Bodyguard Daddy

As he read, Rus surmised, “It was assumed to be just vandalism, malicious destruction of property...”

“What does any of that have to do with Amber?” Milek asked. “Her house was sold nearly a year ago.” He doubted she had any other property in River City.

“This incident didn’t happen at her house,” Rus replied. “It happened at a cemetery.”

Milek’s heart began to hammer hard and fast—with dread. He already had a sick suspicion, but just as he needed to see Amber and Michael to believe they were really alive, he needed Rus to confirm his suspicion. “What happened?”

“Two graves were desecrated,” Rus said. And he pointed to that highlighted name. There was another one after it. Michael Talsma.

It should have been Michael Kozminski. Milek should have claimed his son while he’d had the chance. Because he wasn’t certain he would have the chance again...

Another curse slipped through Rus’s lips. “You know what this means...”

Yeah, he knew what it meant.

“That someone went to the time and the trouble to dig up two empty graves.”

They were no longer the only ones who knew Amber and Michael Talsma weren’t really dead. And the only person who would have gone to the trouble of confirming they were alive was the person who wanted them dead.

Chapter 2

Her hand trembled slightly as Stacy Kozminski-Payne attached the last jewel to the plush body of the stuffed bear. The jewels were made of shiny material and felt, and attached so well to the bear that they couldn’t be torn off and eaten. She wouldn’t expose the children for whom she made the bears to choking hazards. A jewelry designer by trade, Stacy only made the bears for family.

For her children.

And for her nephews and nieces. It was hard to make the bears now without thinking of the first one she’d made—for her first nephew. Michael was gone now. Maybe he’d been clutching the bear in those final moments—before the flames had consumed him. Maybe it had given him some comfort.

Strong arms slid around her, offering her comfort. “I don’t know why you keep putting yourself through this,” a deep voice murmured. Warm breath caressed the side of her face before lips skimmed over it.

She trembled again—for another reason entirely. Her husband’s touch never failed to excite her. “I always make them for the babies.”

“Yes, you’ve already made them for all the babies who’ve been born,” Logan said. “You don’t need to make another one.”

“Garek—”

His deep laugh interrupted her. “Garek and Candace have just gotten married. And those two aren’t likely to ever have children.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Nobody thought they were likely to ever get married, either.” But they had. On Christmas. Tears stung her eyes as she remembered how beautiful the wedding had been. At least one of her brothers was happy now.

“Hey,” he said as he caught the hint of tears she fought. “I’m sure you’re right. You’re always right. I never noticed how those two felt about each other. But you knew.”

She had known how Garek and Candace felt about each other. How had she not known how Milek had felt about Amber? She’d believed her friend—believed that Milek had broken their engagement because he hadn’t really loved her. When Amber died, Stacy had realized how wrong she’d been—when she’d seen how devastated Milek had been. That devastation had lasted the whole past year. But he was getting better now.

Or maybe that was just what she wanted to see. He didn’t seem as depressed or angry. He just seemed edgy; something was still bothering him. But she dared not push him. He’d only just begun to talk to her again.

“What’s wrong?” Logan asked. And he turned her in his arms, holding her closely. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

She wanted to say nothing. She wanted to be completely happy. But that happiness brought her guilt—that she could be happy when Milek was still miserable—when her best friend was dead. But she was happy. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m not making this bear for Garek and Candace.”

She wouldn’t dare presume. She and Candace had only recently forged a friendship and Stacy didn’t want to risk losing another friend.

Logan arched a dark brow over one of his sparkling blue eyes. “Then who...?”

She let the happiness out then with a smile. “We are.”

Logan let out a whoop. Lifting her in his arms, he swung her around the workshop he’d converted from a spare bedroom in their house. With another baby on the way, they might need to convert it back or buy a bigger house.

She wouldn’t worry about that yet. She didn’t even have to worry about coming up with a name. They had already agreed what the name would be for their next child. It had been too soon when their little Penny was born, her grief too fresh. But Stacy was ready now.

If they had another girl, they would name her Amber. And if the baby was a boy, Michael...

* * *

“Mommy, I’m not sick,” Mason protested from the backseat of the minivan that belonged to Heather Ames.

Stopped at a light, she turned back toward him with a weak smile as she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. The light needed to turn green. Now. “I know, honey.”

“Then why did you get me from school so early?”

He had been in class only a couple of hours when she came for him.

“Because we need to leave...” she murmured as she turned back to study the long red light.

“School?”

The light changed—finally—so she pressed hard on the accelerator. What if someone had followed her from the house to the school? What if someone was following her now?

The photos proved she’d been under surveillance. Someone had been watching her—them. She doubted he’d stopped now. So she kept glancing into the rearview mirror.

But she didn’t know how to detect and lose a tail—like FBI Agent Rus—like Milek and Garek. Their father was a jewel thief; he’d taught his sons not only how to steal but how to elude arrest. Eventually he’d been caught, though, and imprisoned. Milek and Garek had done time, as well.

She almost understood now what they’d gone through and what she had put many criminals through. For the past year she had felt imprisoned—trapped in a life and even in a body where she hadn’t wanted to be.

“We’re leaving town,” she told her son.

He clapped his hands together. “We’re going home!”

“No...” That was the last place they could go.

“But I wanna go home.” She glanced back and confirmed his bottom lip was jutted out in a pout. “I wanna see Aunt Stacy...”

So did Amber. She had never needed her best friend more. But Stacy was related to Agent Rus now. Would she believe he had betrayed her? Would she forgive Amber for not coming to her a year ago?

She couldn’t risk going back to River City. That was where the attempt had been made on their lives—where Gregory had been murdered. She and Michael would be in more danger there. Not that they weren’t in danger now.

I know who you really are...

And all those photos. Somebody had been watching them—for weeks. She glanced in the rearview mirror again. Was he watching her right this minute?

She shuddered.

“We can’t go see Aunt Stacy yet,” she said.

“You always say that...” The disappointment and irritation in his little voice broke her heart.

She had turned his world upside down a year ago. And now she had to do it again.

“We have to leave now,” she said. “I packed up all our stuff.” At least, everything she’d thought they would need and had been able to pack in less than an hour.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

She had no idea.

He turned in his seat and peered into the cargo area behind him. “Where’s Jewel?”

Stacy had lovingly made the bear for her nephew. She probably thought it had burned up in the crash with them—since Amber hadn’t been able to leave it behind in their house.

She was sure she’d packed it; it had been on top of the last box she’d brought out to the van. “It’s back there—in the open box.”

She’d been in such a hurry she hadn’t had time to tape any of them shut. But the last one she hadn’t even bothered to fold in the flaps.

Michael leaned around his seat to face the back. She heard a sob slip out. “Jewel’s not here!”

She had been juggling that last box as she tried to pull the door shut behind her. But the wind had caught the door and pulled it from her grasp, and she’d nearly dropped the box, as well. She might have lost the bear then.

Michael had already given up so much. His family. His friends. She couldn’t ask him to give up his favorite toy—his one connection to his past.

When she pulled over to check inside and around all the boxes in the back, she didn’t find the bear. With Michael sobbing brokenheartedly now, she had no choice. She had to return to the house where those pictures had been sent. Where one of them had been taken...

Where the killer might be waiting for them...

* * *

“This is a mistake,” Agent Rus remarked, holding tightly to the armrest as Milek steered around a sharp curve. “We could be leading the shooter right to her.”

Milek glanced in the rearview mirror and shook his head. “Nobody’s following me.” Nobody could. Garek had trained him too well in how to tail someone—so well that he hadn’t even noticed Milek tailing him a few times. But he’d taught him even better in how to lose a tail.

Drive it like you stole it...

He would have smiled, as he always did when he heard his brother’s advice inside his head. But his head was already pounding—with his madly beating pulse. “Or we could be too late...”

His greatest fear was that the shooter had already beaten them to her. She wasn’t very far away—just a few hours north of River City near the Lake Michigan shore.

“Nobody but me knows where she is,” Rus maintained. “Until now...”

He’d told Milek. But someone else must have figured it out. Or why else would their graves have been dug up?

“You should have stashed her farther away,” Milek said. “Maybe someone recognized her.” And then dug up the caskets to confirm they were empty.

“I wanted her to be close enough,” Rus said, “in case she needed me.”

Milek understood the FBI agent’s logic, and now that he was nearly to the town where Rus had moved her, he could even appreciate her not being any farther away. Rus had made wise choices. But Milek wished he was the man she had turned to—as she once had. Her passion had equaled his; she’d wanted him as badly and as often as he’d wanted her. Her kisses, her touch had driven him crazy—had tested his already tenuous control. She had once wanted him, but she hadn’t trusted him when she’d needed help.

He understood why she hadn’t. He hadn’t been there for her when she had needed him before—when she’d learned she was pregnant with his son. If only he could have explained...

But he knew Amber. She wouldn’t have accepted the truth. It had been easier to lie to her and to pretend he hadn’t cared.

Rus lifted his cell phone. “She hasn’t called,” he said. “She doesn’t need me.”

Or she couldn’t call. Milek’s heart slammed into his ribs at the horrific thought. And he pressed harder on the accelerator.

“Stop!” Rus shouted. The man shouldn’t have been afraid. Milek was sure he had participated in more than his share of high-speed chases. “You missed the street.”

Milek steered the SUV into a sharp U-turn, tires squealing, as he drove onto the road Rus indicated. It was a suburban block—little bungalows sitting side by side on the tree-lined street.

Amber had had a bigger home in River City. As a lawyer, she had been able to take care of herself and their son. Financially.

“What does she do here?” he asked. She wouldn’t have been able to practice law without a license.

“Paralegal,” Rus replied, “at an estate law firm.”

It would have been a big demotion for her. In responsibility and pay. She had given up a lot. But he knew why she had. For their son...

She’d wanted to keep him safe. That was the same reason Milek had stayed away from her and him. To keep them safe...

But then he hadn’t realized there were dangers beyond the ones he’d posed.

“Which house?” he asked as he slowed the vehicle.

Rus pointed toward a nondescript white one. Even its door was white as was the trim and foundation. It was so bland that it was nearly invisible. But that had probably been the point. Amber had wanted to be invisible. But someone must have noticed her.

The tires squealed as he braked at the curb. He didn’t bother shutting off the ignition, just threw the transmission into Park and jumped out the driver’s door. While he ran to the front porch, Rus moved more slowly and called out behind him, “Wait...”

Heedless of the warning, Milek vaulted up the steps. But then he paused, and not because of the hand that suddenly clamped down on his shoulder.

“Wait,” Rus said again. “You don’t want to startle her or the boy.”

But Milek pointed toward the front door. It wasn’t just unlocked; it was standing wide-open. Fighting the paralysis of fear, he reached for his holster and drew his weapon. Then he walked through the open door. His stomach knotted with dread over what he might find inside the nondescript home.

Rus had drawn his weapon, too, and he followed closely behind Milek—protecting his back. Milek didn’t care about his own safety. He cared only about hers.

While the house was bland on the outside, inside the walls had been painted bright colors. Vibrant reds and blues and greens. It looked as if it had once been loved and lived in—except it was empty of people and left in a mess.

All the doors had been left open—from the closets in every room to the cupboards in the kitchen. Drawers had been pulled out, too.

“Do you think someone broke in to toss the place?” Rus asked as he gazed around at the chaos.

Milek moved back toward the front door. The jamb wasn’t broken, and there were no gouges in the lock. Unless he or Garek had picked it, there would have been some indication that it had been forced.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Then it looks like someone just left in a hurry,” Rus remarked.

“But why?” Milek asked. Had Rus warned her that Milek knew she was alive? Had she not wanted to see him?

They’d lived in the same city for almost five years after they’d broken up and hadn’t seen each other, though. She probably wouldn’t think he cared that she was alive—not enough to seek her out. “Could she have heard about the graves being dug up?”

“How?” Rus asked. “I didn’t know myself until just an hour ago.”

But maybe Rus wasn’t the only person with whom Amber had stayed in contact. Maybe she’d kept another link to her past—to River City.

The door bumped against something as he pushed it open again, so he pulled it forward and looked behind it. A small stuffed bear lay on the foyer floor next to a table littered with junk mail.

He leaned down to pick up the bear. He recognized the detail. The jewels weren’t real, but he knew who had made it. Stacy.

Was that who Amber had stayed in contact with? She and Stacy had always been so close—like sisters.

That was another reason Milek never should have gotten involved with Amber. And, really, he’d tried to just be friends with her, too.

But she was so damn beautiful, and the attraction between them had been so intense. Even knowing she was his sister’s best friend, he hadn’t been able to resist her. He hadn’t been able to resist her until he’d fallen completely for her. Only then had he been strong enough to do the right thing.

As he leaned down to pick up the stuffed animal, he noticed something else: a photograph lay beneath the bear. He scraped up the picture from the hardwood floor. A woman and child cuddled together on a couch—the very one in the room behind him. Her head bent close to his, the two looked at a book together. His breath caught, burning in his lungs, as he recognized them—the woman and the child he’d never thought he would see again. They didn’t look the same. Her hair was different—brown instead of shiny red, and it wasn’t as long and wavy. Her eyes looked dark, too.

Even the boy’s hair looked darker. But his eyes were still the same pale gray as Milek’s. He was too young for contacts, so his disguise wasn’t as complete as hers.

Was that what had happened?

Had someone recognized them?

That photo had been taken through her front window. He flipped it over and read the message scrawled across the back: I know who you really are...

He passed the picture over to Agent Rus. “This is why she left in such a hurry.”

Rus cursed. “How the hell did someone find her?”

Milek had begun to consider the FBI agent a friend—especially since he’d admitted the truth to him, since he’d reassured Milek that the woman he had always loved and his son had not died. But now he regarded the man with suspicion.

Could he trust him?

Should Amber have trusted him?

* * *

Frank Campanelli shook his head as he followed the minivan back toward the neighborhood he’d thought Amber Talsma had left for good. Earlier he had watched her load the back of the van with boxes and suitcases before she’d gone to the elementary school to pick up her son.

“Why the hell are you coming back here?” he asked aloud.

He’d sent the photographs to give her a chance to escape him. Just as he’d fired those warning shots into her house last time.

He was a professional and had no guilt over killing for money. But it was different with women and kids. Their deaths haunted him.

That was why he’d been glad when Amber Talsma had heeded his last warning and staged her death. He’d claimed responsibility for that and had still collected his payment from his client.

He would have left her “dead”—if not for that damn FBI agent cleaning up River City. Frank had lost another client when Viktor Chekov had gone to prison—to join so many other clients of Frank’s.

He needed money. So he would set aside his guilt and finish the job he should have completed a year ago. It had taken the photos and digging up those damn graves in order to convince his client to pay him again.

So this time he would have to produce bodies. He would have to prove he had actually completed the job. That Amber Talsma was really dead.

He slowed as he turned onto the street behind her. With one hand on the steering wheel, he leaned across the passenger’s seat and popped open the glove compartment with his other hand.

Then he reached inside and pulled out the gun he kept there. The Glock had a silencer on the barrel, just like the one he’d fired at Amber Talsma’s house a year ago. That was why no one had reported hearing gunfire. Despite the suburban neighborhood and all the little houses sitting closely on small lots, nobody would hear anything this time, either.

The only thing that would be different this time was that he would not miss. He would make sure every bullet fired struck its target: Amber Talsma.

Chapter 3

“Where the hell is he?” Garek Kozminski asked as he pushed open the door to FBI Special Agent Nicholas Rus’s office at the River City Police Department. His hands were already curled into fists—ready to swing. He was angry. Not as angry as he’d been when someone had been trying to kill the woman who was now his wife, but he was beyond irritated. And the damn agent wasn’t even in his office...

A hand touched his arm, long fingers wrapping around it. Even through his coat and sweater, his skin tingled at her touch. He turned back toward her, and as always, his breath caught at her beauty. With her black hair, silky skin and thickly lashed blue eyes, she was stunning.

She looked at him with concern and love. “You don’t know for sure Milek is working for him.”

He knew. “Milek has been refusing to take any bodyguard assignments,” he said. “He’s preoccupied. Rus roped him into something.”

“Are you sure that’s a bad thing?” Candace asked.

Garek lost his breath again—for another reason than his wife’s beauty. “What?”

“He seems to be doing better than he’s been since...”

Since he’d lost the woman he loved and his child. Garek didn’t know how Milek had survived the loss—the grief. If Garek ever lost Candace...

He shuddered at the horrific thought.

Candace continued, “He’s less despondent.”

That was a good thing. For the past year Garek had lost his brother to his grief—to the point that Milek had had him move out of the condo they’d shared. But working for Rus was not a good thing. Garek worried he might lose his brother to more than grief—to death.

“I’ve done a special assignment for Rus,” Garek said, although he didn’t need to remind her. “And all of us—you and I and Milek—nearly got killed.”

She squeezed his arm in reassurance. “Nearly,” she said. “We all survived.”

Maybe Milek wasn’t happy he had. Maybe working for Rus again was some kind of death wish for him—a wish to join the woman and the child he’d lost.

“Hey, Candace!” A man stopped in the doorway to Rus’s office. He was a big, barrel-chested man with a scruffy beard and long, stringy hair.

Although his wife needed no protection, Garek pulled her against his side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“Bruce,” Candace greeted the guy with a smile. So Garek doubted the man was a criminal. She hadn’t always had the most affection for them—until she’d fallen for him.

“You’re looking great,” Bruce said with an appreciative grin as he checked out her lean, sexy body. “We could really use you back in Vice.”

She laughed, but not with her usual self-deprecating humor. She wasn’t refusing the man’s compliment—the way she used to Garek’s. Now she saw herself as he saw her—as the true beauty she was.

Garek glared at the interloper, but the guy paid him no attention.

“Is that why you’re here?” Bruce asked. “Giving up the bodyguard business?”

She laughed again. “Not at all. My husband and I are looking for Agent Rus.”

Bruce glanced at him then. “You look like the guy who was with him right before they tore out of here.”

“Why’d they tear out of here?” Garek asked.

“Did something come through Dispatch?” Candace asked.

“Something always comes through Dispatch,” Bruce said. “But Rus usually doesn’t go out on calls.”

Unless it involved something he was already working on—like when he’d been trying to take down Chekov with Garek’s help.

“Was anything patched through to him?” Candace clarified her question.

Bruce shrugged. “I don’t know. If he was called out because of some kind of incident, he didn’t ask for backup. It was just the two of them. Before they ran out of here, they were at Rus’s computer.”

“Thanks,” Candace told the man. And he must have picked up from her tone that she was dismissing him. The moment he turned away, she closed the office door. Then she slipped from Garek’s grasp and moved around Rus’s desk. She tapped on his keyboard.

“Isn’t it password protected?” he asked. He could break into any building or safe, but computers were beyond his area of expertise.

“It was,” she said as she continued tapping on the keys.

“You broke in?” he asked and whistled in appreciation and pride.

She nodded. “Nikki’s been teaching me about computers,” she said. “And I’ve been teaching her about self-defense and weapons.”

Candace was a good teacher. Logan Payne would soon have no more excuses to keep denying his sister fieldwork.

A soft gasp slipped through Candace’s red lips.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know...” she murmured. But her blue eyes were wide as she stared at the monitor.

Garek moved around the desk to lean over his wife’s shoulder. “What the hell...”

“Why would someone have dug up Amber’s and Michael’s graves?” Candace asked.