Hard Knox

by Amber Malloy

  “Chicago County?” he asked. She nodded slightly and sucked in a breath. There were several hospitals closer, but they needed one that couldn’t be bought off by the congressman.

  A crushing weight of pain seemed to squeeze the air out of his lungs. Knox stamped down the wave of panic that wanted to take over.

  Minutes that felt like hours went by before he heard Mooch’s horn. Knox scooped her up with no effort and kicked the side door open. The kid ran around his truck to help him put her into the back seat before he smooshed in next to her. “Go, go, go!”

  * * * *

  Everything had blurred together into an eyes-wide-open nightmare. How long it had taken for them to arrive at the hospital or who had taken her away from him, he couldn’t say. Caked in her blood, Knox stared at the emergency doors that had closed.

  “Sir, we’re going to need you to fill out this paperwork.”

  “Garcia needs to see my wife,” he muttered the words Remy had told him to say. When they’d arrived, he’d explained to the nurse that she needed to see this doctor but didn’t think they’d heard him the first time. “Uh, Dr. Rosa Garcia.”

  The nurse stared at him for a moment then blinked herself back to the present. “She’s already been contacted, sir. You should grab yourself a seat.”

  Mooch tugged at his arm and led him away from the desk. “I appreciate this, but you need to leave,” Knox said.

  “Man, I’m not going anywhere,” Mooch said.

  “Yeah, you are. Don’t worry. The police will be here soon,” Knox told him.

  “Don’t you want me to give my statement?” the rookie asked.

  Annoyed that he had to think about anyone other than his wife, he snapped. “Look, man… You don’t have the best track record with the cops. I won’t be able to save you. God!” He grabbed the side of head with both hands. “Shit, I’m doing a really bad job saving her.”

  “But why would I—?” Mooch began, but suddenly stopped. “Okay, okay, but if you need anything…” He nodded before he stood up and walked to the ER doors, almost colliding with two guys who looked a lot like plain-clothes cops.

  “Gavin Knox.” The two men headed straight for him. They weren’t in uniform, but he recognized that flat tone and dead expression. The men offered their names, but he didn’t hear them. “We need you to come with us.”

  “Now, why would he do that?” Doris, his father’s fixer, stepped in behind them. Even though she was dressed down with jeans, she still held that same intensity that she had when they had met months ago.

  “Argh. Petite, this isn’t media blitz. His wife was almost killed and we need answers.”

  “Yeah, there’s a conference room down the hall. If you think for one second that you’re about to take my client on a perp walk, you’re crazy.”

  “Hold on, hold on, hold on. Don’t make this a thing. We just want to ask him a few questions.” The gruff one smiled insincerely. “Besides, we’re the good guys.”

  The publicist guffawed. “This is not my first rodeo, sweetheart, but if you want to do this the hard way…” Doris pulled out her phone.

  “All right.” The serious one, who had silently stared daggers of hate at Knox, stopped her. “After you.” He signaled with his hand toward a set of double doors.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  After thirty minutes of the same questions asked in different ways, they had finally let him go. Knox had wanted to wait for Remy to get out of surgery, but Doris had strongly encouraged him to leave the hospital with her.

  In other words, she had threatened him that she would quit again and let those dirty cops take him to the precinct if he didn’t get in the car. He didn’t care about that, but once Doris implied that she would leave Remy hanging, he reluctantly followed her out of the hospital.

  “Not for nothing,” Doris said, “but I really think you should have gotten stiches for that arm.” While bad cop and worse cop had pretended to listen to him, a nurse had bandaged his biceps.

  Clueless about how the night had spiraled this far out of control, Knox got into the back seat of Doris’ chauffeured Lexus SUV. “How did you know to”—dizzy, he tried to quiet his nerves—“come here to find us.”

  “The nurse. ‘Dr. Garcia’ is a code. She contacted me. Thankfully, I wasn’t too far away. After your trip to Barbados, Remy came to see me. She knows the plan. Now it’s your turn. If you deviate from it then we’ll be forced to part ways. Got it?”,

  He nodded, unable to do much else.

  “Congressman Richard will be running for President in the upcoming election,” Doris said.

  “Fuck!” He choked on his anger. Big, racking coughs shook his body. “She knew, didn’t she?”

  “Remy? Yeah, she suspected. My team looked into the matter and found it to be true, along with everything else she told us.”

  Knox badly needed to break something. He hit the button to lower the window. After a few deep breaths, he managed to push down the jacked-up adrenaline that had surged through his veins.

  As his life fell apart, he pulled his head back into the truck.

  “Better?” Doris asked. She never took her eyes off her phone.

  “Not by a long shot…”

  “The congressman’s brand is misfortune, having a Canadian kill his niece.” She made air quotes in the air. “It will be right on trend.”

  “Holy shit.” He grabbed the top of his hair and let out a slow hiss. “But there were cameras all over the bar.”

  “Erased,” she answered with little-to-no emotion, clicking away on her Android.

  “And the cops?”

  “Pretty sure they were bought and paid for. Those two dicks have the worst records on the force, and lo and behold, they catch the call.” She snorted.

  “DNA?”

  “Safe, because you took her to the correct hospital. They specialize in battered women and rape. Don’t worry. Detectives Hoyt and Alonzo won’t be getting anywhere near her evidence to destroy it.”

  “Funny,” he said, but didn’t laugh at her reference to Andre’s favorite movie, Training Day.

  “The congressman has released a statement about the crime.” Doris scanned her phone. “He promises to find whoever is responsible for his niece’s attack.” Doris chuckled. “Psychotic fuck stick.”

  “Hey, man”—Knox tapped the driver’s seat—“take me back to the hospital.”

  “Keep driving,” Doris demanded.

  “Are you crazy? You know what the congressman is up to. Remy—”

  “Right now is safer than you are.”

  The driver pulled the truck alongside his building. From what he could tell, the lobby had already filled up with press.

  While they had been at the hospital, he had caught the breaking news that blared across every television screen. The wife of the Mavericks’ QB assaulted at a bar had run across the ticker. There were no suspects yet, but the implication from the pictures posted that afternoon of Remy and his fight pointed toward him.

  “There will be a specialist to work on your security and Internet,” Doris explained.

  “When can I see Remy?”

  “Huh, good question.” She finally glanced away from her phone. “I’ll be in touch.” He opened his mouth but knew this woman held his whole life in the palm of her hand. Knox got out of the vehicle and waited for his publicist to drive off.

  Contemplating whether to go back for Remy, regardless of Doris’ threat, Knox headed for his garage, with every intention of getting in his car.

  “Hey,” Mooch said. He stood near Hawk. Without a word to either one of them, he keyed in his code to open the door. The hockey player pushed off the wall and walked into the garage with him.

  A slim chick with glasses stepped from around Remy’s shiny truck. “Hi.”

  “Whoa.” Mooch jumped.

  “What the hell?” Hawk drew his fist back, ready to fight.

  “Sorry,” she chuckled. “I’m tech security…Daisy. Doris didn’t
tell you?”

  “She said something about the Internet,” Knox muttered.

  “Yeah, I did that last week.” She waved off his concerns.

  “When?” Last week Knox had been at camp.

  “Look… Can we talk in your place?” She rolled her hand in a wrap-it-up manner. “This building is crawling with paparazzi.” Nobody moved. “Seriously, do you dudes want to frisk me?” Daisy held up her hands. “But I get to pick who does it.”

  “No,” Knox said. “Let’s go up.”

  “Are you sure?” Mooch asked. “We don’t know her.”

  Without answering, Knox stepped into the elevator and everyone piled in after him.

  “So are you guys some kind of boy band or something? I don’t get out often.”

  “Uh, no. We’re sports—”

  “She’s messing with you, dude,” Hawk cut Mooch off.

  Nervous energy slapped at Knox. It damn near suffocated him. Thankfully, the elevator stopped before he lost his shit in the tiny box. The doors opened to at least half a dozen women standing in his living room.

  Knox could tell his grasp on reality had become tentative at best. A break had happened somewhere after their visit to the clinic and his wife’s assault. Everything had flipped into a hazy blur that didn’t completely register.

  “We’re Doris’ little team of hackers, hired to get your wife back.”

  “What do you mean back?” Knox asked.

  “Fuck me, Doris.” Daisy dropped her head back with a groan.

  “I told you she didn’t tell him,” one of the women said.

  “All bark, no bite,” another chimed in.

  “Okay, there’s no way you two can occupy the same condo, let alone the same country, with that maniac on the loose—”

  No, no, no, no, no, his mind screamed. At the hospital, he had known this could happen, but not this soon—or hopefully ever. “She’ll be put up somewhere until I can join her, right?”

  “Dude, he tried to murder her and set you up for it.”

  That clawing feeling turned into an itchy, burning sensation that tried to prohibit easy breathing.

  “Knox, man, are you okay?” Hawk asked.

  “That’s not what’s happening right now. She got a nick. She should be out of surgery. Just call her. Remy’s fine and she’s coming home. Here… Let me go back to the hospital. Doris made me leave, but—”

  “Sit down,” Hawk roared. “Mooch, water. And you, Internet girl”—the big guy pointed at Daisy—“talk!”

  “Doris made you leave because you’re covered in your wife’s blood and the press will have a field day with that image of the quarterback… Well, you know. Also, to keep you both alive, we have to keep you apart.”

  “What blood?” Knox found a free seat in front of his iMac. He didn’t remember inviting people over. Why are so many people in my house and where is Remy?

  “Damn it,” Hawk said. “What do you mean alive?”

  “The man trying to kill her is her uncle by marriage—and he’s running for President.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” the hockey player growled.

  “And we need Knox to tell us everything he knows about Remy. Just start from the beginning.” The perky girl from the elevator sounded sad. It didn’t matter. Once Remy got home, she would make them all leave and Knox could get his life back.

  “Why?” Hawk asked. He sounded mad, which seemed about right, but Knox couldn’t be too bothered with that. Instead, he wondered if he could talk to Remy.

  “The congressman has tampered with evidence for years, and we’re pretty sure we can find a spot he missed.” The chick he hadn’t invited into his home continued to babble. “We believe Remy has enough information. If we can access her storage online, we’ll have a pretty good jumping-off point.”

  A group of people stared at him. Expecting what? Knox wondered where they had all come from. He didn’t remember inviting any of them over. Before he could ask everyone to share their name, Hawk blocked his view with an open bottle of water.

  “Drink this.” He liked his water room temperature, but his wife needed hers close to freezing. “We need you to tell us stuff about Remy,” his friend said.

  “Ask her yourself. We’re going to O’Hare in a minute.”

  Hawk leaned down until they were face-to-face. “We can’t go get Remy until you tell us about you two. Now drink your water and start talking, okay?”

  “Sure, but then we can go to the airport and pick her up, right?”

  The big dude sighed. “Yeah, man.” His smile seemed disingenuous and tight.

  Something didn’t sit right with him, but Knox nodded and chugged his water. They were best friends. Why would Hawk lie?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  While most of the women plugged away on their laptops, a couple of them gave him their undivided attention.

  Knox ran down for everyone how he had first met Remy.

  “Here.” Hawk passed him another bottle and took the empty out of his hand.

  “Found a camera,” someone said. The group mumbled indiscernible words that only they seemed to understand. Everyone typed faster on their keyboards.

  “What camera?”

  “Of the attack. We have a good visual. We’re going to send a copy to Doris.”

  “What about the police?” Hawk asked.

  Someone snorted.

  “Uh, no. Doris will figure out which media outlet to send it to. They’ll clear any doubt that has been placed on you and your friend,” the only black woman in the room said.

  “Here.” Hawk threw him a shirt.

  Why would I need this?

  “Keep going,” Daisy said.

  “Do you really need it from the start? Shouldn’t I jump around to—?”

  “Where you left off. We need her passwords and would have had them by now, but she’s…” Daisy looked around the room.

  “I’m Bumblebee.” The black woman chucked her finger at her chest. “Ah, your wife’s a pro at running and she needed to be. I mean, for her to stay alive this long against a man who can make police reports disappear, she had to be on top of her shit.”

  Knox was still foggy about how he’d gotten back to his apartment and his mouth felt dry. “Give me a sec. Sorry.” Heading for the guest bathroom, he stepped over the group of techies who took up every inch of his living room.

  Flipping on the light, he took a step back from the mirror. Blood covered his tank and matted his hair “Shit.” He turned on the water and stuck his head under the faucet to help drown the constant flashbacks of Remy’s attack. He cleaned up and went back to reliving parts of his past on super speed. Knox walked back into the living room.

  “Hey, big guy, remote.”

  Hawk looked confused for a moment before he picked it up from the table and tossed it to Daisy. She flicked on the TV, accessing the Internet for the top trending video. “Sorry,” she apologized.

  A camera shot the vantage point of the door outside of Jake’s bar, Murphy’s Pub. For the second time that night, he witnessed a man attack his wife. Knox headed toward the balcony door and opened it. He didn’t need to see it again.

  Still hot outside, he allowed the sticky air to cling to him. Leaning down, he rested his forehead against the balcony railing and beat back the urge to vomit.

  “Your parents are on the phone,” Hawk called.

  Knox waved him off. He had barely averted a nervous breakdown earlier. If he talked to them, he would fall apart.

  “Yeah, he’ll call you back.”

  “The congressman will be landing at O’Hare Airport in less than an hour. We’re going to need you to pick up where you left off,” the bossy chick shouted. He stood up to walk back into his condo to relive the shit that at the moment hurt like hell.

  Call it gut intuition, but Knox didn’t trust Remy to actually show up for their date. Leaving his Nissan Coupe with the valet, he hoped she didn’t stand him up. He’d never worked this hard for a gi
rl in his life. Nerves shot through him in waves. Even a big game had never left him feeling this jittery.

  Knox drew up short. “Whoa, Heartbreaker.”

  Remy stood in front of the restaurant. With her black curls piled on top of her head, the lines accentuated her high cheekbones, big eyes and slim neck. A strapless black dress hugged her every curve. God, he wanted to place his lips against that neck.

  “Yay, I get a nickname,” she cheered.

  “I felt that was more appropriate than the other ones I’ve been calling you.” He held open the door to the restaurant.

  As she walked under his arm, she stopped directly in front of him and tilted her pretty heart-shaped face up to his. Invitation for a kiss? He doubted it. Knox didn’t take the bait, but Lord knew he wanted to. “Like what?”

  “We’re not there yet,” he repeated her words back to her.

  Remy laughed hard. Placing his hand gently on her waist, he ushered her into the restaurant. They were seated quickly, which he hated. Every bit of time he had with her, he wanted to savor.

  “So-o-ory.” He stopped the hostess. “My legs are super petite. We’re going to need a table for the height differential.”

  “Oh, sure.” The hostess laughed at his joke. She changed gears and put them at an out-of-the-way table by the window instead of in a booth.

  While he pulled out her seat, he got an eyeful of her cleavage. Knox hurried to sit down. Note to self, hard-ons are super apparent in khakis. “Looking at you, I feel underdressed.”

  “No worries. It’s a cultural thing.” Remy opened her menu and studied it.

  “Hmm-m-m, I have a feeling you’re calling me ‘white boy’ in your head right now.”

  “Not at all,” she chuckled. “But you’re not from here, are you?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “So-o-ory,” she repeated his apology from earlier.

  He cringed in response. “Canadian. I can’t shake that or ab-oot.”

  “And you’re easy. I mean, your spirit is chill.”

  “Nah, I totally put out on the first date. Not that I’m skanky or anything, but I’m going to need at least thirty minutes.” He checked his watch. “Or another hour anyway.” Remy’s laidback laugh helped to chip away at his nerves. “Give me a hint as to your full name?”