A Deeper Fear

by Allison Brennan

  She didn’t know how she should have responded, and then wondered if that was part of her problem. Shouldn’t she instinctively know how to help Sean? Not just because she loved him, but because she was a trained psychologist, she could see that he was in pain, that he was hiding something or holding back or . . . lying.

  She didn’t hold it against him, because he’d been through hell. She just wanted him to acknowledge that, to talk to her, to let her help him!

  She didn’t know how. If it was anyone else, what would she do?

  Lucy couldn’t answer that, because no one else was Sean. Everyone handled trauma in their own unique way. It was almost like Sean didn’t trust her enough to tell her exactly what had happened with Jonathon Paxton. It was more than embarrassment . . . the fear ran much deeper than that.

  She dismissed her anxiety—working helped. Working was definitely better than sitting around the convention center waiting for her panel to begin, or making small talk with other cops. She had been looking forward to the conference . . . but now it just didn’t seem important.

  John returned with the head of security, an older man named Ben. He took them up the service elevator to the top floor, then unlocked a maintenance door and they walked up to the roof.

  “No one can get up here without a key,” Ben said. “There was no scheduled maintenance last night, but that doesn’t mean no one was on the roof. There’s a/c units that sometimes have problems, vents, access to some of the systems. But it’s not common.” He paused. “Some of the staff come up here to smoke. It’s not permitted, but we generally ignore it.”

  Lucy and John walked the perimeter of the roof, then stopped at the spot where the man in black had been spotted by the drone. There was nothing here—he’d been recorded halfway between the door and the corner of the building. The ledge was a little over two feet high.

  The stone surface wouldn’t hold prints, but the door would. John said, “Ben, I’m going to send up a crime scene tech to print the door, both sides, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure, but there could be employee fingerprints here.”

  “And if they come up here regularly, maybe they saw something out of order.”

  Lucy was staring at some marks on the southwest corner. “John?” she called out, and he approached. “What do you make of these? They look fresh.”

  They were scrapes in the cement that framed the roof, and a deep gouge near the floor.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have the tech take pictures and samples—maybe someone will have an idea. But you’re right, they look fresh.” He asked Ben, but the security officer shrugged. He didn’t know what they were, either.

  “One more thing,” John said. “I need you to send over a copy of all surveillance video from ten to midnight last night—everyone entering and exiting the hotel.”

  “I can do that. Give me a couple of hours.”

  “It’s almost three, Kincaid. We’d better get you across the street for your panel.”

  * * *

  Doug wanted to call off the entire job.

  But there was a lot of money at stake.

  He turned off the news. The woman wasn’t dead. She was in surgery, hadn’t regained consciousness, and the police spokesman said her status was critical.

  He didn’t want her to be dead, but being alive was worse.

  He paced the hotel room. He hated waiting. He hated being indecisive!

  They’d already taken money for the job. Money they couldn’t easily give back.

  Shit shit shit!

  A key card in the door had his heart skipping a beat, then Beth walked in and he relaxed.

  “Babe, I’ve been worried all day.”

  She kissed him and he felt better. “I told you, honey, it’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine! What if that woman dies? We’ll be nabbed for a murder charge.”

  “We had nothing to do with that. We weren’t even there. That was all your brother and Andy.”

  He bristled. He knew Frank had problems, but he was his brother. Doug loved him, and they needed him for this job.

  “I’m going to fix this, Doug. You trust me, right?”

  “Of course, but I’ve seen police here all day. And they blocked off the street, the alley—what if we missed something?”

  “I didn’t miss anything.”

  Now she was angry with him. Doug didn’t want Beth to be mad, he was just worried. Worried for them, worried for Frank. His brother wasn’t the sharpest tack. Andy was brilliant, but lazy. Frank was . . . well, he sometimes didn’t think things through.

  He said, “I think we should walk away.”

  “There’s too much at stake. We can’t back out now.”

  “I have a bad feeling, Beth. We’ve been doing this how long? Five years? No one has ever gotten hurt before. No one. And the news said that woman might die. I can’t live with that guilt.”

  “She won’t die.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “Babe, please, calm down.” She kissed him, then held his face in her hands. “I love you, Doug. We’re going to get through this, and then we’re done. At least with Frank and Andy. If we decide to take another job, it’ll just be us, okay? Just like before.”

  Frank was his brother, and Doug knew that Beth had agreed to let him help with some of the jobs not just because they needed a third man, but because Frank couldn’t hold down a job. Doug had always watched out for his big brother because Frank was . . . well, Doug thought he’d been dropped on his head. That was mean, he knew, but Frank didn’t have a lot of social skills. He was the only family Doug had left, though—other than Beth, of course. Doug’s dad had left the family when he was ten, and his mom had moved to Florida to live with a guy when Doug turned eighteen.

  “I took care of you and Frankie when your dad ran off, I’m done.”

  Doug never heard from her anymore, not even a birthday card. He tried to pretend he didn’t care.

  But he did.

  Andy was Doug’s best friend. Andy was always the smart one. He’d gone to college, he had a job, he introduced Doug to Beth. Without Andy, Doug wasn’t sure they would have gotten as far as they had, but maybe now was the time to cut off everyone. And not take any more jobs. Move, maybe. Out of California, lay low.

  “You’re thinking too much,” Beth said.

  “After this—we need to move. We’ll have the money. Go to Nevada or something.”

  “I hate Nevada.”

  “Washington? Idaho?”

  “I get it,” Beth said. “You’re worried. But this is just a hiccup, but it’s not going to derail us. Everything is scheduled for tomorrow. I need you committed.”

  “I am committed. For you. For us. But—”

  She kissed him to get him to stop talking. “Trust me. No one knows what we’re doing. There’s no way they can figure it out.”

  “What if they go up to the roof?”

  “I took care of it already,” she said. “They’re not going to find anything because there’s nothing to find. You need to have faith in me.”

  “I do.”

  She took his hand and led him to the bed. “I have a little time . . . an hour, two even if you’re really good.” She smiled and kissed him again, pushing him slowly down on the bed. She sat on top of him and took off her shirt.

  He could never resist her. Five years of marriage and he loved her more now than he had when they said “I do.”

  Chapter Nine

  Late that afternoon, the attorney general’s speech went off without a hitch. They’d more than doubled security and changed several details at the last minute in case his itinerary had been compromised. Once the AG was done, an officer assigned to his detail sent John a message, which he showed to Lucy as they sat down in the hotel bar after meeting up at the end of the speech.

  AG secure, no trouble, doesn’t seem that he was the target.

  “We’re back to square one,” John said. “I’m off duty. Want a
beer?”

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  John motioned at the waitress and ordered a draft. Lucy asked for a Diet Coke.

  “The idea that the AG was the target of an assassination was remote,” Lucy said. “You said so yourself.”

  “Then what was that guy doing on the roof? Those marks could have been made by a sniper.”

  “Would a good sniper leave any trace of their presence?”

  John conceded that they likely would not. His beer arrived and he paid for it, tipped well, and sipped. “I needed this. It’s been a long day.”

  It was six thirty in the evening and Jack and Megan were still at the hospital with Marc. Ellen had come out of surgery not long ago and was in a medically induced coma. If she made it through the next twenty-four hours, the doctors felt she would recover, though permanent brain damage was still a possibility.

  “Ellen’s attack has to be connected to her flying the drone over the roof,” John said. “The license plates didn’t pan out, and so far Riley and Sean haven’t come up with anything on security feeds in the area. I’ve gone through every event at the Sheraton, thinking one of them might be a target, and nothing is ringing my bells.”

  He sounded frustrated—the first real sign of frustration that Lucy heard from her temporary partner.

  “Do you have someone watching the hotel? Or the roof?” Lucy asked.

  “No. The crime techs I sent up there found nothing—well, one interesting thing. The roof door had been wiped with a disinfectant. No prints at all.”

  Lucy frowned. That didn’t seem right. “If the man in black wiped the door, there might not be many prints, but the security chief, Ben, he wasn’t wearing gloves. He brought us up and unlocked the door. His prints should have been on the knob.”

  John straightened. “You’re right. There was at least an hour window from when I called in the techs until they got up there.”

  “We were being watched,” Lucy said. “Whoever is behind this knew we were up there, and maybe thought they’d left some evidence.”

  “There’s no security on that door, only the elevators and lobby.”

  “They could have been watching from the lobby.”

  Jack pulled out his notepad and looked at his notes from the day. “We arrived at one fifty p.m. Left at two forty. That’s a short window. I’ll have Riley pull the feed from all public areas during that time frame. This might be a big break—though there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people going in and out of the lobby. Half the law enforcement conference is staying at the Sheraton, the other half at the Hyatt.”

  He sent a message. “I’m going to owe Riley a beer,” John said. “He’s already put in extra hours. His boss isn’t happy, but since I tapped him as my officer-assistant for this investigation, I can get him the overtime. By the way, I enjoyed your presentation this afternoon. I’m sorry I missed the end of it, I needed to brief the AG’s security detail before his speech.”

  “I’m glad you liked it.” Sean hadn’t come, but Lucy tried not to think about that. She hadn’t talked to him since she and John left Pride early that afternoon.

  “I liked how you showed clips from some of your interviews to illustrate your point, and then having the forensic psychiatrist show why a technique worked or didn’t work was helpful.”

  “It took me forever to get permission to use those, I’m glad they were effective.”

  Lucy felt stuck. She wanted to go back to Jack’s, but she didn’t have a car. Sean had the rental, she’d driven this morning with Jack, and Megan had her own car.

  She should have gotten a room at the hotel, but she didn’t have any need before—and now it was likely full. Not to mention she didn’t have any of her things.

  John finished his beer. “I’m heading home. You need a ride someplace?”

  Had she been that obvious? “I’m staying with Jack and Megan. I’ll catch a ride with them when they’re done at the hospital.”

  “All right. Thank you for everything, Kincaid. I appreciated your help on this. I don’t know where we’re going to be tomorrow morning in the investigation.”

  “If you need me, you have my number. I don’t have any plans at the conference tomorrow, other than listening to a few panels. Dean Hooper, the ASAC, is giving a presentation that should be interesting. But anything you need, I’m happy to do.”

  “I don’t like unanswered questions. The doc texted me that he thinks Ellen will make it—he’s giving fifty–fifty right now, but he’s more confident than the odds. We might have to wait until she regains consciousness before we get answers, and they’re keeping her in a medically induced coma for at least the next twelve hours. Her attack doesn’t feel random to me, but unless something pans out from the security feeds at the Sheraton, I don’t have another direction.”

  John said goodbye and left, and Lucy sat staring at her watered-down soda. She looked at her phone. No messages from Sean. Was he still out with Riley? Had he gone home?

  She texted Jack.

  I’m at the Hyatt in the bar, ready to go home if you can leave. If not I can get an Uber. Let me know.

  She felt . . . lonely. It wasn’t a feeling she’d had in years. Maybe lonely was the wrong word.

  No, it’s the right word. Sean is your partner in everything . . . and he’s MIA. And when he’s here physically, he’s gone mentally.

  She realized she hadn’t talked to Jesse since they’d arrived in Sacramento on Tuesday afternoon, when Sean called him as they were driving up to Jack’s place, just to tell Jesse they’d arrived safely. What kind of stepmother was she that she hadn’t called to check in for the last two days? She knew that Jesse was in good hands with Nate, but she missed him.

  He answered on the second ring. “Hey, Lucy!”

  He sounded happy to hear from her, which warmed her heart. “How is everything on the home front?” she asked.

  “Good. Nate picked me up from soccer practice and we met Aggie for dinner at Tito’s. I’m still stuffed.”

  Lucy laughed. “My favorite place.” Aggie was the first of Nate’s girlfriends that Lucy had met, and he seemed to have fallen hard, though getting anything personal out of her partner was next to impossible. Still, they seemed to spend all their free time together and Nate had already met her large family. Lucy was pleased. She liked the young DEA agent a lot; Aggie was good for Nate.

  “Then after, we all went to visit Brad,” Jesse said.

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Miserable. I mean, he’s fine, he says he’s recovered, but I guess from what he told Nate he’s being pressured to retire early or something. I guess there’s something really wrong with his knee or something.”

  Lucy’s heart went out to her friend. He had been tortured four weeks ago and nearly died, and it wasn’t the first time. He was an effective DEA agent, and that made him a target for some of the cartels.

  Jesse continued, “I guess his big boss is going to bat for him. But I heard him tell Nate that they want him to take over a slot at the DEA training academy, and he’s thinking about it. Nate said it’s a choice position, but I don’t really know what it is.”

  “That would be good for him. He could train the next generation. I’ll talk to him when we get back.”

  “He said to say hi. Is Dad there?”

  “No, I’m still at the conference,” she said. “We became involved in an investigation, and he’s been helping the local police with some of the tech issues.”

  “What happened?”

  Jesse sounded worried, and Lucy didn’t want him to worry about anything. He’d had enough fear in his young life. “A vendor here was attacked and robbed. Jack and Megan know her, so Sean and I are helping in the investigation.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She just got out of surgery. The doctor is optimistic, but we’re not certain yet.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yes, but we’re going to find out what happened.”

  “Of
course you are, because you’re the best, Lucy.”

  “Thanks, Jess.”

  “Want to talk to Nate?”

  “No, I’m sure he has everything taken care of there.”

  “He does. I’m almost done with my homework, then it’s game time. But I promise—bed by ten thirty.”

  “You don’t have a curfew.”

  “I know, but I’ll never stay up past eleven on a school night. Remember last week when Dad and I were playing that new game? Dad said we could play as long as I wanted if I got up by seven for school. I didn’t go to sleep until nearly three, and I was totally dead the next day. Not doing that again.”

  She laughed. It was a good lesson to learn, and sometimes you had to learn it through trial and error.

  “You have fun with Nate, I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Lucy.” He hung up.

  She didn’t know why she had tears in her eyes. Jesse wasn’t her flesh and blood, but she couldn’t love that kid any more if he were.

  * * *

  Sean was having a beer with Riley because he didn’t want to go back to Jack’s. He wanted to see Lucy, but how could he just text her as if he hadn’t fucked up last night? He wanted to go back to San Antonio and have everything the way it was before Jonathan Paxton came back in his life.

  His phone rang. It was Jack. He didn’t want to answer, but he had to.

  He excused himself from Riley and walked outside of the bar. “Yeah.”

  “I’m done with your bullshit, Sean,” Jack said. “Lucy is waiting for someone to take her home. She asked me, not you. So you’re going to get your fucking ass over to the Hyatt lobby and fix everything. Now. Not tomorrow, not next week, tonight. Do you think that none of us understand you went through hell? Do you think that we don’t know Paxton fucked with your head? That Colton Thayer tortured you? You don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I get it. I don’t talk about my shit, either. But I will not ever allow you to hurt Lucy because you can’t deal with your own crap. Fix it now.”

  Jack didn’t wait for Sean to respond. He had already hung up.

  Sean went back inside. He was shaking. He was angry . . . he was scared . . . and he didn’t want to lose Lucy.