Kansas City Countdown

by Julie Miller

  He tossed another shovel of dirt onto the dying flames. “I just told you I hadn’t.”

  “You didn’t see a man wearing a black hoodie?”

  “No. Why?”

  Keir didn’t bother to explain. “How did you get onto the grounds if no one was here to let you in?”

  Marvin stabbed the spade into the dirt in the wheelbarrow and rested his elbow on top of the handle before turning. “Am I in some kind of trouble?”

  “How did you get in?” Kenna repeated.

  “I’ve got the company’s passkey to get through the gate and into the garage.” He reached inside his green uniform shirt and pulled a lanyard with a key card from around his neck. “It’s not like I’m here casing the joint, wanting to rob it. I’m doing more than I’m supposed to here. I’ve never had one complaint from a customer about using my passkey privileges, I swear. You can check with my boss, Mr. Riley.”

  “We will,” Kenna and Keir chimed in together.

  Less and less surprised to find out how well their drive complemented each other’s, Kenna looked up. The faint shadows beneath Keir’s eyes and the day-old beard stubble added a tough edge to his chiseled features and indolent grin. She had a feeling it hadn’t been an easy task to discredit him on the witness stand—Keir Watson was intelligent and observant, dedicated to uncovering the truth and protective of the people he represented—traits she believed she shared. She liked teaming up with him a lot more than she imagined she’d enjoyed facing off against him in court. Her heart beat a little faster in her chest when he winked a silent message of support at her, and she wondered if she’d ever felt this inexplicable burst of excitement, this empowering sense of feeding off someone’s intellect and energy, with another man in the life she’d forgotten.

  Marvin interrupted her speculation before she could come up with an answer. “Ma’am, is everything all right? You never did say how you got hurt. You don’t think I had something to do with it, do you?”

  Kenna’s nostrils flared with a deep breath of the damp air upwind of the fire pit. Hormonal rushes aside, she was exhausted. She needed to be in better shape, both physically and mentally, to pursue this investigation any further today. And while she hadn’t been entirely satisfied with the gardener’s answers, she had a feeling that the man would only grow more defensive if she and Keir kept pushing.

  Apparently, Keir agreed. “I’m just doing my job, sir—talking to anyone who might have seen something.”

  “Seen something? Are you saying she got mugged?” he asked Keir. “Some kind of home invasion? In this neighborhood? Should I not be here by myself?”

  “I think you’re perfectly safe, Mr. Bennett,” Keir assured him. “However, do you think you could come back Monday to finish this job? Ms. Parker really needs her rest.”

  “Well, as long as I don’t get blamed for the job not being done.” The gardener wiped his forehead with the back of one of his work gloves. His brown eyes were focused squarely on her when his face reappeared. “I didn’t mean to upset you, ma’am. If it isn’t raining too hard, Monday will be just fine. You’re not going to file a complaint with my boss, are you?”

  “No.” She dredged up half a smile. Of course he’d be worried about his job after being grilled by a cop and an attorney, and then being asked to leave. “I appreciate your flexibility. Thank you.”

  While Marvin tossed more dirt into the fire pit, Keir’s hand slid to the small of her back, turning her toward the double French doors lining the patio. He nodded to the keypad. “Can you get inside from here?”

  “We’ll find out.” Kenna pulled the paper from Hellie out of her jacket pocket and punched in the code. Nine-six-four-two-one. The glass door unlocked, but her fingers hovered over the keys without pushing the door open. “One isn’t the right number.”

  “Sure it is. It’s open... Kenna?”

  She looked up into the narrowed focus of Keir’s blue eyes.

  “That’s what you said when you stumbled out of the alley last night.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes. You couldn’t tell me what it meant then. Are you remembering something now? If one is wrong, then what’s the right number?”

  Dozens of numbers cycled through her brain—big numbers, small numbers, numbers in every type of graphic she could imagine. A chalk drawing. A neon sign. Markings on a plastic syringe. The time on a digital clock, ticking away. She tried to latch on to one of those numbers, tried to make all the counting stop, tried to make sense of any of it. “I don’t know. I keep feeling like I’m on a deadline, like I’m going to miss something important if I don’t remember it. But then...” She shook her head. “There’s nothing there.”

  “A one o’clock appointment? A trial that starts on the first of the month?”

  “I don’t know!” she snapped, more irritated with herself at not having an answer than at Keir for prodding her with questions. She drew in a calming breath and repeated in a more civil tone, “I don’t know.”

  Besides, the phrase that kept playing in her head was that one was the wrong number. So neither of Keir’s suggestions could be the answer.

  When she turned her gaze back to tell him so, she saw that they still had an audience. A very interested audience standing there with a brush and pail of white paint in his hands. “Mr. Bennett. I thought we’d dismissed you.”

  He set the paint and brush inside the wheelbarrow before answering, “I was worried, ma’am. You sure you’re all right?”

  No. I’m frightened out of my mind and afraid I’m completely losing it. But out loud, she answered, “I’m fine.”

  The warmth of Keir’s hand moved across her back. “You go on in. I’ll get rid of him. I want to scout out the grounds, make sure no one snuck in by some other route. It’ll be a while before I come back. Lock up behind me.”

  He leaned in and gently pressed a kiss beside the stitches at her temple. Kenna gasped, though whether it was surprise at the tender contact or the chill she felt when he pulled his hand away, she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t ask about that reassuring little kiss, either. She tilted her gaze to briefly meet the deep blue of his eyes, but Keir was turning away as if sharing that kind of intimacy with her was his right, and as normal and natural an occurrence between them as breathing.

  He strode across the patio to the gardener. “Bennett, you’re coming with me.”

  Chapter Six

  Overwhelming fatigue rushed in as Kenna locked the door and rested her forehead against a cool pane of glass. She watched the two men disappear from sight along the path back to the garage and still she couldn’t bring herself to move.

  The only part of her body that seemed alert were the nerve endings still dancing with a newly discovered delight where Keir’s mouth had caressed her. Tiny strands of her hair had caught in the coffee-brown stubble of Keir’s beard and she’d felt a dozen ticklish little tugs across her scalp as he moved his lips over her skin. She could recall each individual sensation as if it were happening to her at this very moment and savored it. She could recall just as clearly the heat of Keir’s arms closing around her, absorbing her panic and filling her with comfort and strength. Even now her body warmed at the memory of his fingers gently caressing the nape of her neck and sifting into her hair, and her small breasts rubbing against the harder planes of his chest as she pulled herself closer. She remembered breathing in his spicy masculine scent from the skin beneath his shirt collar.

  Kenna’s gaze wondered over to the freshly turned earth and potted roses lined up and ready to be planted along the top of the patio wall. Every detail about Keir Watson was tattooed on her brain. But why couldn’t she remember the conversation she’d had with Marvin Bennett? Why couldn’t she remember dinner or who she’d met or why she’d gone out yesterday in the first place? Why were faces from the distant past so much clearer than t
he friends and business associates and staff she must have interacted with over the past twenty-four hours or so? Was her brain truly as bruised and battered as her face? Or was Dr. McBride right, and she was subconsciously trying to shield herself from a memory so shocking and horrible that she’d never remember anything pertaining to the attack?

  And how vital was it for her to start recalling those details? She couldn’t help thinking that giving her amnesia and a new look hadn’t been her attacker’s goal. Would she even know she was in danger if he or she came back to finish the job until it was too late?

  And why had Keir Watson kissed her? Did she look like she was on her last leg and he’d felt sorry for her? Was he making a point to Marvin Bennett that the lady of the house was protected? And why did she keep trying to imagine what that kiss would have felt like on her lips? It seemed as if answers to the important questions weren’t coming this afternoon.

  Pushing away from the door, Kenna noticed the skin print she’d left on the glass and pulled the sleeve of her jacket down over her hand to wipe it clean. “Hmm.”

  As beautiful and inviting as the wide patio with the tall oaks, colorful flowers and rock paths beyond might be, she apparently didn’t take the time to enjoy them as she should. There wasn’t another mark on the wall of windows and doors, inside or out, no fingerprint on any of the knobs. Didn’t she or anyone else ever go out and sit in the sun or walk the shady paths? Did she ever prop a door open to let a cooling spring breeze into the house? What a waste.

  Turning into the carpeted entertainment area, with a wall of built-in cabinets, a fireplace and a flat-screen TV above the mantel, she strolled through the long room to the marble-topped island and pristine white kitchen on the other side. Maybe she didn’t cook, either. There wasn’t a mark on any of the stainless appliances, and the only thing adorning the countertop besides a display of lemons and oranges was a handwritten note beneath the cordless phone on the wall.

  Kenna scanned the note about weekend meals left in the fridge by someone named Renata and waited for a familiar image to form in her brain. Nothing. Agitation stirred in her blood as she set the note down and moved on to reacquaint herself with her house. Pushing open a swinging door, she entered a formal dining room with twelve chairs around a long cherry wood table. Beyond that, she passed through a squared-off archway into the marble-tiled foyer.

  Here there was a fresh-cut bouquet in a tall crystal vase on a side table beneath a mirror. Opposite that hung a large painting of the mansion, when it had been draped with red, white and blue bunting for a patriotic holiday. She peeked into a study with a desk surrounded by floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books.

  “My father’s office,” she murmured out loud, remembering the tall windows and leather couches. A second door revealed her mother’s office—with lighter-colored woodwork and paint, the shelves filled with gardening and decorating books instead of legal tomes. The other rooms on the first floor were set up for entertaining but were so spotlessly preserved she wondered if the reception a year and a half earlier that Weiss Security had mentioned when Keir called them was the last time she’d had guests in the house. Either that or she’d hired a wicked-good cleaning staff. Maybe that Renata who’d left salads and a casserole for her was Superwoman.

  “I live in a museum,” she murmured, thinking the house was as cold and sterile and empty as the Watson home had been filled with noise and love and living. What kind of person chose this sort of life? Was she really the workaholic Helmut Bond had claimed? Maybe that was why no one had come looking for her in the hospital besides an associate from the firm who’d had to be paged by an answering service. The more she discovered about her life, the less she was liking the woman she’d been.

  She heard the growling noise of a diesel engine starting up. Marvin Bennett was probably driving away. Soon, Keir would follow, and she’d be all alone in this well-appointed mausoleum.

  That unsettling thought made her breath lock up in her chest. This house seemed to indicate that she was very experienced at being alone. The idea should have given her comfort. If she was alone, she wouldn’t have to worry about the disadvantage of not knowing someone on sight. She wouldn’t have to be afraid of failing to recognize her attacker. But alone sounded very...lonely right now. Kenna tilted her gaze up the central, polished walnut staircase with a runner of Oriental wool. “Maybe I live upstairs.”

  But the bedrooms and baths up there were just as spotless. Clean. Beautiful, like live-screen captures from a home decorating magazine, but stagnant, cold. Kenna found the room she thought was hers, a fact confirmed by the business suits, dresses and shoes stored in the walk-in closet. A chest of drawers revealed just how finicky she was at sorting her jewelry and lingerie by color and design. Dressy stuff up top—more casual at the bottom.

  “This is nuts,” she said out loud. How boring, regimented, guarded and uptight could one woman be? Was all this perfection some sort of defense strategy? Had she felt some other aspect of her life was beyond her control? She didn’t think her parents had been harsh taskmasters. Beyond remembering the high expectations they’d had for her, she recalled long conversations at the dining room table and numerous trips they’d taken together. Had something happened more recently that had made her go all scary control freak on the place she called home?

  In the bottom drawer she found several colorful items that had been folded up for so long, the clothes had creases in them. She pulled out a pair of cotton lounge pants in royal blue. They were decorated with old-style London police boxes printed in a bright turquoise color. Kenna smiled and hugged the pants to her chest, feeling a twinge of relief. Somewhere along the line, she’d had a sense of fun. She had a kitschy obsession with British television.

  Why wasn’t she fun anymore?

  Why was she so alone?

  Who had done this to her? Or perhaps a better question to ask was why had she done this to herself?

  Rebelling at the stringent restraint that seemed to have dictated her life before the attack, Kenna tossed the pants onto the four-poster bed and pawed at the comforter, freeing the pillows and blanket underneath and raking them together into a pile in the middle of the bed. “That’s better.”

  Slightly breathless, and secretly satisfied at the hint of anarchy in her overly organized world, she went into the small bedroom next to her own that had been converted into a home office, complete with barrister cases, a couch and a treadmill desk set up in front of another TV. If work was her thing, maybe she’d find something here that would make her feel more at home than the rest of the mansion had. Kenna opened the drapes and sat at the traditional Chippendale-style desk near the window.

  Other than a pewter tankard filled with ink pens and mechanical pencils, there was nothing but a framed photograph of her and her parents sitting on one side of the blotter, and a cordless telephone propped up in its cradle on the other. The red light was blinking on the answering machine, drawing her attention to the numeral 5, indicating the number of messages recorded on the machine. She snorted a wry laugh. “Maybe that’s the right number.” Wondering if she’d recognize any of the voices or names, Kenna pushed Play.

  She opened drawers and searched through the contents of her desk while a woman identifying herself as Carol came on the line. Remembering the name Helmut Bond had mentioned, Kenna tried to put a face to her assistant’s friendly voice. “Hey, Kenna. You weren’t answering your cell, so I thought I’d leave a message on your landline. I’m guessing you’re already at your meeting with your friend Barbara Jean.” Barbara Jean?

  Kenna pulled out the yellow legal pad she found in the main drawer and jotted down the name. Barbara Jean? Was that who she’d met for dinner? Had she ever made it to that meeting?

  “Just wanted to remind you that I’m leaving early today for my class reunion, but I’ve got the correspondence typed up and ready for you to sign on your desk
, along with the files you requested on those old cases. I also wanted to give you a heads-up. Congrats on winning that case this morning, but I’ve already fielded a wild, surprisingly colorful call from Devon Colbern, Dr. Colbern’s wife. Pretty sure the woman was drunk. I saved it in case you need a recording for evidence.”

  “Evidence?” Kenna whispered out loud while the message continued.

  “In polite terms, she’s not thrilled with the outcome of the trial and holds you personally responsible for everything that’s wrong in her life.” Kenna’s assistant laughed. “There’s a message from Andrew Colbern that isn’t much better. Instead of being grateful that you kept him out of prison, he’s worried about what the divorce and civil suit is going to cost him. He said you should have found a better way to clear him of charges than to blame the police for not doing their job.”

  Kenna’s stomach was twisting into knots. That was why Keir considered her an enemy. Was blaming the police—apparently Keir, in particular—the only way she’d been able to defend Ddr. Colbern? Just how many people hated her, blamed her, had a reason to want to hurt her? Did she like these people she represented? Did she really believe in their innocence and thought she was serving justice? Or was she just all about winning her case and making money? That reputation could certainly earn her plenty of enemies.

  “Anyway, that’s it,” Carol finished. “Have a good weekend. See you Monday.”

  After a beep, the second message began to play. But there was nothing recorded but a few seconds of silence before there was a hang-up and the recorder beeped again. Probably just an automated call or a misdial.

  Kenna ignored most of the third message as Hellie’s voice came on the line. Goodness, the man loved the sound of his own voice. While Carol’s message must have come yesterday afternoon before her attack and the trip to the hospital, Helmut Bond wished her a good morning and was following up to make sure she’d made it home safely. If she needed anything, she was to call him. He’d be there in a heartbeat. Better yet, why didn’t she come stay at his house so he could take care of her? Kenna frowned. What would Carol have to say about her boyfriend inviting another woman over while she was away at her reunion? Yet, if they were a couple, why hadn’t Hellie gone to the reunion with her?