Treacherous Intent. Camy Tang

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СКАЧАТЬ a man for no good reason, so he’d certainly kill her.”

      Elisabeth started in surprise. “She witnessed a murder?”

      “I told her to speak to Detective Carter, but she said she didn’t have proof outside of what she saw, and she wouldn’t live to testify against him. She was certain that the only way she’d ever be safe would be when he was in jail, and until then, she had to keep running from him. And then she left.” Tiffany’s lips were white. “Was he the man who came to the shelter today?”

      “I don’t know.” She took Tiffany’s hand. “But don’t worry. You’re safe here.”

      Tiffany nodded, but her shoulders still hunched, as if trying to protect her unborn child. “Please don’t tell anyone I told you about this.”

      “I won’t.” Elisabeth gave her hand a final squeeze, then went to speak to some other staff workers.

      She was distracted by the sound of children squealing. Liam had entered into a tickle war with four children at once, and they were having a grand time. Liam squirmed out of the way of little hands even as he wiggled his fingers at tummies, making the children shriek and leap aside.

      The mothers laughed, and the joyful sounds seemed to erase the somber mood. The women came here out of such pain, and this lighthearted play seemed to Elisabeth to bring not just a respite but also a sense of hope for the future. And it was all because of Liam.

      Finally, Elisabeth and Liam decided to leave. Two little boys clung to his legs and rode along for a few steps as he walked.

      “Please, Mr. Liam, don’t go,” one of them said, looking up at him.

      “You can stay in my bed,” the other one said.

      Liam grinned and managed to untangle their little arms from his legs, ruffling their hair. “I’ll come back.”

      As they left, Elisabeth said, “You’re really good with kids.”

      “I like them.” The grin was still on his face. “I hope I have—” He stopped abruptly, and his smile faded.

      Did he hope to have kids of his own? Why would that thought make him so sad?

      You’re being nosy, Elisabeth told herself. Never mind that she was an investigator and she was always observing people. She didn’t want to wonder about Liam or his life. She wasn’t even sure it was a good idea to partner with him. She just wasn’t used to working with someone. She usually only depended on herself, and that was what she was comfortable with.

      That thought suddenly made her feel very alone.

      She shook it off and refocused on Liam. “If Joslyn is pregnant, that might be what had spurred her to run away. She’d want to protect her baby.”

      Elisabeth also told Liam what Tiffany had said—keeping Tiffany’s name out of it, as she’d requested—about Joslyn witnessing her ex-boyfriend murdering someone.

      “We need to look into that murder,” Liam said. “Joslyn said she had no evidence, but with our skills and training, we might find something she missed. And to start, we could look into the men who attacked us today.”

      “Did you notice their clothes? They all wore purple and gray. Was it a uniform? Are they part of some organization?”

      Liam hesitated, then said, “Gang colors.”

      Elisabeth thought about it. “Maybe. There are a lot of Filipino gangs up and down the West Coast. But they’re mostly in the big cities.”

      “They could be from one of the cities. That murder Joslyn witnessed might be important enough to make them drive to Sonoma.” Liam looked thoughtful. “I have a friend who used to be LAPD. He could chat with someone from the gang task force. But that’s just for Los Angeles.”

      “I’ll call some of my contacts with the San Francisco FBI.”

      “Maybe Detective Carter has contacts in Portland and Seattle.”

      “We have to find a way to put Joslyn’s ex-boyfriend in jail, just like Joslyn said,” Elisabeth said. “Until then, none of us will be safe.”

       THREE

      “The Bagsic gang?” Elisabeth paused in the act of unlocking her apartment door. Next door, her neighbor’s dog barked frantically at them from behind the closed front door.

      Liam nodded as he tucked his cell phone back in his pocket. “Nathan didn’t even have to ask his friends in the LAPD. He recognized the colors right away.”

      “So he’s encountered the gang before?” Elisabeth let them inside, pausing to deactivate the security alarm. The dog’s barking leveled off as they went inside.

      Liam’s first impression of her apartment was cream and sand, neutral colors, but rather than being soft or soothing, the decor felt almost sterile. Her furniture was all modular and new, although inexpensive, and everything was clean lines, simple design. Even the Christmas wreath on the front door had only simple gold balls decorating it. There were no other Christmas decorations. It struck Liam as being a sort of fortress rather than a home.

      Elisabeth turned to look at him, and he realized she was waiting for an answer.

      “Nathan used to be in the narcotics unit. He sometimes had to deal with the Bagsics, although they weren’t as active in his district. They deal in crystal meth.”

      Elisabeth nodded and headed to the kitchen. “Want anything to drink? Water?”

      “Yeah, thanks.”

      He’d jumped at her suggestion that they go to her apartment to do their research, partly because the internet connection at his place wasn’t always reliable, and partly because he was reluctant to bring her to the shabby duplex he rented on the outskirts of town. Focused on building his skip-tracing business, utilizing the computer skills he’d learned in the military, he hadn’t bothered with furnishings even in the eighteen months he’d been home. So he had one small card table to hold his computer and exactly three chairs. He had no curtains at the front window and he still didn’t even have a bed frame for his mattress. His sister-in-law Monica had just forced a garage-sale couch on him.

      But from the day he’d moved in, he’d had pictures of his family and friends on the windowsill. He displayed his signed Buster Posey baseball and other mementos, like a slightly misshapen pottery bowl that his deceased sister had made for him when she was in high school. It held some Celtic coins and a claddagh ring that had belonged to his mother. He also displayed his vintage watch collection—nothing too expensive, but special to him because they had belonged to family members—and a few paperback books.

      In contrast, Elisabeth’s apartment had no personal touches. No pictures on the narrow white mantel above the living room’s small fireplace, no mementos on the side table. There were the framed diplomas on the wall for her college degrees in psychology and criminal justice, and the multiple computer monitors set up on a table in a tiny dining room.

      He realized that the apartment wasn’t a fortress—she was. What had СКАЧАТЬ