange.

Preston Yates jovially shook Holt's hand. "It's nice to meet you."

"My brothers," Bonnie continued in a chilly voice. "You've already met Jackson."

Jackson, who'd been frostily eyeing their joined hands, nodded at Holt instead of saying anything.

Holt nodded back.

Bonnie pointed out her other brothers one by one. "Then there's Burke, Keller, Sawyer, and Jordy in that order."

"In that order?" the youngest looking one scoffed. "Only because you saved the best for last."

"In your dreams, punk." Jackson pushed away from the porch column he'd been lounging against to give his youngest brother, who'd been perched on the railing, a shove. He toppled into the shrubbery at the base of the porch, but somehow managed to land on his feet. He was howling with laughter as he stumbled his way back up the porch stairs.

When he reached the top stair, he launched himself at his oldest brother. They tumbled to the porch floor, wrestling.

Bonnie rolled her eyes at them, returning her attention to her parents. "The reason I'm here is to ask if I'm adopted."

Her oldest and youngest brothers immediately stopped wrestling. It grew so silent on the porch that all Holt could hear was the breeze rustling through the evergreen trees around them.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the nagging thought sprang to the surface that nobody seemed overly surprised by her question. Since the Yates family was embroiled in an ongoing case, did it mean Foster had tipped them off about Bonnie's visit?

"Maybe we should all have a seat on the porch," Bonnie's mother coaxed, half turning away from them.

"I'd rather stay right here," Bonnie returned tightly. "It's a simple question, Mom."

"It's not a simple answer, sweetheart," her father cut in firmly. "Yes, you were adopted. I don't know how you found out, and I can only imagine what you're thinking, but?—"

"Why?" Bonnie cut him off with the brittleness in her voice. "Why did you adopt me?"

"Because we already had five boys." Her mother shrugged helplessly. "We wanted a girl. We desperately wanted a girl."

"When were you going to tell me?" Bonnie's voice rose accusingly.

"When you got older." Her mother gave a damp-sounding sniffle. "But it never seemed like the right time. Then you were abducted. After that…" Her voice trailed away.

"Abducted?" Holt gazed around in shock at their gathering. "When?" There was no way Mrs. Yates was referring to Bonnie's abduction as a small child, since she'd specifically stated that Bonnie had been older at the time.

Bonnie seemed to be having trouble meeting his eyes. "I wanted to tell you, Holt. I-I just didn't know how. Unlike you, I can't remember anything about it."

His chest constricted painfully. "Bonnie, it's me!" She'd known all along she was dating someone who was damaged. Of all people, he would've understood what she was going through. No wonder her family had been so blasted protective of her!

"I'm sorry, Holt," she rasped. "I should have. I was going to."

When? He studied her bleakly.

"Plenty of that coulda, woulda, shoulda stuff going around," her father interjected gruffly. "Believe me, we can relate."

Bonnie didn't act like she heard him. She was still staring at Holt in anguish. "I was afraid of losing you."

He reached for her hands. "That's not gonna happen." He could tell from her haunted expression that she didn't believe him. He was prepared to tell her whatever she needed to hear as many times as she needed to hear it in order to convince her.

"I'm as broken as a person can get, Holt." Her voice cracked. "I didn't want you to look at me that way or think of me that way. But I guess it was inevitable. I was taken when I was fifteen, and now to find out I'm adopted on top of everything else…" She shook her head so fiercely that a few tears broke loose and went flying.

She was so distraught that he went into full-blown protective mode. Yes, he was burning with questions, but they could wait. Right now, Bonnie needed him.

"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." So help him if anyone attempted to take him to task over the way he was openly spilling his heart out to her…

No one moved.

"I don't even know who I am anymore," she quavered.

"I do." His voice was harsh with emotion. "You're mine, and I'm yours, you hear?"

The glazed look in her eyes faded as she nodded.

It was a long time before anyone spoke again. Her father finally broke the silence. "This is what we were afraid of, honey. This is why we couldn't bring ourselves to tell you about the adoption."

Anger twisted Bonnie's delicate features. "I'm twenty-one," she reminded, swinging her head in his direction. "I think I had a right to know by now."

"We can't argue with that." He sounded bone weary. "Please believe me when I say your mother and I only wanted what was best for you. That's all we've ever wanted."

"Well, you have a strange way of showing it," Bonnie snapped. Holt could practically taste the years of resentment welling up inside her. "You all but kept me a prisoner here at the ranch. My brothers served as your Doberman Pinschers, guarding me like obedient hounds."

Jordy gave a few mocking barks that his older brothers silenced by tossing him back into the shrubbery.

"You're not a prisoner." Her father looked aghast. "Far from it. Everything we've ever done is to protect you."

"From what?" She dropped Holt's hand.

"Honestly?" Her father shook his head. "The police haven't figured that out yet. And despite spending every penny we can spare on private investigators, we haven't, either. We still don't know who kidnapped you six years ago. We might never know."

"I was taken twice , Dad." She rounded on him. "The first time from my birth parents and the second time from you."

Her parents looked so shattered that Holt could only assume that Foster Kane was correct. Real Sons had kept their adoptive parents in the dark about their more nefarious deeds.

"Oh, honey," her mother bleated. "Are you sure about this?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Holt jumped back into the conversation, trying to get a grip on his reeling thoughts. What were the odds of any one person being kidnapped twice before adulthood? He reckoned it was slim to none. "It's been verified by an ongoing investigation being conducted in part by the police and K&G Security."

"That's why I'm done," Bonnie declared in exasperation. "Done hiding. Done cowering. Done having my brothers smother the life out of me with all their overprotectiveness. It's not like it worked, anyway. The bad guys still managed to get to me — not once, but twice!" She stormed up the porch stairs and yanked open the front door.

Her mother jolted from the daze she'd fallen into. "What are you doing, sweetie?"

"Packing," Bonnie called over her shoulder. "I'm moving out. Tonight. To start living whatever life I have left to the fullest. All Doberman brothers are cordially invited to help load things into the back of Holt's pickup truck." She stomped into the house.

Holt's jaw dropped. Of all the directions the conversation could've taken, he hadn't expected it to result in his girlfriend's immediate change of address. He was still coming to grips with the fact that she'd been kidnapped fairly recently. She would've been fifteen or sixteen at the time. His boss needed to hear about this right away. Then again, maybe he already knew about it.

Bonnie's mother wrung her hands anxiously. "Where will she go?" She sent Holt an imploring look.

He was wondering the same thing. Shaking his head, he lifted his phone to his ear and called his sister.

She picked up on the first ring. "Do you have any earthly idea where my partner is?"

"With me," he returned cautiously.

"And that is?"

"Yates Ranch. I can explain." He turned and strode out of earshot of Bonnie's family. "Listen, uh…someone passed a note under Bonnie's door at the B&B, telling her she was adopted."

"Oh, my goodness!" His sister's voice grew faint.

"We reported it to K&G Security, and they confirmed it's true. So have her adoptive parents." He wasn't sure how much to tell his sister. "It's complicated."

"You can say that again." Alice sounded completely blown away.

"Naturally, she's upset."

"Naturally!"

"She's moving out over it," Holt informed her quietly, "and she needs a place to stay. Any chance one of those tiny houses at Zayden's place is vacant?"

Police detective Zayden Wolfe was Alice's fiancé. He'd recently purchased the old Parker homestead across town and set up some tiny houses around his largest pond to rent out. Alice had advertised it as "waterfront property," which Holt considered a stretch. However, the tiny houses had rented out pretty quickly after that, and her fiancé was using the income to renovate the old farmhouse.

"As a matter of fact…" Alice paused. "Let me check with Zayden to be sure it's been cleaned since the last renters left. It was a short-term thing. They were only renting month to month."

She put him on hold but returned to the line in two snaps. "It's all hers if she wants it. Clean and move-in ready."

"What about tonight?" Holt pressed.

"Tonight?" his sister squeaked. "In case you've forgotten, Bonnie and I have one day left at the retreat."

"About that," Holt sighed. "I'm not sure she's in any frame of mind to continue debating workloads and stress levels. Pretty sure hers is through the roof right now."

"I bet." Alice sounded sympathetic. "Okay." She drew a bracing breath and seemed to be collecting her thoughts. "Okay," she said again. "How about I meet you two over there within the hour?"

"Deal." By the time he turned around, Bonnie's brothers were traipsing down the porch steps with their arms loaded with boxes.

Jackson pulled him aside, speaking in undertones. "Need to beg a favor." His troubled gaze remained on his sister. "Bonnie is angry right now, angrier than I've seen her, and I get why. She's hurt and confused, and that's on us."

"Her whole world just got turned upside down," Holt muttered. Surely, the Yates had known this day was coming, and that was before they'd known the worst of it — the part about their daughter being taken when she was just shy of three-years-old. But they'd known enough. They should've been honest with her about what they did know.

"No one's arguing whether she has a right to be angry with us." Jackson ducked his head closer to Holt's. "Problem is, she doesn't want anything at all to do with her family right now."

"Do you blame her?" Though Holt felt sorry for the guy, the Yates kind of had it coming. Bonnie was an adult now. They needed to start treating her like one.

"Nope. But I still need you to promise me you'll look after her in my absence." Jackson's voice was terse. "This isn't how she was supposed to find out she was adopted, and it certainly wasn't how she was supposed to move out. I'm really worried about her."

"Why?" If the guy had something to say to him, he needed to spit it out.

"Like she said, she can't remember anything about the kidnapping, bro." Jackson ducked his head in dejection. "She was a teenager at the time. She should've been able to at least describe where she was taken. Maybe even identify her kidnappers, but…" He shook his head again.

"But what?" Holt prodded.

"But nothing." Jackson raised his head, revealing a tortured expression. "She was waiting in the truck while I jogged inside the general store to grab a soda. When I returned, she was gone, and it was like she'd never been there. The door was closed. Her seatbelt was back where it belonged. No sign of a struggle. Nothing. She showed up three days later, walking barefoot down the driveway toward home." He raised a hand to gesture in front of his face. "There was this blank look in her eyes. Glazed over. Kinda staring into outer space, if you know what I mean. Like she was in a trance or something. She didn't snap out of it until I hollered her name a few times."

The final puzzle piece fell into place about Bonnie's love-hate relationship with Jackson. The guy blamed himself for what had happened to his sister. That was why he'd been keeping her in bubble wrap, so to speak. In an attempt to protect her from further harm, he'd been all but smothering the life out of her.

Man, it was a tough situation, tougher than Holt could've ever imagined. "So, you were the last one to see her before she was kidnapped and the first person to lay eyes on her when she returned?" It felt significant. He wasn't sure why, but it did.

"Yep." Jackson sounded close to weeping. "Everything that happened was my fault." He lifted his Stetson and scrubbed a hand through his dark, wavy hair. "If only I'd been a better brother…"

"Not sure I agree with that." As Holt reached out to clasp Jackson's shoulder, a thought struck him. "Hey. Have you ever noticed anyone following Bonnie around town?"

Jackson grew still. "Now that you mention it," he settled his hat back on his head, "sometimes when I'm with her, I get that itchy feeling between my shoulders like we're being watched or something. Figured it was my imagination." He gave a humorless chuckle. "Or my guilt."

"If it's any comfort," Holt lowered his arm from Jackson's shoulder to dangle his thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans, "I don't think she blames you for anything other than breathing down her neck most of the time. Her words, not mine."

A faint smile quirked the edges of Jackson's mouth. "Sounds like her."

"What about photos?" Holt mulled over the long-range camera person. "Have you ever caught anyone trying to sneak a picture of Bonnie?" So far, no one in forensics had been able to ID the person. Though they'd managed to pull some DNA off the cigarette butt he'd found, whoever it belonged to wasn't in the system.

"No. Have you?" Jackson gave him a strange look.

"She thinks someone had a camera on her during a team building exercise at the retreat." Holt gave him the minimal details about their hike to the site and what they'd found.

Jackson turned white. "Has she told the police about it?"

Holt shook his head. "She didn't think they'd do anything, but she gave me permission to share it with the folks at K&G Security." He hated bringing them into the conversation, but he felt Jackson might feel better knowing they were on the case. Telling K&G Security was about the same as telling the police, since they were assisting with the case.

Jackson reached for his wallet. "If you need help paying for a bodyguard?—"

"I don't." Holt waved away his offer. "I have some friends who work there, and they're doing me a favor by looking into things." It was the best explanation he could give without admitting that he worked for them.

Frowning, Jackson shoved his wallet back in his pocket. "Stuff like that can get pricey. If you need me to pitch in, I will. Any time. Just give me a holler."

"Thanks. I'll be sure to let Bonnie know you offered, too." Holt hoped it would give the guy some comfort.

Jackson sighed. "Wait until she's in a better mood."

"I can do that." Holt held back a chuckle. "And I'll do my best to look after her. No guarantees, of course. She doesn't answer to me."

"Or to any of the rest of us anymore," Jackson grumbled. "Trust me. She's made that crystal clear." He raised his hands. "Oldest brother backing off and handing the baton to the boyfriend. Tag. You're it."

"Is the fact that I'm dating her gonna be a problem for us?" Holt preferred to be honest about stuff like that.

"Hope not." Jackson didn't so much as crack a smile.

"I really care for your sister." Holt wasn't sure if that would help his case or not.

"No offense," Jackson's voice was flat, "but that ain't gonna amount to a hill of beans if she turns up missing a third time."

"Agreed." Holt straightened his shoulders. "That's why I brought K&G in on things."

"Glad to see you're taking this seriously." Jackson shook his head ruefully. "Up 'til now, there were days I felt like I was the only one."

"Not only is the safety of my girlfriend at stake, she works with my sister." Holt could feel a vein ticking in his neck. "That gives me a whole extra reason to worry." He hoped with all his heart that whatever danger was dogging Bonnie's heels wouldn't bleed over into Alice's world.

Unlike Jackson, Holt didn't just have one woman to protect. He had two.