by Lisa Childs
“So what do you know?” Woodrow asked him.
Nick shook his head. “I know Luther Mills is a very dangerous man, and my one regret was that I was not able to personally take him down before my job as acting chief ended.”
Nick could have become the full-time chief but had turned down the offer to join the family business and become a bodyguard instead. He was one of Logan Payne’s team now, but Woodrow suspected he would soon be starting his own branch of the Payne Protection Agency. His team would probably consist of former FBI agents.
So Woodrow was happy he’d given up his former job as Bureau chief. He probably would have eventually lost all his good agents to Nick.
“I want to make sure Mills goes down,” Woodrow said. “But I need your help to do that.”
“You hired Parker’s team,” Nick reminded him.
Woodrow nodded. “The former vice cops know Luther best.” They were well aware of the dangers of taking on the notorious drug dealer since they’d all done it before.
Nick nodded. “Yes. So why am I here?”
“You know this station house better than anyone,” Woodrow said. “I need to know which one of these officers is Luther’s informant.”
Nick’s broad shoulders sagged slightly as if they still carried a heavy burden. “I tried my best,” he said. “But I couldn’t find all the corrupt officers. And even some of the ones I found, the ones I suspected, I didn’t have enough to prove those suspicions.”
Woodrow already knew that. “I want to talk about those suspicions,” he said. “Who sticks out to you?”
Nick shrugged. “Really, most of the ones about whom I had suspicions either quit or took early retirement once the witch hunt—as they called it—started. I don’t know who you have left.” He turned and looked through the window at the detectives’ bull pen.
Woodrow wasn’t certain that was where his leak was, though. He hated to think a detective was on Luther Mills’s payroll. “What about the evidence techs?” he asked. “Anybody come to mind?”
“Not Wendy Thompson,” Nick assured him. “She was the best, even when she first started. Brilliant mind and total recall. She’s an unshakable witness, too. I totally understand why Luther’s so determined to take her out. I hope she’s someplace safe.”
She was in the building. The chief had been alerted when she’d passed through the security checkpoint to enter the lobby. Ordinarily he would think there was no place safer than the police department, but until he knew who the leak was, it was probably more dangerous than anywhere else she could be.
She could be anywhere else. But he knew why she was there. To see if the evidence from the bomb planted on Hart Fisher’s Payne Protection Agency SUV had been processed yet.
“Well, we both know it’s not Wendy,” Woodrow said then prodded Nick, “Anyone you can think of?”
The younger man tilted his head as if searching his memory. He nodded. “Older guy. Terrance Gibbs. He had a kid who was caught dealing for Luther. But, like the others, he took early retirement before I could find anything to prove he might have been working with him.”
The chief tensed. “The supervisor for the lab...she said she just approved a request for a tech to return on a part-time basis. He wanted to supplement his retirement...”
“Gibbs?” Nick asked.
He nodded grimly.
“It’s not the River City PD that’s going to supplement that retirement,” Nick warned him. “It’s Luther Mills.”
Woodrow already had the phone in his hand. He wanted to know where the hell Gibbs was right now. He hoped nowhere near Wendy Thompson.
* * *
Wendy had thought the tight feeling in her chest would ease once Hart was no longer her bodyguard. She’d thought she would feel better once he was out of danger and hopefully on his way to reuniting with his sweet daughter. She’d seen the pain on his face during his phone call with Felicity; that pain hadn’t been entirely because of the gunshot wound to his leg. It had been clear how much he missed his child and that he ached to be with her again.
Like Wendy ached to be with him.
But this was for the best. She’d done the right thing when she’d convinced his boss to take him off her assignment. It was too dangerous for a single father. Too dangerous for her. The more time she’d spent with Hart, the more she’d fallen for him—even before they’d made love.
At least, she’d made love. To him, it had just been sex. And that was why this was better for her, too. He was never going to return her feelings, so it was best that she kept her distance before she got hurt even more than she was hurting now. She drew in a deep breath, inhaling all the familiar scents of the lab. This was where she belonged, processing evidence, putting away more criminals like Luther Mills.
As she breathed deep, she smelled something unfamiliar to the lab. It was a chemical, but one of a commercial fragrance. A man’s cologne. She didn’t know anyone who wore that particular scent anymore.
It was the cologne of an older generation. Her father used to use it before she and her mother had staged an intervention and found him a better-smelling fragrance. All the current evidence techs were pretty young, except her supervisor. But Sandy didn’t wear any perfume, let alone a man’s cologne.
Wendy had also thought she would be alone in the lab since it was so late. But then she saw the gray-haired man standing over a computer, tapping on the keyboard. He glanced up at her and his dark eyes narrowed.
Wendy’s blood chilled. “Terrance,” she murmured. “I thought you retired...”
“I came back to help out,” he said as he tried to curve his lips into a smile. It was tight and didn’t reach his eyes.
In that moment she knew he hadn’t come back to help out her or the River City PD. She reached for her weapon. But before she could pull it from her bag, he already had a gun barrel pointing at her.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“What are you doing, Terrance?” she asked him.
He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, as if bracing himself. When he did, she eased back a step toward the door. “Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t make me pull this trigger...”
“If you do, it’ll all be over,” she warned him. “My bodyguard is right outside the door.”
Lars hadn’t wanted to stay out there. But she hadn’t wanted the presence of a civilian to affect the chain of evidence.
Terrance tapped the end of the gun barrel. “Silencer. He won’t hear a thing.”
“I can scream,” she said. She knew that she already should have. However, she wasn’t convinced Terrance would actually pull that trigger. It was one thing to tamper with evidence; it was another to murder.
“And I’ll kill you,” he said. He shook his head as if he pitied her. “Why didn’t you just listen to the warnings? Why didn’t you destroy that damn evidence yourself?”
“Because Javier Mendez deserves justice.”
“Javier Mendez?” he asked.
“The kid Luther murdered.” Terrance didn’t even know his name. Maybe he’d made it a point not to know, so it wouldn’t bother him to help Luther. “Mills needs to be brought to justice for his crimes.”
“Justice?” Terrance grunted derisively. “You are so young and naive.”
Hart had once told her the same thing. So had the chief. It had been true—until now.
“Were you behind those warnings?” she asked.
“Luther didn’t call me in until after you failed to heed his warnings,” he replied.
Her pulse quickened with excitement. Here was the key. This man was the proof that Luther was threatening prosecution witnesses. She wished she could reach inside her bag, not for the gun but for her phone. So she could press the record button.
Terrance stepped forward and jerked the bag from her hand. He was not naive; he didn’
t trust her at all.
“So you set the bomb?” she asked.
His brow furrowed with confusion. “Bomb? There was no bomb on that car. I cut the brake line. I thought you might get the message then. But, nope, you refused to destroy that evidence.”
He glanced inside her purse as if it were large enough to contain everything she’d collected from Javier Mendez’s crime scene. Luther had been sloppy; he’d left a lot behind for her to find. But maybe he hadn’t been careless so much as confident that whatever evidence he’d left would disappear as it had all the times before.
Gibbs probably didn’t realize how much she’d collected or maybe he was looking for a key for a safe-deposit box or something because he upended her purse onto the stainless-steel countertop. Her gun clanked, metal against metal, as it dropped.
Her fingers twitched. She wanted to reach for it. Or for her cell. But he picked up her cell and tossed it to the floor, where it broke.
She flinched.
“You didn’t put it in the evidence room,” he said.
Of course she hadn’t. She wouldn’t have been able to control who had access to it then. And she wasn’t quite as naive as everyone had thought she was.
“So where is it?” he asked.
“It’s been turned over to the district attorney’s office,” she lied.
He laughed. “Luther would know if that was the case. They don’t have it yet.”
Apparently it was a good thing that they didn’t or it would have likely already been destroyed. She shivered as a chill rushed over her.
“I talked to other people in the lab,” he continued. “It sounds like you’re the only one who knows where it is.” He stepped closer and pressed the gun barrel to her head. “So it sounds like if you’re dead, the evidence will be, too. Nobody will find it.”
He cocked the gun.
She swallowed hard. “If something happens to me, the evidence will turn up,” she said. And she wasn’t bluffing right now.
When the threats had come in, she’d put a plan in place in case Luther made good on those threats. “Rest assured that Jocelyn Gerber will receive everything she needs to put Luther Mills away for the rest of his miserable life.”
Terrance studied her, as if debating whether she was lying again, like she had about the district attorney having the evidence, or if she was telling the truth.
She returned his stare without even blinking.
He shook his head, rejecting the truth. “You’re too trusting. You probably didn’t think it would actually come to this.”
“To what?” she asked.
“To your death.”
Chapter 19
Hart’s chest ached as panic pressed hard on his lungs. He ditched his crutches and ran down the basement hallway toward the evidence lab. The chief had called him, thinking that he was still Wendy’s bodyguard, as he should have been. He’d warned Hart about the return of the retired evidence tech. Fortunately, Hart had already insisted that Parker drop him off at the police station, so he’d been inside when he’d taken the chief’s call. He’d had only to wait until the damn elevator doors had opened to the basement.
As he neared the door to the lab, a hulking shadow stepped away from the wall and metal glinted in the fluorescent light buzzing overhead. “What’s the rush?” Lars asked as he lowered his weapon.
“Is she in there?” Hart asked.
Lars nodded.
“Is she alone?”
Lars shrugged. “She wouldn’t let me inside, so I couldn’t check. She told me that it should be empty since it was so late.”
But it wasn’t. Hart just knew—from the chill that passed through him—that she was not alone.
That she was in danger.
“What is it?” Lars asked as if he sensed it, too. “What’s going on?”
Hart shook his head. He didn’t want to risk the guy overhearing their conversation. So he just whispered, “Is there another way in?”
Lars shrugged.
“Find out,” Hart implored him. “Then you go in that way...”
“What are you doing?” Lars asked. “You’re not even supposed to be working this assignment anymore.”
Hart cursed, letting the ex-Marine know what he thought about that. He didn’t give a damn who was supposed to be protecting Wendy now. He’d promised he would, and that wasn’t a promise he was about to break. That was why he’d convinced Parker to drop him here.
Lars shrugged again and headed off down the hall, looking for that other entrance.
Hart took a deep breath as he drew his gun and pushed open the door to the lab. Fortunately, Wendy hadn’t locked it, as she had every time he’d been standing in the hallway outside the lab. She must not have trusted him to stay out like she’d trusted Lars.
“Get out!” someone shouted at him.
It wasn’t Wendy. She said nothing, just glanced over her shoulder to see who’d entered. He saw the emotions pass through her eyes. The initial one had been fear, then a flicker of relief, only to be replaced again with fear.
Duck.
He silently shouted the order, hoping she would see it in his eyes. But she turned back to the man holding the gun to her head.
“If I leave, I’m sending in a whole barrage of officers to take you out,” Hart warned the man.
The guy moved his gun from Wendy to gesture at Hart. “Then come on in,” he urged. “You can die with this stubborn bitch.”
“No!” Wendy said. “Hart, get out of here!”
“Hart Fisher,” the man remarked. “I didn’t think you were with the River City PD anymore.”
Hart recognized the retired evidence tech then. “I didn’t think you were, either, Terrance. What brings you back?” He could guess. Luther Mills.
Terrance’s head bobbed. “That’s right,” he said as if he’d just remembered. “You’re working for Parker Payne. You’re her bodyguard.”
“No!” Wendy protested. “Not anymore. Not since you shot him at the hotel.”
Terrance Gibbs’s brow furrowed with even more wrinkles. “What? What hotel?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but getting rid of that evidence.”
“I’ll never give it to you,” Wendy vowed.
Hart believed her. She wouldn’t do it—even to save her own life.
The retired tech must have realized it, as well, because he turned back toward her. But he pointed his gun at Hart. “What if I shoot him?” he asked. “Will you tell me then?”
Her throat moved as she swallowed hard. She shook her head.
The guy appeared ready to call her bluff. But before he could squeeze the trigger, she grabbed his arm, struggling to knock the gun from his grasp.
Hart took his shot.
His bullet dropped Terrance Gibbs to the floor. And Wendy dropped with him.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he limped forward, rushing to her side.
She knelt beside Terrance, checking for a pulse even as blood pooled beneath his head. “No!” she said. “Damn you! No! Why the hell did you do that?”
“Save your life?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Because it’s my job?”
She shook hers. “Not anymore. You’re not my bodyguard, Hart. You shouldn’t be here.”
“And you’d be dead if I wasn’t.”
“It’s true,” a deep voice murmured as Lars entered the lab behind him. “I didn’t realize you weren’t alone.”
“I wasn’t alone, but I wasn’t in danger,” Wendy replied.
Hart pointed at the gun still grasped tightly in the hand of the dead evidence tech. “He was going to shoot you.”
She shook her head. “No, he was going to shoot you. He could have shot me any time before you came in, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’s not a killer.”
/> “My SUV might say something different. He sure murdered that.”
“He didn’t set the bomb,” she said.
Hart shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what he did or some other lackey of Luther’s did. He was still going to shoot you.”
That pain in his chest returned, squeezing his heart tightly as he considered what might have happened had he been just a few minutes later, had he found her dead...
He couldn’t imagine a world without Wendy Thompson in it. He didn’t want to. He’d thought that because he couldn’t trust a woman again, he wouldn’t be able to love one. He’d been wrong.
Despite his best efforts to fight his feelings, he’d fallen for Wendy.
Hart fell silent as more officers rushed into the lab.
Even the chief joined them as well as Nick Payne. “Are you okay?” Lynch asked Wendy, his deep voice full of concern.
She nodded.
“And the evidence?” he asked almost reluctantly, as if it were a sore subject.
Wendy nodded again. “It’s safe.”
The chief squeezed her shoulder. “Good work.”
“Hart shot him,” she said. “I think we could have turned him against Luther.” She glanced down at the dead man as if there was still some hope he might talk.
But it wouldn’t have mattered had he lived; Hart doubted the guy would have ever rolled on Luther Mills. And if he had, he would have wound up just as dead as he was now.
“We don’t need him,” the chief said. “Not as long as we have you and the evidence.” He looked back to Hart. “We don’t know who else might be working with Mills. We need to get her out of here, get her someplace safe.”
Hart shook his head. “I’m not her bodyguard anymore.” He pointed to Lars. “He is...” Then he turned and hobbled toward the door.
He wasn’t the man to protect her. He was the man who needed protection from her. He’d lost his heart to her and, because of that, because he was distracted, he might lose his life and hers if he continued to try to protect her.
