by Nina Bruhns
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“What?”
“Prepare for the blow. I’ve never hit a woman in my life, and I’m not ever going to.”
She filled her lungs. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Deep down, she knew Joe wasn’t Keith; he was nothing like Keith. “I’m sorry. It’s a body reflex.”
“You don’t have to apologize for it either.”
“Feeling bossy much this morning? Is there anything else you’d like to tell me to do or not to do?”
An almost-smile twitched at the corner of his lips, but his face slipped back to serious pretty fast. “Sorry. I haven’t slept much. I’ve been up most of the night, thinking.” He held her gaze. “Your brake lines were cut. That accident wasn’t really an accident.”
Her knees went weak. Good thing she’d been leaning against the counter.
“Is Keith out?”
“Still in jail.”
That tripped her up for a second. If Keith was in jail, then who? No. She shook her head. There wasn’t anyone else. “It has to be him. He found a way. Maybe he paid someone.”
“From behind bars?” Joe took a moment to think. “I don’t know. Yeah, that stuff happens, but with people who have extensive criminal connections before they go in. He’s in county jail, not federal lockup. How does he connect up with an assassin?”
“He made some kind of agreement with someone who was getting out.” Her chest hurt. “You don’t understand. He can talk anyone into anything.” She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back on her heels.
Joe’s eyes narrowed. “Has he tried to contact you since he’s been arrested?”
“He had some cell buddy call to let me know he’s mad at me. Except, the message said—” She swallowed. “That he’d take care of me when he got out.”
Joe became very still, very quiet, for a moment. “When were you going to tell me about this?”
“I thought about telling you. But if we sat down for a serious talk, one that went into everything, the baby had to be part of it too. I wasn’t ready to have that conversation.”
His jaw worked silently for a second. “The baby can’t be mine.”
His pronouncement felt like a slap in the face, the sense of rejection overwhelming. Of course, he would assume that she slept around. And, of course, he couldn’t imagine having a baby with her. She was fluff. Nothing. Keith had told her that often enough.
But even as she thought that, she was shaking it off, pulling her spine straight. Keith was wrong. “I haven’t slept with anyone else. Why would I make this up? I have no reason.”
“I could think of a few.” Joe’s dark gaze bore into hers. “You know I’m attracted to you. Maybe you see that as something you can use to your advantage. I’m a cop. That’s a bonus. You know I would protect you and your children from Keith.” He shook his head. “Here’s the thing. I’m going to protect you, no matter what. You have that. Okay?”
“Thank you.” She was grateful for that beyond words. But the rest…. He wanted nothing to do with her, or their child, long-term. She turned from him to the coffee to give herself time to wipe the stupid look of disappointment from her face.
She took her time pouring his coffee into a travel mug, then steeled herself as best she could before she turned back to him. She put on her most carefully neutral expression. Life was a runway. You held your head up, never let anyone see behind the mask, pretended that nothing hurt. “Here you go. See you later.”
He accepted the mug and glanced at the clock on her microwave, then moved to sit at the kitchen table. “Wilmington PD will be here in a couple of minutes to talk to you about the crash.”
She took too big a gulp of her coffee and managed to burn her tongue. Coughed.
Joe glanced at her. “Other than Keith, is there anyone else who might want to harm you?”
“I’m a small-time model.” She rubbed her free hand over her thigh. “I don’t know any murderers. It’s not like I live a life of crime.”
When the cops arrived a minute later to question her, she told them the same thing.
Justin woke while she was being interviewed. Joe changed his diaper, dressed him, fed him breakfast in the kitchen while she was answering questions in the living room. She tried to ignore the jaw-dropping, sexy-hunk picture he presented with Justin on his hip.
Keith had never questioned Justin’s paternity but was never there for Justin. Whereas Joe had been there for them so far, every step of the way. Even if they didn’t see eye-to-eye in everything, she was so incredibly, ridiculously grateful for his presence. Until he decided to completely take over the second the cops left.
“Pack your suitcases.”
“I just unpacked them.”
“I can protect you better in Broslin. I have no jurisdiction here. No backup.”
“Sophie already promised the house to someone else.” Terry had been given the go-ahead. She wanted to rent the house fully furnished for her parents, so Sophie didn’t have to worry about moving anything into storage. As eager as Terry was to get her parents in there, they were probably already moved in.
“Then you’re coming to my place.” Joe set Justin down, since he was stretching toward his toys in the living room. “I have a guest bedroom. You’ll be safe there.”
She couldn’t think. The morning had hit her with the force of a tidal wave, and she still had trouble finding her footing. “One minute I’m a liar, making up a baby, the next minute you want me to move in with you? How does that work?”
“I never said you made up the baby,” he said quietly. “I know this is a rough time for you. You could have died yesterday. Justin could have been hurt. I know it’s not good to yank a kid around, living in a different place every day. It’s temporary. Give me time to figure out who is behind all this.”
“Keith.”
“If he is, he’s going to be put away for a good long time. I promise. Let me help here.”
There was being independent, and then there was being stupid. She would have liked to think she didn’t fall entirely in the latter category. Even if she might have been willing to brazen this out alone, the reality was, no way would she put Justin in any kind of danger.
But Joe’s place…. Talk about entering the lion’s den.
“You need to be safe.” He leaned against the counter. “But it’s your decision.”
If he’d been impatient, if he’d pushed, it would have gotten her hackles up. But the kindness in his eyes disarmed her. Joe was convinced he couldn’t be the father of her baby, but he stepped up to the plate anyway and would do whatever it took to keep her and her children safe. That they weren’t his didn’t matter to him.
Her heart did a little wiggle inside her chest.
“Okay. Thank you.” She glanced toward the two large travel bags she’d just emptied. “I’ll have to repack everything.”
“No rush. I cleared my morning for this.”
So she started with the packing while he walked over to take care of Justin.
“Hey, buddy. Want to come over to my house to play?”
Justin’s eyes lit up. He was always game for a playdate. “Do you have a doggy?”
“Sophie has a dog, and my parents have a dog,” Wendy explained as she came from the bedroom with a stack of toddler clothes. “Since those are the places we visit most, he tends to think that if we’re going to see someone, there’ll be a dog in the mix at some point.”
Joe rolled with it. “I don’t have a dog, but the neighbor’s cat visits all the time for a treat.”
“Kitty!” Justin clapped, bouncing and beaming as if he’d won the pet lottery.
“He’s a pirate cat,” Joe warned. “He’s missing an eye and most of his tail.”
Justin’s eyes went wide.
Joe gave an exaggerated nod. “His name is Prince, but I call him Pirate Prince.”
And just like that, Justin was sold on going. “I
want to see the Pirate Prince!”
Wendy shook her head. Joe did have a way of talking to kids.
She walked to the bathroom cabinet and grabbed a couple of things she would need, hair products and her lotion and face cream. “We need some diapers,” she said on her way out. Then stopped in the doorway. “I don’t have a car seat.”
Justin’s car seat was still in the mangled Prius, wherever the cops had taken that.
“I brought one. I had one in the garage that I use when I need to get my nephew.” Joe grabbed her bags. “Let me take the heavy things down, then I’ll come back up to help you with Justin and the rest. We can stop by the store to pick up diapers on the way over to my place.”
She stared after him as he left. He helped without being asked. He saw what needed to be done and did it. He didn’t think dealing with Justin was “the woman’s job.” When Joe was around, it was like having a real partner—like in books and movies.
A sharp sense of longing exactly for that, a partner, cut through her. She pressed her lips together and hurried on to get Justin dressed. Joe was not her partner, and he never would be. He’d made it more than clear that he couldn’t even accept that the baby was his. To let herself get lost in some girlish fantasy about him would be incredibly stupid.
He came back a few minutes later, and walked Justin down to his car while she made sure that all the lights were turned off, the heat turned down, and that there were no dirty dishes in the sink. She filled the last bag with Justin’s baby accessories—sippy cups and toys—then locked up the place.
Her mind kept returning to the same thought over and over as she walked down the stairs: somebody wanted to kill her, and they wanted it badly enough not to care if they hurt Justin.
Would Keith really do that? Would a father do that to his son?
But if not Keith, then who? The thought that she had more than one enemy scared her even worse.
Deathblow: Chapter Twelve
Joe made sure he wasn’t followed as he drove Wendy and Justin over to Broslin. He kept track of the cars behind him. No single vehicle kept popping up. The only way they were followed was if multiple vehicles were used in a tag team.
They stopped at the store for diapers, and while he followed Wendy down the aisles, he called the captain and updated him.
“They’ll be safest at my place,” he said into his headset. “Whoever is after her might know about her friendship with Sophie, could find her there. But he doesn’t know about me.”
A moment of silence passed. “All right.”
“Any development on Phil Brogevich? I’ll settle Wendy in, then I can come into work and help Harper finish processing the patient files.”
Since nobody but the captain knew that Wendy was staying at his place, she should be okay alone. He had reinforced doors and windows, a pretty good security system. And he’d be less than a mile down the road at the station.
“Harper can handle the files,” the captain said. “Chief Gleason wants you back in the city. He wants to make sure Ramos isn’t going to move on the Twentyniners without him knowing.”
Joe had thought about that too, while sitting outside Wendy’s apartment half the night. He’d expected Ramos to make a move quickly. The gang war had to be stopped. Lil’ Gomez’s death had to count for something.
“What is he waiting for? The guns I promised?” The gun shipment wasn’t going to happen. They’d never meant to fulfill that promise, only to string Ramos along with it.
“See if you can figure out where Officer Tropper has gone,” Bing said. “The chief issued a warrant for his arrest yesterday, but Tropper didn’t show up for work and he’s not home either. Drop in on Ramos, shoot the breeze with the boys a little. See if anything comes up. Maybe Tropper figured out that the chief was on to him and he decided to hang out with his gang buddies.”
“I should be able to leave in half an hour.” Joe paused as he stepped out of the store behind Wendy and Justin, the kid’s diaper stash refilled. “But I need to stay involved in the Brogevich case. I promised Marie.”
“When Harper is done with the files, he’s going to the hospital in West Chester to check on people the victim worked with there before he opened his private practice in Broslin. If you’re back by then, you can go with him.”
“That’s good. Thanks. Okay.” He’d make sure that happened.
“Another thing,” the captain said. “Doris called in, Phil’s receptionist. In the excitement at the crime scene, she forgot to mention that the doc had weekly anger management group sessions at the hospital. He kept that even after he switched to private practice.”
Joe’s ears perked up as he popped the trunk. “Sounds promising.” Someone with anger-control issues might deliver the kind of deathblow that had bashed in Phil’s skull.
He talked another minute with the captain before hanging up and pulling out of the parking lot, checking once again for suspicious vehicles behind him. Nothing. Then Justin wanted to chat about Pirate Prince for the rest of the drive home.
“I have to go in and get some work done,” he said as he pulled up the driveway.
“Your friend’s case?” Wendy’s eyes softened with sympathy.
“Something else.”
“How many cases do you work at the same time?”
“Depends on the overall workload. We split up whatever we have coming in.”
“Plus you’re watching out for me. Wouldn’t it be easier to do one thing at a time?”
“That’s pretty much prime-time TV show stuff, when all the detectives go off after the killer and push until the bad guy’s caught. In real life, police work is nothing but interruption after interruption. You prioritize. What’s on top can shift from day to day or even hour to hour. You try to get everything done while doing your best not to drown in the paperwork.”
“That doesn’t sound as glamorous as on TV,” she said in a wry tone as she got Justin out of the car.
“It has its moments.” He grabbed her bags from the trunk.
“Do you miss football?”
He stopped by the front door, looked at her as he turned the key in the lock. “A little. But I’m what I’m supposed to be. This is it for me. I’m part of the town. I work to make things better here. As sappy as that sounds, it makes me happy.”
She watched him, considering the words. “It sounds good.” She followed him in. “You like your job.”
He set her bags down in the hallway. “Do you like modeling?”
She put Justin down, and the boy ran ahead to the living room, busy discovering.
“What I thought was the most amazing thing and the best life ever at sixteen is not the same when I look at it at twenty-six. I’m not complaining,” she added quickly. “I have a job. It pays the bills.”
“But you want more.”
“Something different. Something that requires more from me than holding a pose or putting one foot in front of the other. I’m aging out of it anyway.”
“At twenty-six?”
Her lips stretched into a flat smile. “That’s like a grandmother in modeling.”
“Sure. Come on, Grandma.” He grinned at her. “Let me show you to your rocker.”
After he showed her around and settled her and Justin in, he showered and changed, switched to the Camaro, and drove into the city. He called Keith Kline’s arresting officer on the way, told him about the accident and the cut brake lines.
“I’d like to have a list of people Kline had contact with since he’s been in jail, the ones who were released before yesterday.”
“You think Kline hired someone? Doesn’t seem the type.”
“Yeah. Maybe not.” Abusers were hands-on. Violence allowed them to let off steam. They fed off the fear of their victims. Battery was hot, uncontrolled anger, while hiring a hit man was cold and calculated. But still. “Kline’s the only one who makes sense right now.”
Joe thought of the fear in Wendy’s eyes every time she said the bastard’s n
ame. “To be on the safe side. I’m not going to rule out anything at this stage.”
The officer promised to look into it and get back to him.
Joe called his sister, Amber, next. “How is my favorite nephew?”
“He just finished locking all his bad toys in jail.”
Joe grinned. “Good boy.”
“He used the toilet as a holding cell. His stuffed animals are in the washer right now. On the sanitize cycle.” Pause. “Don’t you dare laugh. Max pretends to be a police officer because he thinks you hung the moon and the stars.”
“That was so long ago it’s barely worth mentioning.”
“You think you’re funny. I think it’s time for a nephew-uncle weekend. See what Max can do at your house.”
“He’s welcome anytime.” And that kind of brought Joe to the reason why he was calling. “So there’ll be a friend staying with me for a couple of days.”
“Which one of your friends got kicked out by the wife this time?”
“It’s not like that. It’s not a guy. You don’t know her.”
“You’re living with a woman?”
“Her name is Wendy Belle. Single mom with a son Max’s age. Justin.”
“You moved a single mom with a kid into your house? Your bachelor sanctuary?” Her voice tilted up with incredulity. “Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?”
He chose to ignore that. “I thought you might want to stop by if you have some time. Maybe the boys could play.”
Silence. Then, “Oh my God. You want me to meet her.” More stunned silence. “How long has this been going on? How serious are you about her?”
“It’s not like that.”
“What is it like?”
“I told you, we’re friends.” But that wasn’t the full truth. He cleared his throat. “She says she’s pregnant with my baby.”
“Oh, Joe.” The words were infused with both joy and worry. “How do you feel about that?”
“It can’t be mine.”
“I hope you didn’t tell her that. I mean, unless you think she’s a total liar like Erika. If she’s in your house, you must like her and trust her at least a little, right?”
