Protect

by LK Shaw

  “Get in,” he hollered at me. I didn’t hesitate as I quickly got into the passenger seat of his Escalade. He pulled out and turned left onto Division Street. I could only assume Josie was giving him directions on the other end of the phone.

  Black and I looked at each other when my own phone started ringing. “Unknown” showed on the caller ID.

  “This is Webber.”

  A voice I instantly recognized was on the other end. “Detective Webber, so nice to speak with you again. I expect you’ll be a little more courteous this time around.”

  I needed to play this smart, so I couldn’t let on that I now knew, not only his name, but also his every move.

  “What do you want?”

  I could hear Black say something to Josie next to me, but it was too low for me to make out.

  “I have something that belongs to you.”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “Here, someone wants to speak with you.”

  There was a rustling sound as he passed off the phone. Even before hearing her voice, I knew who would be on the other end. I flinched nonetheless when Katie spoke in my ear.

  “Daniel, please, don’t listen to him. He’s going to kill us both anyway.”

  “Katie, I’m coming for you.”

  “No, Dan—” The rest of her sentence was cut off as O’Reilly snatched the phone back from her.

  “Now, you’re going to do exactly as I say. You will come to this address, alone, I might add. You will not call any of your police friends. You will also come unarmed. I’d hate for any accidents to happen.” He gave me an address on the other side of town. “You have fifteen minutes.”

  Katie’s yell abruptly silenced when O’Reilly disconnected the call. I roared in frustration. I belted out the address to Black who immediately revved the engine, and the SUV surged forward as it sped up. Damn O’Reilly. He’d barely given me enough time to get to the location, which of course, was his entire plan.

  “You know this is a suicide mission, right?”

  “Well, let’s hope you don’t let that happen. Besides, he can try to kill me, but I won’t go down without a fight. And Black, if he does manage to kill me, you get Katie out of there. No matter what you have to do, you get her out of there.”

  He nodded as he continued racing against time. Nothing mattered but Katie. Sooner than I expected, we closed in on the house. Quickly, Black got out of the driver’s seat, and I took his place. He’d hoof it the rest of the way. I had to trust that he’d be there when I needed him.

  I slowly pulled up to the palatial house of Mr. Francis O’Reilly. The gated entrance opened upon my arrival, and as I drove through, I scanned the grounds, looking for any signs of guards. O’Reilly seemed pretty confident since I didn’t spot anybody roaming around monitoring the area. Either that, or they were good at hiding.

  I drove around the circular brick drive and stopped at the front of the house. I hid my gun and the keys under the front seat and made my way up the walk, my eyes continuously peeled for signs of danger. I didn’t bother knocking.

  Slowly, I opened the front door and entered the giant foyer with sunlight streaming down onto the floor through the skylight above. The sun’s rays bounced off the glass chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling, creating a myriad of colors and sparkles to dance across the walls.

  Footsteps echoed through the air until there stood O’Reilly in his dark pinstriped suit that probably cost more than a month of my salary. I knew his reputation and knew he’d been brought in several times for questioning by other officers, but this was the first time I’d ever seen him in person.

  “Welcome, Detective Webber. So glad you could join us. I trust you followed my instructions.”

  “Yes, I’m here alone. Now, where’s Katie?”

  “You know, there’s one thing I’ve noticed today; during all this time, you’ve never once asked me my name. I don’t believe we’ve ever met before today, so I’m wondering how it is that you seem to already know who I am.”

  I wasn't sure how much of my hand to show. My mind raced with reasons why I shouldn’t tell him. When I couldn’t think of any, I explained.

  “I found a cufflink at the crime scene where Jackson was killed. It didn’t take me long to discover it belonged to you. I put two and two together. Well, there was also the money that Jackson was paying you every month. Or at least the money he was paying you until a couple months ago.” Check. That last part was a total guess on my part, but it made too much sense not to be true. Why else would a high-class “money lender” kill someone? Because he was clearly not paying up. A dead or alive “client” didn't make a difference if O’Reilly wasn’t getting his money. Somehow, though, he thought he could get it out of Katie. I just hadn’t figured out how yet.

  “Ah.” He actually sounded impressed. “You must have some extremely intelligent and resourceful friends if you were able to find out all that information. But, you see, I also have smart and enterprising friends. They didn’t seem to know anything about this piece of evidence you say belongs to me. In fact, I was told explicitly that there was nothing found at the scene to connect me to it. And as far as money goes, there is nothing illegal about someone paying back a friendly loan.”

  I shrugged nonchalantly. “I guess you need better friends.”

  O’Reilly chuckled loudly, his white teeth gleaming. “Perhaps you’re right.” He quickly sobered. “I’m going to need that cufflink back.”

  “Well, then we have a problem, because it is no longer in my possession.” I paused. “However, I can get it with a simple phone call. All you need to do is hand over Katie. Then, it’s yours.”

  Anger flashed across his face, marring his handsome features. “That’s not how this works. You give me my property or your precious Katie is a dead woman.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You see, I might just be some dumb cop to you, but I have extremely well-connected friends. I also have a couple of friends in a little organization called the FBI. You see, Mr. O’Reilly, I’m not an amateur, and your cufflink, along with the evidence of payoffs made to you by Mr. Jackson that suddenly stopped not long before his death, is enough to prod my highly “resourceful” friends to dig a little deeper into your businesses. Something I’m sure you’ll find quite inconvenient.” And, mate.

  Both of us knew I’d backed him between a rock and a hard place. Even if we made it out of here alive today, O’Reilly would be gunning for us. No one got the best of him and lived to tell about it. One day, he would get his revenge. It wouldn’t be today, but I was now on his list of people whose life he would do everything in his power to destroy. He would strike when I least expected it. Insurance or not, eventually the cufflink and any other evidence I had wouldn’t matter to him, because he hadn’t built this empire by not greasing the right palms. Eventually, he’d find a way to recover everything, and then Katie and I would be dead. O’Reilly had a reputation of never forgetting slights, and this was the biggest slight of them all.

  Chapter 16

  Shortly after his alluding to the fact that he was going to kill Daniel and me regardless, O’Reilly had Ricco, aka Scar-face, escort me upstairs to a bedroom I would have normally swooned over. A king-size bed dominated the room, although it was housed behind two white floor-to-ceiling colonnades. The white and lavender duvet cover made the room appear bigger. A large soft gray settee stood at the foot of the bed, nestled evenly between the colonnades. A scrolled writing desk stood off to the side with a luxurious cushioned armchair of the same color as the settee tucked underneath it. Silver colored nightstands stood on each side of the headboard with glass stemmed lamps resting on top. The lines of the room were clean and modern.

  When I’d walked into the en suite bath, I almost fell over. An in-ground bathing pool was housed in the middle of the floor, lights glowing from under the water. White, fluffy towels were neatly placed inside cubbies on the white shelved walls. Silver fixtures shined beneath the track lighting. I
felt like I’d stepped into a resort. Only reality intruded and reminded me that this was currently my prison. A high-class and elegant one, but a prison all the same.

  I’d been warned that the windows were charged with a small volt of electricity, and should I try to open them, I’d be in for some unpleasantness. How many people had O’Reilly held prisoner here that he needed to zap them should they try to escape? I shuddered to think. It’s possible he could have been bluffing, but he didn’t strike me as the type of man who needed to bluff.

  That had been forty minutes ago. I’d long since stopped pacing; and instead, I sat perched on the settee and bit my nails. It was a habit I’d kicked years ago, but with the stress of the day and worrying about Daniel, I’d unconsciously started chewing. It had always been a habit of boredom more than anything. When the snick of the door opening sounded, I sprung to attention, ready for anything.

  When the figure behind the door stepped through, my heart jumped in my chest and began pounding a rapid staccato I could feel in my ears.

  “Oh my god, Daniel, what are you doing here? I told you not to come? Are you okay?” I rattled off the questions as my hands and eyes scanned his body, checking for any injuries.

  He grabbed my hands and lifted them to his lips to place a soft kiss on them. “I’m fine, I promise. C’mon, we’re leaving.”

  Daniel clasped one of my hands with his and led me out of the room and down the hall to the stairs. I didn't question him now, but followed the command in his hold. I was as anxious as he appeared to be to get out of here. We’d made it halfway down the stairs when O’Reilly stepped out of the office I’d left a short time ago. Anger was etched in his face, and every muscle in his body was tense. Whatever had transpired between Daniel and O’Reilly had him furious. Hatred spewed from his eyes as we silently walked past him. Neither Daniel nor I made eye contact. We just kept walking, Daniel’s head held high and confident. We’d just reached the front door when O’Reilly’s voice sounded behind us.

  “I’ll be seeing you soon, Detective Webber. You can count on it.”

  We’d been back at Daniel’s house for five minutes when the doorbell rang. I startled with nervousness; however, Daniel nonchalantly went to open the door. In stepped the biggest man I think I’d ever seen. He was a powerhouse, and it oozed from his pores. He was well over six feet tall, at least a couple inches taller than Daniel. He wasn’t handsome in the classical sense, but something about him drew my attention. He emoted this air of control that had me slightly uncomfortable.

  Immediately behind him walked in a couple. The man was attractive, with short brown hair that was graying at the temples and a slight amount of scruff covered his jaw. He wasn’t overly muscular, but built more like a swimmer. He carried a large black duffel bag. The woman beside him was adorable in a girl-next-door kind of way with blonde hair cut in a bob and royal blue glasses perched on her nose. Beneath one of her arms was a laptop.

  “Sorry I had to leave you behind, but I figured you could fend for yourself.” Daniel addressed the giant.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’d already called for back up after you dropped me off so Miles and Josie were right behind us.” He gave me a pointed look. “I think you should introduce us to your lady friend. She seems a tad twitchy.”

  Mildly affronted at the description, I forced my muscles to relax. Clearly, these people weren’t a threat to Daniel or me.

  “Katie, this is Connor Black, Josephine Bishop, and her fiancé, Miles Standish. Connor owns Blacklight Securities and has been helping me find Jackson’s murderer.”

  I gave them each a small, uncomfortable wave and smile, and they all nodded in return. I didn’t really know what to say to them. The woman, Josephine, made her way over to the dining room table and opened up her laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, and a series of beeps could be heard until finally, she seemed to finish with whatever it was she’d been typing out.

  “Your friend O’Reilly is calling in favors. Lots and lots of favors. I expect in the next day or two a contract will be out on your lives. You, Ms. Marsh, just cost one of the most powerful criminals in Pinegrove millions of dollars.”

  My head spun with this woman’s words. Contract? Millions of dollars? This wasn’t my life. It had to be a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. None of this could be real.

  “We’re going to have to shut him down quickly. Because if anyone is going to die, it’s not going to be Katie. I’ll kill O’Reilly myself first.” Daniel’s impassioned words should have horrified me, but instead, I absorbed them, knowing that this man had proven over and over again that he would do anything to protect me.

  Connor spoke up. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Josie has been looking into all of O’Reilly’s business, both legal and not, trying to find something to put him away for life. Jackson isn’t the first person he’s killed. He just hasn’t been caught before. Sadly, other than that small scrap of metal you found at the crime scene, nothing can put O’Reilly there. And that’s circumstantial at most. He could have lost the jewelry at any point in time.”

  “What are we supposed to do until she finds something?” I had no idea how long this Josie woman would take to get the evidence they needed to bring O’Reilly to justice.

  Connor glared coolly at me. I squirmed under his powerful stare. Good grief, this guy scared me a little. “Josie is a genius. It shouldn’t take her long. Right now, this is her top priority. Until she finds it though, you’re going to stay here with Webber and try to stay alive.”

  Well, gee, that sounded easy enough. So, pretty much, I was supposed to sit around and hope someone didn’t kill me. This Connor guy didn’t sound too sympathetic.

  He turned and directed his next words to Daniel. “Webber, I’ve got Miles here in charge of security. You’ll have a full detail until we can get O’Reilly. Miles will run surveillance during the day and two of my best men will split the evenings. It’s your choice, but I wouldn’t mention any of this to anyone in your department. We know for a fact that O’Reilly has several cops on his payroll. I believe he’s involved in the cover ups we discovered in that last case.”

  All four of them exchanged a look I couldn’t interpret, but clearly some type of communication passed between them. I was curious, but didn’t want to ask if front of them all. I’d wait and speak to Daniel after they all left. A ping came from Josie’s computer.

  “There it is. Damn, that was even faster than I expected. There is a hefty price on your head, Webber. I’m doing what I can to trace everything on O’Reilly, but it’s going to take some time, even with my skills.”

  “Just do what you can, Josie. In the meantime, Miles will be here as a safeguard.”

  Josie shut down her laptop and pulled Miles aside. They spoke in hushed tones in the kitchen, and it was clear they were saying goodbye. I averted my eyes when they embraced and shared a kiss. Then, she and Connor left, leaving Miles behind.

  “I’m gonna head outside and scope out the surroundings. Put up some surveillance equipment that Josie can hack into and keep an eye on things from her end. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

  Miles left Daniel and me alone as he picked up his duffel bag and went outside, closing the door softly behind him.

  “Wow, your friends are a little intense. Where did you meet them?”

  Daniel squirmed a little as though uncomfortable. He cleared his throat and gave a small cough. “I briefly met Black during a few cases I’d worked that he was involved with on the periphery. But, I also worked a case that involved Black’s wife. Although, she wasn’t his wife at the time.”

  Something in his tone had me studying him a little closer. I couldn’t be sure, but it almost sounded like chagrin. “It sounds like there’s a story there.”

  I paused to see if he’d fill in the question I’d left hanging.

  “It’s nothing really.”

  I should have let it go at that, but for some reason, I just kept pushing. “It d
oesn’t sound like nothing.”

  Daniel sighed in defeat. “I had a slight interest in his wife, and it led me to briefly forgetting about the case to focus more on fucking with Black. We’re not on the best of terms on good days. His wife, who, like I said, wasn’t his wife at the time, along with her biological son were kidnapped and almost killed. And it was my fault.”

  I absorbed his words and irrational jealousy flowed through me. For the briefest moment, I hated this unknown woman because she’d captured Daniel’s interest. It didn’t matter if she’d returned his regard or not. It didn’t even matter that it had happened long before he’d ever met me.

  “Hey,” Daniel spoke softly as he reached for my hands that I now noticed were clenched in fists at my side. “I’m sorry.”

  Puzzled, I wasn’t sure what he meant. “For what?”

  “For lying to you. For telling you that I would bring you nothing but trouble. I’ve fucked up so much lately, and I don’t want to let you down.”

  My grip tightened on his hands, and I stared up in awe at this flawed man. “Daniel, there is no way you could let me down. I love you. That’s why I was so upset this morning. I know I didn’t come out and say it, but I do. I love everything about you. Your protectiveness. Your loyalty. The way you make me feel as though I’m the only woman for you.”

  Our eyes remained on each other, love flowing between us. I knew Daniel loved me. It was in his every touch, even from that first kiss the night Emmett was killed. His need to push me away because he didn’t think he was good enough for me spoke of his love.

  Daniel reached up, swept my hair away from my face, and cupped my cheek in his large but gentle hands. He rubbed his thumbs across my cheekbones as he bent to place a kiss on my parted lips, and although he didn’t say the words back to me, he put every ounce of his feelings into it.

  We broke apart; this time, hand in hand, I led Daniel down the hall to his room. After closing and locking the door, I slowly undressed him as he stood there, still as a statue. His body was perfection, and I couldn’t help but dip my head and suck the barbell in my mouth, my tongue flicking over it. I’d never really thought about how sexy a man with a pierced nipple would be, but for some reason, it fit Daniel. It and his tattoos only accentuated his beauty.