Harlequin Romantic Suspense December 2020 Box Set

by Addison Fox, Cindy Dees, Justine Davis

  “What’s her condition?” he asked low.

  “Guarded. She’s going down for an MRI in a few minutes to check for swelling or—” Lilly took a deep breath, “—or brain damage.”

  “What happened? What do you know?”

  “Someone found her unconscious in the police parking lot, lying on the ground behind her car. It appeared she’d been digging out her tailpipe. There were, umm, tracks in the snow. I gather it looked there might have been a scuffle. An ambulance was called. She was dangerously chilled when she got here, and the officer who found her said there was snow accumulating on her coat. So, she might have been there for a while before someone found her.”

  His pulse was racing faster and faster as Lilly spoke and he had to talk around a lump in his throat when he asked, “Is she warmed up, now?”

  “Yes. They put an electric blanket on her in the ambulance, and we’ve got one on her now.” Lilly glanced at one of the monitors. “Her body temperature is almost back up to normal.”

  His impulse was to reach out and take Yvette’s hand, which lay limply outside the covers with a clip over her index finger, but right now Yvette needed him to be a cop, first.

  He squeezed his eyes shut for a second and then asked briskly, “You said she had been hit in the head?”

  “Yes. There’s a small bump on the right side of her head, here. It’s consistent with a fall.” Lilly pointed out the bump visible under Yvette’s still damp hair.

  He nodded.

  “And then there’s this much larger bump on the left side of her head, over her ear. It’s elongated and consistent with her having been struck by—” Lilly’s voice cracked, and she paused for a moment before continuing in an admirably professional tone, “—consistent with a blunt object like a club or a pipe.”

  He swore under his breath. “Right. Do you mind if I take a few photographs of the wounds?”

  “Not at all. It’s why I called you down here, Reese. Somebody attacked my baby.”

  He paused in the act of taking out his phone to wrap his arms around Lilly in a brief, hard hug. “I’ll find out who did this to her.” She shuddered in his arms for a moment, then took a deep breath and stepped back, smiling bravely at him.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “It has been a rough week.”

  “Yeah. You’ve been through it, haven’t you? I’m sorry about everything that’s happened, Mrs. Colton.”

  “Please. Call me Lilly.”

  “Lilly. Call me Reese.”

  They traded brief smiles, and then he turned to the business of documenting Yvette’s injuries. He mentally girded himself and asked, “Are there any other injuries?”

  “Minor scrapes on the right side of her face, but that’s it. Nothing else.”

  He let out the breath he’d been holding. Thank God. She hadn’t been sexually assaulted. “Was anything taken? Her purse? Her car?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t have her purse on her when they wheeled her in. I don’t know if it was left behind in the parking lot. I found her cell phone in the pocket of her jeans.”

  He reached for his phone to make a call, but another nurse came into the room just then. “We’re ready to take her down for the MRI. Do you want to come with her, Lilly?”

  “Of course.” Lilly looked up at him apologetically. “You won’t be able to come with us. Do you mind waiting in the lobby?”

  “How long will the MRI take?”

  “About an hour, all told.”

  “I think I’ll run over to the police station, but I’ll try to be back by the time she gets out. Call me if there’s any change in her status. Any change. And if she wakes up, I want to know immediately.”

  Lilly nodded, already unhooking monitors and helping the other nurse prepare Yvette to move. He stood back watching helplessly. He hated not being able to do anything to help, but he was completely out of his element here.

  Lilly and the other nurse wheeled Yvie’s bed out of the room and headed off down the hall quickly. He had a lot to do in the next hour, so he hurried out, determined to be back by the time Yvette’s MRI was finished.

  He headed for the police station and didn’t have to ask where Yvette was found, because several cops were in the parking lot, using bright flashlights to examine the ground behind Yvette’s car. The area was already taped off, and he noted with approval that the police were staying outside the taped area to conduct their search.

  “Howdy, guys,” he said tersely. “What have we got?”

  Joe Brennan came over to join him. “Hey. Did you hear what happened to Yvette Colton?”

  “Yeah. I just came from the hospital.”

  “How’s she doing, man?”

  “Still unconscious. They’re doing an MRI now to check for swelling or bleeding in her brain.”

  The other cop swore. Police in general took it hard when one of their own went down.

  “What happened? Who found her?” Reese asked.

  “I did,” Brennan answered. “I came out to my SUV because I forgot the sandwich my wife packed, and I saw a big pile in the snow behind Yvette Colton’s car. It looked weird, so I went over to check it out. And it turned out to be her. She was covered in about an inch of snow and out cold. I called for an ambulance and then carried her inside.”

  “What was her condition then?” Reese asked tersely.

  “She was a freaking popsicle and bleeding from a gash in the side of her head. Her pulse was thready. I yelled for some guys and they brought blankets and we lay down on either side of her. Made a human sandwich to try to warm her up.”

  “It looked like that gash was more than just a fall, so I went ahead and taped off the area behind her car as a potential crime scene, and then I dragged Eric’s ass out here to help me take some pictures of the tracks and the blood and look for any evidence.”

  “Find anything?” Reese asked.

  “No sign of a weapon. But I’ve got a good blood-splatter pattern on the rear fender of her car. Looks to me like some asshole hit her with a short object.”

  “Did you find her purse?”

  “No. Does she usually carry one?”

  Reese nodded. “It’s pink. With little leather butterflies on the flappie thing and butterflies going up the shoulder strap.” He held his hands about eight inches apart. “It’s about that big.”

  “Haven’t found it. Her car’s still locked but we looked in the windows. Didn’t see it there, either. Maybe she left it in the lab?”

  “I’ll run in and check. Thanks for being on top of all of this. And thanks for taking care of her, Joe.”

  “She’s one of us,” the cop intoned grimly.

  Reese catalogued pleasure that the guy counted Yvette as a full-fledged member of the department, but his overriding emotion was panic. Yvette had been attacked and left to freeze out here. Had Joe not happened to stumble upon her, who knew how long she’d have lain out here. Would she have frozen to death before someone found her?

  A cold, hard kernel of fury formed in his gut. He was going to find her attacker and by God make whoever it was pay for doing this to her.

  He jogged down the stairs to the basement and spied the open door to the forensics lab as soon as he reached the long hallway. He swore under his breath and unsnapped the holster holding his pistol under his left armpit. Approaching the lab carefully, he stood to one side of the door and shoved it wide open.

  No movement.

  He spun inside low, reaching for the light switch and throwing the lights on.

  Ho. Lee. Cow.

  The entire crime lab was in shambles, ransacked from top to bottom. He scanned it quickly for any sign of movement. Nothing.

  Moving as fast as he could among the wreckage, he made a circuit around the room, clearing it. Nobody was hiding in here. Without touching anything, he backed out of th
e room and pulled out his cell phone.

  “Hey, Joe, it’s Reese. Looks like Yvette’s lab has been broken into. I need you to come down here and tape it off as a second crime scene.”

  He examined the door carefully, paying close attention to the lock and card scanner outside the door. There were no signs of tampering or violence against the locks. Then how did the intruder get in—

  Of course. Yvette’s ID card. It would have been in her purse. Her missing purse. The assailant mugged her in the parking lot, knocked her out, stole her ID and came in here looking for something. But what?

  They would have to do a complete inventory of the lab and figure out what, if anything was missing. But later. Now that he knew Joe Brennan had things well in hand here, he needed to get back to the hospital.

  Joe arrived with a fat roll of yellow crime-scene tape and glanced in the lab. The guy whistled. “Wow. That’s a right royal mess. I assume Ms. Colton didn’t leave it that way?”

  Reese laughed reluctantly. “She’s as big a neat freak as I am.”

  “Damn. That bad, huh?”

  “Tape it off. Don’t let anyone in. The whole lab’s gonna have to be inventoried to see if anything’s missing.”

  “This what her attacker was up to, you think? Robbing her lab?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “She keep anything in here like medications or controlled substances?” Brennan asked.

  “Nope. Anything like that would be checked into the evidence locker.” Which was upstairs and untouched.

  “Want me to get started cataloguing the damage in there?” Brennan asked.

  “If you don’t mind. I’m going to head back to the hospital and wait for Yvie to wake up and give me a statement.”

  “Give her my best,” Joe called after him as he spun away and hurried toward the stairs.

  He only prayed she woke up to receive the well-wishes of her colleagues. Afraid like he couldn’t ever remember being afraid, he headed back toward the hospital and Yvette.

  CHAPTER 12

  Yvette might have faded out in blackness, but she faded back into featureless, blindingly bright white light. Loud, pounding noises echoed all around her until her head literally felt like it was splitting in two. So excruciating was the pain that she willed herself to fade back out into blessed oblivion.

  * * *

  The next time she regained consciousness, it was quiet with only a faint, steady beeping noise to interrupt the deep silence. Her eyes fluttered open, and she was lying semiupright in a dim room. It looked like a hotel at first glance, but then the IV tower beside her with a tube leading to the back of her wrist registered.

  Hospital.

  Ahh.

  She was cold. Was there another blanket? She told her hands to reach down to her thighs to check, but they only lifted weakly and fell back to her sides.

  Something big and dark moved swiftly out of the shadows, startling her badly. She flinched away and her head exploded into the worst headache she’d ever had the bad fortune to experience. She heard a faint moan, presumably from her own throat. But she hovered in this strange place of detachment, her body present but seemingly far away from her. All except that pulsating, daggerlike pain stabbing the backs of her eyeballs. It was all too real and present. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for unconsciousness again. But this time, her body didn’t cooperate. She was becoming more alert, more aware of the pain in her skull by the second.

  “Easy, Yvie. It’s just me. I won’t hurt you.”

  Reese. Hurt her? Of course, he wouldn’t hurt her. What was he talking about?

  He approached her bed, his hands held out away from his sides in what she presumed was some sort of show of no intent to harm her.

  She blinked in an effort to clear her vision—her right eye was a little fuzzy—to no avail. Two of him stood in front of her. She noted idly that if there had to be two of any man, he was a good one to duplicate.

  “Hey, Yvie,” the twin Reeses murmured gently. “How are you feeling?”

  She felt like crap on a cracker, to be honest. Weird. Her thoughts weren’t reaching her mouth. There was some sort of disconnect in her brain. Or maybe this was all some strange dream. What was he doing here? How did he get here? Confusion coursed through her fuzzy thoughts.

  “Do you need me to call the nurse?”

  Why would she need a nurse? What was wrong with her? How did she get here? Still, the questions didn’t make it out of her head into verbal speech. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she talk? Fear blossomed in her belly as she nodded, but the pain of moving her head was so excruciating that she stopped doing it right away.

  Thankfully, Reese seemed to figure out that she needed some blanks filled in and obliged. “You’re in the hospital, Yvette. You’re going to be fine. You’ve had an MRI, and there’s no bleeding in your brain. They’re monitoring you here overnight as a precaution to make sure no more swelling develops in your brain.”

  Whew. This not being able to talk thing would be scary as heck, otherwise. As it was, it was annoying as heck. Was there some swelling already? Was that why she couldn’t talk?

  Reese continued, “As far as we can tell, somebody jumped you in the parking lot of the police department and hit you in the head. Joe Brennan found you lying behind your car covered in snow. Your mom is here. She was on shift when you came in and has been popping in to check on you all night.”

  All night? What time was it? How long had she been here? Had Reese been sitting here with her the whole time? That was actually really sweet of him.

  “Do you feel up to answering a few questions for me? We’re trying to piece together what happened to you. Figure out who did it.”

  Oh. Never mind. He was here on police business. He wasn’t here as a man who cared about her. This was Detective Carpenter. Disappointment coursed through her, and she felt moisture fill her eyes. Was she actually crying over Reese? Cripes. She was a mess.

  He reached out gently with the pad of his thumb and wiped away a tear that escaped to track down her cheek. “You’re safe, Yvie. Nobody’s going to hurt you again. I promise.”

  He seemed to think she was afraid, but honestly, she wasn’t.

  “Do you remember what happened to you?” he asked with gentle insistence.

  She had to give him credit. He had a decent bedside manner while interrogating a girl. But that was all this was. He needed information from her. He leaned down over her, his blue eyes sparkling like bright sapphires, his lashes dark and long. Lord, his eyes were beautiful.

  “Do you remember leaving the lab?”

  She closed her eyes, thinking back. Did she remember anything about whatever had happened to land her here? An image of clean work tables came to mind. Right. She’d finally gotten through the mountain of evidence from the Dexter investigation. She recalled feeling satisfied at the cleanliness of the tabletops. She would have shut down the computers and turned off the lab equipment, then turned out the light, locked the door behind her and headed out. Although she knew what her usual routine was, she had no memory of actually doing it last night.

  “Were you carrying a purse when you left the lab?” Reese asked.

  She opened her eyes to look up at him. A purse? She had no idea. Think. She hadn’t packed her lunch yesterday morning. Which meant she’d have grabbed snacks out of the machine down the hall to nibble through the day. It also meant she probably would have grabbed her cute little purse with the butterflies. Not that she had any actual memory of doing so, darn it.

  As for carrying it when she left the lab, of course, she would have taken it home with her. It would’ve had her wallet and keys in it along with her cell phone and various other bits and pieces.

  But she didn’t specifically remember anything about last night after that image of the work tables. Did they find her purse in the parki
ng lot, or had it been stolen in a mugging? Was that what this was? A mugging?

  Frustration at having been the victim of a crime coursed through her. She had all the training she needed to defend herself. But she’d been mad at Reese—more interested in sneaking out of the precinct and avoiding him than in being aware of her surroundings. This was her own stupid fault.

  The one thing she hated most in the whole world was feeling small and helpless. Yet here she was, lying in some dumb hospital bed because she hadn’t been paying attention and someone had taken advantage of her being a complete idiot.

  She was so mad at herself that the tears in her eyes welled up even more out of sheer frustration.

  “Hey. Don’t cry. I’m here. I won’t leave your side. I’ll protect you.”

  What? Oh. He still thought she was afraid. He didn’t realize she was angry at herself. She opened her mouth to try to force words out, to explain his mistake to him, but a spill of light from the hallway made her turn her head toward the door.

  Mistake. Screaming pain ripped through her skull, and she groaned wordlessly.

  Her mother moved over to the bed and picked up her hand. “Hi, sweetheart. Is your head hurting a lot?”

  She nodded fractionally, but even that much movement sent the bad men with knives to work on the backs of her eyeballs again. She pressed her eyes shut against the pain.

  “It has been long enough that you can have another ampule of morphine. Would you like to take it now?”

  For the relief of a powerful painkiller, she was willing to nod one more time. Her mother fiddled with the IV tower out of Yvette’s line of sight for a moment.

  “There, darling. Give that a minute or two to hit your bloodstream, and you should feel better. It may make you sleepy, though.”

  Yvette got the impression that the comment about her getting sleepy was aimed more at Reese than at her. And indeed, Reese commented, “I promise I won’t bother her if she falls asleep.”

  “Good,” Lily answered tartly. “My baby needs her rest.”

  Amusement coursed through Yvette. Gentle Lilly turned into a mama grizzly bear when one of her kids was upset or hurt.