After their father had arrived to stay with Brynna, Melody had escaped to run to the store—and to take a breath. To decide what they would be doing next.
Two of the men who had kidnapped and threatened her baby sister was still out there somewhere. The other was probably dead.
She was so proud of what Brynna had done.
Melody was going to use every resource she had from her days with the Texas State Police to find the bastards and make them regret ever looking at her sister as collateral damage in whatever war they had with the TSP, and the Marshall family.
She may be worthless in a physical fight these days, thanks to a bullet, but she still had what lay between her ears.
She unlocked the door and stepped inside the foyer of the house where she’d lived most of her life—she’d had an apartment near the campus where she’d gotten her degree but had returned home to help when her mother was ill—and tossed her keys to the table next to the door.
She was on cooking duty for the foreseeable future. And that meant she’d make the best damned dinner for the people that lived there with her that she could. Jillian and Sydney, her two youngest sisters, would be home within the two hours. Their father would probably stay with Brynna as long as he could.
The sister closest in age to Melody hated hospitals—they were a sensory nightmare for a woman on the autistic spectrum like Brynna was.
Possible complications of being sliced open with a penknife demanded Brynna stay where she could be monitored. They all understood that. No matter how Brynna didn’t like it.
But her sister hadn’t been fighting the hospital when Melody had left; she’d been lying there. Bereft over a wild renegade of a man who would never be the kind to settle in one place, no matter what a woman like Brynna could promise him.
Melody didn’t doubt the depth of her sister’s feelings for Chance. Brynna felt deeply—she just had trouble showing that, at times.
Worst part of it was, she was certain the man in question loved her sister just as much as Brynna loved him.
But he had still walked away.
What would that do to a woman like Brynna?
Melody was afraid she already knew the answer to that. Devastation. Chance Marshall had broken her sister into a million little pieces. And Melody didn’t know how to fix her.
She didn’t know how long she stood by the stove, thinking. Worrying.
Hard hands went around her waist and covered her mouth. The intruder yanked her back against a hard, strong chest. Mel tried to pull in a breath, but couldn’t. “If you scream, I may hurt you. Do you understand what I am saying?”
She nodded and ruthlessly shoved back the panic. She had to keep a clear head.
The hand around her mouth slipped down to grip her waist. Mel looked down. Saw the gun. What did he want? Who was he?
The only weapon she had was her forearm crutch, if she could bring it up between them…And there were knives in the block five feet away. If she could get to one of them...
Who was she kidding? She could barely walk, let alone defend.
In the current physical state she was in, she was no match for an armed attacker. No matter what it was he wanted. “What do you want?” She kept her voice from trembling somehow.
“Turn around. We’re going to make this as easy as possible.” He slipped back a half a foot or so and then the gun was away from her side. Somehow.
“M-make what?” Where was the strength and calm that had been drilled into her at the Academy and in her days with the TSP?
“We need to talk, you and I.” His hands scorched her even through her clothing when he turned her around more quickly than she could handle. She lost her balance and fell against him. He straightened her quickly.
“Hold out your arms.” Mel looked up—a long way—up into the intruder’s face.
“What are you doing here?” It was a beautiful face, one designed to stay in a woman’s mind long after she’d seen it. She should know—she still dreamt of it at night.
Houghton McKinley Barratt, heir to the Barratt-Handley fortune. Son of the man responsible for the kidnapping and near murder of her sister. Brynna, who had hurt no one in her entirely life.
Houghton Barratt, the last man Melody had slept with before a bullet had changed her life forever. It had only been one night, but…
She struggled in his arms, trying to push his hands away from her, as some of the fear left her. Some. He still had a gun, after all. And he was still a Barratt. “Let me go, Houghton, and I won’t call the police.”
“Of course you will, little one. Do you think I don’t know about your family now? Your ties to law enforcement?” His dark eyes were cynical and hard. Cold. Nothing at all resembled the hungry lover who’d made her forget one of the worst murder investigations of her career. He slipped the gun into the holster he had in his pocket. “Hold out your hands.”
“Rot in hell, Barratt.” She lunged for him. She knew he was quick—and probably had two bodyguards waiting outside. Surprise was all she had on her side.
It didn’t do a damned bit of good. Her attack didn’t even budge him an inch. Houghton was six and a half foot tall and in excellent physical shape.
Houghton caught her up and carried her into the dining room, completely ignoring how she twisted and bucked. He dumped her back on the dining room table where half her sister’s science project was still laid out. “Had to make it difficult, didn’t you?”
She wanted to scream at him, to curse him, but she couldn’t. The air had left her lung-and-a-half when he’d dropped her against the tabletop.
Not that it took much to do that to her these days. A bullet through a lung left its mark for a long time, didn’t it?
“I don’t want to hurt you, Mel. But you’re going to do what I say.” He grabbed the hand she tried to punch him with and held it flush against the table. Then the other one. “I need your help, and you owe me for just walking away that morning.”
He pulled her wrists together in front, then wrapped them quickly with duct tape.
It had little yellow ducks on it. That stuck out with her. Yellow ducks, of all things.
His eyes were dark and cold, missing the warmth that had been there before. Her fear rushed back, doubled. “What are you going to do with me?”
* * *
Did you miss Her Best Friend’s Keeper, Gabby’s story?
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Ten years. Three months. Sixteen days. That was how long it had been since Gabby Kendall had felt safe. As a teenager, she’d witnessed the execution of four members of the Marshall family and been powerless to help. The case had remained unsolved—the killers were still out there.
And they knew who Gabby was. Where she lived. Who her friends were.
They knew everything about her.
CHAPTER ONE.
* * *
THE desk had been his father’s. The position, as well. Elliot Marshall Jr. never thought he’d do more than share a name with the greatest man he’d ever known.
His father’s murder had made sure of that.
The decor had changed in the ten years since his father had occupied this particular office with the Finley Creek post of the Texas State Police. But the desk...the desk was still the same one.
Elliot didn’t know how he thought about that. About how he’d handle the memories of what had been lost.
His father had been damned good at what he did, the best police chief the Texas State Police had ever had. It was what had gotten his father killed, along with Elliot’s mother, younger brother, and sister.
Or so the rumors went.
They’d never found the bastards responsible. Speculation was rampant that Elliot Sr. had run into a nasty and powerful man. The rumors spoke of bribes and kickbacks. Corruption. The very word had a particular stench all its own.
Good or bad. No one really knew the truth about his father. Had his father been fighting the corruption or had he b
een a part of it? Questions were still whispered when the infamous Marshall Murders were mentioned.
Truth, no one seemed all that interested in finding it. There was no way his father had been a dirty cop. It went against everything the elder Elliot had stood for. Everything his father had taught him.
Sitting in his father’s chair hurt more than Elliot had ever thought it would.
He had his father’s old office now, a personal assistant of his own, and a whole hell of a lot of responsibility. The Texas State Police was the smallest law enforcement body in the state. The Texas Rangers outnumbered the TSP ten to one. This post where he sat was the second largest post of the ninety-two spread out across the state. Only headquarters in Wichita Falls, fifty miles to the northeast, was larger.
He was going to run it as best as he possibly could.
Nothing would stop him. Hopefully, along the way, he’d find the answers he’d spent ten years searching for. Maybe then he would find peace.
“Will you be needing anything else, Chief Marshall, sir?” Officer Magda Journey asked. His assistant was an attractive young woman with an impeccable record at the TSP and a cool manner he respected. Professionalism was what he prized in his people. Everything else was just secondary. She’d been temporarily assigned to him before he’d arrived in Finley Creek but she’d impressed him with her efficiency fifteen minutes after he’d met her. It would be a permanent position if she wanted it. Elliot was rarely wrong in his assessment of people, and he’d peeked at her personnel file, as well. Very impressive for someone of her age. He hadn’t accomplished half as much when he’d been in his middle twenties.
“I think I’ll be good for tonight, Magda, thank you.”
He needed time to process the changes life had brought him.
His appointment to the position had come from the governor of Texas directly. His cousin Marcus, the governor, had told him it was a last minute replacement, and he’d snapped up the appointment without thinking it through. Now he was starting to question himself and the why of the position.
He’d certainly never made any friends in Marcus’ office. He and the governor weren’t exactly the closest of cousins, let alone friends. The biggest question he had was why Marcus had put him there.
Why any of it, at all.
And what in the hell was he supposed to do here in Finley Creek now?
CHAPTER TWO.
* * *
GABBY Kendall didn’t know what to do.
No real surprise there; that was kind of what Gabby was used to, was known for, even. It was just the way things always ended up for her.
But this…this was a bit scarier than she had expected. She was fighting off a full-blown panic attack and failing. Miserably.
It had been ten years, three months, and sixteen days since her world had tilted on its axis and made her afraid of every shadow in the room. She’d thought she’d gotten herself past all of it. Thought she’d convinced herself the world was actually a pretty safe place after all.
The call from her stepfather had erased ten years of hard work in five minutes.
Gabby closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe again. To think.
It was just coincidence. If someone was gunning for her, they wouldn’t have far to look. Gabby had lived in Finley Creek almost her entire life. She was safe. They were not coming for her.
Of course...it could be because they hadn’t found her yet.
They hadn’t found her yet. If they were smart, they weren’t even looking. They’d probably faded into the evil-people sunset or been arrested on other crimes long ago. Maybe they had even been eaten by rabid coyotes or something.
Unable to make good on the promise to find her and kill her they’d made ten years ago.
Yeah, that was what she hoped. She’d just have to convince herself of that, somehow.
Her partner pushed her own chair back and said Gabby’s name. Gabby looked at the redhead across the table from her. Brynna was staring at her. Again. Brynna stared at Gabby a lot. “What?”
“Something’s wrong. What?”
“Just some bad news from my stepfather. Nothing to worry about. Nothing that I can’t handle.” Breathe deep. Breathe deep. She didn’t have to have a total freak-out in the middle of the computer forensics lab.
Not exactly professional. And not exactly like it hadn’t happened before...even this week. She tended to freak out—a lot. Her teammates, at least, were used to it. And they had quirks of their own, anyway.
“What is it? Tell me.”
Gabby thought about it and thought about not telling Brynna, but…Brynna was more than relentless when she was worried. It was the way her best friend was. “The Marshall killers may have struck again.”
Sara Marshall had been her best friend in the world all through junior high until they were sixteen. Until Sara and three members of her family had been brutally murdered.
One night when things had gotten particularly tough for Gabby, she’d broken down and poured out the entire story to Brynna and Brynna’s older sister Melody. Their father had been friends with the murdered family. Mel and Brynna had been on their way to Sara’s house that night, too. It had been luck that had their father stopping at a gas station. If he hadn’t…well, that was something Gabby refused to think about.
Gabby had needed that connection at first. That shared understanding of what was lost.
Their friendship had grown since then.
Her stepfather Art had always kept Gabby safe, and today’s phone call was just another way for him to do that. “In Oregon, there’s been a case that’s similar.”
“Similar, but not a guarantee. We see lots of similar cases in this business.” Brutally frank, that was Brynna’s way. “It doesn’t mean anything yet.”
Brynna always spoke the truth, didn’t she?
No, there was never any guarantees, but she knew the truth—until they had the killers in custody and could compare forensics, they had no way of knowing if it was the same or not. She’d just be left wondering, and wondering. Probably forever, wouldn’t she? “Still, it was enough to have Art calling me. Warning me.”
“I see. What are you going to do?”
Exactly what she had done every time a similar case hit Art’s radar. Absolutely nothing. “I’m not sure there is anything I can do. The case has been cold for ten years.” Gabby had never understood that. With such a high profile case, she’d have thought it would have been at the front of the TSP’s case load every day since.
It wasn’t. And in the five years she’d worked at the Finley Creek TSP it had never been. Even though a good portion of the people at this branch had been there when the Marshall murders had occurred, it was rarely talked about. That was one thing she and Brynna had never fully understood. They talked about it a lot—but not usually within the walls of the TSP.
“The new chief starts today.”
Gabby looked at Brynna again. Her friend had a habit of wild conversational jumps at times. Brynna was on the autism spectrum and sometimes Gabby had a little difficulty keeping up with how Brynna’s mind worked. When that happened, they talked about it so Brynna would have a chance to recommunicate her thoughts. And so Gabby didn’t miss anything. “So? I heard we were getting a new guy after Chief Blankenbaker’s retirement.”
The former head of Finley Creek TSP had taken early medical retirement to help his wife battle breast cancer and spend time with their teenage children.
Gabby had always liked working for him and hadn’t bothered to ask who the emergency appointment to the position was going to be. It wasn’t like her position came into contact with the chief that often. Most of her direct work was under Bennett Russell, chief of the entire Computer Forensics division of the TSP, not just Finley Creek. Most anything extraordinary that they dealt with had Benny’s name on it.
She and Brynna liked it that way. Gabby lived for anonymity, but Brynna just didn’t like people all that much.
In the four years s
ince she’d been promoted from the IT department to the computer forensics department of the TSP, the chief had entered her office exactly three times. Gabby liked it like that.
People in authority made her nervous. People made her nervous. When she got nervous, she rambled. When she rambled, she said something royally stupid. When she said something stupid, she got embarrassed. When she got embarrassed, her skin turned beet red and her blue eyes watered. When she turned red, and her eyes watered, she looked ridiculous. Not exactly how she wanted her career to go. Gabby would rather just hide in the computer lab most days. Her supervisor could handle anything with people in authority that came her way, right? It had worked this long.
“I said, the new chief starts today.” Brynna was still looking at her with her pale brown eyes so serious. No surprise there, Brynna was serious most of the time. Brynna serious, Gabby freaked. Both of them a little bit more than weird.
“So? You’re going to have to elaborate, Bryn.”
“You know who it is, right?”
“No. I missed the memo…and the meeting.” Gabby tried not to feel too guilty. She wasn’t good when shoved in a small room with bunches of people. She was better when they left her alone with her computer. Brynna was the same way. One of the reasons why the two of them got along so well. “I covered Benny’s calls. You were with Major Crimes that day.”
If people just left them alone to do their jobs, there pretty much wasn’t anything they couldn’t accomplish together—with the computers, that was.
The former chief and the rest of the officers and detectives they worked with understood that.
Hopefully, the new chief would be the same way.
“You know who it is, right? Gabby!”
“No. Who?”
“It’s Sara’s oldest brother, Elliot Marshall. Junior.”
Gabby just stared.
“Maybe he can help you.”
Shelter from the Storm (Finley Creek Book 2) Page 29