Guarding His Witness

by Lisa Childs

  Clint had only been trying to disarm him, so that he wouldn’t hurt Rosie.

  But while he’d been distracted, had someone else gotten a hold of her?

  The guard better damn well hope no one had, because Clint would not be happy with him. But he knew who was really to blame if Rosie was harmed.

  Luther Mills.

  The man wouldn’t have to worry about his trial if he hurt Rosie.

  He wouldn’t live to defend himself.

  The ring alerted Luther to an incoming call on the drop cell. He hadn’t bothered to silence the ringer. No one would dare to report him for having the phone. “Hello.”

  Hopefully this was good news. The news that Rosie Mendez was dead. But before he could ask, a deep voice said, “Hello, Luther.”

  “Ex-officer Clint Quarters,” Luther said with a chuckle. “How did you get this number?”

  More importantly, how the hell had he gotten the phone from which he’d called? That cell belonged to the kid who’d been ordered to carry out Rosie’s murder. He had a sick feeling that hadn’t happened.

  A sick feeling that Clint Quarters had made certain that wouldn’t happen. And now he knew Luther had a drop cell in jail. He had no doubt that Clint would report him. Officer Quarters had always been way too by the book, even more so than Parker Payne.

  He’d been all about law and order.

  Now he would have to destroy it, and yet he wasn’t ready to end this call, not until he knew exactly what had happened to Rosie.

  “I got it off the kid you sent to kill Rosie,” Clint replied.

  “I did what?” Luther asked, feigning innocence. “You must be mistaken.”

  “The mistake was all yours,” Clint said. “We’re going to nail you for witness intimidation.”

  “You’re not a cop anymore,” Luther reminded him. “You quit after you got your young protégé killed.”

  There was a long silence, so Luther knew he’d scored a direct hit with remark. But he wanted to know if his other hit had been successful. So he continued, “You’re wrong, of course, about my wishing sweet Rosie any harm. But has she come to any? Is she dead?”

  The silence continued so long that he realized Clint didn’t know. He chuckled. “What, have you already failed in your new job as a bodyguard? Is she dead?”

  “You better hope like hell she isn’t,” Clint said. “Or you’re next, Mills.”

  Luther chuckled again. He knew Clint’s threat was an idle one. His was not. Knowing that the call was too short to have been traced or recorded, he said, “No. You are.”

  Chapter 11

  Rosie couldn’t stop shaking. Her fingers trembled so badly that she was barely able to twirl the tumblers on the lock on her locker. She had come so close to getting killed.

  So close to failing her brother.

  The lock clicked open and so did the locker. She caught her reflection on the mirror inside the door. Her face was pale, her hair tangled around it, and on her neck was the wound where the blade had nicked her skin. The trail of blood from it had dried.

  If it had cut just a little bit deeper, he might have hit an artery. Even in an emergency room full of hospital personnel, she could have bled out before anyone had had a chance to save her.

  But Clint had.

  He’d saved her.

  He’d pulled back that curtain before the kid had worked up the courage to stab her. And she had no doubt he would have found the courage somewhere. Luther had been holding something over his head, something that had made him desperate enough to take a life.

  To take her life.

  She shuddered in horror at how close she had come to dying. But then strong hands gripped her shoulders, and the fear flashed through her again. She opened her mouth to scream, but it was too late.

  A big hand clasped over it.

  This was it. Clint had been right again. The kid hadn’t been in the hospital alone. And whoever had been working with him had her now.

  She couldn’t expect Clint to save her this time. Somehow, she’d lost him when she’d helped take her attacker to an operating room. Clint had been talking to the security guard when she’d rushed off.

  She should have let the others take the kid. She shouldn’t have been worried about him. She should have been worried about herself.

  But he was so young.

  He’d reminded her of Javier.

  Javier, like Clint, would have wanted her to protect herself, though. How could she do it now?

  Could she reach the canister of Mace on the top shelf of her locker? She raised her arm and tried to snag it but the man holding her pulled her back, away from her locker. Then he turned her around to face him.

  She didn’t want to look at him. Maybe he wouldn’t kill her if she couldn’t identify him.

  When the hand slid away from her mouth, she said, “Don’t kill me. I promise I won’t testify.”

  She was lying, though. And she was not a good liar. So she doubted her assailant would believe her. And even if he did, he wouldn’t dare cross Luther Mills. He would kill her because he’d been ordered to—just like the kid in the ER had been.

  * * *

  “Where is she?” Clint asked the first person who stepped out of the OR.

  “Who?” the man in scrubs asked. “We had a male on the operating table.”

  “Rosie Mendez. The nurse from the ER,” he said.

  “The one this kid attacked?” This man, with all the blood on his scrubs, must have been one of the surgeons. He shook his head. “She brought him down, then left.”

  On her own? Or had she been taken like the kid had tried taking her out of the ER?

  He needed to find her. But first he needed to know if he’d taken a life. He’d had to before in his line of work, and it never got any easier. He gestured toward the operating room. “Did he make it?”

  “Why do you care?” the doctor asked.

  “Because I shot him.”

  The doctor gasped, then nodded. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. But like I told the other detective, he won’t be able to talk for a while yet.”

  Other detective? Was there really one at the hospital already? And had he been so impatient that he’d gone inside the OR during the surgery?

  Who the hell was here?

  Clint cared less about that, though, than he cared about where Rosie was. Without another word he rushed back to the ER. He had no doubt that Rosie would resume her shift as if nothing had happened to her. She was that much of a professional caregiver.

  But she was nowhere to be found.

  The nurse who’d been working with her earlier caught sight of him, though. “She went into the locker room. HR told her to leave.”

  “They fired her?” Clint asked.

  She’d nearly been killed. She shouldn’t have been here to begin with; she shouldn’t have been putting her coworkers and patients in danger.

  The nurse shook her head. “Not Rosie. They just want her to take some time off, which she never has. They think she’ll need it after this. That was a close call. Good thing you were here.” The nurse narrowed her eyes with suspicion.

  Good thing Rosie would not be working anymore. They hadn’t fooled anyone about their true relationship. Maybe Clint had fooled himself. He had started to feel like her boyfriend. He cared about her as more than a witness.

  He cared about her as if she were his girlfriend.

  Not that he knew what it was like to have one of those. He’d always taken his job more seriously than any relationship, and thus every relationship had ended quickly.

  No woman wanted to come second to a job. Once he’d become a bodyguard, he’d thought things might be different. That he might be able to make a life for himself.

  But he hadn’t felt right about that after Javier’s life had ended. Had Rosie’s?
<
br />   Where the hell was she?

  “Who are you really?” the nurse asked.

  Because he had no intention of letting her work another shift before the trial, he answered honestly, “Her bodyguard.”

  The woman nodded, but then she narrowed her eyes again. “Are you sure that’s all you are?”

  No. He wasn’t sure on his end. And even on Rosie’s end, he was more than that. He was the man who’d gotten her brother killed. That was really all he would ever be to her. All he could ever be to her.

  “I’ve known Rosie for a while,” he admitted. “I knew her brother.”

  The woman nodded. And she hadn’t shown any surprise that Rosie had a bodyguard. She might not have told anyone at the hospital, but they all knew about her brother, about Luther Mills and about the trial. “She’s in the locker room,” she said. “Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes,” he replied, and started toward it.

  So he almost missed her next comment: “I had to show the other man where it was.”

  Alarm struck him like a blow to his heart, making it beat faster. He turned back and asked, “Other man?”

  “The detective.”

  What detective? A real one or one of Luther’s crew that was claiming to be one? Or worse yet, a real one who was one of Luther’s crew?

  He didn’t ask her. She wouldn’t know. He rushed off to find out for himself. As he pushed open the door to the locker room, he discovered that Rosie was not alone.

  But it wasn’t one of Luther’s crew with her. It was a real detective—Spencer Dubridge. And Clint seriously doubted that the serious detective could have any association with Luther Mills except for wanting him behind bars as much as Clint did. And even if he was working for Luther, he hadn’t been able to hurt Rosie—because he was not alone.

  Keeli Abbott was with him. She stood a distance from him, though, as if she couldn’t stand being near him. And when she saw Clint, she shook her head. He couldn’t tell if she was disgusted with him or with Dubridge, though.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Spencer asked him. “You’re supposed to be her bodyguard. Where the hell have you been?”

  Heat rushed to Clint’s face with embarrassment. He had no defense. He hadn’t been doing his job very damn well.

  Surprisingly enough, Rosie came to his defense. “He saved my life again,” she said. “He shot the kid who was trying to stab me.”

  “I’ve already been to the OR to check on him,” Dubridge said. “I didn’t see you there. Where’ve you been, Quarters?” And he sounded suspicious of Clint, like he thought there was a reason he hadn’t been doing the job, like he’d been hired to look the other way.

  Damn Luther Mills and his leaks; he’d made everyone suspicious of everyone else.

  Clint snorted. “I was locking down the hospital with the security staff. They’re stopping everyone from leaving to search them for weapons. Something the police should be doing, but I didn’t even realize they were here yet. How’d you get here so fast, Dubridge?”

  And now he allowed the suspicion to enter his voice.

  And Spencer laughed. “Touché.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Clint said. “Answer my question.”

  “Parker put out a call that you and the witness disappeared,” Keeli said, and she sounded defensive of Dubridge, albeit begrudgingly.

  Dubridge continued as if she hadn’t spoken, though, as if she weren’t there. He’d always treated her that way when they’d all worked vice together, too. “From the way she was talking the night before,” he said, “about wanting to work, I figured she might be here.”

  That was why Spencer Dubridge had made detective at such a young age. The guy was smart and always a few steps ahead. That was why he’d been the one to catch Luther Mills, too. But he couldn’t have done that without Rosie’s help.

  “The safe house might have been compromised,” Clint said. “So we had to leave anyway.”

  Keeli nodded her blond head. “That’s what Landon said.” She grimaced. “He feels bad that he might have let someone tail him there.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered,” Clint assured her. “Luther would have found the place.”

  “None of that explains what the hell you’re doing here,” Dubridge said.

  “We stopped here to have his wound treated,” Rosie added—again coming to his defense.

  Spencer studied her scrubs. “And you weren’t working?”

  Her face flushed now. “Just helping out while he was being treated.”

  “Even if Luther knew where the safe house is, he couldn’t have gotten anyone inside,” Spencer said as if he knew the place. “No kid with a knife would have threatened her into no longer testifying.”

  Clint’s heart jumped for a moment. “What?”

  “She said she’s no longer going to testify,” Spencer said, and there was anger on his face and in his dark eyes.

  Clint looked to Rosie, whose face flushed an even deeper shade of red. “I only said that because he grabbed me, and I thought he was working for Luther.”

  Clint’s fingers curled into his palms as he fisted his hands. “You grabbed her?”

  Maybe he was working for Luther.

  But Keeli wasn’t. Clint glanced at her, and she just shook her head again. He had no doubt this time whom she was disgusted with—whom she’d always been disgusted with when they’d worked together. Bodyguard Barbie, as Spencer had called her the other night, was flattering compared to the names she had had for him.

  Detective...

  Had Parker purposely matched each of them up with the person they could stand the least? Of course, that was the reverse in his situation. It was Rosie who couldn’t stand him.

  “I thought she was running,” Spencer said. “We need her, or Luther might get away with murder. She has to testify.”

  “I will,” Rosie assured him. “I have no intention of not testifying.”

  Both men sighed in relief. Javier could not have died for nothing. His death would make sense only if it finally brought Luther Mills to justice.

  Spencer was studying Clint now. Was he still suspicious of him the way Clint had been suspicious of him?

  “Put away your interrogating-a-suspect face,” Keeli told him. “Clint wants Luther Mills behind bars even worse than you do.”

  Rosie stared at the other woman, as if surprised that she knew how Clint felt about Luther. But everybody who worked with Clint knew how he felt about Luther. They just hadn’t known why. Rosie was the only one who knew that now that Javier was dead. Her brother was the only other person Clint had told. Maybe that was why Javier had decided to become his informant. Maybe he really had manipulated him, just as Rosie had accused him of doing, just not in the way that she had thought.

  “If that was true, why didn’t you take the arrest for yourself?” Spencer asked. Then he glanced at Rosie, and he must have remembered. She’d said she would talk, but only to anyone other than Clint Quarters. He shook his head now and murmured, “What the hell was Parker Payne thinking?”

  Clint had been wondering the same damn thing.

  Then Dubridge focused on him again, as if they worked together, as if Clint were still his underling. “You have to make sure she lives to testify,” he ordered him. “Get her back to that safe house. Parker has it secured like a fortress.”

  “If that was true, how the hell did we get out so easily?” Clint asked.

  “Nobody was looking for someone trying to get out,” Keeli said, in defense of their fellow bodyguards. “They were looking for someone to try to get in. And nobody has. It’s safe.”

  A door opened and closed from somewhere inside the locker room. Since they didn’t see anyone, that person must have been in the bathroom. They were not alone.

  “Safer than here,” Spencer added. Like Cl
int and Keeli, he had drawn his weapon.

  After Rosie’s nearly getting stabbed in the ER, Clint couldn’t argue that she was safe here. But he wasn’t sure where she would be safe.

  Dare he trust that even if Luther knew where the safe house was that his fellow bodyguards would help him defend Rosie from an attack? He’d have to...because he’d nearly lost her here. He couldn’t risk that happening again.

  * * *

  Parker hit the button on his steering wheel, accepting the call on his Bluetooth.

  Spencer Dubridge’s deep voice emanated from his speakers. “I found the witness,” he said.

  “We did,” a female voice corrected him.

  Spencer didn’t have the phone on speaker, but Parker was still able to hear her. They must have been in a vehicle together.

  “I didn’t ask you to look,” Parker reminded the two of them. “Dubridge, you’re supposed to be under protection, too.”

  “I’m not in any danger,” Spencer insisted.

  “You nearly got Maced,” Keeli corrected him. And she laughed as if she would have enjoyed seeing that.

  “Yeah, some bodyguard you are,” Spencer shot back at her. Then he spoke to Parker again, asking, “If you think I’m in so damn much danger, how come I got Bodyguard Barbie?”

  “Stop calling me that!” she yelled at him, her voice echoing through Parker’s speakers.

  If Spencer didn’t stop antagonizing her, he might be in more danger from his bodyguard than from Luther Mills. Parker nearly chuckled at the thought. But he held in his humor to hotly defend one of his top bodyguards. “Keeli Abbott is one of the best damn cops I’ve ever worked with, you included.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Spencer snarkily replied.

  “You could be working for me now,” Parker reminded him. “I offered you a job.”

  “I have a job. And nobody’s going to stop me from doing it,” Spencer said. “Not you. Not Bodyguard Barbie and sure as hell not Luther Mills.”

  Maybe it was good that Spencer had turned down Parker’s job offer. The man was too damn stubborn for his own good. So Parker focused on what he’d said at the start of their conversation. “You found the witness? Is she okay?”