by Lisa Childs
* * *
“Casualties reported at a shooting in a residential neighborhood on the east side of River City,” the radio report began in Parker Payne’s SUV.
He shuddered. The moment Cole had called to report seeing movement around the Thompson home, Parker had known it wasn’t good. That something bad was going to happen.
Just how bad?
Were any of those casualties from his team or Cooper’s? He’d even sent in Logan’s for backup, and most of his team was comprised of family members. But they might not have arrived in time.
He couldn’t consider the other possibility: that those casualties might include civilians like Wendy Thompson’s parents or a certain little girl.
He shouldn’t have let her babysitter slip away like she had. Or better yet, after she had, Parker should have taken the child home with him. As a former nanny, his wife was awesome with kids.
But he knew the little girl had been missing her father and Winnie. Parker had figured she would be safe with Hart and Wendy and all the backup protecting the Thompson house.
Now his gut tightened into knots with tension and fear. Who the hell were the casualties?
As he drew closer to the block where the Thompsons lived, he saw the glow of lights. Police vehicles. SWAT vans. Ambulances...
News vehicles lined the side of the street, camera crews heading on foot toward the scene. A patrol car blocked the end of the road where he needed to turn. So he parked the SUV behind a news van and threw open his door.
And just as he did, he heard the sharp retort of gunfire. The attack was not over yet.
Chapter 12
Wendy heard the sirens and saw the lights flashing outside the broken windows of the home where she had grown up. Help had arrived. But it didn’t sound as if they’d made their way inside yet. Police would not rush in with an active shooter until they were certain there was not a hostage situation.
There nearly had been one in the basement until Wendy had convinced her father that she had to do this. She had to find Hart and make certain he was okay.
He’d only gone, supposedly, to turn on the floodlight in the backyard. But she knew that if he’d seen something, he would have gone outside to investigate. He might have quit the River City PD, but a part of him would always be a detective.
She was acting like one now as she moved stealthily through her parents’ house, glass crunching under her feet. Despite it being dark, she could tell their home had been destroyed. She slid her hand over a wall until she flipped up a switch, but her father must have switched off a breaker because nothing happened.
There was no light but for the flickering flashes of the ones outside the house. As they flashed, she noticed a shadow moving through the dining room. She lifted her weapon just as that shadow swung a gun toward her.
He wasn’t one of the bodyguards. In the flickering light, he looked barely older than the kids who’d come to their house for football team dinners. But he must have been old enough to work for Luther. Once he caught sight of her, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“There you are, bitch,” he murmured.
Wendy tensed. She needed to pull the trigger. Needed to protect herself and the others. As she began to squeeze, a shot rang out.
She had acted too slowly. She closed her eyes and tensed even more, waiting for the pain to start. She’d heard so many people remark on how they hadn’t realized in the moment that they’d been shot, that they hadn’t felt it, maybe because of all the adrenaline.
Or they’d gone numb...
But Wendy wasn’t numb. Her heart was pounding frantically. Her legs were shaking, but they had not folded beneath her. She was standing.
When she opened her eyes, in those flashes of light she saw that the kid was not standing. He’d fallen to the floor, his eyes open but his gaze blank. She gasped in shock.
Then another gun barrel glinted in the darkness. She raised her weapon. This time she would not hesitate.
Just as she began to squeeze the trigger, light flashed across the face of the shooter.
“Hart!” She jerked the barrel to the right so she wouldn’t hit him. She also eased her finger off the trigger just in time, so she didn’t actually fire at all. Her breath escaped in a ragged sigh. “Are you all right?”
He stepped forward and she saw the gun behind him—pointed directly at his back.
“Duck!” she yelled at him.
As he did, she fired, this time directly at his would-be assailant. But hers wasn’t the only shot that rang out.
Had she pulled the trigger in time? Or had Hart been shot before she’d fired?
* * *
Hart was hurt. His chest ached with all the fear he’d felt for his daughter, for Wendy, and for himself and his fellow bodyguards. Lying on the floor, he whirled toward the person Wendy had fired at, but that kid was dead, like the one who’d tried to kill her.
She hadn’t fired fast enough to protect herself, but she had to save him.
Why was he not surprised?
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He nodded and reached for his cell phone. The connection was open in another conference call between his boss and one of the perimeter guards.
“The house is secure now,” he said.
Only two of Luther’s crew had got past him and the other Payne Protection bodyguards to make it into the house. And they both lay dead on the floor.
Some of them had died outside, as well. A few had had the sense to surrender before they’d been killed. But these two had been determined to carry out Luther’s order to kill the evidence tech.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“And...” His chest ached with the fear that something might have happened to his little girl.
“She’s fine,” Wendy assured him then hurried away from him toward a steel door. She pounded on it and called out, “Dad, it’s okay.”
The scraping sound of dead bolts turning emanated from the door. Before it opened, there was another sound. A loud one as the front door burst open and men entered, guns drawn.
“Put down your weapons! Put down your weapons!” they shouted.
Hart lowered his to the floor but didn’t completely release it. He nodded at Wendy to do the same. He didn’t want one of the SWAT guys shooting her. “I said that the house is clear.”
He narrowed his eyes as his heart began to pound hard again. Were they really SWAT guys? The black uniforms and bulletproof vests looked legit, and they wore their shields on chains around their necks. But even if they were really River City Special Response, it didn’t mean they weren’t part of Luther’s crew.
He and Wendy and her parents, who must have been hiding behind that steel door with his daughter, weren’t out of danger yet. “Don’t open up yet!” he yelled out to Mr. Thompson.
“If they don’t open it, we’ll break it open,” one of the guys threatened. “We need to secure the scene.” Some of the other members of the SWAT team moved throughout the house, picking up weapons, checking pulses on the fallen gunmen.
But Hart didn’t release the breath burning in his chest until Parker and the chief entered the house.
“Put your damn guns down,” Chief Lynch told the SWAT members who still had barrels trained on Hart and Wendy.
The men quickly lowered their weapons and backed away.
“Are you all right?” Parker asked.
They both nodded.
Parker stepped closer to Hart and asked, “Is your daughter all right?”
Hart wanted to know that for himself. He started toward the door again. “Mr. Thompson, you can open it now.”
A scream emanated from behind the door. A scream he recognized from her nightmares. A scream that gave him nightmares. He never wanted her to be as frightened as she must have been.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he called out to his baby just as the door began to open. “Everything’s all right now, sweetheart.”
Mr. Thompson pulled the door open all the way and stepped aside so Hart could join him on the small landing at the top of the stairs.
“Daddy, are you okay?” Felicity asked as she stared up at him from where Mrs. Thompson held her at the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m fine, honey,” he replied with a sigh of relief. She looked unharmed.
“What about Winnie?” Felicity asked. “Is Winnie okay?”
Wendy joined him on the small landing. “I’m fine, honey,” she replied with one of her forced smiles. It was clear that she was lying. She wasn’t fine.
While she hadn’t physically been harmed, her family home had been destroyed—her family put in danger, and she’d killed someone. That might have been the first time, as an evidence tech, that she’d even drawn her weapon. He knew that she wasn’t fine because he wasn’t fine, either. He was furious.
Luther Mills’s crew never should have got close to the house, let alone inside it. Wendy and her family and his daughter should have been safe with all the protection they’d had.
But Luther had sent an army after them.
He was even more determined to kill Wendy than he had been to kill the eyewitness. Or maybe, since Rosie Mendez was out of his reach, Mills had focused all of his energy and resources on killing Wendy.
“You are not processing this crime scene,” he told her, his voice pitched low.
The chief stood behind him, with Parker, and he must have been close enough to hear because he added, “Mr. Fisher is correct.”
Hart wanted to get her and his daughter and Wendy’s parents out of the house. But he didn’t want Felicity to see those bodies. So he motioned for Mrs. Thompson to stay at the bottom of the stairs for now.
Once the house had been cleared by the police, the paramedics were allowed to enter. They stopped at the bodies lying on the floor. But there was no help for them.
Had Wendy ever had to fire her weapon before? Was she all right? Or was she in shock? She must have been in shock because she wasn’t fighting to process the scene.
More concern for her gripped Hart, and he grasped her arm, turning her toward him. “Are you really okay?”
She nodded again, but tears filled her eyes.
He felt a twinge in his heart and wanted to pull her into his arms and promise that he would keep her safe. But he had nearly failed her. Even he didn’t know how he had survived the onslaught of bullets fired at him when he’d stepped out that back door.
Wendy’s reddish lashes fluttered as she blinked furiously to clear the tears from her green eyes. “Yes,” she said, pulling her arm from his grasp. “I am really okay.”
Then she turned to the chief. “And even though I know that I legally can’t, I wish I could process this scene. We need to find something that ties this assault to Luther Mills.”
There was Hart’s Wendy—ever determined to do her job. But he felt another twinge of panic at the possessive thought he’d just had. She was just his assignment. Nothing else. And after the dismal way he’d protected her, he probably wouldn’t have this assignment much longer. He didn’t even dare to look at his boss. Parker was probably furious with him.
The chief reached out to Wendy like Hart ached to do. He just squeezed her shoulder, though. “Ms. Thompson, don’t worry about the crime scene or getting Luther Mills. Just worry about yourself and your family.”
“I am,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m very worried about them.”
Hart understood why. Because she’d nearly lost them. He, too, had been so afraid of what he would find inside the house—that he would find all of them dead.
Damn Luther Mills...
Some of the gunmen had survived the firefight; some had surrendered. The ones that hadn’t had been overpowered by the ex-Marine bodyguards and Hart. He hoped at least one of them would talk—because Luther Mills’s reign of terror needed to end.
* * *
Luther smirked as his lawyer entered the small conference room. The guy didn’t look quite so slick now. He wasn’t in one of his tailored suits. He wore a sweater and jeans, his hair was mussed, and his usually sharp eyes were bleary with sleep or maybe alcohol.
“What’s so urgent? Why did you need to see me at this hour?” the lawyer asked, his voice gruff with irritation and weariness.
Luther’s smirk slid into a grimace. If he wasn’t able to sleep, why should his lawyer? The trial date was too close. And while he’d managed to get some comforts of the outside brought to him, the jail guards had got too nervous about smuggling in everything he wanted.
He had yet to get the eyewitness and another attempt to eliminate the damn evidence tech had just failed.
“I need you to represent some more clients for me,” Luther said.
The lawyer balked. “You didn’t...” He sighed. “I should have known.”
He must have heard about the assault on the news. There had been casualties. Unfortunately, they had all been Luther’s. Damn the Payne Protection Agency.
And especially Hart Fisher. Was it possible that Wendy Thompson was more than just a client to him?
How come these damn bodyguards couldn’t keep it professional? he wondered. But then, it was personal to Luther, too. It was personal that he needed to take out the Payne Protection Agency along with everyone else associated with his damn trial.
They were all going down.
“You need to make sure these clients say that I didn’t,” Luther said. Because he suspected that hot assistant district attorney would do everything in her power to get his crew to talk. And it might not take much...
Some of them were out on bail from the previous attempts on the lives of Rosie Mendez and her damn bodyguard, Clint Quarters. They would be denied bail now. And they would be looking at long prison sentences.
Almost as long as the one Luther was looking at.
“They can’t talk,” he said. “You need to make that damn clear to them.”
Or he would. He would make damn certain they weren’t able to talk to anyone ever again. Maybe it had been a mistake to use that approach again.
The Payne Protection Agency had proved that it was able to withstand a bold, frontal attack. So maybe Luther needed to go about taking out the evidence tech another way—through a sneak attack that nobody, not even Hart Fisher, would see coming.
And if Hart got eliminated along with little Miss By-the-Book Wendy Thompson, then Luther would be damn happy.
Chapter 13
Her hands shook as she folded the sweater into the suitcase. Her mother reached out, putting her hand over Wendy’s to steady it. “You’re trembling.”
She hadn’t stopped—not since those first shots had rung out. She’d been so worried about Felicity. About her parents. About Hart...
And then having to shoot that kid...
But if she hadn’t, Hart wouldn’t have survived. A little girl would have lost the only parent she really had. Wendy’s heart ached with regret for the fear the child had endured. For the fear her parents had endured.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” she murmured, and her voice vibrated with emotion. Tears rushed into her eyes again and she blinked, trying to clear them away. But one spilled over and ran down her cheek.
Like when she’d been a little girl, her mother gently brushed it from her face. Then she cupped Wendy’s chin in her palm and assured her, “None of this was your fault.”
Wendy shook her head. “Yes, it is my fault. I’m the reason the house got destroyed, why you and Dad nearly got killed.”
Her father stepped out of the bathroom with another small bag, probably filled with toiletries. “We weren’t nearly killed,” he said. “And the house can be repaired. It was gett
ing dated anyway. This’ll give us a chance to do some long-overdue renovations.”
Wendy couldn’t hold back the tears now. They flowed as sobs slipped through her lips, too. Her father and mother both embraced her, like they had when she was little and needed comforting.
They had both always been there for her. Now, knowing that Felicity had only Hart, she realized how damn lucky she was. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured again.
Her father drew back and cupped her face in his big hands. She felt the tremor in his fingers. He wasn’t completely recovered from the attack yet, either. “None of this is your fault,” he assured her like her mother just had. “It’s that scumbag Luther Mills.”
She nodded and he dropped his hands from her face.
“But you should have told us what was going on,” he admonished.
The weight of the guilt already on her shoulders increased and she nodded again. “I’m sorry. But I didn’t want to worry you.”
“So you lied to us instead?” her father asked.
Heat rushed to her face. Her parents had punished her more any time she’d lied about her misbehavior growing up. When she’d been honest with them, she’d got in a lot less trouble. She should have been honest this time, too. Then she could have sent her parents away somewhere safe, where the chief and Parker Payne had promised to take them now.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured again.
“You’re not a good liar, Wendy,” her father said. “We knew something was going on, and that worried us.”
“I’m sorry I worried you,” she said. “And I’m sorry for lying about my apartment and about Hart.”
Her mother smiled and patted her cheek. “You weren’t lying about him.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Wendy insisted. “He’s just my bodyguard.”
Her mother and father exchanged a smile.
“That’s all he is,” she insisted and could hear the panic in her own voice.
Her mother’s smile widened. “You’ve had a crush on him for a long time.”
