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a whole world of concerns that he hadn’t had when he’d first responded to Tarian’s request for help. They went nicely with his growing sense of unease. Not just about Marcus, his state of mind, where he might be and what he might be thinking, but about the whole deal. Tarian had contacted him to keep an eye on her son, he’d been reluctant to help and then this had happened. The son missing, a couple of gunshots, and someone trying to take her out.
    It was all way too coincidental. And Lock didn’t believe in coincidences. Not the convenient kind anyway. Not the kind that worked in your favor. The kind that messed you up, those he believed, but the type that got you what you wanted? Not so much.
    With what had just gone down, it was pretty certain that he and Ty were going to be unable to do a one-eighty and walk away. Now Tarian and her husband needed his and Ty’s close-protection services. And they still had a missing son out there. If Tarian Griffiths’s mission had been to get him onboard, it had been accomplished. Not that he believed she was connected to the shooter who had tried to blow her Botoxed head clean off her shoulders. But he couldn’t help wondering.
    His mind flashed back to the vehicle that had followed them earlier. Minutes later, someone had been taking pot shots at them from below. Could it have been the same two? The timing suggested it couldn’t. They had been behind Lock, Ty and Tarian on the way from the restaurant to the apartment complex. To get ahead of them, and in place to fire the first shot through the apartment window, would have taken speed and planning.
    Then again, Lock thought, the two men who had fled the scene of the shooting clearly knew a fast way of leaving the complex. If they had slipped in the same way while Tarian and then Lock were dealing with complex security at the guard booth it was conceivable that they could have been in place by the time Lock was walking toward the apartment.
    But why a shot into an empty apartment? The second shot had been professional, and a professional didn’t fire without a target in their sights. The only thing that Lock could think was that it had been some kind of a come-on. A single shot that was intended to draw someone in. If the shooter knew Tarian was looking for her son, was worried about him, then a shot into the apartment would likely draw her in to see if he’d been hurt. Maybe they just hadn’t factored in that Lock and Ty would be making first entry.
    Lock took another look around the apartment. Too many questions. Too many imponderables. In the kitchen that lay just off the hallway, Ty had Tarian sat down at the two-person table and was taking her through some breathing exercises, trying to get her to calm down without resorting to the pills she’d immediately dug out of her Chanel bag when she’d finished talking to the Sheriff’s Department. Lock and Ty needed her present and correct, rather than whacked out on Xanax, if they were going to figure out what the hell was going on. But even without drugs, Lock had to concede that she wasn’t making much sense. Coming within an inch of getting your head blown off could do that to you.
    Stepping into the kitchen, Lock was struck by how clean and tidy it was. It was not the type of scene he would readily have associated with a kid of that age who was living alone. The sink was devoid of dishes, dirty or otherwise. The counters were spotless. Even the floor was free of the usual detritus. Lock started to open cabinets. Clean, everything neatly stacked. He crossed to the refrigerator. As the light blinked on, he was confronted with something that was almost more surprising than the two gunshots. Not only did the interior sparkle, it was filled with fresh produce. Kale, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, kiwis, strawberries, and all manner of other fruit and vegetables, along with coconut water and soya milk. Lock had seen some messed-up stuff in his time, but a twenty-year-old