Protective Custody

“Do you understand our power now, Judge Nicholas Floyd?” he read aloud. “Mr. Frasier was guilty. You know it and we know it. But we wanted a not-guilty verdict. So we got it. Drop the de Lugo case or you will die and leave poor Lindsey and Christopher true orphans.”

His back teeth ground against each other. Through tight lips, he muttered, “I knew someone got to that jury as soon as I saw the verdict.”

“What do you mean?” Carly asked.

“The evidence was too clear-cut—and Harrison was too cocky. It should have been an open-and-shut case. The de Lugos got to the jury and swayed the judgment—just to prove to me they could.”

“How many jurors do you think they got to?” Mason asked.

He shrugged. “It would only take one if he or she had the right personality. But I’m guessing it was probably more than one. All you have to find is a juror with a kid. Threaten the kid, and get the juror to do anything you want.”

“Then we need to talk to the jurors,” Carly stated.

He shot her a wry look. “If you think it would do any good. We already know who was doing the threatening, but yeah, we’ll send a report in and let the proper authorities take care of it.” His jaw hardened. “Can’t hurt to have one more charge to bring against the de Lugos.”

“All right, we need to get you into a secured area.” Mason shoved his gun in his shoulder holster. “Right now, that’s going to be your home. How many people live there?”

“There’s six of us right now. My housekeeper, Stella, and her husband, Carl, a nanny, Debbie, myself and the children.”

“Two marshals will stay on the children as they go to and from school. You might want to consider letting the nanny go for her own safety.”

“Fine. What about Stella? She’s trained to defend herself.”

Carly remembered the woman from the last time she’d been in his home. “She’s an ex-police officer. Her husband is the groundskeeper, right?”

“Right. She’s the niece of my mother’s best friend. She was wounded in the line of duty and took an early retirement. By the time she’d recovered, Mom decided she couldn’t handle the housework anymore and asked Stella if she’d be interested in doing it. She wanted someone she knew and trusted and didn’t want to go to all the trouble of interviews, etcetera. I didn’t think Stella’d be interested, but fortunately for us, she jumped on it. She said she needed something to keep her busy, but I think she enjoyed being around us and the children since she couldn’t have any of her own. She and her husband, Carl, live in the mother-in-law suite attached to the house. To ask them to leave would really put them out.”

“They can stay as long as they understand the dangers.”

Nicholas rubbed his eyes. “I’ll give them the option of moving into a hotel at my expense, although I don’t know what they would do with their two dogs.”

Mason raised a brow. “Dogs are good. They bark.”

“True. In this new house, I had the security system upgraded with motion sensors and security cameras. Plus, I had a wrought-iron fence installed. And all of this in a gated community.”

“What else?” Carly urged.

“It’s an electric fence. If anyone tries to go over it, they’ll get a pretty nasty shock. That’s about it.”

“It’s better than a lot we’ve worked with in the past.” Thank goodness. The thought of Nicholas or one of the children ending up dead sent shivers of fear all over her. The thought of being around Nick 24/7 made her stomach clench, too, although she wasn’t sure if it was from dread or the pull of attraction she couldn’t deny feeling.

She shrugged off her feelings. Time to do her job. “All right, let’s get going.” Carly held up the paper bag with the second letter. “I’m just going to turn this over to the crime-scene guys. Then we can get out of here.”

Two minutes later, they were on the road. Carly drove the unmarked police car and Mason followed behind in Nicholas’s car. He watched Carly’s slender fingers grip the wheel.

When she’d invaded his home two years ago, just a few months before his wife’s death, they’d butted heads on the protection issue yet Carly in his home brought a certain peace to the household that had been distinctly absent before her arrival.

His wife, Miriam, had basically closed herself in their bedroom and become a hermit for the duration of Carly and her partner’s stay. It had been a relief, he remembered with guilt. Miriam had changed in their six years of marriage, depression stealing her sweet, happy-go-lucky personality away from him.

She’d wanted a baby, and they hadn’t been able to have one. The fact that no doctor could tell them why just compounded the problem. His home life had started to unravel and quickly became unbearable. And while Nick never thought he would consider divorce, he had to admit it had crossed his mind in the weeks before Miriam had been killed.

Then the marshals had arrived. He smiled at the irony. He hadn’t wanted the marshals at that point in time any more than he wanted them this time.

But then he thought about the nights they’d sat up talking, the three of them; Carly, Mason and himself. A friendship had formed. Since then, he and Mason had gotten together for the occasional game of racquetball or met up at the high school football stadium to watch the local teams go at it.

He hadn’t seen Carly since they’d found out the threats had been a hoax. But that hadn’t kept him from keeping up with her.

Through Mason, and frequent chats with Ian, Carly’s brother and Nick’s former college roommate, Nick had gotten snatches of what her life had been like over the last two years.

He also knew that she blamed him for something he’d had no control over. He’d let a killer go. The one who’d ended up murdering Hank, a good friend of hers. His stomach twisted itself in knots every time he thought about it. He didn’t have to wonder what she thought of him.

He could read the wariness in her eyes. The borderline contempt she tried to hide.

And yet, because he knew the kind of person she was, he had no doubt she would do her job to the death for him if it came to it.

He vowed it wouldn’t.

Lord, let me get a chance to explain why I had to let that man go. Please. And let her understand.

“Why did you move from the house at the beach?”

Her question seemed to come out of left field as he shook off his thoughts. “Because we all needed a change.” He pictured the large, sprawling estate and felt a pang of nostalgia. “I loved that house, but I built it for my wife. When she and my sister were killed…” He shrugged and sighed. “Plus the children had to ride past the accident site every day on their way to school.”

“How did they even know where it happened?”

“Lindsey was having nightmares about it. The therapist suggested taking her to the site and placing a memorial there. We built a little cross and put her mother’s name on it, and I let her pound it into the ground. She seemed to get a little better almost overnight.”

“But?”

“As time passed, it continued to affect them. Especially Lindsey. She’d do better, then worse, constantly back and forth. If there’d been another route to the school, I would have taken it, but there wasn’t. I suggested changing schools, and Lindsey completely freaked at the idea, so…” He shrugged again. “Then Mom left for California…” A deep breath. “When my buddy Wayne encouraged me to come back to Spartanburg so we’d have some support, it seemed like the right thing to do. With my sister gone, I became an only child and didn’t have any close family around, so we moved.” He turned the tables on her. “Why do you do this?”

She shot him a startled look. “What? My job?”

“Yes.”

She blinked then focused back on the road. “Because I like it.”

“I know a lot of your family is in law enforcement. But why did you choose it?”

A faint smile curved her lips, and he wondered what they’d feel like. The thought came out of nowhere, and he quickly put on the mental brakes.

Someone was threatening him.

It was Carly’s job to protect him.

End of story.

“I don’t know. I never had any major catastrophe in my life or anything that pushed me toward this kind of career. But I grew up with it. It’s what I know. I suppose it was a natural choice with Ian being in the army and my dad being a cop. He was just so satisfied every time he put a bad guy in jail. It was literally the highlight of his day. That really influenced me.” She smiled at him. “He retired a couple of years ago.”