by Lisa Childs
“You can draw up some trust papers for her,” Blake said, “and set up another meeting with me to sign those.” He also wanted to give Juliette a lump sum amount of cash for back child support. She’d been caring for their daughter alone for much too long.
The lawyer was obviously a friend of his father’s because he looked at Blake the same way his father did—like he was an idiot. He shook his head and patted back his slicked down comb-over to make sure a hair hadn’t fallen out of place. Maybe the guy should have followed Fenwick’s example and just gotten a toupee.
“Before you do anything,” the lawyer said, “you need a paternity test to confirm the child is yours.”
Blake shook his head.
“You need that test to see whether or not she’s yours—not just because of the money but for custody reasons.”
“What do you mean?” He had no intention of taking the child away from her mother. He was doing everything within his power to make sure they weren’t separated.
“If she is yours, this woman denied you years of your daughter’s life.”
Blake flinched at the reminder. He’d been trying to let that resentment go. He didn’t need to rehash it now. “That’s the past. I can’t change that,” he said.
“You can take those years back,” the lawyer insisted. “You can take the kid away from her.”
Blake snorted. “How?” Juliette was not an unfit mother. The lawyer was insane. This meeting had been a mistake. He’d known it from the moment he’d opened the door to him.
“Why?” another voice asked.
The lawyer whirled around, and Blake saw Juliette standing behind him. She must have slipped silently into the suite while they’d been talking. How much had she heard?
Obviously enough that she looked furious.
“Why would you try to take my daughter away from me?” She wasn’t asking the lawyer, though. She was asking Blake.
“I wouldn’t,” Blake assured her. “I can’t.”
But she was too angry to listen. He could see that now.
“I will fight you!” she said. And she turned toward the lawyer now. “You won’t take my child away.”
“If you didn’t want to risk losing her, you shouldn’t have tried to pass her off as a Colton,” the man replied.
And Blake saw what Juliette always did—the snobbishness that made her think she was not in his league. He hoped like hell he had never acted that way—the way his father and his father’s friend acted.
Superior.
Arrogant.
Juliette must have been too angry to speak. She just shook her head, turned and ran from the suite—slamming the door behind herself.
“Get the hell out of here!” Blake told the lawyer. But he was already heading to the door and opening it for himself. “I wouldn’t have you represent me if you were the last lawyer in Red Ridge!”
Leaving the slime bag attorney to show himself out, Blake hurried out into the hall, but he caught no sight of Juliette or the bodyguards.
She was gone.
* * *
She’s gone.
Not just her little kid who’d disappeared after going to the police station after the park that day. But now the K9 cop had disappeared, as well.
Where the hell had she gone?
Into hiding with her daughter?
He’d thought she was too proud and stubborn to do that. He’d been counting on her being too proud and stubborn to go into hiding. But a couple of days had passed with no sign of her.
She hadn’t gone back to her house. The front windows were boarded up like it had been abandoned after the shooting. Too bad that damn mutt had alerted her to his presence that night. He might have been able to hit her if she hadn’t ducked down so quickly. Then she’d returned fire, which had made him duck and miss again.
That dog was a pain in the ass. Literally. It had bit him when he’d been running away.
He should have done more than kick it after he’d shaken it loose. He should have shot the damn thing. But maybe he’d kicked it hard enough that it had been seriously injured.
Maybe that was why he hadn’t seen her working.
But that still didn’t explain where she’d gone.
She wasn’t staying at the Colton Plaza Hotel, either. The suite on the twenty-first floor had only had one occupant the past couple of nights.
Blake Colton, billionaire businessman.
He was the guy who’d hired those damn security guards to protect her. But as if that wasn’t bad enough, he kept getting in his way himself.
What the hell was some billionaire trying to play bodyguard for?
The K9 cop must be important to him.
Blake Colton must not mean much to her, though, since Juliette Walsh hadn’t been to the hotel.
But he hadn’t seen her anywhere around Red Ridge. Maybe she’d taken her daughter and left town.
Since he’d taken care of their last problem, his bosses were trying again to get him to leave town—before he got caught. They did not appreciate how good he was.
Nobody had ever caught him, and nobody would—because he didn’t leave witnesses alive.
He had to find the woman and her daughter. He had to get rid of them for good.
Chapter 19
Finn stood at the podium at the front of the briefing room, staring out at his officers. They all looked as frustrated as he felt. Too much time had passed with too few leads. On the Groom Killer and on the killer after Juliette and her daughter. Maybe the killers had both left town.
The thought didn’t give him any relief, though. He didn’t want them gone from Red Ridge. He wanted them gone—permanently. Locked up behind bars for the rest of their miserable lives—for the lives they’d taken.
Until the Groom Killer was caught, nobody in Red Ridge would feel safe getting married. Including Darby...
She was too worried about him to marry him. She loved him too much. And he loved her too much to go long before making her his bride.
They had to catch that killer and soon.
The same for the park killer. The thought of a child being in danger was keeping Finn awake at night even more than his late-night visits and calls.
At least Red Ridge PD had some additional manpower now. “Let me introduce the newest member of our team, West Brand. He’s on loan from our neighboring Wexton County’s K9 unit while Dean Landon continues to recover from his gunshot wound.”
The dark-haired man raised his hand in a slight wave at his new coworkers. Red Ridge PD was a close-knit group. They didn’t readily welcome outsiders. So they didn’t greet him any more warmly than he had them.
“His dog, Tam Lin—” Finn continued, gesturing to the Labrador sitting next to the new officer “—specializes in explosives detection.”
Like Dean’s dog did. Hopefully West could help fill the void in the department since Dean had been shot.
“Now let’s get out there,” Finn said. “And be careful...” He didn’t want to lose anyone else. Before Juliette could leave the room, he called out, “Walsh...”
She stopped, Sasha at her side. “Yes, Chief?”
He waited until everyone else filed out of the briefing room. Then he asked, “Are you sure you’re ready to go back out there?”
“I was never not ready,” she said. “Dr. Colton wanted Sasha to take it easy for a couple of days.”
Finn should have had his cousin, the vet, suggest the dog take longer to recover. Even though he’d been shorthanded the past couple of days, he preferred that to having to worry about Juliette.
And Blake...
Something must have happened between them, because she had insisted he not join her and Pandora at the safe house, where she’d spent the past two days.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to put you bac
k out there,” he said. “We have Brand now—”
“You still need me and Sasha,” she said. “She’s the best drug-sniffing dog on the force.”
He couldn’t deny that. And he couldn’t deny that there were too many drugs in the city. While they managed to apprehend some of the users and small-time dealers, they hadn’t been able to get the suppliers at the top. Even though he had a pretty good idea who they were...
“Why don’t you want me back at work?” she asked, her blue eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Did Blake get to you?”
He shook his head, though he couldn’t deny that his cousin had tried. “No. It’s been quiet the past two days—no more shootings. Everybody’s better off with you in the safe house.”
She flinched. “I can’t stay hidden forever,” she said. “I have a job, a life...” Her throat moved as if she was choking on emotion. But she fought it back to continue, “...a daughter. I want to know she’ll always be safe. And the only way to do that is to catch that killer.”
He nodded but cautioned, “There’s no way to always keep her safe, though. There are other dangers than this killer out there.”
“I know,” she agreed with a heavy sigh as if she was already aware of another danger. “Can Sasha and I leave now? We need to check the airport.”
He nodded in reluctant agreement. He’d put an extra car on her. But not Brand. Not yet...
He wanted the team he knew and trusted. He wasn’t sure yet what to make of the new guy. He was going to have to look into him a little bit more...
* * *
Juliette had spent the past two days trying to keep her daughter safe. That was why she’d refused to let Blake visit. Let him sue her for custody if he wanted.
As he’d pointed out to her, the Coltons’ reputation wasn’t the greatest. She could beat him in court...if she could afford a lawyer.
Damn him...
He was following her, too—along with another patrol car and those bodyguards. She didn’t see the bodyguards, but she knew they were there because she hadn’t tried to lose anyone this time.
She glanced at Sasha. The beagle was bright-eyed and bursting with energy. She couldn’t wait to get back to work. The rest had done her good.
Juliette hadn’t been able to rest. She hadn’t slept well without Blake’s arm around her. Hadn’t slept well with worrying that she might lose her daughter...
Would Blake try to take her?
He’d claimed that he wouldn’t. But she hadn’t let him say any more after his lawyer had insulted her. What a sleaze...
She pulled her car into the parking lot at the airport and drew in a deep breath. She couldn’t be distracted now. She had to stay focused on her job. Her life and Sasha’s depended on it. The airport was small with limited flights, just commuter planes going to bigger airports in the vicinity. Because of that, the security was minimal, which made it a great place for dealers to try to run drugs.
“Come on, Sasha,” Juliette said as she unclipped the dog from her harness. The beagle was so eager to do her job that she immediately started toward the building.
The tightness in Juliette’s chest eased somewhat, too. At least with this, she knew what she was doing.
With Blake, she had no idea. His sister wanted her to cut him loose for his safety. What about hers? She was the one in danger from him—of losing everything. Her daughter and her heart...
She shook her head, forcing herself to focus. If she didn’t, she might lose her life, too. Because she had no doubt the killer was probably out there—waiting for another chance to try for her.
Dante and Flash backed her up, walking through the airport in tandem with her and Sasha. She knew her fellow officer wasn’t looking for someone running drugs, but for the killer. The murderer never got close, though—except for that night in her house and in the stairwell at the hotel. He’d been close then, and at the park when she’d seen him after Pandora had witnessed the murder.
She shivered as she remembered the cold look in his eyes. That look was so different than the one in the eyes of the people she busted for drugs. They looked desperate. Scared. He had been frighteningly calm. And determined...
As she and Sasha moved through the crowd, she noticed one of those desperate-looking people. The teenager carried a duffel bag. When she and Sasha drew closer, he shifted it to his other hand—as if that small distance would make Sasha unable to sniff the contents of it.
Juliette quickened her pace to close the distance between them, and Sasha tensed, starting to react. The beagle knew what was in that bag.
The teenager began to walk faster. But the terminal was small. With her on one side and Dante on the other, he really had nowhere to go.
“Stop!” she called out to him.
He hurried up instead—heading toward the men’s room. As if that would keep her out...
He probably intended to flush his drugs.
“Stop!” she yelled again.
Dante and Flash had stepped between him and the bathroom. So he stopped and turned back toward her.
And in addition to that look of desperation in his eyes, there was one of fear. He looked so damn scared.
But Juliette wanted to scare him more; she wanted to scare him into telling her what every other drug dealer and user in this town was reluctant to do.
Who the hell was the shooter?
“What do you have in that bag?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He dropped it to the floor. And Sasha was immediately on it, her nose pressed to the ratty canvas. “It’s not mine,” he said. “I was holding it for a friend.”
“Let’s go down to the police department and talk about your friends,” she said. Turning him back around, she snapped cuffs over his bony wrists. He was young, yet old enough to talk without a parent present. Maybe he was even in his mid-twenties. Up close he looked older than she’d originally thought, so she didn’t feel too bad about making him even more scared than he already was.
“You know,” she mused as she led him toward the exit while Mancuso picked up the bag, “The last time I was trying to arrest someone, they got shot.”
The kid arched his head around to look at her. “You shot ’im?”
She shook her head. “Nope, someone else did. Someone who didn’t want that person to talk.”
She stopped before pushing open the door to the parking lot. “Maybe we should talk now...before we go out there.”
His throat moved, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he choked on his fear. “I—I have nothing to say...without my lawyer.”
He was definitely older than she’d thought. Old and experienced enough to want a lawyer.
She pressed her hand against the glass of the door. “If you’re sure...”
“Nobody wants me dead,” he said.
She wished she could say the same about herself. And it was almost as if he knew that she couldn’t—that he knew who she was and that she’d been targeted.
“Are you sure about that?” she asked. “You sure you don’t want to talk to me?”
“I got nothing to say about nothing...”
She doubted that. This killer had taken out two dealers in Red Ridge. So other dealers and even some of their users had to know something about him.
“Okay...” But she hesitated a moment before stepping out into the lot.
There were hangars for private planes close to the airport. Roofs where the killer could go for the vantage point he liked to take his shots from.
She pushed open the door and advised him, “Keep low...”
But she was worried—even as Dante came up beside her. He nodded at her to go. She drew in a deep breath before stepping outside.
She didn’t want the kid to get shot, or Dante. And she sure as hell didn’t want to get shot. Then she made the mistake of glancing into the
parking lot. And she saw Blake standing there—out of his car, watching her.
His sister was right. She needed to cut him loose—needed to make sure that he stopped following her around and putting his life in danger. She didn’t want him to try to take Pandora from her.
But she didn’t want him dead or injured, either.
* * *
Blake was so damn glad to see her again. He’d missed her the past couple of days. But she’d refused to see him at the safe house.
He could have just shown up since the bodyguards working for him knew where it was. But he hadn’t wanted to cause a scene that might upset her and Pandora. With the killer’s threats hanging over their heads, they were upset enough.
And the last thing he wanted was to upset his daughter. So there was no way he would ever try to take her from her mother. Juliette should know that. But she wouldn’t let him explain that meeting with the lawyer.
She had refused to talk to him as well as see him. And he couldn’t talk to her now. She was busy, bringing in another suspect.
And he remembered what had happened last time—at the bus terminal. It wasn’t safe for her to be out here. Surely she knew that.
Why did she keep putting herself in danger?
It was about more than just doing her job, though. It was about Pandora, too. About taking the killer off the streets to protect the little girl.
But the killer did not share Blake’s reluctance to separate mother and daughter. He had no such qualms about taking away the little girl’s mother.
And just as Blake had feared, shots rang out again.
And just like at the bus terminal, Juliette dropped to the asphalt. Unlike that day, though, she was on top of the teenager she’d had in handcuffs. She was using her body to shield his.
She would have had to take a bullet for him.
Chapter 20
The shots hadn’t been close at all. But Juliette hadn’t told the crying teenager that. She’d let him believe she’d saved his life back at the airport. And since bringing him to RRPD, she hadn’t bothered to assuage his fears yet.