better than a lot we’ve worked with in the past.” Thank goodness. The thought of Nicholas or one of the children ending up dead sent shivers of fear all over her. The thought of being around Nick 24/7 made her stomach clench, too, although she wasn’t sure if it was from dread or the pull of attraction she couldn’t deny feeling.
She shrugged off her feelings. Time to do her job. “All right, let’s get going.” Carly held up the paper bag with the second letter. “I’m just going to turn this over to the crime-scene guys. Then we can get out of here.”
Two minutes later, they were on the road. Carly drove the unmarked police car and Mason followed behind in Nicholas’s car. He watched Carly’s slender fingers grip the wheel.
When she’d invaded his home two years ago, just a few months before his wife’s death, they’d butted heads on the protection issue yet Carly in his home brought a certain peace to the household that had been distinctly absent before her arrival.
His wife, Miriam, had basically closed herself in their bedroom and become a hermit for the duration of Carly and her partner’s stay. It had been a relief, he remembered with guilt. Miriam had changed in their six years of marriage, depression stealing her sweet, happy-go-lucky personality away from him.
She’d wanted a baby, and they hadn’t been able to have one. The fact that no doctor could tell them why just compounded the problem. His home life had started to unravel and quickly became unbearable. And while Nick never thought he would consider divorce, he had to admit it had crossed his mind in the weeks before Miriam had been killed.
Then the marshals had arrived. He smiled at the irony. He hadn’t wanted the marshals at that point in time any more than he wanted them this time.
But then he thought about the nights they’d sat up talking, the three of them; Carly, Mason and himself. A friendship had formed. Since then, he and Mason had gotten together for the occasional game of racquetball or met up at the high school football stadium to watch the local teams go at it.
He hadn’t seen Carly since they’d found out the threats had been a hoax. But that hadn’t kept him from keeping up with her.
Through Mason, and frequent chats with Ian, Carly’s brother and Nick’s former college roommate, Nick had gotten snatches of what her life had been like over the last two years.
He also knew that she blamed him for something he’d had no control over. He’d let a killer go. The one who’d ended up murdering Hank, a good friend of hers. His stomach twisted itself in knots every time he thought about it. He didn’t have to wonder what she thought of him.
He could read the wariness in her eyes. The borderline contempt she tried to hide.
And yet, because he knew the kind of person she was, he had no doubt she would do her job to the death for him if it came to it.
He vowed it wouldn’t.
Lord, let me get a chance to explain why I had to let that man go. Please. And let her understand.
“Why did you move from the house at the beach?”
Her question seemed to come out of left field as he shook off his thoughts. “Because we all needed a change.” He pictured the large, sprawling estate and felt a pang of nostalgia. “I loved that house, but I built it for my wife. When she and my sister were killed…” He shrugged and sighed. “Plus the children had to ride past the accident site every day on their way to school.”
“How did they even know where it happened?”
“Lindsey was having nightmares about it. The therapist suggested taking her to the site and placing a memorial there. We built a little cross and put her mother’s name on it, and I let her pound it into the ground. She seemed to get a little better almost overnight.”
“But?”
“As time passed, it continued to affect them. Especially Lindsey. She’d do better, then worse, constantly back and forth. If there’d been another route to the school, I would have taken it, but there wasn’t. I suggested changing schools, and Lindsey completely freaked at the idea, so…” He shrugged again. “Then Mom left for California…” A deep breath. “When my buddy Wayne encouraged me to come back to Spartanburg so we’d have some support, it seemed like the right thing to do. With my sister gone, I became an only child and didn’t have any close family around, so we moved.” He turned the tables on her. “Why do you do this?”
She shot him a startled look. “What? My job?”
“Yes.”
She blinked then focused back on the road. “Because I like it.”
“I know a lot of your family is in law enforcement. But why did you choose it?”
A faint smile curved her lips, and he wondered what they’d feel like. The thought came out of nowhere, and he quickly put on the mental brakes.
Someone was threatening him.
It was Carly’s job to protect him.
End of story.
“I don’t know. I never had any major catastrophe in my life or anything that pushed me toward this kind of career. But I grew up with it. It’s what I know. I suppose it was a natural choice with Ian being in the army and my dad being a cop. He was just so satisfied every time he put a bad guy in jail. It was literally the highlight of his day. That really influenced me.” She smiled at him. “He retired a couple of years ago.”
“Ah, so that’s why.”
She shrugged. “It probably had a lot to do with it. But I just really like the job.”
“Then why don’t you want to do it?”
Carly nearly swerved off the road. Instead, she took a moment to gather her composure and said, “Why would you say that?”
“I get the feeling that you don’t want to be here. With me.”
She bit her lip. How to explain? Should she even bother explaining? And how had he picked up on that, anyway? Had she gotten that bad at hiding her feelings?
But he was trained to read people. And he’d read her like a first-grade primer.
Squaring her jaw, she shot him a look. “Your feelings are wrong.” Sort of. Actually, they were dead-on. “I want to do my job. I will do my job, no matter what it takes, got it?”
He remained silent for a moment, his eyes searching for things she’d rather keep hidden. “Do your feelings have anything to do with the fact that I let Richie Hardin go and he killed your friend Hank?”
Bingo.
She blinked and did her best to cover her initial impulse to blurt out “yes!” Instead, she took a deep breath and said in a low voice. “That’s irrelevant to what I have to do here with you. I don’t want to talk about Hank’s death or the cause of it.”
“Sooner or later, we’re going to have to, I think.”
“I don’t know why. It has nothing to do with my ability to do my job. I’ll do mine, you do yours. Put the bad guys away instead of letting them walk, and everyone wins.”
“Carly…” He sighed, and she saw him struggle with whatever it was he wanted to say. “Fine. But we will discuss it. Soon. Just don’t let your negative feelings for me or my judicial decisions put my family in danger.”
His words sent a shaft of pain through her. Did he really think she would be that unprofessional and allow that to happen? For a moment, she couldn’t speak. She just pulled into the gated drive and waited for Mason to pull in behind her in Nicholas’s car and use the remote to open the gate.
Soon the iron gates began their inward swing. Carly stepped on the gas and wound her way up the drive to the front of the house and parked behind the brown sedan that belonged to the two marshals