RYDER: A Standalone Military Romance (Blake Security Book 1) by Celina McKane

folded the clothes and lay them in the suitcase was obvious. “Do you have a place to go?”
                  “I’ll go to a hotel,” she said.
                  I almost asked about her brother, but something told me it wasn’t the right time. I wanted to run all of this past Blake first. As if he’d read my mind, my phone rang. It was Blake. I walked out in the hallway before answering it. Blake’s first words were, “What the hell is going on out there?”
                  “I’m sorry I haven’t called. It’s been…busy, to say the least.”
                  “Vince said there was an explosion in the garage and at least one person is dead.”
                  “Yeah, Charles—the chauffeur—was in the car. They didn’t find any other bodies, thank God. I have some other slightly disturbing news though.”
                  “Lay it on me.”
                  “Matt Branson is taking his family to Italy until this all blows over. He didn’t exactly fire us, but his exact words were “Go, stay, I don’t care.”
                  Blake snorted. “Did he say exactly how he thinks this will blow over if no one is working on finding out who these people are and what they want?”
                  “No, that was about it. I guess he’s assuming the police will stay on it, especially now that there’s a murder involved.”
                  “They’ll do their best to find the arsonist no doubt, but so far these guys have been invisible. I don’t think Branson has any idea how long it might take if he waits for the police.”
                  “Yeah, I think this is more of an impulsive thing because he’s afraid for his family. I don’t like the guy, but you can’t really hold that against him. There’s more though.”
                  “Of course there is.”
                  “He’s let Alicia go because she refuses to go to Italy with them. Something’s going on with her. She made a statement about Charles’s death being her fault, and when I pressed her on that she finally broke down and admitted to me that it wasn’t the baby these guys want…it’s her.”
                  “Did she say who ‘these guys’ are and what she has that they want?”
                  “No. I don’t think she really even meant to say that much. She clammed up, and now I can’t get anything out of her.”
                  “If she knows they want her, she knows who they are. Stay with her. Where is she going from there?”
    “She says a hotel. I’m wondering about the brother in Mississippi. She’s never even mentioned him to me. Do you know anything more about him than what was in the file?”
    “Abrahem did surveillance on them for about a week while I was running the backgrounds. Aleks is the only brother Alicia has without a criminal record. He works in the research lab at the university and goes home to his wife. The wife is a stay-at-home mom. According to Abrahem, they have a little girl who’s about two years old. For some reason, that didn’t come up in the background, but sometimes the system can miss birth records unless you do a specific search for them. The wife doesn’t have any arrests or convictions, and the only red flag raised about either of them was with Immigration and Naturalization when they applied for a marriage license. It was just before the cutoff for Aleks to leave the country, so they questioned it. It turns out they dated for four years all through college so the license was granted and Aleks is now a U.S. citizen.”
    “Alicia has to know he’s so close. Why wouldn’t she go to him? According to every conversation we’ve had, she’s close to her brothers.”
    “That would be a good question for her.”
    “Yeah, if only she’ll answer it.”
    “Are you okay to stay wherever she’s