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Chapter Three

Jason braced himself for Lilly’s reaction. Or rather, he tried to. It was hard to brace himself for something he wasn’t sure he could handle.

“Oh, God,” Lilly mumbled. Not exactly the hostile accusation that he thought she might fire in his direction. After all, he’d just confessed to claiming her child. “You took Megan in. You’ve been raising her.”

It was a lot more than that. Yes, he’d taken the child in. Yes, he was raising her. But he also loved her. More than life. More than anything.

And he couldn’t lose her.

“I’ll bet taking care of a baby required some serious lifestyle changes for you,” Lilly commented. Not chitchat, though. Her eyes were too strained for that, and there was a slight tremble in her voice—which probably meant she was as thunderstruck as he was.

She’d just learned that she had a daughter.

And Jason had just learned that he might lose one.

“I made a few lifestyle changes,” he admitted. He tried to rein in his feelings. Failed. “It was worth it. Megan’s a sweet kid.”

Now there was a reaction from Lilly. Something small and subtle. But he could almost see the realization come to her. She’d had a child, but for all practical purposes, she wasn’t in the picture.

Jason didn’t think it was much of a stretch that Lilly would soon want to change that.

“Well…” Lilly started. But she didn’t finish whatever thought she’d intended to voice. Instead she looked down at the picture. She held it as if it were delicate crystal that might shatter in her hands. “She has my hair. Greg’s eyes, though.” She lifted a shoulder. An attempt at a nonchalant shrug. But there was nothing nonchalant about any of this. “Your eyes, too.”

Yes. The infamous Lawrence gray eyes that seemed to be the equivalent of a mood ring. Silvery pearl, sometimes, and on those not-so-good sometimes—gunmetal and steel. Megan had them in spades, along with the olive-tinged completion that was the genetic contribution from Greg’s and his Hispanic grandmother. Megan was a Lawrence through and through.

But Jason could see Lilly in the child’s face, too. The way Megan sometimes defiantly lifted her chin. The sly, clever smile that could melt away botched cases, heavy workloads, long hours at work and other unsavory things. At first, it’d been difficult for him to see the smile, Lilly’s smile, on the mouth of the child he loved.

DNA sure had a bent sense of humor.

“I want to see her, of course,” Lilly said.

It wasn’t exactly a request, either. She certainly hadn’t framed it with a please and hadn’t left room for argument.

Though Jason wanted to argue.

Worse, he wanted to take Megan and run. To hide her so that he wouldn’t lose her. But not only was that a stupid reaction, it would be wrong. He’d been the one to raise Megan—so far—but now that Lilly was awake and on the road to recovery, he no longer had sole claim to her.

Maybe he wouldn’t have any claim at all.

And that sent a stab of pain straight through his heart.

“I’ll make arrangements for you to see her,” Jason offered, once he could speak. “When you’re feeling up to it.”

There was a flash of that sly smile, and it was tinged with sarcasm. “I think it’s safe to say that I’ll feel up to seeing her anytime, any place. After all, she is my daughter.”

Jason had somehow known, and feared, that she would say that. “I just wasn’t sure you’d want her to visit you here in the hospital.”

It wasn’t a lie. Exactly. That had crossed his mind. It’d also crossed his mind that he wanted to delay the visit so he could prepare Megan. How, he didn’t know. It wasn’t always easy to reason with a baby. But perhaps he could show Megan pictures of Lilly so she wouldn’t be frightened of meeting a stranger who just happened to be her mother.

Picture recognition might help Megan. But it wouldn’t do much to soothe his fears. Nothing could do that.

“Besides, it’s late,” Jason added. “Nearly six.”

And he was babbling. Hell. He wasn’t a babbler. Worse, he seemed to be grasping at straws, at anything, to postpone what he knew he couldn’t postpone.

“All right,” Lilly said. She kept her attention staked to him. “This definitely qualifies as an awkward moment. We’re a lot closer to being enemies than we are friends, and yet you did this incredible, wonderful thing by taking in my—”

“Don’t,” Jason interrupted. He took a moment to gain control of his voice, and his temper, before he continued. “I don’t want your thanks.” He could handle her hostility, even her sarcasm, even that damn sly smile, before he could handle her gratitude. “I said I’d arrange for you to see Megan, and I will.”

Lilly nodded. “I might not be reading you right, but I get the feeling there’s something else. Something you’re not telling me.”

Well, the coma hadn’t dulled her instincts. That was both good and bad news. He wanted Lilly to be healthy and on the road to recovery. He truly did. But Jason had been counting on having a few days or even weeks before having to tell her everything. Not just about Megan and his custody. Other things, like the events surrounding the night she’d nearly died.

Panic began to race through her eyes. “Is Megan okay? There’s nothing wrong with—”

“Megan’s perfectly healthy,” he told her. “She’s had normal childhood illnesses, of course. An ear infection. A cold or two. Nothing major.”

The pulse on her neck was pounding so hard that Jason could actually see it. “However?” she questioned.

Yes, there was a however.

Jason considered the several ways he could go with this, including just ending the conversation and heading out. If he followed department regulations to a tee, he should just turn this over to the lead detective. But he couldn’t do that to Lilly. Despite their past and the inevitable obstacles they would no doubt face in the future, there was some information she needed to know.

The operative word was some.

Jason groaned and scrubbed his hand over his face. “The police will want to question you about the car accident.”

Her brief silence probably meant she was processing that. Not just his comment but his groan, as well. She leaned closer. So close that he could see all those swirls of blue and green in her eyes. “Are you saying they weren’t able to figure out what happened?”

It was touchy territory and, as Jason had done several times during their conversation, he considered his answer carefully. “They’ll want an eyewitness statement to the incident, and you’re the ultimate eyewitness. It’s standard procedure.” He hesitated, gathered his breath. “They also want to talk to you about the information you found when you were going through your father’s old business records.”

“You mean, the computer files that implicated some people in my father’s dirty dealings?” Lilly didn’t wait for him to confirm that. “I remember copying those files to a CD.”

“Yes. You’d called a friend in S.A.P.D. and told him about them.”

“Sergeant Garrett O’Malley.” Lilly touched her fingers to her left temple and massaged it gently. At first. Then, as the frustration began to show on her face, her massage got a little harder until her fingers pressed into her skin. “After I copied the files, things get a little fuzzy.”

Jason latched right on to that because even though her memory might not be totally intact, she still might be able to provide them with some critical details. “Just how fuzzy is fuzzy?”

“A big, giant blur.” The temple massage obviously wasn’t working so she stopped and huffed. “Did I give the CD to Sgt. O’Malley?”

He shook his head. “But you’d planned to do that the next morning.”

She bobbed her head in an almost frantic nod. “Now I remember. I took the CD from my computer at the office and got into my car in the parking lot.” Lilly froze. Her gaze froze, too, for several long moments before slowly coming back to his. “The CD wasn’t with me when I had the accident?”

“No.” This conversation was quickly taking them into uncomfortable territory. Because of their history together and because it didn’t fall under his department, the best thing he could do was to back away. He definitely shouldn’t be the one to interrogate her. “Look, you have enough to deal with right now—”

“And stalling won’t help me deal with it any faster, okay? Tell me what’s wrong, Jason.”

He couldn’t. The timing sucked, and whether Lilly believed it or not, she wasn’t strong enough, mentally or physically, to hear the truth.

“You’re still stalling,” Lilly pointed out.

Yes, he was.

And he would continue to do so until he’d taken care of a few things. Such as security, for instance. At a minimum, he wanted a guard posted outside her room. Just as a precaution, especially since no one other than the medical staff and he knew that she was out of the coma. Then he needed to get the doctor’s approval to allow the lead detective to tell Lilly what would essentially be yet another bombshell. One even bigger than the one he’d already delivered.

Because nineteen months ago, Lilly’s car accident hadn’t really been an accident.

In fact, Jason was about a hundred percent certain that someone had tried to murder her.

THE ROOM was too quiet.

No voices. No doctors. And definitely no Jason. He’d left hours ago with a promise to return. Lilly repeated his words now, using the Terminator’s thickly accented voice, and she added a hollow laugh.

God, how Jason must hate her.

First, there was her part in Greg’s death. Or from Jason’s perspective, not her part. She was entirely responsible. She accepted that. She was responsible. And no amount of penance, wishing or grieving would bring Greg back.

Nothing would.

Of course, Jason now had a new reason to despise her: Megan. He no doubt saw her as a threat to his custody. That was true, as well, a realization that didn’t make Lilly feel like issuing even a hollow laugh. This would almost certainly turn into a long battle where there would be no winners, least of all her daughter.

Lilly tried to force her eyes to stay open. Hard to do, though. If the clock was accurate on her bed stand, it was already past midnight, the end of what had been one of the most exhausting days of her life.

She could blame the fatigue in part on the physical therapy that she’d demanded. A two-hour session. Grueling. Painful. Essentially she’d discovered during the session that her muscles felt like pudding and were just about as useful. It would take “lots of time and hard work,” the physical therapist had said, for her to regain complete use of her limbs.

Lilly didn’t mind the hard work, but she wouldn’t settle for the lots of time.

She planned to be walking by the end of the week.

It wasn’t exactly an option, either. She needed to be mobile so she could see her daughter. She wanted to start building a life with the child she hadn’t even known existed until six hours ago.

A child she already desperately loved.

She hugged the picture to her chest and tried to stave off the tears. She failed. They came anyway. Tears of joy and sadness. The joy was there because she had a precious little daughter. The sadness, because she’d already missed so much of her baby’s life.

She wouldn’t miss anything else.

Thanks to Jason, her baby had apparently been well cared for—by the last man on earth whom she thought would do her any favors. Of course, Megan was his flesh and blood, as well. Greg’s daughter. Jason’s niece. That was probably the real reason he’d stepped up to the fatherly plate. He’d loved his brother. Therefore, he’d love his brother’s child.

In spite of the fact that Megan was her child, too.

There was true irony in that. Her sworn enemy had her daughter. Not just had her, either. Jason was her legal custodian. A father by law. And he was the only parent Megan had ever known. It wouldn’t be easy for her to try to find her place in her baby’s life.

But she did have a place.

And no matter how hard it was, she would find it.

Her eyelids drifted down again, but she fought it. It was irrational, but the thought of sleep actually terrified her. Because she might not wake up. Because she might lapse into another coma and stay there. In a permanent vegetative state. Alive in name only.

“That won’t happen,” Dr. Staten had promised her when he’d checked on her after the physical therapy session.

However, Lilly hated to take the chance. Still, she couldn’t stop her eyes from shutting. She couldn’t stop the fatigue from taking over. And the quietness of the room and the night closed in around her.

Clutching her daughter’s picture, she drifted off to the one place she didn’t want to go: sleep.

She dreamed of walking, her hand gently holding her daughter’s. Of hope. Of a future Lilly hadn’t even known she’d wanted until she’d seen the photo of Megan. Her baby’s smile. Her eyes.

Then the dream changed.

It became dark and Lilly felt pressure on her face and chest. Painful, punishing pressure that made her feel as if her ribs were ready to implode.

She fought the dream, shaking her head from side to side. When that didn’t work, she shoved at the pressure with her hands and forced herself to wake up.

Her eyes flew open.

The darkness stayed.

So did the god-awful pressure.

It was unbearable. She couldn’t breath. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.

It took a moment to understand why. The darkness and the pressure weren’t remnants of the dream. They were real. Very real. Because someone was shoving a pillow against her face. Suffocating her.

Someone wanted her dead.

Chapter Four

The panic and the adrenaline knifed through Lilly, hot and raw. It was instant. Like a fierce jolt that consumed her. Fight or flight.

Do whatever it takes to survive.

Lilly managed to make a muffled, guttural sound. It wasn’t quite a scream, but she prayed it was loud enough to alert someone. Anyone. And she began to flail her arms at her attacker. She fought. Mercy, did she ever fight. She wouldn’t just let this SOB kill her. But her pudding-like muscles landed as helpless thuds on the much stronger hands that were smothering her.

Who was trying to kill her?

Better yet, how could she stop it from happening?

Even over the pounding of her heartbeat and the rough sounds of the struggle, she heard the footsteps. Frantic. Fast. Someone was coming.

Just like that, the pressure stopped. Lilly didn’t waste any time. She immediately shoved the pillow aside and, starved for air, gulped in several hard breaths so she wouldn’t lose consciousness.

She quickly looked around to make sure her attacker wasn’t still here. The room was pitch-black. Well, maybe. She couldn’t tell if the darkness was real or some leftover effect from nearly suffocating.

“I need help,” she called out.

The footsteps merged and blended with others, until Lilly was no longer able to distinguish which were coming and which were going.

“Hell,” someone said.

Jason.

He ran to her bed and looked down at her. He made a split-second check, probably to make sure she was still alive and well. The alive part was true, but it might be eternity before she could achieve the well part. She was shaking from head to toe and was on the verge of losing it.

Jason already had his standard-issue police Glock drawn, and he whipped his aim around the room. Ready to fire at the intruder.

But no one was there.

On the far end of the room, the window was open and the gauzy white curtains fluttered in the night breeze. It would have been a tranquil scene if a would-be killer hadn’t just used it as an escape route.

Jason raced to the window, and while still maintaining his vigilant cop’s stance, he checked outside. Cursed again. He used his cell phone to request assistance. His hard voice echoed through the room and her head.

“Are you okay?” he asked, hurrying back to her.

Lilly tried to take a quick inventory of her body. “I think so.” But she had no idea if that was true.

“We can’t stay here,” Jason informed her.

He reached down and scooped her into his arms. Not a loving act. Far from it. Clutching her against his chest, he rushed her out of the room. Probably in case her attacker returned.

A truly horrifying thought.

She didn’t want the person to get away, but Lilly wasn’t ready for round two, either. She was, however, ready for an explanation, and she was fairly sure that Jason was the person to give it to her.

“Earlier you were stalling about telling me something,” Lilly said. Her teeth began to chatter and she suspected she might be going into shock. Great. As if she didn’t have enough to deal with. Well, the shock would have to wait. She needed answers. “And I think that ‘something’ is important, that it has to do with what just happened.”

“Yeah.” Jason took her up the hall and to the deserted nurses’ station.

“Yeah?” she repeated, amazed and frustrated that he’d dodged her question once again. “The time for stalling is over, don’t you think?”

Jason deposited her onto a burgundy leather sofa in the small lounge just behind the nurses’ station. The cool, slick leather didn’t help with the chills that had already started.

With his own breath coming out in rough, frantic gusts, he glanced down at her. Just a glance. Before he turned his attention back to the doorway. Standing guard. Protecting her. Or rather, trying to.

“W-well?” Lilly prompted, curling up into as much of a fetal position as her stiff muscles would allow. “Don’t you have something to tell me? Wait—let me rephrase that. You have something to tell me, so do it.”

He nodded, eventually. “Your car accident probably wasn’t an accident.”

She watched the words form on his lips. Tried to absorb them. Couldn’t. It was next to impossible to absorb that someone wanted her dead, especially since she couldn’t recall anything about what had happened to her nineteen months ago.

“And what about tonight?” Lilly asked, afraid to hear the answer. “What happened?”

“This obviously wasn’t an accident, either.” Jason’s jaw muscles stirred as if they’d declared war on each other. “Whoever tried to kill you nineteen months ago—I think he’s back.”

WHEN HE SAW the lanky, blond-haired detective making his way up the hall toward him, Jason ended the call with his lieutenant and stepped out of the doorway to Lilly’s new room. He wanted to give his fellow S.A.P.D. peace officer his undivided attention. Unfortunately, it would be next to impossible to do that because of what the lieutenant had just requested.

Or rather, what the lieutenant had ordered him to do.

Talk about the ultimate distraction. That order kept repeating itself through Jason’s head, and he doubted it’d go away any time soon. Especially since he had no clue as to how he could carry it out.

“Please tell me you have answers,” he said to Detective Mack O’Reilly. Jason kept his voice low so he wouldn’t wake Lilly. To get her to fall asleep, it’d taken nearly a half hour of questions and assurances from him that she was safe. Jason didn’t want to go through that again until he could make good on those assurances.

If that were even possible.

O’Reilly shrugged. “I have answers, but I don’t think you’ll like them. There’s only one surveillance camera in or around this entire place. It’s in the parking lot and static, fixed in only one direction.”

Jason tried not to curse. “Let me guess—the wrong direction?”

“You got it. It was aimed at the center of the parking lot. Someone came up from the side and, while staying out of the line of sight, smashed the lens with a rock. All we got for a visual was a shadow. The crime-scene guys are dusting both the camera and the rock for prints, but it looks clean. Whoever it was probably had on gloves.”

Definitely not good. Jason had hoped for a sloppy crime scene, even though deep down he’d known it wouldn’t be. Whoever was behind this was brazen. Yes. Determined—that, too. Maybe even downright desperate.

But not sloppy.

Jason had personally gone over every inch of Lilly’s room and hadn’t found even trace evidence.

“How about the rookie guarding Ms. Nelson’s room?” Jason asked. “Did you find him?”

O’Reilly nodded. “He was in the utility closet at the end of the hall. Duct tape on his mouth, hands and feet. He has a goose-egg-size lump on his head, and someone had used a stun gun on him, but he can’t remember being knocked out.”

Probably because the guard had fallen asleep.

This time, Jason didn’t even try to contain his profanity, but it was aimed just as much at himself as it was at the guard. When Jason had checked on him about a half hour prior to Lilly’s attack, the guy had looked a little drowsy. Jason had asked if he’d wanted to be relieved, but he’d said no, that the double espresso he was sipping would keep him awake all night.

Yeah, right.

Jason wanted to kick himself. Hard. How could he have let this happen?

He’d been positive that nineteen months ago someone had tried to kill Lilly. That’s why he’d had a guard assigned to the convalescent hospital in the first place. What he should have anticipated, however, was that one guard wouldn’t be enough. After all, the person responsible for this latest attempt on Lilly’s life had no doubt been the one who’d forced her off the road and left her for dead.

Getting past one guard in the middle of the night obviously hadn’t been much of a challenge. Murdering Lilly wouldn’t have been a challenge, either, if Jason hadn’t returned to the hospital to talk to Lilly’s doctor about additional security measures for the facility.

Ironic.

While he’d been discussing the need for extra security, someone had been breaching it. And Lilly had nearly paid for that breach with her life.

“So far, no witnesses,” O’Reilly continued. “But we’re canvassing the neighborhood. Something might turn up.”

Not likely. It was late. Midweek. The small downtown hospital was surrounded by specialty shops that mainly did business from ten to six o’clock. That meant there probably weren’t a lot of potential witnesses milling around to see someone escaping through a window.

“I gave one of the detectives the names of two suspects, Wayne Sandling and Raymond Klein,” Jason explained. “Both are former attorneys. About two years ago, Lilly uncovered some information that caused them to be disbarred.”

What she’d uncovered, though, wasn’t an offense that would have earned them jail time. While Sandling and Klein had been working as advisors to the city council, the two had somehow managed to get a construction company a lucrative contract to renovate historic city-owned buildings. The problem? The owners of the construction company were Sandling and Klein’s friends. A definite conflict of interest. That suspicious contract wasn’t enough for an arrest and, coupled with other similar unethical activity, it was barely enough to get them disbarred and fired as city council advisors.

But Jason knew there was more.

His brother, Greg, had even suspected it. After dealing with Sandling and Klein on a city contract deal, Greg too had noticed inconsistencies with bid dates and altered estimates that had ultimately cost him a contract to do auditing work for the city. Greg had been more than ready to request an investigation into the two attorneys’ dealings. It hadn’t happened, of course.

Because Greg had died in the car accident.

“Sandling and Klein have already been contacted,” O’Reilly assured him. “Neither seemed pleased about that.”

“I’ll bet not. I want them questioned—hard.”

“Absolutely.”

Not that it would do much good. Questioning them hadn’t been effective nineteen months ago. Jason had no doubts about Sandling’s and Klein’s guilt as far as unscrupulous business practices, but what was missing was solid proof that their unscrupulousness had gone much deeper than what the police had already found. There was no remaining evidence since the files that Lilly had copied from her computer had disappeared the night she’d been run off the road.

Jason knew that wasn’t a coincidence.

Detective O’Reilly craned his neck to peer over Jason’s shoulder. “By the way, how’s Ms. Nelson?”

“Other than a few bruises, she wasn’t hurt physically.”

He couldn’t say the same for her mental health, though. Here she was, only hours out of a coma. Hours where she’d learned she had a daughter that she hadn’t even known she’d conceived. That in itself was enough trauma to face, but Lilly now had to deal with the aftermath of an attempted murder and a full-scale police investigation.

Jason looked back at Lilly, as well, and saw that she was in the exact place he’d left her. Well, sort of. She was still in the hospital bed. Still asleep. But it wasn’t a peaceful sleep by any means. Her arm muscles jerked and trembled as if she were still in a fight for her life.

Which wasn’t too far from the truth.

Someone wanted her dead, and wanted it badly enough to have tried not once but twice. Jason had been a cop for nearly eleven years and had learned a lot about criminal behavior.

This guy wasn’t going to give up.

But then, neither was Jason.

It’d been a mistake not to beef up security, a bigger mistake to let down his guard, and he wouldn’t do that again.

“Who knew Ms. Nelson was out of the coma?” O’Reilly asked.

It was a question Jason had already asked the hospital staff, and he’d gotten answers that hadn’t pleased him. “Too many people. One of the nurses called a few friends to tell them the news. Another nurse called Lilly’s former secretary—again, to share the good news. The doctors spoke to colleagues. Even Lilly’s insurance company was contacted.”

Jason couldn’t consider himself blameless, either. He’d told Megan’s nanny, Erica, though he didn’t think Erica would pass on the information to anyone. And of course, there’d been paperwork processed at headquarters to assign the cop to security detail outside Lilly’s room. In others words, at least several dozen people had learned that Lilly was no longer in a coma, and obviously one of those several dozen was someone who wanted her dead.

Lilly stirred again, and this time her eyes opened. In the same motion, she sat up, spearing him with her gaze. Her eyes were wild. Her breath, racing. She scrambled back toward the wall, banging into it with a loud thud.

O’Reilly immediately stepped away. “I’ll let you know what the crime-scene guys say about the security camera.” With that, the detective made a hasty exit, leaving Jason to deal with Lilly.

There was just one problem. Jason didn’t know how to deal with her.

Seemingly disgusted with herself, she shook her head. “I keep dreaming.”

Nightmares, no doubt. Jason wanted to tell her that they would go away, but he’d fed her enough lies tonight. Reassurances that she was safe didn’t contain even a shred of truth.

Not yet, anyway.

Jason eased the door shut and walked to her. He had a ten-second debate with himself before he moved even closer and sat beside her on the bed. Yes, there was plenty of bad blood between them, but he would have had to be a coldhearted jackass not to try to offer some comfort.

“You have more bad news?” she asked, her voice cracking on the last word.

She was trembling all over, and he reached out. He pushed aside any doubts he had about what he was doing and pulled her into his arms. Lilly stiffened at first. Not a little stiffening, either, but a posture change that affected practically every muscle in her body. Probably because she was shocked by his gesture. Or maybe even appalled. But by degrees, she soon settled against him, as if she belonged there.

Jason quickly dismissed that last thought. Lilly didn’t belong in his arms. She didn’t belong this close to him. This was an anomaly. An emotional blip created by the dangerous situation that had forced this temporary camaraderie between them.

Then he felt her warm breath brush against his neck. He took in her scent. The logic of emotional blips and anomalies flew right out the window.

Hell.

What was going on here?

The confusing yet tender episode lasted only a few seconds—thank God—because Lilly pulled back slightly and looked up at him. She squinted her eyes and appeared to be as thunderstruck as he felt.

Jason totally understood her dumbfounded state. Twenty-four hours earlier if someone had told him he’d be holding Lilly, and reacting to it in the most basic way a man could, he would have never believed it.

She swallowed hard and inched back even farther. The confusion in her eyes faded, and in its place came the uncomfortable realization of what had just happened.

Oh, yeah. They were on the same page.

Lilly cleared her throat, reached for the blanket and gave it an adjustment that it in no way needed. “You never did say—why were you here at the hospital tonight?”

Blind luck. But Jason kept that to himself. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to drop by to check on the guard,” he said, thankful for the conversation. It would hopefully take his mind off that basic male reaction he was still having. “When I saw Dr. Staten was still here, I went into his office to talk to him.”

She paused. “Well…thank you.”

Her thanks was genuine. Jason didn’t doubt that. But he also didn’t doubt that it hadn’t been an easy thing for her to say to him. Civility of any kind was tricky between two battle-scarred enemies.

“I’m sorry,” Lilly whispered, pulling away completely from him.

Jason immediately felt the loss of her body heat. A sensation that surprised and sickened him. Sheez. What the heck was wrong with him, anyway?

“What are you sorry for?” he managed to ask just to keep the discussion going.