Love Inspired Suspense January 2014

by Shirlee McCoy

  “It’s just that—”

  Josh’s fingers on her wrist stopped her next words and stilled her hand. He stared across the parking lot at the end of her building. If he paid any attention, he should be able to feel the way her pulse quickened with a blend of fear and something else she was only just beginning to admit.

  He swallowed hard. “Out my window, right by the corner of your apartment. I’m pretty sure that’s the truck Cameron was driving the last time we saw him.”

  Adrenaline hit Andrea’s system so hard pain jolted through her heart. The front end of a pickup truck, bumper shining in the early morning light, peeked from a parking space around the edge of the building. She slipped out of the car and moved to stand in front of the vehicle.

  Josh met her there and gripped her biceps in a way that said she wasn’t going anywhere without him.

  In a sane moment, she’d resent the implication that she couldn’t take care of herself, but right now, it was good to have someone stronger nearby. “Are you sure it’s him?”

  Josh didn’t release her arm. “That’s the same truck. It has to be. It has the same dent in the front fender.”

  “Why would he call me away then show up here?” Unless the confrontation with Dutch and Mr. Miller and the arrival of the police had scared him away. He knew she’d come home eventually. The final showdown could be starting right now.

  Josh’s shoulder brushed hers as he stepped closer. “Get in the car and stay there.” He pulled away and crept to the side of the building, edging along the brick in a way Andrea remembered from urban warfare training. Problem was, this wasn’t training, and Josh entered the situation already injured, without the advantage of body armor and an M-16.

  She caught him near the stairwell. “I’m going with you.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  Andrea stepped closer. “Everything I do is dangerous right now, including waiting alone in that car.” Her old training rushed forward, and she crouched lower. “I’m not letting you go without me.”

  He shot her a look that said this would definitely be a topic of discussion later, even though he kept silent.

  Together, they crept along the warm brick until they reached the end of the building. Andrea scanned the small overflow parking lot and the trees beyond, knowing Josh did the same. Finally, he gave her a final signal for silence and slipped around the corner.

  Andrea held her breath, then followed as Josh took a step back and crashed into her.

  “No.” The groan fell from his mouth and hit the pavement like a flat basketball.

  Over his shoulder, Andrea caught a glimpse of the cab of the truck as the sun filtered through the trees and tinted the glass bright red.

  Her breath caught, allowing nausea to rise in a sickening wave. She swayed on her feet.

  That wasn’t reflected sunlight spattering the windows.

  It was blood.

  *

  Déjà vu. Or a really bad recurring nightmare. That’s what all of this had to be.

  Josh leaned back against the hood of a police car in front of Andrea’s apartment and ran both hands through his hair, staring at the pavement between his feet. He’d lost count of how many times he’d seen emergency lights and heard wailing sirens in the past few days. If he never experienced either again, he’d die a happy man.

  The tips of no-nonsense brown shoes appeared in his line of sight. He didn’t have to look up to know who’d be staring him down. He’d been waiting for her.

  In an oddly out of character gesture, Detective Simmons hesitated before she leaned against the hood of the car about a foot away from him. She gave him a hard look, then turned her gaze to a third-floor window where Andrea looked down at them, once again wrapped in a blanket. If Josh hadn’t caught her shoulder earlier, she’d have rocked backward and smacked the brick corner of her building with the back of her head. Even now, she seemed fragile and wounded, like she might have endured one blow too many.

  The detective brushed invisible lint from the knee of her khaki pants. “After the week she’s had, I’m surprised she’s not in shock.”

  Josh hazarded another glance at the detective, but she was watching Andrea. “You’re not going to accuse her of something this morning, are you?” His stiff fingers gingerly kneaded the tight muscles above his elbow. “Murder, maybe?”

  A ghost of a smile crossed the woman’s face, and Josh realized she was younger than he’d originally judged. She tapped the badge hanging around her neck. “I’m the good guy, remember?”

  Josh straightened his arm, pulling tight muscles, and tried to assume an air of calm for Andrea who, even from this distance, still seemed deathly pale.

  “And no. I’m not going to accuse her of anything. Guy in the apartment across from hers said he heard a vehicle backfire around five this morning. Since most engines don’t exactly backfire nowadays, my guess is he heard something else. No—” she tugged on her badge “—your Miss Donovan is in the clear.”

  “But I’m not.” With glittering clarity, Josh knew why she’d settled beside him.

  “Nobody said that.” Her voice was practiced and even.

  “Mmm-hmm.” He kept his eyes pinned on Andrea. “I’ll go ahead and tell you I was home all night until I came here. Wide awake and hopped up on adrenaline and ibuprofen. And nobody else was with me.”

  Detective Simmons chuckled. “You’re safe, Walker.”

  He turned wary eyes to her. “That was too easy.”

  “You were with her at the time of death.” She glanced at him for his reaction then looked back at the building in front of them when he didn’t give one. “The apartment complex’s gate camera caught Cameron’s vehicle entering by tailgating another vehicle going through the security gate. It was after you two left.” The car rocked slightly as she shifted position. “We still need to talk about why you decided to do something as foolish as sneaking off to her office in the dark. What were you after?”

  Josh needed to avoid the coming lecture. If she chastised him for trying to protect his soldier or Andrea, there was no way his anger would stay below the surface. “What about Dutch?”

  “I can’t comment on that yet. Only thing I can say is it’s a good thing we had eyes on the building. And Dutch had nothing to do with this shooting, not based on when we believe it happened. Even if he is your guy, he’s only one of several, based on the look of things.”

  That’s what he’d been most afraid of. This was bigger than it seemed, with too many threads tangling around each other. If only they could find the one string that unraveled everything, before anyone else got killed. “Is that really Cameron in the truck?”

  “We’re pretty sure it is.”

  Josh’s eyes narrowed, his mind desperate to grasp anything other than the emotion that tried to rush him. “Pretty sure? How could you not be…” Nausea made him grip the hood of the car so hard the metal dug into his fingers.

  “Yeah.” The detective’s voice was laced with the slightest tinge of disgust. “High powered, high caliber to the back of the head. Small hole on the back side…”

  “Massive destruction on the front side.” Josh couldn’t stop the film rolling in his head. Only once had he seen what that kind of power could do on exit, and the sight had been one that still woke him in a cold sweat. Now Cameron was gone, his physical self obliterated by an unseen enemy.

  “We’ll have to wait on a positive ID, but preliminary evidence suggests it’s him.”

  Reality broke through to hit Josh like Andrea’s unexpected right hook had a few days ago. He’d lost a couple of guys in Afghanistan and Iraq. Though tragic, it wasn’t the same kind of shock this was. This hit like lightning, unexpected and out of place.

  Then the voice started an unending loop. Another person in his shadow dead. Another person he’d failed to protect. The names played like roll call: Lauren, Brendan, Cameron… Please don’t let Andrea be next.

  He kicked a wayward pebble across the pavement an
d forced his mind onto a different path.

  “You know…” From the sound of the detective’s voice, he could tell she’d turned away from him. “This isn’t your fault.”

  His head snapped up like her words had him on a leash. Had she read his mind?

  She looked back at him so fast he didn’t have a chance to turn away. For a minute, she didn’t say anything, then she let her attention go back to the reflected lights of the emergency vehicles behind them. “You’ll figure that out eventually.”

  It was too soon since his own realization. This was a subject he didn’t want to get into now, and certainly not with a woman he hardly knew and wasn’t even sure he liked.

  Detective Simmons didn’t give him a chance to think, anyway. “You did a pretty good job at deflecting me earlier, but I haven’t forgotten. Do you want to tell me what you two were doing at the counseling center? Like I said, there’s no Waffle House nearby, so you weren’t headed out for breakfast.”

  “Be nice if life were that simple.” He kept his eyes on Andrea, who talked with a man he assumed was another detective while a paramedic stood at her side holding a blood pressure cuff. “Cameron called and said he was ready to talk, that he’d meet us there.”

  “And here I thought you were smarter than that.” Her shoes scraped softly on the pavement as she moved slightly away from him.

  Smarter than that? He’d like to cop an attitude and tell her she couldn’t imply he was stupid, but the raw truth was he’d known all along he was juggling danger like a hand grenade with the pin pulled.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say Wade Cameron knew you guys are being watched by whoever is after him. Smart move, calling the two of you away. Anybody watching would follow you, leaving him free to come here. The question is why.” She leaned her head back and squinted against the bright light of morning. “Either that or you’re being set up.”

  “Set up?” Josh pulled his gaze from Andrea and tried to gauge the emotion behind the detective’s words. “You know we didn’t do this. So you’re clearing Andrea of everything?”

  “Yet another thing I didn’t say. I’ll be honest with you, Walker. To my thinking, this isn’t about Wade Cameron. Yes, he’s dead. But every single incident aside from this one has been directly aimed at Andrea Donovan. Either somebody thinks she knows something, or she’s knee-deep in everything that’s going on and somebody wants her quiet.”

  “They want her to shut down. And they think she knows something.” He knew Andrea, knew how much she loved her brother and how that love extended to every person who suffered from PTSD and addiction like he did. He would lay his life down on the belief that she was innocent. “If somebody killed Cameron, it’s because they’re cleaning house and running scared. They’ll take care of anyone who could point fingers at them.”

  “Already floated that theory. Off the record, it’s my favorite.”

  For the first time, Josh believed Detective Simmons had a heart and that it was on Andrea’s side. “Did you tell her that’s Cameron in the truck?”

  “No.” She turned to walk away but looked back at Josh over her shoulder as she did. “I told you.”

  Even though she hadn’t said it, Josh knew her implication was right. Andrea would take the news better from him. He ran his hand down his face and along his chin, wondering when the last time was he’d let a razor hit his face. The last day he’d worked. Whenever that had been. Right now, it felt like two lifetimes ago.

  Josh braced his hands on the car behind him to push up, but his right elbow collapsed under the pressure and set him back hard against the vehicle. To be perfectly honest, he was tired of being mocked and reminded of his weakness every time he moved.

  He heaved himself up and put one foot in front of the other as Andrea looked down and met his gaze.

  A reverberating crack split the air. A shout echoed off the trees as the glass between them shattered and Andrea slipped from view.

  FOURTEEN

  Blood. Andrea stared at her fingers as strong hands yanked her up and pulled her across the carpet into her kitchen against the cabinet.

  Josh. Where was Josh?

  Shouts and pounding feet ebbed and flowed around her as hands gripped her face and turned her head, forcing her to meet the concerned eyes of the paramedic she’d chatted with moments before. He scanned her face then shifted out of her line of vision. Wet warmth trickled its way down her temple to her cheek, but her arms felt too heavy to lift them and swipe it away.

  Someone slid into place beside her. “Andrea, look at me. Did they hit you?”

  Breath entered her lungs all at once, and she realized she’d held it until that moment, waiting for him. Josh knelt beside her, pale and breathing hard. “You okay?” Her words felt and sounded like cold molasses.

  “I’m fine.” He stretched a hand toward her forehead then stopped and let it hover between them. “You’re bleeding.”

  The young paramedic reappeared, his hands sheathed in disposable gloves. He pressed a stinging compress to her temple. “I think she got hit by glass from the window. I don’t see anything else, no other wounds.” His voice shook slightly as he checked beneath the compress and pressed more firmly. “We should have had you away from that window. Letting you stand there with all that’s happened wasn’t smart.”

  “Everybody’s okay?” Josh was fine, here beside her as always, but Andrea needed to know, needed assurance that no one else suffered because of her. Enough was enough. All she wanted to do was shove the paramedic aside and march into the center of the parking lot with her hands over her head. When bravado had led her to tell Josh they’d never shut her down, nobody had died, no other shots had been fired. But now someone was dead. She had to find the way to end this. Now.

  “Fine, as far as I know.” The young paramedic taped a bandage over the wound, handed her a stack of wet wipes, then vanished from her narrow field of vision. It was like she couldn’t get her head on straight, like she was swimming through maple syrup.

  “There was only the one shot.” Josh took the packets from her hands and ripped two open, then started gently wiping her blood from her fingers.

  Her blood. How close had she come to being hit this time? She wanted to verbalize the question, but the words stuck between her head and her tongue. All she could do was sit mute and watch Josh’s fingers on hers.

  Gradually, her body calmed, but everything focused with laser precision on the warmth of Josh’s fingers. That seemed to be the center, the thing that pulled her into reality and knocked back the shock of gunshots and flying glass. She drew in a shaky breath but didn’t look up. “Was that Wade? In the truck?” It had gnawed at her since they backed away and called the police, taking refuge in her apartment.

  Josh ripped open another wipe. “You got a carpet burn on your palm.” He reached for her other hand and turned it over. “This one, too.”

  “Josh.” She tried to pull away from the electricity his hand conducted even in the middle of chaos, but his grip tightened. “It was him, wasn’t it? And then they waited for me.” The words choked on the edge of sobs. The answer was the last thing she wanted to hear, even though she already knew it.

  Josh’s fingers stilled. Slowly, as though he felt her need to know that she was still alive, that he was still alive, even in the face of a brutal murder, he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. Then he raised his eyes and they focused straight in on hers. His grip on her fingers tightened, and he reached up with his free hand to brush the hair from her bandage, then found her eyes again.

  The rest of the chaos faded away. They were already alone in her kitchen, but the shouts from outside and the police radios died away until the only sound was their breathing. The tiny voice that told her Josh was in danger if she let him get any closer grew more and more distant as he let his fingers trail down her face, his eyes asking for permission she shouldn’t give but couldn’t stop herself from granting.

  With a deep inhale Josh leaned
forward and pressed his lips beside the bandage on her forehead.

  Unwanted disappointment coursed through Andrea. Even though she knew they didn’t need the distraction now, she’d wanted him to kiss her with everything in her being.

  Now was not the time. It would be wrong, when Wade’s body lay downstairs, when grief threatened to shred the last ounce of her sanity. She slid closer to Josh and buried her face in the solid wall of his chest. Andrea willed herself not to cry, but when his arm slipped around her and he whispered, “It’s okay,” all of the barriers holding back her tears failed.

  Her muscles melted along with her emotions, sagging her against him. Josh’s arms tightened around her, his chin resting on her head, snuggling her deeper against the hollow of his throat. In that quiet haven, she poured out the shock of Wade Cameron’s death, though in her mind, he had her brother’s face. Grief over Brendan and Wade melted together and erupted in a storm of tears and sobs that should have scared Josh straight into the next county. Instead, he held her closer.

  As her tears ebbed, a new resolve crept in. She needed Josh. There was no denying it now. In spite of days and years worth of pain, the emotion refused to be beaten back.

  But saying that to him now was only asking for trouble for both of them.

  Andrea gently pushed away and swept her hair from her forehead, then wiped her eyes. She brushed off her shirt, then moved to stand. She had to get out of here, away from him, away from anybody else who could be caught in the crossfire. When this was over, then she could look him in the eye and tell him how deep her feelings ran.

  Josh reached out and caught her wrist, wrecking her balance and settling her right back to the floor. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Out. To make sure everyone’s okay.”

  He shook his head and released her hand to brush a stray tendril behind her ear. “I can’t let you go out there. That shot was aimed straight at you, and there’s no telling whether or not the shooter is still waiting. The police are clearing the area. Give them time before you paint a bull’s-eye on your forehead and walk through that door.” In the living room, the blinds clicked in the warm breeze of an ironically perfect July morning. “You’re safe in here. Don’t make me hog-tie you to a chair, because I will if it will keep you alive.”