by Cynthia Eden
She waited. Since he was blocking her way to the door, there wasn’t much else she could do.
“But you have a habit of walking away on the men in your life. They try to get you back. Alec Farrell, Justin Allan, even Bruce Mitchum—they all tried, right? But you kept walking.”
“If your digging online said they tried, then I guess they did.” She was going to push him to the right and out of her path. Simple. Effective.
“I don’t want Lex falling hard, then having you walk. There’s one thing I can’t tolerate in this world, and that’s seeing my friends get hurt.”
“You need to learn the difference between sex and love,” Sophie said brutally. “Lex and I had a hookup, nothing more. You need to—”
“Huh. That’s interesting.” His gaze sharpened as he lowered his face closer to hers.
She shoved him back. Hard. “What’s interesting?”
“When you lie, your eyes change. It’s faint, but there, and your voice goes extra cold, like you’re locking part of yourself down inside.”
“I have a client,” Sophie gritted out. “She needs me.”
“Yes.” He nodded, a small frown on his face. “I think she does.” He moved a bit to the side.
Sophie strode past him.
“And I think Lex does, too.” His voice was soft, so very soft, and she almost thought that she’d imagined those words.
***
He’d finally managed to answer all of the questions. Fucking finally. Griffin Hollister took his time walking out of the police station. He sure didn’t want it to look like he was in any kind of a hurry. He had to play things cool and keep it all together for just a little while longer.
“Hollister!”
He glanced over his shoulder at that call. Two men were approaching him. Tough-looking SOBs. One had dark hair, one light. Both wore intent expressions.
He edged away from them. “I answered all the questions! I’m done for the day. My rep is inside—go talk to him!” Because those two walked with the tough, stalking stride of hunters, he figured they had to be cops.
But the blond shook his head. “I’m not interested in your rep.” He was closing in fast. Griffin was at the edge of the sidewalk. Traffic buzzed near him on the street. “I want to know about you and about the twenty grand in your account.”
No one should have found that, not yet. These guys were fast. He swallowed. “My uncle died.”
“Bullshit,” the dark-haired guy called.
His eyes raked them. “You’re not cops.” If they were, they’d already be dragging him back in the station.
“No, we’re private.”
Private? He grunted. “Then I don’t have to talk to you.” Actually, there was only one person he needed to see. The guy with his payoff. “I’ve had a really shitty day, and you need to back off.” The blond looked familiar and he realized that guy had been there—right after he’d shot Daniel Duvato. He’d been there, keeping close to Sophie Sarantos. “Why would Sophie send you after me?” Griffin asked, really confused now. “She should be glad the guy is dead.”
He turned toward the street. He wasn’t taking his car from the scene. He’d never be driving that ride again. He had instructions to follow. He was supposed to take a cab. Meet at an exact location for that sweet, final payment.
Gunfire exploded. The pain hit him immediately, white-hot, burning, right in the middle of his chest. He looked down and saw a bloom of red on his uniform.
“Shooter!” It was the dark-haired guy yelling—and he was yelling the damn obvious. Of course there was a shooter. The bastard had hit him.
But it was the blond who grabbed Griffin and yanked him behind a parked car even as another bullet blasted.
The blond snarled, “You see what’s happening? You’re a loose end to someone, and they’re trying to eliminate you.”
His chest felt like a damn gorilla was sitting on it. So heavy. Not burning anymore, just heavy. He tried to talk, but he was coughing. Did blood pour out of his mouth, too?
“Did someone hire you to kill Daniel Duvato?”
Yeah and the son of a bitch is now trying to kill me. He needed to suck in a breath, but couldn’t. He’d just been hit once, right? Or had it been twice? Shit, was he making that wheezing sound?
“Did someone hire you?”
He managed to nod. “H-help…” The blond had to get him help. This couldn’t happen. He couldn’t be gunned down right in front of a police station.
Just like a hit wasn’t supposed to happen in a police station. But it had.
“Who hired you?”
He could hear other voices. Help was coming. He didn’t have to talk. If he talked, he’d just incriminate himself. He…
Why was he feeling so cold?
“Don’t die with that secret on you.”
Die? He didn’t want to die. Griffin tried to say that, but more blood burst from his lips. And what was wrong with his chest? The pressure was gone, that heavy weight vanished. Now he just felt nothing.
Was his heart beating?
“Talk to me! Tell me who hired you!”
He didn’t think it was beating.
He didn’t think…
***
Cops swarmed the scene. When a shooting happened literally right in front of the police station, an army of cops should be expected.
The bastard has balls. To shoot Griffin Hollister, right there.
Balls. Or maybe he just had straight up insanity.
Griffin’s blood was on Lex’s hands. He’d put his hands over the gaping hole in Griffin’s chest, and the man hadn’t even seemed to realize that Lex was touching him. One look and Lex had known that Griffin wouldn’t live long. He’d hoped to get the information he needed out of Griffin before the guy passed.
It hadn’t happened.
“Clear the way!” EMTs rushed forward. Lex backed up more. He saw that cops were already searching the street. Chance stood to the side, talking to a captain and pointing to a building across the road. No doubt, Chance was showing the captain where he thought the shooter had been positioned.
He’d just been waiting to take his shot. Waiting for that perfect moment.
“What the hell?”
At the low snarl, Lex glanced over and saw the ADA. Clark stared down at the scene in shock. “What happened here?”
“Shooter,” Lex said flatly, and like Chance, he pointed to the building across the street. “I guess the guy wanted to make absolutely sure Griffin couldn’t turn on him.”
“What?” Clark shook his head. “No, Griffin is—”
“He was a killer for hire. He was paid to take out Daniel Duvato.” But who paid him?
Shock flashed on Clark’s face. “He told you that?”
Lex swung away from the guy. He needed to see Sophie. With blood still on his hands and a dying man’s image in his mind, he needed her.
But a hand grabbed him and swung him back around. Clark stared at him with shocked eyes. “He was really paid to kill Duvato?”
“And Griffin was shot before he could turn on the man who hired him.” Lex smiled grimly. “But that bastard isn’t getting away clean. I won’t let him.” There was no way he’d leave that guy out there, running loose, with Sophie possibly in his sights. “No fucking way,” Lex promised. He made to move around the ADA.
“No,” Clark said immediately. “You’re a witness.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Chance is a witness, too. You’re both staying here until I can figure out exactly what the hell is going on here.” He raked his hand through his hair. “Hired to kill? Right in front of me?” Clark blew out a rough breath. “What the hell is going on? Who is doing this shit?”
Chapter Ten
Julianna Patrice McNall-Smith was convinced she had a killer on her trail. Sophie did her best to reassure the other woman. When you were facing life in prison, panic was normal. So were some paranoid thoughts, especially when the prosecutor really was out to get you. But Julianna bare
ly seemed to be hanging on by a thread, and no matter what Sophie told her, Julianna maintained that the real killer was after her.
Maybe she needs protection, too.
When Sophie finished her meeting with Julianna, she noticed that Dev seemed to take way too much interest in the other woman’s exit. Perhaps he can be the protection she needs. Sophie filed that thought away for later.
Her immediate need was escape.
Sophie made sure Kurt was chatting up Dev when she slipped out the back exit. After all, she had another appointment to make, and Dev couldn’t get in her way.
When she headed out the back door, a limo was already waiting for her. The vehicle idled by the curb and she slipped right inside. As she jumped in, Sophie thought she heard her name being called.
Maybe I didn’t slip away from Dev as easily as I thought.
“Get us out of here,” Ethan barked to his driver. “Now.”
And they pulled away. She didn’t glance back. She knew that shout had come from Dev, and she suspected he was either rushing to tail them or speed-dialing Lex.
Ethan raised the limo’s privacy screen. “I didn’t use you.”
She sat back against the leather seat, trying to look relaxed. A very hard task. “A hit was put on Daniel Duvato.”
He didn’t look particularly surprised. His still fresh scars did make him look rather intimidating.
“Twenty grand was deposited in the bank account of Griffin Hollister.”
He just watched her.
“You know who Griffin is. He’s been a regular at Wicked lately.”
“The guy likes to drink.” Ethan shrugged. “Am I supposed to turn away paying customers? He knows his limits.”
She wanted to cut through the BS. Sophie didn’t know how much time she had before Dev caught them. Her running off with Ethan—yes, she knew it wouldn’t look good. But she’d needed to talk with him, needed to look in his eyes, as she questioned him. “Griffin was paid to kill Daniel.”
“So it would seem.”
His cool voice was driving her crazy. Her hands clenched into fists. “Before Lex and his friends follow the money, why don’t you do me the courtesy of telling me the truth?”
“I always tell you the truth.” She easily heard that slight inflection and got that she was supposed to believe he lied to the rest of the world, but not her. Never her, right?
So she’d believed.
“I love you.” There, she’d said it. “Just like a brother.” And that was the way it was between them. “I know what you did for me, and I’ll never tell a soul.” Not even Lex. She’d take that secret to her grave. Even though, sometimes, that secret ripped her apart. Did my mother have to die, too? Couldn’t something else be done? And my father…
Even though he’d hurt her, even though she’d wished he would just drop dead so many times, Sophie never would have done the deed herself.
Right?
She glanced down at her clenched hands. Maybe she would have eventually killed him. By the time her parents had been murdered, she’d already been toying with the idea of killing herself. She’d just wanted to escape the pain.
And Ethan had been just like her. She knew the truth. She’d seen his bruises over the years. His father had been just as twisted, just as fucking evil—no, more so—than her father. Only Ethan hadn’t tried to run away. Ethan had fought back, once he was big enough. Strong enough.
Ethan killed his father.
And then he’d killed hers.
“Sophie, what the hell are you talking about?”
Her gaze shot up. Ethan leaned toward her and when he reached out to touch her clenched fist, she didn’t flinch away. Mostly, she didn’t.
“You know I’d give you every dime I had, so this isn’t still about college, is it?” His eyes swept over her face. The driver kept going, but the privacy shield was in place, so Sophie knew he couldn’t hear anything they said.
They’d never discussed this. Mostly because she hadn’t been able to bear saying the words out loud. But the time for pretending was long gone. She knew exactly what Ethan was, at his core, and she’d still stood by him.
Did he use me? She didn’t want to believe that. Sophie swallowed and said, “You killed my parents.”
He sucked in a sharp breath and his hand flew up. Her flinch was instinctive that time because her father’s hand had flown so many times.
But Ethan just lightly cradled her cheek. “Oh, Soph, you thought it was me?”
Her lips parted.
“I thought it was you.” His eyes squeezed shut but his gentle touch remained on her cheek. “I got there and saw the blood. I knew what hell you’d been through, and, baby, I thought you’d done it. I left as fast as I could because I wanted to find you and help you.”
Her stomach twisted. “I saw you running from the house. I-I’d just come back, and I saw you leaving.”
Ethan’s eyes opened. His golden stare blazed with emotion. “I would not have hurt your mother. I wouldn’t have, Sophie. I hated that she didn’t take you and leave, but I knew she was weak.”
Be a good girl.
Sophie pushed that old whisper away.
“I wouldn’t have left their bodies for you to find. I would have just made your father vanish.” His hand fell away. “And to be honest, I was going to do that. I was building to it…after my father—” Ethan shook his head. “I was done. No more pain. Not for you and not for me.”
“I-I didn’t kill them.” Her voice was too quiet. “It wasn’t me.” All of these years, she’d been covering for him. Telling the cops that she saw no one. Living with the accusations but…
All along, Ethan thought he was protecting me.
“Who killed them?” Sophie asked.
Ethan shook his head. “I wanted the evidence destroyed. I thought it was you.”
So that meant they’d both let the real killer slip right through their fingertips.
***
Lex glared at the one-way mirror on the wall to the right. The ADA had thrown his ass in an interrogation room. He knew Chance had been put into a similar room right down the hall. The fellow was treating them more like criminals than witnesses. They hadn’t been the one shooting—they’d been trying to save Griffin! Not that they’d been able to do any good.
His phone rang, and he yanked it out of his pocket. When he saw Dev’s number on the screen, Lex immediately took the call. “Tell me she’s okay.”
“She was…the last time I saw her,” Dev muttered. “That was right before she slipped out the back of her office and jumped into a limo that I’m sure belongs to Ethan Barclay.”
Son of a bitch.
“I would say this means she’s been working with him all along.” Dev’s voice was grim. “That she’s been using us to set up a perfect kill scene. But…”
“But?” He had the phone pressed tightly to his ear. His furious face stared back at him from that mirror. Dev was supposed to stay close to Sophie.
“But I think I was wrong about your girl.”
“Sophie isn’t a girl.” But she is mine. “Why the change of heart? You were ready to condemn her earlier.” That still pissed him off.
“Let’s just say I know what she looks like when she lies now.”
Hell, there they went. Dev had always thought he was some kind of human lie detector, that he could see all the faint tells that people had—those slips that gave them away. Lex generally thought that was complete bullshit. Dev had told him once that he spent so much time studying the intricacies of computers and codes that he’d learned to study people with the same intensity. That he could see their mistakes, their coding errors.
Bullshit.
“If I had to guess, I’d say Barclay is taking her to Wicked. He had his club fortified after Daniel’s attack there, and if he wants a safe place to talk with Sophie—”
“I’m on my way,” Lex said. He shoved the phone into his pocket and marched for the door. The knob turned beneath his ha
nd and when he yanked open that door, Detective Faith Chestang was standing near the threshold.
Her brows climbed. “Going somewhere?”
“Yeah, to Sophie.” The ADA was right down the hallway, just a few steps behind Faith. Lex glared at the guy. “Unless you’re arresting me for something—and we both know you’re not—then I’m out of here.”
As if on cue, Chance opened the door to his interrogation room, too, and he stepped into the hallway, joining the little party.
“We’re done here,” Lex said flatly. “You need me for something else, come and find me.” Because he needed to get to Sophie’s side. Seeing her was his top priority. He could still smell Griffin’s blood and could see the dying man choking on his own blood.
I need Sophie. Every instinct he possessed screamed that she was in danger.
Clark’s jaw locked. His eyes glinted as he said, “Tell Sophie she doesn’t have to worry about Ethan any longer.” Clark’s voice was rough. “Daniel never had the chance to talk. Maybe that was their plan all along.”
What? Lex headed toward the ADA.
“I was going back into the holding room,” now Clark spoke softly, the words carrying just to Lex. “Right before Griffin fired, I was going in there, but Sophie stopped me. She pulled me back and that’s when Griffin fired. Why did she pull me back? I keep asking myself that question. And the only answer I get is that Sophie knew what Griffin was planning.” He gave Lex a grim smile. “You’re a blind fool, you know that? You think Sophie is interested in you, but she’s always going to be tied up with Ethan. And that’s where she is right now, isn’t it? You’re rushing off because you found out she was with him and you can’t stand it.”
There was just the faintest note of—jealousy?—in the guy’s voice. So Lex just smiled at him, determined not to let the ADA see any of his emotions. “I know Sophie damn well. Ethan isn’t a threat to me, and tonight, Sophie will be with me, not him. I’m not blind, and I know exactly where I stand with her.”
“You don’t know her…”
He didn’t like people telling him that. “Trust me, I do. Far better than you ever will.” Lex strode down the hallway, with Chance at his side. As soon as they cleared the building, Lex could see the uniforms still out sweeping and searching for clues across the street. Yellow police tape marked off the spot where Griffin’s body had been, and blood stained the concrete.