Her Bodyguard

by Mallory Kane

  Lucas glanced up and down the street as he pulled away from the curb, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  Chartres was its normal quaint and quiet self now that the excitement was over. The little sidewalk coffee shop where he’d run into Angela the day before was nearly deserted. The single patron, dressed in that ridiculous bowling shirt, was digging for his wallet.

  Lucas did a double take. Who wore those things, anyway? They were usually made of nylon or polyester, which made them completely inappropriate for the muggy New Orleans summer. The guy had to be a tourist.

  Lucas took a deep breath and arched his neck, then grimaced as the material of his shirt pulled against his stinging back. Thank God no one had seen any blood, or the hole that had to be somewhere around the collar of his jacket.

  “Are you okay?” Angela asked.

  Lucas nodded. “Yeah, sure. Just landed a little hard on my shoulder when I dove at your boyfriend’s knees.” He knew what he was doing by calling Ramis her boyfriend again, after she’d asked him not to. And it worked. Her chin lifted, and she folded her arms and turned away. For the rest of the trip she stared out the passenger window.

  Better than staring at him.

  At the police station, Ethan directed them to an interrogation room, where he asked them each to write a statement of the events that led up to Doug drawing his gun.

  “I don’t have two separate rooms to put you in, so do me a favor and don’t collaborate on your stories, okay?”

  Lucas snorted.

  Ethan turned to Angela. “Okay, Angela?”

  “Of course, Ethan.”

  Lucas sat with his back to the wall. He didn’t want to take a chance that any telltale blood had seeped through his jacket. It was bad enough that he had to spend an hour or more on witness statements. But there was no way he’d allow himself to be forced to go to the hospital for a mere scratch. Granted it stung, but scratches did sting.

  Lucas wrote rapidly and quickly finished his statement. He sat back and watched Angela as she pored over hers.

  “You need any help?” he finally asked.

  She shook her head without looking up.

  Just then Ethan stepped into the room. “How’s it going?”

  “I’m done,” Lucas said. “I want to talk to Ramis.”

  Ethan shook his head in resignation. “How many ways can you buck the system, Luke? You have no authorization to talk to anyone here.”

  “You could get the detectives to let me interrogate him if you wanted to. It’s a serious matter. So what if it’s not my jurisdiction.”

  “So what if you’re on suspension.”

  Lucas felt like his younger brother had hit him. He should have expected Ethan to find out, but it didn’t mean he had to like it.

  He felt Angela’s reproachful gaze. He hadn’t exactly lied to her, but he certainly hadn’t been forthcoming about how he happened to be available to play bodyguard. It took all his willpower not to duck his head.

  Instead, he scowled at Ethan and went on the attack. “Dawson tell you that?” he snapped.

  “No. I called your precinct out in Dallas.”

  Ethan’s shadowed gaze met his. He’d let his kid brother down again. He’d done his best, but he was a poor substitute for Robbie. Their oldest brother had been their protector all through their childhood, until he’d joined the service when he was eighteen.

  Eight months later he was dead, and Lucas, only thirteen, had taken Robbie’s position as the fortress that stood between his dad and his two younger brothers. Ethan had looked up to him, until he left. At least the old man had never whaled on his only daughter, Cara Lynn.

  For a split second, Ethan’s hard gaze turned quizzical, but then he blinked and glanced toward the window.

  “You didn’t think I’d assume you were just taking a few days off, did you?”

  There was no future in trying to explain anything, so Lucas got back to the issue at hand. “I need to talk to Ramis. I need to find out if he could be involved with the Picone family.”

  “The Picone family. Your big Chicago crime family who’s after Angela.”

  Lucas nodded.

  “I talked to Brad. He confirmed your story.”

  Lucas frowned. “Thanks for believing me,” he said wryly.

  “You’d have done the same thing if our positions were reversed.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. Still, Ethan was acting more like their cousin Ryker every day. By the book. He’d make a good detective. Tight-assed, but good.

  A sliver of pride nicked the corner of Lucas’s heart. Maybe—hell, probably—a better detective than Lucas himself was. He smiled wryly to himself—not such a stretch these days.

  “Let me talk to the detectives on the case. Do I know any of them?”

  “Dixon Lloyd is the lead. James Shively’s his partner.”

  “I don’t recognize the names. Can I talk to Lloyd?”

  Ethan opened his mouth but immediately clamped it shut and shrugged. “Sure. I’ll let you and Dixon duke it out.”

  ANGELA WATCHED LUCAS AND ETHAN leave the room together. If she remembered correctly, Ethan was three years younger than Lucas. He had inherited more of their father’s Irish fairness than Lucas, who was dark-haired like his beautiful mother. But both of them possessed the angular lanky grace of the Delancey clan. And for all their differences, they looked remarkably alike.

  Probably neither one of them would be happy to hear that.

  She quickly finished her statement and read it over before she signed it. Even though this was her own description of events as she’d experienced them, as she read them over she found them difficult to believe.

  It seemed inconceivable, even now, that Doug had really spied on her, had been in her apartment while she was away. He’d set up that spy cam. What else had he done while he was there—alone? She shuddered.

  Then today he’d apparently gone crazy. He’d pulled that gun and waved it at Lucas. It amazed her that Lucas had stayed so calm. That he’d managed to bring Doug down without getting hurt or letting Doug hurt anyone else.

  She dropped the pen onto the table and pushed her fingers through her hair. For a few moments she sat, her elbows propped on the table, her head in her hands.

  She was tired. It was an odd weariness, bone deep, caused not by long hours or lack of sleep, but by nerves. Last night, in that abandoned building with Lucas, had been the first time she’d slept well in several weeks.

  She straightened and rubbed her eyes, then arched her neck. Just as she started to massage a knot of tension with her fingertips, the door to the interrogation room opened. It was Ethan.

  “I thought you might like to hear what Ramis has to say.” He stood in the doorway, his hand on the knob.

  Angela stood and reached for her statement.

  “Leave it,” Ethan said. “One of the secretaries will get it.”

  He led her through another door, into a darkened closet-like space with glass covering one wall. The lone occupant, a tall, dark-haired man with classic features and an air of elegance, nodded to her.

  She gave him a small smile.

  “This is Detective Dixon Lloyd. Dixon, this is Angela Grayson.”

  Angela held out her hand, and Lloyd grasped it firmly and briefly, then nodded toward the glass. Through it Angela saw Doug sitting at a plain wooden table. He shifted uncomfortably and pulled on his left arm, which was handcuffed to his chair. He looked miserable, and a little wild. His clothes were dusty and spattered with blood. His lip was cut and swollen and blood dripped from his nose.

  Where Lucas had hit him. She didn’t know that—not for sure. But she’d noticed that the knuckles of Lucas’s right hand were abraded. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together, especially knowing Lucas. He’d always been quick to defend her, or anyone else who needed it.

  At that moment Lucas appeared through a door. He slammed a file folder down on the table out of Doug’s reach and then walked over
and shoved Doug’s chair back from the table with the toe of his boot.

  Angela could tell by the look on his face that he was pissed.

  She pressed her lips together.

  Ethan must have noticed the same thing because he muttered, “Watch it, Luke. Just watch it.”

  On Angela’s other side she felt Detective Lloyd send a questioning glance Ethan’s way, but Ethan didn’t respond.

  “So, Doug. Tell me. How many women have you terrorized, stalking them and spying on them because you don’t have the cojones to face them?”

  “Get away from me.” Doug turned and looked at the glass. Angela knew from that side it was a mirror, but Doug’s swollen eyes seemed to seek out her gaze. “Get him away from me. He broke my nose. He hit me.”

  Lucas nudged his chair again. “Talk to me, Doug. Or maybe you’d get your kicks by watching me through a spy cam?”

  Doug’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Sure you do. We found that camera you set up in Angela’s bedroom. Must have been pretty exciting stuff. Watching her undress. Watching her come out of the bathroom. Watching her sleep.”

  Angela’s fists clenched at her sides. Lucas’s words made her feel ill. What was he doing? Don’t talk to him about me like that, she wanted to shout.

  “Listening to her soft, even breaths…” Lucas went on.

  Doug shook his head furiously. “No! I didn’t have sound!”

  Lucas stayed near the door, so that Doug had to turn his head to see him. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms across his chest.

  When he did, Angela noticed a brief grimace cross his face. His shoulder. He’d said he’d fallen hard when he dove to stop Doug from shooting.

  “What?” he asked Doug. “You didn’t have what?”

  “Sound. I couldn’t—” Doug stopped. “I don’t know anything,” he finished lamely.

  “Right. So tell me, Doug, who’re you working for? Who told you to put a camera in Angela’s bedroom?” He looked toward the mirror.

  Angela saw a gleam in his eyes that she recognized. It was the same triumphant look he’d always gotten when he was about to run the ball for a touchdown, or sink the winning basket, or tease her unmercifully.

  His gaze met hers through the glass, although she knew he couldn’t actually see her. He winked and her heart leapt in her chest. Then he reached for the file folder and opened it, making a big deal out of paging through it until he finally found what he was looking for.

  “Right here, it says that two years ago, you were arrested for voyeurism after a woman spotted you watching her through her apartment window using binoculars.”

  “No. She misunderstood.”

  Lucas laughed. “She misunderstood why your binoculars were pointed at her?”

  “Don’t—laugh at me. She thought it was dirty, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t doing anything. I was just watching.”

  “And a year ago when a woman came home with her young daughter and found you in her bedroom going through her underwear drawer?”

  Angela moaned softly. How could she have gone out with such a sick pervert even once? Why didn’t she know just by looking at him, by talking with him, what kind of person he was? Maybe Lucas was right. Lucas and Brad. Maybe she really couldn’t take care of herself.

  Ethan answered her as if she’d spoken aloud. “You couldn’t have known, Angela. Don’t beat yourself up. These guys manage to do what they do because they appear so harmless. It’s only when someone can finally expose their ugly underbelly that people realize they’ve been fooled.”

  “Thanks,” she said dully.

  “From what Lucas told me, you already knew there was something wrong with him. You’d already told him you didn’t want to see him anymore.”

  “Small comfort.”

  “No,” Dixon Lloyd said. “That should be a very big comfort to you. Sadly, a lot of people don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.”

  On the other side of the window, Lucas was talking again. “No answer for that one, Doug? Because it says right here that you knocked her down and pushed the little girl out of the way and ran like the coward you are.”

  “I was—I was in the wrong apartment.”

  “Yeah? So it was a mistake that you broke into the apartment of the woman who’d been warning you for weeks to leave her alone?”

  Doug didn’t answer.

  Lucas closed the folder and set it down. “Here’s what I want to know, Doug. Why were you talking to Billy Laverne yesterday? And why were you handing cash over to Angela’s building super a few minutes later?”

  Doug stared at the table.

  Lucas kicked his chair again. He leaned over until he was in the other man’s face. “I asked you a question, Doug. What was the money for?”

  “Take—take these handcuffs off. You’re holding me against my will. Am I under arrest?”

  “You bet you are. For assault with a deadly weapon. And in case nobody told you, you have the right to remain silent.” Lucas leaned even closer.

  “But I gotta tell you, Doug, if you choose to remain silent, I’m going to wipe this floor with you. By the time I’m done you won’t be able to taste anything but dirt for the next five years, which, coincidentally, will be the same amount of time you’ll be spending in prison. You’re going to enjoy prison, Doug.”

  Doug was white as a sheet by the time Lucas straightened.

  From beside Angela, Dixon said, “He’s good.”

  Ethan sighed. “Yeah. Not exactly by the book, though.”

  Dixon chuckled. “By-the-book’s not all it’s cracked up to be, kid.”

  “Yeah? Well, neither is being a cowboy.”

  Lucas took a deep breath. “So, Doug, what do you know about a man named Picone?”

  Doug’s white face scrunched into a perplexed frown. “Picone? Nothing. I never heard the name.”

  Lucas walked around behind Doug’s chair. He looked up at the glass and raised a brow.

  “Luke believes him,” Ethan said.

  Then Lucas grabbed the arm of Doug’s chair and swung him around. “I tell you what, Doug. I’ll see what I can do about your sentence if you tell me just exactly what was going on between you and Bouvier. I’ll know if you’re lying, and you’ll get to enjoy the pleasures of prison for as long as I can possibly get you in for.”

  “I swear, all I was doing was getting Bouvier to scare Angie a little. I was hoping she’d come to me to protect her.”

  Lucas waited.

  “I got him to hire one of his repairmen to knock on her door late at night, wanting in. He was supposed to scare her. That’s all.”

  “And Billy?”

  “Billy was the one who told me she was asking if a repairman had been working in the units. He figured she was afraid someone had gone into her apartment while she wasn’t there.”

  “So you’re claiming that’s what the money was for?” Lucas crossed his arms.

  “Yeah,” Doug said eagerly. “Just to pay the repairman.”

  “Where’d you get the gun?”

  “I, uh—from a guy.” Doug’s forehead was spouting beads of sweat.

  “A guy. Would that be a guy we’ve already talked about?”

  Doug’s eyes widened and snapped to Lucas.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Dixon drawled. “Lucas sunk it in one.”

  “What?” Angela whispered.

  “Listen,” he muttered.

  “Let me guess. Not Billy Laverne.”

  Doug swallowed visibly.

  “That leaves Bouvier. So how’d you know he’d be open to getting you a gun?” No answer.

  Lucas got in his face again. “How, Doug?”

  “I-I’m thinking I might need a lawyer.”

  Both Dixon and Ethan stiffened.

  “Yeah? You think so?” Lucas pushed a pad of paper over to Doug and took a pen from his pocket. “And here I was just about to offer you a deal.”
/>   “He doesn’t have the authority to do that,” Ethan protested.

  “A deal?” Doug’s face lit up a bit.

  “Yeah. Tell you what. You write out your complete confession, including Bouvier and the gun, the cameras in Angela’s apartment and anything else you think you need to confess.”

  “And you’ll keep me out of prison?”

  Lucas laughed. “I kind of doubt that, Doug. But I’ll see what I can do. Let’s just say that the more you tell us, the easier it’ll go on you.”

  Angela breathed a sigh of relief and heard similar sighs from the two men in the room with her.

  Lucas had broken Doug. Not that she’d doubted him, but it was still a relief to know that Doug Ramis would be behind bars for the next several years.

  Watching Lucas as Ethan went into the room to receive Doug’s statement, she found herself believing, as she had when she was a child, that Lucas could do anything.

  Chapter Eight

  Lucas hung back as he and Angela left the police station. So far he’d managed to keep anyone from noticing the slight rip in the back collar of his jacket made by the bullet that had streaked across his back. Thank goodness.

  He hadn’t had a chance to check the wound, but apparently blood hadn’t seeped through his shirt to his jacket, or someone would have commented on it by now.

  If Ethan or Angela even guessed that he’d been hit, he’d never get away without being forced to go to the emergency room. And that meant more paperwork, more delays and, if the wound was worse than he thought, possibly an overnight admission. He couldn’t take the chance that he’d be separated from Angela for even short time. He held his breath until the automatic door closed behind him and he climbed into his car. Once his stinging back pressed against the leather seat, he was home free.

  He started the car, and as soon as Angela closed the passenger door, he pulled away and headed back for Chartres Street.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He sent her a quick glance. “For what?”

  “For what you did in there. The way you took care of Doug. I feel—safer now.”