Detective on the Hunt
Page 24
She pressed into his hand, just slightly. “The problem is, I’m currently unemployed. Chica and I might end up living in my car—”
“Or your parents’ garage,” he added helpfully.
“And there’s really no vehicle or garage big enough for us to cohabit in harmony.”
He slid his arm around her waist and snugged her closer, careful of her back. “You cohabit quite well in a house with a big yard.”
“With a stabilizing influence to keep her under control.”
He glanced at the dog, alert and watching them, gaze shifting from one to the other as they spoke, as if she was actually following the conversation. “Or to keep you under control,” he amended, then shrugged when JJ frowned at him. “I’m just saying it depends on perspective.”
For a long moment, he stared down into JJ’s face. A week ago, he hadn’t known her. Now, he wanted her in his life every day.
He stroked her cheek so lightly that her eyes fluttered shut for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was gruff and hoarse, but this time it wasn’t from months of near silence. “It just so happens I have a house with a yard. And I’m also a stabilizing influence.”
“Who told you that?” she teased.
“Chica. She bares her teeth at you. She snuggles with me.”
JJ lightly punched his chest, then winced, settling her tender hand on his shoulder instead. “I knew you’d seen her do it. I bet you reward her with a good girl when I’m not looking.”
“You’re both good girls. My girls.” He buried his face in her hair, breathing deeply of the scents that were her. “Stay with me, JJ. Chica’s happy here. You’re happy here. Sam’s not hiring right now, but the county might be, and Tulsa PD always is. Stay. Please.”
She went still for a long time, and for the first time, fear began a little tap dance in his brain. Did she think he was crazy, asking her to give up everything for him? Was a calendar tap-dancing in her brain, the pitifully few days they’d known each other flashing in neon? Was she thinking about her family, her home, her entire life that didn’t include him?
After an eternity, she cupped his face in her hands, stared up into his gaze and smiled. “Okay.”
The fear vanished, relief and pure gratitude taking its place. He wasn’t at all surprised that she’d answered his heartfelt plea so simply. It was good. It fit. Like a kiss, like her many smiles, it said a whole lot with very little.
“I love your house and yard. I love Cedar Creek. I like your friends and family, and I love you.” Her features softened in the dim light. “Besides, I need a stabilizing influence in my life.”
“Like I need chaos in mine.”
“You still haven’t told me that story.”
Instead, he kissed her, holding her body close to his, focusing his entire being on the feel and the smell and the shape and the taste of her. How she fit so perfectly against him. How heat radiated from her body into his, growing, spreading. How soft and malleable and needy and demanding she became.
How she’d changed his life and lightened his soul and given him hope again.
How hard and hungry and greedy she made him with just one kiss.
She shifted her hips against his erection, made him groan and pulled away with a wicked grin. “Later,” she said breathlessly, grabbing his hand and starting toward the house. “You can tell me later.”
And, damn, how she’d taught him to appreciate later.
* * *
Don’t miss out on any other suspenseful stories
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Killer Smile
Killer Secrets
Detective Defender
Nights with a Thief
Bayou Hero
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Evidence of Attraction
by Lisa Childs
Chapter 1
Lose the evidence or lose your life...
That was the first threat Wendy Thompson had received, tucked behind the windshield wiper on her car. When she’d seen the slip of paper, she’d thought it was a flyer for a new restaurant or a dry cleaner. Of course, as an evidence tech, she’d processed the paper for prints. The couple of very smudged partials she’d recovered had been insufficient for her to match in AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.
The next threat she’d received a few weeks later had been a phone call, the voice of the caller a hoarse, unidentifiable whisper. Lose the evidence or lose everything and everybody you love...
She shivered as she replayed the call in her head as she had so many times since receiving it two days ago. Even though she hadn’t recognized the caller’s voice, she knew who was behind the threats. She knew which ballistics and DNA reports, despite all the cases she handled, that someone didn’t want making to trial. Because she knew that, she also knew the threats weren’t idle.
She hadn’t slept since receiving that call, and she worried she wouldn’t sleep tonight, either. She had been lying awake in the dark for hours. She’d already kicked off the blankets, but now that she was shivering, she pulled them back up over her panties and the oversize T-shirt she wore as a nightgown. Maybe she should shut the window, but it was a few feet away, so she would have to walk across the creaky floor to reach it. The noise might awaken her parents, who weren’t used to someone else being in the house.
They already suspected something was wrong because she’d come home the night she’d received that call. She’d claimed her apartment was being fumigated for cockroaches, and they’d seemed to buy that explanation—until she’d started checking locks on the windows and doors. She hoped she’d convinced them that was just a habit she’d developed since living alone.
She hadn’t locked her window, though, because her old bedroom was on the second floor. Her parents had moved their bedroom to the den on the main floor since Mom’s knee replacement surgery a month ago. Wendy probably should have slept down there, as well—to protect them—but then they would have known for certain that something was going on. And she didn’t want to worry them.
She had reported the threats to the chief of the River City Police Department, though, and he’d ordered a patrol car stationed on the quiet suburban street. The officers would notice if there was anyone suspicious in the area. At this hour, anyone outside would be suspicious.
But Wendy felt better being here herself, her service weapon within easy reach on the bedside table. While not all police departments armed their crime scene technicians, River City PD had. Not too long ago, the southwestern Michigan city, which was even bigger than Detroit, had been as corrupt and lawless as the cities in the old Westerns her father watched. And, of course, crime scenes were usually in the most dangerous areas of the city. The FBI had stepped in years ago to help clean up the city, but it wasn’t really safe.
Not yet...
Getting legendary drug kingpin Luther Mills off the street would help. He was in jail, awaiting trial. But he needed to be in prison—a maximum security one—for the rest of his life. That would only happen if the evidence against him made it to trial.
And it would—despite the threats Wendy h
ad received. They had to be from Mills. Or, since he was in jail, from someone working for him. Unfortunately, he had many, many people working for him.
That was why she needed to be here, to make sure her parents stayed safe. Along with some friends, they were the only real loved ones she had—besides her job. Maybe it was because she loved it so much that she had no other loved ones. She was only twenty-seven, though, and eventually work would let up, when crime and Luther Mills went down, and she would have more time for dating.
If she found someone she actually wanted to date, she would make time now, though. But she hadn’t found anyone yet.
A face flashed into her mind. A handsome face with chiseled features: strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, deep brown eyes that could stare right into a person’s soul. Not hers, though...
Hart Fisher had never even looked at her. Of course, he had been married some of his time with the River City PD. But after he had left the vice unit and become a detective, he and his wife had divorced. He would have been available then...if he had ever showed any interest in Wendy. But he hadn’t.
Not too long after his divorce, he had resigned from the force. Wendy had heard he was working for a former coworker, Parker Payne, as a bodyguard.
She expelled a wistful sigh. She wouldn’t have minded him guarding her body. At least then he might have to look at her. But would he like what he saw?
Untamable red hair and freckles that showed even through the heaviest application of makeup. She uttered another sigh. This one was of resignation. If the rumors around the station were true, his ex had been a beauty queen—a former Miss River City—so it was no wonder Hart had never noticed Wendy.
All a woman like Wendy could do was dream about a man like Hart Fisher, and after his divorce, she had often dreamed about him. About him kissing her, touching her...even just smiling at her.
Her sigh turned to a yawn. The past few sleepless nights must have caught up with her because her eyelids grew heavy. With the officers stationed outside, she didn’t need to worry. Her parents would be safe. She could sleep and dream...of a certain former River City PD detective.
But she hadn’t been asleep for long when a noise awoke her. The hardwood floor emitted a low creaking sound, as if someone was walking across it. Had her dad come upstairs to close her window? She could still feel the wind, though, blowing through the sheer curtains and across her body. And the sound was coming toward her, not away from her.
She jerked fully awake and reached for her Glock. But before she was able to grab it, a strong hand grabbed her, wrapping tightly around her wrist. She stared up at the dark shadow looming over her bed. Before she could open her mouth to scream, the shadow’s other hand covered her lips. She thrashed, kicking out, trying to fight.
But then the shadow dropped heavily onto her, a hard body covering hers. She kept thrashing around, trying to get her knee to connect where it would hurt him most. From the grunts slipping through his lips and his overpowering strength, she knew her intruder was male.
It had to be one of Luther’s minions sent to deliver the next threat in person. The first had been paper, the second the call and now...this one...
Was he just supposed to threaten her? Or was he supposed to make good on those threats and kill her?
If that was his intention, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Wendy Thompson wasn’t going out without one hell of a fight.
* * *
“Stop,” Hart Fisher whispered, pressing his mouth close to Wendy Thompson’s ear. Her soft hair tickled his lips. “Stop fighting me.”
If she kneed him again, he might not be able to stop himself from crying out.
“You were supposed to be expecting me,” he whispered. Somebody—either his boss or hers—had said they would call and let her know he was coming. When she hadn’t been waiting outside for him, he hadn’t wanted to wake her parents. He had also wanted to see how easily he could get past her supposed protection stationed outside the house.
Too easily.
He shivered and so did Wendy, her body shuddering beneath his. Unfortunately, his body was reacting to the closeness of hers, to her warmth, her softness, her scent...
She smelled sweet, like vanilla.
If she kneed him again, it was going to hurt even more than it already had. Even though she should have been expecting him, she kept thrashing around beneath him.
“Stop,” he told her again even though she had stilled, her body tense beneath his. “I’m here to protect you.”
Her lips moved under his hand, brushing over his skin as she tried to talk. At least, he hoped that was all she was going to do—not scream.
“I’m Hart Fisher.” He identified himself before moving his hand away from her mouth.
“I know who you are,” she said in a raspy whisper. “What I need to know is what the hell you are doing in my bed.”
Heat rushed back to his face from where it had pooled in other parts of his body. Had she felt his reaction to her closeness?
He quickly moved off her, hoping that she hadn’t. It had been too damn long since he’d been with a woman if just any female could affect him like that.
But Wendy Thompson wasn’t just any female. She was the one he’d been assigned to protect. He needed to focus on that, on protecting her.
But now he realized he might also need to protect himself. “I was trying to stop you from shooting me. I work for the Payne Protection Agency,” he said.
She nodded. “Parker Payne.”
“Yes,” he said. Until this assignment, Hart had thought Parker was his friend as well as his boss. Now he wasn’t so damn sure. “I was assigned to protect you. The chief or Parker was supposed to call to let you know I was coming over tonight.”
She reached toward her nightstand again, but instead of grabbing her Glock, she picked up her cell. The screen lit up with a notification that she had a voice mail—undoubtedly from the chief or Parker.
“I already have protection,” Wendy said. “I have the whole River City PD looking out for me.”
Hart snorted derisively. He hadn’t been surprised that Luther Mills had got to someone in the police department. Despite the FBI’s efforts over the past few years to clean it up, there was still too much corruption in the force.
She bristled in defense and said, “They are my fellow officers.”
He knew that, as well as getting her master’s degree in criminal science, she had also graduated from the police academy. Because of that, she had the respect of the rest of the precinct. But that respect meant nothing now, since she had been the one who’d collected the evidence against Luther Mills.
“I know,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you can trust them.”
“What?” she asked, her voice rising sharply above a whisper. She lowered it and continued. “What the hell are you insinuating?”
“I’m not insinuating anything,” he said. “I’m telling you that Luther Mills got to someone within the police department. That’s why the chief hired the Payne Protection Agency to step in and provide security for everyone associated with Mills’s upcoming trial.”
“No...” She shook her head, tumbling her wild red curls around her face. “I just talked to Chief Lynch a few days ago and he said nothing about hiring a bodyguard for me.”
Hart narrowed his eyes at the suspicion in her voice. Did she think he was the one Luther Mills had got to? She must have because she started reaching for her gun again. He caught her wrist. Her pulse leaped beneath his fingers. “If you would have picked up the call you missed, you would have known I am here to take you to a meeting with the chief.”
“In the middle of the night?” She snorted now, like he had earlier. “Yeah, right. How much is Mills paying you?”
Hart felt like she’d kneed him again, but this time her sharp knee struck him right in his pride.
Wendy shushed him now.
So he lowered his voice when he added, “But someone in the RCPD is, which puts your life and the lives of everyone else involved in his prosecution in danger. That’s why the chief wants to meet with everybody at Payne Protection tonight, so that he can explain everything.”
She shook her head again. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”
Back when he was on the force, other officers had teased him that the red-haired evidence tech had a crush on him. He’d laughed off their claims then and it was clear now that they’d just been messing with him. Wendy Thompson couldn’t have had a crush on him since she didn’t even trust him.
Not that he blamed her. Luther Mills wanted her dead, so she shouldn’t trust anyone. But there was one person even more above suspicion than Hart. He reached for his phone. “Play that voice mail on your phone. Or better yet, I’ll call Parker. The chief is with him. Lynch will verify he called this meeting.”
Before he could pull the phone from his pocket, her bedroom door flew open. Light flooded the space, illuminating the pink walls and frilly curtains of a little girl’s bedroom. Felicity would love this room. Pain clenched his heart at the thought of his daughter.
Would he ever see her again?
He was not so sure at the moment because that light also glinted off the gun in the hand of the man standing in the doorway.
Hart might have been called in too late to save Wendy Thompson.
Or himself...
* * *
Parker opened the door to the room off his wife’s office at the Payne Protection Agency. A little girl lay asleep in one of the beds in the nursery Sharon had designed for their children. She’d wanted them close while she and Parker worked. But this child wasn’t theirs.