The Precinct: SWAT

“He would if I asked. He’s on the phone with my cousin, Susan, back in Ireland.” She could do a little contemptuous scanning of her own, up and down his tall, rangy build. “Besides, he knew you’d be here like clockwork, so why bother?”

Rafe no longer took her arm when he walked her to her car, but instead fell into step beside her as she headed for her Fiesta. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’d gone to see Patrick today?”

Josie bristled at his tone. “It’s his birthday. I always go.”

“I would have gone with you.”

Like having him lurking in the corner, standing watch over her, would have made the day go any better. “You weren’t invited.”

His breath seethed between his teeth. “So now I hear you’re running a trauma unit there?”

Josie stopped in her tracks, cinching the straps of her backpack in tight fists as she tilted her chin to meet his downturned gaze. She stood five foot seven, and he could still make her feel small when he glowered like that. “Not tonight, Rafe. Just get back in your truck and wait for me to drive away.”

“Do you know who that was you tried to save?”

“I was told his name was Kyle Austin. Apparently, he’s part of some wealthy family with good lawyers who got him into the same security facility as Patrick. I guess money can’t save your life, though, can it.”

His clean-shaven face tightened with a stony look. “Austin is the man who was masquerading as the Rich Girl Killer. He’s a stalker. An embezzler. A kidnapper. He tried to kill Charlotte Mayweather and Trip.”

Flinching in surprise, Josie quickly processed the names. Trip was Rafe’s friend, a fellow SWAT cop. He’d been hospitalized for most of a month after nearly dying while rescuing the reclusive Mayweather heiress from her kidnappers. “I thought the name was familiar. But I had no idea who he was. Has Trip recovered from his wounds yet?”

“He’s on vacation with Charlotte right now. He reports back for duty next Monday.” Rafe leaned in ever so slightly. “Just think how dangerous a man has to be to go nose to nose with a cop with Trip’s skills. You don’t want to be messing with a bastard like that.”

Bastard status aside, Josie had a calling. “He was dying.”

“There are people on staff to help—”

“I was there to help.”

“You can’t save everyone, Josie.” She glared up at him. He knew he was at the top of her list of lost causes. “You need to stop trying. You’re going to get hurt.”

Tell me about it. Josie pulled her keys from her backpack and headed toward her car. She was tired, upset, hungry and in no mood to be reminded of that foolish night when she’d mistaken physical intimacy for an emotional connection. She’d opened up her heart that night—and Rafe had closed up his. Lesson learned.

“It’s over and done with, Rafe. Detective Montgomery said he had ruled me out as a suspect in Mr. Austin’s death, so I probably won’t have to talk about it ever again.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Hint, hint.”

“Back up. When did you talk to Spencer Montgomery?”

He knew the red-haired detective? Josie shrugged as they reached her car. “He came to the bar tonight. He’s investigating Kyle Austin’s death as a homicide.”

“He doesn’t deal with jail-cell murders.” Rafe’s hand on hers stopped her from sticking her key into the lock. “He’s investigating the Rich Girl Killer serial murders and related deaths. Does he think you know something?”

“I don’t know.” For a moment, Josie imagined the warmth seeping from Rafe’s hand into hers was meant to comfort. But she wisely pulled away. “At first he thought I might have had something to do with Austin’s death.”

“Montgomery’s an idiot.”

“No.” Josie remembered the unabashed perusal of those pale green eyes. “I think he’s really smart. I thought he was going to accuse me of slitting Austin’s throat.”

“What?”

“I had to perform an emergency tracheotomy. The medic, he was there—he said I did everything just right.” Memories of all the blood she’d washed from her hands and blouse, and the nerves she’d squashed down so that she could offer the help he’d needed, squeezed like a fist inside her, intensifying the headache and sour stomach she’d been fighting all day. “But that wasn’t it. I mean, he took a statement, like the officer and medic at the jail did. But Detective Montgomery had me brainstorm a list of poisons for him that could cause the anaphylactic shock—that’s um, paralysis of his airways—that killed Mr. Austin.”

“He could get that info online or out of a book.”

“He already did. I saw his notepad. He had a list of poisons already written down.”

Rafe braced one hand against the roof of her car and glanced up into the moonless sky before muttering a curse and swinging his gaze back down to her. “Did he accuse you of anything?”

Josie shook her head. “Not outright. But he sure made me feel guilty about letting Austin die.”

Rafe’s hand moved from the car to her shoulder, his hard expression changing as he gave her a gentle squeeze. “You didn’t let anybody die. Montgomery was out of line.”

Josie swayed on her feet, drawn to the warmth and security of Rafe’s chest. But she didn’t want to open up and be cast aside again. No matter that he claimed the distance he’d maintained these past six months was for her own good, the distance was there. And she was too weary, too wary, to breach it. She twisted away to unlock her car and toss her backpack across the front seat. “So now you’re on my side? You can’t have it both ways, Rafe. You can’t lecture me about taking risks and then think you can be there to pick up the pieces when that risk fails.”

His arms flew out in the air on either side of her, his frustration stamped on every inch of his tall frame. “I don’t know how to talk to you anymore. I’m just trying to take care of you.”

“We’ll be just fine.”

He grabbed the door when she tried to close it. “We?”

Oh, what a mighty slip of the tongue. There was no way to hide the truth from those dark, ever-watchful eyes now. She leaned back in the seat and pulled up the tails of her untucked blouse to reveal the elastic waistband of her maternity jeans hugging the small bump on her belly.

The dome light of the car revealed everything she wanted him to see. “You’re pregnant?”

She tugged her blouse back into place and inserted the key in the ignition. “Brilliant deduction. And you’re not even a detective.”

“How far along are you?”

“Do the math, Rafe.”

His strong arm kept her from closing the door. He stepped into the triangle between the door and the car and squatted down, forcing her to look straight into those suspicious amber eyes. “It’s mine?”

Did he really think she had the time or inclination to be sleeping around? “It’s yours.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was little more than a husky whisper in the night.

Josie gripped the steering wheel, fighting the dueling urges to scoot away across the seat or to soothe that pulse beating along his tightly clenched jaw. “It hasn’t exactly been business as usual between us lately. You changed that night. It’s hard to confide in someone who snaps at me every chance he gets.”

“I don’t—” He had no room to argue there. “I’ve seen the worst the world has to offer, Josie—and some of that’s rubbed off on me. Maybe a lot of it. I wouldn’t inflict what I’ve seen and who I am on anybody. Your dad knew that about me. That’s why he wanted me to guard you from the dangers that are out there. It’s the same reason he knew we shouldn’t be together.”

She wouldn’t let him off that easily. “He didn’t want us together because I was only fifteen years old back then. That’s hardly the case now.”

“I gave him my word.”

“You worry too much about keeping your word to Dad.” She swallowed hard, feeling a familiar pinch of loneliness. But she had to be strong for her son or daughter. In three months’ time she wouldn’t be alone anymore. “I know you loved him as much as I did, Rafe. I admire your loyalty, but he’s gone. You’d do better to devote yourself to someone who’s actually alive.”

“Is that what you want? You want me to marry you?” He reached inside the car and Josie instinctively pulled her hands from the wheel and hugged her arms around her belly. The movement wasn’t lost on Rafe. She could see it in his eyes—she was shielding her baby from him. “You know what kind of childhood I had. How I feel about…having kids.”

“Oh, I know.”

At last, he drew his hand away. “Are you giving the baby up? Keeping it?”

“I’m keeping Junior.” She’d never considered any other option. “But don’t worry. I absolve you of all responsibility. I’ll sign papers if you want. I don’t want anything from you. Just think of this baby as all mine. I do.”

HE STOOD IN the shadows, waiting nearly thirty minutes for the cop sitting in his truck to quit cursing and banging his steering wheel, and then staring out into the darkness as though he might be holding back tears. Whatever Josie Nichols had said to him had clearly upset him.

Only after the black-suited cop had started the engine and peeled out of the parking lot, still fighting whatever the bad news had been, did he emerge from behind the Dumpster and walk to the vehicle he’d parked two blocks down the street. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, squirted it with a splash of breath spray and held the minty scent over his nose, trying to dispel the acrid stench from his hiding place that lingered in his nostrils.

Officer Mood Swing had thwarted his plan to make quick work of the situation that had developed. But his ongoing research and his patience in the shadows had paid off in other invaluable ways. He’d quickly learned Josie Nichols’s nighttime routine. The fat uncle would be of no consequence—he’d taken the whiskey bottle upstairs to his apartment after closing the bar. But the big-brother cop could be as problematic as the extra security around the hospital where Miss Nichols spent most of her days.

He pressed the remote on his key chain as he approached his vehicle, pocketed the handkerchief as he found fresher air to breathe, and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. It was a nasty habit, one he indulged only when he needed to calm himself, when he needed to think. And he definitely needed to think now.

KCPD was closing in on him. Every time he wrapped up a loose end, another thread in his plan unraveled. They’d kept him from knowing the satisfaction of squeezing the life from his last two victims. And he was hungry for revenge now. Aching with the blood-pumping need to destroy the last two women who had denied him what was rightfully his.

He could see their faces now, telling him no, apologizing. As if I’m sorry made everything all right. His heart raced in his chest and his breathing went shallow as he remembered the humiliation. He’d been punished for his failures, punished his whole life for being different, for not being rich enough or powerful enough to earn his place in their world.

He stumbled over the curb and caught himself on the hood of the van. Stupid, stupid boy!

“Shut up,” he muttered, remembering the fists and the torture, remembering how he’d suffered all because a woman had denied him what should have been his. “Shut up!”

Hearing his own voice echoing off the brick and stone buildings surrounding him brought him to his senses. He inhaled deeply on his cigarette, letting the nicotine sink into his lungs and blood, finding the calm he needed before grinding it out in the street beneath his foot.

Remembering his training, remembering to never leave one trace of DNA, one clue to connect him to any one place or crime, he carefully picked up the squished butt and climbed into the van. After disposing of the butt in the ashtray with the other two cigarettes he’d smoked, he picked up the digital camera from the seat beside him and turned it on to scroll through the pictures of his victims. It was a trip down memory lane that made him smile.

He’d paid far too dearly for not handling those four women as a younger man. But now Valeska Gallagher was dead. He clicked to a new picture. Gretchen Cosgrove was dead. And another. Audrey Kline and Charlotte Mayweather would be dead as soon as he could devise the right plan.

He just needed time.

Patience.

And a plan.

A self-important gang leader had ignored his instructions and botched his efforts to kill Audrey. Kyle Austin’s interference had kept him from killing Charlotte. And now both men were dead.

There was only one thing standing in the way of his success now. Another woman.

Finding her name in the prison visitors’ log when the guards had rushed in to help Kyle Austin had been easy enough. Sister of a druggie, and anyone with an arrest record was easy to trace. He’d found Patrick Nichols’s information online, and saw that, ironically, the inconsequential inmate was the son of a slain cop. All the newspaper stories about Aaron Nichols’s heroic death had led him straight to the Shamrock Bar. And Josie.

He scrolled ahead to the last few pictures on his screen. Her long ponytail would give him something to hold onto if he decided to kill her with his hands. But then he was equally skilled with poisons and rifles. And he hadn’t forgotten the bomb-making skills his father had taught him.

Josie Nichols wasn’t his usual victim. She wasn’t rich and she had no family, of influence or not, to speak of.

But she’d seen his face.

Even with his disguise, she’d been too close. He’d read the suspicion in her eyes. He’d seen the imprint of a memory being made.

Oh, how his fingers itched to wipe that look from her eyes.

It was only a matter of time before KCPD linked him to Kyle Austin’s murder this afternoon—only a matter of time before Miss Nichols gave her description and some lucky cop spotted him. For years he’d been faceless. But now Josephine Nichols could look at him in a lineup or a courtroom and say, That’s the man I saw. He’s your killer. And then he’d be put in prison. Reunited with his father and uncles who’d left him for dead in a hospital emergency room long ago.

Josie Nichols could give him a face. She could take his freedom away. She could stop him before his retribution was complete.

And no woman could ever be allowed to have that kind of power over him again.

One way or another, Josie Nichols had to die.

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