GROOM UNDER FIRE

by Lisa Childs

  “Maybe she got sick of everybody babysitting her,” Nikki suggested. “I know how frustrating it is when nobody trusts you to take care of yourself.”

  “You didn’t see her leave,” Logan pointed out. “You’re not ready to be a bodyguard on your own yet.”

  Cooper couldn’t defend her any more than he could defend himself for having let Tanya slip away.

  “She didn’t come out of the door,” Nikki said in an attempt to defend herself. “She went out the window.”

  He cursed under his breath since he’d given her the idea. And because he could envision her precariously balancing on that narrow ledge. “She could have fallen…”

  And that fall would have killed her. His heart lurched with pain and loss. Was that why they were all here and not out protecting her? Because she was really gone?

  “She didn’t fall,” Logan assured him.

  The pain in his chest eased slightly. She wasn’t dead. She was just gone.

  “You could have fallen, too, when you sneaked in that way,” Nikki said, her eyes wide with fear. “You could have fallen again.” Obviously their brothers had filled her in on what had happened at the warehouse.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “You should let the doctor determine that,” Nikki said. “You should go back to the hospital.”

  “Hell, no,” he replied. “The only place I’m going is to find Tanya—which all of you should be doing instead of standing around here.”

  “Candace is following her,” Logan explained. “She’ll make sure Tanya stays safe.”

  He wasn’t so sure about that. “She’s not as good as you think she is. She let me slip into Tanya’s room—”

  “She knew it was you,” Logan replied. “I warned her you were coming when I’d discovered you’d snuck out of the hospital.”

  “But she let Tanya sneak out…” So had he. His gut churned with guilt over having fallen asleep when he should have been protecting her.

  Logan nodded. “She saw her on the ledge, but she didn’t dare risk startling her and causing her to fall.”

  It was a risk she’d been wise not to take. But Cooper suspected there’d been another reason—like her boss’s orders. “You wanted to see where she’d go, didn’t you?”

  Logan nodded again.

  “You can’t suspect her of being involved in this,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she’s nearly been killed time and again.”

  “Nearly,” Logan pointed out.

  “You suspect Rochelle,” Nikki reminded him with a trace of resentment. “And even Stephen…”

  A pang of guilt struck him. The blood he’d found in the trunk of that car proved a body had been moved in it. Stephen’s? He may have even been inside it when Cooper had fired those shots at the car to stop it from running down Tanya.

  “Not Tanya,” he insisted. “She has no motive…”

  “She has the same motive everyone else has,” Logan said. “The money…”

  He shook his head. “She couldn’t have acted alone. She wasn’t driving the car that chased her down. She wasn’t firing the shots into her apartment.”

  Logan nodded. “She didn’t act alone.”

  “That’s why you let her go, to see not only where she’d go but who she would meet.”

  Logan nodded again.

  “It’s not Stephen,” he said. “They would have just gotten married…”

  “But maybe he got cold feet,” Nikki said.

  Over marrying Tanya? Cooper doubted it.

  “And she got mad at him,” Nikki continued.

  Mad enough to hurt him? He doubted that even more. “You’re wrong about this.”

  “Probably,” Logan agreed.

  “Where is she?” By now his brother, who thought he knew everything, probably knew.

  “She took a cab to her grandfather’s house.”

  She’d hated that place nearly as much as Cooper had. “Why?”

  “It’s hers now,” Nikki reminded him.

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter to her. That house—the money…”

  “Then why did she marry you?” Logan asked.

  “In case there was a ransom demand made for Stephen,” he reminded them. “This was all about Stephen.” It hurt remembering that the woman he loved—the woman he’d married—was in love with another man.

  “There was no ransom demand,” Nikki said quietly, as if she knew how badly he was already hurting.

  His head throbbed along with his back, pain pounding at his temples, as he tried to process what his family was telling him. To doubt Tanya? And now he knew how she’d felt when he’d tried to make her do the same with Stephen. He knew exactly how she’d felt because he loved her.

  “How long have you been thinking this?” he asked Logan. He wasn’t above lashing out at him when he was in pain. He’d done it when their dad had died. “And keeping it to yourself—like you keep everything!”

  Parker clicked off his cell phone and slid it into his pocket. “What are you talking about? What’s he keeping to himself?”

  Cooper turned on his other brother. “You know that Dad’s killer died in prison.”

  Parker shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him, and it didn’t matter to any of them as much as it did to Logan. “Not because he told me.”

  “Candace just told me,” Nikki chimed in.

  That must have been how Tanya had learned about it. He asked his brothers, “Why didn’t either of you tell me?”

  “You’ve been a little preoccupied getting married and all,” Logan reminded him. “And truthfully, I didn’t know if it would matter to any of you.”

  Like it mattered to him. They had all been content with the man being sent to prison. Logan was the one who hadn’t been able to let go of his anger. Maybe he could now…

  Cooper shrugged off the slight much easier than he could shrug off his brother’s doubts about the woman he loved.

  “Doesn’t anyone want to know why I was on the phone?” Parker asked. With a grin he announced, “We got a real lead this time.”

  “You thought that last one was a real lead,” Cooper reminded him, flinching as his ribs ached.

  “We found the car,” Parker reminded him.

  He’d nearly wound up with it on top of him, but they had found it. “Have the crime scene techs processed it yet? Have they found any prints?”

  Logan nodded. “The blood in the trunk matches the blood from the church—same type, at least. DNA is still backlogged.”

  “What about prints?”

  “The steering wheel was wiped clean on the car and the forklift, too,” Logan replied. “Stephen’s never been fingerprinted, so we don’t know if the ones inside the trunk lid are his.”

  Someone had been alive inside that trunk—had been banging and trying to get out. Cooper’s stomach tightened with dread. “We gotta find him.”

  “We may have,” Parker reminded him. “One of my informants spotted that car at another warehouse before it wound up where we found it.”

  Another warehouse. Cooper’s ribs throbbed as if in protest and he groaned.

  “You stay here with Nikki,” Logan ordered.

  “Of course I don’t get to go,” Nikki resentfully grumbled.

  Logan ignored her and continued, “Parker and I will check it out alone—like we should have last time.”

  Cooper shook his head. “I’m going, too.”

  “You’re already hurt. Want to finish yourself off?” his oldest brother challenged him.

  “I want to finish this,” he said. “I want to nail the bastard who’s responsible for all the shooting and stuff.”

  “What if that bastard’s Tanya?” Logan asked.

  God, the man was more paranoid than Cooper was. “It’s not.” And he had a feeling it wasn’t Stephen either—that he had misjudged his friend. He just hoped he had a chance to make it up to him. “Let’s stop wasting time and follow up this lead
.”

  He just hoped it didn’t lead them to a body.

  *

  TANYA SHIVERED WITH cold and dread. The house—or mausoleum as Cooper had called it—had been closed up for years. So it was freezing inside, with no heat or electricity, and it was musty smelling—exactly like a mausoleum.

  Her lungs strained for breath, and she wished she’d thought to bring along her purse with the newly prescribed inhaler inside. But the extra weight of her bag might have been enough to make her lose her balance off the ledge entirely.

  She’d barely caught the fire escape in time as it was. Her palms still stung from how hard she’d gripped the cold and rusted metal. She’d had to hang on tightly while she’d swung herself over the railing. Her legs had been shaking so badly it was a wonder she’d made it down all the steps to the alley below.

  Her legs still shook a little now. But all the furniture was covered with heavy plastic, leaving her no place to sit down. The floor was hard marble and probably like ice now; she couldn’t sit on it either. Only faint light filtered through the thick drapes pulled across the windows. It was so cold and dark and creepy.

  It was truly like a mausoleum, just minus the wall of drawers containing urns of ashes. Her grandfather’s urn was here, though, sitting on the mantel with a fine coating of dust covering the brass. Was he really in there? Or was he behind all the horrible things that had been happening to her?

  She wouldn’t put it past him to try to kill Cooper. It was bad enough that he’d spoken to him the way he had all those years ago, telling him that he wasn’t good enough for her.

  She was the one who wasn’t good enough for him. He was a fearless hero and she had been a coward, hiding behind his protection.

  A door creaked and she jumped—every bit that coward yet. Should she hide until she was sure it was who she’d called to meet her? Should she grab that urn to use as a weapon? She shuddered at the thought of touching it.

  “Tanya?” a male voice called out. “Ms. Chesterfield?”

  She wasn’t Ms. Chesterfield anymore. She was Mrs. Payne. But she hadn’t had time to legally change her name, which was good since she wasn’t going to keep it anyway. “I’m in here, Mr. Gregory.”

  Footsteps pounded on the marble as he headed down the hall toward her. “It’s quite early, Ms. Chesterfield,” he protested. He looked tired with dark circles rimming his eyes, and his gray hair was mussed as if he hadn’t bothered to comb it. “We could have scheduled a meeting later in the day.”

  “Thank you for meeting me now,” she said. And for meeting her here, so she knew exactly what she was giving up: nothing. “It really couldn’t wait.”

  “If you want to collect your inheritance today, that’s not possible,” he said. “It’s too big an amount to be easily liquidated. And of course it needs to be divided, with half being held in trust for your sister in the event that she marries before she turns thirty.”

  “She can have it all,” Tanya said. Then and only then did Tanya suspect that the attempts on her life and Cooper’s life would stop.

  Mr. Gregory shook his head. “She is unmarried. Your grandfather’s will stipulates that she, too, must be married before she inherits.”

  “Then put it all in trust for her.” She suspected Rochelle would soon be planning her wedding—if the money was really what she wanted.

  Or was it Stephen?

  The lawyer tensed. “What are you saying exactly?”

  “I’m saying that I don’t want my grandfather’s money,” she said, and guilt and regret overwhelmed her. “I never should have married to get it in the first place.”

  “I thought that was why you were marrying that Stephen fellow,” Mr. Gregory, “just to inherit the money. But the Payne kid…”

  “That’s why I’m giving it back,” she said. Although technically she’d never really had it and may not have had access to it for a while. Maybe it was a good thing that she had never received that ransom demand. Because how would she have paid it?

  “You really want to give it back?” he asked. And his shoulders and back relaxed, the tension apparently leaving his body.

  Why was he so relieved?

  “Is that possible?” she asked. “Technically I had satisfied the stipulations of Grandfather’s will before my thirtieth birthday.” Today was her birthday.

  He waved his hand, dismissing what his employer had wanted. “You can sign a paper claiming that the marriage was never consummated and get it annulled.”

  Heat flushed her face. “But what if it was?”

  “It won’t be a problem,” he said, and there was a tone to his voice now—an edge she had never noticed before.

  To have worked with her grandfather for as many years as he had, he had to have few principles or morals. But could he be…

  Was he a killer?

  Maybe Cooper’s suspicious nature had rubbed off on her; maybe when they’d made love…

  Because it made no sense to doubt a man she had known most of her life—especially since he had nothing to gain. But she had goose bumps rising on her skin. It wasn’t the cold that had gotten to her. It was this horrible sense of foreboding. Her instincts warned her to get out of the mausoleum before she wound up in an urn like her grandfather.

  “Well, if it’s no problem, I should be going,” she said. But he stood between her and the door. And she was reluctant to walk any closer to him.

  “You’ll need to sign those papers,” he said.

  “I’m sure you don’t have them with you,” she said. “You can draw them up and get them to me another day.”

  He patted his suitcase. “Actually, I do have them with me.”

  That seemed too convenient.

  She shivered as her unease turned into fright. She was alone with a killer. And her first thought wasn’t for her own safety but for Cooper’s.

  He would never forgive himself if she died when he was supposed to be protecting her. He would blame himself for letting her slip out while he slept. She hoped that he had at least heard her whispered words of love. Because she doubted she would have the chance to tell him again how she felt.

  She wasn’t certain if Mr. Gregory carried contracts in his briefcase or a gun.

  But she wasn’t going to wait to find out. She couldn’t run for the door, so she turned and ran deeper into the shadows of the mausoleum. But even if she found a place to hide, she couldn’t stay there forever.

  Eventually Mr. Gregory would find her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cooper’s head pounded with pain while his heart pounded with fear. Even though this warehouse looked more deserted and dangerous than the one the night before had, he wasn’t concerned for his safety. He was worried about Tanya’s.

  Sure, Candace was a good bodyguard. But the body she was guarding was too important for Cooper to trust to anyone else. He never should have fallen asleep. But because he had, maybe she was safer with Candace.

  “This place has been completely abandoned,” Logan said, his voice emanating from the cell clutched in Cooper’s hand.

  He silently agreed, but Parker chimed in through the two-way, “This is it—the place where my informant saw the black car with the flats.”

  “Let’s go in, then,” he said. He didn’t have the loading docks this time. Logan had taken that side of the building. He did have a service door—one that was so rusted, he doubted the hinges would hold it in the frame despite the lock. So he kicked it on that side and knocked it loose.

  His gun drawn in front of him, he stepped inside the dark building. But after a few minutes his eyes adjusted to the faint light coming through holes rotted through the metal roof.

  “Do you see anything?” Logan asked. Something rattled in the phone; he was obviously struggling hard with his doors.

  A faint pounding echoed the rattling. Parker must have been struggling, too.

  Cooper moved through the maze of stuff left in the building. “Just crates.”

  And twisted
hunks of metal and other debris.

  But the light illuminated a strange patch of concrete where the dust had been cleared away. He stepped closer to the crate and the pounding grew louder.

  It emanated from the box. The nails on the end of it were fresh, not rusted like the others. What the hell was in the box?

  He’d seen too many IEDs in Afghanistan to haphazardly bust open the crate. It could have been a trick—a setup like the forklift. If he opened that newly nailed shut side, it might explode—like so many other explosions he’d seen.

  He hesitated and leaned his head against the splintered wood. The pounding in the box echoed the pounding in his head. But then he heard something else—a weak voice calling out, “Help…”

  “What did you find?” Parker asked as he joined him beside the box.

  Cooper holstered his gun and concentrated on the crate. “Find a crowbar—a screwdriver, something. We’ve gotta get this open.” He clawed at the wood with his hands, driving slivers of that wood into his fingers.

  “I got a crowbar,” Logan said. He must have had to use one to open the loading dock doors. “What do you need it for?”

  Cooper grabbed the bar and wedged it between the wood, pulling up those newly hammered nails until the side cracked open. His brothers grabbed it and tore it off.

  A man was curled up in that crate—his face crusted with blood like his matted hair. It had once been blond but now it was dark with blood. So much blood…

  He peered up at Cooper through swollen eyes. “Coop?”

  “Call an ambulance,” he yelled at his brothers.

  Parker already had his cell pressed to his ear. “It could be a while before they make it to this side of town. Should we drive him in?”

  Cooper wasn’t sure he should move him. But the man moved himself and crawled out of the box onto the concrete floor.

  He dropped to his knees beside his old friend. “Stephen, take it easy. Don’t move.”

  But Stephen clutched at Cooper’s hand. And guilt clutched at Cooper’s heart. How had he thought his friend at all responsible for the attempts on his life and Tanya’s? How had he married the man’s fiancé while Stephen had been locked up in this crate?