Wendy Thompson wasn’t just any female. She was the one he’d been assigned to protect. He needed to focus on that, on protecting her.
But now he realized he might also need to protect himself. “I was trying to stop you from shooting me. I work for the Payne Protection Agency,” he said.
She nodded. “Parker Payne.”
“Yes,” he said. Until this assignment, Hart had thought Parker was his friend as well as his boss. Now he wasn’t so damn sure. “I was assigned to protect you. The chief or Parker was supposed to call to let you know I was coming over tonight.”
She reached toward her nightstand again, but instead of grabbing her Glock, she picked up her cell. The screen lit up with a notification that she had a voice mail—undoubtedly from the chief or Parker.
“I already have protection,” Wendy said. “I have the whole River City PD looking out for me.”
Hart snorted derisively. He hadn’t been surprised that Luther Mills had got to someone in the police department. Despite the FBI’s efforts over the past few years to clean it up, there was still too much corruption in the force.
She bristled in defense and said, “They are my fellow officers.”
He knew that, as well as getting her master’s degree in criminal science, she had also graduated from the police academy. Because of that, she had the respect of the rest of the precinct. But that respect meant nothing now, since she had been the one who’d collected the evidence against Luther Mills.
“I know,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you can trust them.”
“What?” she asked, her voice rising sharply above a whisper. She lowered it and continued. “What the hell are you insinuating?”
“I’m not insinuating anything,” he said. “I’m telling you that Luther Mills got to someone within the police department. That’s why the chief hired the Payne Protection Agency to step in and provide security for everyone associated with Mills’s upcoming trial.”
“No…” She shook her head, tumbling her wild red curls around her face. “I just talked to Chief Lynch a few days ago and he said nothing about hiring a bodyguard for me.”
Hart narrowed his eyes at the suspicion in her voice. Did she think he was the one Luther Mills had got to? She must have because she started reaching for her gun again. He caught her wrist. Her pulse leaped beneath his fingers. “If you would have picked up the call you missed, you would have known I am here to take you to a meeting with the chief.”
“In the middle of the night?” She snorted now, like he had earlier. “Yeah, right. How much is Mills paying you?”
Hart felt like she’d kneed him again, but this time her sharp knee struck him right in his pride.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said, not caring that his voice got a little louder with anger. He’d spent years in the vice unit trying to build a case against the notorious drug dealer. But every time anyone had got close to prosecuting Luther Mills, the eyewitnesses and the evidence had disappeared. “I am not working for Mills!”
Wendy shushed him now.
So he lowered his voice when he added, “But someone in the RCPD is, which puts your life and the lives of everyone else involved in his prosecution in danger. That’s why the chief wants to meet with everybody at Payne Protection tonight, so that he can explain everything.”
She shook her head again. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”
Back when he was on the force, other officers had teased him that the red-haired evidence tech had a crush on him. He’d laughed off their claims then and it was clear now that they’d just been messing with him. Wendy Thompson couldn’t have had a crush on him since she didn’t even trust him.
Not that he blamed her. Luther Mills wanted her dead, so she shouldn’t trust anyone. But there was one person even more above suspicion than Hart. He reached for his phone. “Play that voice mail on your phone. Or better yet, I’ll call Parker. The chief is with him. Lynch will verify he called this meeting.”
Before he could pull the phone from his pocket, her bedroom door flew open. Light flooded the space, illuminating the pink walls and frilly curtains of a little girl’s bedroom. Felicity would love this room. Pain clenched his heart at the thought of his daughter.
Would he ever see her again?
He was not so sure at the moment because that light also glinted off the gun in the hand of the man standing in the doorway.
Hart might have been called in too late to save Wendy Thompson.
Or himself…
Parker opened the door to the room off his wife’s office at the Payne Protection Agency. A little girl lay asleep in one of the beds in the nursery Sharon had designed for their children. She’d wanted them close while she and Parker worked. But this child wasn’t theirs.
Her hair was pale blond. Her skin was pale, as well. She didn’t look like Hart Fisher’s kid, either. She was tiny and delicate-looking, despite her fierce grasp on the rag doll clasped against her side.
Sharon had opened up the nursery for any of the bodyguards to use for their children. She loved kids so much that the former nanny would willingly care for any and all. And this little girl, already abandoned by her mother, needed extra care.
She needed her father.
Maybe Parker shouldn’t have sent Hart off on this assignment. Sure, Hart had chosen to become a bodyguard and it was probably safer, as well as more flexible, than being on the River City Police Department.
Except for this assignment.
From his years working in the RCPD’s vice unit, Parker personally knew how dangerous Luther Mills could be. The infamous drug dealer was determined not to go to trial, and he would kill anyone and everyone who got in his way. By protecting the evidence tech, Hart was definitely getting in his way. Again.
It wasn’t the first time Hart had made life more difficult for Luther. Like Parker, he’d tried for years to shut down Mills’s illegal business and send the ruthless criminal to prison. Right now Luther was only going after those associated with his trial. But what if he went after anyone who’d ever tried to take him down?
Then Parker was in danger, too, and so was every member of his franchise of the Payne Protection Agency. He’d hired all former vice cops for his team.
Parker pulled his cell from his pocket and glanced at the time on the screen.
Hart should have been back, with Wendy Thompson, by now. Her parents’ house, where she’d told the chief she was staying, wasn’t that far from the agency’s office.
Where were they? If they were running late, Hart would have called to let him know. The only reason he would not have called was that he was not able to.
Maybe Luther had already made good on his threat against Wendy. But if he’d taken her out,
