In the thirty seconds Russ had known David Hennings, he despised him. Plus, he didn’t like his attitude regarding Penny. And if her father and Zac weren’t going to deal with that, Russ would. He reached over the desk, picked up the receiver and dropped it back in its cradle. The three occupants in the room went silent. Obviously people didn’t hang up on David. Too bad. Someone had to take control. “He’ll call back,” Russ said.
Zac elbowed Penny’s arm. “I like this guy.”
“No fooling,” she cracked.
Penny stared up at him, her big blue eyes round and, if his guess was right, amused.
Thirty seconds later, David was patched through again. “Did you hang up on me?” he hollered.
“David,” Russ said. “This is special agent Russell Voight. I hung up on you. Keep yelling and I’ll do it again. Your only purpose in this meeting is to listen.”
“Wait—”
“I will not wait. I wasted five minutes of my life listening to you and I can’t get those five minutes back. Your sister did not call you yesterday because soon after being threatened by someone who ordered a mass shooting, I confiscated her phone to avoid a killer locating her. I took her to an FBI safe house, where her client, also my very important witness, met us. She called your father using my phone and that was the only communication she had with anyone outside of the FBI or the U.S. Marshals’ office. If you have any issues with that, speak to me later. Right now, your sister’s client is waiting for me and I can’t question her without Penny. So, you will shut up and we’ll make this quick.”
“Russell Voight,” Penny said, “I think I love you.”
Gerald Hennings laughed at that. And so did Zac. In fact, David seemed to be the only male involved in this conversation who didn’t have an affection for Penny.
A brief silence ensued and Russ held his hand to Gerald to continue. “David, until the FBI feels the threats against Penny are no longer an issue, we will all be under protection. Beyond that, there’s not much to say.”
“David,” Penny said, “I took a client. That’s all. Had I known this would happen, obviously I would have avoided it.”
“Whatever, Penny.”
Penny threw her hands up. “How is this my fault? You think I sit around all day thinking up ways to annoy you? Guess what, David, everything isn’t about you. Shocking as that may be.”
“Okay,” Russ said, “I think we’re done here.” He reached over and hung up on David before the war started. He turned to Gerald. “If he calls back, do me a favor and talk him down. I don’t have time for family squabbles now. Besides, he’s being unreasonable.” He looked at Zac. “Sorry about the inconvenience, but it’s for your own safety. For the time being, vary your pattern.”
“No Starbucks before work,” Penny said. She glanced at Russ. “He stops there every morning.”
“She’s right. Whatever your normal routine is, change it up. Let’s not make it easy for this lunatic.”
“Can you get this guy?” Zac wanted to know.
“Yes. As long as your sister’s client cooperates, we’ll put him away.”
Gerald’s phone bleep-bleeped again. David probably. And David could shove it.
“I have a Colin Heath for Penny,” the secretary said. “She wanted me to let her know when he called.”
Russ swung to Penny, who stared at the phone as if it had grown fangs.
The men in the room glanced at Penny, then to Russ. “Take it,” he said. “Just like we talked about. Got it?”
“Oh, I’ve got it.”
* * *
PENNY SCOOPED UP the phone the second it rang. “Hello, Mr. Heath. Punctual, I see.”
“When it comes to beautiful women, I try.”
She rolled her eyes. What more could she do? She’d like to flip him off, but certain things she wouldn’t do in front of her father. Still, psycho or not, Colin Heath probably had a way with women. Just not this woman.
“I’ve a busy day, so let’s make this fast. I’ll agree to your terms, Mr. Heath. But I want a guarantee from you—whatever that might be worth—that Elizabeth and her son will stay safe.”
“You’ll convince her not to testify?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.”
I’ll get you another way, you rat. “Then she won’t testify.”
“And what will you do about the FBI?”
Penny glanced at Russ and he rolled his hand. “That’s my problem to deal with.”
“You get the FBI off my tail, Ms. Hennings, and Elizabeth will be safe. After all, her husband made me a lot of money.”
Sick, twisted bastard.
“Are we through?”
“We are. I’ll be in touch to make sure our deal is going according to plan.”
Penny hung up without bothering to say goodbye. Why give him any pleasantries?
Her father leaned forward, stretched his hand to her. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Dad.” She squeezed his hand, hoping to reassure him and maybe herself. “It’s the right decision.”
“Sis,” Zac said, “you’ve got guts.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Russ jerked his chin toward the door. “We should go. I still have Brent’s car. Sooner we get to Elizabeth, the sooner this case gets wrapped up.”
“Of course. Let me grab my laptop.”
She hugged her brother, then her father. “I’m sorry about David.”
Dad kissed her head the way he used to when she was seven and had suffered some trauma that only Daddy could fix. Even now, all these years later, it mattered.
“I’ll handle him.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
At least she had his and Zac’s support.
Downstairs, she stood in the foyer leading to the back alley of the Hennings & Solomon building, waiting for Russ to give her the all clear. The man had a gracefulness about him. Rugged grace. That was what he had. He moved swiftly, his strides purposeful and without hesitation. She imagined him this way all the time. As if an inherent part of him never let up, never stopped pursuing, never appeared weak. Even if he felt it, he’d never show it. Maybe some women were bothered by that. Penny? Not. She herself had trouble admitting her weaknesses and she certainly didn’t want to discuss them. Nothing doing there.
Everyone felt weak occasionally. She knew this. Despite the outward appearance, she supposed most humans, on some deep level, hid vulnerabilities. Her brother constantly blamed her for whatever infractions plagued them. It was always Penny’s fault. Always.
Russ Voight had just saved her from David’s condescension. That alone made her a little gooey.
He opened the alley door, waved her through and got her settled into Brent’s government-issued sedan before sliding into the driver’s side. “All set?”
“Yes. Oh. My phone.” She dug it out of her bag, pulled the battery and dumped the pieces back into her purse. “Now we’re set.”
“So, David?” Russ said. “Hell of a guy.”
She waggled her head. “He’s what many would call a real jerk. And I say that with all the love my heart can hold for my brother who hasn’t given me a break since the day I popped out of my mother.”
Russ turned out of the alley, bullied his way into morning traffic and headed south as the sun bounced off the shiny glass of the Hennings & Solomon building. “What’s his problem?”
“Besides the fact that my very existence is somehow my fault, I really couldn’t tell you.” She caught the lump in her throat, swallowed it back. Damned David. Always demoralizing her.
“Why is he in Boston?”
“He moved there four years ago. He’s a civil-litigation lawyer and claimed he needed space to do his own thing. My guess is
he saw Zac about to take off in his career and my dad had already promised me a spot at the firm.”
“Which specializes in criminal defense.”
“Yes. Family dinner conversations inevitably turned to current criminal cases in the media and, well, I think David didn’t know how he fit in.”
“He felt left out?”
She shrugged. “That and there’s his ever-growing dislike of moi.”
“He’s your brother. He has to like you.”
Russ glanced at her, twisted those fab lips of his, and something warm and comforting and oh-so-good curled around her. The man was a giant white gummy bear.
“He may love me, but he doesn’t like me. And his behavior certainly reflects that, because I only hear from him when he wants to yell at me.”
“Come on. Seriously? Does he call Zac?”
Ah, yes, the other constant reminder that her oldest brother saw her as the lesser sibling. “Every two weeks.”
“Nice. I can see why you think he has a problem with you.”
She finally looked at him. “Thank you, by the way. I nearly wet myself when you hung up on him. That might be the best gift anyone has ever given me.”
Russ shrugged. “He was being ignorant. We don’t have time for that. I half expect him to call me on it. Not sure I’d mind, either. Sounds to me like your brother needs someone to rip into him.”
She swung herself sideways. “Is it wrong that I’m glad he lives in Boston?”
“Honey, I’m thinking he should move overseas.”
Penny cracked up. The man she’d decimated on the stand somehow understood the complexities of her relationship with her brother and didn’t judge her for her less-than-loving thoughts.
“He makes me feel rotten about myself. Sometimes I believe him and I hate that, but he’s still my brother. He’s entitled to feel how he feels.”
Russ jumped onto the Dan Ryan and hit the gas. Wow. Fast driver. She hadn’t noticed that before.
“What stinks,” he said, “is it takes him making you feel bad to make himself feel good. Seems cowardly to me, but what do I know? I’m an only child.”
You know a lot. She took in the fact that after one brief conversation, Special Agent Voight had basically profiled her brother. And he’d hit his target dead-on. “I didn’t picture you as an only child.”
“Yeah, me and the folks.”
“Do they live here?”
He shifted lanes and bolted past a slower driver. Apparently FBI agents didn’t concern themselves with a thing called the speed limit. “Florida. They moved there a few years ago. My dad wanted to retire.”
“Was he in law enforcement?”
“No. He’s a mechanic.”
Again, something she’d never imagined. For whatever reason—perhaps his confidence or sense of self—she pictured him growing up in a household with a man in uniform. Damned Russell Voight making her so interested in him. “So, why the FBI for you, then?”
* * *
THAT SLURPING NOISE was Russ getting sucked into a vacuum. Only problem was, he liked getting sucked in. Specifically, he liked it with Penny, which brought his male mind to places it should definitely not be going.
How much he should admit here, he wasn’t sure. Typically, he didn’t open up to women about his childhood. And he’d never done it with a defense attorney. Male or female. Which, yeah, was creating issues, because when alone with Penny, he saw her as good company. Good female company with a nice compact body he’d like to have under him at some point. These thoughts didn’t mesh with this case and prosecuting Colin Heath for the lives he’d ruined. Pump-and-dump scheme aside, he wanted to pin him with the murder of that reporter on the courthouse steps. What kind of psycho threatened someone by terrorizing hundreds of people? Since becoming an FBI agent, he’d asked himself that question no less than a thousand times and the answer continued to elude him.
“Russell?”
Now or never. He could put her off. Tell her he wanted to help people who’d been wronged, which wouldn’t be a lie.
Also wouldn’t be the truth.
“When I was twelve our house went into foreclosure.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Some mortgage scammer convinced my dad they’d buy the loan from the bank and charge my folks a lower interest rate. My dad is no fool. He asked around about the guy and he checked out.”
“Oh, no.”
He glanced at her and found her studying him. Focused. He loved that about her. Her ability to concentrate wholly on her subject. “The scammer duped hundreds of people out of their homes. When the bank came calling, looking for the twelve months of payments my folks paid to the scammer, the guy disappeared. My dad was never the same after that. He never said, but I think it made him feel like less of a man. A man who couldn’t support his family. I could see it. He changed.”
“And that’s why you like working financial frauds?”
Russ shrugged. “There’s personal satisfaction in it. I wish I could find the guy. I’m sure he’s still running scams.”
“Have you searched for him?”
A trooper had parked on the shoulder and Russ cruised by him doing eighty-five. Whoops. He waved and hoped to hell the guy recognized a government-issued car. When the trooper stayed put, Russ went back to Penny. “Every month I look for him. He’ll turn up. Guys like him can’t stay away. It’s like crack to them. The next scam. The next con. They get off on it.”
“How about your parents? Did they get back on their feet?”
“They did, but it took years. Their credit was shot. Couldn’t get a mortgage and rented for fifteen years. My dad broke his back saving money so he could pay cash for the house in Florida. He never wanted another mortgage.”
“Is this why you hate defense attorneys? Because we defend scammers?”
He glanced at her and wondered how the hell he could even pretend to dislike her. Smart, sexy and unafraid. “It’s not my favorite profession.” He cracked a grin, then went back to the road. “After that smoking kiss last night, you’re the exception to my rule.”
“Oh, Russell. You’re so good to me.”
If he’d doubted it before, he now knew he was whacked out over Penny Hennings. “Do we need to talk about it? Last night?”
She shifted front again. “Nope. Won’t do us any good. Other than to torture me.”
Ain’t seen nothing yet, babe. “There are things I would like to do to you. They require a flat surface. Preferably a soft one.”
From his peripheral vision, he saw her crack the window.
“You’ll have to wait, though. I’m not blowing this case because I’m fantasizing about you naked. Except for a pair of stilettos—the red ones from the other day—and that pink bra from last night.”
“Oh, please. That would be so uncomfortable. You really have no idea. Not to mention they don’t match.”
“Certain times, I don’t care about comfort or fashion.”
She laughed. “Then I guess we’ll have to find Colin Heath in a hurry.”
“I’m on it. We’re chasing down every known contact he has. We’ll get him. He can’t hide forever.”
Chapter Seven
By midafternoon, Penny needed a double-shot latte and some white gummy bears on the side. Russ had been hammering away at Elizabeth for hours, and the woman, despite minor memory lapses and exhaustion, held up remarkably well.
After hours of killing time in his room, Sam had been allowed to play in the yard. The little rascal then moved to convincing his marshal he should be allowed by the lakefront. At which point, the kid argued that his mother had buzzed his hair the night before and if he wore a baseball cap and glasses, he’d be incognito. All around, the wrong life for a child, but no one seemed to disagree with
his logic. Hopefully, Penny could get them a different life, where they’d both be free to wander outdoors without fear.
Russ jotted a note, then looked back at Elizabeth. “Did your husband seem off? Stressed?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “When I asked him about it, he said Colin was putting a lot of pressure on him. He wouldn’t elaborate. Two weeks later, my husband was dead.”
“And when did Heath come to you and ask you to start doing the trades so he could keep the scam going?”
“Maybe two weeks after Sam’s death. That’s when I truly understood what my husband had been involved in. According to Colin, the investors were calling, wanting their money. Colin didn’t have it. He told me I’d have to make trades. He wanted the stock price to go up and then he’d convince the investors to stay in the deal. He planned on bringing in new investors to cover the trades he wanted me to do.”
“To pump up the price?”
“Yes.”
“You made the trades?”
“When he threatened my son, yes.”
“Maybe it’s time for a break,” Penny said.
Russ dropped his pen, sat back and stretched his arms across the back of the sofa, pulling the material of his dress shirt snug against his chest.
Oh, boy. Something told Penny the special agent had a rocking bod under all that FBI wear.
“I’m not judging you,” he said. “I’m taking information. Besides, I’d have done it. I’d imagine most parents would.”
I’m going to jump him. She didn’t know when or particularly how, but as of this second, Russell Voight would now be the only name on her I-must-have-him list.
Time for some air. Penny stood. “Break time! I know I need one and nobody speaks without me here, so there you go. Sugar right now would be exceptional. Russell? Anything in this place contain copious amounts of sugar?”
Still with his arms stretched across the sofa and studying her with an idle curiosity that sparked heat in naughty places, he jerked his chin toward the kitchen. “Pantry. We stocked up on cookies for Sam. Brent, too.”
“Dude,” Brent said, and Russ laughed.
The good-natured fun eased the tension in the room and Penny shook her head in mock disgust.
THE DEFENDER Page 7
