by Joyce Lamb
“They’re less than a minute away,” the operator said.
He strained his ears to listen for sirens and heard nothing but the breeze scraping palm fronds together in the park down the street.
Bailey tried to push herself up. “I don’t want to lay down anymore. I’m fine.” She froze to stare at his blood-soaked shirt pressed to her side. “Oh my God. Is all that mine?”
She sagged so fast he barely managed to prevent her head from thudding against the pavement. Cole’s heart skipped several beats. “Hey, don’t do that. Chase?”
She didn’t answer.
He fumbled for her pulse. “Come on, Bailey, come on.”
Chapter 3
James Chase paced the spacious office, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. Everything about this place annoyed him. From the plush ocean-blue carpet to the wall-length window that framed a view of palm trees and the Gulf of Mexico to the massive desk made of pale Egyptian wood. The entire office screamed money. If James hadn’t needed cash so desperately, he might have appreciated the décor.
Pausing before a bronze sculpture of a tiger, he wondered how much it was worth. Of course, there was no way in hell he would have been able to hide it under his white linen shirt. Which was drenched with sweat, not because he was hot. He was terrified.
If Bailey found out …
He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. Whatever happened, he had to keep his sister from finding out about this. She already watched him like a hawk, waiting for the moment when he’d screw up again. And, with her, it wasn’t a question of if but when. She’d known all along that he’d blow it again, and now he had.
If the son of a bitch kept him waiting one more minute, he was going to explode.
As if the thought summoned him, Payne Kincaid opened the door. He was elegantly dressed, as always, in a dark Italian suit with a fancy silk tie—yellow today. He had Robert Redford hair—thick and blond laced with gray. It always looked as if he’d just run his fingers through it. He appeared more youthful than sixty, mainly because the many hours he devoted to tennis and golf every week kept his craggy features tan and his body lean.
He gave James a tight smile. “How are you, James?”
James fisted his hands at his sides. “You know I messed up.”
Kincaid’s expression didn’t change. “Yes, I’m aware of the situation.”
“I couldn’t do it. I know I said I would, but I couldn’t.”
Kincaid directed him to one of the black suede chairs before the desk. “Sit. We’ll talk.”
Sweat raced in an icy trickle down James’ back. “I don’t want to sit. I couldn’t make the deal. I’m sorry. I just … I … if I got caught, I’d go back to jail. And Austin ... I can’t risk it. I’m sorry.”
Kincaid pursed his lips, brown eyes narrowed. “This would all be fine, James. Except for the money I’ve already paid you to do a job you didn’t do.”
James swallowed hard. Pain hammered at his temples, and nausea had a tight grip on his stomach. “I don’t have it anymore.”
Payne Kincaid was an expert at hiding his anger, and now was no different. He calmly gestured at the chair again, cool as ever. “Sit.”
James obeyed this time. His knees had started to shake anyway.
“We have a problem, James,” Kincaid said as he settled behind his fancy desk. Leaning back in his big leather chair, he linked his hands over his flat stomach. “What are we going to do to resolve it?”
James shifted, conscious of his shirt sticking to the chair’s back. Kincaid’s lack of emotion was scaring the hell out of him. James knew from experience that the more unaffected Kincaid appeared, the more furious he was.
The man hadn’t always intimidated him. When James had been a kid, he’d looked up to his father’s best friend like a second father. He was tall and strapping and had always been full of rugged energy as he’d told stories about his adventures in whatever exotic locale he’d last visited, his soft, deep voice belying his dynamic presence. As a child, James had never seen him angry. Now, though, James sensed that rage simmered just below Kincaid’s cool surface, like a volcano that steamed for days before it violently erupted.
“I’ll repay you,” James said. He didn’t know how, but he’d find a way.
“Doing what? You can’t think I’ll give you another chance, do you? You kept a potential client waiting while you were busy having a nervous breakdown. All you had to do was meet with the man, make the exchange that I’d already arranged and be on your way. But not only did you not bother to show up, you didn’t call so I could get someone to replace you. It was a simple task that even a preschooler could have done. A task, I might add, that you were severely overpaid to do. Do you know how bad you’ve made me look? You cost me a customer. It’s my own fault for trusting you, James, but I believed you when you said you wouldn’t let me down again.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” James said. “I’ll do something else, anything you want.” He took a breath. “I want to—” He broke off. He wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to have a normal life, one where he didn’t have to constantly look over his shoulder or worry about how the ugliness of his past would spill over onto his family.
“You want to what?” Kincaid asked, his voice hard.
James had no doubt that they wouldn’t be having this conversation if he weren’t the son of the late Elliott Chase. He would have been dead long ago. “I want to make it up to you.”
“You can’t make it up to me. You can’t make anything up to me, James.”
“I can try to—”
“I gave you this opportunity because you begged me, because you said you needed help getting back on your feet.” Anger flashed in Kincaid’s eyes as his iron control slipped. “Now you’re telling me that not only did you screw me over with an important customer, but you also no longer have the fifteen grand I advanced you.”
James hesitated, then nodded.
“What did you do with it? So help me God, if you bought drugs, I’m going to take your head off.”
“I used it to pay … a debt.”
“A loan shark?”
James swallowed. “Yes.”
Kincaid’s mouth tightened, as if he bit the inside of his lower lip to keep from lunging across his desk.
James didn’t elaborate on the whys of going to a loan shark. He didn’t say that part of the loan had covered tuition for the technical classes that were required for the job he’d just landed. Part of it paid the security deposit and first month’s rent on an apartment that had a badly needed second bedroom for his son. Some had bought used furniture for that bedroom. And the rest had paid for the ancient Toyota parked outside, because the Toyota he’d traded in had been even older.
He didn’t say that his new job, once he started, promised a hefty signing bonus that he’d planned to use to settle some of the loan, knowing that as soon as he started getting his new, heftier paycheck, he’d have plenty to pay his bills and make payments on the loan.
He didn’t say that just before he was due to get his signing bonus, his new employer had discovered his felonious past and given him the heave-ho.
He didn’t say that he was so desperate to hide the truth from Bailey—and the people who decided whether he got to keep his son—that he’d then sought the only sure payoff he knew: doing a job for Payne Kincaid.
He didn’t say that when it had come time to meet with Kincaid’s client, he’d balked at falling back into the downward spiral that had landed him, however indirectly, in minimum security to begin with.
Kincaid broke the tense silence. “Do you have any idea how much it would anger Bailey if she were to find out you’ve been doing business with loan sharks?”
James straightened his shoulders. “Probably not as much as it would piss her off to know what you do for a living.”
A muscle in Kincaid’s jaw flexed. “Who do you think she’d be more likely to believe? You or me?”
The man had a point. In Bailey’s eyes, James had very little credibility, and perhaps never would again.
“So,” Kincaid said, “let’s think about what we’re going to do next.”
James didn’t know what to do next, but he did know that he planned to protect Bailey no matter what. She knew nothing about Payne Kincaid’s line of work. She thought Kincaid was the man she’d always known as “Uncle Payne,” not just because he was her father’s brother, but because he was such a close family friend that he might as well have been a blood relation. She thought Kincaid was the man who’d given James a job more than five years ago, when James had been beaten down by life and feeling hopeless. She thought he was the man who’d been there for her, first when their mother had died, and then again when their father had been killed in a car accident, sending her brother to prison for involuntary manslaughter.
And, sure, Payne Kincaid was all of those things. But he was also a businessman in charge of a very large, very successful smuggling operation. He was like a crooked corporate CEO who by day screwed over employees, retirees and taxpayers without a trace of remorse but by night was a kind, caring man who looked out for his family the best way he knew how.
“I’m open to ideas,” Kincaid said, cocking his head as he studied James.
How about taking a flying leap off a tall bridge? “Look, I’m trying to do better.”
“And your way of doing better is borrowing money from a loan shark and standing up my clients.”
“I didn’t plan it that way.”
“I don’t imagine you did.”
“Just tell me how I can fix it.”
“You have one option,” Kincaid said, sitting forward to brace his elbows on the desk. “Return the fifteen thousand dollars or I’ll make life very unpleasant for you.”
James felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. “A few days ago, you were willing to give me the money for nothing, so I could get back on my feet.”
“And you refused because you said you didn’t want to owe anyone anything. You wanted to get back on your feet on your own. How a loan shark could help with that, I’m not sure.” Kincaid paused, as though taking a moment to fortify his control. “I was willing to help you before, James. Because there was a time when you were important to me. Like a son. But the tide has turned. We made a deal. I paid you for your services upfront because I trusted you. But you let me down. And you know what happens to employees who let me down, don’t you?”
James gripped the arms of the chair. He knew of a few whose bodies had become shark food off the Gulf Coast and still others whose betrayals had cost them what they considered most precious.
Kincaid’s smile turned grim as he stood and began buttoning his suit jacket. “I believe that’s all I have to say to you, James. Have a good day.”
Chapter 4
Bailey opened her eyes and knew she wasn’t in her own bed. Otherwise, the white ceiling overhead would have been a cheery blue scattered with fluffy clouds, and the candle beside her bed would be giving off its rain-fresh scent.
Instead, the ceiling was institutional white and the air smelled of bleach and something sweet that she couldn’t identify. Applesauce? Butterscotch?
“Hey.”
She rolled her head to the side. Cole Goodman sat in a chair beside the bed, wearing a pale green scrubs shirt and lines in his forehead that she had never noticed before. The way his body seemed settled into the chair suggested he’d occupied it for a while.
“Where’s your shirt?” she asked, surprised at how hoarse she sounded. Her head felt floaty and disconnected. At least there was no pain.
His lips curved slightly as he sat forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “You bled on it.”
She started to sit up then noticed that her shirt had been replaced by a white hospital-issue gown. More startling was the needle in the back of her hand.
Rising, Cole laid a hand over hers. “Relax. You’re getting some fluids. They decided you were dehydrated.”
She focused on the concern in his eyes, intrigued by his gentle tone. Then, pushing hair out of her face, she finished sitting up, refusing to give in to the dizziness.
“You got twelve stitches,” he said. “But the doctor said you were lucky. The blade glanced off a rib, so the wound isn’t that deep. No muscle damage.”
She had a vague recollection of a doctor with prematurely gray hair and a soothing voice telling her something similar. The last thing she remembered, the doctor had been preparing to inject her with something to numb the area around the injury. Her hand went to that spot automatically, and she registered that her right ribcage was still numb.
“You’ve got a thing about needles, huh?” Cole asked with a small smile. “I’ve never seen anyone’s eyes roll back so fast.”
Great. At least he was entertained.
“The doctor gave you something for the pain. If you feel funny.”
Double great. Best to get rid of him now, before the inevitable loopiness set in. She craned her neck to look around. “Is there a phone?”
The room was typical for a hospital: white walls, white tile floor, a TV suspended from the ceiling, one window that looked out on a vast parking lot where the Florida sun glinted off of dozens of windshields. The phone, unfortunately, was out of reach on a small, square table that normally would have been by the bed but had been rolled closer to the visitor’s chair.
“I called A.J.,” he said. “I—”
“Perfect. Is she on her way?” The sooner her best friend got there, the better.
“I had to leave voice mail and haven’t heard back. Is there someone else we can call? A family member?”
Her throat closed. Times like these reminded her of how much she missed her parents. And James … well, James was James. “No. It’s okay. I’ll wait for A.J.”
He shifted his weight to the other foot. “The whole newsroom showed up in the waiting room. The 911 call went out on the scanner at work.”
“Oh, God.” She dropped her head back. “Please don’t let anyone back here.” It was bad enough that she was so pathetic in front of him, let alone everyone else she worked with.
“I already told them you were fine and to go back to work.”
The tension left her shoulders. “Thank you.”
“I’ll stick around until A.J. gets here.”
She blinked at him. “What? Why? That isn’t necessary. I’m sure you need to get back to the senator.”
“I’ve already rescheduled that. You shouldn’t be here by yourself.”
“I’ll be fine.”
He said nothing and stared at her.
That steady, scrutinizing gaze unnerved her. “What?”
“I’m sorry I left you. I should have waited for you to catch up.”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t think—”
“It was camera equipment,” she cut in, determined to keep the conversation light. “Not even mine.”
He held up his hands, which looked as if they’d been scrubbed raw. “Yeah, but the blood on my hands was.”
She swallowed, rattled as much by the miserable look in his eyes as by the image of her blood on his hands. “It washed off, didn’t it?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m waiting until A.J. checks in.”
Chapter 5
An hour later, A.J. still hadn’t come to Bailey’s rescue, but the police had paid a visit. Much to Cole’s frustration, their demeanors suggested they didn’t expect to catch the culprit. Bailey hadn’t seen her attacker’s face and couldn’t give a passing description of even his body type. Motorcyclists in leathers and black helmets were a common sight in Kendall Falls.
A simple mugging, they told Cole when he cornered them in the waiting room on their way out. The thug cut her by accident, and the camera equipment was insured by the newspaper, end of story. Cole might have been dissatisfied with the results, but he couldn’t argue with their assumptions.
Finally, the docto
r wrote two prescriptions for Bailey—one for antibiotics and the other for pain pills—and a nurse brought her a scrubs top that matched Cole’s so she wouldn’t have to wear her ruined shirt home. After that, she was released, with strict instructions to go easy on the activity for a few days and to watch for signs of infection. She’d have to return in several days to have the stitches removed.
“You really don’t have to do this,” she said as they walked out to Cole’s SUV under the hot Florida sun. “I could have waited for A.J.”
“I was already here, so deal with it.” He had to fight not to growl at her. He wished she’d call him a douche for running ahead of her while she was getting stabbed. Maybe at least be bitchy. Anything that might help assuage his guilt. If it could even be assuaged.
“Your bedside manner is astounding, Goodman. You missed your calling.”
Ignoring the jibe, he opened the passenger door and helped her into the seat. He didn’t like how what little color had seeped into her cheeks had drained away. “How’s that pain medication holding up?”
“Super. Thanks for asking.”
The sarcasm cheered him. The more she fired back at him, the less he felt like an asshole. Shutting her door, he trotted around to the other side. Once in the driver’s seat, already sweating in the heat trapped inside the truck, he turned the key and cranked the air conditioning.
He was about to back up when he noticed that she had yet to put on her seat belt. Without a word, he shifted back into park and reached across her to grab the strap to buckle it for her. When she drew in a sharp breath and pressed back against the seat, he froze.
“What?” Had he hurt her? He was sure he hadn’t even touched her.
Closing her eyes, she exhaled slowly. “Nothing.”
“I’m fastening your seat belt. What did you think I was doing?”
“Nothing,” she repeated, more firm.
“Geez, you’re jumpy.”
“I was just attacked with a knife.”
The implied “you idiot” was obvious. He blew out a slow breath. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Do you want me to do it or can you?”