by Stark, Cindy
That snapped him out of his daydream. “What?”
“The DA charged him this morning now that he’s stable.”
“Right. I knew that.” Sam only wished they could haul his ass straight to jail right now. He didn’t care if the guy still had an I.V. attached to his arm or if there wasn’t any room at the jail.
“He fired a return shot.”
Sam straightened in his chair. “What do you mean? Not literally, he hoped.
“He’s suing the girl…” Noah stopped and looked at his notepad. “Janie Singleton, with a civil suit for assault and battery.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” The douche actually had the nerve to go after her? Was he a complete idiot?
“Nope. I saw her attorney here a few minutes ago, wanting to double check the address Ms. Singleton left on file. I guess she’s having some difficulty locating her.”
Shit. “What did she find out?”
“The address is the same one we have. It belongs to a Xander Secrist. He and his wife were here that night to pick her up after the questioning. I believe you accompanied Ms. Singleton to her previous apartment and then escorted her to their house.”
“Yeah, yeah. They were headed off on a honeymoon, and she was going to stay at their home while they were gone.”
Noah lifted his brows. “I hope nothing’s happened to her.”
“Me, too.” He paused a moment, carefully planning his words so as not to disclose any unnecessary information. “Though I guess if Castell had gotten to her, he wouldn’t be filing a suit.”
“True,” Noah agreed. “Maybe she got spooked.”
“Probably.” He glanced at the file in front of him trying to convey a lack of interest to his partner, though his blood pressure had escalated. “I’m sure they’ll locate her eventually.” Like when she had to show up for a court date.
“Eliana did leave a message on her phone. Hopefully, Ms. Singleton will call back when she gets it. I kind of feel bad for the girl. First her boyfriend tries to maim her, then he’s going to take her to court for fighting back. That’s messed up if you ask me.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t want Janie to get that call before he was there to talk her down. He shoved away from his desk. “I have a personal errand to run and need to get there before five. I’m going to kick out of here early.”
“Sure.” Noah fired up his computer. “I’m checking some emails, and then I’m gone, too.”
Sam grabbed his car keys from his desk and headed out the door. He tried to keep it casual until he was in the parking garage. He quickly dialed Christian’s number. “Keep Janie away from her phone until I get home,” he said when his friend answered. “I’ll tell you why when I get there.”
“Sure,” Christian answered. Sam could hear the concern in his friend’s voice, but Christian didn’t press him for further information. “We’re working out. Should be done about the time you get home.”
Great. Sam climbed inside his car and slammed the door. In the space of a few minutes, his day had gone from hurrying home to spend time with Janie, to hurrying home to find Janie in close contact with one of his best friends and having to give her some very difficult news.
Hell.
* * *
When Sam arrived, he found Christian alone in the kitchen. The shades were closed, like they usually were when they had someone staying in the house, and it left the room in muted shadows. “Where’s Janie?”
“Her bedroom.”
“I thought I’d told you to keep her away from her phone.” Couldn’t anybody do anything right?
“What am I supposed to do when she says she wants to take a shower before you get home? Hold her down?”
The thought of Christian holding Janie period didn’t sit well with him.
“She’s in the shower, not on her phone, okay?”
“Shit.” He sat on one of the barstools. “Okay.” He needed to calm down, especially before he talked to Janie. If he conveyed how pissed he was, he’d only make her more upset.
Christian sat next to him. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Castell filed assault and battery charges against Janie.”
“What?” The question exploded out of his mouth, leaving a look of disbelief on his face. “How the hell can he do that?”
“It doesn’t mean she’ll be convicted. What it does mean is his friends have been looking for her, and they can’t find her. This is his way of drawing her out.”
“Because she’ll have to show up in court.”
“Yeah, and then all he has to do is have her followed her to find her and hurt her.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Christian said with conviction.
“You know as well as I do the judge has ways to force her.”
The sound of Janie shutting off the shower echoed through the house. Sam stood. “I’m going to go change out of these clothes. That should give her enough time to get dressed.”
Sam only gave her five minutes because at any given time, she could check her phone. If she was like him, checking was an unconscious routine, especially if he’d been away from his phone for any length of time.
He knocked on her door, a ball of dread churning in his stomach, growing stronger with every passing second. It took her a few moments to answer. She’d dressed in a white t-shirt that hugged her curves and a pair of faded jeans. Pink-polished toes peeked from beneath her jeans, and her hair had been combed, but still hung wet. He liked that she’d grown it longer than when he’d first met her. It suited her.
“Hi,” she said, a smile on her face. Even without makeup, she had a natural beauty that highlighted her blue eyes. He’d been looking forward to this moment all day, and now it had been spoiled by Castell.
“Hey. Could I talk to you a moment?”
“Sure. Come in. I need to blow dry my hair real quick so it doesn’t curl funny. Do you mind waiting?”
He shook his head. If her phone should ring while he was in her room, he could keep her from talking to Eliana until he had a chance to soften the blow.
He sat on the bottom of her bed while she returned to the bathroom. A second later, the hairdryer whirred. From his vantage point, he could watch her as she leaned forward and dried the underneath of her hair. He couldn’t resist tracing her curves with his gaze, enjoying the way her lithe body moved as she straightened and began brushing her hair smooth. The heated air dispersed the scent of her shampoo throughout the room, and he inhaled, remembering how he’d felt holding her when they’d tangled.
The sound stopped abruptly, and she appeared back in the bedroom, looking fresh and sexy at the same time. She smiled at him, but it quickly disappeared. “Is something wrong? She took a step closer and then stopped. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” she said before he could answer. “Tell me.”
The right words wouldn’t form on his tongue. He needed to tell her, but wanted to spare her at the same time. “I’m not sure how to put this.”
“You just say it.” Her voice was anxious and impatient at the same time.
“Castell filed charges against you.”
She stared at him for a hard moment, then blinked. “For what?”
“Assault and battery.”
“I stabbed him in self-defense.” Outrage clouded her features. “Any judge or jury would agree.”
“The evidence is in your favor.”
She paled. “He wants me. And he can’t find me. This is his way of getting me to come to him. Oh, God.” She turned and sat on the bed next to him.
“That’s what I think, too.”
She shifted, facing him. “I’m not going to do it. He can’t make me. A lady from the job I was waiting to hear about called today. I told her I could be there by Friday. If I can impress them with my cooking, they’ll hire me. I can leave town. With this job, I can take care of myself, and he can’t touch me.”
Sam shook his head, and the fired-up resistance that burned in her gaze dwindled. “It’s
not Paul you have to answer to. It’s a judge. If you fail to show, the judge may hold you in contempt of court and issue a bench warrant. In effect, Paul has ensured that you remain in town and will have to show your face.”
She inhaled a ragged breath. “What should I do? She turned fearful eyes to him. “You can’t protect me from that.”
“The hell I can’t.” There was no way he’d ever let Paul Castell get his hands on Janie again. “Me and Christian together with a couple of other friends I have can do this. We’ll hold out as long as we can and then have Eliana postpone the dates, ask for extensions, whatever we can do to drag this out. I’ll go after him for drugs and anything else I can think of.” He pinned her with his gaze. “I know you’ve been reluctant to talk about what went on in your apartment, but there has to be something you can give me that might help.” He lifted his brows, prompting her to answer.
“Seriously, I don’t know anything. I stayed away from that business.”
“You had to have seen people come and go. Did you catch any names? Anything might help.”
She raked her fingers through her freshly-washed hair. “Um…there’s Brent, the guy that was in my apartment when we went there. I think he’s just a user though. No one important.”
“At this point, everyone is important.”
“Lou? I don’t know his last name, but he came by a lot. Then a tall guy with a star tattooed near his collarbone.”
“A star? What the hell? Was Castell somehow involved with the Hardy drug ring? There had been rumors that Hardy might even be connected to Donati, the person behind Nicole’s fiasco. Sam didn’t want to scare Janie, but this might be more serious than she realized.
“Yeah, a little star right…” She touched a spot at the base of her neck. “He had evil eyes, if you know what I mean. Always watching. He made me nervous, so I left whenever he was around.”
“God, Janie.” He shook his head, not wanting to think about her in such a serious situation.
“I know, okay?” she shot back at him. “I should have left the first time anything crazy happened. But I had nowhere to go. And then things were fine again. For a while.”
“Why didn’t you go home?”
“I couldn’t.”
That wasn’t a good enough reason in his mind. “Why not?” he pressed.
She licked her bottom lip and then sucked it into her mouth, anxiety leaving her expression bleak. “Home is almost two thousand miles away. Not to mention, my parents would love it if I came home begging for a place to stay.” Sudden tears spiked her lashes. “They bet me I’d fail, and I’d be home within a month. It’s been six years, so technically they were wrong, but I would still feel like a failure.” She took a breath, blinking away her emotion. “I’m not giving up, and I’m not going home.”
Damn. Parents could be awfully cruel to their children. “You’re not going to Texas, either.” He shook his head when she frowned. “You’ll stay here. I’ll keep you safe, and we’ll make that bastard regret the day he ever looked at you.”
She eyed him as though she wasn’t sure she should trust him. “Maybe I should take my chances and not show up for the court date.”
“Yeah, if you want to go into hiding and work jobs getting paid under the table slinging hamburgers. You’ll never be a world-famous chef living like that. And living your whole life wondering who’s two steps behind you is no way to live. You run, you’ll have Paul after you along with the court system. I’d advise against it.”
He waited for her response, but she didn’t answer. “What else can I say to convince you to give me a chance? If we can’t make this work, I’ll personally help you hide.” He would. He’d do whatever was necessary to keep her safe, even if it meant breaking the law.
“Fine. I’ll stay. For now.” She gave him a tremulous smile, and his heart broke wide open.
He hugged her to him knowing he was pushing the boundaries of their relationship, but he couldn’t resist. “You’re going to be fine, Janie. I promise. There will most likely be a message from your lawyer on your phone. Don’t call her back, yet. Give me a couple of days to see what we can do.”
Sam left Janie in her room, giving her time to adjust to his news. Christian had changed into one of the t-shirts his bar sold for extra income, and Sam glanced at his watch. His friend would be leaving for work soon.
“How’d she take it?” Christian asked, concern etched in his serious gaze.
“She wants to run. I’ve convinced her to stay for the time being. That gives me a couple of days to come up with a reason to permanently get Castell off the streets. It’s the only way Janie will feel safe enough to appear in court.”
“What are you planning?”
“I think the drug trafficking is my best chance. Better than assault charges. Castell has been a pain in our ass for some time, but we’ve never been able to charge him with anything more serious than a misdemeanor. I’m going to dig so deep in this guy’s dealings and charge him with everything I can find until I come across something big. Janie said one of his colleagues has a star tattoo, and I’m going to guess Paul is not as small time as we originally thought. My gut tells me he’s involved in something much, much bigger, and I’m going to find out what it is and bury his ass. I’ll give Ryan a call and see if his contacts have ever heard of Castell and see if they have any different info on Hardy than what the bureau has.”
Chapter Eleven
Sam walked into the Central Precinct an hour before he was expected to arrive, eager to start delving into Paul Castell’s history. He’d hated to leave the house and Janie early, but she was still asleep, and the sooner he started pursuing leads to put Castell behind bars, the better.
“You’re here early,” Clark Dyer said as Sam entered his cubicle. The investigator sported bushy brown hair and a pair of black-rimmed glasses that rested on his chubby cheeks. He might not have been particularly blessed in the looks department, but he supposedly had a brilliant mind.
However, Sam was still pissed at Clark for missing a critical piece of evidence back when he’d been sure Nicole had been guilty of grand larceny. Following that, the said piece of evidence disappeared, and he’d started to wonder if the younger detective had somehow been involved with the people who’d committed the crime. Sam had been angry enough that he’d had the guy investigated. Lucky for Clark, he’d come out clean. Time had lessened the tension between them, but it hadn’t completely disappeared.
Clark’s oversight had almost cost him his friendship with Xander and possible jail time for Nicole. Thankfully, the couple had both forgiven Sam after the real thief had been caught. Since then though, he’d tried not to see Clark as a complete imbecile, and unfortunately, they still had to work together.
“I need your help,” Sam said. Maybe Clark would see it as a chance to earn back his self-respect. “See what you can find on any convicts who go by the name Angel. Might be Angel Hardy. He’ll have a small star near his collarbone.”
“Is this for a new case you’re working on?”
“Yeah.” Sam eyed him with a look that dared him to ask further questions. “I need this asap. I’ll give you an hour.” He’d likely give him more time, but it didn’t hurt to set a deadline.
“No problem.” The guy turned to his computer monitor acting slighted, and Sam didn’t miss his last-second eye-roll that he was sure Clark hadn’t meant for him to see. Sam was beyond tempted to call him on it, but he didn’t have time.
Back at his desk, he pulled up Castell’s electronic file. There were a couple of arrests for possession of a controlled substance, but he hadn’t been convicted for anything serious. No assault and battery charges, either. No real time behind bars. He dug deeper and found Paul had been represented by Philip Desmond. “Desmond. Desmond.” He wracked his brain trying to remember how he knew that name. His eyebrows shot upward when he made the connection.
Philip Desmond was the same attorney who’d represented James “Angel” Hardy. He should
have caught that sooner, especially since he’d just been talking about Hardy to Clark.
It was becoming more and more obvious Castell wasn’t a dumb, small-time crook. He might not have been arrested for anything big, yet, but it would only be a matter of time if he was involved in Hardy’s outfit.
Perhaps it was time to pay a visit to Castell’s neighborhood. Sam didn’t have enough yet for a search warrant, but sometimes just hanging around a place would provide clues. If Castell had gone big time and Sam started poking around, someone would eventually poke back.
He locked his screen and picked up his keys as Noah walked into their office. “Don’t bother putting your stuff down. We’re headed out.”
Noah shifted directions and moved into the hall. “Where are we going?”
“To hunt down some leads on a drug case.”
“Shouldn’t we involve Drug and Vice?”
“Not yet. Not until I have some actual proof.” He pushed through the doors that led outside, not slowing his stride.
Noah rushed to keep up. “Who are we going after?”
“Paul Castell. I’ve been thinking about it, and I figure Janie Singleton could use all the help she can get, not to mention, we’ll get one more perp off the street.”
* * *
The block where Janie had previously lived was busy with morning traffic when Sam and Noah arrived on scene. Sunshine coursed down on the crowds who were making their way toward their jobs for the day. Sam cruised the nearby streets, stopping at a coffee shop, grabbing two cups of his favorite blend. He sat one in the drink holder, gave the other to Noah before circling back around to park near Paul’s apartment.
“Don’t you think we should start by questioning the neighbors instead of sitting here for hours on end?” Noah asked after they’d been parked for forty minutes.
“I want to watch for a while, see who comes and goes.”
“Then we’d be better to come back later when the people who might have information have risen for another night of partying. No one is going to be up this early.”