Damage: The Men of Law (The Men of Law Series Book 2)

by Casey Clipper

  “Is this about my case?”

  Hannah sputtered out the water. “Sorry, yes. I should have clarified that.”

  “Where has Jason been?” What the hell was going on? Dean had been on the phone at the cemetery and his entire demeanor had changed after the conversation. And he wouldn’t confess what had dampened his good attitude. Then he said he had to unexpectedly go into the station. If he knew something about her case, she wanted to know. She deserved to know.

  “Ohio.”

  What the hell was in Ohio?

  “Where’s the powder room? Do you mind?” Hannah asked.

  “Not at all. Up the steps, first door on the left.”

  Hannah stood and practically ran up the stairs. “Stupid baby bladder,” she mumbled on her way up.

  The front doorbell rang. Again. That was Jason already?

  Josie opened the door to her brother on the doorstep, hands shoved into a black hoodie. In fact, he was dressed in black from head to toe, much like the man the night of her assault. Her eyes zeroed in on his biceps. A shiver ran up her spine. She’d never forget the arms. The size, the brute strength. Her brother’s arms held a striking resemblance to her attacker. Please tell her that this was the mind fuck that came with the knowledge of the police wanting to speak with him.

  Her phone rang. She’d left the device on the kitchen counter.

  “Hi, Josie,” her brother said meekly. “Can I come in?”

  “How did you find me?” she breathed.

  His features were shallow and pale, his jeans hung and sagged off his thin frame.

  “It wasn’t difficult. Some online research. That cop is very protective of you. And I overheard Mom talking to you on the phone.” He took a step into the house without her invitation.

  She stiffened. How much had he heard? She’d confessed to falling in love with Dean and practically moving in with him. If Harry was upset with her, he might have an issue with her current decision to stay with Dean.

  “I don’t know that it’s a good idea for you to be here,” Josie said, her hand gripping the doorknob.

  “I just need to talk to you for a minute. I’ve been trying to have a conversation with you and we always get interrupted.” His green eyes, round and filled with suffering, pleaded with her.

  Sympathy took hold. Her brother seemed so broken. Why? What was going on with him? She shut the door. Harry paced in a small area, running his hand over his head. “You know I love you, right?”

  Oh shit. “Yeah?”

  A teardrop fell from his eye as he stared directly at her. “I had no idea everything would go so badly. Would get so out of control.”

  “What do you mean by everything? What's going on, Harry?” She inched closer to him, wanting to reach out and calm him. Her brother was obviously in distress.

  Where the hell was Hannah? She didn’t want the feisty woman to saunter down the stairs and send her brother into another fit of hysterics. She hoped Hannah had enough self-control to give her time with her baby brother.

  “The money.”

  Money? “What are you talking about? Your debt?”

  “Yes…no.” He looked so lost. Like a little boy in need of help.

  “Harry, what is it? You can tell me.” She approached him, grabbing his arm, making him stop to face her. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.”

  His body shuddered as he snatched her and held her tightly, burying his head into her hair, silent sobs ripping through him.

  “It's okay,” she said, completely baffled.

  The front doorbell rang, again.

  Josie sighed. Jason must have arrived for the oddly missing Hannah.

  She yanked open the door to come face to face with a gun pointed directly at her.

  “Hello, Josie. I guess I have to be the one to finish the job,” Becky snarled. She stepped into the house, forcing Josie to take retreated steps away from the weapon, slamming the door behind her.

  Josie’s phone continued to ring.

  “What are you doing here?” Harry’s face had gone ashen.

  “I followed you.” Becky smirked triumphantly. “When you wouldn’t answer my calls, I knew you had a change of heart and would warn her.”

  “Becky, please. Just leave her alone. She’s my sister,” Harry begged.

  Josie gaped at her brother and back to Becky. Back to her brother.

  She risked a chance at speaking. “What. Is. Going. On?”

  Becky cackled. The malevolent sound bouncing off the walls. “What’s going on? Are you really that clueless.” She waved the pistol toward Harry. “He’s the one who tried to off you.”

  The bottom fell out of Josie’s world. The breath leaving her body. Her world upended. She caught herself on the sofa arm.

  “I’m so sorry,” Harry cried out, his red-rimmed eyes filled with tears that leaked over. He reached out for Josie. “I thought she loved me. She said we’d be together forever and she’d take care of me−”

  A blast ricocheted throughout the house. Josie screamed, gasping as her brother buckled to the living room floor, a bullet lodged into his chest.

  “How’s that for me taking care of you?” Becky said snidely. She turned on Josie, who fell to her brother's side, trying to cover the hole that bled rapidly. “He’s dead, you idiot.”

  She stalked up to Josie and smashed the gun into her temple. Josie’s world went black, briefly, as she fought to stay conscious. The cold steel dug into the side of her head.

  “You were supposed to die. He was supposed to kill you and get the life insurance and then convince your brother and mother to turn the business over to me. I’ve had to fuck your brother for months upon months to get the plan into place while a damn guilty conscience ate away at him. Do you know how many hours it took to combat his good side? You’re all dumbasses.” The metal disappeared from Josie’s head as Becky went on a tirade, stalking around the room, hand and gun waving as she ranted. “I deserve your business. I’d make a fortune. I’d do so much with it. You’ve always refused any ideas I’ve had.”

  “Let me call an ambulance for my brother,” she pleaded, horrified to witness her brother’s open eyes but an unmoving chest. She didn’t know CPR. She didn’t know how to feel for a pulse. She had no self-resources to try and save him.

  “Harry,” she sobbed. “Harry, I forgive you. Please, Harry.”

  Her hands were covered in her brother’s blood. The ivory carpet bloomed with a red stain underneath his body. Josie gazed up to find no empathy looking back at her. Realization sunk in. She was staring into the eyes of her grim reaper.

  Becky scoffed. “Are you kidding me? He changed his life insurance policy to where I’m the beneficiary. Screw you. I’m going to be rich. And then when I kill you, pinning it on your brother, I’ll swoop in and buy your business from your family at a steal. That wasn’t the original plan. Harry was supposed to kill you, get his portion of your life insurance policy to pay off his debt and he’d convince your family to sell me the salon. That place is a gold mine. Naturally I had to seduce him to be convincing. It’s amazing what a lonely soul will do when you assure him you’re the only one who can help him. I wanted to wait a bit longer, develop a different scenario, but my neighbors in Ohio called. A couple of men have been watching my house there, sneaking around outside, looking in windows, asking around about Harry. Private investigators. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the police suspect your brother, so I’ll give them what they want.”

  Becky went to the kitchen and returned with a hand towel, mocking her by shaking the cloth in her fingertips. “Can’t have my fingerprints on the weapon. I thought my plot had gone to shit. All because Harry didn’t finish you off. His damn cell phone buzzed in his pocket, his brother calling him, interrupting the perfect mental state I managed to get him into to do the deed. But this will work even better. Killing two naïve birds with one plan. Get rid of my coconspirator and get my riches. It’ll look like you shot each other. Harry returned to c
omplete the job and you died while defending yourself. The snow will cover my tracks and I’ll be in Ohio with an alibi, distraught over the explosion of my house from a natural gas leak, conveniently destroying all traces of Harry.”

  She pointed the gun at Josie and another blast tore through the air. Pain ripped through Josie, her shoulder flying back. Josie crumbled to the floor, blood staining the pink T-shirt she wore. Her shaky hand went to the wound. Certainly she would never survive this. She wasn’t fully recovered from the stabbing.

  Becky angrily snatched a picture of Dean and Erin off the corner shelf.

  “You just had to get involved with that cop. My life had finally been getting back on track. I was in the clear. Years I looked over my shoulder and then that man had to be the one to investigate your case and take an obscene interest in you.” Her hostility ramped to epic proportions, smacking the pistol off her jeans.

  Josie had no idea what she was rambling about. She scanned the room, looking for anything to defend herself. Where was Hannah? She prayed Hannah stayed out of sight for her own safety, but called the police.

  Becky waved the gun her direction again. “If I had known that he would be assigned to your case I would have found another way. I would have convinced Harry to come up with another plan. But he balked, guilt riddling him over hurting his precious sister.”

  Josie needed to keep Becky talking. The more she spoke, the less she was shooting. “What are you talking about? Dean?”

  Josie’s throat burned, a copper taste forming on her tongue.

  “Yes,” Becky hissed. “Detective Rooney.”

  “Why do you care about him?”

  “Because I’m the reason his wife is dead!” Becky’s face became a mask of unbridled rage.

  Oh, god. What the hell was happening? “What?”

  It all became clear. Becky had been an alcoholic. She’d had numerous DUIs, been arrested, and had her license revoked years ago. But she'd been sober, at least Josie had thought she'd been on the straight and narrow. A severe miscalculation on her part.

  “I didn’t mean to cut her off. I was just trying to get home from the bar. She shouldn’t have been out on the road anyway. It was too icy. If the roads had been dry, she could have avoided me and driven on her way. It was her fault,” Becky spewed. “I’ve watched the news for years, read the papers, kept up on blogs and social media to make certain they weren’t on to the fact that her car crash wasn’t an accident. I would leave town in a heartbeat if they ever figured it out. They had no clue and I’ve been in the clear for years. Until Detective Rooney had to come sniffing around your case. Harry knew. He would have told the police. It’s why I would never have been able to trust him. Eventually I would have had to put him down.”

  Dear lord. Her poor Dean. He’d been blaming himself for years for his wife’s untimely death, the entire time it had been the fault of a diabolical drunk. How was she ever going to tell him?

  Fire burned down her arm, across her chest, and up her neck. She needed help.

  Her phone rang again. Becky lifted the pistol, pointing it directly at her. In seemingly slow motion, Hannah flew from out of nowhere, tackling Becky to the ground. They wrestled for possession of the gun that jarred out of Becky’s hand. They both clambered to their feet. Hannah spun, her leg kicking out, landing squarely on Becky’s chest, the woman falling back against the wall, the gun within her reach. Becky snatched the weapon and scrambled upright, taking a miscalculated shot at Hannah.

  The front door burst open.

  “Hannah, get down!”

  Hannah dropped to the floor, tucking and covering her head. Dean had his weapon pulled. The house filled with blasts and flashes of light.

  Josie went, too broken and damaged to continue to fight the pain. Becky’s body heaped on the floor nearby, her lifeless eyes wide open staring at Josie, blood pouring from her mouth.

  Hannah was over top of Josie, pressing on her shoulder. “Hang in there, Josie. You’ll be fine.”

  The room became a flurry of activity. Dean kneeled next to her, his expression twisted with despair. Nick was by his side. Jordan was yanking Hannah away from her but not without a threat. “I’ll find you and kick your ass, no matter where you go, if you leave him.”

  “I love you,” she said to Dean, reaching up with a weak hand to touch his handsome face.

  “I love you, Josie. Stay tough for me. The ambulance is on the way.” Dean took her hand and squeezed. “I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you.”

  She wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but her vision tunneled. Not again. She fought against the blackness, but didn't have the will. She so wasn’t a fan of déjà vu.

  33

  Dean was going to lose his mind. His heart rate couldn’t take the rapid pace it currently kept. He punched the hospital waiting room wall, needing to release his pent up fury.

  “Dean,” Nick said gently. “Sit.”

  Dean didn’t want to sit. He didn’t want to stand. He didn’t want to pace. He just wanted to see Josie. Hold her in his arms and make sure she was alive and well.

  Why didn’t they catch the two assholes sooner? How had the team missed such blatant and poor planning on the brother and Becky’s part? How had they overlooked all the pieces that made up the puzzle?

  Dean slid a glare over to the waiting room chairs, toward Josie’s mother and brother, both huddled together, crying. A twin lost his other half. A mother lost a child. And both sat vigil for Josie who was in surgery. The bullet nicked an artery, causing her to lose too much blood. He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t lose the woman he’d found that finally saved him from a life of mundane misery.

  Nope, he couldn’t think like that. This couldn’t be happening again. Not when he’d just opened himself up to her. Not when he’d just figured out how to move on with his life. Not when he’d accepted the fact that he could fall in love again. That he’d been one of the few in the world who’d been given a second chance at love. Some may say he didn’t deserve another opportunity, but he’d greedily take it.

  “I can’t,” he ground out.

  “She’s going to be fine.”

  Dean shot him a death stare.

  “She’s tough, Dean. Tougher than she looks on the outside. Tougher than she presents,” Nick said, sounding confident.

  Dean sunk down into a chair next to his partner, his head falling into his hands. “How did we fuck this up so badly?”

  “We just didn’t have the information,” Nick said, not sounding so confident this time.

  Dean shook his head. “No. We did. We just didn’t piece it together. Nick, there’s something seriously wrong with our unit. We didn’t catch Hannah and she’d been right under our noses. We didn’t catch Josie’s attempted murderers and we had them in our grasp the entire time.” He leaned back, his head hitting the wall. “What the fuck has gone wrong? We’ve never been this inept.”

  Nick didn’t reply.

  Jordan strolled into the waiting area, taking a seat between Dean and Nick. “Hannah’s all right.”

  Dean closed his eyes. Thank God for tremendous favors. The guilt that would wrack him if Hannah lost the baby would be unrecoverable.

  “How’s Jason?” Nick asked.

  “Freaking out. Like, seriously yelling at his wife. In a way it’s funny but in a way it’s not. I mean, Hannah is a badass. I would not want to go a round with her. But she can also be reckless. Though Jason can’t be angry for her saving Josie’s life. If she hadn’t been there, Becky would have pulled that trigger again, killing her,” Jordan said, stating a fact they all knew. “Kind of weird about the whole right place, right time thing.”

  “How’s Hannah handling it?” Nick asked.

  “She’s quiet,” Jordan said. “Unusually quiet. Not like herself. She’s just staring off, rubbing her belly. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell are taking on the roles of soothing her while Jason loses his shit.”

  “It changes a person when you’re that close to watch
ing someone die in a ruthless manner. She was up close and personal with two,” Nick said gruffly. “Even though she was a brilliant jewelry thief, she never carried a weapon.”

  “What does Chief want to do?” Dean asked. Dean owed Hannah. What exactly, he didn’t know. But the woman saved Josie and in return, she was going to suffer from the knowledge that two people died right in front of her. Hannah hadn’t witnessed death first hand before. Josie would suffer more, her brother being one of the victims. No one knows how they’ll react to such malicious bloodshed. Hopefully, his best friend’s wife, with the support of Jason and his family, would help her realize she did what was necessary and couldn’t save everyone.

  “He’s livid over the entire case. He wants to put all of us on administrative leave and have the surrounding cities and state police come in to handle investigations. This doesn’t help our case with IA,” Jordan said. “Chief is fuming.”

  Dean closed his eyes, unable to care about his career at the moment. He could only focus on Josie and her health.

  A dainty sniffle came from the back corner of the room. Dean glanced over his shoulder, unsure how to approach the Conleys. How did he reach out to the family that harbored and nurtured the man who attempted to kill the woman he loved?

  “Have you spoken to the family?” Dean asked. He’d been officially removed from the case. He didn’t blame Nick for the decision. He couldn’t be trusted to be rational. His heart was involved.

  “Yes. They’re devastated, having had no idea. They knew he was angry but they had no idea about what. His brother had recently confronted him on stealing money out of his bank accounts. I believe them and there’s no evidence to suggest otherwise.” Jordan sounded as tired as Dean felt.

  Nick frowned. “I find that hard to believe they didn’t know anything.”

  Jordan lifted a shoulder. “People choose to see what they want to see. It doesn’t matter if deep down they know there’s something amiss. I mean, despite the fact that Josie was warned about her brother, she still believed in him enough to let him into Dean’s house. Luckily for her and us, Hannah knew the case and is also kind of a wicked fighter.”