For Her Protection

by Lauren Giordano

  He felt his pulse accelerate when James’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He hurt her. A lot.”

  “Did she try to fight him?”

  “Uh-huh. They yelled a lot. And then one day he shot her. Him and his friend. They laughed about it.”

  Luke’s heart stopped for a moment as he absorbed the blow. And then he pulled Jimmy roughly against him, tucking him against his chest when the little boy began to sob. “I’m so sorry, Jimmy.”

  James cried for another minute, an almost silent sound, allowing his grief to show for perhaps the very first time. When he finally pulled out of Luke’s arms, he sat up straight and tugged his shirt free, pulling it up to wipe his eyes, his breath still coming in shuddering gasps.

  “Mommy got him back, though. She laid there acting like she was dead. Then when Sarah’s daddy left with his friend, she crawled into our room and got Samuel and Sarah.”

  Luke sat in stunned silence while he digested James’s story. “What happened then?”

  “She took us downstairs to some old lady. Mommy said she was our friend.” James hesitated, frowning as he tried to remember. “I can’t ’member her name but I ’member Mommy sayin’ we’d be safe there.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m not too sure. She told the lady she had to call her sister. I think that was Aunt Jilly. And then she said she knew where a whole bunch a’ money was and that she was gonna get it so Aunt Jilly would take care of us.”

  James’s eyes filled with tears and he quickly blinked them back and bit his lip to keep it from quivering. The action reminded him so much of Jilly. The depth of control absolutely floored him. The freakin’ kid was six.

  “She had a h-hole in her stomach. I tried to help her but she w-wouldn’t let me. She said she was gonna go get it fixed. I— She left an’ we never saw her again after that.”

  Luke gave him a little squeeze and kissed the top of his head. In the back of his brain, he heard the shower shut off in the bathroom, heard the water trickling as it drained in the tub. Jilly was through crying, too. Soon it would be time to apologize. And to find out more about Annie Moseby. Why the hell hadn’t Jilly told him her only sister had been murdered?

  He never got the chance to apologize, Luke realized later. Murphy finally arrived, thank God, and with him came several hours of unruly confusion as they set up a command post in the room next door. By the time Jilly surfaced from the bathroom, there were three more federal agents squeezed into the room. Judging by the scowl on her face, Luke knew she was thinking that he’d invited his co-workers to set up camp in the hotel suite not to save her ass, but simply to prove her wrong.

  She’d studiously ignored him after he made the introductions. She liked Murphy, that was pretty clear. Usually everyone did. On the surface, Danny Murphy was Mr. Nice Guy. He knew how to talk to women, knew how to finesse them for what he wanted. Luke usually excelled in that area, too. It was a necessary part of the job. But nothing about this op had gone according to plan. Not by a long shot.

  He clearly hadn’t used the right maneuvers to gain Jillian’s cooperation. She’d questioned his authority from the start. He tried not to let it bother him while he watched her from the corner of the room. Watched as she cooperated with Murphy. No fits of temper. No complaints. She smiled sweetly at him and did whatever he requested. The other two agents were from Charlotte. One of them was familiar. He’d worked with Josephson before on a few takedowns. The other guy, Petrie, he didn’t know at all. But by all appearances, he seemed to be the communications genius that Murphy’d claimed he was.

  The ASAC’s plan was to lure Sloan out of hiding by dangling Luke as the bait. Duncan hadn’t bothered to consult him about the specifics of this strategy. For example, what was he supposed to do with Jilly and the kids while this op went down? But, the cheese had already been planted in the trap and by now Sloan was probably already sniffing around to make sure the bait was genuine and not strychnine.

  Their location had been carefully leaked. Now all they had to do was wait him out. According to headquarters, a covert team had planted a transponder on a vehicle believed to be Sloan’s. A surveillance team was in place to follow his movement, another to intercept him as he approached their location. No one else would watch the motel. Luke wasn’t crazy about that part either, but they’d all agreed that Sloan would be scared away if he caught even a whiff of a possible setup.

  The only thing they hadn’t been in agreement on was where to stash Jilly and the kids. Murph wanted them out of the way and in another safe house, but something about that left Luke distinctly unsettled. He couldn’t forget the series of explosions he’d witnessed on the television the previous night. Nor could he forget that somewhere, somehow, someone had known exactly where they were headed.

  He still wasn’t completely convinced that Sloan was after only him. What if he really was after Jilly because she was a witness and for the simple reason that she’d seen one of his thugs? His gut was adamant. She and the kids weren’t leaving his side.

  That left two choices. He could bow out of the op and take them to safety. But he was the bait. Would they really be safe traveling with him? He was no closer to an answer on that question than he’d been two days earlier. If he hit the road with them, he could end up exposing them to even greater danger.

  The other option was to keep Jill and the kids out of sight and hope the takedown went like clockwork. In a perfect scenario, no one would get hurt and Sloan would be under arrest. But if the bust went south like it had on Tuesday…

  He shook his head. He was pretty much damned no matter which option he chose, because there were no freaking guarantees. More than anything, he wanted the arrest to go flawlessly. He wanted to see Sloan captured with his own eyes. It was the only way to know for sure that Jilly would be safe. It was the only way he could safely set her free.

  He crossed the room, signaling Murphy with his eyes. His partner nodded and casually followed him through the connecting door to the next room. Luke smiled at the boys bouncing on the beds. They might not be able to go outside, but at least for the moment, they had more space to play in.

  Murphy flopped down at the table by the window and leaned forward, arms resting on the cool surface. “So, G, what’s with the hot little number in there? You gotten any action yet or are you still doing the monk routine?”

  Luke felt his body go rigid with fury, but forced back the comment he wanted to make. Not cool. If he said anything foul, Murph would be all over him in a heartbeat. He’d never hear the end of it.

  “Yeah. We’ve had nothin’ but time to get it on. And with only three kids in the room, it’s been a breeze.” If he was gonna be angry, it should be with himself. Hell, his partner was right. Jillian was hot. He’d had the chance and he’d blown it. She’d offered herself up on a freaking platter.

  “If I hadn’t screwed up,” he reminded Murphy, “she wouldn’t be in danger. The least I can do is try to keep her from getting killed. I’m protecting her and the kids. That’s the extent of my interest.”

  “Well, if you’re not interested, Josephson’s gonna take a whack at her.” Murphy shrugged his shoulders. “Heck, if I weren’t married, I’d be thinkin’ about it.”

  Luke launched off the bed and headed for the door. “Joe better keep his hands to himself if he knows what’s good for him.”

  “Well, it’s about friggin’ time.”

  He stopped cold at his friend’s words. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Murphy smiled and stood, stretching his long legs. “For not bein’ interested in her you sure sound interested.”

  “Lay off, Murphy.” He shook his head in an effort to contain his anger and retraced his steps, reminding himself that his friend was deliberately trying to provoke him. And damned if he wasn’t falling right into Murphy’s trap. His partner didn’t know jack about the situation. Frankly, Luke didn’t give a damn who Jillian ended up with just as long as it wasn’t on his watch. He force
d himself to let it go. They had business to attend to. “How about we try and focus on this takedown?”

  Murphy shrugged and pulled out the chair again. “Suits me just fine. Didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m not upset,” he said through clenched teeth. Murphy’s booming laugh made the kids glance in their direction. Luke rubbed his tired eyes and prayed for the strength not to haul off and punch Murphy.

  Desperate to change the subject, he grasped for the first thing that came to his mind. “Did you check out that lead on Annie Moseby yet?” The least he could do was find out what had really happened to Jilly’s sister. If she ever chose to speak to him again, he’d be able to relate what he’d learned. That was assuming she didn’t already know what had happened to Annie and like everything else, she’d been holding out on him.

  “Comin’ up with nothin’ so far. Ya know how it is, one dead addict is just like another.”

  “This addict was murdered.”

  “Yeah, well, the task force doesn’t have time to slog through a bunch of Jane Does right now.” He huffed into a chair and scratched his balding head. “Priority one is luring Sloan out here. But if you ask me, it doesn’t look good. I don’t think you’re a big enough draw.”

  “I agree.” In his gut, he felt the op was a waste of time. He wasn’t important enough to draw Sloan out of hiding.

  “You know his woman’s missing all of a sudden.”

  “Winnie? What’s going on? You think he’s hit the road with her?”

  “Dunno. Maybe she left him and he’s gone after her.” He paused, warming to their what-if game. “Maybe he freaked out after Tuesday’s close call and he took off and left her holding the bag.”

  “That doesn’t sound like him. He’s too arrogant. Sloan wouldn’t run.” Luke shook his head. “He’d want to thumb his nose at us.”

  “Beats me. It’s just funny they’re both gone. We’ve been monitoring their movements for months—why would they leave now? There’s a ton of cash missing, too, if you listen to the rumors.”

  “Where are you hearing this?” Luke straddled the chair opposite his partner.

  “Crackheads, dopers, scumbags, you know, the junkie grapevine.” Murphy shook his head in disgust. “You can’t trust anything they say, so who knows what really happened. Maybe Winnie just got tired of gettin’ the crap kicked out of her and she took off.”

  “Sounds like our boy’s had his troubles lately.”

  “Yeah, first his lieutenant gets blown away and now someone’s made off with his chick and his cash. Gotta hurt.” Murphy shook his head and smiled.

  “Who do you think burned Gomez?”

  “Who knows? Probably some other punk in the pecking order.” Murphy chuckled. “You know how it works. Only way to get a promotion is to kill someone on the next rung up the ladder.”

  “Maybe that’s why Sloan’s sweating.”

  “Yeah. His friggin’ operation’s falling apart, he’s got the Feds breathin’ down his neck and his boss probably ain’t too thrilled about the missing money.”

  Luke glanced up. “What if Mr. Big doesn’t know about it?”

  Murphy’s drumming fingers paused on the table. “Jesus, I wouldn’t wanna be Sloan when Castillo finds out. What’s he gonna say? ‘Gee, my girlfriend left me and my assistant got shot. And, oh yeah, I’ve misplaced your three hundred grand.’”

  “Either he’s frantic to cover it up or he’s trying to fix it. Maybe to buy more time?”

  “You’re dreaming. Where’s he gonna come up with that kind of cash?” Murphy shook his head. “If you’re right, he ain’t gonna be able to hide it much longer. The heroin drops have been spaced about ten days apart. You can almost set your watch by them. Castillo’s gotta be leaning on Sloan for the money from the last shipment.”

  “Talk about all hell breaking loose. If Sloan gets taken out, there’ll be a helluva war over his turf. The task force better order up a supply of body bags.” Luke threw his pencil down, frustrated.

  Something still didn’t make sense. If the money really was missing then Sloan had to be scrambling. Hell, if he didn’t have a price tag on his head yet, he would soon enough. No one messed with Castillo and lived to talk about it.

  And if he was on the run, why would he blow resources chasing them? He wouldn’t have time to waste on a dealer like him. Billy T. Lathrop was small-time in comparison. And while Sloan might want to kill Luke for being a narc, at the moment he clearly had bigger fish to fry.

  What was making him pursue them? What was the reason he would drive out into the mountains of North Carolina? It couldn’t be a vendetta. There had to be something more. Which led him back to Jilly. Was Sloan after her? And if so, why?

  Luke rose from his seat and edged closer to the mattress. The boys were jumping wildly on the beds. Any minute now and they’d be airborne. He wouldn’t score any points with Jilly if one of them busted his head open.

  “I’m gonna have Petrie run a check on Sloan’s cash flow. Maybe you hit on something. Maybe he’s trying to cover the loss himself until he can find his missing cash.” Murphy made a note on a scrap of paper he pulled from his pocket. “Sloan’s runnin’ out of time. Whoever Castillo is, the big man’s gonna find out soon.”

  Luke mentally shifted gears. “Hey, what do you know about this Petrie guy? Who is he? Where’s he work out of?”

  His partner shrugged. “I’ve seen him around. I think he’s out of the Philly office originally. He’s been involved with the CENTAC task force in other cities, mostly south Florida, I think. I don’t know what he was doing for them in Spartaville.”

  “But you’ve worked with him? He’s good?”

  “Everything I’ve heard about him is great. Electronics wizard…blah, blah, blah.”

  “Okay.” The knots in Luke’s stomach loosened just a bit. “If you get a chance check out the Moseby thing.”

  “Remind me again in a week or two. Right now, we’re stretched pretty thin. We lost two CENTAC members in the raid Tuesday,” Murphy explained. “No DEA, but a couple of local task force guys. One from Spartaville P.D. and one from the sheriff’s department.”

  “Yeah. Sorry I had to cut out on you and miss everything.”

  His partner paused to grin. “Hey, G-man, I forgot. How’s your ass?”

  Luke scowled as he lunged to the edge of the bed, caught Samuel in mid-leap and steadied him. Dammit. Someone had squealed. “How’d you hear about that?”

  Murphy stood and cocked his head toward the beds where James and Samuel were whooping it up jumping from one bed to the other. “Jimbo told me about five minutes after we got here. Said you got shot in the ass and you weren’t wearing underwear anymore.”

  “Damn.”

  “Hey, I was pretty psyched for you. Especially the no underwear part.”

  Luke ignored his stupid grin. “That reminds me, have this checked out by ballistics when you get a chance.” He dropped the slug Jilly had removed into Murphy’s hand.

  “Wow. Can I keep it? I mean, it’s like a part of you.” He took his time pocketing the bullet.

  “Shove it.” His partner cracked up, laughing loud enough for James to pause mid-bounce. “Do you think there’s any way we could get that round analyzed by an outside lab?”

  Murphy went very still, any trace of humor disappearing. “What do you mean?” He shot a furtive glance over his shoulder and moved away from the connecting door. “You think there’s a leak?”

  He nodded.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “The safe house, for one thing.” He hesitated, hating the thought that he might be wrong. Hell, he probably was wrong. Lowering his voice, he asked the question that had been eating away at the lining of his stomach. “Have you thought about Tuesday? How it went down?”

  His partner nodded. “Yeah. Not our usual style. It felt a little weird. I didn’t like all the loose ends.”

  “Like, where was our backup?” Luke asked.

 
“And why didn’t they see the shooters?” Murphy muttered. “I was wondering why Sloan seemed so relaxed, you know, sort of like he was biding his time, sort of like he was waiting for something else to go down.”

  “Or maybe he was waiting for his own backup,” Luke added. “Yeah, I noticed.” He swallowed hard. Christ, he hoped he was wrong. Their mission was to shut down a major source of heroin pouring into the southeast by way of Mexico. And while there were several players at Sloan’s level, CENTAC had linked them all to only one supplier, Castillo—the infamous mystery man

  If there was a leak, then it was someone damn close to the details of the CENTAC task force investigation. And if that were the case, then the leak could be someone on the task force or associated with it. Trouble was that the task force was a huge joint coalition of multistate, multijurisdictional overlapping agencies. The enemy could be anyone…at any level.

  Or he could be in the same room.

  “About that bullet—” Luke nodded to the next room “—maybe you should keep it to yourself.”

  “Yeah.” Murphy nodded, his eyebrows now drawn down in a scowl. “I think that can be arranged. I’ll make a few calls.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me your sister was murdered?”

  Jilly tried her best to avoid eye contact with him. Despite the fact that she was still deeply annoyed with Luke for insulting her, her damn heartbeat refused to recognize the fact. It accelerated alarmingly fast every time she had the misfortune of laying eyes on him. Agent Gianetti was surly and rude, and she simply couldn’t tolerate the man for another second.

  “I told you Annie was killed by drugs. I believe that to be an accurate portrayal.”

  “It sounds to me like Annie was killed by a bullet. Why didn’t you say that?”

  She glared at him then, infuriated by his condescending attitude. “What could it possibly matter? She was a drug addict, like thousands of others. If she hadn’t been addicted, she wouldn’t have been shot. Why do you care how she died?”

  “Because it was a murder, Jill. Don’t you care who did it?”

  “How dare you? Of course I care. She was my sister.” She blinked back angry tears as she advanced on him, wanting badly to wipe the incredulous expression from his face. “I can’t change the fact that she was murdered. And neither can you, Agent Gianetti—not with your bloody guns, not with all your fancy equipment and not with your drug busts. None of that will bring my sister back.”