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“We caught one.” Ben jerked when her fingers brushed close to the stomach wound. “Careful there.”
As far as she could tell, the man was skipping over some important information. “There was more than one?”
“Two.” Ben started to turn and his hand shot to his bleeding shoulder. “The breathing one is passed out in the garage.”
Davis picked that moment to smile. “Did you help him fall asleep?”
When Ben didn’t answer, an eerie quiet settled on the night. Sirens wound down and she could see the flashing lights and hear an older woman’s voice.
None of that mattered. Ben beating someone up and dragging him across the yard did. “Ben?”
“He shot me. Or his accomplice did. I can’t really remember.” Ben shook his head and his balance faltered.
“Yeah, he needs to sit down.” Davis reached Ben first. Putting his shoulder under Ben’s good arm, Davis got them up the last step to the back door and leaned him against the jamb. “I’ll find Joel and send him in before I check on our guest.”
Anxiety welled inside Jocelyn. Good guys or not, going after someone tied to a chair made what was left in her stomach sour.
“What are you going to do?” Not that she knew what she wanted the answer to be. Police made her wary. So did hiding a guy in the garage and knocking him around to get some answers.
“I hope Connor will be able to head off the police so I have time to ask our friend some questions.”
“He’s unconscious,” she pointed out.
Davis shrugged. “He’ll wake up eventually.”
Lara stepped in front of her husband. “No.”
“He’s tied up.” He acted as if that explained everything.
To Jocelyn it made the whole idea sickening. “Which is the problem.”
Ben pushed off from the wall and stood up, wobbling slightly. “I’m going with you.”
Jocelyn still couldn’t wrap her mind around the conversation or what Davis planned to do. “Are you going to torture the guy?”
He frowned at her. “No.”
Relief zoomed through her.
Then Ben opened his mouth. “He did try to kill us.”
“That’s not an excuse.” He had to see that. She needed to know Ben understood that.
“We have medical supplies upstairs,” Davis said.
Guns in the house, a safe room and football-stadium lights in the backyard. These guys were prepared for anything. “Of course you do.”
“You know,” Davis said, “it might not be bad to have a nurse around here.”
Because that was what she wanted to do on her day off. Sew up this crew. “You guys need one a lot?”
Ben nodded. “More than you’d want.”
And that was what scared her.
* * *
LITTLE MORE THAN a half hour later, most of the crowd had cleared out of the house. Police officers still wandered around the yard, and more than one neighbor came to bang on the door and complain about the lights only to get turned around by Davis. Not many people crossed him.
Ben watched the cars pull away, then walked through the house to the back porch. He stood there and rolled his shoulders back, trying to ease the stiffness working its way through him.
Big mistake. His muscles had locked up but the aches settled in. He winced in pain as the bullet graze on his shoulder burned.
He wanted to let out a shout but kept his voice low because Jocelyn was right inside cleaning up. Though he wouldn’t mind having her stand close and run her hands over him again, the last thing he needed was her rushing out and ordering him to bed. For rest.
But, man, he’d enjoyed watching her work. She turned bossy and took control, which was interesting, since Joel usually handled the minor medical stuff.
Between the two of them, Ben had stitches and bandages and a pocketful of painkillers. As a combined force, they would be hard to duck. If they thought you needed medical attention, you were going to get it.
He debated going inside and seeing if he could get Jocelyn to touch him again when Connor and Detective Willoughby headed up the backyard from the garage. Willoughby talked and Connor nodded his head. That usually meant Connor was collecting information, not giving it.
Once they hit the back porch, Connor broke the silence. “There was no identification on the dead guy.”
“Figures.” Ben wasn’t surprised. The team rarely got that lucky.
If he had to guess, he’d say the attackers were professionals. Hired guns. That made it more and more likely he was the target, and all the blame for the deaths and injuries fell on him. He endangered Jocelyn. The realization hollowed him out.
“Gotta say, I’ve had better nights.” Connor blew out a long breath. “Would have made things easier if we found a license.”
