by Lisa Childs
He wasn’t the only one who had been surprised. Brenda had taken only a couple weeks off after having Ethan.
“I think she was writing her memoirs or some kind of book,” Sharon said. “She told me that I would have to do some proofreading for her when she was ready. But she hadn’t asked me to look at anything yet.”
“How long had she been off work?” he asked.
“Her leave started two weeks ago,” Sharon said, “so nobody at the courts would have been alarmed that they hadn’t heard from her.”
“Would anyone else?”
“Are you asking me about her boyfriends or lovers?” Irritation eased some of her fear. He had kissed her, but now he was questioning her about another woman’s social life. Of course, he had only kissed Sharon to prove the point that she couldn’t be the mother of his child and not because he had actually been attracted or interested in her enough to want to kiss her.
“I’m asking if anyone would have reported her missing if they hadn’t heard from her.”
Guilt clutched her at the realization that she had been so petty as to be jealous of another woman—a woman she had always respected. But Sharon was one of very few who’d actually been close to the judge. “I don’t know....”
She didn’t know who would report her missing, either. With the hours she worked, she had little time to socialize. Not that she had ever socialized much. She had been more focused on school and studying and work than on making friends.
“Probably me,” she said. As Ethan’s primary caregiver, she was closer to his mother than anyone else. “But she told me to go to you if I didn’t hear from her—and to trust no one else.”
“Not even the police?”
She shrugged and then shivered. “No one but you.”
Parker turned back toward the mansion. He cursed and reluctantly admitted, “I should have let Logan send backup with me.”
“But there’s no hit out on Brenda,” she reminded him. “There is no reason to think anyone’s trying to kill her.”
“There isn’t,” he agreed. “But I know that someone’s trying to kill us.”
“They don’t know that we would come here,” she said. “And you made sure we weren’t followed.”
“So I could leave you out here....”
“You need me to open the door,” she reminded him. So she got that far with him—to the massive double front doors. After she pressed her index finger to the security panel, they opened slowly and creepily as if a ghost played butler for them.
Parker stepped over the threshold first, his gun drawn. He’d turned on a flashlight that was attached to the barrel, which he swung in every direction he turned, as if ready to confront a threat. But the house was eerily quiet. He must have thought so, too, because he asked, “Doesn’t she have any live-in staff?”
“No.” She wanted Sharon on call 24/7 but she hadn’t wanted her to live with her. “She prefers her privacy, so she just has a cleaning service.”
But that had obviously been canceled because as they crossed the foyer, it was clear that no one had been in to straighten up. Brenda’s stilettos had been abandoned on the marble floor and her coat lay a little farther inside the house at the foot of the double stairwell leading to the second story. Parker lifted his foot to the first step, but Sharon grasped his arm.
“She won’t be up there.”
“But it’s late and all the lights are off.”
Brenda wouldn’t have been in bed yet, though, unless she had company, and in that case, there would have been lights on. “She would be working,” she said, and she started across the expansive living room toward the double doors that led to the den.
But Parker caught her arm, jerking her aside before she could reach for the door handles. He swung the beam of the flashlight around the doors.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Trip wires—anything that could trigger a bomb.”
She shuddered.
“It’s clear,” he said.
But she didn’t reach for the handle again, so he had to turn it. He pushed open the doors and swung the beam around the room. It glanced off books and papers. But they weren’t on the bookshelf or the desk. They were strewn across the floor.
“Someone’s ransacked the room,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. Her chambers often look like this.” Each of the books was open to a specific page. But as she stepped inside the room with Parker, she noted that these books were ripped apart.
“Someone was looking for something,” he said. “Can you tell if anything’s missing?”
“Her laptop.” It wasn’t on the desk or the floor in front of it.
“She must have taken it with her,” Parker said. “She must have taken off.”
Sharon stepped carefully over the books and papers to move around to the back of the big mahogany desk. If Brenda had taken the laptop, she would have put it in the case that she usually dropped behind her chair.
But she didn’t find the bag behind the desk. She found something else instead—something she wished she had never seen. As she gave in to the fear and hysteria overwhelming her, screams burned her throat.
Chapter Six
Parker had known he shouldn’t have brought Sharon along with him. But since there wasn’t a hit out on Brenda, he hadn’t thought they would be in danger in her mansion—as long as he made certain that they weren’t followed. Now he knew why there was no hit on the judge.
She was already dead. On the floor behind her desk, her body sprawled across the toppled-over leather chair. Her neck was bent at an odd angle—not because of how she was lying but because her neck had been broken. Blood, trailing from her mouth, had dried into a thick, black pool beneath her head. Her face was ghostly white. She must have been dead for a while. It could have been days, or weeks....
Sharon trembled and shivered in his arms. She was in shock.
But at least she had finally stopped screaming. Her voice had grown hoarse and cracked before she had finally calmed down, before she had finally stopped punching her fists into his chest and collapsed against him.
He shouldn’t have brought her here. He should have known it was a possibility that they might find the judge dead. But he was more surprised by what they hadn’t found. Her bodyguard. While Brenda might not have let any other staff stay overnight, she would have kept the bodyguard—especially since she must have been aware that she was in danger.
Why else had she sent the baby away with Sharon? She must have loved her son—their son. Maybe Brenda Foster hadn’t been as manipulative and selfish a woman as he had once thought she was. She had tricked and lied to him, but as long as she’d loved their son...
“I’m sorry,” Sharon murmured, as she clutched at his shirt, which was damp from her tears. “So sorry...”
Why was she apologizing?
“I’m the one who should be sorry,” he said. “And I am. I shouldn’t have brought you here. You shouldn’t have had to see your boss like this....”
She drew in a shuddery breath, fighting back more sobs. “But she was the mother of your son.” Her voice cracked and the tears began to fall again. “Ethan...”
His son no longer had a mother. And the boy’s father had been aware of him for only hours....
Now Parker was solely responsible for him? He had no idea how to take care of a baby, how to be a father. A twinge of panic struck his heart, but he ignored it. He would figure it out—with his family’s help. So he pushed aside that worry and focused on the woman trembling in his arms. He had to be strong for her.
But instead of clinging to him, she began to tense and ease away from him.
“Are you all right?” he asked Sharon. “I need to make some calls.”
She nodded and pulled completely away from
him. Replacing his arms with hers, she wrapped them around herself—as if trying to hold herself together. “Of course. You have to call the police.”
She must have noticed his hesitation because she gasped and asked, “You are calling the police, right?”
He wasn’t sure that he should and reminded Sharon, “Brenda told you to trust nobody but me.”
Those already enormous eyes widened as if she was scared that she had trusted the wrong man. “B-but you can’t just leave her here like this....”
Brenda Foster was beyond help. It was Sharon and Ethan about whom he was concerned. But the crime scene needed to be processed for evidence. So he reached for his phone. But his first call wasn’t to the police.
He had called a woman—a beautiful, young woman with auburn hair and brown eyes. She showed up before the police arrived. But he didn’t let her look at the body; he didn’t even let her past the security-system control panel at the door to the den.
And goose bumps rose on Sharon’s skin beneath the thin material of her jacket. What if Brenda had been wrong about him? What if she shouldn’t have trusted Parker Payne?
“Are you all right?” the woman asked Sharon, her brown eyes warm with concern.
Sharon must have looked as pale and sick as she felt. Seeing Brenda like that... It had brought back so many horrific memories that she had lost it. And she was barely hanging on to her composure now. She could only nod.
The woman turned toward Parker. “Did you call an ambulance?”
Parker glanced up from where he was studying the body—that horribly broken and lifeless body—behind the desk. “She’s been beyond medical help for a while now.”
“I’m not talking about the judge....” She gestured toward Sharon.
“I’m—I’m okay,” she insisted. “I don’t need an ambulance.”
“She’s in shock.” The woman spoke again to Parker, as if Sharon wasn’t even in the room.
Who were they to each other? Obviously the brunette worked in the security business, too, since she hooked a laptop to the security panel at the door, so familiar with the high-tech system that she must have handled it all the time.
Parker moved from behind the desk to join the woman at the door. But she didn’t look at him; she was focused on the laptop instead. How could she ignore Parker Payne? How could any woman? He turned toward Sharon and studied her face. “Are you really all right?”
She nodded again. Physically, she was fine. Emotionally, she was a mess. But it wasn’t just over finding another dead body. It was over the suspicion that had begun to niggle at her.
Why had Parker called this woman to mess with the security system? To cover his tracks?
And Sharon had left Ethan with his family. If Parker couldn’t be trusted, could she trust any of the Paynes?
“I—I should get back to Ethan,” she said. “He’ll be afraid if he wakes up and I’m not there.”
“Ethan?” The young woman’s breath caught, and she stared at Sharon. “Is that...your baby’s name?”
Parker hadn’t told anyone that Sharon wasn’t the boy’s mother; he had told them only that he had to talk to the judge, for whom Sharon worked. He hadn’t told them the reason specifically, only that Judge Foster might have some involvement or information about why someone wanted him and Sharon dead.
Judge Foster couldn’t help them now. Not when she had already become a victim....
But whose victim?
“Ethan is my son,” Parker told the woman. “You could have met him at the hospital if you’d been there....”
If they meant anything to each other, why hadn’t she been at the hospital when he had been wounded in that explosion? He was obviously hurt that she hadn’t come to see him, so this woman was important to him.
If Sharon had been involved with him, she would have rushed to his side. Heck, she wasn’t involved with him, but she had rushed to the hospital as soon as she had seen the news of the explosion at Payne Protection. Of course, she had been trying to find him anyway because the two weeks had already ended with no word from Brenda.
Now she knew why....
“I was there,” the woman replied.
Parker’s brow furrowed. “You were? Then why didn’t you come see me?”
She shrugged, but her thin shoulders were tense. “What do you want to know from the security system?”
He sighed before replying, “I want to know who was here last.”
“Sharon Wells,” she replied.
Sharon shuddered. She wished she hadn’t come along with Parker; she would have rather cut off and given him her finger than see what she had behind the desk.
“Before tonight,” Parker specified. “Who was the last one here?”
“Sharon Wells,” she repeated. “Two weeks ago.”
Parker turned toward her, and now he looked suspicious of her with the intensity of his blue-eyed stare. “You were the last one here?”
“Two weeks ago was when I packed up some of Ethan’s stuff and took the cash Brenda gave me to use the past two weeks,” she said. “But I couldn’t have been the last one to see her...”
“Alive?”
Knowing what that meant, she shook her head. If she had been the last one to see the judge alive, she would have been the one who killed her. If that was what Parker thought, the police would think that, too.
Sirens blared as police cars, lights flashing, sped through the open gate and up to the house. If Sharon was arrested, she had no hope of ever seeing Ethan again.
Panicking, she clutched Parker’s arm. “Brenda wasn’t alone when I was here last,” she said. “Her bodyguard was with her.”
And there was no way she could have overpowered that gorilla to hurt Brenda. There was no way she could have hurt Brenda or anyone else. Parker had to believe her. But why would he when she had begun to doubt him?
Even now, she had only this woman’s word that she was the last one who had come in or out of the house. She could have erased other names; she could have erased Parker’s. Maybe he hadn’t really needed her to let him inside the house; maybe he had brought her along only to help him cover his tracks. Maybe he’d been only using her this whole time as a scapegoat.
“Her bodyguard was with the two of you when the judge told you to hide for two weeks and then contact me if you hadn’t heard from her?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Who is her bodyguard?”
The woman snorted. “Obviously not someone very good...”
“I—I only know his first name,” Sharon said. “Chuck...” Would that be enough information for them to be able to track him down and prove that when Sharon left two weeks ago the judge had still been alive?
She turned toward the door as police officers burst through it—guns drawn. Why were they acting as if the killer was still at the scene? Was he?
Parker and the woman lifted their hands. “We’re with Payne Protection,” he said, identifying the two of them. “I’m the one who placed the 911 call.”
A bald-headed officer nodded at him. “Hey, Park. Are you still protecting the judge?”
Parker shook his head. “If I had been, you wouldn’t have been called here.” He pointed behind the desk. “We found the judge dead.”
“We?” the officer asked.
“Me and Sharon Wells.” Finally he pointed to her; maybe he was pointing the finger at her. Was he going to try to place the blame on her?
“I’m Sharon Wells,” she identified herself. “And I work—worked,” she corrected herself, “for Judge Foster.”
They began to look at her as Parker had, as if she was a suspect. But she couldn’t have hurt her; she couldn’t hurt anyone.
But Parker didn’t know that about her; he didn’t know her. He hadn’t even re
membered ever meeting her.
And the police didn’t know her at all. Since, according to the security system, she was the last one to have seen Brenda alive, then she would be the most likely suspect in her murder.
Would the police be arresting her before they left the judge’s house? And if they arrested her, she didn’t have anyone to bail her out. She might never see Ethan again. When she’d brought him to his father, she had known that never seeing him again might be a possibility, but she hadn’t realized that she might not see him because she was behind bars for his mother’s murder.
Chapter Seven
Parker could not help Sharon now. The police were questioning her the same way that he had—wondering why she was the last person to have seen her employer alive. Only she hadn’t been the last person.
And he would prove that for her. But first he had to settle something else. So he hurried across the driveway to chase down the person who had tried sneaking away from the crime scene.
“Why didn’t you come see me at the hospital?” Parker asked his sister. Nikki turned away from him again. But he grabbed her shoulder and turned her back.
She squirmed beneath his grasp and ducked away. But before she turned away from him again, he caught the shimmer of tears in her eyes.
“Niks, what’s wrong?”
She shrugged. “Nothing...”
“Niks?”
He grabbed her again and didn’t let her get away this time as he folded her into a hug. His little sister never cried; she was too tough for that—or at least too determined to prove to her brothers that she was every bit as tough as they were.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “so sorry...”
That she hadn’t visited him in the hospital?
“It’s okay,” he assured her. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.” And this was another reason that he had never had a long-term relationship; he wasn’t sensitive enough to a woman’s feelings.
“I feel bad because it was my fault,” she murmured, her voice cracking with emotion.
Thoroughly confused, Parker had to ask, “What was your fault?”
