A flash at the corner of her eye had her jerking her head around.
A pickup truck, its grill massive to her eyes, barreled toward her from a side road. There was no time to get out of the way. There wasn’t even time to scream. One second she was staring down that grill; the next, everything went black.
Chapter Two
“Ma’am, do you know…? Just…get you…hold…”
The words flickered in and out like a radio station going out of range, but no matter how hard Charlotte tried to focus, she couldn’t catch all the words. Static mixed with a thick, pounding pain in her head and buzzing, like someone was running a saw nearby. She tried to turn her head, to figure out where the noises were coming from, but the instant she did, nausea sideswiped her.
Sideswiped…side…
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
Stop yelling! Even the exclamation point in her own head hurt. The noise… there was so much noise. If only they’d be quiet, maybe she could think. Figure out why she hurt so much. Why she couldn’t see.
Except…her eyes were open. Why couldn’t she see? Why couldn’t she—
A red-tinged oval swam in front of her face, anchoring her in the dark. “Ma’am?”
He’s talking to me.
“Can you tell me your name?”
She tried to get the words out, to tell him. Tried to blink away the haze blocking her vision. “Can’t…”
A flash of light broke the darkness from somewhere nearby, sweeping across her throbbing eyes, and then the person was speaking again. “I need you to be real still, ma’am. You’re all right. Can you tell me your name?”
“Can’t see…”
A big, bright object approached her face. She shied away, or tried to, but something thick and hard around her neck held her in place. She couldn’t move. What—
Soft cloth dug into her eye socket, sweeping over her eyelid. “Just a little bit, here.” The man—she could see that much now—repeated the procedure on her other eye, wiping away whatever gunk had obscured her vision. The oval became a man’s face. “Heads bleed like a bitch, but we’ll have you out and fixed up in no time.”
Blood? I’m bleeding? She tried to lift her hand to find the wound—
Why was everything a try? Could she not just do something? Anything?
The man took out a light and began flashing it in her eyes. She closed them as pain beat in her head. “What—”
“Let me see now, ma’am. Can you open your eyes? Can you tell me what happened?”
She wanted to say no, to question him more, but as if the closing of her eyes was a signal to her body, she felt everything going black again.
“Wake up for me, Charlotte.”
How does he know my name?
She blinked back into awareness, peeled her eyelids up again. The man hovered right in front of her this time, his face turned to the side, where shouts had added to the chaos, echoing not far away.
She must’ve moved, because pain sizzled through her body again. The man turned to meet her eyes.
“There you are. You were in a little accident, okay? We’re about to have you out of here.”
“Accident?” Glancing around, she realized she was sitting in her car. That’s why he was so close—the man was leaning in the open door, between her and the steering wheel, which, given how short she was, wasn’t much room. “Why—”
A glance down and his uniform shirt registered in her pounding brain. A caduceus on the pocket. An EMT? Paramedic? She didn’t know the difference and didn’t care right now. She wanted out.
“As soon as we can, Charlotte,” the man said. Only then did she realize she’d spoken aloud. “You can’t take that big a hit and just keep going, now. None of us are the Energizer bunny, right?” He chuckled, and some of her panic eased. He wouldn’t be laughing if she was going to die, would he? “Gotta let us check you out.”
Check out what? She fumbled for her seat belt latch, the need to get out starting to rival the pounding in her head. A sharp pain shot through her hand. The man’s face wavered in front of her.
How badly was she hurt? He’d said she took a hit. What kind of hit?
A curve. A truck. A bomb going off in her head.
The memories took seconds to replay in her mind, but her body thought it was real. Shock jolted through her. She moaned as the movement sent a wave of agony from her head to her toes.
“Truck,” she croaked. The word made no more impact than a droplet of water in the close confines of the car. She cleared her throat and tried again.
“Yeah, we know,” the man said, and she wondered how. “Here comes the basket. We’ll strap you in to get you out of here. Nothing to worry about, right? Just trust me.”
Just trust me.
She’d wanted to tell someone else that. Who?
Becky.
The man eased away, and panic set up a rough rhythm inside her, making it hard to breathe. Grabbing his arm sent a stab of pain through her, but she refused to let go. “Becky. She needs…help,” she told him, frantic to make him understand. Because she’d seen the truck that hit her. Recognized it. It had been parked outside Becky’s trailer when Charlotte got there. “Send someone, please.”
Kind eyes stared down at her, wavering again as her vision chose that moment to dim. “I hear ya, Charlotte. Close your eyes now.”
“No.” She shook her head, and blackness rose at the edge of her vision. No, damn it. No! “Becky…”
Chapter Three
A huge yawn crept over King Moncrief before he could hold it back. The sound of his jaw popping was loud in his ears.
“Look at that yawn,” Saint, his best friend, crowed. “Only one thing makes you that tired, right, buddy?”
And with best friends like that… Saint knew him far too well to think he’d been out partying, but that didn’t stop the prick from giving him a hard time.
“Jet lag?” Elliot asked, tossing the files she carried onto the conference table. Since King had returned from an off-the-record assignment in Ireland just yesterday, it was a reasonable—and much more likely—guess.
“No,” Saint growled.
Elliot’s chuckle was rich with amused condescension. King’s laugh was more subdued. Jet lag was definitely kicking his ass this morning.
Work had provided all the excitement they needed lately. Dain, their team lead, had almost lost his wife to a workplace hostage situation; Elliot’s slaver father had tracked her down and almost killed her; and just last week, a close friend of their team, Fionn McCullough, had needed help in Ireland to protect his mother from the head of an Irish cartel.
Hopefully things would slow down now. They could do their jobs for JCL Securities, relax on their off days, and get back to some sense of normal. At least until Dain and Olivia’s baby was born, but that was closer to Christmas, nearly two months away.
The door to the conference room opened, and Dain walked in. “Morning.” He strode to the head of the table, a cup of coffee in his hand, his thick black Mohawk spiking the air like he’d jammed his fingers through it on the way here. “We’ve got some cleanup on a couple of cases that we need to get to work on—”
Groans circled the table. Cleanup was code for paperwork, and no one wanted to do paperwork.
Dain flashed a sadistic grin. “Stop whining, babies.”
Saint fake cried. Elliot knocked him upside the back of the head.
“King, you’re excused.”
King straightened, grimacing as tension pulled at his fatigued muscles. “What did I do?”
“Nothing. You have a visitor.” His boss settled in the chair at the head of the table and opened the laptop he’d been carrying. “There’s nothing urgent that we can’t handle, so head on over and see what he wants. He’s waiting for you at Lori’s desk.”
Who the hell was visiting him on a Monday at seven thirty in the morning?
Instead of wasting time asking questions, he nodded at his teammates, flipped Saint a bird w
hile Dain was distracted by his computer, then took himself and his coffee out the door.
JCL Securities had made a name for itself from the day the business opened. Conlan James and Jack Quinn, the owners, were already well-known in the local security community before they’d gone into business together. Now, just eight years later, they were the premier security company in the US. King had joined them, and Dain’s team, after several years with the Atlanta PD, and he hadn’t looked back. The hands-on approach to keeping people safe, to saving lives, was all he’d hoped for when he’d left home a decade ago.
Service was in his heart, even if it wasn’t in his blood. It was his passion. He didn’t think he was capable of feeling for a woman what he felt for his work.
At least, not anymore.
“Morning, Miss Lori.” He wasn’t sure why he called Lori Jordan, the front receptionist, miss. It just seemed to fit, had since the day he’d met her. She’d been with the company from day one and ruled the office with an iron fist gloved in Southern sweetness that could charm the gruffest, snootiest clients. “A Mohawked bird told me someone was here to see me?”
“More like a falcon.” Lori grinned. “A big one. That man has predator written all over him.”
It was the best description of Dain he’d ever heard. “No argument here.”
“You do have a visitor.” Lori nodded toward the corner where a small fountain trickled quietly. “A Mr. Wes Moncrief. I’m assuming you’re related?”
All his focus zeroed in on the tall man in a ten-thousand-dollar suit sitting in a plush armchair. His body was tense, his elbows on his knees, the fingers laced together in front of his face white where he squeezed them.
Wes. His first cousin. The cousin he hadn’t seen in a decade.
The reason for that gap pounded at his brain, threatening his control. King tightened the straps on the memories as he strode across the room.
“Is it Mom and Dad?” he asked carefully. Wes’s body language screamed disaster, and there was only one reason his first cousin would be here, now, in his office, looking like that.
Wes’s blond head popped up, his gaze, a few shades darker than King’s own light blue, grabbing on to his like a lifeline. “What?”
King pulled Wes to his feet, absently noting that his cousin had filled out in the years they’d been apart. He’d grown into a man from the high-school-aged kid he’d been back then, despite already being in law school. Wes was the genius in the family. Based on the suit, he’d say his cousin already had his practice established—and King had missed it. Grief crept along the edges of his mind.
“Mom and Dad. Did something happen to them?”
“No.” Wes shook his head, the vee between his brows deepening. “No, I’m here about Charlotte.”
All the breath left King’s lungs at the sound of her name. The straps keeping his past in check broke with a sharp snap, a million memories, sensations, emotions hitting him at once. Things he’d tried hard to forget. Things he’d never been able to completely erase. “Is she all right?”
God, please let her be all right.
“She’s—” Wes shoved a hand through his already mussed hair. “She’s all right. For now.” Glancing around the room, he lowered his voice. “Can we talk in private?”
“Of course. This way.”
King’s response sounded so calm, like he didn’t want to shake his cousin until the answers to all his questions were forced through his rattling teeth. But no, he was King Moncrief. He was logical, in control. Cold, some people said.
He felt anything but cold right now.
The drumbeat of their steps echoed threateningly as they walked down the hall. They passed the conference room where his team was meeting, and he caught Saint’s gaze following them. Farther down the hall, he opened the door to a smallish room with a window, the desk in the middle taking up most of the space. “Have a seat.”
Wes took the armchair in front of the desk, while King settled behind it. He’d left for Ireland in a rush last week, and the evidence of his hurry lay in the chaos on his normally neat desk. He ignored it, zeroing in on Wes. “Tell me.”
Worry clouded his cousin’s eyes. “Someone tried to kill Charlotte.”
If Wes had punched him in the gut, he couldn’t have been more surprised, but he kept the reaction locked behind a facade of calm along with everything else roiling inside him. “Why do you think that?”
“Because it’s what she told me.” He rubbed his eyes.
“And the police?”
“They’re brushing it off as a random accident.” Wes’s mouth tightened. “The chief’s being a—”
King held up a hand. If they were dealing with the smallish station near his old neighborhood, the cops there played a lot of politics. Blossomwood was part of the wealthiest suburb of Atlanta, and serious crimes rarely occurred there. Knowing one had could hurt the city’s reputation.
The work part of King’s brain, the logical part of him, clicked on. This was Charlotte they were discussing, but he couldn’t think about that right now. He leaned forward over his desk. “Start from the beginning.”
“She was coming home from a fundraiser yesterday.” He glanced out the window for a second, his profile so like King’s that the familiarity gripped his heart, squeezing tight. He hadn’t seen a face that familiar in so long. “She was almost home when a truck smashed into her from a side street. T-boned her. On her side of the car.”
King sucked in his breath. He knew those roads. Wes had said Charlotte was all right, which meant she’d been incredibly lucky. A direct hit could’ve tumbled her down a steep hillside or, even worse, killed her instantly.
She could be dead. His Charlotte. Dead. He squeezed his hands into fists below the edge of the desk.
She’s not your Charlotte anymore.
He forced his focus back to Wes’s words.
“She went over the railing”—King’s heart stopped—“but slammed into a tree a few feet down,” Wes said, his voice strangled. “Luckily her car has direct assistance. The company called police as soon as the accident registered on their system.”
Thank God. He didn’t want to imagine her, hurt and alone, scrambling for a cell that could’ve ended up who knew where in the car.
“The driver fled the scene. The police think he ran because he didn’t want to be arrested, but…”
“But what?”
Wes shook his head, his mouth a thin line. “Charlotte recognized the truck. She’d just been to visit a client. She told the police the father threatened her, that it was his truck that hit her, but they’re skeptical given her injuries.”
It seemed a bit too obvious, and smart criminals usually avoided the obvious if they could. But King knew better than most that not all criminals were smart.
Desperation deepened the lines on Wes’s face. “She’s afraid he’ll come back, King. And so am I.”
King took in the intensity of emotion, the fact that his cousin’s body practically shook with the need to do something. This wasn’t mere worry over a friend of the family. No, it was something much, much more.
He forced himself to tuck that thought away as well.
“That area has a clear line of sight. Whoever hit her knew she was coming. Where the road curves around the McAllister estate, with that reinforced guardrail? She was slammed into it, crushed between it and the truck before it gave way.
“The only evidence left behind was some paint scrapings and the rusted grill. A Chevy pickup, heavy duty, it looks like. The police are ‘looking into it’”—Wes made air quotes—“but my friends at the station say they’re not looking that hard or that quickly.”
“And no one saw anything?”
“No. She was left there, alone, for around fifteen minutes before help arrived.”
Anxiety tightened his muscles. Charlotte helpless, bleeding, hurting. All the discipline he’d learned as a cop, as a security specialist—hell, all the discipline in the world couldn’t keep hi
m from picturing it. From needing to get to her. Keep her safe.
It bothered Wes just as much; anger and pain dripped from his words.
“Wes…” He got that the cops weren’t working fast enough for his cousin; he’d feel the same. But that didn’t explain… “Why did you come to me?”
Wes stood, started to pace. “The estate has a security system, a gate. She’ll be fine there, right?” He didn’t sound any more convinced of that than King was. “At the scene Charlotte was frantic, kept begging the EMT to check on her client. Becky.” He ran a hand down his face. “She was absolutely certain, King. Even with a concussion, with a sprained wrist and ribs and blood dripping down her face, she knew who hit her. Becky’s father, Richard Jones. And the fucking police don’t want to rock the boat hard enough to have an attempted murder become public knowledge!”
Wes stopped, took a breath, obviously struggling to get himself back under control.
“What if it wasn’t too dark? What if Charlotte saw exactly what she thought she saw and no one is doing anything about it? What if the guy comes back? What if Becky isn’t safe and they’re taking their sweet time checking on her? She’s sixteen and eight months pregnant. What if something’s already happened to her?”
Why did Charlotte have a sixteen-year-old client? He hadn’t allowed himself to follow her life; knowing would’ve been too much temptation. “Did you try—”
“I called. No one’s answering. I thought about going out there, but…” He waved a hand down his body. Wes wasn’t small by any means, but his cousin had never been a fighter, not with his fists. He saved his battles for the law.
Not that he should go; this guy had tried to kill a woman. Allegedly. Could have already killed his daughter. King refused to add his cousin to that list.
Jesus. Charlotte had almost died.
“Why me?” he asked again. He’d been estranged from his family, from Charlotte, for years.
Something flickered in Wes’s eyes. “Because I need you.”
The knot in King’s gut got bigger. “Charlotte is not going to want me involved; you know that.”
Deny Me (Southern Nights Enigma Book 4) Page 2
