The Sheriff's Daughter

by Jessica Andersen

  “Is it always such a zoo here?” she asked in a desperate attempt to keep it casual, to hide her confusion over what had happened between them, what would happen next—and to avoid the inevitable answer, which was nothing.

  “Not this early.” He gestured her into a small, dim room, one wall of which was a slab of reflective-coated glass. “The last stages of this sting were a combined effort between the local cops and the feds, so they brought a bunch of the scum here for questioning. This is Martin Gross.”

  Sam stepped away from Logan and touched the glass. On the other side, a dark-haired man sat alone at a banged-up conference table. His features were regular and pleasant, his body fit enough beneath a dark silk shirt and darker slacks. But his expression was…unnerving. His eyes and mouth seemed salacious and vicious at the same time, a creepy combination of twisted sexual energy and murderous rage.

  She shivered, backed away from the glass and bumped into Logan, her back to his front. The flare of warmth threatened to drive her into his arms, but her sense of self-preservation held her away.

  Don’t make this more difficult than it already is, she told herself firmly before she turned around and looked up into his eyes. “Who is he?”

  “One of Viggo Jr.’s lieutenants. He claims he ordered the hit on me.” Logan glanced past her to the room beyond, and his eyes hardened. “He gave the cops a name, an address. They should be bringing the bastard in any minute now, so I want you to stay in here. Just in case. It’s safe.”

  A shiver crawled down Sam’s back. How could she be unsafe in a police station? But she understood what he was saying. They wouldn’t be safe until everything was certain.

  Worse, tension gathered around Logan. A waiting, watchful edge.

  She touched his arm. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He glanced down at his arm, at her pale hand silhouetted against his tanned skin. His face held a blend of worry and regret. “William was hurt in the raid.”

  Since touching him was too much of a temptation, she withdrew her hand before she asked, “How badly?”

  “They’re not sure. He’s at Boston General now.” Logan muttered a curse and shoved his hands in his pockets. “He swore to me the hit hadn’t been ordered by Trehern. Now we’ve got this guy claiming it was….” He strode to the opposite end of the small room, his restless energy bouncing off the walls and jangling her nerves. “It doesn’t add up.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe they had started to suspect him and didn’t tell him everything.”

  “Impossible. William’s cover was flawless. That’s why they left him under when they pulled the rest of us out.” Logan turned toward her. His eyes reflected turmoil, indecision and something else. “So how could the hit have been planned without him knowing about it?”

  She sensed that the question was rhetorical, doubted he’d even hear if she answered as he paced the room like a caged beast, seemingly more agitated than the situation demanded.

  For a fleeting moment, she wondered whether he was upset about what had happened between them the night before, when a night of mutual desire had turned into something more. At least for her. So she stopped his next pass with a hand on his arm. “Logan, do you want to talk about it?”

  He froze. His jaw worked as he swallowed, but he kept his eyes glued to the one-way glass. “About what?”

  Did she imagine a note of reluctant hope in his voice? She took a breath to settle the nerves suddenly twisting in her stomach and said, “About last night. I know it got a little…intense. But I want you to know that I meant what I said. I’m not looking to start something serious with you. I’m country and you’re city. I’ve learned from experience that the two don’t mix.”

  But the pat explanation didn’t ring as true as it once had. Though she’d been comfortable thinking her past relationships had failed because of geography and different levels of ambition, now she wondered if the love simply hadn’t been strong enough.

  Worse, what if she was the one who’d let the relationships fail? What if she had compromised more? Loved more? Could those relationships have worked?

  More importantly, would she have wanted them to? Though she’d blamed their failure on her choice of lust over common sense, she hadn’t felt half the burn with those men that she did with Logan, which made him a danger.

  He stared down at her, eyes unreadable. “I agree completely. We wouldn’t work.”

  But his voice was flat. His eyes didn’t waver from hers.

  She fidgeted, tugged at her shirt and tried not to remember him pulling it off her the night before. “Good. I’m glad we got that settled, then.”

  “Yeah, it’s settled.” He spun to the door and yanked it open. “Stay in here. I’ll be back.”

  And he was gone, taking most of the restless, edgy energy with him. Some of the itchiness found its way to her, expanding in her chest until she had the ridiculous urge to cry. She closed her eyes tightly and willed the tears back.

  This was the way it had to be.

  She heard a door creak and opened her eyes on a burst of hope that Logan had come back to say no, he didn’t want it to be over between them, damn it. But the noise had come from the room next door, where Martin Gross slouched at the scarred conference table. The sounds were transmitted to her room via an intercom that made them seem tinny and distant, though the men on the other side of the glass were only a step or two away.

  “Martin.” A middle-aged detective with a hangjowled face that made him look rather like a fish sat down opposite the slouching man. “We’ve arrested Frankie on your say-so. Can you explain to me why he claims to have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  Gross’s face twisted into something more vicious, less salacious. “Because he’s a liar.”

  The cop—or fed, Sam wasn’t sure who was who—sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Come on, Martin. Don’t screw with me. A deal’s not a deal unless you give me something real.”

  Gross snorted. “Hey man, that rhymed.”

  Watching from the other side of the glass, Sam couldn’t believe that Martin Gross, nearly her age and normal looking aside from his expression, had hired someone to kill Logan.

  It was unbelievable.

  She shivered slightly and rubbed her arms, feeling terribly alone in the small room. In the police station. In the city.

  Logan had been her support for the past few days, but he wasn’t there. She’d sent him away and they’d agreed it was over. Done. Kaput.

  God, she needed a friend.

  Tears pressed as Sam pulled her phone from her pocket and the men continued to talk in the other room. She dialed a familiar number, needing the connection. The feeling of not being alone.

  Jen answered on the first ring. “Black Horse Veterinary Clinic, may I help you?” There was no giggle in her voice this time, no gasping for breath, but her tone was lighter, happier than Sam had ever heard it.

  Her heart lifted a bit. At least something good might come of the past few days.

  “Jen, it’s me,” she said into the phone. “How are things there?” How is Jimmy? she wanted to ask, but felt a little strange doing so. Jimmy had always been her friend first. Now it was different. But in a good way. She’d get used to it.

  Eventually.

  “We’re fine,” Jen said dismissively, then her voice sharpened. “How are you? What’s going on? Have they caught those men yet?”

  “Yes.” Sam glanced through the glass and saw Gross gesturing wildly as though trying to convince the other man of something. “It looks like they have.”

  “Ohmigod! I’m so relieved.” Jen’s whoosh of breath carried clearly on the airwaves. “When are you coming home?”

  “Why?” Sam’s heart picked up a beat and she deliberately shifted her thoughts back to Black Horse Beach. “I thought you said everything was fine.”

  “It is,” Jen assured her, “but I can only do the small animal stuff—I’m no good with the cows and goats, never mind t
he horses. I’ve sent the emergencies up north, but your message board is filling up fast. Thomas Bellamy has become fast friends with your voice mail.”

  Normally that sort of news would have brought a faint sting of guilt and the warm peace of knowing she was needed. Knowing where she belonged.

  Today, it brought a beat of sadness. She pictured her message board and the clinic, and for the first time in her life, the cheerful space seemed…

  Small.

  “I don’t know when I’m coming back, Jen.” Sam cracked the door to the hallway, thinking to find Logan and see where they stood. With the investigation. With each other.

  Two men stood outside with shoulder holsters strapped over button-down shirts, deep in conversation.

  “You think Frankie is guilty?” the older of the two asked.

  “Seems like a lock to me. Gross is puking the information like there’s no tomorrow.”

  “What about what Doc is saying, how William swore Trehern wasn’t in on the hit?”

  Sam paused in the process of closing the door, aware of Jen waiting on the line, and of the two men in the hall talking about Logan.

  “I think Doc Hart is reaching. He was undercover for a long time, and it messed him up good. Besides, he has his sister to worry about right now—I heard the team went in after Steve an hour ago and hasn’t been heard from since. Hart must be a mess, so he’s going to have to leave this to us. We’ve got Frankie locked in. It’s over.”

  Sam closed the door on that echo of her and Logan’s earlier conversation. It’s over.

  She didn’t need to be here. He didn’t need her here—he needed to concentrate on Nancy now. So she lifted the phone and said to Jen, “I’ll rent a car and be there in a few hours. You can forward any emergencies to this phone.”

  It was time to go home.

  LOGAN SCOWLED AS HE WATCHED the feds question Frankie Donovan for the third time. The little weasel still maintained his innocence, which worried him.

  Sure, Frankie was a liar, and a convincing one at that. It was part of the job description of a paid killer. But there was something…believable about his denials. Add that to William’s assertion that Trehern hadn’t ordered the hit, and the end result was a very bad feeling in the pit of Logan’s stomach.

  He cursed and turned away from the one-way glass, acknowledging that Frankie’s supposed innocence wasn’t the only reason he felt like hell.

  Sam’s easy dismissal had hurt more than it ought to. They’d agreed to keep it simple, damn it. Mutual satisfaction, no strings attached. So why was he pissed off that she’d stuck to the deal?

  Maybe because that morning, as he’d touched her sleeping face, he’d started to think about strings. About commitments. About trying to find a way they could keep seeing each other after this was over.

  But that was impossible, as she’d reminded him. She was committed to her town and her life. Who was he to mess with that? Worse, who was he to come in and put her through the same bad times she’d already been through?

  He couldn’t promise to stay, and he couldn’t promise to come back. Sharilee’s death had shown him the truth of that, as had Stephen’s abduction. That the res cue attempt seemed to have gone awry only served to reinforce what Logan already knew.

  Love should be about being together, not about worrying.

  “I swear to God, man!” Frankie’s voice rose to a frustrated shout. “Gross never hired us to kill Doc. If he says so, he’s lying.”

  Clearly, one of them was lying, but which one?

  A tingle of instinct told Logan the answer wasn’t the one he wanted. He turned for the door, intending to check on Sam, and froze when it swung open.

  William stood in the gap wearing a sling over a T-shirt and jeans that were at odds with the natty suits and silk shirts Logan had always seen him in.

  Undercover. The truth of it still rattled him, as did a flash of anger. Though he hadn’t meant to ask, he blurted, “Why didn’t you help Sharilee?”

  The other man’s eyes blanked as though he’d expected the question, as though the memory didn’t hurt him.

  Or maybe hurt too much.

  “You were there,” William said quietly. “You know there wasn’t time. Wasn’t warning. Viggo just…freaked.” He snapped his fingers in a lonely emphasis that echoed in the small room, counterpointed by Frankie’s continued attempts to make the interrogator believe his version of the story. “And afterward, what would you have had me do? The first sting took out Viggo Sr. and his top three, but you didn’t get Viggo Jr., and you didn’t get Gross and the others. There was enough manpower for them to rebuild the whole damned organization from the ground up. So tell me, what should I have done?”

  The quiet question knocked Logan back a step, as did the expression of quiet anguish in the other man’s eyes. “We should have saved Sharilee. Somehow.”

  “We couldn’t have. Not the way it went down.” William took a step farther into the room. “It wasn’t your fault, Logan. It wasn’t mine. Trehern would have murdered her whether we stepped forward or not, except if we stepped forward he’d have killed us, too, without missing a beat. And you know what? The organization would still be going strong. We did the right thing.”

  The truth of it pulsed through Logan like pain, washing away a fraction of the guilt, though none of the sorrow and loss. “The right thing sucks.”

  “Yeah, it does.” The men traded wary looks, not quite friends but no longer enemies. Then William glanced through the one-way window. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Martin Gross claims Viggo Jr. took out the hit on me and Sam without telling you. He says Frankie was the shooter.”

  William bit out a curse. “That’s bull, and anyone who doesn’t know it is an idiot. It was all over the organization that HFH was looking for names, trying to figure out who was after you two. Gross is just trying to cut a phony deal and save his own ass.”

  A chill settled in Logan’s gut. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.” William turned to him. “Think about it. If you’re Viggo Jr. and you’ve just been handed the reins to your father’s organization, what’s the last thing you’re going to do?”

  The awful obviousness of it hit him. “He wanted me to testify against his father. He wanted the old man in jail so he could run the organization.” Oh hell. Logan swallowed and said with grim certainty, “He didn’t hire the hit.”

  William nodded. “Precisely. I guarantee you that Frankie will come up with an alibi, or else Gross will trip himself up. He’s spinning a story to save his own hide, nothing more.”

  “Then who the hell is after me? Or are they after her?” Logan cursed. This knocked off one set of suspects and opened up a world of others.

  “She have enemies?”

  Logan thought of Sam and damned the clench in his gut. “Her father is a retired sheriff. Someone might be trying to get to him through her.”

  William flicked off the intercom, cutting off Frankie in mid-whine. “What about her? What does she do? Anything there?”

  “I don’t think so. She’s a vet, strictly small-town stuff, cats and dogs, tourists and stuff. The only mega money in the area is a racehorse farm, and they’ve got their own vet. Territorial sort.”

  The other man’s eyes sharpened. “How territorial?”

  “I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel right. Then there’s this other guy, a real snake. He fights dogs outside of town, near the dump.” Logan pictured Horace Mann and felt a twist of dislike. “If she has an enemy, it’s him. He might be just crazy enough to take a shotgun to her if she interrupted one of his fights and tried to lock things down. But premeditated murder? I don’t see it.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go ask her. She’s watching Detective Sturgeon question Martin Gross.”

  Except when they opened the door to the small room where he’d left her, Sam wasn’t inside.

  “Doc?”

  Logan turned at the hail. Officer Drews held out a folded she
et of paper. “She asked me to give this to you.”

  On an oath Logan unfolded it and scanned the two short lines, then crumpled the paper in a rage of hurt and worry.

  “Where is she?” William said.

  “She’s gone home.” Logan jammed the paper into his pocket and spun for the door, yanking his cell out as he ran. “She thinks she’s safe, that we’ve got the killers. She has no idea.” He punched in the clinic number she’d given him when he first rented the cottage. When the Black Horse sheriff answered, he barked, “Jimmy, Sam is on her way home, but she’s still in danger. Give me her cell number.” He jotted it down on the fly. “Okay, if you see her before I do, keep her safe, okay? Just keep her safe.”

  He was only half aware of William following him to the truck and jumping into the passenger’s side. At his glance, the other man shrugged and said, “We couldn’t save Sharilee.”

  The inference was clear. Maybe they could save Sam.

  Maybe.

  Logan nodded curtly and cursed when his fingers fumbled the key in the ignition. “Strap yourself in. And here—” He tossed the phone number over. “Call her. Tell her to find someplace to wait. Someplace public where she’ll be safe.”

  He started the engine and pulled out into traffic, ignoring the bleat of horns and a quick squeal of tires in his hurry to get to Sam.

  To save her.

  “Voice mail,” William reported tonelessly, then left a quick message for Sam to call them. He disconnected and turned to Logan. “Maybe she doesn’t have a signal.”

  Or maybe she’d already been taken. Cold air whipped in through the broken window and the icy fear drove Logan faster down the highway. William braced his feet to keep from banging his injured shoulder as Logan weaved through traffic like a madman, driven by one pounding thought.

  He had to reach her in time.

  Had to.

  SAM HAD ALMOST REACHED the turnoff for Black Horse Beach when her cell rang, surprising her. This stretch of highway was notorious for bad signal strength.