Rules In Defiance. Nichole Severn

gave us came back negative for any kind of sedatives or other drugs.” Officer Ramsey folded her arms across her midsection. “I have enough to arrest you right now, Dr. Hargraves. The only thing we can’t account for is the gun you used to shoot Alexis Jacobs. You worked with her, didn’t you? For three years. So why don’t you tell me what really happened after you lured your lab tech to your apartment to kill her and where you stashed the weapon?”

      Alexis had been shot? But Anchorage PD hadn’t recovered the gun. Waylynn couldn’t focus. Couldn’t breathe. The toxicology screen was negative, but why couldn’t she remember anything after she’d left the lab? She threaded her fingers into her hair. This was insane. There was no way she would’ve killed Alexis. “Talk to Elliot Dunham, my next-door neighbor. He was there. He broke down my apartment door seconds after I woke up on the bathroom floor. He heard me scream. That wouldn’t have been enough time for me to stash a gun.”

      “He’s in the next room over, but I’m not stupid enough to believe anything that comes out of Elliot Dunham’s or his team’s mouths, Dr. Hargraves. I rely on evidence.” Officer Ramsey leaned back in her chair. “All this evidence, plus the voice mail Alexis left on your phone, is telling me your assistant uncovered something in your most recent research trial for Genism Corporation. Something that would bring the entire study down. You killed her to protect yourself.”

      The interrogation room door swung open for the third time and Waylynn studied a single man carrying a briefcase. Early fifties if she had to guess, short, cropped blond hair, piercing blue eyes almost the same shade as hers. The tight fit of his expensive suit and white shirt accentuated lean muscle, but it was the sternness etched into his expression that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “My client won’t be answering any more questions. This interrogation is over. Dr. Hargraves, I’m Blake Henson. Your lawyer.”

      Waylynn straightened. “I didn’t call a lawyer.”

      “Your employer keeps me and my firm on retainer,” he said. “Dr. Stover brought me in after the police coerced him into handing over writing samples without a warrant this morning.”

      The less than enthusiastic tone in his voice slid through her, which she understood. Blake Henson was a corporate lawyer, not criminal. Maybe she should’ve called her own counsel.

      “Dr. Stover gave us those samples voluntarily, but nice try.” Officer Ramsey collected the evidence bag with the handwritten note and both manila file folders and stood. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re just in time. Your client is about to be arrested for murder one, counselor.”

      “Not without a murder weapon she’s not. Everything you have is circumstantial at best. For all we know, Alexis Jacobs shot herself to frame my client and had someone else get rid of the gun.” Leveling the briefcase parallel with the table, Blake Henson slid the leather across the surface and hit the locks. He extracted a single piece of paper and handed it to Officer Ramsey. “Regardless, Dr. Hargraves signed a nondisclosure agreement pertaining to the research she and the deceased perform for Genism Corporation. Any intellectual property Dr. Stover provided to this department wasn’t his to give, and I’m afraid you don’t have a judge in the state who will overturn that, Officer. Trust me, I checked.”

      Officer Ramsey read the document, then lowered it to her side. “You’re suing the department?”

      “Not yet, but if you insist on trying to charge my client of Alexis Jacobs’s murder without evidence, my firm won’t have any other choice than to take you and the entire department to court.” Blake wrapped a strong grip around Waylynn’s arm and lifted her from her seat. A rush of heavy cologne churned her stomach as he escorted her to the door. “You, of all people, can’t afford that, Officer Ramsey.”

      Was her lawyer threatening an Anchorage PD officer? Before Waylynn had a chance to say anything, he’d directed her into the hallway, his hand still tight around her arm.

      “Doc.” In the blink of an eye, Elliot was there, and a flood of relief washed through her. Elliot with his handsome face, dark brown hair, strong jaw, broad shoulders and athletic build. Elliot, the only man she’d ever let give her a nickname that actually made her feel better whenever he said it. No cuffs. He hadn’t been arrested, but his normally gleaming stormy-gray eyes darkened with an edge as his attention locked on her lawyer’s hand. “There a problem here?”

      Waylynn wrenched her arm out of Blake Henson’s hold. “I’m not being charged. Yet.”

      “Thanks to me.” Her lawyer switched his briefcase from one hand to the other, then offered his hand. “Blake Henson. Dr. Hargraves’s attorney. And you are?”

      “Me?” Elliot closed in on her, ignoring Blake’s extended hand, his shoulder brushing along hers as though he intended to possess her. His clean, masculine scent dived into her lungs. He looked angry, which was odd considering her next-door neighbor usually went to great lengths to hide what he was thinking by layering everything out of his mouth with sarcasm or a joke. This wasn’t like him. Too serious. Too…dangerous. “I’m her damn bodyguard.”

       Chapter Two

      “You won’t be able to go home. Police tend to frown on someone living in the middle of an active crime scene.” Elliot pushed the SUV harder. The faster he got her to safety, the faster the knot behind his sternum might let up. He never looked for trouble, but he had no problem befriending it. And Waylynn Hargraves had been trouble since the day he’d moved in next door. The most recent example would be her dead assistant’s body in the tub. And the fact he’d nearly torn a man’s arm off and beat the bastard to death with it for putting his hands on her.

      Not very professional. But the moment he’d seen Blake Henson’s hand on her arm, it’d taken every ounce of his control not to kill the lawyer in the middle of Anchorage PD’s station. Possessiveness unlike anything he’d experienced before had clawed up his throat and taken control. Nobody—not her lawyer, not the police, not him—touched Waylynn without her explicit permission.

      “I remembered something.” Exhaustion clung to her words. The sweatpants and sweatshirt someone at the station had lent her hung off her narrow frame, but nothing could detract from her overall beauty. The light in her ordinarily bright eyes had dimmed over the past few hours. Finding a dead woman in your bathtub could have that effect on a person. “When Officer Ramsey was questioning me, she showed me a handwritten note, and I remembered writing it. Only, in the memory, there was a gun pressed to my head.” Her voice dropped as she stared out the passenger-side window. “Somebody forced me to write it.”

      “You’re being framed for your assistant’s murder, but I have a sense you already knew that.” Someone had been in her home. Drugged her. Forced her to do hell knew what. And he hadn’t heard a thing aside from her scream. Right next door. Elliot strengthened his grip around the steering wheel as downtown Anchorage passed in a blur. Working for Blackhawk Security certainly had its benefits. Use of the company’s SUVs, health coverage, an armory of weapons, not spending the rest of his life behind bars in the middle of nowhere thanks to the founder of the firm. None of it did a damn bit of good if he lost the closest person he had to a friend. Snowy peaks along the Chugach Mountain Range glistened in the sun as they headed east, and he pushed one hand through his hair. Even in the middle of June, Anchorage gave him the proverbial middle finger. He missed the desert. He glanced toward Waylynn, then back to the road as the signal ahead turned red. “Anything else?”

      “Nothing. Whoever drugged me knew what they were doing. I can’t remember what happened in my apartment and the drug didn’t show up on a toxicology screen. I guess I’ll take that as a win-win situation. I’m not sure I want to remember what happened.” Color drained from her face as she leaned her head into her hand and her elbow against the passenger-side door. Disheveled blond hair slid over her shoulder as she shook her head. The weight of her attention fell on him, hiking his awareness of her—of her flowery scent—to an all-time high. Geraniums. Her favorite. But not just from the bottle. Almost