babysitter.
“The Volkswagen, too?”
“I didn’t know she had another.” As modestly as she’d been living in that small, outdated house, he hadn’t considered she’d had the extra money for another car.
Charlotte sighed. “I’m surprised that clunker was up to the trip.”
“Trip?”
“She’s in Chicago.”
“Damn it,” he cursed at her. “I could have used you here. I’m surprised you didn’t come to help protect her. She thinks you’re her friend.”
“I am.”
“You’re also a princess. What is it? Couldn’t spare the time from waving at adoring crowds?”
“I’m also pregnant,” she said, and there was that sound again. “And currently in labor...since last night. Or I would have come. I would have sent someone I trusted, but they refused to leave me.”
Brendan flinched at his insensitivity.
“So like you asked me to, I trusted you,” she said. “I thought if anyone would keep Josie safe, it would be the man who loves her.”
“I’m trying,” he said. And the best way to do that was to remove the threat against her.
He glanced at the monitors flanking one side of the surveillance van. One of the cameras caught a vehicle careening down the street, right toward the estate they were watching on the outskirts of Chicago.
For all the rust holes, he couldn’t tell what color the vehicle was. “Her second car,” he said. “Is it an old convertible Cabriolet?” Even though the top was currently up, it looked so frayed that there were probably holes in it, too.
“Yes,” Charlotte said.
“I have to go,” he said, clicking off the cell. But it wasn’t just the call he had to abort. He had to stop the whole operation.
“Block the driveway!” he yelled at one of the men wearing a headset. That agent could communicate with the agents outside the van. But he only stared blankly at Brendan, as if unable to comprehend what he was saying. “Stop the car,” he explained. “Don’t let her get to the house.”
“From the way you’re acting, I’m guessing that’s the reporter you dated,” another of the agents inside the van addressed Brendan. He must have been eavesdropping on his conversation with Charlotte. Or he’d tapped into it. “The one you just discovered was put into witness protection and that she had the evidence all this time?”
This agent was Brendan’s superior in ranking, and even though he had worked with him for years—four years on this assignment alone—he didn’t know him well enough to know about his character.
Could he be trusted?
Could any of them, inside the van or out?
His blood chilled in his veins, and he shook his head, disgusted with himself for giving away Josie’s identity so easily. All of his fellow agents had been well aware of how he’d felt about Josie Jessup.
“It isn’t?” the agent asked.
“No, it’s her,” he admitted. “And that’s why we have to stop her.” Before she confronted face-to-face the person who’d tried to kill her.
The supervising agent shook his head, stopping the man with the headset from making the call to stop her. So Brendan took it upon himself and reached for the handle of the van’s sliding door. But strong hands caught him, holding him back and pinning his arms behind him.
Damn it.
He should have followed his instincts to trust no one. He should have done it alone. But he’d wanted to go through the right channels—had wanted true justice, not vigilante justice. But maybe with people as powerful as these, with people who could buy off police officers and federal agents, the only justice was vigilante.
* * *
HE WAS GOING TO kill her.
Josie had to stop him—had to stop Brendan from doing something he would live to regret. Taking justice into his own hands would take away the chance for him to have a real relationship with his son.
And her?
She didn’t expect him to forgive her for thinking he was a killer. She didn’t expect him to trust her, especially after she’d come here. But she had to stop him.
She hadn’t seen her white SUV along the street or along the long driveway leading up to the house. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t exchanged it for one of those she had seen. The house, a brick Tudor, looked eerily similar to Brendan’s, just on a smaller scale. Like a model of the original O’Hannigan home.
Brendan had to be here. Unless it was already done....
Was she was too late? Had he already taken his justice and left?
The gates stood open, making it easy for her to drive through and pull her Volkswagen up to the house.