Bulletproof Hearts

by Brenda Harlen

  “What did you do?”

  “Why do you automatically assume it was my fault?”

  She smiled. “Because I know you.”

  He acknowledged her statement with a slight nod. “It was my fault. I wanted her to give up the Ellis Todd case. She refused. I walked out.”

  “You really are an idiot.”

  “I know,” he admitted. “I tried calling her.” To apologize, to plead for forgiveness, to beg for another chance.

  “And?” Kelly prompted impatiently.

  “She wasn’t in her office. She wasn’t at home. I can’t find her, and I can’t shake the feeling that I really messed up this time—that it may be too late.”

  “She’ll forgive you,” Kelly assured him. “If she’s as smart as I think she is, she’ll make you suffer first, but eventually she’ll forgive you.”

  “That’s reassuring.” Dylan let the last dart fly. He didn’t even look to see where it landed.

  “In the meantime,” she said, nudging him toward the bar, “you can buy me a drink and I’ll fill you in on our plans for Conroy.”

  “So fill me in,” he said, after Liam had placed two sodas on the bar for them.

  She did so, briefing him on the plan to take down Conroy. But Dylan was only half listening to the details. For four years this was what he’d lived for, what he thought he’d wanted more than anything else. Now, however, all he could think about was Natalie.

  Kelly reached over and touched his arm. “We’re going to get him this time.”

  He forced a smile. He was proud of his sister, confident her team would succeed in their mission, and surprised how little it mattered to him.

  Kelly’s cell phone rang, and Dylan picked up his drink while she answered the call.

  He set it down again when she swore, using words he’d never heard come out of her mouth before.

  She snapped the phone closed. “I’m sorry, Dylan. I’ve got to go.”

  He grabbed her arm. “What’s going on?”

  “Hell if I know,” she grumbled. “Everything was on schedule to go down tomorrow, but we’ve got action now.”

  “What kind of action?”

  “Todd’s wife showed up at the house a few minutes ago, and Conroy’s car just pulled into the driveway.”

  Dylan slid off the stool. “I’m coming with you.”

  “This is a federal investigation now,” she reminded him.

  “I’m coming,” he said again.

  She opened her mouth to protest further, then saw the steely determination in his eyes and sighed. “You can drive,” she said. “While I call my captain to smooth things over.”

  Natalie dug through the pile of boxes in the back of the closet. She wasn’t entirely comfortable going through the Todds’ personal papers, but Sandra insisted they split up to cover more ground more quickly. She was positive Ellis would have kept the books at the house, and she was determined to find them.

  Natalie was probably just as anxious. If they could find some evidence to finally put Zane Conroy behind bars, Jack could come home.

  And Dylan…

  Her excitement faded. Dylan would finally have the closure he needed. He’d be able to move on with his life, but not with her. He’d made that painfully clear when he’d walked out of her office.

  She thumbed through the papers in a box. Mementos of Lucas Todd’s early years at school. Natalie had a similar box of Jack’s drawings and paintings in her own closet. She replaced the lid of the box, set the box back on the shelf.

  Dylan climbed into the panel van behind his sister. The interior was a tech geek’s fantasy, with monitors and machines everywhere.

  “Where’s Conroy?” Kelly asked.

  The agent monitoring the screens pointed to one on the right. “On his way to the den. We figured this is where things would go down, so we have three cameras in the room.” He pointed to two other monitors.

  “What is Todd’s wife doing there?”

  The tech shrugged. “Seemed to be looking for something. Maybe she found out about the second set of books, maybe she’s looking for stationery. Who the hell knows?”

  “There’s someone else in the house,” Dylan said, noting movement on one of the other screens.

  The tech saw him for the first time, gave Kelly a disapproving look. “You brought company, Creighton?”

  “Lieutenant Creighton,” Dylan told him. “Kelly’s brother.”

  “Ah. The local law enforcement.”

  “Yeah. Can you adjust that camera?” He pointed to a screen on the left.

  The tech rolled his eyes, but his fingers moved deftly over the assortment of keys and slides at his fingertips. The angle of the picture changed, zoomed.

  Kelly swore.

  Dylan’s world spun out of control.

  Natalie was in that house.

  Chapter 15

  Natalie’s heart was pounding so hard she could hear it echoing in the silence of the room.

  She’d found it. She was actually holding in her hands evidence that could put Zane Conroy in jail for a very long time. She scanned through a ledger, shocked by some of the names she recognized. He’d made regular “contributions” to the mayor, a local congressman, a couple of judges, a couple of cops and the district attorney, John Beckett.

  Shaking her head at the carefully documented evidence of corruption, she closed the book, stacked it on top of two others and carried them out of the room.

  She paused as the sound of a familiar male voice drifted up the stairs.

  “I want the books, Sandra.”

  It was Conroy, and his words, though quietly spoken, were laced with fury.

  What was he doing here? Realizing that whatever the answer to that question, his presence could blow everything, she slipped her cell phone out of her purse and dialed 9-1-1. She left the phone at the top of the stairs without waiting for the call to connect, knowing the operator would dispatch police to the address and unwilling to leave Sandra alone with Conroy a single minute longer than was necessary.

  “What books?” Natalie heard Sandra ask as she crept quietly down the stairs.

  “The ledgers your husband hid in the house.”

  “Did he send you here to get them?”

  “Where the hell are they?” he demanded.

  She set the books on the edge of the bottom step and inched toward the open door of the den.

  “If they’re important, he probably put them in the safe.” Sandra sounded composed, unaffected by Conroy’s anger or his demands.

  “They’re not there,” he snapped impatiently. “I checked.”

  “How did you get into the safe?”

  Natalie saw Conroy shake his head, a sly smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “You should know by now, Sandra, there’s nothing I can’t get if I really want it.”

  “Yeah. I learned that lesson the hard way. I should have guessed that you took Ellis’s gun.”

  He neither confirmed nor denied her statement.

  “Well, I want something, too, Zane. I want answers.”

  “You’re not in any position to be making demands.”

  “I think I am,” she countered. “Because I have something you want.”

  “You have the books?”

  “Tell me why you wanted Ellis in jail.”

  Natalie hovered at the doorway. She knew she should interrupt, but she was curious as to how the scene would play out between Sandra and Conroy, curious to hear his answers.

  “I don’t want him in jail,” he denied. “I want him at work.” His words were tinged with what she might have thought was genuine regret, but the implacable tone suggested otherwise.

  “He doesn’t want to work for you anymore.”

  “I can’t let him leave the company, Sandra.”

  “Why are you doing this? We don’t want anything from you except to be left alone.”

  “You were planning on leaving the country, going to Europe.”

  “There are too ma
ny unhappy memories here. We just wanted to start over again.”

  “Not with my child,” Conroy said.

  Natalie nearly gasped out loud.

  “Lucas isn’t your child.” Sandra spoke with conviction. “He’s mine and Ellis’s.”

  “He was conceived the night we made love in your father’s pool house.”

  “We never made love,” she said contemptuously. “You raped me.”

  “I loved you.”

  She shook her head. “You nearly destroyed my life.”

  “And Ellis, my former best friend, saved you—how very noble and self-sacrificing. He has quite a habit of that,” Conroy continued. “Sacrificing his own goals and interests for those he loves.”

  “He’s a wonderful man.”

  “Does he know Lucas isn’t his son?”

  “Lucas is his son.”

  “I have the DNA tests that prove otherwise.”

  Natalie saw Sandra’s shoulders slump with resignation and knew Conroy spoke the truth. And the final pieces of the puzzle slipped into place.

  “Does Ellis know?” he asked again.

  “Of course he knows,” Sandra snapped. “But he married me anyway because he loves me. He loves Lucas, too.”

  “Then he’s really going to hate it when I take custody of my son.”

  “No judge in the world would ever entrust a child to your care.”

  “I’m a respectable businessman,” he said smugly. “And your husband is currently on trial for murder.”

  “Is that why you did this? To get Lucas?”

  “Not at all. Having the opportunity to be a father to my son is just a fringe benefit.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, I might be persuaded to let things go on as they are—if you give me the books.”

  His callous response, his willingness to bargain away his child, made Natalie’s stomach churn.

  “How long…” Sandra faltered for a second. “How long have you known…about Lucas?”

  Conroy shrugged. “I suspected almost from the beginning. I didn’t have the tests done until a few years later.”

  “A few years?” She frowned. “You knew even before Lucas got sick? Before I asked you to be tested as a possible donor?”

  He nodded.

  “And you were still prepared to let him die?”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic, Sandra. The kid had the surgery—he’s doing fine now.”

  “Melodramatic?” she echoed with deadly calm. She shook her head. “Melodramatic would be my pulling a gun out of my pocket and blowing you straight to hell.”

  Then she pulled a gun out of her pocket.

  Dylan withdrew his own weapon from the holster, checked the clip.

  Kelly’s head swiveled in his direction as he slid the clip home again. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going in there.”

  “You can’t. We don’t have any authority to—”

  Dylan cut her off with a sharp expletive that told her what she could do with her authority, and he pushed open the door of the van.

  Natalie froze, her eyes locked on the shiny barrel pointed at Conroy. She couldn’t blame Sandra Todd for wishing him to hell—especially after everything she’d just heard—but she wouldn’t have guessed the woman would be willing to put him there.

  “Well, you’ve got more guts than your husband,” Conroy said.

  “I’ve got guts enough to pull the trigger,” Sandra assured him. “I’m just waiting for you to give me a reason.”

  Natalie said a quick prayer, took a deep breath and stepped into the room. “Don’t do it, Sandra.”

  Conroy started, obviously surprised to see her. “It seems I may have underestimated you, Ms. Vaughn.”

  “Your mistake,” she said, then deliberately turned her attention away from him. “Think about your son, Sandra.”

  The other woman’s lower lip trembled, her eyes glistened with tears. “I am thinking about Lucas.”

  “What will happen to him if you go to jail?”

  “I won’t go to jail,” she denied confidently. “No jury in the world would convict me for shooting him.”

  She was probably right. “But how will Lucas feel to have his mother stand trial for murder? Hasn’t he been through enough already?”

  “He set Ellis up,” Sandra told her, waving the gun at Conroy.

  Natalie just nodded, moved closer. She hated everything about Zane Conroy, she couldn’t even stand to be in the same room with the man, but she needed to get between Sandra and Conroy. It was the only way she could be sure that Sandra wouldn’t pull the trigger.

  Sandra looked at Conroy with hate-filled eyes. “Tell me who really killed that man.”

  “Your husband,” he said smugly. “Isn’t that what all the evidence proves?”

  “You took Ellis’s gun from the safe. You made him go to Kansas to buy that car for you.”

  Conroy just shrugged, but Natalie saw the satisfied gleam in his eye. She was tempted to let Sandra shoot him, but she knew everything would change for Sandra if she did. Even if she wasn’t convicted, she’d have to live with the fact that she’d deliberately ended another person’s life.

  “I know you’re upset,” Natalie said. “But you should let the police handle this.”

  “I’m not going to let him get away with this.”

  “He won’t,” she promised. “Not this time.”

  “You found the books,” Conroy guessed.

  Natalie turned to face him defiantly. “Yes, I did.”

  He seemed neither surprised nor perturbed, but simply asked, “Where are they?”

  “I think what you should be worried about now, Mr. Conroy, is where you’ll be spending the rest of your life.”

  “I have considered relocating,” he told her. “Somewhere with a more temperate climate. Florida, perhaps.”

  Natalie stiffened involuntarily. “The only place you’ll be relocating is behind bars.”

  “Have you ever been to Florida?” he asked, then he shook his head. “Of course you have. Your mother lives in Orlando now, and your son is visiting there.”

  His words were like a hand closing around her throat, squeezing the air from her lungs, causing bile to rise in her throat.

  “They were at the ocean today. Jack likes to play in the sand and splash in the waves in his red plaid bathing suit.” He smiled, a cold, bloodless smile. “Apparently you underestimated me as well, Ms. Vaughn.”

  She battled against the escalating panic, fighting for breath, for reason. “Stay away from my son.”

  “I have no intention of harming Jack,” Conroy told her. “So long as I walk out of this house with the books.”

  Natalie didn’t even make a token protest. She wasn’t prepared to call his bluff, to take any chances. When it came to protecting her son, there was no contest.

  But before she could tell Conroy where the ledgers were, she heard someone in the hall and a voice call out, “Police!”

  Her heart jolted with surprise, panic. She’d called the police as soon as she heard Conroy’s voice, but she hadn’t expected them so quickly—and she hadn’t expected Dylan.

  And that moment of distraction was all Conroy needed. He yanked Natalie by the arm, hauled her back against him—a human shield against the guns pointed at him. She felt the tip of something, cold and sharp, against her throat.

  “If you take one step closer, Lieutenant, I’ll slit her throat. She’ll be dead before her body even hits the floor.”

  Natalie closed her eyes, wishing she’d let Sandra Todd pull the trigger when she’d had the chance. Instead, she’d tried to do things in accordance with the law, and now she could end up dead. She couldn’t bear to think that her impulsive actions might orphan her child.

  She didn’t know how Conroy knew Jack was in Florida, but she had to trust that her son was safe. Despite his detailed knowledge of her son’s activities, she would have heard if anything had happened to him. She refused to consider otherwise. Jack was hav
ing fun in the sun, and she needed to concentrate on getting out of this mess alive so she could hold him in her arms again.

  She forced her eyes open and met Dylan’s. She should have listened to him; she should have abandoned this damn case. Instead she’d taken a stand. She’d been determined to prove her autonomy, and now she was paying for it.

  But she wasn’t the only one. Dylan was suffering, too. She could see it in the bleak terror in his eyes. His gun was steady in his hand, his gaze was unwavering on Conroy, and she knew he was reliving the night Beth had died. She didn’t delude herself into thinking he loved her as he’d loved Beth, but she knew, despite everything, that he cared about her. And she hated to see him hurting.

  “Are you prepared to watch another woman die, Lieutenant?”

  Conroy’s taunting words infuriated Natalie, strengthened her. She wasn’t going to let him use her to hurt Dylan; she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

  The knife pressed harder against her throat. She felt the tip of the blade pierce her skin, the slow trickle of blood.

  “What do you want, Conroy?” Dylan’s voice was raw.

  “I want you to drop your gun.”

  He lowered his arm slowly.

  “Drop it.” Conroy’s tone was curt. “And kick it over here.”

  “Don’t do it, Dylan. He’ll kill me anyway.”

  “Shut up.” Her captor snapped the words at her. For the first time, she glimpsed his control slipping. Conroy was backed into a corner and he knew it.

  “Let her go, and I’ll let you walk out of here,” Dylan promised.

  Conroy laughed. “I’m walking out of here all right, but I’m taking your girlfriend with me.”

  “Let her go.” Sandra Todd had watched most of the exchange in silence, but she spoke up now. “You can take me as your hostage, instead.”

  “I think an assistant district attorney would be a stronger negotiating tool than the wife of an accused murderer.”

  “A cop would be even better.”

  Natalie closed her eyes, silently praying that Conroy wouldn’t accept Dylan’s offer. She didn’t want to die, but she couldn’t live with herself if Dylan died for her.