by Freya Barker
“Someone’s at the door,” Marya’s urgent whisper sounds in my ear.
“Okay, honey. Remember that question Damian gave you? Go ahead, ask it.”
“I’m supposed to ask you what your favorite breakfast is,” I hear her say, but I can’t hear the answer.
“What did he say?” I ask her.
“Honey Nut Cheerios.”
I put the phone back on speaker, and we listen to Keith’s soft voice mumbling in the background. Suddenly, his voice comes over the phone. “I’ve got her. Durango Lodge room 212. I’m gonna call the EMTs up and will let you know the scoop as soon as I know more.” He pauses a moment before he adds, “Kerry, honey? I promise I’ll take good care of her.” With that he hangs up the phone.
I jump up, pulling random clothes from my bag, ready to jump in the car and drive out there.
“You can’t,” Damian says, grabbing hold of my hands. “You can’t rush into town before we even know what we’re dealing with. Let Keith do his job. He’ll make sure Marya is protected, and I promise he’ll be careful with her. But if you run to her bedside, you’re making yourself an easy target.”
“She’s my friend,” I hiss in his face. “Whatever happened to her has something to do with me, or she wouldn’t have apologized over and over again. I’m going.” With that I yank my hands free, turn around, and hoist myself into a bra.
“Jesus, Kerry. You’re not playing fair,” Damian groans as he wraps his arms around me from behind, pinning my arms effectively to my sides. “Listen, I get it,” he whispers against my neck. “I would react the same way, but it’s not safe for you. And ultimately it might not be safe for Marya.”
My body slumps in his arms. I hate that he uses her against me. I hate that he’s right. I don’t say anything, there’s nothing much to say.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, dissolving the remainder of my anger and leaving only worry and sadness. He presses his lips behind my ear before loosening his grip. Silently, I pick up the yoga pants and oversized T-shirt I’d randomly pulled from my bag. With my clothing in hand, I walk into the bathroom and close the door. I feel like a fraud, given that I crawled in his bed last night, looking for his body to comfort me, but right now I just need a little time to myself. Luckily, he doesn’t follow me.
Under the warm spray of the shower, I let go of my frustration, my anger, my uselessness, and my fear. With tears streaming down my face unchecked, I sit down in the bottom of the tub and pull up my knees.
DAMIAN
Son of a bitch.
I hear her crying through the door and I hate it. I want to rush in and wrap her up, but I recognized the determined set of her shoulders as she walked in the bathroom and closed the door behind her. The message was clear enough that she needed some time by herself. Knowing that she didn’t hesitate to find my bed last night, when she needed to have me near, makes it a little easier to step back now. Kerry obviously knows her own needs, and if she wants to be alone right now, I have no business marching in.
No matter how much it goes against my instincts, I let Kerry be and head to my bedroom, quickly pulling on my discarded boxers and grabbing a change of clothes. I make my way to the second bathroom where I bump into Bella.
“Everything okay?” she wants to know, and I tell her about this morning’s events.
“I’m just gonna have a quick shower in your bathroom while Kerry’s using mine. Would you mind getting some coffee on? I’ll do eggs when I get down.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
When I come down, only Bella is in the kitchen. Kerry must still be upstairs. I’m all for giving her what she needs, but if she’s still up there when I’m done putting breakfast together, I’m getting her.
I get a start on bacon and eggs, while Bella sets out some plates and pops in toast. We work easily side by side without talking when I finally hear Kerry’s footsteps coming down the stairs. I turn around and watch her coming straight for me, not a falter in her step, until she’s plastered against me, her arms tight around my waist and her head against my shoulder. It takes me a minute to react and wrap her up.
“Thank you,” she says. “I needed that.”
“All right, you guys,” Bella pipes up. “Thrilled you can’t keep your hands off each other, but give this girl a break, will ya? No need to rub my nose in it.” As she walks past, she snaps the tea towel in her hand.
“Dammit, Bella.”
Kerry snickers when I rub my ass where the towel left a sharp sting. I like seeing the smile on her face, but it instantly evaporates when my phone loudly buzzes on the counter.
“Talk to me.” The display shows Keith’s number. With her eyes fixed on my face, Kerry sidles up to me and I pull her close, my arm draped over her shoulders.
“Just arrived at Mercy Regional. They’re looking her over thoroughly, but the fucker knocked her around. EMT suspects they’ll find her orbital bone fractured. It’s the only thing aside from her left arm, which she can’t use, that she’d let them have a look at. She kept that sheet wrapped tightly around her.”
“Fuck. You think she...?” I feel Kerry go rigid beside me.
“Don’t know, man. But she keeps asking for Kerry. I haven’t been able to get a coherent word from her, and I’m thinking if you were to bring Kerry here, she might be able to get some information.”
“Not sure if that’s a good idea,” I voice my concern. “She’s safe where she is now.”
“What? Are you talking about me?” Kerry pushes back so she can look at me. “Does she need me?”
“Babe...”
“Please, Damian. It’s going to drive me insane being stuck here if there’s something I can do to help. No offense,” she says with an apologetic glance at Bella before turning her eyes back to me.
“No offense taken,” Bella replies. “I totally get it.”
“Gomez.” Blackfoot’s voice breaks through the stare down Kerry and I have going on.
“Give us an hour,” I reluctantly give in. “Make sure you’ve got someone you trust save a parking spot close to an entrance. I’m getting Jas here to keep our six. He’ll be able to spot any tails we might pick up and intervene.” I didn’t know gratitude could be seen in a facial expression, but I was reading it loud and clear on Kerry’s face.
“Hit the employee parking lot on the west side of the building and call me when you’re close,” Keith says before he ends the call.
“I’ve got a few calls to make. You need to use that time to eat something,” I order Kerry, who nods her agreement eagerly. She’s not likely to argue when she’s just gotten her way. Never mind that my stomach is churning at the thought of putting her out in the open again. The meaning of the strong, visceral reaction I have is something I don’t have time to consider now. I have a safe transport to plan.
“Bella, can you find me a shawl or something to cover her hair?”
“She’d stand out like a sore thumb with a shawl on her head. It’s eighty-five degrees out there already. I’ve got a baseball cap, that’ll do the trick. I’ll grab some stuff.” With that, Bella rushes up the stairs and I dial Jasper.
I’M KEEPING AN EYE on my rearview mirror, where I catch glimpses of Jasper driving the Expedition and making sure to keep at least a couple of cars between. The tinted windows on the SUV make it difficult to see who’s behind the wheel. With Jas driving, he can throw off anyone who locks in on my truck.
Kerry is in the passenger seat, her hair tucked away in the cap Bella handed her and her body covered with a thin hoodie over a pair of cropped yoga pants. All courtesy of Bella, as well, who astutely pointed out that Kerry’s style of dress is as distinct as her hair. Kerry almost looks like a teenager in this get up.
I’m in the back seat of Bella’s car, my head almost bumping the ceiling and my knees somewhere up around my ears. Bella is driving. I balked when she announced she was coming, let alone that she was driving, but she made a damn good point. Said that anyone would recognize me from a
distance and that for all the effort we went through to cover Kerry’s identity, the mere fact I was by her side would be enough to blow her cover. I hated admitting she was right.
The plan is for Bella, who has a legit reason to be at Mercy since she was supposed to go in to sign her contract this week anyway, to walk into the hospital with Kerry. No one would have reason to connect Bella to me or to Kerry. Keith said he’d be waiting by the elevator, right inside the entrance, and would take it from there. All I had to do was keep an eye on them from my vantage point in the back seat. Fucking hell.
The drive is uneventful, thank God. As agreed, the moment we pull into the west employee parking lot, a patrol car backs out of a spot right beside the entrance. Bella pulls in.
“Ready?” she asks Kerry, who hasn’t said a word the entire trip but nods in response.
“Wait.” I stop them, leaning forward as best I can given the limited space. With my hand in Kerry’s neck, I whisper in her ear, “Be careful. Listen to Keith and I’ll be right behind you.”
“I will,” she says, slightly turning her head so I can brush her lips with mine.
Sitting here, watching them walk away from me is a fuckload harder than I anticipated. Two women who have a firm hold on my heart. I catch a glimpse of Blackfoot inside the lobby and sigh a breath of relief when I see him hold the elevator door open and usher my girls inside.
As agreed, I stay in Bella’s car for another few minutes, just to see if anyone has more than a casual interest in those two. After a few minutes, I carefully unfold myself from the back seat and stretch my limbs when I get out of the car. A few blocks from the hospital, Jasper took off in a different direction and would be parking somewhere on the other side of the building by now.
“I’m looking for Detective Blackfoot,” I tell the nurse manning the desk in the emergency room. She directs me to a small waiting room at the end of the hallway.
I don’t see Bella, but Kerry is sitting in a chair with her back facing the door. A precaution suggested by Keith, I’m sure. He is standing with his shoulder leaning against the wall, seemingly casual but with his hand just a breath away from his hip holster. The moment he sees the door opening, he stands up straight—alert.
“Good,” he says, relaxing visibly. “I’ve gotta run. Call just came in of a body found in the brush off one of the trails around the cemetery. A homeless woman camping out there flagged down one of the cemetery workers who called it in.”
“Where’s Bella?” I ask, taking the seat beside Kerry, automatically searching for her hand and lacing my fingers with hers.
“Gone to sign her papers, she shouldn’t be too long. When we came in, the nurse informed us Marya’s been wheeled into surgery for repairs on her arm and her eye socket. Bastard did some damage. She also has a lump the size of a goose egg on the back of her head. So likely a concussion. Looks like she was out for a good long while. Anyway, she mentioned it would likely be some time before she would be able to answer any questions.”
“Dammit.” Without Marya’s account, we were dead in the water. “What about the hotel room?” I ask him.
“Browns has it under control. His team is going over every inch of it.” He walks over and rests a hand on Kerry’s shoulder. “If she comes out of surgery, and you’re allowed in to see her before I get back, let her know I’ll be there as soon as I can.” With a final lift of his chin in my direction, he leaves, closing the door behind him.
WHEN THE DOCTOR COMES in two hours later, Bella and Jasper are on separate ends of the small room. They’d come in at about the same time, just after Blackfoot left, and the tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. Not hard to see there is no love lost between these two.
“Family for Marya Berger?”
CHAPTER 20
Kerry
“Shh...”
I carefully stroke the hair back from Marya’s face. Half of her head is bandaged up, and the part of her face that is visible is swollen and bruised. Her left arm is splinted up and strapped against her body. The spiral fracture in her forearm, which had broken both the radius and ulna bones, had required surgery to set and pin in place. Her arm had been pulled free from the shoulder socket, as well, which is why they had it immobilized against her torso. The doctor said it looked like the kind of combined injury you might sustain if someone twisted your arm behind you and forced it up too high.
On top of that, the bones around her eye had shifted out of place with the force of the blow she’d sustained and needed to be surgically repositioned. Several bumps and bruises, and a nasty cut on her scalp that needed stitches, rounded out her injuries. In all, she’d had a hell of a beating. When I asked if she’d been raped, the doctor responded that although he’d taken a rape kit, which is standard in violent assault cases like this one, she would have to answer that question herself when she woke up.
For the past half hour, I’ve been sitting here beside her bed with Damian holding sentry outside the door, watching her slowly wake up to the brutal reality of her broken body. Her soft sobs are breaking my fucking heart, and there’s nothing I can do but wait until she’s ready to talk.
“Hush, honey. It’s gonna be okay,” I mumble nonsense, trying to soothe her as best I can. When her uncovered eye finally opens a crack, I lean in and plaster a smile on my face.
“I messed up.” Her voice is as cracked as her lips with the first words she utters.
“Whatever it is, we’ll fix it,” I assure her, but it only starts up the tears again. “Honey, you’re going to make yourself sick with all the crying.” Grabbing a tissue, conveniently left on the nightstand, I carefully wipe at her wet cheeks.
“It was him. I found him on the computer looking at your living room. You were sleeping on the couch with the FBI agent.”
“What? Who was watching?”
“The guy I’d been...seeing.” She barely gets the last word out. I grab for the Styrofoam cup with water and bend the straw to her mouth.
If she’s going to talk, I should check to see if Keith has come back yet or at least get Damian in here. I don’t want to make her tell it twice.
“Honey, did he...did he hurt you sexually?” I need to get that question out of the way before I suggest getting either one of the guys in.
She shakes her head. “No. I slept with him before...before I caught him.” Relief rushes over me, but it is short-lived when I see the pained expression on her face.
“Do you think it’s okay for me to see if Detective Blackfoot is outside? He’s going to need to know some of this, and maybe we can avoid you having to go over it more than once.” She winces but then takes in a deep breath and seems to lift her chin.
“He’s the one who found me? I remember promising him I would talk with you here, if he held off calling my mother.”
“Why? I mean, why didn’t you want him to call her? She’s worried about you.”
“I know, but she’ll rush back here and bring my boys. I don’t want my boys to see me like this,” she sniffles.
“I can understand that,” I assure her. “Let me quickly check if Keith is here, okay?”
I pull open the door to find Damian sitting on a chair right outside. “How is she doing?” he asks.
“She said something about the guy watching us in my living room from his computer. I thought Keith or you should be in there.
“I just talked to him. He’s held up at the cemetery.”
“Then maybe if you would come in? I think she’ll be okay with that.”
“Sure,” he says, getting up immediately.
“The detective was called away and is held up, but Damian is here,” I say as we walk into the room, Damian right behind me.
“Hey, Marya,” his deep voice sounds right behind me. “If you feel more comfortable waiting, or if I can call a female agent, just let me know.”
“It’s okay,” she replies. “I want it over with.”
I take my seat by the side of the bed again, and
Damian stays standing by the foot. I take her hand and give it an encouraging squeeze.
“Remember the guy you told me to steer clear of?” she asks me. I do. I remember him well since he’d come back the next day and accosted me outside the store, repeating his invite to dinner, which I’d already turned down once. He hadn’t liked it one bit from what I remember.
“Oh, Marya.”
“Right,” she says, a blush spreading over her cheeks. She shoots a quick glance in Damian’s direction before focusing her eyes on me again. “So I may have kept that card he left. I didn’t do anything with it, I swear,” she rushes to add. “It’s just when I happened to bump into him when I was at the library with the boys a few days later, I thought it maybe was a sign or something. I said hello and we got to talking. He was really nice to the boys, and I thought I’d hit the jackpot.” She looks at me pleadingly. “I know you said he gave you the creeps, but he was so nice to me. I thought maybe he’d had a bad day or something.”
“That’s why you didn’t want to tell me who it was,” I conclude. She doesn’t have to answer; I see the truth in her eyes.
“What was his name?” Damian asks gently.
“Trevor Simms. He’s from the UK. He said he was visiting but was thinking about finding a more permanent place here. He took me out to dinner and we talked about options. He said he didn’t know anything about real estate but would want something temporary first. A rental. Asked a lot of questions.”
