DAVID: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security)

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Why?”

  She looked up, a satisfied smile on her lips. “You figured it out.”

  “Of course I did. Didn’t you think I would?”

  “To be honest, I’d thought you were so rusty that you wouldn’t. We never met face to face, but you knew me. Probably better than any of the others, except for Arabelle, perhaps.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but I played along.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Don’t you know? You destroyed Arabelle. So I have to destroy you.”

  “Arabelle made her own choices.”

  “Did she?”

  Jacy looked like a whole different person the way she was looking at me. Her eyes were narrowed and there was such hatred written all over her face that I could feel it covering me like some sort of blanket.

  “You let her rot in jail,” she said, “and then you stole her code from her. Stole it and refused to give her a piece of the company. How cruel is that?”

  “I’m trying to make it right.”

  “By giving your employees that trust?” Her eyebrows rose. “That’s hardly enough to make up for Arabelle’s death. You are responsible for that—just as though you’d been the one feeding her the pills.”

  “I loved Belle. I never would have—”

  “Don’t lie!”

  Jacy had been standing with her hands behind her back, but she brought them out, holding up a 9mm pistol.

  “It’s time for you to die,” she said.

  I backed up, regretting my choice to instruct the security guard to keep Donovan out of the building. His presence would have really come in handy right about now.

  If I could get into view of another security camera…

  Jacy waved the gun. “Stop moving.”

  “What are you going to do? Are you going to shoot me right here and now?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “That’s a ridiculous plan. The police will know it was you.”

  “Don’t care. I have nothing without Arabelle. She was my mentor, my teacher. She was going to show me her code, show me all the things that made her a legend in her own time.”

  “Belle got out of the business.”

  “Yeah, but she was still going on the message boards, still talking to other hackers. I think she missed it.”

  “Is that how you met her?”

  Jacy began to answer, but then her eyes narrowed. “Shut up, bitch!” she cried. “I know what you’re doing. You’re wasting time until the cops get here. But they’re not coming. I shut down the camera in the corner there, and I cut the phone lines. You can’t call them, so unless you called before you came—”

  “I might have.”

  “I doubt it. All you’ve got on your side is that crippled boyfriend of yours. I can’t imagine he’ll be much help as he sits in front of his computer terminal thirty miles away.”

  I took several more steps back, trying to get in the view of one of the working cameras. Jacy came after me and swung the gun, hitting me against the jaw fairly solidly with the butt. She swung again and again, hitting me twice more on the shoulder and once on the side of my head. I went down, praying that one of those swings was caught on camera.

  Come save me, David.

  And then the world went dark as she hit me again.

  Chapter 25

  At the Compound

  “Get inside,” Ash hissed over the phone to Donovan. “David’s on his way.”

  Donovan didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

  Ash watched on the monitors as Donovan knocked on the glass doors again. When the security guard opened them just a crack to tell him to bugger off, Donovan slammed his weight against the door, sending the guard flying backward. Then he was in, rushing across the lobby to the elevator that opened immediately.

  Thank goodness for small favors.

  Ash watched Donovan’s progress in the elevator, his heart pounding. How did things keep getting so out of control? This was supposed to be a simple business, guarding wealthy people who never did anything but piss off the little guy. But somehow they’d come across their unequal share of crazies these past few months.

  When the elevator doors opened, Donovan strode quickly down the hall, pulling his sidearm out of its holster. Ash saw him pause and yell, then aim. The gun discharged twice.

  Ash closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. When he opened them, Donovan was flashing the all clear sign at the nearest security camera.

  Ash rushed for the door. He needed to be there for David no matter what was going on down there.

  Chapter 26

  David

  Bobby let me off at the main doors of the office building. I saw the guard lying unconscious on the floor, thinking Donovan must have pushed him awfully hard to make him blackout like that. I’d seen Donovan pull that move before, but never with this amount of damage.

  I pushed the button on the elevator even as I heard the sirens approaching. Just like the cops to arrive minutes too late. I didn’t bother to wait. Let them find their own way to the executive floor.

  Donovan was standing over a young, pretty blond I instantly recognized as Ricki’s assistant.

  “Where is she?”

  Donovan pointed.

  I rolled my chair around the bleeding woman and that’s when I saw her, lying on the floor in a puddle of her own blood. I rolled to a stop just a few feet away and leaned forward, spilling myself out of my chair so that I could touch her.

  “Ricki?”

  I ran my hand over her head, her scalp, trying to find the source of the blood. Then I turned her head and found a rather large gash on the side of her head. I tore at my own shirt, using the scrap to put pressure on the wound.

  “Ricki?”

  She moaned, and it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

  “She okay?” Donovan called to me, still standing over the other woman with his gun trained on her.

  “I think so.”

  “I called for an ambulance, but I’m not sure this one will need it.”

  “Should probably call Detective Warren. They’re plainclothes downstairs.”

  Donovan pulled his phone out as Ricki moaned again. I ran my hand over the top of her head and whispered, “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

  But I really didn’t know that, did I? I should have been here. I should have protected her.

  The cops arrived seconds after the ambulance, flooding the floor with their presence, with their questions. Ash arrived just as they were taking Ricki away on the gurney. I wanted to go with her, but the uniforms were making me wait so that I could answer questions. Donovan was in cuffs. It would all be worked out when Emily arrived, but she wasn’t getting here fast enough.

  “I need to be with Ricki.”

  “I know,” Ash said, “but we have to cooperate with the cops first.”

  I shook my head, frustration burning in my chest. I watched them disappear onto the elevator with Ricki and could hear her moans still slipping from her lips. I needed to be with her. It was a burning thing that lived in my chest. It was like the need to breathe when you were ten feet under water.

  I paced, if you could call rolling a wheelchair up and down a hallway pacing. The cops kept telling me to be still, to wait patiently, but I couldn’t. I needed to go.

  I’d let her down. I wasn’t going to let her wake in the hospital alone.

  I was seriously thinking about grabbing one of the cops’ guns when Emily walked off of the elevator. You could feel the respect these cops had for her. The entire attitude of the cops changed the moment they saw her.

  Emily had things smoothed over in a matter of minutes. Just a few words with Donovan and the first cop to arrive and it was all done.

  Ash drove me to the hospital. The doctors were with Ricki, but they let me back the moment they were done.

  A concussion, seven stitches in her temple, and a bruised jaw.

  She was lucky.

&
nbsp; “Don’t ever do that again,” I whispered, as I rolled up to her bedside.

  But I’m not sure whom I was really talking to, her or me.

  Chapter 27

  Ricki

  “We ran her fingerprints and discovered her name isn’t actually Jacy. It’s Jennifer Conworth. She’s a college student from Chicago.”

  I nodded. It made sense.

  “She’s a computer science major. Her family is…dysfunctional is a kind word,” Detective Warren said. “Her mother has been in prison since 2004 for manslaughter, and her father has moved around more often than he’s stayed in one place, moving from job to job, woman to woman, often leaving his children behind for months at a time under the premise of searching for adequate housing. In truth, he has a drug problem and keeping the kids is a hindrance.”

  “She was a loner,” I said, “the girl in school that everyone picked on and bullied.”

  Detective Warren nodded. “She made several police reports when the bullying went too far, but then her family would move and there was no follow up.”

  I nodded again. “And then she found the hacker network and others like her.”

  “She found Arabelle Murphy.”

  It all made so much sense to me because Jacy was me. I was Jacy.

  “We found notebooks in her apartment filled with rhetoric about you,” Detective Warren said, looking right at me. “She was determined to kill you because she believed your actions caused Arabelle Murphy’s death.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “We’ll be able to learn more when she wakes,” Detective Warren said. “But until then, I think it’s safe to assume this is the end of it.”

  “Thank you,” David said, squeezing my hand under the table.

  We were sitting at the conference table in Gray Wolf Security’s offices. Ash was standing against the far wall, simply listening. Donovan was sitting across from David and me, his eyes on the tabletop. I guess this was the second time he’d had to shoot a crazed woman in less than six months. He looked a little pale.

  Detective Warren walked up behind Donovan and touched his shoulder.

  “The doctors say she’ll recover.”

  He nodded. But the light was still extinguished in his eyes. And all because of something I’d done, a selfish choice I’d made.

  I wished I could go back and change things. But all I could do was go forward.

  ***

  David and I were lying in bed late that night, both lost in our own thoughts. I rolled over and set my head on his shoulder.

  “When the business sells next month, I need to go on a little trip. By myself.”

  He turned toward me. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” I kissed his cheek lightly. “I need to get a few answers so we can put this whole ordeal behind us.”

  “Okay.” He touched my face lightly. “Whatever you need.”

  I kissed him, grateful for that.

  Chapter 28

  David

  I lay on the cold table, surrounded by a tube that was more claustrophobic than a crushed soda can, trying to remember why I was willingly submitting myself to this nonsense again.

  “You’re doing good, Mr. Grayson,” a peppy woman’s voice said over the scratchy intercom.

  With all the technology available these days, you’d think they could upgrade this system.

  Ricki left for Chicago this morning. She wanted to meet Arabelle Murphy’s husband, maybe get some answers about her suicide. I offered to go with her, but it was something she needed to do on her own.

  I understood how that was.

  The machine stopped banging and the technician informed me she was going to bring me back out. I took a deep breath as I found myself free of the soda can. I slid into my wheelchair before she could offer me her hand, remembering too late that I’d resigned myself to asking for help.

  Next time.

  She wheeled me into an exam room and said the doctor would be there soon.

  It was like déjà vu.

  I dressed carefully, wondering if Ricki had landed yet. Probably. She was probably checking into her hotel by now. If I called her when I was done here, I’d might catch her before she left to meet with Eric Rutledge.

  “Mr. Grayson,” the doctor said, as he came into the room, his face bright as it always was. He was always so pleased to see me.

  “I’m happy to tell you there hasn’t been as much tissue development as we’d anticipated. The surgery should still be fairly simple, though not quite as simple as it might have been two years ago.”

  “But you can still do it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How soon can you schedule it?”

  ***

  “I’m scared,” Ricki said.

  “Of what?”

  “What if he blames me, too?”

  “He won’t.”

  “But what if he does?”

  “He wouldn’t have agreed to meet you if he did.”

  Ricki was quiet for a minute. “I suppose so.”

  “Go see him, love. Go get the answers you need.”

  I could almost see her nodding on the other end of the line. She’d be standing in front of the windows in her hotel room, the impressive Chicago skyline in front of her and a welcoming hotel bed behind her. It was an image I held onto, once again wishing she’d allowed me to go along.

  I was just disconnecting the call when the nurse walked in, an IV kit in her hands.

  “Ready, Mr. Grayson.”

  I nodded, holding out one arm to give her access to my veins. She poked and prodded for a few minutes, finally choosing a thick, ropy vein in the crook of my elbow.

  “Not the most comfortable place,” she said, “but it works.”

  When she was gone, the anesthesiologist came in to introduce himself.

  “I’ll be by first thing in the morning to wake you up to give you a sedative.” He laughed a little at his own joke. “We’ll start with a little Valium in your IV to relax you, then move on to the harder stuff once we’re in the operating room.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you have any allergies I should know about?”

  I shook my head. “Not that I know of.”

  “And you’ve had anesthesia before?”

  “I’ve had four other operations on my back.”

  “Well, let’s hope five is the charm.”

  That was exactly what I was hoping.

  I could have used that Valium that night. I lay awake most of the night, worrying about the damage that this surgery could do. My deepest fear was that the paralysis would spread upward, that I would lose control of my bowels and my urinary tract. That I would no longer be able to make love to Ricki. What would happen then?

  She’d leave. She’d have to. Or I’d send her away.

  But then I imagined walking up to her, touching her face while she was standing. Of taking her into my arms and carrying her over a threshold.

  It was worth it.

  Chapter 29

  At the Compound

  Ash was up early. He’d gotten a call from a new client, an executive who’d gotten a couple of kidnapping threats against his children. He was to meet with him in his office before the start of the day, so that meant dragging his ass out of bed before dawn. He was reading the news on his iPad, drinking instant coffee over the sink, when his cell phone rang.

  “Mr. Grayson? This is Dr. Paulson. I was wondering if you had a second.”

  “All the time in the world. But it’s not going to get David to agree to the surgery.”

  Dr. Paulson cleared his throat. “Well,” he said slowly, “it’s unethical of me to give away patient information. But, because you happen to be this patient’s brother, I thought I’d call and just chat before I head to surgery. At eight a.m.”

  For a second, Ash thought the doctor had gone insane. And then it clicked.

  “You’re kidding me!”

  “Like I said, I can’t discuss a particular pati
ent’s information. This was just a friendly chat.”

  “Of course.”

  Ash disconnected the call and then texted Donovan.

  David’s having surgery today. Get everyone down to the hospital!

  Then he left, totally forgetting the client he was supposed to be meeting.

  Chapter 30

  David

  I finally fell asleep an hour or so before dawn. And then the anesthesiologist was there, shoving a needle into my IV as he asked me a bunch of inane questions. I could barely focus and the Valium didn’t help much. I closed my eyes again, and then Ash was there.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.

  “One last thing by myself,” I mumbled.

  “You idiot,” he said, leaning down to kiss my forehead like he used to do when we were little. He hadn’t done it in years. For some reason that made me want to cry.

  “Fucking medicine,” I muttered, as tears began to roll down the sides of my face.

  “We’ll all be here when you wake up,” he promised.

  “Not Ricki,” I said, as the orderly walked into the room and announced it was time to go. “I don’t….hopes up.”

  Ash squeezed my hand. “It’ll be alright.”

  I closed my eyes and the next thing I knew I was in the operating room. The anesthesiologist was talking, but I couldn’t focus long enough to understand a word of it. And then I closed my eyes and I was gone again.

  Chapter 31

  At the Compound…At the Hospital

  “How long has it been?”

  Rose touched Ash’s arm while Donovan looked at his watch as if it had been more than a minute since the last time Ash asked.

  “Four hours.”

  “Someone should talk to Ricki,” Kate said, gesturing to David’s phone in Ash’s hand. “She’s called half a dozen times.”

  “How do you know it’s Ricki?” Ash asked.

  “Who else would call that frequently?”

  Ash glanced at the phone and, sure enough, it was Ricki’s number that came up when he checked the call history. He knew he should talk to her, but he wanted to honor his brother’s wishes, too.