Time to Bounce (Carter Brothers #6)

Chapter 12

I hate pants and socializing.

— Text from Athena to Gable

GABLE

I was in the middle of ordering pizza when Jack , the foreman who’d practically built my house, showed with a new door.

He was out of the truck and headed toward me with a grin on his face as he said, “ What are you doin’ here?”

I gestured to the broken door with my thumb hooked over my shoulder and said, “ My girl showed me her house for the first time, and she bet me that I couldn’t kick it in. So I did.”

Jack looked at me like I was fucking nuts.

Then he looked at the door.

“ I guess I can see why you wouldn’t want her staying in a house you could get into so easily,” he sized up the door. “ Though , I might’ve just bought the door and replaced it rather than kicking it in. That’s going to make more work for me.”

“ Sorry , bud,” I said. “ You want some pizza? I’m on hold with them now.”

“ Nah ,” he said. “ My wife is expecting me home at a decent hour tonight. I was at Home Depot when you called getting other shit. I can have this done in probably an hour. She’s not expecting me home for another two.”

“ I’m guessing you want me to pay you in baked goods from Pie Hard again?” I chuckled.

“ Damn right,” he said. “ You know how dead I am inside since my wife made me start this new diet. I feel like all the joy I had in life is gone.”

“ Yeah ,” I agreed. “ But your blood pressure and cholesterol are probably way better.”

He shrugged. “ If I don’t have any joy in my life, what’s the point of living?”

“ Your wife?” I asked.

“ She doesn’t count. Because she’s making me hate myself because she hates herself,” he continued. “ I think this’ll blow over once she realizes it’s more fun to eat tacos than look good for other people.”

The grin on my face stayed there past when we went separate ways.

I was full on smiling when I made my way back inside to where Athena was loading the washing machine with all her dirty clothes from her trip.

I stopped next to the table and admired a set of Japanese plates she’d gotten while she was visiting, then placed my order for pizza.

“ Got it,” the woman taking my order said. “ It’ll be about twenty minutes.”

I’d bet my left nut it’d be longer than that, but chose not to contradict her.

The pizza would get here when it got here, in the meantime…

“ What was your favorite thing you ate while you were over there?” I asked.

Her face lit up as she stopped with a pair of underwear dangling from her fingers.

“ Japanese curry,” she answered. “ It was sublime.”

I caught the underwear that were dangling, then tossed them in the washer.

When she went to close it, I halted her hand and tossed in the ones that were still in my pocket from earlier as well.

“ You don’t still have that condom in there, do you?” she asked worriedly.

I shot her an unamused look. “ Do you honestly think that I’d keep that in there any longer than I had to? I tossed it out on our way to our vehicles for lunch.”

“ Ahh ,” she said. “ Speaking of vehicles, if I’m spending the weekend with you, do you think it’d be okay if I dropped my car off at Big 5 Tire to get new tires put on, as well as get my oil changed, and my fuel filter checked?”

She had her back to me when she asked this as she reached for the top shelf where there was a huge glass jar of what looked like homemade laundry detergent.

I waited until she was done before catching her hips and spinning her toward me. “ Absolutely .”

She melted into my arms, then looped hers around my neck.

“ This is weird for me,” she said. “ I feel like you’re Dr . Jekyll one second, then Mr . Hyde the next.” She scrunched up her nose.

I allowed my fingers to drag through her thick hair.

“ I guess that maybe all I have to do is take the time to make it up to you,” I said.

Before I could say anything more, Jack called my name.

“ Hey , Gable !”

I squeezed Athena’s hips, then let her go.

Getting back to Jack , I said, “ What’s up?”

He jerked his chin toward the door and said, “ What do you think of this?”

I looked at the door—or where the door used to be—and stared. “ Wires ?”

“ Looks like a camera,” he said as he pulled it out.

I turned to look at Athena . “ Did your brother set up a camera for you?”

She shook her head. “ He was electronically inept. He would’ve never set anything electronic up for me without messing it up.”

I reached for the wire that Jack was holding, then pulled on it. It slid free of the door frame, trailed inside the house, and disappeared into an electrical outlet.

One that wasn’t being used.

“ Oh ,” Athena frowned. “ I always thought that was part of the doorbell.”

Jack pointed out an old box that was in the hallway. “ That’s the doorbell. But it looks like you haven’t had a working one for a while, because there aren’t any wires here that are leading to the doorbell.”

“ Oh ,” she crossed her arms over her chest. “ That wire looks pretty new for my place. I wonder if the old owners had it put in for their parents?”

That wasn’t the vibe I was getting, and I always trusted my gut.

“ Fix the door, Jack ,” I instructed. “ I’ll investigate this further when I can get one of my brothers out here.”

“ Shasha can look at it,” she suggested. “ I think he got into town today. He was already coming over here tomorrow so we could talk about our next step with my program, but I’ll bet he’d be willing to come over now.”

My jaw clenched at the mention of yet another man.

“ Call him,” I said, trying to control my baser emotions. “ I’m gonna look around for a bit to see if I find anything else suspicious.”

“ What do you think it is?” Shasha asked as he walked around the house with me.

Milena , the next to youngest sister, came with him and kept Athena occupied in the house while I took Shasha out back.

I had plenty of friends who could’ve done this, but I didn’t want to make Athena any more uncomfortable than she already was.

And I knew that Shasha would be able to figure out what it was a lot faster than me or any of my friends could.

We were good with cameras, but Shasha seemed to have a knack that surpassed most people.

“ Well , at first I didn’t really know,” I admitted. “ But when I was looking around the back of the house, I found this box.”

I pulled the cover off the box, then showed it to him.

He pulled some of the wires out then said, “ This is access to what would normally be inside for cameras.”

He fiddled with a few things inside, then pulled out his phone and a wire connector, which he plugged in.

A few more taps, then he cursed.

He tilted his phone so I could see, and I stared in awe at the cameras that were ALL over the house.

There was one that was blank, which I assumed was the one that Jack and I had removed prior to his arrival.

But there were nine others, and all of them were working.

“ Bedroom , bathroom, hall, closet, laundry room, living room, front porch, back porch, garage.” Shasha shook his head. “ Holy fuck.”

“ Do you have to access this panel to be able to get the information?” I asked, voice icily calm.

Inside , though, I was fucking fuming.

“ No ,” he looked worried now. “ This is just an external entry point for if there’s an issue with the cameras that need fixed.”

I swallowed hard. “ How’s the data transferred?”

“ This ,” he pointed at the antenna. “ It has its own cell phone signal.”

I pulled out my phone and dialed my dad.

The moment he picked up, I said, “ I need you to send a couple of your best down here. I’m filing a police report for Athena .”

“ What’s going on?” Dad asked, instantly alert.

I quickly explained what was going on.

“ I’ll get someone on tracing that signal,” he said.

I didn’t bother telling him that Shasha was doing it right in front of my eyes.

“ Okay ,” I said.

Being one of the only ones in the family who worked undercover, I was the least caring about breaking the law. There were just some laws that were meant to be broken, and you couldn’t convince me otherwise.

Not to mention there were some criminals who deserved to be in a dark grave in the woods, and the only way to get them out of the picture—at least without killing them—was to fudge your way around the law.

“ I’m sending your mom and Detective Cobb ,” he said, sounding distracted. “ Your mom is fifteen minutes out, and Cobb is five.”

So get Shasha out of here with what he’d found before then.

Got it.

“ Thanks ,” I said and hung up.

Shoving the phone back into my pocket, I said, “ You should probably get out of here in the next five minutes so you can work on that without prying eyes.”

Shasha flashed me a smirk. “ You don’t think I can hold intelligent conversations with cops while I do my work?”

“ I think that I don’t want to be put in a position where I have to choose,” I admitted. “ And Athena will ask questions that neither one of us are ready to talk about just yet.”

“ True ,” he stood and shoved the phone he’d been working on back into his pocket. “ I’ll forward you everything I have.”

Then he was gone, but not before calling out over his shoulder, “ I’ll let you tell her.”

When I got back around the front, after glaring holes at the fuckin’ box that’d held the access to all the cameras in Athena’s house, Milena and Shasha were gone, leaving Athena on the front porch talking to Jack .

Jack who was packing up his things.

“…she really is my best friend.” Athena laughed. “ What kind of pie are you looking for? I’m pretty sure she’d be willing to make anything.”

“ Huckleberry .” He looked excited now. “ I know it’s not the norm down here in Texas , but it is up there in Montana where we used to live. We had huckleberry ice cream, huckleberry jam. Huckleberry everything. And God , but I know my wife and I would kill for a huckleberry pie.”

“ What part of Montana ?” she asked curiously.

“ Near Kalispel , sort of,” he answered as he hefted his big bag up. “ It’s more toward Canada , actually. We used to live about ten minutes from the Canadian border. Small town of about fifteen hundred people.”

“ Why’d you leave?” Athena asked.

“ Winters there are hard,” he admitted. “ My wife has MS , so it was getting near on impossible to be up there during the winter months, and she was miserable. Texas was about as opposite as we could get from Montana .” He jerked his chin up when he saw me. “ She’s easy to talk to.”

“ That she is,” I agreed. “ When she’s feeling nice.”

“ Hey ! I’m always nice,” Athena pointed at me. “ You’re the one who’s mean, and then I can’t help myself.”

I caught her finger in my grasp and pulled her lightly toward me. When she was close enough, I put my arm around her shoulder and said, “ Thanks again for doing this, Jack . I’ll see where I can get some huckleberries so we can get you that pie made.”

“ You’d be my best friend for life.” He chuckled. “ There’s not a single thing in this world that I wouldn’t do for my girl. Seeing her smile is like a warm electric shot straight to my heart.”

I felt that statement resonate in my soul.

I was quickly becoming aware of what I’d do to put a smile on Athena’s face.

What was worse, I would be wiping that smile off her face in a moment when Jack left.

“ Bye , youngins!” he called.

I waited until he was in his truck before turning back to Athena .

I let her go, then rubbed my hand down my face.

“ I’m guessing whatever you and Shasha found out wasn’t good,” she guessed.

I leaned against her porch railing before telling her exactly what I’d found.

“ That’s …” she shook her head. “ In my room?”

I hated that I was nodding.

Hated it.

I especially hated the look on her face when she realized that someone could remotely monitor her house, and her.

“ What’s the next step?” she asked, trying to appear calm when she was anything but.

“ Next step would be to find out who put them there,” I explained. “ Shasha is running the cell signal to see if he can triangulate where it’s coming from. My dad sent over a couple of officers, one of whom is my mom, to come take a look at everything. From there, we’ll decide what’s next.”

“ I can’t stay here,” she mumbled.

Like I was ever going to let her go.

“ You won’t be staying here. You’ll be staying with me,” I said. “ Until we figure this out.”

“ I can stay at my brother’s place,” she explained. “ There are no showings scheduled, and…”

“ One , if they knew where and how to find you here, they’ll be able to find you at Gavrel’s place,” I said. “ Two , there’s a zero percent chance that I’m letting you out of my sight until we know more about what’s going on here.”

She closed her mouth, and I had the distinct feeling she was grateful that I didn’t give her the option.

“ Okay ,” she said simply.