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His Only Defense
Carolyn McSparren
He's no killer…. Or is he? According to Liz Gibson's cold case file, Jud Slaughter's wife disappeared seven years ago without a trace. Despite the lack of concrete evidence, everyone still thinks Jud is guiltier than sin. But Liz's detective instincts aren't so sure. Neither is her woman's intuition.Gentle and charming, Jud might be above Liz's suspicion, but as new, disturbing truths come to light, Liz must wade into a terrifying quagmire of family intrigue where love and death collide…and everyone has motive.On top of everything else, the moment she and Jud are in the same room together, she can't help but break cop rule number one: never fall in love with the perp.
“I want to believe you, but you’ve
already admitted you lied to me.”
When Jud turned to her, Liz realized how close he was and how far back she had to tilt her head to look into his face. Uh-oh. Big mistake. Those blue-gray eyes bored into hers and suddenly she felt as though her blood pressure was careening off the charts. He was too close.
And then he was closer. She didn’t remember lacing her fingers behind his neck, but she felt his arms around her waist, his body leaning over her, lifting her as those giant hands moved her against him. She felt open, exposed and, above all, hungry.
He kissed her urgently. Mouth met mouth, tongue met tongue without hesitation or pretense.
She fought to remain rational while waves of unreasoning heat and longing rolled through her.
He killed his wife, he killed his wife, he killed his wife…
The heck he did.
Dear Reader,
Liz Gibson, a trained police negotiator, is nearly killed in a negotiation that goes horribly wrong. Recuperating in the cold case squad, she’s assigned to find evidence against Jud Slaughter, a man the police are certain murdered his wife seven years earlier. He escaped arrest only because no body was ever found.
This is one wife killer who won’t escape Liz.
The more Liz learns about the case and the better she knows Jud Slaughter, however, the less she believes he killed his wife. He’s trying to manage a difficult teenage daughter—who hates Liz on sight—run a business and deal with the cloud of suspicion that hangs over his head.
Against her better judgment and certainly against police policy, she finds herself falling for him, and even enlists his help to discover what really happened to his wife.
Just as Liz and Jud discover that their feelings for one another have grown way beyond attraction, the events of seven years ago come back threatening to destroy them. Liz must use all her skills—not to convict Jud, but to save him.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I love to hear from readers! Write to me at Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, ON M3B 3K9, Canada, or check out my Web site, www.carolynmcsparren.com.
Carolyn McSparren
His only Defense
Carolyn McSparren
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carolyn McSparren lives in the country outside Memphis, Tennessee, with four indoor cats, seven barn cats, an ever-growing family of raccoons and one husband—not necessarily in order of importance. Carolyn, who has a master’s degree in English, has won three Maggie Awards from the Georgia Romance Writers, and was twice a finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA
Award. She has served as president of the River City Romance Writers, the Memphis chapter of Romance Writers of America and is a member of both Sisters in Crime and the Mystery Writers of America. When she’s not writing, she rides dressage (badly) on a half-Clydesdale dressage horse and drives a half-Shire carriage mare.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
“GET YOUR SKINNY BUTT out here right now or I’m gonna start shootin’.”
Liz Gibson snatched the cellular telephone off the table in front of her and spoke soothingly into it. “Relax, Bobby Joe. Everything’s going to work out fine, if we all keep our cool here.”
Four hours ago, when she’d first made contact with him, Bobby Joe Watson had been drunk as a skunk. He was obviously sobering up. Liz prayed he’d be more rational now, but the reality of his situation could hit him, and then…
While she spoke, Captain Leo started buckling the bottom strap on Liz’s Kevlar vest. Next he picked up the black windbreaker with Shelby County Police Negotiator stenciled in white across the back. Liz slipped her free arm into the left sleeve, then switched the telephone to her left hand so she could shrug into the right.
“Now, woman. I been telling you I ain’t lettin’ nobody go until you come out here and get ’em personally.”
“Bobby Joe, I’m just a grunt. I had to do some fast talking to get my captain to let me come this far. He’s only giving permission because you’re an old friend.”
“Friend, my ass. I’m startin’ to lose my temper, Miss High-and-Mighty Senior Class President.” His voice went low and guttural. “You all wouldn’t want me to lose my temper, now, would you?”
Liz’s stomach gave a lurch with the change in his tone. She caught her breath and said quickly, “I’m coming right this minute. Why don’t you walk on out of the house with Sally Jean and Marlene? I promise nobody’s going to hurt you.”
“Yeah? Then how come I see a whole battalion of those TACT bastards poking automatic weapons out from behind half the trees in the front yard? Huh? You tell me that.” His voice rose dangerously.
Liz heard the rising panic in his tone, and glanced at Captain Leo. He nodded. He’d heard it, too.
She forced herself to sound calm and relaxed. “Well, Lord, Bobby Joe, they’re not about to shoot me, now are they? You’ll be safe with me. Just put down your weapon and come on out.”
“Listen, woman, I’m the one in control here. I tell you what to do, you don’t tell me a goddamn thing, you hear? And ain’t no bitch gonna kick me out of my own house what I paid rent on, try to divorce me and take my baby girl away from me, you got that? I have her now, and I ain’t leaving.”
“I know you love Sally Jean, and she loves you….” Liz used the child’s name as often as possible. The little girl had to remain an individual in her father’s eyes, not merely a possession. Liz hadn’t dared mention his wife, Marlene, since their first contact. Her name sent Bobby Joe into paroxysms of cold rage.
“I send Sally Jean out, y’all won’t never let me see her again.”
“Of course you’ll see Sally Jean again, Bobby Joe.” Through bars, if I have my way. The judge who’d granted the man bond after he was arrested for landing both his wife and daughter in the hospital should be impeached.
Liz prayed Bobby Joe didn’t realize how many additional felony charges he’d accrued with this home invasion and kidnapping. She prayed he wouldn’t add murder to the list.
“You’re Sally Jean’s daddy. We have to start thinking what’s best for her. Little girls think their daddies are heroes. Be her hero. You’re a good daddy, Bobby Joe.”
“Damn straight I am!”
In the background, Liz heard the muffled cries of a child, and a moment later, the sound of a palm striking flesh, followed by a howl of pain. “Hush up, Sally Jean,” Bobby Joe snapped. “I’m busy here.”
Some good daddy! This situation was more proof that restraining orders against abusive spouses didn’t work. Men like Bobby Joe believed they owned their families. The most dangerous time came when wives finally broke free and started to turn their lives around. Men like Bobby Joe couldn’t bear that. They wanted their families back under their thumbs. If they couldn’t manage that, then they wanted them dead.
Thank God Marlene’s next-door neighbor in this working-class Memphis neighborhood had seen Bobby Joe invade the little house, and had called the police. If officers had not been on the scene quickly, Bobby Joe might have taken both his wife and daughter at gunpoint and disappeared with them. With a squad car blocking the driveway, however, he had barricaded himself inside with an arsenal.
On some level he must know he couldn’t stay there forever, and that the police would never simply let him walk away with his wife and child.
Liz wanted him to choose surrender rather than family annihilation. At this point, she thought he was considering her offer, and hoped fervently she was reading him right.
She closed her eyes tightly, hearing that slap. Not a sound she’d ever mistake. She’d heard it too many times, when the slap had come from her momma and the howl had risen inside herself. “Bobby Joe? Listen to me. I’ll walk halfway up the driveway—”
“No! You come right up on the front porch. You hold your hands out to the side, away from you with your palms out, so I’ll know you ain’t carrying no gun. You ring the bell, then I’ll open up and let ’em out. You got that?”
Captain Leo growled softly in the background and whispered, “Wants another hostage. He’ll try to drag you inside. Thinks having a cop at his mercy will give him more leverage.”
Liz nodded. That might be a good sign. Bobby Joe wasn’t the first hostage-taker to dream up that one. It meant he still hadn’t decided whether to surrender, or to kill his wife and child—and then himself—rather than allow them a life without him.
She infused her voice with a trace of regret. “They won’t let me do that, Bobby Joe. I’ll have to wait in the driveway.”
“No!”
“Bobby Joe, you got to give me something I can work with to get you out of this mess. A gesture of good faith. If you’d just come on out with them…Nobody’s been hurt yet—”
“Oh, that right?” The man’s laughter sent a chill up Liz’s backbone. The phone went dead.
Liz froze, then turned to Captain Leo. He looked grim.
“I should have yanked you off this negotiation the minute that bastard recognized your voice, Liz. The taker is never supposed to know the negotiator. That’s procedure.”
“Captain, there were three thousand kids in my high school. I don’t even remember Bobby Joe’s face, much less his name. How could I possibly know he’d recognize my voice from way back then?”
“Obviously because you were already running your mouth.” Leo looked closely at her. “You scared?”
For a moment Liz considered lying, then said, “I’m petrified. What if I blow it? There’s an eight-year-old girl and a woman in that house with a control freak who gets his jollies putting them both in the hospital on a regular basis. And from what the neighbor said, he’s got an arsenal.”
“Unless he’s got armor-piercing shells, he’s not going through that Kevlar, Liz.”
“I don’t have any Kevlar between my eyes.”
“You want to give it up?”
“No. I’ve got to try. Maybe he’ll hold up his end of the bargain.”
“If the TACT guys get a clear shot at him…”
“You know I’m not supposed to know that.” She managed a grin and a thumbs-up, and opened the door of the mobile command post that had been set up on the country road at the end of Bobby Joe Watson’s gravel drive. Suddenly that drive looked a million miles long.
The TACT team was in position, with weapons pointed at the silent cottage, its phones and electricity disabled.
