Page 178 of Snowbound Threat

“Look what good that did you.”

“Actually, I think it’s turned out quite nicely,” she replies.

“How so? We have nothing, and you had to go to Tucker anyway.”

“We have a lot more than you’re giving us credit for,” she replies. “We know that he was working for Lucian Creed. I now know that he has a daughter, and we have our suspicions that there were police officers involved in the cover-up. That’s a lot to go off of.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We still don’t know who killed him.”

“No,” she admits. “But we know who didn’t.”

“You believe Lucian?”

She crosses her arms. “He had no reason to lie, right?”

“No,” I agree. “If he’d killed Paul, he would have told you, delighted in your pain, then killed us both, and been done with it.”

She takes a deep breath, and I see some of the sorrow she’s been burying surface. “I just—I still don’t understand how Paul could have let himself get wrapped up in something like this. Working for a man like Lucian? Police cover-ups? What was going on and how could he do something like that?”

I wish I had an answer for her, but I’ve got nothing. There’s no situation where I could see myself working for someone like Lucian. I’d rather lose everything than trade a piece of myself like that. And from the look on her face, Beckett feels the same.

“I thought I knew him, you know?” A tear slips down her cheek, but she quickly wipes it away. “And it makes me wonder what else he was lying to me about.”

I reach forward and rest my hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to figure it out, okay?”

“I know we will, because—” Glass shatters.

I throw her to the ground and cover her with my body. “Stay down!” I yell as more glass breaks. Bullets. Someone is shooting at us. Staying as low as I can, I crawl over toward my TV, where I have a handgun stashed.

“What’s going?—”

“Get down!” I bellow as Lauren opens her door. She immediately drops to the floor.

As soon as the firearm is in my hands, I peer over the couch and through my front windows in time to see a car speed off into the night.

“Stay out of sight!” I yell again as I jump to my feet and rip open the front door. I race outside, hoping to get a plate number or vehicle description, but they’re gone before I can. Reachinginto my pocket, I withdraw my cell phone and tap my partner’s contact number.

“Hey there, Sampson.”

“Get uniforms and get to my house. Someone just tried to kill us.”

“On my way.” The call ends, and I head back into the house, beyond angry.Seymore.His name is a flashing neon sign in my mind. Does he have something to do with this? Or did he mention it to someone in his precinct who decided it was time to take us out?

“It’s all clear,” I say as I enter the house, though I keep my weapon in hand in case they decide to come back.

“What was that?” Lauren asks as she stands and brushes the front of her sweater.

“Someone clearly thinks we’re getting too close.” I round the couch. “Becke—” The blood drains from my face when I see her on the floor, a puddle of blood beneath her.

“I think I got hit,” she chokes out.

Falling to my knees beside her, I search for the bullet entry. I turn her over onto her side gently and see an entrance wound in her left shoulder. “Hang on, okay? You’re going to be fine.” But the amount of blood? I’m not so sure. The ground is slick with it as it pours from her injury.

I do what I can to block out the fear so I can focus on saving her life.

“Call an ambulance!” I yell at Lauren.

“On it!”