Page 26 of My One and Only (Blackhawk Security #10)

C am stood up and hurried over to her desk. Gwynn’s Facebook page was open. “You can’t see what’s on his page if you’re not friends, but the idiot has his picture on the top of his page.”

Staring at the now-familiar face, Cam’s gut clenched. That guy had broken into his house, armed to the teeth.

He looked at Jo, and her jaw was working as she stared at the picture. Finally she looked up at him. “No question,” she said. “Definitely the guy.”

“I agree,” he said.

He slapped his hand on her desk, and the crack echoed off the walls. “I’m gonna call the police. Make sure he’s still in jail.”

“Good idea,” she said.

Cam pulled the detective’s card out of his wallet and dialed his direct number. After a few rings, a gruff voice said, “Detective Miller.”

“Hi, Detective. This is Cam Pierce. You responded a couple of days ago when I had an intruder in my house. Phil Gwynn was his name. He didn’t bail out, did he?”

“No, we still have him. He’s not going anywhere until his trial, unless he takes a plea. Then he’s going right to prison.”

“You think there’s a chance he’ll take a plea?” Cam asked.

The detective didn’t answer for a moment. Finally he said, “I doubt it. He’s unwilling to cooperate. Refused to tell us who hired him to break into your house. Insists that if he gives up the name, that person will kill his whole family.”

“Are they in protective custody?” Cam asked, swallowing hard.

“No. But we’re coming down hard on Gwynn. One of the things we promised him was protective custody for his family if he’s willing to cooperate. Gwynn is just the tool. We want the person who’s behind the scheme.”

“Yeah, I do, too. Thanks, Detective. I just wanted to be sure he hadn’t been released on bail.”

“Gwynn broke into your house with two guns and two knives. There was a child in that house, so no. No bail.”

“Thanks, Detective. That’ll make it easier to sleep at night.”

“Don’t sleep too soundly, Mr. Pierce. Whoever hired Gwynn is still out there.”

“Yeah, I know,” Cam said, curling his fingers into a fist. “Thanks for your help.”

He disconnected and turned to Jo. “I assume you could hear most of that.”

“Yeah, I did.” She frowned. “Any ideas who might have hired Gwynn?”

He swallowed, acid churning in his stomach at the thought of what might have happened if Jo hadn’t been there that night. “Best guess? Someone in the building inspection office of Ogden. One of the foremen who were involved with the scheme. One of the workmen who was accepting money to install the subpar materials.” He shrugged, but a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Could’ve been a lot of people.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Jo said. She glanced out the window at his truck, as she’d been doing since they arrived, her fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm on the desk. “I’m hoping the person behind the scheme is getting nervous. Makes a stupid mistake. He or she has to be sweating about Gwynn. Wondering if he’s going to crack and give them up.”

Cam shook his head. “Miller didn’t seem to think he’d flip. Said he sounded pretty scared.”

Jo took a deep breath. Blew it out slowly. “Okay, well, we’ll keep paying attention. I’ll keep checking everything.” Jo sat up straight in her chair. “Sooner or later, something will break our way.”

“In the meantime, Fiona is at risk,” Cam said, clenching his hand into a fist.

“Do you want to send your parents somewhere with Fiona?” Jo asked. “Get all three of them away from Ogden?”

“Maybe I should do that,” he said. He didn’t want to be separated from Fiona, but he wanted to keep her safe. “We should talk about it.”

“We have two agents in Chicago,” Jo said quietly. “If you want to get Fiona and your parents out of town, I could check with Mel and see if one of them is available to guard them.”

He wanted Fiona away from the ugliness that had engulfed him. Away from whatever was brewing in Ogden. Tilting his head back, he closed his eyes and knew it would be best for Fiona if she was gone. Jo would only have to worry about one person instead of two. And Fee would be out of the line of fire.

Everyone who knew him knew Fiona was his vulnerable spot. They all knew he’d die for his daughter. And that made her a target.

“Yes,” he said without looking at Jo. “Call Mel. See if one of the Chicago agents could guard Fiona and my parents in the city.”

She nodded and grabbed her cell phone. Stood up and paced in front of the window. She spoke in a low voice, and Cam got nothing from her expression. Jo was an expert at hiding her thoughts.

Finally she ended the call and slid the phone into her pocket. “Both of our Chicago agents are on jobs right now,” she said, her voice tight. “Mel doesn’t have a sense of when they’ll be available -- sounds like both of the situations are complicated. All our other agents are on jobs, too. Even her husband Dev is on a job. They’re that slammed.

“Mel could send someone else as soon as another job is closed. But she had no idea how long that might take.” Jo’s jaw worked. “She should have hired more people by now,” Jo muttered.

“Maybe she has and they’re not ready. Or maybe no one suitable has applied.”

She turned to glare at him. “Stop sounding so reasonable. I’m really pissed about this. How can you run an agency without enough people to cover the demand?”

“You think I’m being reasonable? I’m dying here. We’re talking about my daughter, Jo.” Cam scowled at her. “Maybe we should send Fiona away with my parents. Keep them all safe.”

“No,” she said immediately. “Fiona isn’t going anywhere without protection. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

“That doesn’t leave us with many options,” Cam said, his voice ragged. “Unless all three of us go somewhere.”

Jo nodded once. “That’s an option. But could you take a chunk of time off work?”

“I’m the owner. I can do what I want.” He sighed and shoved his fingers through his hair. “But leaving now would be irresponsible. Possibly dangerous for the company.”

“We could hire a bodyguard from another company,” Jo said. “That would solve the protection problem, but it wouldn’t be a good look for Blackhawk Security. The personal bodyguard business is tough and competitive, and whoever we hired would have a field day advertising that Blackhawk had to hire one of their guards.”

She flopped back in her chair. “This has been working so far, so I vote to keep doing what we’re doing. And maybe after we drop Fiona off at school tomorrow, we’ll go to the police station and I’ll try to talk some sense into Gwynn.”

“Think it’ll work?” Cam asked.

Fiona drew a deep breath. Shook her head. “No. If he didn’t cave to Detective Miller, he’s not going to cave to me. It’s worth a try, but I’m not hopeful.”

“Then don’t bother,” Cam said. “We’ll do our best and hope we catch a break. And hope that someone at Blackhawk Security is finished earlier than they thought they’d be.”

“Yeah.” Jo sighed. “I’m going to go crazy, sitting around waiting for something to happen. There’s only so much ‘make work’ I can do.”

“Then let’s put this time to good use,” Cam said, scooting his chair closer to Jo.

She held up her hands. “I know what that means, and the answer is no. We are not fooling around in your office, no matter how tempting that sounds.”

One side of Cam’s mouth curled up. “I’m thrilled that you’re tempted, but that’s not what I had in mind. You wanted to talk about our exes. I’m too distracted to get much work done, and I’m guessing you are, too. So why don’t we talk.”

“I thought you had a lot of work to do?” Jo asked, narrowing her eyes at Cam.

He shrugged. “I do. But it’ll keep for a while.” He sighed. “You deserve to know what happened with Ashley. And I think it’ll help you understand why I’m so protective of Fiona.”

“Okay,” she said quietly. “And I want to tell you about Mike. About what happened. But you go first.”

Cam drew a deep breath and moved closer to her. Took her hand and twined their fingers together. “Ashley and I… we had to get married. She got pregnant. I’ve always thought she did it on purpose, but I have no proof. And there never will be.” He circled his thumb over the back of Jo’s hand. “Bottom line? It doesn’t matter. Fiona is everything to me, so it’s hard to regret it.

“Everything was good until Fiona was born. She was a colicky baby -- really fussy. And Ashley couldn’t handle it -- the constant crying, the lack of sleep, walking the floor with a screaming infant. By the time Fiona was about five months old, the colic had disappeared. But the damage was done.

“Ashley began drinking heavily. She’d always been a drinker, and thank God she quit while she was pregnant, but I wasn’t shocked when she began drinking again. She’d go out at night, leaving me with Fiona. Come home late, usually drunk. I knew the marriage was over, but I tried to keep it together for Fiona’s sake. A baby needs her mom.”

He sighed. “Ashley died when Fiona was three. She’d gone out drinking again, and several hours later I got a call from the Ogden police department. She’d driven off the road and into the river. It looked as if she’d tried to get out of the car, but her blood alcohol was three times the legal limit. And the police told me that car doors are very hard to open once the car is in the water.”

“She drowned?” Jo asked.

Cam nodded. “I wasn’t totally shocked -- she drank far too much.” He sighed. “I’m just glad she didn’t have a collision and take someone else with her.”

“I’m so sorry, Cam,” Jo said, edging closer to him. She wanted to take him in her arms. Comfort him. Tell him there was nothing he could have done.

But he knew that. “Thank you for sharing that with me. Poor Fiona. She must have been so confused when her mother left the house and never came back.”

“She was,” Cam sighed. “I tried to explain to her that her mom had gone away.” He sighed. “You were right. I should have told her Ashley had died and was in heaven. But I was afraid she was too young to understand. We’ve talked about it since, and I told her that Ashley was in heaven with God and the angels.” He sighed. “Came out kind of flat, because I didn’t believe it myself.”

“You’re a wonderful father,” she told Cam. “Fiona is lucky to have you. And you seem to have a great relationship with her.” She touched his cheek, cupping it in her palm. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I wanted you to know,” he said quietly. “If Ashley hadn’t been pregnant, I never would have married her.”

“But you wouldn’t have had Fiona,” she said softly. “She’s a wonderful kid. You’ve done a great job raising her.”

He managed a tiny smile. “Yeah, she is. And I can’t take all the credit. My parents have helped a lot.”

“But you’re her father,” Jo said. “And you’re a really solid one.”

Cam sighed. He hadn’t wanted to tell Jo all the ugly secrets about his marriage, but he was glad he’d gotten it off his chest.

He reached for her hands. “You don’t have to tell me about your marriage, if you’d rather not,” he said. “I’m not going to press you.”

She twined her hands with his. “No, I want to tell you,” she murmured.

She looked down at their joined hands and took a deep breath. Blew it out. “I think I told you I was in Afghanistan,” she began. “I was a grunt, like almost everyone else. Doing patrols. Talking to villagers, trying to win them over to our side. Surveillance. All the stuff grunts do in the Army.”

She took a deep breath. “Mike was in Delta Force. It’s an elite group that’s chosen from Army Rangers. They do hostage rescues, reconnaissance, hunting down high value targets. Stuff like that. We were stationed at the same base.”

She sighed. “I wasn’t looking to hook up with anyone. But Mike was a charming guy. And very good at his job.” She gave Cam a half-smile. “Hard not to like a person who’s good at their job. We got involved, and it was all just fun and games.” She sighed. “Sex, mostly. Until he got injured.”

Cam tightened his grip on her hands. “What happened?” he murmured.

“His jeep ran over an IED. He was driving, so he got the worst of it.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “He lost both his legs. A very high injury, not much left of his thighs.” She swallowed. “He was in the hospital for a long time. I married him so he’d have someone to advocate for him. Someone to pay attention to what the doctors and nurses were doing for him.

“They transferred him to Germany, and I went with him. He was in bad shape. They weren’t even sure he’d be able to wear prostheses on his legs.” She looked down at her lap and swallowed hard. “He had several surgeries, but he wasn’t interested in doing the work to get strong enough to even try prostheses. He took a lot of painkillers, though. Needed them.”

“What happened, Jo?” Cam tightened his grip on her hands.

She sighed. “Turned out he wasn’t taking all his pain medication. He was hoarding it. And one day, when I went down to the cafeteria to have lunch, he took almost a whole bottle of opioids. By the time I got back to his room, he was already gone.”

“And you felt responsible,” Cam said softly. “You were eaten up by ‘what ifs’. What if you’d made sure he always took his medicine. What if you hadn’t gone down to lunch when you did. What if you’d just eaten lunch in his room. What if… what if… what if.”

“Yeah,” she said, staring at their joined hands instead of looking at him. “His parents didn’t blame me, but they didn’t have to. I blamed myself. I’d married him so I could take care of him, and I’d failed miserably.”

Finally she looked up at him. “That’s when I left the Army. While I was at the hospital with Mike, I met Mel. She was CIA at the time, and one of her men had gotten injured.” She shrugged. “She was the only person that I connected with, besides Mike. And she told me, if I ever wanted a job, to give her a call. She even gave me one of her cards.

“Eventually, I did call her. She and Dev, who I also had met, had started Blackhawk Security by then. She offered me a job, and I took it without hesitating. I wanted to get away from everything connected to the Army and how Mike had died.”

Cam tightened his grip on her hands. “Do you enjoy your work as a bodyguard?” he asked

“I love it,” she said. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “The only good thing to come of Mike dying.”

“Do you think that you and Mike would have made it if he hadn’t died?”

Jo stared at him for a long moment. Finally, she shook her head. “No. We wouldn’t have.”

Cam frowned. “How come?”

“Mike was a moment in time. I only married him so he’d have someone to advocate for him. Someone to get straight answers from the doctors. I liked him, but I didn’t love him.”

Cam tightened his grip on her hands. “That was a very selfless thing to do.”

Jo sighed. Shifted so she faced him. “It wasn’t in my plans, but Mike needed me. I knew he was facing more surgeries and a long recovery, but I figured once he was settled and getting stronger, I could get a quick divorce.” Her mouth trembled for a moment. “Instead, I had to bury him.”