Watch Your Back

by Karen Rose

  Her brows lowered. ‘Of course not. It’s just . . . Why don’t we just stay in the house?’

  ‘Because I’m going to ask questions that I doubt you want Cordelia hearing the answers to.’

  ‘It’s a two-story house, Clay,’ she said, with exaggerated patience. ‘Let’s just go upstairs.’

  A picture immediately formed in his mind – her, in his bed. Smiling at him, sated and happy. The image was a familiar one, only because it mocked him in his dreams with consistent regularity. It mocked him now, but his body still responded. Just like it always did.

  He lifted his brows, releasing some of his frustration in sarcasm. ‘All the rooms upstairs are bedrooms. We can if you want to, though.’ He watched her eyes go wide with outrage, then narrow to slits as her cheeks grew pink. She opened her mouth to say something he also doubted she would’ve wanted Cordelia to hear, but he cut her off. ‘I have equipment to check out there in the boathouse. I need to show you how it operates, in case you’re here alone.’

  ‘You could have just said so,’ she muttered, shaking her head in disgust. With a determined set of her shoulders, she set off across the sand at a pace so slow that it was painful to watch.

  She’s tired, he thought. He considered picking her up and carrying her, but the brief contact they’d had when he’d helped her up the garage stairs had been far too much. But only because it wasn’t nearly enough and unless she changed her mind, it never would be.

  Still . . . ‘Do you want me to help you?’ he asked quietly.

  Her chin shot up again, her eyes wary. ‘How?’

  ‘Tomorrow I’ll lay plywood across the sand, to make it easier for you to walk. Now . . .’ He held his breath while she stared at the arm he extended like it might sprout poison spikes.

  After a few seconds she grabbed on, digging her fingers into his skin. She wasn’t just tired. She was in pain. Hell.

  ‘Hold this,’ he said, handing her the dinner bag. ‘And don’t yell at me.’ He scooped her up into his arms and carried her the remaining distance, across the sand and down the dock to the boathouse door. When he put her down, she was trembling. How much was exhaustion he didn’t know. He suspected most of it was rage, though.

  ‘Don’t you dare do that,’ she hissed as he unlocked the door. ‘Ever. Again.’

  ‘Get inside,’ was all he said. All he could say. He needed a moment to gather his control, to keep himself from reaching again. Because she’d fit up against him just like he’d always known she would. Perfectly.

  He pointed to a folding chair. ‘Sit. This’ll take a while.’ He dragged a small table to her side and unpacked the stew. ‘Should be a thermos of coffee in there, too.’

  Her expression was still mutinous. ‘How did your dad have the bag already prepared?’

  ‘I asked him to get it ready when I told him you were coming. He knew I’d need to talk to you. Privately.’

  ‘Oh.’ She dug into the stew, saying nothing more while he cleared away the life preservers and tarps camouflaging his equipment cabinet. He unlocked it and spread the doors open wide. He, too, said nothing as he flipped switches and turned on computer monitors, figuring it would be only a matter of minutes before her curiosity overcame her ire.

  It was actually more like thirty seconds.

  ‘What the fuck is this place?’ she whispered.

  ‘More security. If you want to come over here, I’ll show you how to make sure nobody sneaks up on you and Cordelia from the water.’

  She crossed the small space, dragging her folding chair with her. When she’d sat, he began.

  ‘These monitors display feed from six underwater cameras, fixed to pilings placed in a pyramidal formation. This monitor is the thermal imaging cameras. And this monitor—’

  ‘Stop. Just . . . stop. You have a fence, a gate. Bullet-proof windows and bank vault doors.’

  ‘Bullet-resistant windows,’ he corrected.

  ‘Whatever. And now this place? I feel like I just walked into a James Bond flick. Who is your father, that he needs this kind of protection? I’m not plugged into politics, but I think even I would remember if your father used to be the President of the United States. Which he was not. Is he a celebrity that I’ve just never heard of? Maybe an exiled king? This is a beach house, for God’s sake, not frickin’ Fort Knox. So what the hell is all this?’

  Clay straddled the other folding chair. ‘The fence and the motion detectors were for my mother, mostly. The rest is business. My business.’

  She frowned. ‘So you’re not going to tell me?’

  ‘No, I mean it’s my business. What I do for a living.’

  ‘You’re a PI.’

  ‘I’m also a security specialist. My first partner and I got the PI license to do background checks on our clients’ employees.’

  ‘Your first partner? Nicki?’

  Hearing Nicki’s name still hurt, after all this time. Stevie had never known her, but she and JD Fitzpatrick had caught the sonofabitch who’d gutted Nicki in her own bed and left her to rot.

  ‘No. My first partner was Ethan Buchanan. He lives in Chicago now with his wife and kids. He and I were in the Corps together, back in the nineties. In Somalia. I left after two tours, came home to DCPD. He stayed on, planning to be a career Marine. But he got hurt in Afghanistan. He came home about the time that I resigned from DCPD, so we went into business together. I trained personal security forces for businesses and private individuals.’

  ‘Rich folk.’

  ‘Most of them, yeah. Ethan had some contacts that got us started. We were pretty successful. Ethan did the computer end of security. He’s a “white hat”.’

  ‘A good hacker.’

  ‘Yes. His specialty is hacking into “secure” servers and showing businesses how vulnerable they are to attack. The businesses always hire him to fix the holes in their networks. We never did any real investigative work until . . .’ He frowned. ‘Until Alec was kidnapped.’

  Her eyes widened in shock. ‘What? When? Who kidnapped him?’

  ‘Sue Conway, one of the most vicious women I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. It was six years ago now. See, Ethan is Alec’s godfather. When he found out Alec was gone, he started searching. I helped. It happened here. This house, in fact.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Which your father now owns?’

  His smile had an edge. ‘One of life’s little twists of fate. That’s the main reason Alec didn’t come with us. I do need him in the office, but he still has issues with this house.’

  ‘Understandable, I suppose,’ she murmured.

  Clay wondered if she realized how similar Cordelia’s situation was to Alec’s. Stevie’s daughter hated their house. Which was completely understandable given the violence that had occurred there.

  ‘How did your dad end up living here?’ she asked. ‘And why all the James Bond toys?’

  ‘Well, like I said, the fence and alarm system was for my mother. She and Dad bought this place a few years after the kidnapping. My mother fell in love with the view and Dad agreed because the price was right, but that was because the house had been sitting on the market for two years. The realtor didn’t tell them about the crimes that happened here. They wouldn’t have bought it either. Dad was a cop for twenty-five years. He had no wish to live in a house that had been the scene of an abduction and a murder.’

  Again her eyes widened. ‘Who got murdered?’

  ‘The fiancée of Alec’s speech therapist was murdered here, in the boathouse, but not the one we’re in now. The old boathouse was on the beach. And it was really a boathouse.’

  ‘Not Seal Team Six Command Central,’ she said dryly. ‘I haven’t forgotten my original question, which was why your parents bought this specific place? Are you from this town?’

  ‘No. I was born in upstate New York, but grew up just outside of DC. My dad married my mother when I was five and moved us into his house. He was a DC cop, so we had to live close to the city.’ He hesitated, the
n shrugged. ‘My ex-fiancée lives here, in Wight’s Landing. My parents bought the beach house when they thought I’d be moving here, too.’

  Stevie’s eyes widened, then narrowed. ‘You had a fiancée?’

  She sounded a tad pissed off and Clay liked that. ‘I did. We ended it four years ago.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we were better friends than spouses and were lucky enough to figure that out before we ruined our friendship.’

  ‘Does she still live around here?’

  ‘Yep. Lou Moore is the sheriff. You’ve met her sister, Alyssa. My admin assistant.’

  She still frowned. ‘I remember Alyssa. Whatever happened to her?’

  ‘She still works for me, but she’s on vacation. Her boyfriend is a college student and this is his spring break. They went camping.’ He shrugged. ‘With tents.’

  ‘You don’t like camping?’ she asked.

  ‘Got my fill of tents and sleeping on the ground in the Corps.’

  ‘Okay, so your parents bought the house as a surprise, but you canceled the wedding.’

  Technically Lou had, but Clay didn’t think that fact would add to the conversation. ‘And then they couldn’t sell it because buyers always would hear the story from a local. If my parents hadn’t wanted to keep it such a big secret to surprise us, somebody would have told them, too. They couldn’t move because all of their retirement savings were tied up in the house.’

  ‘That stinks.’ She pointed to the computer monitors, which, for the moment at least, were completely static. ‘And the James Bond toys?’

  He sighed. ‘The woman who abducted Alec murdered more than a dozen people before she was done with her killing spree. Alec was almost one of them. So was Ethan’s wife, Dana.’

  ‘Where is the killer now?’

  ‘Sue Conway’s serving life in an Illinois state prison, where she’s developed quite a cult following. We get a lot of crazies here, wanting to see the place where Sue “started her quest for revenge”. At first it was just annoying. Then one day one of the crazies came into the house and fell asleep in one of the beds. My mom was really rattled. The next day I installed security.’

  ‘The fences and the alarms.’

  ‘And the cameras on the outside of the house as well as the motion detectors on the beach. Made her feel safer. Then I realized I was selling a lot more of those same security features to my clients than I had before. I could say, “This is what I put on my own mother’s house and I know it works”. Over time I asked Mom and Dad if I could install more security features, just to try them out. Mom liked the idea. Dad wanted a tank so he could mow down the crazies.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘Mom put her foot down on that.’

  Her lips curved in a small smile. ‘I bet she did.’

  ‘Sometimes a wealthy client wants something special that I have no experience with. I’ll get a test version for myself, sell a helluva lot of them later. That’s how I got all this “Team Six” stuff, as you call it. A celebrity client had a beachfront compound and wanted to keep the paparazzi away. When the photographers started diving off boats and swimming in, my client got pissed. Now he’s got all this, only more of it and more expensive models. His family is safe.’

  ‘And so is my daughter. When you see that client again, thank him for me.’

  ‘I will.’

  Her gaze skittered away, then swung back, meeting his eyes determinedly. ‘Your father was right. I am in your debt, Clay. Thank you. This . . . This is more than I expected.’

  Someday . . . someday you’ll say that to me. That I’m more than you expected. His chest physically hurt, but he ignored it. ‘You’re welcome. Now I have questions for you.’

  ‘I know. Ask what you need to. I’ll do my best to answer.’

  ‘Why is somebody shooting at you?’

  She laughed, surprising him. ‘I guess that’s cutting right to the heart of it.’ She sobered, blew out a breath. ‘I told you and JD that I paid a visit to IA yesterday. I think we have more cops out there who might have been involved with Silas Dandridge’s crimes.’

  ‘You did, but I’m confused. I thought all the dirty cops were called out in that defense lawyer’s post-mortem tattle report. Stuart Lippman, right? But earlier, when we were in your kitchen, you said you hadn’t gotten them all.’

  ‘Lippman didn’t just tattle on dirty cops. He had ex-cons working for him, too. And other lawyers. We thought he’d named all the names, but I discovered there were others.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Silas had a safe in the floor of his bedroom. In it were some throwaway guns and a ledger that listed the deposits he’d made to an off-shore account.’

  ‘Payments from Lippman for services rendered?’ Clay asked.

  ‘Exactly. Silas listed amounts and dates, but not any details about which job was which. When Lippman was killed and his “tattle report”, as you call it, was released, IA worked from that. The ledger was handed over to forensic accounting to track down the cash.’

  ‘I’m guessing somebody eventually realized the deposits didn’t match up with Lippman’s tell-all,’ Clay said and she nodded.

  ‘I did. Accounting finished with the ledger – they never did find his stash – and returned it to the evidence room. They sent me a copy on a CD. I didn’t look at it until after I’d been discharged from the hospital in December. I just did a quick count of the deposits and realized there were twice as many payments than there were actual jobs Silas had done, according to Lippman’s report. I told IA and they got to work on it – but there were so many cases on the report to start with. They weren’t getting through them very fast.’

  ‘So you started looking yourself. Why? Why not let IA do their job?’

  ‘Because they weren’t getting through them very fast,’ she said again, impatiently this time. ‘I was home, recuperating, and all I could think about was all the innocent people sitting in prison because of Silas and Stuart Lippman. And all the guilty people walking around grinning because they got away with it. I got mad. So I got busy. I found three rapes and an armed robbery that looked off because they were. I gave IA the details with the suspects that should have been at the top of the list. Four innocent people have been in prison for years.’

  ‘But you’ve rectified that situation. Those innocent people will get out of jail and the real perpetrators will get what’s coming to them.’

  ‘Yes. But then I looked at the timeline for one of the rapes. Silas couldn’t have planted the evidence because he and I were on a stakeout that weekend. I was with him the whole time. I tried to figure out which of the cops on Lippman’s list actually planted the evidence in my four new cases, but on two of them I couldn’t find any of the known dirty cops that weren’t somewhere else at that specific time.’

  ‘So you think other cops are involved,’ Clay murmured.

  ‘I don’t want to think that. But a few hours after I left IA, someone shot at me. Today, same thing, only twice and with more finesse.’

  ‘I sure don’t like the coincidence of it, but it could be someone else that knows you’re digging. Maybe a perp from a case you haven’t even gotten to yet.’

  ‘That’s possible, too. Or it could be both.’ She cast her gaze up at the ceiling, then peeked at him from the corner of her eye. ‘The attacks started before I went to IA, but we caught both of those guys.’

  ‘Both? You’ve been attacked on five separate occasions? In one week?’

  ‘It sounds really awful when you put it that way.’

  He looked exasperated. ‘Hell, Stevie. So, what’s with the first two?’

  ‘One guy had a knife. The other just had hard fists. Both are in custody.’

  ‘You got away and called for backup?’

  Her chin came up. ‘I cuffed ’em. The cane comes in handy for more than walking.’

  He grinned at her. ‘You hit them with your cane?’

  ‘I did. Both attackers were related to cases that weren’t on Lippman’s
list. Neither wanted me to continue my investigation.’

  ‘Did Hyatt know about your visit to IA yesterday?’ Clay asked.

  ‘Yes. I realized there might be more dirty cops on Monday and took the information straight to him that day. He went with me to IA yesterday. That’s why I was surprised he insisted on a safe house. He knew why I wouldn’t trust going to one. I hope he doesn’t take it out on JD. Any other questions?’

  ‘Where are your files?’

  ‘Most of them are in the suitcase you moved from the trunk of JD’s car into the SUV. Anything I downloaded is on my laptop, which is in my backpack. I left it in your dad’s house.’

  ‘Do you have any idea which cop – or cops – are involved in these new cases?’

  ‘No. IA wouldn’t say. Neither would Hyatt. Anything else?’

  He met her eyes directly. Let himself stare until finally she looked away. Yes. Why don’t you want me? And what do I have to do to change your mind?

  But of course he didn’t ask either of those questions. He stood, folded his chair, and stacked it against the wall. ‘No,’ he lied brusquely. ‘Let’s go back now. Hopefully Cordelia has had her fill of the puppies. I’m sure you’re all tired. You need to get to bed.’

  As I will, he thought, opening the door. Alone. I am so damn tired of being alone.

  ‘Clay, wait.’

  He didn’t look at her. ‘You don’t need to keep thanking me, Stevie.’

  ‘I wasn’t, although I should. I was going to say you were wrong about something.’

  ‘What was that?’

  He could hear her slow exhale. ‘When you were trying to convince me to come here, you said you knew I didn’t like you. That’s not true. I don’t feel about you the way you want me to, but I never disliked you. You’re a good man. I need you to know that I believe that.’

  She’d let him down more easily this time. Still . . . breathing actually hurt. ‘You forgot to say “You’ll make some lucky woman a wonderful husband”.’ He said the words bitterly.

  ‘You will. And she will be lucky.’

  ‘She’s just not you.’

  ‘No. It can’t be me.’

  She said the words so sadly that he turned to face her, his back to the cold night air. She still sat in the chair, her shoulders sagging, her expression so dejected that he felt a spark of hope.