Trained to Protect

by Lynn Hagen

  “Who hired him and why,” Sheriff Werth said. “Did you talk with Maltese?”

  Vince nodded. “He has no clue what’s going on.”

  Werth dropped into his chair behind his desk. It was an oversized black leather chair, yet his boss filled it and then some. He wasn’t as gigantic as the gray wolf alpha, Zeus, but Werth came damn close.

  “Even though we got Vargas’s name and picture, those don’t do us any good if we have no idea where he is. I don’t want him popping up for another shot at you and your mate,” Werth said.

  “I already put a BOLO out on him,” Dillon said. “If he shows up in any other town this side of the Mississippi, we’ll know about it.”

  “Just to be on the safe side, I’ll call the Ultionem leaders to let them know who he is and what he’s up to.” Werth picked up the phone on his desk and dialed and then spun his chair and gave them his back.

  Vince listened to the men in the office talk, but his focus was on Maltese, who was in the kitchen area wiping the counters down and rearranging things. He was happy Maltese had gotten his powers back but wondered if that meant his mate would try to take off. Vince hated that he was uncertain about Maltese, but his mate had tried to leave a few times already. He just had to trust that their bond was strong enough to keep the little demon around.

  “Latham Vargas is a career criminal.” Dillon flipped through the file. “Says here he’s been in prison twice. He was just released two weeks ago.”

  “And has slipped back to his old self,” Vince said. “He didn’t waste any time.” He pulled his attention away from Maltese and faced his boss and partner. “Vargas is the key to finding out who hired him.”

  “He looks like he’s fitting right in.” Dillon smirked.

  At Dillon’s comment, Vince looked through the glass window again. Maltese had a full carafe of coffee and was going from desk to desk refilling everyone’s cup. He had a small bowl in his other hand with packets of dry cream and sugar.

  “This isn’t a goddamn restaurant,” Vince huffed as he started to stand.

  Dillon grabbed his arm. “Look at the expression on his face.”

  Maltese had a light red dusting on his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes. And, to Vince’s surprise, he was actually smiling.

  “You wanna wreck that?” Dillon asked. “Then go out there and tell him he’s not a waiter. Make him do some filing or other boring shit.”

  Vince sat back down. Dillon was right. Maltese looked happy. He gritted his teeth that his mate was catering to everyone, but Vince didn’t want to be the one who wiped the smile from Maltese’s handsome face.

  A few of the deputies even blushed as Maltese refreshed their coffee. If they kept giving Maltese googly eyes, Vince would go out there and smack the backs of their heads.

  Then again, it was downright impossible not be affected by Maltese’s smile. It seemed to light up the room as he made his rounds. Even Vince was affected. He sat sideways in his chair and stared dreamily at his mate.

  “You two knuckleheads want to work on this case or ogle my new employee all day?” Werth said. “I got a lead if either of you are interested.”

  Vince snapped his head around as his heart hammered behind his ribs. “What kind of lead?”

  “Tell me he’s already in custody,” Dillon said.

  “Not quite,” Werth said. “The tan sedan he’d been driving was spotted behind a barn near Desire. Sebastian’s men searched the area, but Vargas was nowhere to be found.”

  “Which means he’s making his way back here,” Vince said. “His reputation and life wouldn’t last long if he was paid to do a job but took the money and fled, so he aims to finish what he started.”

  “That would be my guess,” Werth said. “Maverick already has his wolves staking out the woods to catch Vargas when he tries to reenter our town, and I’m sending a few patrol cars to cruise the roads leading in to Brac Village.”

  For Vince, that wasn’t enough. He wouldn’t be able to relax until this situation was resolved.

  “Dillon, I want you and Jacoby to head over to Mark’s Garage,” Werth said. “We need that sedan towed here and gone over with a fine-tooth comb. I want you to escort the tow truck just in case any problems arise.”

  With a nod, Dillon walked out of the office.

  “I know I don’t have to tell you that you are Maltese’s bodyguard,” Werth said. “But since we’re not sure which one of you he’s after, watch your six.”

  “And while my mate is here?” Vince wanted to join the hunt for Vargas. He wouldn’t rest easy until the bastard was in custody or dead. But that solved only half his problems. They still needed to find out who had hired him in the first place.

  Werth gave him a droll stare. “Clearly I’ll protect him while he’s at the station.” His boss stood and waved his hand toward the door. “Go patrol the town. He tried to kill a cop, which means this is a manhunt.”

  Vince pushed from his seat and walked out of the station but not before warning his mate to stay inside. Because, if anything happened to Maltese, Vince wasn’t sure what he would do.

  * * * *

  “I highly doubt he left any prints behind,” Jacoby said as he and Dillon watched Mark hook the car up to his tow truck. “Vargas is a career criminal. He wouldn’t be that sloppy.”

  “We’ll let Asbury figure all that out,” Dillon said. “He’ll comb over every inch of the car.”

  Jacoby knew Hanson Asbury was damn good at his job, but he seriously doubted Vargas had left any clues for them to work with. From what Dillon had told him, the shooter was a professional.

  “We’re all done,” Mark said as he released the lever that had pulled the car onto the flatbed. “I’ll meet you guys back at the station.”

  “You hear that?” Jacoby cocked his head and listened to the faint beeping sound that seemed to accelerate by the second. His eyes widened when he realized what he was hearing. “Run!”

  The three of them raced away from the tow truck moments before it exploded, sending deadly debris raining down around them. All three had been thrown away from the blast, but it was Mark that Jacoby worried about. He was human, after all.

  “You okay?” he asked Mark. Jacoby pushed to his feet and dusted himself off before offering his hand to help Mark up. The flames had engulfed the sedan, and the cab of the tow truck was on fire, too.

  “No,” Mark snarled. “That was a brand-new truck. I highly doubt explosives are covered by my insurance.”

  Aside from being pissed off, Mark was fine.

  “You cool, Dillon?” he asked.

  The deputy lay on the ground, unmoving. Jacoby gasped when he saw a large shard of metal digging into Dillon’s back. He pulled out his phone and called for an ambulance and then called his boss.

  “The car was rigged to blow,” Jacoby explained as black plumes of smoke snaked toward the sky from the wreckage. There was nothing he could do but let the car burn itself out. By the time a fire truck got there, there would be nothing but ashes and a metal frame left, anyway.

  The same held for Mark’s tow truck.

  Since they were closer to Desire, it was their ambulance that arrived on scene. Dillon was rushed to their hospital, Jacoby riding in the back. Werth was already sending someone to help out Mark.

  Seeing Dillon lying there helplessly made Jacoby grind his teeth. He wasn’t sure who was behind all this, but when he got his claws on the bastard, he was ripping his damn throat out.

  * * * *

  The kitchen had been okay, but after Maltese had scrubbed it down and cleaned out the coffee maker, the counters now sparkled and the coffee tasted much better. He’d even shared the carafe with the rest of the station.

  After that, Pat had seated Maltese at one of the desks in the back and had brought out a filing box. “These are all the old cases that need to be entered into the system.” He patted his hand on top of the box. “This is just one of many.”

  Maltese groaned. He wasn’t very
smart when it came to computers. Maltese still had a hard time navigating his smart phone. He knew the basics on his phone to get by, but whenever he’d needed further help, he always went to the phone store.

  Like the time his phone kept talking about storing things in the cloud. He’d felt like a complete idiot when the guy at the store had explained that a cloud was storage and not the ones in the sky.

  “By the way, you look very dashing.” Pat winked. “You’ve just given me more eye candy to stare at while I work.”

  “I look like a dork.”

  Pat’s eyes widened as he slapped Maltese’s shoulder. “You look like a wet dream on two legs, handsome.”

  Pat spent the next hour showing Maltese how to enter the files into the computer. Maltese had become frustrated five minutes in, but Pat was blessed with a ton of patience and didn’t give up until Maltese finally figured it out.

  “See, that wasn’t so hard.” Pat beamed. “You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for.”

  They both looked toward Werth’s office when they heard the sheriff bellow into his desk phone. “What do you think that’s about?”

  “I have no idea.” Pat squeezed Maltese’s hand before he got up and headed toward Werth’s door. Maltese turned back toward his work, but he couldn’t concentrate. Instead, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Vince’s phone.

  “Is anything wrong?” Vince asked when he answered.

  Maltese’s heart warmed at the concern in his mate’s voice. “That’s why I was calling you. I wanted to check and make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m actually headed back to the station. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Maltese hung up and then grimaced when he realized he hadn’t said good-bye. He set his phone on the desk and started typing, but his mind wasn’t on his work. His gaze kept wandering between the sheriff’s office and the front door. Something was going on, and Maltese wanted to know what, but he kept his butt parked in his chair. Werth looked ready to murder someone, and Pat was waving his arms around as he talked.

  Maltese’s gaze swept over the squad room. Out of the dozen or so desks, there were only five currently occupied, and most of the cops had their attention on the sheriff’s office.

  When the front doors opened and Vince walked in, Maltese’s heart skipped a thousand beats. His mate’s presence ate up the room, leaving Maltese breathless as he watched Vince storm to Werth’s office.

  Now that was a man worth drooling over, and he belonged to Maltese. He still couldn’t believe everything that had transpired over the past few days, and finding out that Vince was his mate still felt like a dream.

  Pat hurried from the office, skirting past Vince on his way back to Maltese. When the dispatcher dropped next to Maltese, he said, “All kinds of crazy shit is happening.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well…” Pat said and then looked toward the front door. Jacoby came into the station and headed right for Werth’s office.

  Maltese sat there and listened about the exploding car and Dillon having to be rushed to the hospital. Max was gonna flip his wig when he found out Dillon was hurt.

  Pat pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and set it in front of Maltese on the desk. “That’s a mugshot of the guy who tried to kill you. Do you recognize him?”

  Maltese’s heart hammered as he stared at the bald Dick Dastardly who’d thought he was a hooker. It was the pervert who’d slowly rolled with him until Vince had come down the street.

  “I’ve seen him before.” Maltese told Pat about that night. “But if he wanted me dead, why didn’t he just shoot me right then and there?”

  Pat twisted his lips to the side. “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to get laid before he put a bullet between your eyes.”

  “Are you sure this is the guy who opened fire on us?” It was a dumb question since Pat had the guy’s picture, but Maltese’s insides were frozen. He’d come that close to dying, had come that close to the killer that night on the corner.

  “I’m sure. This picture is from the security cameras around town. He’s our guy. His name is Latham Vargas.” Pat picked up the picture, walked to a corkboard anchored to the wall on the left of the room, and pinned the paper of Vargas to it before returning to Maltese.

  Maltese wished he hadn’t just learned the guy’s name. He had been better off not knowing any of this. He needed to focus on something else so he wouldn’t have a meltdown about being that close to the killer.

  “Does Werth know if Dillon’s gonna be okay?” Maltese looked toward the office where his mate stood talking to their boss. Vince had deep concentration lines around his eyes and mouth as Werth spoke.

  “Dr. McNeal got the metal out of his back. When he did, Dillon shifted, so he should make a full recovery.”

  Maltese furrowed his brows. “Should?”

  Pat bounced his leg. “Hanson Asbury headed to the scene, even though the car blew up. He found traces of silver dusted over the metal of the car. The fire burned most of it away, but if the piece in Dillon’s back had the dusting on it, then…”

  Then Dillon wouldn’t recover. Maltese already knew without Pat finishing his sentence. No wonder Werth looked on the verge of killing someone.

  “I picked a really bad day to start,” Maltese said.

  Pat snorted. “It’s not like you have to go out there and chase the bad guys. I’ll go make us a cup of coffee, and you can start entering that data. I’ll go let the sheriff know that you’ve come across this guy before.”

  Maltese looked at the box between the chair and the wall. It was gonna take him eons to get through the files, and Pat had said this wasn’t the only box.

  Pat came back and set a mug of coffee on Maltese’s desk before hurrying to the sheriff’s office. As hard as it was for Maltese to ignore his mate, he plunged into his work, his keyboard clacking away as he tried to forget about Vargas and prove to Sheriff Werth that hiring him was the right choice.

  Chapter Eight

  Maltese’s fingers were cramping and he’d only entered one file so far, but when he heard a deep growl, he looked up from his computer screen and saw Vince almost rip the door off its hinges as he stormed from Werth’s office and headed Maltese’s way, the sheriff and Jacoby right behind him.

  None of them looked happy. In fact, they looked like charging bulls advancing toward him.

  “This is the guy who harassed you the other night?” Vince waved the picture of Vargas in his hand. “He was that close?”

  Maltese opened his mouth, and a high-pitched squeak came out. He didn’t like hostile confrontations, even though he knew Vince’s anger wasn’t aimed at him. Still, having his mate towering over him while he looked as if he’d shoot someone made Maltese nervous.

  “I’m taking him home,” Vince said as he spun to face Werth. “He can come back when I’ve ripped out Vargas’s spine.”

  “Think about it.” Werth folded his massive arms. “You’ll be leaving him at home alone. Why would you make him an easy target for the guy?”

  “I’ll be there with him,” Vince argued.

  Maltese didn’t point out that Vince had just contradicted himself. How was he going to be at home and out looking for Vargas to rip his spine out? Which, by the way, was a graphic image Maltese could have done without.

  “No,” Werth said. “You’ll be here working the case, and Maltese will be safe in a station full of cops.”

  Maltese slowly raised his hand, trying to give his input, but the two ignored him as they continued to argue while Jacoby took a seat at his desk. Maltese wanted to remind his mate that he was no longer completely helpless, that he’d gotten his powers back and could defend himself, but Vince and Werth wouldn’t give him a chance.

  So he gave up and went back to his data entry, trying to tune them out. But as hard as he tried, it wasn’t working. Instead of entering the correct file name, he’d entered Vargas’s name and had to erase it.
<
br />   His concentration was shot.

  Maltese shoved from his seat and slammed his fist onto the desk, sparks of electricity shooting from his hand. Vince and Werth fell silent as they stared wide-eyed at him. “I’m sorry, Vince, but I’m not going home. I’m gonna sit right here and do my job and let you do yours.”

  “The hell you are,” Vince snapped. “Criminals have already proven they can walk in here armed and ready to kill to get what they want. I’m not about to let you become a casualty.”

  “And as much as I love how much you care about me, running home to hide isn’t going to help matters. I’ll just sit there biting my nails and worrying that Vargas will burst through the door, guns blazing. Sheriff Werth is right. For now, I’m safest here.”

  In truth, Maltese didn’t think he would be safe anywhere. He really did love the fact that Vince was hell-bent on protecting him, but the best way he could do that was to solve the case, and that wasn’t gonna happen if they went home.

  “I just got a call.” Pat hurried toward them from his desk. “Vargas was spotted in town.”

  “This town?” Werth asked. “In Brac Village?”

  Pat nodded. “Though I’m not sure how much stock to put into it. The call was from Mrs. O’Reilly. She said some bald guy was in the woods across from her house, and he looked suspicious.”

  Werth groaned.

  “Who is Mrs. O’Reilly?” Maltese asked.

  “A seventy-year-old woman who calls the station often about noises she hears that turn out to be her cat or television,” Pat answered.

  “She’s senile?” Maltese asked.

  “Lonely,” Werth answered. He turned toward the squad room. “Jacoby, go with Vince to check out Mrs. O’Reilly’s story.”

  “This’ll be a wasted trip,” Jacoby muttered.

  “I’m not leaving,” Vince argued.

  “And if it is Vargas lurking in the woods?” Werth asked. “Are you gonna miss your chance to arrest him?”