Chapter 3
Chapter Three
The afternoon light slanted through the bulletproof windows, casting long shadows across the apartment. Liza lay on the couch, her head still throbbing despite the painkillers Colt had sent, and watched Grant pace.
He’d been at it for the past hour. Kitchen to window. Window to door. Door back to kitchen. Like a caged animal looking for a way out.
She understood the feeling.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” she said.
He stopped mid-stride and turned to look at her. “Sorry. I’m not good at waiting.”
“Neither am I.” She shifted on the couch, trying to find a position that didn’t make her head pound. “What time is it?”
“Almost three.” He moved to the window, careful to stay to the side as he peered out. “Five more hours until dark.”
Five hours. It felt like an eternity.
“Tell me about her,” Liza said. “The full story. If I’m going to be running from this woman, I want to know what I’m up against.”
Grant was quiet for a long moment. Then he moved to the chair across from her, settling into it like he was preparing for battle.
“I met Ryan Caine twelve years ago,” he began. “She’d just been selected for our task force—youngest woman in Detroit PD history. Smart, driven, talented. She reminded me of…” He trailed off. “She reminded me of who I used to be. Before the job wore me down.”
Liza heard the weight in those words. “You trained her.”
“Yeah. Taught her everything I knew. Weapons, tactics, how to read a scene, how to survive.” His jaw tightened. “I was proud of her. Thought she was going to be something special.”
“What changed?”
“Eduardo Diaz.” Grant’s voice went hard.
“Drug dealer, killer, everything wrong with the city in one package. We’d been building a case against him for three years.
Caine was part of the team. And then…” He shook his head.
“I started noticing things. Evidence that went missing. Raids that came up empty because someone had tipped Diaz off. Witnesses who suddenly changed their stories.”
“She was feeding him information.”
“More than that. She was in love with him.” Grant leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I confronted her. Gave her a chance to come clean, to fix it. She looked me in the eye and told me to mind my own business.”
Liza could hear the betrayal in his voice, even now.
“So I went to internal affairs. Turned over everything I had. She ran before they could arrest her. Married Diaz within the month.” Grant’s hand went to his scar.
“Two years later, I finally brought Diaz down. Caught him red-handed in a deal that got one of our own killed. He’s serving life without parole. ”
“And Caine blamed you.”
“She swore she’d kill me. Made it her mission.
” He met Liza’s eyes. “First attempt was six months ago. Car bomb. I wasn’t in the vehicle, but my partner was.
He survived, barely. Second attempt, she tried to run me off the road.
Third time, she fired shots into my apartment.
Carefully placed sniper shots. She was playing with me. ”
Liza’s stomach turned. “How many attempts?”
“Seven, counting today. Each one more reckless than the last.” His voice was flat. “Internal affairs started investigating me instead of her. Said I was obsessed. That I was putting the department at risk by staying on the job. They gave me a choice—retire or be fired.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair doesn’t matter in politics. They needed someone to blame, and I was convenient.” The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable. “Twenty years on the force. Commendations, successful cases, lives saved. None of it mattered.”
Liza sat up slowly, ignoring the way her head protested. “So you came here.”
“Blaze called. Said I could use his cabin, clear my head, figure out what was next.” Grant’s laugh was hollow. “Guess I didn’t lose her as well as I thought.”
“Or she’s better at tracking than you gave her credit for.”
“Yeah.” He looked at her, really looked at her. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this.”
“Stop apologizing,” Liza said. “You didn’t pull the trigger. She did.”
Grant studied the woman on the couch and felt something shift in his chest. Most people would be hysterical by now.
Demanding protection, threatening lawsuits, falling apart.
But Liza Carmichael sat there with a concussion and a death threat hanging over her head, and all she wanted was information.
“Your turn,” he said. “Tell me why a woman who loves extreme sports is stuck running a bakery in Idaho.”
Her mouth quirked. “You noticed that, huh?”
“You don’t exactly scream pastry chef.”
“No, I don’t.” She was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing the pattern on the throw pillow. “I grew up in Vancouver. My parents were…complicated. Dad was a pilot, mom was a nurse. They fought constantly. The only peace I ever had was summers with Aunt Rose.”
Grant heard the softness in her voice when she mentioned her aunt.
“She taught me to bake. Said I had the gift—could taste things, understand flavors in a way most people couldn’t.” Liza smiled, but it was sad. “I loved those summers. Loved the bakery, loved watching her create things that made people happy. And then my parents divorced and the visits stopped.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.” She stretched her neck, wincing at the pounding in her temple. “After that, I spent my time trying to prove I wasn’t like them. Wasn’t someone who’d let life just happen to me. So I went skydiving. Learned to surf. Ran marathons. Anything that felt like living instead of just existing.”
“And the bakery?”
“Aunt Rose left it to me in her will. I hadn’t seen her in fifteen years, but she remembered.” Liza’s voice caught slightly. “The lawyer called three months ago. Said she’d left me everything. The bakery, the apartment, the recipes. All of it.”
Grant heard what she wasn’t saying. “You weren’t ready for it.”
“I was in New York. Had a life, a career, a fiancé.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Then I caught Richard in bed with another woman and my life imploded. So I drove his Mercedes through the bedroom window. They were just getting down to business.”
“You a fugitive?” he asked, only partially kidding.
“My foot slipped.” But her eyes gleamed with something that looked like satisfaction.
“Though watching his face when I told the police was pretty satisfying. Almost as satisfying as showing his lawyer the photos I had of him with his girlfriend—who happened to be married to a very important politician in New York.”
Grant felt his mouth curve. “Blackmail. I like it.”
“Self-preservation. Richard was going to press charges, ruin me, make sure I never worked again.” She met his eyes. “The photos made all that go away. Along with any illusions I had about love and happily-ever-afters.”
“So you came here.”
“Nowhere else to go. Figured I’d sell the bakery, take the money, start over in LA.” She looked around the apartment. “That was the plan, anyway.”
“Plans change.”
“Apparently.” She studied him. “What about you? What was your plan before all this?”
Grant was quiet for a long moment. The truth was, he hadn’t had a plan. Just anger and bitterness and a whole lot of nothing.
“I was going to hide,” he finally said. “Use Blaze’s cabin, feel sorry for myself, maybe figure out what a washed-up cop does with the rest of his life.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m trying to keep you alive.” He stood and moved to the window again, checking the street below. “Which means we need to go over some basics before we leave tonight.”
Liza watched Grant move to the window, all coiled tension and barely contained energy. There was something magnetic about him—the way he moved, the way he held himself like violence was always an option. It should have scared her. Instead, it made her feel safer than she had in months.
“What kind of basics?” she asked.
He turned from the window. “If we get separated. If something goes wrong. You need to know what to do.”
The seriousness in his voice sent a chill down her spine. “You think we’ll get separated?”
“I think we need to be prepared for anything.” He moved to sit on the coffee table, close enough that their knees almost touched.
“The cabin is about forty miles from here. Remote, off grid. Colt texted me the coordinates. If anything happens on the way there—if we have to run, if we get split up—you head north until you hit Forgiveness River, then follow it upstream. The cabin’s about three miles past where the river forks. ”
Liza tried to commit it to memory. “North. River. Fork. Three miles.”
“Good.” His voice was steady, reassuring. “If I tell you to run, you run. Don’t look back, don’t try to be a hero. Just get to safety.”
“What about you?”
“I can take care of myself.” But the way he said it made her think he’d done exactly that for most of his life.
“Grant—”
A sound outside made them both freeze. A scraping noise, like something moving against the building.
Grant was on his feet instantly, weapon in his hand. When had he grabbed that? Liza hadn’t even seen him move.
He motioned for her to stay down, then moved silently to the window. The tension in his shoulders was unmistakable.
Liza’s heart hammered against her ribs. Was it Caine? Had she come back to finish what she’d started?
Grant peered out carefully, then his shoulders relaxed. A moment later, he holstered the weapon.
“Cat,” he said, turning back to her. “Just a cat on the fire escape.”
Liza let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “Good grief. My heart is still racing.”
Grant moved back to the coffee table, but this time he sat closer. Close enough that she could feel the heat of him, smell the faint scent of gunpowder and pine that clung to his clothes.
“This is what it’s going to be like,” he said quietly. “Every sound, every shadow—we have to assume it’s her until we know it’s not.”
“How do you live like that?”
“You get used to it.” But the way he said it made her think he’d never really gotten used to it at all.