Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  His gaze held hers and he leaned slightly toward her, as if he intended to kiss her again. But before his mouth touched hers, he jerked back. Then he quickly guided her toward the passenger’s side of the black SUV and opened the door for her.

  She didn’t know if he was in a hurry to get some distance between them or if he was really worried about whoever was watching them. “Didn’t Parker say that he had backup bodyguards following us?”

  “Not anymore,” Landon said. “They were needed to help guard Rosie Mendez.”

  Jocelyn nodded. “That’s good. She’s the one in danger.”

  Landon gently nudged her into the seat, and before closing the door, he reminded her, “She’s not the only one.”

  He could have been talking about the evidence tech or the judge’s daughter who’d been threatened, too, or the detective who’d investigated the murder and arrested Luther.

  But she knew he was talking about her. She wished he hadn’t seen all those threats. She watched as he rounded the front of the SUV to the driver’s side, and a twinge of panic struck her heart.

  If she was in danger, then so was he.

  Because, with how determined Landon was to protect her, if anyone truly wanted to hurt her, they would have to hurt him first.

  * * *

  Had Jocelyn and that giant with her seen him? He held his breath with concern that they might have. But then he expelled that breath on a ragged sigh. It didn’t matter if they had. This was the parking garage where he parked, too—since he worked at the same place Jocelyn worked.

  But they must not have noticed him behind the tinted windows of his car since they walked past him to a black SUV that must have been his.

  Who the hell was he?

  Boyfriend?

  He shook his head. He wasn’t buying that story. Jocelyn Gerber was too damn ambitious to let anything get in the way of her aspirations. She wanted the district attorney’s job. Hell, she probably wanted even more than that, and she had the resources to go after whatever she wanted.

  And she didn’t care who else wanted or deserved it more.

  No. The only way to stop her was to get rid of her.

  Luther Mills was supposed to do that. But for some reason he wanted to wait. He thought he needed to kill the others first.

  But he wasn’t going to wait. He had to get rid of Jocelyn—and whatever the big guy was to her—now.

  CHAPTER 6

  She went straight from working at the office to working at home. Landon stared through the leaded-glass doors of her home office, watching her as she studied the papers strewn across her desk.

  Was she working on the case that she’d started today, with a preliminary hearing in court, or was she working on Luther’s case? Or worse yet, had she received another threat she hadn’t shared with him?

  He just knew that someone had been watching them a short while ago in the parking garage. Even though he hadn’t seen them, he’d felt their presence and the intensity of their stare. He reached for his cell and punched in the contact for Parker. While he was confident he could protect Jocelyn while they were in her house, he needed to make sure she was safe everywhere else—especially the parking garage.

  He needed backup at least there.

  Hell, he probably needed backup everywhere since she was so damn distracting to him. What the hell had he been thinking to kiss her?

  Because all he wanted was to repeat it.

  It was a good thing she’d locked herself away in her office. She was out of his reach. And out of the reach of whoever had been watching them.

  He’d been especially vigilant on the drive back to her house, making sure nobody had followed them. He hadn’t seen anyone, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been there, still watching.

  Waiting for the chance to make good on all those threats she’d received.

  Parker’s voice emanated from his phone, but it was his outgoing message. Landon’s brow furrowed as he tried to remember if his boss had ever not answered a call. He couldn’t remember.

  He punched in the number again, murmuring, “What the hell’s going on...?”

  The call connected this time, but it wasn’t Parker’s voice he heard. The sound of sirens and a disjointed conversation emanated from his cell now. He only caught bits and pieces of it—only enough to scare the hell out of him.

  “Parker!” he shouted. Had his boss been wounded? Why the hell wasn’t he speaking into the phone?

  Then he heard his voice in that disjointed conversation, just a word here and there as Parker conversed with a few other people.

  And finally that conversation must have ended, for, at last, he spoke directly into his cell. “Have you heard from him?”

  “Who?” Landon asked.

  “Clint,” Parker replied.

  And Landon knew—all those sirens and the urgency of that conversation...

  “He’s been hurt,” he said.

  “Shot—we think,” Parker replied. “There was an ambush at the safe house.”

  “Did—did they get the witness?” Landon asked.

  “We don’t know,” Parker replied. “Clint got her away from the scene, but we don’t know if she’d been hit, too.”

  Landon groaned. “It’s my fault,” he murmured. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought her there.”

  “What?” Jocelyn asked. She stood in front of him in the open doorway of her home office. “What’s going on?”

  He ignored her, as anger gripped him. It had to have been her. She had to be working with Luther.

  “Let me know when you hear from him,” Landon told his boss.

  “The same,” Parker replied.

  But Landon doubted Clint would call him for help. After the ambush, there was no way he would trust Landon again, not as long as he had Jocelyn with him.

  He clicked off his cell and slid it back into his pocket with a slightly shaking hand.

  Jocelyn stepped closer and gripped his arm. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  He looked at her then, and anger coursed through him. But he was angrier with himself than he was with her. How had he kissed her? How had he been attracted to a woman like her?

  “You tell me,” he said as he pushed past her into the office. He glanced around even though he’d already searched in here for the answers he sought. “When did you tip Luther off to where Rosie Mendez was?”

  She gasped. “Wh-what happened to her? Is she dead?”

  Landon shrugged.

  And she tugged on his arm, as if she was trying to shake him or maybe pull him out of her room. “Tell me!”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Clint got her away from the ambush. But he was shot—” His voice cracked with emotion. Where the hell was his friend? Was he okay?

  “Call him,” Jocelyn urged him.

  Like Clint would answer his call.

  After what had happened, Clint was probably struggling to trust anyone right now. Especially him.

  “Why?” Landon asked. “You need to find out where he is now, so you can update Luther?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, her brow furrowing. “I have not and would never tell Luther where Rosie Mendez is.”

  Landon snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  She bristled, her willowy body tense with that self-righteous indignation.

  But Landon didn’t think she had any right to it. Any right to anything but a long prison sentence along with her real boss: Luther Mills.

  “What are you accusing me of?” she asked.

  “We all suspected it for a while,” he said. “Nobody could be as bad a lawyer as you seemed to be.”

  She gasped again. “How dare you—”

  “How dare you,” he interrupted. “How dare you destroy that evidence and let a guilty man go free to threaten
and kill innocent people.”

  “What are you talking about? I never destroyed any evidence.”

  “Then how the hell did you fail to get indictments?” he asked. “My unit worked damn hard to get Luther Mills off the streets. We built cases for you. Gave you what you needed—”

  “Bullshit.” She interrupted him now. “I didn’t get enough for indictments because of sloppy police work. It had nothing to do with my abilities as a lawyer.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “You would never take any responsibility for what you’ve done.” She’d always been quick to blame the cops instead of herself.

  Something like a growl emanated from her throat. “I haven’t done anything but my job,” she insisted.

  He snorted again.

  “What the hell do you think I’ve done?”

  “I think you are the leak within the district attorney’s office,” he admitted. “I think you’re the one working for Luther, that you’ve been working for him for years.”

  She pulled her arm back and began to swing her hand toward his face. He was ready for her—ready to catch her wrist and stop her from hitting him.

  But she stopped herself. Then she stumbled back a step against her desk and began to laugh. Maybe it was a relief for her for the truth to finally come out.

  * * *

  Jocelyn felt tears streak from her eyes as her stomach ached from laughter. How the hell could anyone accuse her of working for Luther Mills?

  At first she’d been insulted, so insulted that she’d been tempted to lash out. But then it had struck her how hilarious the ridiculous accusation was. So hilarious that she could barely stop laughing.

  But she forced herself to draw in deep breaths and calm herself. “You’re insane,” she told him.

  Landon arched his light brown brows. “I’m insane?”

  His inference sobered her up, and she drew in one more deep breath before replying, “Yes, you are, if you actually believe I could be working for Luther Mills.”

  “I’m not the only one who thinks you are,” Landon told her.

  And now her stomach ached with nausea. Was it possible? Could other people believe she’d work for a killer? That she would help an animal like Luther Mills evade justice?

  She shook her head. “Anyone who thinks that is insane,” she said. Or complicit.

  Was casting doubt on her a way to remove it from himself?

  “Explain to me how you failed to get all those indictments?” he asked.

  “I’ve told you before,” she said. “Sloppy police work. I never received the evidence that the arresting officer claimed we had.”

  Landon narrowed his dark eyes and stared at her with suspicion. “That’s a lie. You lost it.”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “I’m very careful to never lose the chain of custody with evidence. I double-and triple-check.”

  “So it just disappeared?”

  “Or it was never collected in the first place,” she said. She’d always thought that was the case, but now she was beginning to wonder...about a lot of things.

  “You’re blaming the police,” he said. “Why the hell would we claim we had evidence that we didn’t? We wanted to take Luther off the streets even more than you do.”

  She snorted now. “I doubt that.”

  “What? You have a personal beef with him?” he asked. But again he sounded doubtful, like he thought her path would have only crossed with Luther because she was working for him.

  “I have a personal beef with all criminals,” she said. “I want to take them all off the streets.”

  “That’s why you try to take all the cases at work?” he asked. “For justice?” He sounded skeptical again.

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Not for your career?” he asked.

  Mike Forbes had gotten to him. “Despite what my coworkers think, I am not after my boss’s job.”

  “Just justice,” he murmured again. Then he opened his arms, gesturing at the room. “How the hell do you afford this place?” He pointed toward the office walls. “The artwork? Your vehicle? Hell, that alarm system even.”

  “I didn’t buy it,” she admitted.

  “No,” he said. “Luther did.”

  She lifted her arm again, but before she could even begin to swing her hand at his infuriatingly handsome face, he caught her wrist and jerked her up against his body. “Let me go!” she said through gritted teeth, and she tried to pull free of his grasp.

  But his arms tightened around her. “So you can hit me? Or go get your Taser?” He shook his head. “Not going to happen. I’m not letting you go until you tell me the truth.”

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” she agreed. She would tell him everything—things she hadn’t talked about in years. But only on one condition. “If you tell me the truth.”

  He didn’t release her, but he drew back slightly and stared down at her, his brow furrowed. “About what?”

  “About who within the vice unit was working with Luther,” she replied.

  He laughed now—not uproariously like she had, just a gruff chuckle. “You really are insane.”

  “Think about it,” she urged him. “That evidence you and your coworkers supposedly collected never made it to the DA’s office. It was gone before it got to us. Where did it go?”

  He tensed now, and his brow furrowed. Then he shook his head. “No...no way in hell was anyone I worked with working with Luther. We all wanted to nail him. We all still want to nail him.”

  Even Parker. That was why he’d accepted the assignment from his stepfather, the chief. He wanted to make sure Luther was finally brought to justice.

  She arched a brow now with skepticism. “Really?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then why did you quit?” she asked. “Why did you give up?”

  He flinched as if she had struck him. “I tried,” he said. “For years...but with no results, with no accountability for what he’d done. He kept getting away with it—no matter what evidence we found against him.”

  She pursed her lips now. “Evidence you claim you found.”

  “We did,” he said. “I had it. A gun. A recording...” He shuddered as if abhorred by whatever had been on that tape. “But they disappeared.”

  She felt a twinge now. So they had been working toward the same goal all those years. And someone else had been undermining them.

  “You know I’m not the one who told Luther about the safe house,” she said.

  “I do?”

  “You were with me all day,” she said. “How would I have talked to anyone without you knowing about it?”

  He stared down at her, but he didn’t look quite as suspicious anymore.

  “You can check my phone,” she told him. “You can see every contact I’ve had. None were with Luther or any of his crew.”

  He released a shaky sigh. “So Luther just knew, the way he knows stuff...”

  “Through his sources,” she said.

  “Within the police department and your office,” he said.

  She snorted. “I still don’t believe anyone within my department would work with him.”

  “You have a lot higher of an opinion of your coworkers than they seem to have of you,” he said.

  She flinched now. She told herself repeatedly that it didn’t matter. She wasn’t looking to make friends at work; she was looking for justice. And to ensure that justice was served, she sometimes had to step on some toes.

  “You think highly of the people you work with,” she pointed out.

  “I’m not claiming Luther doesn’t have a leak within the police department,” he said. “I fully believe that he does. In fact, it makes a lot of sense.”

  About how that evidence had disappeared. Anyone could have gained access to the evide
nce locker and destroyed it. So maybe it wasn’t someone who he’d personally worked with in the vice unit. But it made more sense that it was.

  “I’m talking about the people you work with now,” she said, “at the Payne Protection Agency.”

  He tensed again. “What?”

  “They all know where that safe house is,” she pointed out. “One of them must have told Luther where the witness was.”

  He gasped—like she had. While his mouth was open, he didn’t spew any denials. He didn’t argue with her. He just looked, once again, like she’d slapped him. Then, finally, he shook his head again. “No.”

  “You’d rather believe I did it?” she asked. Maybe he thought she’d sneaked in a call while she’d used the ladies’ room. It was the only time she’d been out of his sight that day.

  He nodded. “Yes, I would. It makes more sense.” He glanced around her office.

  And her face heated with embarrassment. She’d promised him the truth. “I didn’t buy this house, and neither did Luther Mills,” she said before he could hurl that accusation again. “My parents bought it and the artwork and the security system. They’re paranoid about my not being safe enough.”

  “Having seen those threats, I understand why,” Landon interjected.

  “They have not seen those threats,” she said. She couldn’t imagine how scared they’d be if they had. “They’re paranoid about safety because my grandparents were murdered.”

  He sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “It happened years ago,” she told him.

  “I’m still sorry,” he said. “That kind of pain doesn’t lessen.”

  “Sounds like you speak from experience,” she mused.

  He nodded. “My parents are gone. My grandparents, too. None of them were murdered, though. Just health issues. Cancer. Heart attacks. I must not have good genes.”

  He looked healthy to her. He looked strong and vital. He felt that way, too, as he continued to hold her. His hand around her wrist, his other arm around her back.

  “How were your grandparents murdered?” he asked.