Page 64 of Rekindle My Heart

His friend’s steel-blue gaze dropped to Ryan’s leg. Shit. All his weight was on the right leg. He shifted, but not before the BCA agent noticed.

Trey retrieved a bottle of water from the mini fridge behind him and tossed it to Ryan. “Uh huh. Stay hydrated. That will help. Now tell me, what brought you in this morning? It’s doubtful you’re here to do a few reps of squats.”

“Larson’s in court this morning.” Ryan eased himself down to the guest chair in front of Trey’s desk.

“Yeah, and let me guess, you want to know what she found at the accident scene.” He tipped back.

“So, she did find something. What was it?”

Trey leaned back and bridged his fingers. “The abbreviated version, your tire has a hole consistent with a bullet. I can’t tell you the size until the lab results come back.”

“I knew it.” In his excitement, he smacked his leg. Big mistake. He gritted his teeth and bit back a colorful curse.

“They also found one in the truck’s tire as well.”

“I knew I heard a second shot.” The gravity of the situation hit him. “Someone took potshots at me in the middle of the day at a busy intersection.” This was not good.

“The question is who wanted to take you out? And why?”

“Could it be a random shooting?” Even as the words left his mouth, Ryan knew it wasn’t likely.

Trey scratched his one-day-old scruff. “Could be but… only two shots. There were plenty of targets for a random shooter if they wanted to take out some people and make a statement. No, my gut is telling me this was directed at you.”

“Fuck.” Ryan leaned back in his chair and thought about the shooting. He skated his hands through his hair, tugging at the ends. What cop didn’t have a pissed off ex-con gunning for he? But this didn’t feel like some old score being settled. “I must be getting close to something in the corruption case. I’m not working on anything else that would lead to attempted murder.”

“Did you see a tail yesterday morning?”

Ryan shook his head. “No. I wasn’t really looking for one either.”

Trey picked up his phone and tapped out a message. “I’ll have them check for tracking devices on your vehicle.”

“Thanks.” Ryan rose. Time to dig a little deeper into the car accident.

“And Ryan.” Trey grinned. “Rest up. You owe me a couple of rounds in the ring.”

Ryan threw him a quick salute, then strolled out.

Ryan threw his pen down. Over the last week, he’d gotten nowhere. The lab and crime scene techs concluded his tire had been shot out, and they had a general direction it came from, but other than that… the hoop.

He spent all his spare time digging through the victims’ lives. What he could find of them. His brief chat with Detective Malone the day after the accident netted little to nothing. Tanner remembered Kealy as a good guy who worked a lot of OT. He hadn’t seen the officer in over eight years.

Here it was, Friday again, and it was crickets on the social site. No jobs or gossip. Nothing. That’s the way he felt his week’s progress went.

His phone buzzed. Erica’s name appeared. Her message was brief.

Erica: Stevens cancelled for tomorrow.

Ryan’s first reaction was relief. It was as if he removed his tactical vest and heavy riot gear. But his emotions were more mixed than one of those fruity cocktails his mother liked to drink.

The last thing he wanted was Erica on a boat with that man—any man if he was honest. But his gut whispered doubts about Stevens’s squeaky-clean rep.

Jim walked by and slapped a piece of paper on Ryan’s desk.

“What’s this?” Ryan read the time and address.

“Info on my bachelor party. Jordan got called into a meeting and left them for me to deliver.”

“This is tomorrow.” Shit. He had forgotten to put it on his calendar.