Executive Protection

by Jennifer Morey

  “Mike,” he said, breathless and still in shock. “What are you doing?”

  At Sam’s question, Mike’s demeanor changed. His eyes grew panicked and his pistol unsteady.

  Lucy managed to grip Mike’s forearm as he climbed a stair at a time.

  “Nobody follows or she’s dead,” Mike said.

  Thad stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Don’t do it, Mike.”

  “Stay where you are!”

  Thad waited until Mike reached the top of the stairs before charging after him. On the second level, he caught sight of Mike forcing Lucy into an enclave down the left hallway.

  What would he do? Would he actually kill Lucy? The idea gutted Thad. If he lost her...

  There was still so much that needed to be said. So much that they still hadn’t shared.

  At the quaint sitting area in the enclave, Thad saw Lucy craning her neck. She saw him and some of her panic eased.

  Mike saw him, too, his eyes round and crazed. He was not the Mike that Thad knew, not the Mike who’d helped save Lucy from Cam. What was wrong with him? What had made him go out of his mind like this?

  “I told you not to follow me!” The pistol shook slightly in his grasp.

  “Drop the gun, Mike.”

  “No! I told you to stay back!”

  Lucy grimaced as Mike pressed the pistol harder against her head. Thad didn’t have much time. He needed information from Mike, but if he let too much time go by while Mike lost his grip on sanity, there was no telling what he’d do.

  Shoot Lucy. Thad could not allow that to happen. Every fraction of a second that passed felt like an eternity. Losing Lucy would take a piece of him too large to replace. He would not recover from it. She meant more to him than he’d realized. Real fear assaulted him, nearly stealing his concentration. His conviction over the odds of a failed marriage paled in comparison. He found it incredible that he’d ever placed so much importance on it, when losing Lucy would be so much more devastating.

  “Mike...why are you doing this?” Thad tried once more. “Did someone pay you?”

  Mike’s breathing grew harsher in his altered state. He was going to kill Lucy. Thad felt it.

  Thad didn’t have a choice. He saw Lucy’s fear, the certainty that she’d die, and fired.

  Lucy screamed and crouched as Mike’s body fell to the floor. Thad knew he hadn’t missed. Lucy crawled away, toward Thad. She stumbled to her feet and launched herself against him.

  He held her, still aiming his gun to make sure Mike didn’t move. Hearing agents rushing down the hall, he set Lucy aside.

  “Stay here.” He moved away from her and went to Mike’s body, a pool of blood spreading by his head. He searched his pockets and inside his wallet, finding something there—a business card. He tucked it into his pocket just as the agents appeared in the enclave opening, weapons drawn.

  Thad stood and backed away, allowing agents to do their own search. Seeing Lucy standing beside a stricken Sam, he went to her. Taking her into his arms, he met Sam’s gaze. He hadn’t known Mike was behind this, and would not recover for a while.

  “Oh, Thad.” Lucy kissed his cheek and then his mouth.

  All of his attention shifted to her. “Lucy. If I had lost you...” He kissed her back.

  “If you hadn’t come when you did...”

  He kissed her again. When he was assured she was all right and had calmed, he leaned back and kept her at his side. Love enveloped him. He knew the feeling on a deep, fundamental level. The beginning of it. He’d never known that before, never felt this way before. In love. Or falling into it...the real thing.

  “Why did he do it?” Sam asked.

  “I didn’t have time to question him,” Thad said.

  “He was going to kill me,” Lucy said.

  * * *

  Late that night, along with a few other law enforcement personnel, Thad finished examining Mike Harris’s apartment. They were the first to arrive there. Thad fully expected the feds to be here soon, but by then he’d have gathered all he needed. Thad and his team found the sniper rifle used in his first attempt, and several printed articles on politics, heavy on radical viewpoints. The most interesting were the ones he found about various potential presidential candidates, his mother included. He instructed his team to leave everything where they found it. They took plenty of pictures and processed everything as they would any other crime scene, short of bagging the evidence.

  “Thad.”

  Thad turned to the officer who’d called his name.

  “You need to see this.”

  Thad followed the officer down the hall. In a spare bedroom, the officer joined another at an open closet door. He pushed it wider as Thad neared. Pictures of political figures covered the inside panel of the door, words and terms clipped out of newspapers over them. Senators and presidential candidates with their faces covered with terms like Special Interest, Philanderer, Narcissist and Sinner. There were red X marks over some of them. Most chilling of all was the photo of his mother. She had a red X and the word Supremacist taped over her mouth.

  “Take lots of pictures,” he said, not sharing his thoughts.

  Clearly, more than his mother were a target. And whoever had convinced Mike to do the killing would find someone else...unless Thad could stop them. And he had an idea of where to start.

  * * *

  Carrying a file folder, Thad found Chief Wade Thomas in his office, busy at work like any other day. He had to have seen the news this morning. When he looked up, Thad noticed the subtle flinch of his head and his instant alertness.

  “Thad. I heard what happened. Is your mother all right?”

  The staged way he asked didn’t get past Thad. “She’s fine. Mike Harris isn’t a very good shot. Luckily, no one was hurt.”

  “Yeah. Mike Harris.” He shook his head. “What a shock.”

  Thad moved farther into the office and stood behind one of the chairs in front of Wade’s desk. “How did you find out?”

  Wade’s gaze moved up and down Thad. “It was all over the office this morning. On the news, too.”

  “Have you talked to anyone about it?” Thad asked.

  Wade appeared taken aback by the question. “Like who?”

  “Like whoever else is involved in the attempts on my mother’s life.”

  Wade leaned back with a scoff. “How would I know that? And why do you think more than Mike Harris is after her?”

  “You tell me.” Thad dropped the business card onto the desk. “Was he supposed to call you after he shot her?”

  Leaning forward, Wade picked up the card and then looked up at Thad. Some of his smugness faded. “I warned you not to interfere, Winston.”

  Many times. “And I’m glad I didn’t listen. Who, other than you, is involved?”

  “Now I’m involved?” Wade glanced at the folder Thad held. “Be careful, Winston. You’re throwing some pretty serious allegations.”

  Dropping the folder onto the desk, Thad waited while Wade’s hard gaze drilled into Thad’s. An untold number of thoughts had to be racing through his head. He was beginning to worry.

  Standing, Wade walked to his office door, closed it and turned back to Thad. “You better be sure about what you’re doing. I’m in a position to crush you.” He strode forward with staged bravado, stopping close to Thad. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to.”

  The chief of police. “Is that a threat? Like all the others you’ve sent?” He guessed at that. “I don’t scare easily.”

  Wade didn’t react.

  Thad didn’t back down from Wade’s intimidation. He had to know Thad wasn’t bluffing, that he was sure. He wouldn’t have come here otherwise.

  “What’s in the folder?” Wade must have caught on to Thad’s confidence. He
began to falter.

  “Have a look for yourself,” Thad said.

  With growing uneasiness, Wade returned to his desk. Without sitting down, he opened the folder. He picked up the photographs of the sniper rifle and Mike’s closet door.

  After a few moments, Wade looked up. “What is this?”

  He knew damn well what it was, but Thad indulged him. “They’re from Mike’s apartment.”

  Wade fell into a long, grave contemplation. “I still don’t understand why you’re in my office giving me a song and dance about threats and involvement in Kate’s shooting. Cut to the chase, Winston.”

  Thad sat down on the opposite side of the desk and steepled his fingers. “You knew about Sophie. You knew about Jaden. And you knew about Mike. You’re involved. Do you think I can’t prove it?”

  At last, Wade reacted. He sat down on his office chair. The seriousness of his predicament finally began to sink in. His smugness faded. Mounting fear took its place...or was it resignation?

  “What will I find when I look at your phone records?” Thad had no mercy for this man. He’d helped Mike try to kill his mother. He turned to face the desk. “Will I find proof that you talked to Jaden and Mike?”

  Wade leaned back against his chair. He was caught.

  “Why haven’t you told me about the phone records in Sophie’s kidnapping case?” Thad pressed.

  Wade didn’t reply.

  “Darcy obtained them for me,” Thad said. “Lindeman was talking to Layne, and now Lindeman is missing. Isn’t that interesting?”

  Still, Wade didn’t respond, only his grim stare met Thad’s.

  “Why did you do it?” Thad asked.

  “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into, Winston. You should have listened to me.”

  “Why did you do it?” he repeated. He had to know, not only for himself, but for the investigation.

  “This is way over your head. Hell, it’s over mine. You’d be smart to stop now. Get out while you still can.”

  “Get out of what?”

  “It’s too late for me,” he said as though he hadn’t heard Thad.

  Thad lowered his hands, beginning to worry about how bleak the chief sounded. “If you won’t tell me why Mike Harris tried to kill my mother, there are others who can.”

  “Like who? Layne Bridger?” Wade put his hands on the arms of his chair. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  The police had questioned him and he hadn’t revealed anything. Thad had wondered if he was afraid to talk or if he truly didn’t know anything.

  “Did you pay him or did someone else?” Thad asked.

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Was it Andrew Lindeman?” Thad asked calmly.

  That tripped the chief up for a second. “They don’t tell me that.”

  “‘They’? Who’s ‘they’?” Thad willed him to talk, meeting Chief Thomas’s grim eyes.

  Seconds passed and then Wade stared down at his desk. The degree of his gravity began to alarm Thad. Whatever haunted him, whatever trouble he’d gotten himself into, he saw no way out.

  “My mother isn’t the only political figure targeted for assassination,” Thad said. “You can stop them.”

  Slowly, Wade’s despondent eyes lifted. Thad didn’t think Wade was actually seeing him, his thoughts were that heavy.

  “It’s bigger than you can imagine,” Wade finally said, not sounding like the chief of police Thad knew.

  “Is it some kind of extremist political organization?” Thad asked.

  The desperation emanating from Wade slid behind a blank stare that chilled Thad. The chief opened one of the desk drawers. When he lifted a gun, Thad lost his breath. Would he shoot him?

  He pulled his own gun from its holster. But Wade put the gun to his own head and, looking at Thad, fired.

  Chapter 19

  The chief had left Thad and Darcy with more unanswered questions than they’d had going into this. Wearing gloves, Thad carefully went through Wade’s desk. His body had been removed and the police station cleared of unessential personnel. A place of law enforcement had become a crime scene.

  “Something weird is going on,” Darcy said from over at the two four-drawer file cabinets against the wall nearest to the desk.

  He could say that again.

  “Why are all these people involved in killing political figures? Why Mike Harris?”

  Why Jaden? Why Andrew Lindeman? Why anyone? He’d talked to Sam already. His brother didn’t know anything about Mike’s plan to assassinate their mother. He was in deep shock over it. He couldn’t believe his friend had done something so extreme. He hadn’t seen the signs, hadn’t recognized his friend had lost his mind.

  Jaden had tried to leave the window and the side entrance door unlocked for Mike. He’d been helping both Cam and Mike. And now that Thad looked back on the night Lucy was kidnapped, he now realized why Mike had waited so long to call the police. Lucy’s kidnapping had interrupted his attempt to get into the estate. If Thad hadn’t seen Jaden unlock the door and disable the security system, he may have gotten in and killed Kate.

  But he’d gone after Lucy instead. He had liked Lucy when he’d met her and had chosen to save her from Jaden rather than go to the side entrance door. That suggested he still had something of a heart, and whatever had driven him to try and kill Kate must have been bigger than he could manage.

  “Might as well call it a night,” Darcy said. “Avery is making dinner tonight. This isn’t going anywhere anyway.”

  Darcy going home to his new love preparing dinner made Thad think of Lucy. Before he’d seen her held against her will with a pistol to her head, Darcy’s romantic comment would have bothered him. Now he felt agreement.

  The investigation wasn’t going anywhere between now and tomorrow. Besides, there was something he wanted to do before going back to the estate...and Lucy.

  “Is Lucy okay? She had quite a scare,” Darcy said.

  “She’s doing fine. Staying at the estate to be safe. Mike was one shooter. There might be more.” Thad went over some pages he’d found in Wade’s desk drawer.

  “Yeah.” Darcy closed the file cabinet drawer and moved to the messy bookshelf. “I get nervous about living with Avery. I’m afraid for her safety, too. Wade isn’t a threat anymore but that doesn’t mean the threat is gone.”

  No. The opposite. The threat was greater than ever.

  Darcy picked up a gaudy bear figurine that was left from Christmas, turning it in his hand for inspection.

  “Have your feelings changed for Lucy?” Darcy put the bear back on the shelf and faced him.

  Thad continued to study the pages he held, but a grin formed on his mouth.

  Darcy chuckled. “I knew it.”

  “Excuse me, Agent Winston.”

  Thad looked toward the office door to see Gladys, the receptionist. She’d stayed to take care of the basic needs of the team and assisting in any office logistics that came up, like tracking down other officers or sending faxes or emails. A lot went into a crime scene investigation, and Gladys had the stomach for it.

  “We just got a call from the Wake County Coroner’s Office.”

  What now?

  “Andrew Lindeman’s body was found on the side of a country road. He was shot in the head.”

  Thad slapped down the stack of papers he’d been going through onto the desk. Great. Everyone who could tell him something about the political organization behind all this madness was either dead or not talking.

  “They’ll send over the autopsy report once it’s completed.”

  “Thanks, Gladys. You might as well go home. We’re wrapping this up for the night.”

  She hesitated in the doorway. “Are you sure? I’m glad to stay and help.”r />
  “I know. I’ve got to get back to my mother’s estate.”

  He saw her ascertain that meaning. Apparently someone had told her he was taken. Lucy was also staying at Kate’s. Rumor did have its advantages. He didn’t want Gladys having any false hopes for him. She always flirted with him, but he was no longer available.

  Six weeks ago, he’d have cringed at that notion. Now it just felt...natural.

  * * *

  Lucy closed the book she and Sophie had read together. Sophie had started out with the reading, and Lucy had taken over when her eyes began to droop. Sophie’s reading had improved by leaps and bounds over the past few weeks. Lucy had worked with her diligently and it had paid off.

  Putting the book down, she turned off the light and bent to kiss Sophie on her forehead. While Thad had spent the day working, she’d been busy taking care of Sophie’s future. With a smile on the inside, she left the room. Going downstairs for something to drink before she went to bed, she heard Thad talking to Kate and a spark of gladness hit her. They were in the informal sitting room, Kate with a book facedown on her lap and a steaming cup of tea on the dainty side table, Thad standing nearby, loosening his tie.

  He saw her, and warmth for her smoothed the tension from his face.

  “I was just asking Thad where he’s been,” Kate said. “I called the station at six and Gladys said you left.”

  It was after eight now.

  “I had an errand to run.” Thad turned to Lucy. “We need to talk.”

  Kate perked up. She stood from the chair. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

  “No,” Thad said. “You might as well hear this, too. You’re as much invested in this as we are.”

  Lucy eyed him with a silent, Invested in what? He was acting strange. She hadn’t had much opportunity to talk to him since Mike held her hostage, but his entire demeanor had changed. The way he looked at her, all warm and full of intimacy.