Love Inspired Suspense March 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Protection Detail\Hidden Agenda\Broken Silence (8 page)

“Destiny,” Cassie warned. “First of all, no more referring to Captain McCord as hunky, hunk or hunkalicious.”

“I didn't say hunkalicious.”

“Not to anyone?”

“Well, maybe to Rachel,” Destiny admitted.

“That's what I thought. Captain McCord is not—”

“He said we could call him Gavin,” Destiny interrupted, her dark eyes sparkling with excitement. “And, he brought doughnuts. I think there must be fifty of them.”

That explained why Destiny had come looking for Cassie.

“I take it you want my permission to eat a dozen of them?” Destiny was funny that way. She'd sneak food when no one was looking, but when other people were around, she followed all the rules. One doughnut. Two cookies. One handful of chips.

“Just one more. Or two. Or maybe three.”

“Are you planning to wear that one on your face, too?” Cassie responded, wiping a smudge of chocolate off of Destiny's face. The young girl flinched, her cheeks red, her gaze dropping.

“I used a napkin, and Virginia said we could have the doughnuts.”

“Was that before or after she said we were all doomed?” Cassie put an arm around Destiny's shoulder and led her out of the office.

“After,” Destiny responded, her shoulders relaxing as they made their way downstairs. There were stories Destiny could tell about her life before she'd come to All Our Kids. Every once in a while, she opened up and let a little of the past slip out. Cassie let her go at her own pace, to reveal things when she was ready. The counselor said she didn't talk about the past at all, but Cassie knew different. When Destiny trusted a person, she revealed pieces of her heart.

It was an honor to be one of the few people that she shared with, so Cassie never pushed her, never tried to get her to reveal more than she was comfortable with.

By the time they hit the second floor, Cassie could hear the other children. It sounded like field day during the heat of summer—eight voices all vying for the loudest-kid-in-the-house award. She already had a splitting headache and a stiff neck, but she forced a smile as she walked into the kitchen.

A pile of white boxes sat in the middle of the kitchen table, the kids—all in various states of undress—hovering around it. One of the boxes was open, the remnants of a chocolate doughnut in the bottom of it. The other doughnuts were either in hands or smeared across guilty faces. Seven little boxes of apple juice sat on the counter. One lay on the floor, the juice dripping out from the straw. Juan was sitting beside it, a mashed doughnut in one hand, a juice box in the other. He had chocolate smeared on his face, and the front of his shirt was soaked with juice.

He needed a bath. Stat.

And, Cassie needed to get the kids away from the sugar.

“Everyone, freeze,” she commanded, and the entire bunch just kept doing what they were doing—shoving doughnuts into their mouths.

“Freeze means stop moving,” she explained, as if that was going to do any good. “It also means if you don't freeze, you're going to spend the afternoon helping Mrs. Jordan clean out her garage.”

Everyone stopped except for Juan. He was attempting to shove the entire fistful of doughnut into his mouth.

She scooped him up, wrested the chocolate doughnut from his hand. “I think you've had enough, buddy.”

He patted her cheek, looked into her eyes.

“Where Mommy?” he asked, clear as a bell.

This was the part of the job she hated. It seemed she was always the bearer of bad news. The one who had to tell children that their parents or grandparents, their aunts or uncles couldn't make it for visitation because they were in jail or wasted or too busy to spend a half hour with family.

Of course, Juan's case was different.

His mother had loved him.

The fact that she'd died...or been killed...didn't change that. “Well, sweetie—”

“She's in Heaven. That's where she is—” David piped up, repeating what he'd heard Cassie say every time Juan asked where his mother was. He looked better than he had in a week, his skin less pallid, his eyes brighter. “And she probably has wings, too.”

“Probably not, David. So how about you don't tell Juan that,” Cassie chided.

“Maybe she does,” he argued.

“Shut up!” Tommy snapped, his eyes flashing with irritation, his light brown hair puffing up around his head. He looked tired and crabby, not a hint of doughnut on his face or clothes.

“Don't be rude, Tommy,” she said, and he scowled.

“He's the rude one! Telling a little kid lies like that.”

“It's not a lie!” David insisted.

They were heading for a rip-roaring fight, and Cassie was so tired she wanted to walk out of the room and leave them to it.

Too bad she couldn't.

“Boys, if you say one more word, I'm going to have to put you both in time-out.”

They clamped their lips together and stared each other down.

Cassie sighed, then settled Juan into his high chair with a kiss on the cheek and his favorite little stuffed animal. She plugged in the coffeepot, hoping it brewed quickly. She needed caffeine. Fast!

“Cassie!” Virginia stepped into the kitchen, Gavin behind her. “I thought I heard you!”

Did you hear the kids?
she almost asked, but she managed to swallow down the sarcasm.

“You did,” she said instead.

Gavin's lips quirked, and Cassie was sure he'd heard the edge in her voice.

“Got a little out of hand in here, I see,” he said, glancing around the kitchen, Glory edging in close to his leg.

The kids were all silent, their eyes focused on the shepherd. Not a peep out of any of them. Cassie wasn't even sure they were breathing.

“More than a little. In this house, doughnuts, juice and kids are usually a combination that need supervision.”

“It was my fault, Cassie,” Virginia said. “Gavin wanted to ask me a few questions, and I didn't want to wake you.”

“It's okay. If you take the kids upstairs, I'll get the mess cleaned up. Then we can figure out what we're going to do with the rest of our day.”

“Actually,” Gavin said, “I was hoping I could speak with Tommy and Rachel again. Tommy first, if that's okay.”

She didn't have a choice, so she nodded. “Sure. Does that sound okay to you, Tommy?”

He took a deep breath, shrugged. “I guess.”

“Do you want to talk in the office again?” Gavin asked. “Or the living room? Where will you feel more comfortable?”

“I don't care.”

“Let's go in the living room.” Cassie put her hand on Tommy's shoulder, but he shrugged away, running into the hall, his footsteps pounding on the wood floor.

She thought he was heading into the living room until she heard the front door open.

“Tommy! Stop!” she yelled, sprinting past Gavin and Glory, racing toward the door as it slammed shut. She yanked it open, and just caught sight of Tommy as he ran around the side of the house.

SEVEN

C
old March air slapped at her cheeks, the sunlight nearly blinding her as she jumped down the porch steps.

“Tommy! Come back here!” she shouted into the quiet morning, her pulse pounding loudly in her ears.

He didn't answer, and she ran the way she'd seen him go, her skirt tangling around her legs as she flew across around the house.

“Come back here right now, Thomas!” she yelled, but he'd disappeared. No sign of him in the yard. No hint of him at the edges of the property. He had to be there somewhere, though. He was fast for a seven-year-old, but not so fast that he should have been able to disappear so quickly.

She ran to the corner of the house, hoping she'd see him heading across the backyard. He wasn't there, and she felt a moment of such pure panic, she almost forgot what she was doing, who she was trying to find. Her mind was blank, her legs weak, everything inside her cold with fear.

He couldn't be gone.
Couldn't be.

She whirled around, slammed into a hard chest. Warm hands settled on her waist as she looked up into Gavin's face, into his blazing blue eyes. He looked frustrated, irritated, a little angry.

“Go back inside,” he ordered, releasing his grip and stepping away. He had Glory on her lead, was surveying the area as if Cassie weren't still standing there, as if she'd already done what he'd told her to. As captain of the Capitol K-9 team, he was probably used to people obeying his orders.

It wasn't going to happen this time.

Tommy was Cassie's responsibility. She wasn't going back inside without him.

She didn't bother calling for the little boy again. He hadn't answered the first two times, and she doubted he was going to suddenly decide to answer now. He'd found a hiding place, and it had to be close. She just had to stop panicking and think like a seven-year-old. Shrubs butted up against the face of the house, trees dotted the yard, everything just beginning to bud, the nearly bare branches offering little in the way of cover. The tree line offered a little thicker foliage, the woods a quick and easy escape route for a scared kid. If he'd headed into the trees, there was no way she'd be able to find him easily.

Please don't let him have gone that way.

The prayer rang through her head as she scanned the tree line, tried to see into the shadowy depth of the forest. She'd never particularly cared for the woods. They were too dark, too quiet, too everything a girl from the city wasn't used to.

“Cassie,” Gavin snapped, his voice so unexpected, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“What?” She whirled to face him, realized that he was inches away, his dark hair glossy in the morning sunlight, his eyes blazing vivid blue. He'd shaved, and she could see a faint scar on his jaw, another one near his temple.

“Go inside,” he commanded, and there was no doubt that was exactly what it was—a command he expected to be obeyed.

“Not without Tommy.”

His gaze sharpened, and she had the feeling there were a dozen things he was thinking, a dozen things he was trying hard not to say.

She braced herself, expecting that he'd lay into her, tell her that he was the one in charge. She'd heard it all before, remembered dozens of different police officers, in dozens of different situations, all of them eager to let her know that
they
were the ones who called the shots. Didn't matter if she was ten, eleven, twelve years old. Didn't matter if it was midnight and she was sound asleep in her bed at her grandmother's house. All that had ever mattered to the police was that they got what they wanted.

Gavin touched her shoulder, and it took everything inside of her not to flinch away. She wasn't a little kid anymore. She was an adult who'd learned the fine art of dealing with the authorities. She knew how to stand up for herself and for her kids.

“Someone tried to kill you last night, Cassie,” he said. He could have been speaking to one of the kids, his voice was so gentle, his touch so light. “Have you forgotten that?”

“No,” she mumbled, her throat tight, her eyes burning. If he'd continued to command and demand, she'd have been fine, but he'd changed tactics on her, looking at her the way he'd looked at each one of the kids when he'd interviewed them the previous night—with a softness in his gaze and in his face, a gentleness that she found surprising and sweet and just a little compelling.

She looked away, because her heart was beating way too fast. Not because of fear or anger. Because of Gavin. Because of the hard angles of his jaw and cheekbones and the softness of his expression, because of his vivid blue eyes and those two faint scars on his face.

“He's still at large,” he said quietly. “And you're the only one who got a good look at him.”

“You're not telling me anything I don't already know,” she said, trying to sound confident and strong. Her voice was shaky, though, and she was annoyed by her weakness, by the strange urge she had to do what Gavin asked. She'd been making her own way in life for so long, she couldn't remember what it was like to depend on someone else. She didn't think she'd ever known what it was like. Only Miss Alice had ever been reliable, and she'd been nearly ninety when Cassie entered her home. She'd needed help as much as Cassie had needed love.

“He's going to have to take you down, Cassie. As long as you're alive, he's in danger.” He touched the bruise on her cheek, his touch light and gentle.

“I know that, too.” She stepped away, putting some distance between them. She'd known Gavin for three years. She'd watched him do a dozen jobs around the house, seen him in work clothes, seen him in dress clothes, seen him brush shoulders with high-powered politicians and with the parents of some of the children who'd been through All Our Kids' doors.

She'd known him, but she'd known nothing about him.

It probably would have been better if things had stayed that way, if she'd never looked straight into his bright blue eyes, if she'd never seen the gentleness in his expression, the kindness in the way he dealt with her kids.

There was no way they'd be able to go back to the way they'd been—cordial acquaintances who didn't do much more than nod at each other. And, she wasn't happy about that.

She wasn't happy about anything that had happened in the past few hours. She walked around the side of the house and headed to the backyard. There was a swing set there, a slide, a small playhouse where the kids liked to hang out. If she were seven and scared, she'd go somewhere comfortable and comforting. The playhouse filled the bill.

“If you know all that—” Gavin broke into her thoughts, stepping up beside her, his dark jeans and dark jacket making him look rugged and tough and a little dangerous “—then you know why I want you to go inside.”

“I know why, but that doesn't mean I can do it. Tommy is my responsibility.”

“He won't be if you're dead.”

“The guy who was here last night would be an idiot to come back today.”

“And, you think returning while the police were at your house last night made him smart? Look what he did to get to you.” He gestured to the back facade of the house, pointing at the boarded-up kitchen window, the back door that had been wrestled into place but still had a hole where a foot had kicked through the wood. “You think he won't come back during the day? You think he's not out in the woods waiting for an opportunity to strike again?”

“I
think
that you're not going to scare me into going inside.”

“You've got eight kids depending on you, and someone wants you dead. If I've got to work at scaring you, Cassie, you've got a problem. Right about now, you should be terrified.”

“I
am
terrified,” she admitted. They'd reached the playhouse. Eight by ten and four feet tall, it butted up against the woods, the clapboard siding and pitched roof making it look like a tiny little home. Someone had crafted a door and put in windows. In the spring, Cassie always planted flowers in the miniature window boxes.

Glory sniffed the ground, nudged the door with her nose.

Gavin touched Cassie's arm.

“He's in there,” he mouthed.

She nodded, relieved, anxious to get the little boy back inside. Anxious to be back inside herself. She was acting brave because she had to, but Gavin's words had lodged in her chest, sent icy chills up her spine.

Someone wanted her dead.

She'd known it before he'd said it, but somehow his words made it seem more real.

“Tommy,” she called softly, pushing open the door and crouching so she could see inside. The kids brought all kinds of things into the fort—toys, stuffed animals, books. Cassie had dragged kids' chairs and a miniature table in there a couple of years ago, and during the spring and early fall, she let the kids with good grades take their books out to the playhouse to study.

“Go away,” Tommy called, his voice muffled and thick. She could see him sitting against the far wall, knees pulled up to his chest, head down.

Had he been crying?

“Tommy, we need to go back inside. Captain McCord wants to talk to you.”

“I don't want to talk to no one,” Tommy sobbed.

“What's wrong, buddy?” She crawled into the fort, scooted around the table and chairs, sat beside him on the dirt floor.

“Go away,” he muttered, not looking up as she slid an arm around his shoulders.

“You know I can't.”

“You can do whatever you want. You're a adult.”

“Okay, so I don't want to. Why are you crying?”

“I'm not crying!” he shouted.

“Lying about it doesn't make it not true. What's going on? You went out last night, didn't you?”

“No!” he said emphatically. She glanced across the small space, saw Gavin crouched in the doorway of the house, Glory nosing in beside him. He gestured for her to bring Tommy out, and she knew she had to. Whatever Tommy was thinking, whatever he was feeling, they could discuss it in the safety of the house.

“That's fine, then, but something is bothering you. Let's go inside. You can have another doughnut, and you can tell Captain McCord what you're so afraid of.”

“No,” he said with a little less energy.

“Why not? You love doughnuts.”

“I don't like that old house. The window and door are broken. The bad man can get in again.”

“Not while Glory is there,” Gavin said.

“She can't always be there,” Tommy said with a heavy sigh that made him sound old and jaded.

“My boss says she can. Margaret works directly with the president, so what she says goes.”

“Really?” Tommy finally lifted his head, his face streaked with tears. He loved all things historical and everything that had to do with the government. At his age, that was unusual, but Cassie encouraged the interest, bringing him downtown as often as she could.

“Yes. Really.”

“Did you meet the president?” he asked, and Gavin nodded.

“I've met him. I even spoke to him a couple of times.”

“Wow! What's he like?”

“I'll tell you once we're inside. You're right about there being a bad man, Tommy. My job...and Cassie's...is to make sure you're safe. That'll be a lot easier to do inside the house.”

Tommy hesitated, then started crawling to the door.

Success! But not because of Cassie.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that, and she didn't have time to think about it.

She scooted out of the playhouse and took Tommy's hand. He was small for his age, thin and small-boned and a little fragile-looking. She had a soft spot for him. But, then, she had soft spots for all the kids who came through her door.

Most people assumed that she had taken the job because she wanted to help children. They assumed that she cared about the kids, that she wanted the best for them. They were right, but what they didn't seem to understand was that she loved them. That when they entered All Our Kids, they were her family. For however long they stayed there, she became their mother in every way that mattered.

“You nearly scared the life out of me, Tommy,” she said as she led him across the backyard. Gavin and Glory were right beside them, but she didn't feel safe. She felt exposed. “Please don't ever—”

Glory growled, her ears standing straight up as she turned her head toward the woods. Another growl, and she was tugging against the lead, snapping at something Cassie couldn't see, barking ferociously.

“Get down!” Gavin shouted, tackling Cassie and Tommy, bringing them both to the ground so quickly, Cassie wasn't even sure how they'd gotten there.

* * *

The first bullet slammed into the ground, bits of dirt flying into Gavin's face as he pulled his gun. The second whizzed just above Gavin's head. He aimed for the tree line, fired one round. Another.

Glory stayed beside him, her training preventing her from getting between him and the gunman. Cassie and Tommy were a different story. The little boy was sobbing hysterically, trying desperately to get up and run while Cassie tried just as desperately to keep him down, to cover him with her body.

If Gavin didn't take control quickly, she'd die trying to keep Tommy alive.

He fired a third round. No returning gunfire. The gunman had either been hit, taken cover or run.

Gavin was hoping for the first, but he wasn't banking on it. The guy was determined. That much was obvious. He wanted to take Cassie out, and he was going to do whatever it took to make that happen.

Gavin was going to make sure he wasn't successful. He called for backup, unhooked Glory's lead. The dog's ears were alert, her eyes trained on the woods, but she wasn't barking, wasn't giving any indication that they were in imminent danger.

“He's on the run,” he muttered, turning so that he was face to face with Cassie. Her deep green eyes were wide, her face colorless. She had Tommy completely covered with her body, but the kid was continuing to fight her tooth and nail. “We need to get him in the house. Can you manage it?”