by Vella Day
He pushed back his chair. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”
Was he kidding? He dropped the bomb about protective custody, and then just walked out? Charlotte rushed to the window. Trent Lawson was speaking with two different policemen. Was it to begin the investigation? The cops would want to retrieve the bullet to figure out the type of gun used. Given about an inch of snow lay on the ground, there might be footprints or tire tracks that could be traced, too. While she and her dad hadn’t spoken for many years, she’d learned a lot from him about forensics when he had been home.
Detective Lawson, who didn’t look much older than she was, then called someone. Whether it was her dad or his supervisor, she didn’t know. Damn, but this was one big clusterfuck. She’d come here to make sure her father was taken care of, and what happened? She’d dodged a bullet. Christ.
Wait a minute. She thought of something else. Donning her jacket, she rushed outside. Trent looked up at her and jogged toward her.
“You remember something?” He looked hopeful.
“In a way. After I put the first suitcase in the room, I went outside to retrieve my second case. This time I pulled my hood over my head because the wind was intense. I also was looking at the ground to make sure I didn’t slip.”
“And you think your shooter mistook you for someone else? Your mother perhaps?”
Damn, but he was good. “Yes.” She straightened her shoulders.
“I’ll make a note of it. Regardless of whether this person was out to harm you or your mom, it’s not safe to be here alone.”
“If I can’t go back home and I can’t stay here, what do you suggest?”
“You can stay with me.”
* * *
Vic’s cell rang and when he saw it was Trent, tension knots bunched his shoulders. While Trent, as well as Max Gruden, had been instrumental in bringing down Ed Hanson and his group of terrorists, Vic usually only spoke with Trent when he needed the RHPD’s help or they needed his expertise.
“Trent?” Perhaps he’d found the identity of the man who’d run him off the road. That would be great.
“Vic, I’m afraid there’s been an incident at your house.”
“What, someone spray paint graffiti on the walls? Is it if-at-first-you-don’t-succeed-try-try-again-kind-of-thing?” That was what happened at his crime scene. He almost chuckled. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Fuck me.
“I’m afraid not. This is serious. Your daughter came to your house to nurse you back to health. Someone took a shot at her but missed.”
All cheer disappeared as Vic’s blood ran cold. He edged over to the hotel bed and sat down. El looked up at him with pinched brows. He held up a finger. “She okay?”
“She’s a bit shaken, but she’s holding it together.” Trent detailed how she was taking her suitcase from her car, when someone fired into the car window. “She was smart enough to run into the house, lock the doors, and call us.”
“I trust she didn’t see who it was?”
“’Fraid not. Charlotte has a theory that because her head was down, and she was wearing a hoodie, the person might have confused her with her mom.”
Fuck. “Where’s Charlotte now?”
“We’re all at your house.”
“We’ll be right there.” He disconnected the call and looked up at his ex-wife. “Charlotte’s unharmed.” He wanted to start with the good news. He then relayed what Trent had told him.
El slumped back against her chair. “Why? Why would someone want to harm her?”
Vic stood. “That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question. If we want answers, we need to head on over there.”
“Should we pack our bags?”
He wasn’t sure where it would be safest to stay. “I want to hear what Trent has to say first. Then we can decide.”
El stood and grabbed her coat. “My poor baby. Charlotte must be beside herself.”
“I would be if someone took a pot shot at me.”
His pain ran deep. While Vic didn’t have proof, it was looking more and more likely that the perpetrator was after him. El and Charlotte might have been distractions to keep Vic off balance. The biggest chink to his theory was that El had been targeted in Virginia before anything happened to him. Then again, Vic had worked out of the Washington, D.C. office for years. He’d just have to figure out who he’d pissed off enough to do this, and why target his ex-wife? Why wait so long for retaliation? He’d been gone from the area close to a year.
He could only hope his former FBI boss, Ted Knowlton, might be able to provide some answers, but first, he wanted details from Trent. Neither said much on the drive to his house, other than him providing El directions.
She slapped the wheel. “I told Charlotte not to come. If she’d listened, she’d be safe now.” El glanced over at Vic. “She takes after you, you know.”
He nodded. “She believes in justice.”
Flashing lights greeted them at his house. A set of techs were taking photos of either tire tracks or footprints, while another group seemed to be looking for the bullet. Charlotte’s car door stood open, her side window shattered, and her suitcase lay on its side by the car. Damn it. His baby didn’t deserve to be tainted by his world.
As soon as El put the car in gear, he eased out and came over to her side. Since he recognized a few of the men, he nodded to them then helped her out of the car. Her hand was actually shaking.
“Charlotte’s fine,” he said.
She swallowed hard then sniffled. “For how long? And when will you have another accident?”
He wanted to ease the strain on her face. “You worried about me?”
“No.”
He chuckled. “Could have fooled me.”
She punched him in his good arm. With his hand on her back, he led her up the porch steps. Inside, Trent, Charlotte, and an officer he didn’t recognize were seated at the dining room table. Their daughter looked pale.
She jumped up and ran to him. “Oh, Daddy.”
She wrapped her arms around him. While his left shoulder throbbed, he’d take the ache any day to be able to hold her. “How are you doing, honey?”
She looked up at him. “Physically, I’m fine. Mentally, I’m a mess. Detective Lawson won’t let me go home. He said I have stay with him.” She groaned, her jaw clamped tight.
Vic stepped out of her hug and El swooped in. While El mothered Charlotte, he walked over to Trent and sat across from him. “What did Charlotte mean when she said she was staying with you?” Vic couldn’t keep the protectiveness out of his voice.
“I know you’ll say you can take care of both women, but I’m not sure that would be wise.”
Trent had worked tirelessly to take down Hanson and his gang. Hell, he even took a bullet for his efforts. “Why?” Vic asked.
“What if the three of you are together? It makes for an easier target. Perhaps that was the perpetrator’s plan.”
He had a point. “You’re suggesting my twenty-three year old, single daughter stay with you?”
Trent held up his hand. “I resent the implication. I promise I will do my duty and protect her. That’s all.”
He remembered promising El’s dad that they’d wait until after they were married before engaging in sex. That promise was broken within a week. “Whose idea was it?”
“Dan Hartwick’s.”
The lead detective and Trent’s boss. Vic recalled when Ed Hanson’s gang went after Jamie Henderson, thanks to Vic’s stupid move of planting evidence on her, the department didn’t have the funds to protect her. Max Gruden, the arson investigator on his case, had volunteered to take care of her. Now they were married. But what choice did Vic have?
“How can you protect Charlotte when you have to go work?”
“I have vacation time coming and Dan suggested I take it.”
That was going above and beyond the call of duty, but that was the kind of man Trent was. “Thank you.”
“I promise I will prot
ect her with my life.”
Vic hoped he could do the same for El.
Chapter Nine
“She’ll be okay.” Vic placed a hand on Ellie’s elbow and turned her toward him. “Trent’s the best. He helped catch the guy who did this to me.” He placed his other hand on his burns.
Despite being relieved that Charlotte would be safer with Trent than if she’d remained with them, Ellie wasn’t ready to discuss her baby girl going off with a stranger. It didn’t matter if he was a cop. He was a good looking man, too.
Ellie glanced once more at the retreating car then stepped away from the window. Crying wouldn’t be pretty, so she drew on whatever reserve she had left and sucked it in. “You should put your sling back on. The doctor said to keep it immobilized for a week.”
“I have other things to worry about than a bit of pain.” His gaze never left her face.
She shook her head. He was a grown man, and she was no longer his wife. “Got any coffee?” She was too tired to argue with him.
“Sure. But I’ll need help.”
“You’re playing the injured card now?” He had changed.
He shrugged. “I like doing things together.”
“You do?”
He slid his hand to the small of her back. “Yes. Ever since you walked into my office, I realized how much I missed being with you.”
His words had her heart sputtering, but she couldn’t think about her needs right now. Making sure her daughter was out of harm’s way was all that mattered.
Admit it.
She’d be devastated if anything happened to Vic. He was up to something, though, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. At the beginning of their marriage, Vic had shown spurts of sentimentality, but he hadn’t toward the end.
“Right before we divorced, you said you feared the dangers of your job might end up causing me harm, and that was the reason you had to put distance between us. Why aren’t you stepping back now? Does that mean you don’t think these episodes have anything to do with your job?”
Vic led her into the kitchen but didn’t answer. Damn him. He scooped the coffee into the machine, and then poured the water into the coffee maker. Clearly, he didn’t need help.
“Truthfully? I’m scared shitless. You’re right about my job getting between us. I saw the bad side of life, and I never wanted you to know what it was like.” He stabbed a hand over his head. “But now, I don’t have as many rules to follow. I don’t have to immerse myself in their world. Knowing what I know now, I never should have married. I was told of the dangers, but when you came along, I fell in love. I didn’t want to be without you.” He stepped close. “I’m sorry I put you through hell all those years.”
She wished he’d said those words five years ago. “You were a great husband for a while.”
He retrieved two cups from the cupboard and set them on the counter. “Perhaps, in the beginning. I have many regrets in my life, but marrying you isn’t one of them. Becoming an FBI agent while being married and having a daughter might not have been the best choice in my life.”
“At the time, neither of us understood how your work would affect you. But that’s water under the bridge, as they say.”
“True.”
The coffee finished perking and he poured two cups. “Let’s sit in the living room and decide how to move forward.”
He was going to let her provide some input? That was a first. Vic balanced his cup on his bad arm as he ambled past the dining room table. They both set their drinks down, and then sat next to each other on the sofa.
He twisted toward her. “Given what happened here today, do you have any theories?”
“Me? That’s why I came to you for help.”
“I know, but we can either assume this person is trying to harm me to give you as much pain as possible or it’s the other way around. Given you’ve probably not painted me in a very good light, I can’t see anyone trying to harm me to hurt you.”
Vic was perceptive. She might have said a few disparaging things about Vic over the years, especially to Charlotte. She regretted that now. “Brian did ask about you a few times, and I will admit I was never very complimentary.” She wouldn’t tell Vic that she once said he could rot in hell for all she cared.
“Would Hilton, Brian, or Cal be related to someone I targeted? Do you remember any of them discussing relatives who were on the wrong side of the law?”
“No. Then again, Cal and I never discussed anything personal. He knew I had a daughter, but that was all.”
Vic pulled his cell from his pocket. “I want to speak with my former boss, Ted Knowlton. I’ll ask him to pull all of the files I worked on to see if any of them are related to one of our three suspects.”
She leaned her head back against the seat. “I never should have come here.”
Vic clasped her hand. “Why? If you hadn’t, your stalker would have kept targeting you. I would still have been in that accident and Charlotte would have raced to help me. She and I might have been together when the man took the shot.”
Why did he always have to be the voice of reason? “You act as if the two aren’t related.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore, but I intend to find out.”
* * *
On the drive back to town, they discussed their next step. Staying at the hotel was not only expensive; the lack of space would drive both of them crazy.
“If we stay at my house,” Vic said, “you’d have to come to work with me. I won’t leave you there alone.”
She wouldn’t feel safe if he did. She didn’t remember a spare room in Vic’s office, but if he had one, she might be able to purchase a canvas and some Acrylics and work on some calming art. She liked that idea until she pictured the creep coming into the office while Vic was off doing his thing.
“Are you going to arm Sharon and me, in case he starts firing at the office window?”
“I’ll ask Sharon to bring her arsenal to work. She hunts, you know.”
“Really? She doesn’t look the type. Maybe it’s the blue hair that threw me off.”
“That’s a fad. Last week, she was a mousy brown. So you know, Sharon is quite the marksman. If you look at the wall behind her desk, you’ll see some awards she’s won.”
“Good to know.”
Vic’s smile was brief, but it was there. “We’ll eat healthier if we stay at my place.”
“You cook?”
“Had to learn.”
“I say we’ve decided. We’ll need to pack up and check out.” She clasped his wrist. “How are you going to get around without a car? Not to mention you aren’t cleared to drive yet.”
He shrugged his good shoulder. “I figure I could use your rental if I have to or you can chauffeur me.” He smiled.
“So that’s all I’m good for? Transportation?”
His brows rose. “What else did you have in mind?”
She glanced over at him. “Do you always have sex on the brain?”
“Who said anything about sex?” He held up a finger. “If you must know, no. Only after you showed up.”
“When did you learn to flirt?” In the last few years of their marriage, he’d grown serious.
“Got lots of practice after the divorce.”
That stung but only for a moment. He was lying. “Will insurance replace your car?”
“I haven’t filed the paperwork.”
She groaned as she pulled into the lot next to the hotel. “Ready?”
“Yup. Oh, one more thing to keep us safe. We shouldn’t remain in one place for too long. It will be harder to target us that way.”
She shivered, not wanting to think about something more happening to any of them. “Meaning what? You want to leave town?”
“No. I was thinking that instead of sitting in front of the tube all night, we could go to the movies, eat out a few times, and maybe even do some outdoor stuff—like horseback riding or something. We won’t keep a schedule.”
Ellie couldn’t decide if he was trying to ask her out on a date or wanted to play bodyguard. Let it go. “Sounds good.”
When they informed the front desk that Ellie would be checking out early, Vic requested they text him if anyone asked about her. “Please don’t tell anyone she’s not here. We have reason to believe someone is trying to harm my family.”
The young man’s cheeks sagged. “Of course, Mr. Hart. I’ll make a note in the computer to let the other reservationists know.”
“Appreciate it.”
As they made their way to the elevator, Vic glanced around. That made her more nervous. “You think this person is lying in wait?” she asked.
“I didn’t live this long by being careless.” He looked behind them once more. “Though the car crash never should have happened. Fuck. I was too distracted.”
She placed a hand on his arm and stopped him. “First off, you couldn’t have prevented it. Secondly, stop pretending you’re some impenetrable soldier. I like it better when you admit you’re afraid or that you’re actually human.”
He held her gaze for a moment. “See why I need you?”
Don’t go there. “Standing here makes me more vulnerable, right? Let’s get to the room.” She pressed the elevator button.
Now he smiled. “I hear ya.”
Ellie hoped she was doing the right thing, but Vic needed the time to find this madman. He’d worry less if she stayed at his place.
Once in the room, she set her suitcase on the table and opened it up. Vic moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “It’s so good to have you back.”
She twisted around in his arms. “Vic, I’m not back.” He leaned closer and her pulse raced.
“I know, but until I find this person, we might as well make the most of the situation, and enjoy life while we have the chance. That’s all I’m asking.” He stroked her cheek with a knuckle, and memories rushed back as waves of familiarity washed over her.
They were both consenting adults. For a moment, it was as if twenty years had disappeared. “I don’t know if it’s smart to get involved.” She didn’t want to admit they already were involved.
“You afraid you won’t be able to walk away? From this?” He placed her hand on his rigid cock.
