“Did the bomb squad find anything else?” she asked.
“Nothing. The evidence team is here. It may be a while before
they finish. I’d like to take your statement now. The more information we have,
the more likely it is we’ll find our perp. How about we go down to the station?
We’ll be more comfortable there.”
“I won’t be.”
“You’ll be safer, though. You’ve been attacked twice in one
day, and I don’t want to take a chance of there being a third time. As a matter
of fact, I think it would be best if you and Eileen stay with a friend or family
member until we figure out what’s going on.”
“I can tell you what’s going on, Logan. Someone is terrorizing
me because he thinks I’m a murderer. I may have been exonerated, but to some
people, that doesn’t mean a whole lot.”
“Maybe you’re right, but we need evidence. Not conjecture. Come
on. I’ll drive you to the station. We can find a safe place for you to stay
after I take your statement.”
“Do you know the kind of news coverage that will get?”
“I’m not worried about news coverage. I’m worried about
you.”
“And I’m worried about Eileen. She needs to rest. That’s not
going to happen with news reporters knocking on the door and calling the house
hoping for an interview.”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.” Logan sighed, obviously
trying to be patient. His patience seemed to be wearing thin, though. He tapped
a pen against his thigh and ran a hand down his jaw. Four years ago, Catherine
would have given in. Gone along with the plan because it was what she was
expected to do.
She’d changed a lot since then.
She’d toughened up and hardened, and she no longer went where
other people led.
“I’m not going down to the station.”
“Catherine—”
“Let’s go to my place. Eileen is already there. It’s a safer
option than standing out here.” Darius offered a reasonable solution to their
impasse, but Catherine was tempted to fight him on it.
Fight for the sake of fighting, because she hadn’t been allowed
to do anything but conform for four very long years.
“Sounds good to me. We can go in my cruiser.” Logan walked
away, and Catherine followed.
She might
want
to fight the plan,
but she knew it was a good one. Leave the house, put some distance between
herself and whatever trouble was stalking her. She needed to stay safe and
healthy for Eileen’s sake. Hopefully, she’d be able to convince her grandmother
to move out of the house for a while. They could rent a place on the coast far
away from the danger. Getting away from Pine Bluff would be a bonus. Eileen
could get as good medical care in Seattle or Oregon as she could in downtown
Spokane.
It was simply a matter of talking her into it.
If only that were going to be as easy as it sounded.
SIX
D
arius hadn’t planned on giving up his
solitude, but once he committed to it, he could see the benefits. He’d already
decided to keep an eye out for his neighbors. Maybe it wasn’t his business, but
he didn’t like the idea of Eileen and Catherine staying at the end of their
dead-end road alone. Tonight, he’d been home. He’d heard the car passing his
house at two in the morning, and it had been an anomaly he couldn’t ignore.
But what if he hadn’t been there?
The best security system in the world couldn’t keep out someone
who was determined to get in, and the ten or fifteen minutes it would take the
police to respond to a call for help might be too long.
He needed to get Eileen and Catherine moved to a safer location
before his vacation ended. Having them at his place would give him an
opportunity to convince them that they shouldn’t return home.
Logan opened the front door of his cruiser, and Catherine
climbed in. Shoulders tense, back ramrod-straight, she didn’t spare Darius a
glance as she shut the door.
She was tough. He’d give her that. But toughness wouldn’t be
enough to keep Catherine and her grandmother safe.
“Hope you don’t mind riding in the back, Osborne,” Logan
said.
“Whatever gets us there.” He slid into the backseat, the scent
of leather and sweat filling his nose as Logan pulled away.
Darius shifted uncomfortably, his leg throbbing in time with
his heartbeat, the steady pain more of an annoyance than anything. He had good
days and bad days. Yesterday had been better than some and worse than others.
Aside from losing his lower leg, he’d also broken his femur and his back in the
explosion. Both had healed. Sometimes, though, pain drove him from bed in the
middle of the night, left him sweaty and cold and wishing for more than Tylenol.
He never took anything more. With a job like his, he couldn’t afford to. That
had worked out well for Catherine and Eileen.
Lights spilled out from the living room window as they pulled
into Darius’s driveway. Small and well-built, the farmhouse had seen better
days, the peeling paint on the wood siding and the sagging front porch just two
of the projects that Darius planned to work on during his vacation. He could
have afforded a nice house in town, but the idea of land had appealed to him,
and twenty acres had been something he couldn’t resist. He’d bought the property
on a whim, but had spent little time there. Maybe one day his workload would
lighten up, and he’d make the little house into the home he’d been craving for
years.
Catherine hopped out of the cruiser before Randal put it in
Park, racing up the porch stairs as Darius got out of the cruiser.
“She’s in a hurry,” Randal said.
“I don’t think riding in a police car fills her with warm fuzzy
feelings,” Darius responded.
“Neither does anything that has do with the sheriff’s
department. I can’t say I blame her, but it’s going to be hard to help someone
who has built walls as high as hers.”
“She’ll do anything for Eileen. That’s the angle we need to
play.”
“You’ve got a point, but I hate to play anything. Both women
have been through enough. This newest trouble doesn’t seem fair.”
“Life isn’t, is it?” Darius responded as they followed
Catherine into the house, but he couldn’t help thinking that Logan was right.
The two women had been through enough. They deserved a little peace, and he was
going to do his best to help them find it.
Ashton stood in the small foyer, his shoulder against the wall,
his arms crossed over his chest. One of the newest members of the Personal
Securities team, he’d worked in counterintelligence before he’d become a
security specialist. Aside from that and the fact that he was excellent at his
job, Darius knew little about him.
“That took a lot less time than I thought it would. Do you
still need me here?” His voice had just a hint of an accent that might have been
British or French or something else entirely.
“I think we’re good. Are you free if I need backup on this case
during the next couple of weeks?”
“I’m never free, Osborne, but for a price, I can help.” The
mercenary comment didn’t surprise Darius. Ashton commanded a high price for the
jobs he did.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for coming out on short
notice.”
“Like I said, for a price, I’ll do just about anything. The
client is in the back bedroom. For the record, she didn’t do any snooping. Just
asked for a bed.”
“That’s not like Eileen. I’d better check on her. Where is
she?” Catherine’s pale face looked even paler in the overhead light, freckles
dancing across her nose and cheeks, her red hair bright and silky-looking.
Darius knew her skin would be velvety to the touch, knew her
shoulders were warm flesh over taut muscle.
Knew that he needed to be very, very careful when he was around
her, because his fingers itched to slide over silken skin, sink into soft
hair.
“Down the hall and to the right,” Ashton responded. “If you
don’t need anything else, Osborne, I’m going to take off.”
“No problem. You want to wait here, Logan? I’ll go with
Catherine.” He didn’t give Randal a choice, just followed Catherine down the
narrow hall and into the guest room.
Catherine shuffled forward to avoid tripping over anything in
the dark room. She could hear Eileen’s labored breathing, and it hurt her heart.
It wouldn’t be long before Eileen needed oxygen to get through the night. The
doctors had warned that she was heading in that direction, and Catherine knew
they were closer to it than either she or her grandmother wanted to admit.
Closer to the end than either of them wanted to admit.
It hurt to think about, hurt to acknowledge, and Catherine
would have liked to pretend that the signs weren’t there. Her nurse’s training
refused to let her. She might have spent four years in prison, but she hadn’t
forgotten what she’d learned in school or what she’d learned in the five years
she’d worked at Good Samaritan Convalescent Center—three as a nursing assistant
and two as a registered nurse. She’d seen death in patients’ eyes, heard it in
their breathing and in their voices. She knew which patients were nearing the
end of their lives, which were accepting that and which ones were fighting
it.
Eileen was fighting, but there would be a time when she
couldn’t.
“Eileen?” she whispered, feeling the cool, lined skin of her
grandmother’s forehead. Eileen didn’t respond, and Catherine touched the pulse
point in her neck as she peered through the darkness and into Eileen’s pale
face.
Please, God.
She tried to pray, but the words felt old and rusty, her faith
used up during those days when she’d begged and begged for God to step in and
keep her from going to prison.
He hadn’t answered then.
Would He now?
Please.
“Go away. I’m tryin’ to rest,” Eileen mumbled, her words
slurred but strong.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” she said, relief
flooding through her, making her weak-kneed and tired. This wasn’t supposed to
be how things worked out. She wanted a redo, a rewind. Wanted a chance to go
back four years and try to change things.
“Right as rain. Love you, girl,” Eileen said, without opening
her eyes, and Catherine kissed her cheek, the leathery coolness making her eyes
fill with tears.
One day soon, Eileen would be gone. Memories would be all
Catherine had left. She wanted to make good ones. Had been trying to make good
ones since the day she’d left prison.
It seemed like all she was making was more of a mess.
“I’m so sorry about all this, Eileen,” she whispered, feeling
Darius behind her, his presence as compelling as warm fire on a cold day.
“Not your fault. Now, go away and let me sleep.”
She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stand where she was,
watching over Eileen for the rest of the night, the rest of the next day, the
rest of the time they had left together.
“Come on. She needs some rest, and Logan is waiting. She’ll be
okay alone for a little bit.” Darius touched her back, his palm burning through
her tank top, heat flooding through her.
She wanted to turn into him, bury her head against his chest,
tell him the truth. That she was scared to death of leaving the room and coming
back to find Eileen gone.
The weakness surprised her.
She hadn’t leaned on anyone since the first days of her trial
when she’d poured her heart out to Peter. Her fiancé, her best friend, the man
she’d thought she’d build a future with.
She shifted away from Darius’s hand and walked out of the room,
following the scent of coffee into a cozy kitchen. Stainless-steel appliances
and granite countertops gleamed in the warm overhead light. The walls had been
painted light sand, and a bright white chair rail edged matching wainscoting.
She wanted the kitchen to be cold and impersonal, but it had warmth and
personality, the antique breadbox and huge 1940s stove making it more than just
a cookie-cutter kitchen.
Not surprising.
Darius was more than a cookie-cutter guy.
That was the problem.
He didn’t fit the mold of tough bodyguard. His compassion shone
from his soft green eyes, flowed through the warmth of his touch.
“Coffee?” Darius handed her a cup, and she took a sip, trying
to focus on Logan, on the room, on anything but the man who seemed to demand
every bit of her attention.
“Why don’t we have a seat, Catherine? I have a few questions to
ask, and then I’ll let you get some sleep. It’s been a tough day.” Logan pulled
out a chair, and Catherine dropped into it, her stomach churning with anxiety,
her chest tight with it.
“What kind of questions?” she asked, annoyed by the tremor in
her voice. She’d been dreading the moment she’d have to sit across from Logan,
look into his eyes while he asked dozens of questions.
It had all happened before. Different deputy, of course, but
the same scenario. Catherine thinking that she was being questioned as a witness
and slowly realizing that she was a suspect.
A cold chill raced up her spine as she looked into Logan’s
face. Surely no one would believe that she’d planted a bomb on her grandmother’s
property. Then again, she hadn’t thought anyone would believe her to be a
murderer.
“Just routine questions that we’d ask anyone in a situation
like this.”
“Fine. Only this isn’t a routine situation, Logan, and you know
it.” Her throat tightened, her breath coming too quickly, panic filling her.
“Relax.” Darius’s hands cupped her shoulders, kneading her
tight muscles. Her body obeyed the command even as her heart shouted
“danger.”
“He’s right. You need to relax. There’s no need to be nervous,
Catherine. You’re the victim here, and we’re going to do everything we can to
find the perpetrator.” Logan smiled kindly, but Catherine had seen plenty of
smiles in the first days after she’d reported her suspicions about the deaths at
the convalescent center. Eleven patients who hadn’t been sick and shouldn’t have
died, suddenly gone. Heart attacks, every single one of them, and Catherine
hadn’t been able to ignore the implications of that.
“Okay. Let’s get this over with. What do you want to ask?”
“Did you see the guy who set the bomb?”
“I saw him, but I didn’t see what he looked like.” He’d been
nothing more than a shadow moving away from the car and then back to it.
“Can you give me an idea of his height and weight?” Logan
pressed.
“Maybe six feet. Two hundred pounds.”
“A big guy, then?”
“Muscular. He looked very fit. Just like...”
“What?” Logan pressed.
“The guy who attacked me this morning.” She shivered, and
Darius’s hands smoothed down her shoulders and arms, drifted back up again.
“Do you think they were the same guy?”
“Just based on size, they could have been.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded thick, her body so relaxed, so soft
with the feel of Darius’s hands, that she thought she might never move
again.
“What did the car look like?”
“Dark.”
“Do you want to expand on that?”
“That’s all I noticed. Dark and small.”
“It was a new Toyota. No license plate that I was able to see.”
Darius dropped into the chair beside Catherine, his long legs splayed out
beneath the table, his knee bumping Catherine’s as he shifted. Touching.
Constantly touching. That was going to be a problem if she let it.
“I don’t suppose you got a good look at the driver?” Logan
turned his attention to Darius.
“No. He was in the car and driving away before I got to the
house.”
“I’ll put a call in to the motor vehicle administration and see
how many new Toyotas are registered in the area.”
“There could be thousands, and what’s to say the guy doesn’t
live outside the area? How do we know he wasn’t driving a stolen car?” Darius
took a sip of coffee, his gaze on Logan, but Catherine had the distinct feeling
that he was very aware of her.
Maybe that was because
she
was very
aware of
him.
His masculine scent, his warmth, the solid strength of his arm
and thigh pressed close to hers.
Too close.
She shoved away from the table, the chair scraping against the
floor as she stood.
“Going somewhere, Cat?” Darius asked, grabbing her hand and
holding her still.
“I need some fresh air.”
“You’re going to have to wait for it. I can’t escort you
outside until we’re finished with the interview.”
“I don’t need—” She was going to say “an escort,” but there’d
been two attempts on her life in the past twenty-four hours.
Obviously, she
did
need an
escort.
Just not an escort named Darius.
“We won’t be much longer,” Logan offered with a smile, and she
knew both men expected her to take her seat again.