Shadow Protector. Jenna Ryan

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СКАЧАТЬ blonde returned with their bagged dinners. “You want the steak wrapped, too, Logan?”

      He finished his beer. “No point. Give your dogs a treat, and put the dinner on my tab.”

      The woman flipped a dishtowel over her shoulder. “Your friend beat you to the punch there. He paid the bill on his way out.”

      Something unpleasant snaked through Sera’s stomach. Although she recognized it for the blend of dread and certainty it was, she settled for a mild, “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

      Logan assessed her as he returned the hat to his head. “He told you he wasn’t staying, Sera.”

      “And I’m just supposed to go with that? With this?” She fixed her gaze in the general vicinity of his eyes. “With you? No questions asked or really answered, and no choice in the matter?” Her control slipped a notch and she leaned forward. “Logan, Sig broke a mirror at the safe house and freaked over it for days. We were driving east within an hour of his partner’s death. ‘Gotta leave fast,’ he said. Yet, he went ten minutes out of his way because he wouldn’t go past the path lab where his partner’s body had been taken. Said he’d rather walk under a dozen ladders. He also didn’t tell anyone in the department where we were going, and I know his captain personally. He’s a forty-year man with commendations as long as my arm.”

      “What’s your point, Doctor?”

      Did she have one? Right then, Sera’s thoughts were too scattered to collect, let alone organize.

      It had to be exhaustion combined with a touch of hysteria that made her want to laugh. “You know what?” She pushed back. “I haven’t got a clue what I’m saying or why I’m even talking. I need air, space and no more Willie Nelson for at least twelve hours.”

      She also needed to be away from the man across the table. The ridiculously sexy cop who disliked cities and personal questions and quite possibly his old friend Sig at this moment.

      Standing, Logan drew her to her feet. “You look overwhelmed.”

      “You think?’

      “If it helps, Sig left your bags behind my truck.”

      “Sorry, Chief, not feeling any better here.”

      The shadowed look he cast her brought a sigh coupled with a strong desire to bolt.

      “Okay, fine. Message received. Sig’s trying to keep me safe, as a person and as a potential witness. What I’m still trying to process is why he brought me to you. He talked about a potential leak within the department, but please don’t tell me he suspects his own captain.”

      “Twenty years in homicide, ten in vice, what can I say, he’s jaded.”

      “You sure you don’t mean paranoid?”

      Pressing a hand to her hip, Logan eased her behind him as he forged a path to the door. “Sig’s a cautious man, Sera. He wants to keep you alive, and this was the best place he could think of to make that happen.”

      A man with no bottom teeth winked and offered her his drink.

      Logan’s unruffled, “Doctor, Billy,” had the leer fading to a scowl and the man scuttling backward so fast he almost knocked the plates from Nadine’s loaded arm.

      Sera tapped his back. “Care to explain that reaction?”

      “Billy’s father turned ninety-eight last June. Doc Prichard said he needed a vitamin shot. The old man died that night.”

      “Uh—well, hmm.” Unsure how to respond, Sera tried not to grin. “Ninety-eight, huh? Billy doesn’t really believe it was the vitamin shot—” She let an oblique hand motion finish the question. “Does he?”

      “Yeah, he does, and he’s not alone. Most of the people you’ll meet around here are perfectly normal, but for every fifty, there’s a Billy or a Jessie-Lynn. Rumor has it aliens grabbed Jess twelve years ago after the Founder’s Day parade.” Logan opened the door—and closed it in the face of a large, hairy man whose hand had been mere inches from Sera’s breast.

      Removing his hat, he placed it on her head and smiled just enough to momentarily steal her breath. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Dr. Hudson, but you’re not in Kansas any more. And while you might think the Emerald City is a little off the map—be warned, it has nothing on Blue Ridge, Wyoming.”

      HE SHOULDN’T HAVE said that, Logan thought as he started his Explorer. But, dammit, he didn’t want the burden of a targeted witness’s safety riding on his shoulders. Add in the fact that she was a jaw-dropping female of—what had Sig told him—twenty-nine, with credentials that shouldn’t be possible for someone her age and a body just made for trouble, and yeah, you could say he was pissed off. Mostly at himself for reacting the way he was, but partly at Sig for putting him in this position.

      He knew she didn’t remember him. Why would she? They’d never met face to face. Their one and only patch of common ground involved the age-old cop versus shrink battle. Was the suspect the police had arrested for a brutal crime fit to stand trial or not? On their particular patch, a trio of shrinks, whose number had included Sera, said no.

      Now, the way Logan saw it, he could let old resentments fester or, for Sig’s sake, put the past in its place and deal with the current situation.

      One glance at her face in profile, and he knew where he’d be going with that.

      Although she had to know his thoughts weren’t running along pleasant lines, she opted to keep their conversation relevant and, for the most part, impersonal.

      “The suspect was under surveillance when he disappeared, wasn’t he?” she asked.

      Logan shoved the Explorer in gear and his emotions in line. “His name’s Hugh Paxton, and yes, he was. He dropped out of sight a few months after I came to Blue Ridge.”

      She regarded him from under the brim of his hat. “Did you hear about that from Sig, or did your alien abductee return from the mother ship a gifted clairvoyant? “

      Humor stirred. “Jessie-Lynn has her moments, but the answer’s no on both counts. Remote as this town is, we have a local newspaper, and believe it or not, Internet access.”

      Pushing the hat back, she lowered her sunglasses. “I’m not a snob, Logan, whatever you might think—and God knows it probably isn’t flattering. I’m just a little—no make that a lot—out of my element here. I don’t usually see horses grazing outside San Francisco diners, and unless we wander into the wrong area of the city, big, hairy men seldom make a habit of grabbing women’s breasts.”

      “So, no conquest for Charlie, then. He’ll be bummed.”

      She laughed, and the sound of it sparked a sensation Logan didn’t need to feel in his groin. Keeping his eyes on the road, he returned to topic. “Paxton walked because the arresting officer screwed up, but he was the Blindfold Killer. Every cop on the coast knew it.”

      Sera regarded the dying orange glow in the western sky. “He’d have known the police were watching him, ergo, for a while at least, his desire for freedom must have outweighed his need to kill. Either that or he’d achieved his initial goal of eleven people СКАЧАТЬ