Private S.W.A.T. Takeover

by Julie Miller

  “Truth serum?” Hadn’t she already surrendered enough control of her mind to this man? She wasn’t about to turn what was left of it over to some drug. “Like they use to get POWs to talk? No, thanks.”

  “You watch too much television.”

  “Not much at all, really.” She grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder as she stood up. Holden and two of the members of his S.W.A.T. team were waiting for her out in the reception area. A fourth member was parked out front in their armored van. It would be damn near impossible to talk them into taking her somewhere besides straight home, but she intended to try. Being locked up inside her home with Holden’s brooding silences, now that he knew she wasn’t able to help him solve his father’s murder, after all, sounded about as appealing as Trent Jameson’s plan to inject her with drugs. “I need some fresh air.”

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “We’re done, right?” She gestured toward the closed shades at the window. “I need sunlight and the smell of the leaves on the ground. I can’t be cooped up in here or inside my head for another minute.”

  Jameson moved fast for a man more than twice her age. When Liza opened his office door, he was suddenly there, reaching over her shoulder and slamming it shut. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  A momentary burst of fear stuttered through her next breath, but Liza quickly replaced the panic with her mouthy, street-savvy attitude. “We’re done here.”

  “Liza?” Holden’s voice was a distant call.

  “We are done when I say we’re done.” Jameson grasped her arm and spun her around, forcing her to read the disappointment and accusation etched on his face. “You’ve been fighting against me from our very first session. My therapeutic techniques have been proven successful by other patients. Why are you working against me?”

  Liza shrugged off his touch and shrank against the door. “It’s nothing personal. What the hell kind of doctor are you?”

  “I’m the kind who gets results. When my patients cooperate.”

  There was some kind of commotion in the outer office.

  “Liza?”

  “Officer, I can’t let you…He’s with a patient.”

  “Step aside, lady.”

  Liza wished she was on the other side of this door to see it. “Well, I’m not one of your patients anymore.”

  Liza reached behind her to turn the knob, but Jameson slapped his hand against the wood beside her head. “You have no idea what you’re up against, do you. Someone murdered someone else, and they think you know who they are—”

  A familiar jolt of fear, just as powerful as anything she’d felt in that dark alley, made her heart pump faster. “I want out of here. Now.”

  “—and whether you ever remember them or not, they’re going to want you dead.”

  “Liza!”

  Jameson pulled her away from the door as the knob turned from the other side. The door flew open, tearing the wood beneath its hinges.

  Liza saw the gun pointing at Dr. Jameson before she felt the hand clamp down over her arm and drag her behind the wall of Holden’s back. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. But I want to leave. He wouldn’t let me leave.”

  “We can fix that.”

  She was staring at a sea of black. No, she was surrounded by a shield of crisp black uniforms as the slow-talking Trip and raven-haired Dominic Molloy took up flanking positions a step behind Holden. Their guns weren’t drawn, but they each rested their hand on the gun butt sticking out from their holsters. One kept an eye on the receptionist, the other had a hand on Holden’s back, guiding him so he could back out of Jameson’s office without taking his eye—or his gun—off the doctor.

  Jameson seemed unimpressed with the efficient show of force. “You’ll pay for this door, I’m assuming?”

  “Go to hell.”

  Liza curled her fingers around Holden’s belt, unsure whether she was holding on for her own safety or urging him to retreat. “Please, Kincaid.”

  Holden held his stance a moment longer before he turned in a fluid ripple of motion, took her by the arm again and steered her past the receptionist’s desk toward the outer door and the elevators at the end of the hallway. “We’re out of here. Dom, take point. Trip—”

  “Don’t worry, the doctor will stay right where he is.”

  Trip could block Jameson in his office, but he couldn’t stop the therapist from calling after her. “I know your nightmares torment you, Liza. You think that if you could just remember everything the police want you to that you could put them out of your mind. It’s that searching for answers, for closure, that keeps the nightmares coming back. You know I’m your best chance to unlock those hidden places inside your head. You’ll never find peace without me. You know that. You’ll come back to me.”

  Every taunt was a cruel “I told you so” that hit its mark and left Liza clutching the rail at the back of the elevator and sagging against it.

  “You shut the hell up, doc,” Holden ordered. “The lady’s done with you.”

  Liza perked up at the protective anger in his tone as the door slid shut. She wanted Holden to turn around and take her into his arms, to let her feel—and not just hear—that he was still on her side, that his disappointment at her inability to help with the case hadn’t completely eroded the connection growing between them. But he was snapping orders into the radio at this shoulder, ordering Delgado to have the van in place when they walked out the front doors.

  He was cold and remote, like a machine, and seemed not at all interested in offering comfort to a woman who’d kept the truth from him and his family.

  “What was that about?” Molloy asked, apparently less affected by the tension of the situation than Holden was.

  “Desperation,” Liza answered, when no one else spoke. “Maybe we can get Hayley Resnick to broadcast that my brain is mush and that there’s no sense in the bad guys coming after me because I don’t know who they are.” The joke was lame and nobody laughed. The headache behind Liza’s eyes deepened to a throb as tears burned in her sinuses and threatened to spill over again. Riding down seven floors, staring at the center of Holden’s broad back, was cruelly symbolic of the bleak turn her life had taken. She’d ceased to be useful to him, but he was still determined to do his job, to protect her even though he now probably thought it was a waste of time. Maybe he even thought that the feelings he had for her were a waste of time. “I’m sorry, Kincaid. I really thought Dr. Jameson could help me remember.”

  “He’s not interested in justice. From the look of things, Jameson was using you like a lab rat to further his own career.” That almost musical warmth that she’d found so soothing in Holden’s voice had returned, though he never turned around or relaxed his guarded posture. But at least he was talking to her again. That was a good thing, right? “You don’t need to go back there.”

  “What if I can’t remember on my own?”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to find another way to find who killed my father.”

  MR. SMITH TURNED OFF THE tape recorder, pulled out the tape and crushed the plastic cassette in his leather-gloved fist. He tossed it on the floor next to Trent Jameson’s body and pulled his cell phone from his belt.

  He punched in his employer’s number as he paged through Jameson’s treatise on “Hypnotherapy Applications to Memory Recovery Technique.” Looked like the good doctor was puffed up on his own ego and liked to hear himself talk. According to his research here, he’d had success with “Scent Triggers” and “Guided Recall” with some of his patients. But when it came to Liza Parrish…

  His employer picked up the call.

  “I don’t think she knows enough to put us away,” Mr. Smith reported.

  “How certain are we that she’ll never remember the details of the crime?”

  Mr. Smith didn’t need Jameson’s therapy to remember the information he’d read in his files. “It’s fifty-fifty. But chances are, since it’s trauma and not injury-in
duced, she will, one day, remember. Could be tomorrow, could be when she’s ninety-two.” He closed the treatise and rose from behind Jameson’s desk. “How do you want me to proceed?”

  “Even when she’s ninety-two, the statute of limitations won’t have run out on Kincaid’s murder. He was a thorn in my side for thirty years while he was alive. It’s not fair that he should continue to haunt me now that he’s dead.”

  Striding past the receptionist slumped over her desk, Mr. Smith turned out the lights and closed the door behind him. He pushed the button for the elevator and waited for a reply.

  With a bastion of KCPD officers shadowing Liza Parrish 24/7 now, he needed to move quickly or this could get messy. He could handle messy, but clean and swift was so much easier.

  “I need you to give me the order.”

  This time, his employer didn’t hesitate.

  “Kill her.”

  Chapter Eight

  Holden finished toweling off and pulled on his shorts and camo pants before rummaging through the duffel bag. He felt out of place, like an intruder himself, showering in Liza’s bathroom, with its blue border of Noah’s ark and animals circling the ceiling, and a collection of plastic and ceramic animal pairs sitting on the shelves above the toilet and towel racks.

  Probably not the most apt place to unpack the spare hunting clothes he kept in the back of his Mustang for impromptu weekend getaways. It was a habit he’d learned from his dad. There’d been hundreds of times growing up—and as a man—that he and his dad, one or all his brothers and often Bill Caldwell, had kissed Susan Kincaid goodbye and gone off to hunt or fish, or simply camp and enjoy the outdoors. The eyes of every cute little critter seemed to be watching him, judging him. At least he’d left his Bushmaster rifle stowed in the trunk.

  He opened the velcro pocket where he’d stored his service Glock, and looped the holster onto his belt, along with his badge.

  The irony of who he was, and who Liza seemed to be—his Montague to her Capulet—only added to the guilt he carried on his shoulders.

  He had a thing for the copper-haired animal lover. Maybe he’d let his lust for her impair his judgment. But hell, it was more than that; their connection had been sealed the first time their eyes met across the crowded precinct floor. He’d known something wasn’t kosher about all the delays in KCPD’s investigation into his father’s murder. There had always been something suspicious about an alleged eyewitness whose identity was kept secret. Yet, if she was so valuable a lead, why were only sketchy details on the case being pursued?

  Now he understood.

  She’d lied to him, damn it. All right, so it was a lie of omission, but neglecting to mention her amnesia was a pretty big lie all the same. She wasn’t the key to solving his father’s murder, after all. There was no face she could describe or breakthrough clue she could provide. She couldn’t tell KCPD any more about his father’s murder than the dog she’d rescued that night.

  He’d pinned all his hope on her—probably a damn foolish thing for a man his age to do. A trained cop, no less. After knowing her for only a few hours, he’d been so desperate to end the suffering and uncertainty his family was going through that he’d latched on to Liza Parrish as though she was some kind of avenging angel who, if he could just push the right buttons and keep her in one piece, would finally reveal the truth that could give his family closure. She was a scrappy fighter. She had the strength and drive to get the job done.

  And he loved her for that.

  After four short days, he loved her.

  “Ain’t that a kick in the pants,” he chided his reflection in the fogged-up mirror, before pulling on a clean T-shirt and khaki green sweater.

  How could he really love a woman who harbored big secrets he knew nothing about? He was supposed to choose loyalty to his family over his own desires, right?

  It had taken overhearing that bizarre, abusive therapy session with Trent Jameson for Holden to get off his pity pot and realize he still had a job to do. His emotions had gotten in the way of clear thinking again, just like they had on that Al Mabry shoot earlier in the week. No matter how conflicted he felt about Liza, nobody deserved to be put through that kind of hell. Nobody.

  He just wasn’t sure he knew how to get past the betrayal he felt—that he probably had no right to feel. Or maybe it was the disappointment in his own judgment. He didn’t trust what might be in his heart any more than he trusted Liza right now.

  His life had been a hell of a lot easier when he could ice over his feelings, stop second-guessing his decisions and just do what needed to be done. He missed his father tonight as much as he had the day of his funeral. John Kincaid would have known what to say, how to guide his youngest son through this. He’d probably tell him to grab his fishing pole, pack some food, and they’d go out into the country somewhere. Pitch a tent. Drop their lines in the water. Talk. Listen. And by the time they got back home, Holden would know what to do.

  But his father wasn’t here to guide him anymore.

  Holden squashed the pain of all he had lost into an icy ball inside his chest and let it numb his confusion. He pulled on his socks and hiking boots, packed his muddy sweats in the bag and turned off the light before opening the door. At this time of night, even with the shades drawn, any interior light would give a perp outside a pretty good idea of where there was activity—and a possible target—inside the house.

  He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and walked out into the darkened living room. He’d stop in the kitchen one last time to fill the dogs’ water bowls before he left through the side door to the driveway where he’d parked his Mustang. According to Cutler, his only job right now was to guard the dogs. It sucked at Holden’s pride to be relegated to glorified dog-walker, but maybe it was the only job he was suited for until he could get his head screwed on straight again.

  Kevin Grove was sitting in the lone chair in the living room, holding a flashlight and reading a book, when Holden walked in. Though he couldn’t exactly claim that they’d become friends, they had developed a certain rapport that involved an acceptance of their differences, a little respect and a healthy dose of traded barbs.

  Holden inclined his head toward the novel by Tolkien in Grove’s hands. “Who knew a big lug like you could read. And it’s not even a picture book. Impressive.” He adjusted his duffel over his shoulder. “Thanks for letting me clean up.”

  The burly detective bookmarked his page and shut off the light. “I didn’t want to spend any more time than I had to with a man who smelled like he’d run five miles through the mud with a pack of hounds.”

  “It’s been a real pleasure spending some quality time with you, too, Grove.” He paused as he walked past Liza’s closed door; the ice hadn’t numbed everything inside him yet. “She asleep?”

  “Yeah. About as soon as you hit the shower, she called the dogs in and closed the door.”

  Gathering the troops around her for protection. Against a man who wanted her dead? Or against the cold shoulder he’d thrown up between them and couldn’t seem to breach? “Well, good night.”

  “Hold up.” Grove crossed through the shadows. “I got a phone call while you were in the shower.” The fact that he had lowered his voice to little more than a whisper couldn’t be good. “A nighttime cleaning crew found Trent Jameson and his secretary dead in his office. According to the M.E., Holly Masterson, they look like professional hits.”

  Only hours after Liza had been in that office herself? “Our killer’s already closing in.”

  “Looks that way.”

  Holden’s gaze slipped to Liza’s door again. Even with armed guards inside and around the house, she seemed isolated. Alone in her room with no one but her dogs to cling to for comfort. No wonder she wouldn’t leave them. The emotions he’d shunned tried to fight back. “What’s the plan? I know you have one.”

  “I’m making arrangements to move Liza to a more secure location at first light. I want her in a closed apartment with restr
icted access. We’ll kennel the dogs at the K-9 training facility.”

  Isolate her even more. “She won’t go for that.”

  “No one’s giving her a choice this time.” Grove had always looked like a brawny wrestler, but as he propped his hands at his hips, Holden noted that his barrel chest was thicker than usual. He was wearing a flak vest under his jacket. Armed with a Glock at his waist and a spare piece at his ankle, he was prepped for battle. Expecting the worst. “I’ve been working on this case for six months. The answers to your father’s murder are inside her head. I want the chance to recover those answers before your father’s killer shuts them down permanently. In the meantime, until the extraction team comes at dawn, I’m looking for all the reinforcements I can get.”

  Holden dropped his bag at his feet. “I’ll get my gear.”

  KEVIN GROVE WAS A SNORER. No wonder, with that crooked nose that looked as though it had been busted up once or twice.

  But that wasn’t the sound that had snagged Holden’s attention away from Grove’s book that he’d picked up to read while the detective crashed on the couch for sixty minutes.

  Holden hit the light button on his watch and checked the time. 2:14 a.m. Way too soon for the extraction team to arrive. The guards outside were either sitting in their cars staying warm, or farther off in the woods. The only sounds he should hear from them would come over the radio hooked to Grove’s belt. And the noise he’d heard wasn’t electronic.

  There it was again.

  A thud. Like a fist meeting a chin—only softer. The sound repeated. Again. And again.

  Silently he stood, setting the book on the chair and unsnapping his Glock as he moved to the center of the room to pinpoint the source of the sound. There. He turned his ear toward Liza’s bedroom door. Another thud.

  Holden curled his fingers around his gun.

  “Son of a…” His breath seeped out on half a curse and half a sigh of relief at the sound of tiny claws scratching the other side of Liza’s door. “Damn dog.”