Wyatt hit Send on a text to Parker and crept toward his front door, weapon ready. The neighbor lady who cleaned his house had a key, but today wasn’t her day. She’d never even so much as left the place unlocked—even though Wyatt did it all the time. He had nothing worth stealing, and she’d never leave the door open anyway.
Entranceway was clear. It wasn’t a big place, maybe eleven hundred square feet total, but the layout was like a maze. The blind corners had given him pause when he’d bought it, but he’d figured one day he might need the defensive advantage in his home. Guess that day is today.
Kitchen was clear.
Hall. Living room. Same.
The door to his bedroom was wide, so he peered around the corner.
“Don’t just stand there, come in.”
Wyatt went gun first, just to make the point. “Hands on your head, you’re under arrest.”
Mr. Thomas turned. “I don’t think so.” A vicious scratch had left a raw red line from the corner of his left eye down to his jaw.
Wyatt lifted his chin. “Nina do that to you?”
Mr. Thomas’s eyes narrowed.
“I said hands on your head.”
The man cocked his head to the side. “Hmm. I don’t see it.”
Was Wyatt supposed to know what he was talking about? The man had broken into his cabin to chat, but Wyatt wasn’t going to assume an attack wouldn’t be forthcoming.
“Especially considering the ‘victim, father’ angle.” The man’s accent was upper class. He likely blended in well at the country club, especially in that tailored shirt and slacks and those loafers. He must have changed after tussling with Nina on the grass the night before.
Wyatt said, “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
The longer Wyatt could get him to peaceably hang around, the better chance he and Parker had of bringing the guy in without too much hassle. They’d brought down violent criminals before, and if a physical altercation could be avoided, that was preferable. But the man was going down. He’d shot Tashi. And while she would recover, Karl was a total wreck.
Wyatt didn’t blame him. Thinking Nina might have been hurt, it had felt like his heart stopped beating for a second. He couldn’t imagine what Karl was feeling.
Parker hadn’t replied, but he would be here in minutes. Wyatt just had to stall.
“I spent the day doing my homework.” Mr. Thomas turned slowly. He surveyed the photo frames on Wyatt’s dresser, old family pictures. His parents’ vow renewal. He lifted a picture of Wyatt and his brother with their arms around their father, the shorter, gray-haired man between them.
“Interesting man, your father. I understand he was a cop, like you. Left the force right around the time you transferred out of the police department. Though I don’t blame you, greener pastures and all that.” Mr. Thomas paused. “And while I understand his move perfectly well, choosing to resign in the face of what he had to know was coming, I don’t so much understand yours.”
What his father had coming? The man was making assumptions he knew nothing about. “What it is, is none of your business.”
He knew what Mr. Thomas was doing. Or trying to do. It was the biggest angle there was, the most obvious and he was aiming true. He was attempting to get in Wyatt’s head and throw him off. But Wyatt knew it, which gave him the advantage. He lifted his gun back up the inch it had slipped. “I’m not going to ask again.”
“He’s been trying to call you, hasn’t he? Guess you have nothing to say. Maybe you feel like he betrayed you, betrayed the brotherhood, his badge. Sacred honor and all.”
“Like you could understand any of that.”
“Hmm. More than you may think.” Mr. Thomas paused for a breath, his words measured as though he had all the time in the world.
Where was Parker?
“I, too, once belonged to a brotherhood. I had a mission, a cause to fight for. They sold that and every one of us bought it. But the rose always withers, does it not? Faith dies. Love fades. Things lose their shine, and all you’re left with is the bitter truth.”
“And what’s that?”
“Nina and I are tied together. We are bonded in a way you cannot even dream of. And you will never, not for all the trying in the world, be able to sever that connection. It was forged in blood, and she will never feel for you what she feels for me, not once in the rest of her life. Me? I made her free.”
Dread flooded Wyatt like an ice bath on an already cold day, and he clenched his stomach to keep from shivering. This guy was insane.
Mr. Thomas’s expression was blank, even with all he’d been spouting. “All you have is guilt you haven’t saved her from me. That’s not a basis for a relationship, regardless of her deluding herself into thinking she has feelings for you. She’s not capable of giving you what you want.”
“And you know her better than she knows herself, am I right?”
Mr. Thomas didn’t answer.
Figures. Wyatt could barely stomach the arrogance pouring off this guy. It was everything he hated about rich people who thought money could buy them out of their problems, their habits or their charges. And yeah, he might have taken that out on Nina when she was clearly different. But he’d seen it so many times he could almost spot it before the person even said anything.
Wyatt stepped forward. “Connection or not, you’re under arrest. I’d read the list of charges, but it might take a while.” This guy wasn’t going to get in his head. Wyatt was no longer prepared to let that happen.
Mr. Thomas lifted his hands to elbow height and held his palms out. That didn’t mean he didn’t have a weapon stashed somewhere on his person. Wyatt circled around to the back of him. “Hands.”
Mr. Thomas moved.
Wyatt blocked the first blow, and the second. He hit back, used his gun as weight and saw Mr. Thomas stumble. He stepped forward, then realized too late that the man had faked it. Mr. Thomas’s uppercut hit Wyatt on the chin.
He blinked, stumbled back and shook off the daze. Hit back. Caught him in the stomach. The ribs. Breath whooshed from Mr. Thomas’s lungs.
Wyatt reached for a pair of flex cuffs. In the space of a blink, Mr. Thomas’s hand darted out. His locked fingers hit Wyatt right in the throat.
Wyatt choked, fell to his knees and gasped for breath. The gun dropped to the carpet.
Air. He needed air.
Where was Parker? Mr. Thomas was getting away. Pant legs appeared in front of him, shoes. Then a cold voice said, “It’s time to say goodbye, Wyatt Ames. This has been fun, but now I have more important matters to attend to. Adios.”
Wyatt grabbed for the place on Mr. Thomas’s arm he thought he’d hit in Karl’s backyard.
Mr. Thomas cried out, but managed to punch him again. In the throat. Again.
Wyatt collapsed on the floor of his bedroom, still trying to suck air into his screaming lungs, but curled up enough he could reach his ankle and the backup weapon he kept in a holster there.
He lifted the gun and fired at Mr. Thomas once again as he ran from the scene.
Wyatt coughed, rolled and tried to get up. Collapsed back down. He fumbled for his phone, dropped it.
Message did not send.
He called Parker’s number. Your call cannot be connected.
Were they okay? Had Mr. Thomas done something to them, or to their house?
It was getting easier to breathe, but he was still likely going to pass out. Before he did, he called 911. It rang. And rang. I’m sorry, your call cannot be connected.
Black spots flickered on the edges of Wyatt’s vision. He was going to pass out. His friends were in danger.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
* * *
From far away, a phone rang. Nina set her mug on the coffee table and turned toward the sound. Not her phone, and despite it being early morning it hadn’t woken her. She’d have to have been asleep in the first place for that.
“Are you kidding me?” Parker’s heavy steps strode down the hall toward her. “Yes. We’ll be there in two minutes.”
Nina glanced over the back of the couch where he muttered, “I don’t believe this,” pulling on his jacket. He glanced up. “Don’t just sit there, get dressed.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Sienna! Let’s go!”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Thomas attacked Wyatt.” Nina shot off the couch while Parker continued, “He’s at his house and awake enough to explain what happened. I’ll meet you there.”
Nina looked around for the jeans she’d bought in Portland. “Is he okay?”
“He’s alive.” Parker shut the front door.
Sienna emerged from the bedroom, and Nina got dressed. Sienna drove them to Wyatt’s in her car. Nina didn’t even know where his place was, but for Wyatt’s description of a tree stump. Apparently Mr. Thomas did, though. What had he done? Why had he turned on Wyatt so soon after they’d returned from Portland?
Dawn had barely broken. Sienna took the curves at a speed that made Nina grab the handle at the top of the door. When she pulled up outside a log cabin, she parked on a grassy bank off to the side of two cop cars, Parker’s SUV and an ambulance. The front door was wide open, two cops on the porch.
Nina threw the car door open and raced over. She ran inside and saw Parker at the end of the hall. “Over here.” He sent her a chin lift that didn’t reassure her one bit.
“How is he?”
“Beat up, having trouble breathing, but alive even though he lay on his bedroom floor hardly breathing for hours.”
A simple “Okay” wasn’t good enough? The man felt it necessary to affirm the fact that Wyatt was alive. Parker’s face had paled and his chest heaved with breath until his wife hugged his middle and he visibly relaxed. Parker was reassuring himself that Wyatt was okay, that he was alive. Nina relaxed. That’s what was going on—Parker was freaked out because he cared so much for his partner.
She turned the corner and saw him then. Scratches. Bruises. His throat red, raw and swollen. And he’d lain there all night? He hadn’t tried to call them? A lump stuck in her throat and she surged forward.
“STOP!”
His barked command made her trip over her feet. She stumbled but remained standing. “What?” He didn’t want her near him? Why couldn’t she go to him?
His eyes were hard, and the EMT beside him gently felt his throat with gloved hands. Someone pushed at Nina’s back, trying to get her to move. The rushing sound in her ears coalesced into words.
“Excuse me.”
Wyatt shifted his head to the side and winced. Nina got the message and moved out of the way. A uniformed police officer passed her, carrying what looked like a plastic toolbox.
He scraped under Wyatt’s fingernails and closed the implement in its own container, sealing it up in a plastic bag that he wrote on.
“Thanks.” Wyatt shook the man’s hand.
“You got evidence?” Parker stepped forward so he was beside Nina.
Wyatt nodded. “DNA.”
Was he serious? “How?”
Wyatt turned to her. He motioned for her to come to him, but she didn’t move. Nina couldn’t think past all the questions. “How did you get DNA?”
“Actually, it was you who gave me the idea.” His voice was raw. It looked like it hurt to speak. “You scratched him in Karl and Tashi’s yard. On his face.”
Parker shifted to face her. “We can run that DNA and get an ID. Between that and the photo, we have a decent shot at finding out who this guy actually is.”
“He’s a killer,” she said. “What else do we need to know?”
Parker set his hand on her shoulder. “Once we have his name, the tables turn. We go on offense instead of constantly reacting to whatever he does. You and Wyatt will be out of harm’s way.”
Sienna said, “Why did he come after Wyatt?”
Nina turned to her friend. It was a good question, but she didn’t know the answer.
“Wyatt is connected to this now.” Parker’s words were measured, cautious.
Nina took a step back anyway. This was her fault. She’d put Wyatt on Mr. Thomas’s radar. “First he shoots Tashi, and now he comes after you? I thought everything was directed at me because I’m trying to catch him.” It should have been. No one else was supposed to get caught in this killer’s cross fire.
“Nina—”
“No.” Sienna was going to try and convince her that it was fine when it wasn’t. Or that there was nothing she could have done to prevent this. Nina couldn’t handle that. Wyatt could have died and it would’ve been her fault. She fought the urge to go to him, to touch him and reassure herself that he was okay.
The EMT said something. Parker squeezed her arm, then shook Wyatt’s hand in some elaborate move she didn’t know. Sienna said, “We’ll be outside.”
And then she was alone with him. He sat on the bed, looking for all the world like he’d been run through one of those old-fashioned clothes dryers that squeezed things flat.
“Come here, Nina.”
She didn’t move. “The last time I tried to do that, you yelled at me.” She didn’t mean to sound impatient, but what if she hugged him and wound up hurting him? She was beginning to understand Parker’s reaction.
“Because the evidence on me hadn’t been collected.” He sighed. “Nina, come here.”
She made it to him on wooden legs. Wyatt put his hand on her shoulder and used it to keep him stable when he stood. She looked up at his dark eyes and touched his forearm so he didn’t break their connection.
Wyatt said, “I’m okay. I tried to arrest him. We fought. I got DNA, and he clocked me in the throat before I tried to shoot him. Then he was gone.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
His face softened and he pulled her to him. Nina wrapped her arms around his waist and fought the tide of emotion that threatened to turn the lump in her throat to tears. Crying never solved anything, even if Sienna said it made her feel better. It didn’t change things; it only made Nina’s face puffy and blocked her sinuses.
The front of his shirt was warm from his body heat. Maybe she’d tell Sienna about her discovery of how nice it was to be hugged by a man who was taller and stronger than her at a time when she didn’t feel good. Though given that Parker was Sienna’s husband, she probably already knew that.
Nina pulled in a big breath and sighed, relaxing into the hold Wyatt had on her. “Thank you.”
His hand was on the back of her neck as his fingers sifted through her hair. “You’re welcome.” His chest shook like he was laughing.
Nina leaned back and tried to scowl. “What exactly is funny about this?”
“Plenty.” He squeezed the back of her neck and gently pulled her in so her head was back on his chest. “But I’m not done with the hug yet.”
“Were you really lying here all night?”
“I was passed out, mostly. Tried to call Parker, didn’t get anything. Tried 911. I think he did something to my phone the way he did to yours. I lost track of time. When I woke up enough the phone worked. So I called it in.” Wyatt paused. “I’m still trying to figure it all out. My phone log says I called the cops just before midnight, but it never went through. I woke up a little after six and called again. That’s when they came.”
Nina looked at the alarm clock. “It’s eight now.”
“I told the cops not to call Parker for a while. I thought the call didn’t connect because he was on a job. I wasn’t really thinking clearly. But they checked with the office and nothing was going on so they called him.”
His phone, lying on the bed, rang. Wyatt pulled her with him as he went to answer it. “Ames.” His eyes flashed wide. “You’re kidding me. Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you.” He hung up.
“That was Karl. Someone tried to kill Ronnie Walters.”