Into the Whirlwind Read Free Page A

house?”
    â€œMight be, might not. Might just be doing an occasional drive-by. I’d rather play it safe. They’re going to call eventually. Give you instructions. If they know I’m here, we tell them I’m the one who’s going to negotiate the deal.”
    â€œThere’s room for your car. I’ll open the garage door.”
    Dirk nodded, turned, and headed downstairs. He needed facts, information. Once he had a lead, he’d bring Sadie in to help. Sadie Gunderson worked as a computer expert at BOSS, Inc., where he was a private investigator/bodyguard/pretty much jack-of-all-trades.
    He was ex-military, Special Forces, a former Ranger. He had extensive weapons training. Working as a PI with Ethan Brodie, once a Dallas homicide detective, Ethan’s brother, Luke, a bounty hunter, and their cousins, Ian and Nick, both ex-cops, had given Dirk invaluable experience.
    Along with the training he’d had in the army, he seemed to have a natural knack for sniffing out clues. He’d find the bastards who had taken Meg’s boy. She was right about that.
    And he would see they got exactly what they deserved.
    * * *
    It felt strange having Dirk in the house. Like having something wild and untamed prowling the hallways. He had always seemed out of place, like an animal that needed to be released from its cage.
    He’d only been in her home a few days after one of the La Belle models had been murdered. Dirk had accompanied her to the funeral as her bodyguard. Then she and the other girls had flown to Texas to begin the fashion show tour. Dirk Reynolds and Ethan Brodie had been part of the security team. Charlie had stayed in Seattle with her parents.
    Throughout the tour, Dirk had stuck by her side, determined to protect her. She could feel that same determination now, directed toward the safe return of her son. Somehow it soothed her.
    Just watching him stalking through the house searching for clues seemed to steady her. Dirk would bring Charlie home. No matter what it took.
    She found Rose Wills at the dining table, a box of Kleenex on top, a tissue clutched in her pudgy hand. She dabbed it beneath her eyes.
    â€œIt’s going to be okay, Rose.” Meg sat down beside her, not completely sure if she was saying the words for Rose or for herself. “Dirk’s going to help us find Charlie.”
    â€œMr. Reynolds . . . he isn’t what I expected.”
    Under different circumstances, Meg might have smiled. “No, he isn’t. But he knows what he’s doing.”
    â€œIt was him, wasn’t it? He was your bodyguard on the tour.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI heard you and your friend Val talking about him once. You said he was an amazing man.” Valerie Hartman was one of Meg’s best friends, also a former model. She was engaged to Dirk’s best friend. Val had been brave enough to risk loving Ethan Brodie.
    â€œDirk is amazing.”
    â€œI think he has a tattoo.”
    â€œThere’s a dragon on his shoulder.” A very sexy dragon, but now wasn’t the time to remember that. “The dragon’s head climbs up to the base of his neck. Sometimes when he moves, part of it shows above the collar of his shirt.”
    â€œI see.”
    She wondered what Rose Wills did see when she looked at Dirk. The same thing her father would have seen: a man who would never fit in at the country club or among her dad’s high-society friends. One of the reasons she had ended their brief affair.
    â€œWe need to make a list of anyone who has or had access to the house in the last few weeks.” She pointed to the notepad she had retrieved from the downstairs study she used as an office. “I’ve written down the gardener, the cleaning lady, the part-time babysitter.” A young woman who filled in on weekends if she was needed, or when Rose had time off. “Oh, and the window washers.”
    â€œThe carpet-cleaning people were in