Lisa Childs - Evidence Of Attraction

“You’ve definitely got a problem,” Hart told Chief Lynch as he and Wendy joined him in the conference room at the Payne Protection Agency.

The chief arched a gray brow over blue eyes that were bright and alert despite the late hour. “Did something happen at Ms. Thompson’s home?”

Besides her not waiting outside for him like he’d thought she would be? Besides his making the risky move of breaking in and nearly getting shot?

Hart shook his head. “But that’s the problem. Nobody noticed me sneaking in and out of that house.”

“My father did,” Wendy chimed in with a slight smile.

Hart shuddered as he remembered the older man throwing open the door and training that gun barrel on him. “It’s good that he can protect himself and your mother.” He turned back to the chief, who stood at the end of a long conference table. “Because I don’t trust that unit you have stationed outside their house to protect them.”

The chief flinched.

Hart felt a twinge of regret that he had offended the older man even though Woodrow Lynch shouldn’t have been offended. He hadn’t had much to do with the existing police force. He hadn’t hired or trained them. He’d just recently taken the position of River City police chief after giving up his role as an FBI Bureau chief.

Wendy must have been offended, too, because her elbow jabbed his ribs. Now he felt a twinge of pain—from where her elbow had jabbed him earlier when he’d tried helping her out of the bedroom window. After elbowing him aside, she’d easily slipped over the sill and had moved silently across the roof to the trestle. He’d insisted on going down first, to catch her in case she fell and to make sure nobody could grab her on the ground.

That had been a mistake because, from the ground, all Hart had been able to see was her ass as she’d scrambled down the trestle. She had moved so quickly that she’d slipped. When he’d caught her, his hands cupping her ass, she’d elbowed him again.

That time might have been an accident. This time was definitely not. But Hart wasn’t out of line—not with lives at stake.

“Somebody should have noticed us leaving,” he insisted. What if he had been one of Luther’s crew?

Neither the chief nor Wendy could argue with him now. Lynch sighed. “That’s why I brought in Payne Protection.”

“Why Parker’s team?”

The question came from someone other than Hart. His former coworker Tyce Jackson. The bearded man sat at the table beside Judge Holmes and his daughter, Bella. In the same way Luther had threatened Wendy’s family, the threat he’d used to try to influence the judge was that his daughter was in danger. Woodrow Lynch had been right to call in the Payne Protection Agency. Whatever other motives the chief might have had were beside the point.

Lynch answered Tyce. “I figured Parker’s team had a vested interest in making sure Luther Mills was finally brought to justice.”

Hart winced with regret, frustrated that he hadn’t taken down Luther himself. Tyce might have winced, as well, but with as bushy as his black beard was, it was impossible to tell. When they’d worked Vice—with Parker—they’d all tried for years to bring down Luther. But the drug dealer had been too powerful then. Would he prove to be too powerful now?

“Where is Parker?” Hart asked.

Parker had been in his office earlier, but maybe he’d left to look for some of the others. Not everyone was here yet.

Even as he thought that, the door opened. The assistant district attorney, Jocelyn Gerber, walked in, her bodyguard, former vice cop Landon Myers, behind her.

Then the door opened again and Detective Spencer Dubridge entered midargument with his bodyguard, Keeli Abbott. They appeared to be arguing over who should walk first through the door. The detective might have been trying to be a gentleman, but Keeli, the former RCPD cop, would undoubtedly be offended. When they’d all worked together in Vice, the very capable female officer had accused Dubridge of being a male chauvinist.

What the hell had Parker been thinking when he’d made these matchups? Landon and Keeli might not mind if someone harmed the people they were supposed to be protecting.

“Parker was checking on someone in his office,” the chief told Hart with a smile. He must have known about Felicity.

Hart’s usual babysitter had got sick and had dropped the little girl off at his work. It was a good thing Parker had been here then and that he was good with kids. The backup sitter should be arriving soon if she hadn’t already.

“Then he was going outside to consult with the perimeter guards,” Lynch added.

Parker and the chief had been smart to have extra security for this meeting. If Luther Mills had learned about it, the opportunity of having everyone associated with the trial in one place would have been too great for him to pass up.

Since they had no idea who and where his informants were, Mills might have heard about it. He could have ordered a hit…

Hart tilted his head and listened. But he heard no sound of gunfire.

“The eyewitness isn’t here,” Assistant DA Jocelyn Gerber said, her voice rising with alarm as she looked around the conference room. “Where is she?”

“Parker is checking on that, too,” the chief said.

The woman’s already pale face lost the little bit of color it had had. “This is bad…”

“This is ridiculous,” Wendy said. “We don’t need extra protection. Not even Luther Mills can take out everyone associated with his trial.”

“He doesn’t have to take out everyone,” Gerber said. “Just the eyewitness.” She focused her pale blue eyes on Wendy and added, “And you.”

Because with Wendy gone, it would be difficult to prove that the chain of evidence had remained unbroken. Since she’d collected it from the murder scene, she was the most important link in the chain.

Luther Mills leaned back on the thin mattress in his cell and uttered a sigh. He wouldn’t be here much longer. The plan was already starting to work. He’d just been informed that the eyewitness had gone out a window.

Sure, that hadn’t exactly been part of the plan. The crew he’d sent after her was supposed to have shot her. But her apartment was on the third floor. A fall from that height had probably killed her and the man they’d said had gone out the window with her. Clint Quarters. What the hell had the former vice cop been doing there?

Had he just been checking on Rosie out of guilt? Quarters was the cop who’d got her brother killed by turning him into an informant. That kind of betrayal deserved the death sentence Luther had given Javier Mendez.

It was too bad Luther had had to deliver that same sentence to Rosie. If only she’d learned the lesson her brother should have… If only she had kept her sexy damn mouth shut…

But her testimony wasn’t Luther’s only problem. There was all that evidence from the scene, too.

Evidence that shouldn’t have been found.

That wouldn’t have been found if probably any other crime scene tech had been involved. Everybody knew not to look too closely at a crime he’d committed.

Little Miss By-the-Book Wendy Thompson was as big a pain in Luther’s ass as this damn uncomfortable jailhouse mattress.

But he would get rid of her and the evidence just as easily as he’d got rid of the eyewitness.

“That’s lucky for you,” Jocelyn Gerber remarked after Rosie Mendez left the conference room with the chief and Parker Payne, her bodyguard, Clint Quarters, trailing behind them.