Maliki (Guardian Defenders Book 2)

by Kris Michaels

  Damn. Talk about passion. Maliki's fervent and earnest response figuratively sat her on her ass. He advocated for the company he worked for and that eloquent response was heartfelt. He appeared to believe every word he'd said. "Wow. Okay, so we'll chalk that up to rumor."

  He chuckled. "Sorry. Guardian has saved my ass on more than one occasion. I'm a fan."

  "Yeah? Maybe we should talk about that when we discuss that information tonight."

  He shrugged. "I'm an open book."

  "Really?"

  "Sure, ask me anything."

  "Is this a new leaf we've turned over? I seem to remember you being decidedly evasive when we first met." She laughed when he rolled his eyes and stroked his beard.

  "Admittedly, I was fucking around and being evasive."

  "Why?"

  He laughed. "Because I could?"

  "Shame on you, Doctor Blue. We'll have to do some remedial training. Complete cooperation with the local authorities is mandatory."

  He placed his elbow on the driver's side window ledge and leaned toward her. "I thought we were in complete cooperation last night. Several times last night, if I remember correctly."

  She lifted her hand and wobbled it back and forth. "Meh, I think there is room for improvement."

  He barked a hearty laugh. "Is that so?"

  She tried desperately to keep a stern face and nodded as she groused, "Absolutely."

  "Well then, after we eat and talk, perhaps we'll explore some remedial training."

  She sighed dramatically, "If I must..."

  He laughed again and put his SUV into reverse. "You must!" He laughed as he backed out of the turnout and waved when he put the vehicle into gear and headed back into town.

  A smile lingered on her face as she watched the vehicle leave. It had been years since a man had captured her attention. Years since she'd enjoyed the banter and the friendship that went with good sex. But he wasn't here to stay, and she wasn't going to get attached to the handsome doctor. Nope. Not going to happen. That was her plan, and she was damn well sticking to it. Maybe.

  Chapter 8

  Sheriff James Watson sat in his car outside the hospital, bracing himself against what had to be done. He sent a quick glance at the face of his phone. The sight of the damn thing sent his blood pressure through the roof. His gut clenched and every fiber of his body screamed for him not to listen, but he... couldn't ignore… what was required of him.

  "Have you fixed the problem?" The same disturbing, altered voice that first spoke to him almost a year and a half ago split the silence of his mind.

  He sighed and looked out at the parking lot. "No. I just arrived at the hospital. She's coming around now."

  "Fix this before it becomes difficult."

  Anger spiked and he hissed, "I'm getting really tired of cleaning up these messes."

  A low rolling chuckle was the only answer he received.

  He looked through the windshield at the white stone exterior of the hospital. "This is the last time."

  "You'll do it, or people will find out the truth about what happened that night."

  "The truth is that it was an accident!"

  "Is that what you've convinced yourself of? You killed her. You have nothing; no defense. And if you tell anyone what you've done, you'll be the only one with blood on your hands and you know it. Fix this."

  "It is too risky. There's a Guardian agent in the county." His hand shook as he massaged his brow. If only he could go back to that night. Do things differently.

  "Leave him alone. Avoid any further contact."

  "Stop killing women. Please."

  Silence fell for a moment. "That won't happen. We both know why."

  "If we have another dead woman show up, the state will be impossible to keep at arm’s length. I've run out of ways to stage their deaths to dissuade suspicion."

  "You're going to go to jail for life anyway. Maybe death row. No one cares about you. No one."

  Jim shook his head. "I matter..."

  "You're wrong. You don't. You enjoy what happens. Kill the girl. You've killed before. Your future depends on you fixing this. We have work to do." His tormentor’s words ended as suddenly as they had started.

  He took a deep breath and stared at the odometer of his vehicle. He'd cleaned up the women, and he'd kept his people from investigating. Shauna had found the connection between the three women. That damn dating app. Shauna knew each of the victims, from the app. She'd come to him, because he was a friend of her parents. He told her she was imagining everything. He gaslighted her into believing the connection wasn’t valid. She'd left his office doubting herself. He'd told his fucking puppet master about Shauna's conclusions. The fucker said to handle it. He had. He used an old weapon of his father’s and he'd shot the girl. Twice. Shauna didn't deserve this, but if she survived and remembered...

  A tap on his driver's side window jolted him from his thoughts. Daryl and Jennie Cochran stood beside his vehicle. He hit the tab and rolled down the window. "Daryl, everything okay?"

  Jennie smiled. "Better than okay. Shauna woke up."

  "That's awesome. Did she say anything about the incident?"

  "No. She’s still under a lot of meds. She didn't know why she was in the hospital. Right now, she doesn't remember anything, but when we asked her, she got real upset." Jennie rubbed her arms and Daryl wrapped a big arm around her and held her close.

  "I'm still going to have to talk with her. I was heading in."

  "Sure, sure. We understand. The doctor said her memories may never come back to her. You might want to wait, though, they gave her something to help her sleep." Daryl kissed Jennie's temple.

  “I’ll sit with her a little bit, until she wakes up at least.”

  "Thank you, Jim. For everything. I hope you don’t hate me for this, but I pray she never remembers. It had to have been horrible." Jennie added.

  He ground his teeth. Jennie was thanking him, and he was heading in to kill their only child. He cleared his throat. "Are you two heading home?"

  "Yeah, we haven't been home or caught a shower since that night. The doctor said she was almost out of the woods, barring any unforeseen complications."

  "That's great, Daryl. Jennie, I'm really happy she's going to be okay." His eyes teared up despite everything, and he tried to stop the physical reaction.

  "Jim, I know you're a damn good cop. Please, please, find who did this to our baby."

  "We'll do everything in our power, Daryl. There wasn't much evidence at that scene, and if Shauna can't tell us anything, it will be tough, but I'm not letting this go. I have my best people on it."

  "Thank you." Daryl sniffed back his emotion. "Come on, honey. Let's get cleaned up so we can get back."

  "Right. Thank you, Jim. We know you're doing everything you can." Jennie wiped at her tears and leaned harder into Daryl's side.

  "You two get cleaned up and maybe try to grab some rest. I'll see you later." Daryl lifted a hand, and they shuffled toward their old SUV. They were salt of the earth type people. He'd been raised with them, and went to school with them, although he was a few years younger than Daryl.

  He dropped his head back and stared at the hospital. Shauna didn't remember anything. A flickering of hope extinguished before it took flame. It didn't matter. He wouldn't allow her to live and now, fuck, now he was responsible for silencing the girl, for good. He hated himself. Hated his cowardness. He scrubbed both hands through his hair and then punched the steering wheel. "Fuck!"

  He grabbed a small leather packet from the glove box and exited his car. The pack went into his front pocket. He leaned back into the car and retrieved his leather gloves, tucking the open ends into his belt, he locked the car and headed into the hospital.

  The small hospital was modern and well equipped. That was due to the landowners in the area. They supported businesses that benefited them. The hospital was one such entity. He turned right making his way to the post-surgical ward. He offered a wave or a
nod as people spoke or recognized him.

  He stopped at the nurses’ station. "Shauna Cochran's room?"

  "Oh, hi, Sheriff. She's in room 332, but the Doc ordered a pretty heavy sedative for her." A small nurse smiled up at him after pointing toward Shauna's room.

  "I'm not going to wake her up. Just saw her folks. I thought I'd sit with her until they got back."

  "That's so sweet! We had to pry them from her room. They haven't left her side. Has anyone determined what happened yet?"

  "That's an on-going investigation, sorry." One that he'd killed, cutting his deputies off at the knees.

  "Oh, yeah, right. Sorry. It is so insane. We've had hunting accidents, and that one domestic, but not a straight up shooting like this. Makes a girl afraid to walk to her car in the dark."

  "Don't worry yourself about that. We'll catch whoever did this." The words sounded sincere, at least to his ears.

  "I surely hope so. You can go in if you want."

  He touched his finger to his forehead and gave her a salute as he sauntered down the hall and entered Shauna's room.

  He stood inside the door and let his eyes adjust to the dimness of the room. The blinds were shut, and the lights were off except for a low wattage LED light up by the bed that illuminated the machines attached to the slender woman sleeping in the bed.

  He reached for his gloves and put them on as he silently walked to her bedside. He opened the small locker and rummaged through the plastic bag that held her personal items. He snagged her phone and shoved it in his shirt as he pushed the bag back into the locker and shut the door. He buttoned his shirt and arranged the phone at his side so it wasn't obvious. From his front pocket he withdrew a syringe, removed the cap and inserted it into the IV port. He didn't look at her. He couldn't. He depressed the plunger, withdrew the needle and recapped it, putting it back in his pocket. He opened the valve on the line until the drugs emptied into the tubing and then returned it to the position it had been in. He removed the gloves, reattached them to his belt and then sat down on the chair that had been sitting beside the bed. He lowered his head to his hands and waited.

  The drug wouldn't take long to do its job. One of the women killed had been shot up with the stuff. He'd positioned the young woman, cleaned the scene of all evidence and left her, an empty syringe beside her. The track marks told the story of what had been done to her. When he'd disposed of her body, he’d kept the kit with the drugs.

  The heartbeat from the monitor stuttered, then skipped. He glanced at the IV port and back at the monitor. Another stutter and then an alarm sounded. He lifted and jogged to the door. "Hey, Nurse! There's something wrong here!"

  He held the door open as two nurses dashed into the room. The heart monitor flatlined. He stood in the corner, out of the way, as the nurses called a code and more people flooded into the room. The nurses lowered the bed and they worked on Shauna. The doctor who flew in the room shouted orders, she was intubated, CPR initiated, and the crash cart was activated. In what seemed like hours but was probably only ten minutes later, the room stilled. The doctor glanced up at the clock. "We're calling it. Time of death, 1:43 p.m. Where are her parents?"

  "They went home." One of the nurses pushed Shauna's hair back in a motherly gesture.

  "Fuck." The doctor hung his head and propped his hands on his hips.

  "I'll head over there and tell them." He volunteered the information. "What... what happened?"

  The doctor shook his head. "I don't know. We'll do a clinical autopsy of course, to determine the actual cause of death. She's suffered some pretty grievous injuries as a result of that gunshot wound. It could be a myriad of things."

  "Doc, she's part of an investigation, which is now a murder. The county ME will take this one."

  "You'll have to talk to the administration, not my call to make."

  "That's right, it’s mine." He reached for his phone and hit speed dial as he left the hospital room. He hit the steps and headed to the first floor.

  "Giles."

  "Doc, we have a case that needs your immediate and special attention."

  There was a sigh on the other end. "Another one? I wasn't aware we had one scheduled?"

  "Yeah. Shauna Cochran. She's at the hospital. Just passed."

  "I'll get someone over there."

  He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up the vacant stairwell making sure he was alone before he asked, "What exactly do you get from this, doc?"

  "I'll put down my cards if you show me yours first." The ME whispered.

  "It's getting messy."

  A humorless chuckle sounded at the other end of the connection. "Nothing we can't handle. You going to stop?"

  He placed his palm against the cold steel of the fire door. The beige of the door was a perfect screen for the images of Shauna's death to play. He closed his eyes tightly and admitted, "No."

  "Neither am I. I'll have my people pick her up." The line went dead.

  He strode to his car, got in, and drove to the Cochrans’ house. Jennie's deafening scream of anguish replayed over and over. Her absolute despair fed the frenzied howls inside his head.

  Jason King pressed down the intercom to his assistant’s desk. “Sonya, would you please get Robert Cavanagh, the AG of Virginia, on the line for me.”

  “Absolutely.”

  She buzzed back several minutes later. “As a reminder, the afternoon briefing is being moved an hour earlier so you can make it to Reece’s school play.”

  He chuckled. “Is that Sonya talk for I’ll call, but don’t talk too long?”

  “That’s Sonya talk for you need to watch your kid because your wife has called three times today to make sure there hasn’t been a sudden emergency––hold on.”

  Jason smiled and closed his eyes. Sonya was a godsend. If she ever retired, he was punching his ticket, too. She clicked back on the line. “As I was saying, this is important. Reece has a big part.”

  “I know. We’ve been practicing lines for the last two weeks.” He and Reece spent hours going over his lines while Faith fed, bathed and put Royce to sleep. That little guy had his days and nights sorted, for the most part, which meant both he and Faith were starting to remember how it felt to sleep more than three hours at a time.

  “Take videos. I want to see his performance and the AG is on line two.” The line clicked and she was gone.

  Jason accessed the line. “Robert, thank you for taking my call.”

  “Well, when the CEO of Guardian calls, you drop whatever you’re doing and pray that shit in your state isn’t about to be decimated.”

  “No, nothing like that. Actually, I have a favor to ask.”

  “Really? What can a lowly public servant like me do for Guardian?”

  Jason leaned forward and tapped the embedded screen in his desktop so the documents he needed were at his fingertips. "I have a client who currently resides in Pleasant County…”

  “Not surprising, some fancy estates in that county.”

  Jason crafted his words carefully to ensure his words were correct. “My client is asking if Guardian can take a look at a certain set of instances they believe may be connected. I honestly don’t know if there is any merit to my client’s allegations, but I happen to have a man in that area who is on extended leave due to a family issue. He’s available to take a look at the situation. The good news for you is we’ll do this gratis and if there is anything there, you get credit for directing the investigation and snagging any bad guys.”

  “Uh huh. What crimes?”

  “My client believes three recent deaths that occurred within the last year are interconnected.”

  He heard keys tapping as Robert commented, “I’m not sure I follow. The only deaths I have on file are completely unrelated and none of them are marked as homicide.”

  “Which is why we will do almost everything below the radar. I want to make my client happy without disturbing the local watering holes.” Jason had him on the hook. He could f
eel the man’s interest.

  “What do you mean almost everything?”

  “We believe the ME still has the latest body. I want my people to do the autopsy or redo it before the body is processed for burial.”

  “Do you want access to the ME’s facility in Pleasant County?”

  “No, we need an order to allow transport and take the body from the ME’s possession.”

  Robert drew a long breath and sighed into the phone. “Why do I get the feeling you aren’t telling me everything?”

  “Honestly, Robert, I’m chasing rumors and suppositions here. My gut instinct was to say no to this case, but I know and respect the person that has called us and asked for assistance. He’s always been a straight shooter, so I’m taking a chance. There will be no egg on your face. If this blows up, you’re the hero. If there is nothing, we walk away with minimum ripples in the water.”

  “Ripples? As in plural. What besides the body the ME is holding?”

  He smiled. Fuck, he loved talking to extremely intelligent people. “Caught that did you?”

  “I’m a lawyer. I make my living dissecting people’s comments.” Robert’s rueful chuckle followed.

  “We are going through legal channels to exhume the two other bodies. From the information I’ve been forwarded, the families will agree.” Based on compensation Guardian was willing to provide.

  “What are you hoping to find?”

  “I’m hoping to find absolutely nothing. I want this to be a nonissue.” He had too much on his plate as it was, and having Maliki in the middle of Virginia playing junior league detective with little to no training wasn’t ideal in any scenario. But if they found anything to tie the murders together, he’d have hard-core investigators down there so damn fast that backwater sheriff’s head would spin.

  “I don’t have a problem with any of your requests, Mr. King. Perhaps someday when I call you, you’ll have the same consideration.”

  Ah, tit for tat. The standard currency of politics. “Understood, Robert. You have my number.”

  Chapter 9