Love Inspired Suspense June 2014 Bundle 2 of 2: Forced AllianceOut for JusticeNo Place to Run

by Worth, Lenora; Post, Carol J. ; Laird, Marion Faith

  *

  Connor decided to oblige her. She was the one who couldn’t see what was clearly in front of her. This wasn’t just about Armond and him. Somebody wanted her dead, too. If she hadn’t managed to duck and crawl away when the shooting had started at Mama Joe’s, she would be dead right now. Then the fire and Vanessa Armond luring her inside that burning building. He couldn’t figure that one out, since Vanessa could have died, too, but Connor’s gut told him Vanessa was planted there to distract Josie.

  “Look,” he said, hoping she’d be reasonable. “I’ve learned how to observe people. Vanessa and Lou showing up last night wasn’t just a coincidence. I think they set that fire because they wanted to either destroy something permanently…or kill both of us. The whole thing smelled of a setup, just like Lewanna showing up at the opera. Just like that paperwork and cash fund in the safe. We’re getting too close to the truth, Josie. The heat is on.”

  She shrugged. “I guess you’re good at keeping one foot in the fire, no pun intended.”

  “I have to keep one foot in the fire to do what the FBI expects of me. And right now, that means I’m sticking by you.”

  “I can take care of myself,” she retorted, her arms across her midsection.

  “I believe that. I’ve seen that. But, Josie, I’m not playing. We have to be careful.”

  “What about this car? It’s a bit conspicuous. You knew exactly where to find it and now you have it. What if you know what everyone is looking for and you’ve found it?”

  Weariness zapped at Connor’s bones. “Are you serious?”

  “Deadly serious,” she replied, her body shifting as close to the passenger-side door as possible.

  “We had to get back to town,” he explained. “And if I’d wanted to take this car, I could have done it long ago. I could be somewhere on a beach right now, but I’m not. I’m here with you because I want to be here. You need to remember that.”

  “What I need to remember is that you were once a criminal. And you know what they say—”

  “Stop it,” he replied. He didn’t have to prove himself to her or anyone else. “Let’s just get somewhere safe.”

  “Right now, I think that would be away from you.”

  “You need to trust me,” Connor said. What more did she want? No matter how much she might doubt him, he intended to keep Josie safe.

  At the next traffic stop, he pulled out his phone and hit the keys. When the light changed, he dropped the phone back into his pocket. “I never text and drive,” he explained. “But the word is out and we will be watched and protected while we’re in the city. Even criminals have a network, and sometimes I have to depend on it.”

  “Amazing.” Josie sat with her head slanted, staring over at him. “You steal vintage cars and associate with criminals, but you have a code of ethics regarding cell phones and honor among thieves?”

  “I do have my standards,” he replied on a curt tone.

  She gave him another Josie glare. “I’m not so sure I should be alone with you on your own turf. Dangerous. You’re still holding out on me.”

  “That’s the last of my secrets,” he said. Connor didn’t know how to make her believe in him. He’d never come this far with a woman before. He’d never thought it possible.

  With Josie, it might not be possible. And why was it the one thing he now wanted most seemed so far out of his reach?

  But how could he blame her?

  She’d been conned all of her life by a father who pretended to be someone he wasn’t. How could Connor expect her to ever see who he truly was, the man he wanted to become?

  You just keep doing what you need to do.

  And what if that wasn’t enough?

  He pulled the car up to her Garden District apartment. “I’m going in with you.”

  She got out before he’d put the car in Park. “You don’t need to do that.” Josie took off up the gravel lane toward the two-story house. “Just remember to report to either me or Sherwood. I’ve got my own reports, and I’m sure I’ll hear a good chewing-out from my boss.”

  Connor got out of the car. “Josie, wait. Please?”

  She kept walking.

  He followed.

  She’d made it up the porch to the first door on the left, her keys in her hand. But when she got there, she touched the door and immediately drew her weapon.

  The door was open.

  Connor rushed up behind her. “I told you it wasn’t safe.”

  “Shh.” She entered carefully, her gun trained on the hallway.

  Connor stayed right behind her, his gaze taking in the broken locks on the door and the scattered books and papers lining the long hall.

  When Josie turned to the left, she stopped and glanced back at him. “I guess you were right, after all.”

  He didn’t want to be right. “I’m sorry,” he said. He started past her.

  “Wait!” She hurried around him, her gun up while she checked the bathroom, bedroom and kitchen.

  The whole place was ruined. Shattered dishes, broken lamps and knickknacks, clothes tossed, pillows gutted and spewing foam and feathers.

  Josie stood at the end of the hall and stared. Thinking she was in shock, Connor tried to reach out to her. “Josie?”

  She turned on him, her eyes a burning golden-green. “I’m fine. You don’t have to handle me with kid gloves. I won’t break, Connor. I never break.”

  “I know,” he said, his heart doing enough breaking for both of them. “But you’re coming home with me.”

  “No.” She went into action. “Don’t touch anything. I have to call this in, and we have to preserve the scene. I’m sure they didn’t leave any prints, but we can dust the door and…anything they might have touched.” She looked around. “Which seems to be everything.”

  Connor watched as she walked over to a broken picture of a smiling little girl with two adults. Her parents? She stared down at the image, then moved her fingers over the shattered glass. With a gasp, she put it down and stared at her hand.

  Blood poured from her wound.

  “Here, let me help you,” Connor said, taking her hand in his.

  “No. I told you I’m fine. Now get out of the way and let me do my job.”

  He ignored that and went to the kitchen, found a paper towel and wet it. Then he came back and took her hand again. “You’re bleeding. You’ll be the one to contaminate the scene.”

  She stared across at him, her eyes still blazing, her hair wild and tumbled around her face. “I don’t need you,” she said, her anger boiling over. “Do you understand me, Connor? I don’t need you.”

  “I know.” He kept touching the cool paper towel to her cut. “I know.”

  She yanked away and dialed 911, then called Sherwood.

  Then she started taking pictures of each room, her phone clicking as she went. After each picture, she jotted notes on her notebook app, her thoroughness as solid as her dislike of him.

  But Connor wasn’t finished with her. Not by a long shot.

  Because he’d seen something else there in her fiery gaze.

  Hurt.

  She’d been hurt, and now she was trying very hard to hide that hurt behind an FBI shield.

  He wanted to be the man to take that hurt away. But before he could do that, he needed to prove to her that he could be worthy of the task.

  FIFTEEN

  “My apartment is off the beaten path and I have good security. The FBI knows where I live, but they tend to stay away from here. The only reason I haven’t been back here is because we’ve been forced to stay on the move since I first called you. Time for a break from the bad guys.”

  Connor had tried every tactic to get Josie to talk, but she wasn’t in the mood for conversation. She kept jotting notes on her phone notepad. And ignoring him.

  He’d had to do some tall talking back at her place to get Sherwood to let her come with him.

  The SAC had a whole team moving through Josie’s ransacked apartmen
t. “She’s my agent, Randall. And all this running around on your own ends right now. You’re chasing shadows and that’s all you know. Agent Gilbert knows how to do her job with or without you.”

  Connor had never liked Sherwood, but he ignored that dig and concentrated on persuading the man. “Look, sir, with all due respect, we did manage to hand over three members of the Armond family to you. If you give us another chance, I think we can figure this out.”

  “We’re running out of chances,” Sherwood retorted. “I’ve let you get away with a lot, Randall. It’s time to finish this.”

  “You have Armond,” Connor replied. “Maybe if Josie and I talk to him—”

  “He’s not talking,” Sherwood retorted, his face lined with a gray weariness. “He’s still not out of the woods. He got through surgery but he’s an old man. He can’t have a lot of visitors. Besides, I’ve questioned him, and he’s not giving us anything that we don’t already know.”

  Connor didn’t believe that. “I could persuade him—”

  “I said no. Stay away from Armond. You’ll bring the killers right to his hospital room.”

  Connor finally gave up on that, but he wouldn’t give up on protecting Josie. “Josie needs to stay hidden, too. With me.”

  Sherwood’s scowl shouted NO. “Gilbert needs to get back to the office first thing next week and you need to remember I’m watching you.”

  “And what about Josie, sir? Who’s watching out for her?”

  Sherwood hadn’t liked that question. “Maybe I should separate you two so she can get on with her job.”

  “Not tonight, not after the past few days,” Connor had replied. “She’s not staying here in this apartment and she’s sure not staying alone anywhere in this city. She’ll be with me for the weekend at least.”

  “If anything happens to her, it’s on you,” Sherwood had retorted.

  It’s on me.

  Sometimes, Connor felt as if it was all on him.

  He glanced back over at Josie. She was mad and frustrated and she’d put up a good fight, but she had gotten in the car with him. That was a good sign.

  “I’m not worried about the bad guys,” she finally said. Shutting off her phone, she pushed at her hair and gave him a daring stare. “Right now, I’m only worried about one questionably good guy who forced me into this car.”

  “Moi?”

  “Oui,” she replied, the one word more confident than the confusion in her eyes. “I agreed to come with you because I’m tired, Connor. Tired and determined to keep eyes on you.”

  He said the words slowly. “You are safe with me. You can trust me. We’ve got two days. You can get some rest and rethink this whole thing.”

  “Famous last words.”

  He skirted Canal and took side streets in a zigzag pattern. “I don’t think anyone is following us, but just in case.”

  They’d found nothing to help them at her house. Just a destroyed apartment, which only proved someone was looking for something. A file or a thumb drive? A notebook or a stack of letters and receipts? What? What could it be?

  And who?

  Connor used to be the hunter, the one watching for routines and patterns and changes. Now he and Josie were being hunted. And for what? And where was Armond?

  Josie stayed alert the whole trip, watching in the passenger-side mirror when she wasn’t eyeballing him through a grumpy glare.

  “My clothes are ruined again,” she said, staring down at the jacket and slacks she’d been wearing all night and most of the day.

  “I have clothes.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Deidre left some things in my apartment last time she was stateside.”

  “Just to test your no more secrets theory, tell me about Deidre?”

  Connor smiled at that, but he didn’t mind the interrogation. Josie never just asked a question. She was still looking for answers. “My sister is cute but bookish, smart but shy, lovable but reserved. She could be a real beauty if she’d let anyone near enough to get her new glasses and a new wardrobe. I love her, but she hasn’t always loved me.”

  “But she’s your half sister, right?”

  He nodded, memories of growing up with his sweet little sister always centered in his mind. “And like me, she never knew who her father was.” He shrugged. “Our mother was unconventional at best. She never needed a man except for the occasional companion. She didn’t believe in God or Jesus. She only believed in herself. Thought she could conquer the world.” He downshifted when they reached a crumbling parking garage. “But in the end, the world conquered her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Josie said, “about you and Deidre not having fathers, about how your mother died. I can see why you became so desperate after you realized she was bankrupt.”

  “I was never desperate,” he corrected, his rage always simmering just below the truth. Her curt question brought it all back. She couldn’t trick him into any kind of confession, though. “But I was hungry and afraid, and I wanted to feed my sister. We lost everything after our mother was killed.”

  He pulled the purring car up onto a ramp, then rolled down the window to hit a button. The ramp lifted them up four floors with an elevator-like precision and stopped in front of another elevator.

  Killing the engine, he turned to Josie. “They wanted to take Deidre away, since she was underage. I had just turned eighteen, but she was only fourteen. I took her with me and I made sure she was with people I could trust before I left her. I came to America because I had ties here in New Orleans, through my mother. I camped out in this building and did what I had to do to survive. I’m not proud of some of the things I did, but as long as Deidre…and God…have forgiven me, I can live with that.”

  “Maybe you should forgive yourself,” Josie said, her tone quiet and accepting now.

  Connor didn’t want to talk about forgiveness. “I’ve been working on that one for years.”

  He opened the car door to get out, then noticed the gold coin dangling on a chain around the rearview mirror. In all the fuss, he’d forgotten about it. Grabbing it, Connor decided he would indulge in studying the necklace later.

  “I’ve always had a thing for old coins,” he explained when Josie gave him a questioning look.

  “You stole the car. Might as well take the coin, too.”

  “I didn’t steal the car. I borrowed it. Armond will understand.”

  “Really? The man who wants you dead but can’t make up his mind to whack you? That man will understand?”

  “He has a heart underneath all that…illegal stuff,” Connor admitted. “At least, I think so.”

  “Right.”

  She obviously still didn’t believe anything he or Armond had to say.

  Connor put the long chain around his neck and tucked it inside his shirt. He came around the car and was about to open her door, but Josie beat him to that and got out to glance around. “This place is a dump.”

  “That’s right. My dump.”

  He guided her toward the old industrial elevator. “Your next ride is waiting, m’lady.”

  *

  Josie wondered what to expect, but then Connor had taken her to some strange places over the past few days. She couldn’t blame him for someone deciding to tear apart the home she’d set up just a few weeks ago. She traveled light and that stuff could be replaced.

  Connor’s holding back on her tore at her and worried her. Sherwood thought they’d been taken down a merry road to nowhere and maybe they had. But she’d brought him Armond and family. And she was bone tired with this whole case. She wouldn’t rest until she’d cracked the whole thing.

  She needed to talk to Louis Armond. She didn’t trust anyone else to tell her what he could.

  And she wouldn’t let Sherwood or Connor hold her back on that decision. She’d have to find the right time, then she’d have to find the right hospital. But she would find Armond.

  “Hungry?”

  She glanced over at Connor as they rod
e up the rickety old elevator. “No.”

  Wishing for some of Mama Joe’s biscuits, she held on and took a deep breath. “So I love what you’ve done with the place.”

  Connor laughed and touched a hand to her frazzled, smoke-scented hair. “You need a bath, Special Agent Gilbert.”

  “You sure know how to make a girl feel lovely, Randall.”

  “Part of my speciality.”

  His eyes promised more, but Josie decided going back to an all-business stance had to be the best plan. “So we need to consider that we might not ever find anything on Armond’s silent partner. The house has been wiped clean, either by several different law-enforcement agencies or…someone else. The garage is toast and we really didn’t get to do a very thorough search.”

  “I’m thinking after seeing your place your supervisor will send a forensic team back out there to make sure we didn’t miss anything. At least now he believes we’re both still in danger. Which is why we have to stay away from Armond Gardens.”

  “You really don’t like Sherwood, do you?”

  He gave her a blank stare. “No, I don’t.”

  She needed to remember that he probably didn’t trust anyone in the FBI, especially her. That worked both ways. But they were in this together now, and Sherwood would expect her to do her job.

  Even if that meant betraying the man standing in front of her. The man she was so angry with right now, but to whom she was still so very attracted.

  *

  An hour later Josie emerged from the guest-room bath and threw on the clothes Connor had handed her earlier. He’d picked a soft blue cardigan, a light blue button-up shirt and a pair of worn jeans that held a hint of lavender. The jeans were about an inch too short, so Josie rolled them up to capri length and decided that would do.

  When she picked up the expensive shirt, her heart slammed to her feet. She knew this scent. This shirt didn’t belong to Deidre. It belonged to her big brother. Putting the cotton garment to her nose, Josie inhaled Connor’s aftershave, silly tears pricking her eyes and making her throat grow tight.