by Lisa Childs
“Do you?” Dalton asked.
The trooper hesitated just long enough that Dalton realized he had doubts, too. “Trooper Jackson was the senior investigator. He believed it was a murder-suicide.”
“She said that he wouldn’t listen to her,” Dalton said. “She said that neither would you.”
Littlefield sighed. “I think she’s right that it didn’t happen exactly the way the report reads.”
“You don’t think so?”
He shook his heavily bandaged head and flinched. “I think that the husband died first.”
“You think the wife killed him and then herself?”
Littlefield nodded—but just slightly. “It looked that way. Doc thought he was dead longer. And his blood was under hers on the gun.”
“Meaning she died last.” Dalton had seen the crime-scene photos. “But the gun was in his hand...” The scene had been staged.
Littlefield groaned. “You think she’s right. That the couple was murdered?”
“I think that it’s an odd coincidence that Elizabeth is the only one fighting to keep the investigation open, to prove that her friends were murdered, and then she is nearly murdered.”
“You think whoever killed them has been trying to kill her?” He pointed toward Dalton’s phone. “Do you think it was him?”
Dalton shook his head. “It couldn’t be. He was in prison when they were murdered.” So if Kenneth and Patricia had been murdered—as he was beginning to believe—then their killer was still out there.
Littlefield grimaced again, but he hadn’t moved his head at all. “Maybe I need to rethink my career,” he murmured. “I may not be cut out for this job.”
Dalton wanted to argue with him, but he was beginning to feel the way Elizabeth felt. Outraged that there had been no justice for her friends yet.
“Get some rest,” Dalton suggested. “You’ll feel better.” He wouldn’t feel better until he knew for certain who was trying to kill Elizabeth.
His cell vibrated in his pocket. He didn’t click the talk button until he had stepped out of the trooper’s room and into the hall. “Reyes here.”
“You put a bullet in this guy,” Jared Bell said. “But it wasn’t what killed him.”
“It wasn’t?” There had been so much blood.
“That was the knife wound.”
“I didn’t have a knife in the dining room,” Dalton said.
“He was dead before then,” Jared added. “You must have shot him when he ran Elizabeth and her fiancé off the road earlier that day. I would bet whoever hired him killed him.”
“And then broke into Elizabeth’s house to finish the job he had paid Ronnie Hoover to do,” Dalton said. “Are you with her?”
“No,” Jared replied. “I’m still at the coroner’s.”
“Blaine had to leave early.” That was why he’d called Dalton into the hall—to tell him that he couldn’t stay much longer to protect her.
“There are guards all around the place,” Jared assured him. “Nobody’s getting inside to her.”
Dalton wasn’t that convinced. The only thing he knew for certain was that he had left Elizabeth and Lizzie alone. And that the person who really wanted her dead was still alive and determined to finish the job.
* * *
HER HAND SHAKING, Elizabeth wrapped it around the knob and drew the door open to face her fiancé.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me,” Tom Wilson said as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him—shutting out the lawmen who were supposed to protect her.
She wasn’t certain she had done the right thing. Maybe she shouldn’t have let him past the young FBI agent and the trooper guarding the outside of the house. Maybe she shouldn’t have let him inside with her—because, according to Dalton, she was still in danger. The man he had found dead had probably only been doing what he’d been paid to do. What someone else had paid him to do.
Tom Wilson, with his perfect hair, face and clothes, looked like the kind of man who would hire someone else to do his dirty work. But why would he want to hurt her?
To kill her?
Why not just ask for his ring back instead of trying to permanently get rid of her? Unless he had another reason, unless he had done something else—something horrible...
Had he really had a crush on Patricia? She’d been so beautiful with her long blond hair and bright blue eyes. But her inner beauty had been even more captivating. She’d been loving and loyal. She had never looked at any man but Kenneth. She wouldn’t have left him for anyone. Tom would have known that he could never have her. And if he couldn’t have her, had he not wanted anyone else to?
Tom was looking at her strangely, as if he was worried that she didn’t remember him yet. Or maybe he was more worried that she did remember him.
And maybe what he’d done to her...
And to Kenneth and Patricia...
Before she could say anything, he reached for her. His hands closing roughly around her shoulders, he jerked her to him.
Chapter Seventeen
A sense of foreboding and urgency drove Dalton back to Elizabeth’s house. He pressed the accelerator to the floor, risking the speed on the dark and unfamiliar roads—because he would risk anything for Elizabeth, to keep her safe.
He had promised to protect her, but he’d left her unprotected. Sure, there were guards outside—a lower-level agent and a local trooper or deputy. That wasn’t protection in which Dalton had much confidence. Growing up the way he had, he didn’t trust easily. So he only had a few true friends.
And two of those were gone on their honeymoon. Maybe he should have asked them to stay.
The lights of the house twinkled in the distance—at the end of the winding driveway leading up to it. He slammed on his brakes at the squad car that blocked the entrance. He put down the window and flashed his badge at the trooper.
“Special Agent Reyes,” the man said as he read Dalton’s shield. “You were going to see Littlefield. How is he?”
“Fine,” he replied shortly. “Did you let anyone go up to the house tonight?”
The guy tensed—hopefully, just with irritation at Dalton’s curtness. But then he replied, “We let her fiancé through.”
“When?” Dalton asked.
“Just a little while ago.”
“Move your damn car,” he ordered as fear gripped him. He didn’t trust Tom Wilson, and it wouldn’t take the man long to finish the job he’d hired someone else to do. The car had barely backed up when he squeezed his SUV between it and the fence. Then he pressed hard on the accelerator and raced up to the house.
He slammed it into Park and jumped out while it was still moving. Drawing his gun from his holster, he leaped up the steps to the porch and threw open the front door. Little Lizzie’s cries drifted down from upstairs, drawing his concern. Elizabeth would have never let her cry.
Then he heard the struggle—something falling. And he turned toward the front room—where the man held Elizabeth tightly while she pounded her fists on his back and shoulders. She was a fighter.
Rage rushed over him, heating his blood and making his heart race. “Get your damn hands off her!” he shouted. Instead of cocking his gun, he holstered it and reached for the man, jerking him away from her. Then, like Elizabeth, he used his fists. Instead of pounding on his back, though, he pounded on his face—shoving his fist right into Tom Wilson’s jaw. Wilson dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.
And Elizabeth dropped to her knees beside him. “Oh, my God, are you all right?” She glanced up at Dalton and glared at him. “Why did you hit him?”
“You were hitting him,” he said. “He was hurting you.”
She shook her head. “No. He wasn’t hurting me.” She sighed. “I was hurting him...”
Dalton narrowed his eyes. “What? He was all over you.” Then he realized why and wished he’d hit him harder.
Wilson groaned, though, and shifted around on the floor as he regained consciousness.
>
Elizabeth glanced up again, but higher—toward the ceiling. “Would you go upstairs and check on Lizzie?”
Dalton hesitated. He didn’t want to leave her alone to be mauled again by another man—even though that man was her fiancé. “If he tries to touch you...”
He would hit him harder. He didn’t care that Wilson was her real fiancé. Dalton felt as though she was his. That feeling of possessiveness overwhelmed and chilled him. He had never felt that way before. But then, Elizabeth Schroeder made him feel a lot of things he had never felt before.
He gave Tom Wilson his most menacing glare before he headed up the stairs to the little girl. He opened the door and stepped inside the pink room. The tiny princess stood in her crib. Her hands gripped the top of the railing as if she was ready to climb out.
He didn’t give her long before she figured out how. His granny had always said that there wasn’t a crib created that could have held him.
Her chocolate-brown curls were damp and stuck to her face, which was red and flushed from her tears. But the minute she saw him, her tears stopped and her little grimace turned into a smile. And something shifted inside his chest, squeezing his heart. He wasn’t just falling for Elizabeth. He was falling for her goddaughter, too.
“Come here, baby,” he said as he reached inside the crib for her.
She gripped his arms and clung to him. When he lifted her up, she settled her head beneath his chin and sighed. He rubbed her back. “It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s all right.”
But it wasn’t. He didn’t like leaving Elizabeth alone with Tom Wilson—even if the man posed no physical threat to her. He posed a threat to Dalton. Wilson was her fiancé. Dalton was just her protector.
And he worried that he wasn’t doing a very good job of protecting her by leaving her alone with a man she didn’t even remember. He could have been abusive to her. He could have been a danger...
* * *
ELIZABETH’S PULSE SETTLED back down to an even pace as the little girl’s cries subsided. Dalton had her now. He was taking care of little Lizzie—the way he tried to take care of her.
Tom groaned and sat up. His hand rubbed his jaw, which he moved back and forth as if testing to see if it was broken. Had Dalton broken it? He’d certainly hit him hard enough.
“What the hell’s wrong with that agent?” Tom asked, his chest puffing out with righteous indignation.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Elizabeth asked, and she slapped his already bruised face.
He groaned again and flinched.
“You can’t just grab me and try to force yourself on me,” she said, and her pulse quickened again with the fear she’d felt as she had tried to fight him off.
“I was trying to get you to remember me,” he admitted. “You remember everyone else but me.”
Had that really hurt him—as she’d told Dalton she had? Or was it only wounded pride that had brought him here to try to jar her memory?
“I’m your fiancé,” he said. “We’ve been engaged for two years. We dated three years before that. How could you just forget me?”
“I forgot everything,” she reminded him. “My amnesia was complete. I didn’t even remember my own name. I didn’t remember myself.” But she hadn’t felt any differently then than she did now. Dalton had been right—that her character and her values hadn’t changed.
“But you remember all of that now,” he said, his voice wavering with a faint whine. “You remember everything and everyone but me.”
“I remember,” she said. But with none of the intense emotion that she had remembered Kenneth and Patricia and baby Lizzie...
“You do?” he asked with skepticism and nerves apparent in his voice.
Did he really want her to remember?
It was too late—if he had changed his mind. His kiss hadn’t brought the memories back, but when Dalton had hit him so hard that he’d knocked him out, she had cared. She hadn’t wanted him hurt.
“We have known each other a long time,” she said.
He smiled then winced and touched his swollen jaw. “Yes, we have.”
“We’ve been engaged for two years,” she said, even though she wasn’t certain it was actually that long. She couldn’t remember exactly when he’d proposed—the night had felt like any other dinner date.
“Yes.”
“We don’t live together,” she said.
He shook his head, and his brow furrowed slightly as if he was growing concerned about her memories.
He had reason to be concerned.
“We haven’t set a date for our wedding,” she said.
“We’ve been busy,” he said, “especially since Kenneth and Patricia died. You’ve been dividing your time between Chicago and here—between me and Lizzie.”
“Why?” she asked.
His brow furrowed more. “What do you mean?”
“Why haven’t we set a date?”
“I just told you—”
“Kenneth and Patricia died a few months ago,” she said. “We were engaged over a year before that. Usually the first thing couples do when they get engaged is set a date—because they’re anxious to get married.” The way Kenneth and Patricia had been. Apparently, Dalton’s friends Ash and Claire had also been anxious and ecstatically in love.
“We’re not that kind of people,” he said. “We don’t rush into anything.”
“Then why don’t we at least live together?” she asked. “Especially now. Why aren’t you helping me with little Lizzie?”
He sighed—a churlish sigh of irritation. “You are her guardian. Not me.”
And why was that? Hadn’t Kenneth and Patricia approved of him? Hadn’t they expected her and Tom to last?
She remembered Patricia broaching the subject, wishing more for her best friend. Elizabeth had defended Tom then—saying how handsome and smart he was, how much she admired him.
And Patricia had sighed with pity.
Now Elizabeth understood why. She had wanted passion and love for her friend, not admiration.
“We weren’t even decided on whether or not we wanted children,” he said.
But she suspected he was decided. He didn’t want them. While he hadn’t told her as much over the past few months, she’d sensed his withdrawal.
“That’s why you pulled away,” she said. “I thought it was because I was emotional over Kenneth’s and Patricia’s deaths, and you’re not comfortable with emotion.”
“I’m not,” he admitted. “Neither are you. That’s why we’re so compatible. That’s why we’ve had such a great relationship, Elizabeth.”
She nodded in agreement. “We were comfortable,” she agreed. “We talked about work over dinner in exclusive restaurants. We attended plays and art gallery openings.”
He smiled. “We loved that life.”
“That’s not my life anymore,” she said.
And she realized that wasn’t the life she wanted now. Maybe that had never been the life she’d really wanted—it was only what she’d thought she wanted. It had been her idea of success, the kind of life her parents had lived, still lived. Like Tom, they hadn’t offered to help her with little Lizzie. They hadn’t comforted and consoled her over the loss of her best friends. If not for Kenneth and Patricia, she might have never known about true love—about true emotion.
“You could sign over custody to her uncle,” Tom suggested. And she knew it wasn’t the first time he had made that suggestion; he’d just been more subtle about it before.
Anger surged through her, and she wanted to slap him again. Instead, she stared down at her hand, admiring the diamond ring one last time before she pulled it from her finger and handed it back to him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“What I should have done months ago,” she said. “Giving back your ring.”
He wouldn’t reach for it. Only shook his head. “Elizabeth, you’re not yourself. You shouldn’t be making decisions like this.”
“I’m more myself than I’ve been,” she said. “And I know now that I never should have accepted your ring. I care about you, but I don’t love you like a wife should love her husband.”
He gasped as if she’d hurt him. “Elizabeth!”
But she only smiled. “And you don’t love me.” She actually wondered how much he even really cared. “Not like a husband should love his wife.”
“Elizabeth, you’ve been through so much that I think you should consider this some more before you make any rash decisions,” he said.
She laughed. “Nobody’s ever accused me of being rash.” She had planned out her entire life—her education, her career, even her mate...
Tom Wilson had fit that role—before she’d met Dalton Reyes.
Maybe Tom knew her better than she thought, because he glanced up at the ceiling and nodded. “It’s him—isn’t it? That FBI agent...”
“What’s him?” she asked.
“He’s the reason you’re giving me back this ring.” And finally he reached for it, closing his fingers around the big diamond.
Dalton was definitely part of the reason but not the entire reason. “We’re the reason,” she insisted. “We’re not right for each other.”
He shook his head. “We were perfect.” But he looked at her now as if she wasn’t—as if she was far from perfect.
Because she’d rejected him? Or because she had fallen for the FBI agent? Could he see that love in her—that love she’d never felt for him?
She would have apologized, but she wasn’t sorry—not now. Not with the way he was acting. Her memories back now, she knew that she would have broken up with him earlier. But then she hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Now she realized that she couldn’t hurt him.
Dalton had, though. Tom kept rubbing his jaw even as he finally got to his feet and headed toward the door. “You’re going to get hurt,” he warned her.
Fear chilled her, and she asked, “Is that a threat?”
He tensed and stopped his advance toward the front door. “What?”
“Are you threatening me?” Was he the one who’d hired the hit on her?
“I’m warning you,” he said. “I think you’ve fallen for the FBI agent out of gratitude to him for saving your life. But he was only doing his job, Elizabeth. He doesn’t love you. And once this case is over, he’ll move on to the next one. He’ll leave you.”
