looking for your brother, Dexter,” he confessed.
Her eyes immediately darkened, and he saw the pulse pound on her throat. “You followed me on the train?”
Lucky nodded. “I followed you.”
“Why?” she repeated, though this one had even more steel than the original one.
“Because I thought you might lead me to him.”
She tipped her eyes to the ceiling and groaned. “I was right about you. You’re one of those men. The ones who’ve followed me and tried to scare me.”
He reached out to her, but Marin batted his hands away. “Scaring you was never my intention. I just need to find your brother.”
“What do you want from Dexter?” she snapped.
Lucky was betting this answer wasn’t so obvious. “The truth?”
She sliced at him with a scalpel-sharp glare. “That would be nice for a change.”
He debated if Marin was strong enough to hear this. Probably not. But there was no turning back now. He toyed with how he should say it. But there was only one way to deliver news like this. Quick and dirty.
He’d tell her the truth even if it made Marin hate him.
Chapter Five
Marin stared at Lucky, holding her breath.
Even though she’d only known him for a short period of time, she was already familiar with his body language.
Whatever he had to say wouldn’t be good.
“What do you want from my brother?” she repeated.
Lucky stood and looked down at her. He met her gaze head-on. “I want him dead.”
Everything inside her stilled. It wasn’t difficult to process that frightening remark since she’d been through this before. For the past year, she’d had to deal with other men who had wanted to find Dexter, too. And like Lucky they probably had wanted him dead, as well. But this cut even deeper to the bone because Lucky had saved her son. He’d saved her.
And she trusted him.
Correction, she had trusted him. Right now, she just felt betrayed.
Marin tried to keep her voice and body calm, which was hard to do with her emotions in shreds. She silently cursed the pain that pounded through her head and made it hard to think. “Then, you already have what you want. Dexter is dead.”
Lucky lifted his left shoulder. “I’m not so sure about that.”
The other men hadn’t been sure, either. But then neither had her own family. “If Dexter were alive, he would have contacted me by now. He wouldn’t have let me believe he was dead.”
At least she hoped that was true. But Marin couldn’t be certain, especially considering the dangerous circumstances surrounding his disappearance.
“Let’s just say that I know a different side of your brother,” Lucky insisted. “The man I know would do anything—and I mean anything—to save himself. And in this case, making everyone think he’s dead is about the only thing that could save him from the investors who poured millions of dollars into research that didn’t pay off for them because Dexter didn’t deliver what he promised he would.”
She couldn’t disagree with that. Marin had examined and reexamined every detail she could find about the night Dexter had disappeared.
Lucky had no doubt done the same.
“What do you know about the night my brother died?” she asked.
His eyes said “too much.” “Your brother was a chemical engineer working on a privately funded project. He was supposed to be testing antidotes for chemical agents, specifically a hybrid nerve agent that might be used in a combat situation against ground troops. The investors believed they could sell this antidote to the Department of Defense for a large sum of money. But something went wrong. The Justice Department got some info that Dexter was selling secrets, and they were about to launch a full-scale investigation.”
Yes, she knew all of that—after the fact. Before that night, however, Marin hadn’t known exactly what Dexter’s research project entailed. Even now, she doubted that she knew the entire truth. Maybe no one did. But something had indeed gone wrong with the project, and the Justice Department investigation hadn’t happened as planned because there had been an explosion in the research facility.
There was also evidence of some kind of attack that night, and a security guard who was actually an undercover Justice Department agent had been killed. The body had been found in the rubble of the facility.
Unlike Dexter’s.
No one had been able to locate his body or those of the two women who’d been in the facility that night. But Marin believed Dexter had indeed been killed in the attack, which might have been orchestrated by someone who wanted to get their hands on her brother’s research project.
Since the project was missing, as well, Marin was convinced that the culprit had succeeded.
“Your brother is a criminal,” Lucky informed her.
Even though she was in pain and exhausted, Lucky’s words gave her a boost of anger and adrenaline that she needed. But then, defending her brother had always been a strong knee-jerk reaction.
“There were never any charges brought against Dexter,” Marin reminded him.
“Because the authorities think he’s dead.”
“No. Because there’s no evidence to indicate he’s done anything wrong.”
“There’s evidence,” Lucky insisted. “I just haven’t found it. Yet. But before his disappearance, Dexter was working on more than a chemical antidote. A chemical weapon. He was playing both sides of the fence, and three days ago a key component of that weapon surfaced for sale on the black market.”
Now, that she didn’t know. But perhaps her parents did. According to the phone conversations she’d had with her grandmother, the federal authorities had kept her parents informed about the investigation, and they’d visited the ranch often.
“That’s still not proof Dexter’s alive,” Marin insisted, certain that her voice no longer sounded so convinced of Dexter’s innocence.
Lucky lifted his hands, palms up. “Who else would be trying to sell that component?”
“The person who stole it.”
He didn’t toss his hands in the air again, but he looked as if he wanted to do just that. “Other than some blood found at the scene, there’s no proof that Dexter is dead. None. He would have hung on to that weapon and waited until the right time to sell it. Three days ago was apparently the right time for him because it appeared.”
Marin took a moment to rein in her emotions. Despite his sometimes selfish behavior, she loved her brother and didn’t want to believe he was capable of doing something like this. She’d grieved for him, and she missed him. Would Dexter have put the family and her through all that pain just to cover himself?
Maybe.
And if so, then maybe Lucky was telling the truth. “Assuming you’re right, then what does this case have to do with you?”
“Dexter pissed off the wrong people, Marin,” Lucky explained. “And I’m one of those people.”
That didn’t sound like something a PI would say about one of his cases. It sounded personal. “What do you mean?”
His jaw muscles stirred. He eased back down into the chair and scrubbed his hands over his face. “My sister was fresh out of her doctoral program at the University of Texas, and her first and only real job was working for Dexter.”