[BAD 07] - Silent Truth

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  “I’m all for a Council vote on this.” Vestavia maintained a slow breathing rhythm. No one would know he seethed inside.

  A quick rap at the door swung his anger from Bardaric to Linette. The woman might not be as bright as he hoped.

  “Give me a minute.” He walked to the door and wrenched it open, trying to decide what would be the best punishment for her insubordination.

  “There’s a problem, Fra,” Linette whispered. She looked over her shoulder.

  He followed her gaze to four grim-faced men in dark suits armed with automatic weapons. He cut his eyes back at her. “What happened?”

  Linette turned back to him. “Gwen Wentworth has been shot and they don’t know if she’ll make it or not. Peter Wentworth is… upset. He sent these men to escort us all to another location.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Someone dropped a blanket around Abbie’s shoulders. She murmured her thanks.

  Emergency personnel and security staff choked the narrow patio area around Gwen’s pool. Abbie told her brain to keep sniffing the chlorinated water and not the sick odor of coagulating blood.

  One team worked on Gwen, who had been placed on the gurney, her face covered with an oxygen mask. A female EMT connected a tube to her limp body and lifted a saline bag into place.

  Another EMT spoke into a radio, then turned to his team. “We’re taking her to Kore. Her father said they have her blood stored there. He’s coordinating a surgeon.” The entire emergency team kicked up their pace a notch, wheeling her away in the next fifteen seconds.

  Police officers filled in spots vacated by the EMT team. One burly cop with wavy brown hair and square shoulders spoke to the Hispanic security guy who had held the makeshift compression bandage on Gwen’s shoulder until the EMTs arrived.

  The wide-body cop zeroed in on Abbie. He walked away from the security guy, heading straight for where she sat on a fallen chair cushion with her legs tucked.

  “I’m Detective Flint,” he told her, then squatted down. “I understand you were with Ms. Wentworth when she was shot.”

  Abbie nodded.

  “What exactly were you doing out here?”

  She swallowed. “We were talking about the Kore Women’s Center. Ways to bring more funding into the Wentworth Foundation, the reason for the party tonight.” Her stomach already churned with the fallout from an adrenaline charge and blood on her clothes. If he pressed her very hard she might toss her cookies on his shoes.

  “Did you see anything unusual out here?”

  “No.” Abbie paused when she noticed the Hispanic security guard had stepped over to another guard standing close by but wasn’t talking. Had he moved over to eavesdrop on her conversation? She took a breath and met the pudgy-faced detective’s flat gaze. “We couldn’t talk with so many people trying to capture her attention inside so she said to meet her here. We’d just sat down when she got up to call for tea and—”

  The vision of a hole exploding from Gwen’s body burst into her mind. Abbie covered her mouth. Her stomach lurched.

  For a big guy, the detective jumped up and moved out of barf range really fast.

  The Hispanic guard brought her a drink. “This is seltzer water. Should settle your stomach.”

  She drank it and thanked him with a nod.

  “You have ID?” the detective asked.

  In answer, Abbie reached for her purse that had ended up next to her on the ground. This probably wouldn’t go well. She pulled out her driver’s license and handed it to the detective, who jotted the info on his pad. He looked at her, then the license again. “You here as a guest or working?”

  She ignored the disgust in his voice. She’d been the driving force behind the story that had turned his department upside down last year. “I’m a guest.”

  He finished taking her statement with cool reserve, then handed back her license. “That’s it… for now.”

  “I understand.” When Abbie unfolded her legs to get up, the Hispanic guy was there again, offering her a hand and saying, “I’ll have someone take you home.”

  “No, thank you. I have a car waiting.” She took her handbag and wobbled her way through the house, past gaping guests taking in the blood smeared across her dress and skin.

  Probably wondering if she’d attacked Gwen.

  She put one foot ahead of the other and finally reached the front door, where Wentworth staff rushed up, offering her a car.

  “I have a car,” she repeated. “My driver should be here… uh, somewhere.” She gave him the name of the car service she’d made Stuey hire for her.

  “Right away, ma’am.” A male valet full of youth and vigor dashed out to the sea of black sedans and limos, pausing at one, then pointing in her direction. The car’s headlights powered up and the vehicle pulled alongside where she stood. One of the staff opened her car door.

  She sank into the backseat, wishing the leather would wrap her into a safe cocoon for a few hours until her brain caught up with what had happened tonight. “Take me home.”

  The driver didn’t ask for her address, but he’d picked her up from home and surely still had the location in his GPS since he’d been hired for a round trip. The car moved away as if floating on air, or maybe her body had lost touch with the earth.

  Gwen said a “Fra” would try to kill them if they found out. What in the world was a Fra?

  And what was worth killing people for?

  Once Dr. Tatum had started sharing her mother’s history two days ago, he’d prattled on with endless details. Abbie had never known her mother underwent tests at the Kore Women’s Center prior to getting pregnant and after each baby.

  Hearing the EMTs talk about Gwen reminded Abbie that Dr. Tatum said the Kore Women’s Center banked her mother’s blood, which they might need if her mother got the chance to go through surgery for a transplant.

  Was rare blood at the center of this?

  What had been important enough to shoot Gwen for, or was that even the reason someone tried to kill her?

  Something else important pressed on Abbie, but warm air flooding the car turned her tight muscles to jelly and lulled her to sleep. She nodded off… safe. For now.

  Hunter ignored the cold air piercing his tux and took in the area up and down Cornelia Avenue, watching for any hint of threat in the areas that were vaguely lit and not dark as a bottomless well.

  The address for the modest four-story brick apartment building across the street had been loaded in the hired sedan’s GPS system as tonight’s pickup and return point for A. Blanton.

  That would be the woman passed out in the backseat.

  He opened the passenger door directly behind the driver’s seat and leaned in to shake Abbie gently. Her pale face glowed in the dark, stirring a desire to pull her into his arms so he could soothe away the fear. A ringlet fell to the bridge of her nose.

  He hooked the strand of hair and it curled around his finger.

  Why couldn’t he recall where he’d met her? He remembered her eyes and face, sort of, but something didn’t match enough to raise a clear memory. What he did remember was a sense of innocence about her, but that didn’t fit with the woman he’d heard threatening Gwen tonight.

  What had Abbie said to Gwen just before the shooting? Hell of thing to watch someone get shot.

  He lightly rubbed the back of his hand over her cheek. Smooth skin sprinkled with a few tiny freckles.

  Her cheeks had more color now. The only color before had been in those rosy lips, kissable lips. Her teeth weren’t chattering anymore. Even with the heat on high, she’d still shivered from shock on the drive to her apartment.

  Maybe he should have stopped to cover her with his jacket. She looked small coiled up on her side with her legs tucked…

  Hunter stood up quickly and took a step back. What was he doing? He shouldn’t think about her as anything but a lead on this mission. He shrugged off the moment of concern.

  She had information he needed, but he had to be care
ful. He’d taken a risk by telling Carlos she wasn’t conscious when she was lying by the pool, but Hunter would not give her up until he gained the information he needed.

  She couldn’t be an undercover operative. Nothing about Abbie fit, but the very best agents were hard to identify.

  Like Tee, the codirector of BAD, a tiny, perfect beauty who had to be one of the most lethal female agents in the world.

  Until he confirmed Abbie’s stake in all this, what she’d been after with Gwen and why someone wanted to kill Gwen, she was an unknown entity. He leaned into the car. “Come on, Abbie. Let’s go.”

  She murmured something and squirmed. Her eyelids moved up slowly as though made of lead. She blinked, squinted, rubbed her eyes, then blinked again. “What are you doing here?”

  “I drove you home.”

  She lifted her head, studying the front seat, then slumped against the seat again. “What’d you do with my driver?”

  “Paid him plenty to find his own way home.”

  “Back to my first question. What’re you doing here?” She moved with lethargic care, slow as her sleep-dulled words. Keeping her eyes on him, she reached blindly to the seat beside her and grabbed her purse.

  “Heard about what happened with Gwen and you. I owed you for helping me with my friend’s fiancée and didn’t get a chance to introduce you around. Besides, I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He also needed to know if she’d actually recognized him at the pool or not.

  She lifted her legs and moved around to get out of the car.

  He backed up, extending his hand.

  She accepted his offer and let him pull her to her feet, then stepped to the side out of his grasp. She wrapped her arms around herself against the cold. “Thanks, but I’m fine.”

  Hunter had pulled his shirt loose to cover his weapon so he could take off his jacket. “Put this on.”

  She tried to refuse his jacket, but he draped it over her shoulders. When she didn’t say anything else, he added, “I’ll just see you to your door.”

  Abbie lifted her fingers in a perturbed “okay” sign and walked around the car, wobbling.

  He stepped up beside her and put his hand to her back as she started to cross Cornelia Avenue.

  She sent him a look that said she would not be civil if he didn’t remove his hand. He allowed his finger to linger three seconds against her dress, then pulled away and kept pace.

  Not another word was spoken until they reached the entrance to her building. She dug out a key card from her purse for the electronic lock and paused, eyebrows drawn tight. “What exactly did you hear happened?”

  “That Gwen was shot and you saw it. I was thinking—”

  “So you thought driving me home would make up for disappearing on me at the party?”

  He had a bad feeling he’d miscalculated something. “About that, I need to explain—”

  “Because that’s not the way I remember it,” Abbie continued as if he hadn’t spoken. She inserted the key card, opened the door, and stepped inside. Swinging around, she shrugged out of the coat and tossed it to him. “See, I thought you said saving me from that second gunshot paid your debt to me.”

  The door closed on a distinctive click. Locked.

  Well, shit. Smash the door with my fist or kick hell out of it with my boots?

  Chapter Twelve

  A bbie made it to the elevator without her knees

  folding.

  Hunter—a man who probably had a car and full-time driver at his disposal—had driven her home. Why? Who the hell was he?

  She still saw him jumping over the wall and kicking the glass tower of candles into the pool. Where had he come from?

  Had he been following her when she met with Gwen? Why?

  Back to him driving her home.

  He had to be concerned she’d blab his name to security and the media, but she hadn’t given him a chance to broach that topic. She’d have to go public at some point when either the police came to ask more questions or someone in WCXB’s news department pressed for an eyewitness story.

  Stuey would have a hemorrhage the minute he found out she’d been in the middle of this mess, then he’d go ballistic when she didn’t turn in a report tonight. He’d want it both ways—to kill her and to get the news scoop. Wentworth security had managed to keep media contained outside, but names and details would leak by tomorrow morning.

  The elevator door whooshed opened on the third floor of her apartment building. The carpet in the hallway always smelled of every human who had ever lived here.

  But it was home, safe, home.

  Gwen’s face, the bullet tearing through her shoulder, ripped skin, the blood, the…

  Abbie covered her mouth to cut off a sob before it broke her control. Her chest still hurt from sucking air in, but at least she was breathing regularly again after having the wind knocked out of her.

  She fumbled with her keys and stared at her lock, hearing Hunter’s calm voice reassuring her she was safe after hitting the concrete so hard. He’d calmed the panic fisting her lungs when she couldn’t breathe. His whispers had soothed her terror for those few seconds.

  Then the Hispanic guy told Hunter to leave before anyone showed up. Why? That same security guy failed to mention Hunter’s presence at the crime scene to the police later.

  She’d kept her mouth shut and hadn’t shared a thing, because she was in enough trouble without starting more with some rich guy. But why hadn’t the security guy said something?

  Money? Someone in Hunter’s position probably paid to keep his name out of the media.

  But nothing was discussed while they were on the patio. Had he made that arrangement with security earlier?

  She unlocked the door and turned the deadbolt when she closed it.

  Better already. She flipped on the table lamp in the foyer and walked into the dark living room, where she tossed her purse on her funky grape-colored sofa. Leaving the lights off, she moved over to the window and pushed the blinds apart to see if Hunter had left yet.

  The black sedan pulled away from the front of her building.

  Should she have let him come up to talk? That’s what he’d been after when she shut the door in his face.

  No chance he’d call her after tonight, especially when all this hit the news.

  Call her? He didn’t have her number, her last name, nothing. He could come back to her apartment, but what would be the point? Not like she was going to hold any special place in his little black book.

  He was a mystery for sure, but she still saw him jumping over the wall around Gwen’s patio and covering them with his body. Shielding them in darkness. Whispering that she was safe.

  He’d charged into danger. Like a real man.

  She sighed out loud since no one could hear the blind adoration escape with her exhale.

  Defying her earlier uncharitable judgment of him, he had turned out to be something far different than she’d imagined. Not your run-of-the-mill playboy.

  She didn’t know what he was exactly, but she had enough sense to keep him outside her apartment if she didn’t want to do something stupid like let him end up in her bed. Enduring a close encounter with death acted like an aphrodisiac.

  Climbing into the sack with him wouldn’t have taken a lot of inducement.

  Her body wanted to be held and loved in the worst way right now, and only by one man. Hunter had sparked a fire in her libido that had lain dormant for so long she wouldn’t have thought a private night with the Chippendales could stir an ember of interest.

  That’s why she could not face anyone, especially Hunter, until tomorrow, after a shower, chocolate, and some sleep.

  Chocolate might come first.

  On the way to her bedroom, she slowed next to her philodendron plant that drooped over the side of the bowl, acting like this was its last day on earth. “That’s not good.”

  Reaching around to unbutton the top of her dress, she headed for the kitchen, pulling the dress
off. Her body sighed. She flung the dress over her arm. One advantage of living alone was being able to walk around in her bra and panties or less. Light blared in her face when she opened the refrigerator door, searching, searching…

  There was the half-eaten box of Godiva chocolates.

  “I am so ready for you,” she murmured, snatching up a truffle that turned into mocha pleasure in her mouth. She felt her stomach moan.

  I am so ready for bed. She should have a cat to round out the image of a single woman with no life. But she could barely keep a plant alive, and if having a life meant getting shot at she’d take boring any day.

  Poor Gwen. Had she survived? Who wanted to hurt her?

  Abbie said a prayer for the young woman, then one for her mother, who was getting worse by the day.

  Where would she and Dr. Tatum find help now? The minute Kore found out she was with the media they’d shuffle her off with some watered-down press release.

  If she contacted Peter Wentworth about talking to Gwen again they’d probably have her arrested.

  Tomorrow, she’d figure out something.

  She licked her lips and headed to the bedroom, flipping the wall switch for her lamp when she stepped inside. Nothing happened. Flipped it up and down, up and down. Nothing.

  She walked over to try the lamp switch.

  “Stop.”

  Abbie froze at the sound of a disembodied male voice in the dark room. He stood right behind her. She wrapped her arms protectively around her exposed body and tried to speak. Nothing came out. The shaking started at her knees, traveled up her spine.

  Cold metal poked her back. A gun? “Get down on your knees.”

  Terror razored through her, but she pushed her mind past it to think defense. “Who are you?”

  “Now.”

  The second she bent her knees they buckled. She landed hard on the floor and pushed her legs beneath her so that she knelt, trying to follow his orders until she could figure out what to do next.