Kansas City Countdown

by Julie Miller

  * * *

  KENNA WAS SHAKING so badly that she’d been forced to set the cell phone on the floor beside her so she wouldn’t drop it and make a noise that would give her hiding place away. Instead, she clung to the handle of the knife with both hands and prayed she’d never have to use it.

  When she heard the key turning in the lock of the patio door, the breath she’d been holding rushed out in a noisy huff and she set the knife on top of the island and pulled herself to her feet. But the man in the black hoodie was locking the door behind him. The faceless mask was pure terror as he crossed the long room, and Kenna was suddenly as cold as the marble countertop.

  “Hello, Kenna,” he rasped in that toneless voice. Lightning fluttered like a strobe light behind him, silhouetting his familiar shape and giving her a glimpse of the gun he pointed at her. It was Keir’s weapon. “I’m afraid Lover Boy isn’t here to rescue you anymore.”

  “What have you done to him?”

  She lunged for the knife, but he fired off a wide shot that hit the cabinet behind her and she froze, raising her hands. “Now, be a good girl and toss that knife over here.”

  After she did what he said, he unzipped his jacket and shoved the hood off his head. He slipped the butcher knife through his belt next to the long sheath with the knife he’d used against her earlier. Shrinking back against the opposite counter, she felt her foot come down on Keir’s phone and she wondered if the dispatcher could hear what was happening and rush an ambulance and the entire police force here before she and Keir died.

  When he pulled off the ski mask, Kenna gasped and collapsed against the counter. “Oh, my God.” How long had this creep been right under her nose? How many conversations had they shared? How many times had she patted him on the back or shaken his hand? He doesn’t get to win. Tears burned her eyes as she thought of Keir lying wounded or dead outside. She pulled herself up straight and articulated the name for the woman listening in. “Marvin Bennett.”

  She nudged the phone under the lip of the cabinet as he reached the island and circled toward her. “It’s just you and me and the task I wanted to finish last night. I’ve enjoyed seeing you afraid. Watching how you tried to control your fear by controlling everything else in your life. I wanted you to suffer the way she did.”

  “The way who did?”

  “Genie. My daughter.”

  Kenna backed toward the dining room door, wondering if she could get through it before he fired off another shot. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

  “She killed herself six years ago. Two years after she’d been raped.”

  “Raped?” Kenna halted. This was about Brian Elliott.

  “The Rose Red Rapist. Your biggest case. You made headlines—and a fortune defending that scum who ruined my daughter’s life.”

  “Genie D’Angelo.” She remembered the name from the case file she’d read. “Genie is your daughter?”

  “Was. That’s an important distinction, Kenna. You’re the one who likes to get every detail right.”

  “I’m so sorry, Marvin. I didn’t know.”

  “Move away from that door.” He pointed the gun at her and gestured for her to walk toward the sectional sofa. When she didn’t immediately respond, he snagged her by the elbow and dragged her there. “D’Angelo was her married name. But her marriage couldn’t survive what that bastard Elliott had done to her. She wouldn’t let her husband touch her. She barely let me—her own father—comfort her. Every day was a misery for her after the rape. She went into a depression. She slashed her wrists once. I found her and got her to the hospital. But I didn’t know about the pills. I couldn’t save her from the pills.”

  “You blame me for her death.”

  “No.” He threw her onto the couch and she tried to scramble away, but he caught her by the ankle and dragged her back to press his knee into her gut and lean over her. He drew the tip of the gun across the stitches on her jaw. “I blame you for Brian Elliott still being alive.”

  Kenna could barely catch her breath to speak. “I was just doing my job. I never condoned anything he did. Every person in this country deserves a fair trial—”

  He back-handed her across the face and she felt the cut on her cheek split open.

  “You defended him! You kept him from the lethal injection he deserved.”

  “Rape isn’t a capital offense. But he’s probably going to die in prison before he’s ever released—”

  “Shut up! He shouldn’t be living any kind of life. And it’s all your fault.” He dipped his gloved fingers in the blood on her cheek and drew an X over her heart. “I wanted you to suffer the way Genie did. Elliott violated her in so many ways, and then had the gall to leave a rose on her beaten body? She hated roses after that. I’m a gardener. I raise beautiful flowers. But she couldn’t even look at them.”

  “So you sent me roses.” Her fingers clenched in the sofa cushions, seeking a weapon to defend herself from the man who surely intended to kill her.

  “I wanted to cut you—the way she cut herself.”

  Cut. The answer was staring her right in the face. Yes, a gun was being pointed to her heart, but her hands were free and that butcher knife was within her reach.

  “When you came to me on Friday and said you wanted me to rip out all the rosebushes and plant hydrangeas, I lost my temper. They’re supposed to be there to remind you of my daughter. They’re supposed to remind you of that horrible man you defended. The roses were there to haunt you and make you suffer the way my little girl did. So I pulled my knife out to stop you. We fought. And when I cracked your head open and saw all that blood, I thought I’d killed you.” His face twisted up as if he was about to cry. “You ruined everything. You weren’t supposed to die until last night. I had to get you out of here and reset the stage for your death. But then that stupid cop was here, and I couldn’t. But I’ve taken care of him. He won’t stop me now.”

  Keir. Kenna’s heart squeezed in her chest. What had this lunatic done to him? Kenna wanted to make sure there would be justice for the man she loved. She wanted the dispatcher to hear everything. “Why last night? What was so important about your deadline?”

  “Because of Genie. This is all for my daughter. This is justice. I wanted you to know just how many days you had left to live. I wanted you to die on the same date my Genie did.”

  “I didn’t know it was you, Marvin. I couldn’t remember your face or what happened. I still don’t. You could have walked away a free man.”

  “Forgetting’s not good enough. My Genie could never forget her suffering.” He pressed the gun into her breast, pinning her as he unhooked the sheath on his belt. “That’s no better than Elliott’s punishment. You don’t get to forget, either.”

  Another flash of lightning lit up the night sky, giving her a glimpse of Keir Watson at her patio door, swinging a shovel at the wall of glass.

  Thunder shook the house as the panes of glass splintered and crashed. Marvin raised the gun and Kenna reached for the knife on his belt.

  “Bennett!” Keir shouted.

  The blast of the gunshot deafened her ears and the ejected casing hit her arm, singeing her skin. Her fingers fell short of snatching the blade and she heard the feral roar of Keir charging across the room.

  “Let her go!”

  Instead of obeying Keir’s order, Marvin hauled her up off the couch and pulled her in front of him to use as a shield. She saw the blood staining the shoulder of Keir’s mud-stained shirt and would have cried out. But Marvin squeezed his forearm around her throat and ground the gun barrel into her temple.

  Keir halted a few feet away and dropped the shovel he carried and raised his hands to placate her abductor. “No one has to die here, Bennett.”

  “She does.” Kenna fingered the knife butting against her hip but couldn’t get it to budge. “
I want you to watch her die, too.”

  “I’m not going to let you do it.”

  “Better idea.” Marvin pointed the gun toward Keir. “I’ll kill you first. That’ll make her suffer more.”

  “No!” Kenna got a grip of the knife and yanked it from Marvin’s belt, slicing a cut across his shirt and belly as she pulled it out.

  Marvin cursed as he pulled the trigger, firing a wild shot. Startled by pain, he loosened his hold on her.

  “Get down!” Keir yelled, charging toward Marvin. Kenna dove for the floor as Keir sailed over the couch and tackled Marvin. The gun flew from his hand and got knocked beneath the coffee table. The two men fought, grunting and cursing. Marvin punched at Keir’s wound and Keir lost his grip on Marvin’s neck.

  “Look out!” Kenna warned when she saw Marvin’s fingers find the gun and close around it. “Gun!”

  Marvin turned the gun on Keir. But Keir had armed himself, too.

  Before Marvin could fire, Keir rammed the knife straight into the old man’s heart.

  * * *

  MARVIN’S HAND DROPPED to the floor and Keir pried his gun from the dead man’s grasp. He stood up slowly, hearing the wail of sirens through the noise of the storm.

  His shoulder was throbbing where he’d been shot, he had a rotten headache and he’d cut his left heel on the broken glass near the door. But nothing was going to stop him from catching Kenna when she ran to him and wound her arms around his neck. “Keir. Oh, Keir. I thought...I thought he’d killed you.”

  He wanted to stab Bennett again when he saw the blood oozing down her cheek and marking her shirt. “You okay, baby?”

  “I’m fine.”

  That was all he needed to hear. He slipped his good arm around her waist and walked her away from the dead body. They ended up in the darkened foyer, where he opened the front door. Then he sat on the stairs where the approaching police would see him and pulled Kenna into his lap.

  “You’ve been shot. And what’s this scrape on your head? I can’t believe it’s finally over. How am I ever going to repay you?”

  He set his gun on the step beside him and tunneled his fingers into her beautiful hair. “Just listen to me for a minute without interrupting. I need to say this. You need to know this right now, before all those other cops come pouring in here, before we make our statements, before we get whisked away in an ambulance to the hospital. Will you do that?”

  He could tell it was killing her to keep her mouth shut, but she nodded.

  “I love you, Kenna Parker. It may not make any sense for it to happen this fast or for two people who are so different to make a relationship work.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he pressed his thumb against her lips. “You promised.”

  She clamped her mouth shut.

  “I’ve done this all backward with you. I was carrying you in my arms before we were even properly introduced. I want to kiss you every day of my life and argue with you and make love to you and laugh with you—and I don’t even know when your birthday is or what your favorite color might be. I want to ask you out on a date and get to know you and see if the age and money make any kind of difference. But I know they won’t. Because we belong together. And I hope that when we get out in the real world and get a regular night’s sleep and crazy men aren’t out to hurt you... You may never remember the night of your attack, but I will never forget the seventy-two hours that followed.”

  He’d run out of words. But he hoped he’d said enough. He couldn’t have risked waiting a moment longer to spill his heart.

  When he pulled his thumb away, she smiled. “Do I get to talk now?”

  He nodded.

  “I love you, too. I love the idea of kissing you every day and arguing with you—hopefully, not too often. I want to make love to you and laugh with you. My birthday is March tenth, my favorite color is the blue of your beautiful eyes and if you ever want to ask me out on a date, I’ll say yes. But...”

  Keir was grinning all the way down to his heart. “You’re arguing already?”

  “You don’t think this time we’ve spent together qualifies as a first date? We haven’t been separated since I stumbled out of that alley. If you take away the stalker and the amnesia, the rest of it was a lot of special. I loved spending that time with you.”

  “Then we finally agree about something.” He slipped his arm around her and, cautious of each other’s injuries, leaned in for a kiss. “Best. Date. Ever.”

  Epilogue

  The unhappy man opened the newspaper to the page where the ink was smeared because he’d looked at the picture and read the announcement so many times before. He handed it across the desk to the younger man sitting in the leather chair drinking a glass of his finest gin. “Niall Watson’s engagement announcement. They’re planning a fall wedding.”

  The other man set down the glass and picked up the paper to read the details. “Well, ain’t that sweet? They’re gettin’ married on the old man’s birthday.”

  “It isn’t sweet, and it isn’t acceptable.” The unhappy man pulled a gun and silencer from the top drawer of his desk while the man he’d hired amused himself by reading the announcement out loud.

  “Oh, that’s rich. They’re even going to do it at the same church.”

  “Yes. I’m sure it’s some kind of testament to the Watson family’s will to survive and succeed despite the tragedy of Olivia’s wedding.”

  The other man set down the newspaper, picking up on the disgust in his tone. “You said you didn’t want dead bodies—that a clean kill was too good for them—even though I said it was a mistake. You wanted chaos and suffering. I did what you paid me to do.”

  “That’s not good enough. Not anymore.” His blood was boiling with rage at the injustice of it all. They’d forgotten her. Thomas Watson had stolen Mary from him and she’d been murdered and forgotten. But stroking the trigger of the gun beneath the desk was the only outward expression of his roiling emotions. “Shooting the old man was supposed to destroy them. But they’re going on with their lives as if nothing happened. They’re happier than ever.”

  “I can finish the old man if you want. In his condition, it wouldn’t be hard.”

  “You had your chance.” The unhappy man raised the weapon and shot his guest twice in the chest. He set down the gun and pulled a pocketknife from his trousers as he walked around the desk. He tipped the slumped man back in his chair and cut the fancy buckle off his belt. He fingered the notches carved into the silver, then slid the buckle into his own pocket, along with the knife. “This will be the trophy for my kill.”

  He picked up the glass and finished off the drink in one long swallow. Then he returned to his seat and placed a phone call. “I have a situation I need you to clean up for me. I’ll pay your usual fee.” He started to hang up but put the phone back to his ear. “Do you have anyone inside KCPD you can trust?”

  “Does this have anything to do with the situation I’m cleaning up?”

  “No. I need some information.”

  “I know someone who owes me a favor.”

  “Good. I want to meet with him tomorrow.”

  * * * * *

  Look for the next thrilling installment

  in USA TODAY bestselling author

  Julie Miller’s suspenseful miniseries

  THE PRECINCT: BACHELORS IN BLUE,

  coming in 2017!

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  Keep reading for an excerpt from PhD PROTECTOR by Cindi Myers.

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  PhD Protector

  by Cindi Myers

  Chapter One

  What’s the worst thing you would do to protect the ones you love? Would you lie—steal—even kill?

  It was a question from a party game, the kind you played over beers with a bunch of buddies, the answers all alcohol-fueled machismo, backed by the knowledge that you would never really have to make those kinds of choices.

  Mark Renfro had had to choose. To protect his daughter, his innocent only child, he had lied too many times to count, and though he hadn’t stolen or killed—yet—he had joined with a group of men who were working to kill thousands, maybe even millions of people. They called themselves Patriots, but he knew they were terrorists. They had murdered his wife, and if Mark didn’t do what they wanted, they would kill his daughter, Mandy, as well.