Night Watch. Suzanne Brockmann

here,” he told her.

      “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

      Chapter 4

      Wes’s car was in the driveway in the late afternoon, when Brittany got home from her last class.

      When she’d gotten up in the very early morning to go in to the hospital, she’d left a key on the kitchen table, along with a note telling Wes to help himself to breakfast and to feel free to come back when his meeting with Amber was over.

      As she juggled her keys with the grocery bags she was carrying in from her car, he opened the door and took one of the bags from her.

      He had his cell phone tucked under his chin, but he greeted her with a smile and a twinkle of his eyes as he carried the bag into the kitchen.

      “Is there more?” he mouthed. He was wearing jeans, and he had a barbed wire tattoo encircling his left biceps, peeking out from the sleeve of his snugly-fitting T-shirt.

      Dressed up in a sports jacket and nice pants, he looked like an average guy—with a thick head of pretty-colored hair and those dancing blue eyes working to cancel out his lack of height. But with some of his natural scruffiness showing, in jeans that hugged a world-class set of glutes and a T-shirt that clung to his shoulders and pecs, with his hair not so carefully combed, and that tattoo…He was eye-catching, to say the least.

      “I can get it,” she said, but he shook his head and went out the door and down the wooden steps to the driveway. Wasn’t that nice?

      She started unloading the groceries, and he returned with the last two bags.

      He was still on the phone. “I know,” he said to whomever he was talking to. “I understand.” He paused. “No, I don’t think you’re crazy, although, you’re the shrink—you should know.” Another pause. “Look, I’m on the case. I’m going out to her place tonight—there’s some kind of party and…”

      Even though he was talking to someone—and Brittany would’ve bet big money that it was his very nice “friend,” Lana—he helped by putting the milk and yogurt in the refrigerator, the frozen vegetables in the freezer.

      “No, I only spoke to her for about fifteen minutes—while she was getting her hair done in her trailer,” Wes reported. “She said this guy’s just a fan who’s gone a little bit overboard. He’s no big deal.” Pause. “No, those were her words, not mine. I haven’t met the guy.” Pause. “Yeah, she mentioned that she came home last week and he was in her garage. She seems to think the only way he could have got in there was if he wandered in while she was leaving in the morning and hung out there all day, which is—yes, you’re absolutely right—it’s pretty freaky. I’m with you totally on that, and yeah, she seemed to talk about him as if he was some kind of stray animal—he wandered in. It’s more likely he snuck in. But she also said that he left immediately, as soon as she asked. And she didn’t get out of her car until he was out of there and the garage door was closed, so at least we know that your sister’s not a total brainless idiot.”

      With all the groceries put in the various cabinets, he sat down at the kitchen table.

      “Definitely,” he said. “I’m going out there tonight. I’ll look over her security system, and I’ll talk to her again. And I’ll call you soon, okay?” Another pause, then he added, “Yeah, you know, Lana, about Wizard…” Wes rubbed the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes. “Yeah. No, I haven’t heard from him. I was, you know, wondering if you had?” He laughed. “Yeah, right. Yeah, okay babe, talk to you soon.”

      He closed his cell phone with a snap and very salty curse. “Sorry,” he said as he realized Brittany was still standing there. “God, I would sell my left…shoe for a cigarette.”

      This time, Brittany couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “Are you sleeping with her?”

      Wes met her gaze and there was something in his eyes that looked an awful lot like guilt. “Who, Amber? Of course not,” he said, but she knew he knew exactly what she was talking about.

      Was he sleeping with Lana—who was very nice.

      Britt just waited, watching him, and he finally swore and laughed, although there wasn’t any humor in it.

      “No,” he said. “No, I’m not. It’s not…It’s never gone that far. It’s not going to, you know? I wouldn’t do that to Wizard.”

      But he wanted to. He was in love with the woman. It had dripped from every word he spoke while on the phone with her.

      Brittany’s heart broke for him. “Has it occurred to you that she might be taking advantage of you? I mean, asking you to come out to L.A. to do something she should be paying a private investigator to do…?”

      “I had to take leave,” Wes told her. “The senior chief insisted. And believe me, coming down here was better than staying in San Diego with all that time on my hands. It’s not easy to be there—especially when Wizard’s away.” He laughed again, rubbing his forehead as if he had a terrible headache. “Yeah, like it’s easy to be there when he’s home. It sucks, okay? Wherever I am, 24/7, it really sucks. But it sucks even more when she’s a five-minute ride from my house.”

      Brittany sat down across from him at the table. “I’m so sorry.”

      “Yeah, well…” He forced a smile.

      “You said…She’s a psychiatrist?”

      “Psychologist,” he corrected her.

      “Does she know you’re in love with her?” How could Lana not know? How could a trained psychologist not take one look at Wes and know without a shadow of a doubt that he was head over heels in love with her?

      But, “No,” Wes said. “I mean, yeah, she knows I run hot for her, sure. I’ve done a few stupid things to give that away, but…She also knows that I’m not going to act on it. You know, my attraction to her. It’s not going to happen. She knows that.”

      Brittany kept her mouth closed over the harsh words she wanted to say. Like, how could Lana use Wes as her errand boy like this, knowing that he’d do darn near anything for her? What kind of woman would take advantage of this kind of devotion from a man who wasn’t her husband?

      Lana didn’t sound very nice to her. In fact, she sounded an awful lot like a snake.

      “You know what the real bitch of it all is?” Wes asked. “I found out something today—from Amber—that’s really making my head spin. It’s…” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear this.”

      Brittany sighed. “Do I look like I’m in a hurry to go someplace?”

      He sat there, just looking at her, somber and weary of life’s burdens. This was a Wes Skelly that most people never got a chance to see. Britt realized that he hid this part of himself behind both laughter and anger.

      “I’ve been caught in the middle for years,” Wes said quietly. “Between Lana and Wizard, I mean. Wizard—the Mighty Quinn—he doesn’t exactly include fidelity as part of his working vocabulary, you know what I mean?”

      Britt did know.

      “He’s been stepping out on Lana for years,” he continued, “and when I’ve called him on it, he’s got this ‘What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her’ kind of ha-ha-ha attitude about it. So there I am. Do I tell her? Do I not tell her? I was Wizard’s friend first, so I’ve kept my mouth shut, but it’s been driving me freaking crazy. Because if I tell her, it’s going to seem as if I’m doing it for selfish reasons, right? But today…”

      He started fidgeting, straightening the napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers.

      “I was talking to Amber, you know, about this guy who’s been following her,” Wes told her, “and how Lana’s worried about him, and Amber, she says