Love Inspired Suspense July 2015 #2 (49 page)

“You know full well it looked as though Olivia was in danger and I didn't know you or Chloe were cops.” Daniel kept his hands down by his sides. Chloe's gun stayed firm in his grasp. “Just let me go check on Sarah and make sure she's okay. She's my responsibility. I'm not going anywhere without her.”

“You're not going anywhere at all.” Trent nodded at Chloe. “Get my handcuffs from my bag.”

The cop was holding his gun in his left hand. Strange, considering he'd definitely fought like a right-handed man. His right arm now lay limp at his side, and even through his shirt Daniel could see his shoulder bone was protruding oddly. Trent was injured. It was probably a broken collarbone by the look of it. Trent might want to take him down, but Daniel doubted he had the strength to do so. He might not even be able to shoot straight.

For a nanosecond, Daniel let his eyes dart to the open door to the adjoining motel room. He'd never imagined resisting arrest before. But these were hardly normal circumstances. Sarah might be safe inside Rita's trailer for now, but she was still his responsibility. Letting her sleep for a little bit was miles away from leaving her there in Rita's care indefinitely. No matter what happened next, he was pretty sure he could count on Chloe to look out for Olivia. But if he was arrested, handcuffed and taken off to prison, there'd be no one to safeguard Sarah.

“Daniel was only trying to protect me.” Olivia stepped out from behind Daniel's cover. “He's a good man. He's probably the best man I've ever met. He's not a criminal.”

An unexpected lump rose in his throat. He'd been called a lot of things in his life. Bodyguard. Giant. Guardian. Fool. But somehow no title had ever hit him as hard as hearing the certainty in Olivia's voice as she told the cop he was a good man.

Lord, she believes in me. Let me live up to the man I am in her eyes.

He looked from the cop with the gun in front of him to the woman standing by his side. Somebody had to step up, be the peacemaker and end this standoff.

“Trent, you're hurt. You need to see a doctor and I need to check in on Sarah.” Daniel took a deep breath, set Chloe's gun down on the table in front of him and raised his hands. “But I'm not going to fight you. I just promise you, I'm not the kind of man you seem to think I am.”

“Trent, listen to him.” Chloe bent down and picked up her gun. “The Faceless Crew just blew up his place, too, and nearly killed the both of them.”

“I can help you identify one of them,” Daniel added. “I saw Shorty's face with his mask off.” Daniel's eyes locked firmly and squarely on Trent's face. “I'm willing to cooperate and help your investigation any way I can. I'm not the enemy.”

The cop hesitated. Daniel couldn't imagine the pain that would hit Trent's system when the adrenaline high he was running on wore off.

“Let Daniel go and I'll cooperate any way I can, too.” Olivia pulled the photo memory card out of her pocket and set it on the coffee table. “I wanted to back these up before I turned them over to police, but here are all the pictures I took in the parking garage when Brian Leslie died.”

“Put down the gun and let me check your injury.” Chloe's hand swept Trent's left shoulder. “You know you're not going to arrest him. Any judge would toss the case out of court in a heartbeat. Besides, we're stuck here, and whether you want to admit it or not, you need his help. Unless you're really, truly convinced that Daniel is your guy.”

Trent took a deep breath. His eyes rose upward and his lips moved in what looked like silent prayer. Then he dropped the gun to his side. “All right, I am not arresting you. But this is on the understanding that you've both agreed to fully cooperate with my investigation. Please don't make me regret this.”

Daniel nodded. “Agreed. But you're going to have to let us know why the RCMP planted an undercover officer inside my ward's family company.”

He'd gone without answers long enough.

“I'll tell you what I can.” Trent shrugged, then winced in pain. “Can you just give us two minutes?”

“No problem.” Daniel watched as Trent and Chloe walked into the adjoining room and closed the door behind them. Then he wrapped his arms around Olivia and held her for a long moment. Relief filled his chest like oxygen. “I'm glad you're okay.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” Her head rested in the curve of his chest, and it was all he could do not to brush his lips across her hair. He'd accused her of being so focused on her own priorities that she didn't care about anything else, and here she'd just gone and handed her photo card over to Trent when Daniel's freedom was on the line. “You going to go check on Sarah?”

“Soon,” he said. “Very soon. I just want to give the cops a few more minutes. Hopefully, now we'll finally start getting some answers.”

Even in hushed tones, just enough stray words managed to make their way through the paper-thin walls for Daniel to inadvertently piece together a pretty good guess of the conversation taking place on the other side. Somewhere higher up the police hierarchy, someone had decided Daniel was guilty of something involving organized crime and wasn't interested in hearing any of the other theories Trent had raised. Somehow knowing the cop had actually tried to argue Daniel's case actually made it a lot easier to cut him slack. Chloe, for her part, seemed plenty mad that Trent hadn't told her that her little sister was with Daniel at his house.

A gentle chuckle slipped through Olivia's lips.

He brushed his fingers along her cheek. “What's so funny?”

She turned her face toward him. “I wonder if Chloe's gun was really loaded. When you disarmed her, I mean. Knowing Chlo there's a small chance she
let
you take it from her, knowing the magazine was empty, just to prove what kind of man you really are. She's plenty tough, so it's hard to believe she'd allow herself to be unarmed like that. And there's no way she'll ever confirm it one way or another. But it's equally possible you caught her at an off moment and took her by surprise.” Her fingers ran up the small of his back. “You do have some pretty impressive skills.”

The adjoining door opened and the cops walked through. Daniel and Olivia jumped apart. Chloe's wig was gone now, showing tightly pinned hair, the same fiery red as Olivia's. Trent's right arm and shoulder were in an impressive-looking figure-eight sling. Hopefully that would help Trent keep the pain at bay and keep the injury from escalating, but he'd still need a doctor
.

But I'm not his bodyguard, either, and can hardly force him to head to the hospital.

“How's your shoulder?” Daniel asked.

“Not great. Think my collarbone's busted. But I'll live. Okay, let's start again.” Trent stretched his left hand toward Daniel. “Hello, I'm Constable Trent Henry, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Please, just call me Trent. Not Constable and definitely not Henry. Olivia, we talked on the phone last night.”

“Only your voice was a lot more chipper then,” she said. “I'm guessing that was part of maintaining your cover?”

A wry smile turned at the corner of his lips. But he didn't deny it. “I'm part of a special task force investing organized crime in Canada.”

“Like the Faceless Crew?” she asked.

“Like a lot of people.” He leaned against the wall and got as close as he possibly could to crossing his arms. “My personal focus has been dealing with money laundering and tracking counterfeit currency. I've decided to take a risk here and tell you a whole lot of it passed through Leslie Construction.”

Daniel would've laughed if the whole thing wasn't so deadly serious. “You're telling me that
Brian
was involved in laundering counterfeit money?”

“Yup.” Trent nodded. “Brian had his fingers in all sorts of dirty money, and someone in organized crime was feeding it to him. I just wasn't in the company long enough to figure out who.”

“So you cut Brian a deal on the back taxes and let him go in exchange for information?” This time the question came from Olivia.

“Well...” Trent ran his free hand through his hair. “Not me, personally. It wasn't my idea. But the tax people don't exactly go around asking everybody else's opinion when they decide to charge someone. They're a whole different animal. But yeah, Brian agreed to cooperate as much as he could. He had no idea who was really at the top of the pyramid. He was a drunk and a gambling addict. Someone was using him. Maybe several people. Brian was hardly the criminal mastermind type.”

“But you figured I was.” Now a laugh did escape Daniel's lungs.

Trent didn't even smile. “You mean, did I take a good, long look at the one guy who had a history with the Leslie family, happened to disappear overseas for ten years to travel around a virtual shopping list of locations known for their expansive underground criminal networks and then suddenly reappeared to take temporary hold of a big chunk of the family fortune? Seriously, Daniel? I wouldn't be much of a cop if I hadn't. Your background raised enough red flags to sail an armada—”

“I was escorting businesspeople and journalists through war zones! I was hardly hobnobbing with terrorists and drug smugglers.”

“Which sounds all well and good in theory,” Trent said. “But looked mighty suspicious on paper. I'm only trying to show you what things looked like from my bosses' perspective. Seriously, Daniel, what kind of man flies halfway around the world just to take guardianship of his cheating ex-wife's kid?”

“Mona was still my wife.” Daniel crossed his arms. “My name was still listed in her will. Sarah's uncle was her only other family and I didn't trust Brian as far as I could punt him.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Trent nodded slowly. Daniel couldn't tell if the cop was resentful that circumstances had forced his hand or relieved to finally be having an honest conversation with him. “Anyway, that's where we're at. Any other questions? I probably can't answer them, but you can always try asking.”

“What's my sister doing here?” Olivia asked.

“Like I said, I'm not here officially.” Chloe glanced at Trent as though she was waiting for his permission to continue. He attempted another shrug. “It's more like professional courtesy. I looked into the case because of your phone call. That led me to talking to Trent. When he found out you were my sister, he asked if we could meet up. I opted to disguise my appearance, so as not to raise suspicion with other members of the crew. Hair like ours—” she nodded at Olivia “—tends to be pretty memorable, and I couldn't be certain I hadn't tangled with someone on the crew before. Someone who could recognize me. I was hoping to then head to Toronto and surprise you. But then the storm hit and we were trapped here.”

“What do you mean trapped?”

Daniel directed the question at Chloe. But it was Trent who answered.

“Trapped as in trapped.” Trent sighed. “As in we're stuck here, unable to go anywhere else. Believe me, I wouldn't be standing around talking about this inside this dingy motel if there was somewhere else we could be.” He pushed off the wall. “Thunderstorms were so bad most of Southern Ontario is now under a severe storm warning. Highway's flooded. Trees are down all over the place, taking down roofs and power lines. Roads in and out of the city are closed. Accidents everywhere. Last I heard, before we lost the cell signal completely, there were people sitting on the roofs of trains and cars waiting for rescue. Emergency services are struggling to respond. Only reason we're not flooded out here is that we're on higher ground, and the only reason we've still got some power is this place has a backup generator.”

Daniel's spine jolted straight as the reality of the situation suddenly hit his overtired brain. “So Sarah probably didn't manage to call the cops on Rita's cell phone. Even if she did, no cops are on the way.”

“Yup.” Trent walked over to the window and looked out at the rain. “For right now, this lousy little motel is basically cut off from the rest of the world. If the Faceless Crew hit a flooded roadway or some kind of roadblock after torching your place, they might have very well ended up here, too.”

FOURTEEN

O
livia's hand rose to her lips as the sense of safety she'd felt just moments ago while tucked inside the security of Daniel's arms was replaced with the sudden reality of just how much danger they were still in.

They were trapped. They couldn't leave. They couldn't get help.

So that was why Chloe had resorted to drastic, if misguided, actions to get her away from Daniel when she'd thought he was a threat. It was no wonder her sister had lost it when Trent had threatened to arrest Daniel. With no way to take Daniel to the station, he was basically looking at handcuffing him and leaving him in a motel room for who knows how long. “You think the Faceless Crew might be here?”

“It's just a guess,” Trent said. “But a well-grounded one, unless they have a hideout somewhere in rural Ontario. Depending on where they were headed, they might not have been able to get on the highway. This is the only motel in the area. People have been arriving steadily through the night. At last check, there were about forty people staying in the motel and another eighty or so staying in the campgrounds. We haven't tried going door-to-door yet to see if there are any other law enforcement officers here because I'm not in a hurry to blow my cover. For now, it's best to presume that the circle of trust starts and ends with the four of us.”

Daniel ran his hand over the back of his neck. “How long until they expect the roads to reopen?”

“Road north, maybe by sunup,” Trent said. “Highway to Toronto could be shut until early afternoon. Last I heard anyway. Electricity and phone could take days in some areas. So I'm sorry, but it could be at least a day or two until we get a forensics crew out to whatever remains of your house. Now, if that covers everything you want to know, then, as you can imagine, I have quite a few questions for you.”

“And I'm happy to answer them the best I can,” Daniel said, “but first I've got to go get Sarah. I'll wake her up and bring her back here. We can continue this then.”

“Understood,” Trent said. “I'll come with you. I'll need you to let me know if you recognize anyone from the Faceless Crew. Hopefully you'll spot the one guy whose face you saw, but at the very least you can tell me if someone's build looks familiar. Besides, you'll have a much easier time finding Rita and getting her to let you talk to Sarah if I'm with you.” Trent scooped the photo memory card up off the table and gestured to Chloe. “I'll get my laptop set up and maybe you can upload these photos while I'm gone so we can see what we're looking at there. I'll take a walkie-talkie so we can stay in touch. Also, someone should probably check in with the front desk about getting us new rooms where someone hasn't kicked in one of the doors.”

Chloe nodded and followed Trent into the other room.

Olivia looked up at Daniel. “I'm coming with you, too.”

“No, you're not,” he said. “There's still a heavy storm out there, and the Faceless Crew have already made at least two attempts on your life.”

“Just like they've tried to kill you.” She stepped toward him until her toes brushed against his. “I can handle myself.”

“I know.” His hands brushed down her shoulders and onto her arms. “You're a live wire, Olivia. Which is awesome in a whole lot of ways. But not at a time like this. I want you to stay here with your sister, where you're safe. Lock the door and don't open it again until we get back.”

He brushed a kiss over her forehead and started toward the other room. She just stood there a moment, watching him go. She could still feel the tingle of his lips on her skin. But this time his tenderness left her feeling anything but cared for. Didn't he realize he was talking to her like a child? She had so much respect for him. So why did it seem as if he had so little respect for her?

“No.” Her voice seemed to echo in the wood-paneled room. He stopped in the doorway and looked back. “Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do, Daniel. But it isn't your call to make. You don't get to lock me up in a room and tell me to sit tight. I'm an adult. I'm a reporter. I'm not going to just sit by and let you sideline me.”

“You're not a reporter anymore!” His hands shot up as though he didn't know whether to shake her or kiss her. “Don't you get that? Not right here. Not right now. Maybe you came up here yesterday as a reporter chasing a story. But now that story's gone. Sarah won't want to see you. I still have no idea why she's so hostile toward you. But the fact she was willing to trade you an interview in exchange for my friendship really worries me. It's immature and manipulative, and things between Sarah and I are complicated enough already with you being an additional complication. So I think the best thing for everyone is if Trent and I talk to Sarah without you there. I want to keep you and her as far away from each other as possible, at least until everything calms down and she's ready to make peace. If I don't see you before we leave, I'll try to touch base later. Okay? I'm just glad to know that for right now you're somewhere safe with someone who I know will take care of you.”

He turned and started toward the other room without even waiting for an answer.

“You can't control everything, Daniel.” The sound of her voice made him freeze in the doorway. But he didn't turn back. “You have such a huge heart. All you want to do is to protect everyone, and I know you're trying to manage everything the way you think is best. But it's as if you think if you just try hard enough you'll be able to hold your world together by sheer force of will. But Sarah's not Mona's little baby anymore. She's not even that teenager you saved from ending up in the foster system. She's months away from being a legal adult. She's going to be whoever she chooses to be, right or wrong, no matter how hard you try to protect her.”

He didn't look back. She didn't step toward him. A long silence filled the space between them as she watched his shoulders rise and fall, and listened to the storm raging outside the windows.

“Well, I guess not everyone's as comfortable with chaos as you are,” he said. “I won't leave her well-being up to chance just because she wants the freedom to ruin her life on her own terms. It's easy enough to stand outside the life of a person you've only known for a couple of hours and decide they're doing it wrong. But I can't talk about this now.”

Daniel walked out and shut the door behind him.

She stared at the thin, scuffed plywood separating them, as if her eyes weren't yet ready to look away. Her heart felt numb, like the sensation of having adhesive ripped off your skin that nanosecond before the pain kicked in. Daniel was hardly the first person to decide she had no place in their life. Yet it was as if, as he'd walked out the door, he'd somehow accidentally knocked down the protective wall she'd built around her heart, leaving it aching for something she'd always craved and never known.

Her sister appeared in the doorway with a laptop in her hands.

“They're gone,” Chloe said. “But the laptop can't read the photos on the memory card. He could barely get it into the slot.”

“Probably because it was bent. I'll jiggle it.” Olivia took the machine. Her voice sounded so tired it almost cracked. “Ricky, my photographer friend, showed me how. Reporters have damaged cards before and he'll just jiggle it around inside the slot until something makes contact.”

She pressed the memory card as far into the slot as it would go, and then up. The card was in so deeply now it would probably take tweezers to get it back out again, and she wouldn't be surprised if she'd managed to damage the laptop slot.

The machine whirred. A window popped up on the screen. Five thousand photos started downloading. She sat down as a sigh of relief left her lungs. “I've got it. It's going to take a while, but we should have something by the time Trent returns.”

“Just Trent?” Chloe asked.

“Daniel doesn't want to bring Sarah back here, because he thinks I'll set her off. And since protecting her is his priority, that means he'll stay with her. We didn't exactly say goodbye. But I wouldn't be surprised if I never saw him again.”

“I'm sorry. I can tell you really like him.” Chloe pulled a wool blanket out of a cupboard and dropped it over Olivia's shoulders. “Daniel likes you, too, you know. He likes you a lot, actually. I don't know what all has gone on between you two. But it's pretty clear he'd willingly risk his life to keep you safe.”

“Because he's a former bodyguard. He'd risk his life for anyone.” Olivia leaned back. “Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy. But you should have heard him trying to tell me to stay here and lock the door.”

“He's overprotective because he cares about you,” her sister said gently. “Look, I know this is a strange concept for people like you and me, considering how little attention Dad gave us. He was so focused on his own life he didn't think anything of letting us walk home from a new school, in a new town, all by ourselves. Remember that time we both got locked out in the snow because he ran off somewhere without checking whether or not we were inside? It taught us not to rely on any man. But not all men are like that. By the look of things, Daniel's pretty much the opposite of that.” A smile crossed Chloe's lips. “I'm not saying that Daniel doesn't need to lighten up and loosen up, too. But maybe you could use someone like him in your life.”

Someone like what? Reliable? Dependable? Steady? Rock solid?

Somebody she could count on not to let her down?

Olivia didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Sure, of course she wanted to find someone exactly like Daniel. But it seemed the last thing he wanted was to find someone like her.

“Maybe. But he's too far the other way, Chlo. He can't compromise. He can't take risks. I'm not even sure he knows how to listen. Being with a man like that would be like being wrapped in plastic bubbles and locked in an ivory tower. Even if Daniel was interested in keeping me around in his life—and I honestly don't think he is—I need more than just someone who wants me to be safe. I need someone who wants me to be me.”

* * *

A group of Leslie Construction workers were drinking in a picnic pavilion and staring out at the rain. Young ones, mostly. Trent sauntered over, his stance loose and his posture arrogant. Daniel followed half a pace behind.

The guy might be a pain sometimes. But no one could say Trent wasn't cut out for this kind of undercover work.

He was only sorry he'd missed out on hearing Constable Henry's “chipper” voice. Would've been fun to compare the two.

Connor and Jeremy sat on a table passing a bag of chips back and forth. Jesse was standing next to an open case of beer. Jesse's eyes flitted over Daniel's face for a moment, as if evaluating whether or not Daniel was about to start trouble over his stolen moment with Sarah. Then a grin spread across his face as though the young man was happy to see them. Daniel almost rolled his eyes. At least Sarah wasn't out drinking with them.

Jesse grabbed a beer out of the case and pitched it to Trent overhand.

Trent caught it with his left hand and threw it right back to Jesse. “Hey, any of you know where I can find Hawk and Rita? This guy's looking for Sarah.”

There was a muttering of laughter. Then a couple of the guys pointed out into the woods.

“Hey, why don't you come hang out with us a bit!” Jeremy stumbled out toward them, his wobbly legs showing that he was way past sober. He jostled Trent as though they were two fans bodychecking each other at a sports event.

“Hey, man, watch it!” Trent yelped so loudly he almost swore. “I think my collarbone's busted or something.”

“Whoa, sorry!” Jeremy raised his hands and only then seemed to notice the sling. “What you do to it?”

“It's nothing.” Trent grinned. “Danny boy and I just had a bit of a dustup back at the motel. He didn't think the lady I was talking to was treating his lady right. You know how it is.”

A laugh rolled off Trent's shoulders as if the whole thing was one big joke. A chuckle moved through the crowd as the guys laughed along with him.

“Who won?” Connor called.

“Go take a look at the motel railing. Then you tell me.”

The men were still laughing as they walked off.

“Danny boy?” Daniel raised an eyebrow.

Trent chuckled for real this time and didn't answer. They pressed on through the rain until the pavilion party was out of sight.

Trent took a quick glance around, but there was no one there but trees and rain.

“Look,” he said, “between taking down Hawk earlier and being willing to fight me, they're going to be looking at you a bit different now. The crew never had any respect for you, because basically they thought you were nothing but a pathetic idiot who Mona made a fool out of. Nothing personal, but it's not exactly easy for guys like that to get their heads around why you stepped up to become Sarah's guardian. I mean, everyone knew how wild Mona could be. They all know about her laundry list of short-term boyfriends—some of them were even on that list. In their minds, you've got every right to hate her. None of them can imagine doing anything to help the kid of a woman who'd treated them that way.”

Daniel shrugged. “It was the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, maybe. But they don't get it. How many of them think that way? Whole lot of them were willing to look the wrong way while Brian was cheating people, until they got cheated themselves.”

“So the cops thought I'd become Sarah's guardian in order to launder money, and the Leslie Construction guys thought I'd done it because I was a wimp. Good to know.”

“Hey, don't shoot the messenger!” Even in a sling, Trent managed to partially raise his hands. “The construction crew didn't think you were a bad guy. They just figured you were way too hung up on Mona to have eyes for anyone else. Looks as if they were wrong.”