Elizabeth Heiter - Bodyguard With A Badge

Besides, she’d done the whole falling hard for a man with a badge thing before, and it hadn’t worked out too well for her then. She doubted things would go better a second time.

“I told you the truth. Okay, so I said he wanted to kidnap me, and I guess that was wishful thinking. I suppose I knew it. Dylan wants me dead. I’ve been running for years, and now he’s found me. And you can believe if he—or one of his hired goons—catches up to me again, he won’t make the same mistake.”

“You saw something you shouldn’t have seen,” he repeated her words from earlier. “What was it?”

Juliette heaved out a sigh. “Not enough.”

“What does that mean?”

She’d come this far. The man had brought her to his house. He was the first person in years she’d dared to tell even this much. Might as well go for broke.

“My ex was a cop—is a cop. I actually met him when he pulled me over for a broken taillight. He let me go with a warning, but when I ran into him a few weeks later at a club, he asked me out.”

At the time, she’d thought it was some kind of fate, telling her to give Dylan a chance. Later, she’d learned that he’d run her plates, gotten her name and pulled her up on social media. Someone had tagged her at that club, and he’d gone there, specifically intending to bump into her. When he’d finally told her the truth on their honeymoon, she’d been flattered. Now she wondered if it had been a warning sign she’d been too infatuated to see.

“What’s his name?” Andre asked tightly.

“Dylan. Dylan Keane.”

“From Pennsylvania?”

“That’s right. But if you’re planning to dig up his file, don’t bother. He’s got a perfect record at the department. He actually got a commendation from the mayor right after we were married. No one will ever believe he’s dirty.”

“That’s what this is about?” Andre pressed. “That’s what you saw? Something to do with his work?”

“Yeah. Have you ever heard of Kent Manning?”

Andre’s eyes narrowed and his head tilted back, as though he was trying to remember where he’d heard the name.

“The businessman who was killed,” she prompted.

“That’s right. He was a multimillionaire, if I’m remembering correctly. They found him tossed in the lake in some small town in...”

She could tell the instant he realized. “Right. A small town in Pennsylvania. My small town in Pennsylvania.”

“But they caught the guy who killed him. He’s serving a life sentence, isn’t he?”

“He is. Chester Loews was Manning’s direct competitor. With Manning out of the picture, Loews’s company was poised to become the biggest logging supplier in the state.”

“All right. That’s a logical motive for murder. What does all of this have to do with your husband?”

“Ex-husband.”

“Sorry.” Andre gave her a half smile that made a dimple pop in his left cheek. “Believe me, I didn’t forget that part.”

Juliette swallowed, her mouth dry, and wondered what the heck that meant. Was it because he was interested in her?

Get it together, she reminded herself. “Anyway,” she continued, hoping she wasn’t flushed beet red, “what I overheard was my husband meeting with Boyd Harkin. He was Manning’s second-in-command, and when Manning was murdered, Harkin took over the company. He was originally a suspect, too, but the evidence against Loews was so overwhelming, it was a slam dunk. Case closed.”

“But you think Harkin actually killed Manning?” Andre guessed. “You think Loews was framed?”

“I think they were working together and only Loews got caught.”

Andre frowned. “If that’s the case, then why wouldn’t Loews turn on Harkin? Share the prison sentence?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.” He was clearly trying hard to be patient. “Why do you think they were working together?”

“My ex-husband and his partner were working the Manning murder case, and I saw Harkin hand my ex-husband a bag.” She’d come home early, unexpected, from her studio because she’d been sick. Harkin had been standing in her kitchen, a big hulk of a man who looked unnatural in a business suit. He’d handed over a brown paper bag, as though he was playing a part in a movie. “Dylan told Harkin he’d keep him out of it, but there was nothing he could do for Loews now.”

“Those were his exact words?” Andre asked.

“Yeah. I thought Dylan was getting the bag to make sure any evidence against Harkin found during the murder investigation would disappear.”

From the way Andre was nodding, he agreed. “And you think that bag contained a payoff?”

“I know it did. I found it later, stashed up in our closet. Dylan thought I didn’t know he hid things there, but I’d seen him do it before.”

“You’d seen him take money before?”

“No.” She gave a sad smile, because not all of her memories of Dylan were bad. She’d loved him once, enough to marry him. “Presents he’d bought me.”

Andre nodded, understanding on his face. “So, what made you run? Did Dylan know you’d spotted him and Harkin?”

“No. They were so busy talking, they never heard me come in.”

“Did he notice the money was moved? What?”

“No. Worse.”

“You confronted him.”

It wasn’t a question, but Juliette answered anyway. “Yes. At first I was sure Dylan would turn him in, but every few days I’d check, and the money was still there. So finally I asked him. I thought for sure he’d tell me there was an undercover operation happening, that they were going to arrest Harkin any day now.”

The memory burst forward in her mind, the moment she’d replayed so many times in the past three years. At first, she’d wished she could take it back, that she’d never seen Dylan accept the money, that she could just stay ignorant. Then, she’d wished to take back different moments, like the instant she’d said yes to his marriage proposal, practically before he could get the question out. Even the more hesitant yes when he’d first asked her out.

“He came home late because he’d been working a big case, but all excited about some cabin one of his buddies was going to lend him for the weekend. He wanted us to go away, just the two of us. Then I told him what I’d seen, and I knew the second I did it that our marriage was over.”

Sadness and pity and some other emotion she couldn’t quite pinpoint flashed across Andre’s face, and she got back to what mattered now. “He told me I needed to forget I’d ever heard that conversation.”

A tremor went through her, recalling the fury in Dylan’s voice, the hard glint she’d never seen before in his eyes. “He said if I ever told anyone, I was signing my own death warrant.”

* * *

ANDRE FOUGHT HARD to keep his expression neutral, not to let Juliette see how badly he wanted to smash her ex’s face in with his fist right now. He was pretty sure he was failing miserably.

She gave him a shaky smile. “This is why I was trying to run. I can’t have my name connected to any kind of investigation or he’ll find me.”

“You do know there’s not some kind of law enforcement bulletin that goes out with everyone’s active cases, right?” Andre joked.

“Yeah, well, when the hostage situation hits the news—if it hasn’t already—he’ll know I’m here. The first thing he’ll do is contact the FBI.”

“I doubt it. That’d be pretty suspicious.”

She snorted. It should have been ugly, but somehow it was cute. “Trust me, he’ll come up with a story everyone will believe. He’s done it before.”

“What do you mean?” Andre asked, remembering her comment that she’d tried to get help in the past, and no one had believed her. “You tried to report him, didn’t you?”