Chapter 12
Devon couldn’t sit still so she paced the office, her heart beating a rapid tattoo. How many were there? Were there more than the two from the other day? Logan had told her that her father really sanitized the house. If there had been anything there, she was sure he would have discovered it by now. If these men didn’t find what they were looking for, would they come after her again?
She stopped in front of the desk and faced Avery.
“What do they want from me? What makes them think I know anything? I’ve hardly been in the picture the last couple of years.” She held out her hands. “I have no idea where my father is.”
“I’m sure they’ve been told to check the house for any clue at all,” Avery said. “They’re frantic to find a trace of him.”
“But there’s nothing there,” she insisted.
“Right, but they don’t know that. And my instincts are telling me something else must have happened to prompt this.”
Time crawled. At one point Avery’s cell phone rang, and Devon wondered if Logan might be calling instead of using the radio. Did that mean everything was taken care of? They’d caught whoever it was?
“Sit down. I mean it, Devon. I know this is a tense situation and your nerves are all over the place, but you aren’t doing either of us any good wearing a hole in my rug. Now sit. At least for a minute.”
Devon sat, but she perched right on the edge of the char, her hands balled into tight fists as she fought for control.
“Okay. I’m sorry. I’m just—”
“I know. I really do. Believe me.”
“How do you do this?” Devon rubbed her hands on her jeans. “Sit here like this. Waiting.”
“It’s one of the second hardest parts of this job. But I’ve learned to trust my agents and that helps.” She gave Devon a sympathetic smile. “And Logan’s one of my very best. I have full confidence in him.”
More time passed. To occupy her mind, Devon distracted herself by surfing the web on her phone, looking for anything else in the media about her father. Her little episode was still getting a fair amount of play, too. Crap.
“Avery?”
At the sound of Mike’s voice coming over the radio she jerked her head up.
“I’m here,” Avery told him.
“Call Sheri and tell her to get on up here. And to radio for an ambulance.”
“On it.”
Devon listened while she called Sheri and relayed the message, then told Mike it was all set.
Another minute or so later, while Devon stood hands clenched and jaw tight, she heard Logan’s voice again, explaining there had been three men this time.
Devon’s stomach knotted. A third man out there? Would he be after her, too?
Devon desperately wanted to speak to him, but this was not the time. At least hearing his voice calmed her a little.
“So what happens next?” she asked.
“Logan and Mike will follow the ambulance to the hospital. Sheri will go, also, and take their reports there.” She picked up her tablet. “The one requiring hospitalization will need a guard twenty-four/seven. I’m going to offer to handle that for Sheri. Her staff isn’t really big enough for her to take that on.” Her lips twisted in a wry grin. “This is actually a little more excitement than Arrowhead Bay is used to. Vigilance usually takes its action out of town.”
“Those men. They’re the same ones from the other day, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Moreno’s men, I’m sure, as is the one that got away.”
“Why won’t they leave me alone?” She ran her fingers through her hair, then tucked it behind her ears. “I don’t know anything. I don’t have anything.”
“This was a desperation move. Something must have happened to trigger it.”
“But what?” Devon stared at the other woman.
“I don’t know. Let’s hope one of these guys talks. Listen, you could probably use a cup of coffee. Let me get you some. Then I need to check everyone’s schedule and see who I can tap for hospital duty with Tyson.”
“I can get it myself. Really.” Devon walked over to the coffeemaker. “Do what you have to. That’s more important.”
She refilled her mug and forced herself to sit down again. She wondered if she clicked her heels like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, this would all disappear and she’d be back in her apartment in Tampa.
But then I wouldn’t have Logan.
So she sat, drinking her coffee and trying not to check her watch every five minutes.
* * * *
Although Logan checked in, it seemed forever until he finally walked back into the office. Devon jumped up and threw her arms around him. Without even thinking about how it would look and ignoring the others, he wrapped her in his arms. She fell into him without hesitation, and he leaned into the feeling of her warm, soft body.
In a moment he took a step back and looked hard into her eyes. “You okay?”
She gave a nervous little laugh. “Oh, I’m fine. Just another normal day, right?”
After a long moment, he set her away from him.
“I guess you’re glad to see me.” He smiled, even though the situation troubled him.
“Uh, sorry. It’s just—” She lifted her hands and let them fall in a helpless gesture. “I was worried about you.” She glanced at the others. “Sorry.”
“Damn, Logan gets all the luck,” Mike joked. He held out his hand. “Mike Perez. And you must be Devon.”
She nodded. “The focal point of all this trouble.”
“Not really, babe.” Logan gave her hand a squeeze. “You’re just the one caught in the trap.”
“Let’s all sit down,” Avery told them, “so I can get up to date. I take it Sheri has the one guy in her jail?”
Logan nodded. “She’ll—”
Avery’s phone rang, interrupting everything.
“Sheri? What’s up?” Avery went completely still, her face a hardened mask. “Son of a bitch. Maybe we should double up the guard at the hospital. Okay, I’ll talk to Logan about it.”
“Now what?” Logan asked.
“As they were moving the prisoner from the patrol car into the jail, someone fired from the trees across the street. The guy is deader than a doornail.”
“Holy shit.” Logan smacked his fist on the arm of the chair.
Avery skewered him with her gaze. She knew what he was thinking. “Quit beating yourself up over it. Whoever this guy is, he heard the gunshots, didn’t hear his friends tell him it was all clear, and got his ass out of there. We’ll all do our best to get him. Shit happens. Let’s move forward.”
Logan nodded. “They refused to give their names. Sheri printed both of them, including the one with the gut shot before they took him into surgery. She wants to know who has jurisdiction over him, considering the circumstances. Should we call DEA?”
“I think so.” She looked at Devon. “This is beyond Arrowhead Bay now. I’m sorry, and I know if your father is alive, this probably won’t be good for him.”
Logan could almost feel her body tighten, but she nodded her head. “It is what it is. I’m hardly the expert here but I agree with what you said.”
“Tyson’s waiting for the one remaining thug to come out of surgery. They’ll let him stand guard in recovery as well as when he gets to his room. I insisted on a private room, by the way. If someone wants to off this guy so he won’t talk, they’ll have to get past Vigilance.”
Avery nodded. “Which means not at all.”
“Still,” Logan went on, “I’d feel a damn sight better if we got our hands on the guy who’s in the wind. By now I’m sure he’s called Moreno, or one of his lieutenants, and who knows what the hell they’ll do. They sure don’t want their boys talking to us.”
Mike snorted. “Would you?”
“My fucking fault,” Logan spat out. He still couldn’t believe he’d been that careless.
“Enough already,” Avery snapped and held up a hand. “Do not say this is on you again. There’s nothing you could have done to prevent this. You and Mike were busy with two of the men, there was no hint of a third, and I—” She threw up her hands. “Get it out of your head or you’ll be useless to both me and Devon.”
Devon. He reached over for her and was happy that she gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. Avery was right. He had to get his shit together and do what he was supposed to do—keep Devon safe. He had a lot more reason to want that than when he’d just been her bodyguard.
“But this shows us the lengths they’ll go to,” Mike put in, “to keep their boys from talking to us.”
A knock on the doorframe caught everyone’s attention. Del, their crackerjack tech guy, who was working on Graham Cole’s phone.
Avery motioned him into the room. “Got something for us? I hope?”
“I finally cracked all but two passwords. I think, based on time spent so far, we’re pretty close. I wanted to let you know. I’m running it through two sophisticated programs right now.”
“Okay, Del.” Avery nodded. “But some things have happened to escalate the situation. This is very encouraging but time is critical here. Get back to it and push it as hard as you can.”
“Avery?” Devon cleared her throat. “What do you think is on there besides numbers and texts?”
“Those will be a big enough help by themselves,” she answered, “tracing the numbers those calls and texts went to. People have the mistaken idea that burner phones can’t be traced. A good tech person like Del can find anyone, anywhere. If the phones haven’t been destroyed, that is.”
“I hope we get somewhere before someone else comes after me.” She looked at Logan. “They might not want to kill me, right? They might think I know where my father is and—”
“Whatever they want they won’t get it,” he said, fierce. “I promise you that.”
Devon dropped her head into her hands. Logan leaned over and cupped her chin. “Look at me, Devon. We’ll find the bastard. I promise you. Despite what happened today, letting people get away just isn’t in my wheelhouse.”
He was still sitting with her when Sheri walked in. He looked over at her. “You okay?”
“Pissed as hell but otherwise all right.”
She fixed a cup of coffee for herself, took a long, slow sip of it, then went over the details of the shooting again.
“I’m trying to think if there was a different way we could have handled this. And where the hell did that fucker get new transportation and a rifle so fast?”
“Probably called Moreno,” Mike told her.
“Well, I’ve got everyone, including the sheriff’s department, looking for him in every nook and cranny.”
Avery nodded. “Good. And there’s a BOLO out?”
“Did it first thing.”
“Good. Is the Cole house presentable so Logan can take Devon home?”
Sheri nodded. “Taken care of.”
“Presentable?” Devon looked at each of them. “What—? How—” Logan saw the look on her face when she realized that of course there was blood from the shooting and someone had been sent to clean it up. He was afraid any minute she might throw up.
“Easy, honey.” He put his arm around her. “Deep breaths, okay? It will be fine.”
Avery cleared her throat. “Get her out of here, Logan. Take her home and give her plenty of TLC. She needs it.”
“No problem there.”
“I’m okay,” Devon protested.
Logan knew she’d say that. She’d fall on her face before she gave in to what she saw as weakness.
“Not hardly,” Avery said. “Go home. You look like death warmed over.”
Devon managed a grin. “Gee, Avery, you sure know how to make a girl feel good.”
“I promise we’ll call Logan with even the tiniest bit of news, okay?”
“Okay.”
Logan took Devon’s hand and hauled her out of the chair. “We’re out of here.”