Trust Me: The Lassiter Group, Book 1 (28 page)

Heading around back, she noticed Glen’s car. Why hadn’t he said anything about being closer? He must have finished up earlier than he thought he would. The backdoor was locked, and she knocked, waiting for him to answer. She looked through the two lower windows on this side of the house but didn’t see any movement inside.

Was he in the shower?

She glanced back at the car, something about it catching her attention. She walked over to it, realizing it wasn’t Glen’s car at all. Close but not quite…

The cross hanging from the review mirror caught her eye.

Wade’s car? What the hell was it doing here? There wasn’t any sign of Wade or Glen, and her partner was still probably trying to track Burton…

Max dug into her pocket for the cell phone Lucas gave her and pulled it out, dragging something else with it that hit the driveway.

Stooping to pick up Cara’s lip gloss, she noticed the crack that ran along the cylinder. Ignoring it, she punched in the number Lucas had made her memorize.

A woman’s friendly voice answered. “Lassiter Financial Group.”

Finances? Really? “Hi. Is this Tess?”

“As long as you’re not one of Eli’s flings calling to confirm if he’s really married.”

Okay.
“No, this is Max. Lucas and Eli just dropped me off and I was wondering if you could answer a question I had.”

“Shoot.”

“Lucas said something about you tracking him through his cell number. Can that be done with any cell?”

“As long as it’s turned on.”

Wincing at a sudden pain in her injured palm, she transferred the lip gloss to her other hand. “If I gave you a number, would you be able to run it through your system?”

“Who are trying to find?”

Not exactly the
yes
Max was hoping for. “Ralph Burton.”

“If I tell you, you’re not going to take off are you? I’ve heard that’s a talent of yours.”

“I’ll stay put, and you’ll know that since you’ll be able to track me on this phone.”

“Good point, except you could leave the phone behind.”

“True,” she agreed. “But I’m not putting this phone down until I hear from Lucas.”

Tess remained silent for a moment. “I’ve already got Burton’s number in our files. Hang on a minute and I’ll see what comes up.”

“Sure.” Okay, maybe their tracking systems really did work that fast.

Waiting for Tess, she took a closer look at her palm. At least she’d be able to do more than just wipe her bleeding hand on her pants inside Glen’s.

A glint of something caught her eye, and she thought it was just light reflecting off the metal trim on the lip gloss.

“That’s weird…” She frowned at the almost luminescent sheen of metal beneath the pink plastic coating, and pushed harder to break open the crack farther.

“Max?” Tess’s voice cut in to her thoughts. “My screen is showing me that you and Burton are at the same location.”

Max glanced at the house in front of her. What the hell was going on? Wade’s car, Burton’s phone and no Glen.

“Thanks for the help Tess. I need you to call me back in five minutes, okay?”

“Wait—”

Feeling only a little bit guilty for hanging up, she punched in Glen’s number, willing him to answer.

He didn’t.

A wave of trepidation went through her, and she withdrew her gun and returned to the back door. Assuming that if either Burton or Wade were inside they would have heard her knocking and come to arrest her by now, she used her gun to smash out the window, then reached in and unlocked the door.

She tucked the phone and lip gloss back into her pocket. The doorknob turned easily in her hand, and pushing it open, she stepped inside. Careful of the glass, she skirted the edge of the kitchen, senses attuned to any sign of movement.

Checking each room on the main level and finding nothing, she moved on to the upper floor. Her heart thumped hard in her chest and sweat slicked the back of her neck and between her breasts as she edged up the stairs.

She reached the landing and peeked around the corner. The hallway was deserted. Silently, she moved toward Glen’s home office. Taking a breath, she eased the door open, and spotted someone unconscious and bleeding on the floor.

Burton?

Closing the door quietly to ensure no one snuck up on her, Max moved to her captain and knelt beside him to check his pulse. It was there, barely.

She dug into her pocket for the phone to call for an ambulance.

A creak came from the other side of the door, and she leveled her weapon at whoever was about to come through it.

“Max?” Glen stood opposite her. He immediately lowered his weapon. “If I had known you were going to be here so soon, I would have—” he stopped. “Jesus, is that Burton?”

“Yeah. Any idea what he’s doing here?” Handing her phone to Glen, she sank down beside Burton once more, snagging a sweatshirt off the chair next to him. “Call an ambulance.”

While Glen made the call, she set her gun aside, well out of Burton’s reach, and pressed the folded-up shirt over his chest. She still didn’t know how or if their Captain was connected to Blackwater, but she couldn’t sit back and let him bleed out while they waited for help.

He set the phone on the corner of his desk. “Did you do a full sweep of the house?”

“Didn’t finish upstairs, no.” She lifted her head. “That is Wade’s car out front, isn’t it?” There still wasn’t any sign of her ex, though. Had Burton borrowed his car for some weird reason?

Glen nodded. “I think they must have known I was tailing them. Maybe it made them nervous.” He checked his weapon, then paused next to the office door. “Why isn’t Lucas with you?”

“He had something else he needed to take care of.”

Glen frowned. “Right after Blackwater was killed?” His expression said something didn’t add up, but he didn’t ask anything else before slipping into the hallway to finish securing the house.

On the floor, Burton stirred, his eyelids fluttering. He mumbled something she didn’t catch.

She touched his shoulder, wanting to reassure him even when she didn’t know where his loyalties lay. “You’ve been shot and an ambulance is on its way.”

He opened his eyes, his normally sharp blue gaze seeming fuzzy and unfocused. “Careful…Max.”

Not so unfocused that he couldn’t recognize her, apparently.

“He might still be here.”

“Who? The shooter? Was it Wade?” Despite that his name had come up, she still had a hard time wrapping her mind around the possibility. “Was he working for Blackwater?”

Burton’s brows drew together like he couldn’t understand the question, then he nodded and tried to move.

“Lie still. Help is coming.” God, how much longer for an ambulance? How far away was the closest hospital?

Sensing movement, she lifted her head, and found only Glen in the doorway.

“Is he awake?”

“Yeah. Is the house clear?”

“Yeah. Nothing left behind but a partial footprint in the kitchen.”

“Max,” Burton whispered. His lids slid down and he forced them back up. He stared hard at Glen, who stood over her shoulder.

“How’s he doing?” Glen crouched next to them, and if she hadn’t been watching Burton closely, she would have missed the way he flinched when Glen moved closer to him.

Coincidence. The man had been shot, likely by a cop he knew. He was entitled to be a little nervous, wasn’t he?

Burton moved his eyes in Glen’s direction over and over, and every time she felt something in her stomach get tighter and tighter.

Already the sweatshirt was soaked through with blood. “I need something else to slow the bleeding, can you get me some towels?”

The second he left the room, Max reached for her
phone. She pushed redial, telling herself it was crazy to think for even a second–

A recorded voice for Directory Assistance sounded in her ear.

Lucas stared out the passenger-side window, trying to figure out what was nagging at him so hard.

“You’re wishing now you’d brought her along, aren’t you?”

Yes.
“No.”

“So you’re not worried about anything happening to her?”

“Max can handle herself.”

She’d been on her own a lot longer than she’d been with him. He knew she’d be fine, had to believe that. Otherwise the oily twisting in his gut was going to get in the way of the job they still had to do. He wasn’t at all used to being so protective of a woman, and one who was quite capable of looking out for herself.

Eli scoffed. “That didn’t answer the question.”

Lucas straightened in his seat, trying to shrug off the anxious vibe rolling under his skin.

“You gonna marry her?”

He shot Eli a disbelieving look. “What? That’s a bit premature don’t you think? We haven’t even spent twenty-four hours together where we haven’t been running from something.”

“Sometimes you just know.” His friend spoke with a lot of conviction for a man who swore up and down he wasn’t built for long-term relationships.

Lucas fiddled with the bag of gear at his feet.

“Do you love her?”

Hard as he tried, Lucas couldn’t get a read on whether or not Eli thought that was a good thing. He didn’t need anyone’s approval when it came to his feelings for Max, but he still wanted Eli and Caleb to like her, seeing as he planned on having her in his life.

“I think we have other things to focus on.”

Eli stared at him, waiting.

“You really want to have this conversation?”

“I’m not offering to plan the wedding. It’s just a question.”

“No, do you take sugar in your coffee, is just a question.”

His friend held up a hand. “Consider the subject dropped.”

Grateful, Lucas went back to staring out the window, saying nothing for a minute then, “Yeah, I love her.”

Eli grinned.

“Anything else you want to know?”

“I’m good.”

They lapsed into silence once more, then, “If you
were
getting married, you’d pick me to be your best man, right?”

Lucas rolled his eyes.

“You think she’d take your name? Maxine McAllister,” Eli recited, testing it out.

Something caught in Lucas’s mind, something…

“Fuck.”

“Take it easy, man. If you want to ask Caleb instead, that’s cool.”

“Turn the car around.”

Eli looked him like he was crazy. “You really think proposing now is a good idea?”

“He knew my name.” Lucas hit the dash, pissed at himself. “Blackwater called me by my last name and I didn’t even notice.” Hadn’t noticed anything but the knife Snake had to Max’s throat.

Eli didn’t wait for him to finish his explanation before doing a U-turn that probably would have had Max digging her fingers into the seat.

If that bastard touched her…

“You might want to share the conversation going on inside your head with the rest of the class.”

He released a breath, fighting the tightness clamped across his chest. “I told Max’s partner my last name.” He snatched up Eli’s phone and put a call in to Tess.

She didn’t wait for him to say anything, but started with, “If this about me helping Max—”

“Help her what?”

“Lucas?” Clearly she’d been expecting it to be Eli calling. “Max wanted me to track a number for her. Ralph Burton’s. The thing is, his location matched hers. Then she told me to call her back in five minutes. That was six minutes ago and she’s not picking up.”

Jesus, were Glen and Burton working together?

He glanced over at the speedometer, and Eli followed his gaze.

“If I could turn this thing into the Delorean for you and fly over the people slowing me down, I would.”

“I know.”

Eyes focused on the road, Eli frowned. “Maybe Blackwater found out your name from another source. Maybe he caught a good close-up of you on surveillance footage from the night of the party and ran it through some facial recognition software.” He shrugged. “Didn’t Max’s partner lose his girlfriend because of all this?”

“Yeah, she was killed in a car bomb.”
Mother fucker.
“Tess, I want you to check Glen Novak’s file and tell me if he’s had any bomb squad training or anything else that points to a knowledge of explosives.”

He watched Eli swerve around cars as he listened to Tess’s fingers tapping over her laptop.

“No bomb squad training but his father spent the last twenty years working as an explosives expert.”

Lucas closed his eyes, forcing back the fear that Max had already been blindsided by her partner.

“What do you want me to do, Lucas?” Tess asked.

“Be Caleb’s eyes and ears, and if he can make a move on his own to retrieve the case, tell him he should take it.”

“If Max is in trouble you might need backup.”

“I’ve got Eli and he’s been bitching about missing out on all the action anyway.”

They were almost back to Glen’s when he hung up the phone and checked the cartridge on his gun.

Chapter Fifteen

Max disconnected the call and hit redial again.

She needed to hear the voice again, needed to be sure all the second-guessing she’d been doing lately hadn’t made her mishear anything.

Except deep down she knew she’d heard correctly. Glen hadn’t called 9-1-1 and there was only one reason not to—he’d been the one who shot Burton.

If it had been an accident or self-defense, he wouldn’t have acted as though he’d just arrived.

Jesus. Burton wasn’t the one on Blackwater’s payroll. It had been Glen all along.

“Who are you calling?” Glen handed her the towels, his expression unreadable, and for the first time it was like looking into the eyes of a stranger.

“I was calling Lucas, but my call was dropped,” she lied.

“You sure he isn’t just ignoring your call?” He crossed to the window, doing a convincing job of looking for an ambulance that wouldn’t be arriving.

With his back turned, she reached down for her gun, but felt only carpeting. A quick glance confirmed that he must have taken it when he’d crouched down next to her a minute ago.

Facing her, Glen crossed his arms. “How do you know he doesn’t have some kind of ulterior motive?”

“Like retrieving the same missing weapon you’re looking for?”