His eyes cut to Leah. You’re safe here… You can trust me. As her words swirled in his head, a cold feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. She’d lied. And if she’d lied about something like that, what else had she lied about? Was she the reason the feds had showed up? Had she called them after all?
Leah felt her insides shrivel. Hunter’s expression was tight with strain and anger as he glared at her, but the stony look of betrayal in his eyes cut her to the quick. “Hunter,” she entreated. “Please, let me explain.”
Icy contempt blazed in his eyes, but before she could utter another word, he shifted his gaze back to the agents. “Then what?” Hunter demanded, glaring at the men.
Leah swallowed against the ache in her throat. She should have trusted him.
“We’ll keep you in the safe house until a transfer back to Orlando can be arranged,” Lance Martin answered. “There’s a doctor in Orlando that we think can use hypnosis to break through your amnesia without compromising your testimony.”
Safe house? Raw rage boiled up within Leah, rage with herself for not trusting Hunter, but mostly rage against the police and the two agents, the very people who were supposed to uphold the law and protect the innocent.
Her eyes narrowed and she glowered at Martin. She’d been lied to from the get-go, purposely deceived. She’d spent months in anguish, thinking that Hunter was dead and wondering how she was going to raise a child on her own. And while she’d been grieving, these people had kept Hunter locked away, had kept him a prisoner without telling him why. And now they expected to waltz right in and have her and Hunter go along with them like meek little lambs. Well, no more. Enough was enough.
Leah slammed her hand down on a nearby table. “Hey!” she shouted. All three men jerked their heads her way. “My turn to ask questions! Just who the hell do you people think you are, messing in other people’s lives? I’m not stepping foot out that door, not until I get some answers. And if you think otherwise, you’ve got another think coming.”
“Now, now, Mrs. Davis, just calm down,” Martin told her.
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down,” she snapped at him. “And don’t you dare patronize me.” Leah knew she was losing control, but for once in her life, she didn’t care. “I want some answers,” she screamed at him. “And I want them now!”
“All in good time, ma’am,” he told her.
“All in good time?” she cried. “That’s all you’ve got to say? Well, we’ll just see about that!” Leah shifted her glare to Hunter. “Shoot him, Hunter. Just shoot the bastard.”
Though Hunter kept his eyes and the gun trained on the agents, his shoulders tensed and the look on his face bordered on desperation and confusion. It was only then that Leah realized what she had said. How desperate she sounded. She didn’t really want the man dead, she just wanted some answers.
Leah’s face burned with regret.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the baseball bat propped next to the door where she’d left it. Time for a different approach, she decided. Before anyone realized her intentions, she reached over, snatched the bat and jerked it up into a swinging position. Tightening her grip and careful to keep a safe distance, she edged closer to the agent called Martin.
“Back off, Leah,” Hunter demanded.
Leah ignored him, her eyes on Martin. “I said I want answers,” she stormed. “And one way or another, I intend to get them. Either you tell me what I want to know or I’m going to use this bat to hit a home run with your head.” To emphasize her point she squared off and raised the bat a notch higher. “First question,” she snapped. “Why was I told that Hunter was dead? Why not just take us both into protective custody to begin with?”
The agent hesitated only a moment. “It was for your own protection,” he told her. “And for Hunter’s,” he added. “In the beginning we didn’t know if Hunter would live or die, so it was decided that it would be safer all the way around if the perpetrators believed that Hunter had died in the accident. And to make it real, to make them believe that he was dead, you had to believe he was dead, too. If we had told you the truth and taken you into protective custody, they would have known that he was still alive.”
Leah’s anger died a slow death as logic took over. The agent’s answer made sense, and without realizing she’d done so, she eased her grip and lowered the bat.
The moment she lowered the bat, the agent nodded his approval, then turned his gaze to Hunter. “Be reasonable, Hunter. Don’t you see that by refusing protective custody, you’re putting your life as well as your wife’s in grave danger? All it would take would be for the wrong person to spot you—and it could happen. These people we’re talking about have connections everywhere.”
She had been told he was dead? Endless thoughts raced through Hunter’s head, but he kept seeing Leah, brandishing the bat and demanding answers. He could not even imagine how shocked she must have been when she found him on her porch. Though she certainly hadn’t shown it, until now. If she was so ready to defend him, her husband, why had she lied in the first place?
“You know I’m right,” Martin said, interrupting Hunter’s thoughts. “Think about it, man. We can protect you.”
Protect you…protect you…to serve and protect… The agent’s words echoed in Hunter’s head, and without warning, scenes flashed through his mind. With a heart-stopping jolt, he suddenly recognized the scenes for what they were—memories, unbidden memories of another time and another place.
Leah had told him the basics about the incident, and though it could be argued that he was simply being influenced by those words, Hunter knew deep in his gut that the flashes in his head were too detailed and graphic to be anything but real.
It had been New Year’s Eve. Even now he could feel the sting of the bitterly cold night. The 911 call had come from a hysterical child. Her mother’s ex-boyfriend was drunk, threatening to kill her and her mother. Hunter and his partner, Jack O’Brian, had been sent out to investigate the call.
Even before they reached the third floor of the apartment building, they heard the woman’s screams. Together, they kicked in the door. The man had the woman pinned against the wall near a door. From the look of her bloody face, he’d used the gun to beat the hell out of her. It all happened so fast that Hunter had reacted out of pure instinct. Hunter went in low and Jack entered high. Just as they cleared the door, the man, gun in hand, whirled to face them. The man fired and missed, then he dropped to the floor. But in that split second before he dropped and just as Hunter squeezed the trigger of his own gun, the door behind the man flew open. The little girl had died on impact.
Hunter’s insides shriveled as the memory faded. He’d taken an oath to protect the innocent and on that night he’d broken the oath and lost his soul in the process. Putting himself in danger was one thing, but he couldn’t risk another innocent. Not again. Leah had said he couldn’t fire a gun, and he was damn sure she was right, so there was no way he could protect her even if he wanted to.
Taking a deep breath and praying that he was doing the right thing, Hunter slowly lowered the gun, then he turned it butt forward and held it out to Lance Martin.
“You made the right decision,” the agent told him, scrambling to his feet as he reached for the weapon. He handed it to his partner. Addressing both Leah and Hunter, he said, “We don’t have much time. You’ve got
