Marked for Murder Read online

  The door to the right of us was different. It was made from wood and had frosted glass framing the top half, making it look more like an office door. Cautiously stepping to the door, Ramos tried the knob. Finding it locked, he took out his lock pics and went to work. A second later, he had it opened, thinking stay behind me.

  I held my breath and followed him inside. Ramos glanced around the room, searching the dark corners, and ready to attack whoever might be there. Finding it empty, he straightened. “Close the door.”

  I started to breathe again and shut it quietly. Light from a couple of small windows at the top of the back wall allowed us to see without turning on a light. A large desk with a chair in front took up the space between the windows. A computer monitor sat on top, along with a printer and other office supplies.

  An old couch sat against one side of the wall, with a blanket and pillow strewn haphazardly across the cushions. But it was the wall on the other side of the desk that drew me closer. It was covered with computer print-outs, and in the center was a photograph of my face.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and my breath hitched. The entire wall held pictures of me, along with articles from the newspaper. On the left, the date from a year ago last April was circled in red. Pinned underneath it was the article about the bank robbery at the grocery store where I’d been shot in the head and had gained my mind reading powers.

  Beside that was a newspaper clipping with a photo of me standing in a parking lot, gazing with shock at Uncle Joey’s burning car. In the grainy photo, I wore my black wig with the bangs. The next print-out showed a photo of me accepting a plaque and my ID badge from the mayor at the Museum Gala. I didn’t even know there was a picture of me from that night.

  Further along, the next print-out showed me standing with the bank manager in a cemetery beside a casket. The person taking the photo was too far away to see much, but the headline said it all, and the article revealed my name, stating that I’d helped the bank recover the stolen money from a long-ago robbery.

  It shocked me to see so much information about me. Swallowing, I turned my gaze to a few shots of me at the courthouse. I recognized one from the time I’d been accused of murder, but there were several others, some of which I didn’t remember at all.

  There were a few news stories that didn’t have my name in them, but they contained news reports of things I’d been involved with, like Uncle Joey’s nightclub where a judge had been arrested and I’d been shot. Another one told about the serial killer who’d left a note naming all of his victims before he’d committed suicide.

  Beside it, another article was pinned with a photo of me standing beside Dimples and several police officers. It showed a crime scene near a freeway underpass. My name wasn’t mentioned in that one, but I was easily recognizable in the background.

  Another article mentioned me and how I’d helped police find the remains of a couple of kids in the crawl space of a basement, and solving the mystery of what had actually happened to them several years earlier.

  My breath hitched to see a clipping of me and Ramos floating in the Potomac River. It wasn’t clear who we were, and our names were never mentioned, but there it was, pinned to the wall. Beside it came the story about the poisoning at the restaurant, stating that two people had been taken to the hospital and had barely survived.

  The next article had a picture of the fugitive, Leo Tedesco, in handcuffs as he was led away by Dimples and Marshal Gerard. I wasn’t even mentioned as helping to bring him in, but it was still there on the wall. In the center of it all was the most recent article of the newspaper shooting, with the photo of me looking down at the woman and holding my stun flashlight. Every single thing I’d been involved in was represented on that wall.

  But that wasn’t all. Interspersed among the print-outs were photos of me entering or leaving the police station. Others showed me driving out of the parking garage from Uncle Joey’s building, and there were a few of me walking into Chris’s office building.

  It wasn’t until my gaze rested on the photos of me at home that I started to get light-headed. A few showed me coming or going from my house, but there were others of me outside with my kids. The last photo sent shards of ice through my veins. I was sitting on my deck swing with Chris, and it was taken just day before yesterday.

  “Shelby?” I must have made a noise, because Ramos put his arm around me. He helped me sit in a chair and pushed my head between my knees. “Breathe slowly, in and out. In… and out. That’s better. You’re doing fine.”

  My ears rang so bad that I could hardly hear a word he said, but I focused on his voice and started to feel better. A moment later, I sat up and closed my eyes, resting my head in my hands. Ramos left my side to prowl around the room, looking for anything that would give Beal’s plans away.

  He shuttered his thoughts for my sake, but the anger came flooding through loud and clear. This guy was going down, even if he had to kill him to do it. That sort of shocked me out of my stupor, and I came back from my meltdown.

  Taking my phone from my purse, I took photos of the wall, zooming in to get the details. I had no idea what to do next, but I wanted to make sure this was documented. Finished, I glanced toward Ramos. “What should we do now?”

  He came to my side. “I’m taking you back to the office. I’ll take care of this.”

  “How?”

  “You don’t want to know.” He closed his mind off to me, but the grim set of his lips told me just what he had in mind.

  “You’re coming back to wait for him.” It wasn’t a question, and the tightening of his lips confirmed it. Relief swept over me so strongly that I thought I might faint. I glanced back at the wall, suddenly wanting to tear it to shreds. How dare he do this to me?

  “Come on,” Ramos said. “Let’s get out of here before he comes back.”

  I let out a breath before nodding. I stood on shaking legs and grabbed the back of the chair for support. Ramos slipped his arm around my waist and tugged me against him. Embarrassed at my weakness, I wanted to tell him I was okay, but his arm felt so good around me that I leaned on him anyway.

  At the door, I felt strong enough to manage on my own. “I’m good now. You can let me go.” He peered at me with indecision before agreeing.

  Leaning over, I rested my hands on my knees, taking a couple more deep breaths. Something shiny on the doorknob caught my attention. “Wait. What’s that?”

  I pointed at a thin wire hanging from the handle. Ramos took one look at it and froze. He swore several times in his mind, then shook his head in dismay.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s an alarm.” He searched for the other side of the wire, finding it on the floor attached to a small electronic switch of some kind. “When we opened the door, it broke the wire which tripped the switch. I’m sure it sent an alert, telling Beal that someone had entered this room.”

  “Is he on his way?”

  “Since we tripped it when we first came in, he might already be here.” He thought that the sophistication of the wire might also mean something else.

  “You mean like a trap?” I asked.

  He sent me a nod, grateful that I’d seen it before he’d opened the door. If Beal was smart, he’d have something ready and waiting on the other side. Beal wouldn’t be out there now, but if he’d known we were here, he could have set something up while we searched the room. Opening the door would trigger his booby trap.

  “What should we do?”

  He glanced at the windows. “We might have to go out that way.”

  “Should I call Dimples?”

  Our gazes met. He thought that, with the threat to me and my family, along with the threat to the detective and his wedding, we might not have a choice. But if the police got involved, his plans to kill Beal were shot.

  “Oh, right. Maybe we should wait.” Did I just say that? When had I become so jaded that I was willing to let Ramos kill someone for me? “Uh… u
ntil we get out of here.” I caught Ramos’s gaze and shrugged. “It’s best to keep our options open, right?”

  He grinned, thinking we had more in common than he thought. Before I could respond, the glass in one of the windows shattered, and a flaming bottle sailed into the room.

  The bottle hit the cement floor and exploded. Ramos pulled me against him and lunged out of the way. He took the brunt of the fall onto his side and continued to roll toward the back wall. We came to a stop, and Ramos jumped to his feet.

  The flames danced on the cement and began spreading toward the couch and the wall with all the photos. Ramos acted quickly and tore off his leather motorcycle jacket to beat out the flames heading toward the wall.

  I hated to see his jacket ruined, so I rushed around the flames to the desk and grabbed the bottle of water I’d noticed earlier. “Stop. You’ll ruin your jacket. Use this instead.”

  I chucked the bottle to him, and he caught it one-handed. He quickly slipped his shoulder holster and gun to the ground behind him and pulled his black tee over his head. Saturating it with water, he slapped at the flames with the wet shirt.

  My jaw dropped open, and I stood there like a dummy, transfixed by the scene of Ramos without a shirt. As he worked, his muscles rippled, and I couldn’t tear my gaze away, even if my life depended on it.

  “Get away from the window,” he yelled, still beating at the flames, and thinking that Beal could be out there waiting to ambush us.

  My muddled brain woke up to the danger, and I eased back toward Ramos and the door. The flames had spread to the couch, and I couldn’t get around them. I quickly grabbed the blanket and started beating at the flames.

  They licked the edge of the couch and began to climb up the side, so I threw the blanket over the flames and slapped at them with my hands. The blanket began to smoke, but the flames died down. I kept at it, slapping and beating at them until they were nothing but smoke.

  Breathing heavily, I sat back on my heels and glanced toward Ramos. He continued to slap out the last of the fire with his now-smoking shirt. Thankfully, most of the smoke had dissipated, leaving the last of it to curl from his shirt and the blanket.

  As the flames died out, Ramos straightened. His chest heaved and glistened with sweat. With his legs braced apart, he looked like a Roman gladiator. The heat of anger blazed in his eyes, and his chest muscles tightened, mirroring his rage. He looked ready to yell, and I braced for a primal roar.

  It never came. Instead, he tamped down his anger and glanced my way. I was panting from my exertion, and more than a little scared. It brought his anger back, and it shot out on a tide of vengeance. I picked up that he wanted to kill Beal more than he’d wanted to do anything in a long time.

  The surprise of what we’d been through, and the irony of his thoughts, struck my funny bone. I choked out a strangled laugh. His brows rose, so I quickly explained. “Kill Beal… get it?” I laughed again, then snorted, which made me laugh even harder. “Oops. I don’t usually snort.” I knew I sounded a little crazy, but I couldn’t help it.

  Ramos shook his head, grateful his anger had passed and that he was back in control. He thought I was in shock, but he’d rather see me laughing than crying. He picked up his gun and holster, then slid the holster over his bare shoulders, knowing that his t-shirt was a lost cause.

  My breath caught, and I gasped on another snort. With a chuckle, I blurted, “Whoa! I like that look.” A snicker escaped my lips, and I blurted, “You should wear it like that all the time.”

  His lips twisted, and he shook his head, then spoiled my view by slipping on his motorcycle jacket. Seeing his bare chest beneath a black leather motorcycle jacket was like a dream come true. Wowza. I was never going to get that image out of my mind. On the other hand, why would I want to do that?

  “You’d better call your detective,” he said, pulling me from my daze. “It’s time.”

  “What about killing Beal?” Disappointment turned my lips into a pout. Ramos’s brows rose, and I threw up my hands. “Fine. You’re right. I should call Dimples. Besides, you can still kill Beal… uh… later… if you have to.”

  My purse was still slung over my shoulder, so I grabbed my phone and put the call through before I could think about it too hard. Dimples answered right away.

  “Hey there. I found my stalker, but I… uh… we… need your help.” I explained the situation, telling him we were in the basement of Jameson Beal’s property and had managed to beat down the flames of a Molotov cocktail.

  “By we… do you mean you… and Ramos?” he asked, his voice flat.

  “Uh… yeah.” He let out a breath, and I knew he didn’t like that part. “We think the door might be booby-trapped, or we would have left by now, so be careful.” After another short pause, he said he would and disconnected.

  I slipped my phone back into my purse and glanced at Ramos. He didn’t relish the thought of running into Dimples, especially without a shirt. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t exactly leave the room.

  My lips turned up in a big smile, and I shrugged. “I guess you can always zip up your jacket.” He nodded and moved to do just that, but I let out a strangled noise. “But… uh… not yet. I mean… I’m sure it’s hot in here. So you can wait until he gets here. In fact, you could even take off the jacket if you’re too hot.”

  He shook his head, thinking Shelby… what am I going to do with you?

  My smile widened. “Just think of it as payback for teasing me about calling you Romeo.”

  A chuckle escaped his lips. “I guess I deserved that.” He offered his hand to help me up.

  I placed my hand in his, then let out a hiss and pulled it back. “Ow.” Looking at my hand, I found a couple of blisters forming on my palm where I’d slapped at the flames. I glanced at my other hand, but it was fine.

  “Let’s see,” Ramos said.

  “It’s just a couple of blisters.” Ramos took a knee beside me and examined my hand. Satisfied that it wasn’t bad enough to need a doctor, he helped me up.

  A rustling noise came from outside the broken window and my heart jumped in my chest. Ramos slipped his gun from his holster. I caught sight of black running shoes and dark jeans.

  Ramos raised his gun to take a shot, but the person outside took off. Ramos cursed and ran to the window, still hoping to shoot him in the leg, but he was out of sight. Then we heard the siren and knew that was what had scared him off.

  Ramos thought about going after him, but the window was a little on the small side, and he wasn’t sure he’d fit. Then an idea occurred to him. He realized that Beal had known more than he should have about us.

  Somehow, he’d known we’d figured out the door was booby-trapped. That’s why he’d gone to the trouble of throwing the Molotov cocktail through the window. After we’d put the fire out, he’d come back, but had been scared off by the siren. That meant there was a bug or a surveillance camera somewhere in the room, and Beal had heard everything we’d said.

  Once again, Ramos prowled around the room, looking in all the places he thought it might be. Studying the computer monitor on the desk, he brushed his fingers around the surface and found the bug. Setting it on the floor, he crushed it under his shoe.

  We heard footsteps in the hall, and Dimples called through the door. “Shelby?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m here. You’re right. It looks like the door is booby-trapped.” A few seconds later, he continued. “There’s a wire hooked up to a device. I have no idea what it does, but it looks like it releases a spray of some kind. It might be something flammable.”

  “That would make sense since he threw a Molotov cocktail through the window,” I answered. “I think he’s a scientist, so that might explain the device.”

  “Okay. Give me another minute or two.”

  I heard someone talking to Dimples and realized there was at least one other officer with him, maybe more.

  Ramos leaned down to whisper in my ear. “Is it ok
ay if I zip up my jacket now?”

  His breath against my ear sent shivers down my spine. I sucked in a breath and stepped back for one last look at his bare chest. He was thinking that I could touch him if I wanted. A chuckle escaped my lips along with the temptation to call his bluff.

  Cocking his brow, he grinned, daring me to do it and thinking, I know you want to. My gaze jumped to his face. As a flush crept up my neck, I rolled my eyes. “Uh… no… I mean… yes… zip it.”

  His mouth tilted into a lopsided grin. “You’re sending mixed signals.”

  I huffed out a breath. “Argh! You’re driving me crazy.”

  “Yeah, I can tell.” He liked it too.

  Before I could punch him, Dimples spoke from the other side of the door. “Okay. We’ve got it. Go ahead and open the door.”

  I glanced at the door. Without noticeably turning my head, I moved my eyes to take one last look at Ramos’s chest and hoped he wouldn’t notice. Of course, he did. A low chuckle escaped his lips before he zipped his jacket together.

  Letting out a breath, I grabbed the door handle and quickly let go, wincing from the blisters on my hand. Ramos reached around me and pulled the door open.

  Dimples entered, taking in the black burn marks and glass on the cement floor, and thinking we were lucky to get the fire out before it spread. “In the rush, I forgot who you said owns this place.”

  “It’s Jameson Beal,” I answered. “He owns the building, but there’s more. You need to see this.” I motioned him toward the wall covered with the pictures and articles about me.

  “Holy hell.” It shocked him to see the extent of information Beal had gathered about me. He also noticed some of the photos featuring him as well, and a chill swept down his spine.

  “What’s the connection?” he asked.

  “One of my cases. His wife was a client. She wanted me to find out if her husband was cheating on her. It didn’t take long to figure out that he was having the affair right under her nose. There was a lot of money involved. Because of the prenuptial agreement, he basically lost everything. I guess he blames me for it.”