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sure what she’d said that had upset him. She’d only asked him to stop scaring the nurse. No, wait. Her exact words were for him to quit acting like a crazy person. Surely he knew that was just an expression, that she didn’t really think he was mentally unstable.
    She stopped a short distance away and waited for him to acknowledge her.
    He glanced back over his shoulder at her, his expression shuttered and cold. “What’s the matter? Afraid to get too close to a crazy person?”
    Somehow she doubted a sincere apology would work with this man. Temper, though, was something he understood. “Don’t be so thin-skinned, Trahern. It was just a figure of speech. You’re the least crazy person I know, but you can’t go around scaring innocent nurses like that. If I didn’t know you so well, I might have been scared myself.”
    He turned back to the window. “You don’t know me at all, little girl. You never did.”
    “I may not know what you’ve done or where you’ve been for the past twelve years, but some things never change about a person. You would never hurt me. Ever.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “You’re trying too hard to protect me from the person who killed my father—not that I believe I’m in any real danger.”
    “Until we know why your father was killed, we can’t assume anything.” The temper was back in his voice, but not the bitterness. “I’ll feel better when we get to the bottom of this.”
    “I’m sure the police are doing their best.”
    Trahern snorted in derision. “They couldn’t find their backsides with two hands, especially when they have no idea what or who they are dealing with.”
    “And you do? If you know why my father was killed, Blake, you need to tell me and the police right now.” She grabbed his arm, trying to make him look at her. It was like trying to move a granite cliff.
    “No.”
    “You can’t mean that, Blake. If you have any respect at all for my father’s work, you have to trust the legal system. Let the police catch his killer and bring him to trial. My father hated vigilante justice.”
    “Which work are you talking about, Brenna?” He shook his head and looked away again. “You always were a wide-eyed innocent. Obviously that hasn’t changed.”
    “Trahern, that’s enough.”
    Neither of them had heard Jarvis’s approach.
    “Stay out of this.” Blake said the words at the same time Brenna did. Under other circumstances she might have found that amusing. At the moment, it only made her mad.
    “No, you both stay out of it! The police are handling the investigation, not the two of you.”
    Both men stood well over six feet tall, at least ten inches over her own average stature. Right now they used their height advantage to communicate by eye contact alone. Craning her neck was only giving her a headache, so she gave up in disgust.
    “Fine. The two of you have a fine time all by yourselves. But until you decide to let the police do their job—”
    The sound of shattering glass brought her up short. Blake grabbed her by the arm and shoved her into a nearby treatment room. She started to protest, but he effectively silenced her by wrapping his arm around her and covering her mouth with his hand. The temperature seemed to plummet, but that may have been the sudden rush of fear. In the blink of an eye, both Jarvis and Blake produced handguns, looking all too comfortable with the way they fit their hands.
    Blake whispered a warning close enough to her ear for her to feel the warmth of his breath. “Stay quiet, Brenna, and you might just live long enough to tear a strip off my hide.”
    When she nodded, he loosened his hold on her. For a few seconds, the only sound she heard was the pounding of her heart, but then she heard a couple of popping noises and shouting. Blake pushed her behind him. Both he and Jarvis looked decidedly grim.
    “Stay with her.” Jarvis started out the door, looking lethal with his gun gripped in two