First to Fight Box Set: Books 1-5

by Nicole Blanchard

  I almost do it. I almost open the door, then I remember the man and my hand stops mid-air. “What are you doing here, Gavin?”

  “What the hell, Piper? Just let me in!”

  Caught between the need for someone familiar, someone safe, and the devastation of what I’ve been through, I freeze. Gavin bangs on the door, and I jump backward.

  “Piper? Piper, c’mon, baby. Open the door.” His voice is achingly familiar and causes sobs to rise in my throat.

  “No,” I think I say, but I’m not sure if the words actually make it through my lips. It’s too coincidental. Too soon. He couldn’t be the man who attacked me, but I can’t seem to make myself move to let him in.

  He keeps banging on the door until other voices join him, then another knock comes, but this time it’s a woman on the other side. I glance out the window and find the parking lot full of flashing lights.

  With tentative movements, I open the door and peer around the side.

  The officer on the other side lowers her weapon. “You’re safe now, Piper. Help is here.”

  A hand wraps around my wrist, and I come up screaming, fists balled and swinging.

  “Ms. Davenport! Ms. Davenport,” says a frantic, shrill voice. “Calm down. You’re in the hospital.”

  I open my eyes and blink, chest heaving from the sudden rush of adrenaline. A wary, unfamiliar face peers down at me. “I just need to check your vitals,” she says and takes a measured step toward the bed. “Is that okay?”

  Nodding makes my head throb, and I press a hand to the thick bandage covering it.

  What the—

  Then it hits me. All of it.

  Paige.

  My fingers wrap around the metal arms of the hospital bed when the force of it threatens to simply wash me away. The nurse puts a hand on my arm, and I jerk away again, lost in the throes of the memories. A harsh sound is coming from somewhere, and it takes me a minute to realize it’s my desperate, broken sobs.

  The nurse rushes out of the room and comes back. I cover my eyes and sink into the bed as she pushes God-only-knows-what into the IV snaking into my arm. Whatever it is, I hope it’ll take the pain away. He didn’t kill me, but I almost wish he did. I wish he’d taken me instead.

  Living without Paige is simply incomprehensible. I reject the very thought of it.

  Whatever the nurse gives me swallows me slowly, taking me under into the blessedly empty depths where there’s no such thing as pain at all. I give into it gleefully.

  A few hours later, after a visit from the doctor and a bevy of nurses, my parents appear. I can hardly bear to look at them. They remind me too much of Paige. My mother flutters about the hospital room arranging all the flowers already filling every surface while my father stomps around glaring at everyone. They’re trying to keep it together, trying to be strong for me, but I can read the strain between them. I can see how they’re struggling with the fact that they just lost a child, but at least they still have the other. It doesn’t escape my notice that they can’t stand to look at me either. Then, I realize it’s because Paige and I shared a face. It must be like looking at a ghost.

  I ignore them both and feign sleep. The police are supposed to come by for an interview, so the nurses and doctors are giving me enough medication to help with the pain, but not enough to knock me out. I can’t even move without being reminded of my own anguish.

  A broken wrist, various lacerations, a concussion, and shock are my new bedfellows. And I am grateful. The combination blurs most of what happened after I locked myself in Paige’s room. I have only a few recollections of being wheeled from the apartment to an ambulance. Flashing red and blue lights. A huddle of curious onlookers scenting blood. Flickers of the ride to the hospital. Feeling grateful I didn’t have to see them take Paige away. The blood smeared on our floors is the only image that is crystal clear.

  The finality.

  “Piper,” my mother says from the doorway, her voice watery with tears. “The officers are here to talk to you.”

  I nod, though I keep my gaze on the lone window of my hospital room as I sit up.

  Detective Manning, who is dressed in a worn suit that is hopelessly wrinkled, steps into the room. Paige deserves that kind of dedication. He was tireless with Carly’s case and kind to us. He’s the only one I feel understands what I’m going through. The moment his eyes settle on me, I want to burst into tears and throw my arms around his neck.

  As he draws into the room, I nod to the chair my mom had been sitting in. He obliges and sits with one ankle crossed over a knee, a kind of familiarity borne from tragedy. He takes my hand for a second, then pats it and sets it on the bed. He pulls out a legal pad about a third of the size of the one he used when he interviewed us the first time, which almost makes me smile. When he speaks, his voice is soft and full of compassionate understanding. “Start wherever you can, with as much detail as you can, Piper. Whatever you can remember will help us figure out just what happened. Take your time.”

  I have to clear my throat repeatedly to get my voice to work. The screaming damaged my vocal chords. “It was late, probably past midnight, although I don’t remember the exact time. I’d been drinking. I was coming back from a bar. She’d been there with me about an hour before. Around eleven o’clock. I’d seen my ex-boyfriend, and she was talking me out of rekindling the relationship.”

  “His name?” he asks.

  “Gavin Lance,” I reply absently.

  “The same Gavin Lance we found at your apartment?”

  I nod, and Detective Manning shuffles through his notes. “So you were at the bar together around eleven o’clock and you went home about an hour later. How did you get home?”

  “I walked. It was only five blocks, so I didn’t bother calling a cab. When I got home, I thought I heard something in the alley beside the house.” I look up at him and blink back tears. “I was scared. I thought it could have been the same person who attacked Carly, which is stupid, right? Anyway, I went up the steps and started to unlock the door when he—he came up behind me and put his hand over my mouth. He told me not to scream.”

  “Did you get a look at him? Recognize anything?”

  I shake my head. “No. He pushed me inside before I knew what was happening.”

  Manning nods and gives me an encouraging smile, which bolsters me for the next part.

  “He pushed me into P-Paige’s room,” I manage before my voice breaks.

  My mother chokes on a sob somewhere across the room, and I squeeze my eyes closed to rein in my wildly fraying emotions.

  “It was dark. There was a little light coming in, but I couldn’t see much. Then he pushed me down on the bed and picked up Paige’s bat she kept from high school.”

  “Could you tell how tall he was? Short?” Manning prompts.

  I force myself to remember the feeling, his arms around me and the scrape of his beard on my neck. His chest against my back. A shudder of revulsion rolls down my spine.

  “Taller,” I croak out. “I’m five eight so he would be about six feet tall, I think. Muscular. Strong enough to lift me easily. Pin me down.”

  “Did he say anything? Did you recognize his voice?”

  “He didn’t say anything else, but no, I didn’t get a good look at him. It was too dark and everything went so fast. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re doing just fine. Do you think you would be able to recognize his voice if you heard it again?”

  I press my lips together and shake my head.

  “That’s okay. Was there anything else about the attack that you can remember?”

  I forced myself to remember, to track through the nightmare for any detail that could help. “During the struggle, I knocked him out with a bookend. He was only down for a few seconds, though. I also managed to slam his fingers in the door. So, he’d definitely be injured today, and I think he had dark hair. His was wearing cologne, I think, but I can’t tell you the brand. It wasn’t familiar.”

  “Can
you tell me more about your boyfriend, Gavin Lance?” Manning asks.

  My brows furrow. “Ex. We broke up around the time Carly was . . . around the time Carly was found.”

  “You said you saw him at the club? Did you argue?”

  “We talked, like I said. He wanted to get back together, but I blew him off.”

  “Was he upset?”

  I glance between him and my parents and sit up a little straighter. “What’s going on?”

  “Honey, just answer the question,” my mom says.

  “He seemed a little angry when I wouldn’t stay and talk with him, but he couldn’t . . .” I brush a hand through my hair. “He couldn’t have done anything like this.” I don’t know if I’m trying to convince Detective Manning, or myself.

  “We’re just covering all bases,” Manning reassures me. “Did you change your mind? Make plans to meet at your house later?”

  I shake my head. “No, not at all.”

  “Do you know what he was doing at your house last night?”

  My hand goes to my forehead to rub at the dull ache growing just behind my eyes. “No, I . . . I have no idea. He probably came by to try to make up with me.” My voice is small and choked with tears. “He’s not. . . a suspect, is he?”

  Manning shares a look with my parents.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I demand.

  “You said you injured the man who attacked you?” Manning flips through his little notebook. “Smashed his hand?”

  “Yes,” I say slowly. “I hit him over the head, too.”

  “What does that have to do with Gavin?”

  “Mr. Lance has a broken hand,” Manning says. “And he’s pretty beat up. He says he got in a fight at the bar, but we’re still conducting interviews. It’ll take some time to process the scene and compare blood types. . .”

  I tune out after that and wonder how much more pain I can possibly take.

  Piper

  As the Greyhound bounces and groans its way through the flat Florida fields, thatches of paradise peek through the expanse of pine and palm trees. A familiar sugar-white beach is first, much to my delight. It is already full to bursting with pink tourists and shrieking children. A postcard-perfect picture. I can’t help but sigh at the sight. I’ve missed the ocean.

  Along the front of the beach are tourist attractions, putt-putt golf, go-cart rentals, places to rent beach equipment, and a couple of diving shops and boating places. Farther down the beach are brightly painted buildings gathered in groups. The whole scene makes me smile, and the muscles in my cheeks protest. I’m so used to wearing a scowl.

  I’ve been coasting on gut impulses and luck since the night Paige was murdered, and so far, they haven’t done me wrong. After that, I’d given in to the pressure to pursue therapy. Hours and hours of therapy at my mother’s request. It may have given me some tools to deal with the night terrors and depression, but it did nothing to help with the fear, the overwhelming guilt, or paranoid need to look over my shoulder. The journalist covering the murders, Phil Exeter, had somehow shadowed me wherever I went, hounding me for a story, which I refused to give.

  Finally, when I realized that the anxiety was going to suck what little there was left of me, I decided to leave. I just hopped on the first bus out of Miami—the place I’d begun to consider home—and decided to make a fresh start. My parents gave me the money from Paige’s insurance policy and encouraged me to start over. I picked Jacksonville, where I opened my own business. It worked—for a while, until Phil caught up with me again. After that, I moved around a lot, hoping to run from him—and myself.

  I’d stuck to Northern cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York, hoping to lose myself in the anonymity of the crowd. For the past two years, the memories have been crushed by the day-to-day obligations. Being on the move meant having to find a new job to support myself in each city. The old me had been a little too wild. Too reckless. Careless. Working and worrying about paying for rent and food hadn’t been too high on my list of priorities. Now, endless, menial work serves to distract me from the ghosts of my past.

  My phone rings, and I find Chloe’s name on the caller ID. “I’m almost there,” I say without greeting. Chloe is the only person in the world who really has any idea of the trauma I’ve been through. A couple years ago, she was taken hostage along with a couple dozen other people on a ferry and strapped with bombs. She was my sole employee at the little travel agency I’d opened in Jacksonville and my closest friend. When I started to feel the fingers of the past reaching out to drag me back, I decided to put Jacksonville in my rearview and passed the agency over to her very capable hands.

  “You’re going to love it,” she says.

  I’m not quite so optimistic, but I force myself to be cheerful. “So you’ve said. Repeatedly.”

  “I wish you could have seen it in summer, but the country air will do you some good.”

  “I think I remember saying something similar to you before I made you take the ferry from hell.”

  Chloe just scoffs. “Best and worst time of my life. At least I got Gabe out of the nightmare.”

  She ended up marrying her rescuer. Now, the two of them and his little girl live together in Jacksonville. I make a mental note to go visit them the next time I can now that we’re so close.

  “You never know, maybe you’ll meet a guy there,” she says.

  I roll my eyes at the seat in front of me. “Not a chance.”

  I don’t have any plans to date, but maybe I can finally relax, finish school, and make friends again. Find some way to put together the tatters of my old life. It may not be perfect, but it will be mine. And it is time I take my life back. It is time I have any life at all. I know I will have to face my family and my faults eventually, but before I do that, I know I have to come to terms. Perhaps Nassau is just what I need to lay those demons to rest.

  The thought is comforting as the bus pulls into the depot across the street from a pewter blue lake. Even if I can’t make this paradise my temporary home, I can at least enjoy the brief respite from traveling. What could be better for that than some Florida sunshine? That’s one thing I missed from living in Miami and Jacksonville. The constant sun. So much of the past few years had been spent in gray, dreary places.

  I promise myself every day that I will take joy from anything and everything that I can. Life is, as they say, way too short not to enjoy every moment of it.

  “I’m getting off the bus now,” I tell Chloe. “I’m going to try to find a place tonight and get settled. I’ll call you as soon as I can, and we’ll make a date.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that!” Chloe says. “Miss your face.”

  “Miss you, too. Thanks again for recommending me to your friend about the job and everything. If I haven’t already said it enough.”

  “No need to keep saying it. That’s what friends are for. Don’t forget to call me!”

  “I won’t. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Later,” she says.

  I tuck my phone into my pocket and grab my bags down from the empty seat next to me—two well-worn duffels, which hold everything I own.

  The verdant air wafts through the bus the moment the doors open. I have to steel myself against the scent of earth as it throws me back into the memories of that night. After a few breaths, I manage to calm myself and try to enjoy the warm air. It lifts my long blonde hair and whips it around my face and shoulders. I’d grown it out in the years since I left Miami, allowing my shoulder-length hair to grow down past my waist. Not to mention I wear it like a shield. I’ll never forget the feeling of his voice as it curled around my neck, the scruff of his beard on my bare nape. The mere thought of it makes me shiver and glance around the occupants who dawdle as they disembark, oblivious to my sudden bout of paranoia.

  No. He’s not here. He’ll never hurt me again. The only thing I have to be afraid of is my own memories. And that’s plenty to keep me zigzagging around the country.


  I give one last once over of the other people on the bus, but there is no sign of a tall, dark haired man. And there won’t be, I remind myself. As many times as I explain it to myself, I still look around every corner. After all this time, I still don’t think the nightmare has ended. My heart begins to race, regardless of how many times I tell myself to be calm and cool. I take deep breaths. In four seconds, hold, out four seconds, and hold. I repeat it until my heart rate goes back to normal.

  By that time, the other passengers have cleared the bus. Feeling foolish, I lift my bags to my shoulder and follow the last of them down the steps and into the depot.

  The sun beats down on my shoulders as I walk along the main street that goes around McCormick Lake toward the bundle of businesses. I make a mental note to invest in some sort of sunhat or my pale skin will be burned to oblivion in no time.

  Nassau couldn’t be more different from the places I have called home for the past year. There are crowds here, but they are nothing compared to the mobs of New York and Chicago. The tourist attractions and the lakefront center most of the activity along the water. From the trip in, I know that going two or three miles beyond the city limits will dramatically decrease the amount of civilization, and any farther than that is nothing but fields and farm land. A good place to get lost in.

  I reach the cluster of buildings and follow the footpaths down the charming main street lining the lake. Cute little bungalows dot the road across from it and are interspersed with towering cypress and pine. Each house is a different color, and I wonder if this place is seriously a wonderland. I smile at the thought as I walk between two buildings and turn onto a boardwalk of sorts, which is lined on one side with restaurants and gift shops. Any one of the shops will need help as summer melts into fall, and the thought of working right on the lake is appealing.

  I keep walking until the boardwalk ends and the dock begins. The dock sports dedicated fishermen who are intent upon their lines and lures; their coolers for their catch line the walk. Teenagers in cutoffs and T-shirts walk hand in hand. Younger kids attempt to throw their own lines over the lip of the pier, and their screams of elation or disappointment ring all around.