Protecting Plain Jane

by Julie Miller

  “You’re right. With you, I never know what to expect. I just know it’s going to be interesting.” He liked the idea of leaving her alone and unprotected a little less than he liked the idea of her being out in the open with him, anyway. “Put on your coat. And this.”

  He pulled the Kevlar vest from the hook where it had been drying and strapped it around her chest and back.

  “We’ll make this as quick as we can. You stay right beside me and do whatever I say the moment I say it. You’re still my first priority, understand?”

  She nodded. Smiled. Tugged on his shirt and pulled him down for a quick, surprising kiss. “Thank you. For everything.”

  THIS WASN’T RIGHT. Where was the damn dog?

  He moved to a different position on top of the Mayweather Museum’s roof and used his scope to follow the couple hurrying hand in hand through the rain. He sat back for a moment, needing time to sort things out.

  His plan was to shoot both the bodyguard and the dog. Then Charlotte would be easy to take. She’d trust him dressed like this. With her boyfriend on the ground, bleeding to death, she’d be happy to see him.

  He went back to his original position and scanned the back of the SUV. Had they left him there? Was the dog inside the building? It would be easy enough to get inside again, but that would mean changing his plan, altering his timetable. And he was ready to strike. Tonight. His hands itched with the need to close around Charlotte’s throat.

  But he’d always been so careful about his plans, so precise. He couldn’t stand details that were out of place.

  But the opportunity was here. The time was now. She’d be all alone.

  He released his breath, calmed every muscle, picked up his duffel bag and followed.

  TRIP WAS SOAKED TO the skin and feeling like a rookie again. When Captain Cutler and Sergeant Delgado and even that gung-ho newbie, Randy Murdock, arrived, they’d call him twenty kinds of fool for walking into an exposed, indefensible scene like this one.

  If someone wanted to ambush Charlotte, this was the perfect setup. It was a lot easier to be seen than to see from this vantage point. Abandoned streets. No lights for two city blocks. High-rise hotels on one side of the creek and adjacent roadway, two-and three-story shops and apartment buildings on the other—with plenty of open space in between where anyone with bright lights and a four-wheel-drive transport could reach them.

  “Are you sure this is Bailey’s car?” he shouted over the roar of Brush Creek hitting the concrete abutment on the underside of the Hazelton bridge and swirling past the silver sports car pinned between the bank and the bridge’s outer wall.

  “It looks like it. I don’t know her license plate, though.”

  “Stay put.”

  He left Charlotte up on the road where the water was only ankle deep and waded into the rushing flood current with his flashlight. Testing each step to make sure he wasn’t washed on down the creek, he approached the bobbing vehicle from behind, gritting his teeth against the abrasive sound of steel grinding against concrete. The water was pushing against his hips by the time he fought his way to the upstream side of the car.

  “Is she in there?” He heard Charlotte’s shout like a faint echo.

  He shined his light inside the car. “No. It’s empty.”

  He swung his light around, peering through the dimness of rain and shadows to see if he could spot any foot traffic on the sidewalks or streets. Deserted. Dead. They were the only souls out on a night like this.

  “Is there any way to know if someone else could have picked her up? Her boyfriend, maybe? What the…?” The feeling of dread turned to fury as Trip’s light hit the floorboard beneath the steering wheel. He flipped the steel flashlight in his hand and busted through the passenger-side window.

  “What are you doing?” Charlotte shouted.

  His eyes hadn’t deceived him. The two-by-four wedged beneath the accelerator told him this was a trap, that the wreck had been staged, that the woman he loved was in mortal danger and he might be too late to keep her safe.

  He plunged toward the higher ground, waving Charlotte back to the apartments across the street. “Get back to the sidewalk! I want you out of sight right now!”

  “Trip?” She was frightened by his warning, but she was moving.

  He stumbled once in his haste to get to her and swallowed a mouthful of gritty water. He spit it out and floated a few yards off course before he found his feet again. “Call your sister right now.”

  She had her phone out, was dialing. “Now you’re scaring me.”

  “I don’t think anyone went into the water in that car. It’s a setup. Move.”

  It was a setup. Only Charlotte wasn’t the target.

  Yet.

  Trip spotted the subtle movement in the darkness on the roof of the apartments. He angled his light and caught its fleeting reflection off the lens of a rifle scope. “Run! Get back to the museum! Don’t stop until that door’s locked behind you!”

  He reached for his gun.

  But the bullet tore through his shoulder and knocked him back into the rushing water before it ever left his holster.

  “TRIP!”

  Stay in the moment. Stay in the moment!

  Charlotte stood frozen long enough to see him disappear beneath the surface of the water and for something darker to bubble up in his place. Blood? Oh, God.

  “Trip!”

  Rain smudged her glasses and tears blurred her vision, leaving her blind to the buffeting assault of noise around her—racing water, drumming rain, distant footsteps, her pounding heart. She needed Trip. Needed to get to him. Needed to help.

  What the hell was going on? Was that a gunshot? Was Trip hurt? Was he dead?

  She swiped the water from her glasses and scrubbed the tears from her face. She took one step off the sidewalk. Took a second and a third toward the rushing flood. The grinding crunch of crushing metal grated against her eardrums.

  Bailey’s car groaned as the rising water freed it from the bridge and carried it silently downstream.

  “Oh, my God.”

  The water had taken Trip, too. She was paralyzed with fear. Alone. In the open. Trip was gone and she was helpless.

  People can change. You want to change. You can do something about it.

  Trip’s words from the day of Richard’s funeral rang in her ears. For ten years, she was trapped and afraid—helpless to face the world. In the span of a week, a friend had been murdered, and her nightmares had become a real, living thing. She’d met a man, made love, fallen in love…and refused to lose him.

  She could change. She had changed.

  Trip Jones had her back. And, by God, she was going to have his.

  She pulled out her phone. She could call his captain, Michael Cutler. They were already on their way after Trip’s call. But she’d tell them to hurry. Hurry! Get SWAT Team One here—they’d know what to do. Only, she had no idea what the number was. Idiot. Call 9-1-1.

  A doorway opened and closed in the darkness behind her.

  Run! Don’t stop!

  “Charlotte? Charlotte!”

  Someone was shouting her name.

  Run!

  Charlotte’s body reacted even before her brain fully kicked in. She took off, moving her legs. She stumbled at first, and the weight of the Kevlar threw her off balance and she landed on her hands and knees in the flooding street. But just as quickly as the water soaked through the vest, coat and clothes to chill her skin, she pushed back to her feet. She lifted her heavy wet shoes and jogged, stretching her legs, picking up speed. And then she remembered she damn well knew how to run and took off—splashing, speeding through the dark and the rain.

  “Charlotte!”

  Don’t look. Run.

  One block. Two. Turn.

  The floodwaters that covered the sidewalks grew shallow, then disappeared by the time she crossed the street to the Mayweather’s back entrance. Her lungs burned. She was cold. She was scared. She skirted the Dumpster and en
tered the alley lot.

  And skidded to a stop.

  Her mouth dropped open, she was breathing hard. For one split second she flashed back in time.

  White van. Danger. “Don’t hurt me…”

  She started to mouth the words that had haunted her since that fateful night ten years earlier.

  But she blinked the rain from her eyes, blanked the memory from her thoughts. She stayed in the moment.

  Yes, there was a van parked in the alley next to Trip’s SUV. But it wasn’t white. And the man climbing out of the passenger side and hurrying toward her wasn’t her enemy. “Kyle!”

  Charlotte ran forward to meet him. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, reassured to see the familiar face. “Thank God. Have you heard from Bailey? She wasn’t in her car. Please tell me she got out okay, that she’s someplace safe.”

  Kyle patted her back, then left a brotherly arm around her shoulders as he started to walk. “Bailey’s at home. She’s fine.”

  “Thank God. I was so worried. We need to get help, Trip’s hurt. Someone shot him. I’m not going to believe he’s dead. I can’t lose him.” She took several steps with Kyle, then stopped and twisted away from his arm as the initial rush of relief cleared and his words truly registered. “Wait a minute. Bailey’s at home? Why didn’t you call me? Trip risked his life to save her. Why didn’t you call?”

  Kyle’s blue eyes squinted against the rain. “Someone shot your boyfriend? Lucky break for me.”

  “What?”

  “Get in the van, Charlotte.”

  And then she saw the gun in Kyle’s hand. And the bruiser in a security guard uniform sliding open the van’s side door. Along with the uniformed man behind the wheel, they were all waiting. To take her.

  “No!” She backed away, tried to run.

  “Get in the damn van!” But rough hands grabbed her, kicking and screaming, picked her up off the ground and threw her inside. Once the door slammed shut, Kyle turned down the collar of his raincoat and sat on an overturned crate, facing her while his silent, oversize friend bound her wrists and ankles with duct tape. “You’ve already made this more difficult than it needed to be, so be a good girl and shut up.”

  When déjà vu should have kicked in at this re-creation of her kidnapping, it didn’t. She was too angry at her stepbrother, too worried for Trip—too different a woman from what she’d once been to not want to fight back. She was firmly in this horrid moment, and fought back with the only weapon left her. Her words.

  “You’re the copycat—the one who’s been aping the Rich Girl Killer, trying to drive me over the edge into crazy land. Why?”

  He pulled a handkerchief from inside his coat and wiped the gun dry. “You can’t keep spending your money, Charlotte. Because it’s not there. I haven’t put it all back yet. And Jackson can’t find out.”

  “This is about money?”

  “Yes, damn it! Millions and millions of it. These fine young men work for a friend of mine and are here to help me get what I owe them.”

  She flinched at the tearing of her wet skin beneath the tape. “How about asking for a loan, Kyle? Why resort to this? Why kill a man?”

  “I didn’t kill anybody. Yet.” He slipped the gun into his pocket and pulled out a long scarf. “I’m just being resourceful. I thought I could take advantage of all your paranoia and the way you kept flipping out with this Rich Girl Killer after you. I asked Jackson to have you declared incompetent—to give me legal guardianship over your trust fund.”

  “You stole money from my trust fund?”

  “It’s called embezzlement, Char. I tried to live up to Jackson’s faith in me, but all my investments went belly up. So since you never pay any attention to the family business, I took your money to hide the losses and repay the man these two work for.”

  She eyed thug one and thug two and got a pretty good idea of what was going on. “A criminal? You got involved in something illegal and lost Dad’s money and stole mine to hide your mistake?”

  Kyle tossed the scarf to the man with the tape. “But you keep giving it away like it’s water. There’s no more to give away, Charlotte, you crazy bitch. I can’t afford to lose my job or Jackson’s support.”

  “Or get on their bad side?” Thug one was wrapping the scarf between his fists. “You don’t think killing me is going to turn Dad into your enemy?”

  “Me? But don’t you see the brilliant setup? The Rich Girl Killer is going to murder you. I copied everything he was doing to you—I intensified it by shooting at you when you were stuck in the middle of all those people, on display for the public and press. I poisoned your stupid mutt. It’s all leading up to your death at the hands of a notorious serial killer. I’ll be sure to say something nice at your funeral.”

  Should she tell him that the RGK’s MO was to strangle a woman with his hands, not use a ligature like a scarf? “Did you kill Richard?”

  “No.” Kyle tapped the driver’s seat in some unspoken signal. “But that day at his funeral, I saw how you reacted when he contacted you. I upped the ante by pushing you harder to crack.”

  “I’m saner now than I’ve ever been, Kyle. More grounded. Looks like you failed at that job, too.”

  Rage reddened her stepbrother’s face and he rose up, swinging his arm through the air and backhanding her across the face and sending her glasses flying. Charlotte fell to the floor of the van, her mouth tasting like copper, her head ringing. “You crazy Daddy’s princess. You screwed up your life, but I’m not going to let you screw up mine.” Kyle glanced over his shoulder to the front seat. “I don’t want to do this here. Drive.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Kyle moved behind the driver’s seat.

  Thug one took his seat on the overturned crate to spy out the front, as well. Charlotte spotted a blur of red and rolled toward them, praying they were her glasses. Victory. But as she put them back on her face, her success was short-lived.

  “Run him down. We don’t need any witnesses.”

  What? Despite the bonds on her hands and ankles, Charlotte scrambled to her feet to look through the windshield, too. Her heart sang and sank all at the same time.

  Trip.

  He was standing at the end of the alley, his chest heaving in and out with every breath, soaked to the bone. Blood was turning the left shoulder of his white T-shirt crimson. He stood with his legs braced apart, his right arm raised in the air, with his gun pointing straight at them.

  “Drive, you idiot!” Kyle shouted, stomping on the driver’s foot atop the accelerator. “He can’t play chicken with a speeding vehicle and win.”

  The van kicked into gear. The tires spun on the wet pavement, then found traction and lurched forward. Charlotte tumbled to the back of the van, screaming all the way. “No!”

  TRIP STARED DOWN THE van. His muscles were shaking after a swim and a run and the sudden demand to be still. His chest ached with every breath, and he was guessing the bullet that had hit his shoulder had nicked a lung as well. His left arm no longer screamed in pain, but hung numb and, for the moment, useless at his side. He never wanted to be this wet again. But the rain was a good thing. It had masked his approach, and the chill of it hitting his skin kept him awake, alert, when every drop of blood seeping inside and out was pulling him toward sleep.

  His gaze drifted once to Kyle Austin—now he understood why he’d never liked that guy. But then he turned his attention back to the business end of things and focused all his attention on the driver. That was his target.

  He’d seen the scuffle in the van, had raged at the knowledge that Charlotte was the one being harmed. But he knew his training, knew what he had to do.

  One man alone didn’t take on an entire army. Wounded and outnumbered, he’d be of no use to Charlotte if he charged that van. A smart warrior used his experience and his surroundings and whatever skills he could to obtain and keep his advantage.

  He was the biggest, baddest cop on SWAT Team One—t
he immovable force who held his ground and intimidated his enemy. He had hands that he’d learned over the years were good for a couple of things—fixing what was broken, making what was needed, protecting what was right and loving a woman. Loving his woman.

  “I’ve got your back, honey.”

  The tires squealed on the wet pavement. By the time the stench of burnt rubber teased his nose, the van was racing toward him.

  Trip stilled his hand and squeezed the trigger.

  “NO!” CHARLOTTE SCREAMED as the van hurtled toward Trip. Milliseconds flashed by like eons. “Move!”

  She heard a gunshot. The windshield cracked and the driver slumped forward. There was another gunshot and another.

  “Get him out of there!” Kyle yelled.

  The van lurched from one side of the alley to the other, careening off the bricks, narrowly missing a power pole. Every time Charlotte made it to her feet, she was thrown to the floor of the van.

  “Get him!” Kyle had a hold of the steering wheel now, and Thug one tried to pull the dead driver out of the way. “You son of a…”

  The van picked up speed. Charlotte was on her feet. Kyle turned the van straight toward Trip.

  “No!” She hopped forward, then threw herself at Kyle’s back, knocking him into the dashboard before he could get into the driver’s seat.

  The van veered to the right, Trip flew into the air and they slammed into the trash Dumpster and skidded to a crashing stop. Charlotte hit the floor one more time, but the Kevlar protected her from the crate and flying debris that threw her into the van’s side door.

  She was woozy for the first few seconds her world was still, her stomach roiling from the killer carnival ride. Her body was bruised, but as soon as her head was clear, she shoved aside the debris, ignored the moans of her stepbrother and abductors, and pushed open the side door and tumbled out.

  “Trip?” She clawed at the duct tape, but it held fast. So she crawled to her feet and hopped around the Dumpster. “Trip!”

  He was lying in the middle of the road, scraped up, bleeding. His leg was twisted at a grotesque angle, telling her it was broken. But he was alive. She saw his chest heaving for breath, watched him trying to push himself up onto his right arm, heard him groan in agony and fall back to the pavement. “Charlotte?”