Police Protector. Elizabeth Heiter

night,” Marcos Costa told Cole as soon as he drove up next to the car.

      Cole’s youngest brother may not have shared his blood—they’d met at a foster home as kids—but they’d formed a bond that went deeper than genetics. After Shaye had spent several hours in the forensics lab, Cole had driven her home and then promptly called his two brothers to see who was available to watch her house until he got off work. Their middle brother, Andre, was on a mission for the FBI, but Marcos had been free.

      Now it was 3:00 a.m., and everything looked quiet on Shaye’s street. Her house was situated on a corner lot in a cute little neighborhood that boasted its fair share of picket fences and young families. The kind of place where a stranger skulking about would be noticed.

      Still, it was Shaye. He wasn’t leaving anything to chance. And his youngest brother worked for the DEA, so he had plenty of experience spotting suspicious characters.

      “Thanks,” Cole said through his window as his car idled next to Marcos’s.

      “No problem. We all love Shaye.” Marcos glanced past Cole at his partner, Luke, in the passenger seat and nodded hello. “Is there a reason we’re doing this on the street instead of in her house?”

      “She doesn’t know you’re here.”

      “Yeah, I got that,” Marcos said with a dimpled smile. “I’m wondering why exactly.”

      “She refused police protection.” Luke Hayes, Cole’s partner on the force for the past three years, spoke up. “Officially we can’t force her.”

      Marcos frowned. “But if someone’s gunning for her—”

      Cole didn’t have to turn his head to feel Luke’s glance as he replied. “No one is gunning for her. The shooting that happened earlier this evening looks random.”

      “Ah.” Marcos nodded knowingly. “Got it.”

      “It’s a precaution,” Cole said, not bothering to hide his annoyance at what Marcos and Luke were clearly thinking. That he was overreacting because it was Shaye. That no matter how far out of his league she was, he was still going to be there whenever she needed him.

      “Don’t worry,” Marcos said, starting his engine. “I don’t mind. But right now I’m going to head home and get a little sleep.” He started to shift into Drive, then paused and asked, “Shouldn’t you get some of that yourself?”

      “That’s why Luke is here.”

      Marcos grinned again. “You’re going to nap while he keeps watch?” He peered at Luke and joked, “All that Marine training means you don’t actually need sleep?”

      Cole’s partner had been in the Marines before becoming a police officer.

      “Ha-ha,” Cole said. “We’re going to take turns getting a little shut-eye.”

      “Good luck,” Marcos said. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

      “You got it.” As Marcos pulled away, Cole eased into the spot his brother had chosen at the corner of the street. It was a perfect vantage point since it gave him a good angle on the two sides of Shaye’s house that abutted streets. The remaining sides of her house were bordered by neighbors’ yards, and they would be trickier for someone to approach.

      Cole shut off his truck. It was a typical November night, hovering near forty degrees, but Cole didn’t want the running engine to draw any attention from the neighbors, in case anyone was a night owl. Besides, he and Luke were used to working in uncomfortable conditions. Both of them had been patrol officers before being bumped up to detectives.

      They sat in silence for a few minutes, checking the area, and then Luke asked, “Have we officially released her car yet?”

      Shaye’s car was still at Roy’s Grocery, where the parking lot had been roped off so he and Luke, along with a handful of cops working with them on the case, could pull evidence. They’d finished an hour ago, but Cole figured he’d tell Shaye in the morning.

      “Technically, yeah. I thought I’d take her to pick it up tomorrow.”

      “Or just have it towed,” Luke suggested. “She’ll need that bullet hole repaired.”

      The gunman had fired three shots. One had hit the driver’s door of Shaye’s car, another had hit the back tire of the grocery store owner’s car and the third had gone into Shaye. He’d asked the forensics lab to put a rush on reviewing the bullets, but they’d looked insulted he’d even asked. Shaye was one of them. They were already rushing it.

      “We hear anything yet about those security cameras?” Cole asked. Although the camera at the grocery store wasn’t real, there were others nearby they were checking. He’d probably have heard if there was news, because he’d made sure everyone working the case knew they should call him at any hour with updates. But he’d also spent several hours this evening at the hospital while Luke headed up the investigation. It was possible he’d missed something.

      “Not yet,” Luke replied, but he dutifully pulled out his phone and tapped in a text, then shook his head a minute later. “They haven’t found the guy on any cameras yet.”

      Cole wasn’t surprised. The grocery store wasn’t in a highly commercial area, and it didn’t get much criminal activity, either. There weren’t as many security cameras as there would have been if the shooting had happened in another area of town. He wondered if that had been the shooter’s intent.

      “Shaye’s got bad luck.”

      “What?” Cole shifted in his seat to face Luke, who always looked serious, with his buzz cut leftover from the military and his intense greenish-blue eyes.

      “That’s all this was. We went over her timeline. She was at work until eight, and then she drove straight to the grocery store, which she said she hadn’t originally planned to do. If someone was after her specifically, that means they would have had to watch the forensics lab from at least five and then followed her. And in three hours, sitting outside a police station, don’t you think someone would have spotted him?”

      Cole nodded. He knew it was true. All the evidence said this had nothing to do with Shaye. Still, ever since he’d shown up at that shooting, his instincts had been buzzing the way they always did on a case when he knew something was off. And it was telling him there was more going on here.

      “If it was random, meant to be a spree shooting, then why did he wait until the place was almost empty?”

      Luke frowned. “Yeah, that bothers me, too. But he ran into the parking lot. Maybe he’d been coming from committing a crime and Shaye was in his way.”

      “We didn’t have any reports that would match up,” Cole reminded him.

      “Not yet. Or maybe he planned to keep going—run though the grocery store lot, taking out anyone there, then move on to the rest of the businesses on the street. There are a couple of restaurants that were pretty full.”

      It was one of the reasons they didn’t have any witnesses yet. It seemed counterintuitive—the shooter had run toward businesses full of people—but on a Friday night, it meant the music was loud, the patrons were drinking and no one heard a thing. Except for Roy still inside the grocery store, who’d sheltered in place and called the police.

      “That’s possible,” Cole agreed, but he still couldn’t shake the dread gripping him, saying Shaye had a direct connection. Because Luke was right about one thing: how unlucky could one woman be? Two attempts on her life in a year?

      “Today is almost a year to the day of the shooting at the station,” Cole said, even though he knew Luke didn’t need the reminder. Luke had been there, too; he’d run out right behind Cole, firing back at the gang members, completely outgunned with their service pistols against semiautomatics.

      “Yeah, and that’s why I’m sitting in this car with you instead of in bed at home,” Luke replied. “Because