“He shouldn’t have brought her to the jail,” Jocelyn said.
“I brought you there,” Landon said.
“I am not the witness,” she said. “And I didn’t see Luther. She shouldn’t have either. What the hell was he thinking? Is he working for him?”
Landon’s hands tightened around the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “Absolutely not. Clint wants justice for Javier as much as you do.”
“And apparently we both want that more than his own sister does.”
“I think Rosie wants justice,” Landon said. “I think she’s just scared. She’s nearly been killed so many times.”
“So has Clint,” Jocelyn murmured. So he probably wasn’t working for Luther.
“That’s his job,” Landon said. “My job. That’s what bodyguards do—risk our lives to protect our clients.”
Jocelyn remembered the look that had passed between Clint and Rosie—an intimate look. They were more than bodyguard and client. Rosie hadn’t seemed worried about her own safety before. And maybe she wasn’t worried about herself now either.
Maybe she was worried about Clint instead.
Remembering the fall from that parking-garage half wall, remembering how hard Landon’s body had struck the roof of that SUV... Jocelyn shuddered.
And she wished that Landon would have let his boss remove him from this assignment. She wished that he wasn’t going to keep risking his life for hers. And she suspected that, just like Rosie Mendez, she was getting too attached to her bodyguard.
But unlike Clint Quarters, Landon wasn’t in love with her. He was just doing his job. Jocelyn had to remind herself of that—so that she didn’t fall for him like Rosie had clearly fallen for Clint.
* * *
Despite all the muscle he’d built up weight lifting in the jailhouse gym, Luther felt a hundred pounds lighter. He’d struck a deal with Rosie Mendez—a deal he had no intention of keeping. But that didn’t matter.
She wasn’t testifying against him either way. And now that he could focus on that annoying little evidence tech, he wouldn’t have to worry about her much longer either.
He snickered, then pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He punched in the number that had dialed him last. The guy thought he’d taken out Jocelyn Gerber. But he’d learned that those damn Payne Protection bodyguards were good at their jobs—too damn good.
“Hello?” the man tentatively answered.
“Hey,” Luther said. “I am no longer concerned about that little problem you’ve been trying to take care of for me.”
“You’re not?” the man asked with obvious surprise.
Luther chuckled again. “No. I have no worries anymore. And I really want to see Jocelyn Gerber’s gorgeous face when she loses. Again...”
Maybe he would offer to take her out for drinks afterward—to console her on yet another loss to him. After all the weeks he’d spent in jail with only ugly mugs around him, he’d enjoy looking at her.
Hell, he would enjoy doing a lot more than just looking.
“It’s in my best interest to continue with the original plan,” the man cryptically replied.
“Then you’re the one with another loss on your record,” Luther pointed out.
“I’d rather have the loss than a personal conviction.”
Oh. He thought Jocelyn was onto him. And maybe she was. She was pretty smart.
He sighed. “Then do what you have to do...” But he felt a flash of disappointment as he clicked off the cell. It was too bad—really. She was so hot.
But soon she would be so dead.
CHAPTER 14
“I want you to fire the Payne Protection Agency!” Jocelyn Gerber demanded, her heels clicking against the tile floor as she paced the chief’s office.
Woodrow’s head pounded more with each click, but she seemed too wound up to slow down now. On the other side of the windows, Landon Myers watched her from the detectives’ bullpen. He was probably getting dizzy from following her pace.
“I looked into your concerns that one of them could be working for Luther Mills,” Woodrow told her. “And I can assure you that’s not the case.” Even though he trusted his stepson Parker’s judgment, he’d wanted to make sure he hadn’t made the mistake the ADA had claimed he had in hiring Parker’s franchise of the Payne Protection Agency.
She stopped to cast him a speculative glance. Obviously she didn’t believe he’d done a thorough investigation, for she just shrugged. “I’m less concerned about one of them working for Luther,” she begrudgingly admitted, “than I am that none of them is working for me.”
He glanced through those windows at Landon again. The man had not taken his attention from her for a second even though Spencer Dubridge was talking at him.
“I think you’re wrong about that, Ms. Gerber,” he said. “Myers is obviously taking his job very seriously. I’ve heard he’s saved your life a few times now.”
Her pale skin flushed, and she glanced down. “I’m not talking about Landon.”
It was clear that she didn’t want to. Woodrow narrowed his eyes and studied her. Did she want the Payne Protection Agency fired for another—more personal—reason? Was she falling for her bodyguard?
“I’m talking about Clint Quarters,” she said.
He groaned. He’d been informed about the jailhouse visit and the witness changing her mind about testifying. “I understand.”
“You know?”
He nodded.
“What are you going to do about it?”
He’d had an idea how to keep the young woman safe. But, like Jocelyn, Rosie Mendez wanted nothing to do with the Payne Protection Agency anymore. And Woodrow didn’t trust any of his officers to keep her safe.
He wasn’t sure who he could trust within his own damn department. And that was infuriating.
“Don’t worry about the witness,” he said. “She could still change her mind.” If she wasn’t already dead. “And you have all the evidence the CSI collected.”
She drew in a deep breath before shakily releasing it. “I hope I do.”
“Of course you do,” he assured her.
“I thought I had evidence for prior cases, but when I tried to present it to a grand jury, it was gone.”
“That wasn’t the case this time,” he reminded her. “Wendy Thompson provided you with the evidence then and will again for the trial.”
“Wendy will,” Jocelyn agreed. “But what about the CSIs in those other cases? Why didn’t they produce the evidence I was told we had?”
He gasped. “I’ll look into that.”
“I need Wendy,” Jocelyn said. “You need to make sure she stays safe.”
“That’s why I can’t fire the Payne Protection Agency,” he told her. “I need them.”
She glanced through that glass at her bodyguard and her usually icy blue eyes seemed to thaw a bit. And he wondered if she’d had another reason for wanting him to fire the bodyguards. If maybe she’d begun to care about Landon Myers.
* * *
“I get why you’re mad,” Landon told Jocelyn. They’d returned to her office after her meeting with the chief.
She glanced up from her desk and studied him through narrowed eyes.
And he added, “I just don’t get why you’re mad at me.”
She sighed, but it sounded ragged with frustration.
“I agree with you,” he reminded her. “Clint shouldn’t have brought Rosie Mendez anywhere near Luther Mills.”
“Are you sure he’s trustworthy?” Jocelyn asked.
“I live with the man,” Landon said. “I’d know if he was on the take.”
And now he understood why she was studying him so intently. He groaned. “You’re not back to thinking I’m working for Luther, too, are you?”
She closed her eyes, a
s if she couldn’t even bear to look at him anymore.
“What the hell is wrong with us?” Landon murmured. “Why can’t we trust each other?”
Jocelyn opened her eyes and stared at him. But this time there was no suspicion, just confusion. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “Maybe we’ve both seen too much.”
He moved away from the door to come around her desk and lean against the front of it. His thigh brushed across her arm, and they both tensed. “Maybe we’re both worried about getting hurt.”
“We have been hurt,” she said. “You hurled us onto the roof of a car the level below us in the parking garage.”
He stretched and flinched at the tense muscles in his lower back. “Yeah...but we both know that’s not what I’m talking about...”
She jumped up from her chair then, as if trying to get away from him. But before she could move away, he caught her arm and held on to her.
“Let me go,” she told him.
But he shook his head. He didn’t want to let her go. He wanted to hold on to her. So he closed his arms around her and brought her tense body against his.
She felt so good. Smelled so good, too...like something cool and sharp. Just like she was—cool and sharp.
“Landon...” she murmured, and her gaze moved to his mouth. She stared it at as intently as she’d studied him moments ago. But there was no suspicion now—just a longing that he shared, that had his guts twisting into knots. He wanted her so damn badly.
“Let’s go back to your house,” he said.
She shook her head. “We can’t.”
“The workday’s over,” he said. “Pretty much everybody has left already...” So maybe he could take her here—on her desk. He needed her so intensely. He slid his hand down her back to her waist, then the curve of her hips, which were pressed against his.
Did she feel how she affected him?
She must have because her eyes dilated, the pupils swallowing all but a pale blue circle of her irises. “This is a bad idea,” she said even as she leaned into him, arching her hips against his erection.
He groaned and nodded. “A very, very bad idea.” But even as he said it, he lowered his mouth to hers.
While she smelled cool and sharp, she tasted so sweet. And she was hot, her body burning his everywhere they touched. He wanted to touch her all over, wanted nothing between them but their skin.
She pulled back, and he reached for the button of her suit jacket. But she caught his fingers in her hand. Panting for breath, she shook her head. “We can’t...”
He glanced around and noticed a few shadows outside the office. Probably the backup bodyguards. But he needed to be certain. “Let’s go back to your place, then,” he said. “You’ve done all you can for the day.”
But she shook her head again. “We really can’t do this,” she said, but she sounded conflicted and looked it, too, as her pulse pounded and she leaned against him yet. “We can’t get distracted from what’s important.”
At the moment, he couldn’t remember what was important. He couldn’t think beyond the insistent throbbing in his groin. He wanted her so much.
“Like Clint and Rosie got distracted,” she said. “They forgot how dangerous Luther is, how important it is to get him off the streets for good.”
Landon released a shaky breath of resignation. “You’re right...” He suspected the same thing with his friend and the eyewitness. They’d gotten personally involved. And those kinds of emotional attachments just caused problems.
In their business, it was better to stay single—easier to stay focused. But Jocelyn didn’t step back, didn’t move away from him.
He groaned again.
She rose up on tiptoe and pressed her mouth against his again. He kissed her back with all the passion burning inside him. But when he heard the door creak open behind him, with his back to it, he realized how damn right he’d been. How dangerous it was to get distracted.
How they might both wind up dead because he’d forgotten what mattered most was keeping Jocelyn safe.
* * *
Heat rushed to Jocelyn’s face, and not just from passion. She was embarrassed to look up and find Dale Grohms standing in her doorway, though she could barely see him around Landon’s broad shoulder. When that door had opened, he’d made certain that he stood entirely between her and whoever was coming into the office.
She wanted to take his protection personally, to believe that he really cared about her, but she knew he was just doing his job. Which was what she should have been doing.
“Sorry,” her coworker said, although he sounded anything but. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Jocelyn doubted that and opened her mouth to tell him as much.
But he continued, “Just figured you’d want to know about the latest attempt on the life of your witness.”
She gasped. Rosie Mendez should have known better than to trust Luther Mills. If she’d told him during her jailhouse visit with him that she didn’t intend to testify, he either hadn’t believed her or had decided to take no chances that she might change her mind.
“Is she all right?” she and Landon asked together.
Grohms looked at Landon instead of her, and he grinned. “Figured you would have heard this before I did. You’re the one who works for the Payne Protection Agency. Don’t you guys talk to each other?”
Landon glared at him, and his hands clenched into fists. Jocelyn grabbed his arm and held him back in case he intended to leap over the desk and attack Dale. She kind of felt like throttling him herself, though.
“Is she all right?” Jocelyn asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Her bodyguard saved her.”
“Is he all right?” Landon asked, his deep voice gruff. It clearly galled him to have to ask Grohms.
Dale shrugged. “I don’t know. The guy who tried killing her is dead, though. Some rookie cop who had originally been assigned to protect her before the chief learned about the threats. Guess the chief was smart for hiring the Payne Protection Agency.” He turned to head back out the door.
“Wait!” She called him back. “How do you know all of this, Dale?”
“What?” he asked. “About the shooting at the cemetery? That’s all over the news.”
“About the Payne Protection Agency, too,” she prodded. “How do you know the chief hired them?”
“Word gets around,” Dale said. “We’ve all heard that someone within the police department is working for Luther. Guess we know who that is now. Only thing yet to learn is who within our office is working for Luther.” He stared at her now, his brows arched as if he waited for her to confess.
And that sick feeling churned in her stomach again. All of Landon’s coworkers seemed to suspect her. Now, apparently, so did all of her own.
Before she could say anything in her own defense, he shrugged, turned and walked back out of her office.
Landon cursed, then murmured, “I really hope he’s the leak.”
She smiled. “I wish, but I doubt it.” She’d read the contents of the folder the DA had had the intern bring to her. Nothing incriminating had been found out about Dale Grohms. Mike Forbes was the one with the gambling debts. And the person with the driving-under-the-influence charge was a young ADA named Eddie Garza.
“And I doubt some rookie is the leak within the police department,” Landon said. “It has to be someone higher up than that.” His brow furrowed. “A detective...”
Did he suspect Spencer Dubridge?
“Or a CSI,” she reminded him.
He drew his cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number. Within seconds, Parker’s voice emanated from the speaker. “You okay?” he anxiously asked Landon.
“We’re fine,” Landon replied. “How about Clint and Rosie?”
“You know about the attempt on Rosie Mendez at
the cemetery?” Parker asked.
She must have been at her brother’s grave site. Maybe Jocelyn had gotten through to her during their meeting at the safe house.
“Clint saved her,” Parker said. “She’s fine.”
“And Clint?” Landon asked, his voice gruff with what was obviously fear for his friend.
“He’s fine, too,” Parker assured him.
“Where are they?” Jocelyn asked. She needed to talk to Rosie now—while the attempt was fresh in her mind, while she had to know that the only way to be safe from Luther was to put him away for life.
Parker paused for a long moment.
And Jocelyn groaned. “You don’t know, do you?”
“No,” Parker said.
“Damn it!” she cursed. How the hell was she supposed to try this case without the eyewitness?
“It’s good I don’t know where she is,” Parker assured her. “The fewer people who know, the safer she’ll be. But she will come back for the trial, though. She is determined to testify.”
Jocelyn’s breath escaped her lungs in a ragged sigh. “Oh, thank God.”
“Don’t be so happy,” Parker cautioned her.
And she felt a flash of guilt. She shouldn’t have been happy that the young woman must have been scared into testifying.
“Why not?” Landon asked the question.
“Mills will be even more dangerous now,” Parker said. “Since he won’t be able to get to the witness, he’ll try extra hard to take out everyone else associated with his trial.”
“Did you warn Hart and Tyce?” Landon asked.
“Yeah,” Parker said. “But you two need to be careful, too. There is still a leak within the district attorney’s office that we need to find ASAP.”
Landon picked up that folder from her desk. “We’re working on it,” he assured his boss.
Working...
That was what they should have been doing. Not kissing.
Landon clicked off his cell and opened his mouth to say something. But Jocelyn pressed her fingers to his lips. “I know,” she assured him.
Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set Page 54