He’d looked down into them when holding her bleeding body.
James had wanted to approach her the moment he saw her in the crowd, but given the cold shoulder she’d shown him for the last four months, he decided to keep his distance. She didn’t trust him, that much he could tell.
And she had every right.
Because Gardner Todd wasn’t just some thug gunned down as justice for his past deeds.
He was James’s brother.
“Mr. Callahan.”
James turned to one of his friends who ran security for his events. Douglas was several inches shorter and as bald as a worn tire. James had once seen him body slam a man much bigger than either of them like it was a breeze.
“I told you not to call me that,” James said after excusing himself from the group he had been in. “Makes me feel old.”
Douglas snorted. “Just wait until I tell you who just called me and what it was about.” James already felt the sigh coming out of his mouth before Douglas could explain.
“Let me guess—it starts with Chelsea and ends with pain-in-my-backside.”
Douglas laughed. “You got it, boss.”
James rolled his eyes but didn’t feel any real annoyance. He flipped his smartwatch around to see the date.
“Considering her bio lab test was last week, I’m assuming this call has something to do with the grade she got on it?”
But Douglas kept tight-lipped. “She wants you to call her back after the party,” he said. “And told me I’m not allowed to tell you one way or the other.”
James couldn’t help but laugh. “I should worry how easily my sister wraps you around her finger, but then again, I’m there, too.” He clapped Douglas on the shoulder. “I’ll go call her now. I didn’t help her study for that lab every weekend for the last month for nothing. Keep this party going in my absence. If anyone asks where I went, just tell them I’m in the wine cellar getting toasted.”
It was Douglas’s turn to laugh as James left the main room and went to the small set of stairs in the kitchen. He bounded up them two at a time and headed toward his office. He pulled out his cell phone and was calling before he even reached the doorway.
* * *
SUZY WATCHED AS James was pulled from his conversation by a member of the security team. Whatever the situation was, it didn’t appear to be serious, yet after they were done the man of the hour left the party. Curiosity filled her so quickly that before she had time to process what she was doing, Suzy had excused herself from Mara’s side and followed the millionaire.
Billy’s request that she question James within reason repeated in the back of her mind as she waited a few seconds before going up the stairs behind him. She walked slowly to keep her heels from making a sound until she was standing in the upstairs hallway. If James caught her now, she figured she could come up with a valid excuse for following him. Yet she found her feet stalling on the landing.
What exactly was she hoping to find?
Did she really expect the man to buckle beneath her questions, giving up answers that she had been looking for?
Suzy felt a swirl of adrenaline in her gut. Something she’d often experienced out in the field. A feeling she’d been missing for the last four months. For one small moment, she reveled in how it made her heart beat faster, her senses more alert and her mind more clear.
If James really was involved with what had happened to Gardner Todd, then that meant he was someone to exercise caution around. Add in his fortune and connections and being on his own home turf?
She was putting herself in a dangerous situation.
She was being careless.
Like not wearing her vest four months ago.
Suzy turned toward the window and stopped before going back down the stairs. The scar between her breasts heated up. She fisted her hands, remembering the look on her son’s face when she’d woken up in the hospital. He’d just turned ten and was trying his hardest to prove to her that he was old enough to keep it together. He’d been trying to be strong. For her. For himself. It wasn’t until she promised him it was okay to cry that he’d broken down on her lap.
The adrenaline spiked in her belly. Her nails bit into the palms of her hands.
Suzy never wanted to put him in that situation again. Not if she could help it. Not when she could avoid it.
She’d figure out what James was hiding, but not like this. Not creeping around in the shadows of his house. Not by putting herself in compromising positions.
No, she’d figure it out another way.
A safer way.
Suzy nodded to herself and fully intended on going back downstairs to the party, but movement outside the window caught her eye. The side lawn wasn’t lit up like the back patio, but there was enough glow from the hanging lights that she could just make out someone moving toward the house. Slowly and not at all steadily.
Limping.
She sucked in a breath as the man moved closer. The light from the kitchen window caught him.
That was when she saw the blood.
He was covered in it.
The swirl of adrenaline in her stomach upgraded to a storm.
Chapter Three
Suzy hurried down the stairs, not minding this time that her high heels hit each step and sounded off like thunder crashing in the night sky. The chatter from the party in the center of the house kept going, uninterrupted. That meant no partygoer or security guard had spotted the bleeding man.
The cop in her rattled off four instantaneous questions in her head as she stepped toward the side door.
Who was the man?
What had happened to him?
Why had it happened to him?
Why was he at James Callahan’s town social?
No answers came as she flew out into the night and straight toward the unknown. The lights from the backyard cast a glow across the small patio and garden, but were still too weak to show her any new clues to help answer any questions. The blood was there, dark against his face and arms, but she couldn’t be sure where it had come from. His struggle to walk made her assume it was at least partly his.
“Whoa there, buddy,” she said, trying for soothing tones while staying cautious. She went at him with one arm out, like a deputy trying to direct traffic, while the other hung back so her hand was never too far from the holster hidden against her thigh. If she needed to get to her gun fast, she could. However, it would be interesting for any bystanders, considering she’d probably have to rip the dress to get to it. A small price to pay for being prepared, but still, she hoped she wouldn’t have to ruin it. Not only because she thought it was beautiful, but also because it was on loan from Mara.
The man’s head moved enough that, even in the poor light, Suzy knew he was looking at her. Now she was close enough to guess that he wasn’t a party guest or security. Instead of a suit, he wore jeans and a graphic T with some band’s logo on it in neon orange. In fact, the more she tried to find the source of his bleeding, the more Suzy wondered if he was a man at all. He seemed too young.
“Inside,” he groaned out, voice surprisingly strong. “I need to get inside.”
He lurched forward. Suzy’s reaction time since the accident had slowed, but she still managed to dance away from touching the blood on his arm. She latched on to his wrist instead.
“What’s going on?” she tried. “I’m with the sheriff’s department. I can help.”
The man reacted like she’d stung him. Suzy felt his arm muscles coil a split second before he pulled out of her grip. The sudden momentum, plus the fact that she was unaccustomed to wearing heels, threw her off balance enough that she was forced to let go or fall.
“Get away from me,” he hissed. “Where’s Mr. Callahan?”
He turned back to the house, eyes wild, but that didn’t mean she was done with
him. Suzy took one step closer, pivoted enough to bring her back leg forward and kicked out at the man. The sound of fabric splitting was followed by a grunt as her foot connected with his stomach. She wasn’t trying to hurt him, but she was trying to control him.
He toppled over and hit the ground. Suzy didn’t wait for him to get his bearings. She flipped off her shoe and pressed her foot against his shoulder to keep him down.
“I’m Chief Deputy Simmons,” she announced. “You will tell me what’s going on and you will do so in a calm manner.”
The man’s eyes widened and flicked toward the house before coming back to her.
“I need to talk to Mr. Callahan,” he said. “Right now!”
He bucked up against her foot, but Suzy wasn’t having it. She applied enough pressure to keep him down.
“What you need is medical attention,” she pointed out. “You’re covered in blood.”
The man twisted beneath her weight. “No, I don’t,” he managed around his squirming. “What I need—is to—talk to—Mr. Callahan.”
Suzy’s curiosity overrode her caution. She leaned over, careful not to press against him too hard, and fixed the man with a stare he couldn’t misinterpret as something he could ignore. Even in the darkness.
“Tell me why, or I’m calling in the cavalry right now.”
This time he didn’t fight back. That didn’t mean he was calm, though—not by any means.
“They found him,” he practically yelled. “And now they’re going after him!”
Suzy tilted her head on reflex, but she never got to ask another question. Someone else beat her to it.
“Going after who? Me?”
Suzy’s hand was at her holster in a flash. The cool night air moved across her upper thigh, confirming that she had, indeed, already ripped the dress. She didn’t let up off the man as she turned to the new voice. Though it wasn’t new to her at all.
“Going after who?” James repeated. His expression was hard, but Suzy couldn’t read what emotion made it so.
The man struggled against her foot again, but this time Suzy let him up. She kept her hand on the butt of her gun.
“I don’t know,” he started, with eyes only for James. “But—but Sully gave me this address to get to you.” He fumbled a hand into his pocket. If he hadn’t been wearing tight jeans, showing he wasn’t carrying a gun, Suzy would have pounced. But now that James was here, her captive’s earlier feistiness had seemingly vanished. When he pulled out a paper and handed it to James, his hand shook. “He said it’s what you’re looking for. New information. I don’t know who they are or who they’re going after. He didn’t have time to tell me.”
Suzy didn’t have to know the situation to understand that the stakes had just risen. James looked over the paper. His eyebrows threaded together.
Maybe he didn’t know the situation, either. Confusion blanketed his expression.
“What happened to you?” he asked. This time, she heard the concern before she saw it. It was familiar in nature. James knew the man. “And who did it?”
Suzy half expected the man to remain silent, as he had with her, but again, having James there seemed the key to unlocking answers. The man took a deep breath.
“You were right,” he said. “It was too dangerous.” He raised one hand up toward the little light they had. Blood. Some was dry. Some wasn’t. “It isn’t mine,” he said. “The blood isn’t mine.”
Suzy glanced at James. He still looked as confused as she felt.
“Whose blood is it?” she had to ask.
The man’s gaze stuck to his hand.
James crouched down so he was at eye level with the other man. “Queso, whose blood is it?” Suzy didn’t have a chance to question the name. She was holding her breath for an answer. “Queso?”
James reached out and grabbed his shoulder. It did the trick in focusing him.
“It’s Sully’s,” Queso finally answered, voice low. “I don’t even know if he’s still alive. He made me run when the shooting started. He told me that getting you that address was too important.” He let out an exhalation. It deflated him. “Padre, he said you’re already running out of time.”
“Okay, I’ve heard enough.”
Suzy placed her hands up in defeat. She wasn’t about to let this show go on any more. The story was lost on her, everyone’s motivations just as hazy. She’d made a promise to herself not to willingly walk into situations exactly like the one she’d just walked into. Having a powwow with a man who had just confessed the blood he was covered in was not his own? A man who had limped from the dark of night to James Callahan’s estate instead of to the police?
It was too much.
“I’m calling this in.”
“You can’t,” Queso said hurriedly. His haze had been replaced with sheer panic in seconds. It hit every syllable in his words. “If anyone knows I talked to the cops, I’m done for.” He shook his head and turned to James. “And you’ll be out of even more time. Please, Padre, don’t let her call them in.”
Suzy grabbed her discarded high heel and tried to cool her mounting anger before it came to a head.
“I am the law,” she reminded him. “And no amount of money is going to erase that fact. Now, can you walk to the house or do we need to carry you?”
Queso flapped his mouth open and closed. James answered for him.
But not with what she wanted to hear.
“Maybe we should go inside and take a moment to think this through, Suzanne.”
If there was one thing Suzy disliked more than a man trying to tell her how to do her job—or when not to do it—it was a man calling her Suzanne.
“Either call me Suzy or Chief Deputy Simmons,” she snapped. “And there’s nothing to talk through. Something is going on, you’re in the middle of it and I’m going to get answers this time around. Honest ones.”
She grabbed Queso’s wrist and pulled up. James helped but kept talking.
“I need to go see what’s at this address. Now, not later,” he tried. “You heard him. I’m running out of time.”
Suzy whirled around as the side door banged open. The man James had been talking to before he’d gone upstairs had a towel in his hand.
“Listen, Suzy, this is my head of security, Douglas. Let him watch Queso until we know what’s here.” He shook the paper with the address on it. “Then we can do whatever you feel we need to do. Please.”
All three men looked up at her.
“You’re out of your mind,” she exclaimed. “A bloody guy limps to your party and gives you an address, and then you want to go off without anything else to go on? Even if I wasn’t law enforcement, I would think that’s crazy.”
Then James did something that surprised her. He almost closed the space between them, his blue, blue eyes never leaving hers.
“I know you don’t trust me,” he said, voice low. “You don’t believe that I just happened to be out there that day...and you’re right.”
Suzy felt her eyes widen.
“Then why were you?” she had to ask.
Would it be this simple to get her answer?
James angled his body slightly, as if he didn’t want Douglas to hear what he had to say next. Suzy couldn’t help herself. She leaned in a fraction.
“Because Gardner Todd, my brother, asked me to meet him there.” Before Suzy could react, he continued. “He said he needed to tell me something important. I never learned what that was, never even had a clue, either. Until this.” Suzy glanced at the paper in his hand. “Listen, I’m not like my brother, but I am like you. I want answers, too. So let’s go get some before it really is too late.”
There was so much to process that Suzy couldn’t land on any one point or question. In part, that was because of the pure urgency behind his plea. It bled through his words and into her. So sin
cere. So real.
James wasn’t the only one surprised when she nodded.
“Okay, I’ll go with you,” she agreed. “But I’m going to need answers on the way. And, Mr. Callahan, if you lie to me again, no one will be able to help you. Not your money, not your lawyer, not even the entire town of Bates Hill. Got it?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Four
Suzy shook her head. She might have followed the millionaire to and into his truck, but she was still having a hard time believing what he’d said.
“Gardner Todd had no family,” she said. “At least, nothing in his files ever said that at any point he had a brother. Let alone that you’re him.”
The truck hit a series of bumps that rocketed Suzy off the seat. James threw his hand out to steady her. His palm pressed against her rib cage. Through the thin material of the dress, she could feel the heat of his skin. It momentarily distracted her.
“Like you guessed, some people will do anything for the right price,” he said, unaware that his contact had put a hiccup in her thoughts. “And my father was all about knowing what somebody’s right price was. It was easy to keep Gardner out of the spotlight. Easier, too, when Gardner ran away at sixteen.”
“But why?” Suzy interjected. James pulled his hand back, setting it on the steering wheel. The dark night kept flying by the windows. “Why would he erase Gardner like that?”
A small smile pulled at the corner of James’s lips. In the dark of the cab, Suzy couldn’t tell if it was a happy one. Given the subject matter, she doubted it.
“Gardner wasn’t a crazy kid, if that’s what you’re after. But he drove our dad crazy. And it went both ways. My dad wasn’t the easiest man to get along with, and for whatever reason, Gardner got the short end of the stick with him. They never had one big fight, just a hundred little ones. It was like everything he did rubbed Dad the wrong way.” He shrugged. “And there’s only so much anger and disappointment and resentment you can shell out on a kid before they eventually either become the person you made them out to be or a completely different person, despite what you tried to make them.”
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