If Ever I Fall: Book 3 of The Six Series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  IT WAS RAINING. AGAIN. WATER splashed up with every step I took as I huddled further into my coat. I should have asked Grant for a slicker, I thought as the damp settled into my bones. Huffing out a cloud of vapor with each exhale, I quickened my step as the misty rain turned into pelting drops.

  I was warned about the weather, but thought nothing of it before I got to Scotland. Since then, I’d thought of nothing but it.

  Rainy.

  Cold.

  Windy.

  Where the hell was the sun?

  In Alabama, that was where.

  In the last six months, I’d traveled to five states and two islands. I’d also spent hundreds of hours on the computer, searching a multitude of databases to try to get some sort of lead on Robert de Fleur.

  Half a year wasted with nothing to show for it. The trail had gone cold. With no active leads, Grant pulled me from Chicago and sent me to Scotland.

  Shivering, I let myself into the back entrance of The Grounded Bean, pulling the door closed with a hard tug to ensure it shut all the way. The waterlogged wood rubbed against the jamb with a groan.

  Peeling my jacket from my arms, I hung it up on the designated hook on the wall at the back of the coffee shop. Rubbing my hands together to get the blood moving in my fingers, I made my way down the short hallway and poked my head into Brenda’s office. She sat behind her computer, flicking her eyes up at me when I rapped my knuckles on the door casing. She took one look at me and shook her head.

  “What?” I asked already knowing what she’d say.

  “You—”

  “Americans,” I said, cutting her off.

  Her lips twitched as she schooled her features. “Now what would be making you think I would say that?” she asked, pushing herself back from the desk and crossing over to pull a clean apron from the hook behind the door.

  I grimaced when she handed it to me. “Because that’s what you always say. Putting me in the front again? I thought you’d banished me from there?”

  “Aye, I did. But there’s no help for it, is there, when I have inventory to sort and you’re my only employee today.” It wasn’t a question, but damn me if she didn’t make it sound like one. “What with the bairn sick, Kirsten canna bring him in. So I told her to stay home. We’d sort it out.”

  “The baby’s sick again?” I asked, pulling the apron on and tying it as I followed Brenda to the front.

  “Aye, that’s what I said, is it no?” she said, chuckling.

  Rolling my eyes at the back of her head, I muttered under my breath, “I swear you talk like that just to confuse me.”

  “That I do, lad. Now, do ye think ye can manage without breaking much today?” she asked, leaving me behind the counter as she walked over and flipped the sign from CLOSED to OPEN.

  I rubbed the back of my neck, closing my eyes as I cursed Grant for what felt like the millionth time. He was the reason I’d stepped into The Grounded Bean looking for work as an American recently moved to Glasgow with the intention of making Scotland home. It was an easy enough cover story. I even had my work Visa and everything to back it. What I didn’t have was any experience working customer service—let alone any coffeehouse experience. But Brenda had waved that away by saying I was an American and American’s loved their coffee shops, so it should be no problem for me.

  Opening my eyes on a sigh, I looked around at the gleaming metal that mocked me every time I got near enough to use it. It was like putting a fisherman in a rocket ship and expecting him to fly it. No. Just no.

  Brenda rounded the counter and fired off instructions. “The dishwasher will need emptying, and the new shipment of tea will have to be sorted…”

  I listened as she went down her list of things to do. Emptying the dishwasher and tea sorting, along with putting away the rest of the shipment that came in, would be easy. It was what I’d been doing since I started working, and what she decided was the best thing for me since making anything other than coffee, tea, or hot chocolate usually ended in refunds or broken dishes. I really sucked at making anything other than boiled water.

  “…midday and then I’ll come out and help,” Brenda continued on, not realizing I’d tuned her out. “That should help with coverage, and then maybe I’ll have time to get my office sorted.”

  All I heard, and was thankful for, was she’d be working the counter with me in just a few short hours. Brenda, satisfied that everything was turned on, brewing, or on standby to brew, left with a quick wave of her hand as she said, “If you’ll be needing anything, just call for me.”

  The Grounded Bean wasn’t a busy coffee shop by any means, but it did hold a steady stream of customers later in the day. It was nothing like the coffee shops at home. Especially the ones located close to college campuses, like The Grounded Bean was. Every once in a while, a stray college student would come in, dump their books on the table of a booth, and settle in to do homework. From what Brenda told me, the college students usually stayed behind after class and did their homework in the library or took it home to work on.

  Looking around the coffee shop, I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t more popular. Along the far wall were three booths with a single light hung in the center of each, illuminating the table. A chest-high wall had been added behind the last booth to create a sitting area where people could curl up in a chair and read while they enjoyed their beverage. Music played low through the overhead speakers.

  It was, by far, the coziest setting I’d ever seen in a coffee shop. Not that I’d been to a lot of them, but had I, The Grounded Bean would be the one I’d feel the most relaxed at. Brenda had recently added a couple of bookshelves, stocking them with reading material from her own collection. Pictures of quotes in all different sizes and all different styles of frames adorned the walls. I let my eyes wander from the back of the shop to the front where the sheer curtains on the windows glowed with the interior lighting as if night were coming, instead of it being morning. Outside, the rain continued falling. Headlights cut a path through the dreariness as pedestrians huddled under umbrellas. With footsteps filled with quick purpose, they hustled past, not giving the coffee shop any mind as they did.

  Turning my back on the gloom, I bent to the task of unloading the dishwasher. If it weren’t for the fact that I needed to get a foothold in Scotland, I would have balked against Grant’s plan. But I’d learned at an early stage that Grant had his reasons for doing the things he did. When Nadia Jackson, Grant’s wife, agreed whole-heartedly with the plan, there was nothing left to do but follow along with it.

  Ever since the intelligence files were breached, the security was ramped up to the need-to-know basis. What I was doing while working undercover in the coffee shop hadn’t hit that point, so I was forced to make the best of it until I was given other orders.

  Grant and Nadia were busy with Robert De Fleur and the fiasco he’d caused with their son Jared, one of my best friends. It was hard to fathom that less than a year ago, I’d graduated high school and split off from the Six. I missed them terribly and wished there was a way to p
ut all of us back together again. Unfortunately, there was no reverse button on life and as much as it sucked, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  Robotically, I wiped clinging drops of water off the coffee cups and put them away, not paying attention to the quirky sayings on each mismatched cup. Brenda’s taste ran towards the creative side of decorating. There was nothing, save the coffee and tea, that was the same. All the light fixtures were different, the chairs, hell, even the benches were covered in different material, but somehow, it all came together, creating a homey feel that beckoned you to stay a while and relax.

  I could almost lose myself in the atmosphere, forgetting what it was I came there for.

  Three weeks earlier:

  “A church? You can’t be serious.” My hand gripped the door on the wrong side of the car as I got out and looked up at the back side of the steeple piercing the sky.

  The driver’s side door closed with a soft bump and Grant moved around the back of the car, popping the trunk. My bag was thrust in front of me, and I took it without looking.

  “You can gawk at the church later. Let’s get inside before the bottom falls out of the sky and drowns us both,” he said, nudging me in the shoulder to get my attention.

  I tore my eyes away from the spire and walked alongside Grant to a door at the back of the church. “Our cover story is that I’m an architectural engineer, studying historical buildings abroad. You’re my son.”

  “We couldn’t look less alike if we tried.”

  “Adopted son.”

  I snorted with a slight shake of my head. “So, Dad, what am I here for? Moral support?”

  Grant reached the door and pulled it open, gesturing for me to go first. “For now, you’re going to be an American kid freshly moved to Scotland and looking for work.”

  I stepped inside the church, expecting to see stained glass and pews, but found myself in what looked like a room kept for old records and retired robes.

  “Are you sure… Do you think…?”

  The look on my face made the corner of Grant’s mouth twitch. “What’s wrong, Aiden? Devil got your tongue?”

  I jerked in response. “No, the dev— No, I’m just trying to understand why we’re setting up operation in God’s basement.”

  Grant walked around a chipped statue of the Virgin Mary. At the far side of the room, he stopped, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket. “It does seem a little odd. Being under a church, that is, but what better protection can we get than from the divine Himself?”

  “But it’s a church!”

  Grant cast a look around and then back at me before unlocking the door and opening it to reveal a set of stairs. “Yes, I did notice that when I spoke to Father McKinnon about renting out the basement. Nice fellow, Father McKinnon.”

  “And does Father McKinnon know what you’re really renting the space out for?” I asked.

  “Aye, I do.”

  I dropped my bag, stumbling over it as I clutched my chest. “Jesus, Father, you scared the hell out of me!”

  Father McKinnon was an older gentleman, dressed in a white, button-down shirt that was neatly tucked inside a pair of pressed black trousers. His hands were folded neatly in front of him as he came to a stop only feet away. He had salt-and-pepper hair, neatly cropped close to his head. With one eyebrow raised, he looked at me without a trace of reaction to my outburst.

  I bit the inside on my lip, sighing as I scrubbed my hand down my face. “I’m sorry, I just… Well, you startled me, and I really didn’t mean—”

  He lifted his hand as if waving away my apology. “‘Tis nothing to be sorry for, I’m sure. And you, with hell scared right from ye, are sure to be welcome in His house.”

  It took me a few seconds to process what he’d said, and in that time, Grant had stuck out his hand, shaking Father McKinnon’s. “Good to see you again, Father. If I may? My son, Aiden,” he said, stepping back to put his hand on my shoulder in introduction.

  Father McKinnon dipped his head at me with a warm smile. “I was just on my way out. Is there anything you might be needing?”

  Grant moved his hand from my shoulder. “No, I believe we’re all set for right now. Thank you, though.”

  I reached down and picked my bag up from the floor as Father McKinnon walked over to a coat rack by the door, pulled a black trench coat from its hook, and slid it on. Perched on the top of the rack was a black bowler hat that he plucked from its resting place and sat atop his head. With a final wave, he pulled the door open and grabbed an umbrella. Not minding the rain sweeping in on gusts of air, Father McKinnon didn’t open the umbrella until he cleared the door. “An old superstition, that,” he said cheerily and pulled the door closed behind him.

  THERE HADN'T BEEN A WHOLE lot to put away since we’d traveled light. Grant had set up shipments of small crates to be delivered over a span of a few weeks, which left us working off secured laptops and living out of our suitcases for a while.

  It didn’t bother me, living like that. So long as I had a bed to lie in at night, I really didn’t care. Nadia arrived two days later with discouraging news. Robert de Fleur, the man responsible for kidnapping Jared, had gone underground again.

  Intelligence lost him in Ireland, which made it too close for comfort for those of us in Scotland. And it changed all of our plans. Not knowing where the bastard was hiding made it impossible to track him, and word on the street was that he hadn’t even told his closest contacts where he’d be. Nadia had wrung her hands at that.

  There was always a finger on the pulse of movement when it came to tracking a person of interest at Cole Enterprise. After Jared’s abduction and the helicopter crash that Ace had been in, Nadia discovered there was a leak of intelligence. Not long after that, Robert de Fleur went into hiding. Coincidence? Maybe, but it was highly doubtful.

  Without any leads to actively follow, I was left helping Nadia set up her office. There was only one thing wrong with that. I was not, and never would be, a paperwork person. After the third day of filing and sorting, labeling and alphabetizing, I was ready to go out of my mind. Thankfully, Grant had other plans for me.

  Even if it didn’t make any sense, his plan at least got me out of the church basement and away from filing.

  “Nadia and I have to lay low, but you won’t have to since she was able to take down the server that was hacked before your information was leaked,” Grant said as he sat me down to explain what it was he wanted me to do. “You’ll be able to move around without worry of being noticed by the wrong people, and maybe we’ll get lucky enough to get a lead on where the hell Robert de Fleur might be hiding out.”

  I leaned over to look at the sheet of paper Grant slid across the cluttered desk. “The Grounded Bean? Is that a—?”

  “Coffee shop, yes,” Grant answered, stretching his arms out on the table with a sigh.

  I scrunched my face up, wondering how in the hell a coffee shop played into his plan. “And I’ll be working there?”

  Grant pulled his arms back and let his hands fall into his lap as he leaned back in his chair. “I’ll have your work Visa ready for you by tonight. Tomorrow, you’re going to The Grounded Bean to fill out an application.”

  I eyed Grant. Curiosity getting the best of me, I asked, “What’s the connection, because I have a hard time believing that you’d just put me in a coffee shop for something to do.”

  “The connection is Brenda, owner of The Grounded Bean. Intel shows the connection, but that’s all we have,” Grant said, pulling a file from the stack on his desk. “Brenda Anderson is the estranged sister of Robert de Fleur. From what we have on Robert’s movements, he hasn’t seen his sister in over fifteen years, but—”

  “With him in hiding, it’s a possibility he’d seek her out,” I said, finishing Grant’s sentence as he opened the file and took out the one page intel sheet on Brenda.

  “Exactly. Which is why you’re going to seek employment at The Grounded Bean. Intelligence non-withstandin
g, it’s my hope that infiltrating his family connections might dig up something we can actually run with.”

  “What’s my cover story?” I asked, scanning the paper in front of me.

  Other than the usual information, there wasn’t much else to go off, especially in connection to a known terrorist. A grainy black-and-white photo of Brenda stared back at me as I committed her face to memory.

  “You’re a recent high school graduate traveling abroad. You’ve blown through all of your money and need a job, but plan to stick around Glasgow because you’ve decided you want to put away some money to go to school there.”

  My eyes left the paper in front of me to meet Grant’s. “School? I don’t really have to go, do I?”

  Grant laughed at the confusion clearly written all over my face. “No, but this will buy us some time. The longer you’re there, the more of a chance you might have at uncovering something of use to find Robert de Fleur.”

  “What if there’s no connection? I mean, other than Brenda just being related to a douche bag?”

  Grant picked the folder up and stood, rounding the desk. “Then we’ll find another starting point.”

  I took the folder from him, slid the intel sheet back inside, and pushed out of my chair. “I guess it’s better than nothing, right?”

  “True. I’m basing this off gut instinct. There’s just something right here,” he said, poking his finger into his stomach, “that tells me this is the right angle to start working from.”

  I nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. Gut instinct and sheer luck could crack a case wide open. “Is there any other known family in the area?”

  I wasn’t sure why I asked it, but the question popped out before I had time to think about it.

  “Besides the handful of cousins, who’ve all checked out, there’s Brenda’s niece. She didn’t pop up on intel’s list back when we’d created the files because she was so young. That would have been about fifteen years ago, or around there. She’d be about eighteen by now.” Grant tapped his lip in thought. “I’ll get with intel and have them run a full report again.”