For the first time since they walked in the door, the other man looked up. Jonas could feel the heat of Cade’s stare. “Ms. Allen has decided not to press charges. I’m holding off…for now.”
Cade finally faced Jonas. “Why?”
“What matters is what I’m about to tell you.” Jonas leaned against the counter and pitched his voice low. He didn’t need an audience for this. Some conversation had to be handled man-to-man. “You finish whatever business you have here over the Eckert murder, then you leave. You don’t come near Courtney ever again. You don’t talk with her or contact her. Hell, I don’t want you thinking about her.”
Something that looked like hope moved in Cade’s green eyes. “And?”
“You do that and manage to clean your reputation over the Eckert murder and him being in town, and I’ll leave you alone. You can have your life back, but you’re on your own on your part in getting Eckert to come to Aberdeen. You get to explain that to your people.” Jonas exhaled. “But I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“I appreciate that.”
“But you bother her in any way, or have anyone else do it by tracking her down or following her, and criminal charges will be the least of your problems.”
“You.”
“Yeah, me.” Jonas leaned in closer. “Look, I don’t know the answer about the murders, but I’m thinking someone is setting you both up. You investigate somewhere else, and away from her, and I’ll stay out of your business.”
Cade nodded. “Why are you letting me go now?”
“It was her, not me.” Jonas slipped the arrest paperwork off the desk and crumpled it in a ball. “She’s giving you a chance. I’d take it.”
Cade stared at Jonas in a visual showdown that quickly fizzled. He grabbed his property and turned around. “I didn’t send any of those men except Eckert.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m not a killer.”
“So you keep saying.”
“There’s someone else after her, and I’m thinking that person could clear my dad.”
Jonas’s stomach turned over at the thought. He could fight a foe he could see. This mystery attacker added layers Jonas didn’t need. “That’s for me to worry about. You get lost.”
Chapter Twenty-One
After all that had happened, Courtney’s nerves went numb. She couldn’t feel anything. Her muscles worked, but her arms and legs weighed more than she could lift. Even walking hurt. And her brain was set to permanent misfire.
She didn’t understand how she could put her life back together again or where to turn. All she knew was that she wasn’t ready to leave Jonas’s side. Good news was that he didn’t seem inclined to push her away.
“Courtney?” He called out from the dining room. “Everything okay in there?”
“Sure.”
“You can turn on the television.”
She didn’t have the strength or the interest to search for the remote. Sitting sucked up all her energy. She hovered at the point of having to remind her lungs to breathe.
They’d been home from the station, from Jonas’s latest beating on her behalf, for less than an hour and already he was back to work. He had the files spread out on the table and the boxes opened. Where the burst of energy came from, she’d never know.
Rich had promised to check on Ellie, then he would be by to assist. That allowed Courtney time to concentrate very hard on doing nothing.
She lay curled up on the couch with a blanket pulled up over her feet and ran her fingers through her still-damp hair. The rhythmic pull allowed her to get lost in random thoughts. She’d changed into dry clothes, but her body refused to get warm.
She knew she should stand up and walk into the dining room and help. She’d memorized every paper about the case that she could get her hands on over the past ten years. There could be new information in the boxes. Combining the facts in her head with whatever new information waited in those files could resolve everything.
But her brain needed rest. She wanted to go one hour, one minute even, without thinking about Cade Willis or her family or anything related to murder and attacks.
If she closed her eyes she saw Cade’s mental implosion in the parking lot. If she opened them, she saw her father’s face pleading with her to clear his name.
Even without those competing images, the idea of hiding in her thoughts proved impossible. A killer still lurked and no one in Aberdeen was safe until they figured out the person’s identity and stopped him.
“Courtney?” She heard Jonas’s chair scrape against the floor as he got up. Then his hands touched her shoulders and rubbed in a gentle massage. “Where are you? Your body is here but I’m not reaching the rest of you.”
“I’m just distracted.”
Jonas balanced his leg on the armrest behind her. “If you need to do some work, we can set up a place for your illustration. I won’t pretend to know what you need, but I can figure out something.”
He is a good man.
She leaned back and inhaled the fresh scent of his soap. The fight had left his clothes ripped and his body bruised. He’d changed now and insisted the shower revived him. Even asked her to join him in the stall, but she couldn’t.
She leaned her head against his thigh and tried to rub the pain out of her eyes. “I’m fine.”
“I’m not convinced.”
Neither was she. “Did you come up with the list?”
“We can talk about it another time.”
So tempting. “It won’t end until we do.”
Jonas exhaled hard enough to ruffle her hair. “You’re allowed to take a break.”
She tipped her head back and looked up at him. “Am I?”
He dropped a quick kiss on her mouth then straightened up again. “It looks like a bunch of leads were called into the hotline back then, but the detectives only looked into six people other than your father very seriously.”
“Who were the lucky ones to make the list?”
“You, a neighbor, two unrelated males with violent pasts and long criminal records who were in the area at the time of the murders, Tad Willis and your dad’s business partner, Kurt Handler.”
Nothing new there. She’d heard all of that before. “The police cleared them all.”
“A few of the suspects had some trouble with your dad. He fired Willis and fought with your neighbor.”
“And the business with Handler was in financial trouble.” She’d found that out years later, but it didn’t matter because there wasn’t anything for Kurt to gain.
“The other two guys are nasty but seem remote.” Jonas sat down next to her on the couch and pulled her legs onto his lap. “What does your gut tell you?”
The intimate position woke up her cells and had her mind sparking back to life. “Still Willis.”
“Why?”
“He was at the house that day and lied about it. He’d been fired and lied about it. Lying seemed to be his one skill.”
“Not exactly great evidence for homicide.”
“He had been accused of attacking another customer. And he did kill himself.” She rattled off the evidence she’d memorized long ago.
Now she wondered if Cade carried around a similar mental list that implicated her father. Facts could be twisted and interpreted to fit any argument.
Jonas smoothed his hand up her pants leg and massaged her calf. “Tell me about the partner.”
She balanced her head against the back of the couch and let her muscles unwind as Jonas rubbed them. “Dad’s best friend. They knew each other in college, worked for other people then branched out together.”
“You said there was money trouble.”
Her eyes had just closed when they popped open again. “I got the money.”
It wasn’t a huge amount, but it got her through college and provided the financial safety to go into illustration and live off the early meager payments for her work.
“You got the money because you lived. What if you had
n’t?”
She’d run through this scenario a million times and couldn’t pin anything on Kurt. It didn’t take a genius to know the business partner was as likely as the sole surviving child to be a suspect. But the facts didn’t work.
“He was never the beneficiary of Dad’s estate. He got the business because of the way the corporation documents were set up, but that turned out to be a financial burden since the business wasn’t up and running and was encumbered with debt.”
Jonas’s eyebrow lifted. “He’s a millionaire now.”
“Looks like you did your homework on the people in my past.”
“It’s both my job and the best way to keep you safe.”
Jonas’s words gave her comfort. Everything from his scent to his look—heck, even his gun, made her feel safe. “Kurt’s financial status is new. It didn’t exist then. He got rich in a real-estate boom and has been sitting on a pile of money since.”
“Some might say convenient.”
“He was a good businessman.”
“That could be, but is there any chance I could see the business paperwork? Do you have anything or did Kurt get all of it?”
“I received all of the documents from the police about a month ago thanks to a request I filed, and I discovered some more files mixed in with my parents’ things in storage.”
“Where is all of that now?”
“Since you insisted we leave my house with more than one file, it’s all upstairs in the stacks we brought over.”
Jonas groaned. “That’s a pretty significant stack. Like, four boxes.”
“Don’t feel like dragging them downstairs?” She couldn’t blame him. The man had been battered and bruised since meeting her. It was a wonder he could even stand up and keep moving by now.
“Just wishing Rich was here so I could order him to do it.”
She gave Jonas her most sympathetic look. “Poor baby.”
His hand slid higher on her leg. “You can make it up to me later.”
“Is that right?”
“I was hoping that was part of the reason you wanted to stay.” He leaned in and kissed her.
Those warm lips pressed against hers and she was lost. Hot and demanding, his mouth crossed over hers until her hands gripped his shoulders. His strength radiated off of him and seeped into her.
When they broke apart, her breath hitched in her throat. “You have a gun and these big shoulders. Any woman with a brain would stick around.”
“Thanks.” He coughed. “I think.”
“But, honestly, I could get that from any of the men you work with.” When he scowled, she rushed to fix her babbling. “From you I get something else.”
“What is that, other than a guy who carries boxes around?”
“Fire.”
A sexy smile spread across his lips. “Interesting. Is that true?”
The man was fishing for compliments and she was inclined to give them. “You have to ask?”
He leaned over and pushed her deep into the couch cushions. “I’ll work later.”
“No.” She gave him a quick kiss then smacked against his shoulders in a gentle shove. “Work now. Fun later. I’ll even get up and join you.”
“We could shift that to-do list around. Start with the fun then double back. It would clear our heads.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Like running.”
“Oh, please.”
“Exercise is good for you.”
She had to ignore the charm and dig down deep for her common sense. “We’d never get to the work. Besides, Rich is coming over.”
Jonas blew out a long breath and shot her a woe-is-me frown. “I hate that guy sometimes.”
“No, you don’t. And you have no one to blame but yourself. You invited him.” She pointed in the direction of the kitchen. “Now go make some coffee so we can be at least half-awake for his next research session.”
With one last kiss, Jonas took off to do her bidding. She’d just managed to struggle to her feet when her cell phone vibrated against the couch cushion. She saw the number and almost called out to Jonas to let him know Ellie was checking in. Then she read the message.
Jonas in danger. Don’t say anything. Come to bookstore alone.
Courtney blinked and reread the three sentences. The words didn’t make any sense. He was right there with her.
The dire warnings didn’t sound like Ellie. The whole thing felt more like a setup than a real request for help.
The phone shook in her hand.
Hurry.
She stared at the entrance to the kitchen. If she called out, he’d come running. If she needed him to shoot someone or fight to the death, he’d do it.
A sharp pain in her stomach nearly knocked her over. She could put him in danger or she could check this one out alone first. Or she could do a compromise and get a head start, go in and look and have him come right behind her.
She typed out a text but didn’t hit Send.
Get to the bookstore now.
Tiptoeing in stocking feet, she got over to the dining-room table and put her phone down on top of the stack of papers he was working on. He’d see it there. He’d wonder and check it.
Then she grabbed his and her shoes and headed for the door.
* * *
“ELLIE?” RICH SHOUTED her name as he tried the front door to her shop again.
The bookstore was locked up tight despite the posted working hours and the open sign hanging in the window. He pressed his face close to the glass and looked around. The lights burned and a book lay open near the cash register.
He shifted his position, trying to get a better view of each row of books. Empty aisles. No one was in there. Probably meant she stepped out for a second and forgot to leave a note.
Jonas would be ticked, but there was nothing Rich could do. He couldn’t force the woman to sit in her chair and wait for him to come and find her, though the idea did appeal to him on a raw level.
He turned away from the window, thinking to hang out at the diner across the street for a few minutes until Ellie got back. But something pulled his gaze back to the glass.
There at the front of the fourth row nearest the counter was a woman’s shoe on the floor. Despite having four sisters, he wasn’t much into women’s shoes, but this was a high heel and looked kind of sexy. Ellie had a habit of wearing that spiky type at work. Rich knew because he’d spent more than a little time studying her legs.
He tugged on the door handle one more time and heard the internal lock mechanism bang against the wood. It wasn’t going to open. If he broke the glass she’d probably kill him. That left trying the back door into her office.
He slipped into the alley that ran between the bookstore and the closed flower shop next door. When he got to the back of the building he saw her station wagon in the parking space.
Without knocking, he tried the back door and felt a surge of relief when it opened without any trouble. He walked into the small hallway and peeked into the bathroom on the right.
Not in there. That left her office.
The silence fell over him. Ellie usually played music, top-forty hits that caused him to make jokes about her listening taste. Today he only heard the buzz of the lights above his head.
Everything felt wrong and out of place. Danger buzzed around him until he wondered if the Courtney situation had him paranoid and looking around every corner waiting for trouble.
“Ellie?”
He rounded the corner and stopped. The sight in front of him refused to register in his brain. She sat in her desk chair, wide-eyed and tied up with a gag in her mouth.
“What the hell?” Without thinking, his training temporarily forgotten, he stepped inside the small room with its stacks of books and papers piled everywhere.
He realized too late she threw a bug-eyed stare at a space just over his shoulder. His hand hit his gun just as something smashed against his skull.
The blackness swallowed him whole before he could say a thi
ng or call on his radio for help.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jonas stepped out of the kitchen with two mugs of near- boiling hot coffee in his hands and entered an empty room. He hoped Courtney had decided to lie down, but he guessed she was dragging those boxes out so he could look at the business files she’d asked for.
He groaned. What he really wanted was to take her to bed, but that desire warred with the need to keep her safe. The day had spun out of control so fast that he was desperate to get the investigation back on track.
A pounding crash sounded at his front door. The thumping didn’t let up. Rich would ring once and then stand there waiting, and that was only on those occasions where he forgot the key. He had one as a precaution. So this had to be something else.
Jonas put the mugs down on the dining-room table and headed for the door. He took a quick glance out the small window and his amusement faded. Whipping the door open, he stared at Cade.
Gone was the jittery, downtrodden agent. Cade held a gun and wore his protective vest. He was all business.
And, as far as Jonas was concerned, a dead man. He’d given Cade the chance to run and he hadn’t taken it. Now he would pay.
“You have to come with me,” Cade said, his voice deep and serious.
“You have two seconds to get out of here.” Jonas knew he could strangle this man with his bare hands.
The fact Cade ignored the warning at the station sent Jonas’s temper soaring. Knowing the man was once again so close to Courtney filled Jonas with a killing rage.
Cade finally focused on Jonas and his eyes widened. “Wait a second.”
“You’re done here.”
Cade held up his free hand. “Listen to me. Courtney is in trouble.”
The air stopped moving. “Where is she?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
Jonas grabbed Cade by the collar and dragged him in the house. Slamming him against the back of the door, Jonas stared Cade down. “Give me a reason I shouldn’t kill you.”
“I’m with the FBI.”
“That’s not helping your case.”
“I can help you find her.”
“She’s here.”
“No.”
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