Lou advanced on her, the glint in his eyes raging like the earlier fire. “You’re trying so hard to rattle my chains, but I’m the one holding the gun, remember?”
“I can see that,” Josie replied, her gaze sweeping over the stout, dark-haired man. “But you see, you can’t do anything to help your father right now. If you tell us what you know, we can help you and your family. We’re guarding your father for that very reason.”
“Oh, you want me to turn, right?” Lou stomped in a frantic pacing. “You’re making up things, wanting me to think my father has agreed to protection from the FBI. That can’t happen. I’ve waited a long time to tell the FBI what it can do with its cameras and listening devices and its petty spies. Now’s my chance to do something. I came home to look after my father’s interests while he’s recovering.”
“Or you came home to finish the job,” Josie said in disgust. “I’m no fan of Louis Armond’s, but even I smell a rat in this room. You’ve been living off your daddy’s money for a long time now. But it’s kind of you to be so concerned that you came home to help out, especially since we couldn’t locate your mother or you when this happened.”
Lou grabbed her by the collar and brought her in front of him. “Hand me her gun,” he said to Beaux. With one weapon strapped over his shoulder, he waited for Beaux to hand him the other one.
The other man did as he asked, but Connor couldn’t take seeing Josie’s gun aimed at her head. He lunged, but Vanessa got in his way, her dainty, dirt-and-smut-covered shoe almost tripping him.
“My mother is very quick for her age, yes?” Lou said. He held Josie’s gun to her temple. “Sit down, Mr. Randall, or I will shoot her.”
Connor counted to ten and took a seat. He had to stay cool for Josie’s sake. “What do you want, Lou? You know you can’t escape. The first responders might not have noticed you, but the FBI and the locals will be here all night investigating the fire. They’ll move back to the house later, since the master bedroom is still a crime scene. This place will be full of lawmen in a few minutes.”
“I know that,” Lou replied. “That’s why I’m taking her with me.”
“No,” Beaux and Connor both shouted. But Connor knew it was too late. He could see it in Josie’s vivid, on-fire eyes. She wouldn’t go with this man because she knew she’d never return.
Josie waited until Lou had her almost out the door, then she looked back at Connor. That look was a call to action. She grunted with all her might, then elbowed Lou Armond, and in a split second, her booted foot rammed into his midsection.
Lou dropped her gun and went down in a scream of pain. Josie grabbed her weapon, then held it over Lou’s face before he could use his gun. “Let go of the rifle.”
He grunted and let the rifle drop beside him. Careful to keep her gun on him, Josie swooped down and kicked the rifle well away from his grasp.
Connor grabbed at Lou while Beaux went after Vanessa. Lou’s mother was shouting and kicking, but Beaux held on. “I got her,” he shouted. Then he growled in her ear, “Hush up, Mrs. A. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
Lou let out a grunt, then started spouting profanity. “You’ll all regret this, I can promise you that. You have no reason to hold us, you got that? No reason, no proof, no search warrants, nothing. You’ve got nothing on us, you hear me? You’re breaking the law. My lawyer will see you in court.”
“I love visiting people in the courtroom,” Josie countered as she searched the room, her breath rasping. “I’ve got enough for now to at least take you both in for questioning. We found some interesting items in your daddy’s safe.”
Lou’s gaze collided with his mother’s. “What are they talking about?”
“I…I don’t know,” Vanessa said. “I never got past the garage. Someone threw something through a window and…the fire started and spread across the floor.” She looked genuinely frightened. “Lou, we’ve got to stop this.”
“Shut up!” her son shouted. His frowning face pulsed with an angry twitch. “I’m telling you, Randall, you will regret this.”
Connor took the sturdy garbage-bag tie Josie had hurriedly found in the big pantry and tied Lou’s hands. Then she did the same for his mother.
“The only thing I regret is that you had your nasty hands on Agent Gilbert,” he grated in Lou’s ear. “You’re done here, Little Lou.”
Lou kept cursing and hissing right along with his spitfire mother. By the time the backup agents arrived, they were both tied to dining chairs, and Beaux and Connor held the guns on them while Josie gave a report to Sherwood and the other agents.
“Two more Armonds carted off to the big house,” Beaux said on a satisfied sigh after Sherwood had gone back to the garage. “I’m sorry about that, Connor.”
“It’s okay,” Connor retorted, his gaze on Josie. He breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m so ready to be done with this.”
“Me, too,” she replied. “But right now, we need to see what the team found in that garage and possibly search it again before it gets trampled and rearranged.”
Beaux reluctantly left with the FBI after being promised he’d be under twenty-four-hour protective guard until he could testify against the Armonds. He understood he might have to go into some sort of witness-protection program, but the big man seemed relieved even after hearing that.
Lou shouted at him and called him a dead man walking, but Beaux didn’t look back. In separate cars, they were all carted back to the city.
Connor should have been relieved, but he knew this wasn’t over yet. It wouldn’t be over until they rounded up everyone involved with the Armond dynasty. But that list was long, and it stretched out over the entire world. He didn’t have enough time to bring them all in.
But he’d do it just to avoid seeing Josie held at gunpoint ever again.
*
Hours later in the predawn light, the charred remains of the big garage loomed like a dark hulk over what was left of the rainy night. Josie and Connor moved through the smoldering embers, careful of where they stepped. The forensic team had done a thorough job of bagging and tagging but Josie’s gut told her something could still be hidden here.
They’d searched the whole house but had found nothing—no other computers or flash drives, no safes or obvious hiding places. Josie had checked behind paintings and gone through office cabinets. Armond had covered his tracks, except for the contents of that safe. Which stuck out like a sore thumb.
Josie held her flashlight high to shine over their path, lifting crime-scene tape away from the gutted remains. “The forensic team and the parish fire investigator have gone over this entire place, but they didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”
“Except the accelerant that they told us about,” Connor said. “Someone threw a Molotov cocktail through that side window.”
Josie lifted the flashlight to the broken window, then swept it over the fire trail scorched across the floor. She had a vague memory of a hulking shape on the stairs, but it could have just been a shadow. “So an arsonist is now on the loose. I wonder if that person is the same one trying to kill all of us, the same one who set up that low-explosive bomb. Or did someone just want to destroy incriminating materials in both cases?”
“And I wonder why you insisted on staying behind to search again,” Connor retorted. “I’m dirty, tired and in need of nourishment. But you, Agent Gilbert, you just keep on ticking.”
“I’m exhausted, too,” she said on a long sigh. “But both Vanessa and Lou Armond returned here for something. That woman was willing to die in this fire to find whatever she believes is in this garage. What if someone was trying to get that money and those invoices out of the safe and just ran out of time?”
Connor shrugged. “It’s possible. But a team of agents and experts just left without finding a thing,” Connor reminded her. “They found the source of the fire but nothing to pin on anyone.”
“But they’ll definitely question the Armonds—you can count on that. For all we kn
ow, Vanessa started the fire. I did find her near the side door.” She glanced up at the stairs again.
“I understand she’s a suspect, and I’m extremely glad she and Little Lou are in good hands now,” he said, “but don’t you think we should get out of here before somebody else shows up?”
She whirled on him. “Stop trying to convince me to leave, and start thinking like a criminal, okay? You do remember how to do that, don’t you?”
Surprised, he tugged a hand through his hair. “You want me to think like a criminal?”
“Yes.” She held the flashlight down. “There is something very valuable in here, something that could either make someone rich or do someone a lot of harm. Could it have been in one of those upper rooms?”
Connor stared up what was left of the stairs. “He did store things up there. He’s a collector, so who knows what he’s stashed and where.”
“We need to pin something down,” Josie replied.
Connor ticked off the obvious. “They came after Armond by killing Lewanna first. Remember, they sent Lewanna a letter.”
Josie pointed the flashlight’s beam up high. “Yes. We turned that over to Sherwood already, but nothing to go on there yet. So Armond overstepped his boundaries or, at the very least, made someone very angry.”
“Yes, then they tried to kill Armond again at the hotel, which was supposed to be a safe house.”
“True. And then they came after us at Mama Joe’s. But why? Do they think you have what they’re looking for?”
“Or maybe they want both of us out of the way,” Connor replied. “If Lou had wanted us dead, he would have killed us tonight. I think he needed us alive. He did try to take you with him.”
“That man’s too caught up in being an Armond to let anyone live,” Josie said. “I took him down with an elbow and a swift kick, but I still believe he could be very dangerous.”
“Yeah, he’s led the good life for so long he’s definitely out of shape. And apparently out of the loop. Not knowing can certainly make a man do crazy things.”
“Do you think he’s the silent partner no one knows about? Maybe his daddy did something Lou didn’t approve of, based on that cryptic note Lewanna received.”
Connor shook his head. “Armond wouldn’t make Lou his partner. I’m thinking this partner is feeling the heat, so he wants Armond out of the picture. He’s probably been playing Armond, stringing him along until the perfect opportunity presents itself.”
Josie lifted the flashlight again. “Keep your enemies close and pretend to not know anything?”
“Possibly. Maybe the partner knows Armond has another son somewhere out there and he’s planning to use that information.”
She shrugged and flicked the light again. “Back to you thinking like a criminal. If you were a bad guy—which you are not now, thankfully—where would you hide something important? I mean something maybe with historical or artistic value? Or possibly an incriminating value. Or maybe even both.”
Connor didn’t understand where she was coming from at first, but then it hit him. “Or what if you were trying to hide something very secretive and extremely damaging inside an artifact or piece of art?”
“Now, that’s thinking like a criminal,” Josie said, all smiles. “And that’s smart.”
“We need to find a way upstairs,” he replied.
She moved a step forward at the same time Connor did, and they collided in the only open path left in the charred and melted garage.
Connor caught her against him, his eyes meeting hers as she stumbled into his arms. “Sorry,” he mumbled, his lips so close to hers he could see the sweet pink of her lip gloss in the growing morning light.
“That’s okay.” She tried to move but somehow wound up tripping over a fallen beam.
Connor caught her again, and this time he didn’t let her go. “Josie…”
She gave a little moan and then their lips were together, exploring and experimenting. Around them, the smell of burned wood and melted metal permeated the air. But here, with her in his arms, Connor smelled what was left of the clean scent of her hair and the faint hint of her spicy shower gel and shampoo.
After a minute or two, he lifted his head and held his forehead to hers. “Why is it, Agent Gilbert, that being in tight spots with you seems to bring out all my romantic notions?”
Josie’s eyes burned an amber-gold. “I…I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Maybe the danger. Is that intoxicating for you?”
“No, but you are,” he said, his hand moving down her soft, sooty cheek. “You do things to me, Josie. When that idiot Lou had that gun to your head, I…I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to hurt him in slow, torturous ways.”
“Guns are scary that way.”
“But you were as cool as a Popsicle.”
“A Popsicle? Seriously?”
“Icy and bright and…I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe it.”
She held her free hand on his shoulder. “I was anything but cool, trust me. But I had to think of how to get us all out of there alive.”
“Do you think Lou would have killed us?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“I lost a few heartbeats when he had his hands on you.”
“And here I thought you were the cool customer.”
“I used to be,” he admitted. “But that was before I had a change of heart. And that was before I met you.”
“I need you to stay cool, Connor,” she said. “I need you to keep thinking with that ruthlessness you’ve always had. If you go soft on me now, we could both wind up dead.”
“I’m not going soft,” he replied, his heart beating with a new strength. “Except when I kiss you.”
He kissed her again. But a ping of a shoe hitting concrete in the back of the garage brought them apart. Taking Josie by the hand, he pulled her behind a collapsed wall.
“I don’t think we’re alone anymore.”
Josie nodded, then looked around for an escape. “Here we go again. Will this night ever be over?”
THIRTEEN
“Shh.”
Connor put a finger to his lips.
Josie drew her gun, but held her breath. Who could be snooping around now? The FBI and the ATF had posted guards all over the property and the sheriff’s department had patrol cars roaming the roads and woods. Everyone wanted a piece of the Armond case, so all of the local agencies were cooperating on this one.
Connor lifted his head a notch so he could see between two burned-out, wet beams. He held up one finger.
Josie tried to speak. “One man?”
“Yes.” He squinted again, then turned to her. “It’s Sherwood.”
“My SAC?”
Connor’s right eyebrow twitched. “Can we trust him, Josie?”
“Of course.” But even as she said it, she had to wonder. No, that was crazy. Sherwood was a staunch family man who’d dedicated his life to the FBI, and he’d been trying to pin something on Louis Armond long before she arrived on the scene. The man had spent most of his career trying to bring down the Mafia lord.
“We need to alert him that we’re here,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?”
That little trickle of doubt dripped down her spine. “We can’t hide from the man. We’re checking the scene of the fire.”
Connor’s brow furrowed. “Whatever you say, but I’ll be watching him. In my mind, everyone is a suspect.”
“Yeah, well, in the eyes of the law, we’re all innocent until proven guilty.”
“Who’s there?”
Josie heard Sherwood’s gruff call. Too late to change her mind now. “It’s me, sir. Gilbert. Connor Randall is with me.”
“Come on out where I can see you.”
Josie motioned to Connor, then proceeded with her gun down. When she came around the collapsed wall, Sherwood was standing with his gun drawn.
“Sir?”
He lowered the gun and let out a breath of relief. “Thought I was
a goner for a minute there.” Keeping his weapon aimed down, he stepped over old tires and an overturned toolbox. “You two still hanging around?”
“We wanted to do one more search,” Josie explained. “Vanessa Armond was definitely looking for something in here.”
Sherwood took off his FBI ball cap and scratched his head. “Gilbert, you never give up, do you? We had a team of experts from three different law-enforcement offices in here, and they only found what you see—a burned-up building with a lot of automotive junk in it.” He pointed toward the big window. “Someone threw the accelerant through that window, so we know it was arson. I’m liking Vanessa Armond for it. She had means and she had motive. She’s a woman scorned, and now word is out that her husband’s mistress was murdered. She came back for revenge and made it look like she was trapped when she saw you.”
“Maybe what Vanessa was looking for is in one of the vehicles you confiscated,” Connor suggested, his gaze cutting toward Sherwood. For someone who’d been shot, his mobility in both arms was remarkable.
“Thanks for that expert assumption, Randall,” Sherwood drawled. “But you two have gone off on one too many wild-goose chases over the past few days. I think we need to regroup and get back on track. Your reports still have a few holes to fill.”
“What is our track?” Josie asked, wondering why he had come back to the garage. “Did you find out anything else that we need to know?”
“Nope, not a thing. I just wanted to have one more look myself. Too many people hanging around this place. Like you, I figured something important must be hidden here.”
“All kinds of places to hide things,” Connor said, walking around, his head up. “Those stairs had to lead to somewhere.”
“Not anymore,” Sherwood said. “Interesting that the fire was set very near that upstairs apartment.”
“The hired help did stay out here,” Josie said, giving Connor a quick glance. She should have gone up there first thing, but the whole place was a safety hazard.
“But why would the hired help hide something important to the Armonds?” Connor kept his eyes on Sherwood.
Love Inspired Suspense June 2014 Bundle 2 of 2: Forced AllianceOut for JusticeNo Place to Run Page 12