Chasyn pressed the button on the handrail and raised the back of the bed so she was nearly sitting upright. The change in position brought on a sudden pounding in her head. She waited for it to subside slightly, then explained. “Kasey and I got ready for court. We drove to the courthouse, parked, then when we were walking up the steps, someone shot at us.”
“Did you happen to notice if a car was following you on your way to the courthouse?”
“No.”
“No, you didn’t notice, or no, there wasn’t anyone? Did you hear anything when you were walking? A car stopping? Anything?”
She gingerly shook her head. “We were talking and joking and then suddenly I hit the pavement and a second later I saw Kasey fall, too.”
Hammond shifted his weight from foot to foot. “How long do the doctors expect your recovery to take?”
“They’ll release me in the morning.”
“Then I’ll reschedule the grand jury for day after tomorrow if you think you’ll be up to it.”
Chasyn met the expectant eyes of the prosecutor. “That’s not a good idea.”
“You need more time?”
“I need to correct my statement,” she said quickly.
“Correct your statement?” Burrows asked, his voice slightly raised. “Since Dr. Lansing has refused to provide a DNA sample, your testimony is the only thing tying him to the murder.”
“I wasn’t completely truthful the night of the murder,” Chasyn admitted.
Burrow frowned. “If the shooting’s scared you off—”
“No,” she interrupted. “See, Kasey and I were on the way out and I remembered I’d left my credit card in the little booklet for our check. When I came back outside the girl was already dead and all I saw were taillights racing away from the scene.”
Burrows and Hammond exchanged furious looks. “So, you lied about recognizing the killer?” Burrows seethed.
“Kasey recognized Dr. Lansing from a case we worked a few months back but she was afraid to say anything unless I agreed to back her up. Kasey wouldn’t lie about that, so when you interviewed me, I simply answered your questions honestly without expounding on anything.”
Burrows was redfaced. “I asked you if Dr. Lansing killed Miss Jolsten!”
“And he did. Kasey saw the whole thing and I believed her, so I technically wasn’t lying to you.”
“You’re splitting hairs,” Hammond remarked. “I should charge you with giving a false police report. Do you know what this means? Dr. Lansing is probably going to get away with murder.”
“What about Kasey’s murder?” Chasyn said. “Can’t you investigate him for that?”
“Did you see Lansing?” Burrows demanded.
“No.”
“So far we haven’t found anyone who saw him either. All we have is a white SUV with or without a Hispanic male in the passenger seat. Know who that could be?”
Chasyn shook her pounding head. “No.”
Hammond sighed heavily. Burrows put away his notepad. “Good luck to you, Miss Summers. Something tells me you’re going to need it.”
As soon as they left the room, Chasyn looked at Declan. He gave her a half-smile. It was very sexy in an unintentional way. She wondered how she could feel so bereft and yet so aware of this man at the same time.
“Looks like the state’s attorney and the detective are a little bit pissed at you.”
“I did a stupid thing. But I thought it was important for Kasey to come forward and the only way she’d do that was if I backed her up. Maybe all that did was get her killed.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that. Tell me more about this Lansing case.”
“Lansing is a big deal in the criminal defense world. He’s a renowned expert witness but a total asshole. He testified for one of our clients and charged a fortune, but the jury didn’t believe him even though our client had been on schizophrenic meds for years before he snapped. Lansing made it sound like a manageable disease.
“Anyway, we were leaving the restaurant when I realized I’d forgotten to grab my card so Kasey went on ahead to the parking lot. I was maybe thirty seconds behind her. From what Kasey told me, she walked out and saw Lansing and the waitress at the back of the waitress’s car. He stabbed her. One quick one to the back. I learned from the detective that it was a ‘kidney kill,’ a military-style move that causes such pain you can’t even scream.” She shivered. “So, when I came out a few seconds later, I saw the taillights racing out of the parking lot. I went over to where Kasey was trying to help the girl but she was bleeding so badly.”
Chasyn closed her eyes for a minute. “At her autopsy, they discovered she was six weeks pregnant. The police think Lansing was having some sort of fling with the waitress when she got pregnant. They got DNA from the fetus but without Lansing’s to match it against, they can’t arrest him. No probable cause, then, but the theory is that Lansing couldn’t risk his marriage, so he killed the girl thinking it would solve all his problems. Since Lansing has refused to cooperate in any way, the state’s attorney decided to present the case to a grand jury using our testimony to get an indictment so they could compel Lansing to fork over his DNA.”
Declan was quiet for a moment, then said, “Sounds as if Lansing is the logical suspect in your shooting.”
“How do I prove that?” she asked. Especially since she was completely frustrated by her own lack of observation. She hadn’t heard a car or noticed anything sinister on the walk to the courthouse. Chasyn just knew she couldn’t let Lansing get away with another murder. She owed Kasey that much and more.
“You don’t; I do.”
“You do what, exactly?” Chasyn asked, her question tinged with the frustration gripping her body. Her head wasn’t pounding as badly but her heart was broken and at that moment, knowing she no longer had the support of the police or the prosecutor, she felt very vulnerable and alone.
Declan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “My job is to keep you safe and to investigate the shooting at the courthouse.”
“Forgive my skepticism, but how do you plan on doing that when the cops have been trying for months?”
“I have a few tricks the cops don’t have and I’ve never lost a client. And I don’t intend to start now.”
CHAPTER TWO
Chasyn glanced in the mirror as she carefully attempted to brush her hair. She had to avoid the stitches at the base of her skull as well as those at her right temple. A dull headache, which the medical staff assured her was normal, throbbed slightly in the background.
The headache wasn’t the only thing in the background. Her small hospital room was filled with the presence of Declan Kavanaugh. For such a large man, he moved with great stealth. She could see him in the mirror of the tiny hospital bathroom, lingering in the room behind her. He seemed perfectly relaxed. Chasyn, on the other hand, was a ball of nerves and emotions. Part of that was due to the fact that Detective Burrows had pulled the officer outside off guard duty, promising only that he’d step up patrols around her apartment. Chasyn felt this was no doubt supposed to be her penance for the way she had evaded telling the full truth about the waitress’s murder. The other part was the constant fear that now seemed to be as much a part of her as her right arm.
She’d had a fitful night. Her nightmares, full of the trauma of the shooting and losing Kasey, mixed with the disturbing images of watching the waitress die, were more than her overloaded senses could handle. And now there was another strong and palpable layer of fear: She was nearly paralyzed at the thought of leaving the relative safety of the hospital. If and until they had evidence to arrest Lansing, there was every reason to think he might try to kill her again. She was sure she hadn’t been shot by mistake. Someone had killed Kasey and then deliberately attempted to kill her, too. That hadn’t been a stray bullet; there was no way she could make herself believe that she’d merely gotten in the way. The shooter had wanted both of them dead. They’d succeeded with her friend. They’
d try again, Chasyn knew.
Thanks to her mother, she had a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt, as well as sandals and her makeup bag. The police had confiscated her clothing, which was fine with her. It wasn’t as if she wanted to wear that school marm getup any time again soon.
“You about ready?” Declan called from the other room.
“Almost,” she said as she slipped her cosmetics back into the pouch and zipped it closed. Chasyn took one last look in the mirror and decided she’d done the best she could under the circumstances. She still had to wait an additional twenty-four hours to shower, so she wasn’t having the best hair day ever.
“Ready,” she said as she came out of the bathroom. “What exactly is the plan?”
“We’ll stop by your place so you can pack.”
“Pack for what?”
He cocked his head and his eyes bored into her. “You can’t stay at your apartment. It’s a safe bet that the shooter knows where you live.”
No shit. “So where are you taking me?”
“For starters, my place.”
She wasn’t so sure that would be a safe place either. Her attraction to him couldn’t have come at a worse time. “But what about my job?” Her head spun. “And my car. My car is still parked at the courthouse.” Trivial crap, true, but thinking about that was easier than dealing with the reality of what her life had recently become.
“I’ll have one of my men pick it up and park it at your place. As for your job, too risky for you to stick to your normal schedule.”
Chasyn’s shoulders slumped. “They’ll fire me.”
His response was an oh well shrug. “My priority is your safety.”
“Well,” she sighed. “My safety only has about three thousand dollars in the bank and rent and a car payment. That’ll go quickly.”
“You can get another job but you can’t come back from the dead.”
Chasyn rubbed her arms at the chilling thought.
“Let’s go,” Declan placed his hand at the small of her back.
Her body reacted to his innocent touch. It jolted her nerve endings and it was everything she could do not to jump from the contact. Of course she was being stupid. It was probably just a screwy reaction because she was so tightly coiled given recent events. Still, she quickened her step so his hand fell away.
Chasyn assumed he’d worked something out with the hospital because contrary to procedure, they took a back staircase out instead of a wheelchair out the front door. Declan blocked the exit, peered out, then gave her the go ahead to follow him to a black SUV with heavily tinted windows. The heavy tint wasn’t uncommon in south Florida, but it made the car seem as if it was some part of a presidential motorcade.
Chasyn had to hoist herself up into the passenger seat, grasping the handle above the door while holding her plastic bag of belongings in the other. Very quickly, Declan slipped into the driver’s side and gunned the engine.
Compared to her Prius, she felt like she was in a tank. Only this particular tank smelled of woodsy cologne.
* * *
While Chasyn had slept, he’d done a little background so he knew the way to her apartment in West Palm Beach. It was just off Blue Heron and I-95. In less than twenty minutes, he was pulling into a neatly manicured apartment complex. She had been quiet during the brief trip. Made sense. She’d been through hell and back and was probably scared shitless. And for good reason. He had a bad feeling about this case.
“That’s my assigned spot,” she told him, pointing to one of the spaces under an awning about ten yards from the front of the building.
He didn’t like the setup. Too open. “Can you give me a list of what you need from your apartment?” he asked.
“Not really, why?”
“That’s a long way to the front door. A long time to be out in the open.”
Chasyn nervously looked around. “Then park in the first spot. Jeremy is at work this time of day.”
He looked at her. “Jeremy?”
“My neighbor.”
“Any problems with him?”
She shook her head and offered a half-smile. “He’s a nice guy who loves to cook and brings…brought food to Kasey and me all the time. I can’t believe I’m talking about her in the past tense.” Her smile faded as again a wave of anguish washed over her. She went still but felt Declan’s eyes on her. “I still can’t believe she’s gone. I feel like someone cut a piece of my heart out of my chest.”
“It’s tough to lose someone close to you,” Declan replied in a subdued tone that hinted he might know something about personal loss.
“Kasey and I did everything together.”
“So we work hard and find the guy who did this.”
“You mean Lansing,” she said with a flash of genuine anger. “It had to be him; Kasey didn’t have enemies. Everyone loved her. So how do you propose we prove Lansing was behind the shooting?”
“We park, then we run. Is the vestibule door opened or locked?”
“Locked. And how does running help convict Lansing?”
“Once you’re safe, we can turn our attention to Lansing. Give me the key.”
Chasyn dug into the plastic hospital bag and produced her keys. She placed them in his outstretched palm and in the process, her knuckles brushed his fingers. Declan felt a jar of desire pulse through his system. Weird. And not very smart, he told himself as he took the keys. The last thing this woman needed was him lusting after her.
“I’ll get out first, then you slide across, okay?”
She did as she was told and Declan used his body to shield her during the quick dash to the door. He slipped the key in the lock and they were inside in a matter of seconds. He followed her up the stairs to the second floor and then gave her back the keys when they reached apartment 212.
When they entered, he could tell something was wrong when she stopped short.
“We’ve been robbed,” she said.
They walked down the short hallway, past the galley-style kitchen into a living room/dining room combination. There was a blank space on the wall where a flat screen had been mounted and various DVDs strewn about. If there’d been a dining room table, it wasn’t there now.
He followed her into a tidy bedroom. It was untouched, including a flat screen and a decent stereo. Then they went into the bedroom on the opposite side of the apartment, and it was empty save for a few wire hangers in the closet.
She turned and looked up at him. “I don’t understand. All of Kasey’s stuff is gone.”
“Just her things?”
She nodded. “It must have been her dad. Mr. Becker,” she said on a sad sigh.
He followed her back into the living room where she retrieved her purse from the hospital bag. Chasyn scrolled through her contacts, then pressed the speaker button. He heard the phone ring three times until a weak male voice said, “Hello?”
“Mr. Becker, this is Chasyn.”
“Oh.”
“I’m so sorry about Kasey and I’m so sorry I couldn’t attend the service.”
“Yes, well…How are you doing?”
“I’m fine, except there’s something wrong here at the apartment. All of Kasey’s things are gone. Even her toiletries.”
“I hired a company to remove her things. I wanted everything of hers with me. Does that make any sense?”
Her heart tugged at the thought of a father having to arrange for someone to pack up his daughter’s belongings. Mr. Becker—the whole Becker family—had been so good to her over the years. They’d taken her on vacations and included her in family events. She thought of Mr. Becker as a second father, so just hearing the strain in his voice was enough to make her cry. Losing Kasey so close to when he’d lost his wife must be unbearable. Chasyn cleared her throat of the lump of emotion before saying, “Of course. I would have taken care of that for you.”
“You’ve done enough, Chasyn,” he assured her. “Now you just have to focus on feeling better.”
“I’
ll be fine,” she told him.
“Then take care,” Mr. Becker said, then the line went dead.
“Is he always that glum?” Declan asked.
She gaped up at him. “He just lost his only child. Eight months after his wife succumbed to cancer. How is he supposed to sound?” she asked defensively. When he did not reply, she challenged him further. “Well?”
He just muttered, “Never mind. Pack what you need for at least a week.”
“A week? That long?”
“Probably longer, but I have a washer and dryer, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
* * *
Shouldn’t be a problem? Who was he kidding? Chasyn thought as she went into her bedroom and tried to make a mental list of what she might need. It was March, so that meant cool mornings and evenings, but daytime highs in the mid-seventies. Taking a large suitcase out of her closet, she began to fill it with an assortment of clothes, shoes, bathroom stuff, accessories and everything else she could possibly think of. By the time she was finished, the suitcase weighed a ton and nearly refused to zip. She grabbed a matching tote for her computer and her cell phone accessories. Chasyn made a trip through the apartment and checked to see if there was anything else she might need while she was away.
“I’m impressed,” Declan said when he saw her. “I was expecting a suitcase, not a tote.”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “The suitcase is in the bedroom. The tote is just for last-minute things.” Like the cosmetics pouch she retrieved from her hospital bag. Oh, and the extra bandages and tape they’d given her to redress her wounds until they removed the stitches in five days.
“Jesus H. Christ,” she heard him say from the bedroom. “Did you pack all your worldly possessions?”
“A girl likes to have choices,” she insisted.
Declan rolled the bag into the now empty dining room just as she was placing her phone charger into her purse. “Stay off the phone unless you check with me first, okay?”
“I have to stay in touch with my parents,” she said.
“I’ll be in touch with them. After all, they’re paying my bill.”
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