Her Undercover Refuge Read online

  Scott, fifteen at the time, admired the cops who solved the murder. The rest was his history—despite the fact he wished his uncle, who’d been killed for the sparse money in his wallet, was still around. But that murder had been his impetus for first enlisting in the military, and after his four-year commitment he’d joined the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Department.

  Chance, California, was in San Luis Obispo County.

  “Are you okay?” Nella was staring at him with worried-looking eyes. Damn, but he hated when his mind went off on tangents like that.

  “Fine,” he said. “Just thinking a lot about Dobie and our foster dogs.” And the rest of his family...

  And he liked that she showed concern by asking about what was on his mind.

  He was really beginning to appreciate her.

  He would have to be careful.

  The rest of their dinner went well. And fast.

  He enjoyed Nella’s enthusiasm when they talked about the animal shelter, her eagerness to hear more about how and why he’d planned the shelter.

  Once they were done, and after insisting on paying the bill, he drove them both back to the shelter and parked in the back. The small park area across the street was dimly lit by electric lights, and Scott looked over there to make sure it was empty.

  “Do you live here, too?” Nella asked.

  “No, though not far away. I want to leave the apartments here for people who need them—including you for now.”

  She laughed and didn’t wait for him to open the door before she got out of the car.

  It was around nine o’clock. Though she now had an appropriate keycard, Scott unlocked the door to the main shelter building from the parking area to let Nella in.

  He liked that she suggested they walk around the shelter area and check on the animals. It was late enough that no residents were likely to be doing so unless there were any problems.

  Which there weren’t. The staffers, Scott told Nella, were under direction to feed the animals before eating their own dinners and take care of any cleanups.

  All looked well, and some of the dogs came to the front of their enclosures to greet these humans, who kept going.

  “This is so fun,” Nella said as they started walking.

  Rather than heading to her unit, though, she said she wanted to go upstairs to her new office in the main building and check a few things out.

  “Good idea,” Scott said. “I was thinking about heading to my office, too, to look at my emails.” He hadn’t actually been thinking that, at this hour, since they could wait till morning, but it wouldn’t hurt to remain in Nella’s company as long as he could.

  They entered the main building and walked up the back stairs to the office levels. Scott left Nella in the reception office when she said she wanted to take a quick initial look at the file describing her responsibilities on her computer.

  “Okay,” he said, appreciating the way this woman jumped in to do her job.

  He left her there, sitting at that desk and reaching for the shelter phone before heading to his own computer.

  He didn’t get far, though, before he heard Nella gasp and call out, “Scott, you need to see this.”

  He hurried back to see her holding the office cell phone she’d lifted from its charger, staring at the screen.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She said nothing, but her mouth was tight and her expression grim as she handed the phone to him.

  He looked at the screen.

  A text message on it said:

  You have allowed someone to move to your hell pit of a shelter who is going to be killed. Soon. You should be more careful next time. If there is a next time.

  Chapter 6

  Nella wanted to pound something as Scott read that damn message.

  It was a horrible, nasty statement, a warning, of course.

  Equally important was that the primary purpose of the Chance Animal Shelter was far from as secure as intended.

  At least one person knew enough about it to make threats.

  One of the tormenters of a current resident of the shelter? It certainly sounded that way.

  And considering the timing, was it Ann’s—Alice’s—stepson or someone else who’d been close to her? Someone with the same inclination, to hurt that poor woman?

  Or did the threat relate to one of the other staff members at the shelter?

  Did—

  “What the hell?” Scott burst out. “We’d better lock down this place even more. And I’ll send the phone number behind that damn message to one of my contacts at the Chance PD to try to trace its source, but I’ll bet the person used a burner phone.”

  “Probably,” Nella shot back through clenched teeth. “Has this happened before? If so, what did you do?” She stood behind the reception desk, and Scott lowered himself into a chair across from her.

  “I told you about that situation a while ago when one of our new staffers contacted her ex to brag about having gotten a new life, and he came after her. That’s the only time we’ve had an issue, even though it’s not easy to keep this place completely under wraps.” He spoke evenly but looked furious, with his blue eyes almost issuing lightning bolts of anger.

  “What are we going to do about this?” Nella asked. “Assuming we can’t find out who sent it, which is the most likely scenario.”

  “Oh, we’ll find them eventually.” Scott sounded so positive Nella wanted to hug him.

  And that wasn’t the only reason she’d considered hugging him since meeting him that day. He’d hired her. He trusted her.

  Now she wanted to do something to earn that trust.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “We will. And I want to be part of your investigation, be right there helping when you bring them down.”

  She was staring at him, knowing her expression was grim and hoping it appeared determined. He looked back at her. “I know you’ve been in law enforcement,” he said. “That’s one reason I hired you to be a manager. But there’s no need for you to place yourself in danger like that. I’ll—”

  “There’s a need to get this fixed,” she returned. “I’m going to help. Period.”

  They glared at each other. And did she really want this kind of responsibility?

  No, especially not after what she had gone through with that gang task force—and losing her friend and partner.

  Well, she wasn’t going to lose anyone under her care here. At least she had backup in Scott and the other managers. But she was going to stay involved.

  Their mutual glare lasted only a little longer. Then Nella found herself smiling—sort of—at her boss.

  “You want to save everyone, human and animal,” she said, the emotion in her voice now no longer that of anger but of understanding—and admiration. “I get it. And if you could save the world on your own, more power to you. But reality—”

  “Reality is that I need help. I realize that. It’s why I’ve hired genuine managers here, like you. So—”

  “So you’ll let me help.” There was no question in her voice. Not now.

  “Yeah, I guess I’d better.”

  She stood. “So what’s next?”

  “Well, neither Camp nor Telma live here, though they’re nearby—for the same reasons I generally don’t want our managers or even myself to live here and make what’s going on even more obvious. But I can have them come in tonight, and—”

  “I live here now, and I have experience dealing with bad guys. I’ll take care of the shelter, then we can all meet tomorrow and decide on a plan.”

  She watched the irritation in his expression. Was it combined with admiration, too?

  “Tell you what,” he said. “At least one of the apartments on the same floor as yours is also vacant. I’ll stay here tonight, too. You and I will check first to make sure all th
e staff members are okay, then I’ll patrol the halls periodically through the night, though not at any scheduled time to make it too easy for anyone who might be watching the place to figure out.”

  “You think they’re watching and not just threatening?” That kind of unnerved Nella, despite it being logical.

  “We don’t know, but we can assume, and try to deal with, the worst.”

  “Of course.”

  Scott was one smart law enforcement officer—and shelter director. Nella liked that about him. In fact, she probably liked too much about him.

  Too bad she had made a vow to never become involved with someone she worked with, especially in security or anything related. She hadn’t had a relationship with Lou, of course, but it hurt to lose him nonetheless.

  “Let me make my phone call, then we’ll get started, okay?” Scott asked.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed in some numbers, and as he did, Nella walked around the desk and out the door behind him, into the upstairs hallway outside the offices.

  And listened to the rest of the shelter.

  Nothing seemed out of order. She didn’t even hear any dogs barking, and hopefully a few, at least, had enough watchdog in them to make some noise if anything unusual was happening.

  “Okay,” said Scott from behind her, startling her a little, since she’d been concentrating. “Let’s go.”

  “Fine.” She turned to look at him—and saw him staring at her again with those brilliant blue eyes.

  Before she considered what she was doing, she reached out to hug him to try to reassure him—and herself. “We’ll figure this out,” she told him. “No one around here is going to get hurt.”

  “Absolutely,” he said as they continued to hold each other—possibly too closely.

  And, dumb as it was, Nella found herself not wanting to end that hug.

  In fact, she wanted more.

  And so she stood on her toes, pulled Scott’s head down toward hers and kissed him.

  It wasn’t a simple, friendly kiss, either. Her lips searched his, as if attempting to learn their every line and angle, their every sexual suggestion. His tongue got involved then, as if he, too, were in investigative mode, learning about her, as well.

  But they both stepped back after a long moment. Nella considered stepping way back, like running away. But did she really want to do that? Heck, no.

  Neither did she want this to go any further. At least, it shouldn’t. “Okay,” she said, ignoring her own breathlessness and refusing to apologize. “Let’s go see how our staff members are doing.”

  Our staff members. She was definitely part of this shelter. Part of what was going on.

  Part of the people Scott could rely on.

  That kiss? It was only a punctuation mark, a comma or a colon, suggesting that they would work together to protect the staff members and see what happened next.

  * * *

  That had been wrong. Very wrong.

  Even so, Scott looked at Nella and smiled. He wasn’t blaming her. He certainly had participated—and then some.

  “Okay,” he said. “Give me another minute, then we’ll check on everyone.”

  “Great,” Nella said as Scott looked at his cell phone, which he had removed from his pocket again—though he didn’t yet check the sites he was after.

  He needed to get his concentration back.

  No matter how good that had felt or who had initiated it, it was totally inappropriate for him to kiss anyone connected with his shelter, particularly one who reported to him as an employee.

  Especially the way Scott had shared that kiss with Nella.

  He didn’t want to give her any ideas. He didn’t want to give himself any ideas.

  He only wanted to help endangered people, and pets, too. He’d had relationships with women, of course. Some had felt quite good—though he didn’t recall any kisses that dug inside him as deeply as this brief one.

  But no relationship had been long-lasting—just as well, of course. He had goals in his life that he was on his way to achieving. And besides, one okay relationship had just ended recently. That was enough.

  He needed no distractions... Like Nella.

  They needed to work together. Potentially close together, to ensure everyone’s safety.

  But not that close together, no matter how enticing that kiss felt.

  “Let’s head to the apartment area,” Scott said, his voice calm and firm and not suggesting any reminder of what had happened.

  “Definitely,” Nella responded, sounding somewhat relieved. Her expression appeared worried, though, with her furrowed brow and pursed lips.

  Lips that, fortunately, did not appear to be seeking further kisses.

  In moments, Nella and he left the offices and headed toward the steps leading to the apartments.

  Once they were in the hallway where all the currently occupied apartments were located, Scott decided to call each resident staff member rather than startling them by knocking on the doors.

  He explained that to Nella, who stood beside him looking down the hallway with obvious concern, hands on her hips, shoulders leaning forward as if she awaited an order to go dashing ahead, perhaps pounding on doors. Her posture relaxed just a little when he explained his plan.

  “Good idea,” she said softly.

  Scott decided to call Alice first, since she was newest and potentially most vulnerable.

  She had already programmed his number into her phone, apparently, as he had told her to, since when she answered she said, “Hi, Scott. Is everything okay?”

  “That’s what we want to know,” he replied. Nella and he were right outside her door, one of the ones on the end. “How are you doing?”

  “A whole lot better than before.” He caught a note of possible humor in her voice—and so, apparently, did Nella, who smiled a bit since Scott had put his phone on speaker.

  “Glad to hear that. And you’ll let us know, won’t you, if you hear or learn of anything that upsets you, right?”

  “Of course. Why? Did you hear something?”

  “No, we’re just concerned about you.”

  “Good. And thank you so much again.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, and hung up.

  He looked down at Nella’s face. The concern he’d seen before was back. “We’re the ones who heard something,” she said, her voice low. “Or at least saw it. Since we don’t know who or why, we can’t assume Alice wasn’t the target.”

  “Of course,” Scott said. “But let’s do some more checking.”

  Standing near the end of the hall, he called the other staff members one by one. All sounded happy to hear from him.

  All sounded relaxed, unthreatened and eager to go help the shelter animals, if that was what he was calling about.

  Looking again at Nella as he thanked each of them, he found himself enjoying her increasingly wry smile.

  They found no answers, but neither did they need to call in the other shelter managers or more official assistance, either. All sounded well.

  All except for that damn message the shelter had received.

  “Let’s go down and check on the animals,” he finally said. “As I said, I’ll stay in an empty apartment near yours for tonight, but I don’t think we’re getting any answers, assuming our shelter animals are doing as well as our shelter people.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Nella said. “And I’ll be delighted to help you check.”

  “Great,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  As they reached the stairway near the end of the hall, he resisted the urge to take Nella’s hand.

  He appreciated that she had gone through something difficult, being the first to see that texted threat, yet she still clearly intended to do her duty here alon
gside him.

  And that kiss? An anomaly. It wouldn’t happen again. He hurried down the steps in front of Nella toward the shelter areas containing the animals.

  First stop was in the reception building, where just those few dogs were kept to greet visitors. They all seemed okay, so he locked that door again quickly.

  As he unlocked the next door to go outside, his phone rang. Stepping out onto the concrete surface, still holding the door for Nella, he reached into his pocket with his other hand and drew his phone out.

  The name on the screen was Detective Vince Vanderhoff of the Chance Police Department, one of Scott’s primary contacts there. Vince had done a lot to help screen backgrounds of the staff members at the shelter, getting help from other cops when needed, too. Scott had called to give him the phone number on the text to the shelter office.

  “Yeah, Vince. Anything?” Scott pulled the door closed behind Nella and checked to make sure it automatically locked.

  “Best we can tell, it’s a burner phone, like you figured.” Vince’s tone was raspy as usual and rather grumpy. “Anything else happening? Anything else we should be doing?”

  Scott’s eyes met Nella’s. Her gaze was highly inquisitive. But he looked away. He’d tell her what he could in a minute, after hanging up.

  “Nothing since I talked to you last.” Scott maneuvered to face one of the shelter buildings that contained dogs. “I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”

  “Good. You do that. And be careful, man.”

  “Will do,” Scott said unnecessarily as he said goodbye and hung up. Vince was a good guy and always appeared to care about his fellow cops, no matter what their level.

  And at the moment, Scott wasn’t exactly any of them. His current assignment kept him part of their team, yet without an official rank.

  Nella immediately sidled up to Scott beneath one of the tall lights lining the path between the shelter buildings. “What was that about?” She sounded worried.