Love's Protector: A Maverick's Shield Novel (2 page)

“What is it?”

“Earlier you said mom
supposedly
died from a heart attack. What did you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” he said sharply, but she could tell he was holding back.

“Don’t lie to me dad! Now what did you mean by
supposedly
?”

He took in another deep breath. He seemed agitated by her question.
“Amour why are you asking me this? I thought you didn’t want to talk about her death.”

“I don’t really, but it just struck me as odd that you would say that and I just want to know what you meant by it. This is not the first time you’ve said it.”

“Amour, don’t do this!”

She felt the frustration build up inside her. “Daddy please
tell me!”

He adjusted the tube in his nose that had twisted slightly. “Well if you must know, the medical examiner said that her heart attack was caused by complications due to a congenital heart defect.”

“And?”

“She said she must have been born with it and either didn’t know, or wouldn’t tell anyone about it.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “The whole thing seemed suspicious to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I know Carly would have told me something like that, just for the safety reasons alone. I supposed since she was adopted at such an early age, she could’ve been unaware of it. Her birth mother wasn’t exactly ideal.”                                                                                                 

Carly’s mother Dahlia was a Swedish prostitute living in Paris where she’d met her father Marcel Graciette. He was a long time john of hers and for the last six months of her stint as a prostitute; he was her
only
john. Shortly after she had gotten pregnant with Carly, Marcel had left town and never came back. The hard life of an ex-prostitute with no job skills wasn’t the best life to share with a child, so she’d given Carly up for adoption in hopes that she would have a better life with someone else. She was eventually taken in by an older couple in Dallas, Texas at five years old and raised by them until she’d left home at eighteen.

Amour raised an eyebrow.
“
But
?”

“I’m one hundred percent sure she would have told me something like that. The M.E. said that her medical records showed a history of having a congenital heart defect so she just ruled her death natural causes. But like I said, she never mentioned anything to me about being born with any type of heart condition nor was she ever sick or in need of any kind of treatment for anything heart related.” His voice lowered to almost a whisper. “Because of that, I never believed…” He cut himself off.

“Believed what daddy? What are you saying? That you think she was
murdered
?” Her tone grew louder with a bit of anger in it but he said nothing. “Daddy…”

“I don’t know what to think Amour!” He rubbed his left temple as if he had a headache. “The whole thing just doesn’t seem right. I know she didn’t have any heart problems. If she had, I’m sure her adoptive parents would’ve discovered it during her childhood. She wasn’t on any medications either.” A tear ran down his right cheek. “She barely even took aspirin. Something’s just not right about that whole thing. I’ve just always had the feeling that something was going on but I just don’t know.”

“Why would anybody want her dead? Did she have enemies?”

“None that I knew of.”

“Did you go to the police?” she asked as she walked up to him taking a tissue out of her purse and handing it to him.

“Yes but they didn’t take it seriously. They said since I had no proof or no plausible reason as to why anyone would want to kill her, there was nothing they could do so the case was closed.”

“So what did you do?”

He wiped his face and sniffed. “I just let it go. I packed us up and moved back here to Nebraska and never looked back.”

She kneeled down in front of him. “Moved from where?”

“Los Angeles. That’s where you were born. I didn’t want to stay there because it reminded me too much of the life I had with your mother so I decided to raise you here in Nebraska where I was raised. I figured you would have a better and more peaceful life here and the memories wouldn’t haunt me.”

Her eyes were locked on his as confusion, shock and anger flooded her mind. “How come you never told me about any of this?”

“Because Amour, you were just a child then. By the time you’d grown up, I had put it all behind me. I just didn’t think that it was necessary to tell you. I didn’t want you growing up knowing that your mother could have possibly been murdered. Since you were too young to have any memory of her, I wanted your thoughts of her to be happy ones, not tragic. It just hurt far too much to talk about it.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds before taking a couple of short breaths and slowly opening them again. “I thought I was doing what was best for you at the time honey. I’m sorry.”

Although she was angry at her father for never telling her any of this, she understood his reasoning. It couldn’t have been an easy decision for him. “Oh daddy, that’s ok.  My god, what you must have gone through back then.” She handed him another tissue.

“I’m alright now pumpkin. It took a while but I’ve made peace with her death and you should too. There’s no need to harp on the past sweetheart, it’s just going to upset you and nothing will come of inquiring about it but heartache. Believe me I know, so just let it go okay.”

“Alright daddy, I will.” She hated to lie to her father, but she didn’t want to upset him anymore than he already was.

“Good.” He motioned for her to lean down so he could hug her.

“Get some rest daddy. I’ll be back next week okay.” She straightened her body and walked towards the door to the lobby.

“Ok pumpkin. I love you.”

“I love you too daddy. I’ll see you later.”

During the thirty minute drive home, she couldn’t help but think about the way her father had sounded when he expressed his uncertainty about her mother’s death.  Why would anyone murder her if she had no enemies? It made no since; but then again, a congenital heart defect was definitely not something a person would keep from their loved ones. What would be the purpose in that? It’s definitely not safe to do so. Amour highly doubted that her mother would have, especially given the fact that she had a child to consider; no one would do that. Her deep thoughts made her nearly pass up her home. This whole thing not only clouded her mind, it was starting make her more angry by the minute. Pulling in the garage, she went inside, showered, put on a t-shirt and shorts and made herself something to eat before climbing into bed for the night. 

She spent the next few hours lying in the dark staring up at the ceiling still thinking of the conversation she had with her father. He may have chosen to let go of the past, but there was no way she was going to be able to do that. Suspicion had gotten the better of her now and she wasn’t going to ignore it like he chose to do.

Sure there wasn’t much to go on, and it was all just speculation. It could just be paranoia on her father’s part. Her mother could have been born with that condition but there was no way of finding out.  Both her adoptive parents had long passed away so confirming it with them would be impossible. If she did let this go, it would make her father happy but it would haunt her for the rest of her life so she had to do find out. Even if Carly’s death
was
the result of natural causes, at least she would have the peace of mind of knowing so. And if her mother was murdered, she was in no way going to let someone get away with robbing her of the life she could’ve had with her. So if that meant going against her father’s wishes and taking a trip to Los Angeles to find answers, then that’s exactly what she was going to do.

Los Angeles, California. Two weeks later.

“Would you like to schedule more sessions with me?”

“No,” Jason said sneeringly as he eyed Dr. Allona Prescott, the court appointed psychiatrist he was required to see.

“Mr. Colton feels it will be beneficial for you to have a few more with me. He felt it would be in your best interest.”

He raked his fingers through his short black hair.  He had been seeing her for six weeks now and he was well over it. “Well,
Mr. Colton
is full of shit and so is the Los Angeles court system. I don’t need a damn shrink! I just need for people to stop pissing me off. My best interest my ass!” He scowled. “That’s not why I’m here.”

She looked at him over the rim of her glasses. “Then why do
you
think he sent you here?”

“Because his clients are a bunch of pussies who can’t deal with someone who won’t put up with bullshit.”

She inhaled and then slowly let it out. “He wants us to talk about your anger issues. So let’s continue alright.” She hit the start button on her mini recorder.

Oh hell, not
this
again. “I don’t have any anger issues. I’ve told you and him that before. It’s like I said, if people would just stop pissing me off then I wouldn’t get upset; simple as that.”

“Well, they seem to believe that you do and your job depends on you following through with these sessions. This is your last one with me and so far you haven’t really given me much. Let’s give it a shot alright? Humor me.”

He chuckled. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“Okay, why don’t we start with this,
tell me what happened six weeks ago?”

“You already know what happened.”

“I know
their
sides of it, you never told me yours.”

He rubbed his forehead with the tip of his fingers. “Boss had taken on a very wealthy and famous client that had made quite a few enemies over the years. About two months ago, he got an anonymous phone call from someone saying that they would kidnap and kill his young son if he didn’t pay them a substantial amount of money. So I was hired to guard the boy. For about a week or so, I noticed a strange man coincidently popping up most places we went. So one day I approached him, asked him who he
was and why he was following us.  He started to run and then I ran after him. When I eventually caught up to him, I put him in choke hold because I didn’t want him to get away.”

She took her glasses off and placed them on the desk in front of her. “What happened next?”

“I asked him again who he was and he wouldn’t answer me. Instead, he told me to suck his dick and called me an asshole so I punched him in the face.” He made a fist with his right hand and then punched the palm of his left one causing her brown eyes to grow wider. “He had it coming. He shouldn’t have run and he damn sure shouldn’t have said
that
to me once he did.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You felt that was a good reason to punch him?”

“Yes. Why run if you didn’t do anything? It just makes you look guilty.”

“Did you hurt him badly?”

“I broke his nose. But it wasn’t
that
serious.”

“A broken nose isn’t serious?” she asked while leaning back in her large wing backed chair.

“No.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t feel it’s worth all this reprimand, it’s not like I
killed
the guy; he’ll live. But he decided to press charges and the client said that I was too aggressive to work for him.”

She paused for a few seconds before responding. “So you feel your behavior was normal?”

His hazel eyes stared into hers. “Yes I do.”

She took a sip of the bottled water that was sitting on her desk and offered him one of his own but he refused. “But he wasn’t the man you were looking for.”

He shook his head. “No he wasn’t; just some nosey reporter.”

“But you still feel your actions were justified?”

God she was starting to annoy him. Why was this so hard for her to understand? “Like I said, if he was innocent he shouldn’t have run. It was his fault.”

“But he
was
innocent.” She took another sip of water. “And now you have an assault charge against you because you couldn’t control your anger. I really think we need to address these issues you have. If you don’t face them, they’re only going to get worse. The court is going easy on you now Jason but this is your fourth offense in seven years on the job. It looks like the others were a case of your word against theirs, but this time you’ve hurt someone. Next time, they might not be so lenient and neither will Mr. Colton. You don’t want to end up unemployed, in jail or worse…prison. Do you?”

Ace Colton ran a pretty tight ship over at Maverick’s Shield, the small protection agency in which Jason was employed along with three other men as a full time bodyguard and private investigator.  Ace had let him slide on a lot of his violent tendencies because he was so skilled at protecting his clients. He was his best guard and Jason knew that, but every week Ace would get at least one complaint from someone about his aggressive behavior towards them and potential threats. No one had ever gotten killed on his watch and he’d always been successful at what he did so Jason just couldn’t understand why after all these years of working for Ace, his methods were all of a sudden a problem.

He gave her a frustrated stare. “Look, just because I don’t tolerate anyone’s stupidity doesn’t mean I deserve to get fired or go to jail. He did something stupid and I treated him accordingly. I have charges filed against me because he decided that he wanted to act like a little bitch instead of taking his slugging like a man. Hell, I know women who’ve been hit harder than that and didn’t cry like little babies and run to tell somebody.”

Her eyebrows formed a groove. “Have you ever hit a woman Jason?”

What the hell made her ask him that? “Hell no! I don’t hit chicks. What kind of man does that shit? The women I was talking about are cops that have been hit by suspects, not by
me
! Why did you ask me that anyway?” He was starting to get angry. What kind of man did she think he was? Did she actually think he’d hit a woman?

She picked up her pen and tapped it against her desk. “It was just a question.”

He responded to her through gritted teeth. “Why did you ask?”

“I told you it was just a question. Why does it offend you?”

“I never said it did.”

“I can tell you’re angry now. Do you have a problem with that particular subject matter?” He put his head down, and looked away remaining silent. “Jason?”

He looked up at her with disgust. He wanted very much for this to be over with and her incessant pen tapping was starting to get on his damn nerves.  He would’ve walked out of here long ago if his job hadn’t depended on him going through with this crap. “What?”

“Are you going to answer my question?”

He looked away again. “Of course I have a problem with men hitting on women. Don’t most people?”

“Yes, but I seemed to have hit a nerve by asking you that. Is there a particular reason why?” She pushed her legs from under the desk and crossed them.

“Maybe.” He didn’t see the point in this conversation but at least she finally put that damn pen down.

“Was it someone close to you? Was it your mother?”

His expression turned cold. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

“Alright, we don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about.”

“Thank you.”

Her mouth parted to speak again when the buzzing of the tiny clock on her desk interrupted her. After turning off her recorder, she looked up at him. “Okay, we’re done for today and as I said, you can feel free to continue with these sessions with me if you like.”

He gave her a look telling her not to hold her breath. “I’ll think about it.”

“Well, I hope you do, I wouldn’t want you to lose your job. I’m here to help you Jason not to hurt you; I’m not the bad guy here. These sessions will help you get over your issues but you have to meet me half way. I won’t pressure you but you have to put forth an effort.”

“Alright,” he said with a small concession. “I said I’ll think about coming back. I still think this is bullshit, but I’ll think about it.”

She picked up the pen on her desk and signed the green piece of paper confirming that she’d seen Jason. “Maybe if you do, by the end of our sessions you will have a different attitude about therapy.”

He stood up, grabbing the paper from her. “I doubt that; but we’ll see.”

“Good bye Jason.”

“Good bye Dr. Prescott.”

Earlier that morning, Jason had decided to head straight home and rest after his therapy session. He’d spent the previous night unable to sleep because of the nagging headaches he’d been having for the past few months but he wasn’t tired anymore; he was wide awake in fact. The nerve of Ace sending him to therapy, he didn’t need it. What he needed was to be able to do his job without everyone being so damn sensitive. He was definitely going to have a talk with Ace about this when he saw him again. The thought off all this frustrated him.  He definitely didn’t want to go home now. Instead, he’d decided to take his three friends and fellow co-workers up on their offer to have lunch at Jakes Bar and Grill today. After all this nonsense, a few drinks was definitely what he needed.

* * *

Amour had awakened early to the sound of the ocean coming from the window she’d left open when she went to bed. Her spacious room at Ocean View Suites in Santa Monica was plush and comfortable. The master bedroom where she’d slept, had a huge king size bed, oak wood furniture and white tulips that sat in a crystal vases in various areas of the suite. This particular place reminded her of the many country clubs and luxury apartments her father did maintenance on when she was a child which brought back fond memories. Rising up in bed, she caught her reflection in the large black flat screen television that sat directly across from her causing her to fully come to the conclusion that she was actually going through with this. She rubbed her eyes and then focused on her reflection again. “Are you ready for this Amour?” she asked herself. Unsure of what to expect from this trip to Los Angeles when she’d arrived the night before, she decided to go into this with as open a mind as one could have in this particular situation.

Taking in a deep breath, she slowly exhaled and then scooted to the edge of the bed planting her bare feet on the plush cream colored carpet beneath her. Walking towards the large picture window to the left of her, she could see the bright sun peeking through the sheer white curtains. As she drew them open, she admired the view of the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Pier. Looking at such beauty made her wish her father hadn’t taken her away from this place as a child. Of course she wouldn’t trade the homey and close nit feel of where she was brought up for anything the world but Nebraska, which was beautiful in its own right, didn’t have all the breathtaking beach front scenery she was admiring now. She’d definitely planned to return to Los Angeles sometime in the near future when she wasn’t busy playing detective.

She headed to the attached bathroom, washed up and then slipped on the denim skirt, pink tank and silver flats she’d gotten out of her suitcase. After quickly running a brush through her hair, she gathered all the pertinent paperwork she needed to take with her and placed it in a large tote bag. Just as she was about to head out of the bedroom, she noticed that the photo of her mother she kept with her had fallen out of her wallet and onto the floor. Looking at her mother’s face made her come to the realization of what her father had told her. She did look very much like her, so much, it was almost…creepy. She dropped the photo into her purse, grabbed the charmed bracelet her father had given her out of the pouch, and then slid around her wrist. She never got to know her mother, but somehow wearing the bracelet made her feel closer to Carly and gave her an odd sense of strength. Entering the small kitchen of the suite, she made herself a cup of coffee, drank it as fast as she could without burning herself, and headed out the door.

The engine roar of the red convertible Ford Mustang she’d rented gave her the feeling of being on the track when it was being brought to her outside the front of the hotel. That put her in a good mood at the start of her day. She quickly tipped the valet, hopped inside and pulled out onto the road.

The choice to stay on the west side of Los Angeles proved to be a convenient one. Her mother’s former home was in the city of Mar Vista, which was in close proximity to Santa Monica. She’d done as much internet research on Carly’s death as possible while in Nebraska, so she figured she would take what she learned so far and visit the police station that was involved with the twenty-seven year old case. She entered the station’s address into the car’s navigation system and headed towards interstate 10 east. The traffic was surprisingly light for a Monday morning that is…until she hit interstate 405 south. It was bumper to bumper traffic for what looked like miles ahead. L.A.’s 405 freeway was infamous for being one of the most horrific, traffic filled highways in the country and it was definitely living up to its reputation.  Her good mood had vanished by the time she’d exited the freeway. According to the navigator, the trip should have only taken about ten minutes but because of all the traffic, it took over thirty. Being a person that’s not used to this kind traffic where she’s from, this agitated the hell out of her. Once she reached the West Side Community Police Station and parked in the visitor lot, her mood quickly went from agitation, to anxiety.