Marine Protector Read online

  A serial killer has made a widowed single mom his next target...

  But first he’ll have to square off with one tough marine.

  Pursued by a madman, single mom Lyndy Wells and her infant son become bodyguard Cade Lance’s priority assignment. When Lyndy suggests the former marine pose as her boyfriend to draw out the predator, they are met with a near lethal response. Now Cade knows they must find the serial killer quickly or Lyndy and her baby will face grave danger. And Cade won’t let that happen on his watch.

  “I want to help catch this guy before he strikes again. What if he’s planning his next attack now? What if I’m not so lucky the next time? What if he hurts Gus? Or another woman? The more input I can give the police, the faster this lunatic can be caught, and the sooner I can sleep again. Preferably before Christmas.”

  Cade moved his hands to his hips. He couldn’t hold her captive or tell her what to do, but he could stick close, and he could keep her safe. “All right,” he conceded, “but you have to stay in my sight at all times, preferably in reach, and if I say it’s time to go, we need to leave immediately.”

  Lyndy nodded. “Agreed,” she said. “And I think we should pretend to be a couple.” She raised a palm. “Hear me out.”

  Cade worked to control his stunned expression. He’d endured some wild requests from clients before, but those usually involved him staying out of the way, not faking a romantic relationship.

  MARINE PROTECTOR

  Julie Anne Lindsey

  Julie Anne Lindsey is an obsessive reader who was once torn between the love of her two favorite genres: toe-curling romance and chew-your-nails suspense. Now she gets to write both for Harlequin Intrigue. When she’s not creating new worlds, Julie can be found carpooling her three kids around northeastern Ohio and plotting with her shamelessly enabling friends. Winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, Julie is a member of International Thriller Writers, Romance Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. Learn more about Julie and her books at julieannelindsey.com.

  Books by Julie Anne Lindsey

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Fortress Defense

  Deadly Cover-Up

  Missing in the Mountains

  Marine Protector

  Garrett Valor

  Shadow Point Deputy

  Marked by the Marshal

  Protectors of Cade County

  Federal Agent Under Fire

  The Sheriff’s Secret

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Lyndy Wells—Single mother of an infant son, caught in the sights of a serial killer.

  Cade Lance—Former marine and cofounder of Fortress Defense, assigned to protect Lyndy and her son from a determined serial killer.

  Gus Wells—Five-month-old son of Lyndy.

  Sawyer Lance—Cade’s older brother, former army ranger and founding member of Fortress Defense.

  Jack Hale—Fortress Defense team member partnering with Cade to protect Lyndy and her son.

  The Kentucky Tom Cat Killer—Serial rapist and murderer circling small Kentucky communities, determined to make Lyndy Wells his next victim.

  Detective Owens—Local detective assigned to Lyndy’s case after the initial attack.

  Special Agent Maxwell—Federal agent leading the charge to identify and capture the Kentucky Tom Cat Killer.

  To Lyndy.

  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

  Excerpt from Witness Security Breach by Juno Rushdan

  Chapter One

  Rivulets of sweat ran down Lyndy Wells’s temples and between her shoulder blades as she trekked back in the direction of her car, having completed another hefty evening walk. Toting thirty extra pounds was enough to make anyone sweat, but coupled with the uncomfortable weight of winter boots and her wool maternity coat, the act was exhausting. Not only did she have fifteen pounds of baby weight left to lose, she had the baby himself strapped to her chest in a snowsuit and carrier she’d initially suspected might require three engineers and a rocket scientist just to put on.

  Gus was already five months old, and the pressure was on to lose those unwanted pounds. It was late in the season, and before long, the snow would come to her northern Kentucky town. Then her evening walks would go from tolerably chilly to downright impossible. Until then, she’d keep doing her best to take eight thousand steps a day, or as many as possible while carrying her son. At the moment she just wanted to get to her car, collapse behind the wheel and gulp the spare bottle of water she kept in the console.

  She paused near the lake to bend and lift each rubbery leg, hoping to alleviate the growing burn in her hamstrings and catch her breath. A smattering of dried leaves skated across the still water where ducks and moms with bread-bag-wielding toddlers had gathered regularly on summer evenings. The ducks still made an appearance, but the families rarely did. The days were too short now, and Lyndy imagined most folks had fallen into a new evening routine. Unlike her. Gus was sound asleep against her chest now, as he normally was by this portion of the workout, but he was sure to be wide-awake when they got home. Just in time to make it impossible for her to shower right away.

  The sun was low on the horizon as Lyndy settled into a slower, cool-down pace, the apricot and amber sky quickly giving way to twilight. Unfortunately, the same mountain shade she’d savored in the late summer afternoons resembled an ominous cover by dinnertime these days. She frequently imagined coyotes or bobcats creeping out from behind her car as she strapped Gus into his rear-facing car seat with complicated five-point safety harness. Another baby item probably designed by NASA.

  She rubbed Gus’s back as she pushed on, only to stop a few steps further when the tiny hairs along her neck rose with the breeze. Her intuition spiked a silent warning, but there was nothing and no one in sight to be wary of. She picked up her pace anyway, filled with renewed motivation to reach the safety of her car. The strange, nearly indescribable sensation plucked her already tightened skin, insisting something was simply wrong, and her gut pinched and flipped with every step.

  She crossed the little wooden bridge from the park’s walking path to the parking lot at a clip, already unearthing her keys and beeping the doors unlocked. Her headlights flashed on in response, adding a mixture of light and new shadows to her world.

  “Almost there,” she whispered, as much an encouragement to Gus as to herself. “A few more steps and we’ll be locked in tight.” The muscles along her neck and shoulders bunched, and her heart climbed as she came within steps of the car.

  The wind blew again, and a strange scent caught Lyndy’s nose. Not floral. Not natural. She couldn’t name it. Couldn’t place it, and it only alarmed her further. Not cologne. Not perfume. She broke into a jog, fear running its icy fingers along her spine and into her sweaty hair.

  Her heavy breaths and footfalls stirred the baby on her chest. “Shh,” she cooed. “Shh. Shh. Shh. It’s okay. Mama’s got you.”

  Finally, Lyndy wrapped panicked and trembling fingers around the handle of her car door, and for one brief heartbeat, they were safe.

  Then her head jerked back with the force of a bull. Long, angry fingers clamped over her mouth and curled deep into the hair at the base of her neck. A scream locked in her throat, strangled silent by terror. The car keys clattered at her feet.

  Confusion crushed every thought in Lyndy’s head. Her fight-or-flight response was set to flight, and she cradled her baby with both arms, attempting to change their backward momentum and break free.

  Gus struggled in his coat and carrier, a tiny whimper of complaint breaking free.

  Lyndy dug her heels into the ground, but the hand only yanked her back again, harder, dragging her away from the lot. Her feet twisted and faltered beneath her. She flailed one arm for balance, while the other attempted to hold Gus tight.

  The soul-crushing realization that this was how she would die, alone in a park where children fed ducks and moms pushed strollers, forced the confusion from her mind. She knew with pinpoint clarity that her son would be orphaned, become a foster child, a ward of the state, if he was spared.

  If she didn’t fight.

  Adrenaline ignited in her veins like electricity on a power-plant fence.

  This would not be her end, and it damn sure wouldn’t be her son’s. She let herself go limp, dropping the full weight of her new, heavier body onto the ground.

  Lyndy was no longer tired. She was no longer weak or fat or out of shape, or any of the other things she’d cursed herself for on the nightly two-mile walk. She was a mother bear with a cub to defend, and she’d do it or die trying.

  Her assailant stumbled beneath the sudden change, and when he loosened his grip on her head to clutch her beneath the arms, Lyndy began to fight. He lifted her off the ground with some effort, pressing her back to his chest once more, this time tightening one forearm across her throat.

  She slammed her boot against his shin, then his knee, then his instep. She aimed the point of her bent elbow into the meat below his ribs, and when his grip loosened again, Lyndy screamed. She gave another hearty thrust of her foot, and a flurry of curses flew from the assailant’s lips.

  Lyndy bounded forward, holding tight to her screaming baby and sliding over the wet grass along the lake’s edge. A feral growl erupted behind her, but she wouldn’t look back. She couldn’t process, couldn’t think. Her body had switched its goal from flight to fight, and back again. Now all she could do was run. She fumbled up the little grassy hill, sliding in goose mess and turning her ankles over rocks and sticks. Down to her knees, then up again, away from the danger, away from death, into the street beyond the parking lot where she’d dropped her keys.

  Gus’s cries rang in her ears. She had to get him as far away from the man as possible.

  The sudden blinding force of headlights trapped her in their glow, and Lyndy threw up her arms to protect her baby from an impact that didn’t come.

  Instead, the vehicle stopped. Two front doors cracked open and dark figures climbed out. “Ma’am?” the slow, steady drawl of an unknown man asked, his figure manifesting gradually through bright headlight beams. A savior? Or another assailant? “Are you hurt?” He drew closer, and Lyndy stepped back. The man lifted his palms, and Lyndy recognized the familiar navy blue uniform of an EMT.

  A woman in matching gear appeared opposite him in the light. “Are you okay, ma’am?”

  “No,” Lyndy cried, overcome by the rush of assurance, safety and salvation, even as her baby screamed in hysterics. “We’re not all right.” Hot tears poured over her stinging cheeks as her knees buckled and her limbs began to shake.

  * * *

  THE HOSPITAL WAS bright and loud. Everything smelled of bleach, burnt coffee and bandages. People rushed in every direction, not appearing to see anything but what was directly before them. Maybe that was how they survived a career submerged in horrific and abounding tragedies.

  Lyndy paced the overpolished floor beside the bed where her baby was poked and prodded by a nurse, doctor and what seemed like a half-dozen medical trainees. She’d been given a cursory evaluation and released from further care, allowed to oversee what was happening to Gus. Lyndy had a few scrapes and bruises on her knees and shins from falling, some light bruising across her mouth and neck from being manhandled, but nothing serious. Nothing lasting. It was Gus she was worried about. What if he had brain damage or shaken baby syndrome from all the jostling and jolting? What if she’d broken his tiny fingers, hands or arms during one of her falls, or damaged his hearing with her screams?

  It was lucky she hadn’t escaped a madman only to get her baby mowed down by a giant truck when she ran stupidly into the street outside the park.

  Ambulance, she reminded herself. The vehicle had been an ambulance, and it had probably saved both their lives.

  “Mrs. Wells?” A middle-aged man with a lab coat and stethoscope approached, hand extended.

  Lyndy wrapped her arms more tightly around her middle. “Ms.,” she corrected. She wasn’t married. She thought everyone in their little community knew that by now. Half had probably attended Sam’s funeral, or maybe it had only seemed that way. “How is he?” she asked, forcing the tougher thoughts away.

  The man cleared his throat and dropped his hand back to his side. “I’m Dr. Mustav, and your little man is going to be just fine. I’ve given him a very thorough evaluation, and he appears to be completely unscathed. Thanks, no doubt, to his mother’s quick thinking. Whatever you did out there, you saved his life. Both of your lives, really. I’m sure you’re eager to get home, so I’ll leave you to it.” He raised his hand again slightly before letting it drop once more, and exited with a small nod.

  Lyndy blinked back the tears. Gus was fine. He was fine. A deep rush of breath coursed through her, strong enough to knock her off balance.

  “Ma’am?” A smiling nurse in teddy bear scrubs bopped cheerfully into view. “Gus is fast asleep now, but he’s good to go whenever you’re ready. I just need you to read over these discharge papers and sign before you leave.” She handed Lyndy a clipboard with a stack of white pages and a pen. “Take as long as you need.”

  Lyndy dropped the clipboard onto the table and went to stroke her son’s soft brown hair. His round cheeks were pink with color and his little button mouth worked in tiny circles, probably enjoying an imaginary bottle. A tear fell onto his forehead and he winced. Lyndy dried her eyes and his head quickly, then stroked his back gently until his mouth began to work on the bottle once more.

  Suddenly, the weight of the night settled over her and pressed heavily on her soul. She backed into the uncomfortable bedside recliner, pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her trembling arms around them and sobbed as quietly as possible against the dirty fabric of her pant legs.

  She woke to the sound of her name. Her sore and tired eyes peeled open with considerable effort. Her feet had returned to the floor and her arms hung east and west across the arms of the chair.

  “Ms. Wells?” An older gentleman in a suit and trench coat stood before her. His white hair and round glasses made him look like he belonged behind a library table or in a boardroom. The detective’s shield on his coat said otherwise. “I’m Detective Harry Owens. How are you feeling?”

  Her gaze jumped to the sleeping baby in the crib at her side. His chest rose and fell with strong, steady breaths.

  “Okay,” she said on instinct. “Better,” she corrected.

  “Good.” He handed her a business card. “I’ve been assigned to your case, and I’d like to talk to you sometime. Are you feeling up to it?”

  “No,” she blurted. In fact, she doubted she’d ever feel up to reliving the horrors of her night. “Gus and I are free to go,” she said, recalling the doctor and nurse’s promise, “and it’s been a terrible night, so we’re going to go.” The stack of papers caught her eye. She couldn’t take Gus without at least signing the release papers. Could she? What would they do? Chase her down?

  A noose tightened on her throat as the memory of being chased returned like a battering ram. She touched careful fingers to the tender skin where she could still feel the man’s arm pressing down on her windpipe. Her cheeks flushed hot, and she concentrated on not passing out. Maybe she could stay long enough to sign the papers. Something else came to mind. “My car,” she said. If she did run, where would she go? To a bus stop? Not without any money. She’d locked her purse in her glove box. “The ambulance brought us here.”

  “I can take you to your car,” Detective Owens suggested. “We can talk on the way, or I can drive you home, if you’d prefer. You can give me your keys, and I’ll bring the car to you later.”

  Her teeth began to chatter. “I dropped my keys in the lot.”

  “Look, Ms. Wells,” Detective Owens began, dragging another chair next to hers. He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and he looked at her as if he truly cared. “I’m going to be honest with you about something that I don’t think you’re ready to hear right now, but truthfully, I don’t know when a great time to tell you would be. So here it is. You fit the profile that federal officials have associated with a serial killer circling our community. Police departments in three neighboring counties are working with the FBI on similar cases, and they think your attack tonight is one that needs looking into. Unfortunately, they can’t be sure, so I can’t offer you much in the way of police protection other than some additional patrols of your street.” He shifted his feet beneath the chair and locked his ankles, then folded his hands on his lap. “If you asked me for my advice, or if you were my daughter, I’d suggest you buy a gun and get to the range, but you don’t look like my daughter, and you didn’t ask for my advice, so I’ll tell you this instead. There’s a private protection firm in Lexington made up of former military men, good ones, honorable and smart ones. You could hire one of them to look after you until this thing gets sorted out, if you’re interested. I understand their fees are fair, and they’ve been known to work pro bono where the need requires it. I’d say this situation fits the bill. They can probably get someone out here tonight. I’ve heard nothing but good things about them, and I don’t make recommendations lightly. Ms. Wells? Can you hear me?”