The Protector

by HelenKay Dimon

  She’d expected panic to overtake her the second the grogginess started to fade. The danger had ratcheted up and now being out of sight made her position even more precarious. But there was this other side of her. The part that tamped down the whirling in her stomach and tried to gulp in big breaths in an effort to calm down.

  She needed to be smart and stay sharp. There were people out there who would help her. And she could kick and shoot. She’d use any advantage and any person who would help her to get out of this. This was not the time to be a hero or a martyr.

  She inched her arms apart, trying to get enough room between her wrists to break the tie. She and her friends had spent a whole Friday night once, watching videos on how to escape bindings. They’d flicked their wrists and broken the hard plastic. She hoped she didn’t need wine to make it work.

  But her attention kept returning to the partially open door. She thought back to who had access. Likely Steven. Maybe Liza. She really couldn’t remember anyone talking about it because everyone talked about it. Being prepared and talking firing lessons mattered here. It was one of the reasons she didn’t buy the story that this place was all about studying again. She hadn’t needed a Glock to get through statistics.

  The crunching sound of work boots against a gravelly dirt floor hit her first. Forget the being-calm thing. Anxiety whipped through her until she thought she might throw up. She tried to rock back and forth and breathe out of her mouth. Anything to stay in control for as long as possible.

  When no one burst through the door, she leaned forward, trying to spy her attacker. The person had slammed something into her head. She could hardly wait to repay that gift.

  “Cate.” Roger stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

  Roger, not Vincent. But the scent . . .

  Before his face could fully register, the room was plunged back into darkness. Then with a click, lights came on. They hung from the walls at set intervals and were connected by wires.

  The vault. The answer came to her. He’d put her in a vault in the weapons room. And now she remembered the main problem . . . it was a locked-down weapons room.

  Her gaze went to Roger. He crouched down, balancing on the balls of his feet in front of her. He wore the same expression he’d aimed at her when they first met. There was something open and welcoming about his face. Now she knew that was a big fat lie.

  “What’s happening?” She wanted to kick him but went with that instead.

  His hands dangled in front of him. He held what looked like some sort of electronic keycard.

  As he crouched down there, not saying a word, he shook his head. “I ran out of options.”

  Poor freaking baby. “You’re the one behind all of this?”

  “No.”

  Liar. “You hit me over the head at the water tower then pretended to rescue me?” For some reason that infuriated her. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Don’t blame me for that one.” His keycard bounced as he shifted around in his squatting position. “I was cleaning up someone else’s mess.”

  The answer made no sense. Her mind raced with the possibilities. She tipped from believing him to hating him every two seconds. The only thing she knew for sure was he couldn’t afford to let her go now. It would be impossible to call this a mistake and move on. He’d extended his crimes to kidnapping . . . or whatever it might be called. She wasn’t a legal expert, but she was no longer calm either. Panic coursed through her as her brain filled with a jumble of thoughts she couldn’t grab on to.

  “All you had to do was stay away.” He let the edge of the keycard drag in the dirt. “You had every chance, were given every hint to go.”

  “Yeah, well, sorry.”

  He choked out what sounded like a fake laugh. “You are stubborn. Possibly worse than Damon.”

  She hated hearing Damon’s name come out of this guy’s mouth. He’d pretended to be the solid brother, the charming one. That was before he stuffed her into an oversized dirt closest.

  “My sister died.” She thought she’d point that out since the fear she would be next in his killing spree threatened to swamp her.

  “I know, Cate. Trust me,” he said in a singsongy voice. “You keep repeating it. You tried to get in here before, demanded information. Then you dragged Damon into this.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “Yes! I do. Why couldn’t you leave it alone?” He stood up and started pacing. “That night was a simple accident.”

  The word vibrated through her. It was the one everyone used to push her away. Cate feared he used it because he knew the truth about what happened to Shauna and was desperate to cover it up.

  “If that were true I wouldn’t be sitting in . . .” She glanced around again, grateful for the light. “This is the weapons vault, right?”

  “All that matters is you’re under my control.” His voice took on a heavier edge. His jaw clenched as he went back to walking in the small space.

  “Like Shauna was?” It was worth a shot. Maybe he would talk. Maybe he wanted to brag. She couldn’t really read him.

  He skidded to a halt and looked at her. That reaction told her jumping in like that had him off stride.

  “What? No.”

  She’d always suspected he knew more. Now she guessed he knew everything. “But you were there, right? You heard something or saw something.”

  Helped to cover something up after.

  His steps sped up. It was as if he were locked in some sort of battle in his head. He mumbled as his outer shell crumbled. He went from cool and calm to jumpy. Sweat gathered on his forehead and chest. Guilt, terror, panic—something had him in its grip and refused to let go.

  His anxiety touched off hers. It shot through her in waves now, rolling over her, shoving her stomach to the floor. It was as if her body started to shut down. A case of dizziness had her head spinning. After two assaults in less than two weeks she felt breakable for the first time in her adult life. After years of planning every move to prevent feeling vulnerable, she now wallowed in it.

  “At first I thought you two were really different. She was flirty and carefree. Not the type to care about studying all night because she had a test the next day.” Roger listed it all out as he walked. “She took things in stride. God, she was fun. And stunning. That dark hair.”

  Cate waded through all the pieces he’d shared. One stuck out. “And your brother had a thing for her.”

  “Vincent thought she was pretty. A lot of guys did.” Roger waved off that concern. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “It was if it made him kill her.”

  “She . . .” Roger spun around to face her. “No. Wrong. You don’t get it. Nothing now relates to her.”

  She tried to make that make sense in her head and failed. “Explain it to me.”

  “You need to let the past go.”

  As if that would ever happen. “Are you saying two people have been after me?”

  He snorted. “That’s a big ego you have.”

  She heard it. He evaded. Went right up to the edge then pulled back.

  But she was close. She could feel it and kept poking. “Who is your partner in all of this?”

  “I don’t have one. You’ve got this all wrong.”

  The coolness of the cave seeped into her bones. She sat on a cold floor in damp dirt in a place without any air. Her brain rushed to compute the probability of being rescued versus dying here. She didn’t like the odds. If she didn’t have Damon and Trevor on her side, probably zero percent. With them, she stood a chance.

  “Tell me.”

  When Roger stared at her, she thought she’d see a coldness there but didn’t. He was the handsome guy-next-door. Evil didn’t ooze out of him. She wouldn’t have picked him out of a crowd as the person to worry about. She’d watched true crime shows and been lulled in by the idea of dead eyes. Naïvely, she assumed she would be able to tell when she came up against the person who took her sister’s life becaus
e of those eyes.

  Now she knew better.

  “Roger.” She leaned forward. “What happened that night?”

  “It was an accident.”

  The word grated across her nerves as much this time as before.

  “I believe you.” She forced the words out. Asking didn’t work and she assumed begging wouldn’t either. Maybe giving him a straight chance to clean his conscience would work.

  “I thought we were . . .” He shook his head. “Vincent was so upset.”

  The partial sentences left so much unanswered but a picture started to form in her head. Two brothers with a crush on her sister. Living away from home, having fun. Discovery and making bad decisions. Normal stuff for people just out of their teens, but something went very wrong that night. A sick image of her sister scared and beating back panic that Cate hoped wasn’t accurate.

  “She kept running that night, all out of control.” He pushed the door shut, locking them inside.

  “Roger?”

  He focused on her then. “Are you going to do the same thing she did?”

  She stepped carefully into this rough talk. “What?”

  “Run.”

  Damon glared at Liza. He didn’t care about her campus tours or her big dreams. Right now he didn’t even care that she hated him, because she’d made that clear during every discussion they’d ever had. She had intel on Cate and if someone didn’t get him to her soon, he was going to rip every building on the property down with his bare hands.

  “You have two seconds to tell me where Cate is.” He didn’t even want to give her that long but Trevor and his father were there and they looked more willing to negotiate if it meant finding Cate. He was much more ruthless. It surged through him now.

  Her gaze traveled between the men. “I don’t know.”

  Before Damon could start yelling, his father stepped in front of his assistant. “Liza, this isn’t the time. It’s not about Damon coming back or the future of Sullivan. Cate could be in danger and I will be very upset if any harm comes to her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s my son’s girlfriend.”

  Damon didn’t know if that was the right answer, but he didn’t care. Apparently, Liza didn’t care about much either since she emotionally flatlined at the idea of Cate’s life being important enough to save.

  “What are we talking about here?” But Damon knew. Liza wore her jealousy over his return like a blanket. She wanted to be the one his father turned to and he was fine with that. He didn’t have any intention of staying. He was only back now because of Cate, and look how that turned out.

  Right now he wanted to burn it all down. Liza could have it. Have the Sullivan name.

  Standing there with her feet shuffling and her gaze bouncing to her feet, she looked delicate. Terrified. It took her a few beats of silence to work up whatever nerve she needed.

  She looked up and pulled her shoulders back. “I only wanted to scare her.”

  The words slashed through Damon. Scare her. “When?”

  “I . . . I realized the other stuff wasn’t working. I begged Vincent to hunt you down and he talked to you at the diner, but that didn’t work.” She couldn’t hold his gaze and switched to looking at his father. “I thought if she was separated from you and scared she’d back down but she just dug in.”

  Damon didn’t know exactly what she was saying, but it didn’t sound good. Looking over at Trevor, he saw the same wariness mirrored there that he felt deep inside. His control unraveled the longer this dragged on.

  “Liza, listen to me.” His father put his hands on Liza’s shoulders and pitched his voice low and soothing. “Who has Cate now?”

  “Say it.” Trevor practically barked out the order.

  “The thing with Shauna was an accident. He promised me.”

  Jesus. She sounded so sincere. Not like she was talking about the killing of one sister then the other.

  Damon took a step back. It was the only way he could guarantee he wouldn’t shake Liza. There had to be common sense in there somewhere. That she could write Cate off as not being worth worrying about and go about her usual day . . . Damon didn’t get that at all.

  “Are we talking about Vincent?” Trevor asked.

  She shook her head. “Roger.”

  Damon’s stomach dropped. They were talking about a guy he’d known forever. Someone he once considered a friend. And he did something to Shauna. Might have hurt Cate to keep her quiet.

  Damon couldn’t take it all in.

  “You and Roger are together. Dating, right?” his father asked.

  “We share the same dream.” Liza smiled. “Your dream.”

  His father shook his head and his voice echoed the confusion in his eyes. “But you hurt Cate.”

  “I wanted to scare her. The water tower. I mean, I stopped. She was shaken up but fine.” Liza made it sound as if that counted for something.

  Damon could barely breathe. “That was you?”

  “It was supposed to be a warning.” She winced. “Then Roger showed up on his way back from the shooting range. He was furious. Said it was too obvious and would only make things worse.” She looked at Damon and didn’t show one ounce of fear. “Make it more likely you would stick around and ask more questions about Shauna’s death.”

  Damon took a threatening step toward her this time. Trevor caught his arm, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t. Damon didn’t care about this woman. He wanted to get to Cate and refused to let anyone stall that process. “You have three seconds to tell me where Roger is.”

  “Wait.” Trevor snapped his fingers. “Forget her. I know the answer. It’s the only place no one else can go due to the security protocols, and Steven here doesn’t check there.”

  Then the answer clicked in Damon’s head, too. “The weapons room.”

  Chapter 26

  Cate sat with her back balanced against the vault wall. She watched Roger pace, keeping him in her sights at all times. She had to because she kept twisting her hands, working the zip tie. Of course, if she got it off that still left her in a windowless locked room without the key.

  “What’s the plan here?” That’s the part she didn’t get. People would notice her going missing. She had friends and a life. Heck, even Steven Sullivan would notice something that obvious.

  Attacking her meant starting the clock all over again. This would be one more time Sullivan landed at the center of a scandal. With Steven’s clout diminished and Damon partnered up with Wren, Sullivan would end this time. She couldn’t imagine anyone riding in to save it.

  Damon. She thought his name and her mind went to him. The long body, those sexy hands. The scratch of his scruff against her inner thighs. Imagining him soothed her. With that memory she could go back to a point in time where she felt powerful and happy. She needed that again. With him and far away from Salvation, Pennsylvania.

  While she thought about the man who wouldn’t leave her head, she tried to get through to the one who wouldn’t leave the room. “Roger?”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I’m thinking.”

  No plan. That thought hit her and she was happy she was already sitting. The idea that the kidnapping or any part of this series of attacks had been random or spur-of-the-moment made her want to cry. Her life derailed on a fluke. That’s all she was to him. A nuisance he could push aside.

  Forget crying. She wanted to punch him.

  “Let me go.” She debated begging but worried he might like that. She still didn’t understand what had derailed him or how far gone he was. A firm request was the right answer, though she doubted that would work either.

  He lifted his head and pinned her with a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding glare. “You blew that.”

  It had been worth a try, especially since she had more questions. “What did I do to you exactly? We didn’t know each other until . . .”

  Was it really two weeks? The time spun past her. She’d shared so much with Damon, fell so
deep, that it felt like they’d been together for months.

  “I told you.”

  She twisted the plastic back and forth, trying to cause a bend. A bend meant a weakness. She could work with that. “Were you the one in my condo?”

  “Huh. Impressive.” His expression matched the awe in his voice. “How did you figure that out?”

  “I recognize the scent you’re wearing.”

  “See, I knew it.” He actually smiled. “Liza told me she didn’t like it, that it lingered, so I gave it to Vincent then took it back. She was right.”

  “You were setting him up? Had him wear it to throw me off?”

  Roger’s mood sobered. “I wouldn’t do that to my own brother.”

  “Because you’re so honorable and all.”

  “That was a friend who works in the computer lab who owed me a favor.” Roger leaned against the wall right across from her. “You’d picked up the pressure on Shauna’s investigation. I needed to know if you had learned anything. He had the talent to know where to look.”

  The reason he needed to know more could not be more clear. Because he killed Shauna.

  Since he’d started sharing she tried again. “Was the water tower you?”

  “Liza.” He shook his head. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

  It made her sick to think of her life reduced to that level. A part of a plan. Part of their plan, because she now knew there were two of them. “Was I in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

  “She panicked. She worried Damon was using you as an excuse and that he really was back to claim his birthright.” Roger leaned his head back against the rock. “She felt like she needed to scare you off and keep him away. Damon taking over would have ruined all of it.”

  “She was wrong about everything.” That floored Cate. All of the fear and danger over nothing. “Damon isn’t claiming any birthright.”

  Roger shrugged. “Maybe not now, but possibly in the future.”

  When he turned she got a good look at Roger. At the gun he carried. She wasn’t sure where the keycard had disappeared to but one option had opened up—trying to get the weapon away from him. She decided to use that as her last resort.