When Love Intrudes (When the Mission Ends) (6 page)

Matt shook his head negative. “No, it was nothing like that. James doesn’t like Mark and doesn’t trust him. He was just trash-talking him.”

“Is there any reason why Mark would commit suicide besides the trouble of the ongoing investigation? Is there anything else happening in his life that he’s stressed about?”

Matt rolled his eyes at them. “What else does he need? We could go to prison. I think that’s enough, but he wasn’t suicidal.” His tone hardened. “Don’t you think I would have known about it if he was?” He shook his head.

Brian ignored the question. “Mark called me late last night to meet up, but he never showed. Do you know why he would have wanted to meet with me?”

Startled eyes met his. “He called you?”

“Yes. That was around 10:30, but he never came. I need to know who else he talked to last night.”

After that, Matt shut down, although he appeared both angry and circumspect, his eyes shifting around the room as he considered things.

Brian would bet good money that Matt had an idea who did this and that it wasn’t suicide. It might be worth putting a tail on Matt for a while, but would his captain go for that plan? He would discuss it with Eddie when they got back to the station.

* * *

Three days later, Toni was surprised when she pulled into the driveway after work to find Brian’s truck there. She’d always known he worked long hours, but truly had no idea what that really meant until they were living together. She hadn’t seen him all week. It was rare for him to be home before she went to bed at night, although she had heard him come in once or twice. She left in the mornings before he got up, but Nathan said he was always gone before he awoke.

They’d taken to conversing via notes left on the breakfast bar, although he had called to let her know that one of Nathan’s assailants was dead from an apparent suicide. She had been the one to break it to Nathan.

As the week progressed, Nathan became quieter than normal, introspective. He was healing incredibly well physically and both he and Sam loved Brian’s place. They spent hours in the backyard playing fetch with a tennis ball. But that didn’t change her concern about where he was at mentally, that she wasn’t providing enough care for him to heal. She even considered calling the therapist she saw occasionally to make an appointment for him, but that would be overstepping. Nathan was his own person and needed to make his own decisions. She planned to talk to him about it though, if he continued to follow this path of withdrawing.

With that in mind, she’d already decided that tonight they would head into town and go out to dinner. He hadn’t been out much since the assault and she thought a change in scenery and interacting with other people might help. He wasn’t a social butterfly, but he was still only seventeen. Teenagers were definitely pack creatures.

Now it looked like she could include Brian in those plans, too. A frisson of excitement spread down her spine at the idea of the three of them going out together. She just had to get him to agree. He’d worked some long hours and would probably be more up to a night at home to relax. It couldn’t hurt to ask.

Entering the house, she found it to be surprisingly quiet. Sam didn’t even bound out to greet her. She glanced around but couldn’t see any signs of the guys. Maybe they were out back. She sat her bags on the entryway side table and walked straight through the house.

The house was from an era before air conditioning. The huge entry hall ran the entire width of the house, straight through from front door to back door. As Toni walked by the beautiful mahogany staircase, she lovingly caressed the newel post at the bottom of the rail, worn by many hands over the years. She could seriously come to love this house.

Her footsteps tapped across the wooden floors. She gazed into the cozy, comfortable rooms as she went, but still didn’t see the guys. Upon opening the back door, the joyful noise of
Nathan’s laugh echoed over the yard. That sound had been missing for a while and it warmed her heart to hear it again.

She stood on the back porch, watching the three of them for a moment. A lump formed in her throat. Both guys were sitting on the pond edge with their pant legs rolled up, feet in the water despite the cool autumn air, and fishing poles in hand. Sam ran helter-skelter all over the backyard, alternately chasing birds from the trees and the tennis ball the guys threw for him.

The evening light highlighted the golden leaves dropping from the trees to carpet the grass. Those leaves crunched beneath Sam’s paws and kept distracting him from his pursuit of the ball. Both men laughed at his antics, their enjoyment echoing across the yard. It was a picture perfect view and one that Toni knew she needed to cherish. There weren’t many like this in her life. They still hadn’t noticed her yet, so she pulled her phone out of her pocket and took a photo. Perfection.

At that moment, Nathan’s line tightened from a fish. He whooped and fumbled with the fishing pole with his cast while Sam barked and Brian scrambled up with a net, instructing Nathan the whole time on how to reel the fish in. Forget dinner out, this was what Nathan needed to heal…just some pure fun.

She slipped back inside so she wouldn’t disturb them, but she needed an alternate plan for dinner. The back pond was a catch/release zone so fresh fish were out, but it was such a fantastic night. Brian had an outdoor fireplace. She looked down at her watch. She could run to the grocery store real quick and pick up some premade hamburger patties they could cook out and continue to enjoy the evening.

Decided, she left a note on the counter and slipped back out of the house.

* * *

The shopping didn’t take long to get done, but Toni still gazed down worriedly at the clock on her phone as she strode out of the grocery store doors into the empty parking lot. The guys would be getting hungry soon. She completely missed the mammoth man standing in front of her until she ran into him.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she stammered, righting herself and using him for balance so she wouldn’t crash to the ground in her high heeled boots.

When she lifted her eyes, his threatening scowl was more than a little intimidating. She took a step back and ran into another brick wall of a man. The man behind her grabbed her upper arms and dragged her a few cars down and behind a nondescript van. She dropped the bags and opened her mouth to scream, but the first guy slapped a piece of duct tape over her mouth before she could make a sound. Frantically, she searched the parking lot for help, but it was surprisingly vacant.

The first guy leaned down and growled in her ear as he picked her up and carried her. “Relax, our boss just wants to talk to you for a moment. Don’t fight us and no one will get hurt. Yet,” he added with a malicious chuckle.

For some reason that didn’t reassure her, especially as the van door slid open and they unceremoniously tossed her onto the hard, metal floor. She sat up, brushing her hair out of her eyes and came face to face with a clean-cut man in a business suit, smiling patronizingly. This had to be the boss they’d referred to.

“Ms. Vincent, it’s so nice of you to join us.”

She scowled.
Like she had a choice in the matter.
She reached up to pull the tape off, but the guy in the suit tilted his head at one of the goons who still hovered nearby. The huge guy grabbed her arms again.

“Now, don’t do that. Right now I just want you to listen and consider what I’m saying to you. This is simply an offer and like any offer, you should think about it for a few days. Nod if you understand what I’m telling you.”

She nodded, glaring daggers at him.

“Good, good, I can already see that you are going to be most accommodating and that’s very good, especially for your continued health.” He leered down for a moment to where her chest heaved against her T-shirt with the force of her anger. That look of lust sent a chill of revulsion skittering across her nerves.

“Well, anyway.” He seemed to recollect what he was doing here. “You have people in your life you care about and that’s good. My boss is also a man in that same situation. Unfortunately one of those people he cares about made a poor choice. As a result, he could go to jail. But you, Ms. Vincent, could keep that from happening and at the same time, keep those you love safe, too.”

A ball of dread built in her stomach. Who was this man?

“You see, Ms. Vincent, life is so very unpredictable. I understand your detective has only a single kidney. He could get hurt in the line of duty. A single stab wound from a drugged out punk to his only kidney, and his life would be over.” He shook his head and tsk’ed. “That would be such a waste. Or the young man, Nathan Morrow. Well, we would hate for him to get depressed about the events that have happened and decide to end it all like the young Mark Hunter did.”

Alarm raged through her as she met his flat eyes. Was Mark Hunter actually murdered? Did these men kill him and then make it look like a suicide? They were threatening Brian and Nathan. Dizziness swamped her.

He chuckled lightly as he brushed a finger across her cheek. “Ah, yes, now you understand the seriousness of my offer. My boss thinks you look like you need a nice, long vacation. He’s willing to be very generous to make sure that you have plenty of funds to take it.” His voice hardened with threat. “As long as it lasts until after the trial, so you can’t testify. You could even take the young Nathan with you. It might help with his recovery because we do want him to recover completely now, don’t we?”

He gave her an evil grin before instructing, “Nod yes if you understand my offer.”

She nodded, but glared daggers at him as she did so. Her insides had turned to jelly from her terror, but there was no way she would let him know that.

“Ah, such fire in your unusual eyes. You are a beauty, one I would enjoy breaking, but alas, that isn’t in the cards for us.” He shook his head in regret. “You have two days to consider the offer my boss is making. We will call you at that time and make arrangements with you. In the meantime, do not tell anyone about this conversation, including the police department. We have people working for us there and we will know. We would hate for some unfortunate incident to happen to the detective or young man. Yes, that would be a pity. We’ll be in touch.”

Rough hands again pulled her out of the van, lifting her as if she weighed next to nothing. As soon as her feet touched the ground, her grocery bags were shoved at her and the van sped off. She ripped the tape off her mouth, frantically searching for the license plate on the van. Of course, there wasn’t one. She sank to the ground as her legs refused to hold her any longer.

It took several minutes for her to overcome the panic zinging through her system so she could get to her car. Once inside, she locked all the doors and palmed her phone, which must have been put back into her purse by one of the thugs after she dropped everything. But as she
began to dial 911, she looked down at it, rubbing over the scratched edge, and thought back over the encounter. All that happened this time was a banged up phone, but next time that damage could be done to Nathan or Brian. They’d promised a much higher price than a little scratch if she told anyone.

She couldn’t risk it. What was she going to do? Panic surged, but she tamped it down. That wouldn’t help anything right now. She had to think, because if she didn’t make the right decision here, Nathan and Brian could die. But she wasn’t going to be like a dumb heroine in a romance novel and hide this. She had to be calm and smart.

The first way to do that was to get the food home, before Brian became worried. And then hope for inspiration. Not the best plan in the world, but it was all she could do right now. Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders as she pulled out of the parking lot. She could do this.

* * *

Brian frowned as he looked at the clock for what felt like the hundredth time in the last ten minutes. Where was Toni? Even if she’d done a full-on two weeks’ worth of groceries shopping, it shouldn’t have taken this long. He began typing another text for her when the crunch of tires echoed on the gravel drive.

Relief flooded him as he caught sight of her car headed toward the house. Rubbing down the back of his neck, he tried to settle the nerves that had been blasting at him for the last half hour. He called out, “Nathan, Toni’s back. I’m gonna go help her unload the car.”

They’d been fishing, but then Nathan had gotten an urgent text from one of his computer customers so he had come in to take care of the issue. Brian found the note and realized Toni had been home, only to leave again. But that was more than an hour ago. As the minutes slowly passed, his nerves became more and more itchy. Instinct told him something was wrong.

He jogged out to meet her at the car. As soon as she stepped out of it and he saw her pale face, he asked, “Are you okay?”

Alarm slammed through him as he saw unmistakable fear flash through her eyes, but she immediately shuttered the look and gave a brittle laugh. “I’m fine. Last I checked the grocery store wasn’t dangerous.” She reached into the backseat and shoved a couple of grocery bags into his hand, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

Something happened that she didn’t want to tell him about. He stood and studied her for a moment before she pushed him toward the house. “Come on. I know that teenager is hungry. Let’s get cooking. And by us, I mean you, on the grill. I thought we could eat out in the backyard tonight since it’s so mild out.” She gave him a smile but was forced.