Close Quarters With the Bodyguard

by Lisa Childs

  He needed backup at least there.

  Hell, he probably needed backup everywhere since she was so damn distracting to him. What the hell had he been thinking to kiss her?

  Because all he wanted was to repeat it.

  It was a good thing she’d locked herself away in her office. She was out of his reach. And out of the reach of whoever had been watching them.

  He’d been especially vigilant on the drive back to her house, making sure nobody had followed them. He hadn’t seen anyone, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been there, still watching.

  Waiting for the chance to make good on all those threats she’d received.

  Parker’s voice emanated from his phone, but it was his outgoing message. Landon’s brow furrowed as he tried to remember if his boss had ever not answered a call. He couldn’t remember.

  He punched in the number again, murmuring, “What the hell’s going on...?”

  The call connected this time, but it wasn’t Parker’s voice he heard. The sound of sirens and a disjointed conversation emanated from his cell now. He only caught bits and pieces of it—only enough to scare the hell out of him.

  “Parker!” he shouted. Had his boss been wounded? Why the hell wasn’t he speaking into the phone?

  Then he heard his voice in that disjointed conversation, just a word here and there as Parker conversed with a few other people.

  And finally that conversation must have ended, for, at last, he spoke directly into his cell. “Have you heard from him?”

  “Who?” Landon asked.

  “Clint,” Parker replied.

  And Landon knew—all those sirens and the urgency of that conversation...

  “He’s been hurt,” he said.

  “Shot—we think,” Parker replied. “There was an ambush at the safe house.”

  “Did—did they get the witness?” Landon asked.

  “We don’t know,” Parker replied. “Clint got her away from the scene, but we don’t know if she’d been hit, too.”

  Landon groaned. “It’s my fault,” he murmured. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought her there.”

  “What?” Jocelyn asked. She stood in front of him in the open doorway of her home office. “What’s going on?”

  He ignored her, as anger gripped him. It had to have been her. She had to be working with Luther.

  “Let me know when you hear from him,” Landon told his boss.

  “The same,” Parker replied.

  But Landon doubted Clint would call him for help. After the ambush, there was no way he would trust Landon again, not as long as he had Jocelyn with him.

  He clicked off his cell and slid it back into his pocket with a slightly shaking hand.

  Jocelyn stepped closer and gripped his arm. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  He looked at her then, and anger coursed through him. But he was angrier with himself than he was with her. How had he kissed her? How had he been attracted to a woman like her?

  “You tell me,” he said as he pushed past her into the office. He glanced around even though he’d already searched in here for the answers he sought. “When did you tip Luther off to where Rosie Mendez was?”

  She gasped. “Wh-what happened to her? Is she dead?”

  Landon shrugged.

  And she tugged on his arm, as if she was trying to shake him or maybe pull him out of her room. “Tell me!”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Clint got her away from the ambush. But he was shot—” His voice cracked with emotion. Where the hell was his friend? Was he okay?

  “Call him,” Jocelyn urged him.

  Like Clint would answer his call.

  After what had happened, Clint was probably struggling to trust anyone right now. Especially him.

  “Why?” Landon asked. “You need to find out where he is now, so you can update Luther?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, her brow furrowing. “I have not and would never tell Luther where Rosie Mendez is.”

  Landon snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  She bristled, her willowy body tense with that self-righteous indignation.

  But Landon didn’t think she had any right to it. Any right to anything but a long prison sentence along with her real boss: Luther Mills.

  “What are you accusing me of?” she asked.

  “We all suspected it for a while,” he said. “Nobody could be as bad a lawyer as you seemed to be.”

  She gasped again. “How dare you—”

  “How dare you,” he interrupted. “How dare you destroy that evidence and let a guilty man go free to threaten and kill innocent people.”

  “What are you talking about? I never destroyed any evidence.”

  “Then how the hell did you fail to get indictments?” he asked. “My unit worked damn hard to get Luther Mills off the streets. We built cases for you. Gave you what you needed—”

  “Bullshit.” She interrupted him now. “I didn’t get enough for indictments because of sloppy police work. It had nothing to do with my abilities as a lawyer.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “You would never take any responsibility for what you’ve done.” She’d always been quick to blame the cops instead of herself.

  Something like a growl emanated from her throat. “I haven’t done anything but my job,” she insisted.

  He snorted again.

  “What the hell do you think I’ve done?”

  “I think you are the leak within the district attorney’s office,” he admitted. “I think you’re the one working for Luther, that you’ve been working for him for years.”

  She pulled her arm back and began to swing her hand toward his face. He was ready for her—ready to catch her wrist and stop her from hitting him.

  But she stopped herself. Then she stumbled back a step against her desk and began to laugh. Maybe it was a relief for her for the truth to finally come out.

  Jocelyn felt tears streak from her eyes as her stomach ached from laughter. How the hell could anyone accuse her of working for Luther Mills?

  At first she’d been insulted, so insulted that she’d been tempted to lash out. But then it had struck her how hilarious the ridiculous accusation was. So hilarious that she could barely stop laughing.

  But she forced herself to draw in deep breaths and calm herself. “You’re insane,” she told him.

  Landon arched his light brown brows. “I’m insane?”

  His inference sobered her up, and she drew in one more deep breath before replying, “Yes, you are, if you actually believe I could be working for Luther Mills.”

  “I’m not the only one who thinks you are,” Landon told her.

  And now her stomach ached with nausea. Was it possible? Could other people believe she’d work for a killer? That she would help an animal like Luther Mills evade justice?

  She shook her head. “Anyone who thinks that is insane,” she said. Or complicit.

  Was casting doubt on her a way to remove it from himself?

  “Explain to me how you failed to get all those indictments?” he asked.

  “I’ve told you before,” she said. “Sloppy police work. I never received the evidence that the arresting officer claimed we had.”

  Landon narrowed his dark eyes and stared at her with suspicion. “That’s a lie. You lost it.”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “I’m very careful to never lose the chain of custody with evidence. I double-and triple-check.”

  “So it just disappeared?”

  “Or it was never collected in the first place,” she said. She’d always thought that was the case, but now she was beginning to wonder...about a lot of things.

  “You’re blaming the police,” he said. “Why the hell would we claim we had evidence that we didn’t? We wanted to
take Luther off the streets even more than you do.”

  She snorted now. “I doubt that.”

  “What? You have a personal beef with him?” he asked. But again he sounded doubtful, like he thought her path would have only crossed with Luther because she was working for him.

  “I have a personal beef with all criminals,” she said. “I want to take them all off the streets.”

  “That’s why you try to take all the cases at work?” he asked. “For justice?” He sounded skeptical again.

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Not for your career?” he asked.

  Mike Forbes had gotten to him. “Despite what my coworkers think, I am not after my boss’s job.”

  “Just justice,” he murmured again. Then he opened his arms, gesturing at the room. “How the hell do you afford this place?” He pointed toward the office walls. “The artwork? Your vehicle? Hell, that alarm system even.”

  “I didn’t buy it,” she admitted.

  “No,” he said. “Luther did.”

  She lifted her arm again, but before she could even begin to swing her hand at his infuriatingly handsome face, he caught her wrist and jerked her up against his body. “Let me go!” she said through gritted teeth, and she tried to pull free of his grasp.

  But his arms tightened around her. “So you can hit me? Or go get your Taser?” He shook his head. “Not going to happen. I’m not letting you go until you tell me the truth.”

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” she agreed. She would tell him everything—things she hadn’t talked about in years. But only on one condition. “If you tell me the truth.”

  He didn’t release her, but he drew back slightly and stared down at her, his brow furrowed. “About what?”

  “About who within the vice unit was working with Luther,” she replied.

  He laughed now—not uproariously like she had, just a gruff chuckle. “You really are insane.”

  “Think about it,” she urged him. “That evidence you and your coworkers supposedly collected never made it to the DA’s office. It was gone before it got to us. Where did it go?”

  He tensed now, and his brow furrowed. Then he shook his head. “No...no way in hell was anyone I worked with working with Luther. We all wanted to nail him. We all still want to nail him.”

  Even Parker. That was why he’d accepted the assignment from his stepfather, the chief. He wanted to make sure Luther was finally brought to justice.

  She arched a brow now with skepticism. “Really?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then why did you quit?” she asked. “Why did you give up?”

  He flinched as if she had struck him. “I tried,” he said. “For years...but with no results, with no accountability for what he’d done. He kept getting away with it—no matter what evidence we found against him.”

  She pursed her lips now. “Evidence you claim you found.”

  “We did,” he said. “I had it. A gun. A recording...” He shuddered as if abhorred by whatever had been on that tape. “But they disappeared.”

  She felt a twinge now. So they had been working toward the same goal all those years. And someone else had been undermining them.

  “You know I’m not the one who told Luther about the safe house,” she said.

  “I do?”

  “You were with me all day,” she said. “How would I have talked to anyone without you knowing about it?”

  He stared down at her, but he didn’t look quite as suspicious anymore.

  “You can check my phone,” she told him. “You can see every contact I’ve had. None were with Luther or any of his crew.”

  He released a shaky sigh. “So Luther just knew, the way he knows stuff...”

  “Through his sources,” she said.

  “Within the police department and your office,” he said.

  She snorted. “I still don’t believe anyone within my department would work with him.”

  “You have a lot higher of an opinion of your coworkers than they seem to have of you,” he said.

  She flinched now. She told herself repeatedly that it didn’t matter. She wasn’t looking to make friends at work; she was looking for justice. And to ensure that justice was served, she sometimes had to step on some toes.

  “You think highly of the people you work with,” she pointed out.

  “I’m not claiming Luther doesn’t have a leak within the police department,” he said. “I fully believe that he does. In fact, it makes a lot of sense.”

  About how that evidence had disappeared. Anyone could have gained access to the evidence locker and destroyed it. So maybe it wasn’t someone who he’d personally worked with in the vice unit. But it made more sense that it was.

  “I’m talking about the people you work with now,” she said, “at the Payne Protection Agency.”

  He tensed again. “What?”

  “They all know where that safe house is,” she pointed out. “One of them must have told Luther where the witness was.”

  He gasped—like she had. While his mouth was open, he didn’t spew any denials. He didn’t argue with her. He just looked, once again, like she’d slapped him. Then, finally, he shook his head again. “No.”

  “You’d rather believe I did it?” she asked. Maybe he thought she’d sneaked in a call while she’d used the ladies’ room. It was the only time she’d been out of his sight that day.

  He nodded. “Yes, I would. It makes more sense.” He glanced around her office.

  And her face heated with embarrassment. She’d promised him the truth. “I didn’t buy this house, and neither did Luther Mills,” she said before he could hurl that accusation again. “My parents bought it and the artwork and the security system. They’re paranoid about my not being safe enough.”

  “Having seen those threats, I understand why,” Landon interjected.

  “They have not seen those threats,” she said. She couldn’t imagine how scared they’d be if they had. “They’re paranoid about safety because my grandparents were murdered.”

  He sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “It happened years ago,” she told him.

  “I’m still sorry,” he said. “That kind of pain doesn’t lessen.”

  “Sounds like you speak from experience,” she mused.

  He nodded. “My parents are gone. My grandparents, too. None of them were murdered, though. Just health issues. Cancer. Heart attacks. I must not have good genes.”

  He looked healthy to her. He looked strong and vital. He felt that way, too, as he continued to hold her. His hand around her wrist, his other arm around her back.

  “How were your grandparents murdered?” he asked.

  She closed her eyes as she remembered what she’d seen—all the blood. “They were killed during the course of a home invasion robbery. Tortured...” She shuddered, and now his arms tightened around her. He pulled her close to his chest. “The thieves must not have believed they didn’t have much money or jewelry in the house. As rich as they were, they were smart, too. They kept their valuables in safety-deposit boxes in banks.”

  “Were you there?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. But I found them.”

  “Oh, my God. How old were you?”

  “Sixteen,” she said. “I just got my license and drove my new car over to show them. They’d bought it for me.” She shuddered again. “The door was open. I shouldn’t have gone in.”

  Because she’d never gotten those images out of her head. He hugged her closer, and his hand stroked her hair. “I’m so sorry...”

  Her breath escaped in a shaky sigh. But she pulled back. “It was a long time ago,” she reminded him.

  “But you don’t ever forget something like that,” he said. “I still remember my first crime scene.”
He shuddered. “And I didn’t even know the victims. I couldn’t sleep until we arrested their killers. Were your grandparents’ killers ever arrested?” He wasn’t a cop anymore, but he still thought like one.

  She nodded. “It took a few years for them to be found. And a few more years for the trial. But they were convicted and sentenced. They killed four more people before they were put away, though.”

  More families had been devastated like hers had been. Like Rosie Mendez was by her brother’s murder.

  “That’s why I do what I do,” she said. “I have no need for money or for a job title. My only need is for justice.”

  “I’m sorry,” Landon said again. And she knew he wasn’t offering condolences now, especially when he cupped her face in his palms and tipped it up to his. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “for ever doubting you.”

  “I doubted you, too,” she said.

  His lips curved slightly into a weak grin. “You don’t anymore?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “I don’t have a story like yours. I didn’t go through the kind of tragic loss because of violence like you did.”

  But he’d endured loss all the same. It didn’t matter how his family was gone—just that they were gone. All of them. At least she had her parents still, no matter how crazy their overprotectiveness sometimes drove her.

  “Do you have any siblings?” she asked him, hating the thought of him being all alone.

  He shook his head. “Nope. I’m the only child of only children.”

  She winced, feeling for him. “So you have no family. You’re on your own now.”

  He chuckled. “Not at all. I have family.”

  She gasped as a horrible thought occurred to her. “Are you married?”

  He didn’t wear a wedding band, but then, plenty of married men did not, especially when one of the requirements of their job was to occasionally pose as someone else’s boyfriend.

  Laughter rumbled in his chest, pushing it against her breasts. “Hell, no!”

  Maybe he shared her views on marriage, as an unnecessary distraction.

  “My family is my coworkers,” he said. “They’re my friends.”