Shielding You (Baytown Boys Book 13)

by Maryann Jordan

  “So, after Percy gets fed, are you heading back out, or are you done for your shift?”

  “I’m going back to the station. I need to get my report written, and then I want to go over to the jail once I talk to Hunter again.”

  His voice softened, and he asked, “Tonight’s your place, right?”

  As she stood at her sink and looked out the window, she thought about her answer and smiled. She was comfortable with where they were as a couple… seeing each other as often as they could, intertwining their lives, and spending the night in whichever house happened to be the most convenient. But she would be a liar if she said she hadn’t thought of what would happen in the future. Turning her head, she glanced around at the colorful interior of her bungalow. She loved every inch of it, having created her own oasis. But it was only a place, one that she could replicate anywhere. It was a great space for a single woman, but not large enough to be a home for a family. One day, she knew she would need to put it on the market to sell or keep it to rent, hoping to call Dylan’s home her own.

  Not about to give voice to those thoughts at the moment, she simply said, “Yeah, tonight can be here. I’ll go for a short, easy run first and will be back before you get here. If neither of us has to work early tomorrow, we can enjoy the sunrise on my back patio.”

  “I can’t argue with the way you think, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ll start checking around to see if your guy came through Seaside. We’ll talk later.”

  Disconnecting, her feet stayed rooted to the floor as she continued to smile, her heart full. Feeling something swish against her legs, she looked down and saw that Percy had finished his meal and was purring loudly.

  “Forgive me now?” Bending, she rubbed his head before jogging back out to her vehicle to return to the police station.

  21

  Dylan walked along the harbor boardwalk as several of the fishing boats were returning to dock at the end of their day. Scanning the area, he noted Todd had moved toward David’s boat, grabbing the lines and helping tie it to the pier. He hadn’t asked David about Todd in a while, assuming no news was good news. And if what he was observing was anything to go by, it was definitely good news with the teenager.

  He stopped by several of the fishing boats, showed the mug shot, and asked if any of them had seen the man within the last several weeks at the harbor. He received negative replies from all, although most admitted they didn’t often pay attention to the faces around them when they were working.

  Heading over to David’s boat, he greeted Todd and asked, “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good, Chief Hunt.”

  He stepped back and allowed David’s crew to unload the day’s catch before moving over to his brother. “Take a look at this and tell me if you’ve seen this man around here recently.”

  David looked at the photograph of Terrence and shook his head. “I’ve been trying to pay more attention to the boats in the harbor and around here, Dylan, but I’m usually so focused on what’s going on when I’m getting ready to go out and when I come back in, I admit it’s hard.”

  Nodding, he understood how much David’s attention needed to be focused on the boat when he was coming and going from the harbor. “I know, bro, and it’s all good—”

  “I think I’ve seen him.”

  Swinging his head to the side, he stared at Todd who was leaning over, looking at the photograph in Dylan’s hand. “You’ve seen this man? Around here?”

  Todd leaned closer and his nose scrunched as he stared. When he lifted his head, his eyes darted between Dylan and David before dropping back to the picture. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him.”

  “Do you remember when?”

  A nervous expression crossed his face as he pressed his lips together. “I want to help, Chief, but I don’t want to fuck anything up.”

  “You’re not going to, Todd. If you tell me when you think you saw him and it doesn’t check out, then it doesn’t check out. But if it does, then we have a lead.”

  “It was sometime last week. I don’t remember what day, but I remember what caught my attention. He had on a dark sweatshirt hoodie and it was a warm day. I just remembered thinking that he was probably hot with all those clothes on.”

  “That’s good, Todd. Now, did you notice anything else about him?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I always get here right after school and usually have to wait a little while before the boat comes in. Sometimes I sit over next to Mr. Owens’ office and get some of my homework done. People are always coming and going, and when I’m doing my homework, I tend to just block them out. So, it’s probably just dumb luck that I happened to look up. Honest to God, that’s all I thought and then I went back to my homework.”

  “You’re doing good. Let me see if I can spark any memories for you. Was he on a boat, with a boat, getting off of a boat, talking to anyone on a boat? Was he by himself or with someone else? Was he carrying anything? Which direction was he walking?”

  Seeming to warm to the task, Todd began to nod. “He was by himself and wasn’t over where the boats were. He was walking past the gas pumps toward the parking area,” he said, waving his arm to indicate the direction. I didn’t see anything in his hands, but with the big hoodie on, I guess there could have been something.”

  Dylan felt a surge of excitement and shook Todd’s hand, clapping him on the shoulder at the same time. “This was helpful, Todd. Thank you.”

  Todd offered an embarrassed grin, then moved back over to the ice chests of fish with David’s crew. Offering his brother a wave, Dylan jogged back to his SUV, eager to start looking at the security feed. Since every day last week had been unseasonably warm, he would need to start with Monday. But knowing that the timeframe was after David got out of school but before the boats came in narrowed the field tremendously.

  On his way back to the station, he radioed Barbara to call a staff meeting of anyone available. As soon as he arrived, he was grateful to see that everyone was there. Carl was just getting off duty but easily agreed to stay for a meeting. Lynette, Joe, and Tom filled in around the table.

  Going over the arrest that Hannah had made in Easton, Dylan explained what Todd had witnessed at the harbor. “I’ve been looking at the security feeds sporadically but now can specifically go over last week during the afternoons. I confess that having the cameras was a good idea, but no one can man them twenty-four hours a day. Hell, with our duties, we can barely handle watching them with any regularity at all.”

  “Can we divide the workload?” Lynette asked. “If each one of us took an hour a day, that would be five hours of scanning.”

  He scrubbed his hand over his face and shook his head. “I have to think about the allocation of our time. I can’t justify each of us spending an entire hour a day to comb through video feeds when there might be nothing to find.”

  “And, of course, there’s no extra money in this town to hire this job out to anyone,” Joe groused.

  The others chuckled, nodding their heads. “Hell, there’s no money for any of this,” Tom added, waving his hand toward Dylan’s laptop. “We’ve got the technology right in front of us and can’t use it all.”

  “I mostly wanted you to know that I did get some information from Todd and will scan through last week to see if I can find this guy that the Easton police arrested. If I can, then we have a link to someone bringing in drugs through the Seaside Harbor. With that information, I can take it to the Mayor and Town Council to see if we can get more resources.”

  “And it might identify if he came in by himself or with someone else,” Joe added.

  Absolutely,” Dylan agreed. “We’ve always had the harbor on our drive-bys each day and night, but we’re going to increase that. I want an actual walk through the harbor every day and every evening. Mix it up… different times. Make sure you talk to the fishermen, get them used to looking out for what they might see that’s unusual.” Dismissing his group, he went back to his office and pulled up the
security feeds on his laptop.

  For the next hour, he managed to scan the first three days of the previous week from the time that Todd said he got to the harbor until the fishing boats came in. Other than his time in the military and police academy, he’d spent part of every day of his life in Seaside near the harbor. He knew it was a bustling, high-traffic area. But until he sat poring through the video feeds, he had no idea just how much was going on and how many people moved through there daily. Leaning back in his chair, he cracked his neck and glanced at the time. Closing down his computer, he called out his goodbyes and headed home.

  That evening after dinner, he and Hannah sat side-by-side on the sofa, their eyes glued to her widescreen TV where he’d connected the security feed from his laptop. It certainly made it easier for his eyes to scan on the large screen and also made it easier for someone else to watch at the same time. Percy curled up on one side of the sofa, content to sleep while they worked.

  He glanced to the side at her profile, her bright eyes focused directly on the TV. A grin slipped across his face at the realization that he knew no other woman who’d want to spend an evening together studying his security feed. But, like with everything else, he and Hannah were perfect together.

  Hitting pause, he watched as her head swung around, a crease knitting her brow. “I need a break for my eyes,” he said. He lifted his hand to cup the back of her head, drawing her forward. He meant for the kiss to be light, a touch, a simple connection. But she melted against him, and he tossed the remote to the coffee table and fell backward onto the sofa, pulling her down with him. Percy yowled his discontent for being woken and jumped down, his tail twitching, ignored by the humans. For several minutes, they made out like two teenagers before finally coming up for air.

  “Wow,” she breathed. “I like working with you!”

  He barked out a laugh, and they sat up together. “Yeah, I needed that break.” Clicking the video feedback on, they continued to watch.

  Suddenly she startled, sitting up straight. “Which day is this? Last Thursday?”

  “Yeah.” Leaning forward to see what she was staring at, he recognized one of her officers. “Is that Bobby?”

  “Yeah. Let’s see, last Thursday was his day off, so that would make sense that he’d be out of uniform doing whatever he needed to do.”

  “Has he ever mentioned going out on a boat? Or doing some fishing?”

  “It’s not something that ever came up, but it’s certainly not unusual for people in this area.”

  They continued to watch as Bobby moved up and down several of the piers, a ball cap settled low on his head. He occasionally looked around, but mostly he appeared to peer out into the harbor. Finally, after almost thirty minutes, he turned and headed out of view of the camera in the direction of the parking lot.

  “That was weird,” Hannah said, her voice quiet. “It would be ludicrous to try to make it more than it was or figure out what he was doing, but I confess, that was just weird.”

  They continued watching the screen until they both jumped at the same time. “Look, that’s him!” Hannah called out. The camera picked up the view of Terrence walking down one of the piers, but unfortunately, the angle kept them from seeing which boat he may have made contact with. Several minutes later, they watched him walking along the main boardwalk just as Todd had indicated. Turning toward Dylan, her eyes were bright. “Finally, our first physical evidence of a connection between the drugs and the harbor at Seaside.”

  As excited as her voice was, Dylan continued watching, his brow lowering. “What the fuck is he doing?”

  After Terrence had passed by the camera, Todd walked down the same pier in the direction where Terrence had come from. Again, unable to see beyond one of the large boats that were in their line of sight, they had no idea who Todd may have talked to or what he was doing. “Fuck, he didn’t mention doing anything other than his homework while waiting for David’s boat to get in.”

  “That could just be a coincidence.”

  Shooting her a hard stare, he said, “And in our line of work, you know as well as I do that coincidences can often have full meanings.”

  They sat silent for a moment, each to their own thoughts. “You want to keep going?” he asked, finally.

  She nodded. “Yeah, let’s go ahead and get this done. Once we get the week looked at, then you’ll know more about what’s going on at the harbor.” Leaning in, she blew her soft breath across his cheek and added, “And then we can focus on us.”

  Throwing his arm around her, he pulled her close, planting a hard, wet kiss on her lips. “With that image front and center in my mind, staring at the TV is going to be almost impossible.”

  He poured another glass of wine for her and grabbed another beer for himself before settling back on the sofa. They continued watching the security feed of the comings and goings of a small albeit busy harbor. They were almost to the end of the previous night when they both startled once again. This time, it was Luke that caught their eye. The county jail’s new medic walked up and down several of the piers after dark the previous evening. In a similar fashion to Terrence and Todd, he disappeared out of sight for several minutes before coming back and heading to the parking lot.

  Clicking the remote off, Dylan cursed in frustration. “I swear pier three is the place everyone is going to, but we can’t fuckin’ see what’s at the end. I never noticed that big-ass boat is in the way.”

  “Maybe we should get another camera. We can mount it in a place that will extend to the end of the piers.”

  Scrubbing his hand over his face, he nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. We’ll put that on our weekend list of things to do.” Turning off the TV, he glanced at her glass of wine. “You almost finished with that?”

  Lips curving, she asked, “What’s it to you, cowboy?”

  “‘Cause as soon as you finish that, I’m taking you to bed.”

  She grabbed her glass, drained it in one large gulp, and plopped it back onto the coffee table. Standing quickly, he scooped her up, exclaiming, “That’s my girl.”

  Her arms wrapped around his neck, and she nuzzled his neck as he stalked toward the bedroom. “Yeah, I am. I’m your girl.”

  22

  Twisting her hair into a sloppy bun, Hannah walked down the hall and into her kitchen. Reaching for the mugs, she flipped the switch on her coffee maker. She and Dylan had slept late, enjoying the fact that they were both on-call for that Saturday, not having to go into their stations. Percy woke them by jumping on the bed, but she didn’t mind because as soon as she fed the cat and went back into the bedroom, she was welcomed by a naked Dylan who was more than happy to introduce her to shower sex… the perfect way to start any weekend.

  Lifting the carafe, she poured two cups of coffee just as he walked into the kitchen. Her eyes did a quick scan, snagging on his naked chest, bare feet, and jeans that hung low on his hips, the top button left undone. Doctoring his coffee, she shoved it toward him, mumbling, “Damn, you look good.”

  He rounded the corner and bent, taking her lips in a kiss. “Just thinking the same thing about you, babe.” He glanced behind her and asked, “Are you sure you want to make breakfast? I don’t mind taking you to The Diner.”

  Shaking her head, she replied, “No. Going to Joe’s means we have to get completely dressed and be around other people, ‘cause his place will be packed on a Saturday morning. Right now, I like the idea of you and me and no expectations from anyone else.”

  He threaded his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head. Pulling her forward, he kissed her soundly again. This time, he mumbled, “Damn, your ideas are good.”

  A knock on the door startled her, unable to imagine who would be coming to visit on a Saturday morning. Glancing at the clock on the oven, she could see it was already ten o’clock, but for a day off, that was still early for visitors, especially since she rarely had any. She walked past Dylan on her way to the front door, noting how he slid in
right next to her. She peeked through the security hole, then muttered under her breath, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Twisting her head around and up, she stared at his eyes, noting his brows cocked in a silent question. “Believe it or not, it’s my parents.”

  For a brief second, she thought about running to her bedroom to change clothes and telling Dylan to put a shirt on. But suddenly, with the idea that her peaceful Saturday morning had just gotten more complicated without warning, she threw open the door and greeted, “Hey, Mom. Dad. Did I miss a call that said y’all were coming to visit?”

  She stepped back and waved her arm, inviting them in. They both smiled their greetings, then their feet stumbled at the sight of a half-naked man standing next to her.

  “Oh!” her mom squeaked. “I’m so sorry! We had no idea you had… um… company.”

  She bit back her snippy comment about how if they’d called first, they would know her plans, instead of focusing on her dad’s eagle-eyed gaze pinned on Dylan. “Well, it’s not how I planned it, but since you’re here, let me introduce you to Dylan. Mom, Dad, this is Dylan Hunt. Dylan, meet my parents, Jacob and Lucy Freeman.”

  Dylan stepped forward with his hand out, offering a firm shake. “Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Freeman. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go put on a shirt.” With a smile, he turned and ambled down the hall.

  Trying to ignore the way his ass looked amazing in his jeans, she turned back to her parents. “I was just getting ready to make breakfast. Let me run to the back and make myself more presentable as well.” She followed Dylan, leaving her parents rather stunned and wide-eyed. Once in her bedroom, she closed the door and looked at him. “I’m so sorry! I had no idea they were coming. God, this is so embarrassing!”

  “Honey, I don’t want to embarrass you or anything. Let me grab my shirt, and I’ll head on out—”