“What gets me is that he gets off scot-free while Kayla is broken up,” Harm said. “But maybe karma will kick in and he’ll get what’s coming to him. At least, I hope that happens.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Luke said.
* * *
Carlos Romero stayed at the hospital only for a half-hour, just long enough to stoke his building rage as he stared at the barred windows of the room within the psychiatric ward where J.J. was being held. J.J. lay still curled in a fetal ball, unresponsive when Carlos tried to talk with him.
When he finally gave up trying to reach his son, Carlos stormed out of the hospital, silently fuming over the fact that J.J. had brought such shame down on them. Being the only son and Romero heir, he had now undoubtedly killed all his hopes and dreams of the age-old tradition of Romero doctors continuing.
Carlos sat in his car quietly contemplating what he should do, feeling compelled to do something. When he decided, he dialed the number given him by one of his more nefarious contacts who owed him a favor.
When the man answered, he gave the cryptic information he had been told would suffice to gain the man’s trust.
“So what is it you want?”
“I want someone beaten to within an inch of his life.”
“You want him permanently silenced?”
“No. I just want him to wish he were dead. I want him to hurt the way he’s caused me to hurt. How do I get your money to you? Our mutual friend told me what you charge. The—ah—mark was in the Special Forces, so it won’t be an easy job.”
“In that case, add another three grand, since I’ll have to get at least three other guys.”
“Done.”
The man gave him a post office box number and hung up.
Carlos sat for a long time, just thinking about J.J. and his wife, Rosanna, wondering why he had been saddled with such weak appendages. He had never understood his son. Carlos remembered J.J. suddenly as a little boy, listening as he tried to convey the importance of the family heritage. Even then, he had gotten the feeling that J.J. just didn’t care. But he’d believed he could mold him into the son he needed to carry on the Romero tradition.
Carlos banged his fist down on the steering wheel, muttering a string of curses.
My son. My hope for the future—gone. Someone will pay!
CHAPTER 21
Thursday morning—San Antonio, 1:00 a.m.
Trey left his favorite open-all-night, out-of-the-way market, where he liked to shop when there was no one around. His arms were loaded with bags of groceries—bread, eggs, a few canned goods, milk, packaged salad mix, salad dressing, and steaks. He’d made the reluctant decision to go grocery shopping—something he hated to do—after discovering the only things left in his pantry were stale crackers and half a jar of peanut butter. A steady diet of that and scotch had finally driven him out of his enforced seclusion.
His car was the only one left on the lot other than the store owner’s. He was lost in thought as he shifted the bags to get his keys from his pocket, his thoughts vacillating between the two choices facing him, career-wise.
I could reenlist or continue to try and buck the backwash left by the tide of Gavin Johnson’s venomous tongue. So far, in the few feelers I’ve put out there, I know I have become persona non grata in the private detective business.
Thinking of that brought back all the other things he didn’t want to think about, like J.J.’s attempted suicide and what he imagined was Kayla’s reaction. Both those scenarios kept running like a ticker tape through his mind.
Because he was so engrossed in his quandary, Trey didn’t realize he suddenly had company until he started to open the car door and the van braked beside him, spilling three guys from the back who slammed him into the side of his vehicle.
When he dropped the bags and tried to swing around to fight, he was struck hard three times simultaneously, twice in his lower back and once on the back of his knees by what he thought was probably a night stick. The blows knocked him down.
Cursing, he struggled to get up and was kicked several times in the stomach, side, and kidneys. He felt the jarring pain of a rib cracking as he grabbed at one of the legs and brought one of the men down on top of him.
As soon as the guy rolled off him, while Trey was struggling to get his breath, the two other guys jerked him up, pinning his arms behind him. They didn’t have an easy job of it. Despite the pain, Trey fought back the best he could, but he was finally overpowered and held steady in their grip.
“What the—the fuck do you want? Money? My watch?” he gritted as he was struck again in the stomach.
“Sure. We’ll take your money and your watch,” the ski-masked guy standing in front of him snarled. “But what we want is to make you suffer, man, the way you deserve to.”
The way I deserve to?
It crossed Trey’s mind that Gavin was behind this, but then he knew this wasn’t exactly Johnson’s style. He was more into the slanderous side of bringing a man down. That left Dr. Romero.
Trey felt certain it was Romero who had hired these thugs, but before he could state that, he was struck hard across the face. He felt his lips split beneath the force of the man’s brass knuckles.
He tried again to break their hold but the two guys holding him were as big as he was and beefier, and their grip was like a steel vise that only tightened the more he struggled. Trey knew they’d break his arms if he kept straining against them so he gave that up, hoping the store owner was seeing this, that he would call the cops. He harbored no illusion that the elderly man would try to personally intervene.
He took the next punch in the stomach and would have doubled over except he couldn’t because of their rigid hold on him. The next two blows slammed into the side of his head, one after the other. The first opened a gash above his left eye. The second closed the eye. Trey felt it ballooning out as another punch brought a fresh taste of blood in his mouth, which he spat at his attacker, even knowing it would bring another punch, which it did, along with a string of expletives. Trey grunted with the pain as another punch landed in his stomach causing him to retch convulsively.
Cursing him again, daring him to throw up on him, the man moved back, giving him time to catch his breath, or a semblance of a breath.
“Why—don’t you cowards turn me loose and—fight like real men!” Trey managed to wheeze out.
The one delivering the punches just laughed as he grappled inside Trey’s coat until he found his wallet. He slipped it into his pocket, and then snatched Trey’s gold watch off his wrist.
“Thanks for reminding me to take the watch, chum,” he snarled before landing another blow to the side of Trey’s head that turned his legs to rubber and his mind to mush.
As blackness engulfed him, he fell to the concrete, while his attackers stepped over him laughing and walked away.
Semi-conscious, Trey turned his head enough to see them pile into the blue Chevy van that stood idling. The driver pulled away with a screech of tires, bounced out of the parking lot, and disappeared down the street.
Your own fault! You should have been more on guard, Trey chastised himself as he tried to rise. The effort caused the pain to slam into him so brutally, a black curtain dropped over him. He sank to the ground, unconscious.
He came to as he was about to be loaded into an ambulance. For a minute he couldn’t fathom what was happening, why he was in such pain, even where he was. Then it came back to him. Some guys had jumped him, had beaten the shit out of him. He heard the store owner telling the police what had happened as he tried to rise up off the gurney.
“Lie still, pal,” the EMT was urging as he placed a neck brace on him and gently pushed him back down. “We’ll have you at Baptist Medical shortly.”
He felt the jab of a needle and saw the IV bag hanging beside him as the gurney jarred to a stop inside the ambulance and the siren kicked in as it sped away.
Trey felt a cough coming on and dreaded it, knowing it would hurt. It di
d, like a son-of-a-bitch. He groaned and then he was out again.
When he came to the next time he was in the emergency room and they were working on him, taking off his clothes, swabbing the blood off his face. A tired looking, middle-aged policeman was leaning over him, asking questions he didn’t feel like answering.
“…Robbery? Your wallet’s missing and so is your watch. You wear a watch, don’t you?”
Through his split, swollen lips, Trey mumbled, “Yes.”
“What’s your name, sir? Can you tell me what happened?”
“Trey Cameron.”
“Can you tell me what happened?” He repeated.
Isn't that obvious? Trey wanted to ask but didn’t.
“Did you get a good look at the guy?”
Hell, do you think one guy could do this to me?
“Three,” he managed to get out through his swollen, split lips.
“There were three of them?”
“Yes,” he managed to wheeze out when a flash of pain subsided. “And one driving the van.”
“Anyone you know? Or just muggers? What kind of van?”
“A—a blue Chevy van.”
“Okay. Could you identify them in a line-up?”
“No. Wore ski masks.”
“Well, is there someone you want us to call?”
Trey shook his head. That effort brought a surge of new pain pounding behind his swollen eyes, and he groaned.
“That’s enough, officer. We need to get him to x-ray now,” the ER doctor said.
Trey watched the blur of overhead fluorescent lights as he was wheeled down the long corridor and into an elevator. He heard the swish of the closing doors, felt the humming sway as the car descended, all conglomerated sounds and wavy visions that merged within his throbbing brain.
The pain pulsating throughout his body intensified with each jolting of the gurney on his journey to the x-ray room.
Trey closed his eye, the one that wasn’t already swollen shut, and willed himself to get mentally beyond it all, the way he had done so many times in battle, the way he had done during those beatings from Deke Samson, stoically accepting the circumstances he had been thrust into and could not change.
That saying one of his men from Special Forces used to quote all the time came to mind, in cadence with the squeaking wheels of the gurney. “You can give out, man, but you can't give up! You can give out, man, but you can’t give up.”
He counteracted the pain by visualizing Kayla, warm beside him, hot beneath him, laughing above him, her head back, her green eyes like a forest fire blazing along his body, sending liquid heat radiating throughout his senses.
While he was being lifted to the x-ray table and after the pictures, lifted back onto the gurney, then back along the corridors, into the elevator, and back to the ER, Trey counteracted the pain with memories of Kayla, her riding him with her head back and her eyes closed, her tongue licking parts of him that he had not realized were erogenous zones.
After his two cracked ribs were taped, the x-rays read, and it was determined he had a mild concussion but no other fractures, after the lacerations to his lip and above his eye were stitched, he was transported to a room.
Trey lay in the bed, the pain killers dulling the throbbing ache in his body, but not the memories that still hurt. He had decided it was Dr. Romero who had hired those guys, and he wondered, now that the vindictive bastard has exacted his pound of flesh from me, will he be satisfied, or will he go after Kayla next? How much pain will it take dished out to others to alleviate the man’s own guilt over J.J.’s attempt to escape the world he tried to imprison him in?
It was the fear that Romero would send those men or someone else after Kayla that made Trey decide to tell the police who he suspected was behind the beating. But immediately after making that silent decision, reason took over.
But I can’t prove it. And the police aren’t going to act on suspicion. Hell, they aren’t even going to take my word over a noted doctor like Romero. The only way to convince them would be to find those goons he hired and make them talk, but that isn’t likely.
So when the two detectives came in, wanting a statement and any description he could give then, Trey just repeated that they had left in a blue Chevy van, that he couldn’t identify them because they wore ski masks. So no, he couldn’t pick them out of a line-up.
After the detectives left, an older, kind-faced nurse came in, checked his vitals, and told him she had put his cell phone and his keys in the drawer of the bedside table. He was glad to hear they hadn’t thought to take his phone, too.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“No problem,” she said, patting his hand. “How are you feeling, Mr. Cameron?”
“Like three guys beat the hell out of me.”
She smiled. “I would say I know how you feel, but I don’t.”
“Hope you never do.”
“Try to get some rest. Only time will heal the wounds and take away the pain. But from the looks of it, you were lucky to escape with no internal injuries—only a couple of fractured ribs, some lacerations, and a lot of bruises. Hopefully the police will find the muggers. If you weren’t so young and in such good shape, it would have been worse. Well, if you need anything, just press the call button.”
Trey nodded, thinking he didn’t feel very young. He ached in places he didn’t know he had. In fact, he felt decrepit and stupid.
How the hell could I have let them sneak up on me like that?
CHAPTER 22
Nashville—Thursday, 7:00 a.m.
Kayla sat in the kitchen, staring at her cup of coffee. The men sat around her at the kitchen island, all pretending to be watching the early morning news on TV while she knew they were really watching her, waiting for another meltdown. She felt guilty for the way she had scared them.
She couldn’t understand what was happening to her. She still felt shaky inside and always on the verge of tears. She had never been like this before. Sure, the news of J.J.’s attempted suicide had hit her hard, but she’d always been able to overcome dire situations before, so what was the difference now?
The answer, which she didn’t want to think about but couldn’t help, was that her heart had never been this engaged before. She felt responsible for J.J.’s near death and crushed by Trey’s permanent exit from her life. When the phone next to the refrigerator rang, Kayla jumped nervously. Harm and Luke moved to put their arms around her as Lee said, “I’ll get it.”
They heard him say, “Saradon residence,” and then heard him curse, which was a rarity for Lee. “No, dammit, you cannot. You’ve done enough damage.”
Kayla asked, “Who is it, Lee?”
He looked at her, shaking his hand, exhaling an angry breath. “It’s that Trey Cameron.”
“Let me have the phone, Lee,” Kayla said grimly.
Reluctantly he handed her the receiver and she asked curtly, “What do you want, Trey?”
“I just wanted to warn you that Dr. Romero might send someone to hurt you, Kayla.” Trey’s voice was hoarse.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because that’s what he did to me.”
“What do you mean?” A feeling of dread seeped through her.
“He sent some thugs to beat me up. I can’t prove he did it, but I’m pretty sure he’s the one who paid them.”
Kayla bit her lip as she asked anxiously, “Are you all right?”
“I will be.”
“Good thing you can take care of yourself.”
“Yeah—but it’s hard to take on three guys.”
“Trey—tell me the truth. How bad are you hurt?” she asked softly.
“I’ll live.”
Kayla heard someone paging a doctor over the hospital intercom in the background and she gasped.
“You’re in the hospital!”
“I’ll probably be going home tomorrow.”
“When did this happen?”
“About one this morning. I was do
ing some late-night shopping.”
“At one in the morning?”
“It’s an all-night market.”
“Are you going to be all right?”
“Sure. It taught me a good lesson. Keep your guard up at all times. I just wanted to warn you to be extra careful, Kayla.”
Seeing her frown, Harm asked, “What’s happened, Kayla?”
She said to Trey, “Just a second,” and covered the mouthpiece long enough to tell the guys Trey had been attacked and was in the hospital, that he believed it was Dr. Romero who had paid the men to beat him up.
“Let me talk to him,” Harm demanded and she handed him the phone.
“Trey, this is Harm. Are you sure it was that Romero guy who had you beaten up?”
“Can’t prove it, but yes, I’m sure. The man’s out for blood. Keep a watch on Kayla.”
“We damned sure will.”
“I’m sorry about J.J.”
“We all are. It shouldn’t have happened.”
Harm hoped his meaning, implied but not said, had come across—that if Trey hadn’t come to Nashville and unprofessionally interfered in their lives, J.J. would probably still be there and happy. He knew it had when Trey said, “Wish I’d never taken that assignment or gone to Nashville. Worse, come out to the house and blown my cover. The way things came down spooked the kid. It was a mistake, and one I’ll have to live with.”
“A big one you shouldn’t make again,” Harm warned.
Trey hung up and Harm replaced the receiver on the hook, catching and holding Kayla’s eyes.
“What else did he say?” Luke asked.
“Just what he told Kayla, that he believes J.J.’s father had him beaten up. He thinks he might send someone to harm Kayla, too.”
“The hell you say!” Lee said.
“Maybe we should pay that damned doctor a little visit,” Luke gritted.
“No, just let it drop, Luke,” Kayla admonished. “He’s just grieving and wants to lash out at someone.”
“Well, it damn sure isn’t going to be you!” Harm said tersely. “Kayla, you are not going to be out of our sight for a while. One of us will be with you at all times. Understood?”
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