But then she remembered that someone had not only managed to sneak into her house and tried to kill her, but that Lucas was out there looking for the person responsible. She hoped he had a dozen guns with him.
And a flamethrower.
Brooding on the thought of Lucas in danger, Mia barely noticed Max driving them along the outskirts of town, heading toward the small church south of Shreveport. Tony would hate the thought of being surrounded by a bunch of people who turned their backs on him when he was alive, but the congregation would no doubt comfort his mother.
Mia remained lost in her dark thoughts as Max slowed the vehicle to turn onto a narrow dirt path.
Her companion abruptly broke the silence. “He’s one of the good guys, you know.”
Turning her head, Mia realized that Max was sending her concerned glances.
“Excuse me?”
“Lucas,” Max clarified, clearly assuming that she was brooding on the man who’d crashed into her life like a wrecking ball. “He can be an arrogant ass—”
“No kidding,” she muttered.
“But there’s no one I’d rather have at my back.”
Mia studied her companion’s profile as he turned his attention back to the road. She drummed an absent finger on her leg, a voice in the back of her mind warning that she should ignore Max’s soft words.
Unfortunately, the curiosity to know everything possible about Lucas was overwhelming.
“Is that why you’re partners in ARES?” she asked.
Max’s jaw tightened. “We’re not partners. We’re brothers.”
His voice held the same fierce intensity as Lucas’s when he mentioned the men who worked with him.
“Lucas is clearly closer to you than his own family,” she said. “I suppose escaping from the Taliban together formed a bond that most of us will never understand.”
Max shot her a quick glance. “Did he tell you what happened?”
She grimaced. She’d heard the edge of pain in Lucas’s voice when he’d discussed his time in the Middle East, which was why she hadn’t pressed him for more information than he was willing to offer.
“Just the basics,” she said. “I don’t think he likes to talk about that time.”
“No.” Max’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles white. “It’s not something any of us want to remember.” There was a long pause as he slowed to study the GPS. Mia, however, sensed that he was actually using the distraction to consider his next words. “You should know that he had the chance to walk away.”
“I don’t understand.”
“His father is a very powerful man.”
Mia released a sharp, humorless laugh. Just the thought of Senator St. Clair was enough to give her frostbite.
If Lucas’s mother had been a controlling bitch, his father had been an intimidating, emotionless bully.
“Yeah, I know,” she breathed.
Max turned onto a pathway that was even narrower, the trees draping over the top to form a canopy.
“Our captors negotiated with the bigwigs in the State Department to trade him,” Max told her, wincing as his expensive vehicle jolted over the roots that bisected the road.
Mia could easily imagine the senator marching into the State Department and demanding that they interfere to rescue his son. Not out of love. But because he was the last St. Clair. A precious commodity.
“Trade him for whom?”
Max turned a corner and came to a halt at the sight of the small church with a muddy parking lot that was tucked among the cypress trees.
Putting the SUV in reverse, he made a U-turn and pulled onto a mossy patch of ground. Obviously he wanted to be ready in case they needed a quick getaway. Mia was okay with that.
She didn’t think that the killer would be lurking in the church to attack her, but she didn’t want to linger after the funeral to answer uncomfortable questions.
Switching off the engine, Max unhooked his seat belt and swiveled to face her. “It wasn’t ever revealed who was supposed to be traded.” He returned to their conversation, his expression shadowed as he thought back to the horror of war. “But Lucas assumed it was an Al Qaeda leader who was being held in one of our black sites.” Mia could only guess that a black site meant one of the secret prisons used by US officials to interrogate prisoners. “Lucas refused to accept the deal.”
Mia suddenly felt sick. Lucas could have been safe. He could have been home where he belonged. Instead he’d stayed in a place that still gave him nightmares.
“Why?”
Max turned his head to study the nearby trees, the tense set of his shoulders revealing he was on high alert as his gaze scanned for any lurkers in the shadows.
“He said he wouldn’t be responsible for releasing a terrorist back into the world. He couldn’t live with himself if he discovered that the bastard later managed to pull off an attack and kill innocents.”
She gave a slow nod. “I get that.”
Max’s lips twisted. “That wasn’t the only reason he stayed.”
“Why—” Mia bit off her words, suddenly recalling Lucas explaining how they’d gotten out of the prison. Each of them had a duty that had to be carried out. “The escape.”
“Yep.” Max held her gaze. “We’d already started our planning and the very foundation of getting out of the prison depended on Lucas talking the guard into giving him the keys to our cells.”
“He wasn’t going to leave you behind,” she murmured.
“No.”
Mia shivered. She couldn’t even imagine what sort of courage it took to turn your back on the opportunity to walk away from hell. Who would have blamed him? Certainly not the men who’d shared his prison.
But he’d faced his worst fears and put the needs of his companions above his own.
“Why are you telling me this?” she demanded.
Max studied her with an unreadable expression. “Because I know he hurt you in the past.”
Mia jerked with an unexpected pain. She should have suspected that Lucas would tell his friends about their painful history. It wasn’t like it was a big secret. Still, the thought of having Lucas’s friends knowing that she’d been found unworthy of the great St. Clair heir made her cringe with the humiliation that’d plagued her for fifteen years.
“Yeah, well, he wasn’t quite so reluctant to walk away when I knew him,” she said in harsh tones.
Something that might have been sympathy softened the gray eyes. “We all hopefully learn from our mistakes.”
“Yes, we do.” Her tight smile assured her companion that she’d definitely learned from her own error in judgment.
Max grimaced, but he refused to back down. “You can trust him, Mia,” he assured her. “He won’t walk away again.”
She hunched a shoulder. That was the fear, of course.
She could make up a thousand reasons why she continued to battle against Lucas. Bitterness. Revenge. Indifference.
But the truth was . . . she was terrified he was going to hurt her again.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked, her voice a mere whisper.
“Because for fifteen years he’s regretted losing you.”
She gave a sharp shake of her head. “If he truly regretted his decision, he wouldn’t have waited all this time to come back.”
Without warning, Max was twisting to the side, reaching to grab a large manila envelope off the backseat. Then with a flick of his wrist, he tossed it into her lap.
“I think this will prove how much he cared.”
Mia glanced at her companion in surprise. “What is it?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Max said, his hand reaching out to lightly touch her cheek. “But don’t forget what happened to Pandora. If you’re happy with your life as it is, I would suggest that you toss the information in the trash.”
Mia touched the envelope, an odd unease fluttering in the pit of her stomach.
It wasn’t thick enough to hol
d more than a few pages, maybe a photo, but she still felt as if she had a live rattlesnake in her lap.
Did she open it or didn’t she? Was she happy with her life?
Mia sucked in a deep breath, shoving the envelope into her purse. That was a question that was going to have to wait until after the funeral.
Chapter Fifteen
Lucas parked at the Ramon Landscaping office building and walked the short distance to Mia’s house. He didn’t actually think he would be lucky enough to catch the killer lurking in plain sight. But he wanted to scope out the area on foot.
It’d been impossible to do any investigating yesterday. The house had been cordoned off as a crime scene as Detective Cooper had directed his men to collect the evidence. The man had grudgingly allowed Lucas to gather up Mia’s clothes and toiletries, but he’d made sure Lucas was escorted from room to room until he was firmly shoved out the door.
Lucas had briefly considered making a phone call. One word to the state attorney’s office and he’d have carte blanche to stay, regardless of Detective Cooper’s “protocols.” But there wasn’t much he could do in the dark, and it seemed preferable not to piss off the authorities who were just doing their job.
Lucas had instead concentrated on finding a safe place for Mia to stay when she left the hospital.
Now he approached the house from the alley, pausing to determine how hard it would be to sneak through the yard and into the back door.
The answer was . . . that was easy as hell.
A car could use the alley to avoid the main street and park behind the garage or the neighbor’s Dumpster.
It certainly wouldn’t take an expert to sneak up to the house without being seen.
With a muttered curse he headed across the backyard, his eyes on the ground for any indication of tracks. Unfortunately the half dozen people who’d been wandering around yesterday had trampled the mud, so it was impossible to make out a specific set of footprints.
Halting near the house, he studied the best way to try and peek in.
From his position he couldn’t see anything. He moved to the stairs that led to the small porch. His jaw clenched as he realized that he could easily see through both the kitchen and back door windows.
This was where the intruder had been standing the first night he’d been in the house. And where he must have been standing yesterday morning to make sure the coast was clear before sneaking into the kitchen.
Lucas’s furious thoughts were interrupted as he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.
There was someone creeping through the hedge toward the side of the house.
Keeping his gaze locked on the back door, Lucas loosened his muscles and concentrated on slowing his breathing. He wasn’t as well-trained as Rafe or Hauk in hand-to-hand combat, but he could hold his own when necessary.
Focusing on his surroundings, he used his senses to make sure there wasn’t more than one lurker in the area. Then, turning to jog down the stairs, he pretended he was headed for the garage before he was abruptly spinning to launch himself toward the intruder.
His shoulder connected with the man’s head as he knocked him backward. There was a low grunt as he landed on top of the stranger, knocking the air from his lungs.
Using his weight to pin the man to the ground, Lucas planted his forearm across the man’s chest. Then, reaching to his side, he pulled out his gun.
There was a choked sound of fear as the captive began to struggle in earnest.
“Don’t move,” Lucas snapped, at last taking time to study the man beneath him.
He was older than Lucas had expected. The thin face was heavily lined with wrinkles and his body had the gaunt thinness of an addict. Drugs? Alcohol? Maybe both. His pale eyes were bloodshot and watery, and his teeth beginning to rot.
That didn’t mean he didn’t have a wiry strength as he tried to shove Lucas away.
“Get off me,” the man rasped. “I’m calling the cops.”
“Good,” Lucas said, allowing his forearm to slide up so it was less than an inch from the man’s throat. “We can tell them I caught you trespassing on Ms. Ramon’s property.”
The pale eyes darted to the side as he tried to come up with a lie. “I wasn’t trespassing,” he at last muttered.
“Don’t screw with me,” Lucas growled. “I’m not in the mood.”
“I’m Carl Greene,” he blubbered, confirming Lucas’s initial suspicion. “I’m a neighbor.”
“You’re still trespassing.”
“You don’t have any proof.”
Lucas shook his head. Was the man an idiot? He was clearly on Mia’s property.
Still, if the man needed to be convinced to cooperate, Lucas didn’t mind pushing his weight around. Or in this case, his name.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
The man scowled. “Why should I?”
“My name is St. Clair and I’m the son of a retired senator.”
There was a flicker in the pale eyes that assured Lucas the man recognized the name. And the power behind it.
His features settled into a petulant expression. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”
With a cold disdain that would have made his father proud, Lucas stared down at the man. “No, you’re supposed to realize that if it comes to the authorities believing my word or yours, you don’t have a chance in hell of winning.”
Carl didn’t argue. He even stopped struggling to get away. Maybe he was smarter than Lucas first assumed.
“What do you want from me?” he demanded.
Lucas cautiously rose to his feet. He kept his gun trained on Carl, watching as the man scrambled upright and nervously tugged on his stained sweatshirt that looked like it’d been found in the trash.
“You’ve been watching Ms. Ramon?” he demanded.
Carl nervously licked his lips, his eyes darting to the side. “I’ve visited her once or twice to ask if she needed any help around the house,” he said. “It’s only neighborly.”
Lucas snorted in disgust. There were few things that he hated more than a pervert who preyed on the innocent.
“And spent every other evening peeking out your window at her,” he spat out.
Carl hunched a shoulder. “A man can do what he wants in his own house—”
“Shut up and listen,” he interrupted.
The man flinched. He might be willing to creep through the dark, but he was a coward at heart. “What do you want?”
Lucas hesitated, carefully considering his words. The more time he spent with Carl Greene the less likely he appeared to be a suspect. After all, it seemed highly unlikely he had the ability or the motivation to track Tony to Houston and shoot him in the street.
Still, he had the proximity to Mia to easily sneak into her house, and no doubt a stash of prescription drugs that he could have crushed up and tossed in the coffee.
Lucas had to be certain he wasn’t responsible.
“Someone tried to poison Ms. Ramon this morning,” he abruptly revealed, closely watching the man’s reaction.
“Poison?” There was genuine bafflement on the thin face. “That’s why all those cops were here?”
“Yes.”
There was a momentary surge of relief in the pale eyes that Carl swiftly replaced with concern. Lucas narrowed his gaze. The man had been worried that Mia had called the cops because of him, but there was no mistaking the fact that he didn’t know anything about the poison.
Now the question was whether or not Carl had seen anything during his hours of peeking at Mia, to help find out who had been responsible for the poisoning.
“Is she okay?” Carl demanded. “I didn’t see an ambulance.”
“She’s recovering,” Lucas said.
The man glanced toward Mia’s house. “Will she be home soon?”
Lucas folded his arms over his chest. Mia wasn’t coming back here. Period. Even if he failed in all his attempts to convince her that her future was with him, this ho
use was off-limits. Not only because Carl Greene was next door; there was no way in hell she could forget that someone had managed to sneak inside and tried to kill her.
He kept his thoughts to himself.
He instead turned the conversation in the direction he wanted. “I think you’re missing the big picture here.”
“What big picture?”
“There was an attempt on Ms. Ramon’s life.” Lucas allowed a humorless smile to curve his lips. “Where do you think they’ll look for the person responsible?”
Carl was stumped by the question. “How should I know?”
Lucas rolled his eyes. The man had clearly fried the majority of his brain cells.
“If I was a detective I’d start with the man next door who was accused of trying to kill his girlfriend.” He spoke slowly, as if he was speaking to a child.
“How did you know that I . . .” Carl’s eyes widened as he realized there was something more pressing to be worried about than how Lucas knew he’d tried to run down his girlfriend. “Shit. You ain’t pinning this on me,” he rasped, taking an awkward step backward.
Lucas shrugged. “You’re the most obvious suspect. You live a few feet away, with easy access to the crime scene, and you have a history of violence toward women.”
Carl raised an unsteady hand. “Why would I want to hurt her?”
“My guess is that she shut down your efforts to get to know her,” Lucas said. Even though he didn’t think the man was involved, he wanted him scared enough that he would cooperate when he got to the questions he needed answered. “That can piss off a man who thinks women owe him a good time.”
Carl gave a panicked shake of his head. “Look, that thing with my girlfriend was a one-off. I was high on painkillers and she was a bitch,” he babbled, sweat forming on his brow. “I never intended to hurt her. I just wanted to give her a scare.”
“Where were you this morning?”
The man bristled with a combination of fear and anger. “Where the fuck do you think I was?” he snapped. “I have no money, no car, and no friends. I was here.”
Hmm. No car. That meant he couldn’t have been the one who traveled to Houston or tried to run Mia off the road. Yet another confirmation he wasn’t the one trying to kill Mia.