Expired Refuge

by Lisa Phillips

  “Sure?” The one word was a rumble, so low it was almost not even audible.

  Meena huffed, “Just go when I tell you to.” She looked like she wanted to stomp her foot. Throw a tantrum like a recalcitrant child.

  She threw the door shut again and turned back to Mia. “We won’t have much time. Conroy is going to stroll in here and try to get me to hand you over.”

  “You could go with your guy. I’ll wait for Conroy.”

  Mia was beyond tired. She figured even if she had the strength to combat her sister, the woman likely wasn’t averse to fighting dirty. Mia didn’t want any more injuries.

  “And miss seeing the lieutenant?” She waved off the suggestion. “I missed him at the house. I’m not missing the chance to see it for myself now.”

  “See what?”

  One of Meena’s eyebrows rose, like it had a life of its own. “What everyone in town is talking about. Obviously.” When she realized Mia had no idea, she said, “The way he’s looking at you. Letting everyone else cover for him while he drives you around, and then he personally parks you in his house so you can be safe.” She smirked. “Not that it actually worked, of course—”

  The door opened. Conroy stood there, a thunderous look on his face.

  “That’s it!” Meena laughed, but there didn’t seem to be any humor in the sound. “It is true.”

  “Ed is outside.”

  Meena blanched. She swung around to Mia. “Nice to see ya.” Then she squeezed between Conroy and the door frame.

  “You okay?”

  Mia tried to speak. No words came out. She just shook her head.

  He lifted an arm and held his hand out to her. “Let’s go.”

  She wanted to be mad. She should ask how Tate was, and accuse Conroy of orchestrating this. She wanted to cry over her sister, over the fact the first kidnapper thankfully hadn’t taken her to Anthony Stiles so he could do whatever he’d been planning.

  Mia walked to him. Right to him. She wound her arms around his waist, over his shirt but inside his jacket. Her fingers glanced off his gun.

  She felt him tense, but ignored it.

  They weren’t two cops right now. Just two people who were looking out for each other, whose lives intersected. It wasn’t even about that attraction between them.

  She stuck her face in the warm skin of his neck and held on while her body shuddered. Conroy’s chest rumbled under her cheek. His arms wound around her and he held her close, but not too tight.

  This had been her sister’s intervention. Meena, figuring she was doing Mia a favor.

  He had come for her.

  The only one who had come to get her when she’d been taken by some guy, like an errand for Stiles.

  No, she didn’t trust Conroy.

  But she also didn’t have anyone else.

  Seventeen

  “That’s all she said?” Wilcox asked the question, sitting on the edge of Mia’s hospital bed while Conroy leaned against the wall.

  He figured being silent and allowing his detective to take Mia’s statement would give him the chance to calm down. He’d been steaming all night and most of the day. It wouldn’t take much to set him off. Then he’d be in his car, headed to Summers’s house where he would dearly enjoy tearing the man a new one. What that would even look like didn’t matter, he just wanted to pummel somebody.

  Mia looked at him. She had more pink in her cheeks than she’d had when he got to her at the house. Her sister had held her captive most of the night, and afterwards she’d slept all morning. The doctor had given her something that knocked her out. Apparently sleep and medicine had done her good.

  “Just that,” Mia said, “and she wondered why Conroy’s apparently notable security system hadn’t work.”

  “It was active.” Yet another thing he was mad about. “For some reason, it didn’t notify me when the door was breached and left open. Someone had to have known.”

  He knew his tone was cold and hard. He was furious someone had messed with it. That had to be what happened. Only, who could have done it? An obvious choice was that Anthony Stiles had gotten to someone in town. Paid them, forced them, or convinced them to allow the breach so he could get inside.

  So he could get to Mia.

  “It wasn’t Stiles who took me, but it could’ve been one of his guys.” She told them about another man. “They knew him. Meena’s boys, they knew who he was.”

  Her sister had known she would be taken. Meena had intervened, faster than Conroy, which seemed to have been against Ed’s wishes.

  He gritted his teeth while Wilcox reassured her they would figure it out.

  One of Meena’s people had known what Anthony Stiles was planning. Or they’d been watching the house. Conroy and his detectives had a lot of people to question in order to get to the bottom of this. Someone had opened the proverbial door and allowed a dangerous man into Conroy’s house.

  And he was going to find out who that was.

  Except, that wouldn’t give him a location on Stiles himself. Unless the person had an ongoing relationship with him. A way to find him, or contact him. Conroy didn’t want to pin everything on hope, but sometimes that was all he had to go on.

  Without hard evidence, what else did he have?

  Not much, except an investigation to run.

  “Knock, knock.” Tate pulled the curtain back, exposing them to the buzz of activity on the hospital’s second floor. He saw Conroy and hesitated.

  Conroy said nothing. He didn’t move, just tried to tamp down the anger he felt that Mia had been taken and Tate had been slow to do anything to stop it.

  “Hey.” Mia lifted her hand. Tate came over and shook it. She said, “Heard you took a hit.”

  “Not even a scratch.” He laughed it off, but wound up sounding nervous.

  Conroy watched as Tate charmed her. Mia accepted Tate’s attempt even though she’d been essentially glaring at Conroy since she woke up. And after that hug? Maybe she’d forgotten about it. Conroy figured he wouldn’t forget for the rest of his life. She’d been scared. Exhausted, and in pain. Not to mention grieving over her sister and the choices Meena had made. Choices she was still making.

  On the surface Meena seemed put together. Flashy clothes. A convertible she whipped around in. But underneath it all there was a much different story. When Conroy looked at Meena Tathers, he saw a scared girl in over her head.

  She put on a good front, though.

  Mia had likely seen through the façade as well. She’d been trained. She was a fed who worked cases involving all kinds of criminals and was accustomed to not getting the truth. He wondered if those instincts and skills extended to her sister.

  Or if they would extend to Tate.

  Conroy didn’t want to believe the private investigator had sold him out. But who else knew where Mia had been, and how to get to her through his system?

  Tate took a step back. “I’m outta here. They’re letting me go.”

  “Is that true?”

  Conroy nearly smiled. Maybe Mia saw through everyone.

  Wilcox shot him a glance. Conroy motioned to the door. She hopped off the bed. “I should head out too. You need a ride home, Hudson?”

  Conroy figured she referred to him by his surname to keep the distance between them. To try and convince herself that he was just a colleague.

  Tate said, “I was gonna call a cab, but sure.”

  They trailed out, leaving him alone with Mia. She said, “They like each other, right?”

  “I try not to get into that stuff with my subordinates. But, yeah. I think so.”

  “He’s older than her?”

  Conroy nodded, pushed off the wall and came to the end of the bed. “He’s late forties. She’s nearly ten years younger.”

  “But you’re the boss?”

  “She’s new to town. And you know seniority isn’t about age.”

  He hoped Wilcox could do her job, instead of getting distracted by whatever feelings she might h
ave for Tate. Then maybe he would get an answer as to whether Tate Hudson let a person of interest in his house so that Mia could be taken.

  Kidnapped.

  Killed.

  Better that Wilcox conduct that interview. If Conroy did it, he’d wind up having to explain why Tate looked like he’d had the snot beaten out of him.

  Mia said, “A detective and a private investigator.” She even smiled a little. “That sounds like it might be interesting.”

  “As interesting as a police lieutenant and an ATF Special Agent?”

  Something crossed her face.

  “What?”

  She started to shake her head, but stopped herself. “I had a few hours to think, locked in that room. Waiting for Meena. Though I didn’t know that at the time.”

  “Did she hurt you? Or did any of her guys?”

  She shook her head.

  Conroy had asked the question already. But it beat asking her how she felt yet again. If she was all right.

  “Good.” He settled on the edge of the bed, kind of like how Wilcox had. Non-threatening. Easy. He wondered if anything in her life had ever been easy. He knew nothing had been for him. “Tell me what you thought about.”

  The look on her face made him think she appreciated that he wanted to know. Good.

  She said, “About my job, mostly. And my life.”

  “Come to any conclusions?”

  “I don’t know. More just musing on being here, in Last Chance County, versus being in Seattle. Or anywhere else, if I’m on the road working.” She shrugged one shoulder. Her bandaged arm had a sling now. “My dad’s house, versus my apartment, and which one feels more like home.”

  Then there was his house, which she’d been kidnapped from. He didn’t figure she would want to go back there any more than she would want to go back to Rich’s lake house where she’d encountered a middle-of-the-night intruder.

  Maybe he should call the hotel. Get her a room no one knew about so she could be safe while he hit the streets. Find Anthony Stiles himself.

  The possible sightings kept coming across the wires from his people, but no one had actually been able to nail down a location on Stiles.

  Yet.

  He was out there. Making plans. Waiting to strike.

  Conroy much preferred criminals who moved too fast and made mistakes. The patient, crafty ones scared the everloving crap out of him.

  “I was probably just overly tired. Having an identity crisis.” Her eyes glinted and she said, “I probably need to take an extra month of vacation and ‘find myself’.”

  “I’ll give you a clue.” Conroy leaned in like it was a secret. “You’re right here.”

  Mia chuckled like she had a secret of her own.

  Things were just about to get interesting when his phone decided to ring in his pocket. He looked at his smartwatch and saw the caller ID. “It’s your dad.”

  Mia shook her head, eyes wide as though she had been caught doing something wrong.

  “Don’t want to talk to him?” He swiped the screen with a smile on his face. “Barnes.”

  “Wanna tell me why I’m standing in my living room and my daughter, who you said you’d found, isn’t here?”

  “You’re at your house?”

  Mia frowned. Conroy knew how she felt.

  “Of course I’m at my house. She got kidnapped while she was on the phone with me. You think I wouldn’t drive home after that? You said you had her.”

  Her eyebrows rose.

  Conroy figured she could hear her dad yelling. His ear was getting blistered. “She was admitted for observation. I’m with her at the hospital.”

  “She okay?” His tone had calmed.

  Conroy mouthed to her, asking if she wanted to talk to him. Mia took the phone. “Hi, Dad.”

  Conroy shifted to stand, but she touched his hand. He turned back.

  She held on so he couldn’t go anywhere.

  “Meena.” Mia frowned again and was quiet for a moment. He could hear Rich talking rapidly. “I know. It wasn’t pretty.” Pause. “I should be.” She glanced at him. “Conroy’s living room. Okay.”

  She handed back the phone. He looked at the screen and saw her dad had hung up. “What was that about my house?”

  “He uh…asked where my duffel bag was.”

  Conroy nodded. Of course she wouldn’t want to go back to his house. It was dumb to think she could possibly feel safe there after the way he’d let her down so hugely. He’d been so determined to prove to her that he could protect her. That he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He’d been wrong about that, too.

  “As soon as they get you discharged, I’ll get you back to your dad’s house.”

  “He’s actually headed here. He said you can bring my duffel over after he relieves you.”

  “He wants to take charge of your care?”

  She shrugged. “I guess. He never has before.”

  “Could be he got shook up. He heard you scream. He called me right away.” Conroy said, “Maybe he just needs to see for himself that you’re all right.”

  “Probably.”

  “Then when you’re back at his place, he’ll be with you. You don’t have to be alone.”

  She nodded, not meeting his gaze.

  “And I’ll be out finding this guy.”

  “Back to business as usual.”

  “Kind of.” He wasn’t sure what she’d meant by that, anyway. A guarded look had come over her face like a shutter pulled down. She was hiding behind it. Not letting him in. Conroy said, “That way you don’t have to be in my house. It’ll give you nightmares knowing he got to you there.”

  She nodded again, this time not looking like what he’d said made her feel any better.

  “Mia—”

  She waved a hand. “You’re right. We don’t know who that was.”

  “I’ll get you a mugshot book. Think you could look at pictures?”

  She nodded.

  “So long as you’re safe with your dad, I’m going to do everything in my power to get this guy. I want him found.”

  “Me too.”

  He turned his hand and held hers. “I don’t like leaving you at all while he’s still out there, even if you’ll be with your dad.”

  “But your skills are better served on the job, finding that guy. And Stiles.” She tipped her head to the side, some of the tension gone now. “I just wish there was a…safehouse or something like it.”

  Maybe she liked the idea of him leaving about as much as he liked the idea of leaving her. As in, not at all.

  “Usually we just get a hotel room for the person. If it’s a high-value target, there’s a cabin. Last time didn’t go well though. The people who own it are…particular about what happens there. There was a lot of damage. Smashed windows. Bullet holes in the drywall.”

  “For a safehouse, that doesn’t sound very safe.”

  “Domestic issue.” He didn’t even know how to explain what it had been. “I wound up owing them big enough I better not need another favor for…” He looked at his watch even though it was unnecessary. “Another six years.”

  She chuckled, then winced.

  “Okay?”

  “I’m just ready to get out of here and get a full night’s sleep. Then I’m going to persuade my dad to make his famous breakfast burritos.”

  Conroy nodded. “Those are good.”

  She frowned. “How would you know?”

  “Men’s breakfast at church. Your dad always makes them.”

  “My dad goes to church?”

  “I didn’t think it was a secret.”

  “You said he called you directly.” She measured her words. “You guys really are friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “He forgave you.” She said those three words like it was an accusation.

  “A few years ago. Yes.”

  Mia pulled her hand out from under his. She glanced around, disbelief warring with fear on her face. Why was she scared?
/>   “Mia—”

  “Go tell the doctor I want to leave. Now.”

  Eighteen

  Her dad held the door open. Mia was just glad the neighbor kid hadn’t come over again. She didn’t need to see those little faces, so distraught. Or the mom.

  He closed it behind her. The place was still a mess. She’d left quickly and hadn’t cleaned up after the intruder. The fingerprints. The kitchen—dishes on the counter instead of in the sink.

  “I’ll just tidy up.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” He strode past her. “Go park it on the couch.” He headed for the kitchen.

  He wanted to clean up after her—first time in her life. That was fine by her.

  Mia slumped onto the couch and toed off her sneakers. Wilcox had brought her duffel bag, and she’d opted for her slouchy clothes. Who cared that Conroy had seen her in these old leggings and ratty T-shirt? Certainly not her.

  She curled her legs up on the seat and lay on her side. Licking her wounds. No, more like just being stubborn.

  She’d flung the words at him like an accusation. And seen the hurt on his face after. Soon as her dad showed up, Conroy had excused himself. After waiting until she was covered—protected—he got out of there as fast as possible.

  Mia didn’t want to think of her sister, Mara. She didn’t want to think of Conroy. Maybe she should just leave now. Go back to Seattle and hang out at the office until the call came in that Anthony Stiles had been caught. Problem solved. The danger would be over with no one in the line of fire. Then again, it also didn’t prevent Stiles from hurting someone else. Here, she would be his focus.

  The door to the dishwasher closed, and she heard it start to run. Her dad came over and sat in his chair. The same worn recliner he’d been sitting in for as long as she could remember. And the way she’d lain down—to take the weight off her arm—meant she could see him without moving.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  He lifted his hands, palms up. The guy was huge and always had been. She could barely remember what her mom looked like at this point, except for a vague memory of dark hair and a purple shirt with sparkles on the front that scratched her cheek. She’d gotten her height and build from her dad. They were both solid and stocky. It looked good on a man, not so much on her considering it had the effect of making her look like a heavy, Olympic volleyball player.