YULETIDE PROTECTOR

by Julie Miller

  The weight and warmth was pure comfort, but Bailey knew she wasn’t the one who needed his attention. “I’m okay. Max’s leg is broken and Corie...” Clutching his coat around her, she pushed away and dropped to her knees beside her friend. “Her car exploded. Just as we were walking past. We have to help her.”

  Spencer peeled off one glove and knelt beside Bailey to check Corie’s neck for a pulse. He wrapped an arm around Bailey’s shoulders. “I don’t know, sweetheart.”

  “I have to call for help.”

  “Already done.” He glanced up and Bailey followed his gaze to the cars that had rear-ended each other on the street, to the drivers on their cell phones. To the curious onlookers in the windows of the shops across the street, and on the sidewalk below—so many of them on their phones or taking pictures. There were red and blue flashing lights farther away, uniformed cops clearing traffic to get a fire engine to the scene.

  “Bailey Austin?” She heard whispers from the crowd. “Is that Bailey Austin?”

  She ignored the curious pointing fingers and flashing telephones and looked down to her friend. “Her eyes are closed again. We have to help her.”

  “I don’t think we can.” She felt Spencer’s hands pinching around her shoulders, pulling her to her feet. “I need to get you out of here.”

  “But Corie—”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Max volunteered, sliding over on his hip and uninjured arm. “My knee’s shattered. I’m not going anywhere.” He looked up at Bailey, then to Spencer. “Take care of her.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Bailey repeated over and over to her fallen friends as Spencer dropped his arm behind her waist and turned her away.

  “We have to go, B.”

  Bailey pushed against his hand and twisted from his grasp. “This is my fault. I have to help.”

  “Sweetheart, you need medical attention.” He caught her hand and pulled her back beside him. “I need to get you out of here.”

  Bailey planted her feet and shoved against his chest. “Spencer, stop! I can help.”

  But he didn’t budge. His hands were anchored to her shoulders again. “There are too many people. I can’t control this crime scene. Someone just tried to kill you and they may try again.” He hunched down to look her straight in the eye. “Do you want anyone else to get hurt?”

  The harsh reminder drained the anger, the desperation, right out of her. She shook her head. “That was supposed to be me. They were after me.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, coat and all, and she burrowed against him. He walked her toward the parting crowd. “I know, B. I know.”

  That’s when the first shot rang out.

  Chapter Nine

  “Get down!”

  Spencer pulled Bailey to the ground and bent his chest over her as he pulled his gun and craned his neck to see where the shot had come from.

  A second shot shattered the storefront window above their heads. Bailey screamed.

  “Move!” he shouted to the curious onlookers still gathered around, trying to steal a picture or standing there in shock. “Get out of here!”

  A third shot clipped the branch off a landscaping tree and he dragged Bailey into the snowbank, closer to the curb where the parked cars offered some protection. The gunfire was coming from a higher vantage point from someplace across the street.

  “Go!” At last the people were running, saving themselves. He glanced back to see Max Duncan taking cover behind the dying fire of Corie Rudolf’s shell of a car. He caught glimpses of uniformed officers hurrying in, guiding people to safety.

  Spencer caught the eye of one uni and waved him over, but a shot chipped the bricks above his head and he was forced to duck behind a concrete pillar at the entrance to a nearby parking garage. If they couldn’t get reinforcements to him, then they needed to go after the shooter. “Get someone on that roof! Now!”

  With a nod, the young man pulled out his radio and darted back the way he’d come.

  After the fifth shot, Bailey fisted her hands in Spencer’s jacket and he glanced down to see the despair looking up from those deep blue eyes, asking if she was the cause of this chaos, too.

  But she already knew the answer. He cupped his hand beside her undamaged cheek. “We need to make a run for it, sweetheart. Can you do that for me?”

  He saw no other wounds than that bloody gash on her pale cheek and the cut at her wrist. She startled when a sixth shot blew out a string of lights on a nearby awning, dropping the bulbs to the pavement, where they exploded like mini ricochets off the concrete. Ellen’s dark eyes were just a flash of memory. Bailey was pulling him down to her, pulling herself up. Her blue eyes were clear. And she was nodding. “I can run.”

  The seventh shot meant an automatic weapon or more than one gun or magazine of bullets. The explosion had been a distraction. Using Bailey for target practice was the goal. If the bomb hadn’t killed her, the sniper on top of the roof was here to finish the job.

  The parking garage offered better protection than the open sidewalk. But twenty, twenty-five feet to the entrance? Or a closer leap over the divider wall to get inside? Either way, that was several feet of open ground, and his spare Kevlar was in the trunk of his car.

  “What are we waiting for?” Bailey asked, pushing to sit up before he was ready for her to expose even the curls on top of her head.

  He pushed her back into the snow, crazily aware of the warmth of her body buried beneath his, and shouted over his shoulder. “Duncan! You got eyes on the shooter?”

  “Not yet. But he’s on the roof of the Mercantile Building.” The muscle man’s every other word was a curse, but he had his gun at the ready and his aim fixed upward. “Go! Get her out of here. I’ll lay down cover fire.”

  Shots eight and nine answered when Duncan fired his first round.

  Time was precious, and that sidewalk was way too open for his liking. And he was all that stood between Bailey and the next bullet. “Ah, hell.” Propping himself up on his elbows. Spencer holstered his gun and untucked his shirt from his belt, ripping at the buttons.

  When he reached inside to tear apart the straps on his own vest, Bailey’s hands were there to stop him. “Don’t you dare. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

  “B—”

  “If he shoots you, who’ll take care of me? How will I get out of here and get to that trial?”

  Of all the crazy times to have a logical, smarter-than-he-was thought...

  Groaning, cursing, he grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “You’ll take care of yourself, damn it. Now, Duncan!”

  With the rapid shots from Max’s Sig Sauer keeping the shooter at bay for a few seconds, Spencer shielded his body around Bailey’s and ran for the parking garage wall.

  “Hold on!”

  Bailey latched on tight when he dove over the wall. Another shot whizzed over their heads before they hit the concrete hard and rolled. Spencer twisted to take the brunt of the fall, but he was going to feel the impact in his hip and shoulder tomorrow.

  Just as vividly as he felt Bailey’s legs tangled between his now. Though they lurched to a stop against the wheel of a car and rebounded a few inches across the floor, her arms held on as though she never intended to let go. She was fighting to get through this. Fighting to live. Her cheek was cool against his, her hair was a citrusy balm that eased some of the concern out of him with each rapid breath.

  “We’re okay, sweetheart.” He wound his arm behind her back, absorbing the aftershocks trembling through her body, keeping her close as he turned onto his side to get a glimpse over the top edge of the wall. Good. No direct sight line from the Mercantile’s roof. He wound the other arm around her and kissed the silky hair at her temple. “We’re okay, B.”

  She loosened her grip on his neck and framed his
jaw between her hands. Even though she was nodding, her eyes were looking to him for reassurance. “Okay.” She tugged on his face and pressed a sweet kiss against his lips. “Okay.”

  His entire body spasmed in an ill-timed response to those gentle lips pillowing against his. Her warm breath against his cold skin made him want to consume her as much as he wanted to comfort her. But he understood his priorities, even if the long thigh wedged precariously between both of his and the thundering response of his pulse tried to tell him something different.

  But Bailey’s eyes looked away before he could say something distancing and appropriate. “I don’t hear any more shooting.”

  Do your job.

  Exhaling a cloudy breath of air, Spencer pulled away, glad for the chilly temps and lack of a coat to keep his head clear. Keeping them both low to the floor, he helped Bailey sit up with her back against the divider wall. He knelt down beside her, quickly checking for any new injuries, batting away her hands as they tried to do the same for him.

  “You’re right.” He nodded at the ongoing silence. Well, people were still shouting, horns were honking and sirens were blaring. But there was no gunfire.

  He counted sixty seconds of silence before he risked peering over the top of the wall. No movement on the roof, no flash of a reflection that would indicate a weapon. “Duncan! Duncan, can you hear me? Report!”

  “Max?” He let Bailey get up to her knees, but kept her beside him.

  “I’m okay,” the bodyguard finally answered. “Shooting’s stopped. Lousy shot. Doesn’t look like he hit anybody. Did your men get him?”

  Spencer pulled his radio from his belt and called in. “This is Detective Spencer Montgomery. Senior officer on the scene. Did we get the shooter?” There was a long pause of static and chatter on the line. “Did we get him?”

  The line cleared and Spencer got the answer he needed—but didn’t want to hear. “Negative, sir,” an officer answered. “I’ve got footprints in the snow up here, but there’s no one but us.”

  “Shell casings?”

  “Negative. We’ve got nothing. He must have gone down the fire escape and disappeared into the crowd.”

  All right. So The Cleaner or her latest thug had gotten away. She could have her victory. For now. But priorities shifted when the threat went underground. That meant moving on to canvassing the neighborhood. Taking care of injured people and a safe, orderly evacuation of this part of the city before anyone else got hurt. Although Spencer preferred to get his hands around the bastard’s neck in an interrogation room, he knew what he had to do.

  “Get a bus here ASAP. We’ve got a DB at the explosion site and a wounded man.” The Plaza was a maze of pricey shops and entertainment venues with multiple entrances, several parking garages and crisscrossing streets. No way could they stop every person to search for a weapon. But they had to try. “Get Chief Taylor on this. Call it in to top brass. Deputy Commissioner Madigan is a friend of mine—my partner’s uncle. Ask him free up any men we can spare. I want every vehicle stopped before it leaves the Plaza district. I want a patrol in every shop. I want eyes in the crowd. Call Pike Taylor and tell him we need K-9 units here. We need to find this shooter.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Spencer put the radio back on his belt, made sure it was safe to stand, and helped Bailey to her feet. She was battered and bleeding. There was snow in her hair and a smear on his coat. But she was gorgeous. And alive. “You okay?”

  “Not a hundred percent,” she answered honestly. “But okay enough. You?”

  “I’m okay.” Bumps and bruises, frustration and nagging fears didn’t count.

  She could see his thoughts were distracting him as he leaned over the concrete divider and looked back toward the burning car and potential kill zone. Bailey peeked out, too. “No one else was hurt, were they?”

  Spencer pulled her back inside the relative security of the parking garage and moved her behind this first row of cars toward the exit gate. He sealed his hand around hers and kept her beside him. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”

  Her fingers tightened around his. “How do you explain my dead friend?”

  Spencer flipped his collar up against the cold. “With ten bullets, even a lousy shot would get lucky and hit somebody. Those shots were all aimed over our heads. Warning shots.”

  “To scare us?” Bailey stopped. “To scare me?”

  “Did it work?” He turned and threaded his fingers through her tousled hair, gently freeing them from the wound on her cheek. He didn’t want Bailey to be scared. Seeing her brave spirit cowed in any way bothered him as much as seeing her hurt. Nick had been right—he was lying to himself if he thought he didn’t have feelings for this woman.

  “Miss Austin?” Spencer pulled his gun and whirled around at the male voice behind him. “Whoa! I’m innocent!”

  A young man, maybe twenty, with curling dark hair and a bright red Chiefs parka, flattened his back against the pillar at the front gate and raised his hands in surrender. “Take off your coat.”

  “What?”

  “Take off your coat,” Spencer repeated, keeping the business end of his gun pointed straight at the kid. “Are you carrying any weapons?”

  “No, sir. No, officer.” He unzipped the parka and dropped it at his feet, thrusting his hands back into the air and turning around, giving Spencer a better view of any hidden gun. “All I have is this.”

  “Spencer.” He saw the green envelope in the kid’s hand at the same time Bailey touched his arm, urging him to lower his weapon. “Where did you get that?”

  Keeping a nervous eye on the man with the gun, the kid inched forward, holding the envelope out to Bailey. But Spencer snatched it from his hand before she could touch it. They both recognized the same green stationery that had come in the package with the watch. The young man hugged his arms around his middle, shivering in his baggy jeans. “A lady in the crowd said I should give it to Miss Austin. I know who you are from the newspapers, ma’am.” He smiled at Bailey but frowned at Spencer. “Can I put my coat back on now?”

  “Can you give me a description of that woman?” Spencer prompted.

  Once he’d holstered his gun and nodded permission to bundle up again, the kid answered, “No. We were getting jostled around—my buddy and me—with all the people running away from the explosion. She slipped the card and a hundred-dollar bill in my hand and said not to look.”

  “What about your buddy—did he get a look?”

  “I don’t know. We got separated.” The young man shrugged into his coat and zipped it up. “The lady said if I didn’t turn around, there was another hundred in it for me.” He brushed the dust and snow from his parka and shrugged. “I’m a college student. I didn’t look.”

  A uniformed officer had arrived on the scene. Spencer raised his hand to tell the startled young man to relax, and to tell the officer to keep his service weapon holstered. This kid was a witness, not a threat. “I need you to go over to that officer there and describe anything you can remember about the woman. Her height, what she smelled like, what she was wearing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I need those two bills.”

  “Oh, man,” the kid whined. “I knew this was too good to be true. Do you know how much gas that’ll put in my car?”

  Bailey tilted her face up to him. “Do you think you can get trace off those bills?”

  “Probably not. But I’m going to try.”

  Huddled inside his oversize coat, Bailey probably looked as nonthreatening as he looked like an armed menace. She took a couple of steps closer to the boy. “Give the police officer your name and address, and I’ll write you a check for three hundred dollars.”

  The young man glanced from Bailey up to Spencer and back.

  Spencer helped him decide. “We’re not givi
ng you a choice, son. Three hundred or nothing. I’d take the deal.”

  “Yes, sir.” He quickly pulled the money from his pocket and handed it to Spencer who stowed it in a plastic evidence bag from his pocket while the kid walked out with the officer.

  Once they were alone again, and Spencer had called Nick to alert the rest of the task force, Bailey nodded to the card he was holding in his gloved hand. “I believe that’s for me.”

  As soon as he got to his SUV and a second evidence bag, he was putting it away. “Do you even need to open it?”

  Fragile and feminine to look at, but made of pretty stern stuff. “Corie’s dead, isn’t she.”

  He knew she counted on him to be honest and up front with her, but he hated saying anything that would add to the sadness in her eyes. “I wasn’t getting a pulse.”

  Spencer slipped his arm around her as he handed her the card. She leaned against him and slipped her thumb beneath the flap of the envelope. “Then let’s see what that murdering witch has to say for herself.”

  I see you when you’re sleeping.

  I know when you’re awake.

  I can find you anytime, anywhere.

  It’s your choice—say Brian Elliott raped you...or live to see Christmas.

  * * *

  SPENCER WAS STILL on the phone. He sat at the big walnut desk in the alcove beneath the stairs leading to the second floor of his suburban condo, jotting notes and asking concise questions. When she’d gone into the kitchen to retrieve the scissors she’d spotted after dinner, he’d been pacing through the living room. As soon as they’d walked in to the modern condominium, with its tall windows, dark wood and gray walls, he’d locked the door, shown her where the bathroom and towels were, and picked up the phone.