Evidence Of Attraction. Lisa Childs
with the chief.”
“In the middle of the night?” She snorted now, like he had earlier. “Yeah, right. How much is Mills paying you?”
Hart felt like she’d kneed him again, but this time her sharp knee struck him right in his pride.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said, not caring that his voice got a little louder with anger. He’d spent years in the vice unit trying to build a case against the notorious drug dealer. But every time anyone had got close to prosecuting Luther Mills, the eyewitnesses and the evidence had disappeared. “I am not working for Mills!”
Wendy shushed him now.
So he lowered his voice when he added, “But someone in the RCPD is, which puts your life and the lives of everyone else involved in his prosecution in danger. That’s why the chief wants to meet with everybody at Payne Protection tonight, so that he can explain everything.”
She shook her head again. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”
Back when he was on the force, other officers had teased him that the red-haired evidence tech had a crush on him. He’d laughed off their claims then and it was clear now that they’d just been messing with him. Wendy Thompson couldn’t have had a crush on him since she didn’t even trust him.
Not that he blamed her. Luther Mills wanted her dead, so she shouldn’t trust anyone. But there was one person even more above suspicion than Hart. He reached for his phone. “Play that voice mail on your phone. Or better yet, I’ll call Parker. The chief is with him. Lynch will verify he called this meeting.”
Before he could pull the phone from his pocket, her bedroom door flew open. Light flooded the space, illuminating the pink walls and frilly curtains of a little girl’s bedroom. Felicity would love this room. Pain clenched his heart at the thought of his daughter.
Would he ever see her again?
He was not so sure at the moment because that light also glinted off the gun in the hand of the man standing in the doorway.
Hart might have been called in too late to save Wendy Thompson.
Or himself…
Parker opened the door to the room off his wife’s office at the Payne Protection Agency. A little girl lay asleep in one of the beds in the nursery Sharon had designed for their children. She’d wanted them close while she and Parker worked. But this child wasn’t theirs.
Her hair was pale blond. Her skin was pale, as well. She didn’t look like Hart Fisher’s kid, either. She was tiny and delicate-looking, despite her fierce grasp on the rag doll clasped against her side.
Sharon had opened up the nursery for any of the bodyguards to use for their children. She loved kids so much that the former nanny would willingly care for any and all. And this little girl, already abandoned by her mother, needed extra care.
She needed her father.
Maybe Parker shouldn’t have sent Hart off on this assignment. Sure, Hart had chosen to become a bodyguard and it was probably safer, as well as more flexible, than being on the River City Police Department.
Except for this assignment.
From his years working in the RCPD’s vice unit, Parker personally knew how dangerous Luther Mills could be. The infamous drug dealer was determined not to go to trial, and he would kill anyone and everyone who got in his way. By protecting the evidence tech, Hart was definitely getting in his way. Again.
It wasn’t the first time Hart had made life more difficult for Luther. Like Parker, he’d tried for years to shut down Mills’s illegal business and send the ruthless criminal to prison. Right now Luther was only going after those associated with his trial. But what if he went after anyone who’d ever tried to take him down?
Then Parker was in danger, too, and so was every member of his franchise of the Payne Protection Agency. He’d hired all former vice cops for his team.
Parker pulled his cell from his pocket and glanced at the time on the screen.
Hart should have been back, with Wendy Thompson, by now. Her parents’ house, where she’d told the chief she was staying, wasn’t that far from the agency’s office.
Where were they? If they were running late, Hart would have called to let him know. The only reason he would not have called was that he was not able to.
Maybe Luther had already made good on his threat against Wendy. But if he’d taken her out, he would have had to take out her bodyguard along with her.
Fear shot through Wendy. But she wasn’t afraid of the man who’d entered her bedroom with his gun drawn. She was afraid that the two men in her room would kill each other. Hart was already reaching for his weapon as he tried shoving Wendy behind him for her protection.
But who would protect him?
“Daddy!” she yelled as she jumped between the men and their guns. “Don’t shoot!” She held a hand out to each of them, pushing Hart back as she held off her father. “Either of you! Don’t shoot each other!”
Her father blinked dark eyes that were still bleary with sleep as he focused on her and the stranger in her bedroom. “What’s going on, Wendy? Who the hell is he?”
“He’s my…my…” She couldn’t say “bodyguard” because her father’s next question would be why she needed one. And she didn’t want to tell her father about Luther Mills and the threats. Not yet. She trusted the police department to keep them safe. But if Hart was telling the truth and someone within the department couldn’t be trusted…then she might have to tell her father, to implore him and her mother to leave town until after the trial. As long as she didn’t have to worry about them, she would be fine.
Despite Luther Mills and those threats, she didn’t need a bodyguard. She didn’t need Hart Fisher. But since he was there, in her bedroom, in the middle of the night, she needed to explain his presence.
“Wendy?” her father prodded.
She felt like a teenager who’d been caught necking on the living room couch with her boyfriend. Except her father had never caught her with anyone when she was a teenager. She’d been too busy studying back then.
“Boyfriend,” she blurted out. “He’s my boyfriend.” Mortified, her face flushed with heat, especially when she felt Hart staring at her in astonishment. She turned to him and silently implored him to play along with her.
She didn’t want her parents to learn about the threats because they wouldn’t be worried about themselves. They would be worried about her, and they already worried too much about her, about if she was taking care of herself, if she was working too much, if she was eating right…
Her father’s brow creased with more lines than he already had. Her parents had been well into their forties when they’d finally had the baby they’d wanted for so long. It didn’t matter that she was twenty-seven now; Wendy would always be their baby.
Her father had kept the gun grasped in his hand. But with her standing between him and Hart, he’d lowered the barrel. “You were arguing,” he said, suspicion in his voice. He wasn’t readily accepting her explanation, but then, it was no wonder since Wendy could not even remember the last time she’d had a boyfriend. “I heard raised voices.”
“He, uh, surprised me,” Wendy said. “Scared me…” That was no lie.
“Of course he did, breaking into our damn house like this!” her father angrily exclaimed. Then he turned his focus on Hart and demanded, “Who the hell are you?”