Protection Detail

“None of yours.”

“None of my what?”

“None of your business,” she groaned and touched her hair again, this time actually pulling a few strands loose. “I was trying to be clever and shut you up.” She glared at the caramel-colored hair falling over her cheek and shoved it back behind her ear. “Never mind.”

Thomas heard the words coming out of his mouth before he rationally evaluated the impact of saying them. “I know the signs of someone in trouble. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No.” Her response was a little too vehement for him to accept that something wasn’t bothering her. Jane inhaled a deep breath and spoke in a softer tone. “I’ll be fine. Thank you, Detective.”

“Technically, it’s Detective Lieutenant. Or Lieutenant. Or just Thomas.” Thomas propped his hands at his belt and dropped his chin so he wouldn’t tower over her quite so much. “We’ve talked about this. You’ve been working for me and living at the house since the first of March. I think we can call each other by our names.”

“Thank you for your concern, Thomas. But I’m fine.”

“Is it an ex who’s giving you trouble?”

“There’s no trouble.” She could see he wasn’t buying her answers. She glanced out the window one more time before tilting her gaze, which was more green than gold now, to his. “Not that it’s any of your business, but if you must know—I’m a widow. I have been for three years, before I ever moved to Kansas City. There’s been no boyfriend since my late husband, so there’s no ex, either. Now let it go. Please. And I’ll do my best not to let this situation interfere with my work performance.”

She’d lost the man she loved? Although her loss was more recent than the years he’d been without Mary, he remembered the gutted feeling that had stayed with him for a long time, the way he’d buried most of his emotions so he could get through the demands of the day, that habit of second-guessing and overanalyzing every decision because the teammate who’d always been his sounding board and ally was no longer there to back him up. Maybe her husband had phoned or texted her often, and each time she received a message, it reminded her of the love she’d lost. That could explain the secretive behavior and testy reaction to his prying.

Thomas didn’t want to have something so visceral and private in common with Jane. Lumped on top of the intellectual curiosity and sexual awareness that had been buzzing through his system from the moment she’d moved into the spare bedroom of his house, he did not need to feel this emotional empathy. It felt as though they belonged to an exclusive club, and exclusive was an entirely inappropriate connection to feel about someone who worked for him. But it was the most personal information she’d ever revealed to him, and he felt himself worrying about her well-being, anyway. He laid his hand over her fingers, which were still resting on the windowsill. “I’m sorry about your husband. But you said situation. If there’s some other issue that we need to deal with—”

“We do not need to deal with anything.” He felt her hand tremble beneath his, as if she was fighting some sort of internal battle—maybe whether or not to slap his face for overstepping the bounds of employer-employee concern? She surprised him by turning her palm into his and lacing their fingers together, accepting the strength, comfort and understanding he offered. Her hand felt small in his, but her grip was strong. “I’ll be fine.”

Thomas tightened his hold around hers. “Jane—”

The door swung open across the hall and Stephanie came out smiling, hurrying around the slow-moving Seamus with his walker. “He passed with flying colors.”

Seamus’s face was wan with fatigue, but he was smiling, too. “On to de next s-tage of terapy.”

Jane pulled away from Thomas’s touch, wiping her fingers against her pant leg as if erasing the heat he could still feel in his own hand. Although the effort seemed to cost her, Jane returned her patient’s grin. “That’s my guy.”

She kissed Seamus on the cheek and patted his arm, studiously ignoring Thomas and the unexpected moment of human connection that had passed between them.

Chapter Two (#ue3a99c30-2bd9-5a84-9216-5ad6a9cdade1)

Why had she reached for Thomas’s hand?

Jane scooted the au gratin potatoes around in their dish, wondering if she could stomach another bite to justify ordering the special side with her barbecue brisket. At least she’d had the good sense to pass on the dessert that everyone else at the table had ordered.

She’d turned her hand into Thomas’s this afternoon because she was a frightened fool who’d dealt with the past three years on her own for so long that clinging to the strength and compassion he’d offered had given her a rare respite, and the first taste of normal relations with a man she’d known since her life had been turned so completely upside down that it wasn’t her own anymore.

But normal wasn’t truly an option for her since she’d been put into WITSEC and transferred to Kansas City. Until the man who’d murdered her federal agent husband—and believed he’d murdered her, too—could be captured and she could finally testify against what she’d witnessed that horrible night her home had been invaded and Freddie had been taken from her, she needed to remain unattached, alert, able to stand on her own two feet. She had to be strong enough to stand alone.

Most of the time, she was. Her training as a critical-care nurse required her to be able to make quick decisions and handle problems that arose on her own. She no longer worked in a hospital setting as she had back in DC, but her new career as a private nurse demanded she function independently—that she rely on her own experience and skill set to deal with whatever her patient needed. She kept contact with coworkers to a minimum, and with friends even less. She wasn’t going to risk the man who carved up her husband finding her through even a casual conversation or picture that could end up posted online. She was already on emotional thin ice by developing a bond with Seamus. He reminded her so much of her own grandfather that she knew she hadn’t kept herself as professionally distant as she should, and that gave her a weakness, leverage that sociopath wouldn’t hesitate to use against her if he ever found her. It would be far too easy to lean against a man like Thomas and surrender to his strength and authority. Once she did that, however, she’d be completely vulnerable. Easy prey for the stalking skills her husband’s killer possessed.

She couldn’t drop her guard like that again. Ever. No matter how the fear and loneliness wore her down.

She’d have to be more careful. Jane slipped a glance over at the tall, powerfully built man sitting across the table from her, forcing herself to take another bite of the cold potatoes when she saw him watching her, his eyes narrowed with an unspoken question. Thomas Watson seemed gentle and unassuming at first, a mature man at ease in his own skin—a police officer, former military man and single father used to command, used to taking action and fixing problems, even if they weren’t his own.

That man had eyes in the back of his head. Or ESP. Or the training to read people and know when something was off, just as her late husband had when he’d worked with the violent crimes unit at the FBI. She curled her fingers into her palm beneath the table, remembering how the simple touch of his hand had grounded her, calmed her for a few precious seconds. Thomas generated the kind of heat she hadn’t felt since that last morning she and Fred had embraced and each had gone off to their respective jobs in Washington, DC. She missed that kind of contact—a hug, holding hands, a kiss. But she couldn’t give in to that kind of need anymore. She had to stay strong. She had to survive. She owed Freddie that much.

Even as Thomas ordered four decaf coffees from the waitress, his moss-colored eyes managed to make contact with hers, silently asking for the umpteenth time if anything was wrong. Jane gave up the pretense of having any appetite and set down her fork.

Fortunately, they had the buffer of Millie’s chatting and Seamus’s determined responses to keep Thomas from following up with any more pointed questions about the messages she’d been receiving. Some of the calls were friendly checkups from one of her husband’s friends at the Bureau back in Washington, DC. Levi Hunt wasn’t supposed to know where she’d relocated after leaving DC. She supposed he had the reputation as a skilled investigator for a reason. And as a member of her husband’s former violent crimes team, he felt personally responsible for making sure she was okay. But her goal had been to leave that whole life, and the dreadful night it had ended, behind her. The fact that he was able to contact her might mean others from that period in her life—when she’d been Fred Davis’s wife—would try to contact her, too. More of the messages had been routine checkups from the one man who was supposed to know about her new life in Kansas City.

And it was that last text from Conor Wildman that had her delicious barbecue dinner sitting like a rock in her stomach. Had something broken on the investigation? Had her new identity been compromised? Had the killer left another victim with a badge carved in his chest?

At your old house. Come see me. Urgent.

She’d texted back when she’d left the hospital and gotten into the back seat of Thomas’s crew cab truck. With the family. At work. Can’t get away.

Conor had been quick to answer. He’s surfaced. Can’t go into detail on phone. Must meet.

WITSEC had a code word and a visual signal to alert her to a sighting of a man matching the suspect’s description near her location. Then there was an escape protocol in place. Since Marshal Wildman hadn’t used the coded alert in his text, that meant she wasn’t in imminent danger of being discovered. Typically, she’d been taught to lie low and not draw any attention to herself, even when there was a new development on the case. The whole idea behind witness protection was for her to disappear off the world’s radar. But words like urgent and must meet indicated the threat level had increased for some reason. That meant she needed to be more on guard, too. But against what? Who?

A deep-pitched laugh from Seamus pulled Jane from her troubling thoughts. He held up a forkful of cobbler and toasted Millie. “Not as good as yours. But good.”

Millie’s cheeks turned a deep shade of pink as he stuffed the peach cobbler into his mouth. Jane felt the beginnings of a smile relax the strain around her mouth. Her patient was an unapologetic flirt. When he was feeling good. When he wasn’t—either physically or mentally—Seamus could be a pain in the behind. And dear, sweet Millie—she ate up the attention when offered, and didn’t put up with any guff from Seamus when it wasn’t. One trait she’d noticed about all of the Watson family: the strength of their commitment—to the people they loved, to a cause they believed in. She believed that, despite his age, given enough time, Seamus would make a significant recovery. Some of the damage the bullet and stroke had done to his brain would never heal, but eventually he’d be able to live independently, and he’d have a good quality of life.

She was certain Thomas would see to it.

Personality-wise, father and son couldn’t be more different. While Seamus liked to tease, Thomas was as serious as a heart attack. She supposed some women might describe him as stodgy or maybe even boring, compared with his outgoing dad. But she couldn’t imagine anything more attractive than a man who put his family first, a man who was rock solid in his strength and demeanor, a man who noticed much, said little, did whatever needed to be done without much of a fuss. Such masculine traits. Maybe that’s what she found most attractive about Detective Lieutenant Thomas Watson—despite a few shots of silver in his close-cropped hair, there was no mistaking that he was anything but a seasoned, savvy, sexy man.

All the more reason not to give in to the temptation of sharing her secrets with her employer. He wasn’t hers to lean on. Seamus needed him. His family needed him. Kansas City needed him. She couldn’t.

The sun had set and the lights had come on in the parking lot by the time they’d finished their coffee and Thomas had paid the bill. She noticed how Thomas’s limp was more pronounced at the end of the day as he strode across the parking lot to retrieve his pickup truck. Not for the first time, she wondered what injury he’d sustained to leave him with that chronic pain she sometimes saw on his face, but he never once complained about. She wondered what medicine and treatments he used to combat the pain, or if he even did more than simply tough it out.

Not your problem. He’s not your patient.

Concern for her boss wasn’t allowed. Concern implied caring. Involvement. Maintaining a professional working relationship and keeping her personal distance meant no concern, no magnetic draw to body heat and strength, and no hand-holding. Period.

Focusing her attention on the man she was supposed to be taking care of, Jane walked with Millie beside Seamus to the edge of the parking lot and waited. While Millie sat on a nearby bench and Seamus braced himself against his walker and stretched out some of the kinks in his shoulders and back, Jane scanned the parking lot.

So the nameless killer known to the FBI simply as Badge Man for the emblem he carved into the chest of each of his victims had surfaced. Where? How? The profile on him said he shadowed his victims, mostly law enforcement professionals or collateral damage as she’d nearly been. He’d watch for days, weeks even, as if he were a cop on a stakeout. Then he’d up his game like he had with Freddie, inserting himself into their lives to learn more about them, playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse—finally cornering his targets like prey, forcing them to either run or fight before he collected them, killed them and left his mark on them.

Was he watching her right now? Following her? Jane couldn’t stop the shiver that raised goose bumps across her skin, even on this warm September night. If Conor Wildman suspected the killer was on her trail, he’d have alerted her with the code word and she’d already be gone. She’d had the extraction scenario drilled into her time and time again. He’d call or text her the code word. She’d drop everything instantly and either make her way to the appointed safe house or he’d pick her up and move her to a secure location outside the city. But Badge Man must be somewhere in the country watching, tracking, toying with his next intended victim.

The restaurant near Union Station was immensely popular. There was a rehearsal dinner going on outside on the patio behind them, with clinking glasses and cutlery, loud laughter and enough overlapping conversations to make talking to Millie and Seamus difficult. So Jane stood silently beside the bench, studying the parking lot for any signs of something or someone out of place. The cars in the lot were parked close together, as the business tried to fit as many customers into the fixed space between the railroad tracks and remodeled old buildings as possible. The cars were packed tightly enough that it was difficult to see between them. Plus, the decorative train signal lights overhead cast impenetrable shadows that masked the traffic beyond the second row of vehicles.

Her late husband had taught her to always be aware of her surroundings. It was safety rule number one for living in a metropolitan area as heavily populated as DC. Of course, she hadn’t counted on the threat coming right into her own home. Since Freddie’s death, she’d gotten into tip-top physical shape, taken self-defense courses and become hypervigilant to the dangers that lurked out there in the world.

That’s why she was frowning at the noise of squealing tires and the smell of burned rubber wafting across the parking lot as Thomas pulled his truck up in front of the sidewalk. But she couldn’t pinpoint the source at this distance through all the cars and shadows.

Thomas had noticed something suspicious, too. When he climbed out of his truck on the side away from the curb, he was slow to close the door. He turned his head to the right and to the left before heading toward the back of the truck. Seamus had noticed something, too. He’d gone over to stand with his hand on Millie’s shoulder.

“What is it?” Millie asked.

Urgent. Conor’s text had been trying to warn her. No! Danger wasn’t supposed to find her here.