by Regan Black
“Are you okay?” she called to him.
“Fine,” came his reply.
She could tell he was gritting his teeth with some pain, and though she couldn’t see him from her angle, she knew he hadn’t tumbled too far. Hammond couldn’t watch both of them, and she took advantage of it. Noelle had spent many hours here alone as well as with Lissa. She just had to stop and think where her friend might actually have hidden something she wanted only Lissa to see.
As she searched the kitchen cabinets, under the new couch and in the bookcase behind the chair she’d refinished, she heard Carson questioning Hammond. “Detective Werner is onto you,” he said. “Lissa gave him a rock-solid ID when she saw you at the hospital.”
“I know it. Shut up!” Hammond roared.
Carson didn’t shut up at all. He kept peppering Hammond with questions, getting the timeline, she realized. Fitting together when and how Hammond had recruited Noelle. She listened with one ear as Carson got Hammond to brag about the details of his perfect drug-skimming operation and reveal the pieces they hadn’t yet figured out. Sounded like Noelle had caught Hammond red-handed last year and forced him to let her in on it, until she turned on him and trapped him.
Now Lissa and Carson had to figure out how to finish the work their friends had started.
“Can I get some water?” Carson asked, his voice tight with pain.
“You won’t live long enough to enjoy it,” Hammond said. “Find anything yet?” he hollered at Lissa.
She planted her hands on her hips. “What am I looking for?”
“She robbed me.” Hammond took a step closer, caught himself and halted, keeping Carson in view. “You remember how I tortured her? Doctors have skills,” he said with a deadly sneer. “I kept her alive for hours. I even let you, her precious friend, go, and she still didn’t give me all of it.”
“All of it?” Lissa queried.
He motioned with the gun. “Check the bathroom. I swear that bitch made a drop out of the ladies’ room at the hospital.”
What did you do, Noelle? Lissa wondered as she searched behind the toilet, inside the tank, around the vanity cabinet. Carson continued to pester Hammond with questions, but she couldn’t quite hear it all.
She almost missed the little red tab back in the corner on the floor of the vanity, inside the cabinet door. At first glance it looked like a ribbon snagged in the seam of the cabinetry. It took some effort to tug it up, and when she did, she saw an envelope with Sarah’s name on it in Noelle’s writing. At the sound of footsteps, she shoved the envelope into her back pocket and hid the find behind cleaning products and clutter.
“Well?” Hammond demanded.
“Clean.” She wiped her dusty hands on her jeans. “There’s a safe in my room she might have used.”
He raised the gun. “And you’re just now remembering this?”
She shrugged. “You said bathroom, I searched the bathroom.”
He slapped her hard enough to have her seeing stars. He raised his hand again and she ducked, throwing herself toward his gun hand. They wrestled for control in the tiny space, bouncing between vanity and door. The gun fired again, the bullet speeding into the shower tile. She kicked and scratched and finally heard the weapon fall. She shouted for Carson to get help as it spun like a flattened black top across the bathroom floor.
Hammond swore, his face mottled with rage as he took her down. His hands clamped hard around her neck, and he squeezed with the strength of a madman. She fought, clawing at his face and bucking her hips, throwing knees, to no avail. Her vision hazed. Her lungs burned as her body struggled for oxygen. She heard something slam, felt the floor shake under her, and then Carson was there. His arms, his voice. She wanted to reach up, but her arms were too heavy. She was sure he was merely a hopeful hallucination.
The sirens had to be her imagination, she thought, another symptom of the ringing in her ears. The pressure in her chest was too much, and her head lolled back on her neck as she gave in.
* * *
Carson had dialed 911 when Hammond shoved him down the stairs and left the phone line open as he’d questioned Hammond. Every time the bastard looked away, he’d crept a little closer. At the sound of the fight and Lissa’s shout, he shot to his feet and stormed into the bathroom. No way in hell was he waiting for backup.
He crowded into the tiny space to find Hammond strangling Lissa. He plowed his boot into the man’s ribs and tossed him into the bathtub. Cradling Lissa in his arms, he carried her as fast as he could move downstairs and outside.
An ambulance had pulled to a stop behind the fire truck, and policemen were circling the house. He told them where he’d left Hammond.
No way the bastard would get away this time.
“Lissa,” Carson crooned. He set her gently on the cool grass of the front yard. “Come on now.” She hadn’t been shot, wasn’t nearly as bad off as she’d been last week, but the angry red handprints on her throat would take time to fade and her breathing was shallow. “Come on, sweetheart.” His fingers cruised up and down her neck, checking for serious damage. “Come on back to me.”
Why was it taking so long for her to come around? “Lane, move aside. Tell us what happened.”
“I’ve got this,” he snapped at the paramedics behind him. “Give me the oxygen.”
“It’s our job.”
He whirled on Yardley, lip curled. “She’s my responsibility. Hand over the tank.”
Carson placed the mask over her nose and mouth, willing it to push air into her lungs. Was there damage to her throat? He played it over and over in his head. If he’d been two seconds faster, she wouldn’t have blacked out. “Come on, Lissa. I can’t go through this again.”
He swallowed back a rush of tears, past and present getting twisted in his head. He wouldn’t lose her. Would not let it happen.
Her hand lifted to his cheek and he caught it, held it close. “That’s it. Breathe a little more. How bad does it hurt?”
“Carson.” She held his gaze. “You’re okay.”
The mask muffled her words, but he understood her. “You, too.”
Her eyebrows came together in an inquiry as she looked past him. “Werner just bolted upstairs to take Hammond into custody.” He helped her sit up so she could watch. “Keep breathing another minute or two. Your distraction gave me an opening.”
She pushed the oxygen mask aside and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him.
Carson cradled her in his lap, until they were both steadier.
“We can take you both in, just to make sure,” Yardley suggested.
“Yes, please,” Lissa said as Carson refused. They looked at each other and laughed.
“He shot you,” she said. She repeated the news to the paramedics.
“Not really.” Carson wiggled his steel-toed work boot so she could see the damage. “Hope he was a better doctor than he was a marksman, at least some of the time.”
“Me, too.”
“Ready to get out of here?”
“Almost.” He stood up and helped her, waiting until he was convinced she wouldn’t collapse. “Noelle did hide something in the bathroom. Under the vanity base. We should give it to Werner.”
Carson stood there, stunned into silence as she pulled an envelope out of her back pocket. He saw Sarah’s name, read through the papers along with her over her shoulder. “Noelle and Sarah were working together to stop Hammond.”
The locations of Noelle’s stashes were listed, as well as dates and times of Hammond’s operation. On the last page they read a personal note for Lissa. Carson held her as she read her friend’s final message. The note was an apology for any trouble or grief and assured Lissa she’d never once gone to the dark side of the prescription-drug scam.
“There’s more,” Lissa exclaime
d. “She hid the money she’d been siphoning out of the operation in the access stairs to the roof.”
“We’ll take Werner back to that once Hammond is out of here.”
“Right. No wonder Hammond was so furious,” Lissa murmured. “We were both lucky enough to count two of the best people in the world as our friends.”
He walked her closer to the detective’s car, his knees quaking over the close call.
“If I’d lost you...” he began.
“Same goes.” She turned in to his arms for another hard hug.
Relief and gratitude coursed through him in waves as they addressed concerned friends and neighbors and the various legalities. He wanted to whisk her away and hoist her onto his shoulders to celebrate her bravery.
“You were amazing,” he whispered at her ear. “My hero.”
“You got the open line to bring in the cavalry,” she countered. “You’re the hero.”
“You knew?”
She grinned. “I figured you were at least recording him. Thank goodness. I wasn’t sure how to keep stalling. Do we still need to worry about his crew?”
“Without him pushing to find the stolen money and drugs, they’re likely to scatter like rats.”
“Thank you for everything, Carson.”
“Is that a precursor to ‘see ya later, pal’?”
“No.” She looked up at him, and he wanted five more minutes with Hammond for those marks on her neck. “Unless you want it to be.”
“Friends,” he reminded her. “Your words.”
“I think I said we were more.”
“I’d like more, with you.” He added a kiss to the words whispered in her hair and tried to hold back all the things he longed to say to her. Instead he drew her close in another gentle hug. They were both alive and well. The words he yearned to say were probably best left until they were alone.
Lissa sighed into him as emergency teams wrapped things up and moved off. “Daniel never got the full tour of the house,” she said, rubbing his back.
“That’s okay,” Carson replied. “I saw him chatting with the landlady. He’s probably working up a bid to deal with the next round of repairs.”
“Oh, that would be good for everyone.” She gave him a small smile. “I liked those new floors.”
“What was left looked good,” he agreed. “Maybe I should offer to reinstall them,” he offered quietly.
She slipped an arm around his waist. “I’m not sure I can live here again, even when it’s done. Too many emotional ghosts.”
With that opening, he decided to dive in headfirst. He drew her around to face him, linking his hands at the small of her back. “Then you’ll just have to move in with me.”
“Carson.”
He wasn’t sure what label to put on the emotion swirling in her eyes. “What? It would be nice to have someone to trade off breakfast duties.”
His joke made her smile but left him feeling flat. They both deserved for him to do this right. “You made me promise to ask you a nosy, personal question when your memory returned.”
“I remember,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“You ready?” She nodded. “Did you mean it when you told your parents you loved me?”
She held his gaze, and he knew he stopped breathing while he waited for her reply. “Yes.”
“Then I have another, even more personal question for you.”
She arched her eyebrows.
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small velvet pouch. He opened the tie, and a square-cut diamond in a white gold setting fell into his palm. “My grandmother’s ring,” he explained. He’d pulled it out of the safe in his bedroom while she was in the shower yesterday, determined to have this conversation and to be prepared if it went his way. “For history and promises that last a lifetime. For a lifetime that leaves a legacy.”
His heart pounded as he saw the love, the joy shining in her gorgeous eyes. “Marry me, Lissa. We’ll sink all the roots you want, as deep as they can go, right here.”
“Oh, Carson.” Her fingers trembled, but he steadied her, sliding the ring into place on her finger. “How can you be so sure, so soon?”
“I love you.” He kissed her, a gentle touch of lips full of promises. “The time isn’t relevant. You are. You reminded me what trust and hope are all about. I’m sure of loving you, and I’m sure my life will be amazing with you in it.”
“I love you so much.” She pushed her hands into his hair and brought his face down for another kiss. “So much.”
He laughed along with her, his heart overflowing with happiness he’d been afraid to hope for. He’d rescued her, but she’d saved him body and soul.
As the wind moved through the trees, he thought he heard Sarah’s wild laughter.
* * * * *
Don’t miss the first book in the
ESCAPE CLUB HEROES series
SAFE IN HIS SIGHT
And watch for firefighter Daniel Jennings’s story,
available from Harlequin Romantic Suspense
in November 2017!
Keep reading for an excerpt from
REUNITED WITH THE P.I. by Anna J. Stewart
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Reunited with the P.I.
by Anna J. Stewart
Chapter 1
“Miss Armstrong, is the state ready to proceed with opening statements?”
Simone gripped the gold-tipped fountain pen her father had given her for law school graduation, a graduation he couldn’t be bothered to attend. An unfamiliar rush of uncertainty flooded her body and pulled her to her feet. She ignored the not-so-subtle murmurs of the packed courtroom along with the amused gleam of challenge in high-priced defense attorney Silvio Poltanic’s beady-eyed stare.
“Respectfully, Your Honor...” Thanks to the five years she’d spent in the Sacramento County DA’s office, none of the unease in her belly eked out in her practiced, determined voice. “The district attorney’s office would like to request a week’s postponement.”
“Your Honor!” Poltanic pushed his significant bulk out of the wooden chair. His nasal voice made Simone dig her manicured nails deep into her palm. “The jury has been chosen. My client has been waiting for over four months for his day in court. We are ready to proceed immediately.”
“And we will. In one week. I apologize, Your Hono
r. I take full responsibility for my lack of preparedness.” The words nearly sliced through her. There hadn’t been a day in all of Simone’s twenty-nine years that she hadn’t been prepared for whatever life threw at her, but even she hadn’t expected the call from Mara Orlov’s protective detail this morning letting her know that sometime in the last twelve hours her star witness had vanished.
“I do see where the original trial date was set for next month.” Judge Buford glanced over his wire-rim glasses from Simone to the files on his desk. The tension in Simone’s chest eased even as she sensed Poltanic’s blood pressure rise from across the aisle. “I also understand the district attorney recently let three of his full-time investigators go.”
“One of whom was assisting me on the case, Your Honor.” It wasn’t a lie...exactly. She had been assigned an investigator when the fraud investigation into Denton and his business practices first landed on her desk. Before Christmas. Last year.
“As it is a Thursday and there’s no court tomorrow, I’m inclined to grant the prosecution’s request,” Judge Buford said.
“But—”
“In light of that, Judge.” Poltanic held out a hand to calm his protesting, panicking and suddenly pale client. “I would like to revisit the issue of bail for Mr. Denton. As I’ve previously argued, he has a wife, children.” He motioned to Marilyn Denton and their two teenage sons sitting in the gallery behind their father. The older boy had a defiant, controlled expression on his face while his brother looked...lost. “Along with a business that needs tending, not to mention Mr. Denton has strong ties to the community.”
“The charges levied against Mr. Denton certainly constitute strong ties to some in the community.” Simone shifted her focus to the judge. She couldn’t allow herself the luxury of sympathy when it came to the Denton family. It wasn’t their fault who they’d been saddled with. Well, his sons at least. After a few run-ins with Marilyn Denton, Simone had little doubt his wife knew exactly the type of man she’d married. “I would remind the court the business Mr. Denton is so concerned with would be the same one we believe he established specifically to launder illicit funds.” Simone took a deep breath. She hated having to lay even one card on the table, let alone half her hand, but she needed time to find Mara. “Our ongoing investigation has uncovered multiple criminal connections that would make Mr. Denton’s fleeing the jurisdiction a definite possibility.”