by Lisa Childs
Even though Rosie had showered and washed her clothes, she still felt dowdy around her. “Why are you here?” she asked the young lawyer, although she could guess. Clint had called her.
The first thing the woman said was, “You need to stay here.”
Rosie glared at Clint, who didn’t even acknowledge her now. And she knew she’d guessed right.
But the woman wasn’t prosecuting Rosie. She couldn’t sentence her to remain behind bars or reinforced steel doors. And if she tried, she would be a damn hypocrite. Rosie wasn’t afraid to call her one.
“What about you?” she asked the ADA. “Are you staying in a safe house?”
Jocelyn shook her head. “It’s not necessary for me,” she replied. “You’re the only witness. If you die, the case is over. If I die, someone else will just take over the case. So it makes no sense for Mills to kill me.”
“Unless the DA on his payroll takes over the case,” Landon said.
And Jocelyn glared at him as if she hadn’t appreciated his input. Were bodyguards supposed to be seen and not heard?
Wasn’t that the way movie stars and other celebrities treated them?
But Rosie wasn’t any kind of celebrity. She shouldn’t need a bodyguard at all. Having a police officer follow her around had been bad enough. But at least he had just followed her; he hadn’t tried telling her what to do and not do.
“We’re not talking about me,” Jocelyn Gerber said. “We’re talking about the key witness for the prosecution.”
“We’re talking about me,” Rosie said. “I’m a person with a life.”
“A life you’re going to lose if you don’t stay safe,” Jocelyn said. She glanced around the apartment. “And you’re safe here. Far safer than you were staying in your own place where Luther knew where to find you whenever he was ready to get rid of you.”
Rosie snorted. “You need to get to know Luther better if you intend to prosecute him. He can find me anywhere. He has people in the police department and in your office. You don’t think that he already knows where I am? Where you are?”
Jocelyn shivered.
As well as being beautiful, she was smart. But she wasn’t street-smart. She was book-smart. She hadn’t grown up where Rosie had, how Rosie had. Rosie didn’t need to know much about her to know that; the lawyer looked every bit as pampered as the judge’s daughter had.
“She’s right.” Clint came to her defense, surprisingly. “Luther probably has eyes on this place already.”
Clint was street-smart, and not just from the years he’d been a vice cop. Javier had told her that Clint had grown up not far from where they had...and not much differently. But maybe that was just a story he’d told her brother to inspire that hero worship.
The one thing she knew for certain about his past was that he’d spent years pursuing Luther Mills. So he knew the drug lord very well.
Clint turned toward her now. “That’s why you can’t leave, Rosie.”
“No, you can’t,” the prosecutor chimed in.
“So you should stay here, too, Ms. Gerber,” Landon remarked.
She glared at him again. There seemed to be as much animosity between the two of them as there was between Rosie and Clint. Rosie wondered what their history was, because they obviously had one.
“You said that the guards outside haven’t seen anyone watching the place. You said no one followed us,” Jocelyn fired back at Landon. Then her face flushed as she must have realized she’d just contradicted what Clint had said. She turned toward Rosie now. “That doesn’t mean that Officer Quarters—that Clint—isn’t right. You said so yourself that Luther probably already knows where you are.”
Rosie nodded. “So there’s no more reason for me to stay here than there is for you.”
“You have to testify,” Jocelyn said, and only now did she sound frightened. She wasn’t worried about losing her life. She was worried about losing her case.
“I will testify,” Rosie assured her.
“Not if you’re dead,” Jocelyn told her. “If you leave this place where you are safe, you’re risking your life but most of all you’re risking justice for your brother. Do you want his killer to go free?”
Rosie’s stomach churned even though she’d had only a sip of that coffee. She rushed toward the master suite and the bathroom off it—afraid that she was going to be sick. But she already was—sick of being afraid. And sick of being with Clint Quarters.
* * *
“Damn it!” Clint cursed Rosie’s reaction to the ADA’s persistence. Her golden skin had paled, and as she’d run off, she’d looked like she was going to be sick.
“I’m sorry,” Jocelyn Gerber said, but she sounded unapologetic. “She needed to hear it, though.”
“It’s too much,” Clint said.
He could see that Rosie was overwhelmed. Her life had been turned upside down the minute Luther had pulled the trigger and ended her brother’s life.
“Parker told us that you wanted Jocelyn to come here and talk some sense into the witness,” Landon said, surprisingly coming to the defense of the assistant district attorney that no one in the vice unit had respected, least of all Landon.
Clint and Landon had often discussed her, not just at work but at the house they rented together. They hadn’t liked her because she’d lost too many of the cases they’d brought her.
Had that been an accident? Or had it been on purpose?
Maybe Jocelyn was the leak in the district attorney’s office. And Landon had brought her right to Luther’s next victim. But if Jocelyn was really working for him, why would Luther have put out a hit on her as well?
“I wanted ADA Gerber to talk some sense into her,” Clint said, “not manipulate her and make her feel guilty.” He was the only one who deserved to feel guilty—he and Luther Mills. And Luther Mills didn’t have the conscience or the heart to feel anything for anyone but himself.
“It will be her fault if Luther Mills gets away with her brother’s murder,” Jocelyn insisted.
Landon snorted now, and clearly whatever allegiance he’d felt for the person he was protecting was gone. “You’re already setting up someone else to blame if you lose this case, too.”
Her pale skin flushed. “I don’t do that,” she said. “I just want my witness to make it to the stand.” She turned toward Clint now. “And if she doesn’t, then that’s your fault.”
Landon opened his mouth on a curse word, but Clint cut him off. “She’s right. It’s my job to protect Rosie Mendez.”
“Make sure you do your job,” Jocelyn told him as she headed toward the door. “Because with her testimony, I won’t lose.”
“This time,” Landon muttered as he trailed her toward the door. He reached around her and pressed the security code into the panel.
Had she seen that, too?
Because Clint wasn’t entirely certain they should trust this assistant district attorney. Maybe she’d only had Luther mention her name so that she wouldn’t look as if she were getting spared. Maybe that was why she didn’t seem the least bit afraid for her life.
Clint was afraid for Rosie’s. Very afraid.
* * *
Parker hadn’t slept well the night before, even after making love to his gorgeous and generous wife. He suspected that he wouldn’t sleep well until Luther Mills’s trial was over and the scumbag had been sentenced to spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars.
He was too worried right now about the hits Luther had put out and about his team. He had no doubt that Luther would love to take out every one of Parker’s team along with his original targets.
Parker wasn’t worried just about failing the assignment that his stepfather had given him. He was worried about losing his friends.
When his cell rang, he jumped, startled. He was nearly as edgy as he’d been when he’d had a hit o
ut on his life years ago. His hand shaking, he almost knocked the cell phone off his desk as he fumbled to press the accept button.
“This is Parker,” he answered the call.
“Landon,” the caller identified himself.
“Everything all right?”
The hesitation had the short hairs lifting on Parker’s arms. “What?” he asked anxiously. “What is it?”
“I...think we’re being followed,” Landon said, and he sounded distracted as if his attention was elsewhere. Probably on the rearview mirror.
“You have backup,” Parker reminded him. “I’ll have them intervene.”
“I can lose whoever this is tailing us,” Landon assured him.
“Good.” Landon Myers was one of the best cops Parker had ever worked with. He didn’t doubt that he could. “So what’s the problem?”
“I’m not sure where I picked up the tail,” Landon said. “They’re good.”
“So what are you saying?” Parker wondered. “That whoever is following you probably isn’t some of Luther’s flunky drug dealers?”
Landon uttered a ragged sigh. “I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s true.”
“They could be cops,” a female voice murmured.
Jocelyn Gerber would probably prefer to think the only leak was in the police department and not hers. But that wasn’t possible. Unfortunately Luther had compromised both the police and the prosecutor’s office.
“I don’t know who the hell they are,” Landon said, his voice gruff with irritation.
He wasn’t any happier to be protecting Jocelyn Gerber than Rosie Mendez was to have Clint protecting her. Maybe Parker should have switched the bodyguards. But in his gut, he knew he’d assigned them correctly. And his mother had convinced him to always listen to his gut.
Because he’d listened, he knew no one would protect Rosie like Clint would. The former vice cop felt like he owed her because her brother had been his informant when Luther murdered him.
Parker’s head began to pound as he tried to figure out the real reason for Landon’s call, if he wasn’t worried about losing the tail. “If you don’t need backup to intervene, why did you call?”
Landon rattled the phone with another ragged-sounding sigh. “I might not have noticed them earlier.”
“Okay...”
“We just left the safe house,” Landon said. “We just left Clint and the witness.”
Of course. Parker had sent them there—at Clint’s request. He cursed as he finally understood Landon’s concern. He was worried that he might have put the witness and his friend in danger.
“You think you might have led them there?” Parker asked.
“I don’t know if I led them there,” Landon said, “or if they were already there.”
Landon must have had his phone on speaker because Parker could hear Jocelyn Gerber talking. “Rosie and Quarters said that Luther Mills probably already knew where they were.”
And knowing Luther Mills, the drug dealer probably did. He had people everywhere—not just in the police department or district attorney’s office, but everywhere.
They’d protected enough clients at that particular safe house in the warehouse district that Luther could have heard where it was, if he’d heard that the Payne Protection Agency was protecting the people he’d threatened.
So if he knew where Rosie and Clint were, it was only a matter of time before he made a move on the safe house. Then they would all learn just how safe it was.
How much danger were Rosie and Clint in?
Chapter 8
Rosie pressed her trembling hands to her face as she leaned over the side of the bed and drew deep breaths into her aching lungs. She needed to calm down, or she was going to have a full-fledged panic attack. Already her breathing was shallow and too fast; she was nearly panting for air.
Maybe she needed a paper bag to breathe into.
Or a Xanax.
Or hot and sweaty sex with Clint Quarters.
“Are you okay?” a deep voice asked.
She jumped and would have fallen off the bed had strong hands on her shoulders not caught and steadied her. So much for locking the door. Clint Quarters had still managed to get inside the master suite with her.
“No, I’m not okay,” she murmured. She was losing her damn mind. How could she want him so much?
She hated him.
Didn’t she?
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She turned then to where he sat behind her on the bed and studied his face. “For what?”
He sighed. “I guess there are so many things I’m sorry about when it comes to you.”
Kissing her? Was he sorry about that? Because she was sorry that it had happened. But even more sorry that it had stopped.
“What are you sorry about this particular time?” she asked him.
“I didn’t mean for the assistant DA to upset you like she did,” he apologetically replied.
She knew that; she’d heard him through the door. “She wants to win.” And Jocelyn Gerber thought she needed Rosie in order to do that. Was the rest of her case that weak?
“It shouldn’t be about winning or losing,” Clint said.
And Rosie laughed at his naïveté. Maybe he had lied to Javier when he’d told him that he’d grown up like they had.
“What?” he asked.
“Everything’s about winning and losing, isn’t it?” she asked.
“It should be about justice,” he said. “Justice for Javier.”
“You wanted to take down Luther way before he killed my brother,” she reminded him. “You were obsessed with it.”
“For justice,” Clint said. “Luther has hurt a lot more people than your brother.”
There was something in his voice, something that made her want to look at him more closely, but to turn fully toward him she had to swing her legs onto the bed. Now they were sitting side by side, her hip nearly touching his, her thigh nearly touching his as they shared the same bed.
“Who?” Rosie asked. Clearly, Clint was referring to someone specific. Someone he’d known.
He shrugged. “I don’t remember all their names. But Luther Mills definitely has a list of victims a mile long.”
She reached out and clasped his hand. “No. Who did he hurt that you knew?”
Instead of looking at her, he glanced down at their clasped hands. He probably couldn’t believe she would willingly touch him, and this time wasn’t to check a wound. At least not a physical one.
But she suspected he had an emotional one. She’d heard it in his voice, in the gruffness of it. Was it a lover? Had he lost a girlfriend to Luther? To drugs?
“My cousin, Robbie,” he said.
“You were close?” Rosie had had no family but for her mom and her brother. Her maternal family had disowned her mother once she’d become an addict. And Rosie had barely known her father, let alone any of his family.
Clint nodded in reply to her question. “I lived with him when I had to move in with my aunt and uncle.”
“When and why did that happen?” she asked. She shouldn’t have been interested in anything about Clint Quarters. Maybe she was only asking because they were stuck together. Or maybe she was interested, more than she wanted to be.
He sighed, then chuckled. “You’ll probably think it’s funny.”
“What?”
“That my parents were drug dealers.”
“What?” she asked. “You were raised by people like Luther Mills?” And he had become a cop?
He chuckled again. “They were nothing like Luther. Or they wouldn’t have gotten caught so easily. They were hippies—growing their own weed and enough for their friends.”
They hadn’t been drug dealers like Luther Mills then.
“That doesn’t sound that
bad.” Especially now that marijuana had been mostly legalized, at least for medicinal purposes.
“They had a lot of friends,” he said.
A giggle slipped out. And she pressed her fingers to her mouth. “I’m sorry.”
“I said you’d think it was funny.”
“I just can’t imagine you growing up with peace and love and...”
“Homegrown?” He sighed. “I was fourteen when they were arrested, so I went to live with my aunt and uncle.”
Her humor fled as she remembered the pain she’d heard in his voice. “How old was your cousin?”
“Thirteen,” he said. “Just a little younger.”
“So you were close.”
He nodded. “Until I went away to college and he stayed home and started buying from Luther. But then he started to need more than he could afford to buy, so he started working for him, selling at the high school and then the community college he attended, so he could support his own habit.”
He paused for a long moment—so long that Rosie had to prod him. “Then what happened?”
He sighed again, but his breath rattled with it. “He died.”
“Luther killed him?”
“His death was ruled an overdose,” Clint said.
But it was clear that he thought something else had happened. “You have your doubts.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter what really happened,” he said. “Just like you blame me for Javier’s death—”
“This is different!”
“No,” he said. “You’re right to blame me. If Javier hadn’t been informing on Luther for me, he would be alive. I blame me, too.”
She heard it in his voice, the guilt and regret. It should have made her feel vindicated in her hatred of him. But instead she felt a twinge of guilt because her resentment of him had only added to the burden of guilt he’d already put on himself.
He continued, “And if my cousin hadn’t been using and dealing for Luther, he would be alive. So I blame Luther.”
