The Devil She Knew (28 page)

He winked and grinned. “Detective Marcus Bassman, at your service. Me and Clay go way back. We’re best friends. We’ve known each other since high school and went through the police academy together. You were never really alone, Sugar Plum. When he wasn’t with you, I was.”

Marcus kept his arm around her waist and slowly, they walked toward the hospital entrance. “But, at the bus station … ”

“I work undercover, honey. That bus station is part of my territory. Clay alerted me the minute he started looking for you, and I called him the second you walked in there. You don’t think he was going to leave you out there on your own, do you? That man loves you too much.”

Doctors and nurses poked and prodded her, sent her for X-rays, and discovered she had two broken ribs plus numerous cuts and bruises. Her right cheek was already a dark mix of blue and purple and had begun to swell, impeding her vision slightly. They taped her torso and suggested pain medication, which she declined. The only medicine that would ease her pain was Clay. True to his word that he wouldn’t leave, Marcus had remained on guard outside her examining room, and finally she rode in a wheelchair he deftly pushed toward Clay’s room.

Marcus assured her Clay would recover from the bullet wounds to his thigh and his side, which doctors called a clean entry-exit wound. They had operated and Clay was resting in a private room. But she needed to see for herself. And his words, that Clay loved her, had sent a surge of hope through her heart.

Clay sat propped upright against the pillows, tubes running from his nose and wrist. He’d been asleep, but he managed to smile once he saw Cassidy and stretched his arm over the edge of the bed. Marcus moved the wheelchair close, allowing Cassidy to reach and cling to his hand.

Her new friend moved to the opposite side, carefully embraced Clay, then sat on the edge of the bed. “I need to get you out of that hospital gown and into some jams, bro. I’m thinking purple might be your color,” he said, chuckling.

Clay arched his right eyebrow and offered a feeble smile. The color drained from his face at the effort required to turn his head back toward Cassidy.

“Are you okay?” he whispered. “They wouldn’t tell me anything once I woke up from surgery. I’ve been worried about you.”

Her heart leapt. “Never mind about me.” She swallowed a lump of emotion. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m going to be fine. I’ll need some rehab work on my leg, but the doctors said the muscles prevented more severe damage. Same with my side. All those hours at the gym with Marcus paid off, I guess.”

She glanced at Marcus. How could she have feared that handsome, smooth face? “You’ve got some explaining to do about Marcus, mister. I was scared to death of him.”

Clay nodded. “As you should have been. He works hard to look fearsome when he is undercover. Of course, his ugly mug always scares me.” He flashed another weak smile at his friend. “What happened after I passed out?”

Marcus winced. “There’s a chapter to the story you don’t know about, Clay. It didn’t end with you killing Tony DelMorrie at the motel.” He rose and closed the door.

Clay looked confused. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“The chief’s secretary panicked when she heard you took a couple bullets and confessed that she had been giving someone your information, someone other than Tony DelMorrie.”

“She was the leak? I can’t believe it. She seemed so loyal to the Chief.”

Marcus nodded. “She got into some financial trouble and asked the wrong people for help.” He cleared his throat. “There’s more, Clay. There is some news about Lauren in all this. I’m not sure how you are going to take it.”

Clay furrowed his brows and shook his head slightly to signal he didn’t comprehend.

“She’s dead, Clay.”

His grip on Cassidy’s hand tightened when he heard the words. He blinked once, twice, and again shook his head as if to clear his vision. “What?”

Marcus laid his hand on Clay’s arm. “It seems she hired a hitman to kill Cassidy, that little squirt we picked up at the safe house with the pocket full of money. That’s how they knew you were there. He was tracking you. We hauled him into the station, but with all the commotion you caused at the motel, someone decided to release him. They didn’t know he was the contract hitman though, so you can’t blame anyone. We didn’t put two and two together until we found them in the car.”

“What car? I don’t understand.”

“It’s a lot of detail we don’t need to go into right now, my friend. But I’m glad I was still tuned into Cassidy and when I heard she was on her way to the hospital, I stayed.”

Cassidy tore her gaze away from Clay to stare at Marcus. “You were waiting for me?”

“Sure, Sugar Plum. I told you, if it wasn’t Clay watching you, it was me. Pat radioed when you left the police station. We had an unmarked unit behind you the whole trip, partly on my orders and partly because Pat thought you were somehow complicit in all this. You were easy to follow in Clay’s truck, especially since you told Pat you were coming to the hospital. I was here with Clay, so I waited. It wasn’t long before our unit realized the Mercedes was following you too.”

Marcus smiled and pointed to her. “You must have suspected it as well. That’s what those little detours down the side streets were about, weren’t they? Clay must be rubbing off on you.”

Cassidy sensed her cheeks turning red. Clay laced his fingers with hers and whispered, “Is that right?”

She nodded. “I didn’t know who, but I was pretty sure someone was following me. At first, I thought I should drive back to the police station. Then I decided there would be enough activity at the emergency entrance here to protect me plus I wanted to see you. I was so worried about you and they hadn’t given me any information at the station.”

Clay released her hand and attempted to ease into a more comfortable position, wincing at the motion. Marcus jumped up and adjusted the pillows, ordering Cassidy not to move when she tried to help. In a weakened voice, Clay whispered, “Tell me the rest.”

“We ran the license plate and knew it was Lauren,” Marcus said. As if filling in the blanks for Cassidy, he added, “Most of us are familiar with their domestic history, so we suspected she was either on her way to the hospital to get to Clay or she was after you. Mittens was a bonus.”

Cassidy screwed up her face. “Mittens?”

“Mittens is a small-time thug affiliated with the Johnny Tanzini family. He had ten thousand dollars in his pocket. He jumped out of the car and tried to run after taking those shots at you which, by the way, Clay, put a nice round hole in your fender.” He laughed when Clay didn’t seem amused.

“I shot him in the buttocks as he was running. He’s squealing like a pig two floors below us. He’s even offering up information about Tanzini and his businesses, trying to save his own hide.”

Marcus paused, but Clay pushed for the rest of the story. “And Lauren?”

“We don’t know yet how those two connected. She must have picked him up at the police station. My focus was on the shooter leaning out of the passenger window. Lauren was dead before the car crashed into the light pole. It appears when Cassidy aims at a target, she hits it.”

Cassidy gasped and her heart plummeted. A heavy wave of sadness enveloped her. She turned tear-filled eyes to Clay and broke the silence that shrouded the room.

“I’m sorry, Clay,” she finally whispered.

Clay’s eyes darkened. “Don’t say that, Cass. You did what I told you to do, what I would have done in the same situation. It’s sad that it had to end like that but I’m grateful that I didn’t lose you. I couldn’t live without you.”

Cassidy caught her breath. Did that mean what she wanted it to mean?

Marcus stood. “You two have some talking to do. I’m going to leave so you can do that privately.” Minutes later, they were alone.

Clay regarded her with watery eyes. “I owe you an apology, Cassidy. I always said Lauren needed professional help. I should have taken it more seriously when you told me she showed up at The Packing Place. I was too focused on Tony DelMorrie.”

“It’s understandable, Clay,” Cassidy said. “He was the obvious threat.”

“No, it’s inexcusable. I’m a professional, but I let my emotions cloud good police judgment. Because of my feelings for you, I convinced myself that only I could keep you safe and that put you in danger.”

“That’s not true. For one thing, you had Marcus always in the background. And it was always my choice to follow you. I’m not some weakling that you ordered around. You asked me to trust you and I did. It was as simple as that.”

The corners of his mouth lifted. “Well, I do think we make a pretty good team. But you didn’t always trust me, remember? You ran from me.”

Cassidy sat up straighter in the wheelchair, her heartbeat quickening. He still didn’t get it. He didn’t understand her true motives. “I never ran from you, Clay. I left you because I wanted to protect you. I ran because I knew that Tony DelMorrie would follow me and that would keep you safe.”

Clay reached for her hand. “You could have been killed.”

She nodded, blinking back the tears that welled in her eyes. “I would have died to protect you. I would do it all again, because I’m in love with you. I know with everything that has happened, you probably don’t want to hear that. But before we go our separate ways, I want you to know I wish things had worked out differently.”

He arched his eyebrow. “Are you leaving me again?”

“What? No. I just assumed … ”

“Honey, you crawled under my skin almost from the first moment I met you. And then you wormed your way into my heart. I took two bullets trying to keep you, I’m not going to let you go so easily now. If I have to fall out of this bed right now to keep you by my side, I will. I’m in love with you, too, and I want the chance to share your life.”

Her heart catapulted. “You do?”

“You’re the oxygen I need to live, Cassidy. Stay and grow old with me.”

A wave of fullness engulfed her. Finally, she had everything she’d ever dreamed of. She couldn’t suppress her smile. “Don’t worry, Clay, the only running I’m going to do from now on is into your arms. You’re going to have a devil of a time getting rid of me.”

Valerie Daniels pushed the green beans on her plate to form the letter “D.” “D” for dull. How much more of this boring man could she stand? If only she’d stuck to her guns and met him for lunch instead of an early dinner, she’d be long over her misery by now.

His lips were moving, but she’d tuned him out thirty minutes ago. He looked at her like he expected a response. She forced a smile.

“Pardon me?”

“I asked what it would take to make you famous. Wouldn’t you like to be an anchor on the national nightly news?”

“Maybe someday. I have to earn my way into a position like that. This is only my second news job and it’s technically part-time. I’ve got a lot of dues to pay first.”

“But all you need is one big story to send you to the top, right?”

“It really doesn’t work that way.” She repositioned the green beans into the letter “L.” Loser.

Richard Fredtoni had spent most of the evening talking about himself and how, as the new financial officer for the county, he could salvage the financially strapped district. She’d asked him for details, pressed for specifics. But he circumvented each question with a lot of hot air. She’d studied the county budget and knew its weaknesses. He spoke as if he’d not looked at one line-item. If he had a plan, it didn’t have any teeth.

She hadn’t been able to get him to reveal what the county was paying for his so-called expertise, either. Now that would make a good news story. But instead, he droned on like a bee trapped between the glass and window screen and the interview she’d hoped to record in her notebook had dissolved into doodles.

“You’ve hardly touched your dinner,” he said. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Not really. It was very good though.” In truth, Chez Cher’s was her favorite seafood restaurant and the salmon had been expertly seasoned. Well worth the hour drive. She loved the main dining room’s seashore motif with its small, round, intimate tables, and the subtle sounds of waves crashing that piped softly through the acoustical system. If she closed her eyes, she could almost smell the ocean.

With the right dining partner, the restaurant was the perfect prelude for a romantic evening. But Richard sure didn’t fit the bill. Would he notice if she covered her ears to muffle the whine of his words?

“How about another drink?”

Valerie shook her head. She’d made sure to sip only one glass of white wine. A tiny voice nagged her that something about him was out-of-sync, and she usually listened to that voice. She’d felt it in his initial weak, clammy handshake weeks ago. She’d seen it in his smile that looked too much like a leer. And he was perspiring, despite the room’s comfortable temperature. She didn’t trust him.

Why the heck had she agreed to go out with him? Her boring — make that non-existent — social life must have seemed exceptionally bad this morning when she agreed to this meeting. That’s all it was, a meeting between two professionals. It fell way short of a date.

“Would you like some dessert?”

“No, thank you.”

Richard signaled for the check and she said a silent prayer of thanks. As she reached for her purse, he offered to walk her to her car.

• • •

Sitting alone at the bar, Adam Michaels watched the couple. He’d recognized Valerie Daniels the minute she walked into the restaurant. A group from her radio station had toured the agency last year and he’d noticed her then. Striking good looks, runner’s legs, and a killer smile that had weakened his knees.

He’d tried flirting with her, but she blew him off by saying she’d call him. She never did. He became an avid listener to her morning radio show after that, despite being a devout country music fan.

Valerie rarely talked about her personal life on the air. On the few occasions she mentioned a fun-filled weekend or wonderful dinner, he wondered about the man she likely spent it with.