Trouble with a Badge (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

“What the hell?” Levi grumbled, and he, too, drew his gun.

Levi hadn't thought this day could get any worse, but he'd obviously been wrong about that. This definitely qualified as
worse
.

“Don't shoot him,” Levi warned the others. “If he falls the grenades could go off and set off the other explosives.”

Something like that would almost certainly kill Todd Menger, but it could also blow the entire area to smithereens. Levi had no idea how much firepower was in those explosives. The sheriff's office was reinforced with steel inserts in the concrete blocks, but Levi didn't want to test that reinforcement.

“Get down on the floor underneath the table,” Levi reminded Alexa.

“Be careful,” Alexa said, her voice all breath now.

He hated the fear he saw in her eyes. Hated even more that there was a reason for the fear, but he couldn't take the time to reassure her. He had some experience in hostage negotiation and suicides, and while this wasn't a textbook case, he might be able to talk this nut job out of doing something stupid.

“Try to get Marcos and his lawyer out the back exit,” Levi told Mack. “Scottie, too.”

“Are you crazy? It's too dangerous for us to go out there,” Scottie protested. “Those explosives can go off at any minute.”

Tough. Levi didn't want to have to watch two of their top suspects while trying to stop this potential disaster.

“Should I go out back and try to come up from behind Todd?” Jax asked.

“No.” Levi didn't even have to think about that answer. “If he sees you, he might get spooked and let go of those grenades.”

Jax nodded. “I'll call the diner. They can evacuate through the back of their building.” He started the call. Jericho made one, too. Probably alerting other nearby businesses so they could clear out, as well.

Good.

He hoped the evacuations would end up being overkill, but Levi wanted people as far away from this as possible. Too bad he couldn't get Alexa out of the building, but this could be another trick to draw her out. She could go right from the frying pan and into a very hot fire.

Levi opened the door just a fraction. Thankfully, the busboy wasn't coming any closer. He was literally standing in the street halfway between the sheriff's office and the diner.

“Todd?” Levi called out. “Is that your real name?”

He nodded. He was hardly more than a kid. Twenty if that, and he was shaking from head to toe. Of course, it was cold, but Levi figured the bulk of Todd's shaking was from nerves.

Not a good sign to have a spooked kid packing explosives.

If his hand started shaking too much, he might drop one of the grenades before Levi got the chance to talk him out of this.

“My last name's not Menger, though,” Todd volunteered. “It's Dawson. I want you to know that so somebody can call my family when things are done here. They'll need to know.”

Levi didn't have to tell Jericho to do a quick background check on Todd. His brother would. Maybe something would turn up in that check or in something Todd was going to say that would help Levi diffuse this.

“You can't talk me out of doing this,” Todd added. “I'm not like Joni, just needing money for her kid. I got to do it. I got no choice.”

“You're wrong. You always have a choice. You can put the pins back in those grenades and surrender. That way, you get to live.”

Todd frantically shook his head. “No. I'm dying. HIV. It's just a matter of time. I got no life insurance, no money, just a lot of medical bills. This way my girlfriend gets some cash.”

Whoever had hired him and Joni must have chosen them because they were both desperate. Well, Levi was desperate, too.

Behind him he could hear Mack ushering out Scottie, Marcos and the lawyer. Scottie was still whining about how dangerous it was to go out there.

“What kind of idiotic plan is this?” Marcos shouted. “Are you trying to get me killed?”

Levi didn't bother to acknowledge Marcos. Instead, he moved a step farther out the door, but Todd jerked back his right hand in a defensive posture, so Levi didn't press it. He stayed put.

“Todd, who's paying you to do this?” Levi asked.

“Don't know. Don't want to know, either.” He fired some nervous glances around him. “Mouse brought half the money, and the other half will be delivered to my girlfriend when this is over.”

Levi wanted this to have a much better ending than the culprit behind this had planned. To do that, he had to try to gain Todd's trust, because he couldn't disarm him unless Todd cooperated. Levi only hoped there weren't other hired thugs in the area waiting to finish the job if Todd didn't.

“There are people inside this building,” Levi told him. “In other buildings, too. You don't want to hurt them.”

“Collateral damage. That's what it said in the note that Mouse gave me. That I was allowed some collateral damage, and that means it's okay if other people get hurt or killed. People other than Alexa Dearborn.”

Everything inside Levi went still. Of course he'd known this probably had something to do with Alexa, but it felt like a punch to hear it spelled out by a man loaded with explosives.

“Why are you supposed to hurt Alexa?” Levi asked.

Another frantic headshake. “I'm not supposed to hurt her. I'm supposed to make sure she's dead.”

Levi mumbled some profanity. There it was, all spelled out for him. Alexa, too, probably, since the observation room door was open and she'd likely heard every word Todd had just said.

“Think,” Levi pressed the man. “Who's Mouse working for? Who wants you to kill Alexa?”

Todd looked at him. Finally, eye-to-eye contact, but Levi didn't like what he saw there. Yeah, Todd was shaky all right, but that was determination Levi was seeing. He needed to do something about that—fast.

Behind him, Levi heard someone open the back exit, and Jax immediately pivoted in that direction.

“It's just me,” Mack called out. “I put Marcos and the others in a cruiser, and I told them they'd better not get out.”

It wasn't ideal, but nothing about this was.

“You said you had a girlfriend, right?” Levi didn't wait for Todd to answer. “Well, Belle, who owns the diner, is someone's girlfriend, and she has a daughter. Only six years old. You want to make that little girl an orphan by killing Belle?”

Todd didn't answer for several long moments. “It doesn't matter. I have to kill Alexa.”

“All right,” Alexa said.

Levi knew from the sound of her voice that she was no longer in the observation room. And she wasn't. She was coming up the hall directly toward him.

“Have you lost your mind?” Levi snarled at her.

“Possibly, but I'm not going to hide while the rest of you put your lives on the line for me.”

Both Jericho and Jax hurried to get in front of her, but she just came up on her toes and looked over their shoulders.

“Can you kill me if you're looking at my face?” she asked Todd. “Can you?”

It wasn't a taunt or a challenge. Just the opposite. There was sympathy in her voice, and Levi didn't expect that sympathy to get through to Todd.

He was wrong.

Todd fixed his stare on Alexa while she stared back at him, and by degrees Levi saw some of Todd's determination fade. He clearly wasn't a trained killer like the hired guns Levi had already encountered and probably hadn't thought he'd have to look his target in the eyes.

Still, Levi didn't want Alexa anywhere near Todd.

“Stay back,” Levi warned her.

She didn't listen. Alexa kept her attention nailed to Todd, too. “Does your girlfriend want you to die today?” she asked.

Judging from the groan Todd made, the answer to that was no.

“I'm betting she'd want to spend every possible minute with you,” Alexa continued. “The money won't mean anything to her if she doesn't have you.”

It was risky because the girlfriend could indeed want the money, but Todd lowered his head until his chin was practically touching his chest, so Alexa had obviously hit pay dirt after all.

Or not.

Todd's head whipped up, and Levi heard a swishing sound. Without warning, Todd dropped face first to the ground.

“Oh, God,” Alexa said, and she clearly understood what that fall meant. They could all be dead within seconds.

Cursing, Levi turned, slammed the door shut and dragged Alexa to the floor so he could try to shelter her body with his. He did the only thing he could—brace himself for the blast.

But it didn't happen.

No blast, only silence.

“Todd's been shot,” Jax told them. He scrambled for cover beneath one of the desks.

Levi looked up and saw the blood. Hell. Yes, Todd had been shot all right, in the back, and the swishing sound that Levi had heard meant someone had fired the bullet from a gun fitted with a silencer. Todd wasn't moving, but Levi wasn't sure he was dead, either.

“You see the shooter?” Jericho asked, taking out his phone.

Levi didn't see anyone, but it was possible the shot had come from one of the alleys near the diner or even from a roof. No other shots came, but that wasn't Levi's big concern right now.

It was the explosives.

They apparently hadn't gone off because Todd still had the grenades gripped in his hands. That might not last, though, because all it would take was a slight movement from Todd.

“The county bomb squad unit is on the way,” Jericho relayed to them when he finished his call. “But it'll be a while before they get here.”

They didn't have a
while
.

“We all need to get out of here now,” Levi insisted, and no one argued with him about that.

“I'll get the prisoner,” Mack volunteered, and he hurried in the direction of the holding cell where he'd left Joni.

Levi helped Alexa to her feet, and with his brothers right behind him, they ran toward the back exit. When Levi reached the door, however, he didn't just bolt outside. Not with Scottie, Marcos and a gunman out there. With his gun ready, he glanced around.

And Levi saw something he didn't like.

The doors of the cruiser were wide open, and he didn't see anyone inside. Definitely not a good sign, since that was where Scottie and Marcos were supposed to be waiting.

Had they gotten scared and run?

Levi couldn't blame them, but he would have preferred to have eyes on both those snakes. Of course, it was possible they were on the floor of the cruiser, but if so, why had they left the doors open?

Mack came hurrying toward them, and he had a cuffed Joni in tow. The woman looked terrified. Later, Levi would demand that she tell them how much she knew about all this, but that would have to wait.

Jericho motioned toward Jax and Levi. “You should get Alexa in that cruiser. She's clearly the target, and she needs to be far away from here until we can disarm those explosives and catch the person who shot Todd.” Then, he looked at Mack. “You go with them and take our prisoner.”

Levi did want Alexa away from there, but he didn't want Jericho to stay in a building that could soon be destroyed. “Come with us,” Levi insisted.

Jericho shook his head. “I'll wait back here for the bomb squad. Now, go!”

Levi had a quick argument with himself because he didn't want to leave his brother behind, but in the end he knew Jericho was right. Alexa was the target, and that shooter could be coming after her right now.

Or the killer could already be out there in a position to strike.

“Wait here a second,” Levi told Alexa, and he stepped out with Jax following right behind him.

Levi went to the left side of the building. Jax to the right. While Mack and Jericho kept watch at the front and the park area behind the sheriff's office.

“Anything?” Jax asked.

“No.” There was no one in the parking lot. No one he could spot on the roofs of the other buildings, either. There was also no one on the sidewalk across the street. Jericho's calls to evacuate must have worked.

“It's clear over here, too,” Jax added.

That didn't mean a shooter couldn't be hiding, but it was a risk they had to take. Levi only hoped Alexa didn't have to pay for that risk with her life.

Levi hurried back to her, and as expected he saw the fear in her eyes. The worry, as well. “I don't want any of you dying because of me.”

Since they were all lawmen, that didn't go over well, and she earned a huff from Jericho. This was their job.

Except it felt like a lot more than just that to Levi.

He surprised her, and himself, when he brushed a kiss on her mouth. Probably also surprised his brothers and Mack, but none of them said anything.

“Don't go out there yet,” Levi instructed her as he took the car keys from Mack. “I'll drive the cruiser right up to the back door so you can get in.”

“I'll go with you,” Jax insisted.

Jax and he hurried out. No one opened fire on them, thank God, but it seemed to take an eternity to go the ten yards or so to the cruiser. It helped that the doors were already open. All Levi had to do was jump in.

When he did that, he immediately saw something else he darn sure hadn't wanted to see.

No Marcos or Scottie. Levi had been right about the cruiser being empty.

But there was blood on the seat.

Chapter Fourteen

Alexa had to remind herself to keep her breathing level. Hard to do with adrenaline still racing through her.

Once again she was hiding out in Dexter's house, and again she was waiting for Levi to finish a lengthy phone conversation with Jericho so she could find out what the heck was going on. With all the other attacks, her imagination was much too good, and she was afraid the worst had happened.

Their escape from the sheriff's office had been frantic and terrifying. Especially once Alexa had seen the blood on the front seat of the cruiser. Whose blood exactly, they didn't know, but that was probably part of what Levi and Jericho were discussing now.

Even with the blood, Levi had driven them out of there fast. First to the ranch so he could get another truck. One he was sure hadn't been tampered with. Then, Jax and Mack had taken Joni to the county jail while Levi and Alexa had gone to Dexter's house. Of course, they'd first had to drive around to make sure they weren't being followed.

The only bright spot in all this was that Violet was okay. Alexa had made sure of that by calling Marshal Walker as soon as Levi and she had arrived at Dexter's. The location of the safe house was being carefully guarded, but she knew from experience that security breaches could happen.

Levi looked up at her from his phone call and their gazes connected, but she couldn't tell from his expression if he was getting good news or bad. There were so many questions and too few answers.

Too many other feelings, as well.

She was getting closer and closer to him, and being under the same roof didn't help. Nor did the fact that she kept ending up in his arms. She wasn't usually so damsel-in-distress-like, but lately she'd felt as if she'd had to fight just to stay alive.

Alexa finally broke down and helped herself to a shot of whiskey from the bottle on Dexter's snack bar. It tasted like battery acid and burned all the way from her throat to her stomach, but it did take off some of the chill. Despite the room being warm, she'd been shivering since they arrived.

Finally Levi finished his call, and he stood and walked to her. But he didn't just go to her. He eased his arm around her waist, inched her to him. Not exactly an embrace of comfort because he put his body right against her. Very unexpected. Like the kiss at the sheriff's office, the one in front of his brothers. It had seemed natural and extraordinary at the same time.

Which more or less described Levi himself.

“How bad is the news?” she came right out and asked.

He lifted his shoulder, rubbed the back of his neck, made a weary sound of fatigue. “Some good, some bad. The bomb squad managed to disarm the explosives. Well, what explosives there were to disarm. The grenades were dummies, and only one of the dynamite sticks was real. It wasn't very powerful, either. If it'd gone off, it would have done some damage mainly to Todd, but it probably wouldn't have hurt anyone else unless they'd been standing right next to him.”

She thought about that a moment, but Alexa still couldn't wrap her mind around that. “It doesn't make sense. If the plan was to kill me, then why not load Todd down with real explosives?”

“Maybe because the person behind the attack didn't want to be hurt.”

Of course. Both Scottie and Marcos had been in the building. And that led her to another possibility. “Maybe Todd was supposed to draw me out into the open so the gunman could shoot me.”

“That did cross my mind,” Levi agreed. “But we don't know for sure because Todd's dead.”

Alexa had figured as much. He hadn't moved once he'd fallen to the ground.

“There's no sign of the guy who shot Todd,” Levi went on. “But an eyewitness from the diner was able to give Jericho a description of an armed man she got a glimpse of when they were evacuating.” He paused. “The description matched Lockwood to a tee.”

Oh.

Alexa wasn't sure why that rattled her even more. After all, Lockwood was a suspect, but if he'd done this, he'd killed to silence a sick, young man who'd been on the verge of surrendering. And maybe also on the verge of giving them clues as to who'd hired him. It could mean Lockwood had used fake explosives because he, too, hadn't wanted to be blown up during the attack.

“Did Lockwood admit to being in the area?” she asked.

“Yeah. He said he's been keeping an eye on you, but claims he didn't see the person who shot Todd. Also, the gun he had on him doesn't match the caliber of the bullet used to kill Todd.”

That didn't mean Lockwood hadn't disposed of the murder weapon, and it was downright creepy how the man kept following her.

Levi paused again, pushed a strand of hair from her face. “Jericho managed to track down the guy called Mouse that both Joni and Todd mentioned. He's dead. Looks as if he was murdered a couple of hours ago.”

Alexa groaned. That couldn't be a coincidence, and it meant the person behind this was tying up loose strings. And that led her to another loose string.

“Whose blood was in the cruiser?” she asked.

“Not sure yet. Jericho's still working that out. We know it's not Scottie's, though. He called to say he got spooked sitting in the cruiser and that he left and ran out through the park. He claims Marcos and his lawyer were okay when he left them, but Marcos isn't returning Jericho's call.”

Alexa wouldn't consider it bad news if something had indeed happened to Marcos, but this might be a ploy. Maybe Marcos was even faking his own death with the help of his lawyer. That way he could disappear, start a new life.

And eventually come after her again if he wanted revenge.

“Need another drink?” Levi asked her.

Obviously he knew where her thoughts were heading. A future of always being worried that Marcos might try to kill her. She didn't want him to see that fear in her eyes and started to move away.

Levi held on.

And he delivered another of those extraordinary kisses. His mouth on hers had an immediate effect on her. Like the news, it was both good and bad. She wanted him, but...

“You come with a high price tag attached,” she whispered.

“I think yours might be higher,” Levi countered.

It was. Being with him would lead to a broken heart for her, but for him this could divide his family along with sending Marcos or whoever was behind this after him. That was plenty of reason for her to step back.

She didn't.

Partly because Levi held on.

“Do you really want to make it through this night alone?” he asked.

The answer to that was easy. “No. But remember that price tag. And no condom,” she reminded him.

Levi tipped his head toward the bathroom. “There's a box in the medicine cabinet.”

For some reason that made her smile. “A box? How many nights do we need to make it through?”

He didn't smile. She saw only the heat in his eyes. “Probably not nearly enough for this to burn out between us.”

She swallowed hard and then lost her breath when he kissed her again. “It'll burn out,” she said and tried not to make it sound like a question. It always burned out.

Except the thought came from deep inside her. She'd never had extraordinary. She'd never had Levi.

But apparently that was about to change.

Alexa slipped right into his arms. It was a mistake, of course, but she didn't care. Price tags be damned. She'd deal with the aftermath later and hoped she could survive it. Suddenly, she didn't feel so much like a damsel in distress, but a woman who was about to have the night of her dreams.

Levi kissed her again. Slow and easy as if giving her a chance to run for cover. She didn't run. Alexa felt the heat trickle through her, and for the first time in hours she wasn't cold.

The kisses continued, and soon they weren't so slow and easy. There was an urgency to them, and it caused Alexa to press even harder against him. His grip tightened. So did hers. And it didn't take long for her to want a whole lot more than just kisses and being in his arms.

Levi did something about that. Still kissing her, Levi scooped her up and headed for the guest room. He placed her on the bed as if she were fragile. Like glass. Fitting since Alexa suddenly felt as if she might shatter. He left her for a couple of seconds, and when he returned he had the condoms.

The whole box.

“I should probably tell you up front that I'm not very good at this,” Alexa said. “In fact, I don't usually, well, you know. I don't usually.”

Good grief.

She couldn't say the word
climax
aloud. She sounded like an idiot instead of a woman who really, really wanted to do this. It was the nerves talking, and they might have kept on talking if Levi hadn't silenced her. With his mouth stretched in a half smile, he dropped down next to her and gave her another of those incredible kisses.

“Let's fix that,” he said.

Coming from any other man that might have sounded cocky, but Levi pushed up her top and kissed her in places that made her believe cockiness wasn't involved. First her breasts.

Oh, yes. He knew what he was doing.

Then her stomach.

He lingered awhile there, tasting her and building a very hot fire inside her. Alexa tried to pull him back up to her so she could kiss him, too, but Levi didn't let her. He continued what he was doing.

The kisses going lower.

And lower.

He unzipped her jeans, peeled them off her. Her panties, too. And he took those clever kisses to the center of all that heat.

Alexa quit reaching for him. In fact, she thought maybe she quit breathing. Quit seeing, too. But the rest of her was working just fine. Everything inside her soared. Then pinpointed to where her only focus was on the man delivering some memorable kisses.

She did shatter. But not in that fragile, fall apart kind of way. The pleasure spiked through her until she felt the climax slam through her. Nothing gentle about this. Only the fire and the heat.

Only Levi.

She didn't even have time to regain her breath before Levi made his way back up to her, dropping kisses along the way. Also undressing himself.

Alexa definitely wanted to help with that, and even though she still had a strong buzz from the orgasm, she wanted to see him naked. Now. And she wanted to touch him, so that was what she did.

“Let's fix that now,” she said slipping her hand into his jeans.

He made a sound. A low, manly groan of pleasure that made her feel hot all over again.

Levi pushed her hand away, only so they could get off his jeans. She'd been so right to want to see him like this. Oh, yes. Those Crockett looks gave him his drop-dead hot face, but he had the body to go along with it.

Alexa sampled some of that body. Kissing his chest. Hearing that low sound of pleasure again while he got on the condom. After that it was a blur. A long, slow one when he moved on top of her and entered her.

Again, she lost her breath and didn't care if she lost it a dozen times tonight. Not with the way he was moving inside her. With each stroke she felt the heat return. And build. How could she possibly want him this much when he'd just given her the climax of her life?

And he gave her another one.

She hadn't known she was so close or that it could even happen again so soon. But it happened all right. Levi sent her flying, and with their gazes connected, he said something when he let him go with her.

“We fixed it,” he whispered.

True. They'd fixed the fire between them. But as Levi buried his face against her neck, Alexa knew that the fix was only temporary.

So was his embrace. Within seconds, Levi got up and headed to the bathroom. “No, I'm not regretting what just happened,” he called out to her. “Give me an hour or two.”

Since that was exactly what she was thinking, Alexa nearly laughed. Of course, the slack feeling in her body had something to do with that.

Levi came back into the room. Still naked. And she got a nice view of that hot body that she'd kissed during their scalding foreplay. Alexa considered asking him if he wanted to talk about what'd just happened. Saying aloud all those questions in her head. But Levi silenced those, too, when he got back on the bed and pulled her to him in a body-to-body snuggle.

The questions could wait.

Besides, Alexa wasn't even sure she wanted to hear the answers. Best to hang on to this moment, since she doubted she'd get too many more of them with Levi. Sooner or later he'd come to his senses and regret this, and then there was that whole issue about her being as dangerous as Typhoid Mary.

“Try to get some sleep,” Levi said and brushed a kiss on her forehead. “Jericho will let us know if there's a break in the case.”

Or if something else went wrong. Which was a strong possibility.

It was that threat of
something else
that made Alexa sure she wouldn't be able to sleep, but apparently Levi's kisses and love making weren't the only things that were extraordinary. The snuggling and his warmth worked a small miracle, and within minutes she felt some of the tension slip from her body.

But not the thoughts.

She wanted more of this. Wanted a real shot at a relationship with Levi. And for that to happen, she needed to end the danger. One quick way to do that was to use herself as bait to draw out the person who was after her. Of course, Levi would never agree to that. However, his brothers might. But if she launched a plan like that, it would pretty much end that real shot at Levi and her having a relationship. The last time she'd gone rogue in an investigation, it'd gotten Paige killed.

Even though it wasn't a loud sound, Alexa still jumped a little when Levi's phone buzzed. “Jericho?” she asked, sitting up.

Levi sat up, too, but shook his head when he looked at the screen. No name just the number. A number she didn't recognize. Levi hit the answer button and put it on speaker.