Treacherous Intent

Liam put his hands up in mock surrender. “Fine.”

“What injury?” Elisabeth asked.

“Shoulder wound. Afghanistan,” Liam said. It was bad enough his injury had worried his dad. Now even Detective Carter was interrupting taking their statements to worry about him. Liam couldn’t have that.

Elisabeth studied his face for a moment, and surprisingly she seemed to understand his reluctance to draw attention to his shoulder. She turned back to Detective Carter. “I tried to see the license plate but didn’t have a good enough angle.”

“I only saw a partial as they got away,” Liam said. “Three-T-something.”

Detective Carter noted it down in his notebook.

She explained the rest of what happened. Liam winced again when she mentioned how the man had told his boss that she was talking to Liam.

Detective Carter’s expression was alert. “They only got your last name?”

“But I’m on the shelter website. Full name, photograph and my professional contact info. The men only needed to use a smartphone to check the website to find me.”

“And you have no idea who they were and why they wanted Joslyn?” Detective Carter asked.

“Four cars seems excessive for an angry ex-boyfriend who wants her back,” Liam said.

“She never mentioned anything about her ex,” Elisabeth said. “She was scared and penniless. Luckily she didn’t need medical attention when she arrived. She left as soon as she could.”

“That seems unusual,” the detective said.

“It is. Most women are relieved to find somewhere safe. They’re not yet thinking about the future. Joslyn was grateful to the shelter, but she was still anxious to move on. She took off early one morning and no one saw her leave.”

“Ms. Aday, you’re in danger if they think you know where Joslyn is,” Detective Carter said.

“They don’t know for sure that she’s not at the shelter,” Elisabeth pointed out.

“I don’t know how long that’ll keep them from trying to find you,” Liam said. He saw the shiver that passed over her.

“I’ll post an officer here to make sure the shelter’s safe from any other attacks,” the detective said. “But I’m afraid we’re stretched pretty thin. Unless you’re directly threatened, I don’t believe I can get authorization for a protective detail on either of you.”

Elisabeth said, “Don’t worry, I can take care of myself,” at the same time that Liam said, “I’ll be fine.”

“I know you’re both pretty competent, but just be careful.” He nodded to them and went to talk to one of the other officers nearby.

“You need some type of protection,” Liam blurted out. “Let me help you. It’s my fault they’re after you now. I led them here.”

She blinked in surprise, and he thought he saw a hint of warmth in her hazel eyes at his concern for her. But then she lifted her chin. “I’m a licensed private investigator with advanced tactical and defensive handgun training. I think I’ll be okay.”

He was impressed. Still... “No one can be completely safe on their own. Personally, I know I wouldn’t stand a chance against eight men. The two of us could help each other out.”

Again, she blinked at him. Now she looked wary. “Help each other to do what?”

“Figure out who those men are, and why they want Joslyn so badly.” Liam looked deep into her eyes, wanting her to understand how sincere he was. “Let me help you.”

* * *

Those dark blue eyes were almost hypnotic.

Elisabeth couldn’t look away from Liam. Finally, she had to close her eyes and turn her head away.

He wanted to protect her. It had been so long, she’d forgotten what it was like to rely on someone else, to not have to always stand on her own two feet.

But trusting someone wasn’t who she was anymore. She’d had to learn that lesson the hard way—she wasn’t about to open herself up to that again.

Still, she had to admit she was touched by the deferential way he spoke to her, as if he really respected her abilities and wasn’t just placating her. Most of the men she encountered—the ones who had betrayed her and the abusers who came to the shelter in search of their victims—were condescending in the way they treated women. It surprised her to find one who wasn’t.

And really, who was she kidding? What chance did she have against eight armed men? She might be stubborn, but she wasn’t stupid.

She kept her expression cool, calculating. “What did you have in mind? I’m not much into someone shadowing my every step.”

He smiled and it transformed him, softened his wide jaw, making his eyes gleam. “I promise I’m house-trained.”

“Good, because I just got a new apartment here in Sonoma.” A muscle in her neck spasmed. She hadn’t meant to share that. There was something about Liam, some aura of safety he emitted that enveloped her, too, and made her let down her guard. She couldn’t afford to do that.

Liam looked at the people milling around, and with a gentle hand on her elbow, guided her down the long driveway.

“For starters, let’s see if we can reconstruct what happened with Joslyn. How did she find the shelter?”

“I have a few contacts in Los Angeles, some churches and shelters. They refer women to this shelter if they have an especially vindictive or persistent abuser.”

“You have no idea where Joslyn might have gone from here?”

Elisabeth chewed her lip. Was Liam truly trustworthy? But she trusted Detective Carter—she’d seen him handle some of the men who had found their victims at the shelter, and the other volunteers had always spoken highly of him. From his manner with Liam, Detective Carter obviously had respect for him. “I’m not sure,” Elisabeth said slowly, “but when I was coaching her, I mentioned Oregon once as an option, and she seemed interested.”

“Oregon’s a big state.”

“I also taught her how to hide, and it might not be safe for us to even try to find her. I don’t want to lead these men straight to her. If it comes down to it, I won’t risk Joslyn’s safety. I’d rather work on this end and try to find out who they are and why they’re after her.”

“Joslyn didn’t say anything about who she was running from?”

“No.” Elisabeth thought back to her short few days with Joslyn. “She had been badly beaten about a week before. She had bruises fading from her arms and shoulders, a cut on her face, a broken rib—I think she’d been kicked—and a broken hand. Her injuries had all been bandaged up by some clinic or emergency room.”

Liam’s expression had become grave and hard as she listed Joslyn’s injuries. “Her ex-boyfriend did that to her?”

“She seemed afraid of him, but at the same time, I thought there was some anger behind all that fear, which is unusual.” She then remembered something. “She might have had ligature marks on her wrists. At least, they looked that way to me, and they were her freshest bruises.”

“He tied her?” His voice was muffled by his tight jaw.

Men’s anger used to make Elisabeth flinch. As she’d regained her self-esteem, she’d had to train herself to face it with calm confidence, remembering she was no longer that victim. But Liam’s anger, directed at the man who’d hurt Joslyn, made Elisabeth realize he was someone who wouldn’t stand for anyone lifting a finger to her. What would it be like to have someone who wanted to guard her and care for her? She hadn’t had anyone like that since she was sixteen, when her mother died.

“Some abusers do that, but it’s unusual,” she said.

“The way I see it, the only way you or I will ever be safe is to figure out what’s going on,” Liam said.

“It sounds better than just sitting around and waiting,” she admitted. “Let’s talk to some of the women at the shelter to see if anyone knows anything about Joslyn.”

Liam nodded, but as they walked back up the driveway toward the house, he said, “We’d better be discreet. Detective Carter might not appreciate us doing our own investigation when the police are on it already.”

“I’m a private investigator. This is my job.” They walked in silence for a few moments, then she said, “You’re pretty friendly with Detective Carter.”

“He’s known my family for a long time. When I started my skip-tracing business, he sent some work my way.”

“I do some freelance for the San Francisco FBI,” she found herself saying, and bit her lip to keep herself from blurting out more. What was it about Liam that made her so eager to overshare about her life? “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I was bragging.”

His eyes twinkled at her. “An occasional dose of humility is good for a man’s character.”

She didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t often met men who could make fun of themselves this way.

At the back of the house, there was a fenced-in recreation area for the residents, and Elisabeth knew the key combination to open the gate. She nodded to Witton—one of the house security guards—who stood watching over the children on the play set. As soon as some of the women saw her, they came up to talk.

“Are you all right?” Kalea, a staff member at the house, grasped Elisabeth’s hand, but she also cast a curious look at Liam.

“I’m fine. This is Liam O’Neill. He’s a skip tracer and he works with Detective Carter.”

Several of the women visibly relaxed.

Elisabeth gave an abbreviated account of what had happened.

“Joslyn?” Kalea’s eyebrows rose. “But she left weeks ago.”

“Do those men still think she’s here?” Witton’s dark brows lowered over his deep-set eyes.

“Not sure,” Liam said. “Detective Carter is assigning some officers to watch over the house, though.”

“What do they want with her?” Kalea asked.

“We don’t know,” Elisabeth said.

Kalea looked thoughtful. “She didn’t say much when she was here.”

“She enjoyed playing with the children,” one of the women spoke up.

“Miss Joslyn was sick,” said Kayoi, a precocious little girl with large eyes and a narrow chin.

Her mother tried to hush her, but Elisabeth said, “No, I’d like to know what Kayoi saw.” She knelt in front of the girl. “What do you mean, she was sick?” From what Elisabeth could tell, Joslyn had been healthy, aside from her injuries.

“She was throwing up in the bathroom,” Kayoi said. “Early in the morning, before breakfast.”

Joslyn could have been vomiting for a variety of reasons, but one zoomed to the top of Elisabeth’s list.

“I asked her if she wanted me to get Miss Kalea, but Miss Joslyn said she was only a little sick and didn’t need help.”

“Thank you, Kayoi. That’s helpful.” Elisabeth rose to her feet and caught Liam’s eye. From his expression, she figured he had made the same guess.

“Was she pregnant?” Kalea asked in a low voice.

“If she was, she didn’t tell me,” Elisabeth said.

Kalea leaned close to her. “Are you in danger from those men who are after her? Are you going to be all right?”

Elisabeth didn’t want to lie to her, but she didn’t want to worry her, either. However, Liam answered for her. “I’ll keep her safe. Don’t worry.”

His words should have annoyed her—after all, she was able to take care of herself. But his tone was earnest rather than arrogant, and if she was honest with herself, it was good to know someone had her back.

Not that she’d let herself rely on that. No, he might sound trustworthy now, but she’d seen too many broken promises to start trusting someone now just because they seemed earnest. He wanted to protect her? Fine. But she wouldn’t stop protecting herself.

Kalea squeezed Elisabeth’s hand. “We’ll be praying for you, okay?”

Elisabeth’s answering smile was stiff. She loved volunteering at Wings shelter, but the faith of the owners and the staff occasionally made her uncomfortable. She didn’t feel any affinity to a God who had failed her at some key points in her life.

She spoke to a few of the other women there, giving reassurances and answering questions, but she learned nothing new about Joslyn. She had just left a group of women when she saw Tiffany sitting alone on a bench, soaking in the sun. Tiffany didn’t obviously signal to Elisabeth, but she held her gaze and tilted her head slightly. Her expression was anxious.

Elisabeth casually walked over and sat beside her. “How are you feeling?”

Tiffany rubbed a hand over her distended stomach. “Tired. The baby’s been kicking a lot lately.”

“So you heard that the men were looking for Joslyn?”

Tiffany nodded. She whispered, “I saw her, the night she left.”

“What happened?”

“I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. When I was heading back to bed, I spotted Joslyn just as she was closing her door. She looked scared to see me. I knew right away she was leaving. I tried to get her to stay, I told her she was safe here.”

“She didn’t believe you?”

“Joslyn said that he’d never stop looking for her until she was dead, because she’d embarrassed him. She said that she had seen him kill a man for no good reason, so he’d certainly kill her.”

Elisabeth started in surprise. “She witnessed a murder?”

“I told her to speak to Detective Carter, but she said she didn’t have proof outside of what she saw, and she wouldn’t live to testify against him. She was certain that the only way she’d ever be safe would be when he was in jail, and until then, she had to keep running from him. And then she left.” Tiffany’s lips were white. “Was he the man who came to the shelter today?”

“I don’t know.” She took Tiffany’s hand. “But don’t worry. You’re safe here.”

Tiffany nodded, but her shoulders still hunched, as if trying to protect her unborn child. “Please don’t tell anyone I told you about this.”

“I won’t.” Elisabeth gave her hand a final squeeze, then went to speak to some other staff workers.

She was distracted by the sound of children squealing. Liam had entered into a tickle war with four children at once, and they were having a grand time. Liam squirmed out of the way of little hands even as he wiggled his fingers at tummies, making the children shriek and leap aside.

The mothers laughed, and the joyful sounds seemed to erase the somber mood. The women came here out of such pain, and this lighthearted play seemed to Elisabeth to bring not just a respite but also a sense of hope for the future. And it was all because of Liam.

Finally, Elisabeth and Liam decided to leave. Two little boys clung to his legs and rode along for a few steps as he walked.

“Please, Mr. Liam, don’t go,” one of them said, looking up at him.

“You can stay in my bed,” the other one said.

Liam grinned and managed to untangle their little arms from his legs, ruffling their hair. “I’ll come back.”

As they left, Elisabeth said, “You’re really good with kids.”

“I like them.” The grin was still on his face. “I hope I have—” He stopped abruptly, and his smile faded.

Did he hope to have kids of his own? Why would that thought make him so sad?

You’re being nosy, Elisabeth told herself. Never mind that she was an investigator and she was always observing people. She didn’t want to wonder about Liam or his life. She wasn’t even sure it was a good idea to partner with him. She just wasn’t used to working with someone. She usually only depended on herself, and that was what she was comfortable with.

That thought suddenly made her feel very alone.

She shook it off and refocused on Liam. “If Joslyn is pregnant, that might be what had spurred her to run away. She’d want to protect her baby.”

Elisabeth also told Liam what Tiffany had said—keeping Tiffany’s name out of it, as she’d requested—about Joslyn witnessing her ex-boyfriend murdering someone.

“We need to look into that murder,” Liam said. “Joslyn said she had no evidence, but with our skills and training, we might find something she missed. And to start, we could look into the men who attacked us today.”

“Did you notice their clothes? They all wore purple and gray. Was it a uniform? Are they part of some organization?”

Liam hesitated, then said, “Gang colors.”

Elisabeth thought about it. “Maybe. There are a lot of Filipino gangs up and down the West Coast. But they’re mostly in the big cities.”

“They could be from one of the cities. That murder Joslyn witnessed might be important enough to make them drive to Sonoma.” Liam looked thoughtful. “I have a friend who used to be LAPD. He could chat with someone from the gang task force. But that’s just for Los Angeles.”

“I’ll call some of my contacts with the San Francisco FBI.”

“Maybe Detective Carter has contacts in Portland and Seattle.”

“We have to find a way to put Joslyn’s ex-boyfriend in jail, just like Joslyn said,” Elisabeth said. “Until then, none of us will be safe.”

THREE

“The Bagsic gang?” Elisabeth paused in the act of unlocking her apartment door. Next door, her neighbor’s dog barked frantically at them from behind the closed front door.

Liam nodded as he tucked his cell phone back in his pocket. “Nathan didn’t even have to ask his friends in the LAPD. He recognized the colors right away.”

“So he’s encountered the gang before?” Elisabeth let them inside, pausing to deactivate the security alarm. The dog’s barking leveled off as they went inside.

Liam’s first impression of her apartment was cream and sand, neutral colors, but rather than being soft or soothing, the decor felt almost sterile. Her furniture was all modular and new, although inexpensive, and everything was clean lines, simple design. Even the Christmas wreath on the front door had only simple gold balls decorating it. There were no other Christmas decorations. It struck Liam as being a sort of fortress rather than a home.

Elisabeth turned to look at him, and he realized she was waiting for an answer.

“Nathan used to be in the narcotics unit. He sometimes had to deal with the Bagsics, although they weren’t as active in his district. They deal in crystal meth.”

Elisabeth nodded and headed to the kitchen. “Want anything to drink? Water?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

He’d jumped at her suggestion that they go to her apartment to do their research, partly because the internet connection at his place wasn’t always reliable, and partly because he was reluctant to bring her to the shabby duplex he rented on the outskirts of town. Focused on building his skip-tracing business, utilizing the computer skills he’d learned in the military, he hadn’t bothered with furnishings even in the eighteen months he’d been home. So he had one small card table to hold his computer and exactly three chairs. He had no curtains at the front window and he still didn’t even have a bed frame for his mattress. His sister-in-law Monica had just forced a garage-sale couch on him.

But from the day he’d moved in, he’d had pictures of his family and friends on the windowsill. He displayed his signed Buster Posey baseball and other mementos, like a slightly misshapen pottery bowl that his deceased sister had made for him when she was in high school. It held some Celtic coins and a claddagh ring that had belonged to his mother. He also displayed his vintage watch collection—nothing too expensive, but special to him because they had belonged to family members—and a few paperback books.

In contrast, Elisabeth’s apartment had no personal touches. No pictures on the narrow white mantel above the living room’s small fireplace, no mementos on the side table. There were the framed diplomas on the wall for her college degrees in psychology and criminal justice, and the multiple computer monitors set up on a table in a tiny dining room.

He realized that the apartment wasn’t a fortress—she was. What had happened to her that made her wall herself off?

She entered the dining room with glasses of water for them both and nodded toward the computer paraphernalia. “Pull up a chair.”

Liam had brought in his laptop with him in a case, so he found a clear space on the table and booted it up. Elisabeth gave him the password to her wireless internet network—or rather, one of her wireless internet networks. She had several, some with high-security protection. He also noticed that her desktop computer, which rested underneath the table, was hardwired into the cable internet and had a secondary security box attached.

He must have looked surprised, because she noticed his face and said, “I have to be careful because I have information on women on the run from some really bad men. It’s truly a matter of life and death if one of the abusers manages to find his victim.”

Liam also suspected she had a high security clearance for the work she did for the FBI. The security measures were likely for that information, too.

“So here’s what we have,” he said as she fired up her computer. “Joslyn is somehow connected to the Filipino Bagsic gang from Los Angeles. My guess is her ex-boyfriend is a gang member.”

“It makes sense. They have the money to hire someone like Patricia and to pay a hacker to make sure a background check raised no flags. The gang is probably involved in whatever murder Joslyn witnessed. We need to figure out what murder it was.”

“If Joslyn witnessed it, the victim might be someone who was connected to her. But to find out who it was, we need Joslyn’s real name. I doubt it was the one Patricia gave to me.”

“We need her boyfriend’s name, too.”

The worked side by side for an hour. Liam was used to working in silence by himself, but he found, to his surprise, that it was helpful to have someone there to bounce ideas off, or to have them offer tidbits of info they discovered in their searches. However, they couldn’t find Joslyn’s real last name, nor her boyfriend.

Liam heaved a sigh. “The problem is that the Bagsic gang members use nicknames, not their real names, on social media.”

“Or just their first names. And they’re careful about not declaring their gang affiliation on the internet.” Elisabeth frowned at her computer screen. “I wish we had more on Joslyn herself.”

They were interrupted by the sound of Elisabeth’s neighbor’s dog barking frantically, followed by the doorbell.

Elisabeth tensed. “I’m probably just being paranoid. I get visitors often enough.” She looked through the peephole, and her shoulders immediately relaxed. “It’s Kalea, from the women’s shelter.”

She opened the door. “Come on in.”

“No, I just stopped by to give you this.” Kalea handed her a crayon drawing on a piece of paper. “Kayoi drew this for you and insisted I give it to you today.” Kalea rolled her eyes.

Elisabeth smiled. “Tell her thanks.”

“See you!” Kalea waved and left.

Elisabeth shut the door and returned to the dining room. Her eyes softened as she looked down at the drawing. “This is the third drawing this month that she’s done for me.”

“Could I see it?”

She handed it to Liam. It was a very colorful picture with people scattered around a green field, with a jungle gym drawn in the corner. There were several children, each portrayed a little differently, and four adults—one with an S on her shirt, one with a ponytail, one with curly brown hair and one with long dark hair.

As Elisabeth pointed toward the people on the page, her neighbor’s dog started barking frantically again.

“The ponytail is probably me,” Elisabeth said. “The long dark hair is her mother. The curly hair is either Kalea or Tiffany, and the S on her shirt...” Elisabeth’s brow wrinkled. “Wait a minute...”

The dog was still barking. It had only barked like this when Liam and Elisabeth, and then Kalea, had been outside her apartment door. But Kalea was gone.

Someone else was outside her apartment door.

Liam shot to his feet. “No one knocked, right?”

“It might just be one of the neighbors walking past.”

“No harm in checking.” He drew his gun from the concealed belt holster he’d put back on after leaving the shelter.

He checked the peephole but saw no one in front of her door. Liam stepped behind a curtain to the side of the front window and barely touched the blinds to peek outside.