24. Ronan
Chapter 24
Ronan
H igh gear—there was no other speed, not now. They had to move quickly. It had only been three days since Jason Mercer’s death, but their window to catch Daniel was already closing.
Juliette was right: The only reason Daniel was still in the city was because he saw Ronan as a threat. He might not know that Ronan was onto him yet, but he clearly knew that Ronan and “Jenny” were closer than he’d like. That Ronan would believe her if she told him what a monster her husband was. As Deputy Sanchez had.
Daniel couldn’t let that stand. It was one thing to go up against your wife, especially when you were holding her mother hostage. It was another to cross a cop. And it was far easier to kill any officer who got in your way than to fight it out in court.
Ronan studied the wall in his office, the window covered in the pastel sticky notes he’d been using to sort his thoughts. The names of the men Daniel had hired to follow Juliette, possible hideouts, notes on the security cameras, and details about the bomb planted at Ronan’s home.
One section focused on Pathguard Technology, Charles’s security company, which had conveniently disabled Ronan’s front door camera while a bomber rigged the knob. Now they knew why: a new hire had joined last week. On paper, he had a clean record and extensive network engineering experience. According to Benjamin Shannon, all he had to do was shut off the feed at a precise time, and no one would discover that his résumé was a complete fabrication.
Ronan blinked at the scribbled notes. He was a ball of red string away from looking like a full-blown conspiracy theorist. He sighed and raised his fingertips to his head, rubbing his throbbing temples.
Ronan had no idea when Daniel would attack again or what he might have planned. But Daniel couldn’t wait long. Ronan highly doubted the sheriff had taken a month off—a week, tops, and that was already half gone. And he wouldn’t want a paper trail, plane tickets, which meant he’d need a day and a half to drive back home.
Today was the day. He could feel it in his bones.
And therein lay the problem. It took weeks to get approvals for a proper sting. They had a number of officers ready to go, but he’d need backup from private security, maybe friends in VICE. They might need more than he could rally in a few hours… presuming he had a few hours.
Ronan dropped his hands. He hated this. Hated that even here in his house, she might be in danger.
“There’s no faster way to end this than to put me in front of him.”
He turned as Juliette pushed through the office door. Dressed in her own clothes now, her hair wet.
“No.” He shook his head. “Fuck that.” Her eyes widened, but he amended, “Juliette, I need you alive. I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to you.”
Her eyes hardened. Not anger—guilt. “You wouldn’t be in danger at all if not for me.”
He edged around the desk. “Neither of us is in danger because of the other, and no one has ever been in danger because of you . We’re in danger because a psycho murderer has decided to take his tiny penis bullshit out on us.”
She cocked her head. “Tiny penis bullshit?”
“It’s all narcissistic insecurity.”
“At least you don’t have anything to worry about in that department,” she muttered, but it drew a smile to his lips. “Ronan… let me talk to him.”
“No way. But if you know how to contact him, you need to tell me now.” He was doing this wrong—he could feel it—but she couldn’t actually believe he’d let her visit a man who’d carved her up like a Thanksgiving turkey. And they’d already traced Daniel’s cell—still in Ravenbrook. Jason Mercer’s phone had yielded no contact information. She had no way to speak to him from a distance… so far as he knew.
Juliette crossed her arms. Her gaze was hard as stone. He could practically hear her molars grinding together.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I know what I’m doing here. I’m a detective.”
“He was the fucking sheriff. So try again.”
The strength in her voice made his chest feel lighter, but he said, “You need to make it out of this alive, and not only because I care about you.” Care about her? It was far more than that. But he pushed on, “You need to testify against him. We can’t let him win.”
“He won’t kill me.”
“He might.”
“He won’t . He doesn’t even have anyone watching me now. This is the cat-and-mouse portion of the game, where he lets me decide whether to run. If he sees me, he’ll gloat, threaten my mother. He’ll tell me what evidence he planted to make me look guilty for Jason’s death. I’m sure he hid something… somewhere.”
“So you expect me to wire you up, let you wander into his orbit, and hope you get a confession? I’m the one he’s after— I’m the one he’ll follow. You just said yourself that this isn’t the part of the game where he goes after you .” His cell buzzed, but he did not take his eyes from hers.
“A wire won’t work. But I can lure him to the motel. It’s quiet, you can get the other customers out of there, and?—”
“I can lure him to the motel, too. And more easily since I’m the one he wants to kill.” The fury in her gaze was making his stomach ache. “I’ve been up for hours, researching, strategizing, making calls. But none of my plans involve letting you get anywhere near that bastard. Do you understand?”
The cell buzzed again, and he glanced at the caller ID. Paddy . “Just give me a second, okay?”
She closed her mouth, but her eyes stayed tight, cheeks flushed with anger. When she nodded, he turned away and snatched his laptop, settling it on the front side of his desk. Daniel might have access to his cell, but he couldn’t get into the encrypted computer.
He felt Juliette stewing at his back, heard her step toward him. He had the fleeting thought that she might wrap her arms around him, show him they were on the same team. But all she did was stand there, her heat against his shoulder as he read Paddy’s message on the laptop’s screen: Flatfoot saw him leaving the club in that stupid-ass jacket. Lost him behind the warehouse complex.
Fuck . He must have a way around those cement walls. A tunnel? Nah. Had he paid someone to use the gates? Paddy had interviewed those working in the complex already, but none of them had said a word. Maybe Daniel had something on them, too.
Hold for now. Wait to see if he goes back inside , he replied back, but Juliette sighed.
“You’re not going to trap him, Ronan,” she said to his back. “He clearly knows your people are watching. He’s probably had an inside track here since I arrived.”
“Then why did you stay?” he asked, reading Paddy’s response: Moving units to the warehouse. We’ll see if we can figure out how he got through. Could still be inside.
“Sometimes things get quiet for weeks, even months. Occasionally, I delude myself into thinking that he’s actually given up.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “That’s no way to live.”
Her jaw tightened. “My mother’s alive. That’s all that ever mattered.”
“This will be over soon, okay?” Ronan turned back to the laptop. “You’ll never have to live like that again. I promise.” He meant every word, but his mind was elsewhere—to make it true, he had to plan. He had to catch this asshole.
They had to surround the strip without alerting Daniel—Juliette’s motel, too. Undercover officers needed to be briefed, and it would take at least two hours to get them mobilized. Right now, he had Paddy, five cars from the chief, and Charles’s security company.
Ronan opened another tab and fired off a new encrypted message to his brother. He could contact Pathguard himself, but Charles was spitting mad after realizing his security firm had nearly gotten Ronan killed. And it had taken no convincing for Charles to drop his phone’s encryptions for five minutes, listening while Ronan said this killer was too smart for him. The point had been to lull Daniel into complacency, feed his ego, but he was sure that Charles had enjoyed it.
Ronan frowned. Maybe he should just let this thing with his father go. Juliette had spent years running from a maniac, trying to keep her mother safe. He didn’t blame her for trying to kill Daniel. If Charles had killed their father to protect their own mother… was that really so different?
Plus, ever since he’d seen Daniel’s face, his mind had been flooded with violent fantasies—visions of strapping Daniel down and driving a blade into his chest, replicating every scar he’d inflicted on Juliette before letting him bleed out. If it came to it… he could hurt him. And he wouldn’t feel a single shred of remorse.
Ronan swallowed hard. No . He’d do this the legal way. It was worse to rot in jail, especially for a control freak like Daniel Graves. And while Ronan was his father’s son, he wouldn’t let that sadistic asshole’s genes get the best of him now.
The clacking of keys filled the room. Instructions. The names of the people they’d be working with.
We can do this , he thought on repeat in his head. We have to do this before that asshole leaves the state .
When he was finished, he closed the laptop and turned. Juliette was no longer watching him. The room was empty.
“Juliette?”
He pushed through the office door and into the hallway. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. Nor was she in the master bedroom. And… hadn’t his wallet been sitting on the end table?
The bathroom walls were still damp from her shower, but she wasn’t in there either. A chill crept up his back—nerves? But it wasn’t nerves ruffling his hair.
He turned slowly to the bedroom once more.
There were no operable windows in the bathroom, but there were three in the bedroom—floor-to-ceiling panes. All were closed. But as he approached, he could see that the sliding door had slipped open a crack, admitting the cold hiss of rain and chilly October breeze.
His hackles rose. He never left exterior doors unlocked, never even left his car unlocked— never .
He ran to the door and flung it wide. No, no, no. Where the hell had she gone? The motel? The club? Somewhere else entirely? She knew Daniel better than the rest of them, but she hadn’t shared anything that might be useful.
Fuck . He’d only wanted to protect her, but it seemed that she had no intention of letting him cut her out. With or without you.
Ronan raced out onto the back patio. He was soaked instantly, the heavy rain obscuring his vision, fogging the earth. But he could see the wooden fence at the back of the yard. The gate wasn’t open, but she’d likely gone out that way. Unless she’d backtracked around the front. There was no way to tell. Any footprints had already been washed away by the downpour.
If he were her, though… the back gate would be a fake-out. Too obvious.
He raced around the side of the house to the front gate and out onto the driveway, breath panting from his lungs. He knew before he made it to the sidewalk that she was gone. Whether she’d hailed a cab or ducked between the houses or even gone out the back way in a double-fake maneuver, Juliette was nowhere to be seen.
Those anguished eyes at his back might be the last time he saw her alive.