by Julie Miller
Maybe the only thing worse than not hearing one of his teammates answer his call was not hearing the teammate protecting the woman he loved answer him.
“WELL, AREN’T YOU the dedicated little worker.”
Josie’s stomach plummeted to her toes at the falsely sweet voice. She dropped the pitcher she’d been rinsing out and immediately put her hands over her belly. Where was Rafe? Where was Randy Murdock? Where was anyone who could protect her?
She was alone. In the tent where Rafe had told her to stay put, where Randy and the rest of SWAT Team One was supposedly keeping an eye on her. In the middle of the biggest day of KCPD’s year, with more cops than could fill Robbie’s bar just a short walk away, she was all alone.
Thank God she had a table and a tub of sudsy water between them. But not for long. She could hear his footsteps softly squishing the grass. She could smell the fresh pungency of a recently smoked cigarette wafting from his clothes. The enormity of what was about to transpire made her knees shake. But Junior seemed to sense her distress and pitched a fit, waking and rolling, reminding Josie of every loving moment she’d shared with her baby’s father. Junior demanded that she fight.
“You’re the RGK.” She slowly turned as her nemesis approached. The first thing she noticed were the missing glasses. Then she saw him pick up a fresh towel to wipe his already clean hands. “I saw you kill Kyle Austin.” She looked straight into eyes that were colorless, cold, without conscience. “Mr. Beecher.”
He smiled, a gesture she found even more frightening than a spoken threat, and she backed away. He turned a ring on his finger and wove around one row of folding chairs, then another, until there was only the table between them. “Your description doesn’t look anything like me, Miss Nichols.”
“I got the eyes right.” She glanced toward the ice machine, tried to gauge how long it would take her to get past it and out the tent’s front flap. “You should know there are SWAT cops here to protect me. I believe several of them have a personal beef with you.”
He laughed. But it was an ugly, chilling sound. “Officer Taylor’s fiancée destroyed my college career. My father beat me when he learned I’d lost that scholarship and intern program to a woman. No Ivy League for me. No money for my family. And all Officer Jones’s wife had to do was say yes, and go to the prom with me.”
“So she could be kidnapped.” Josie inched her way toward the end of the table. “I know the story. Your family abducted her, tortured her, demanded ransom.”
“And my father beat me unconscious because I failed to live up to my part of the scam.”
A drop of crystalline moisture glistened off the prong of his ring. There wasn’t a stone set there at all, but something clear, something wet. Was that the poison he’d used to murder Kyle Austin? A simple shaking of hands, a prick of the skin, a subtle but deadly injection—explained the blood he’d been wiping from his fingers that day.
Josie cradled her stomach and circled the end of the table. “I’m sorry you were abused, Jeffrey. I pity you and the suffering you must have endured.”
“I don’t want your pity. I’m not the same boy I was then. I’m not Donny Kemp anymore.”
“I pity you because you couldn’t rise above your childhood.” She thought of one man, tall and strong and oh, so brave. “Being abused isn’t an excuse for murdering people.”
“Most serial killers were abused as children.”
“And some good cops were, too.”
He unbuttoned the front of his jacket, revealing the Glock 9 mm he’d tucked into the front of his belt. “Your blonde friend who’s supposed to be watching over you out there?” He patted the gun. “She won’t be coming to save you.” Randy? Josie glanced over her shoulder. She hadn’t heard a gunshot. “I did mention I have a little issue with women having power over me, didn’t I?”
Josie’s pulse hammered in her ears. “What did you do to Randy?”
He held up his hands, his clean, pristine hands. The Rich Girl Killer strangled his victims.
“Randy!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Rafe!”
The shadow from her nightmares was closing in on her.
“What did you do with her rifle? You don’t have that stuffed inside your pants.” Her back was up against the ice machine now. Her fingers teased the edge of the metal door covering the ice compartment. “They’ll find you. They’ll hunt you down. I’m not the only one who’s seen your face.”
“Brava.” He held out his hand. Expecting her to take it? To surrender to the inevitable? “Such spirit from someone who has no idea how insignificant she is in this world. Allow me to remind you of your proper place.”
Josie slipped around to the front of the machine. She pushed open the door with her hip, then shivered at the blast of cold air from inside.
He crept closer. The maniac who’d killed countless men and women, terrorized her, threatened her life, threatened her baby—threatened her best chance at love and happiness—had the nerve to reach out to touch her hand. With the ring.
The ring!
Josie jerked her hand back before deadly poison could pierce her skin. He stumbled forward at the sudden motion and Josie slammed the door down hard on his hand. “Get away from me!”
Beecher gave a guttural yell, like a wild animal caught in a trap. She didn’t wait to see if he was truly injured. She wouldn’t turn to see the murderous intent in his eyes. She ran. She shoved chairs behind her to block his path, but she was off balance with the baby, slower than she used to be.
And he was so angry. So terribly, terribly angry.
Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. The baby shifted. No, sweetie. Not now!
He grabbed the knot of her hair and jerked her back off her feet. Josie tumbled into his chest, knocking them both to the ground. He landed with a thud, but he was only winded, not down.
Josie rolled, clutching her belly, protecting her baby as chairs toppled and crashed down around her. She got up to her hands and knees and crawled away. But he was faster, stronger. He caught her ankle and gave a vicious jerk, knocking her onto her stomach. The baby!
She screamed. But it was short-lived. He was on top of her now, one hand bearing down on her throat, cutting off her air supply. She had both hands clutched around his other wrist, pushing to keep that ring and its poisonous bite from touching her.
But she was growing weak. She needed air. The ring came down like the grasping hands from her nightmare. A pounding rhythm filled up her ears. No. Her baby. Her baby! They had to live. Rafe needed them both to live.
Summoning the last of her waning strength, she tried to kick, but she was too weak to do more than squirm beneath him. Her vision went murky. Her elbows started to bend. She was going to die. She was—
A thunderous sound roared through the tent as a big black, tank-like van tore through the walls, sent tables and chairs flying and crashed into the ice machine. A broken table hit her attacker in the back, knocking him down and loosening his grip.
The sudden influx of oxygen into her lungs cleared her head and restored her sight. She saw figures in black swarming out of the van like hornets from the hive.
“Get on the ground, now!”
“Josie!”
She shoved at Beecher’s chest. She tried to tell them about Randy, to warn them about the ring. But her voice made no sound in her bruised throat.
“Gun!”
“Gun!”
The weight on her eased, for only a moment. And then Jeffrey Beecher rolled to his feet, wrapping his arm around Josie’s neck and grinding the barrel of Randy’s Glock into her temple. “Get back! All of you, get back or I shoot her right now!”
“Sarge!”
Captain Cutler’s warning went unheeded.
Rafe took one step toward her, then two, three, four, five, his gun locked between his hands and aimed at the middle of Jeffrey Beecher’s forehead.
“Get back!” Beecher ordered, pushing his gun so hard against her skull that her head tilted
to the left.
Whiskey-brown eyes locked on to hers, full of love, full of anger, full of something of such deadly intent that even Josie trembled.
“Is this the Rich Girl Killer?” Rafe demanded in a low, gravelly voice.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Put down your damn guns!”
But Rafael Delgado’s eyes never wavered. “Captain, I have a shot.”
“Take it.”
He pulled the trigger.
Jeffrey Beecher jerked.
Warm blood that was not her own spattered her cheek.
And when Beecher’s collapsing body would have dragged her down to the ground with him, she never even touched the grass.
Rafe was there to catch her in his arms.
He turned to carry her to the back of the SWAT van. And while she clung to his neck, too stunned to even weep, she saw Alex Taylor and Trip Jones stowing their guns as they knelt over Beecher’s body to look for a pulse they would never find.
“Poison. His ring…” she rasped through her raw throat. “Careful.”
Without breaking stride, Rafe relayed the information to his team and sat with her in his lap.
She saw Miranda Murdock, her head bleeding, her clothes dirty, stumble into the tent and hand her rifle over to Michael Cutler. She was so weak she could barely stand on her own. “Is Josie okay?”
“She will be,” the captain answered, sitting Randy in a chair and checking her injuries. “We all will be.”
Josie nodded against Rafe’s solid chest and let her eyes drift shut. These people were her friends. They were her family.
She wasn’t alone.
“SERGEANT, IF WE could get a listen to the baby’s heartbeat again.”
“You said the baby was fine.”
“Yes, but we want to make sure there are no sudden drops in pressure. They’ll be doing the same thing when we get her to the hospital. So if we could just…?”
Rafe was making it difficult for the paramedics on the scene to conduct their examination of Josie, but he didn’t want to let her go. And he sure as hell didn’t want to share this time with Spencer Montgomery sticking his nose in at every turn to ask another question.
“The poison ring should give us a chemical matchup to Austin’s murder.” The detective scratched some more notes on his pad. “And Nick’s already at Beecher’s house. He’s found a room full of trophies from each of his murders. An earring from Gretchen Cosgrove, a baby blanket he took from Valeska Gallagher—plus countless files and news clippings on Audrey Kline and Charlotte Mayweather. We believe he still intended to murder them once you were eliminated and he couldn’t be identified.”
Josie turned on the ambulance gurney to face the red-haired detective. “So you finally got your man.”
He tucked his notebook inside the pocket of his suit jacket and nodded. “Thanks to you. Not many people would have come forward once they realized who and what they’d seen. You’re a brave woman, Josie Nichols.”
“My father would have expected nothing less.” Rafe welcomed the squeeze on his hand. “Of either of us.”
Detective Montgomery reluctantly included Rafe in his thanks. “You robbed me of my chance to interrogate the suspect, Sergeant.”
“I wasn’t going to let him hurt her.”
“Why do you think I let her have her way about the safe house?” Spencer held out his hand. “I’d have done the same thing if Beecher had threatened someone I loved.”
Rafe took his hand. “I still don’t like you.”
“I don’t like you, either.” He saluted Josie before turning away. “Invite me to the wedding.”
“Wedding?” Josie echoed, her throat raw from Beecher’s hands there.
“He’s getting ahead of himself. Enough.” Rafe pushed the paramedic away for a few private moments. He’d washed the RGK’s blood off Josie’s skin himself. But there was still spatter in her hair. He hated that he’d done that, that he’d had to use his deadly skill with Josie so close at hand. He cupped her face between his palms and kissed her. Her lips parted and answered, and emotions too powerful to deny any longer rushed up and made him dizzy. Finally, he pulled his mouth away and cupped his hand over her belly. The danger had come far too close to the baby, too. “How’s Junior?”
Her hands folded over his. “What if Junior turns out to be a girl? We’ll have to come up with a new nickname.”
He wished he had some witty, romantic comeback. But he was the man he was, and words had never been a gift. “How about Delgado? I want to marry you. I want to be a daddy to this baby.” He touched his forehead to hers and his heart spilled out. “I want… Oh, God, Jose… I love you so much. I love this baby. I was so scared I was going to lose you and I was never going to get the chance to tell you that I finally wised up and believed what you knew all along.”
She lifted one hand to stroke his jaw with her soothing touch. “That we were meant to be together?”
“That I can love—that I do love. You.” He turned his face to press a kiss into her palm. “Hell, honey, I’ve got nothing without you. I am nothing without you.”
“Don’t say that. You are the best man I know. I’ve always known that you’re a real hero—that you’re my hero. Don’t ever say that you’re nothing.”
He nodded, maybe halfway believing her for the first time. “I’ve been a miserable man for a long time, Jose. I’ve been afraid of giving a damn about anyone. Be with me. Help me to not be afraid anymore. Let me love you.”
“And the baby?”
“I can take classes. I can learn from the example Aaron set. I can learn to be a good dad.”
She pressed her palm over his heart. “You already know how, Rafe. You’ve got it all in here. Just love us.”
“I can do that.” He kissed her to let her know how much he did love her. And then, just because he wanted to, he kissed her again. “So, are you going to marry me?”
“Yes.”
He held his woman and his child, their child, in his arms. “What do you think your father would say?”
“That it’s about damn time.”
Epilogue
Three months later
“Oh, no you don’t.” Miranda Murdock was practically frantic as she popped up out of her patio chair in Michael Cutler’s backyard and held up her hands to push away the tiny bundle. “I can’t.”
Jillian Cutler, the captain’s young wife, laughed. “It’s a baby, Randy. He won’t bite.”
Ready to give birth in about a month herself, the tall brunette seemed especially attached to the role of newborn babysitter.
“Exactly,” Randy protested. “I’m all for other women having kids, but it’s just not my thing. And this one is so, so little.”
Rafe swooped in from the male contingent of guests who’d been opening a beer while the captain grilled steaks and burgers and brats for the party. He took the tiny bundle of perfection from Jillian’s arms and rubbed noses with his son, Aaron Robert Delgado. “He’s only three days old, Murdock. Give him a few years to grow before you start flirtin’ with him.”
“How’s my sweetheart?” Rafe caught his breath as Josie came out the deck’s French doors with a tray of food she was carrying for her Uncle Robbie, who limped out with his cane behind her. His heart swelled, as it did each time he realized that Josie was his wife, that she loved him and that she’d given him every reason to believe in happily-ever-afters.
He leaned down and kissed her. “You talkin’ to me or the baby?”
She smiled that gorgeous smile. “Both.”
“Have I congratulated you on your graduation from nursing school today, Mrs. Delgado?”
She went all maternal on him and pulled little Aaron’s hat more squarely over his head to protect his delicate skin from the August sun. But when she smiled up at him, Rafe’s pulse raced. Now that look was definitely not maternal. Oh, man, how was he going to wait six weeks for her to be able to make love again?
“I thought this wa
s my celebration,” she teased, as always reading his hopes and needs in that caring, humbling, perceptive way of hers. She dropped her voice to a whisper and made his blood bubble with impatience. “But I’m counting the days, too.”
“All right. Gather round,” Captain Cutler announced, dropping his arm around his wife’s shoulders and kissing her cheek before he spoke to the group. “Before we eat, I have an announcement to make.”
Alex and Trip made the appropriate groans and razzing noises. Both were appropriately quieted by their wives. Audrey Kline and Alex Taylor’s wedding had been the social event of the summer, with coverage in all the papers. They lived in a downtown loft and she was a force to be reckoned with in the district attorney’s office. Yet despite all that money and class, she was as down to earth as Alex—and as loyal and loving a partner as any cop deserved.
Charlotte Jones seemed to be coming out of her shell more and more, especially now that the man who’d tried to kill her earlier in the year was dead. Rafe didn’t know the bespectacled archaeologist all that well yet. But she made Trip happy. The big guy turned into a marshmallow whenever she called, and his sudden passion for old things and camping trips left Rafe thinking the two shared a lot more than their love of books when he took a leave to go on one of her research jaunts.
“So what’s your announcement, Captain?” Trip asked, coming up behind Charlotte to hold her hand.
The captain patted his wife’s belly. “I’m going to be taking a six-week paternity leave soon. And I just wanted to let you know that while I’m out of the office, you’re going to have a new boss.”
“Who’s that?” Alex asked.
Captain Cutler turned to look at Rafe. “You’re ready for it, Sarge. You want the job of running SWAT Team One?”
Rafe was overwhelmed. He’d had three father figures in his life. One was a nightmare. The other was dead. And one was this man whom he respected highly, the man who’d given him a lot of leeway when he’d needed to protect Josie, and when it had come time to take out the Rich Girl Killer.
