“Because we were still walking in the dark ourselves.” And he wanted to hurry back into that room with Grant, Jennifer, Sullivan and dear old Nate to find out more. “All right, yeah, you know Jennifer was being stalked. Well, less than an hour ago, we learned that Nate in there is working for the guy.”
“And who the hell is Nate?”
“An ex-government agent.” He hesitated, then said, “Just like Jennifer. The guy was her partner in the field, but they both got out of the business years ago.”
Shayne squeezed his eyes shut. “Spies.”
“Ex-spies.”
Shayne swore. “Do you know the kind of paperwork we’re talking?”
“Nate is a puppet on a string. We have to pull in Brushard before that guy strikes again.” His muscles were locked down. “Before he kills Jennifer.”
“Wait—just wait.” Shayne’s expression turned pensive. “Have you gotten official confirmation that those two were spies? I mean, I know you have contacts in the government—have they backed up the woman’s story? How do you know you can actually trust what she’s saying? What he’s saying?”
“Grant is getting confirmation.”
Shayne’s sigh was loud and long. “And in the meantime, that Nate guy is just going to—what? Call in some killer who will waltz right up to us and turn himself in?”
No way would it be that easy. “I’d expect more of a fight. That’s why we want your boys in blue here.”
Shayne’s shoulders sagged. “Being friends with the McGuires is never easy.”
Brodie waited.
“He makes the call,” Shayne finally said, “but that only happens at the PD. Where we can monitor him, where my men can trace the call and be lead on this investigation.”
No, this wasn’t—
“You and your brothers aren’t vigilantes, Brodie. You can’t just keep a man handcuffed, no matter what he’s done.” Shayne jutted out his chin. “I’m taking him downtown. I have to do it—that’s my job. You and your brothers follow us. Then we’ll bring in the killer out there who’s gunning for your girl.” Shayne’s gaze was troubled. “You knew you were walking the line on this one already, didn’t you? That’s why you called me in. Not because you wanted backup.”
“The jerk nearly killed Mark Montgomery.” And when Brodie thought of Jennifer’s stalker, a killing rage coursed through him. Maybe he was worried about crossing the line because for Jennifer... I’d do it.
Shayne nodded. “We’re going to stop him, but we have to do it the right way.” And then Shayne marched back into Grant’s office, and Brodie followed on his heels.
“Uncuff him,” Shayne ordered when he stood right in front of Nate.
Grant didn’t move. Neither did Sullivan.
“I’m taking him into custody.”
Nate’s eyes widened. “On what charge? I didn’t do anything.” His cheeks flushed a dark red. “I’m the victim! I’m the one they kidnapped and handcuffed! You need to be arresting those fools!”
“Maybe if he hadn’t heard you raging in here, he would have bought your innocent act more,” Grant muttered.
Shayne’s jaw hardened. “Uncuff him. Now.”
Sullivan glanced at Grant. Grant looked at Brodie.
Jennifer frowned at them all.
“Stop the silent McGuire communication,” Shayne snapped. “My department will give you full backing to track down this Stephen Brushard. But we’re doing it the right way. And this guy...he’s getting put in a cell.”
Brodie nodded at Grant. Grant pulled the keys from his pocket. He unhooked the cuffs. Before Nate could jump out of his chair, Shayne had pulled out his weapon and the detective aimed it right at the ex-agent. “I’m following the law. Don’t mistake that for weakness on my part. You make any move to attack me or the McGuires, and you will regret it. I promise you that.” He motioned with his gun. “Now, stand up and keep your hands behind your back. You’re getting cuffed again—because I don’t want to worry about you trying to attack me.”
Nate’s glare should have burned the flesh right off Shayne.
When Nate was up and his hands were cuffed behind his back, the guy’s face turned an even darker red. “Do you know who I am?” He demanded as his white-hot stare raked Shayne. “You can’t do this to me!”
“Give it a rest, Nate,” Jennifer muttered. “They don’t care who you were or who you are... They’re taking you in.” Brodie hated the sadness in her eyes. She’d trusted Nate, but he’d sold her out.
Shayne pulled Nate forward. “Come on, my car’s waiting outside.”
Grant and Sullivan followed behind him. Jennifer started to advance, but Brodie blocked her path. “Are you okay?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
Her lips trembled, but then she pressed them together and gave a quick nod.
“Jennifer?”
“I... We worked together for so long. I think I might have even started to pretend to myself...thinking that we were some kind of family.” Her lashes lowered, shielding her eyes. “I would never have sold him out. I guess...I guess you really can’t depend on anyone but yourself, huh?”
His fingers cupped her chin. “You can depend on me.” He needed her to know that. To understand. Whatever came their way, he was going to be at her side.
“Do you mean that?”
Hell, yes, he did.
Her breath rushed out. “Thank you.”
He wanted to take her into his arms, to hold her tight, but the danger wasn’t over. They had more work to do. And now that they had the PD behind them, that work would go a hell of a lot faster.
“Come on,” he said, and they headed for the door.
Sullivan was the first one to exit the building. He went out, sweeping the area. The cameras had shown no sign that any intruder was close by, but since Nate said he’d tipped off Stephen, they didn’t want to take any chances.
Grant left next, armed, body tense.
Shayne pulled Nate out. Nate was digging in his heels. Twisting his arms. “I’m not telling you anything!” His voice rose. “I’ve already lost too much! I won’t lose anything else! I won’t!”
Brodie followed closely behind Shayne. Jennifer was at his side. Brodie’s gaze swept the scene. Shayne’s vehicle was just a few feet away. There was no sign of Stephen.
Because he got tipped off and ran...but we’ll pull him in again. We won’t lose him.
Shayne shoved Nate into the back of his car. Then he looked over at Sullivan. “Will you—”
“I’ll make sure the guy doesn’t cause any trouble.” Sullivan climbed into Shayne’s car.
Shayne nodded. “Good. Then let’s get out of here.”
They loaded into the vehicles and headed out.
Grant was in the lead vehicle. Shayne and Sullivan were driving in the second car with Nate. Brodie took the protective cover as the last in their line.
“We’re going to have Brushard in custody soon,” Brodie told Jennifer. He risked a fast glance at her. She looked so fragile. So tired as she sat beside him in that car.
“I was just doing my job,” she murmured. “I saw the evidence against him. He’d destroyed so many lives...” He heard the faint click of her swallow. “I had to turn him in, and now Stephen is trying to destroy me.”
He caught her hand. Held tight. “That’s not happening.” Not on his watch.
* * *
“WHY ARE YOU all willing to die for her?” The man known as Nate Wesley asked as he leaned forward.
Sullivan glared at the guy. He didn’t trust him for an instant.
“I mean, Brodie, I get that part. They’re lovers, right? Have to be.” Nate exhaled. “So she’s got him wrapped up tight, but you two guys? I mean, come on... You don’t want to get in Stephen Brushard’s way. Believe me, you don’t.”
Shayne kept his eyes on the road.
Sullivan knew the detective wanted Nate to keep talking—to keep digging his own grave with every word he said. Sullivan knew, because he wante
d the exact same thing.
“You’re scared of the guy,” Sullivan muttered.
“He killed my Shelly!” Nate snarled. “Of course I’m scared of him. The man escaped a Russian prison. He’s got ties so deep with the Russian mob... He’s death. If you don’t give him what he wants, then he’ll rip your world to shreds.”
Shayne braked at a red light. The street around them was deserted. “And what he wants is Jennifer?”
“He doesn’t love her. Those softer feelings are long dead for him.” Nate jerked at his cuffs. “He’s furious because she betrayed him, and he’s an eye-for-an-eye type. He’s not going to stop. He won’t ever stop, not until he gets what he wants.”
Jennifer’s death.
Sullivan heard a faint click. He tensed as his gaze sharpened on Nate. “I want you to sit back now.” Nate had leaned forward, perching on the edge of the backseat.
“I won’t just wait for the guy to come at me. You think I’ll be safe in jail?” Nate’s voice rose even more. “He’ll get to me! If he thinks I’m betraying him, then he’ll kill me just like he’s going to kill her!”
Sullivan grabbed for the guy. “I told you to sit—”
Nate’s hands flew up. His uncuffed hands. Too late, Sullivan realized what that faint click had been. The cuffs dangled loosely from Nate’s right hand, and he swung that hand hard at Sullivan’s face.
“What’s happening back there?” Shayne barked.
Sullivan felt his nose break on impact.
Nate leaped toward the front of the car. He locked his arm around Shayne’s neck. The car immediately swerved to the right as Shayne fought him.
Sullivan’s hands closed around Nate. “Let him go!” he shouted. Damn, the guy was stronger than he looked. “Let him—”
The car crashed into a light post.
Chapter Nine
Brodie slammed on the brakes and jumped out of his SUV. “Sullivan!” He ran toward Shayne’s smashed vehicle, adrenaline and fear eating at him as he roared his brother’s name.
Jennifer’s footsteps pounded over the pavement as she rushed after him.
The back door opened on Shayne’s car. Nate staggered out. He saw Brodie. Jennifer. “They’re dead,” he shouted as he stilled under a streetlight.
No, no, Sullivan was not dead. Up the street, Grant had braked his car, and he was running back toward the wreckage.
Brodie grabbed Nate, his hands locking around the guy’s shoulders. “What did you do?” He shook the older man.
Nate smiled. “I wasn’t the driver...I’m not the one who killed them.”
This guy had been a government agent? “What happened to you?”
Nate’s eyelids jerked. “Death. You lose everyone, everything, then you learn to watch out for yourself.”
And Brodie felt the hard edge of a knife press into his stomach.
“Your brother had a knife strapped to his ankle.” Nate gave a little shrug. “I was always pretty good with knives.”
The knife jabbed deeper into Brodie’s side.
“I’m not calling Stephen Brushard,” Nate said. “And I don’t care who I have to kill in order to—”
Brodie grabbed his wrist, shattered the bones. The knife dropped to the ground with a clatter. Brodie shoved Nate back, back, until the guy’s shoulders slammed into the side of a brick building.
“If they’re dead,” Brodie said, his low words a promise, “then so are you.”
“You broke my wrist!”
“I’ll break more than that if you ever try to hurt my brother or my friend again.” Brodie held Nate pinned to the wall. He glanced over his shoulder, trying to see what was happening with the wreckage.
The front of Shayne’s car was smashed to hell and back. Glass littered the street. Brodie could see someone slumped in the backseat.
Sullivan.
Jennifer was climbing into the backseat, trying to reach Sullivan, while Grant had yanked open the driver’s door in an attempt to get Shayne out of the wreckage.
“He’s alive!” Jennifer shouted.
“He won’t be for long,” Nate whispered. “Stephen Brushard took away the woman I loved because she was in his way. What do you think he’ll do to those men? To the cop? To your brother? Is she really worth their lives?”
Shayne stumbled out of the vehicle. No other cars were on that street, not yet. This business area was usually pretty empty on the weekend.
Grant rushed to help Jennifer.
“Choose carefully,” Nate told him.
Brodie wanted to drive his fist into the guy’s jaw. “She lived as your daughter for years! Don’t you care at all about what happens to her?” He let Nate go but didn’t back away far. You’re not getting away.
“All that was a lie. The woman you think you know is a lie.” Nate stepped away from the wall. “I won’t lose everything I have just for—”
A gunshot rang out.
Nate’s words ended in a strangled gasp as red ballooned on his chest.
He followed us.
Brodie grabbed Nate and yanked him to the right, trying to give the guy cover. “Jennifer! Grant!”
At first, the only sound he heard was the wail of a siren, coming closer. Had Shayne called for backup?
Then... “We’re okay!” Jennifer yelled.
Nate definitely wasn’t okay. Brodie put his hands on Nate’s chest, trying to stop the blood flow, but the shot had been far too accurate.
The bullet had blasted straight into Nate’s heart.
Nate’s breath heaved out. His head turned toward Brodie. “See...told you...no...escape...”
His eyes closed.
No.
“Where’s the shooter?” Grant called.
More gunfire rang out then. More blasts. The bullets slammed right into the car. Brodie looked over and saw that Grant and Jennifer were in the backseat of Shayne’s wrecked car. The rear window had just shattered, spilling glass down on them as they curled over Sullivan.
Shayne was behind the wrecked car, trying to take aim up at a building on the right. Brodie caught the glint of a weapon on the third floor.
He didn’t follow us. He was waiting for us...
How had the guy known they’d be taking Nate to the police station?
Grant fired back at the shooter, and, using that gunfire as cover, Brodie ran toward the building on the right. The shooter was there...waiting. He could get him. But—
Police cruisers rushed up to the scene. Two of them. The cops jumped out and pointed their weapons at Brodie.
“Freeze!” a uniformed cop shouted. “And drop the weapon!”
The weapon? Brodie looked at his hand and saw the knife he’d picked up. Hell. Grabbing it had been second nature to him. “Wrong guy,” he told them. “I’m not the threat—he’s up there!”
“I said drop it!” the cop shouted.
Brodie looked up at the window. He was right out there in the open, a perfect target. So were the cops. If Brushard wanted to take him out, this was the moment. “He can kill us all. You need to get back behind your patrol car. Now.”
The cops came closer. “I told you—”
“I’m Detective Shayne Townsend!” Shayne’s voice seemed weaker than normal. “Badge 210. I’m the one who radioed in... That man is with me. We’ve got a shooter upstairs...third floor.”
The cops looked toward that window and hurriedly backed up. One called in and confirmed Shayne’s badge number.
But they kept their weapons pointed at Brodie.
“He’s getting away,” Brodie said. The man’s getaway had to be the reason why he hadn’t fired yet. “We can’t just stand here, waiting, while that shooter runs. He just killed a man!”
And those fresh-faced cops weren’t equipped to handle the guy. But Brodie was.
“Let me go after him,” Brodie snarled.
“No, everyone stay right where you are!” This shout came from the taller cop, the guy with red hair. “We’ll get this sorted out.”
br /> “You’re letting him get away,” Brodie snapped.
“We need an ambulance!” Shayne called out. “Hurry!”
The cops got confirmation on Shayne’s badge, and they finally sprang into action. One ran toward the wrecked car.
One ran for the building—and Brodie was right behind him.
Brodie rushed up a flight of stairs, even as he heard the scream of more sirens outside. Help, coming in like a fury.
Too late for Nate. But not for Sullivan. Not for my brother.
They burst onto the third floor. The cop ran in with a shout, and Brodie had to jerk the guy back. But the third floor was empty, a cavernous open space in the abandoned building.
Damn it. He’d feared the shooter was getting away. When the bullets hadn’t torn into him, he’d known that deafening silence had meant that the perp was fleeing.
His hands fisted as he went toward the window on the right. The window that was still open and looked out on the street.
An ambulance was below. More patrol cars. Shayne was directing the scene, and Brodie saw that Sullivan had been pulled from the car.
“The third floor’s empty,” the cop said, and Brodie glanced back at him. The kid was on his radio. “We’ll search all the floors. We need backup!”
Brodie’s hand slammed into the window frame. A small chunk of glass fell loose when he hit it. Brodie frowned at that glass. He picked it up. Tilted it.
Light glinted off the glass.
The shooter wasn’t here. He was somewhere else... He wasn’t here!
Frantic now, his gaze went back to the street below. Jennifer was being pulled away by Shayne. She glanced up toward him, her face etched with fear and—
No!
“Jennifer!” he roared.
Sullivan was on a stretcher. Grant turned at Brodie’s shout.
Jennifer was out in the open. Too easy. What was Shayne thinking to let her stand out there like that? Shayne knew she was the guy’s target.
“Get cover!” Brodie yelled. “Get—”
Gunfire exploded.
But it didn’t hit Jennifer. Grant had grabbed her, and they’d hit the ground.
The sirens screamed again.
“He’s in the next building,” Brodie yelled. This time, he’d seen exactly where that shot came from. “Not this one! We need men in there before he hurts anyone else!”