NY State Trooper- The Complete Box Set

by Jen Talty

  “How so?” Stacey asked.

  “Let’s just say Liam has been seen recently with Craypo,” Josh said.

  “What?” Delaney sat upright, her gaze darting between Josh and Tristan.

  “I got this surveillance camera from the downstate office,” Tristan said. “It clearly shows your brother in a nightclub with some of Craypo’s men, and he certainly doesn’t look like he’s being held hostage.”

  “That can’t be true.” Delaney lifted the tablet, shaking her head.

  Josh gritted his teeth, keeping his mouth in a tight line, otherwise he was going to do or say something he’d regret later.

  “Is that your brother?” Stacey asked.

  Delaney nodded.

  Josh leaned over her shoulder, looking down at the video. “I think I know that dude.” He wished he could turn back the clock just a day. It still would have hurt, but maybe not as bad…for either of them.

  “My brother? From where?”

  “I saw him when I was undercover in Craypo’s organization.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Afraid not,” Tristan said.

  She glanced between the tablet and Tristan. “Liam’s not in danger? He’s not being threatened?”

  “Not based on what I’ve gathered so far,” Tristan said. “I’m sorry, but your brother is hanging with some very bad people.”

  “You have to be wrong,” she said with wide eyes. “Maybe he’s being forced to be there… Why would they use me like this?” She continued to stare at Josh as if she searched his face for answers.

  “That’s a good question,” Stacey asked. “What’s your relationship with your brother like?”

  “It’s not great, but I can’t just write him off. He’s all I have,” Delaney said. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’m afraid it gets worse,” Tristan said. “Liam visited Craypo in jail.”

  Delaney shook her head harder. “Are you telling me my brother used me? That he did this to me?” She touched her cheek, wincing.

  “I’m not saying he sent you here, but he didn’t stop it, either,” Tristan said.

  “Oh, my God.” Delaney tried to stand, but the moment her butt left the sofa, she fell over backward. “I thought everything I was doing was to protect… I wouldn’t have done… I wouldn’t have come here and…” She covered her mouth, dropping the tablet to the ground as she ran from the room, slamming the bathroom door closed.

  Josh heard her gagging and coughing as he picked up the tablet, sitting in the seat she’d occupied just a few seconds ago, looking at the images on the screen.

  “Want me to talk to her?” Stacey asked.

  “Might be best if you all leave now. Let me talk to her alone.”

  “I’ve got to file a report,” Stacey said. “Not going to be able to keep what happened under the rug.”

  “I know,” Josh said. “Do it right. That way, when we do catch Craypo and his dipshits, it will be airtight.”

  “What are you going to do?” Stacey asked. “Craypo is going to come after both of you.”

  “I’m painfully aware.” Josh rose, making his way toward the bathroom. “I need a couple of hours to think.” He also needed to figure out what he was going to do about Delaney.

  And how to keep her safe.

  “Don’t do anything until you’ve talked it through with us,” Stacey said. “Touch base in an hour or so.”

  “Will do.” Josh shut the front door, twisting the lock. The only thing he knew for sure was that this wasn’t Craypo’s only plan. He always had a back-up or two in case one failed.

  He also knew that if Delaney failed, it wasn’t her brother that was going to pay the price, but her.

  And maybe with her life.

  For the next five minutes, Josh tapped on the bathroom door. Nothing.

  “Open the door, Delaney.” He pounded harder this time. “I have a key, and I will use it if you don’t let me in.”

  “Go away,” she whispered. “I’ll leave when I know you’re gone, and you’ll never have to see me again.”

  “Just open the door, please.” Part of him wanted to rip into her, telling her exactly what he thought. Yell at her. Make her feel even worse than she did. But the other part of him wanted to take her in his arms. He understood what it was like to be betrayed by someone you loved.

  “I don’t want to see anyone,” she said.

  “I’m the only one here.”

  Silence. Another two minutes ticked by.

  “You’re going to have to come out sometime.” He rattled the door. “Last warning before I use the key.”

  He held the key in his hand, but didn’t have to use it. She tried to scoot past him, keeping her head lowered, but he laced his hand around her bicep. Her body stiffened.

  “Please.” She closed her eyes. “I just want to get my things and go home before everyone in this town knows what I did.”

  “I’m not going to go around telling people, and neither is Stacey. If there’s anything on the recording device, we can delete it,” he said, “and you’re not going home.”

  “Yes, I am.” She jerked her arm free, but he grabbed it again, this time stepping in front of her.

  “You’ll be dead within a day if you go anywhere, so you’re staying here.”

  She turned her head when he tried to touch her chin.

  “Look at me,” he commanded.

  “No,” she whispered. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  He loosened his grip. “I’m pissed. I’m hurt. I’m an entire list of things right now, but first and foremost, I’m a cop. My job is to protect people, and I’m not letting you walk out of here knowing that Craypo, his men—your own fucking brother—are going to want to kill you. So…” He let go of her arm. “If I can set all the other shit aside, and I’m the one you wronged, I think the least you could do is look at me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, tilting her head, her blue eyes filled with sadness. Her swollen cheek had a few small cuts, and her eye had started turning black-and-blue.

  He shouldn’t have left her at the bottom of the stairs alone after he’d seen the car and the suspicious-looking men the night before.

  “What you did was pretty shitty.” He let out a long huff of air, tracing his finger gently over her bruised cheek.

  “It’s way past shitty, but what would you have done in my shoes?”

  “I’m a cop, so I would have done something entirely different, but I do understand why you did it,” he said. “Tell me something. All that talk about the guys you dated. Those things. Not ever having an orgasm with a man before. Was all that a line? Or bullshit to get me to sleep with you?”

  “The only thing I ever lied to you about was why I was here. Everything else is true. Everything, but I wouldn’t believe me if I were you.”

  “I want to believe you, but the only reason you ever flirted with me was to hurt me.”

  She shook her head. “No. To save my brother. That may be semantics, but I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “I get the logic, but it doesn’t change what you did.” He glanced around the apartment. “Where’s the key to your room at the Heritage Inn?”

  “In my purse. Why?”

  “I’m going to bring all your things here.”

  “What? No. I’m not staying here with you.”

  He palmed her cheek. “Those assholes are going to come back, and I’m not going to let them kill you.”

  “It’s my problem, not yours.”

  “You made it my problem when you decided it was okay to record us having sex.”

  6

  There wasn’t a single spot in Josh’s apartment where Delaney felt comfortable. Every room reminded her that the man who’d given her the most incredible experience would never be able to forgive her for her actions.

  Actions that were for nothing, thanks to Liam.

  “I want to go home,” she said, staring at Josh while he sat on the sofa, tapping away on his ph
one. “You can’t expect me to just sit here with you.”

  “I can, and I do.” He didn’t look at her. He’d barely looked at her over the last few hours between collecting her things and talking with his Trooper buddies, either in a hushed tone or in the other room. “Still no messages on your phone,” he said as he picked it up from the table, then tossed it back. “They should have responded to you telling them that since there was an eyewitness to the beating, you couldn’t pin it on me, but that you still had the recording.”

  “But that’s a lie. You said what little was there, you removed. You did get rid of it, didn’t you?”

  He glanced over the phone, tilting his head. “Eat your salad,” he said. “Viv didn’t have to bring it to you.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.” She crossed her arms and looked out the window. The sun still burned bright over the lake. Boats hummed down the shoreline on what was near a record-high day, or so she’d heard on the afternoon news. No amount of heat outside could surpass the intense rage prickling her skin.

  “You haven’t eaten anything all day.”

  As if Josh really cared. She continued to pick at the Cobb salad, waiting for night to fall so she could curl up on the sofa and try to sleep or, at the very least, get away from him.

  “I just got a text from Tristan. Says our contact in New York City has eyes on your brother.”

  “Wonderful,” she said under her breath. “If Craypo doesn’t kill him, I just might, but not until I find out why they picked me. I mean, really. Why me?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, myself.” He shifted, turning in her direction, but she couldn’t face him. “You mentioned you and Liam aren’t that close. Why?”

  “Mostly because of the way my brother treated our parents, and then after they died, he continued to be an ass to me.”

  “Had he ever been involved in anything criminal?”

  “Not that I know of.” She set the salad on the coffee table. “But it seems I don’t know my own brother.”

  Josh went to the kitchen, got a couple of beers, then set one down on the coffee table. He leaned against the wall next to the big picture window, still avoiding eye contact. She didn’t blame him. She could barely look at herself in the mirror. Assuming the beer on the table was for her, she lifted it, studying it. Plugging her nose, she took three large gulps.

  “From everything you’ve told me, I’m having a hard time buying that Liam turned you into a prost—” He ran a hand over his face. “I didn’t mean that you are—”

  “Trust me. I feel like my brother turned me into a whore.”

  “You’re not a whore.” He looked at her, his sea-green eyes soft. “You really weren’t faking?”

  She let out a dry laugh. “Hard to fake something I’ve never really felt before.”

  “Didn’t it feel weird to know the recording was on while we were doing things to each other?”

  Heat spread across her checks in a wave of shame, anger, and a splash of desire. “I tried not to think about it,” she admitted. “You made me forget… I guess it was easier because I liked you, which sounds like a bitch move, considering what I was going to do, and that does feel like I was prostituted out.”

  “I want to hate you. I even want to hurt you, but then I look at you and see…” He waved his fingers over his own face. “I saw that car the two men were sitting in, parked at the Boardwalk the night we met, as well as the night we played putt-putt. I also saw the same car in the Heritage Inn parking lot the day we went on our picnic. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

  “They would have gotten me after you walked me to the hotel.” She shivered, palming her cheek. “I suspect this would have been worse, and they would have the recording, and I…” She shook her head. “Would have given it to them, making it the second biggest mistake of my life.”

  “What was the first?”

  “Agreeing to sleep with you in the first place.”

  “Ouch.” He sipped his beer.

  “Do you know for sure that the device actually recorded us?” she asked. “Did you watch it?”

  “Only enough to know it worked,” he said. “Go into the kitchen and crouch down behind the breakfast bar.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.” He pulled his weapon out of his belt, shifting to the other side of the window.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, as she crawled behind the counter.

  “I think we have company, and not the good kind.”

  “Same two from this morning?”

  “Nope.” He moved from the big picture window to the smaller one overlooking the parking lot. The song I Can’t Stop the Feeling rang out. “That your phone?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Stay low, but get it. Tell me who it is before you answer.”

  Bent over, as she took the five steps to the kitchen table and lifted her phone, staring at an image of her brother while his number flashed across the screen. “It’s Liam.”

  “Interesting. Answer it, but put it on speaker.”

  “Liam?”

  “Delaney? Are you okay?” Her brother’s voice boomed from the speaker.

  “Not really,” she said. “How about you?”

  “Where are you?”

  She looked at Josh, who pointed up in the direction of the hotel.

  “In the village of Lake George. Why?” She wasn’t sure what Josh had wanted her to say, but felt better when he nodded as if she’d said the right thing.

  “Listen. I don’t have much time, but you’ve got to do what they say.”

  “I tried.” She glanced at Josh, who motioned to her to keep talking. “What’s going on, Liam? Who are these people, and why are you with them? They kept showing me pictures of you being beaten and told me they’d kill you—”

  “They haven’t hurt me, but they will kill me,” Liam said. “And you, if we don’t do this.”

  “What do they want with you?”

  Josh kept glancing between the window and her, gun in his hand.

  “It doesn’t matter, sis. They will be in touch soon. Just do whatever it is, or we’re both dead.”

  With that, the call disconnected.

  “Fuck,” Josh muttered. “I think they’re tracking your phone.”

  “How do you know?” She tossed the phone on the table as if it were on fire.

  “Because our friends down in the parking lot are pointing up here while looking at their phones, which means they know you’re here.” He looked over her shoulder, his lips drawn tight, causing a grim look. “It also means your brother tipped them off with his phone call.”

  Balling her fists, she dug her nails into her skin. “So, what are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to cut off all communication for a while. Turn off your phone and head toward the stairs to the roof. Make sure you take both my phone and yours. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re leaving.” He stuffed his gun into the back of his pants as he turned the lock on the front door.

  “I’m not jumping off the roof.”

  “There’s a ladder,” he said. “Move. Stay low when you get to the top.”

  She didn’t like the change in his tone, nor his short, clipped commands. After powering off her phone, she shoved it, and Josh’s, into her back pockets. Her hands shook as she pushed open the hatch to the rooftop patio. Once her feet landed on the roof, she stayed low, waiting for what seemed like an eternity for Josh to appear. Her pulse pounded in her throat, making it hard to breathe.

  “Over there,” he said, pointing to the far end of the patio. “Follow me down the ladder.”

  “I don’t like heights.”

  He’d already climbed over the side of the building. “Our friends rattled the front door once. I don’t want to be here if they manage to get in.”

  Her hands trembled as she gripped the wall and straddled it with her legs. She found the first step with her left foot, then her r
ight foot slipped, and she nearly lost her balance.

  “You can do it,” he said softly.

  Carefully, but as quickly as she could, she felt her way down the metal ladder attached to the side of the wall.

  “You’re going to have to jump now,” he said.

  She looked over her shoulder and down at the ground.

  “It’s only four feet,” he said. “I’m right here. Come on.”

  If she could jump off a cliff, she could do this. Pushing herself from the ladder, she bent her knees, hoping it would ease the impact, but she didn’t need to. He grabbed her waist and eased her to the ground. She took the hand he offered and took off at a run along a narrow path filled with overgrown bushes, some of them scraping painfully against her weakened legs until they came to a clearing near the waterfront, and a dock with his boat.

  “Grab a baseball cap from the pocket next to the driver’s seat, and tuck your hair into it. Then sit.”

  The boat rolled when she jumped in, sending her to her knees with a thud. The pain ricocheted through her body, rattling her teeth.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” She crawled to the front of the boat, got the hat, then did what he asked before perching herself in the bucket seat. The feeling of someone watching her sent a cold prickle across her neck, so she hopped off the seat then tucked down in front of it.

  “Did you get my phone?” he asked as he started the engine then pushed the throttle down, easing them from the dock.

  “I did.” She pulled it out of her pocket, handing it to him with a shaky hand, staying low on the ground.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, setting the phone in a holster before putting a cap backward on his head. “You’re going to want to be in the seat. It’s rough today.”

  The boat planed off, hitting the choppy waters. She managed to take a seat, gripping the dashboard.

  “Once we are a couple of miles up-shore, I’ll slow down.” He put one of those Bluetooth things in his ear and tapped his phone a couple of times.

  “Sorry about the noise,” he said. “I need a patrol car at my apartment. Two men are trying to break in. Also, I think they’re tracking Delaney’s phone. We powered it down, but I need someone to come look at it.”