The parking structure had been designed in such a way that every other level had an area of uncovered parking. So when the car had kept coming at them despite Landon shooting at it, he’d had no choice. He’d grabbed Jocelyn up from the asphalt and he’d leaped over the half wall to the level below them.
It had just been a one-story jump down to the uncovered parking area. But the fall, and subsequent crash onto the roof of a vehicle, had knocked all the air from Landon’s lungs. They burned as he struggled to breathe.
There was such a weight lying on them—on him. He moved his arms and reached up and found Jocelyn pressed tightly against him. He’d held her as he’d jumped, turning so that he took the brunt of the fall.
It was what Clint had done when he’d leaped out of the witness’s apartment to avoid getting killed. But they’d fallen three stories into a dumpster. Landon had just struck the roof of an SUV. And Jocelyn was light. She hadn’t hurt him.
But she wasn’t moving.
He stroked his hand down her back and then up to her neck. He needed to check for a pulse. But before his fingers brushed her skin, she shivered and finally moved.
And he sucked in a breath as his ribs, which must have been bruised, ached in protest along with a twinge in his lower back.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He should have been asking her that. But before he could, someone leaned over the half wall above them and called down, “Are you all right?”
He tried to reach for his holster, but it and his weapon were trapped beneath her body. He had no way to defend them—to protect her—if that person started firing.
But then he recognized the voice, and he focused on the face of the man leaning over the half wall. Unlike Cooper Payne’s team, who were all former Marines who wore their hair in military brush cuts, this guy’s hair was long and dark blond.
“You all right?” Garek Kozminski asked again. “An ambulance is on its way.”
Maybe Jocelyn had recognized him, too, because she moved against him, struggling to sit up. Not wanting her to fall off the car, Landon caught and held her. He was finally able to draw in a deep breath again, so he sat up. Then he helped her down to the ground again.
Her legs nearly buckled beneath her. But he’d jumped down from the car and caught her before she fell. “You’re not okay,” he said.
“I’m scared,” she said. “But I’m not hurt. What about you?” Her gaze moved over his body, reminding him of how she’d looked at him and touched him the night before.
Heat rushed through his body. If he could feel attraction and desire, he wasn’t in too much pain. He shook his head. “No. I’m fine.” He glanced back up at Garek. “We don’t need an ambulance.”
“The security guard does,” Garek replied as he glanced over his shoulder. “He got hit when the guy backed up.”
“Did you get a look at him?” Landon asked.
Garek shook his head. “No. You?”
Landon cursed. “No. He had a hood drawn tight around his face and dark glasses.”
“I’m surprised you saw that much with the tinted windows,” Garek remarked.
Landon wouldn’t have seen that much had he not broken the windshield. He must not have hit the guy, though, not if he’d been able to escape. “So he got away?” he asked for confirmation, a sick feeling roiling through his stomach.
Garek sighed and nodded. “Sorry...”
It wasn’t his backup bodyguard’s fault. It was Landon’s. He should have made damn certain the man had not escaped. Hell, because of that disguise, he didn’t even know if it had been a man trying to run them down.
He was no closer to finding out who was after Jocelyn than he’d been after the shooting. He only knew that the person was getting more and more bold, which meant he or she was getting more and more desperate.
That was not good. Desperate people were unpredictable. There was no way to know when they would try to take out Jocelyn again.
The only thing Landon knew for certain was that they would try again and would keep trying until they were either caught or succeeded in killing her.
Jocelyn could not deny that someone wanted her dead. She wanted to deny it. She wanted to go on believing all those threats she’d received were empty. But they weren’t. Somebody was determined to make good on those threats.
Somebody was determined to end her life.
“Will the security guard be okay?” she asked Landon as the ambulance headed out of the parking structure with the middle-aged guard strapped to a stretcher in the back.
“Looks like it’s just a broken leg,” Landon said.
How did her bodyguard not have any broken bones? He’d taken the brunt of the fall when he’d propelled them off the half wall onto the level below and the roof of an SUV.
“Are you really okay?” she asked him.
“No,” he admitted.
And she glanced at the ambulance, willing it back even as it raced out of the garage. “You should have said—”
“I’m pissed as hell,” he said. “This idiot shouldn’t keep escaping. We should be able to catch him. I should be able to catch him.”
Whoever was after her wasn’t one of Luther’s young, careless crew members. It was somebody wiser and far more careful. Maybe it was someone within her department. She shivered as she considered it.
Some of them stood around now, watching her from the other side of the crime-scene tape Spencer Dubridge had had an officer string around the wreckage. They’d already told the detective what they knew—which had been damn little. And so much time had passed between the attempt on her and Landon’s lives and the detective’s arrival that their assailant could have ditched the vehicle and circled back to the garage to stand with her other curious coworkers. She knew they were just curious and not concerned about her. None of them was going to help her.
And neither she nor Landon could help the detective. They hadn’t gotten a good look at the driver or at the car. They’d been too busy trying to stay alive. No. Landon had been too busy trying to keep her alive.
Once again, he’d willingly put his life at risk for hers. But he was just doing his job. She had to remember that, so she didn’t get all sappy and fall for him.
Because for the first time in years, she felt sappy and overemotional. She blinked furiously against the tears stinging her eyes. And finally she dashed them away, hopefully before anyone had seen them. She didn’t want to show any weaknesses to her coworkers or to the police officers present or especially to Landon.
He might suggest that she ask to be removed from the case. She probably wouldn’t have to ask, though. She’d recognized the blond-haired bodyguard. At first she’d thought he was her boss’s husband; then she’d realized he was her boss’s brother-in-law. Either way, Amber was going to learn about this latest attempt on her life.
Detective Dubridge walked back from where he’d just peered over the half wall. Keeli Abbott stood near him, but not as close as Landon stood to her.
“Damn, Myers, I thought you and the others were taking the easy way out when you quit the vice unit to become bodyguards,” he said. “Now I see how damn dangerous your job is.” He glanced at Keeli now, and there was a furrow between his brows.
Landon shook his head. “It’s dangerous for the same reason that vice was—Luther Mills.”
“You think Luther was behind this?” Dubridge skeptically asked.
“Ultimately,” Landon said.
And it was probably true—if someone from her office had tried to run them down—that person was working for Luther. That was why Jocelyn could not be taken off his case. She had to make sure that Luther was finally brought to justice.
She had to make sure that he couldn’t hurt anyone else anymore.
Parker had just had a close call—too damn close. If not for Clint, he would have died. And he had too much to lose: his beautiful wife, his children...his agency. His friends.
He didn’t want to lose any of them. So he’d made a call, warning them all that Luther was extra dangerous.
He might have put out a hit on all of them—not just the people associated with his trial, but on the people trying to protect them.
He might have put out a hit on the entire Payne Protection Agency. Unfortunately, few of them had seemed surprised by the news.
“What happened?” he asked Landon.
“Another attempt...”
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Is Jocelyn Gerber?”
“Yes and yes,” Landon replied. But he didn’t sound all right. He sounded angry as hell. But he’d survived and so had Jocelyn unharmed, so he’d done his job.
That wasn’t enough for Landon, though. He was too much of a cop yet. He didn’t just want to protect his principal. He wanted to catch the person after her. And he wanted to stop him permanently.
Parker had a feeling that wasn’t just because of Landon’s police background, though. This assignment had gotten personal for him.
Something was going on between him and Jocelyn Gerber, just like Parker suspected something was going on between Clint and Rosie Mendez.
Had he made a mistake when handing out assignments?
He’d known nobody would protect Rosie Mendez better than Clint would. Clint felt guilty over her brother’s death and would do anything to make sure she was not harmed.
Nobody had felt guilty about Jocelyn Gerber. They’d all just been suspicious of her—no one more than Landon. So he’d assigned Landon to protect her because he’d known the former vice cop would find out the truth about her.
He hadn’t realized that truth might have Landon falling for her. And it certainly sounded like he had—at least literally—when he’d fallen off the parking structure to save her.
Was he falling for her emotionally, as well?
“I’m sorry,” Parker said. “I shouldn’t have assigned you to protect her.”
“What?” Landon asked, and he sounded befuddled.
Was he really okay?
“I know you didn’t want this assignment,” Parker reminded him. “So I’ll take you off now. I’ll have one of Logan’s team protect her.” That would be for the best—for all of them.
Parker couldn’t risk losing one of his team. And he was already worried that Clint might not survive his assignment. He couldn’t lose Landon, too.