frowned. “This is all about the Wayne case, isn’t it?” It was a rhetorical question, posed to the A.D.A. rather than to her.
“Might be,” Woods allowed.
“Or it might be an argument that got out of hand. Some guy getting even with someone who stole his girl,” Janelle offered quickly, hoping to throw her brother off. “You won’t know until you question everyone here.” To make her point, she indicated the vehicle that her so-called protector was just about to enter. The dark blue sports car was old, but a classic. And small. From where she stood, getting into it didn’t look as if it would be easy for him. Well over six feet tall, the man seemed almost as big as the car. “Including the guy who’s just getting into that awful heap.”
Chapter 2
Shifting slightly, Dax looked to where his sister pointed. He grinned and he shook his head.
“That’s one person I wouldn’t need to question in connection with this shooting if I were the investigating officer.”
In the distance, the sound of sirens was heard. Obviously someone had already called 911.
There went lunch, Janelle thought, resigned.
She glanced at Dax, curious. What did he know that she didn’t? It had always been that way between her and her siblings. Each always wanted to get a jump on the others, be the first to know, to do, to win. A sense of competition pulsated within all of them. And none so much as her.
“Why wouldn’t you question him?” she asked.
Dax looked at the man finally getting into the vintage muscle car. “Because if he thought the shots were meant for him, he wouldn’t be looking that complacent.”
Janelle turned around and shaded her eyes, squinting as she peered into the parking lot and tried to make out his face. She’d seen more expression on the surface of a cut-glass vase.
She laughed shortly. “That’s complacent?”
“Yeah.”
She dropped her hand to her side and turned back to her brother. A squad car pulled up at the front of the courtyard and two uniformed officers emerged. Woods dropped back to speak to them.
And the questioning begins, she thought. Out loud she asked, “You know him?”
There’d been something about the man when she’d initially looked at him, an aura of danger mixed with an edginess close to the surface. She could readily believe that he was part of the same criminal network as Marco Wayne. But her brother didn’t actually know anyone like that any more than she “knew” Tony Wayne. She had only met him once, at his arraignment. He’d looked like a scared kid and she’d almost felt sorry for him.
Dax nodded to one of the officers who looked his way as he answered his sister’s question. “I know him. By sight and by reputation.”
She tried not to let her impatience get the better of her. Dax didn’t make it easy. “By reputation?” she echoed. “What is he, Zorro?”
He was doing this on purpose, she thought, dispensing information at the breakneck speed of an arthritic snail. When they’d been kids, this would have ended up with her bringing him down and sitting on him until he told her what she wanted to know. She doubted if Woods or the two officers would be very understanding if she tackled her brother on the steps of the county courthouse.
He laughed. “You hit closer than you think.”
“Dax—” There was a warning note in her voice.
“That’s Sawyer Boone.” She looked at him blankly. The name meant nothing to her. “Detective Sawyer Boone,” Dax elaborated. “He used to work undercover—like Zorro.” He laughed to himself. “First time I’ve ever seen him clean-shaven.”
“Detective,” Janelle repeated. “As in, the police force and not a P.I.?” Her brother nodded. “That would explain it.”
“Explain what?”
She unconsciously rotated her shoulder. It felt a little sore. She had no doubt that by tomorrow, it would feel a lot sore. As probably would other parts of her anatomy. “When the shooting started, he threw himself on top of me.”
Dax nodded, as if he’d expected nothing less. “He might have saved your life.” They wouldn’t know until the crime scene investigators determined where all the bullets had ultimately landed.
“He might have broken my neck,” she countered. The man had been heavy. And quick. “Let’s just call it a draw.” She saw Dax shake his head at her. “What?” she asked.
“Someday you’re going to have to admit that you can’t single-handedly conquer everything.”
Janelle patted his face several times with a hand that grew progressively heavier. “I’ll let you know when that someday comes. You can bring the noisemakers and the party hats.”
He laughed. “Count on it.” As he spoke to her, Dax watched the officers take down information from the people who had been caught in the hail of bullets. “You’re going to need protection.”
The statement had come out of nowhere. Janelle refused to entertain the words seriously. “From Detective Boone?”
Dax wasn’t smiling now. “From Wayne and his organization.”
Oh no, don’t you start worrying on me. It was bad enough she knew that their father was concerned about the element of people she dealt with. She didn’t need this from her brother.
“We still haven’t proven that he was even behind this,” she insisted.
“Better to err on the side of caution—”
Caution was the last word she would have associated with Dax. When he was nine, he’d wanted to leap off the roof with a blue towel tied around his neck to see if he could fly. She’d been the one to run off to get their father before Dax could turn his dream into a reality.
“Since when?” she scoffed.
“Since I found out that the application form for getting a new sister was ten pages long,” he cracked. He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Besides, I don’t want a new sister. I’ve spent too much time breaking you in. You’re one of a kind, Nelle. They don’t make them like you anymore. Thank God.” Hooking his arm around her neck, he kissed the top of her head. “You need a bodyguard,” he told her simply. “You and Woods as well as the witness he has stashed away.”
So he knew about that, too. God, was nothing sacred? She supposed that most of the department had to know by now. And since, Internal Affairs would readily tell her, not every single member could be counted on to take the Boy Scout oath in complete sincerity, that meant that the so-called “secret” about bringing Tony Wayne to trial was an open one.
Had to happen sooner or later. She was just hoping for later.
Janelle pressed her lips together. As with everything else, she’d make the best of it. What other choice did she have?
But
