A Deeper Fear

by Allison Brennan

  He told Riley, “Lucy’s done so I need to go pick her up.”

  “Yeah, John wants me to talk to the Sheraton about some security feeds from this afternoon. I’ll walk back with you.”

  Sean wanted to be alone, but he didn’t say anything. They were around the corner from the Hyatt—his car was still in the parking garage. Riley had parked his squad car near the convention center. One of the perks of being a cop was not having to worry about finding a parking place.

  “You okay?” Riley asked as they walked.

  “Not really. I don’t want to talk about it, though.”

  “You have a lot of friends, Sean. You saved my sister’s life, I’ll never forget that. Dean says you’re the smartest guy he’s ever worked with, and coming from my brother-in-law, that’s high praise ’cause he’s the smartest guy I’ve ever met.”

  “Dean’s a lot smarter than I am,” Sean said.

  “Just think how I feel.” Riley laughed, cutting the tension.

  They split up on K Street, and Sean went inside the Hyatt. He walked through the lobby, looking for Lucy.

  She was in the bar. She wasn’t alone; she was sitting with several cops from the conference. Everyone was drinking except Lucy. She only drank when she was completely relaxed, and preferred only having beer or wine at home. She looked attentive, listening and talking—maybe about her panel (that he’d missed) or about the conference or the speech by the attorney general or any number of things.

  But she didn’t look comfortable.

  He should have been here. He should have done so many things differently.

  Sean wanted everything to go back to the way it was before, but Jack made him realize that just wasn’t possible. His life was different. It might have only been three days of hell, but those three days had affected him deeply.

  Being accused of a crime he hadn’t committed.

  Being arrested; handcuffed; imprisoned.

  Being kidnapped and framed for killing a cop. Knowing that if he could free himself, he was a wanted man with a target on his back.

  All of that had affected him, but none of it destroyed him.

  What truly gutted him was looking at himself through the eyes of Jonathon Paxton. Seeing himself as the one who hurt Lucy. Who put her in danger. Logic could only get him so far . . . there was a lot of truth behind Paxton’s words. That Lucy would be safer without him in her life. Paxton had tapped into Sean’s deepest fear: that had Lucy picked someone else to love, she would be happier and safer.

  Sean didn’t know what he had expected by running away to Tahoe for the night. Maybe he wanted to hurt Lucy so she would walk away—show her that he was everything Paxton said he was. Untrustworthy. Disloyal. Fun first, last, and always. A borderline criminal. Arrogant. Someone who would hurt Lucy because he couldn’t change.

  Jack said he had PTSD. Sean had thought that was bullshit. He wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t a cop or a doctor who couldn’t save someone. His feelings were hurt, and he had to get over it.

  But Jack was right.

  “You can’t forget what happened. You have to accept it, acknowledge it, deal with it. Only then can you move forward.”

  Sean felt so damn weak! What he suffered was nothing compared with what Jack had suffered in the army. With what Kane had suffered in the Marines. With what Lucy had suffered at the hands of a psychotic rapist.

  You can’t compare your pain with the pain of others. There’s no scale for suffering.

  That advice came from Dillon Kincaid, Jack’s twin brother. It was the only thing he’d said to Sean that had stuck with him. He couldn’t reconcile that with how he viewed the world. Until now.

  He had to fix it with Lucy. Now, not later.

  He stepped away from the bar, pulled out his cell phone, and called Dean Hooper.

  “Rogan? What’s up?”

  “Dean, I need a favor. I’ll owe you big time.” He explained what he wanted.

  “I can make it happen. But you don’t owe me anything, Sean. Ever. Give me five minutes.”

  He ended the call, and three minutes later Sean got the confirmation and a thumbs-up.

  Chapter Ten

  Lucy had seen Sean in the lobby looking at her. He seemed so lost that she wanted to go to him, to fix whatever was broken—but before she could, he turned and walked away. Her heart fell to the pit of her stomach, and she thought for the first time that maybe her life with Sean was truly in jeopardy. She almost couldn’t breathe.

  Jack still wasn’t here to get her. She hadn’t had time alone—within minutes of John walking away, two cops from San Francisco had come over to talk about her panel. A few minutes later another group came over to tell her they liked her presentation. Soon there were nine or ten agents and cops chatting about her interrogation techniques and laughing about some of their own antics. She liked hearing their stories, but her mind wasn’t fully engaged. She didn’t see Sean again, and she didn’t know when Jack would be here.

  “I have to go,” she said finally, “my ride is here.” The lie seemed to come easily, but maybe that was because these men and women didn’t know her. She smiled, thanked them for their kind words about her panel, and headed for the main doors. She pulled her phone out to summon an Uber. It would cost a small fortune to go all the way to Jack’s, but she didn’t care—she just wanted to leave.

  “Lucy.”

  She looked up from her phone and Sean was there.

  She had no words. She thought he’d left.

  He looked exhausted. And worried. Her heart nearly burst with love for him, and fear about what he was doing to himself.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He leaned over and kissed her. She put a hand on his shoulder; he was tense, practically shaking.

  She almost asked Are you okay? but knew that he wasn’t, and she didn’t know if he would lie to her . . . again. She couldn’t handle it if he lied to her about what was going on with him. The professional in her might understand it and make excuses, but the woman who loved him couldn’t, not anymore. She wanted to make him okay, and she couldn’t do it. Knowing that she couldn’t fix this hurt her, deep inside it hurt.

  But she wasn’t going to walk away.

  He held up a plastic card. It took her a second, then she realized it was a card key for the hotel.

  “Right now, all I want is to be alone with you. I need you, Lucy, and I’m sorry.”

  Tears dampened her eyes. “No apologies.” She reached up to touch him. To kiss him.

  “Yes.” He took a deep breath, took her hand, and led her to the elevators.

  They went up to the concierge level. “Is this where you were last night?” she asked.

  “I was in Lake Tahoe.”

  She didn’t know quite how to process that information. She had questions but didn’t know where to start.

  Sean opened the door at the far end of the hall. It was a suite—they walked into a sitting area. To the right was the bedroom.

  “You got a suite?” she asked.

  “I called in a favor and this was the only room available. But I won twenty thousand dollars in Tahoe, and figure this is a small way to start making up for it.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Sean.”

  “I want to.” He closed the door. “I know what you’re going to say. That you forgive me, or that there’s nothing to forgive. But there is a lot to forgive. I ran away last night. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I did. I ran away from you, from Jack, from my failures, from everything. But I can’t. I can’t run away from me—I’m not making any sense.”

  He took a deep breath and crossed the room. He stared out the window. They were in the corner of the hotel, on the top floor.

  Lucy didn’t push. Sean wanted to talk. She could feel it in him, but he was struggling. She didn’t want to put words in his mouth. She didn’t want to tell him it would be okay. He knew that. He knew that she loved him. He was struggling, but it was with whatever Jonathon Paxton had said and
done to him—and what Sean had done to himself, in his mind. She had to let him do this in his own way.

  He wasn’t looking at her, but that was okay, she realized. Maybe it was better for him this way.

  “I remember when you first told me you loved me,” he said.

  She remembered, too, and shivered involuntarily. She had thought he’d been killed, that because she was torn up inside about what love was and wasn’t, she hadn’t told him how she felt out of fear—fear that if she said it out loud, something would break in their relationship. It didn’t matter that he’d told her he loved her, it didn’t matter that he’d showed her in his actions and words how much he loved her, she had this irrational panic that admitting how she felt would jeopardize everything.

  Then she’d almost died in an abandoned mine. He’d saved her life, and she admitted that she loved him and had been too scared to tell him. Scared of her feelings, of what they might gain—only to lose everything because of the lives they led.

  She’d been a fool. Young, immature, terrified of loss because she’d already lost so much in her life.

  “For a long time I didn’t think I deserved you. Sometimes I still don’t,” he said, “but I love you and I know you love me, and everything that we’ve been through has just solidified that. Then I realized it wasn’t what I deserved or didn’t deserve. It was about me. The day you told me you loved me, you nearly died. I put you there.”

  “No, Sean, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did. You went on that trip with me because it was my job, Lucy. You were in that situation—you nearly fell down a mine shaft, you still have a scar on your leg from where you were stabbed—because of my case.”

  “I would do it again to help the people of that town. To help that young boy who had lost everything. And I know you would, too.”

  Sean turned away from the window, looked at her. “I know it doesn’t sound logical. And that’s why I can’t get this out of my head. It’s all driven by emotion. Paxton used my deepest fears against me. But knowing that doesn’t make the truth any less real. Everything I touch dies. My parents. I was flying the plane when it went down! My dad took over the controls but couldn’t stop the crash. I killed them. I had to bury them, knowing that I was partly at fault.”

  “Sean—”

  “Logically, I know that the plane had a major mechanical failure. That I didn’t cause the failure, that my dad and I did everything we could to crash safely. But they are still dead. Skye Jansen, the first woman I loved, is dead. Why? Because I no longer loved her.”

  “She’s dead because of her own actions,” Lucy said.

  “Logically, I know that. Emotionally I only feel that if I hadn’t hurt her she might not have gone down that road. Jesse’s mother is dead because I couldn’t protect her.”

  Lucy knew where this was going and she wanted to hold Sean, to tell him he was wrong, but that wasn’t going to fix how he felt deep inside. Calmly, she said, “Madison is dead because the man she married laundered money for a drug cartel.”

  “But I was supposed to protect her! Jesse—my son—nearly died that night. I’m terrified that because of something I do—or don’t do—you’re going to die. That because of who I am, Jesse is going to die. Everyone I have ever loved is dead. I can’t stop thinking about it. I can tell myself that it’s not true, I can tell myself that you are safe, but the fear is real, Lucy. It’s paralyzing.”

  She understood fear. Nothing she said was going to take away Sean’s pain. After she was raped ten years ago she dreaded her family trying to make things better. Some of them walked on eggshells around her. Some acted as if everything was normal. Some stopped talking mid-sentence, as if afraid they would upset her. The pity in their eyes . . . that was the worst. And while Jack’s blunt, tough love had helped her more than anything—coupled with him training her to be stronger, better, faster—sometimes even he couldn’t fix what was broken. Sometimes she just wanted someone to acknowledge that she had the right to be scared, that she had the right to be angry.

  Time didn’t fix everything, but time helped put fear and anger in perspective. It was always there—but she managed it. Most of the time.

  She could tell Sean that, but he knew. He knew that his emotions had overwhelmed his logic, and for a guy as logic-driven as Sean, it had to be terrifying.

  “I accepted my own mortality years ago, Sean. I don’t want to die, but I know that the life handed to me—and the life I chose—is dangerous. It’s not your job to protect me any more than it’s my job to protect you. But we protect each other because we love each other. I know the fear and pain and doubt eating you up, and I hate Jonathon Paxton for putting that on your heart. But do you know why he did it?”

  “This isn’t about him—

  “Yes, it is, Sean. Jonathon Paxton is dead. I have no remorse, no sorrow, only pity. Maybe not even that. Paxton fixated on me because I look like his dead daughter. He was twisted and half crazy and had it in his head that you weren’t good enough for me—for the woman he believed in his warped mind was his daughter. So he took your love for me and turned it into fear for me. Because he knew that you have a big heart, he knew that you would do anything to protect me. If you think that loving me will cause me to die in some unknown future, you’re letting that bastard win. You cannot let him win, Sean. I don’t know how to fix this—but we have to do this together. I refuse to let that man come between us.”

  Sean stared at her, tears in his eyes, then he stepped forward and she ran into his arms. He hugged her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe. But she didn’t let go. She needed Sean as much as he needed her.

  Sean picked her up, something that always made her a little nervous because she wasn’t all that short or light, but he carried her with ease to the bedroom and put her on the bed. “I love you so much, Lucy.”

  She kissed him. Over and over. “Show me, Sean. Show me how much you love me.”

  * * *

  Lucy slept like a rock for four hours, then woke up, alert, almost forgetting where she was.

  Hotel. Right. They were at the Hyatt, in a suite.

  And she was starving.

  It was eleven thirty, and she was on the tail end of room service. She ordered food for her and Sean, though she wouldn’t wake him to eat.

  The situation wasn’t fixed, but they were beginning to repair the damage that Jonathan Paxton had done to Sean. A huge weight had fallen from her shoulders. Now she understood and together they would find a way to get beyond Sean’s emotional pain.

  She looked at her phone. A text from Jack, which came in two hours before, was simple.

  ?

  So Jack.

  She replied: Sean and I are staying at the Hyatt tonight. Can you or Megan bring our luggage in the morning?

  She wasn’t sure Jack was still awake, but he responded immediately.

  With a smiley-face emoji.

  Lucy laughed out loud.

  The suite had two robes in the closet, so that’s what she was wearing when room service arrived. The late-night menu wasn’t expansive, so she’d ordered burgers and fries.

  Sean stepped out of the bedroom as soon as she closed the door. He wore his boxers.

  “It didn’t even occur to me that you hadn’t eaten,” he said.

  She kissed him.

  “I got enough for both of us.” She put the tray on the coffee table and sat down.

  He sat next to her and kissed her. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he kissed her again and said, “I love you.”

  “I love you. And food.” She took off the lids and started eating.

  After a few minutes, she started talking about the case. She missed bouncing ideas off Sean. He was so good at seeing the whole picture, and asking the right questions to help solve cases.

  He didn’t comment. Maybe she was pushing for normalcy too quickly, but he seemed interested in what she was telling him.

  She said, “You heard that Ellen made it out o
f surgery. That’s good news.”

  “Yeah, great news.” He glanced at her. “Ellen wanted me there to help her test the drone. I told her I had plans. I lied. I should have been there.”

  “She is a smart, capable woman who didn’t need you to help her,” Lucy said. “Don’t go down that path, Sean. It never ends well, as we both know.”

  He didn’t say anything, ate some fries, then said, “Yeah. You’re right.”

  “Did you and Riley find anything interesting?”

  “No. There’s some data to go through, but I don’t think anything is going to be there. I think whoever attacked her knew about the cameras and went a route to avoid them.”

  “What are they up to?” Lucy wondered out loud. “It can’t be for the equipment, since they destroyed it. If they wanted her dead, they would have made sure that they killed her. I can’t imagine they didn’t know that she was alive when they put her in the Dumpster, but if they thought she was dead, it didn’t seem from the video that her murder was the goal.”

  “They didn’t know what she saw with the drone. I think the man in black, on the roof, was doing something illegal up there and didn’t know if the video caught him doing it. And you found nothing up on the roof?”

  “The door was wiped clean, but we think it was done after John and I went up there, because the Sheraton security chief’s prints weren’t on the knob and we know he touched it.”

  “They were watching you.”

  “That’s my guess. There were some odd scrapes that appeared fresh on the corner of the roof. There’s a nearly three-foot ledge all around.”

  “Do you have a picture?”

  Lucy looked through her phone, showed the marks to Sean. He stared at them for a short minute, then said, “I know exactly what those are from.” He took her phone and opened the browser, did a search, then showed her a picture of a multipronged hook.

  “What’s that for?”

  “It’s a grappling hook. Mountain climbing.”

  “They climbed up the side of the hotel? Someone would have noticed.”

  He frowned, then did another search and brought up Google Earth. “I wish I had my laptop, but this gives us a perspective. There are a couple of buildings that could be reached from the Sheraton roof.”