The Protector

by HelenKay Dimon

  “You’ve been married for like ten seconds.” When Garrett frowned at him, Damon relented. “Fine, go ahead.”

  “Don’t fuck this up.”

  That’s all he said. A simple sentence that would get him gut punched if he tried to use it on Cate. “How is that helpful?”

  Garrett winked at him. “It is. You just don’t know it yet.”

  Chapter 24

  Cate walked around the outside of the burned-out shell that was once the side of the Sullivan family home. Around safety cones and caution tape. Through puddles created by the force of the hoses.

  The fire had started in the old locked office, as suspected. It licked and burned its way up the hall, barreling through wood and walls that had survived for more than a hundred years. Now a layer of black soot stained every surface that wasn’t charred. The floors, weakened by the flames, bore holes and cracked if you walked close to the fragile edges.

  Glancing to her right she watched Trevor roam around the backyard while he talked on the phone with one of Wren’s people, a forensic expert specializing in arson cases. In an earlier call, Wren told him that those in charge in Salvation kept mentioning the faulty wiring but the photos Trevor snuck in and took looked more like arson. The localized burning and pour patterns suggested someone used an accelerant to get the job done faster and leave nothing behind.

  The answer seemed obvious to Cate. She got too close and someone literally tried to burn it all down. She tried to imagine Steven torching his own house, the last place that held memories of the family he’d lost. The answer didn’t make sense to her, but then desperate people often did unimaginable things.

  She heard the sound of footsteps near the now broken and fire-scarred stairs to the front of the house and spun around expecting to see Damon. His father stood on the edge of the grass, feet away from the shell of a porch.

  “Have you seen my son?” His voice sounded flat and emotionless.

  The tone matched his slumped shoulders. For a man who usually dressed like he was born to work on a college campus, today he looked disheveled. There was a coffee stain on his blue button-down shirt and his hair stuck up in places, like from his fingers running through it.

  Every detail seemed just slightly off. She tried to remember if he’d referred to Damon as “son” since they got here. If he referred to Damon at all.

  “He had to run an errand.” A quick trip to see Garrett. She expected a full press from all of the men helping out on the case when Damon returned. She could feel her time here ticking down.

  Steven’s eyebrows snapped together. “He left you here?”

  She couldn’t tell if he meant he wanted her out or if he worried for her safety. More than likely he didn’t know. She couldn’t blame him for not being a fan. Since she arrived, there had been a shooting, attacks and now a fire. Even she was starting to view her presence as a curse.

  “Is there a problem with my continuing to stay here?” Not that she could do much about that until Damon got back.

  “Of course not. But you’re not going to find what you need.” He passed by her on the way to what was left of the front porch. His body lurched and his balance faltered when he lifted his leg then put it down without stepping up.

  Pity bubbled up inside her but she squashed it down. He might be all stooped-shouldered, sad and lost now, but he’d made choices in the past that sent him down this path. “What if I told you I already did?”

  He turned to stare at her. “You mean my son?”

  Damon was a man worth finding but he wasn’t a consolation prize.

  She stood slightly behind Steven, forcing him to turn to face her. “I’m here about my sister.”

  “But you’re with my son.”

  She glanced back to the yard and saw Trevor staring at her. She treated him to a short wave to let him know all was well. “I am.”

  “Is the plan to use him to get to me?”

  Her gaze drifted back to Steven. If he wanted to offend her, it didn’t work. What she felt for Damon was tumbled up and confused in her head, but real. She hadn’t planned for him and couldn’t figure out where he fit in her life. She just knew he did . . . and that he probably hadn’t figured that out yet.

  “If so, you should know it will only work one way.” Steven shook his head. “I won’t let you use him, but he won’t care if you use me.”

  She wondered for what felt like the hundredth time how a man with his IQ could be so terrible at reading people. At loving them.

  “Are you saying you’ll protect him?” She hoped so because he deserved that.

  “I already have.”

  She froze. “What?”

  “That political clout he hates so much, the fact I knew powerful people back then who assisted the school . . .” Steven backed away from the house, giving it one last longing look before continuing. “Why do you think he’s not in prison now?”

  That quick, the calm in her head disappeared. A churning anxiety bounced around in her stomach as she tried to think a few moves ahead and figure out where he was going with this. “He was a kid.”

  “Twenty. An adult under the law.”

  The words cut into her. He wasn’t guessing. He knew. “But the whole shoot-out was messed up, maneuvered by your brother.”

  “The man you know as Damon still shot an FBI agent.”

  He sounded so matter-of-fact, as if he were reading from a fact pattern involving a stranger. She had no idea how he compartmentalized and cut up the pieces of his life that way, or why he would want to. The Sullivan men really did hold on to the dead-inside argument no matter what.

  “He was in the middle of a chaotic situation. No one could have been expected to know what was happening.” She hadn’t looked up the facts because she trusted the ones he told her. She’d watched the emotions pass over his face as he described the events of that day. She could feel the pain thumping inside him at the idea he was responsible for a man’s death.

  “The man he killed wore a jacket with FBI stamped on it.” Steven folded his arms across his chest as he glanced down at his shoes. “Nearly everyone else heard him introduce himself on the megaphone.”

  Bile rushed up the back of her throat. She breathed in deep, trying to center her body. “Are you saying your son was guilty and got lucky?”

  His head shot up and he faced her. “We both know he shouldn’t have gone to prison. There were too many variables and all of them combined to set him up for this awful situation.” He started shaking his head as the warm wind blew over the property, kicking ashes into the air. “But under the law, he was guilty. The excuses might have lessened his sentence but there is no denying he pulled the trigger.”

  The words clinked in her brain. The trigger . . . she didn’t want to imagine a younger version of Damon, cocky on the outside but confused and turned around inside, shooting in panic.

  No, that’s not what happened. He didn’t lose control or mishear. He was under siege. “He shot in self-defense.”

  “I pulled every string I could to make sure that was the answer that stuck.” Steven tightened his arms around his chest. “I did that for him because he’s my son.”

  And he possessed that type of power back then. He could make questions disappear. Make people stop asking them. “You realize you’re basically saying you have the connections to make crimes go away, which is exactly what I think you did to my sister.”

  “They called her Sunshine.” Steven’s arms dropped to his sides. “Her friends did, I mean.”

  Her gaze shot to Trevor again. She didn’t want him to walk in on this because she didn’t want Steven to stop talking. Then she looked back to him. “You remember Shauna?”

  “As I do every person who passed through here. I made it a point to know them all because the school was important to me and if they were here I assumed it mattered to them, too.” He smiled as he kicked a loose piece of sod under his foot. “She had this dream about setting up a food co-op.”

  A
food . . . Why hadn’t she known that until she arrived here? “Stop.”

  This time, he dropped his head back and let the sun beat down on his face. He wore a small smile as he spoke, one of affection. Almost fatherly love and respect. “She talked about not having enough food growing up and coming up with ways for the kids to help out then take food home on the weekends because that’s when things were tight. Away from the school lunches.”

  Cate knew. Every kid without enough to eat knew. The beginning of the month was okay. The middle was filled with the same two dinners—pasta and peanut butter and jelly. The end was a scramble to find anything.

  “Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

  He dropped his head forward and looked at her again. “I didn’t have anything to do with your sister’s death.”

  “I want to believe you.” Cate ached to believe it.

  “Do it, because while you’re focusing on me, the person who killed her—and I now believe someone did—just tried to burn my house down.”

  He walked up to the house then. Hesitated by the porch but stepped up after a few seconds of delay. As she watched, he skipped the front door and headed for one on the side, away from the fire.

  He shouldn’t have been at the house. The investigation continued and the building’s structure and safety were still questions. But she needed a minute, so he would have to save himself.

  With one last glance at Trevor she walked back toward the front of the house. She’d circle one more time. Walk off some of the energy racing through her as Trevor finished up his call. Damon would be back soon and she’d talk all this through with him, but reality was, she was no longer convinced Steven had anything to do with her sister’s death, except for his failure to protect her.

  The idea of her finding guns or something else on the property that she shouldn’t have still held a lot of merit. Cate couldn’t think of much else that would have gotten her sister climbing up the side of the water tower. But nothing obvious stuck out to her. By all reports she’d been happy here until the one day she wasn’t.

  Cate walked in circles, letting the warm sun hit the back of her neck. The damp grass squished beneath her sneakers as she walked along the side of the house. This part of the property, opposite of where she stood a few minutes ago, had been spared most of the fire damage. Smoke and water were the main problems here. These issues can be fixed but the undertaking was no joke. Good thing Steven had a commune full of people with skills.

  The thought made her smile as she bent down to touch a stray flower that likely had once been in one of the window flower boxes. She heard the footsteps behind her and thought about Trevor and how much he must have hated getting stuck on a call about technical fire details for the last fifteen minutes.

  “Did you find out anything new?” When he didn’t immediately answer she looked up and saw Trevor’s elongated shadow rising from behind her. “Hey?”

  She shifted as the shadow moved. Then she smelled it. That scent.

  Before she could call out, a striking blow knocked her flat. She slammed down to her knees as she struggled to drag in air. Her skull tingled, which had never happened before.

  She had one last thought before the bright day went black—not Trevor.

  Damon now knew what frantic felt like. His heart hammered in time with the pounding in his head. He’d been back at the old house for ten minutes and spent every second of that searching for Cate.

  Trevor swore and apologized. He said she’d been right there, talking with Steven. That had to be the answer. His father. Maybe he said something rude and upset her, though that wasn’t really his style. But Damon had to hold on to that story because any other option was too damn scary to think about. He couldn’t let that into his head.

  He rounded the house for the second time and stopped cold. Trevor had crouched down, staring at the grass and rubbing two of his fingers together.

  “What is it?” Damon had been around enough to know but he hoped Trevor didn’t say the word.

  “Blood.”

  There it was. Hearing it was worse than he’d thought possible. The air rushed out of him and he doubled over. He could hear Trevor scrambling to his feet and the thud of footsteps on the broken porch.

  Damon lifted his head. Let the anger wash over him, fuel him as he looked at his father. “Where is she?”

  He walked to the edge of the porch. “What are you talking about?”

  “I have turned this place upside down.” Damon slowly stood up straight again. “Trevor saw you with Cate and now she’s missing.”

  “She probably went for a walk.”

  “She promised she’d stay here.” His fury built with each word. “She’s not answering her phone.” His back teeth slammed together and he forced the words out through the clenching. “So, I’m asking again.”

  “I don’t—” Steven’s words cut off when Damon took out his gun. “Put that down.”

  He professed to hate weapons yet he’d stockpiled them on the property. Well, he could look at this one until his memory returned. “I am done playing with you, Dad.”

  Trevor took a step forward. “Damon, not this way.”

  His father shook his head. “Do it. If that’s what you need, just finally do it.”

  Damon held the gun steady. There were times over the years that embarrassed him, when the rage spilled through him and he didn’t see a way out, that this would have made sense. When it wouldn’t have mattered if he took the final step and careened over the edge. But now he needed to stay focused for Cate.

  “Enough.” Trevor put his hand on the top of Damon’s gun and slowly lowered it until it aimed at the ground. Then he turned to Steven. “Where is she?”

  He stepped off the porch and joined them in the grass. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Cate is missing.”

  Trevor answered and Damon was grateful that he didn’t have to say the words again. They sounded too awful to bear.

  “We talked about Cate and her sister.” His father lifted both of his hands. “That’s all.”

  “I’m not buying it.” She wouldn’t run off after that. Something had her moving or someone came and grabbed her. But to take her when Trevor stood right there was ballsy. Stupid. Damon searched his mind for the person that fit that description and he came up empty.

  “I have opened this property to you. You ran away and still I’ve done everything I can to help her, a woman I don’t even know. A woman who openly threatened me if I didn’t turn over information I didn’t have.” Steven blew out a ragged breath. “I even gave up my house—”

  “That.” That was it. He moved out and that tipped someone off, or at least scared them enough to make a terrible decision. “Who knew about you temporarily moving out?”

  “I’m sure people saw the two of you going in and out.”

  In one step, Damon was on his father. He had a fistful of shirt and pulled tight. “Answer the question. Give me the details. The specifics. Who knows about the room and the paperwork and that you’re sleeping somewhere else?”

  Steven shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Since he’s holding a gun you should make an educated guess,” Trevor said, not doing anything to hide the rough edge to his voice.

  “It was just . . .” All of the color drained from Steven’s face.

  Damon let go of the shirt. “Yeah, exactly. You figured it out. Now talk.”

  “Liza.” Steven swallowed a few times. “I needed to fill her in on some of the details so she could get me a cabin to temporarily stay in while you were here.”

  She hated him, made a face every time he talked. And now she had Cate. “Where is Liza now?”

  Trevor pulled his cell out of his back pocket. “Call and get her over here.”

  “Liza wouldn’t hurt Cate.” Steven reached for his own phone instead, nearly dropping it twice in his shaking hands, and started pushing buttons. “There’s no reason for her to do something like this.”


  Damon knew that was wrong. “For once in your life, be right.”

  Chapter 25

  Cate tasted metal in her mouth. Maybe it was blood? She wasn’t sure. She had no idea where she was. She looked around the dark cave-like structure, smelled the dankness and a hint of moldy water, she didn’t know what had happened to her either. Not exactly.

  The afternoon had been a push and pull of emotions. Listening to Steven Sullivan talk about his form of fatherly love—getting Damon out of prison—had been surreal. The rest was a bit hazy. Standing in the grass and Trevor and then . . . nothing.

  Her shoulder ached from laying on it, pressing the fleshy part into a stone tucked underneath her. She struggled to sit up but when she reached out to support her weight, her hands snapped back again. Twist ties or rope. Something bound her, keeping her right there.

  Her eyes hadn’t adjusted but she did a mental inventory there on her side with the dirt scraping against her face. She moved her ankles in circles, trying to bring the circulation back. Except for the ache at the back of her head, all of her other injuries were old. She almost cried at the idea that she had become a person who had old and new bruises.

  With her palm against the dirt floor, she pushed up again. This time her body stopped in a seated position. She strained and squinted as she tried to get her eyes to adjust to the lack of light.

  The darkness suggested night but she’d been outside in the sun. It felt like minutes had ticked by as her body bounced around in the back of that truck but maybe it had been hours.

  A few more minutes of lonely quiet passed before she heard a heavy noise that sounded like ca-chunk. Possibly a lock or something with hydraulics. Very loud no matter what it was. Then light beamed across her lap. She looked up and made out a heavy metal door and a room beyond. An immaculate room with shelves and lockers. A cement floor. Lights and tables. Clipboards tacked to the wall.

  That part of the room looked professional. One that was locked and structured. The weapons room. The same one built into the side of the hill near the firing range. It had to be. Nothing else made sense, though this was still pretty mysterious to her.