THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series) (34 page)

A rap on the door behind them cut him off
.

Davis
leapt to his feet. The story he was on the verge of confessing made him react like a hunted man. “Who’s that? You got someone listening outside?”

She cut him an innocent but frazzled look. “No, I have no idea who’s out there.”

Paranoia flooded his mind. What if the cop was back, listening through the walls with some newfangled technology?

Something wasn’t right about this whole set up. His skin had been crawling for ten minutes straight. The scheming bitch had to be up to something. Lunging at Maggie, he caught her by the neck, plucked her out of her seat and dragged her to him, pinning her back to his chest so he could use her as a hostage in some worst-case scenario
.
  

But then he heard a familiar voice on the other side of the door calling, “Sulayman, open up!” And he realized it was only Corey—that studious do-gooder. What the hell did he want? 

With Maggie’s soft ass pressed against his hard dick,
Davis
found himself incapable of letting go. Giving himself a taste of what he’d do to her next time, he squeezed one of her big tits and stabbed his tongue into her ear. The way her body locked up in protest turned him even harder. But then Corey knocked on the door again, distracting him from his pleasure
.

“Mother fucker.” With parolees looking for him, there was no way in hell he’d get to satisfy his compulsions tonight.

No worries. He still had plans for Maggie. Now he knew exactly how to lure her to the meat market. It’d be easier than it might have been. “Keep it quiet,” he warned her, slowly removing his hand from her throat. Shifting to see her better, he savored his power over her as she gagged and sucked in air. “You want to hear the rest of my story?” he asked, as her fit subsided
.

Lifting wide, watering eyes at him, she gave a nod
.

He snatched the pen off the table. “Write your number on my hand,” he requested. “I’ll call you in two weeks. You come with the money and you’ll have that story and more.”

Fingers trembling uncontrollably, she scrawled a D.C. phone number onto his palm as he raked her curvaceous body with dark anticipation. “We’ll finish this when I’m done at Gateway,” he vowed
.

Striding to the door, he thrust it open, knocking the steel panel into Corey’s face as the man had his ear to the door
.

“Watchu want?” he growled, herding him away from the building
.

“Ibrahim’s lookin’ for contraband,”
Lena
heard Corey murmur just before the door clanged shut.

Overcome with relief to find herself alone and in one-piece,
Lena
sank bonelessly onto the dusty floor where she battled the impulse to vomit.

Diavolos!

One minute she’d been euphoric with the realization that
Davis
was confessing to her sister’s murder; the next, she was writhing in pain and in mortal fear as he overreacted to the interruption.

The certainty that he would have sealed his own sentence of guilt made the ache in her throat all the more unbearable. Acid burned her esophagus as she realized she could still feel his saliva in her ear. She scoured it with her sleeve, shuddering in disgust
.
  

Damn Corey for undoing her hard-earned work in an instant! And damn
Davis
for reacting like the guilty beast he was and cutting short his confession at the most critical moment
.

She felt her neck for permanent damage. A fraction harder of a squeeze, and he’d have cut off her airway completely
.

But the physical discomfort was nothing compared to the crushing knowledge that all the effort she had poured into this project was for naught...unless, of course, she met
Davis
when he called her looking for the money.

There was still that option. Except just thinking of it made her sick to her stomach.

A soft knock at the door snatched her head up. She winced and scrambled to her feet. Had
Davis
come back? God, no!

Drawing her micro pistol from her pocket, she flipped off the safety and aimed it wildly at the door.

The knock came again, urgently.

Could it be
Jackson
? She didn’t want him seeing
Davis
’s handiwork
.

A soft whirring sound replaced the knocking, and the lock on the door shivered. In the next instant, the lever turned and the door swung open. Lena’s grip on the pistol tightened, only to relax again as
Jackson
’s colleague, Toby, surged into the room.

Wresting the gun from her grasp, he set it aside. His horrified gaze locked on her bruised throat. “Christ,
Jackson
is going to kill me.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, confused by his presence
.

“He texted me. Said you were over here alone with
Davis
. I had to talk him out of coming over here himself—not a good idea, what with the bad blood between him and Davis. I got here as fast as I could. It was his idea to send Corey in the meantime.”

“What?” Then it was
Jackson
’s fault Corey had interrupted her interview.

A pounding at the door startled them both. “That’s gotta be
Jackson
.” Toby crossed to the door to let him in. “She’s alive,” he said on a reassuring note as
Jackson
barreled past Toby to get to her
.

“
Lena
!” His reaction to the marks on her neck was identical to his colleague’s. “That sick son of a bitch,” he raged through clenched teeth. He whirled on his partner. “What took you so long?”

“I was on the other side of Mechanicsville!”

Frustration and fury exploded in
Lena
without warning. She shoved
Jackson
with all her might. “You arrogant jerk!” she grated hoarsely. He staggered back and she pursued him. “I had him!” she cried, striking his chest with her balled hands. “I had my sister’s killer eating out of the palm of my hand. He was telling me exactly how it happened, and it was Alexa he was talking about because he mentioned her school uniform, and that’s when Corey knocked on the door and interrupted his confession. All because of you and your meddling. How could you!”

Stone-faced,
Jackson
caught her wrists as she continued to pummel him. “Stop it,” he insisted. “Calm down.”

“Calm down?” Tears scalded her eyes, blurring her vision. “You have the gall to tell me to calm down when you just ruined everything? Get out!” She jerked her chin furiously at the door. “Just go. I don’t want to look at you right now.”

At her harsh words,
Jackson
freed her wrists abruptly. “You’re being unreasonable.”

“Unreasonable? How do you expect me to behave? I told you I could do this. I promised I would be careful. You demand me to trust you, but you didn’t trust me. How does that make
me
unreasonable?” She swiped an impatient hand over the tears now leaking from her eyes
.

“He was in here alone with you,”
Jackson
countered. “Look at your neck. He could have killed you, for Christ’s sake!”

“I had my gun the whole time.”

“That puny thing? He could have knocked it right out of your hands, just like I could have done that night in the alley when you pulled it on me. You’re lucky to be alive,
Lena
. Why don’t you get that?”

“I wasn’t in danger until Muhammed started knocking,” she insisted. Whirling on him, she crossed to the table where she flipped open her lipstick case and switched off the camera. To think that she’d been a hair’s-breadth from capturing
Davis
’s full confession! The only real evidence she’d recorded was his vicious attack. And that would get him—what?—a couple of months in jail, at most.

Out the corner of her eye she saw Toby and
Jackson
share a look as they realized they had both been caught on video.

“Here.” Unsnapping the small pouch, she turned and thrust it at
Jackson
. “I don’t need this anymore. Congratulations, you’ve finally gotten rid of me,” she added, snatching her gun off the table where Toby had set it and dropping it in her purse. “I’ll be out of here tomorrow, so you can continue your investigation without any distraction.” 

“Lena,”
Jackson
protested, but his tone couldn’t completely hide his relief. “Why don’t you stay at the river house with Naomi and Silvia?” he offered
.

Memories of the perfect day spent with him and his daughter filled her with sorrow. But, like she’d told him once before, she was not that quick to forgive. Right now, she just wanted to retreat and lick her wounds in isolation.

She shook her head refusing the offer. “I have to go. My work is finished here.” She’d put all her eggs in one basket, and now the basket was dropped, the eggs all broken. Her only hope was that
Davis
would call to request a rendezvous in two weeks. Not that she was looking forward to it.

“You need to get back,” Toby said to Jackson, who continued to ignore him
.

“
Lena
,” he called as she turned her back on him, marching into the unlit store to fetch the money from the counter. She still needed to drop the pouch off at the bank.

Ignoring the cameras in the store for once, he caught up to her by the register. Catching her elbow, he swung her around. “
Lena
,” he said in that firm voice he used with Naomi. “Look at me.”

Steeling her heart against the pull of emotion she knew she would feel, she raised her eyes reluctantly to his. Even in the dark they shone like stars at dusk
.

“Make sure you put ice on your neck the first chance you get.” His gruff concern was palpable as he cupped either side of her face, holding it captive. “You promised me,” he reminded her on a note of disappointment
.
 

She hadn’t forgotten. But right now, there was no future, only the past, and every dream she’d harbored in the last ten years had just been swept down the drain.

“You’d better go before you’re missed,” she whispered, her heart hard and cold.

He stroked his thumbs lightly over her cheeks, clearly hoping for some softening of her expression, only she refused to relent, and he stepped away from her with a sigh. “Toby will make sure you get home safe tonight, and he’ll stay in touch. I
will
see you again,
Magdalena
,” he added on a firmer note. Then he turned and disappeared into the storeroom.

He and Toby exchange terse words before the door shut quietly behind him.

Lena
picked up the money pouch. Feeling numb, she jotted Bill a note of apology, letting him know that she wouldn’t be back. Then she took one last look around.

She’d intended on leaving this place with everything needed to bring closure to her sister’s death. Instead, she had nothing but a bruised neck and a broken heart to show for it
.