Page 37 of Unlikely Guardian

Yep, it was. She glared at Sandling as he gave a flippant chuckle when the detective reminded him that he had a motive for the shooting. A motive for the attempted smothering. And a motive for trying to get through the security gate in Jason’s neighborhood.

That motive was her.

“So do a lot of other people,” Sandling calmly concluded while he examined his nails. “Including, but not limited to, my former law partner, Raymond Klein. I trust you’ll ask him these same boring questions?”

The detective didn’t respond, and instead paraphrased a previous question about Sandling’s whereabouts during the shooting. As he’d done before, Sandling denied everything. What Lilly couldn’t decide—was he telling the truth? Sandling seemed a little too meticulous for what was essentially a string of incredibly non-meticulous crimes.

That didn’t make him innocent.

The inconsistencies between his somewhat prissy demeanor and the crime scenes could have been intentional. A way to throw them off his trail. The tactic could stall them for weeks.

Or forever.

That created a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she groaned softly. “What are we going to do about Megan? How can we keep her safe?”

“We’ll have another guard at the house starting today.” Judging from his quick response, Jason had given this lots of thought. “A sort of cop-nanny. I might go ahead and try to set up a safe house. I’m not sure if it’d be any safer than a gated community, but I’m still considering it.”

Lilly sorted through all that info and immediately discovered what he hadn’t said. “What about Erica?”

“I think it might be a good idea if she isn’t staying there with us any longer.” He slid his arm from her waist and checked his watch. “I’ll see if they’ve managed to locate Raymond Klein. I also need to call the crime lab to find out if they got anything from the video surveillance camera they took from the security gate.”

She caught his arm to stop him from leaving. “Wait a minute. You didn’t think I’d just let that part about Erica pass, did you? Why are you giving her the boot? Is it because she doesn’t like me?”

“No.” He hesitated and then repeated it. “No. It’s because I’m not sure I can trust her.”

It was like being hit by a big sack of rocks. Trust was the issue here? Lilly hadn’t seen that one coming. Jealousy, yes. Possessiveness, definitely. Too many cooks in the kitchen scenario—that, too.

But not lack of trust.

Lilly would certainly have grilled Jason until he told all about this distrust issue. She would have if there hadn’t been a knock at the door. Just one sharp rap, and it opened. It was Detective O’Reilly, the officer who’d been assisting Jason on the case.

“We found Raymond Klein,” O’Reilly told them. “He’s being taken into interrogation now.”

That got Jason moving. He stepped around O’Reilly and into the hall. Lilly followed him. Or rather, she tried to. Jason turned and tried to stop her. But that didn’t work, either. Because instead of deterring her from seeing her possible attacker, Klein came straight to them.

Lilly had no trouble recognizing the man. After all, they’d run into each other plenty of times during the investigation that’d led to his disbarment.

Klein hadn’t changed at all in the past nineteen months. The same slightly shabby salt-and-pepper hair. The overly round face that was cragged with too many wrinkles considering he was only in his late thirties. All those wrinkles and his heavy brow gave him a permanent sourpuss expression.

“I thought we’d settled this,” Klein greeted. He looked right past Jason and O’Reilly and aimed his greeting at her.

Jason stepped protectively in front of her. Lilly huffed and tried to reestablish her ground, but Jason would have no part in that. The best she could manage was to move to Jason’s side so she could face Klein head-on.

“I want him tested for GSR,” Jason relayed to O’Reilly.

“Gunshot residue?” Klein supplied. “You’ll need a warrant for that.”

“We already have it,” Jason confirmed.

Klein’s chin came up. “You’re wasting your time, Detective.”

That was probably true. Klein’s hair was still damp, indicating a recent shampoo. If he was the shooter, he’d no doubt have worn gloves, showered and changed his clothes. He wasn’t the sort of man to get caught with the obvious. It’d taken her twice as long to connect Klein to her father as it had for her to do the same for Sandling. In the end, the authorities had gotten him for a suspicious report he’d made to the city engineers. A report that had ultimately allowed her father to receive a contract where he’d taken a ton of money and provided minimal services in exchange. Klein’s part in that deal had been barely enough to get him disbarred.

And he wasn’t about to let her forget that.

Raymond Klein hated her. Lilly had no doubts about that. But the question was, had he done something about that hatred, or was this anger simply because he felt he’d been railroaded again?

Though it seemed a senseless exercise, Lilly tried to remember what’d happened that night of her accident. Had she seen her attacker’s face? Was it Klein’s face? And was that the reason he now wanted her dead—because she would be able to identify him if and when her memory returned? Unfortunately she could insert Sandling’s name into that particular scenario and it would ring just as true.

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