Disarming Detective (19 page)

As Ella left her hotel room, she called Logan. But her call went directly to voice mail, and when she looked at her watch, she realized he was probably still on air. She left him a message as she ran down the stairs instead of bothering with the elevator.

Outside, the air was crisp and just cool enough that she wished she had a jacket. And dark enough that she wished she’d brought her flashlight. But once she jogged down the long entryway to the hotel, she’d be on the main street through town, which was usually lit up until the bars closed.

Could Sean actually have legitimate information? Or was she letting her nerves get the better of her?

Shaking her head at herself, Ella jogged around the corner. If nothing else, this was a good excuse to work off some extra energy. She had plenty, between the frustrating hours of investigating and the tension of another sort that buzzed through her whenever she came within five feet of Logan.

Ella increased her pace, her pulse spiking after a week of having her butt planted in a chair or driving around with Logan running down leads. In the distance, she heard cars and people on the main strip.

And what was that rumbling? Ella wondered as she rounded another corner.

As soon as she did, a dark blue van picked up speed, veering quickly toward her.

Ella reached instantly for her gun, but the car was coming too fast, its headlights blinding her. Panic rose in her chest as Ella saw that there was nowhere to go. Into the street was a bad option and there was a steep embankment on her other side. She whipped her gun free of its holster, squeezed off two shots and jumped to the left anyway.

She flew through the air, momentarily weightless and suspended, then gravity took hold and she slammed into the packed dirt, landing hard on her shoulder and hip. Her head bounced off the ground, and then she was rolling, faster and faster, down the side of the embankment.

Branches tore at her arms, something whacked her forehead, and Ella tried to grab at anything to stop her fall. When she finally hit the rise on the bottom, her whole body felt bruised. She blinked and tried to push herself up, but the world spun and she dropped back down.

Above her, a car revved its engine and Ella reached for her gun once more. But she’d lost it during her fall.

She sucked in a deep breath, and grasped the nearest sturdy stick she might be able to use as a weapon. Then she crawled farther into the shadows, still trying to get her equilibrium and her vision back.

Above her, a light suddenly shone down and then someone came pounding down the embankment.

Ella raised the stick over her head.

Chapter Fourteen

“Shots fired at the Oceanview Lodge.”

The call came over dispatch as Logan was walking out of the conference room at the station, Chief Patterson on his heels.

Next to him, Lyla was saying something about how well the story had gone, about how maybe they should go get some coffee and talk.

Fear instantly rose up and Logan grabbed Hank’s sleeve as he hurried past. “Did I hear that right?”

“Oceanview Lodge,” Hank said. “Shots fired.” He paused and glanced back at Logan, realization on his face. “Ella’s hotel. Come on. You can hitch a ride with us.”

Ignoring whatever Lyla was saying, Logan started to run.

What had he been thinking, simply moving Ella to another hotel after the blue van had followed her? It wasn’t as if Oakville had dozens of hotels. It wouldn’t have been hard for a motivated killer to track her down. He should have insisted she stay with him, insisted on having eyes on her at all times.

Instead, she was on the other side of town. It would only take a few minutes to get there, the way Hank drove, but with a gun in the mix, that was way too long.

He jumped into the transport section of Hank’s police cruiser and slapped the back of Hank’s seat. “Go!”

As soon as Hank’s partner got into the passenger seat, Hank peeled out fast enough to make Logan’s head slam back against the headrest.
Faster
, Logan wanted to say, but there was traffic and, even at nearly midnight, pedestrians. The drive to the hotel took fewer than five minutes, but by the time they got there, Logan was shaky with fear.

The drive leading up to the hotel was lit up with the headlights of two police cruisers that had gotten there before them. Sitting in the glow of the lights, just inside an open ambulance, was Ella.

Relief hit hard and fast, but the fear didn’t go away entirely. Ella was holding a compress to her head while an EMT bent over her arm.

Hank jerked to a stop and Logan tried to get out, but couldn’t, since he was behind the cage. It only took a few seconds for Hank to open the door and let him out, but it was long enough for Logan to realize just how unnaturally fast his heart was going.

He’d been to a lot of crime scenes in his career as a police officer. He’d never felt this terrified.

He jumped out of the cruiser. “Ella!”

“Logan.” She sounded relieved that he’d arrived. Or maybe that was just his wishful thinking.

He hurried to her side and by the time he got there, he’d already noted every scrape and bruise along her bare arms, the nasty bump on her head, and the angry, jagged slash in her T-shirt. “Is she okay?” he asked the EMT.

“She’ll be fine.” The EMT frowned at Ella as he told Logan, “I’d prefer she go to the hospital and get this one stitched up.” He gestured to the gash on her arm that he was working on. “But she says she didn’t lose consciousness, and it doesn’t look like she has a concussion. It can’t feel good, but she’ll be okay.”

Logan’s heart rate slowed down a notch. His arms were tensed with the need to hold her, but he forced himself to stay still and let the EMT fix her up. “What happened? We got a call of shots fired.”

Ella looked up at him, and in her eyes he could see pain and residual fear.

The desire to wrap his arms around her intensified until he didn’t care that he was going to annoy the EMT, didn’t care who was watching. He climbed up into the ambulance on the other side of Ella and carefully placed an arm around her waist. “Are you okay?”

“She was okay enough to nearly beat the crap out of me with a stick when I went to help her,” their rookie officer piped up.

Next to him, Ella grimaced. “Sorry about that. You were shining your flashlight into my eyes. I couldn’t tell you were police.”

The rookie’s partner laughed as he trudged up next to them. “We heard the shots and put the call out over the radio,” he told Logan. “We identified ourselves, but I guess not loud enough.” He handed Ella a weapon. “We found your gun down there.”

“Thanks.”

As the officer walked away, he added, amusement in his voice, “We’ve learned our lesson. Do not piss off an FBI agent, even if she’s unarmed.”

Logan felt a smile fight through his worry. That was his Ella: tough as nails.

He turned back to her. “Are you really okay?”

She nodded and then, despite all the people watching, she leaned her head on his shoulder and he felt some of the tension seep out of her. “I’m fine. Nothing some aspirin and a bubble bath won’t cure.”

He got ready to tell her she’d be taking that bubble bath at his place, when he realized that would probably give the officers standing around the wrong impression. Well, at least about his intentions at this particular moment. When she was feeling better, Ella in a bubble bath... Yeah, that did sound like a good idea.

Ella’s head lifted and she squinted at him. “What are you thinking?”

Rather than tell her, he got back to the important issue. “What happened?”

“I was in my room when I got a call from Sean Fink.”

“Fink?” Logan spat.

“Yeah. He said he was at my hotel, said he had information about the case and wanted to meet. But when I pressed, he claimed he was at the old hotel, not this one. So, I said I’d meet him at the coffee shop by the station. I was on my way over there when the blue van showed up and tried to turn me into roadkill.”

Fury flared up. Logan looked around the crowd of officers until he found Hank; because of his size, citizens generally didn’t want to mess with him. “Bring Sean Fink in.”

“I am definitely on that,” Hank said, with enough malice in his tone that Logan knew he was secretly fond of Ella.

“Then what happened?” he asked Ella as Hank and his partner took off.

“I shot at the van, hoping to stop it, and then I jumped.” She gestured to the steep embankment on one side of the road. It was dotted with shrubs and small trees and would have been a painful place to land.

“But you’re okay?” he asked, needing to hear her confirm it one more time.

She smiled up at him, let him see her clear, focused expression. “I’m really okay, Logan.”

“All set,” the EMT said, stepping back so Logan could see her arm was taped up.

“Great.” Logan helped Ella out of the ambulance. “Then let’s move you out of this hotel.”

Ella put a hand to her head.

From the slightly unsteady way she was walking, he could tell she was hurting worse than she wanted to admit, making him wish he was the one bringing Sean Fink in. But Ella needed him right now, and that was more important.

“I’m tired.” She sighed.

“I know.” Logan took her uninjured arm and led her over to one of the cruisers for a ride up to the hotel. “I’m going to get you that aspirin. And then I’m taking you to my place.”

* * *

S
O
THIS
WAS
Logan’s house.

Ella looked around curiously as Logan led her inside, his arm around her waist as if he was afraid she was going to do something embarrassing like faint. She did feel a little woozy from the bump to her head, but if it had been anyone else, she would have straightened and insisted she was fine. But she liked the feel of Logan’s arm around her too much.

So instead, she leaned closer and took in the dark leather furniture filling the living room. There was a large-screen TV in one corner and a bookcase in another. The room was uncluttered, with the exception of photographs on the bookshelf featuring family and friends.

As Logan shut the door behind them, his phone started beeping. He set her bag on the floor and, keeping a firm grip on her waist, pulled the phone out of his pocket.

He looked at it, then tucked it away again. “That was Hank. He texted me to say Fink is in custody.”

“Good.” Ella twisted her head to look up at him. “You’re not going, are you?” She didn’t have the energy to deal with guiding an interrogation right now.

“No. Hank knows not to let him leave. We’re going to arrest him and hang on to him until at least tomorrow. I’ll deal with him then. Right now, I want to make sure you’re okay.”

Ella smiled at his concern. One of the other cops had brought Logan’s car from the station out to the hotel and it had been waiting when she’d finished grabbing her belongings and checking out. And now she was here, in Logan’s house, nervous and filled with a strong sense of anticipation.

As they stepped farther inside, Ella noticed the green plaid chair on the far side of the room, completely at odds with the rest of the furniture. Logan led her to it and helped her sit down.

She smiled up at him, trying not to laugh. “This is the ugliest chair I’ve ever seen.”

Crinkles formed at the corners of Logan’s eyes as he crouched low beside her. “It was my grandfather’s.”

“Oh.” Her smile fled. “Sorry.”

He grinned. “It’s okay. It’s the ugliest chair I’ve ever seen, too, but after my grandparents passed, I couldn’t bear to see it go to Goodwill. I look at it and I always think of him sitting in it. So, I had to bring it home.” He pushed her bangs gently out of her eyes. “Besides, it’s the most comfortable thing you’ll ever sit on.”

She went lightheaded at his touch, and it had nothing to do with her injuries. Staring into his green eyes, she suddenly didn’t care about the cuts and bruises covering her body. She suddenly didn’t care that she would have to leave soon and that once she did, she’d probably never see him again. “Can you get me that aspirin?” she asked, and even to her ears, her voice sounded funny.

Worry filled his eyes as he hurried into the other room.

Ella let out a shaky breath as she stared after him, needing the minute alone to untangle her thoughts. When had this happened?
How
had this happened?

She was in love with Logan Greer.

Of all the crazy things she’d done, falling in love with a homicide detective who lived in a different state, who hadn’t even been willing to leave Oakville for a fiancée, was at the top of the list.

Tonight’s brush with the blue van had been scary, but she’d been in worse situations before. Lying in the street with a bullet to the leg and a gang member coming for her all those years ago, she’d fully accepted the likelihood that she was going to die. She hadn’t wanted to go, had been determined to fight until the end, but she hadn’t had the same panicked feeling that had rushed over her today. The feeling that she was leaving something unfinished.

She looked up as Logan hurried back into the room, handing her an aspirin and a glass of water.

“Thanks.” She took the aspirin, swallowed it dry, and then pushed herself to her feet.

“Will you give me a tour? Maybe we can start with your bedroom.”

* * *

L
OGAN
’
S
MIND
WENT
completely and utterly blank.

He tried to get some of his blood flow redirected north as he stared at Ella. Had she just said what he thought she had?

She stood close, staring up at him with hope and anxiety in her eyes.

Just last night, she’d been so determined to resist the attraction between them. Had she hit her head harder than he’d realized? Logan took a small step backward, trying to be a gentleman. “I thought you wanted to get some medicine and get cleaned up?” His words came out choked and too high-pitched.

She must have realized how badly he wanted to grab her hand and run down the hall, because she smiled.

He’d seen a lot of her smiles over the past week. Her teasing grin. Her sad-but-trying-to-hide-it smile. Her full-blown, teeth-showing, happy smile. But he’d never seen this sexy, come-hither grin. It made him want to sink to his knees and do whatever she asked.