by Lisa Childs
Reluctantly he lifted his head from hers. Then he flashed a grin at the room.
“So that’s why you’ve been hanging around the department,” an older detective remarked. “I thought you were either here on a bodyguard assignment or you were trolling to get your job back with RCPD.”
Hart shook his head.
“So things are good at the Payne Protection Agency?” the detective asked.
Hart shrugged. “I’m happy, but that’s more for personal reasons than professional reasons.” He slung his arm around Wendy’s shoulders and pulled her close to his side. Her body was tense and stiff against his. He leaned down and advised her, “Smile.”
Her lips curved, but when she looked up at him there was no love or amusement in her green eyes. Instead, anger glimmered.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Wendy whispered between gritted teeth.
He probably shouldn’t have—because his pulse kept racing and his body kept throbbing with desire for her. Since he was pretty damn sure everybody was aware that he was her bodyguard, he hadn’t needed to kiss her to perpetuate the boyfriend act. Something had driven him to do it.
Or someone...
He glanced over at Dubridge. Instead of looking jealous, which for some reason Hart had perversely wanted to make him, Spencer was grinning broadly.
Had he goaded Hart into overplaying his hand? Why? For his own amusement? It wasn’t like he was playing matchmaker or anything. Hart doubted there was a romantic bone in Spencer Dubridge’s big body.
Keeli was studying the detective through narrowed blue eyes, as if trying to surmise his motivation, as well. She looked away quickly, though, and shook her head, as if she’d already given up trying to figure him out.
“Congrats, Wendy,” a female detective called out. “You finally got your man.”
Wendy’s face flushed bright red. But she held on to her smile as they walked out of the room. The minute they were outside the door to the detectives’ bull pen, though, she pulled away and whirled toward him.
Hart realized the increased danger wasn’t just from Luther Mills but from Wendy herself. She looked mad enough to kill him.
* * *
Just when Wendy thought she couldn’t be any more humiliated...
Hart had to make a scene like he had in the middle of the bull pen. And, of course, he’d chosen to do it when just about every single desk in the big area had had someone at it.
The minute they stepped into the hall, she pulled away from him. Her jaw ached, she’d been clenching her teeth so tightly. She told him now what she’d wanted to tell him then. “Don’t touch me!”
He stepped back and held up his hands, as if silently promising he wouldn’t. But he continued to hover too close to her when she returned to the lab to retrieve her purse and car keys.
“You are not going to need those,” he said as he pointed to the key ring.
The keys were for her car. She’d only borrowed her mother’s that one day—while hers had, ironically, been getting new brakes and tires.
“I am not leaving my car in the parking garage,” she informed him.
He nodded. “You sure as hell are. We’re not taking any chances anymore.”
“We haven’t,” she said. “Nothing else has happened this past week.”
“Not to you,” he agreed. “But it sure as hell happened to Rosie Mendez.”
She sucked in a breath as she thought of the trauma the young woman had endured. Wendy had met Rosie at the scene of her younger brother’s murder. She’d collected evidence from the scene and from Rosie herself, who’d been covered in her brother’s blood. Since she was an only child, Wendy hadn’t been able to imagine the depth of Rosie’s pain over the loss of her sibling. But she had felt horrible for her.
“The chief told me that she’s safe now,” Wendy said. She desperately hoped that was true.
Hart shrugged. “Nobody knows where she and Clint went, so it’ll be hard for anyone to find them.”
“Good.”
“But that means you’re in even more danger than you already were,” he warned her. “Luther will focus all his attention on getting rid of you now.”
“The chief told me that, too,” she said, shaking her head in silent protest of what else he’d said. Nobody she worked with could also be working for Luther Mills. It just wasn’t possible.
“You don’t believe him?” Hart asked. “Or you don’t want to believe him?”
“I want to go home,” she said.
She wanted to make sure her parents were safe. Luther wanted her to get rid of the evidence and she was afraid he might try to harm her parents to coerce her to do that.
“I’ll take you home,” Hart said.
She didn’t argue with him, just followed him down the corridor to the elevator, which they took up to the lobby. The minute the doors slid open, he put his arm around her again. She tensed and tried to pull away.
“I told you not to touch me...”
He leaned closer and whispered, “I don’t trust you to not try to ditch me again.”
She was so angry over the scene he’d made that she might have if he hadn’t been holding on to her. She tried to veer toward the rear exit of the lobby, which would bring her to the employee parking garage, but Hart steered her toward the front doors instead.
She probably looked as panicked as she felt at the thought of being alone with Hart again because one of the guards manning the screening machines at the entrance glanced up at her. She could have called the officer over, could have told her that Hart was hassling her, but it would have been stupid to make a scene that would get back to the chief. He already thought she was an idiot.
She’d seen it on his face as he’d lectured her about the dangers of being too trusting. Her parents had raised her to always look for the good in people, though. And despite all the years she’d seen the bad at crime scenes, their lesson had stuck.
Maybe too well...
As she and Hart walked past the security officer, the young woman smiled, almost enviously, at them.
“Have a good evening” was all Wendy told her.
The woman winked. “Thanks, but I don’t think it’ll be as good as yours.”
For years Wendy had wished Hart Fisher had acted like he was acting now with her: like he was attracted to her. But she knew this was only an act, just part of his job as her bodyguard.
A job he had already admitted he hadn’t wanted.
She knew protecting her was the only reason he kept her as close as he did. When they stepped outside, he positioned her body between his and the building, so that she was shielded from any threat. But he’d parked in the open lot across the street from the police department, so they would eventually have to cross traffic to reach his Payne Protection SUV.
The light seemed to be stuck on the Do Not Walk symbol. As more pedestrians joined them, Hart drew her closer to him. Her body tingled everywhere his touched hers. And, despite the cool autumn breeze blowing leaves around the sidewalk and across the street, heat rushed through Wendy. She focused on that damn red light because she didn’t want to look at him. But she could feel him staring at her.
His gaze drew hers like there was a connection between them, a connection that had her standing taller, raising her head...as he began to lower his. Her gaze slipped from his warm brown eyes to his lips. They were so chiseled, like every feature on his handsome face.
How could she not have a crush on him? It was unfair that he looked like that.
That was the remark she had casually made to a coworker years ago. That it was unfair he was so handsome.
From that remark, the rumor of her crush must have spread throughout the rest of the station. Remembering that they were still within sight of the building had her drawing back—quickly—before he kissed her again.
&nb
sp; He jerked away from her, as well, and straightened, as if he’d just remembered where they were.
Maybe he wasn’t just acting attracted to her.
Maybe he was?
No. She was being ridiculous. He’d probably just noticed someone standing near them that he’d wanted to fool. But he was starting to fool her, too. At least, she felt like a fool.
She looked around to see if anyone had witnessed their near kiss and noticed that everyone else had already started across the street. The walk signal had finally lit up.
A ragged sigh shuddered out of Hart. “It’s about time,” he murmured. Then he cupped her elbow in his palm and started leading her across the street. But they never made it to the parking lot.
Not before they heard the crunch of metal as a vehicle slammed into the ones already stopped at the red light, as if to shove them aside. And it must have moved them because suddenly there was nothing stopping the big white van barreling straight for them.
* * *
Luther Mills studied his lawyer across the metal table in the small room where Luther was allowed to confer privately with his visiting counsel. He usually used these meetings for things other than conferring. He gave the lawyer messages or other things to deliver for him. And he used the lawyer’s phone to make calls he didn’t want to risk anyone overhearing—the way someone must have overheard and reported his earlier calls.
How the hell else had Lynch known there was a leak? And the chief had to have known or he wouldn’t have hired Payne Protection to guard everyone associated with this damn trial. Somehow Lynch knew Luther intended to take them all out.
The former Bureau chief was making that damn hard for him, though.
So today the lawyer had wanted to talk strategy. The guy was slick, from his greased-back hair to the toes of his shiny shoes. He was the best that money could buy, or so Luther had been told.
Now he was beginning to wonder.
“I think you should accept a plea,” the guy recommended. “Manslaughter, involuntary homicide.”
“Is that hot little assistant DA offering pleas?” Luther asked.
“To the shooters apprehended during the attempts on the eyewitness’s life,” the lawyer said.
Luther cursed and shook his head. He had already made damn sure that nobody accepted a plea deal from Jocelyn Gerber. If they did, they knew they would wind up deader than Javier Mendez.
At least he hadn’t made Javi suffer...much.
“They won’t,” Luther confidently assured him. “And even if she offered me a plea, I’d tell her what she could do with it...”
The lawyer sighed. “Miss Mendez wasn’t the problem,” he said. “I told you that eyewitness testimony can be easily discredited.”
The guy had obviously never met Rosie Mendez. Luther hoped that he never would, either. She would not be easily discredited. She was too strong and too damn stubborn. If she wasn’t, she would have already wound up dead, like her brother.
“It’s the DNA and the fingerprints that will put you away for life,” the lawyer warned him. “Juries eat that up.”
“They can’t eat what they aren’t fed,” Luther said. “That evidence won’t make it to trial.” And neither would the woman who’d collected it. If she wasn’t already, Wendy Thompson would be dead soon.
Chapter 7
“I’m sorry,” the sitter said as Felicity scampered into the nursery off Sharon’s office. “I didn’t know where else to go when I couldn’t reach Mr. Fisher. And I’d picked her up here that night a week ago...”
“It’s fine,” Parker assured the older woman. She was probably close to his mother’s age, but she didn’t have Penny Payne-Lynch’s vivaciousness. Her hair was mussed, as if she’d just woken from a nap, but with the dark circles beneath her eyes, she didn’t look rested. She looked exhausted.
“I just really feel that I should check on my mother,” the woman said. “She’s older now...”
Parker narrowed his eyes and studied the woman’s tense face. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. She was obviously lying, and she was so uncomfortable about it that his silent scrutiny unsettled her.
She blurted, “She’s just been so difficult lately.”
He arched a brow. “Your mother?”
Her face flushed. “Felicity. I...I lied about my mother.”
He couldn’t believe how easily he’d got the confession from her. Maybe he should have become a detective like his brother Logan had been during their years with the River City Police Department. But Parker had enjoyed Vice—back then he’d had quite a few of his own.
Now he was a happily married man with kids of his own. Maybe that was how he’d developed this new, silent interrogation skill. It was the one his mother had always had; an ability to see whenever one of her children was lying to her.
Of course, his mother sensed things nobody else could well before they happened. Parker didn’t want that ability himself, but lately he’d begun to have those kinds of feelings—like bad things were going to happen. He’d had them about Clint Quarters and Rosie Mendez.
But they were safe now, and that bad feeling hadn’t eased any. In fact, it had seemed to intensify, tying his stomach into knots. Maybe those bad things were going to happen to someone else.
Like Hart Fisher and Wendy Thompson.
“Felicity has been whining that she wants to see her father,” the woman said, her brow furrowed, “and someone she keeps calling Winnie.”
Winnie?
“Wendy?”
“Winnie!” the little girl said as she appeared in the doorway to the nursery. “Is Winnie here?” She must have seen his confusion because she held up her doll. “Winnie. She looks like my dolly. But my dolly’s name is Annie.”
To the little girl, Wendy must have been “Winnie.” Parker nodded and smiled with the realization that she could not say “Wendy” correctly and that she thought the evidence technician looked like a rag doll.
She wrapped her little arms around the doll and hugged her tightly. “I want to see Winnie!”
“Winnie’s not here, honey,” Parker said, using his best Soothing Daddy voice.
But he must have only reminded the little girl of her father because she burst into tears. “I want my daddy!” she choked out between sobs and hiccups.
“See,” the babysitter murmured as she edged toward the door. “This is what I’ve been dealing with for days.”
“I’m sorry,” Parker said, and he felt responsible.
He was the one who’d assigned Hart the difficult job of protecting the evidence tech. Hart had left the police department because, as a single father, he hadn’t been able to work the long hours of a detective any longer.
And Parker had assigned him long hours. He’d made sure, though, that another bodyguard, on loan from his brothers’ agencies, had given Hart some time every day to see his daughter.
But of course, he needed to sleep during that time, too, so he probably hadn’t been spending as much time with her as either of them would like.
“I’ll find your daddy,” he assured the little girl. He reached for her but she stumbled back, as if afraid of him. He looked to her babysitter for help, but the woman must have assumed he had it handled because she was gone. She’d left his office when he’d had his attention on the child.
He felt a flash of annoyance. Hart needed a new sitter. Nobody Parker knew would abandon a child in distress. But then, he’d been raised by the best and had the best co-parent in his amazing wife.
“I’ll call your daddy,” Parker assured the little girl. Hart’s contact number was already on the screen of his cell phone since he’d just tried it a little while ago. He pressed it again, but the call went immediately to voice mail.
Why the hell wasn’t Hart answering?
That damn sixth sense of his mother’s began to overc
ome Parker in that he just knew something had happened. Something bad.
* * *
Her body was stiff and unmoving beneath his. Hart couldn’t even feel her breathe. But before rolling off her, he looked around for the van that had nearly struck them. Various other vehicles had pulled to the sides of the street, some bearing dents and creases from the van.
But he didn’t see the vehicle itself. It was gone.
“Are you okay?” Hart asked as he stared down into Wendy’s ashen face.
Her beautiful green eyes were open but glazed, as if she was in shock. Like she had probably been the day the car had crashed into the tree. But at least that day, she hadn’t been hurt. He wasn’t so sure about now.
“Are you okay?” he asked again as he brushed his fingers across her cheek.
She shivered at his touch then finally nodded.
“Are you sure?” he asked with concern. When he’d put his body between hers and the van, he’d knocked her to the asphalt. Hard.
“Yes.” She gasped for air. “I just lost my breath for a moment.”
He cringed with regret. “I knocked the wind out of you. I’m sorry.” He wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her carefully to her feet.
“You saved my life,” she said, and her eyes widened with concern. She looked him up and down as she grasped his arms. “Are you all right? Did you get hit?”
“No.” But just as he said it, a vehicle whizzed past them, honking as it nearly struck him. Hart grabbed her arm to escort her onto the sidewalk next to the lot where he’d parked the Payne Protection SUV. She grimaced and he noticed that the sleeve of her jacket was torn.
He had knocked her down too hard. He quickly loosened his grasp and inspected the damage. It looked as though the jacket had taken the worst of it; the material was torn but not saturated with blood. Her skin still could have been scraped, though, or, at the very least, she would be bruised. “You are hurt.”