Shielding the Suspect

Spending time with Susan had convoluted mess written all over it. He wasn’t the soldier he’d been before his accident. His body was damaged and weakened, his confidence shaken. Was he capable of protecting her from a killer? What if she was attacked? Would he respond and protect her or hesitate and get her killed?

Then again, what choice did he have? His brothers needed him. So did Susan. Despite the ugly history, he would talk to her and do what he could to help.

* * *

The constant gnawing dread never let up. Susan Prescott clocked out of work, sliding her employee badge through the gallery’s timekeeping system. It had been another horrendous day. She was leaving via the side entrance, hoping the reporters waiting to speak with her would remain in the front. She altered her route every day to avoid a confrontation.

Susan didn’t have answers to the questions they asked. Why had she killed Justin? Where had she put the body? Why wouldn’t she give closure to his family?

How did someone answer those questions? They were meant to bait her into saying something she’d regret. She didn’t know anything about Justin’s murder. She hadn’t been involved. At least, she didn’t think she had. Frustration worked at her. Why couldn’t she remember?

Susan pushed open the side door. Reporters and cameramen snapped to attention and began shouting at her. A jolt of anxiety ripped through her. Susan focused on her car parked a few yards away, blinking back the tears that sprung to her eyes, a combination of sadness, humiliation and grief. Anything she said would make it worse, but she wanted to shout the only answer she knew, which was she didn’t know anything.

A hand grasped her elbow and Susan pulled her arm free, spinning and coming face-to-face with Brady Truman. The last man she’d have expected outside the gallery. He looked disheveled and tired, not that she was in any position to judge. She was sure she looked worse. The aggravating thing about Brady was that even exhausted and unkempt, his charisma and good looks were undeniable. Every part of him tempted her.

It wasn’t the time to fixate on Brady’s tremendous appeal. Extending one muscular arm in front of them, he led her through the crowd, forming a path to her car. He took her keys from her hand, unlocked the doors and helped her into the passenger side. He climbed in the driver’s seat, fastened his seat belt, held down the horn in warning to the media to move and drove them away from the gallery and the crowd.

Susan shook off her shock and confusion. “What are you doing here? You told me to leave you alone.” She had tried to talk to him in the hospital. He hadn’t been interested in hearing what she had to say.

“I need to talk to you.”

Being this close to Brady, her heart raced and her skin tingled. He still had that effect on her. “About what?” The answer snapped to mind as the words left her mouth. “Look, if this is about Reilly, I’m sorry. I know he was placed on admin leave because he was at the scene. He’s my friend, and he and Haley have been wonderful to me. I never meant for that—”

Brady shook his head. “I’m not here to blame you. I’m here to talk. I know you, Susan. I know you’re a good, honest person. I want you to tell me what happened with Justin the night he died.”

Susan stared at him. She would have told him if she could. “I don’t know what happened to Justin. I didn’t kill him.”

“I know that.”

Susan stared at Brady for a long moment. “You don’t think I killed him?” Most everyone else did. Why not Brady?

“Things ended badly between us. That doesn’t mean I think you killed the next guy you dated,” Brady said.

A show of support from one of the last places she’d expected it. “Thank you for believing me, but I don’t see what I can do to help Reilly.”

Brady pulled her car to the side of the road and parked. He faced her. “Susan, come on. It’s me. I know how your mind works. This isn’t the first time you’ve been through something terrible and blocked it out. When you get upset, you shut down. I know what this must be like for you.”

Susan rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “You know what this is like? Sorry, no, you don’t.” Justin was dead and everyone blamed her. Brady didn’t understand what that felt like.

“Susan, I know you better than almost anyone.”

Susan had trusted Brady once and confided in him her deepest thoughts. He had been her go-to person. He had been the man she had wanted to spend her life with. That was the past and she’d put it behind her. “You don’t know me anymore. Things have changed.”

“Things have changed. People don’t change. Not that much.”

“Brady, I’m in the middle of a disaster. I can’t deal with you or with whatever the reason is that you’re here.” Her words were similar to the ones he had spoken to her six months before, when he was a recovering patient in the hospital. They had wounded her fiercely. She hoped her words didn’t have the same effect on him.

“I can help you,” Brady said. His voice was low and soft.

Right. Help her how? Did he realize how bad her life had become? If he wanted her to help clear Reilly’s name, she didn’t think she could. “If anyone would listen to me, I would tell them that Reilly showed up at the scene and didn’t have a thing to do with Justin’s death. The police don’t want to hear my side of the story.” Susan had worked for the police as a freelance sketch artist for the past five years and it hurt that people who she’d considered friends had turned their backs on her.

“I know.” Compassion laced his voice.

“I’m followed everywhere by the media.”

“I know.”

“The mayor, Justin’s family and the police think I’m responsible for Justin’s death.”

“I know,” he said.

His simple, two word answers were annoying her. “Then you know everything I do, so why are you here?”

“I’m here to help you. To protect you,” Brady said.

A nice sentiment, but not one she’d buy. “You can’t protect me. No one can. I got myself into this and I’ll get myself out of it.”

“Don’t be stubborn, Susan. You don’t have to do this alone.”

She had never been able to count on anyone to stick around for her. How could she put her trust in Brady now? He’d left her once before. “Of course I do. I’m alone now. I’ve been alone all my life. I don’t want your help.”

Susan turned away from Brady, hating the pity she read on his face. Not everyone was lucky enough to be born into a family like the Trumans. For better or worse, some people had to muddle through life on their own.

* * *

Susan pulled another blanket over her. The draftiness of the old farmhouse didn’t usually bother her, but the past several nights, nothing had made her feel warm. Justin was dead. The guilt was crushing her and breaking her down. At different times over the past few days, she’d felt someone watching her. The police? Justin’s family? The media? She’d never actually seen anyone, yet the uneasy sensation persisted. Her world had been turned upside down and shaken, and now everything felt wrong and uncertain. Maybe she was losing her grip on her sanity.

She couldn’t remember what had happened the night Justin had died. She’d tried. Had she blocked out his murder because it was too traumatic to remember? Had she played a role in his death? They’d ended their relationship, but Susan hadn’t been angry with Justin when she’d met him on the boat. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. She was the one who had told him it was over. She’d realized she wasn’t in love with Justin and Justin deserved better. Was it possible she had killed him, disposed of the body and didn’t remember it? The police and media seemed to believe so.

Had it been a robbery gone bad? She absently touched her necklace, a gift from Reilly’s wife, Haley, that she cherished. Nothing had been taken from the boat except her camera, and she wasn’t certain it had been stolen. Normally, she was exceedingly careful with her expensive camera and equipment. Where had she left it?

The confusion surrounding that night made it difficult to say that she hadn’t misplaced the camera, lost it or taken it somewhere and forgotten it. The more she tried to remember, the more frustrated she became. Her sleep-deprived mind was only half functioning. If she were rested and relaxed, could she break through the mental walls blocking her memories?

To add to her stress, Brady’s appearance a few days ago had shaken her. She had been too flustered and emotionally wrung to deal with him. Why was he offering to help now after making it clear six months ago he didn’t want her in his life?

Going over the incident outside the gallery, she was bothered by how rude and hostile she had been to him. Brady had walked out of her life over a year ago and she wanted to get over him.

She’d met Brady at a barbecue at a police colleague’s home. Reilly had brought his younger brother, the Special Forces pararescueman who was on leave from the air force. The attraction and chemistry had been instant and hot. Susan had never experienced a connection that strong with a stranger.

Brady had strolled over to her and introduced himself. Susan preferred to be the listener in conversations, but Brady had drawn her out. He had asked her questions about her work and her hobbies. She’d loved telling him about her artwork, her sketches, her paintings and the photographs she took. His focused interest in her had made it easy to talk to him. He’d made her feel as if everything she said to him was incredibly riveting.

By the time the party was breaking up, Susan and Brady had been talking for four hours. They’d spoken on the phone every day after that, had their first date a week later and remained together through Brady’s deployments over the next several years. His returns home had been wonderful and exciting.

She’d never seen the breakup coming.

Susan had told herself and her friends she was over him.

Then, six months ago, Reilly had told her that Brady had been injured in combat, and the fear that had struck her had left her physically shaken. Reilly hadn’t known much about his brother’s condition, only that he was en route to the nearest hospital for surgery. Brady had returned to America after a few days to recuperate and by that time, Susan had been engulfed with worry. She’d had to see him. She couldn’t stop herself. Susan had to know he was okay.

He hadn’t seemed okay. She had sensed a heavy, underlying resentment and anger in him. Though she could chalk some of that up to his negative feelings for her, more had been at play. Brady hadn’t been willing to confide in her. She’d wanted to help him, but he wouldn’t let her in. He had dismissed her, turning her worry for him to frustration with herself. What had she expected Brady to say to her? That he was sorry? To offer some explanation for why he’d broken up with her?

That his rejection had hurt was telling. She wasn’t over Brady. She couldn’t write him out of her life. Her unresolved feelings for Brady doubled her guilt over Justin. Why wasn’t she grieving for Justin as deeply as she’d grieved when she’d lost Brady?

Susan turned off the television. She wasn’t paying attention to it anyway. Though sleep had eluded her many nights, she was exhausted and her eyes were heavy with fatigue. If she were lucky, she would fall into dreamless sleep.

* * *

Susan awoke to the sound of Brady’s voice. Was she dreaming? Sweat covered her skin and her sheets were knotted around her body. Why was it so hot? What was that sound? She fought with the blankets to get some air.

A shadow appeared and grabbed her by the shoulders. Susan screamed and coughed, her voice choked by the heavy air. Her eyes were burning and adrenaline spiked in her veins.

“Susan, it’s Brady. Your house is on fire. We have to get out.” He tore the rest of the blankets away from her body.

Brady? What was he doing in her room?

She wore only a blue nightshirt, her legs bare. She needed clothes. Brady didn’t give her time to think or react. He dragged her to the ground, and the floor was hot under her hands and knees. She followed him at a crawl out of her room and into the hallway.

The front door at the bottom of the stairs was open. They crouched low as they thundered down the stairs. Brady stayed next to her, keeping one guiding hand on her back. Smoke warred with the oxygen in the air. Susan coughed, cupping her sleeve over her mouth, trying to draw fresh air. None existed. Brady’s gaze met hers, and alarm flickered in his eyes while the flames crackled and hissed around them.

“Keep going,” Brady shouted over the roar of the fire.

The heat from the fire was unbearable and her lungs heaved. Fresh air. They had to get outside. The house groaned and screeched under the assault from the fire. Dizziness assailed her and she grabbed at Brady to steady herself. He slid his hands around her and under her knees and carried her from the house.

The cold night air refreshed her, a dramatic change from the heat inside. Brady set her on the ground.

“Are you okay?” he asked. Susan stared at her home, now consumed in flames. Was she okay? No. She wasn’t. This incident alone was bad. On top of everything else, it was cataclysmic.

Confusion and sadness weighed heavy on her heart. How had this happened? She hadn’t lit a fire in the hearth that night. Hadn’t cooked dinner after work. Didn’t fix herself a cup of tea to relax. How had this fire, which was now consuming her home, her artwork and her possessions, started?

Questions flashed in rapid succession and she spoke the two that repeated most often. “What happened? Why are you here?” She’d made it clear outside the gallery she wouldn’t—couldn’t—see him. It hurt too much.

Then again, him saving her life put a fresh, bewildering twist on her feelings. Gratitude, desire and security mixed with guilt in a heady cocktail, jumbling her emotions.

Brady rubbed at his knee, pain written on his face. His injury! She’d been worried about herself and her house. What about Brady? He’d risked his life for her.

“Are you hurt? Is your knee okay?” she asked before he could answer her first questions.

He looked at her unblinking, emotionless. “I don’t know what happened. I saw the flames, called 911 and rushed inside. I didn’t hear your smoke detectors going off.”

Had they malfunctioned? Or was something more sinister afoot? Susan had never been the paranoid type, but events over the past week had put her on high alert. “Why are you here?” she asked again.

Brady shifted on his legs and stood, shaking out his right leg. “I explained the other day why I’ve been hanging around. Reilly’s gotten caught up in this and I need the truth. He’s worried about you, and given the current state of his career, he can’t look out for you. He wants me to.”

Susan’s jaw slackened. Her friendship with Reilly didn’t include talking about Brady often. He was a subject they both avoided. Reilly knew she wouldn’t be comfortable with Brady involved in her life. “I asked you to leave me alone and you were spying on me?”

He blew out his breath. “No, Susan, come on. I was making sure you were safe.”

Had he been the person she’d sensed watching her? She shivered, feeling a combination of cold and uneasy. “Did you look in my windows?”

Brady’s eyes narrowed in indignation. “No, dang, Susan, I’m not a creepy pervert. I was making sure you got home from work safely and no one was harassing you.”

“I’m trying to handle things.” She shivered again and rubbed her arms. Brady removed his jacket and slipped it over her body. It smelled like a combination of smoke and Brady. The scent of him was both comforting and arousing.

Brady glanced at her burning house. “I’m seeing a number of threats coming in your direction and while I know you’re independent and can handle yourself, I don’t know if you realize who you’re up against.”

Brady wanted to help her. Protect her. Had Brady figured out something she hadn’t? Susan had tried to sort out how her life had spun out of control. She had tried to remember what had happened the night Justin had died. She had come up empty on answers in both cases.

Every time Justin’s name came to mind, which was at least a hundred times a day, guilt and hurt slammed her in the gut. That she wasn’t emotionally shattered by his death only compounded the guilt. She missed him and she was sorry for his family and what they were going through, but she wasn’t experiencing the gut-twisting, heart-wrenching heartbreak of lost love. She had been on his boat before he’d died and she couldn’t recall anything to help the police. Had she been involved? She wasn’t a temperamental woman, but the circumstances made her question everything.

Justin had been a good man. He’d deserved better than a violent death. “I don’t know who I’m up against because I don’t know anyone who would do this to me.”

“Justin’s murderer.”

Susan tried to wrap her mind around Brady’s words. “If the person who killed Justin wanted me dead, they could have killed me that night, too.”

Brady’s face took on a serious expression. “My theory is that you were a good scapegoat for his murder and now that enough time has passed to leave the investigative trail cold, you’re a loose end that needs to be tied off.”

Chapter 2

Brady’s words slammed into her like a hammer. Someone wanted her dead? “Who would kill Justin and try to hurt me?” Susan asked.

“That’s the big question,” Brady said.

Susan rubbed at her temples where a headache of massive proportions was brewing. “This doesn’t make any sense. I don’t have enemies.”

Brady inclined his head. “You don’t exactly have any friends in your corner right now either. Well, except my brothers and me.”

If she allowed Brady in her life, would he explain why he had walked out of it to begin with and give her closure?

No, that wasn’t like Brady. Discussing emotions wasn’t on the agenda. As much as she had wanted to be part of his world, as intimate as her relationship had been with Brady, she had never reached the status of being family to him. She remained outside his inner circle, an inner circle he didn’t allow anyone inside except his parents and his brothers. Bitterness oozed from her chest and she worked to hide it. She had tried. She’d put her best into her relationship with Brady, and despite their chemistry and the effort she’d made, it had still failed.

If nothing else, his reappearance in her life had given her something to think about aside from the fire and Justin’s death. Though she hated to admit it, she felt safer with Brady around. He had a way of taking control of a situation and putting her at ease.

But how much could she rely on him? Was he sticking around this time, or would he bail if it got too complicated? History could repeat itself.

The cold had begun to cut through his jacket and her nightshirt. She shivered and rubbed her legs. Approaching sirens sounded in the distance.

“Come with me,” Brady said. “I have a blanket in my truck.”

He helped her to her feet and limped to his truck, one arm supporting her. Brady hadn’t answered her question about his injury. He was in pain, but he hid it well. Brady dug a blanket from the back of his truck, wrapped it around her legs and told her to wait in the cab. The truck sheltered her from the wind and biting cold, but not from the view of her home.

Her house was still in flames, her possessions destroyed. All she had left were the pajamas she was wearing and the necklace she’d gotten from Haley, one of the few people who’d stood beside her since Justin’s death. Susan watched helplessly as the fire trucks arrived and firefighters hooked up their hoses, pouring water onto the farmhouse. Despite their efforts, it was too late to do any good. The farmhouse was old, the wiring outdated, and the fire had been merciless.

No one had been hurt, and she was glad of that, but everything that mattered to her had been taken in an instant.

The ambulance arrived and the paramedic assessed them both, first treating Brady, who had an injury on his arm. An EMT procured a pair of sweatpants, a sweatshirt and a pair of shoes from a neighbor for Susan to wear over her nightshirt.

Hadn’t she suffered her share of heartbreak in the past week? What did she have left? Her eyes drifted to Brady. Once the most important man in her life, she couldn’t trust him. He’d hurt her once. He’d do it again.

Two police officers walked toward her and dread coiled in Susan’s stomach. She had no reason to fear these officers and yet, her experiences with the police in the last week had been less than stellar. Borderline catastrophic.

When they approached, Brady broke away from the paramedic and came closer, positioning himself at her side. “Thank you for the speedy response time,” Brady said to the officers.

Susan glanced at him. Nothing on his face gave away sarcasm. Why was he playing nice? Reilly was a detective, one of the best. Did Brady know these officers through his brother?

“We need some information from you,” one of the officers said, directing the statement at Susan.

When she’d been brought in for questioning after Justin’s murder, she’d known to ask for a lawyer. Did she need one now? “Do I need an attorney?” Asking the question made her feel guilty though she’d done nothing wrong.

The two officers exchanged looks.

“We’re not holding you under suspicion of starting the fire. If our investigation leads in that direction, we will need you available for questions,” the other officer said.

“If you’re uncomfortable saying anything now, we can go to the station later with your lawyer,” Brady said.

Brady was behaving as if they were friends. They weren’t friends. They were barely civil to each other, tonight being the exception. “I can talk now,” she said.

Susan was relieved that the officers needed only her basic information and promised to call when the fire investigator had finished examining the scene.

When the officers walked away, Brady knelt in front of her and looked her dead in the eyes. “What were you doing right before the fire?”

Did he think she had something to do with the fire? The idea infuriated her. “I was sleeping. And before that, I was watching TV.”

Behind Brady, a movement in the trees bordering her property caught her attention. She paused, squinted, trying to see who—or what—was there. Was it another nosy neighbor, her imagination on overdrive or someone with malicious intentions? She hadn’t called the police to report her unease and sense of being watched. They wouldn’t have believed her and she didn’t want to add fuel to their case against her by appearing insane. As far as the authorities were concerned, she was a criminal and every moment she had outside jail was a gift.

Another movement in the trees. “Brady.” His name left her mouth in a whisper.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, leaning close.

Their gazes locked and for a moment, Susan lost herself in his dark eyes. Brady had the same dark eyes as his brother Reilly, but at close range, she could see flecks of light brown the color of wheat in them. She let him draw her close, even when every other thought screamed warnings to stay away.

Though she felt silly for speaking the words, it felt important to tell someone. “I thought I saw someone in the trees.”

Brady didn’t question her. He didn’t tell her she was seeing things because she was tired. “I’ll look. Stay here.” He stalked in that direction to check it out, his limp drawing her attention. He disappeared into the dark and worry fogged her brain. If Brady was still recovering from his injury, could he protect himself? She had never before questioned his abilities. Before he’d been wounded, Brady had been a force to be reckoned with. She believed him strong and capable. If nothing else, sheer will drove him.

She waited for Brady to return. When he reappeared, his limp was less noticeable. Was it an injury that came and went? Was that a good sign for his recovery?