by Lisa Regan
It also wouldn’t hurt to have a gun, and maybe a bulletproof vest either, especially with Manetto and Ramos in my life. What was that all about…
The door closed, and I was glad to have missed the rest of his thoughts. Still, his idea of buying some new clothes sounded great to me. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to have a bulletproof vest, but how much did that cost? I’d just have to get the clothes first and go from there.
I checked the time, finding it was much later than I’d thought. I quickly ordered the pizza, squashing my guilt that the pizza place was at the top of my contacts list. It should arrive at my house about the same time as me. I sent a quick text to my teenage son, Josh, telling him that the pizza was on the way, and to let Savannah know that I was on my way home.
I couldn’t wait to tell my husband, Chris, about my day. He’d been skeptical about my consulting business, but with this success he was bound to be impressed. He might not like the nearly getting shot part, but I could gloss over that. Besides, Ramos would have killed him first, so it was all good, although I’d probably need to leave that part out. Still, I couldn’t wait to tell him I’d solved a murder and caught the killer. That was huge.
I walked inside my house, happy to see the pizza on the table. Chris was already home and came into the kitchen. “I thought I heard you come in.”
“Hey, honey, you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”
He pulled me into his arms, and I caught his apprehension. “Does it involve Manetto?” He hated that I worked for him, but because I didn’t have a choice, there wasn’t much he could do about it.
“Nope. It was one of my own cases.”
“Can we eat yet?” Josh asked, coming into the kitchen. At fourteen, he was always hungry.
Chris and I pulled apart, and we quickly cleared the table for dinner. We settled down to eat and shared how everyone’s day had been. Then it was my turn, and I told them all about the case, leaving out the parts with Uncle Joey and glossing over the gun incident.
That’s when it hit me how different my life was. Ever since that day I’d stopped at the grocery store for carrots, my life had taken a drastic turn. Sometimes it was still hard to believe that I had this crazy ability. Still, I don’t think I’d change it for anything. And, because I had it, I was determined to make the best of it.
Sure, it might include working for a mob boss once in a while, but because I worked for the police too, that should even it out, right? Then there were people like Drake. I’d helped him get the answers he needed, and it felt amazing to make a difference in someone’s life.
I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but one thing I did know for sure… it was bound to be an adventure.
~The End~
About the Author
Colleen Helme is the author of the bestselling Shelby Nichols Adventure Series, a wildly entertaining and highly humorous series about Shelby Nichols, a woman with the ability to read minds. When asked if reading minds is something Colleen wishes she could do she says, “No way! It gets Shelby into so much trouble that I would never want that ability.” Known for her laugh since she was a kid, Colleen has always tried to find the humor in every situation and continues to enjoy writing about Shelby’s adventures. Besides writing, she loves reading, biking, hiking, and playing board and card games with family and friends. She loves to connect with readers and admits that fans of the series keep her writing.
Follow Colleen
Website | Shelby Nichols Consulting | Facebook Author Page | Twitter | Bookbub | Amazon | YouTube | Amazon Series Page
Shelby Nichols Adventure Series
Ready for more fun than you can imagine? Meet Shelby Nichols, mind reader extraordinaire!
USA TODAY and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Colleen Helme offers great mystery, laugh-out-loud humor, and page-turning adventure in her bestselling Shelby Nichols Adventure Series.
What’s next? Try book one, Carrots, where it all began. Find out how Shelby got her mind-reading ability that changed her life, and how she met Uncle Joey, Dimples, and Ramos!
Carrots | Fast Money | Lie or Die | Secrets that Kill | Trapped by Revenge | Deep in Death | Crossing Danger | Devious Minds | Hidden Deception | Laced in Lies | Deadly Escape | Devil in a Black Suit ~ A Ramos Story | Amazon Series Page
Parental Kilt
A Kilty Novella
Amy Vansant
Chapter One
2017 Los Angeles
“Is this the place?” Officer Soto shoved the last of his hot dog in his mouth and brushed his hands together to rid himself of crumbs.
His partner, Alex Petrossian, scowled. “Yes. Do you have to be such a pig?”
“I’m hungry.” Soto peered through the window of their cruiser at the large, square warehouse building beside them. “You sure this is it? Doesn’t look like much is going on.”
Petrossian shrugged and shifted the car into park. “That’s what the map says. I don’t argue with technology.”
Soto hopped out of the vehicle, pretending to adjust his gunbelt as he tugged at his underwear. He’d run out of clean boxer briefs and resorted to wearing the Christmas boxers he’d found stuffed in the back of his drawer. The bunched leg had a death grip on his thigh. He made a mental note to do laundry when he got home.
“What’s the problem?”
Petrossian shut his door. “Possible two oh seven.”
Soto grunted. “Okay. I guess… let’s knock and see—”
The only door on the side of the metal building burst open, slamming against the outer wall and bouncing back into the face of a girl stumbling into the setting sunlight. She raised both arms, one to block the door’s ricochet and one to block the glare. She stumbled toward them, her voice cracking and weak.
“Help me.”
For a moment Petrossian and Soto froze, stunned by the girl’s startling appearance. She wore a billowing white sleeveless shift, stained with what looked like blood. The left shoulder strap of the tank dress had torn and flapped down, exposing her breast. Lacerations covered her chest and arms. Her blonde hair stuck matted to her forehead, stained by the same rusty brown smears soiling her gown.
Squinting, she spotted the officers and staggered toward them.
“Holy shit,” mumbled Soto.
Petrossian snapped from his daze and leapt forward to catch the girl as she collapsed into his arms.
“Call an ambulance. Call backup.”
Soto fumbled with his shoulder mic and called in the requests.
“In there.” The girl pointed at the building, her arm shaking.
“Who? Who’s in there? Is there someone else in there? Someone with you?”
She shook her head, her skull lolling on her neck as if the ability to keep her head upright had escaped her.
“Him.”
“Miss, help is on the way. What’s your name? Can you tell me your name?”
“Cleo. Cleo Frye.”
“She’s that girl,” said Soto. “The one who went missing.”
Petrossian nodded and used his thumb to raise the girl’s drooping right eyelid.
“She’s drugged.”
“High?”
“Drugged.”
“I’m going in to look for more.” Soto sprinted toward the door, gun drawn.
“Wait for backup!”
Soto pretended not to hear Petrossian’s command. If there were more girls inside he wanted to be the first to find them. If this new girl had been kidnapped by the same guy who killed the others, he wasn’t sure how much time anyone inside had.
I’m going to catch this bastard.
Cleo had to be the latest in a string of pretty young women to go missing over the previous year. They’d found the girl who went missing before Cleo in an alley, dead, ten pounds lighter than when she’d gone missing—and that didn’t include the weight of her severed fingers, nine of which they found in a bag tied around her neck.
As with the girls before her, the pinky from her left hand
was never recovered. The killer’s nickname in the press, “Pinky,” derived from this oddity—one of his lesser, but more consistent sins.
Soto pulled open the door and peered inside, temporarily sunblind.
He took a deep breath and stepped inside.
This isn’t happening. Not on my watch.
A makeshift hallway of black-painted plywood led Soto to a dark red curtain. Gun drawn, heart racing, he slid it aside. His eyes had begun to adjust to the low watt bulbs hanging overhead, and he could see that the hallway continued forward.
Flashlight. Duh.
He jerked his flashlight from his belt and held it beside his gun, pointing the way his bullet would fly should he spot the sick bastard who cut up those girls.
Soto crept forward, a step at a time, shining his light along the walls. He didn’t like the feeling of being in a chute. He felt like a beef cow plodding to its death.
Shit. Up top.
He shone the beam up to find the ceiling five inches above his head. He’d forgotten the warehouse’s real roof stood much higher than the plywood above him. Anything could be going on up there. Checking corners and behind doors wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to watch for attacks from above.
The flashlight’s beam bounced off something shiny on the wall and Soto felt his finger flex on the trigger of his gun.
Jumpy.
A tangle of razor wire ran along the walls, constricting the path farther, the network of wire mesh making it difficult to focus.
How had the girl escaped this hellhole?
The cuts.
That was why her dress and skin were torn. She must have run through the razor wire–lined hall. The idea of it made his mouth dry.
Maybe I should have waited for backup. I should go back.
Soto heard a scraping noise and cocked his head to listen for the source.
Snap!
The popping sound flooded his veins with dread. Pain seared through the back of his ankle. As his leg collapsed beneath him, he spun on his good heel, roaring, frantic to find the cause of his pain.
Eyes.
His flashlight illuminated the face of an older man, staring up at him from the floor. The upper half of the man’s torso protruded from the wall, in a spot the razor wire didn’t cover.
There hadn’t been a hole in the wall a minute before. Soto was sure of it. It was as if the man had opened some kind of tiny door and slid himself through.
Light glinted off the large kitchen knife in the man’s hand and Soto realized the awful truth.
He sliced my Achilles.
The man’s eyes widened as Soto’s gun trained on him. Struggling, wispy, wild gray hair undulating like seaweed under the shaking glow of the flashlight, Soto’s attacker made a strange grunting sound.
Soto’s brain processed the man’s problem before his ass even hit the ground.
He’s stuck. The bastard slid out to cut me, and he can’t get back in.
Soto’s finger flexed.
I got you, you son of a—
Soto fired as he fell. He landed hard on the ground and a second shot rang out, this one high of the mark.
Fumbling to find his flashlight, Soto pointed it at the man.
The first bullet had struck the man in the chest. His eyes were wide and still, the knife on the ground beside him.
With his good foot, Soto kicked away the knife.
His breath came in short staccato bursts.
I have to get out of here.
Soto tried to hop back down the hall, but each bounce forced a cry of pain from his lips. He gritted through it as far as he could and then collapsed to his belly, crawling like a snake toward the door.
He pushed open the door and wormed his way into the light, every inch of progress darkened by the prospect of someone grabbing his feet from behind.
The flashing lights hurt his eyes as he crawled out. A blonde, ponytailed EMT hovered over the girl in the white dress. Another tech exiting the ambulance spotted Soto and strode in his direction.
“I got a cop!”
Time seemed to slow.
Petrossian stood from his crouched position at the head of the girl, his expression awash with concern, his gaze locked on Soto.
Soto heard the blonde EMT’s voice before his brain processed the words.
“There’s something strapped to her leg—”
Soto watched as Petrossian looked down at the kidnapped girl. His partner’s eyes popped wide and he thrust out a hand, as if to grab the EMT to stop her.
“Don’t touch—”
Sensing something was wrong, the second EMT stopped his progress toward Soto and turned.
Soto covered his head as the world exploded with sound and light.
Chapter Two
“How come are we going to Sean’s?”
Catriona glanced at strapping Brochan from her spot behind the wheel of her trusty old Jeep Cherokee. It had only been a few weeks since she’d discovered him, barely conscious, on a movie set at Parasol Pictures. She worked as a fixer for the studio and had assumed him to be background talent for some Braveheart knockoff in production. He’d seemed drunk, lying there with his kilt naughtily akimbo on his truly magnificent hind end—
“Whit ur ye smilin’ aboot?”
She snapped to and straightened the Jeep between the lines on the road. “Hm?”
Whoops. She’d drifted off there for a moment.
What was I thinking?
Oh, right. Though her thoughts had devolved into reminiscing, she’d actually been wondering whether it was time to start correcting Broch’s English. He hadn’t turned out to be a Hollywood extra on a bender. He was a real Highlander, pulling some kind of reverse Outlander trick. He’d come to modern-day Los Angeles, and with him trouble had followed.
But that didn’t excuse the way he murdered the English language. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she had no trouble understanding him, but she was tired of acting as his translator. If he planned on sticking around and working as her partner, he’d have to learn how to speak.
“Why,” she corrected.
“Why whit?”
“You said how come are we going to Sean’s. The correct way to say it is why are we going to Sean’s.”
He scowled. “Did ye ken whit ah meant?”
“Yes, I know what you mean but—”
“Then ah said it perfect.”
She chuckled. “Fine. I just thought you’d like some tips. I don’t know if there’s anything we can do about that heavy brogue of yours, but maybe we can fix the parts that aren’t even English.”
“Ah grew up closer tae England than ye did.”
Catriona pressed her bottom lip against her top, nodding. He had a point there.
She pulled into Sean’s long dirt driveway. Why her adoptive father insisted on living in the middle of nowhere, she didn’t know. But he was also her boss, and tonight he had an off-site studio job for them located close to his house.
She parked and leaned into her back seat to grab a box.
Broch opened his door and walked around to meet her on the driver’s side. His gaze dropped to the box in her hand as she slid from her seat.
“Whit’s that?”
She pushed the box against his chest. “I ordered it for you.”
“Aye?” He grinned and tore into the gift, the packing tape she could sometimes barely cut with scissors tearing away like tissue beneath his paws.
From the box he pulled a plastic bag with a swath of plaid fabric inside. He frowned.
“Whit is it?”
“They’re swim trunks. I got them in plaid so you’d feel at home, Kilty.” She’d nicknamed him Kilty because the man still loved wearing the nasty old kilt in which he arrived. The thing was so dirty and used it had practically become sentient. Naturally, she’d thrown it in the laundry, and Broch nearly had a meltdown. Washing it had ruined its patina or something.
He ripped open the bag and slid out the shorts. “How come ah
m ah needin’ wee breeks tae swim?”
Catriona opened her mouth to correct his how come a second time and then closed it.
What’s the point?
Though, even she had missed part of that sentence.
“Breeks?” she asked.
“Breaches. Trousers.”
“Oh. You need breeks because you can’t keep swimming naked.”
“How come?”
She jerked the box from him and left him holding the trunks. “Because it’s weird, okay? You can get away with it here at Sean’s pool but anywhere else... you’re just going to have to get used to wearing clothes, you freak.”
Kilty grunted and eyeballed the trunks as if they might bite him.
Catriona huffed and strode to Sean’s mid-century desert rancher.
“Sean!” she called to announce their arrival. At his longstanding request, she never called Sean Dad. As a little girl he’d found her and kept her, like a lost dog. She suspected he hadn’t been entirely comfortable being thrust into fatherhood, and that calling him Sean instead of Dad made her more of a diminutive roommate than a child. A concept much easier for him to swallow.
“Out here.” His voice came from the back patio.
Catriona wound her way through the kitchen and through the back sliding door. Sean sat in his usual patio chair, a whiskey on the wobbly table beside him. He smiled at the sight of her.
“Where’s Broch?”
She glanced back through the patio doors to find the kitchen empty and shrugged. “He’s behind me somewhere. I told him he had to wear trunks in the pool. He might be pouting.”
Sean chuckled. “Probably a good habit to start.”
She sat in the chair opposite him and stole a sip of his whiskey.
He arched an eyebrow. “There’s more in the house, you know.”
“It’s so far away.”
“Don’t drink too much. I’ve got a job for you two tonight.”