Dead End

by Lisa Phillips

  “How is he?”

  “Beat up, having trouble breathing, but alive even though he lay on his bedroom floor hardly breathing for hours.”

  A simple “Okay” wasn’t good enough? The man felt it necessary to affirm the fact that Wyatt was alive. Parker’s face had paled and his chest heaved with breath until his wife hugged his middle and he visibly relaxed. Parker was reassuring himself that Wyatt was okay, that he was alive. Nina relaxed. That’s what was going on—Parker was freaked out because he cared so much for his partner.

  She turned the corner and saw him then. Scratches. Bruises. His throat red, raw and swollen. And he’d lain there all night? He hadn’t tried to call them? A lump stuck in her throat and she surged forward.

  “STOP!”

  His barked command made her trip over her feet. She stumbled but remained standing. “What?” He didn’t want her near him? Why couldn’t she go to him?

  His eyes were hard, and the EMT beside him gently felt his throat with gloved hands. Someone pushed at Nina’s back, trying to get her to move. The rushing sound in her ears coalesced into words.

  “Excuse me.”

  Wyatt shifted his head to the side and winced. Nina got the message and moved out of the way. A uniformed police officer passed her, carrying what looked like a plastic toolbox.

  He scraped under Wyatt’s fingernails and closed the implement in its own container, sealing it up in a plastic bag that he wrote on.

  “Thanks.” Wyatt shook the man’s hand.

  “You got evidence?” Parker stepped forward so he was beside Nina.

  Wyatt nodded. “DNA.”

  Was he serious? “How?”

  Wyatt turned to her. He motioned for her to come to him, but she didn’t move. Nina couldn’t think past all the questions. “How did you get DNA?”

  “Actually, it was you who gave me the idea.” His voice was raw. It looked like it hurt to speak. “You scratched him in Karl and Tashi’s yard. On his face.”

  Parker shifted to face her. “We can run that DNA and get an ID. Between that and the photo, we have a decent shot at finding out who this guy actually is.”

  “He’s a killer,” she said. “What else do we need to know?”

  Parker set his hand on her shoulder. “Once we have his name, the tables turn. We go on offense instead of constantly reacting to whatever he does. You and Wyatt will be out of harm’s way.”

  Sienna said, “Why did he come after Wyatt?”

  Nina turned to her friend. It was a good question, but she didn’t know the answer.

  “Wyatt is connected to this now.” Parker’s words were measured, cautious.

  Nina took a step back anyway. This was her fault. She’d put Wyatt on Mr. Thomas’s radar. “First he shoots Tashi, and now he comes after you? I thought everything was directed at me because I’m trying to catch him.” It should have been. No one else was supposed to get caught in this killer’s cross fire.

  “Nina—”

  “No.” Sienna was going to try and convince her that it was fine when it wasn’t. Or that there was nothing she could have done to prevent this. Nina couldn’t handle that. Wyatt could have died and it would’ve been her fault. She fought the urge to go to him, to touch him and reassure herself that he was okay.

  The EMT said something. Parker squeezed her arm, then shook Wyatt’s hand in some elaborate move she didn’t know. Sienna said, “We’ll be outside.”

  And then she was alone with him. He sat on the bed, looking for all the world like he’d been run through one of those old-fashioned clothes dryers that squeezed things flat.

  “Come here, Nina.”

  She didn’t move. “The last time I tried to do that, you yelled at me.” She didn’t mean to sound impatient, but what if she hugged him and wound up hurting him? She was beginning to understand Parker’s reaction.

  “Because the evidence on me hadn’t been collected.” He sighed. “Nina, come here.”

  She made it to him on wooden legs. Wyatt put his hand on her shoulder and used it to keep him stable when he stood. She looked up at his dark eyes and touched his forearm so he didn’t break their connection.

  Wyatt said, “I’m okay. I tried to arrest him. We fought. I got DNA, and he clocked me in the throat before I tried to shoot him. Then he was gone.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  His face softened and he pulled her to him. Nina wrapped her arms around his waist and fought the tide of emotion that threatened to turn the lump in her throat to tears. Crying never solved anything, even if Sienna said it made her feel better. It didn’t change things; it only made Nina’s face puffy and blocked her sinuses.

  The front of his shirt was warm from his body heat. Maybe she’d tell Sienna about her discovery of how nice it was to be hugged by a man who was taller and stronger than her at a time when she didn’t feel good. Though given that Parker was Sienna’s husband, she probably already knew that.

  Nina pulled in a big breath and sighed, relaxing into the hold Wyatt had on her. “Thank you.”

  His hand was on the back of her neck as his fingers sifted through her hair. “You’re welcome.” His chest shook like he was laughing.

  Nina leaned back and tried to scowl. “What exactly is funny about this?”

  “Plenty.” He squeezed the back of her neck and gently pulled her in so her head was back on his chest. “But I’m not done with the hug yet.”

  “Were you really lying here all night?”

  “I was passed out, mostly. Tried to call Parker, didn’t get anything. Tried 911. I think he did something to my phone the way he did to yours. I lost track of time. When I woke up enough the phone worked. So I called it in.” Wyatt paused. “I’m still trying to figure it all out. My phone log says I called the cops just before midnight, but it never went through. I woke up a little after six and called again. That’s when they came.”

  Nina looked at the alarm clock. “It’s eight now.”

  “I told the cops not to call Parker for a while. I thought the call didn’t connect because he was on a job. I wasn’t really thinking clearly. But they checked with the office and nothing was going on so they called him.”

  His phone, lying on the bed, rang. Wyatt pulled her with him as he went to answer it. “Ames.” His eyes flashed wide. “You’re kidding me. Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you.” He hung up.

  “That was Karl. Someone tried to kill Ronnie Walters.”

  TEN

  Nearly killed, and all their fault. Wyatt watched Nina settle in a leather chair in the conference room at the marshals’ office. She sipped the coffee Sienna had prepared for her, but didn’t meet his eyes. Nina was a pretty good distraction from the fact that they’d shared a meal with two women recently and now both were in the hospital in critical condition.

  They’d spent the morning being fed the details in real time. She’d been shot, and the timing fit Mr. Thomas’s driving from Wyatt’s cabin back to Portland, though it was close. Ronnie’s husband had returned home after his early-morning workout at a local fitness club to retrieve a file he’d left there and found his wife bleeding out.

  Jonah Rivers cleared his throat. The senior marshal was Wyatt’s boss and a good friend. Jonah had been promoted a few months back after the town was flooded and their former boss was killed during a manhunt. Parker had taken his place as team leader, but Jonah still hovered like a mother hen. Wyatt didn’t blame him. Exchange the street for desk work? No, thank you. The police department had tried it. Then it was bye-bye PD, hello marshals.

  Jonah’s mouth twitched, and Wyatt realized he’d been staring at Nina, who had sat beside Sienna. His boss said, “Let’s wait for Parker.”

  Parker walked in on his phone. “Okay, thanks. Bye.”

  He sat b
eside his wife and took a gulp of the coffee she’d set there. “Portland PD are in agreement that security should be stepped up even more on Theresa and Emily, and they’ve stationed officers outside Ronnie’s hospital room. But they’ve got their hands full prepping for Monday’s presidential visit to their fair city. I suggested protective custody with the marshals, and they jumped right on that.”

  Jonah nodded.

  “Eric and Hailey are on their way to fetch Theresa and Emily now. They’ll be back with them both by tonight, before which we’ll have the safe house on O’Mara ready.”

  Nina sat back, a look of relief on her face. Wyatt knew how she felt. He wanted nothing to happen to Emily or Theresa if they could prevent it. Neither of them could live with that outcome. Too much had happened already, and Mr. Thomas had gotten too close to Emily as it was, even only by association. He’d met her, spied on her. Used her to distract them. And neither Wyatt nor Nina wanted him to turn his attention to Emily the way he had with them. Or the way he had with Ronnie.

  He sighed. Jonah looked as if he wanted to say something, but what was there to be said? They’d lost people before. It never felt good even when they’d only come close to it.

  “I’m glad they’ll be safe.” Nina’s voice was small.

  Wyatt gave her what was supposed to be a reassuring look. “As much as we can make sure of it, they will be.”

  She nodded, but there was no visible change in her demeanor. Maybe later they should try that hug again, see if the effects could last longer. It had been seriously the best hug he’d gotten in his entire life. This whole thing was uncharted territory for him. But at least it had made him forget about how badly his throat hurt.

  Parker spoke. “We also spoke to Emily’s father. He’s heading home today.”

  “You got a hold of him?” Wyatt figured Parker’s navy SEAL background gave him some pull in the military community.

  But Parker said, “Not me. Sienna.”

  Sienna smiled. “It was easier than I thought.”

  Wyatt shook his head. He’d never met anyone so disinclined to give up their angle. Nina was the same way, and it drove him nuts at the same time he wanted to spend more and more time with Nina just so he could keep peeling back layers as she opened up to him.

  Her mother’s and father’s tragedies were big, but he wanted to know the small things as well. The regular stuff. The stuff no one really thought was all that important, but when it was taken away felt like everything. He never wanted to get to that place with Nina—the place where he started to take her for granted. Their relationship would likely not go anywhere long-term; they were too different. It was why he was holding back. But he couldn’t deny there was something about her that drew him.

  It was a possibility.

  A whole lot of hope, and not much else besides. But he’d never felt that before, not for anyone.

  “Want to walk us through what Mr. Thomas said to you?”

  Wyatt glanced at his boss. He didn’t especially want to rehash any of it, and definitely not in front of Nina. But he told them anyway about what Mr. Thomas had said of Wyatt and his father. Wyatt had figured he would tell Nina about his move to the marshals at some point. Apparently that was going to be now.

  “I guess he thought, like all those other people in the department, that my father had compromised the investigation somehow. Mostly because they didn’t want to believe what had happened.”

  Jonah and Parker knew the details, so he turned to Nina. “It was a murder case. A six-year-old girl... It was grisly, let’s just leave it at that. He worked it for months, pounding pavement, knocking on doors. He wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping. He had a heart attack, and he went right back to work. Didn’t slow down. My mom threatened to divorce him just to get through to him. She moved in with her sister, and he kept at it. Whatever was in him that wouldn’t let go, it had my dad in a choke hold. He would not quit.”

  Wyatt knew what it was, because the same thing was inside him.

  Nina said, “Did he find the killer?”

  Wyatt swallowed. “He was running on fumes, pulling out all the stops to find this guy. By the time they figured out who he was, they tore over to his place with an arrest warrant, but it was too late. There was another missing girl. They found the guy with her body. She’d been dead half an hour.

  “Everyone figured he messed up somewhere, that he missed a step on the evidence and that was why this little girl had died. They knew how torn up he was feeling because they felt the same way. But they twisted it, assuming it really was his fault because they needed someone to blame. They didn’t want to believe that there would be a day for all of them when they wouldn’t be able to save someone.”

  “And you transferred out of that department to the marshals.”

  “They all thought he must have either shared the details of the case with me, and I missed it, too. Which means I shouldn’t be doing the job. Or I should have stopped him, convinced him somehow to hand off the case. Then the little girl wouldn’t have died.”

  His voice was sardonic, angry. It grated his own ears, but he’d kept all this bottled up for so long it was spilling out now and he couldn’t stop it. “Any sequence of events that meant she didn’t die, they’d have been fine with. Anything other than what actually happened.”

  “Wyatt—”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t talked about it up until now because I don’t want to rehash it. You can’t fix it, because there’s nothing to fix.”

  Jonah’s phone beeped at the same time as both Parker’s and Wyatt’s.

  Jonah’s gaze was on his screen. “Conference call time.”

  He connected the call.

  * * *

  Sienna reached out for Nina’s hand and held it firmly in hers. Nina would much rather it was Wyatt holding her hand, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Not that she blamed him.

  Wyatt’s story about his father had been so sad. Caught up in the investigation of a child’s murder, unable to rest? No wonder his father had been so distraught when another child had died that he’d quit. Nina almost wondered if Wyatt wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing. Not out of stubbornness, but strength. He was so unyielding, and perhaps he’d seen so much of himself in his father’s actions, or saw himself heading in the same direction and had pulled away from police work.

  Maybe she was only grasping at straws. He’d said he had a case of his own at that time, but she’d gotten to know him over the last three days. She’d seen his heart, the way it had softened to Emily and Theresa. The way he’d been torn up after Tashi was shot. A child’s murder would have rocked him the way it had rocked his father.

  Jonah introduced them all, and through the phone’s speaker the cop replied, “Nice to meet ya, fellas.” The man had a gravelly voice. “Wyatt.”

  Wyatt shifted in his chair in a way Nina didn’t think he’d have done if the detective could see him. “Mike.” He glanced at them. “Mike was my father’s partner.”

  “Before he quit to go golf every day while I get to train a child to be a police officer.”

  Wyatt chuckled low in his throat. “Rookie?”

  “He has pimples.”

  Wyatt laughed aloud. “What do you have on the Ronnie Walters case so far?”

  Mike’s voice changed from jovial to serious like a switch had been flipped. “One shot to the chest. Left in bed. No lights on. Door was locked behind him when he left her there. Kids were both sleeping over with friends. She’s in intensive care, fighting for her life.”

  Nina’s head spun, processing it all. “So he tried to kill Wyatt because I involved him in this, and then he drove back to Portland in time to try to kill Ronnie while her whole family was conveniently not home?”

  “He had to have known,” Mike said. “Surveille
d her enough to know she would have been alone last night. We got a partial fingerprint that we’re running. He messed up, and now we’re going to get him.”

  Nina frowned. In one night he’d left a fingerprint at Ronnie’s and DNA with Wyatt? Sloppy wasn’t a word she would use to describe Mr. Thomas, not in the least. And yet it was happening again and again. He didn’t strike her as ever doing anything that wasn’t 100 percent intentional. It just wasn’t possible that he’d been sloppy twice, not when it might lead them to find out who he was when they tested both.

  Unless that was his intention.

  Mr. Thomas might know—or want—things to come to a head, and for this to be over. Perhaps he was setting that up on purpose, to be free of what he’d done and move on. To end Nina’s investigation. Which meant he was likely making plans to kill her and tie up every loose end in the process.

  Wyatt’s eyes were on her when he said, “Caliber?”

  Mike answered. “Forty-five.”

  Parker whistled. “Overkill.”

  “Mighta been the only gun he could get a hold of on short notice,” Mike said. “Or, yeah, he was making a statement. Either fits. We’re running ballistics to see if we can get a match.”

  Nina’s foot tapped the floor as she processed the information against what she knew about pathology. There were reasons for every action. No one ever did anything without meaning to, either consciously or unconsciously.

  Wyatt said, “He’s keeping to his MO even while he’s off the plan.”

  “Cleaning up all the loose ends.”

  He nodded. Nina was glad he was tracking with her, even though she didn’t want to talk about the fact that she’d inadvertently made Wyatt a target. It made her feel better that someone else understood what they were up against. Mr. Thomas had switched from attempted kidnapping and intimidation to attempted murder.

  As far as they knew, he hadn’t killed since Emily’s mother.

  “Or trying,” she said.

  All they needed was enough evidence to prove it was him beyond reasonable doubt in a courtroom. And yes, Nina had every intention of being the one who helped the police get that. She wanted nothing less than for Mr. Thomas to be in prison for the remainder of his natural life. That, and a pardon for her father. Justice for her mother.