Chapter 22
Connor’s hands were fisted as he paced Raven’s small hospital room. He hated that she was here. That she had to wear an oxygen mask. That someone had hurt her at his own fucking base, somewhere she should have been safe.
Was it Xander? But then, who the fuck was the shooter and the kid Ethan had found? Paid help?
A knock at the door had his gaze lifting. He thought it might be the doctor. Instead, Ryan stepped in, closely followed by Ethan.
“Hey.” Ryan looked at Raven, then back to Connor. “How’s she doing?”
“Doctor said all her vitals are fine. We just need to wait for her to wake up.”
Ethan’s brows tugged together. “I’m so fucking sorry I left her. The guy I caught was a decoy.”
“Who was he?” Connor growled.
“Some teenager who was paid to loiter around the firehouse and run from me.”
“Paid by who?” Ryan asked, more calm in his voice than Connor possessed.
“He couldn’t tell me. Someone found him online, cold-messaged him with a fake account and paid him half before and said he’d get the other half when the job was complete. I’ll see what I can do about working with the kid to trace the transfer.”
Connor’s fists tightened. “How did someone get into the building to set off the gas?”
“Cameras show a hooded man broke through the window in the sleeping quarters.” Ethan’s jaw tensed. “He entered less than a minute after I left. Then he must have jammed the door to lock her in the apparatus bay and left the cannister just inside the area with Raven before getting out of there.”
“There are two of them,” Connor said. “Nathaniel must be helping Xander.”
A heavy silence passed, because they all had to be thinking the same thing—that Connor was right. The assholes had tried to shoot him and gas Raven at the same time.
“Why?” Connor said, almost to himself. “Why kill Lottie and try to frame Raven? Why gas her and attempt to shoot me?”
“He tried to discredit her, but that didn’t work,” Ryan said. “Then he tried to frame her for murder. Now he’s escalated to this.”
“Maybe.” Connor’s mind moved quickly. “Or he knows she told me everything, and he followed through on his threat.”
“How would he know?” Ryan asked.
“I don’t know. He always seems to know a hell of a lot more than he should.”
Ethan frowned. “Have you got her phone?”
Connor grabbed her cell from the bedside table and handed it to him.
Ethan tapped a few things on the screen—then cursed.
A band wrapped around Connor’s chest. “What?”
Ethan turned the phone off before looking at Connor.
“There’s an app on here. It’s in one of her folders, so I’m guessing she didn’t even see it.
It’s basically spyware. It listens through the phone’s microphone.
Not just to calls. Whenever the phone is on, the app can listen to any ambient audio.
Conversations. Background noise. Anything within range. ”
“The fuck?” Ryan growled.
Black rage tinged Connor’s vision. He wanted to punch something. To ram his fist into a wall or some glass, or hell, the fucker’s face. “So the piece of shit heard her confide in me last week, and he tried to kill me.”
Ryan inched closer, his voice hardening. “We’re going to nail this guy.”
Connor wanted to do more than that.
A breathy whimper sounded from the bed.
Connor spun.
Raven’s eyes scrunched before opening.
Two strides and he was by her side, dropping into the seat beside her bed and taking her hand. “Hey. You’re awake.”
She frowned at him before pulling down her mask. “Connor?”
“Yeah, honey. I’m here. We’re in the hospital. You inhaled a chemical gas, but doctors say you’re gonna be okay.”
Her frown deepened, and she glanced up at Ryan and Ethan before looking back at him. “He texted me.”
“What?”
“Xander. He said, ‘Remember what happened to the last person you told?’ I was so scared for you. I tried to get out but I couldn’t.”
Xander had texted her. That was basically a fucking admission of guilt.
“Are you okay?” Her gaze ran over his body as if searching for injury.
“I’m fine.” He’d need to tell her about the shooter in the forest, but that could wait. Too much was going on right now.
“What about my parents?” She suddenly tried to sit up. “Are they safe? Is someone—”
“Joel’s still there.” He touched her shoulder to steady her. “He went in to check on them after we told him what was going on, and I believe he’s currently playing bridge with them.”
She closed her eyes. “Thank God. Everyone’s okay.” When she opened them again, they were big pools of sadness. “But he knows.”
He didn’t want to tell her this part. “Ethan found something on your phone.”
She looked at Ethan, then back to Connor. “What?”
“An app that records audio.”
Her jaw dropped. “He’s…he’s been listening to me?”
“Whenever your phone is on, he can hear.”
Her face paled. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
He leaned closer. “Hey. It’s going to be okay. He’s not going to hurt you or anyone you care about.”
But he knew what she was thinking. That Xander had already hurt her. He’d threatened her and the people she loved. Violated her privacy.
A knock sounded at the door. Ward didn’t wait for a response before bursting into the room, a young male deputy behind him.
The sheriff cleared his throat. “Raven, good to see you awake.”
This time, Connor helped her sit up.
“Did you catch the person who released the gas?” she asked.
“Afraid not. We’re dusting for prints, but if the perp was wearing gloves, we won’t find anything.” He adjusted his belt. “You know who might have done this to you?”
Her gaze flicked to Connor before returning to Ward. “My ex-fiancé—Alexander Stevens.”
The deputy scribbled something in his book.
“Alexander? I’ve known that boy since he was a kid.” Ward shook his head. “He wouldn’t do this.”
“He would.”
“Why do you say that?”
Her mouth opened and closed, like she wasn’t sure how much she should say.
Connor set his hand on hers. “The asshole doesn’t like that she’s moved on.”
They couldn’t tell Ward everything. Not yet.
Xander still had Sampson’s murder weapon, which had Raven’s prints on it.
Her signature was also all over a money-laundering business.
They had to find a way to prove her innocence before telling any law enforcement, particularly Ward, who would choose the easy way out and arrest her.
Ward’s eyes narrowed at Connor, like he knew there was more to the story, before looking back at Raven. “Anything else you’d like to share?”
She shook her head.
“Well, it’s not much for us to go on, so don’t expect any miracles.” Ward glanced around the room, annoyance in his eyes. “We’ll let you know when we have an update.”
As Ward headed out, Connor pressed a kiss to Raven’s temple. “I’ll be right back.” He followed the sheriff out. “Ward.”
The older man turned. “Yes?”
“There was also a shooter in the forest.”
“What are you talking about?”
Connor pushed up the sleeve of his sweater to show Ward the bandage. “Bullet grazed my arm. I think Nathaniel Winters is helping Xander Stevens.”
“The kid who works at the bar?”
“He’s not a kid. He’s an adult. And yes.”
“Why would they work together?”
“They’ve been close since high school. Nathaniel’s helping his friend.”
Ward sighed like he was being forced to listen to a fictional story or something. “So because Nathaniel is friends with Xander, you think one of them broke into the old firehouse and gassed your girlfriend while the other fired at you in the forest?”
Okay, now Connor wanted to hit him. “Yes.”
“You get a description of the shooter?”
“No. He was too far away, and I was too busy trying to avoid a bullet to the skull.”
“Why didn’t you shoot or catch him? You’re former special operations.”
“I prioritized getting to Raven.” Fuck, why was he even having to defend himself?
“This is even less to go on than the other shit, kid. But you share what you know with my deputy, like where exactly it took place, and I might send a guy to look for a bullet.”
Might?
Then Ward just turned and walked down the hall like he wasn’t the biggest waste of space this town had ever seen.
Raven dug her nails into her palm as the soft hum of the engine vibrated beneath her in the truck. It was evening and she’d barely spoken since they’d left the hospital. But then, Connor hadn’t either.
Was he as stuck in his head as she was?
She felt sick and violated and angry all at once.
Xander had put a listening device on her phone. He had to have done it back in North Dakota. That was the last time they’d been together. A recording app on her phone and a tracker on her car.
The asshole.
She’d thought she hated him before. She’d thought that what she’d felt for him a month ago was as dark as it could get. But this was worse.
When they pulled up to Connor’s house, she almost felt nervous to get out of the truck. Like Xander was going to jump out and attack.
Connor was there though, curling an arm around her waist and leading her into the house.
“Hungry?” he asked, once the door closed after them.
She shook her head. “I might go upstairs and change.”
Polly had brought her a fresh change of clothes to the hospital, but she just wanted to be in some comfy sweats.
“I’ll come with you.”
Before she could tell him that was unnecessary, his hand was on her back and he was leading her up the stairs.
Inside the master bedroom, he checked the windows, the bathroom, and the walk-in closet before stopping in front of her. “I’m going to do a quick sweep of the house.”
She nodded.
One kiss to her temple and he was gone.
Then there was silence. It felt loud and heavy, especially in comparison to the hospital.
With a sigh, she stepped into the bathroom and pulled off her top. She was about to take off her jeans when she felt her cell in her back pocket. She slipped it out, finger hovering over the power key.
Ethan had deleted the app and checked the phone. He said it was clean. So why was she hesitating? Why did the mere sight of it make her want to drop the phone to the floor? Stomp on it. Kick it into the wall.
“Are you okay?”
Her gaze lifted to Connor’s reflection in the mirror. “I hate him.”
“Me too. I’m not even sure hate quite cuts it.”
“I feel so…violated. And angry.”
“Me too.” He touched her hip. “I have to tell you something.”
Her eyes flew up to meet his in the mirror, heart kicking at her ribs at the way he said the words. Like whatever he was about to tell her would make things worse. And she didn’t know if she could handle worse right now.
Still, she whispered, “Okay.”
In one swift move, he turned and lifted her so that she was sitting on the bathroom counter. “Someone shot at me.”
She gasped. “Who? Xander? When?”
“On my way back to you at base, someone shot at me through the forest. I assume it was Xander or Nathaniel. Whichever of them wasn’t attacking you.”
“Oh God! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. One bullet grazed my arm—”
“What?”
“Raven—”
“Show me.”
“It’s nothing.”
“If it’s nothing, then show me.”
With a sigh, he pulled off his sweatshirt.
The bandage was stark white against his tanned skin, making it look wrong and out of place. “Oh my God.”
He inched between her thighs and cupped her cheeks. “I’m fine.”
Tears suddenly pressed at her eyes. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you. What if he does to you what he did to Sampson? What if—”
“Nothing is going to happen to me. You hear me? Nothing.”
“You can’t—”
“I can. I’m telling you. I’m promising you.”
She tilted her head. “I wish I had your confidence.” But then, he hadn’t found his best friend’s dead body. That sort of thing changed the chemistry of the brain.
“You know what I think?”
Her gaze slipped back up to his. “That I’m in a hole I can’t dig myself out of?”
“No. I think his threats about turning you in for Sampson’s death and letting you take the fall for his illegal business are all bullshit.”
“I touched the knife, Connor. He has a murder weapon with my prints on it.”
“Okay. But I think he knows that if the murder is investigated, properly investigated, he’s not getting out of that unscathed. And if they dig into his business, it’s not just you who’ll go down.”
“When I found Sampson, I thought Xander would kill me. Instead, he laughed in my face when I said I was leaving. He told me that I could stay or run, he didn’t care.
Because he’d always own me. He told me about my connection to his business.
About how I’d touched a murder weapon. He wanted me scared. And he got what he wanted.”
“He’s not going to win for much longer, Raven. Do you hear me?”
The ringing of Connor’s phone made Raven jump.
He put it to his ear. “Ethan.”
There was a small pause, but in that pause, she felt the muscles in his body tense.
“Both of them?” Connor asked.
Another pause.
Connor’s eyes closed in obvious frustration. “Thanks.”
When he looked at her, she almost didn’t want to ask. “More bad news?” Honestly, she wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
“Ethan spoke to Ward.” A muscle in Connor’s jaw clenched. “Xander and Nathaniel have alibis.”
“What kind of alibis?”
“They were with their ‘friends.’ Three guys who apparently confirmed their attendance at a get-together.”
“What a load of bullshit. They’re lying.”
“Fortunately, I never planned to rely on Ward to solve this.”
She focused on the bandage again, her heart giving that familiar kick at her ribs. The scared kind. The kind that made her want to stand in front of this man and protect him with her life.
“Hey.”
She looked back at him.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
She wanted to.
As if he heard her thoughts, he lowered his head and pressed a light kiss to her neck, right beneath her ear. So light, it was almost a whisper. “Trust me to protect us both, Raven. Please.”
She swallowed, closing her eyes as he kissed her again, this time on her jawline.
Long seconds of silence passed before, finally, she whispered, “I trust you.”
“Good. Lift for me.”
Without questioning what he was doing, she pushed herself up.
He removed her jeans and panties, then her bra. Without taking his eyes off hers, he removed his own clothes. Then he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the shower.
Finally, she felt safe.