Her Sworn Protector

“I was in the car, waiting.”

She made the natural assumption. “You were the brother?”

He nodded so slowly she thought his head hadn’t moved. “I was the brother.” And then his voice hardened. “I should have been the one who went in, not him, but there was a news bulletin on the radio and I wanted to hear the end of it. So Bobby hopped out of the car and went into the deli. The next thing I knew, there were gunshots and then this tall, skinny guy, still holding a piece, came running out. It was as if I saw the whole thing that had happened inside in slow motion. I yelled out that I was a cop, told the guy to stop. When he didn’t, I shot him.” He didn’t add that he’d looked into the store and saw Bobby on the ground in a pool of his own blood, or that the robber had turned his weapon on him and was about to fire when he killed him.

“It was a clean shoot.”

She said it with such confidence, he had to look at her. He would have said she was pandering, but there was nothing to gain. So he shrugged it off. “Wilkins didn’t see it that way.”

Wilkins, she decided, was a man that people could easily hate. “They brought you up on charges?” she asked incredulously.

“No, I was cleared.” But it had been close for a while. IAB had everyone afraid of coming forward. It was as if, to prove everyone was vigilant, a scapegoat had to be sacrificed. “And then I quit.”

If there were no charges, he should have remained to work toward his pension. To leave seemed foolish. “But why?”

He’d thought of the police force as his family. The family—except for Bobby—that he had never actually had. When Bobby died, and everyone on the force backed away while the investigation was ongoing, he felt as if he’d lost everything. His marriage, such as it was, fell apart. So, he’d shut down and backed away himself.

“Didn’t seem to be any purpose to staying on a force that turns against you just when you need support.” And then his own words played themselves back to him. His expression hardened as he turned to her. He looked formidable. “Why are you asking all these questions?”

“Because I want to know,” she replied simply.

That still didn’t tell him anything. “Why? We’re strangers.”

Her answer surprised him. “Only because you want it that way.” When he looked at her quizzically, she added, “Me, I make friends with everyone.”

She was making assumptions. “Maybe I don’t want any friends.”

“Everyone wants friends,” Kady countered quietly. “You just might not know it.”

“Same thing,” he insisted.

“No,” she replied, her voice as firm as her belief, “it’s not.”

“We’re here,” he told her, pulling up into the parking lot.

And none too soon, he added silently.

Chapter 4

It was only after Kady had gotten together with the sketch artist, bringing to life the man she’d seen murder two innocent people, that she remembered. Remembered that the rookie policeman that she’d worked over in the E. R. that night Byron had recreated for her had died shortly after he’d been brought in. Died despite all her best efforts to save him. The damage had been too extensive.

Numbed, she looked around to see if she could glimpse Byron, but he was nowhere to be seen. Kady sighed inwardly. She’d been so involved in trying to secure bits and pieces of information from Byron, she’d missed the elephant in the living room.

“Something doesn’t look right to you?” the technician asked, ready to hit another set of keys.

“No.” She forced herself to focus on the image that was coming together on the screen. This needed to be out of the way first. “You’re getting it.”

“Good, now about his hair…”

As soon as the sketch artist completed the composite, Byron materialized at her elbow, almost as if he’d been standing behind some invisible curtain. One moment he wasn’t there, the next, he was. It took everything she had not to jump. But inside, she could feel her adrenaline launch into high gear.

“How do you do that?” she wanted to know, turning to face Byron. “How do you suddenly just appear out of nowhere like that?”

The slightest hint of a smile whispered along his lips. She couldn’t decide if he was patronizing her. “I don’t. You just didn’t notice me because you were distracted.”

“I’d have to be dead not to notice you,” she told him matter-of-factly.

Kady wasn’t flirting with him, although God knew she’d done more than her share in med school, partying to shake off the stress of having to study all but nonstop for days on end. What she’d said had been a simple observation. She’d come to realize that Byron didn’t say much verbally, but his presence certainly did. He had a commanding aura about him that turned all eyes in his direction. He was what her younger sister, Tania, would have referred to as drop-dead gorgeous.

Noting the way he handled himself, and because he’d once been a cop, Kady couldn’t help wondering just how many people had dropped dead because of him.

There was an air of danger about Byron, and yet, for some reason, he made her feel safe.

Byron pretended that he hadn’t heard her comment. Instead he asked, “Ready to go?” directing the question more to the man sitting at the computer than to her.

The computer technician nodded, then pushed up the glasses that had slid down his nose. “We’re finished. Unless there’s something else?” he added, looking at Kady.

“No, that’s him,” Kady said, taking one last look. “That’s the man I saw leaving Mr. Plageanos’s bedroom.”

“Then she’s all yours,” the tech told Byron.

After thanking the technician, she rose and hurried after Byron, already headed for the door. Catching up, she pressed her lips together. She had no idea how to start. Full speed ahead was ordinarily her style, but it didn’t seem to quite fit here. Part of her just wanted to let it go.

Still, she didn’t want Byron to think that she was crass or insensitive. She wanted him to know that although she did deal with death on occasion, it wasn’t just something she shrugged off without a backward glance. His brother had lost too much blood by the time she’d gotten to him. It wasn’t a matter of her being in above her head, or not having enough expertise to save him. The man had been beyond anyone’s ability to save. He’d needed a miracle and the hospital and she were fresh out of miracles that night.

That didn’t make it any less of a loss. Not to her. Not to Byron.

Lost in thought, she’d managed to fall a little behind. “I’m sorry about your brother,” she said to his back.

Leading the way out of the precinct to his vehicle, Byron looked over his shoulder at her. “What?”

“Your brother. Bobby.” She’d remembered his name the moment the circumstances had come back to her. Almost skipping to cut the distance, she caught up to Byron, then continued to take long strides to match his pace. “He died that night. I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”

He’d spent some time hating her, hating the hospital, the ambulance drivers, everyone. And then he’d turned that hate on himself. It never got him anywhere, but that was just the way things were. He was over it, mostly. He just hadn’t forgiven himself yet.

Byron pulled open the passenger door for her, then rounded the hood and got in on his side. She’d already buckled her belt by the time he got in.

“Wasn’t your fault.” The words were short, staccato, as if they were being fired out rapidly. “It was mine.”

The wealth of guilt she heard in his voice was staggering. Had he been carrying that around all this time? It was a miracle that he hadn’t self-destructed.

Byron pulled out of the lot, his profile rigid. A lesser woman would have backed away. But she had started this; she was going to see it through.

“You had no way of knowing what would happen to him,” she said gently.

Knowing or not, that didn’t change what he should have done. “I should have gone in and gotten my own damn cheese.”

Her heart went out to him. He couldn’t continue to carry this burden, couldn’t continue beating himself up about it. “Things happen for a reason. Maybe you were supposed to stay alive.”