Tied Up in Knots (34 page)

I shivered because his words were exciting and scary at the same time.

“You’re a big part of the reason that I’m going to retire, but you’re not all of it, and I’d think that would be comforting in a way.”

It was. The decision wasn’t all on me, then. It wasn’t just because of me. His own thinking had changed as well, and I couldn’t ask for better.

“I truly believe that I can do more good here instead of halfway around the world.”

I wanted to take him at his word and start his life, but that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t what he would do if the shoe was on the other foot. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I thought this was what you wanted.”

“It is. You know it is.”

“Then be happy.”

“Not if you’re sad. Not if you’ll be missing who you are. I’d rather us break up than have that happen.”

He took my face in his hands. “I’m not sad. I get to stay home with you now, and believe me, that’s exciting.”

“I want you to be sure.”

“Oh, I am. I know you’re the adventure.”

“No, that’s not what I—”

He laughed and then tried to ease me forward to kiss me.

I pulled back, away, or tried to, but he tightened his hold so I couldn’t move.

“The hell are you doing?”

The tears were not a surprise. “I have to go home and brush my teeth and shower and be dipped in lye or something. I’m covered in filth.”

“You’re covered in our dog’s blood and Barrett’s, who tried to kill you and who you still saved, but more than anything, you’re still you and you still love me, right?”

I couldn’t even see him through the tears.

“It’s a mess, all of it, but you need to kiss me now to remind yourself what kissing and being kissed by the man who loves you feels like.”

“How can you even want to?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” he scolded softly. “You belong one place, and that’s with me.”

I took a stuttering breath.

“Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” I husked.

“Then don’t pull away from me, not
ever
.”

I exhaled the shame and fear as Ian leaned me forward and kissed me. And it was probably my imagination, but the way he took, the kiss felt different. It was possessive and languorous, like he had all the time in the world.

“Ian?”

“I’m really, truly home now. You’re never getting rid of me.”

“Swear.”

“Oh, I do, trust me. You promised to marry me, remember?”

I had to close my eyes with the swell of emotions that rolled through me. “Yes.”

“We should do that very soon.”

I was overwrought. That was the only reason for the tears that came hot and blurring.

“Come on, gimme ’nother kiss. Let’s seal the deal.”

I had to take him at his word and jump with him, so I kissed him with every bit of hope and happiness and trust that was in me.

He was home and he was staying. It was officially the best Thanksgiving ever.

“And now we’re going to the hospital to check you out,” he announced as soon as our lips parted.

“What? No. I’m fine, I swear to God. I was out of it, probably still am, but I just need sleep. Lots and lots of sleep, and lots and lots of sex,” I begged him. “Please, Ian, it’s a waste of time. I wasn’t the one hurt, I swear.”

He studied me for a second and then nodded and passed me his phone. “Call Kohn. Tell him we’re coming home, and tell him to get the crime scene—otherwise known as our kitchen—released right fuckin’ now.”

I groaned as I put on my seat belt and we flew away from the curb. “Those guys are federal. They’re never going to—you’re just gonna leave the Cabriolet there?” I asked, noticing the car parked a few spaces down from where we were.

“Yeah, maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll get stolen.”

I had to smile. Fucking Ian. “That’s not nice.”

“Cabriolet or an ancient Dodge, the hell,” he grumbled.

“But as I was saying, federal crime scenes can take days to process.”

“Normally, yeah, but you’re a witness and Barrett’s a witness—and by the way, you don’t get to pick out your own friends anymore,” he mandated with a look that dared me to say a word.

“Yeah, okay.”

He grunted.

“But so you’re thinking, because I’m a witness and can say what happened, and Barrett’s story will probably corroborate most of mine—”

“He might change motivation in his version, but blood spatter and bullets, fingerprints, and everything else will tell the tale.”

“Kohn won’t be able to rush them. A good crime scene investigator will never be rushed. They can hold the scene for as long as they want.”

“Yeah, but they’ve got direct evidence in this instance. They have you.”

I groaned. “I will be explaining what happened for days. I’ll be lucky if I’m out of interrogation to even eat anything tomorrow, let alone play host.”

“We have a lot of people to help us. Anything can happen. Have a little faith.”

I could do anything now. Ian was staying home.

THERE WAS
good news and bad news, and the good was that my kitchen, as crime scenes went, was pretty cut-and-dried.

All the bullets Hartley fired were in Lochlyn, aside from the one that blew out Barrett’s knee. He didn’t fire any others, and all the blood in the kitchen belonged to either Lochlyn or Barrett. The Walther in my sink had only been fired once in the house, and that bullet was with Chickie at the vet and would be collected from there.

All the blood by the bookcase was Chickie’s.

I thought the federal forensics team would take a hundred times longer than the regular police, but the exact opposite was true. They had double the personnel, were hyperefficient, and took enough pictures to recreate the entire room in single photos, if abstract art was their goal. As it was, the sheer number of people processing the room put them at done in record time.

By the time Ian and I got home, they had been there for three hours already. I would have thought I’d lost time, but as Ian reminded me, Chickie had been in surgery for a while and I’d been sick with worry, so the time sped by.

“Where’s Aruna and Janet and—”

“They’re all at home. She and Liam took Janet with them.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s get you a T-shirt and sweater and some tea, all right?”

I nodded and Kohn bolted over and hugged me like he never did, full body, all up in my space, and squeezing tight.

“Jones,” Kowalski said as he joined us. “I already called a service to get this place cleaned up, they should be here in an hour and—”

I eased out of Kohn’s hold, and he grabbed Ian next. “How did you manage that? Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving?”

“Tomorrow’s in like an hour already, but anybody works whenever as long as you pay them,” he reminded me.

“It’ll cost a mint.”

“Do you care?”

I didn’t, actually. “Thanks, Jer.”

“My pleasure,” he said, smiling at me, which was a new and different experience. “And now the fun starts,” he groused as in through the front door the suits walked.

The FBI was leading the investigation, but CPD was there, too, along with Kage—which was nice, that he would come when he was technically off for the holiday, but it was also technically his job—the OPR guy again, McAllister, who was there to listen to what I said and prepare a statement and was also a lawyer and could advise Kage, if needed. Everyone looked crisp and polished, which was impressive for them all coming though the rain and the lateness of the hour the night before a holiday. Kage looked especially good in a navy-checked suit, a black cotton long-sleeved shirt, and monk strap shoes I was fairly sure were Ralph Lauren. He was dressed to go out.

“Were you on a date?” I asked him, ballsier than normal because of the night I was having. Big highs and horrific lows.

He did a slow pan to me. “I was, yes.”

“Sorry.”

“People trying to kill my marshals take precedence over my love life, Jones, but I warn you now—there had better be no shenanigans tomorrow. Do you understand?”

“It’s not—this is not my fault.”

His dismissive grunt told me that maybe he didn’t so much believe me.

We all sat down in our living room: me, Ian, Kohn, Kowalski, Kage, McAllister, the parade of suits, and Special Agent Tilden Adair, who turned on his phone to record me. He asked me to please explain, as carefully as possible, what had transpired.

“First, I’m so sorry about your agents. Eamon Lochlyn said he killed them both. I hope they didn’t suffer.”

“Thank you, and no, it doesn’t appear that they did. We were surprised that Hartley wasn’t the one who killed them.”

“No, it was Lochlyn. Did he shoot them?”

“They were both shot, yes.”

“With the Walther?”

“The bullets would seem to be a match, yes, but we’re still waiting on ballistics to confirm.”

“Okay.”

“What gun was Hartley carrying?”

So I explained about the fancy Desert Eagle and why he shot Lochlyn, and how Barrett startled him, which was how he got shot. Then I started over, and I left nothing out. I made them all squirm a bit—except Ian and Kage, and, interestingly enough, Adair—as I recounted kissing Hartley, at gunpoint, and how he wanted to hurt me and fuck me in equal measure. I included why and for what reason Lochlyn had decided on his revenge killings and why Barrett Van Allen assisted him.

“Hartley saved your life,” Adair commented, and I realized I’d never actually met anyone with jet-black hair and matching eyes before. He was a very striking man, though “handsome” might not be the word I’d choose.

“Yes, he did.”

“My understanding was that Hartley wanted to kill you in Phoenix.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t want to be rushed when he does it. He wants to kill me on his timetable, no one else’s.”

Adair nodded. “Are you in fear for your life, marshal?”

“Not anymore.”

“Do you think that if Lochlyn and Van Allen had not killed the agents, that they would have, in fact, been killed?”

“No.”

“And what leads you to that supposition?”

“Hartley thinks everything out. He never just
does
anything. The agents would have fired on Hartley as soon as they saw him, but they didn’t do that with Lochlyn or Van Allen, which is probably the reason they were killed. They let them get too close because they didn’t realize Lochlyn and Van Allen posed a significant threat.”

He nodded. “I would agree. They were both highly trained. They just didn’t expect to be blindsided.”

“No, how could they have.”

The question-and-answer session lasted a couple of hours, and I was surprised Adair allowed the crime-scene cleaning team to come in while he was still talking to me until I realized they were all wearing noise-cancelling headphones like tarmac workers at the airport. Kowalski, who had foresight most people didn’t give him credit for, apprised them of the possibility and they’d come prepared.

“We will keep your name out of the news, of course, but I’m sure that there will be reporters who put events together.”

“We can deal with that, Agent,” McAllister assured him. “We take care of our own.”

“Special Agent,” Adair corrected him.

“Chief Deputy,” Kage said, and since clearly he had the biggest dick in the room, everyone else shut up. “Is that all, Special Agent?”

“For now, yes.”

Why it took another half an hour for the Feds to go, I had no idea, but when they finally left, McAllister whirled around and said he would personally contact CPD and have uniformed officers there, watching the house round the clock going forward.

I shook my head. “If Hartley wants me, he’s gonna get me. But I have to be honest and say that I really do think he’s going to go to Paris like he said he was and be some underground sensation there.”

“He said he’d have a following?”

“No, he’d think that was pretentious. But I think he’s got other plans at the moment that don’t include me, if they ever do again.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I just… our dynamic just changed. And I’m not saying that we’re friends, because that would be insane… but he said it himself. He doesn’t want to kill me anymore. Hurt, yes—if he got the chance—but kill, no. So now I’m not like a prop he can move around anymore. He would have to talk to me in a way that wouldn’t include coercion. It’s a problem he has to work out, and it’ll take him a while—maybe even forever—to solve.”

“So if I’m hearing you correctly, you believe that he’ll stay clear of you until he figures out a way to get you to go with him willingly.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“I’m not sure that you’re qualified to make this call, marshal.”

“Sadly, no one knows Hartley better than me,” I told him. “So please, don’t waste people here I don’t need.”

He looked to Kage for help.

“I agree with McAllister,” Kage said, which was surprising. “Every night there will be men stationed outside this house, but we’ll do that internally. I’ve already contacted Judicial Security, and the assistant director promised me protective personnel starting Monday.”

“And from now until then?” McAllister wanted to know.

“Marshal Jones is on house arrest and he’ll be checked in on every four hours, and as you know, he lives with Marshal Doyle, and as an ex-Green Beret, he’s more than qualified to provide protection.”

“Ex?” I whispered.

“Lives with?” McAllister asked.

Ian grinned smugly. “Yeah. We’re getting married.”

It took several moments, and I was worried for a few of them because McAllister looked so stricken, I thought he was going to either burst into tears or let loose a volley of hateful words. But neither happened. He smiled instead. Huge, wide, which was a surprise because I didn’t think he did that.

“I didn’t know, but that’s wonderful. Congratulations.”

“Yes,” Kage said, getting up, which signaled McAllister and the other four lawyers—who Kage hadn’t introduced—to get up as well. I’d found out that if he didn’t like you, he didn’t tell anyone your name. So clearly he found them bothersome and was showing his disdain. It also meant, whoever they were, that they were up there on the food chain. Kage never treated any underling poorly; it wasn’t his way to take out irritation on the messenger.