Backstreet Hero
Justine Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Copyright

Justine Davis lives on Puget Sound in Washington. Her interests outside of writing are sailing, doing needlework, horseback riding and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster – with the top down, of course.

Justine says that years ago, during her career in law enforcement, a young man she worked with encouraged her to try for a promotion to a position that was at the time occupied only by men. “I succeeded, became wrapped up in my new job, and that man moved away, never, I thought, to be heard from again. Ten years later he appeared out of the woods of Washington state, saying he’d never forgotten me and would I please marry him. With that history, how could I write anything but romance?”

Chapter 1

It was, Lilith Mercer thought as she rubbed at her shoulder, her own fault. She hadn’t been paying attention, and had walked right into some kid’s practical joke. And had landed ungracefully on her backside.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

She smiled at her concerned neighbor. “Except for my bruised dignity, I’m fine.”

“That was horrible,” Mrs. Tilly said. She’d come rushing out at the no doubt embarrassingly loud thud Lilith had made hitting the landing outside her front door. “You could have fallen all the way down those stairs.”

That fact hadn’t escaped Lilith. If she hadn’t managed to grab the stairway banister, the tumble down the concrete steps would have been ugly. Exiting her second-floor condo in a Monday morning rush with her hands full as usual, her mind already on the busy day ahead—also as usual—she hadn’t seen the thin, silver wire strung tight across the top of the stairs.

“Lucky my reflexes are okay,” she said, although to herself she was wondering just how sore the shoulder she’d wrenched in the process was going to be in a couple of days.

“It has to be that Wells boy,” Mrs. Tilly said. “He’s going to be the death of us all. The other day I saw him with a barbecue lighter, trying to start a fire on their patio.”

Personally, Lilith found the apparent booby trap clearly intended to cause injury—if not worse—a bit more unsettling than a young boy’s typical fascination with flames, but in Southern California, a state with a deadly yearly fire season, nothing to do with fire was taken lightly.

“It’s a good thing you’re a youngster and can bounce,” Mrs. Tilly said grimly.

Lilith thought that at forty-four, she’d officially left being a youngster behind some time ago, but she supposed to her seventy-five-year-old neighbor that was a relative thing. And the implication was painfully true; had the older woman been the one to discover that wire the hard way, the results could have been horribly different.

“Someone needs to talk to Callie again,” the woman said sternly.

The implication that, as usual, that someone should be her didn’t escape Lilith. Martha Tilly hated confrontation and had decided—deservedly so, Lilith thought—that at her age avoiding it was her right. She didn’t really mind; Mrs. Tilly was nothing if not blunt, sometimes to the point of rudeness, and Lilith wasn’t sure that was the right approach with their downstairs neighbor. Especially just now.

“She has her hands full being a single mom with two kids, one of them a toddler,” Lilith said. “I hate to pile more on her.”

She also suspected, although she’d never spoken of it, that Callie had escaped the hands of an abusive husband, which put Lilith soundly on her side for more reasons than Mrs. Tilly knew.

“But that boy’s getting out of hand,” Mrs. Tilly said. “Why, you could have been killed!”

“I’ll speak to her,” Lilith promised, knowing that if she did, at least it wouldn’t be a formal confrontation that would put the harried young woman on the defensive.

Reassured, Mrs. Tilly at last let her continue on her way, although not without a promise to give young Billy Wells a piece of her mind if she saw him.

As she got into her car, Lilith felt a little tug in her shoulder, and, she noted ruefully, a spot on her backside that she was sure would be sore by tomorrow. She might well spend tomorrow working on her feet, she thought.

By the time she got to her office in the Research and Development division of Redstone Inc., she’d almost forgotten the incident. The huge task that still lay before her took her full concentration, and her determination to fix this situation for Josh Redstone demanded she give it just that. That Josh of all people, the most generous and loyal man she’d ever known, had been the victim of industrial spying rankled her beyond belief. She would find every last detail of what had happened and salvage everything that could be salvaged, no matter how long it took.

She sat down at her desk—a U-shaped arrangement that was more functional than decorative—and booted up her computer, still feeling the surge of energy that hit her every day when she arrived at Redstone Headquarters. She had a very proprietary feeling about Redstone, and about its brilliant founder, Joshua Redstone. She’d known him for better than twenty-five years now, and he had soared past even her own stellar predictions for his future.

As an eighteen-year-old teacher’s aide, she hadn’t been fooled by the languid drawl; even at fifteen the intelligence in those gray eyes had fairly snapped at her. She’d guessed early on that the air some mistook for laziness was merely boredom with a curriculum that didn’t challenge him, and she’d taken it upon herself to provide that challenge, guiding him toward more advanced work that he could undertake on his own.

And eventually, toward getting his G.E.D. and getting out before his seventeenth birthday; he was already so far beyond high school she didn’t think he’d survive two more years, and was only where he was because his small family—himself, his father and his older brother—had moved around a lot.

At first he’d been suspicious—neither did that drawl mean he was a fool, as many had learned along the way, to their detriment—but she’d kept on, until he rose to the bait. She’d had the feeling he’d known exactly what she was doing, but had let her lead him. And then, after he’d easily passed the G.E.D. tests and she’d told him exactly how far she thought he could go, he’d made her a promise. She’d been the first person other than his brother to really believe in him, he’d said. Someday he’d repay her.

He certainly had.

“What’s wrong, Lilith?”

Only when she heard the voice of her assistant, Liana Kiley, did she realize she’d been rubbing her shoulder again. She looked up at the young woman and ruefully explained.

“A wire?” Liana stared at her, eyes wide. “You could have been seriously hurt. Or worse.”

“So my neighbor informed me,” Lilith said. “But the only damage was a scrape on my briefcase, and sore spots in my shoulder and…landing zone.”

That got her a smile, but Liana’s concern didn’t abate. It was one of the first traits Lilith had noticed about the bright, lovely redhead; she had a large capacity for compassion, a trait that made her an excellent fit for Redstone.

It had also netted Liana the man in her life, new Redstone Security team member Logan Beck. Liana’s concern for the ex-cop who had once saved her life had not only gotten him out of a morass of injustice, it had opened up a new life for both of them, together.

“And it was only last Thursday that truck nearly hit you. You could have been killed.”

Lilith smiled to reassure Liana. “Let’s hope it’s not going to be a string of bad luck.”

Liana frowned. Lilith knew that look. Liana had worn it often enough in her first days here, when Logan had been struggling against false accusations of being a crooked cop.

But they’d come through it and become yet another of the growing list of couples brought together under the Redstone banner. Lilith found it amusing as well as bemusing that so many soul mates had found each other through Redstone. She’d teased Josh once about his heretofore unknown matchmaking talent, but she actually tended to believe longtime Redstone pilot Tess Machado’s more pragmatic explanation—when you brought smart, talented people with the same principles and standards together, as Redstone did, it was only to be expected.

“Let’s get going,” she said briskly, knowing Liana would accept that as a diversion; even now she was still feeling a bit guilty that her first days on the job had been taken up completely by her quest for justice for Logan. Even though Lilith had assured her she’d more than made up for it in the months since, the young woman she’d come to genuinely like would never take Redstone for granted, not after what they’d done for her and Logan.

About an hour later, Lilith had just hung up from a conversation with Redstone’s resident genius inventor, Ian Gamble, the man whose work had been the target of the industrial spying that had blown up into the scandal that had destroyed the JetCal Corporation and sent both their CEO and Redstone R&D head Stan Chilton to prison, when Josh himself appeared in her doorway.

While it was a tradition for Redstone’s leader to make a tour of his headquarters any day he was present, he usually came by earlier in the day. It was common knowledge to all Redstone people that this was their chance to ask him anything, as Liana had learned; a casual mention had resulted in the mobilization of Redstone’s much vaunted private security team and the vindication of Logan Beck.

“Running late?” Lilith said with a smile.

Josh didn’t smile back. His gray eyes fastened on her intently as he came into the office. And he didn’t stroll, in that looselimbed, lanky way he had, he strode in like the head of a multinational conglomerate that he was.

Instinctively responding to the difference, Lilith stood, wondering with some trepidation what was wrong. “Josh?”

He just stood there for a moment, looking her up and down. She knew better than to think he disapproved of her casual attire; jeans and the red knit shirt with the Redstone logo were the unofficial uniform for many of Redstone’s people, and she’d been glad she’d had the tough denim on when she’d hit the concrete this morning.

The moment the thought came into her mind, her puzzlement vanished and Josh’s demeanor and actions made sense.

“Liana, I presume?” she said ruefully; she should have known the girl wouldn’t keep this to herself.

“Logan.”

“I’m fine, Josh.”

He looked her up and down once more. She held up her arms to display she was unhurt. “See? Nothing broken, snapped or otherwise seriously impaired.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“Repeat after me,” she said, in her best teacher’s voice, “‘You look fine, Lilith.’”

At last he eased up. “You look…elegant, as usual, even in blue jeans, Lilith.”

She laughed. This was old ground between old friends as well; he teased her about what he called her refined air and elegant grace, so opposite of his own down-home, laid-back demeanor. Hers, he had once said, masked a steely spine, boundless energy and whip-smart intelligence. She had simply looked at him, and in a deadly accurate imitation of his own lazy drawl, had said, “Back at you.”

“You know,” he said now, with a casualness that warned her he was anything but, “I don’t believe in coincidences. Not when it comes to danger to my people.”

Lilith’s brows rose. “Danger?”

“Two narrow escapes in a week?”

She chuckled. “That sounds so dramatic. I nearly had a traffic accident. And this morning I ran afoul of a child’s prank.”

“Maybe.”

“Coincidence, Josh.”

“You know what Draven says about coincidence.”

“Draven,” she said, “is a born cynic.” Then remembering how the Redstone Security chief had mellowed since his marriage to Grace O’Conner, she added, “At least, he was when he always used to say that.”

“And now he’s more protective than ever. So when I tell him about this, he’s going to take appropriate action.”

“Tell him? Why on earth?”

“Because I don’t believe in coincidence, either. Not when one of my brightest and best has uncharacteristic ‘accidents.’”

“Thank you for the compliment, but really—”

Josh stopped her with an upheld hand. “No compliment, just truth. As is the fact that you’re going to have to tolerate a little attention for a while, until I’m sure this doesn’t mean anything.”

“Mean anything? You mean like someone’s intentionally trying to hurt me?”

She started to laugh even before she finished the words, but when Josh simply looked at her, his jaw set, realization struck and her laughter faded away.

“Yes,” he finally said, his voice echoing with grim acknowledgment of what they both knew but she had managed to put out of her mind.

There indeed was someone who could be trying to hurt her. Or even kill her.

Because he’d tried it before.

Chapter 2

Tony Alvera didn’t stop to knock on his boss’s door, any more than he had bothered to park his racy blue coupe in an allotted slot; he was in too much of a hurry. He knew he’d committed a breach of decorum when he realized John Draven was with someone in his small, efficiently organized office, but there were times when he reverted to his younger days of not caring about such things, and this was one of them.

“Sorry,” he said perfunctorily, nodding at the woman in the office.

Because he wasn’t really sorry, there wasn’t much sincerity in the apology, and Draven lifted a brow at him. Since it was the one already slightly twisted by the scar that slashed down the left side of his face, the look was even more intimidating.

But Tony Alvera wasn’t a man who was easily intimidated.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

“Taylor Hill,” Draven said mildly, “meet Tony Alvera. Pay attention, you may have to work with him someday. I hear it’s an adventure.”

Tony had heard that Draven was bringing in someone new, to fill in now that Samantha Gamble, married to Redstone’s resident genius, Ian Gamble, was visibly pregnant. Sam might grumble about being tied to a desk, but her work instincts were trumped by newfound maternal ones, and she’d ruefully agreed that going into the field on assignments that could turn risky was not in her best interest just now.

For a moment Tony thought of Ian, that brilliant, creative mind that had put Redstone on the map in so many new fields that not even Josh could keep track of them all. As had most at Redstone, Tony had marveled from the beginning at the unlikelihood of Ian and Sam’s relationship—the man some teasingly called the absentminded professor and the stunning, leggy blonde.

He’d been even more bemused by the easy way Ian seemed to accept the differences between them, accept Sam’s sometimes dangerous job and the fact that she was one of the best at it. He often joked he was the brains while his wife was the brawn with brains. Tony wasn’t sure he could so blithely accept his woman working in a traditionally masculine role.

At the same time, he utterly and totally respected Samantha Gamble and her skills and would gladly have her at his back in any tough situation. The conflict niggled at him, but he didn’t dwell on it much, preferring to see it as a hangover from days past that he tried not to think about. When he did think about them, it was usually with a rueful jab at himself and the street gang culture of machismo he’d grown up in.

The woman in the office was standing now, studying him less than subtly as she held out a hand. He took it—her grip was solid but not overly so—and automatically assessed her in turn, a habit ingrained in him during his years with Redstone Security.

Taylor Hill was an ordinary-looking woman, with straight, medium brown hair pulled back rather severely at the nape of her neck. She was average height and build, her features regular but not striking. She was neither unattractive nor beautiful, but fell in the unremarkable category.

The perfect person for security work, Tony thought. She could probably blend in anywhere.

“Nice to meet you,” she said politely, and his opinion suddenly changed. That low, husky voice would stand out in any man’s mind. And make him wonder, if she sounded like that now, what she might sound like in more intimate circumstances.

But he had no time for speculating about other women at the moment.

“You, too,” he replied, aware it was a disconnected nicety but unable to help it.

“I was about to send Taylor off on her first assignment,” Draven said in a casually chatty manner completely unlike him. “Nothing like starting out doing a favor for Josh himself.”

That snapped Tony to attention. Was there something else going on at Redstone besides what he’d come here about? “Josh has a problem?”

“One of his people has a problem, so yes, you could say that.”

Tony felt the adrenaline spurt ebb a little. He looked his boss in the eye, a task more easily said than done to almost anyone who had to deal with the steely, tough John Draven.

“Lilith,” he said.

Draven’s brow rose again. “You know?”

“Beck,” he said briefly, knowing that would explain; Logan Beck, the newest—well, now apparently second newest—member of the security team, was engaged to Liana Kiley, Lilith Mercer’s assistant.

He was also Tony’s partner in situations that required a twoman team; they’d worked well together on Logan’s case, and although he generally preferred to work alone—as did Logan—Tony was now amenable to the pairing when necessary.

“I’ll handle it,” Tony said.

Draven lifted a brow. “What?”

“This one’s mine.” At Draven’s expression, Tony turned back to Taylor, who was watching this exchange curiously. “Would you excuse us for a minute, please?”

The woman’s glance flicked to Draven, who, after a split second, gave her a barely perceptible nod. She didn’t miss the signal and left without a word.

“She’s going to be good,” Draven said when Tony didn’t speak right away.

“Yeah,” Tony muttered.

He began to pace the small room. Now that he was here and had his boss’s attention, he had no idea what to say. He should, he realized, have thought about this a little more before he’d burst in.

He should have thought about it a little more, period, he thought. Had he learned nothing from Lisa? Had he forgotten standing in the morgue, looking down at her lifeless body, knowing she was there because of him?

I’m trying to stop something like that from happening again, he told himself as Draven continued to speak of the woman who had just left.

“She did some good work at Redstone in Toronto. She was ready to move up.”

“Yeah.”

Silence seemed to echo in the room while Tony continued to pace and tried to figure out what to say.

“You got back last night?”

“Yeah.”

He left it at that. The Hawk IV that had picked him up in Caracas had actually touched down a little after 1:00 a.m., so technically this morning, but he knew Draven already knew that. And he’d already filed his report in flight, so he knew Draven knew the final result of his investigation into the local kickback problem as well.

“You know,” Draven said at last, “I’m told I talk more than I used to these days, but I’m in no way comfortable carrying on a whole conversation myself. What do you want, Alvera?”

Tony stopped mid-stride and spun around to face his boss. “I want this job.” There, he thought. It was out.

“What job?”

“The one you were going to give her,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the door where Taylor had exited.

Draven frowned. “I don’t think this is anything that requires your…unique skills, Tony.”

“Nothing does, at the moment.”

Not really his decision to make, but he knew it was true. Lucky for him, Draven was in a flexible mood this morning.

“There may not even be a real problem,” his boss said. “It could just be a fluke, coincidence. Accidents and pranks do happen.”

Not to Lilith, Tony thought.

“It’s probably nothing, but Josh wants to be sure,” Draven said. “You know how he is about his people.”

“Yes. I do.”

No one knew better than he did about Josh Redstone. Tony doubted there was another man on the planet who would have done what Josh did after an angry, scared, knife-wielding gangbanger had tried to mug him outside an L.A. hotel. Tony hadn’t even realized he was trying to rob the wunderkind whose Redstone Aviation was beginning to soar, had seen only a man headed toward a limo, which to him had meant money and made the man a target.

He hadn’t expected that the man would fight back, and well enough to have his sixteen-year-old ass on the pavement in less than ten seconds.

And he never would have dreamed that that man, not even ten years older than he himself, would see something in that angry kid, something that, instead of calling the cops as he should have, made him give Tony the chance of a lifetime. The chance at a life.

A life he would always owe to Josh Redstone.

“This is probably nothing a couple of days of simple investigation can’t close,” Draven said, looking at him with growing curiosity, the last thing Tony wanted.

“Then I won’t be tied up long,” he said, more sharply than he liked.

Draven’s mouth quirked slightly. “You really want this?”

“I want this. Sir,” he added, not caring that it was so obviously an afterthought tacked on to ameliorate the gruffness of his prior words.

Draven’s brows lowered even farther. “You don’t look—or sound—too sure about that.”

Leave it to Draven to see past the surface, because truth be told, he wasn’t. In fact, he was reasonably sure he would regret it; it was only the extent of that regret he wasn’t sure of right now. But that didn’t seem to make any difference.

“I mean it,” he insisted.

Draven studied Tony for a long, silent moment. Tony set his jaw and waited, knowing Draven wasn’t a man to be pushed.

“Why?” Draven finally asked.

Tony had prepared for that question, at least. “You know I worked with her a lot, during Beck’s case. We…got along. I’d like to help, and I’m free, with nothing on the horizon that would require me more than anyone else on the team.”

Draven listened, looking thoughtful. If he noticed that this prosaic explanation was at odds with the inner tension Tony was feeling—and Tony had little doubt Draven would sense that, there was very little that escaped him—he didn’t comment on the fact.

Just when Tony thought he’d blown it, and that Draven, with that preternatural instinct of his, had somehow guessed the secret Tony Alvera kept hidden from everyone, his boss slowly nodded.

“All right. But if something in your area comes up—”

“I understand,” Tony said, barely aware of interrupting the legendary head of Redstone Security, something few dared to do. Or had the chance to do; as he’d said, Draven wasn’t known for talking a lot.

The size of the relief that flooded Tony at actually getting the assignment set off alarms clanging in the back of his head, but he was too thankful to pay them much heed.

A few minutes later he was back outside the airport hangar that served as operations for Redstone Security. They had always been housed off-site, keeping a low profile away from headquarters for the most part, a strategy that paid off on those rare occasions when a Redstone operative needed to go unrecognized. Plus, the airport location made quick response times easier, when some far-flung part of the Redstone empire needed their attention.

So you’ve got the job, he thought as he got into his car. Now what?

He had no answer. He told himself he should simply proceed as if this were any other job. Redstone Security had a reputation for efficiency, speed and success; all he had to do was live up to that. All he had to do was keep Lilith Mercer safe. No problem.

Never mind that he’d just volunteered to walk into a personal minefield.

He was so going to regret this. But he had to do it. He couldn’t let anyone else take the job. Not this job. Because nobody else had a bigger stake in this than he did. Nobody else in Redstone Security was in his unique position.

Hell, nobody else would believe he was in this position.

Nobody would ever believe that onetime L.A. gang member, repeat juvenile offender, street-tough, tattooed Tony Alvera had been half in love with the elegant, classy, refined, beautiful and near-perfect Lilith Mercer since the first time he’d laid eyes on her.

No, no problem at all.

Chapter 3

Lilith felt absurd, but it was clear to her that Josh wasn’t going to back down. And when Josh Redstone was set on something, it would take more than a mere protest to shift him. Besides, with what she owed him, she would tolerate a lot worse than having someone from security hanging around to placate his fears, however unfounded they might be.

Might, she thought, being the operative word.

Because once she’d read the thoughts in Josh’s steady gray eyes, she’d realized she couldn’t say with one hundred percent certainty that there was no one who would want to hurt her.

“Are you angry with me?”

The quiet question from her office doorway interrupted Lilith’s unsettling thoughts. She looked up, into Liana Kiley’s troubled blue eyes.

“No,” she said to the young woman who had rapidly become indispensable to her in the task of finding and assessing the damage done by Stan Chilton, and had in the process become a friend as well. “I’m not angry. It’s all right, Liana.”

“I couldn’t help worrying, and Logan agreed. I know the people who did this—” the redhead made a general gesture toward the research lab “—are in jail, but still…”

Lilith masked her start of surprise. That possibility hadn’t occurred to her. She’d assumed, as had Josh, that if there was indeed some nefarious plot to harm her, only one person could be behind it. Of course, Liana didn’t know about that person. No one did, except Josh, and at his request, security chief John Draven.

If she had to accept that something was really happening, she wished she could believe it was something as sanitary as fallout from the industrial spying case. That would be preferable to the alternative. But the alternative, unhappily, made a lot more sense.

“Thank you for being worried,” Lilith said. “Although I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“Logan thought it was better to be sure. You’re not upset that he said something to Josh?”

“I wish he would have talked to me first, I could have eased his mind—and yours—but I try not to get angry with people who care enough to worry about me.”

Liana smiled in obvious relief. “What’s Josh going to do?”

“Pester me, no doubt,” Lilith said, with fond annoyance. “Or rather, some unlucky person from security who no doubt has much more important things to do than find a plot where there is none will get that job.”

“A bodyguard?”

Lilith laughed. “Oh, please. That’s the last thing I need.”

“They do that, though, don’t they? Security, I mean? Because Logan would be happy to—”

She stopped when Lilith held up a hand. “I do not need a bodyguard.”

A sudden image flashed through her mind, of the aftermath of the last time a Redstone Security agent had taken on bodyguard duties. In her mind she saw Ian Gamble, dressed in a sleek tuxedo that erased any memory of his usual, casually untidy self, just as his intense expression as he waited for his beautiful bride had erased the memory of his usual, endearingly distracted self.

Ian Gamble, genius inventor, who had fallen in love and married Samantha Beckett, top-notch Redstone Security agent.

His bodyguard.

Yet another in the ongoing string of Redstone weddings.

She shook off the image briskly. “I’m sure he’ll simply have someone look into both incidents, discover they were indeed unfortunate accidents and we will all go on about our business. Which is,” she added, “what I intend to do now.”

“Not just yet.”

The deep voice from the doorway spun Liana around and made Lilith’s nerves jump. Liana greeted the man standing there with a happy exclamation. “Tony! When did you get back?”

Lilith just tried to remember how to breathe.

“Hello, my lovely Liana. This morning,” Tony said.

“Have you seen Logan?”

“Your knight in shining armor with the luck of a thousand men to end up with you? No, but I spoke to him, also this morning.”

Liana laughed. “You’re incorrigible. But that’s what I love about you.”

Lilith smiled to herself a little wistfully; the teasing repartee was so carefree. Tony Alvera was an incurable flirt, and Liana obviously knew it. Although even if he had been serious, it wouldn’t have made any difference; the girl was head over heels in love with her ex-cop.

Lilith wondered if Tony Alvera was ever serious when it came to women. She was reasonably sure, from what she’d observed during his work on Logan’s case, that he would never poach on another man’s territory. Or perhaps that only applied to men he respected, as she knew he did Logan Beck. In any case, Liana was as safe from his predatory charms as if she’d been his sister. That, Lilith was certain of.

“But alas,” Tony was saying with mock drama, “as always, I am too late to win the fair lady.”

Lilith at last found her voice, and her poise.

“Children, children,” she said in mock severity, “take the bantering outside, please. I have work to do.”

Liana laughed, patted Tony’s arm in a way that put her previous words clearly into that sisterly category and went back to her own office.

Tony Alvera didn’t move. And at Lilith’s teasing words or tone, something had flickered in his eyes that had caught her attention. Something that reminded her that for all his easy, practiced charm, this was a dangerous man.

Something you shouldn’t forget, she told herself, although she wasn’t sure why it seemed so important at this moment; since they were both Redstone, he would never be dangerous to her.

For a long moment he stood there, just looking at her. He wasn’t a huge man, just under six feet she guessed, but he somehow managed to fill the room anyway. It must be the combination of obvious strength, the striking looks, dark eyes coupled with golden skin and the rather rakish patch of beard below the middle of his lower lip, and the edginess he radiated at almost every moment.

The evidence that the edginess was for real was clear in the barely noticeable patches of slightly lighter skin on his neck and hands, where she knew gang tattoos had once been.

When she’d first met him, when he’d been assigned to help Liana and Logan, she’d found him disconcerting, to say the least. When she’d learned his story, from Josh himself, she’d found him admirable.

Right now, standing solidly in her office staring at her a little too intently—and for some reason apparently not willing to leave as Liana had—he was nothing less than unsettling.

And suddenly the obvious answer hit her.

“Not you,” she said, nearly groaning it.

His face changed. The transfixing look vanished, replaced by the practiced charm she’d seen him use so effectively before. Not the teasingly flirtatious manner he’d had with Liana; that had been oddly innocent and sincere. This was the demeanor he used to beguile people, mostly women, she was certain, into giving him what he wanted.

Whatever that might be.

That was something that hit a chord deep within her, and not in a good way.

“Sorry, Mrs. Mercer. Luck of the draw.”

She was hideously aware that she’d uttered her gut reaction aloud. And since she wasn’t even sure what had prompted that reaction, she didn’t know quite how to explain it to herself, let alone to the man she’d just unintentionally insulted.

But manners dictated she say something, so she opted for simplicity. And truth, which was never an optional choice for her, not anymore. “I’m sorry. I’m just not sold on this whole idea, and it seems absurd to pull you, of all people, in on such a silly little thing.”

And that was all true, she told herself. It just wasn’t all of the truth. There had been something much more deeply rooted in that involuntary response to his presence. It wasn’t that he wasn’t efficient and effective—he wouldn’t have lasted in Redstone Security if he wasn’t And she had admired how he’d handled Logan’s case, including how he’d dealt with the stubborn, reluctant ex-cop. But that contact had been intermittent. She couldn’t imagine having to deal with his intense presence all the time.

His expression changed again, but only slightly. After a moment he nodded, as if in acceptance of her explanation. But the original, riveting stare didn’t return, and somehow that unsettled her even more. Why, she didn’t know. She was usually unruffled and ever calm; it was the trait most commented on by anyone who knew her. But now—

“We need to talk about what’s happened. Who might want you hurt. I’ll try not to disrupt your life too much. But this is on Josh’s orders, and you know what that means.”

“I know it means anyone at Redstone would walk through fire if he asked, yes.”

“Even if he didn’t ask,” Tony said. “Because he wouldn’t.”

“He wouldn’t have to,” Lilith said, thinking of her own debt to the man who had built this empire.

“No,” Tony agreed.

This, at least, they had in common, she thought. They would both do anything for Josh Redstone. She knew why Tony would; his story was legend at Redstone, along with Draven’s and Ian’s and many others.

And it suddenly hit her that she was going to have to tell him her own story. And that made her feel faintly nauseated.

If only Samantha wasn’t pregnant. She could have told her, much more easily. She doubted the tough, beautiful blonde could have related—she doubted Samantha Gamble had ever been truly afraid in her life—but she would have understood.

The moment the thought formed she was appalled at herself; Samantha and Ian were delighted, if bemused, at their impending parenthood, and to wish that away, even for a split second, for her own benefit made Lilith ashamed of herself.

It was time to get a grip.

“Close the door, would you, please? The fewer people who know about this, the happier I’ll be.”

Tony complied without a word. Lilith walked back to her desk and sat down. Normally she would have taken the second chair in front of her desk, but she needed the bulwark.

Because she had just shut herself into a small room with the one person at Redstone who made her unbearably nervous.

It was going to be a very long morning.

Chapter 4

Just when did you become a masochist?

As he sat in the chair opposite her desk, relieved now that he’d seen for himself that she indeed seemed uninjured, he was very aware that she’d chosen to take her desk chair for the feeling of power or security it gave her, and the benefit of the desk between them. He also knew the answer to his own question. The moment he’d realized Josh was convinced Lilith could really be in some kind of danger, he’d had no choice. Even knowing he was going to regret it.

He already did.

The moment he’d walked in and seen her, all the truths he’d lived with since he’d first met her had risen up to swamp him anew. Lilith Mercer was everything he was not: elegant, refined, classy, cultured. He knew, thanks to the world Josh had opened to him, that he could put on the appearance of all those things. But he also knew that in him they were only skin deep. In Lilith, they went clear to the bone.

And he hadn’t missed her reaction when she’d seen him; she didn’t want him around. It puzzled him for a moment; they had gotten along well enough during his work on Logan’s case, when she had asked him to keep her posted for Liana’s sake.

But this was different, he supposed. This was her own situation, and because of that the contact would be much closer. He probably seemed like some kind of alien being to her, and he couldn’t blame her. He knew who and what he was, and all the polish he’d acquired since his days on the street couldn’t change that. His world and hers couldn’t be further apart.

That hadn’t stopped him from falling like a fool the moment he’d first seen her at the Redstone Christmas party, after Josh had called her in to clean up Stan Chilton’s mess. He knew the image of her in that striking red dress would be with him until he died. Somehow the red had startled him; she seemed so reserved, but someone—he couldn’t remember who, just as he couldn’t remember much of what had happened that night after he’d seen her—had told him it was her favorite color and she wore it often.

He could see why; today she had on the Redstone logo shirt in a more muted shade, and it still set off her hair like golden fire.

He stared at her, all the warnings he’d given himself on the way over lost in some kind of hot haze. If there was anything more absurd or impossible in his life than such a reaction to her, of all women, he couldn’t think of what it was. Not only was she all those things he wasn’t, but she was a Redstone department head and one of Josh’s oldest friends. That she was likely a bit older than he was didn’t bother him, but all the rest did. He owed his very life to Josh, and he would never forget that.

And if that doesn’t work, he told himself in an effort to clear the fog, just remember the last time you felt anything like this for a woman.

That memory—the image of a lovely, lifeless body lying on a cold metal table—managed what nothing else had. The last time he’d let himself truly feel something for a woman, it had gotten her murdered.

Back in control now, his rioting senses jammed back into the cage where they belonged, he repeated his promise. “I know this is a nuisance for you. I’ll try to keep out of your way.”

“I am sorry,” she said, and she sounded more genuine this time. “I didn’t mean to react that way. But this is a bit…below your talents.”

“Some of them,” he said, quashing the thought of other talents he’d like to exercise with her, shoving that cage door shut. “But I’m here, free at the moment, and we’re not…strangers.”

“No,” she agreed. “And you know I was very impressed with what you did on Logan’s case. I know he was…difficult, at that point in his life.”

Tony chuckled, feeling a bit easier now. And pleased with her praise, he admitted ruefully. “Difficult? Yes, like a croc with a toothache is difficult.”

When she laughed in turn, he felt an odd sense of gratification that his rather lame joke had done it. He shoved a little harder on that cage door.

“I just don’t think this is anything serious. I’m not sure it’s anything at all.”

“Then it should be quick,” he said smoothly, determined now to approach the job as if it were any other in-house assignment. “I’ll need to see where that wire was rigged. And talk to the kid your neighbor suspects. But for now, why don’t you tell me why Josh is convinced that you’re in continuing danger?”

She looked puzzled. “He didn’t tell you? Didn’t Draven?”

“I wanted you to tell me. One less filter to go through.”

She lifted one shoulder, somehow making even that half shrug seem elegant. “He has some idea my near-accident last week and what happened this morning are connected, I presume.” She met his gaze then. “He did tell you that much? What happened?”

Tony nodded. “He said you weren’t hurt. Is that true, or were you trying to keep him from worrying?”

“If I was, I obviously didn’t succeed,” she said, her dry tone making him smile in spite of himself.

“Josh is a hard sell when it comes to the welfare of his people.”

“How well I know,” she agreed, at last giving him that smile that could warm a room, the smile that encompassed everything, that drew him to her so impossibly; warmth, charm, grace and the generous spirit that had quickly made her one of the most loved Redstone people. That the smile wasn’t really for him, but rather for the absent Josh, didn’t lessen the impact.

“I’m fine,” she said in answer to his original question. “No serious damage except to my pride and my derriere.”

And a fine one it is.

The thought formed before he could stop it. Although she generally dressed fairly conservatively, her fire and flair coming in the frequent splashes of her favorite red, when she wore jeans as she did today, there was no disguising the fineness he’d just thought about.

Hell, he thought about it every time he saw her, and that alone made him aware of how out of line he was. He couldn’t imagine any other man at Redstone having raunchy, lustful thoughts about Lilith Mercer. Longing, aching, desire, yes, but not the kind of urgent, desperate craving she made him feel.

That everyone at Redstone seemed to think he had a harem of women at his beck and call only made the irony bite deeper. He couldn’t deny that there were women. And although he’d long ago quit trying to analyze why the combination of his looks and demeanor had a rather astonishing effect on some, he couldn’t deny the fact, either.

Nor could he deny that he did, on occasion, use that fact. The only thing he tried to deny, to himself, was how meaningless it all was. What had once seemed like a dream come true, had become…he wasn’t sure what. While if necessary he still turned on the charm to get what he needed, be it information or entrée to somewhere he normally couldn’t get into, the instances where he pursued the connection to the inevitable destination—a willing woman’s bed—had become few and far between.

He wasn’t sure exactly why. He just didn’t seem to have the energy or the desire to continue the facade anymore. He’d wondered if something was wrong with him, if he’d somehow lost the ability to feel any real desire.

Then he’d met Lilith Mercer. And the ferocious kick in the gut and points south had disabused him of that idea forever.

And forever was about how long he’d have to wait for the likes of Lilith Mercer to have a corresponding response to the likes of him.

He gave a final, hard shove to thoughts and urges that had no place here, and this time he locked the damned cage door.

“Tell me,” he said, sounding gruffer than he’d intended. Keeping a leash on his unruly thoughts was proving harder than he’d expected.

Lilith sighed. Lowered her gaze to her hands. That alone had him sitting up straighter; of the myriad things he’d noticed about her since he’d met her, one was that she never avoided, never shrank from any difficult situation. As Josh said, she met it head-on and always gave it her best shot.

And her best shot, Josh had added, was very good indeed.

But she was avoiding looking at him now. He knew better than to think it was anything to do with him. It was something to do with this situation, and his gut was telling him that maybe Josh was right. Maybe there was more to this than just a couple of accidents.

His gut wasn’t liking that idea. At all.

And she still wasn’t talking.

“Stan Chilton’s in jail,” he said, managing a calmer tone this time. “And so is Joe Santerelli, from JetCal. Not to mention the fact that all you’ve done is come in to clean up the mess they caused. You didn’t have anything to do with putting them there.”

She still didn’t look at him. But she answered. “I put together a lot of the data evidence that helped put them away.”

She’d said it, but Tony sensed she didn’t truly believe it. “True enough,” he said, and waited.

“But if they wanted revenge, wouldn’t they go after Draven? Or Sam and Ian?”

“Didn’t work out so well for them last time, going up against those two.”

At the mention of the unlikeliest couple at Redstone a trace of a smile curved her mouth.

That luscious mouth he couldn’t keep his eyes off.

¡Maldita sea!

He knew when he resorted to his native Spanish that he was in trouble. And damning everything at large seemed to require that.

“You don’t think it has anything to do with the spying case, do you?”

The smile faded. He regretted that, but this was more important.

“No,” she said, in a tone of voice he could never have imagined coming from her. Weary, hurt, broken…he wasn’t sure what it was, only that he didn’t like it. Not from her.

“Then what? Or should I ask, who?”

Finally, she looked at him. Her usually bright blue eyes were shadowed now. Haunted, in a way he’d seen only in people in trouble, or in people from his days on the streets.

“Lilith,” he said softly, aware but unable to stop himself from removing the safe barrier of formality of last name only.

“Daniel Huntington.” She took a deep breath. “My ex-husband.”

He blinked. He’d known she’d been married, but also that it had ended before she’d come to Redstone. Long enough ago that it hadn’t concerned him. Realizing he’d been glad to learn that had been his first clue that he was slipping into dangerous territory.

His brow furrowed. “I thought…Then why ‘Mrs.’ Mercer if it’s your maiden name?”

“I dropped his name. People assumed the Mrs. because they knew I’d been married, and it was just…easier.”

And kept men away? he wondered. Not that it would keep some away, but the some it wouldn’t deter would be the kind she wouldn’t be interested in anyway. He knew that much already.

“What about him?” he asked.

“Josh suspects that if these things are more than accidents…he might be behind it.”

“Why would he think that?”

“Past history. But it’s as impossible that it’s him as it is that it’s Stan Chilton or Santerelli.”

He could see that she didn’t want to get into it, so although he knew they’d have to talk about it eventually, he changed tacks. “Where is he? Local?”

“That depends,” she said, finally giving him the level look that was her norm, “on whether you consider Chino local.”

He shrugged off the first thought that hit him; half the kids he’d grown up with were in Chino. At the California Institute for Men. But there was no way…

His thoughts faded as the way she was looking at him slowly registered.

“Yes,” she said, that weariness he’d heard before echoing in her voice again.

“He’s…in prison?”

“Has been for nearly two years.”

He was beyond puzzled. The only thing he could think of was that the man had committed some white-collar crime.

“He’s on the Level I side? Minimum security?” he asked, although he didn’t understand why the man wasn’t in some country club kind of place instead of a hard-core lockup like Chino. Guys from his world went to Chino. Not hers.

“No. Medium security.”

Belatedly it hit him. If Josh suspected her ex might be behind what had been happening to her, then he must have a reason.

“What is he in for?”

She held his gaze with that nerve that had only wavered for a moment. “He tried to kill me.”

Chapter 5

She’d seen that look before. The shock, the incredulity. It was nothing new to her, that kind of skepticism.

So why did it hurt, when she’d thought herself inured to it long ago? Had she simply gotten unused to thinking about it? Or was it more complicated—was it that it was this man doubting her that made it sting?

She gave herself a mental shake. She’d left all the doubts behind, and she was not going back. She stood up abruptly. “If you don’t believe me, then you surely can’t believe there’s any need for this. Tell Josh so, and we’ll both get back to business.”

He was on his feet before she could take a step. “I never said I didn’t believe you.”

“You didn’t have to, Mr. Alvera.” She saw him wince slightly at the formal appellation, but didn’t stop. “I’ve seen that expression too many times to mistake it.”

“What you saw was…shock. Amazement. Astonishment. But not disbelief. You wouldn’t lie.”

That flat, bald assessment mollified her somewhat. But the way he was looking at her still made her uneasy. She studied him. Tried to separate the tough and efficient agent she knew he was from the darkly handsome, rakish appearance. Tried to think only of his dedication to Josh and to Redstone, and not how the dimple that carved his right cheek when he smiled took him from dangerous to charming in a split second.

“This isn’t just going to go away, is it?”

He shook his head. “Nor am I. So we might as well get started.”

She was, she thought tiredly, going to have to explain. She sank back into her desk chair, wishing herself anywhere else, confronting any other onerous task.

And when did wishing ever help you out of a bad situation? she asked herself.

“Never,” she muttered.

“What?”

She grimaced; she hadn’t meant to say it aloud. “Just reminding myself that wishing is for children.”

He sat back down himself, and was silent for a moment before he said softly, “Yes, it is. And the day you outgrow wishing is a sad one that comes too early for too many.”

Something about his tone enabled her to get it out, what she never talked about. “You want the condensed version?”

“For now,” he said, and the implication that there would be more later was nearly as unsettling as his presence.

She braced herself, then began. “Daniel Huntington. Pillar of the community. Wealthy family. Perfect manners. Charming. Polished. Urbane. Blue blood. Only one little glitch in his perfection.”

If the staccato presentation registered with him, he didn’t show it. His expression never changed when he said, “Which was?”

“He beat his wife.”

The emotionless mask vanished for only an instant, but Lilith didn’t miss the suddenly feral look that flashed in his eyes.

“The perfect cover,” he muttered.

Startled at his quick understanding, she nodded. “Exactly. His stature in the community, his background, his Ivy League upbringing, it all made it nearly impossible for anyone to believe.”

Something changed again in his expression. “If it was anyone but you telling me…”

She didn’t miss the implication of what he was saying, recognized a second assertion that he’d never not believed her, specifically.

After a moment, he went on. “I didn’t think things like that existed in…your world.”

A wry sort of amusement quirked one corner of her mouth upward. She perhaps could forgive him more than most; the world he’d grown up in was so radically different, hers must seem like some perfect dream. It spurred her to more explanation than she’d given to anyone in a very long time. “I was as…surprised as you. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t lived it. It took me a long time to realize that in Daniel’s case, he could only have become what he was in his world.”

“But it was your world, too.”

“Yes. But I had parents and grandparents who had worked incredibly hard to get where they were. Daniel’s family was a few generations down from the workers and felt it was now their place to lead their lessers.”

Tony snorted inelegantly, then muttered an apology. She merely smiled. “Exactly how I feel,” she said.

A flicker of surprise crossed his face, but all he said was “Go on.”

“He was the only son, and was catered to and fawned over from the day he was born. He was raised with a powerful sense of entitlement, that he was born to the elite and deserving of all their privileges. What started as a quick temper and a sense of superiority in the child became a brutal arrogance in the man.”

“But he took it out only on you.”

She nodded. “He limited it to inside his own home, yes.”

“Which makes it worse,” Tony said, his voice rough. “It means he had some control. He chose when and where. He chose…”

His voice trailed away, and she finished it for him. “Me. Yes, he did.”

“Bastard.” He didn’t apologize for that one.

“Yes,” she agreed calmly.

And she was calm, somewhat to her surprise. Tony Alvera was angry enough for both of them. And that not only surprised her, it warmed her in an odd sort of way. Enough that she was able to go on.

“I found out much later, thanks to Josh and John Draven, that he’d done the same thing to his first wife. But he’d managed to hush it up.”

“Did he kill her?” Tony asked, his voice harsh. The possibility obviously didn’t startle him.

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Draven is. He found her, talked to her. In her case they paid her off. She took the money and ran. I can’t blame her. If I hadn’t had Josh standing behind me, I might well have done the same.”

He gave her a long, level look. “I don’t think so,” he said, and something in his gravelly voice touched her. “How did it start with you?”

“It seemed almost accidental. We’d been married six years. I forgave him that time. He’d had a horrible day, a big deal had fallen through, he’d meant to strike the wall, not me, it would never happen again, it was all a mistake…all the usual excuses men like that make.” She gave him a wry smile. “He even cried. It was a nice touch.”

“Croc tears.”

“Yes. But from Daniel Lee Huntington, quite effective. He is—was—perfection personified, the man who had it all, looks, money, position. And I’m the one who destroyed his perfect position in his perfect world.”

“He blames you.”

It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t treat it as one. “It was really only thanks to the detective who worked my case,” she said. “She devoted herself to taking Daniel down. And she did it, despite pressure from a lot of quarters. The Huntingtons can wield a lot of influence.”

“And did?”

She nodded. “To this day, a lot of people in his world support him. Some because they honestly can’t believe he would do such a thing, others because they can’t afford to cross the Huntingtons.”

“What happened? That got him arrested?”

“He had another bad day, nearly a year after the first. He again chose to take it out on me. That was it, for me. I waited until he left, then began to pack. He must have sensed something, because he came back. This time he used a weapon. A fireplace poker.”

“Son of a bitch.” The curse was whispered, but no less furious. And again Lilith felt that warmth. Silly, she thought. It didn’t matter anymore to her who believed her and who didn’t. It was the past, long past, behind her and as close to forgotten as it could ever be.

At least, it had been.

“I managed to trip him, and it gave me enough time to get away. I didn’t get far before passing out from blood loss.” She heard him suck in a breath, but finished it. “Someone found me and called the police.”

She stopped there, as if that were the sum total of the story. And for these purposes, it was; the long, horrible nightmare of the trial was not something she wanted to relive in any form.

Tony sat there, looking at her steadily. He didn’t prod her for more, or even look as though he had more questions. He looked as if he was seeing what she wasn’t saying. And his next words proved her right.

“They put you through hell to put him away, didn’t they?”

She saw no point in denying it, especially since that would require exactly what she was trying to avoid, reliving the experience. “They tried. But by then I had help.”

“Josh.”

“Yes.” Then, knowing this was the part Josh would never tell him, she went on. “While I was in the hospital, I saw on the news that Josh was in town. I hadn’t seen him in years. I’d spoken to him now and then, but…in any case, I called him. I’m not sure why.”

She knew she didn’t have to say anything more; no one knew better what it meant to be in trouble and have Josh Redstone on your side.

“You said he’s been in for two years.”

“Nearly, yes.” Guessing what his next question would be, she answered before he had to ask. “His lawyers managed to keep him out for over three, but two years ago his appeals ran out and he was sent to prison. And he was just denied a parole hearing. He thought he should get one sooner than the sentence specified, because…he’s special.”

Tony smiled at that. It was a smile Lilith thought she wouldn’t like to see aimed at her; there was nothing of civil discourse in it, and a great deal of that feral wildness she’d seen flash in his eyes before.

“Good,” was all he said.

“So you see why he can’t be behind this. I appreciate Josh’s concern, but—”

“You can arrange for anything from behind bars. In fact, it’s probably easier. A constant flow of people with criminal mindsets, it doesn’t take much to find one who’s about to get out and willing to do you a favor for a price. Or one who knows somebody who will. And I’m guessing your ex still has the price.”

She wondered if he spoke from experience. She knew Josh hadn’t pressed charges for his attempted robbery all those years ago, but it didn’t seem likely that that had been the first foray into crime for the boy he’d been, the street gangster she’d heard about.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “He still has all the assets of the Huntington family. His father died four years ago, and controlling interest in all their varied enterprises passed to Daniel.”

“Somebody must be helping him run all that.”

“I’m sure the family attorney is dealing. He’s very efficient.” She grimaced. “As was his criminal attorney. Anyone less than Detective Drake, and the trial might have had a very different outcome.”

“Remind me to find her and thank her someday,” Tony said, almost under his breath.

Lilith found that curious; it had nothing to do with the current situation, and certainly nothing to do with Tony himself. “Really, I can’t believe—”

“If he was out, would you believe he could do this?”

Lilith didn’t have to think about that. “Yes.”

“And being denied even the possibility of early parole would really set somebody like him off.”

Wearily now, she conceded the fact. “Yes. He could never accept that he’d been convicted. Couldn’t believe a Huntington would actually be put in prison.”

“The pendulum has swung a bit,” Tony said.

Lilith’s brow furrowed. “How do you mean?”

“The public perception of justice has shifted. Nowadays you’re more likely to get hit hard the more prominent you are. Decade or two ago, he’d probably have gotten away with it. Or at least gotten a lesser sentence.”

Lilith knew that was likely true. And wondered again just how he’d gained his knowledge of the legal system.

“I’ll need to know what his weaknesses are. What will set him off, or oil his jaws.”

She blinked. “What?”

“What will get him talking. Or make him mad, if I need to.” For the third time, that fierce, wild look flashed in his eyes. “I’d like that.”

“You…you’re going to see him?”

“Easiest way to find out if he’s behind this. He’ll deny it, sure, but if I rattle him enough, he might give himself away.”

“He’s a very practiced liar,” she said.

“So am I, when I need to be,” he said negligently.

I’ll bet you are, Lilith thought.

The idea didn’t please her much.

Chapter 6

Tony tapped a finger restlessly on the steering wheel of his car. As he had been since they’d left Redstone ten minutes ago. “This is a mistake.”

“Perhaps.”

“You don’t need to do this. If you’d just tell me—”

“You said you wanted to rattle him. Make him mad.” She gave him a wry grimace of a smile. “I can do that better than anyone.”

“How can you want to see him?” Tony asked, barely masking his incredulity.

“Believe me, I don’t. I have no desire to ever lay eyes on that man again. But I swore I would never cower from him again, either.”

He admired her fortitude, but said, “It’s not cowering.”

“It is if there’s anything to Josh’s suspicions, and he’s really behind this. If,” she added, “there really is a ‘this.’”

He didn’t tell her that, while he’d been doubtful at first, the moment he’d learned about her ex he’d become as convinced as Josh that there was more to this than just a couple of accidents.

Or perhaps he simply wasn’t willing to risk her life on the assumption they’d been mere coincidence.

“I’ll handle this,” he said firmly. “It’s my job, remember?”

“And it’s my problem.”

He tried another approach. “Would you let me interfere with your work?”

“If it was your area of expertise, yes.”

“Exactly.” He thought she had just proved his point, but she’d said it too quickly and easily; Lilith Mercer was no fool, and her steely determination was well-known around Redstone.

She proved his unease well-founded with her next words. “And Daniel Huntington is my area of expertise, not yours. If you want to push his buttons, I’m the one who knows what they are.”

And just that easily, she had him. And he was going to be stuck in a car with her on the drive that would likely take nearly an hour.

The Redstone name carried a lot of weight in most places, and between Josh himself, John Draven and Josh’s mysterious right-hand man, St. John, Tony guessed there weren’t many places where one of them didn’t know someone. In any case, one phone call had netted them permission to see the prisoner Daniel Huntington as long as they got there within the next two hours. Tony guessed whoever the contact was, he got off duty then.

“You’ll need to change,” he told her.

She drew back slightly. “What?”

“Your jeans. You can’t wear them to visit. Too close to prison blues.”

She stared at him, clearly wondering how he knew that, and for some reason he didn’t even try to understand he felt compelled to go on, as if in some perverse way he wanted her to be even more aware of the differences between them.

“You can’t wear some shades of green, either, because it’s too close to the guard uniforms.”

“I…see.”

“It’s my world, Lilith.” It hit him then, what he’d been trying to do, to make her keep the distance between them, because he wasn’t sure he could. He didn’t want to keep doing it, but he couldn’t seem to stop. “I know a lot of people in Chino. Gangsters I ran with. Gangsters I ran against. A couple of them are there because they killed my little sister in a drive-by.”

She looked at him just long enough to remove her next words from the category of automatic platitude. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, wishing he’d never started this. He hurried her along then, knowing it was going to eat up some of their two-hour window for her to stop and change clothes. But it would give him a chance to look at the scene of this morning’s incident, something he wanted to do as soon as possible anyway.

He was surprised when she directed him to a condominium building that looked as if it had once been apartments. It was well kept, and nicely landscaped, but definitely older than the high-rise style buildings that were popping up in the area.

“Twice the space for half the money,” she explained, as if she’d read his mind.

So despite her background, she had a practical streak, Tony thought as they started up the stairs to her front door.

“Who cut the wire?” he asked, gesturing to where the ends of the thin silver line were still wrapped around both newel posts of the stairway. He pushed out of his mind the thought of what a miracle it was that she hadn’t taken that full tumble, and focused on the evidence left behind.

“I did. My neighbor is seventy-five years old. A fall like that could seriously injure, even kill her.”

And a tumble down that flight of concrete stairs could have killed you, he thought.

He crouched to look more closely at the posts as she went inside to change. She was right. A fall like that would have been devastating for her older neighbor.

As if his thoughts had conjured her up, a woman who had to be Mrs. Tilly appeared at the bottom of the stairs, and he realized she must have gotten off the community Dial-A-Ride van that had just pulled out. She had a small bag of groceries and a handful of mail in addition to a capacious black leather purse slung over her right shoulder.

“Is this because of that wire?” the woman asked as she came up the stairs, very spryly for a woman her age, he noted. But she was having trouble with the groceries and the purse slipping off her shoulder, so he instinctively did what he would have done with his mother, who was about the same age; he took the bag. “Let me get that for you.”

She looked at him with a touch of wariness he appreciated. “It’s all right,” he said gently. “I’m not a threat.”

“I didn’t think you were, or Lilith wouldn’t allow you around.”

So she knew Lilith well enough to make that assumption. He barely managed to stop himself from probing that knowledge, knowing asking questions would probably have the woman running to Lilith to warn her off.

She let him carry the grocery bag across the landing to her door, where she dug out her keys, opened it, set her purse and the mail inside, then turned back to him and took the bag; she might not be afraid, but she was still cautious. “Are you a policeman or something? Are you here because of what happened?”

“Or something,” he said.

“I think it was that little scamp who lives downstairs.”

“Lilith told me.”

The woman looked thoughtful. “If it wasn’t him, who could it have been?”

“I was going to ask you. Did you see anyone around in the morning?”

“Just the gardener,” she said. “Although come to think of it, it was a new man, not Jose, who’s been here for years.”

“You talked to this man?”

“Yes. He said Jose was his cousin, or something like that. And he had all the equipment.” She wrinkled her nose. “And tattoos. I don’t care for those.”

If you only knew, he thought, but managed not to smile. “So he was Hispanic?”

She gave him a wary look, as if she thought he was setting her up to insult him. “Yes,” she finally said, and left him standing there on the landing as she went inside.

He was pondering the possible significance of an unknown Hispanic with tattoos when Lilith returned. She’d exchanged those jeans he’d admired for a pair of black twill pants that were almost as distracting, and a crisp, white blouse.

“Here,” she said, holding something out to him.

It was a plastic baggie holding a coiled length of silver wire that matched the remnants he’d been looking at.

“Not sure why I saved it. It looks like something you could buy at any hardware store, but there it is.”

“Good.” He took the bag. “Can’t hurt.”

He pulled the small, red-handled pocketknife he usually carried out of his left front pocket and made quick work of freeing the two tied ends of the wire. He noticed there were flattened spots on the one end, as if the person tying them had used a tool of some kind, likely pliers, to tighten the wire. He added the ends to the baggie and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. He could have Sam verify whether wire had been sold to any of Lilith’s neighbors, at least eliminate that possibility. Sam would love it, tied to a desk as she was…

They headed back down to where his car was parked at the base of the stairs. She didn’t go with any more noticeable care than anyone would, clearly not about to let the incident make her afraid of every step. And again he thought of determination.

By the time they were on the freeway headed north, he was realizing the drive wasn’t going to be quite the ordeal he’d thought. Whatever her reservations about him had been to begin with, she seemed to either be over them, or at least ignoring them for the moment. She seemed more than willing to just chat amiably.

Or maybe she’s just looking for a distraction from having to face her brutal ex, he told himself.

He was still having a bit of trouble absorbing what she’d told him. He realized now how stupid he’d been, thinking that things like that didn’t touch her world, but still, it was nearly impossible for him to think of this elegant, classy woman as a victim of such brutality.

And when he did, when he pictured her frightened and in that kind of danger, when he thought of her hurt and bleeding and alone, a rage he hadn’t felt since his days on the street welled up in him. The kind of rage that had gotten him into far too much trouble in his life.

Only this time he’d asked for it. Hell, he’d demanded it, demanded to be the one to help her, even knowing it would mean time like this, alone in her company, fighting his tangled feelings every step of the way.

Great.

Masochist didn’t even begin to describe it.

“I think,” Lilith said when the conversation turned, as it inevitably did between people who had their particular boss in common, “you have to have the most amazing ‘How I met Josh’ story in all of Redstone.”

“The most infamous, maybe,” he said as he signaled for a lane change to get out from behind a truck spitting rocks off its uncovered load. They were in the Redstone car he drove on assignment, but he took care of it as if it were his own, she noticed.

“That, too,” she agreed with a laugh, and was oddly gratified when that made him smile, perhaps because it looked as if it was in spite of himself.

“I owe Josh my life,” he said simply. “And not just for not having my…butt thrown in jail back then.”

She didn’t miss the change of words, and wondered if it was because she was female, or older than he, or simply that she was Redstone and therefore deserved the respect Josh demanded for all his people.

“I heard he sent you to school.”

Tony nodded, although he didn’t look at her. It wasn’t because there was a lot of traffic at this midday hour, but maybe he was just a careful driver, she thought.

“Yes.” She saw one corner of his mouth quirk. “It was his price for staying out of juvie. I’d been there twice, and I didn’t want to go back.”

This, she hadn’t known. Either part. “His price?”

“He told me I could go to this school he knew about, or I could go back in the system. My choice.”

She laughed; she couldn’t help it. “That’s Josh. Giving you options but making the right one all but impossible to pass up.”

He did glance at her then. “Well, I wasn’t sure it was the right one. To me, then, school was just another form of jail.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’ll bet you loved school. Becoming a teacher and all.”

“I did love school,” she said. “At least, until I got old enough to realize that I was being fed somebody’s particular version of the world, to be memorized and spewed back when required.”

“Sounds like school to me,” he said dryly.

“I wanted the truth,” she said, “and to learn how to learn for myself. And that’s why I thought I wanted to be a teacher. To teach that. But when the trouble with my husband began, he used his influence to have me laid off. He didn’t want me working.”

“Hurt his self-image?”

“No, teaching was acceptable. It was control. He couldn’t keep me sufficiently under his thumb if I was out working every day.”

A little bitterness had crept into her voice, and it startled her. She’d thought herself long past such a feeling. Determined to end this now, she turned the conversation back to him. “So Josh made you go back to school?”

He accepted the change with surprising ease; perhaps he had sensed her discomfort. “Not back. To a different school. A college prep academy. I thought he was crazy. Me, in some snobby, upper-crust college prep? I laughed in his face.”

Since she had gone to such a place herself, Lilith had a full album of images to draw on. She couldn’t picture the kid he’d been in any of them. Nor could she begin to imagine how hard it must have been for him.

“But he didn’t give up,” she said.

“No. I told him it was a joke, no place like that would ever let somebody like me in. He said that was his problem.”

“And they did.”

“Turns out it was run by a friend of his.”

“He has them everywhere, doesn’t he?”

“That’s because he helps people everywhere.”

“I’ve often thought,” Lilith said, “that if Josh ever called in all the favors he’s owed at once, he could run the world.”

“And it’d be a better place,” Tony said.

“That it would,” she agreed. “So, after that college prep, what happened?”

“College.” He said it lightly, a small joke. But she was looking at him, saw the expression that flitted across his face, and guessed he’d still not quite gotten over the unexpectedness of it. “Business major. Which,” he said, still lightly, “as you can see, I’m not really using.”

She could not for the life of her imagine him tied to a desk. “Where?”

“U.C.L.A.”

She blinked; she hadn’t known that. “Great school.”

“Yes.” He flicked a glance at her. “And I’ve paid Josh back. Every cent of the tuition he put into me.”

Somehow that didn’t surprise her, although she knew Josh would never have expected it. She wondered for a moment what it had taken for him to get Josh to accept the payback. That, she decided, must have been quite a discussion.

As if he’d read her thoughts, she saw him smile. “He fought me when I started, so I put it all into an account I never touched. Then I handed it over. He finally took it, but only for the next person he decided to help. It became the Redstone Scholarship Fund.”

She smiled in turn. “That is so Josh it doesn’t even require a comment.”

That it was Tony as well didn’t escape her.

She studied him for a moment. His hands were relaxed on the steering wheel and one elbow was resting casually on the armrest of the driver’s seat. Logic, and her knowledge that Redstone Security was known worldwide even in traditional law enforcement circles, told her he might be relaxed now, but if anything happened, he would turn into what he was, a trained agent. John Draven would have seen to that.

But there was something more in this man, something somehow more intense than even Draven, who had arrived at Redstone via the military, a veteran of battles in various parts of the world, including the one that had taken from Josh his brother and last surviving relative.

Tony Alvera had been in only one war, but it was an insidious one that claimed casualties in a way that seemed little different to her.

Except that it took place at home, where kids should have been safe.

It struck her then that it was no small miracle that this man was here, now, where he was. And while he might want to give all the credit to Josh, she knew better. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out he’d had to fight every step of the way.

She suspected the thing he’d had to fight hardest was himself.

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