Unleashed by Jami Alden Page A

mouth to protest but Danny cut him off. “And another thing. She didn’t show up at Mom’s memorial service out of some long lost affection for Mom or for us. She was there because she’s a user, and she wants to use us to help her beat a murder rap.”
    “You don’t really think she did it.”
    “Even if she did, it’s not like she won’t get off, not with Rachael Weller covering her ass. That woman could get Pontius Pilot acquitted.”
    “Which brings me back to my earlier question. If you really don’t give a shit about all this, why have you pulled up every piece of information you can find on James Medford?”
    The truth surged, clamoring to break free. He and his brothers were tight; they never kept things from each other, especially something as big as this. But something held his tongue. He didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, not even his own, until he knew whether Caroline was really on to something.
    He refused to think that it had anything to do with protecting Caroline. Or protecting himself. Because he knew the second he let them in on it, they wouldn’t let up on him until he gave in, or they’d go behind his back to help her themselves. Either way Danny would be smack back where he didn’t want to be: way too close to Caroline. “Morbid curiosity,” he said.
    Derek finished packing his Sig away and leveled Danny with a stare that made him want to squirm. Instead Danny turned away and headed for his Jeep.
    Danny slid into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.
    “For someone so dead set against helping her, you’re sure doing a lot of due diligence.”
    Danny didn’t say anything, and it stuck in his craw not to tell Derek the truth. Maybe he should just call the cops, tip them off that Caroline might have some information. But he knew what would happen. Whatever the cops found would disappear into a black hole of an evidence closet, and Danny wanted to know exactly what Caroline had before it got mired in the legal system.
    That was the real reason he wasn’t going to the cops, and why he wasn’t letting anyone else in on the information. It had nothing to do with the fact that something inside him physically recoiled at the thought of siccing the cops on Caroline again. At the thought of cops showing up at her house, questioning her, maybe even getting a search warrant to tear her place apart. Her face would be all over the news, the new sensational angle putting her right back on the front page.
    But he didn’t care about protecting her from that, not at all. The only reason he was keeping Caroline’s revelation to himself was because it was best for everyone involved.
    Derek was silent the rest of the way back to the office. They entered the building and Derek started down the hall to his office, then paused as though reminded of something. “Don’t forget dinner at our place tonight.”
    Danny feigned a look of regret. “Can’t. I have some stuff I need to take care of. Moreno’s helping me with the postmortem on the GeneCor case.”
    Derek glared at him.
    “I wouldn’t miss Alyssa’s lasagne if it weren’t important. They need the report by tomorrow.” Total lie. Danny planned to be working on a case all right, but it had nothing to do with the biotech company that had been a Gemini client for the past two years. He planned to recruit Moreno—the one man in their organization guaranteed to keep his mouth shut and ask no questions—and they were going to start some heavy surveillance and figure out exactly what Caroline Medford had to hide.
     
    “Garage light just came on.” Ben Moreno’s low voice whispered through Danny’s earpiece. At five-thirty in the morning, the moon was still peeking through wisps of clouds as the sun struggled up over the bay. For the last several days Danny and Moreno had staked out Caroline’s house, familiarizing themselves with her routine. While Danny slouched low in the Lexus he’d borrowed from his dad, Moreno had posed