Protector's Instinct

by Janie Crouch

  There were already officers at the store waiting. Watching for anyone who might come in looking to scope out the place. Especially aware of what Damien Freihof looked like.

  Caroline and Zane had laid the bait. Now it was time to see what they would catch in their trap.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A little more than three hours later, Zane was pulling into a spot in Taste Unlimited’s parking lot. Lillian sat in the passenger seat next to him. Her normal dark hair was covered by a brown wig and she wore a pair of large sunglasses.

  Not much could be done about her darker skin—Lillian’s heritage was Latina, as opposed to Caroline’s light skin and freckles. Lillian wore a long-sleeve shirt and a maxi skirt that covered most of her legs, but that was as much as could be done.

  If anybody got a close look at Lillian, they would know she wasn’t Caroline. But hopefully it would be enough. And thankfully Caroline currently waited at a safe house a few miles away. A protection detail with her. Knowing she was safe was the only thing that allowed Zane to be able to focus on this mission.

  “Ready?” Zane asked Lillian.

  “Yep. Let’s get this son of a bitch.”

  Zane smiled. Nobody messed with Lillian who didn’t live to regret it.

  “So far we haven’t seen anything unusual,” Jon’s voice said inside Zane’s ear. He was in a van with a painter’s logo, parked just outside the front door of the shop. Inside were detectives Wade Ammons and Raymond Stone, one working the register, the other the sandwich counter. The owners of Taste Unlimited had been fully cooperative, a fact for which Zane was truly grateful.

  “Okay, Jon. We’re going in.”

  “Roger that.”

  Another undercover officer would enter the store after Zane and Lillian and together they’d all be looking for anyone who seemed suspicious or overly interested in either Zane or Lillian’s Caroline.

  “All right, let’s do this,” Zane said to Lillian. She also could hear Jon through her earpiece.

  Zane jumped out of the truck and hustled around it to open the door in a grand romantic gesture. Knowing the guy might be watching them even right now, Zane immediately tucked Lillian into his shoulder. She did her part, burying her head into his chest, wrapping both her arms around his waist.

  To anyone else it would just look like a loving couple on their way to pick up food for a picnic with just a tad too much PDA. He hoped.

  Zane glanced around without trying to give the appearance he was doing so. There was only so much he could do without giving himself away. He had to trust the people on the team. They were good at their jobs and had a much more natural vantage point, able to watch without being noticed.

  He’d worked with Wade and Raymond for years in the department. Jon was also top at his job. Zane knew he could trust them all.

  Once inside the store, he and Lillian split up.

  “Pick us out something good,” Lillian said to him, playing her part. She was keeping her sunglasses on even though they were inside. It would look unusual, but better than giving someone a clear picture of her face.

  They were inside the store for about five minutes when Jon reported.

  “Okay, we’ve got an SUV with tinted windows pulling up on the east side of the parking lot. Near the back exit. Single male, midforties, about to enter through the front door.”

  “Roger that,” Zane murmured as everyone else did the same.

  Zane positioned himself in a row where he could see the front entrance while appearing to be studying a label on a bottle of wine. He saw the man enter.

  Nothing about the man’s actions could be considered casual. He looked down one aisle, then another. He didn’t do anything overtly suspicious, but neither did he look like the other customers. If they weren’t looking for someone who had nefarious intentions, no one would probably take much notice of the man at all.

  But expecting a killer? This man fit the bill.

  He glanced over at Zane, then looked away quickly. Zane pretended to study the wine bottle as he watched the man pick up a jar of olives and do the same.

  “Lillian, get in position by the back door. Let’s see if we can tempt him into making a move.” Jon’s voice came over everyone’s earpiece. “I’m running this guy through facial recognition, but unless we get super lucky, we’re not going to get a response in time for it to be helpful.”

  The man set the olives on the shelf and began walking.

  “He’s coming your way, Lil,” Zane whispered.

  “Roger.”

  Zane moved through the aisle, wanting to be near in case something went down.

  “You’ve got another couple coming in through the front,” Jon said seconds before the door opened and the electronic chime gave its short whistle.

  Counting the one pair who had already been inside the store, the man and the new couple, they had a total of five potential suspects.

  Jon said what Zane was thinking. “Remember, we might not be dealing with a lone suspect. So don’t discount these couples.”

  Zane heard Wade talk to one duo as they selected products. Lillian still had her back to the man to keep her face hidden. The man was slowly working his way up toward her.

  “Lil, he’s about seven feet behind you,” Zane said, wanting to give her as much of an advantage as possible. From where he stood, he could see her nod her head just the slightest bit.

  The new couple who came in knew exactly what they wanted. Grabbed a meat and cheese platter and a bottle of wine and were soon paying Wade at the register.

  The suspicious man still hadn’t made any moves, but neither were his actions normal. He was staring at different items up and down the aisles, as if he had no idea what he wanted.

  Or he wasn’t in here to buy anything at all. Maybe just like the team, he was scoping things out, checking to see if anything was fishy before he made his move.

  Zane eased himself back just as Jon made the same call. “Everybody, the main suspect might be scoping, so don’t do anything suspicious or draw attention to yourself. We’ve got a group of three women coming in the door, early twenties. And another single man, African American, midthirties.”

  Having more people in the store both helped and hurt. It made Zane and the crew less conspicuous, but it also gave them more people to have to watch. Even the group of women couldn’t be ruled out.

  “Roger,” Raymond whispered into the comm unit before turning to the new customers and offering his assistance. Zane looked at the man he still found most suspicious. He seemed to be easing his way toward Lillian.

  “He’s about five feet from you now, Lil,” he said softly. “Why don’t you go check out that counter near the back door? I’m going to hang out near the front door in case he decides he wants to take me instead.”

  They were counting on the fact that the man would probably use a concealed sidearm to try to get either Zane or Lillian, or both, to leave with him. But in case he had other plans and decided shooting within the store was acceptable, the team all had their own weapons ready. Not to mention SWAT outside, who could be called in on a moment’s notice.

  Lillian moved toward the back door and Zane followed, still holding the bottle of wine he’d been studying but with his left hand so he’d be easily able to draw his gun from the holster with his right.

  When the guy shifted his weight back and forth on his feet—deciding if this was worth it?—then moved toward Lillian, Zane was sure they had their guy.

  “I think he’s about to make a move,” Zane said into his comm device. “Get ready to lock it down, Jon.”

  “Roger.”

  Zane could see Lillian, looking so much like Caroline with the brown wig, tense just slightly, not enough to be noticeable to a bystander but enough for Zane to be sure she was ready.

/>   “Zane,” Jon said. “We’ve got another single male entering the store. Parked where I would if I was the perp. Backed his car in for an easier getaway.”

  Damn it, Zane didn’t want to split his focus between the guy almost on Lillian and the new one. He couldn’t talk easily into his comm unit without the first guy hearing him.

  “Zane,” Wade said when he got a visual on the man entering the store, “This guy was at the store earlier. Came in, bought a sandwich and left. Big guy. Caucasian. Midtwenties.”

  That changed things. Someone who had scoped out the store earlier and then parked in a way that made an escape easier?

  Suddenly they had two equally potential perps.

  “I’m sending in another undercover officer, Joanna Cordell,” Jon said. “Zane, you stay with Lillian and the first guy, and Joanna will be on the second.”

  Joanna had been on the force for a long time. She was in her fifties but was a good officer. Not to mention no one would pay much attention to her. She just looked like a friendly motherly type.

  Zane turned and took a couple steps back so he couldn’t be heard. “Remember, we need them to make a move before we take them down. We can’t arrest anyone for being creepy.”

  “Roger that,” Jon said. “She’ll be coming through the door in fifteen seconds. Raymond, you work with her on the new guy. Wade, you get ready to go whichever way is needed.”

  “Roger.” Both men’s muffled responses came through.

  Zane turned his attention back to Lillian and the agitated guy. He was still moving closer to her and seemed to be more nervous. He picked up one more bottle, then put it down, before walking right over to Lillian.

  “Excuse me, miss?” Zane’s hand was at his weapon before the guy even tapped her on the shoulder. But Zane kept his cool. Asking someone a question wasn’t a crime.

  “Contact,” he murmured into his mic for the team to hear.

  “Yes?” Lillian responded, keeping her face slightly averted from the guy. Depending on how familiar he was with how Caroline looked, this would play out for only a minute at best before he realized it wasn’t really her.

  “Do you know anything about capers?”

  Capers?

  To Lillian’s credit, she kept her wits about her. “You mean, like the stuff that goes in Greek salads?”

  The guy looked visibly relieved. “Yes. Exactly. My wife is seven months pregnant and she sent me out demanding capers. And hell if I know what capers are. I thought they might be olives.”

  This could still be a ploy, but if so, it wasn’t a very strategic one. The guy was leading Lillian away from the back entrance, where it would’ve been so easy to just grab her arm and pull her out, and back toward the middle of the store. Where the damn olives were.

  “I’m pretty sure this first guy isn’t our perp,” Zane said into his comm unit. “I think he’s just freaking out because his wife is pregnant and is craving specialty food. But I’ll keep watching.”

  “Joanna is moving in toward guy number two,” Wade murmured. “We probably need to get Lillian close to the back entrance again if we’re eliminating guy number one as a suspect.”

  “Let’s have someone tail guy one when he leaves, just in case he got spooked.” Seeing if the guy really did have a pregnant wife and asking him some general questions about Taste Unlimited wouldn’t be hard.

  “Roger that,” Jon said from out in the van.

  Zane turned to the side so no one could tell he was speaking. “Wade, can you move over to help the pregnancy guy out? That will free Lillian to move back toward the exit to see if we get a rise out of suspect two.”

  Over the comm unit Zane could hear Wade ask Lillian and the pregnancy guy if they needed any help. The guy told Wade about the capers and Lillian eased away, wishing him luck. Wade did his best to figure out what the hell capers were and where they were located.

  “The second guy is staring at Lillian,” Jon said. Zane couldn’t see them from the aisle he was located in. “Be sure to keep your face averted toward the east wall, Lil. He’s studying you pretty hard.”

  “Roger,” Lillian said. She moved from the olive section, away from Wade and the pregnancy guy, back to where she’d been perched before, right by the exit. She studied the trail mix and different bags of nuts and seeds there. Carefully picking up one container after another and reading the back.

  Zane worked himself closer so he could have visual contact with Lillian and the guy.

  He was definitely studying her.

  He took a few steps down the aisle toward her, but then the three twentysomething gals came around the corner. They were laughing and joking and asked his opinion about something.

  As soon as he had the attention of three attractive women, the man obviously forgot about Lillian altogether. Zane watched discreetly for a few more minutes to make sure this wasn’t part of a ploy.

  It wasn’t. The guy was here because either he liked the sandwich he’d gotten earlier or he figured out a lot of attractive women hung out at Taste Unlimited. Or both.

  “You see this, Jon?” Zane asked.

  “Yeah. Doesn’t look like he’s our perp, either. Just out trolling for women. I’ll still have someone follow him, just in case.”

  They stayed at the shop another thirty minutes, watching as a number of people came in and out, but none of them approached either Lillian or Zane. When they’d been there over an hour total, Zane finally decided to call it.

  “This is a bust, you guys. Whoever was listening isn’t coming. Perp either decided it wasn’t worth the risk or somehow spotted us and left.”

  “I agree,” Jon said. “But in case you’re still being watched, you and Lillian buy some stuff and head back out to your vehicle. The bugs might still be useful. We’ll try again soon.”

  It just meant another night where Caroline wasn’t safe. Another day where they couldn’t get on with their lives. Couldn’t be together just as a normal couple.

  He wanted to give her that—give them both that—so badly he could taste it.

  They got a bottle of wine and threw in a few food items, paid Wade at the register and walked out the front door.

  “Sorry, Zane,” Lillian murmured. “Maybe I didn’t look enough like Caroline to draw the perp in.”

  Zane shrugged. That might be true, but there wasn’t anything they could do about that. “Maybe. But if so, it wasn’t due to lack of effort on your part.”

  “Like Jon said, we’ll try again. Just because it didn’t work this time, doesn’t mean it won’t work at all.”

  “Yeah. We’ve just got to come up with another location that is secure but also—”

  Jon’s voice interrupted their conversation. “Zane, we’ve got a problem.”

  “What?”

  “I just received an SOS from the safe house. Caroline’s in trouble.”

  Zane and Lillian both dropped their groceries and sprinted for the truck.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Caroline didn’t like being out of the action, but she understood the need for it. She wasn’t a trained law enforcement officer. Yes, she’d done some significant self-defense training since the attack, but that didn’t mean she knew enough for undercover work. She was nowhere as good as Zane and Lillian and Jon.

  They were capable. More than capable. Skillful. But still it was hard being protected here inside the safe house knowing they were out there facing possible danger.

  It had all been very cloak-and-dagger. She and Zane had napped at Caroline’s town house—although neither of them had really slept—then gotten up and ready for their date, talking about normal stuff.

  Zane had been crisp and collected, helping lead Caroline into conversations that seemed mundane, normal. Helping her forget there was someone trying to kill the
m listening on the other end of those transmitting devices.

  He rescued her every time she started to flounder, panicked that she might say something wrong. Once when she’d been getting too flustered, he’d backed her up against the refrigerator and kissed her senseless.

  That had made her forget her own name, much less that they were on some supersecret mission.

  When it was time to leave, having given the bad guys plenty of time to scope out Taste Unlimited and figure out how to make their move, Zane mentioned he needed to go to the bank before their date. He and Caroline had walked into the bank together.

  A few minutes later, Zane and Lillian, wearing the same outfit as Caroline, had walked out and gotten into Zane’s truck.

  Caroline had been escorted out of the bank by a plainclothes officer named Gareth Quinn about fifteen minutes later and taken to a safe house, which was actually just a couple miles from the Taste Unlimited store. He’d explained how he understood why she wouldn’t want him staying in the house with her and would stay out in the car.

  Captain Harris’s—her adoptive uncle Tim’s—doing, no doubt. She loved the man and had known him since birth, but he couldn’t seem to let her attack go. Did he really think that Caroline was so fragile that she wouldn’t even want to be around a male police officer for a couple hours? So the captain had ordered Quinn to wait outside.

  That was the problem with family, wasn’t it? Even adopted family, like Tim. They loved you, but they never allowed you to change. Caroline was always going to be the victim to them. To her uncle especially, since he worked in law enforcement and saw the worst of humanity. Which sucked, since he was also the captain of police and worked very closely with her bosses.

  Zane and Lillian would’ve been at the shop for almost an hour now. She hoped no news was good news. That not hearing from them meant they had caught whoever was behind all this and were in the process of throwing the book at him. Or them. Whatever.