ring repeated loudly.
“O’Neill was talking to her.” It was the nervous man, still huddled behind the Mercedes, speaking to his boss.
Elisabeth tried not to flinch. She had been half hoping the chaos would make the men forget about what Frank had told them. They obviously knew all about Liam being hired to find Joslyn.
And now they knew Elisabeth’s name. She was on the shelter’s website on the volunteer page—her picture, her full name, her website link, for anyone wanting to hire a private investigator who volunteered her services for a battered women’s shelter.
Then suddenly Elisabeth heard a faint wailing. A police car, ten minutes sooner than expected. The officer must have already been in the area.
The Filipino men heard it, too. Their leader called, “Let’s go,” to them in Tagalog, and they got back in their cars. Their driving was impeccably organized—within one minute they were heading down the driveway and turning away from the shelter just as a police car shot into view. It pursued them, red lights flashing.
Elisabeth reholstered her firearm, sagging against the wall next to the window. This was something she didn’t do every day—have a standoff with eight armed men.
Liam also relaxed, breathing heavily, and lowered his weapon. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Elisabeth studied his tall, muscular frame. He looked like he’d be carrying a few bruises, but thankfully there were no signs of blood.
He turned the full force of those dark blue eyes on her, and she found it hard to breathe. She hadn’t been attracted to any man in so long...ever since Cruise. The name of her ex-boyfriend was like a bucket of cold water, and Liam turned back into just a man—a handsome one, but not one to be trusted.
“I’m sorry.” Liam’s voice was hoarse.
“For almost getting me shot or for ruining my morning?” she quipped. She needed to get some distance from what had just happened. And from the emotional intensity in Liam’s eyes.
“Those men must have followed me. While I was driving, I thought I might have been tailed, but I wasn’t sure.”
“They had four cars here. They might have used a four-car team to tail you, which would have been harder to notice.”
Unease crept into his eyes. “But what’s worse is that they followed me straight to you.”
He’d just put an innocent woman in danger.
No, it was even worse than that. He’d put two innocent women in danger.
The fact that Liam had practically delivered Elisabeth to those men on a silver platter filled him with guilt as police officers swarmed around the women’s shelter. Some of the residents were outside now, looking fearfully at the broken front door, while police officers ranged around the property, going in and out of the house through side doors.
An ambulance had pulled up front and the injured security guard, Bill, was being patched up from where his shoulder had been grazed. The older security guard was giving Bill an earful about his foolhardy actions.
Detective Carter of the Sonoma Police Department had just arrived. Liam had worked with the man several times over the past few months, contracted by the Sonoma police to track people down.
“Did you catch any of the men who drove away?” he asked Detective Carter as the officer approached.
He shook his head, his thinning red-gold hair glinting in the sunlight. “Officer Fong happened to be nearby when the security guards hit their direct signal to dispatch, but the four cars split up as soon as they left the driveway. Officer Fong followed one of them but lost the car.”
Elisabeth sighed. “I guess it was too much to hope that we got a couple of them for questioning.”
“You don’t know who they were?” Detective Carter asked.
She shook her head. “I think they were Filipino. The leader spoke in Tagalog to his men.”
“What exactly did they want?” Detective Carter asked.
“They demanded that we turn over one of my clients,” Elisabeth said.
“What client?”
“She told me her name was Joslyn Flores.”
“A few days ago, a woman who called herself Patricia hired me to find her sister, Joslyn Bautista,” Liam said. “She’d disappeared a few weeks ago, and her ‘sister’ was worried.”
“Nothing about it seemed unusual?” Detective Carter asked.
Liam grimaced. The detective had often praised Liam’s gut instincts, but they seemed to have failed him this time. “She seemed sincere. It was a little unusual when she paid the deposit in cash, but she said it was because she didn’t want her husband to know because he didn’t believe Joslyn was missing. I ran a cursory background check on her and she seemed to be who she said she was. The records showed that Patricia’s last name had been Bautista before she’d married Henry Santos, and her sister, Joslyn, lived with them in Los Angeles.”
“I know Joslyn didn’t have any sisters,” Elisabeth said. “When I was training her to go off grid, she had to be honest with me about any relatives she might run into. I saw her face. She wasn’t lying to me when she said she didn’t have siblings.”
“I should have dug deeper. A hacker could have created a credible background for Patricia,” Liam said. “Patricia said that Joslyn may have been traveling under a different last name. I followed a few leads that pointed to Ms. Aday.” Liam nodded to Elisabeth. “That’s why I came here today, to ask her if she’d helped Joslyn.”
“Did you tell Patricia you were coming here today?” Detective Carter asked.
“No. When I was driving here, I thought I might have been tailed but I couldn’t be sure. The men came in four cars, so they might have traded off tailing me.”
“Hiring a hacker and using a four-car tail?” Detective Carter frowned. “This isn’t some small operation. These guys are organized and have money.”
Liam told him about speaking to Elisabeth and being interrupted by the man at the front door who claimed he was with Liam. “The guard let slip that I was with Elisabeth. He mentioned her by name.” If only he’d been a second faster, he could have prevented that guard from saying anything.
Detective Carter looked sharply at them both. “So if he didn’t know who you’d come to see, he does now.”
Liam explained about the man shooting the door and rushing in, about Bill jumping him and Liam struggling with him. It had been a lot harder than he’d expected because his injured shoulder had flared up. He rubbed it, still feeling the ache.
Detective Carter noticed. “Your shoulder still okay?”
“It’s fine.”
