“That’s not true. I would never do that to you. To any woman. That is not who I am and you should have at least trusted me with that much.” His harsh whisper carried the force of a punch.
“Don’t you get it? I had no idea what you were capable of.” When she realized how much her voice had risen, she swallowed and started again. “I didn’t know you. You wouldn’t let me in.”
“Like how you didn’t tell me about your dad?”
“I wanted to open up and tell you everything. I tried, but you kept cutting me off. You were always running out the door for your new job, the fake one.” She snorted. “I always knew the antiques thing was a front. But when I asked you about it, about your life before me, you brushed me off.”
Luke’s fingers clenched around the tree branches. “So you ran off and married the first rich guy you met. Or maybe we overlapped.”
“That is not true.”
“The timing was awfully close.”
“Because I saw what I thought was a sure thing and grabbed it. I found someone safe and stable who didn’t remind me of all of the insecurities that came with living with a man I didn’t know.”
Luke’s jaw hardened. “Okay, let’s calm down.”
“I had been through enough secrets and lies with my father. Watched him walk out never knowing when or if he’d come back. Then it all repeated with you.” The words poured out of her. She wanted to pull back, but they kept coming. “I didn’t like everything about Phil, but I knew who he was.”
Luke sputtered. “Clearly not.”
The bubble of emotion inside her popped. “Yeah. That’s where I screwed up. My radar misfired. I ended up with the exact man I was trying to avoid.”
“Is that my fault, too?”
She wanted to say yes. A few months ago she would have. Now the blame exhausted her, sucked the energy right out of her soul.
“No.”
A sudden calm washed over Luke. His features changed from sharp to flat. “You still think I’m a risk?”
She didn’t. Not anymore. Not after watching him on the job, seeing him in protector mode. She knew the truth. He thrived on secrets but not the type that would destroy her. He was a good man, driven and sure. Leaving him had been the biggest mistake of her life. One she would pay for every lonely day until she died, which, if people kept shooting her, could be today.
“I think you’re careful and guarded,” she said.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Ah, kids?” Holden’s voice boomed in her right ear.
Claire’s heart actually stuttered to a stop. “Oh, no.”
Luke nodded. “Yeah.”
She had forgotten all about the microphone and their audience back in the car at the end of the half-mile-long lane. Heat flashed over her entire body. If it was possible to blush from head to toe, she just did.
She glanced at Luke. When he threw her a half smile, she seriously considered throwing him in the bushes. “You could have warned me.”
“In my defense, I tried,” he said.
“When?”
“I pointed to the microphone in my ear.”
“I thought you had an itch.”
“This is interesting, really, but could we focus on clearing Claire of a murder that probably didn’t happen before you two start throwing punches?” Holden didn’t laugh, but she could tell by the lightness in his voice that he was fighting it off.
“Of course.” She slugged Luke in his good shoulder. “Idiot.”
“None of this would have happened if you hadn’t married Phil,” Luke shot back.
“I only did that because I was scared and you wouldn’t tell me the truth.”
Luke blew out a long breath. “Okay, look. I’m thinking Holden is right.”
“Always,” Holden said into the mic.
“Stop talking.” She tried to clear her head of everything but the plan. Hunt down Phil and drag him into the precinct to clear her name. It sounded so simple. “Where next?”
Luke watched her for an extra second before getting back to work. “Adam?”
“I’m in the security system and can keep the screens on their end set to my picture long enough for you to slip in. Just let me know where and I’ll set an infinite loop to give you the time you need.”
“We want the easiest angle in.” Luke’s gaze went to a single door.
She followed his gaze. He managed to find the least impressive entrance. “Nothing fancy and no furniture in front of it.”
“Probably means it leads to one of the least-used rooms, which is exactly what we need.” Whatever Luke saw must have satisfied him because he brought the house blueprint up on his watch. “Adam, there’s a door off a small patio on the far right.”
A tapping sound filled the earphone. “It’s a music room and it’s clear.”
Luke frowned at her. “Phil plays the piano?”
“I never saw it. Of course, I never saw this house, either, so what the heck do I know?” The fact that Phil hid all this from her didn’t matter now, but it sure did tick her off. Nothing about Phil turned out to be real.
“How many exits once we’re in?” Luke asked.
“Just two. Door to the patio and one to the hall.”
“That will work.” Luke scanned the open yard one last time. When he looked at her again a certain seriousness had washed over him. Gone was the confusion and arguing. “Stay down and follow me.”
“You’re in charge.” She wasn’t about to argue.
“About time you recognized that.”
Chapter Ten
Luke smelled another setup. Getting around a wall of security, past the open space between the back patio and the house, and through a series of gates and locks should have been excruciating. He expected to dodge and hide, possibly fight off one or more of Samson’s guards. Instead, they breezed through it all as if they’d been invited in the front door.
Alarms didn’t blare. Cameras didn’t shift to capture their movements. The back lock clicked open with very little pressure.
Too damn easy.
“What now?” Claire asked as she quietly shut the door behind her.
Luke stopped in the center and turned around in a full circle, hearing only the swoosh of his feet against the carpet. “Listen.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly. It’s too quiet.”
Except for the huge black piano sitting in the middle of the room, there wasn’t much in there. A bunch of crystal bowls and figurines that only the rich would find interesting gleamed under a series of small lights. It all reeked of money, but none of it told a story about the people who lived there, except to say they spent money on useless junk.
“You think they left or we got it all wrong?”
“We weren’t wrong.”
“We seem to be alone in here.”
The warning bell in his head tripped. “Where are the guards now, Adam?”
“Two out front by the entrance. That’s about four miles from where you are right now, by the way.”
“The other two?”
“One is on his way down the stairs. The other is in the kitchen. No one is near you. And from what I can tell, no one is manning the security station, either.”
It all felt wrong.
“Holden? What do you think?” Luke asked.
“It’s pretty relaxed at the moment. A good time to go in.”
“I’m not so sure.” Luke’s voice didn’t even rise to a whisper. He didn’t want to raise the alarm prematurely.
“I went ahead and disabled the camera in your room just in case. You should be clear until you hit the hall. I can pick up again then. Just give me the signal,” Adam said.
“I’m guessing we got lucky and the house is too big for them to hear one downstairs door open.” Claire’s voice filled with excitement as she spoke.
Luke didn’t share her enthusiasm. He didn’t believe in luck. Sometimes things worked out. Sometimes they were p
lanned to happen. This smelled like the latter. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
She stopped checking out the room and faced him. “What are you thinking?”
That they had walked right into the middle of a trap. Steve dropped a reference to this house, and Luke picked it up, thinking he’d found a piece of gold. He let the concerned-brother act fool him, even though it wasn’t all that convincing.
“Talk about a con man.”
“What?”
Luke pushed the coffee-shop memory from his mind. “Are you sure Phil never mentioned this place to you?”
She spread her arms. “I’d remember all this. Why?”
White-hot energy pumped through Luke. His body prepared for what his mind already sensed. “Something’s very wrong.”
Adam chuckled. “You always—”
His voice cut off.
Damn it. “Adam?”
Claire’s eyebrows snapped together. “What’s going on?”
The low buzz of static filled Luke’s ear. “Adam. Check in.”
“Why isn’t he responding?” An edge of panic moved into her voice.
Luke let the anxiety spin until it fueled him. “Holden, you there?”
Nothing.
Claire tapped on her earpiece as if that would make the sound come out. “I can’t hear them, either. What happened?”
Luke tried his cell but couldn’t get a signal.
He peeked out the door to see if they had company. He knew that was inevitable now. “If I had to guess I’d say someone is jamming the signal. Trying to trap us in here without any eyes to the outside.”
“That answers the question about whether we’re alone.”
“Exactly.”
She gestured toward his wrist. “It’s good we have your—”
Luke motioned for her to stop talking. He had downloaded the house’s schematics, the only ones available, to his watch. Announcing that small advantage would steal any chance they might have to sneak up on someone.
He leaned down and whispered against her cheek, “Careful. Ears are everywhere.”
Her gaze darted to the side. “Phil?”
Luke conducted a visual inspection of the room, looking for anything that might function as a secondary camera. Something Adam didn’t know to scuttle. “That’s why we’re here. Chasing your not-so-dead ex all over the metro area.”
“But how would he know we were coming?”
That was the simple part. “Because he was expecting us. He let us come right to him.”
“I don’t understand.”
Luke could see the adrenaline pumping through her in the way her body trembled and her weight kept shifting from foot to foot. She didn’t panic. Not his Claire. But she did look ready to bolt.
If Phil walked in right then, she might have choked him. Luke probably would have let her. The manipulative bastard of an ex-husband just kept crawling out and screwing her. Now he added Luke to his list of enemies. Luke viewed that as the other man’s biggest mistake.
“This is part of the setup, Claire. Phil lured you—us—out here.”
“Why?” Her mouth twisted in confusion.
The last drop of doubt in her story evaporated. Luke felt guilty that any still remained. “I’m not sure.”
“That’s not very comforting.”
“What I mean is, I’m not sure what he has to gain here. It’s all part of the plan.”
Luke didn’t have time to soothe or explain. Phil had been a very bad boy. This went deeper than hating his ex. The embezzlement and team of protectors suggested that Phil had a much bigger crime in mind. Probably hoped to skip out with the pension money and hang all that on Claire, as well.
Luke’s gaze moved over the room looking for the one thing that didn’t fit. A bulky statue on the piano grabbed his attention. The few pieces of art in the room were made of fragile crystal. All sat perfectly arranged under individual lights on the built-in bookshelves. The clay form of some unknown man was twice the size of anything else and totally out of place. Looked cheap, too.
“Phil knows exactly where we are.” Luke wanted to hit something. Despite all the careful planning, Phil had stayed a step or two ahead.
She stared up at the ceiling. “He can see us?”
“Not if I can help it.” Luke grabbed the statue and rubbed his thumb over it, checking for a seam or any evidence that it was something other than a priceless piece of art.
“You pick this moment to show an interest in antiques?”
“It’s junk.”
“No offense, but despite what you claim, you’re not really an expert in that sort of thing.”
“Don’t have to be. I know a cover when I see one.” He turned the item over and slid the bottom plate back. “Here it is.”
The opening led to wires and a switch. And there, in the base, was a tiny window. A camera.
An image of every step they made traveled through the house and landed on a screen planted in front of Phil. When Luke found the guy, he planned to shove the camera down his throat. Let him choke on it. Until then, it was time to shut the information highway down.
He didn’t need both arms for this. With a tight grip and a wide arc, he cracked the statue against the shelves. A sharp thwack sounded the second before the wood splintered, sending chips flying. The fake head rolled to the floor as the rest of the casing crumbled in Luke’s hand.
“That’s my kind of fine art,” Luke said.
“Did you cut yourself?”
“No.” He dropped the pieces to the floor and crunched them under his foot. “And so much for eavesdropping.”
“I thought we were being quiet.”
“Why bother? Phil already knows we’re here. He’s waiting. Watching. The object is to give him something he doesn’t expect. Now that his mirror into this room is gone, we have that chance.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet, but we need to get out of this room.”
“Outside?”
“Too open. I don’t know where Phil’s men are. We could walk right into an ambush. And if I know Adam, he’s doing double time trying to get the feed back up. Until he does, the key is to stay out of the camera range and get moving before the goons come sniffing.”
“Claire.”
Luke jumped at the sound of the deep voice bouncing off the walls. It echoed in the hall as if a loudspeaker blasted the message in every room.
“What the hell?” Luke asked the question of the room. He didn’t expect an answer.
Claire had one. “That’s Phil.”
“He must be on some sort of intercom system. Guess that’s one of those upgrades he made that’s not on the plans anywhere.”
“Does that mean he can still see us?”
“Since the sound’s filling the whole house, I doubt it. If he knew we were still in here, we’d probably only hear it in here.”
“Come into the entry and I will consider letting your boyfriend live,” the faceless voice said.
Luke flashed Claire his harshest scowl. “If you move I’ll…”
He trailed off when he realized he didn’t have a believable threat ready.
She twisted her hands together hard enough to redden her skin. “Phil knows we’re here. He has control over the guns and cameras. We don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always another way. Besides, I’m armed.”
“He could have Holden and Adam, for all we know.”
Luke pushed that possibility out of his head. He could only handle one battle at a time and didn’t need to invite more. “What are you suggesting?”
She pulled in tight to him, her feet planted between his, and held on to his forearms. Leaning in, she spoke in a voice so soft that only he could hear. “Let me.”
This close he could smell the subtle hint of her shampoo and the fear that beat in her chest. “What?”
“I can go out there and talk to him.”
The idea of that confrontation started a growl low in Luke’
s stomach. “The last time you tried to reason with this guy on his home turf you ended up as a murder suspect.”
“He’s not going to give up. Even if we do make it out of here, which I can’t imagine, he’ll hunt me down. He’ll hunt you down.”
“And we need to know why.”
“Will it matter if we don’t stop him? Luke, he’s sent men to find us. He has men in the house to protect him now.” The pleading in her dark eyes shouted louder than words.
“We’ve done fine so far.” They had avoided and landed a few good shots. Even Luke wasn’t sure how much longer that streak could last.
“Claire.” Phil said her name in a singsongy voice. “It’s time.”
Her fingernails dug deeper into Luke’s arms. He felt the pinch of pain but ignored it. She needed reassurance. If he could think of a way to fill her with hope, to pour it into her until the raw pain in her eyes disappeared, he would do it. But his mind went blank to anything but empty assurances. “We’ll be okay. I promise.”
“Don’t you see? I can’t let anything happen to you.” Her tortured whisper battered his will.
“It won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I can handle myself,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything better to say.
She cupped his cheek in her palm as her eyes grew soft. “But I can’t tolerate the idea of losing you.”
The hard barrier around his heart eased up a fraction. “Claire—”
“I picked the wrong man last time. Let me do the right thing now.”
Without touching her he could feel the determination radiating off her. There were so many things he wanted to say to her. He didn’t even know what the right words were, but he wanted to stand there, staring into those eyes, as he fell for her all over again.
He settled for a harsh order. “There is no way you’re going out there.”
“Yes, I am. You are going to find Holden and Adam and get help. I’m going to stall for time. It’s not a great plan, but it’s the only plan.”
Before he could protest she flattened both hands against his face and pulled him in closer for a world-shattering kiss. This time his hands slid up to her waist as the soft touch of her lips rocked him. His body shuddered from the impact as his eyes slipped closed.
Under the Gun Page 9