Shielded in the Shadows

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  She was looking out the window, not at him. Speaking for herself? For him? Just speaking? Throwing out a platitude? Or wondering on her own behalf? Didn’t seem to matter. He felt like she’d just slapped another defining moment on him. Another possible perspective change for his brain to process.

  And wasn’t sure he was ready for that.

  Maybe he was a lot more like his father than he’d thought.

  Or maybe he was just afraid to give himself a real second chance.

  * * *

  Emma couldn’t believe she was finally going to get the second chance to help Suzie Heber. To free her from the fiend who’d married a sweet young woman and made her life a living hell. Heading up the walk to Suzie’s front door, she stepped slightly in front of Jayden. Leading the way.

  Suzie knew her.

  She was feeling proprietary. She was trying not to focus on the fact that he’d pretty well given her a warning back there in the car. Telling her about Emory’s father, who couldn’t live any kind of full life, couldn’t engage in an intimate relationship, or be a part of a family. Not even when the daughter and grandkids involved were his own.

  It seemed obvious to her that Jayden had found a man who was in the same place he was. Who’d been damaged in the same way. He was telling her there was no hope for the two of them.

  She didn’t want to accept any of it.

  Knocking on the front door even before Jayden was fully beside her, she pasted a smile on her face in case Suzie glanced through the peephole before pulling open the door.

  She was the bearer of good news, not there to badger or pressure a victim into coming forward.

  The smile was completely earnest when she heard the door start to open, and then Emma could feel it fade when she saw Suzie standing there. The woman kind of blinked, oddly, but when Emma asked if they could come in, she only paused for a second before nodding and then quickly stepped back.

  “He’s in the bath—” Suzie was whispering. Emma thought she’d heard the words right, but couldn’t be sure. She glanced back at Jayden, to see his reaction, and saw him reaching for his gun.

  “Drop it now or she dies.”

  Emma’s gaze swung back around to see a man she’d never seen before, pointing a gun directly at her head. She heard Jayden’s gun drop to the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” Suzie said tremulously. It was unclear who she was talking to, Emma or the man holding the gun. The woman was holding her arm in front of her, with her hand. Emma realized, too late, that it had an odd twist to it. Had to be broken.

  “Just calm down here.” Jayden stepped in front of Emma, holding his arms out wide and angling himself to cover Suzie, too. “You don’t want to do this,” he said. “Lower the gun and let’s talk. See if we can take care of this right here. Right now. No one gets hurt. It just ends.”

  “It doesn’t end,” the man said, pointing the gun directly at Jayden’s chest. The guy was taller than Jayden. Six-one or so. His beard made it hard to determine his age. His hair was unremarkable. But the baseball cap on the coffee table—it was dark blue.

  Jayden’s phone rang.

  “Don’t answer it,” the man said. They all listened until the ringing stopped.

  Heart pounding, Emma stared at the man. Petrified. Jayden wasn’t wearing his vest. If...

  “I’m a prosecutor,” she said. “I can make a deal with you, assuming you give me a chance, a reason, to be able to do so.”

  “I know who you are,” the man said, moving his gun toward Jayden’s shoulder almost directly in front of her head. “If you’d been able to convict the bastard the first time around, none of this would have happened. Now. All three of you. Move. Slowly. Right here.” He pointed to the couch with his free hand, without taking his gaze off of them. “Side by side. Sit,” he instructed.

  Emma moved first. No way she was going to take a chance on irritating the guy to the point he pulled that trigger. She’d rather be dead herself than lose Jayden.

  Or Suzie.

  She sat in the middle of the couch. Jayden dropped down on her left, pushing his thigh into hers. Suzie was on her right. Not touching her.

  “Please, Kyle,” Suzie begged, not crying but sounding like she was fighting tears. “You know I love you. Deep down, you know.”

  “It’s all messed up now,” he said. “If she’d done her job right the first time, he’d never have gotten out. But no, she screwed that one up. And then, when it’s all going to finally be okay, she goes and sticks her nose in things again...”

  “It wasn’t okay,” Emma said, not sure why she wasn’t keeping her mouth shut. She just knew she couldn’t stop fighting until he stopped her. “I just got involved two weeks ago and someone beat up on Suzie three months ago.”

  Jayden’s nudge was almost imperceptible. Was he telling her to stop? Or that she was on the right track?

  “Kyle,” he said, “how old are you?”

  “Shut up!” The man roared, swung the gun within a couple of inches of Jayden’s head. Close enough that Emma could see his hand shaking.

  And she figured out who he was. The kid they’d all been looking for. Suzie hadn’t lied about his existence. But it seemed she might have been lying about her relationship with him. And about his age, too. This was no sixteen-or eighteen-year-old kid. He was easily in his twenties.

  Maybe Bill had been right to question the paternity of his child.

  Her entire soul was shaking. She tried to find Ms. Shadow, to hide behind her, but came up empty.

  “I know you didn’t hurt Suzie four years ago,” Emma said, just talking. She was going to fall apart if she just sat. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t figure out a plan. She was scared to death. “I know what Bill did to her,” she continued. “It’s why I went for the murder charge. I made a mistake there, though. If I’d gone for battery, I’d have won.”

  Kyle, whoever he was, was standing right in front of them, moving the gun back and forth between the three of them. There was no doubt in her mind that if any of them made any kind of move that he construed to be an attempt to help themselves or to get away, he’d shoot that gun. He was ready.

  “But I can win this time,” she told him. “Bill’s in custody. That’s what we came here to tell Suzie. That she was safe.”

  “You’re lying,” he said, spraying spittle at their feet. The gun jerked a little as he moved it from one to the other of them.

  “I’m not lying. I can’t prove it to you without making a phone call, but I can guarantee you that if you turn on the television, it’ll be all over the news soon enough. And we’ve got evidence this time to get a conviction. Hard evidence. They found video surveillance of him buying the lipstick he used to vandalize my back door. Threatening an officer of the court, that’s serious stuff, there.” Her court voice wasn’t in that room. She could hear herself trembling in every word, knew he could hear it, too.

  Kyle pointed his gun at Suzie. “Go on,” he said. “Turn on the TV. And then come stand with me.”

  This was it. Their chance. Emma realized one second was all they might get. Him distracted, covering Suzie and them, too.

  She wanted to make a run for it. If Kyle turned on her, shot her, Jayden would be able to save Suzie. And himself.

  All she had to do was to run in the direction opposite from Suzie.

  But her limbs wouldn’t move. She was frozen to the couch.

  Fairly certain that she was going to die there.

  Chapter 24

  Jayden’s gun lay on the floor where he’d dropped it. At least ten feet away. Chances of him getting there before Kyle shot one of the women, or him and then the women, were pretty slim.

  He had to get Kyle to come closer to him. To create a chance to grab the younger man, to take his gun.

  Suzie had turned on the television and was standing next to Kyle. He’d wrapp
ed his free arm around her neck, holding her close to him.

  “Let’s just go, Kyle,” she said softly, looking up at him. “Just me and you. We can go out the back door and get away from here. Go where nobody will ever bother us again.”

  Kyle glanced at her for a second, almost as though he was considering the option.

  “You’re the kid from the neighborhood,” Emma said from beside him. “Isn’t he, Suzie?” she asked.

  Jayden had figured as much, as well. Was more focusing on being poised to cover her body with his if he saw any hint of movement in that trigger finger. Something told him the guy wasn’t going to kill Suzie. He loved her.

  And he was emotionally unstable, too. The odd way Suzie was holding her arm, had propped it on her wrist when she’d had to use her good hand to hold the TV remote, was evidence of the young man’s propensity for violence.

  Suzie didn’t say a word.

  “What’s she talking about?” Kyle pulled his arm tight around Suzie’s neck. “You got someone else now, too?”

  “You know I don’t, Kyle,” Suzie said, staring up at him. Jayden wasn’t a great expert on relationships but it looked to him like the woman really loved the guy.

  “Then who’s this neighborhood kid?”

  He was looking at Jayden when he asked the question, but the way he pulled against Suzie again made it clear who he was talking to.

  “You,” she said. “I told them I met you in our old neighborhood. They don’t know...”

  Know what?

  Emma’s leg pressed against Jayden’s. Maybe she knew. Maybe she was just scared. He had to get her out of there. To make certain that she had a chance to have her baby.

  She’d lost one already. She wasn’t going to lose a chance to have another...

  “What don’t we know?” Jayden asked quietly. There was no point in threatening Kyle. Their best hope was to get him to relax enough that he’d come closer. If nothing else, they had to do all they could to diffuse his panic as much as possible. He was like a bomb; any little change could set him off.

  “You really don’t know?” He was looking at Emma, a sneer on his face. Like he had one over on her.

  “I didn’t tell anyone, Kyle,” Suzie said. “Not then, and not now. I told you so. I told you I’d protect you and I always have...”

  He looked at Suzie then, as though what she’d said really mattered to him, and Jayden leaped. He didn’t think. Didn’t plan. Just leaped off the couch and toward that gun, knowing that he’d either get to it in time, or feel its spray mutilate his insides.

  Either way, he was giving Emma and Suzie a chance to run.

  * * *

  Emma heard the shot ring out before she realized what Jayden was doing. He moved. Blood spattered. Horror filled every sinew of her body.

  And she saw Kyle drop to the floor with Jayden going down on top of him.

  “Kyle!” Suzie screamed, blood on her clothes, her chin.

  Emma rushed toward the bodies as Suzie dropped to her knees beside them. It took Emma a second to realize that Kyle was free of Jayden. That Jayden was kneeling over the fallen young man, his fingers at Kyle’s throat. And that officers were piling in through the front door like someone was throwing a surprise party.

  Her gaze landed on the floor where Jayden’s knee rested beside Kyle’s hand. His gun was still tangled up in his fingers, and it took her a second to realize that it had fallen to the floor, too. Kyle still had his gun?

  Nothing made sense for a second.

  Jayden was alive. Moving. And reaching for her. He slid his hands around her waist and they stood up together. “You okay?” Jayden asked, his voice strong. Sure.

  She didn’t know what she was. Before she could find words, Chantel was there, standing beside the two of them, while a female officer led a hysterical Suzie outside and officers surrounded the body on the floor.

  “You two okay?”

  Not trusting her voice, Emma nodded. Jayden was fine. Alive. Standing next to her. His shoulder, clear down to his wrist, touching hers.

  “I’m fine,” Jayden said aloud.

  “I thought you’d been shot!” The words sounded strangled as Emma finally got them out. She needed a small dark place to go hide so she could curl up in a ball and cry.

  “For a second there, I thought so, too.” Jayden sounded relieved, but dead serious. “What...how did you...?”

  “We were outside,” Chantel said. “When we got here, saw him with Suzie in a neck hold and you two at gunpoint, we surrounded the place, and everyone had orders, if anyone saw a shot, he or she was to take it. Period. When he dropped his guard to look at Suzie...” She shrugged. “I can tell you I about swallowed my heart when I saw Jayden jump on the chance, too...”

  He’d just jumped right up there, willing to get himself killed...not knowing the police were outside...

  Like he didn’t value his life enough to...

  “If they hadn’t been outside, you might have been killed.” Emma got those words out loud and clear.

  “But you and Suzie would have had a chance to run for help.”

  Chantel nodded. “You deserve a medal for that one, Powell,” she said.

  A medal, hell. What he’d earned was Emma’s fury.

  * * *

  Emma was clearly pissed. Anger was a common response to extreme fear. That was what Jayden told himself as they walked outside to give their statements.

  “How did you guys get here so fast?” Emma asked, walking more with Chantel than with him as they exited the house.

  “Fate,” the blond detective said, leading them to an unmarked car with doors opened. “Or people doing their jobs and it all coming together at exactly the right time,” she added, looking back at the house. “One of the neighbors you saw today, you told him Suzie had been hurt again...”

  “Camden Harris. I was impressing upon him that it was urgent he tell me anything he knew that could help us or he could possibly find himself an accomplice to charges he didn’t want to face. He didn’t budge.” Jayden was at Emma’s side again. Where he planned to stay. For a while at least. Until he could convince himself that she was really safe. Alive and safe.

  “Not with you, but you got to him. That call I got when I was on the phone with you...it was him. Camden Harris.” They’d reached the unmarked car. Emma sat sideways on the back seat, her feet on the ground. Jayden stood beside her, his leg touching hers, while Chantel shielded them from a news car that had pulled up. “He said you gave him my number and that he had information. Turns out he knew a lot more than he was saying. He’d kept quiet because he didn’t want to jeopardize his marriage...”

  “His marriage?” Emma asked, standing again.

  “He’d seen Suzie with bruises in the past,” Chantel said, nodding. “He called out to her once, asked her if she was okay. He knew Bill, liked him. She told him he wasn’t hurting her and he believed her. Or tried to. Sometimes people let themselves be convinced. He knew Bill had a tendency to be overprotective, that he was jealous of anyone looking at his wife. Bill had even asked him a time or two if he’d ever seen anyone over at his house. Asked him to keep an eye on the place. But at the same time, Bill was a decent guy. Fair businessman. Gave jobs to guys down on their luck. Helped out in the neighborhood anytime there was a problem. Fast-forward to a week when Camden’s wife was out of town and Suzie and Bill had another fight. He went over after Bill took off and one thing led to another...”

  “Harris was the one she slept with?” Jayden asked. Bill had had legitimate reason for his jealousy. He’d said more than once that a man knows these things. Jayden had just put it down to the man’s insanity where his wife was concerned. Nothing would excuse the hell Bill put Susie through, however.

  “It only happened that once,” Chantel said. “But that’s why the neighbor never said anything to anyone ab
out what happened later. He truly loves his wife and he was afraid if he ever said anything, the fact that he slept with Suzie might come out. While he was over there that night, she got a phone call. It was Kyle. Bill’s son.”

  “What!” Emma screeched while Jayden’s jaw dropped.

  “His son?”

  “Illegitimate,” Chantel confirmed, “but yes. He’d lost his mother. His stepfather didn’t want him around, and he’d come to Bill for help. But Bill didn’t want a teenage boy around his twenty-four-year-old wife and told him he couldn’t stay. So Suzie helped him behind Bill’s back. After Bill was sent to prison, she let Kyle move in with her and eventually they became a couple.”

  Jayden felt like he was on some other planet. “There’s nothing in Bill’s records about having a son.”

  “He didn’t believe an ex-girlfriend when she told him she was pregnant and the baby was his. She moved on, married, and raised the boy with her new husband. He just found out Bill was his father when his mother died.”

  Damn. Jayden was guessing Bill still didn’t consider the boy his own, which was why he hadn’t told Jayden about him.

  But...

  “So did Camden Harris confirm that Bill was hitting Suzie four years ago? Or not? He’d let a guy go on beating up his wife just so that he didn’t have to tell his own wife he’d screwed around on her?”

  “Suzie never admitted it to him. He figured, without her testimony, there was no way he could prove it...”

  “Detective?” The female officer who’d led Suzie out walked up.

  “Yes?” Chantel faced her.

  “I just thought you’d want to know.” The uniformed woman included Jayden and Emma in her look. “She gave us a full confession...said she’d testify to all of it. She’s got proof that Bill hit her and killed their baby. Kyle was at their house at the time. He got roughed up pretty bad, too, trying to help her. But he got video on his cell phone of at least part of it...”