How could Nicky know what Fontenot had said? He couldn’t imagine Nicky even talking to Fontenot without passing out from fear, much less killing someone for the man.
But seeing Nicky’s condition had cemented Dev’s resolve. He had to close down the center. Three kids dead, Connor attacked, and now Nicky talking like a suspect, or an accessory. Something was seriously wrong, and he had to make sure that everyone who depended on him was safe.
Then, he’d go after Fontenot himself.
…
Dev woke to the sound of pots and pans rattling quietly. It was Tracy in the kitchen. He yawned and stretched. His muscles still ached with fatigue, but he didn’t have that queasy heaviness in his chest that he got when he pushed too far past his endurance. He checked his watch. He’d slept for about four hours, interrupted only by two trips to the crash room to check on Nicky.
As he stood with a groan, his phone rang. It was Givens.
“All right. I got you an officer. But he can only work eight hours. Hamilton refuses to pay overtime. What time do you want him?”
“It’s eight o’clock now,” Dev said. “I’ll bring Nicky in about nine? I’d like the officer to start after you’re done with the questioning.”
“Hamilton wouldn’t agree to more than five days.”
“Maybe that’ll be enough. Thanks, Roy.” Dev headed down the hall to wake Nicky, but the room was empty and the blanket was folded neatly at the foot of the bed.
Damn it. The hum began in the back of his brain and a sick feeling settled in his stomach. Where had Nicky gone? He’d never locked anyone in the crash room, but right now he regretted that policy.
He retraced his steps and went into the kitchen. “Tracy,” he said. “Where’s Nicky?”
She smiled at him as she stirred something in a bowl. “Nicky? I don’t know. I’m making pancakes.”
“You didn’t see him? He spent the night in the crash room. How long have you been here?”
“Oh, maybe twenty minutes or so. How many pancakes do you want?”
“Listen to me, Tracy. I’m worried about Nicky.”
“He probably went to work,” she said with a shrug. “I think he’s on early shift this week.”
Dev ran upstairs to dress, calling Givens on the way to let him know Nicky had disappeared. “Send me the cop anyway,” he said. “I’ll send him to the video store where Nicky works, then to his apartment to look for him. Better yet, have the tech lab track Nicky via the GPS on his phone.”
Dev was pissed that Nicky had run out on him. But he was also worried about him. Whether Nicky was involved or had merely overheard something, he was in grave danger.
By the time Dev got out of the shower, he was feeling better than he had in days. And he had a plan to implement. He was going to close the center, send the teens to other shelters in the area, and send Penn and Katie, Tracy and Connor out of the city. Then he’d use every favor he was owed to see if he could get a court order to force Fontenot to talk.
…
An hour later, a nasty headache was building in Dev’s temples.
Hell hath no fury like a woman being told to do something she doesn’t want to
, he thought. And right now he was surrounded by four of them.
“You can’t just make me leave town,” Connor said, glaring at him.
“You’re going to shut down the center?” Penn said at the same time, suddenly allied with Connor against him. “What about the kids? Where will they go?”
“But De-ev, I’m in a play at church,” Katie’s ten-year-old voice lent a strident treble to the mix. “Miss Tracy’s been helping me practice.”
He waited, but Tracy didn’t say anything. She just stared at him through her stringy bangs, her placid gaze at odds with her clamped jaw and crossed arms. He almost preferred her silent hostility.
“What’s going on, Dev?” Connor asked, suspicion harshening her voice.
“What’s going on?” he echoed, buying himself some time. How naïve was he that he hadn’t expected them to question his decision? “Within less than two weeks, three kids from this center have been murdered and Connor’s been attacked. It’s obvious that whoever is doing this is targeting people connected with this place. I do not intend for anyone else to be hurt.” He looked at Penn. “I’m closing the center for now. I’ve arranged with other shelters and missions around the area to take care of the kids.”
Before he finished his sentence, Connor, Penn, and Katie were all talking at once, and Tracy seemed as irritated with them as she did with him. He wished he could throw up his hands in defeat. But this was too important. So instead, he yelled. “Shut up!”
Connor’s brilliant green eyes snapped to his. She clamped her mouth shut as a pink flush darkened her cheeks. Penn stopped cold in the middle of a sentence, her jaw dropping. Katie looked at him with huge, hurt brown eyes. And Tracy sidled toward him, silently aligning herself with him against the other females.
“Now listen to me.” He felt like he was talking to four exceptionally pretty brick walls. “This is not a discussion. You four are going down to Chartres Island,” he explained to Tracy. “Cody Maxwell is my ex-partner. He and his wife, Dana, live down there. I’ve talked to them and they know you’re coming. You’ll stay with them until we’re sure there’s no longer any danger.”
“Wait a minute,” Connor interrupted. “Something else has happened, hasn’t it?” She studied his face. “Somebody’s threatening—”
“Connor!” Dev slashed a hand through the air, desperate to shut her up. She was way too smart for her own good. “Listen to me, all of you.”
“Dev?” Penn said, frowning at Connor then turning to him. “I don’t like this. I’ve got one more final exam to take. Katie’s already entered into the community center’s summer program. Is this really necessary?”
Dev bit back a retort, and forced himself to speak calmly. “I don’t like it either, Penn. But until I’m sure it’s safe here, I need all of you to stay down there.” His glaze slid over to Katie and back to Penn, hoping she’d get the message. “I don’t want to risk anything happening to
any
of you.”
Penn’s eyes widened in shocked understanding. “Okay.” She capitulated immediately. “Maybe you’re right.” She reached out and put an arm around her daughter. “It’ll be fun. You remember Cody and Dana, don’t you, Katie? Reghan, you’ll like them.”
He looked at Connor, who was exchanging a silent message with Penn. After a brief nod at Penn, she met his gaze, her brow wrinkling slightly.
“Okay,” she said, nodding grudgingly. “We can take my car.”
Dev let out a relieved sigh. He didn’t like the assessing glint in Connor’s eyes, but at least she’d finally agreed with his plan. He’d feel much better once they were out of danger. “Great. Dana’s expecting you for dinner, so get going. Pack at least two weeks’ worth of clothes.”
“Two weeks. I can’t be gone two weeks,” Connor cried.
Dev sent her a black warning look. It must have been effective, because she bit her lip and lowered her gaze.
“What are you going to do?” Penn asked.
He had planned an answer for this question. “I’ve been asked to help with the investigation.”
Connor looked up, her green eyes alive with suspicion. “I thought it was a conflict of interest.”
“Yeah,” he said, hating himself. He’d vowed when he’d gotten back from Seattle never to lie again, and he’d kept that vow so far. He could make the case that this wasn’t exactly a lie. He
was
helping Givens and the other detectives. It’s just that he hadn’t exactly been asked to. “I’ve got a lot to do today, so—” He paused as the front door to the center opened and a young uniformed officer entered. “This is Officer Biaggi. He and I are heading out in a few minutes to find Nicky. He was here last night, but he left. Please, if anyone hears from him, call me on my cell.” He turned to the officer. “I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes,” he said, then directed his attention back to the unhappy women in front of him.
They all started talking at once, protesting his decision. He held up both palms.
“I want you guys on the road in an hour, not one minute later. I refuse to have a single other person get hurt because of this case. Or worse.” He stared them down one by one.
Thankfully that shut them up. They didn’t look happy, but they stopped protesting. With a tight nod, he turned to go.
Now he just prayed they’d actually follow his orders.
Chapter Ten
Less than an hour later, Dev had left with a uniformed officer to look for Nicky Renato, Tracy was cleaning up the kitchen, and Reghan was standing in the middle of the center’s empty front room, practically nose-to-nose with Penn.
“Penn,” she said on a jetted exhale. “I know you don’t care for me, but I need you to trust me on this. It’s really important that I talk to Fontenot.”
Penn’s face had turned red. “It’s not that I don’t like you, exactly, it’s just—”
“I get it,” Reghan had said, holding up her splinted hand. “It probably won’t mean anything to you, but I am well aware of how badly I handled my exposé of Dev.”
“That’s it? That’s your idea of a mea culpa? Oops, I could have handled it better?” She looked incredulous. “No. You hurt his reputation, you disrupted his life. His job and this center mean everything to him, and because of you he could have lost both. I truly don’t think you have any idea just what all you did to him.” She threw her hands up. “Okay, maybe I don’t like you a whole lot right now.” Penn’s cheeks were pinched, and she had tears in her eyes.
“I swear, Penn, I’ll be back here at the center by tonight. Then if Dev insists, I can drive down to meet up with y’all tomorrow. But I have to go see Fontenot one more time. He’s behind these murders. I know he is. He’ll talk to me, and maybe I can find out important information about the killer.”
“If it’s so important, why are you doing it behind Dev’s back?”
“Take your pick of reasons. Because he thinks it’s dangerous and a waste of time. Because if he couldn’t get in to see Fontenot, he doesn’t believe that I can. Or because he always has to be right? But I feel like this is my fault. If I’d figured out what Fontenot was talking about earlier, I might have been able to prevent two deaths.” Her eyes began to sting. “I have to find out what I can from that maniac. I owe it to those poor dead boys.” And she realized something she hadn’t consciously considered before. “I owe it to Dev.”
Penn shook her head. “Well, I can’t stop you, and if you’re determined to do this, take my key to the center.” She dug into her purse. “You’ll need it.” As she handed the key to Reghan, she said, “You know I have to tell him, don’t you?”
“I know,” Reghan said, pocketing the key. “But do me a favor, give me enough time to get beyond the city limits first.”
…
Late that night, after trekking to Angola and back, Reghan parked her car in front of the center, next to Dev’s beat-up Chevy, and went inside.
The front room was dark and empty. She walked quietly toward Dev’s office, where a flickering bluish light glowed. As she approached, she recognized a familiar, horrible voice. It was Gerard Fontenot, speaking through the television from the DVD of her interview with him. He sounded strong and arrogant, a sharp contrast to the weakened, dying man she had visited in the prison hospital today.
“—the slice of life becomes the slice of death. No one’s future is safe.
No one.
You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Reghan heard her soft gasp from the video. “What? No. That’s ridiculous,” she heard herself sputter in denial.
Her face heated up as she listened to her recorded protest.
“I am a connoisseur of emotions, Ms. Connor. If you don’t believe me, just ask Mrs. Maxwell.”
As Reghan approached the door, she saw Dev sitting on the low coffee table in front of the TV, its blue light lending an otherworldly cast to his sharp features. He leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, his whole attention focused on the screen.
She stopped cold, her senses filled with the sight of him. He wore sweatpants and nothing else, and they rode low, molded around his toned buttocks. The curve of his back was like a sculpture, gently sloping, muscles long and smooth as marble as they roped downward to his hips. His thighs stretched the fleecy cotton of the sweatpants, and his bare, sinewy arms, those arms that had held her so tenderly, appeared as sleek and dangerous as a tiger’s forelegs in the shadows.
Powerful.
She swallowed, trying unsuccessfully to push away the remembered feel of that silk-over-steel body pressed against her.
Fontenot’s strident voice penetrated the air, and succeeded in dissolving the sensual haze that had enveloped her.
She stalked through the door. “What are you doing watching that?”
Dev didn’t move a muscle, but tension crackled in the air, and the temperature in the room went down about twenty degrees. She had surprised him. That thought gave her a bit of satisfaction. She didn’t think he was surprised very often.
In one effortless motion he rose, stopped the disk, and turned on a desk lamp. His grace was like honey, smoothly flowing, even when he was agitated.
“I asked you a—” she started, but before she could even get the words out, he was in front of her.
He grabbed her arms. “What the hell were you thinking, Connor? Damn it, I should have known. You gave in way too easily.” He shook her, but just once, and not roughly.
She looked down at his white-knuckled fingers wrapped around her upper arms and his gaze followed hers. He let go.
Stepping backward, he retreated behind his desk. Reghan knew without a doubt he’d done it deliberately, although maybe it was subconscious. Putting the desk between them was his symbol of the emotional distance he seemed so determined to maintain.
“I take it Penn told you where I went?” she asked.
He dropped into the chair and placed his hands, palm down, on the top of the desk. “She called to tell me she was renting a car—because you weren’t going. You told me you’d take them.”
“They got there safely, didn’t they?” She had a moment of apprehension.
“Yes. They made it just fine. That’s not the point. The point is, you said you’d take them.”