by Maya Banks
“I have a house here, Mrs. Fallon,” Hutch said evenly.
“Oh, well all right then, I suppose.” She focused her gaze back at Regina. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay with us where you could be in your old room?”
An uncomfortable prickle started at Regina’s neck and worked its way over her cheeks. Her mother would succumb to hysteria, and her father would blow a gasket if they knew she was staying with all three men. Even as the thought crossed her mind, she drew her shoulders up in irritation.
It didn’t matter a whole hell of a lot what they thought. They’d never been invested in what she did, her choices, her life. And she damn sure wasn’t going to start pussyfooting around them now.
She reached for Hutch’s hand and laced her fingers through his, wanting, needing his steady strength.
“No thank you, Mom. I’ll be staying temporarily with Hutch, Cam and Sawyer until I can figure out alternate arrangements.”
Lydia’s eyes widened, and then her lips thinned with disapproval. Peter Fallon’s voice could be heard as it raised above all the other noise.
“How can you possibly draw the conclusion that someone is using my daughter to punish me for some imagined infraction?”
The chief put a placating hand on her father’s arm, and Regina couldn’t hear his response.
Lydia frowned. “What is he talking about, Regina?”
“There is a possibility that the person targeting me is doing so because of Dad,” she responded quietly.
“Oh, but that’s nonsense. Why would anyone do such a thing?”
“Because he’s a politician,” Regina said patiently. “And besides, we don’t have actual proof of that yet. It’s merely an angle the department is looking at.”
“Why, it could be anyone. Maybe someone you’ve arrested in the past or someone you gave a ticket to. It seems a stretch to assume it would have anything to do with your father.”
No one could fault her mother for being behind her husband, that was for sure. But it would make sense to most normal people that a mother would be equally behind her daughter. Regina frowned unhappily. This was turning into one suckass day.
“It’s an angle, Mom,” she repeated. “The police have to consider all possibilities.”
“Regina, can I speak to you for a moment?” Jeremy asked as he pushed in beside Lydia. He glanced at Lydia and Hutch. “Privately?” he added.
Regina frowned and let go of Hutch’s hand. “Excuse me for a moment,” she said as she left Hutch’s side.
She followed Jeremy a few feet away. “What’s up?”
“I just got a call from Dispatch. Birdie’s house was broken into.”
CHAPTER 15
Regina grabbed Jeremy’s arm. “What?”
“I’m heading over there now. I thought you’d want to go if you felt up to it.”
She nodded. “Of course.” She turned to look at Hutch, who was staring intently at her and Jeremy. She glanced back at Jeremy. “Where is Birdie now?”
“Brett was making a pass by her house like the chief asked us to do, and he noticed that her door was open, but her car was gone. When he went in to investigate, he discovered that her house had been vandalized. He called it in then intercepted Birdie, who drove up a few minutes later, and took her back to the station. She’s waiting there.”
Regina took in a steadying breath and tried to sort her scrambled brain. “Okay, I’m going with you. I’ll need to tell Hutch so he can go to the police station to be with Birdie. She’s probably upset.”
“Make it quick. I’ll wait in the car.”
Jeremy turned and strode toward his police cruiser. Regina hurried back over to where Hutch stood, a frown on his face.
“What’s going on, Reggie?”
She put her hand on his arm. “Birdie’s house was broken into this morning. I’m going over with Jeremy now.”
“What? Is she all right? I’m coming with you.”
She planted her hand on Hutch’s chest. “Birdie’s at the station. You should go over. She’s probably very upset, and I know she’d like for you to be there. You’d only be in the way at the house. This is a police investigation.”
He looked as though he’d protest, but she turned and walked away before he could speak. She hurried to where Jeremy had parked his car, her sore muscles whining the entire way.
She slid into the front seat, and Jeremy turned on his lights and backed out.
“Do we know anything yet?” she asked.
“No. I just got the call a few minutes ago. Brett was going back in to do a more thorough look through.”
Jeremy reached into the pocket of his door, pulled out a napkin and handed it to Regina.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“You’re bleeding,” he said and gestured to her forehead.
She yanked down the visor and stared at her reflection in the mirror. A thin rivulet of blood ran down her forehead and into her eyebrow. There was a gash at her hairline from God knows what. She couldn’t remember that exact injury when her whole body felt like it had taken a beating.
She dabbed at it and winced when she brushed across the wound.
“At the rate I’m going, I’ll be cast in the next Frankenstein movie,” she muttered.
“There’s some weird shit going on around here, Regina,” Jeremy said in a somber voice. “Sometimes we go days without anything more than a few traffic tickets, and suddenly we have a murder, an explosion and breaking and entering? What the fuck is going on?”
“I wish to hell I knew. I have a hard time believing all this is connected to my father’s politics. I mean why not just take him out if this guy has such a beef with him? Seems more expedient.”
Jeremy shot her a look of surprise.
“I’m not advocating that he kill my father,” she said impatiently. “I’m just wondering why he’d go to all this trouble to make a point. If he hates Peter Fallon so much, why not go after him?”
“Good question.”
Jeremy whipped into Birdie’s driveway and parked beside Brett’s police car. He and Regina got out as Brett walked out to meet them.
“Glad to see you’re all right, Regina,” Brett said with a nod in her direction.
“Thanks. What have we got here?”
Brett turned and motioned them inside.
When she followed Brett and Jeremy in, she looked around but didn’t find anything out of place in the living room. Birdie’s place housed an impressive collection of antiques, yet none of them were disturbed.
“It doesn’t get weird until you get back here,” Brett said as he motioned them down the hallway to the bedrooms.
As they passed each room, Regina looked in and again saw nothing that seemed to be out of place.
When they reached the end of the hallway, she saw a large red smear on the bedroom door. It looked like blood.
When she walked into the room, she gasped. It was in shambles. There was more blood on the walls. And on the bed. Large spatters. Pictures lay in broken frames on the floor. Pictures of Hutch, Cam and Sawyer with Birdie. More pictures of the boys. Hutch’s high school prom picture.
A feeling of foreboding settled hard into Regina’s chest.
“This isn’t about me,” she said. “It’s about Hutch.”
“Not sure I follow,” Jeremy said.
She blew out a shaky breath as she tried to come up with a more plausible explanation than what had just hit her square in the face. Jeremy and Brett both looked at her with questioning gazes.
“The murder victim. Misty Thompson. Hutch took her to his prom. The killer, when he attacked me, said it’s time to make him pay. He failed to kill me, hence the bomb in my SUV. Now he’s broken into Birdie’s home and trashed Hutch’s room. This was his room when he lived here with Birdie. These are his things. I don’t think this has anything to do with my father at all. This guy is trying to make Hutch suffer by going after the people he cares about. People he’s had a connection
to. And probably Hutch is his ultimate goal.”
Jeremy stared back, his expression stunned. “Shit. You could be right.”
“I know I’m right. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Her stomach turned and twisted into knots. Somehow it had been easier to deal with when she thought she was the intended target. But to know that someone was after Hutch? That the killer could go after him next or even Cam and Sawyer?
“But why?” Jeremy asked. “What could Hutch possibly have done to piss off someone this badly? It doesn’t make sense. I’m not sure we can rule out your father as a motive yet.”
“I’m not saying we have to rule him out, just that we have to consider that none of this is coincidence and that Hutch could be the ultimate goal.”
“Has it occurred to you that this could be linked solely to you?” Brett spoke up. “Birdie’s important to you, as is Hutch. You’re a police officer. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time some whack job a cop arrested has gone off the deep end and retaliated.”
Regina frowned. “Maybe.” She closed her eyes. Jesus. If it was about her, Hutch, Sawyer and Cam could still be targets. Either way the thought of losing them terrified her.
“You know the chief is going to put you on leave indefinitely,” Jeremy said in a low voice.
She grimaced. “Yeah, I know. He’ll have to.” And suddenly she didn’t mind quite so much. Her priorities had shifted in short order. While both Jeremy’s and Brett’s theories certainly held water, she couldn’t discount the nagging idea that this was aimed at Hutch and that he or Cam or Sawyer could be next. And if that was the case, she wanted to make damn sure she stayed close to them at all times.
“I’ve put in a call so we can get some guys over here to dust for prints. Everyone was tied up over at your place,” Brett said to Regina. “Although so far, if it’s the same guy, he’s been careful not to leave any. I’m hoping like hell that this isn’t human blood.”
“You and me both,” Regina murmured.
“I’m beginning to think they don’t pay us enough to work in this town,” Jeremy said in a weary voice. “I doubt any of us will ever sit around the station hoping for action again.”
“You’re telling me.”
He cracked a grin. “Yeah, I suppose that was bad of me to whine. I mean look at you. You look like something the cat dragged in.” His expression became more serious, and his tone lost the light teasing. “I’m damn glad you’re okay, Regina. That was a close call.”
She smiled wanly. “Yeah, no shit.” She rubbed a hand through her snarled hair then let it fall to her hip with a smack.
“Let me take you over to the station,” Jeremy said. “And then I’ll come back over to help Brett out here. I’m pretty sure the chief won’t be happy if he shows up and you’re on scene.”
“Yeah, okay,” she said.
She turned and walked slowly back out of the house, furious that Birdie’s home would be defiled. This house held so many happy memories for Hutch, Cam and Sawyer. And for her as well. It had been a home when her own home felt more like a house. A cold, sterile house that people inhabited but no one lived in.
And the idea of anyone doing Birdie harm made her physically ill.
She climbed into Jeremy’s car feeling a hundred years old. She needed a long, hot bath. Preferably one she could soak in for three hours.
He pulled out and headed toward the station, his hands tight around the steering wheel.
“I need you to keep me up-to-date on this case, Jeremy,” she said. “Hutch, Cam and Sawyer are very important to me. I’m going to do everything in my power to keep them safe. I’ll be staying out at their house until this blows over. If that fucker comes near them, he’s dead meat.”
“I’ll keep you in the loop,” Jeremy promised. “As soon as we get the scene processed and I bounce our ideas off the chief and Carl, I’ll have a better idea of where the investigation is headed. Until then you need to lay low and make sure Hutch does the same.”
“And Birdie,” Regina said softly. “Somehow I need to persuade her that she can’t stay in that house alone until this guy is caught. Whether I’m right about it being about Hutch, or you’re right about it being about me, she’s important to us both and is at risk either way.”
CHAPTER 16
No sooner had Jeremy pulled up to the police station and Regina gotten out, than she looked up and saw Sawyer striding out of the station, his face as dark as a thunderstorm.
“Uh-oh,” Jeremy murmured as he walked ahead of her. “He doesn’t look too happy.”
Sawyer walked straight past Jeremy, and Regina braced for impact. He didn’t say a word. He yanked her into his arms, tilted her head back and kissed her hard and fierce.
Her gasp of surprise was swallowed up as his mouth moved hungrily over hers. His arms were bands of steel around her back, strong and comforting. Her body softened and melted into his as he possessed her with his lips.
Warm, soothing honey flowed through her veins. She forgot where they were, lost all sense of time and place. Tongues met. His delved deep, tasting her as she tasted him.
Finally his arms loosened, and his hands swept up her neck and to her jaw before framing her face in his palms. With halting breaths, he pulled slightly away.
His eyes glittered. Need. Fear. Anger. They were all mixed and swirled in the pale blue irises. His fingers stuttered across the gash at her hairline. She could feel him trembling against her.
“Sawyer, I’m okay,” she whispered.
“Reggie, oh my God, Reggie.”
His voice broke as the words spilled torturously from his lips. He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. His chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath.
“I could have lost you,” he said hoarsely.
She tilted her chin up so her lips met his. She kissed him. Lightly. Reassuring.
“Regina, what the hell is going on here?”
She stiffened as her father’s strident voice intruded. She turned slowly away from Sawyer to see her father standing a few feet away, his face tight with disapproval. Her mother simply stared agape at her and Sawyer.
“Don’t you have any sense of decorum?” he bit out. “The press is going to be crawling all over this place after what happened this morning. If you won’t think of yourself and your position as a police officer, at least have a care as to how your behavior reflects on me.”
Sawyer bristled and opened his mouth to respond, but Regina gripped his arm in warning. Sawyer was already hanging on by a thread, and any outburst from him wouldn’t be pretty.
She pinned her father with all the disdain fueling her anger. “Fuck off,” she said before turning away.
Her mother gasped, and her father made a sound of outrage.
“Regina, don’t you walk away from me, young lady. I didn’t raise you to talk to me like that.”
She stopped dead, and despite Sawyer’s restraining hand, she broke away and rounded on her father.
“No, you self-righteous prick. You didn’t raise me at all. You were too busy ignoring me. Talk to you? When was I ever encouraged to say anything at all? You and Lydia were too busy with your lives for something as inconsequential as a daughter. Be glad you’re my father, because if you weren’t, I’d knock the shit out of you like I would anyone else who spoke to me like that.”
She turned back around before he could see the tears of fury gathering in her eyes. Damn if he would ever see her cry.
Sawyer put a protective arm around her, and when she would have hurried into the station, he held her still. He turned to pin her father with a cold stare.
“I’ll only say this once. Stay the fuck away from Reggie. You’re not my father, and I have no compunction about laying your ass out.”
He gathered Regina closer to him and guided her toward the entrance to the station.
“You can’t threaten me like that,” Peter blustered.
As Sawyer reached for the door, h
e turned back one last time. “It wasn’t a threat, Mr. Fallon.”