Betrayal of the Dove (Men of Action) (20 page)

“It wasn’t the robber terrorizing the Row. They caught him last night trying to break into another store. One of the other officers running patrol got him.”

“I haven’t seen any news about it,” Alyssa brushed her hair back behind her shoulders.

“It’s under wraps until the nine o’clock press conference. This was a big case you know. Makes me wish I had caught him.”

“Who was he?”

“I’m not sure I should say.” He looked her over and grinned. “It’s not official knowledge yet.”

“Oh come on; who am I going to tell?” She said sweetly.

He shrugged. “Gregory Alexander Dumas,” he noted.

“Oh my God. He applied for security at my store.”

Craig nodded. “He seems to have applied at everybody’s store let him tell it. He needed a job. He probably figured if he robbed a few stores the need for security would go up. Shatrel probably hurt his ego when he went into her store and asked her about security so he decided to hurt her. He probably thought the increased violence would make somebody hire him.”

“And nobody did.”

“That’s probably why he sued you,” Shane said. “Maybe he thought he could get enough money from you not to worry about the job.”

“And when that didn’t work he decided to keep on going? Maybe,” she shrugged. “Just seems odd. Do you all have DNA confirmation? After the attack on Shatrel I would have to imagine there’s something to take into court. Unless you have a signed confession…”

“There wasn’t anything on Shatrel that was useable, at least not from the reports I’ve read. No seamen, so he probably had on a rubber, and no hairs, so he’s probably shaved. Doesn’t matter. He confessed.” Craig shifted his notebook and pen to his other hand. “We do have more important things to worry about here. Do you know who might have done this to you?”

She shrugged. “You already arrested my prime suspect.”

“Anybody else?”

“I can’t say,” she said expertly evading the question. Shane knew she was thinking his observation might be right. The only other person excessively bothering her was the cop in front of them, and if it wasn’t him…which he was sure she was thinking it wasn’t by now…then it had to be the guy after his team. He would have to remember to thank her for not mentioning it. The last thing he needed was some overzealous hormonal cop to muck things up now.

“And where were you during all of this?” Craig fixed his gaze on Shane. Shane was ready to show him why he shouldn’t mess with a SEAL when Alyssa placed one warm palm on his chest and smiled at him. That smile could calm a tiger, at least he thought so. He knew she was trying to keep him from assaulting a police officer and ending up in jail for doing it, but good Lord, the man was working what was left of his nerves. Seeing Alyssa tied to that chair, knowing she could die at any second, was enough to break his reserve—but knowing it happened because of him was the final straw. He had brought this into her life and now, whether he left or not, she would probably still be in danger. He was going to fix this. First, he would get her back to his place, which was more secure than her place. Then, he would make sure he got details on the current homicide investigation in Austin. He needed details. His team had worked a lot of high security threat missions, they had also turned down a lot of candidates, either way he looked at it his suspect pool was growing by the second.

“You don’t have anything to say?”

“I have a lot to say,” Shane’s voice was a lethal mix of anger and measured restraint—restraint that was about to break. “I’ll just hold off on saying it until a real cop gets here.”

“Okay,” Alyssa intervened. “I think we should probably have some tea; yes? Yes, tea,” she nodded. “And you’ll help me make it.” The tone in her voice told Shane she expected him to comply with her request, but he had no plans to go help make tea. He really was starting to hate the man in uniform. He had never had such a strong reaction of hatred to somebody in uniform—one of the good guys in uniform at least—as he had right now toward this one. “Now,” she said and her low authoritative tone told him she wasn’t leaving room for argument. She practically dragged him over to the kitchen area. It wasn’t as if the kitchen was closed off. It was a flat for crying out loud, and the divider screen she had in place had been knocked over so there wasn’t anything to shield his view. He could still see the bastard gawking at her. Having a visual on his enemy was making him angrier. Craig watching his woman as if he had every right to look at her like a side of beef was going to be his breaking point. He felt his reserve, the controlled nature he had been perfecting for years, starting to crack.

“Go downstairs right now and pull yourself together,” she mumbled in a low, but serious voice.

“I’m fine.” But he wasn’t fine. He was holding on by a thread here. Control, he needed to remember his training, his skills, but right now he wasn’t able to talk himself down.

“Go downstairs right now,” she placed her hand on his chest. “Because if you don’t you’re going to do something stupid that gets you arrested, and then where does that leave us, huh? You would be stuck in lockup while whoever is after your team runs amuck in Arizona. Who do you think his first target is going to be, huh? Me.” She pointed her finger to her chest. “Because he’ll know it would nearly destroy you to know you failed at your protection detail.”

She made sense. If this guy were after his entire team, after him, then he had probably spent a lot of time studying them, learning what made them tick. “Fine,” he mumbled before walking out of the flat and going downstairs as ordered. “That woman,” he sighed as he stood in the hallway alone. “I swear she’s a peacekeeper to the core.” He was willing to bet, whether she would acknowledge it or not, that she was the rope connecting her family together. He had heard her conversation with her sister. He had heard her advising her to not shut off her heart to love and life. In the most compassionate way she could, she had told her she needed to start the healing process, and she needed to move forward. “You can’t bring him back, Eve.” She had spoken those words with heartfelt compassion. “No matter how many crazy dangerous assignments you go on, you can’t change what happened. You know he wouldn’t want this for you. You know he would want you to go on, to live your life without regrets. He was that kind of man, Eve, and you know that.”

“I know,” she had said.

Every word that he heard her utter had been supportive, yet had been a firm statement that her sister needed to hear. He also heard her conversation with Gavin and Thomas. She had advised both brothers not to push Eve too hard. “She’s coming around, slowly, but if you push too hard she’s going to retreat.” Shane knew she was right, and they probably did too. Alyssa was more psychologist than sister sometimes, or maybe she was both. Maybe how she treated her siblings was how family relations were supposed to be—supportive, loving, caring. He wouldn’t know because his family wasn’t anything like that.

He watched officers go in and out of her flat. He had spoken with one of the detectives that had arrived to work the case, and then he decided to return to the flat. He couldn’t hide out in the hall all morning. He should have been up there, by her side, helping her with the questioning process. Of course he knew she didn’t need help. She was a strong woman who could survive on her own, yet still, he felt as if he should have been there for her.

He wasn’t halfway through the door when Alyssa approached him, put her hand on his arm and urged him to leave. “I’m not going to do anything rash,” he said as if she should have known that.

“I need you to come downstairs with me,” her voice was nearly a whisper. She had something she needed to say, and for some reason the look in her eyes worried him. Had he come off as a total caveman to her because of his inability to keep his growing rage under control? He looked to Leo who was talking with another one of the detectives and he gave him a subtle head nod, as if he needed to go hear what she had to say; so he did.

She made sure they were down the hall, closer to the door to the store before she spoke again. “Detective Burns tells me they released Gregory earlier this morning.”

“What? He confessed.”

“No, he didn’t.” She looked back down the hall as if checking to make sure nobody was coming. “When Burns was questioning me about the attack I told him that I thought it could be Gregory Dumas, but that Officer Davis had told me he was behind bars already, and Burns told me he wasn’t. They had to release him this morning.”

“I don’t understand. Craig lied?”

“I’m not sure it was intentional. He may have just heard the first report that they caught the guy, and not the second report that they hadn’t. Apparently Gregory says he received a call to come to the location late last night, not super early this morning, and he thought somebody was finally going to give him a job.” She held up her hand before he could utter his next words. “I know,” she shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t understand it either. So I told Burns that Officer Davis had told me he confessed. Burns told me he didn’t. What Gregory said was, “oh so you think she cut off my balls with rejection and I went back to show her I still had some;” He did not say he actually did it.”

“That’s a far cry from what Craig said.”

“I know. That’s what I said. That’s when Burns told me that Officer Davis is still a patrol cop because he has been denied every promotion he’s tried for. They say he’s kind of a…loose cannon I guess. He rushes to conclusions that usually turn out to not be true.” She sighed. “I seem to attract the dishonest lunatics,” she laughed sarcastically.

“I’m neither of those things, Alyssa.”

She placed her hand over his heart. “I know.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’m telling you all this because it could be that whoever attacked me has nothing to do with your issue after all. I just thought you should know that in case you were still beating yourself up about it.”

“I wasn’t beating myself up,” but in reality he was.

“Yes you were. It’s why you weren’t able to control yourself up there—barely able to control yourself,” she amended her statement probably realizing that he had, indeed, controlled at least some of his rage impulse. “Don’t take the blame for somebody else’s actions, Shane. Just figure out how to stop him, or maybe both of them.”

He nodded his understanding. She needed him alert, not stuck in some self deprecating stupor.

Chapter Eleven

A
lyssa propped up on her elbow, pulling the soft cotton sheets over her breasts as she looked down into Shane’s eyes. “Tell me,” she said. He was an enigma at times. At some moments he seemed so sure of himself, so sure of his abilities that he was on the verge of the kind of cocky confidence she knew led to trouble. At other times, he seemed so vulnerable, like a wounded child who refused to cry. She wanted to be there for him, to help him deal with whatever demons were haunting him, but she could only do it if he talked to her. He had got her back to his place, fixed her something to eat and then taken her to bed, where they spent the entire afternoon, well into the evening hours, getting to know each other a lot better; yet he seemed to shut down when it came to talking about his personal life.

Oh, sure, he was willing to talk about what he could share with her from his military career, but family seemed to be a forbidden topic with him. Leo was staying in the attached guesthouse so they had privacy. He was also working an angle trying to get more information on the murder of two of Shane’s friends. Leo had, probably because he knew Shane needed it, told him to take the day to get his head together before he went on the hunt. She was thankful for the extra voice of reason because she thought Shane needed it right now. He was dealing with so much, and she wondered how he did it alone. When he was military there was always a team of men and women who could understand and empathize with him because they knew what the life was—they had lived it themselves.