“No.” Adam held his hand tight to her chest. “She cares about us. I don’t know why, but she gives a damn.”
She’d thrown her body in front of his, but someone—the same someone who had taken a shot at him—had taken Eve. If Evans was the one who had taken Eve and Evans was the one who wanted him alive, why would he have taken that shot?
Something else was at play and it had to do with that missing file.
He heard the sirens in the background. He needed to clear out or he would end up spending hours at the police station. He glanced to Adam. “Can you handle this?”
Adam nodded. “Yes. Call Serena and Jake. The police will try to take me in as a witness, but I have a plan to stay out of it. Tell Serena to get her sweet little self down here, and have Jake watch your back. Once I’m back up at the condo with my pregnant wife, who is likely going to need to lie down after all the trauma, I can get you the information you need. I walked out and found her this way. I’ll handle the cops and I’ll be back at my station before you know it. You need to go because there’s blood on your shirt, and they will ask questions. Go and clean up. If Jake’s not here by the time you need to leave, just take my car and he’ll go to the club. Find Sean. I’ll get you the info on the car and anything else I can find. She won’t be gone long, Alex. You have a new team now.”
“I want everything you can find on Carmen Garcia and my old team.” He stood up, his gut somewhere in his knees. “Call Ian. Get him out here as soon as you can.”
Ian would drive if he had to. If there was one thing he trusted in the world, it was that Ian Taggart had his back.
He glanced down at the woman who had just saved his life and wondered if she would pull through. The sirens were closer now and he let himself in the door, hopping on the elevator before the ambulance pulled up. Adam was right. He had very little time, and he couldn’t get caught up in a police investigation. Kristen might have given her life to save his, and he wasn’t going to question it right now.
Later he would ask all the relevant questions, but until she was conscious and able to talk, there was nothing she could do to help further. He had to make sure her sacrifice hadn’t been in vain.
When he got to the condo, he changed and cleaned himself up. He called Jake to meet him. Sean was already in place.
They needed to talk to Chazz, and he was pretty sure Chazz wasn’t going to be happy with how they talked to him.
As he waited impatiently, he glanced down at the notes Adam had pulled up on Carmen Garcia.
Just another victim, like his Eve. Just another life Michael Evans had wasted. She’d been a Georgetown student, chasing a career in the law and politics, working on political campaigns and going to parties.
Maybe getting pregnant by someone who had a lot to lose.
His fists clenched. Garcia had been young and attractive and a volunteer on campaigns. Which campaigns had she worked for? Who had the most to lose?
And who had ties to a man who could make it all look like an accident?
A new anger rolled in Alex’s gut because he’d just figured out who had truly betrayed him.
Pain. Her head ached as she started to come back to life. She groaned a little. Where was she? She tried to move her right hand, to bring it up to ease the pain in her skull, but it was tethered to the left.
She opened her eyes. How long had she been out? Light streamed in through a window, but it was a bit murky, the glass opaque. There was a couch under her, but she was pretty sure it had seen better days.
It was so quiet. So unlike the condo where she could always hear the ocean. The condo where she’d last seen her husband.
Everything came back in one horrific flash. He’d tied her up and then left her in the backseat of her own vehicle, and he’d moved into position to gain a kill shot. She’d heard one blast and then another.
“Please don’t try to move. It will only make it worse,” a now familiar voice said.
Jesse Murdoch. The man who had murdered her husband.
“You killed Alex.”
Jesse stood over her, his hands held out. “I’m not so sure about that. I checked the police radio and monitored the hospital admissions. No male gunshot victims. I’m pretty sure I hit Kris.”
And he didn’t look happy about it. His eyes were sunken as though he hadn’t slept for days. There was a grim line to his mouth and his face was marked with stubble. He ran a hand through his hair, and then his whole body twisted as he screamed.
The sound reverberated through the room, making Eve flinch back, but there was nowhere to go.