Kansas City Countdown

by Julie Miller

  His blue eyes danced with a rakish twinkle and her addled, wishful brain heard, “Oh, what I couldn’t do with you for a couple of hours.”

  But her ears heard an imminently more practical “Ready to get to work?” before he caught her lips in a good-morning kiss. Then he was standing up, searching the kitchen for fresh coffee and telling her to shower and get dressed while he dug up something for brunch.

  As she watched the numbers above the elevator door light up with each floor, Kenna wondered if she’d ever be able to look at a progression of numerals without this wary jump in her pulse again. Or maybe it was the spicy scent of the detective beside her who was making her heart beat a little faster. Had she ever been this attracted to a man before the attack? There were no photographs of any man other than her father on display at the house, no silly little mementos tucked away in any well-organized drawer that could be a sentimental souvenir and certainly no engagement ring box or heart-shaped pendant to indicate evidence of a serious relationship.

  Even with amnesia blanking names and faces, wouldn’t she remember feeling this deliciously sexy awareness if she’d ever experienced it before? This soul-mate sensation of meeting a personality of equal drive, wit and intelligence? This feeling of being in love?

  Love?

  The elevator stopped with an abrupt jolt on the fifth floor. Or maybe that jolt was her brain admitting the word love and mulling over the possibility of what, exactly, she felt for the detective standing beside her. Kenna pulled her hand from Keir’s and hugged her arms around her middle. Gratitude? Certainly. Attraction? Couldn’t help herself. But love? How could a mature, sensible woman fall in love in the space of a couple of days?

  The obvious answer was that she’d crashed her brain against a brick wall and wasn’t thinking sensibly. The less obvious answer was that she was confusing love with something else. And though she wasn’t naive enough to think that Keir didn’t find her equally attractive, having an overly developed sense of responsibility for a victim and wanting to share a roll on the couch didn’t mean he was getting a relationship kind of serious feeling about her, too.

  The elevator opened across from a bank of glass doors with a Kleinschmidt, Drexler, Parker and Bond logo plaque up on the wall behind the receptionist’s counter inside. Maybe Hellie saw the fact that she’d released Keir’s hand as an opening to get a little more personal with her. He unlocked the door and, palming the small of her back, led her across the plush gray carpet to the tall white counter. He hooked his dripping umbrella over the edge of the reception counter and shrugged off his tan raincoat. “Do you remember where your office is?”

  Kenna took a moment to look around. Familiar images started to drop into place—the neutral color scheme of the centrally located reception area, the long hallways leading in opposite directions. “Partners’ offices are to the left—paralegals and storage rooms to the right.” She pointed to the left. “I’m down there.”

  Hellie took her arm. “Come this way first.”

  Although Keir used a few extra seconds to scan both hallways, he quickly followed her and Hellie around the counter through the door marked Boardroom. The long room looked the way she remembered from that past board meeting. The heavy walnut table and leather rolling chairs looked familiar, as did the bookshelves and a bar sink complete with coffee cups and liquor glasses. Kenna walked to the row of windows looking out over the city street. Rivulets of rain streaked the tinted glass, giving the buildings across the street and the cars below a gray, gloomy look in the middle of the afternoon. There must be some kind of convention going on at Bartle Hall or a matinee concert at the Folly Theater nearby to account for the bumper-to-bumper parking along each sidewalk and the row of cars lining up to pull into the parking garage kitty-corner from the building.

  “Here you are.” Kenna turned past Keir unzipping his jacket in the doorway to Hellie pulling something from the safe he’d opened at the far end of the room. He jingled a ring of keys in his hand, and Kenna moved away from the windows to retrieve them. “Arthur ordered spare sets made to award the newbies when they make junior partner. I don’t think he’d mind if you kept these until you can get all your keys replaced. What about your car keys—will you be able to get around?”

  “I had a spare set at home.” She’d found keys for the house, too, that she could use if the security codes didn’t work, or she forgot the numbers, and had given a set to Keir.

  Hellie pressed the keys into her hand, folding her fingers around them and holding on until she lifted her questioning gaze to his. “What about replacing your driver’s license and other cards that were in your purse?”

  “I’ve already called and put a stop on my credit cards. Replacements are in the mail, and I’ll be visiting the DMV tomorrow to get my license replaced.”

  One bushy eyebrow climbed higher on his forehead as he leaned in to whisper, “With Detective Watson?”

  Kenna pulled her hand away and glanced over at Keir, who hadn’t missed a word of her conversation with Hellie. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly, remembering Keir’s promise to keep her safe until her attacker was found. Although she longed to believe he’d stay with her indefinitely, realistically she knew the man had to return to work. And she doubted she’d be a welcome addition hanging out with his team at precinct headquarters. She was going to have to hire a bodyguard or learn how to face the frightening blanks of her life on her own. Neither option could quell the sudden discomfort that tightened her chest.

  “I’d be happy to take you,” Hellie offered. He cupped his hands over her shoulders, and she had the feeling he was offering more than a ride to the DMV. “Just say the word and I’m yours.”

  Not gonna happen. Pasting a smile on her face, Kenna shrugged off his touch and headed for the door. “I’ll let you know. Right now I need to track down some information for the police. Thanks again for your help, Hellie.”

  “Please tell me I don’t have to like that guy,” Keir said a few moments later as he draped his jacket on the back of a chair over an air vent in Kenna’s office while she sat down at her desk and reacquainted herself with her work space.

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t like him,” Kenna admitted, booting up her desktop computer. “I have a feeling I merely tolerate him because he was a friend of my father’s—and we have to work together. Those eyebrows of his are a little scary. They remind me of two—”

  “Fuzzy caterpillars?”

  Kenna laughed, and the tension she’d been feeling, analyzing her feelings for him and thinking about how lost she was going to feel when they had to go their separate ways, receded to a manageable level that she could ignore. Meanwhile, she opened drawers until she found an address book. Keir stood and looked over her shoulder while she thumbed through the pages for the W’s. Finally. Barbara Jean Webster. Hulston Hall. “That’s at a law school.” A loud, energetic laugh echoed through her memories and Kenna snapped her fingers. “She’s an old friend of mine. We went through law school together.”

  Keir pulled his notepad from the back pocket of his jeans and perched his hip on the corner of the desk. “Call her. Put it on speaker.”

  Kenna dialed the number and waited for her friend to answer. “Barbara Jean?”

  “Hey, Kenna.” Barbara Jean sounded breathless, as if she was in the middle of a workout. “It’s good to hear your voice. I heard that you got mugged Friday night. I didn’t know if you were up for visitors or I’d have stopped by.”

  “You heard I was attacked? It wasn’t in the news.”

  Barbara Jean shouted a boy’s name and something about tracking mud through the house before she returned to the phone. “The legal community is a small world. I heard it from a friend of a friend. Don’t know the details, of course. How are you feeling?”

  Kenna could remember dark hair now, and two equally dark-haired children, as she began to
place her friend in her life. “I’m a little beat up around the edges.”

  “I hope the police catch the creep.”

  “Well, that’s the reason I’m calling.” Although she still couldn’t recall her friend’s face, the fast-talking, bighearted personality was feeling more and more familiar. “The police are investigating, and I’m a little foggy on the details leading up to the assault. Can you remind me why we were meeting and where?”

  “Honey, are you okay?”

  “I will be if you can answer a few questions.”

  Barbara Jean seemed to be wrestling galoshes off children’s feet, but she didn’t hesitate to respond. “We were meeting for coffee after you wrapped things up at the courthouse. As to why? You tell me. I was hoping maybe you were coming to me to finally file a sexual harassment lawsuit against your buddy Hellie. Boy, does that man have a problem with keeping his hands to himself! I felt like I had to shower off after that New Year’s Eve party at the Drexlers’. It didn’t make any difference telling him I had a husband.”

  “Did I mention a lawsuit?”

  “No. Mostly you vented about dealing with too much stress and living under a microscope with Mr. Kleinschmidt dangling that promotion in front of you—how everyone at the firm was scrutinizing your work on the Colbern case.”

  The squeal of children’s voices startled Kenna but quickly faded into silence as Barbara Jean sent them out to the kitchen for snacks.

  “You know, when I heard about the mugging, my first thought was that Hellie had done something to you. I wouldn’t put it past him if it meant getting you out of the running for senior partner. The man’s an idiot. Of course, you made that police detective look like an idiot, too.”

  Kenna shot Keir an apologetic look. But if he’d gotten a new dent on his ego, he didn’t show it. Instead, he gestured for her to keep asking questions and went back to jotting his notes. “And we had coffee at...?”

  “Balthazar’s.”

  Keir jotted a message on his notepad and showed it to her. When did you leave Balthazar’s?

  “Hey, do you remember about what time I left the coffee shop?”

  Barbara Jean sounded as if she’d finally caught her breath. “That’s an odd question.”

  “I couldn’t remember the exact time.” She couldn’t remember meeting her friend at all. But she could recall sharing an apartment with Barbara Jean in Columbia, Missouri—and making coffee and red licorice runs when they’d been up late studying for exams. “The detective here says it could help if I retrace my steps leading up to the attack.”

  “Let’s see. You left Balthazar’s at almost straight-up three o’clock. I had to get home to meet the kids when the bus dropped them off after school—and you said you had a five o’clock, and you were going home to get changed.”

  “I went home?”

  Where she’d fought with someone and clobbered her head on the patio wall.

  “That’s what you told me.”

  “Did I say who I was meeting?”

  “No. But I gather it was a man. Why else would you go home to get gussied up? Although you were already wearing one of your power suits and a pair of those knock-’em-dead high heels.” Barbara Jean hissed an apologetic sigh. “Sorry. Poor choice of words.”

  A “Don’t worry” died on her lips when the significance of what her friend had said registered. Kenna leaned toward the phone. “Do you remember what suit I was wearing? What heels?”

  “The police want to know what you wore to coffee with me?”

  “It could be important.”

  “Um, let’s see. Oh, sure. It was your kick-ass-in-court suit—the tan Armani—and the Jimmy Choos you splurged on down on the Plaza.” Barbara Jean scoffed. “You know, the ones with the mile-high heels? Like you need to be any taller.”

  Kenna remembered her clothes being bagged up in the hospital several hours after the assault. She reached over to squeeze Keir’s knee. “I never changed my clothes. That’s what I was wearing when I was attacked.”

  Keir nodded. “That narrows the timeline considerably.”

  “Between three and five o’clock.”

  “What’s that?” Barbara Jean asked, thinking Kenna had been talking to her.

  Keir scrawled a question on his notepad and she read the message. Rose petals?

  “Barbara Jean? This will sound strange, too, but...” Keir’s hand settled over hers where it fisted on the desk. She turned her palm up to meet his. She could do this. “Did I mention anything about roses? Or about someone stalking me?”

  Barbara Jean gasped. “Oh, honey. Is that what happened to you? No. I wish I’d known. Maybe I could have helped. You just said you needed to get away and have a normal conversation with someone you could trust. You did seem to be wound up pretty tight. I figured it was the stress of the trial, but I guess this stalker creep was weighing on your mind. Knowing you, you probably thought you could handle the situation yourself. You should have said something.”

  Keir closed his notepad, indicating he’d gotten the information he needed. “Thanks, Barbara Jean. I appreciate the help.”

  “Anytime, my friend. And hey, whenever you want to leave the good ol’ boys’ network and go into a partnership with Walter and me, just say the word. We’ll take good care of you. I know you’re loyal to Kleinschmidt, Drexler because your dad was a founding partner, but if the old guy promotes Hellie ahead of you, I’d jump ship.”

  “I’ll think about it. Thanks.” Kenna disconnected the call with a wistful smile. So there were two people in this world she trusted without question. Barbara Jean Webster and the man sitting beside her, who maybe didn’t have much reason to trust her.

  She pulled her hand from beneath Keir’s. “Still dislike Hellie?” She tried to make the question sound like a teasing gibe, but the reality of her getting Colbern acquitted at Keir’s expense made the joke fall flat. “If Arthur had assigned him instead of me, you might have won your case.”

  He stood and pulled her to her feet beside him. “Don’t you go soft on me now, Counselor. You beat me, fair and square. I didn’t like it. I still don’t. But that just means that next time I appear in court, I’m going to up my game and put together a case that not even the great Kenna Parker can tear apart.”

  She arched an eyebrow and tilted her skeptical gaze to his. “The great Kenna Parker?”

  “Too much?”

  She squeezed her thumb and forefinger together and smiled. “Li’l bit.”

  He traced the curve of her lip with his fingertip. “That’s better. Besides, friend or foe, I’d rather look at your legs than Hellie’s bushy eyebrows any day.”

  Although her lip still tingled from the touch of Keir’s finger, she knew they were here for business, not flirty reassurances. She nodded toward the phone. “Chatting with Barbara Jean helped. I never got the chance to change my clothes that night. I never made my five o’clock.”

  “I think you did.”

  Of course. “Whoever I had that appointment with—”

  “Is the man who tried to kill you.”

  The stitches at the base of her skull throbbed with the dire realization. “That’s why no one called to see why I never showed up for dinner.” She pointed to the appointment calendar she’d pulled up on her computer screen. Except for the court appearance in the morning, and the initials B.J. at three o’clock, the square for Friday was blank. “Why didn’t I write down who I was meeting? Clearly, it wasn’t work related or my assistant would have posted it.”

  “Maybe that’s exactly what the meeting was about—work.” Kenna frowned, needing more of an explanation. “I just heard your friend rattle off a lot of complaints about Helmut Bond. Sexual harassment? Good ol’ boys’ network? Vying for the same promotion? If he sees you as a threat—that’s motive. Being a longtime family
friend, you’d be comfortable inviting him to your house. You’d probably try to reason out the conflict with him before you took any kind of legal action.” Keir shrugged. “Or maybe you did threaten legal action and that set him off. He’s certainly kept an eye on you since the attack. He could be trying to see if you remember him being there.”

  Personal aversions aside, Kenna hated to think that someone her father had mentored could get angry enough to hurt her like this. There had to be another answer. “What about the phone calls and letters? All that happened before the attack—before I would have confronted Hellie. Those are detailed, planned actions, meant to frighten and intimidate me.” She swept her hand in front of her face. “This is impulse, not a patient, calculated terror campaign. Helmut Bond is glib and annoying, not violent.”

  “Unless something you said or did at that meeting triggered the rage he’s been holding in check.”

  Kenna overlapped the front edges of the cotton cardigan she wore, hugging herself against the chill that shivered through her body. “Then we’ve still got a lousy case, Detective. I have no idea what I said or did, much less who I said or did it to.”

  Keir rubbed his hands up and down her arms, trying to instill in her the warmth and confidence she couldn’t find. His voice was a hushed, intimate whisper of encouragement. “If you won’t consider your buddy Bond, then we’ll go find more suspects. If we can’t have eyewitness testimonies, then let’s dig up all the circumstantial evidence we can find and put together a list of persons of interest who might have motive to hurt you.”