Kansas City Countdown

by Julie Miller

  Keir was still holding her hand after the team from the crime lab had taken pictures and packed up the evidence from her office and left. Kenna was dead on her feet, but she insisted that she be kept in the loop on any information the police found. Her fingers were still linked to Keir’s as his partner, Hud Kramer, gave them a rundown on the information they’d been able to assess thus far.

  The short, stocky detective with wavy brown hair pulled a notepad from the pocket of his blue chambray shirt and opened it. “We dumped the LUDs on Ms. Parker’s phone. The first unidentified call came from a disposable cell at about three p.m. yesterday. We assume that call came in before the assault—maybe he was verifying your location—that you were en route to your meeting. Maybe that’s what prompted you to leave your home and its security system in the first place—you thought you were going to put a stop to the harassment. You’ve gotten a call from that number every day this week, different times of the day and night. But we can’t trace it.”

  Keir leaned his hip on the stool beside the one where she sat at the kitchen island. “What about that last call? That had to come after the attack. You’re not telling me there are two different perverts out there, getting their rocks off at Kenna’s expense.”

  Hud hesitated. He glanced from his partner to Kenna and back to Keir.

  Kenna didn’t need any soft sell of the facts. She needed answers. “Where did the last call come from?”

  “The number is registered...to you.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked.

  Keir stood, muttering a curse as if he already knew the answer. “The perp took her purse.”

  Hud nodded. “Whoever that is...he called from your cell phone.”

  Chapter Seven

  Keir walked with his brother Niall around the outside of the Parker mansion, checking that the house, garage and yard were secure. Even though the driveway and buildings were well lit, the two men carried flashlights. The clouds rolling in overhead blocked out the moon and stars, leaving plenty of shadows between the iron fence and house where an intruder could hide.

  Kenna and Niall’s fiancée, Lucy McKane, were inside, getting better acquainted, cleaning up after the enchilada casserole they’d shared for dinner and watching over Tommy, the foster baby Niall and Lucy were adopting after their autumn wedding. The couple had brought over a bag with a change of clothes, toiletries and his phone charger so Keir wouldn’t have to leave the estate just yet. Going on thirty-eight hours without sleep, Keir felt better about having another set of eyes on the premises for a while. Niall wasn’t much of a conversationalist, and when Kenna had politely asked about their wedding plans, he jumped at the chance to join his younger brother as Keir suggested he wanted to make sure everything was secure before the storm hit.

  The two men had made their way back to the slate-tiled patio before Niall, a medical examiner with the KCPD Crime Lab, finally spoke about something other than the weather and Keir’s security concerns. “Do you think they’re still talking about wedding showers and bachelorette parties in there?”

  Keir grinned. “Are you all planned out?”

  Niall turned his light into the trees out back while Keir walked around the patio furniture to circle the perimeter of the painted brick wall. “I suggested an elopement, but Lucy has never had the chance to be part of a big family event before. She’s so excited about including all of us, I didn’t want to disappoint her.”

  “She’s hard to say no to, isn’t she?”

  Fortunately, Lucy was as outgoing as Niall was introverted. Keir couldn’t think of any two people who complemented each other more. She brought him out of his esoteric shell, and he grounded her in a sense of security and belonging the woman had never known.

  “I’ve tried,” Niall admitted, adjusting his glasses to peer into the darkness beyond the flower garden. “It’s not a statistical impossibility, but on this project it has been particularly difficult.” He swung his flashlight over to Keir. “By the way, I don’t know what you and Duff are planning, but there are to be no strippers at my bachelor party.”

  Keir laughed out loud. “Is that coming from you or Lucy?”

  “Lucy and the victims on my autopsy table are the only women I ever want to see naked.” Niall raked his fingers through his hair. “That didn’t come out right. Of course I never want to see Lucy on my table.”

  Keir laughed and gave his brother a teasing punch on the arm. “It’s a good thing that woman loves you. I don’t know how you’d ever catch anyone else.”

  Niall peered down at him through his glasses, giving him that stop-being-a-wiseass look, before deftly changing the topic. “So you’re staying the night with Kenna? Aren’t you supposed to be off the clock this weekend?”

  “Yes. And yes.” Keir expected some kind of teasing or curious follow-up question about letting things get too personal. Duff or Millie or someone had no doubt filled his brother in about bringing Kenna to the house where they’d grown up, making it clear to someone with even half of Niall’s intellect that he’d turned an off-duty rescue into a 24/7 investigation and bodyguard commitment.

  But teasing wasn’t Niall’s way. “Good. With a head injury like she has, it’s a good idea that someone stays with her.”

  “Not to mention the guy who wants her dead may come back tonight to finish the job.”

  “True. Or maybe that countdown is all about making her think he’s coming tonight. That would be a pretty terrifying way to get in her head.”

  From everything Keir had observed, the perp had done an exemplary job of that. But Kenna was stronger than the creep could ever imagine, and he couldn’t imagine her allowing that fear to defeat her.

  Their lights converged on the wall Marvin Bennett had been painting earlier that day. The top three rows of bricks were bulging out like a potbellied stove as the ground settled behind them. Keir touched one with his fingertips first to make sure the paint had dried; then he handed his flashlight to Niall. “Here. Hold this.”

  He tried to push the bowing wall in with his hip, and when it barely budged he bent down and put his shoulder into it. Niall set the flashlights on top of the wall and added his strength to the effort. But he pulled away when it became clear it wasn’t going to be an easy fix and vaulted over the top of the retaining wall. He knelt between the roses waiting to be planted and put his brain to work instead, scraping aside some of the loose dirt and shining his light down behind the wall. Catching on to what his brother was doing, Keir removed a few of the loose bricks to see if this was a simple repair they could take care of so Kenna wouldn’t worry about it, or if she’d need to call a professional.

  Niall eyed the potted roses on either side of him. They all had double containers from the nursery, so he picked one up and pulled off the extra plastic pot to use it as a makeshift shovel. A minute later he stopped digging and sat back on his heels. “That’s good ol’ Missouri clay down there at the bottom under the potting soil. With all this rain, the water’s gotten behind the wall and expanded it into a solid mass. You’ll have to dig that out with something stronger than a plastic pot.”

  But Keir was less interested in his brother’s soil assessment than he was in the dark red smear staining the underside of the brick he held in his hand. “Hey, Niall. What do you make of this?”

  Niall jumped down to the patio and shone his light on the faded whitewash. “Looks organic. It’s not rust-colored enough to be the clay. Look at the corner where it’s chipped away. I’d say it’s blood.”

  “That’s what I thought.” An uncomfortable scenario was forming in Keir’s head. This brick had been turned upside down and freshly painted. How long had that stain been there before the gardener had covered it up with his botched repair? Keir turned to look inside the house. The first-floor rooms on this side of the house were all lit up, and he could see through to the k
itchen where Lucy was pouring a mug of coffee while Kenna sat at the island, playing with the baby in his jump seat on top of the counter. The two women seemed to be enjoying their conversation. Keir turned away from their laughter and looked up at his brother. “Is it Kenna’s?”

  “There’s no way to tell unless I analyze it. It could belong to the mason who built the wall, or any worker or guest. Could even be from an animal.” Niall took the brick to study it at another angle. “The sample looks degraded. It’s been out in the elements. But brick is porous enough that it could absorb the serums. Possibly, there’s a purer sample deeper inside, beneath the paint.”

  Niall started to hand it to him, but Keir pushed it back into his brother’s hands. “Can you take that to the lab and analyze it?”

  Niall glanced inside the house, too. “You think this is Kenna’s blood?”

  “I think I haven’t found the original crime scene yet. She was in a fight somewhere. Why not here? This is as good a lead as anything I’ve uncovered so far.”

  Niall nodded. “If she was cut here, too, there should be more blood. Directional splatter from the knife or scalpel or whatever instrument was used.”

  “If the perp had time to dump Kenna downtown, then he’d have the place to himself and plenty of time to clean up.” He tilted his gaze to the overcast sky. “And Mother Nature hasn’t exactly been kind to crime scenes.”

  “I’ll grab my kit from the car and bag the brick. I’ll get some luminol and my ultraviolet light to see if I can pick up anything else out here.” He hesitated a moment before leaving. “You know, even if this is her blood, it could have been left by an earlier injury. Could I take a look at her head wound? See if it’s consistent with striking the wall?”

  “We can ask. I imagine she’ll say yes. She’s as anxious to find answers as I am.”

  “We need to get Tommy home and put him to bed. But I can drop him off with Lucy and head out to the lab tonight.”

  Keir extended his hand to his brother. “Thanks. I’ll owe you one.”

  “No, you won’t.” Niall hooked his thumb around Keir’s and shared the bros’ handshake. “You were there for me when Tommy’s birth father tried to kill Lucy. I figure I still owe you.”

  * * *

  TWO HOURS HAD passed since Niall and his new family left the estate and Keir locked it down tight. Kenna had given Keir his pick of guest rooms upstairs and he’d settled into the one across from hers. It hadn’t taken him long to unpack, but he’d indulged a few extra minutes in the shower. The hot water and shave had gone a long way to unkinking his weary muscles and washing away the grit of the day.

  Before he turned in, he pulled a pair of jeans on over his briefs and padded across the hall in his bare feet. He nudged open the door to Kenna’s room to see for himself one last time that she was safe before he turned in. The room was pitch-dark except for the sliver of light from the hallway, but it fell over the top of her four-poster bed and he could see that there was no blond head of hair resting on either pillow.

  Feeling a twinge of alarm, he pushed the door wide-open to verify that she wasn’t sitting in a chair with a book or in the adjoining bathroom. No light under the bathroom door. That didn’t necessarily mean...

  And then he heard voices downstairs. A man’s voice mostly. “Ah, hell.”

  Had that creep called Kenna again? Was someone here? Was he making good on his zero-hour threat?

  Keir dashed back into his room to get his gun and raced down the staircase toward the muffled conversation. Front door locked. Lights off. He’d given himself fifteen stupid minutes to clean up and feel halfway human again, and that was all the time it had taken for someone to get into... He burst into the kitchen to find it empty. A light was on over the stove. “Kenna?”

  He saw her sitting in the middle of the family room in front of a big-screen TV. That and the lamp on one end table provided the only light in the room. Keir’s alarm quickly fizzled into annoyance when he realized the voices he’d heard were coming from the television. Kenna held a mug in her hand and was reading something on the computer screen in her lap.

  “Everything okay down here?” he asked, wondering what had her so mesmerized on that computer that she hadn’t answered when he called out to her. Just to appease his own peace of mind and let the adrenaline that had charged through him earlier run its course, he crossed behind her to check the back doors to the patio. All secure.

  He spared a few moments to study the flashes of lightning in the clouds whipping through the night sky. A storm was coming. Breathing normally again, he tucked his Glock into the back waistband of his jeans and came back to the tan sectional sofa. Kenna sat cross-legged in the middle. She’d wrapped a cream-colored afghan around her shoulders and had her laptop computer open on the knees of her royal blue pajama pants.

  “I brewed a new pot of coffee.” She finally spoke, pointing toward the kitchen without taking her eyes off the words scrolling across the computer screen. “Changed it over to decaf if you want some.”

  Keir considered pouring himself a cup of the fragrant brew, but he wanted an explanation first. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to look up. “Is there some reason not answering and scaring me seemed like a good idea? Is everything okay?”

  She closed out the page she was reading and glanced up. Her silvery eyes widened with surprise. “You’re half naked—you shaved.” She took her time gazing her fill of his shoulders and chest before she turned away. He’d never realized how a woman’s hungry look could be such a turn-on. Instead of acting on the desire arcing between them, however, she dialed the intimacy back a notch and opted for the clever banter thing they shared. “That’s a good look on you.” She thrust her long legs out from beneath the cover and scooted forward to set down her drink and grab the remote from the coffee table. “Did I wake you? Sometimes the sound effects get a little loud.”

  “I was getting ready to turn in when I realized you hadn’t gone to bed.”

  “I needed to do a little work.” She pointed the remote at the television and turned down the volume several notches until the characters running around on-screen were barely whispering. “I turned that on for background noise. Besides, if tonight is the deadline, and he’s coming for me—”

  “You don’t want him to take you by surprise. That’s what I’m here for.” Keir moved to the far side of the table to face her. Even in the flickering light from the television, he could see the bruises on her pale skin and the fatigue lining her eyes. “Why haven’t you passed out yet? Dr. McBride and my brother both said sleep would be good for you.”

  She tucked a swath of damp, straight hair behind her ear and tilted those moonlit eyes up to his. “I don’t know how long I was out the last time I lost consciousness. Long enough for the man who did this to think I was dead and haul me downtown and leave me in a filthy alley. Maybe I’m afraid the next time I go to sleep I’ll never wake up again.”

  Keir plucked the computer off her lap, moving it beyond the grasping hands that tried to take it back. “And maybe you’re too much of a workaholic.” He sat down beside her and pulled the laptop onto his thighs. “What are you working on?”

  “I’m reading through old case files. My personal notes on them, anyway. I’m assuming copies of the actual paperwork, trial transcripts and so on are kept at the Kleinschmidt, Drexler offices.”

  While Keir skimmed over the icons on her screen, Kenna picked up the steaming mug of decaf and cradled it between her hands. “I’m a horrible person. Look at that list of people I’ve defended. Andrew Colbern. The Rose Red Rapist. Jericho Meade’s nephew.”

  A community leader who’d rather commit murder than pay for a divorce, a serial rapist and a mobster wannabe who’d made a bid to take over his uncle’s criminal empire. Two of the three had been convicted, but Brian Elliott was serving at least forty-two yea
rs with consecutive sentences, and Austin Meade was serving a life term instead of facing the death penalty, thanks to Kenna.

  Her pale gaze stared at the fireplace beneath the television, and Keir wondered what dark place her thoughts had wondered to. A horrible person seemed like a pretty harsh condemnation for a woman he was quickly growing to care about. He even felt a pinch of guilt at the Terminator nickname he’d once tossed so casually around the precinct offices. “Maybe you’re doing a service to Kansas City.”

  She blew a snort of derision across her coffee. “Yeah, right. If you can afford her, Kenna Parker will defend anybody.”

  Keir scrubbed his fingers over the smooth skin of his jaw, thinking how he wanted to say this. “We need good criminal defense attorneys. You make sure those trials are fair so that when we put the perpetrators away in prison, they stay there. No one can argue an appeal and get them back on the streets because you’ve already given them the best defense possible.”

  She set the mug down and turned to him. “That’s a pretty speech, Detective. You almost make me sound like one of the good guys.”

  “It’s the truth.” The more he thought about it, the more Keir believed what he was saying. He just hadn’t bothered to see the whole picture of what a trial looked like before now. “Think of it this way, when I arrest a perp, I want him to go away because the department proved he committed a crime and that he deserves to be locked up. I don’t want to win because you’re lousy at your job—I want the guy to know we did our job right and we nailed him.”

  She pulled the afghan more tightly around her shoulders. “Maybe I should become a victim’s advocate. The police would like me better, and I’d certainly be able to relate to my clients now. I wonder how much pro bono work I used to do. It might be good for my conscience, if not my tough-chick image, to do more pro bono work on the victims’ behalves.”