One to Protect (One to Hold 3)

Nikki had interrupted me that day as well, stopping in with a BLT from the cafeteria.

“I know it’s your favorite.” She placed the thick sandwich in front of me with a smile. “You need to eat.”

I only nodded. “Thanks.”

She didn’t leave. “Remember the last time I brought you lunch? It was the day Melissa showed up here so angry and unexpected. I was sure I’d never like her, but now she’s the sweetest…”

Nikki continued talking, but I wasn’t listening. Cold realization flashed in my brain like lightening striking a tree.

Jessica Black. It was the name on the email Melissa had put in front of me that day she visited our offices. The day she dropped a nuke on all my dreams of a life with her, when she revealed my former “mentor,” her ex-husband Sloan Reynolds’s secret double-life. He had high-end escorts all over the country, and Jessica Black was his first careless slip. Melissa had found it.

Nikki was still reminiscing as I spun around in my chair, shaking my computer awake. Fingers flying over the keys, I pulled up all the information I could find on the dead girl.

She’d been living in Baltimore for a year. I wondered if she followed him from wherever they’d hooked up the first time. Why would she do that? Was it possible she was in love with him? Was it for the money? Had he promised her anything?

It didn’t matter. She’d disappeared off the police blotter from the time she arrived there until now, when she’d turned up dead.

Reasons scrolled across my brain of all the possible causes of death, but looking at her beaten face, all I could see was the photo Melissa had put in front of me all those months ago.

My instincts were on high alert. Sloan was getting antsy, and I knew what he wanted. Jessica Black might look like the real thing, but she wasn’t it.

Substitutes would never fill the possession he felt. I’d followed enough of these twisted fucks to know. He was coming for Melissa, and it was just a matter of when.

All last week, I’d tracked down every misstep I could find on him, looking for anything that would stick, that would get him off the streets or at least keep him in Baltimore. I hoped to find a recent paper trail linking him to Jessica, but every lead came up cold. He was either too slick, or his people buried everything.

Even the guy I had watching Sloan in Baltimore had nothing. Jessica disappeared a week before I’d hired him, a month after Sloan had broken into Mel’s beach cottage and then gotten off with a slap on the wrist. Apparently I’d moved too quickly when he waltzed into her home threatening to rape her. We had to wait until he actually committed the crime for his money and position not to matter.

The thought clenched my jaw. It was the one thing above all that caused the “stress” Nikki kept texting Melissa about. Only “stress” wasn’t what I felt. What I felt was flat-out fucking rage.

The best part was when he threatened me in court with police brutality charges. I’d nearly brutalized him on the spot, but Melissa held me back. I’ll never forget her face. She went still as a stone, as if it was the ending she always expected. It was like a heel-kick straight to my gut. I couldn’t let her down that way.

Now all she’ll say is she wants those memories left in the past. Just let it go, she tells me.

Fuck that. That asshole is a threat to my family, and it’s clear he’s dangerous. Priority 1 is devising a plan to bring him in, and it has to be something that won’t ooze off his slimy back.

Snatching my phone off its base, I hit the speed-dial button.

Patrick answers, cocky as always. “Don’t tell me. You’ve come to your senses and realized life at the beach is the only way to live.”

“I need you to up the watch on Melissa.”

I appreciate how his tone becomes immediately serious. “What’s going on?”

“I have to finish a few details for our new Houston client, and then I’m headed your way, possibly for a while.”

“This can only mean one thing. Or one asshole.”

“I’m emailing a report and mug shots to you now. The name’s Jessica Black.” Fingers clicking on the keys, I shoot everything I’ve found to him. “I’ve exhausted all my sources here. See if you can do anything from there with it.”

“Sure.” He’s silent for a moment, reading. “Jessica Black… Raleigh? That’s just down the road. I’ll rattle a few cages.”

“If you do find anything, I need to know why she moved to Baltimore. What she was doing there. If she was seeing anybody and who.”

“Did you tell Melissa about this?”

Pressing my lips together, I rock back in my chair. “No.”

“Think that’s a good idea?”