Cat's Paw (Veritas Book 1)

by Chandler Steele

  “Closely cropped brown hair, cuts on his face, probably from the girl’s nails, and his left ear sticks out a bit more than his right. He has a scarred face. And now he has a broken nose.”

  The cop cracked a smile. “That your doing?”

  “Nope. The girl did the nose job,” Morgan replied, wanting Miri to get the credit.

  “Sweet. Sounds like the bastard deserved it.”

  “No argument there.”

  After giving the officer her contact info, she rose to her feet in slow motion, waving off his help. Sam was talking to another cop, and she knew he’d claim that they’d just been hanging together in the bar before the incident.

  Morgan made her way over to Miri. The girl’s eyes were closed, an oxygen cannula in her nose and an IV line in her right arm, pumping in fluid at a steady rate. The blood had dried on her face and clothes now, making her look like the victim of a multi-car pileup.

  “How’s she doing?” Morgan asked, kneeling next to her.

  The lady paramedic looked at her. “Still unconscious. Vitals are pretty decent. We got the head wound to stop bleeding, so that will help. They’ll check out her skull and the rest of her when we get to the ER.”

  “Which hospital?”

  “Tulane Medical Center.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You need us to check you out?” the other paramedic asked.

  “No, I’m good.”

  Morgan rose and stepped away, hitting a contact number on her phone. This was the kind of major screw-up you reported directly to the boss before he heard it from the cops. Because he would hear about it soon enough.

  “How bad is she?” Crispin asked without saying hello.

  How do you do that? “She got pretty badly beaten up.”

  “Russians?”

  Morgan thought back to the man’s voice, his speech pattern. “I don’t think so. She thinks he’s some sort of stalker, and right now, I’m inclined to agree. Especially with what happened to her cat this afternoon.”

  “Another complication,” her boss said. “Give me your report.”

  Ensuring they had privacy, she brought him completely up to speed.

  “I’ll have Neil get with you for support,” Crispin said. “You did good tonight, Morgan.” Then he ended the call.

  “Not from where I’m standing,” she said, watching the paramedics and their patient.

  If she’d been on the ball, Parkin’s kid sister wouldn’t be headed to the emergency room.

  Neil’s call came within a minute. “What do you need?” he asked.

  That was the Iceman’s style: no fuss, no drama, just solid backup. It was what made him one of her favorite people at Veritas.

  “Did Crispin give you the rundown?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell Parkin what happened and bring him to Tulane Medical’s ER.”

  “You want your name mentioned?”

  “Yeah, might as well get it all out there. He’ll find out anyway. Be careful with him. This will set him off big time. We don’t want him on a manhunt for this whack job.”

  “Understood. Send me a picture of the girl. That’ll get him moving.”

  Then he was gone.

  Neil didn’t let emotions rule him. He just did his job. Right now, that was exactly what Morgan needed most.

  *~*~*

  Alex hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the day had finally punched his ticket and he’d crashed shortly after talking to his sister. He woke up, groggy, thinking he’d heard a car door slam. He leveraged himself up on the lumpy couch and rubbed his eyes. When his vision finally cleared, he checked the clock above the stove.

  3:09? Where the hell is she?

  He was reaching for his cell phone on the floor when someone pounded on the front door. He sighed in relief. This was probably her. Still, she was supposed to call him . . .

  Alex opened the door, ready to ream out his baby sister for being stupid, and found himself staring into the blue-gray eyes of a young man. He had a closely trimmed beard and moustache, and a flattened silver stud in his right ear. He was a big dude, obviously worked out regularly, and was about the same age as Alex. But what Alex noticed the most was the world-weary expression, the kind that said life had kicked this man in the balls more than once, and that he didn’t expect that to change.

  “Parkin—”

  “Wrong house,” Alex said, starting to close the door. A hand grabbed the door and shoved it open again.

  “You need to come with me. It’s about your sister.”

  The hair on the back of Alex’s neck rose. “What happened to her? Who are you?”

  “Name’s Neil. I work for Veritas. Your sister got into some trouble at a bar tonight, and she’s headed to the ER. I’ll drive you there.”

  “How do I know you’re not lying?” he demanded.

  Neil pulled out a cell phone, scrolled through his messages, and handed it over. “Sorry to do it this way, but we figured you’d need proof.”

  Alex stared at the image of his sister being loaded into the back of an ambulance. There was blood on her face and clothes, a cervical collar around her neck.

  “Oh my God.”

  His hand shook as he gave back the phone. His mind on autopilot, Alex sank onto the couch, fumbling for his shoes. “What the hell happened? How’d she get hurt?”

  Neil stepped inside the house. “Some guy beat her up. It didn’t go any further than that. Valkyrie made sure of it.”

  Valkyrie?

  Alex laced up the second shoe as he worked through the news: Miri was hurt, bad, or she wouldn’t be going to a hospital and he’d been sleeping when it’d gone down.

  Goddammit.

  Grabbing the keys off the table, he jammed his phone in a pocket and headed out the door. Once he had it locked, they hurried across the lawn to where a black SUV sat at the curb, prime bait for this neighborhood. Surprisingly, no one was paying any attention to it, as if they knew it would only buy trouble.

  He climbed into the vehicle, buckled up, and then they were headed down the street. Alex stared at nothing out the side window. “Who is Valkyrie?”

  “Morgan. That’s our nickname for her.”

  Alex glared at him. “What does she have to do with this? Why are you guys anywhere near my sister?”

  The driver shot him a look, then turned back to watch the road. “Morgan was worried something might happen, so she was keeping an eye on her.”

  Alex’s suspicions rose. “Sounds too noble. I’m thinking maybe you bastards set this whole thing up just to get me on your team.”

  Neil slammed on the brakes, rocking Alex forward until his seatbelt caught. They skidded to a stop. The driver grabbed the front of Alex’s T-shirt, yanking him forward so they were nose to nose.

  “I’ll say this once: Morgan Blake is the only reason your sister is alive and not some sick bastard’s play toy. I don’t give a goddamn if you work for us or not, but you better get your head out of your ass. This game just went into overtime.”

  Alex opened his mouth to argue, then snapped it shut, registering the seething anger in the man’s eyes. Neil released him and went back to driving, jaw clenched.

  As Alex straightened his shirt, he made a note not to piss off this guy again. There was a lot of barely repressed rage beneath that icy exterior, something far beyond tonight’s attack.

  “Was it the Russians?” Alex asked.

  “Morgan doesn’t think so. She thinks the guy was a sicko, a stalker maybe. Must have grabbed your sister when she came out of the restroom and hauled her into the alley before she could scream for help. By the time Morgan got there, the guy was trying to stuff your sister into his car trunk.”

  Alex’s blood chilled. “Did he—”

  “You want to know any more, ask Morgan. I only got enough info to get your stubborn ass in the car.”

  Alex ground his teeth, but he didn’t ask any more questions. He’d find out the details soon enough. Then it’d be his
turn to rain hell on whoever had hurt his baby sister.

  *~*~*

  His father had called him Hurricane Alex when he was little because there wasn’t much that could slow him down. It was the same now as he swept through the emergency room at top speed, nearly mowing down a nurse’s aide in his haste. The instant he was inside the door, he remembered the place from when his former partner had been knifed during a drug bust. It was crowded, as usual, with people bleeding, vomiting, and moaning.

  Tonight, his only goal was to find his sister.

  A young, light-skinned black man stepped in his way and gestured to him. “This way, Mr. Parkin.”

  “What?”

  “Your sister’s down this way. I’m Lars, one of Morgan’s people,” the man replied, hustling Alex past anyone who might have slowed them down.

  Just how many people did Morgan have?

  They reached the door to the exam room, and suddenly Alex’s feet locked up.

  Lars seemed to understand. “She’s still unconscious, but she’s breathing okay. They stopped the bleeding. I’m sorry this happened. Honestly.”

  Alex swallowed hard, touched by the man’s compassion. It sounded sincere. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll be here if you need me,” Lars said, and stepped aside.

  Alex made himself move forward, fearing more than he could put into words. All he wanted to do was hold Miri and know she was going to be okay.

  He figured the ER staff would give him hell the instant he headed into the room, but instead a nurse looked up from a computer terminal. She was short and black and looked like she knew what she was doing. Had probably been doing it for longer than his sister had been alive.

  “I’m Miri Parkin’s brother.”

  “Oh, good. Just know that she looks kinda rough.”

  The nurse waved him forward and pulled back the curtain.

  Alex stepped closer and gasped. His sister lay on a bed, her neck and the upper portion of her chest covered in dried blood. A neck brace held her head immobile and oxygen flowed into her nose through a tube. Miri’s eyes were closed, her chest rising slowly with each inhalation. Her skin seemed sculpted from wax, not the light tan he’d seen this afternoon. A heart monitor beeped steadily and there seemed to be a million IV lines.

  “Oh God,” he said.

  The nurse patted his arm. “She’s doing better, honey. Much better. The good Lord looked after her, that’s for sure.”

  “Mr. Parkin?”

  Alex turned to find a gentleman in a turban—Doctor Singh, according to the man’s name badge.

  “How bad is she?”

  “She’s stable. I’ve ordered a CAT scan to ensure there’s nothing going on in her skull that we wouldn’t like. Her pupils are equal and I’m not seeing any sign of an intracranial bleed, but we want to be sure. After that, we’ll monitor her vitals and wait for her to regain consciousness. It all depends on what we learn from the tests.”

  Alex liked this guy. There was no “I am God” attitude. He just delivered the news in an honest and reassuring tone.

  “Thank you for all you’ve done for her. She’s . . . ”

  “Your sister,” the nurse said, checking Miri’s blood pressure. “Most of us got one. They’re God’s precious gift.”

  He looked at Miri, his eyes clouding with tears now.

  “That’s exactly what she is.”

  And I almost lost her.

  *~*~*

  After Lars had thrown an uncharacteristic fit and insisted that Morgan be checked out by a doctor, she had submitted to an exam and then found solace in an empty waiting room. Once she was settled, her friend brought her hot tea and an ice pack. She couldn’t decide if the latter needed to be on her throat or her shoulder, so she kept shifting it around.

  A nurse had been kind enough to give her a set of scrubs so the cops could take her bloody clothes. Maybe they’d get lucky and find DNA that would lead them to the attacker, if the fingerprints on the gun didn’t turn up anything.

  The cops didn’t realize that Veritas had already turned its vast resources toward finding the bastard. Though she’d love to be the one to run him down, she suspected that honor would go to Neil. When the Iceman was in hunter mode, nothing stopped him.

  A text came through. As she picked up the phone, she noticed the blood embedded around her nails, and sighed. If she hadn’t trusted her instincts, that girl would have been in that guy’s trunk, headed for hell.

  The text was from Lars: Parkin had arrived and word was that the X-rays and CAT scan were clear, though Miri still hadn’t regained consciousness.

  “At least that’s something,” Morgan murmured.

  After another sip of tea, she lay down on the couch, pulling a blanket over her. She’d give Parkin a bit more time, then she’d go see him and his sister. After that, she was headed home, as dawn was only a few hours away.

  Rest didn’t come as easily as she’d hoped, not with all those questions firing through her head. Was this a random attack? Something the Russians had cooked up to sway Parkin to their camp? Or was this one of his old enemies hitting at his most vulnerable spot?

  When her eyes finally drifted shut, all she could hear were Miri’s desperate screams and the sound of screeching tires.

  *~*~*

  After the tests had revealed that nothing bad was going on, they’d moved Miri to a more private room. Her roommate was sound asleep, so Alex stood by the side of her bed, rubbing his fingers across the back of her hand. He used to do that when they were kids, even when she was a newborn.

  His mom hadn’t said much during the pregnancy, other than to complain about another mouth to feed. Her continued indifference had triggered something deep within Alex, and he took to watching over his sister from the moment she came home from the hospital. Because after all those years of being alone, he’d been given someone to love.

  To his joy, that love had been mutual. He still remembered hurrying home from school, not bothering to take part in any after-school activities, always concerned about what had happened to Miri during the day. Once she’d learned to walk, she would meet him at the door, her tiny arms going around his neck. He blinked away tears even now.

  Miri had never stinted on her love, at least until the day they marched him out of the courtroom in chains, the “guilty” verdict ringing in his ears. Barely sixteen, she hadn’t cried, just stared at him as if he’d destroyed her whole world.

  In some ways, he had. She’d been forced to move in with their maternal aunt and uncle in Belle Chasse, a solemnly religious pair who didn’t have kids of their own. Suddenly having a teenager to raise, one who was hellfire on her best days, proved too much for them. They reacted with impossibly strict rules that no teenager could have handled. Miri rebelled. Repeatedly.

  Alex had heard she’d run away twice during his first year in prison. He remembered the rank fear he’d felt, knowing she was on the streets, alone. He knew what predators did with young girls, had seen the aftermath. Thank God nothing bad had happened to her. Or, if it had, she hadn’t told anyone, not even him.

  After the second time she’d run away and returned, he’d pleaded for her to stay with Aunt Karen and Uncle Mike. She had, though there were a few months when she didn’t write or talk to him on the phone. Their aunt and uncle said she didn’t want anything to do with him.

  It came as no surprise that once she reached eighteen, she bailed out of their home to live on her own. Now she was under his care again, and he’d already failed to protect her the first night he’d been home.

  Alex leaned against the bed railing, watching each breath. They’d removed the cervical collar and washed most of the blood off her face and neck, but there were still specks here and there. The ER nurse had Steri-Stripped the cut that reached into her hairline, but he knew Miri would be displeased when she realized they’d shaved the hair on either side of the wound.

  “I’m so sorry, Monkey,” he whispered, rubbing her hand again.

&n
bsp; The door opened quietly behind him. He turned, expecting a nurse, but instead it was Morgan who slowly entered the room. She was in scrubs, an ice pack lying over one shoulder, moving like every muscle was on fire. When she drew closer to the bed, he saw the start of a bruise on her jaw. The same on her throat.

  Shit.

  This woman had taken a beating to save his sister. Every spiteful word he’d intended to throw at her went back down like bitter medicine.

  Morgan leaned on the bedrail next to him, looking down at the patient, her expression thoughtful. “How is she?”

  “As good as can be expected. No fractures or bleeding in her head. We just have to wait for her to wake up.”

  Please God, let her wake up.

  “She will. Your sister’s strong. She nailed that bastard, hard.”

  He listened with increasing pride as Morgan explained how Miri, all of about one hundred twenty pounds, had splattered the guy’s nose across his face.

  “You’re right, she is tough,” he said. “Always has been stronger than me.”

  Morgan looked over at him, dark circles under her eyes. “I’m so very sorry, Parkin. I should have stuck to her, and I didn’t. I let her out of my sight and—”

  She’s blaming herself for this? “No, it wasn’t your responsibility. This is my fault,” he insisted. “I should have known someone would go after her to get to me. The cat should have been a wake-up call.”

  For a moment, the only sound was the beep of Miri’s heart monitor echoing in the room.

  Morgan turned to leave, and he caught her arm. His long, tanned fingers lightly curled around her, a dark contrast to her paler skin. The touch radiated heat, though the room was cool.

  “Thank you. I won’t ever forget what you did for her.”

  Morgan nodded, the guilt still in her eyes, and left him alone to his fears. Not once had she spun a sales pitch about Veritas, how he should work with the good guys for a change. The Russians wouldn’t have been so thoughtful. They would have used this situation to put the thumbscrews to him.

  Because they all knew he had only one true weakness: the young woman lying on the bed in front of him.

  Chapter Eight

  September 18th

  Tulane Medical Center