Kathleen Brooks - Secrets Collide

She found it stuck in the middle of a bunch of notes. Gemma had written it to Gia, telling her she had missed a math question because Graham Bullock had asked her to the middle school dance and she’d been so excited, she’d forgotten to answer the question on her quiz.

Gemma picked up the notebook marked with the symbol for One and started to read as much as she could.

“Hello, dear. You’ve been at it for hours and I thought you might like something to drink and a snack before dinner.” Miss Lily set down a tray with a brownie and a glass of lemonade on it.

“Thank you. I am hungry.” Gemma put down the notebook, took a bite of the rich brownie, and moaned. She could get used to the cooking out here.

“What is this you’re working on?” Miss Lily asked as she looked at the notebook.

“I need to decipher it for the investigation. My sister took all these notes, but I’m having a real hard time remembering our twin language.” Gemma paused as she took another bite of the brownie. “Strange, huh?”

“To have a secret language with your twin? Not at all. Daisy Mae, Violet Fae, and I had one growing up, too. It was great to be able to talk about all the important stuff without our parents knowing what we were saying,” Miss Lily winked. “Take, for instance, talking about a hunk of a man with hazel eyes and abs I could wash clothes on.”

Gemma blinked and paused with the last bite of brownie halfway to her mouth. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, don’t tell me for one second you haven’t noticed Cy. You’d have to be dead not to and even then it would be hard.”

“Even if I noticed him, it doesn’t mean anything. He dates actresses and models. I enjoy food too much to be like them,” Gemma popped the last bite of brownie into her mouth as if to emphasize that fact.

“Mmm, hmm. Do you see him married to any of those women? I don’t. Men like women who look like women, not ten-year-old boys with inflatable toys on their chests. Trust me, he’s noticed. You better make a move before the rest of the town descends upon him.” Miss Lily gave her a wink and headed back inside.

Right. Like she had a chance with Cy. But, she did have a chance with some of the notes. Enough that she was able to translate a couple of the photographs. She went through the pile and pulled out the ones she could translate and started writing the translations onto notes and sticking them to the back of the photos. Her trouble lay in the notebooks, though.

Word by word, she slowly made her way through the first ten pages of the notebook. The longer she worked on it, the more it came back, but it was still hard to remember every detail of a language they had developed as children. Determination filled her as she bent her head and went back to work.

Cy parked the truck at Miss Lily’s and walked up the pathway to her front porch. Gemma was curled up on the porch swing with two notebooks in her lap. She didn’t hear him as he approached so he took a moment to observe her. A lock of her hair had escaped from behind her ear. Unlike so many people he knew in Hollywood, Gemma wore no makeup and didn’t seem self-conscious about it. In fact, all he wanted to do was run a finger down her cheek to feel its softness. His brothers’ talks of marriage and relationships were messing with him.

“How’s it going?” he asked as he stopped in front of her. He saw her jump in surprise as her wide eyes looked up at him.

“You scared me.” Gemma took a deep breath and smelled grass, hay, horse, and man. That wasn't something she was used to smelling. Men in L.A. didn't smell like that and it was intoxicating. Images of him shirtless on a horse had her fanning herself with her notebook before she even knew it. Damn Miss Lily for putting those ideas of Cy into her head.

“Sorry. It looks like I’m interrupting. Are you making progress on your sister’s notes?”

“Some. Here, take a look at these pictures.” Gemma swung her feet to the ground and made room on the swing for him to sit next to her. Cy filled the swing and her heart fluttered when his shoulder pressed against hers.

“This girl is twelve years old and was shipped on a container ship with twenty other girls from the Philippines to Europe as part of a sex trade Gia was investigating. Here are some more.” Gemma handed him pictures of young girls of all ages, races, and nationalities.

“They’re so young,” Cy sighed as he shook his head.

“Gia believed the sex trade was run by a mystery man she called Lucifer. She talked to some of these women. While most wouldn’t say anything, some told her of being taken from orphanages and shipped to Europe and the Middle East. Then

these . . .” Gemma handed him another couple of pictures. “These women are all Americans taken via interstate trafficking. They are prostitutes who were kidnapped and traded all across the United States. Do you know what they have in common?”

“Besides tragedy? Let me guess, the rings are all run by Lucifer . . . or Mr. X as we call him at the agency.”

“That’s right. And there’s more. He’s not a low-level criminal living in the dark. He’s very well connected. In her notes, Gia wrote about a man that your Mr. X was preparing to back for Congress. But he bumbled a job and this is what happened to him.” Gemma pulled out the three pictures and showed him the first picture of the body that still made her cringe. “This is what happened to him for messing up a dog-fighting ring, see?”

Gemma flipped to the next two pictures showing people at a dog-fight. Cy grabbed the photos and shot to his feet as he stared at the pictures.

“I don’t believe it. The dead man is Paul Russell. And this woman here,” Cy tapped the picture of the woman in her prim suit taking bets outside of a dog-fighting ring, “that’s Nancy Kincaid. These pictures were taken here in Keeneston. This is the dog-fighting ring that Marshall broke up.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Yes. This is the whole reason I started investigating Mr. X. Your sister was looking into the same thing I was, and it got her killed. At the same time, I was being hunted here in Keeneston. This is good news. Mr. X’s organization is taking out anyone looking into them and now they know you are.” Cy stood up and started pacing along the wooden porch.

“How is this good news?”

“It means we’re on the right track,” Cy shot her a smile, the one she recognized as his Hollywood smile. He could shell out his smiles to the ladies, but they never reached his eyes. Gemma wondered what he would look like when he finally let go and smiled for real.

“You’re basically going to sit here and wait for them to kill us? I don’t know if I like that idea,” Gemma worried. She had just traveled across the country to try to avoid these guys and now it sounded as if Cy was excited that these guys would be coming after them.

Gemma nibbled her bottom lip as Cy slowly came to stand in front of her. “My plan is to have enough evidence to take them down before they get here. When they arrive, we'll be here waiting to arrest them.”

“That’s what my sister probably thought, too. Instead, she got in too deep and they killed her.” Gemma looked up into Cy’s eyes and wondered what was really happening behind the façade he kept firmly in place.

“I won’t let that happen to you,” he said softly as he pushed a stray lock of her hair away from her face. Gemma felt her breath catch as his fingers brushed against her cheek. For a moment his eyes softened and she caught a glimpse of the man behind the mask.

The screen door slammed and the spell was broken. “Oh dear. I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?” Miss Lily asked innocently as her wide eyes blinked. “I just wanted to see if you two were staying for dinner.”

“Thank you, but we’re going to miss dinner. We’re going to see Marshall . . . and his files.”

Cy was relieved when Gemma sat quietly in the truck watching the farms pass by. He was tired of playing the playboy. The models and actresses had irritated him when he started working in Hollywood, but it was all necessary for his cover. The thing was, he didn’t even sleep with them—well, not many of them.  He guessed that was what made him so popular with the famous women. They weren’t used to having someone say no. Unfortunately, it was an unintended aphrodisiac.

After the first year of undercover work, the acting had turned real. He got used to the secret games and power plays of making movies. He fit in with ease at parties, clubs, and on the set. He was popular, confident, and one of the best at his job. And it didn’t hurt that some of Hollywood’s hottest starlets took a shine to him.

But then Cade had problems with drugs at the high school and Marshall busted up a dog-fighting ring.  That’s when he realized he had missed so much in life. Sure, he’d done amazing things and gone to faraway places, but that wasn’t really him. It was Cy Davidson who had done those things. All he’d done with the CIA was try to live up to the legacy left to him by the older brothers he had idolized his whole life. He wanted to give back to his country just as they had done.

Somewhere along the way, though, he had lost himself. Cy had thought as soon as he came home, everything would be as it was; the real Cy Davies would return. But it wasn’t happening. He didn’t know how to be himself anymore.

“Cy? Cy . . . is everything okay?” Gemma’s voice shook him out of his reflections.

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay? I’ve been trying to ask you a question, but you seemed in another world.”

“I’m fine. What did you need?”

“I was wondering what you think Marshall can help us with?” Gemma asked with a concerned tone in her voice.