Sawyer frowned. This didn’t bode well.
“I found it here,” Cam said darkly. “Cameras. Recording equipment. It was surrounding the house.”
Sawyer continued to stare at Reggie. “Got any ideas where it came from?” he asked her.
She stepped away from Hutch as Cam turned his surprised stare on her.
“Uh, it’s mine,” she said in a low voice.
“Yours?” Cam’s frown got deeper. “What the hell is going on, Reggie?”
She wiped her hands down the legs of her jeans and bit absently at her bottom lip.
“I had it installed. While we were in Houston,” she added.
The lightbulb came on. Sawyer saw the unease in her body language and knew that whatever explanation she came up with, he wasn’t going to like it. The others were quickly catching on as well.
“Is that why you were so keen to get us all to Houston?” Sawyer asked.
Regina tried to quell the panic knotting her throat. This wasn’t the way she wanted to explain things to them. She’d wanted to come clean with them, not be found out like she was sneaking around behind their backs. Which was in fact what she’d done.
She sighed and flopped onto a stool.
“Reggie?” Hutch prompted.
“A friend of mine owns a security company. High-tech stuff. Does a lot of police surveillance contract work. I asked him to wire the place while we were gone.”
“Okay, why?” Cam asked. “I mean I understand why since the place was broken into, but why did you think you needed to keep it a secret from us?”
“Because you didn’t know the whole story,” she said in a low voice. “I didn’t want you to know the whole story.”
“Well, by all means, do share,” Sawyer drawled.
They were annoyed. But she knew they’d be more pissed before the end of it.
“I was trying to protect you,” she said. “All of you. I have reason to believe that the murder, the attack on me, the break-ins here and at Birdie’s . . . and the car bomb were personal to Hutch.”
“What?”Hutch exclaimed.
Sawyer and Cam looked equally stunned.
“I don’t know that for sure,” she said mildly. “Misty Thompson was someone Hutch dated. The rest of the connections are self-explanatory. And the night she was murdered, the man called me Reggie and told me it was ‘time to make him pay.’ ” She glanced at Hutch, wincing as he paled even further. It wasn’t the way she would have wanted to break the news to him. The victim’s name was public knowledge, but Hutch wasn’t very tuned in to the local news.
“My department followed the reasoning that it had to do with my father since he’s high-profile, wealthy and a politician. But when Birdie’s place was broken into, the only room disturbed was Hutch’s.”
“Goddamn it, Reggie, why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Hutch demanded. “Don’t you think I had a right to know if someone was trying to kill people close to me? That someone had alreadydiedbecause of me?”
“It wasn’t my decision to make. My department wasn’t convinced, and they were investigating every angle. They wanted to question all three of you . . . today. But they made an arrest and got a confession for the murder, so it wasn’t necessary after all.”
“That’s bullshit,” Sawyer said bluntly. “Tell me something, Reggie. Why did you decide to stay? Why the sudden about-face? I’d bet an awful lot that it had nothing to do with us protecting you, or that you even suddenly decided to quit fighting the attraction.”
The blood drained from her face. This was what she was afraid of. Them making the connection. It hadn’t been like that, damn it, but she knew how it looked. How on earth was she supposed to convince them otherwise?
“He’s right, isn’t he?” Cam asked in a voice that sounded dead. “You were protecting us, weren’t you? You moved in so you could keep an eye on us. Hell, you even set up an elaborate surveillance system to monitor the house. You never had any intention of giving us a chance.”
“That’s not true,” she blurted. “Goddamn it, Cam. That’s not fair. It wasn’t like that.”
Hutch was pale, and he looked decidedly unsteady. “Fair? You want to talk about fair, Reggie? Youliedto us. When have you ever lied to us?”
