Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  Whoever had put the prescription bottle and phone in her filing cabinet was desperate not to be caught. Maybe that was why the things had been placed in her office, just to get them out of the one in which they had really belonged. Hopefully, even with the label torn off, there was a way to trace the pills—some pharmacy serial number or something.

  She leaned over to peer closer at the bottle without touching it when she felt a sudden presence. Before she could straighten up and turn around, something slipped over her head and wound tightly around her throat.

  She gasped for breath as she clawed at it, trying to scream for help.

  No. She shouldn’t have gone off without her bodyguards because now there was no one to save her from her attacker.

  CHAPTER 17

  Landon had been torn between heading to Jocelyn’s house or to her office. He’d chosen the building for the district attorney because he figured she had left the hospital determined to find out who in her office was working for Luther Mills.

  He’d had to wait for a security guard to let him into the building, though. The guard confirmed that her key card had opened the doors just a short time ago. So he wasn’t far behind her.

  But even a few minutes was too long for her to be alone—with someone very determined to kill her. Her attacker would take any opportunity she gave him, and by going off alone, she’d given him a big one.

  Landon rushed over to the elevator and stabbed the button for her floor. If he was feeling stronger, he would have used the stairs. But it would take too long for him to make it up the five flights.

  Finally the elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. He jumped into the car and pressed the button for five. And he willed it to hurry as a sudden urgency gripped him. She would have been safer had she gone home to her cat and her high-tech security system.

  Here the distracted security guard was her only protection. And there was no way he could hear her screaming from the lobby. The elevator lurched to a stop, the movement adding to the dizziness Landon was already fighting from all his blood loss. He pressed his fingers to his head and tried to clear it.

  Maybe he should have waited for Keeli and Dubridge. But he’d rushed off without them as backup—without any backup. He regretted that now as he worried that he might not be strong enough to save Jocelyn if she needed saving.

  And he was afraid that she did the moment he looked through the window in her office door and noticed two dark shadows. One leaned over the other. He shoved open the door and rushed into the room.

  The taller shadow charged him, knocking Landon over as he ran into the hallway. The other shadow dropped to the floor. The lamp on Jocelyn’s desk cast a glow onto her pale face. She lay across the open bottom drawer of her filing cabinet. Her skin was so ashen but for the angry red mark across her throat.

  Whoever had been inside the office with her had been strangling her.

  “Jocelyn!” Landon shouted her name.

  But her long black lashes lay against her cheeks. Her lids didn’t so much as flicker. She had to be unconscious.

  He refused to consider the alternative. That he’d been too late.

  That he’d lost her.

  “Jocelyn...” He murmured her name as he crouched over her. Then, with shaking fingers, he reached out and checked her damaged throat for a pulse. Panic pressed on him when he felt nothing but the coolness of her silky skin.

  His chest ached, and his lungs burned. “Jocelyn!”

  He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, breathing through her lips as he began compressions. He was trained in CPR and regularly recertified, and he was never more grateful than now for that training.

  He couldn’t lose her.

  She had to come back to him.

  * * *

  Jocelyn choked and sputtered, her throat and lungs burning as she struggled to breathe. She reached up to tear that rope or whatever it had been away from her neck—but it was gone. Her hand bumped against a shoulder, though, and she opened her eyes to see a dark shadow leaning over her. She tried to scream, but she could make no sound but a rasp.

  “Shhh...” a deep voice murmured, his voice sounding nearly as raspy as hers. “You’re safe. It’s me. It’s me.”

  Landon! She sat up and threw her arms around him, clinging to him. She’d known she shouldn’t have left the hospital without checking on him. But she hadn’t wanted to put him in danger, too. She grasped his arms and pulled back. “We...” Her voice cracked, and she struggled to clear it. “We need to get out of here.”

  “He’s gone,” Landon said. “Whoever it was took off when I came in.” He reached for the phone on her desk. “I need to call down to Security—see if they saw him leaving.”

  “Did...did you see who it was?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “He ran out fast—so fast that he has to be long gone. I couldn’t get a good look at him, but he was big enough to knock me over.”

  She saw the blood seeping through the bandage on his neck and touched it. “Did he reopen your wound?”

  Using his free hand, he covered her fingers with his. “No. I’m fine. We need an ambulance, though. We need to get you to the hospital.”

  She grabbed the phone from his hand. “No. I’m fine.”

  “You weren’t breathing when I found you,” he said, and his voice was raspy again with emotion. “You need to be treated.”

  “I’m breathing fine now.” And while her throat hurt, she could speak even though it sounded hoarse. “I’m fine.”

  “You could have died,” he said. “You shouldn’t have left the ER without protection.”

  She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have left without checking on you.” He’d saved her life over and over again, putting himself in danger every time. And she hadn’t even seen him after he’d been shot.

  “Why did you?” he asked, and his eyes darkened with pain.

  A twinge of regret struck her heart. She felt bad about hurting him. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Or you didn’t care...”

  She gripped his arms again. “No. I do care.” And maybe that was why she hadn’t wanted to see him—because when he’d been shot, she’d cared too much. Seeing that blood—his blood—spurt from the wound in his neck had nearly paralyzed her, she’d been so afraid. For him...

  If he hadn’t shoved her to the ground, she would have been shot, too. He’d saved her then, even when he’d nearly been mortally wounded. And not fully recovered from that wound, he’d saved her again.

  She slid her hands up his arms to his shoulders. “I care.”

  He chuckled. “But you don’t want to.”

  “No,” she agreed. “I don’t.”

  “Because you don’t trust me,” he said. “Even now...”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “I—I...”

  “You’re keeping something from me,” he said. “Something you told the chief in private.”

  Dubridge must have told him that or maybe Keeli had. Because if he’d talked to the chief, he would probably know what she’d told him. She doubted Chief Lynch was going to keep it secret, so it was going to come out soon anyway.

  She opened her eyes and studied Landon’s face, needing to see his reaction when she told him.

  “Luther Mills has a brother,” she said.

  He shrugged. “He probably has a few half siblings. His parents were never married.”

  “He has one who works for the Payne Protection Agency, and before that, he worked for the vice unit.”

  Landon’s brow furrowed with confusion. “What are you saying? That one of my friends is Luther’s brother?”

  “Tyce Jackson.”

  He laughed, but then the laughter stopped, and the grin slid away from his face as he must have realized it was a strong possibility. “It doesn’t matter if they are.”

/>   “Of course it does,” she said.

  He shook his head and flinched as his neck moved. “No. Tyce was even more determined to bring down Luther than the rest of us in vice ever were—even Clint. And Clint blames Luther for the death of his cousin.”

  She sighed. So Clint Quarters had had a personal reason for wanting justice—an even more personal reason than hers.

  Landon continued, “If Tyce and Luther are related, it’s by blood only. They weren’t raised together, and they are nothing alike.”

  Even while she admired his fierce loyalty, she wondered if he was just fooling himself. “Isn’t the saying that blood is thicker than water?” Then she grimaced as she remembered how the bullet had sprayed Landon’s blood around the parking garage. It had seemed like water then.

  How was he alive?

  How had he saved her life once again?

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “You should have told me sooner,” he said. “Before you told the chief.”

  “And that’s why I didn’t tell you,” she said. “Because I knew you’d try to protect him.” Like his fierce loyalty, being protective was second nature to Landon. He had made the right choice to leave the River City Police Department to become a bodyguard.

  She only hoped that his new career choice didn’t get him killed—that protecting her didn’t get him killed.

  “I’m not protecting him,” he said. “I’m defending him. As a lawyer, you should realize the difference. And you should know that everybody’s innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Everybody?” she asked. “Even Luther Mills?”

  “Luther’s never been innocent,” he said. “If the rumors are true, he was just a kid when he killed for the first time.”

  “I heard that rumor, too,” she said. “I heard the person he killed was his father. Maybe Tyce Jackson’s father, too.”

  “So if anything, Tyce might want revenge against Luther,” Landon said, “not to aid and abet him.”

  She sighed. “Maybe you should have been a lawyer. You’re mounting a strong defense for your friend.”

  “Tyce is my friend,” he said. “But he’s my friend because he’s a good man. I know he’s not working for Luther. Not when he worked vice and not now. He’s working against him. Just like you are. Just like I am. That’s why we need to find who the hell’s working for him in your office. We need to find out who the hell just tried to kill you.”

  She wasn’t about to argue with him about that. “You’re right,” she said. “Let’s talk to the security guard.”

  Landon helped her up from the floor. Maybe she’d stood too quickly, for she swayed on her heels and nearly fell. But he caught her, sliding his arms around her to pull her close to his chest.

  His heart pounded so hard that she could feel its frantic beat. “Are you all right?” she asked him.

  He shook his head.

  “You left the hospital too soon.” Because of her.

  Because he’d been worried about her.

  “We need to go back,” she said. He’d just had surgery to repair the gunshot wound. She doubted doctors had released him yet.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “We need to go back for you to be treated.”

  And of course he would be more worried about her than he was about himself. Just as he supported his friend who’d obviously lied to him. And just as he protected her—with no concern for his own life or health.

  She felt that panic again that she’d felt when he’d gotten struck in the garage. That feeling that she was falling...but it wasn’t over a half wall to the pavement below. She was in far more than physical danger.

  She was in danger of falling in love with her bodyguard.

  * * *

  He was shaking. He couldn’t stop shaking. He’d come so close to getting caught.

  How the hell was that damn bodyguard even alive?

  He’d seen the blood spurting out of him. He should have died. But like some avenging angel, he’d rushed to her rescue. He hoped Myers had been too late, though—too late to save her.

  She’d stopped fighting him. She’d stopped breathing. She had to have died.

  But if Landon Myers had come back from the dead, she might have, as well. So he waited on the street outside the building—deep in the shadows where hopefully no one would see him. He tilted his head, listening for the sound of an ambulance or a police car.

  If the bodyguard had been real and not a ghost, wouldn’t he have called for help by now? Wouldn’t he have tried to save her? And even if he hadn’t, the police should have been called...

  What the hell was going on?

  Then, after several long minutes of waiting, he saw them—standing in the lobby. Both of them. They were alive.

  Why the hell couldn’t he kill these people no matter how damn many times he’d tried?

  He reached for his gun—desperate enough to risk shooting at them again. They might have seen him—might have recognized him. He had to kill them.

  But before he could pull out the gun, his phone began to vibrate. Not his real phone but the disposal cell that only one person used to contact him.

  Luther Mills.

  Damn it. He couldn’t talk now. He could barely think for the fear coursing through him. What if they’d seen him?

  He’d pulled that hood up around his face again. He wore gloves. They shouldn’t have...

  But it wasn’t a chance he was willing to take. Neither was missing Luther’s call, though.

  He stepped deeper in the shadows, into an alley between two buildings across the street from the district attorney’s offices. “Yes?” he asked in a low whisper.

  “It’s time,” Luther told him.

  He’d already been trying, but he didn’t want to admit that to Luther—not after the man had told him to back off from Jocelyn Gerber. Did every man she meet fall for the black-haired bitch?

  He shook his head. “So you want me to do it now?” He reached for his gun again. Maybe he’d give Luther the satisfaction of hearing the shots ring out...

  “Not that,” Luther said. “We have bigger concerns.”

  His stomach lurched with dread. Someone must have figured it out.

  Luther continued, “A couple of things have gone missing, but not the way I wanted them to. I’m pretty damn certain that they’re going to turn up at the worst possible time.”

  Like his trial.

  He knew that the eyewitness had already disappeared to some safe house nobody had been able to find. But now Luther was making it sound like the evidence tech had disappeared, as well. With the evidence?

  “So we need that little insurance policy we talked about,” Luther said.

  “What does that have to do with me?” he asked.

  “I need someone I can count on to carry this out,” Luther said.

  He didn’t feel any pride that Luther thought he could count on him. In fact, he just felt sicker, like the walls were closing in on him. Or maybe the bars.

  He did not want to wind up in a cell next to Luther Mills. But if he didn’t help him, Luther had enough on him to make damn sure he went down with the drug dealer.

  He sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Pick up that little insurance policy for me,” Luther said. “Make sure it’s known we have it.”

  Even though Luther couldn’t see it—or maybe because he couldn’t—he shook his head. “That’s too risky.”

  “It’s necessary,” Luther said. “Our insurance policy will be of no use if nobody knows we have it.”

  But Luther wouldn’t have it. He would. It was his freedom he was risking now. Luther had already lost his.

  But he was willing to pay dearly to get it back. And he needed money. Badly.

  Especially now. The longer
Jocelyn Gerber lived, the closer she would get to discovering that he was the one helping Luther. Then he would need that money to escape before he was the one she was prosecuting next.

  “Okay...” He murmured his agreement.

  And Luther chuckled. “As if you had a choice.”

  He had one—but it involved giving up his freedom. Jocelyn Gerber didn’t offer immunity in exchange for evidence. That was why she couldn’t get any of Luther’s crew to turn against him.

  No. The only way he would get immunity was to kill her and get away before anyone figured out what he’d done.

  CHAPTER 18

  Landon swiped the key card through the hotel room door and pushed it open. He pressed his back against it to hold it until Jocelyn walked past him. Then he closed and locked it.

  “We’re safe here,” he assured her as he flipped on the lights. “I made sure nobody followed us. Not even the backup...”

  They hadn’t caught up with him, though. He suspected they’d gone to her house instead to look for her there. Or maybe they were busy protecting the judge’s daughter since Tyce had probably been removed from that assignment.

  He didn’t give a damn who the hell his friend was related to; he knew Tyce Jackson was a good man, one who could be trusted with anyone’s life. But Jocelyn didn’t trust Tyce or anyone else at the Payne Protection Agency right now but him. That was why he’d agreed to her request that nobody know where they were.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, her voice still raspy.

  The line around her neck was still a deep red and even more swollen than when he’d found her not breathing. He shook his head. “Don’t thank me,” he said. “I should have brought you to the hospital instead of a hotel.”

  Her lips curved into a smile. “You’re the one they would have kept. I’m sure you left against doctor’s orders.”

  He hadn’t even bothered to wait to receive doctor’s orders, much less follow them. “I’m fine,” he insisted.