In Her Sights (2 page)

She pulled the trigger. The Taser popped, but he didn’t have
a chance. Probes fired from the device and snatched his back. He clenched and
shuddering hummed from his throat. He pitched forward, knocked against the
shelves in her safe and collapsed to the floor in a shivering heap. A long moan
shook and echoed in the room with the
ta-ta-ta-ta
pattern of electricity
arcing into him. She released the trigger.

“Fuck.” He twitched.

That was easier than she expected. Before she’d only used it
in practice.

“Stay down.” She flipped on light in the little room. “I’m
not afraid to do it again if you try to get up.”

His only response was a leg jerk or two.

“I’m going to push you over a little to see your face.” She
kept her finger on the trigger and shoved him with her foot.

His eyes were a bit unfocused. Lips parted as he blinked,
but she wasn’t a fool. She’d seen men take these things to the back just like
this and jump up and still fire a gun. She took a facial picture with her phone
and sent it to her cousin. He would know what to do without asking.

Her cousin, Kyle Lewis, was the eyes on her six, in the sky,
and anywhere else she needed the backup. All from the handful of computers in
his square office that was twelve feet underground. A bunker, he called it. He
did this because she was a valuable contract killer to him and the people he
worked for. Whoever those people were.

Companies, government, private corporations. It was all need-to-know.
Kyle took the contracts and arranged them so they’d be fulfilled. Her need to
know extended to her targets. Kyle knew the types of hits she would take, and
the ones she wouldn’t. What made it all worthwhile were the positive results
that came from pulling that trigger.

The man on the floor was behaving, so she eased back and
reached for the phone. Not her cell phone this time. That secure signal couldn’t
connect to anything but an approved line. Her home phone was not one of them.
Holding the Taser in her hand, she picked up the desk phone, pressed a button
to buzz into her butler’s bedroom, and announced she had a burglar contained in
her office. The man on the floor flexed a shoulder, groaned, then stilled like
a good boy.

She’d been hit with a stun device similar to this one before,
and she knew his back had to be burning from the barbs. The quick jolt she’d
taken tingled and burned. He’d gotten several seconds worth. He had to be
hurting behind those dark blue, thundercloud-colored eyes of his. But…her
sympathy for him ended the moment he started a life of B&E.

She leaned on the doorframe. “What are you here looking for?”

The man blinked and just watched her.

“If you want to do this hard way, I can hit this trigger
again and ask the same question. It’s not going to hurt me. What are you doing
in my home?”

He cleared his throat. “I was hired to retrieve stolen
property.”

That had her pushing off the doorframe and standing straight.
She’d never stolen anything in her life. She started to answer, but her live-in
chef, Mike, walked in with his arms stretching overhead. His normally styled
hair stuck up. Cotton shorts barely held on his hips and a tight tank with stains—specs
of food, no doubt—across his belly. “Alex said we had a break-in and that you
caught the guy? He told me to see if you needed help.”

“He’s over here on the floor. Come here and hold this. If he
moves, pull the trigger.”

Mike scrubbed a hand through his hair and took the Taser. “How
long do I need to hold the trigger?”

“Five to ten seconds. If you stop and he tries to get up, do
it again. He’ll just fall back down.” Her phone vibrated and she slipped away to
the hall where she could talk candidly. The ache in her neck and tightness
across her lower back returned. All week, she hadn’t been sleeping well. It was
catching up to her. For a few moments, this thief had managed to take her mind
off the anniversary of her parents’ death, but it was back. Stress and worry
all cloaked around her like thick humidity. Things she really didn’t have time
to deal with, but she didn’t have a choice. Year after year, this routine was
the same. She punched a button on her phone and used her code name. “Artemis.”

“Got your photo.” Kyle sounded alert and awake. He always
sounded that way. She was certain he was part human, part coffee pot. “That’s
Clayton Addison, owner of Addison’s Security.”

“Addison’s Security?” She spun around to face her office
doorway but was unable to see the man inside.
Addison’s Security?
She
rubbed at the pulsing starting in her forehead. That just…that made no sense.

Kyle continued. “He does everything from bodyguarding to private
investigating and home security. Very reputable. Very successful. His
reputation for home security is excellent, but he only secures locally. His
bodyguards contract out to anyone on the quick search I’m getting, but their
experience is limited to Mississippi and a couple times in the bordering states.
His website is extensive, and he has a good stable of investigators. Looks top
of the line and by the prices, people are paying for it. If you want more
details on cases, I’d have to hack their website, and that’ll take me some
time.”

“No, that’s okay. I know of the business. Thanks.” She shut
the phone off. The man was quickly turning more mysterious and less trouble. She
leaned on the wall and tapped the phone to her chin a moment.

Why would a man with a great investigation and security
company be breaking into her home? This guy worked with most of the politicians
in the state when they visited the city. Some even maintained Addison’s
bodyguards twenty-four-seven where they were located. Addison’s company
provided security detail at ninety percent of the high-end events she attended.
With her cover identity as a wealthy philanthropist, she attended a lot.

Was this all just some thrill? She shrugged. With his line of
work, it explained how he’d gotten so far against her security. If he’d
discovered that hidden camera in her safe, she might not have ever known he’d
been there. But then again, he said he was searching for stolen property. Not
in her house.

Alex and Julia, her butler and housemaid, the only other
live-in employees she had, stepped through the room. Lexie followed them in and
walked back to where Clayton Addison was still on the floor.

She stood before him. “I don’t have any stolen property, Mr.
Addison.”

There was a long stretch of silence and then finally, “You
know who I am.”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to say that breaking and entering isn’t something
I do.”

“I’m aware of your reputation, but it’s a nonissue.” She
studied him, but from his position, his gaze remained focused on the floor
inches from his face. She squatted he could see her. “Why would I steal
something when I can simply pay for it?”

“I can’t speak for your whims and purchases. I’m just
telling you what I know.”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing here that I haven’t
paid for.”

“It’s a dagger. An ornamental piece.”

She didn’t own any ornamental daggers. She had some knives
for usage, but not for decoration. But nobody knew about those knives, anyway. “I
don’t have anything like that. Your information is incorrect.”

“Arnold Pritchard brought it to you today.”

She couldn’t recall her neighbor Arnold ever visiting her
home, much less today. She wasn’t sure she’d let the spineless man in if he
rang the doorbell and offered her a truckload of chocolate. She glanced to Mike,
who only shrugged. Alex stood two feet away and gave a quick, barely noticeable
nod.

Damn it.

Chapter Two

The last time Clayton Addison had been hit by a Taser, it
was part of training at the academy. Men had flanked him while he was jolted,
and they caught his fall. It had been hell.

Clayton hadn’t known hell until now. Body clenching, aching,
fire exploding through his back as if a baseball bat had been broken over him time
and again. Agony as he ached to reach out to make it stop, but unable to.

And the woman responsible for that was right in front of him,
elbows resting on her thighs, fingers steepled. “Let’s say my neighbor did
bring me this dagger. Why did you break in for it?”

Lexie Olympia. He was so screwed. He’d seen her several times at
various events he provided security detail for. With her hair in a ponytail, no
makeup, and squatting before him in a pink cotton t-shirt and tiny shorts that
covered little, she was still a woman to be afraid of. Not because she’d caught
him and lit him on fire and could do it again. But because of who she was.

Would the police even take the time to stop through a courtroom
before putting him in a cell to rot? The woman was like a daughter to the Mayor,
Chief of Police, a Senator, and County Judge, just to name a few. They had all
more or less adopted her when she found her parents murdered when she was nine. And that didn’t even count the general public in the city
who thought she was an absolute doll.

At the moment, he had other ways of describing her. With probes
still in his back, he kept those thoughts to himself and focused on figuring a
way out. “The dagger Arnold brought you today was stolen. I was hired to return
it.”

Her light, gray-blue eyes widened. “I can’t imagine how your
business is successful if you resort to breaking and entering to get what you
want.”

Nothing in his business operated like he had managed this
case. He’d fire his investigators if they pulled a stunt like this. “It’s
unusual circumstances.”

It’d been a risk coming here, but he’d had no other choice.
His wife had passed away years ago, and still Clayton couldn’t turn down
requests from his father in-law. A once-thriving and brilliant man, Shane
Gilroy was wrecked by alcohol abuse while grieving his daughter and
granddaughter’s untimely death. Deaths that were Clayton’s fault.

Kate and Audrey’s brown eyes flashed through his memory, but
he shut it down.

“What circumstances.” Lexie’s head tilted to the side.

“The kind where I owed a big favor.” He was not getting into
the death of his wife and daughter.

“Risky way to pay it back.”

If the police took him to jail, he’d be out of business, and
that meant dozens of people working for him would be out of jobs. He hoped like
hell Shane was happy, but Clayton couldn’t completely blame the man. Clayton
had known the risks when he’d agreed. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”

She squared her shoulders and looked even more determined. “Do
you have proof I have this dagger?”

“I—”

“Of course you don’t. Why else would you be sneaking around
my house at three in the morning if you did?”

A headache was starting to pound in the back of his skull. She
had so many things in her yard that the view of the front door was blocked from
the road. Fountains, big sprawling trees. Bushes and flowers. Not to mention
the seven-foot, stone wall encircling her property. The only way to see in was
through the iron gates at the front.

What he knew was that Arnold had driven from the post
office, was closely followed by a red truck until he turned off the bypass and
drove straight to Lexie’s house. He stayed at the most of two minutes.

Arnold then drove home, where he was met by the red truck.
Four men got out, stopped Arnold right there on the street, and searched his
car. They took nothing out of the vehicle. After that, it looked like some
threats were given, and Arnold went on to his house. The red truck parked on
the street. Clayton knew Arnold had left the dagger he’d picked up from the
post office with Lexie. Otherwise, whoever the men were would have taken it,
and they wouldn’t have staked out Arnold’s home.

So confirmation, no. It was a gamble. But the biggest reason
he came at three in the morning was because he didn’t want his name in any way
associated with the damn thing. He had planned to collect the dagger, return
it, and be done with it. “Your security system will show the dagger coming in.”

Her brow raised and she dropped to a knee, leaned forward,
and rested an arm on her thigh. “Not if I erase it first.”

He hated having to face her from this awkward position and
putting tension on his neck all while lying on this hard floor. He didn’t dare
move, fearing she’d light him up again, but damn, he wanted to. “If you know it’s
stolen, why do you want to keep it?”

She shook her head. “Until I have proof, I won’t be doing
anything to tangle my name with thievery in the papers. You may not care of
your reputation, but I will not stand to have a smudge over mine.”

There was more to her than what he realized. Stronger than
he’d thought. Smarter, too. But then, he didn’t know her up close, only made
observations from across a crowded room.

And they had something in common. “Then we agree.”

She frowned. “On what?”

“You don’t want your name attached to it. Neither do I. It’s
why I broke in. Give me a chance to prove the dagger is stolen, and I’ll
take care of it. No one has to know you ever had it.”

Her head tilted to the side. Eyes narrowed as she searched
him. His reputation—until ten minute ago—was golden. If she could just see
that, see beyond this situation. She would realize this benefit. His breath was
trapped in this throat as he waited her answer. Mouth filled with cotton.

She clicked her tongue. “What do you propose?”

Police sirens sliced through their conversation. Shit.

She turned so fast, her ponytail slapped her on the cheek as
she looked to the tall, slender older man to her right. “Did someone call the
police?”

The man looked to the younger guy who shrugged. “I’ve been
with you the whole time.”

They all looked to the older woman, whose shoulders slouched.
“I’m sorry, Lexie. I made the call when Alex woke me. We always do that with a
breaking and entering.”