by Lisa Childs
And through Cole?
He didn’t see his friend, who moments before had been standing in front of that door. He only saw the long, black limousine that had rammed through it. And he saw behind the wheel of that vehicle, the woman with long black hair.
She wasn’t dead.
But she might have just killed Cole.
Chapter 5
Cole’s shoulder ached from where he’d hit the concrete—hard—when he’d dodged out of the way of the oncoming vehicle. After breaking through the door, the long, black vintage limousine didn’t stop but continued to accelerate down the driveway before crashing into a parked car. Glass shattered and metal crunched and then a car horn blared.
He rolled to his feet and rushed toward the crash site. The vehicle that the limousine had hit was a crunched-up mass of broken metal and plastic. Thankfully no one was inside it.
Unfortunately someone was inside the limousine. And while it had fared better than the smaller car, the front of it was smashed, steam or smoke unfurling from beneath its hood. If it was about to catch fire, he needed to get the driver out.
His hands shaking as adrenaline and fear coursed through him, he reached for the door handle. While it wasn’t locked, the door refused to open. The fender had crumpled up against the hinges, making them inoperable. He stared through the driver’s window, which had either been broken or smashed out. All he could see of Shawna was her hair, which covered her face as she lay over the steering wheel.
The limousine was old, so old that it had no airbags. There had been nothing to cushion the force of the crash—nothing to protect her.
But him…
He was supposed to have protected her. He was her bodyguard. He hadn’t done a very damn good job of it yet, though.
He reached through the window and slid his fingers through her hair until he found her throat. At first he felt no pulse, but he moved his hand and felt a faint throbbing beneath her skin.
“Thank God,” he murmured. Maisy couldn’t lose her mother. Not so soon after losing her father. But Shawna wasn’t safe yet. He had no idea the extent of her injuries. So he didn’t dare move her.
He glanced again to the front of the car and determined it was definitely steam curling out of the smashed radiator and not smoke rising from the hood.
He kept his hand on her throat, to make sure her pulse didn’t stop entirely, and he used his other hand to pull out his cell phone and call 911. “Send an ambulance to this address…” He heard the dispatcher’s gasp when he gave it. His grandfather was well-known. Probably too well-known. “A thirty-year-old female is unconscious but has a weak pulse. She’s been in an accident.”
“This was no accident,” Manny said as he joined him. “And we need two ambulances. There’s a man in the garage with a head wound and probably lungs full of carbon monoxide. Dane’s administering CPR right now, but I don’t know if he’ll make it.”
Cole’s heart flipped. Was it his grandfather? He hadn’t seen the old man when he’d been looking for Shawna. Had they been together in that garage full of running vehicles?
Despite the dispatcher sputtering in his ear to remain on the line until help arrived, Cole disconnected the call and turned to his friend.
“Who is it?” he asked as he peered back at the garage. Through the smashed door, he could only see the other Payne Protection bodyguards crouched around whoever was lying on the concrete.
“From the uniform,” Manny said, “it looks like the chauffeur.”
“Astin…” Cole felt no relief that it wasn’t his grandfather. The chauffeur had been in Xavier’s employ for so long that he was family, too—better family than most of Cole’s blood relatives had been to him.
Manny gestured inside the limousine.
Cole peered through the window and caught the glint of metal. On the passenger seat next to her lay a crowbar, smeared with blood.
“Do you think she hit him?” Manny asked.
Cole shook his head. “No. No way.”
Manny snorted. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“What?” He wasn’t the one unconscious in a crashed car. But was it the crash that had caused Shawna to pass out or was it the carbon monoxide?
“She needs oxygen,” he said. Like Astin did. A pang struck his heart. The chauffeur couldn’t die. And neither could Shawna. “We need to move her.”
“Did you lose her pulse?” Manny asked.
Cole shook his head. Not yet. But he could feel her slipping away. “We need to be ready to start CPR, though.”
“We shouldn’t move her until the paramedics get here,” Manny disagreed. “They’ll have a neck brace.”
Cole nodded. “You’re right.” He couldn’t risk paralyzing her. He had to be patient. In the distance he could hear sirens wailing. “You’re right.”
“Did you hit your head?” Manny asked.
“What?” Cole asked.
“When she ran you over, did you hit your head on the ground?” Manny asked. It didn’t sound like Manny was actually concerned about Cole’s health, more like he was concerned about his sanity. Manny studied his face, his dark eyes narrowed and intense.
“I did not hit my head,” Cole informed his friend slowly and succinctly. “I am fine.”
Manny shook his head. “No. You’re not. You’re in trouble here.”
“What? Why?” Distracted with concern for Shawna and Astin, Cole couldn’t figure out if his friend was goofing around like they usually did, even during the most stressful times, or if he was seriously worried.
“You’re in trouble because you can’t be objective,” Manny explained. “You’re not thinking with your head at all. You’re thinking with your heart.”
Cole sucked in a breath as concern struck his heart. Manny was right. He was dangerously close to falling for Shawna all over again—and for her mini-me daughter, as well.
“She left a note,” Manny continued. “She confessed—”
“She did not write that note,” Cole interrupted. “She didn’t kill her husband. And she sure as hell did not just try to kill herself or Astin.”
The chauffeur had driven them to homecoming dances and prom. He had always been an important part of their lives. Shawna would never hurt him.
Now as for whether she would hurt Cole…
Nearly running him down might not have been an accident. She was still furious with him for the things he’d said when he broke up with her. And he could hardly blame her.
“Remember how you realized six years ago that she wasn’t the woman you thought she was?” Manny persisted. “The minute you broke up with her, she married someone else, someone you didn’t even know she was seeing. You don’t know her at all. You never did.”
Pain jabbed Cole’s heart as his friend’s words sank in. Manny was right. Shawna had never been the woman Cole had thought she was. Because he’d thought she’d been a woman in love with him—so in love with him that he hadn’t wanted to put her through his death if he hadn’t survived that mission.
But he’d survived. And she had thrived without him. No. He hadn’t known her at all.
Could she be a killer, though?
*
Had she killed him?
Shawna remembered those last moments before she’d lost consciousness. She remembered using all that had been left of her strength to push down on the accelerator and send the limo crashing through the garage door.
And she remembered Cole, his body flying through the air. Had she hit him?
Over and over behind her closed lids, she kept replaying that image of Cole. Of the shock on his face as she crashed through that door. And into him?
Seeing him was the last thing she remembered, seeing him flying. Her head pounded as she tried to remember what had happened to him. Had she seen him again?
She remembered flashing lights and voices, remembered being in a hospital. She’d insisted on coming home. Hadn’t she? The most recent parts of her memory—after crashing throu
gh that door—were the haziest to her.
She didn’t even know where she was. And worse yet, she didn’t know what had happened to Cole or to her daughter. She jerked awake with a cry. “Maisy!”
“Shhh,” rumbled a deep voice, choked with emotion. “She’s all right. And you’re all right now. We’ve brought you home.”
When she blinked her eyes open, she wasn’t home in the little bungalow she’d shared with Emery and her daughter. The room she was in had heavy draperies pulled at the windows, darkening it but for the pool of light cast by the Tiffany lamp on the bedside table. She was in her room in Xavier Bentler’s mansion, and Xavier was the one sitting next to her bed, holding her hand in his. His skin was wrinkled and spotted with age, but his grip was surprisingly strong despite his more than eight decades of living.
She was supposed to be his nurse. Instead he appeared to be acting as hers. “Cole…” His name was just a croak from her scratchy throat.
How long had she been asleep?
“He’s just outside the door,” Xavier said. “I’ll get him for you.”
She held tightly to his hand before he could pull away from her. “No, no, I don’t need him,” she murmured in a whisper. She just wanted to make sure he was all right. “Did I—did I hit him?”
Xavier chuckled. “Did you want to?”
She shook her head.
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” he assured her as he patted her hand. “He jumped out of the way.” He released a little shuddery sigh. “God knows if he didn’t have quick reflexes, he wouldn’t have made it back to us from all those missions.”
She shook her head again. He hadn’t made it back to her, and he never would. He wouldn’t have been home at all if not for Xavier hiring the Payne Protection Agency and forcing him to return. Before she could say anything more, though, the bedroom door creaked open.
“Is she awake?” a deep voice asked.
It wasn’t Cole; he stood behind the man who spoke. This guy had black hair and startling blue eyes. He’d been with Cole and his other friends at the church.
“I’m awake,” she said.
“I’m Cooper Payne,” he introduced himself.
“He runs the security company that I hired to protect you,” Xavier chimed in. “Can’t say I’m all that impressed, Payne. We nearly lost her and Astin.”
“Astin,” she gasped as she remembered finding the chauffeur lying on the ground. “Is he all right?” She felt so guilty. She’d been so worried about Cole that she’d nearly forgotten about Astin.
Xavier’s breath shuddered out in a sigh of relief. “Yes, thank God he’s got a hard head. They’re keeping him in the hospital to make sure he has no swelling and to treat his lungs.”
Not just his lungs. Depending on the amount of carbon monoxide he’d inhaled, he could have organ failure. “Do they have him in a hyperbaric chamber?”
“A what?” Xavier asked.
“Pressured oxygen chamber,” she said. That would have been the appropriate treatment given his exposure to the carbon monoxide. He must have been inside the garage when whoever started all those cars was in there. Her treatment, which she only vaguely remembered, would have been pure oxygen through a mask. She could faintly recall pulling at it as she’d tried to talk.
Xavier nodded. “Yeah, yeah, that’s what it is.” As if trying to convince himself, he added, “He should be fine.”
Should be…
But there was no guarantee. The carbon monoxide could have damaged his heart or his brain. As an ER nurse, she’d seen other cases, and shuddered at the thought of having been one herself. “But if he hasn’t regained consciousness yet…” He might never.
Cooper Payne spoke up, “He did come around just a short time ago.”
“Thank God,” Xavier said, and it was clear he hadn’t been as certain as he’d tried to sound that his old friend and employee would be okay.
“One of my men is at the hospital and spoke with him when he regained consciousness,” Cooper continued. “He says he didn’t see who struck him.” But those blue eyes narrowed with suspicion as he studied her face.
He wasn’t the only one looking at her that way. There was another dark-haired man with him, standing beside Cole. His dark eyes scrutinized her face with clear suspicion and even a trace of hostility.
She thought she’d met him before—when she’d met some of the men with whom Cole had served. Was his name Manny? Her head pounded as she tried to remember. But more important than his name, why was he looking at her that way?
“I—I didn’t see who hit him either,” she said. “I found him lying on the ground when I was trying to get out of the garage.”
“You were trying to get out.” Cole finally spoke but it was more to his friends than to her.
“Of course I was,” she said, and she coughed as her dry throat tickled.
“She needs to rest,” Xavier said. “You’re not going to interrogate her now.”
“We’re not the only ones with questions,” Payne replied. “The police want to talk to her, too, about what happened. And we can’t protect her if we don’t know what’s really going on.”
She flinched as the pounding in her head intensified. She felt like she’d been hit in the head like Astin had. She was lucky she hadn’t been though, or she might not have survived.
“She’s in pain,” Cole spoke again. “Grandfather’s right. We can’t interrogate her now.”
One of the men—Manny—snorted. “She nearly ran you over, and you don’t want to know what’s going on.”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. But she wanted to know why someone wanted to kill her. She focused on Cole’s handsome face. “I didn’t try to run you over,” she told him. “I was just trying to get out of that garage.”
“The doctor said you were lucky you escaped when you did,” Xavier said. “He also said that you certainly saved Astin’s life by breaking down that door.”
If Astin survived…
If the chauffeur didn’t survive, then someone else would have died because of her. And if she’d struck Cole…
She stared at him. “You’re sure you’re all right? I saw you flying.”
“I jumped,” Cole said. “You didn’t hit me.”
“Did you want to?” Manny asked her but not with the amusement that Xavier had. He asked with real suspicion.
She gasped.
And Cole shoved his friend’s shoulder. “Hey—”
“You, of all people, shouldn’t trust her,” Manny said.
And her heart flipped over. Had they figured out that Maisy was Cole’s child? Did they know she’d kept that secret for all these years? That she’d kept him from his daughter? If so, they would have every reason to distrust and resent her.
She focused again on Cole’s handsome face, but she saw no sign of anger or betrayal. And certainly if he knew the truth, he would hate her. So she turned toward his friend. “What are you talking about?”
Of course he was Cole’s friend. Maybe, like Cole, he was disgusted that she’d married another man so soon after their breakup. But it hadn’t been her choice to end their engagement; that had been Cole’s.
“I found the note on your laptop,” Manny said.
She glanced to the bedside table where she’d probably had it last. But the computer was gone. “What—Where is it?”
“With our computer expert now,” Manny replied. “But I found it in the library, where you left it next to the urn of your dead husband’s ashes.”
She flinched as she thought of Emery. This day was supposed to be about him, about memorializing him. Instead it had become about her and Cole and poor Astin. She shook her head and struggled to sit up and swing her legs over the bed. “I didn’t leave it there.”
“I told you,” Cole said. “It’s a setup.”
“What?” What was a setup? What were they talking about?
But the two men ignored her question as they focused on each other. Cole co
ntinued, “If she intended to kill herself, she wouldn’t have fought so hard to escape from the garage.”
“Kill myself?” she gasped.
Xavier turned back to her and patted her arm. “It’s fine, honey, nobody believes you killed Emery.”
“Emery?” Was she really awake? Or was she caught in some nightmare from which she couldn’t wake up? “I—I don’t understand.”
She hadn’t killed Emery. But he was dead because of her. Because someone wanted her dead.
Why?
“You didn’t write the confession-slash-suicide note I found on your laptop?” Manny asked.
Panic gripped her like it had in the garage when she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe now either. Confession? Suicide?
“I would never—ever—do that. To myself or to my daughter.” Thinking of Maisy gave her the strength to kick off the blankets and get out of bed. And just as she did, the door opened, and the little girl rushed into the room.
“Mommy!” Tears stained her cheeks. “You’re okay!”
Shawna pulled the little girl into her arms and held her closely to her chest—to her heart. “Yes, sweetheart, I’m okay.”
But she worried that she wouldn’t be much longer. This killer that was after her, that had already killed, was ruthless and determined. And while she was no damsel in distress, Shawna wasn’t certain how much longer she would be able to fight for her life.
*
Nikki Payne shook her head. “No. I don’t think she could have written that letter.”
She didn’t miss the look of relief on Cole’s face. His shoulders lifted slightly, too, as if his burden had been partially eased. She knew it wasn’t gone, though. His jaw was still clenched, the tension evident.
“I don’t think it was written until after she was locked in the garage,” Nikki said. “And I confirmed what Manny suspected, that the service door locks were tampered with. Looks like superglue.”
“And she couldn’t have done that herself either,” Cole added.