by K. M. Scott
AFTER
THE STORM
A Project Artemis Novel
K.M. SCOTT
ANINA COLLINS
After The Storm
Kate Sheridan thought she had a handle on life. She had a good job as a legal assistant, great friends, and a life in New Orleans she enjoyed. Until her life became a mess. Now her boss is dead, murdered along with one of his clients, and Kate is on the run from the police who think she’s a prime suspect.
And things are going to get worse before they get better because what her boss stumbled on to involves far more than just some case in the Big Easy.
Roman Gregory is proud of his work with Project Artemis. After spending years as an Army Ranger, he’s committed to helping women in danger. He’s one of the members Nick and Persephone can always rely on to solve a case and get the client’s life back to normalcy because he never lets anyone get in his way of handling a problem. And he never lets anyone get close.
Then he’s given the assignment in New Orleans and everything changes. But will protecting Kate be something he can do without letting her in?
After The Storm is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
2018 Copper Key Media, LLC
Google Play Edition
Copyright © 2018 Copper Key Media, LLC
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
Published in the United States
ISBN: 978-1-941594-85-8
Book Cover design by Patricia Maia at Maya Teasers and Design
Click on the covers below to learn more about the series:
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About the Book
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
About Behind The Scenes
About the Authors
Books by K.M. Scott
Books by Gabrielle Bisset
Books by Anina Collins
Chapter One
In the distance, the raucous sounds of revelers celebrating Mardi Gras in the French Quarter filled the air as Kate Sheridan paced across the old wood floor of her living room waiting for more information to come, terrified by what the first text she received minutes before said.
Something is wrong. Jonas isn’t answering his door but I know he’s still in his office. I’m calling the police.
Over and over, Kate checked her phone for another message from her co-worker Minnie Donner but saw nothing except the first dreadful text. Jonas Flynn, her employer, was a lawyer and often kept strange and awkward hours when he was deep in working on a case. She didn’t want to overreact to his not answering his door when Minnie knocked. Jonas routinely got lost in work and didn’t hear the phone ring right next to him, much less a knock on the door a few yards away.
Minnie was just being silly. He probably answered the door right after she called the police and now she’s standing there with New Orleans finest having to explain why she bothered them needlessly on one of the busiest nights of the year. Minnie just didn’t know how Jonas operated since her boss made sure he never worked past six.
Everything was fine.
Kate stopped and looked down at her phone once again. Nothing.
She wondered if maybe she should call her. Now that she thought about it, she should have done that right off. If she had, she could have stopped Minnie from making such a fool of herself over nothing.
I should call her. Just to put my mind at ease. God, I really don’t need this kind of craziness on Fat Tuesday, of all nights. Didn’t she remember me telling her I had plans to go out with Eve and her cousin tonight?
As she scrolled through her list of contacts, her phone vibrated against her palm, sending a shiver of fear through her. Quickly, she swiped to her message screen and saw another text from Minnie. Her heart slamming against her chest, she read it, her eyes racing over the words.
Jonas is dead. Found murdered in his office. Two shots to the head. The police say one of his clients was found dead about an hour ago in his home in Slidell. Why would someone want to kill them? I’ll call you when I’m done with the police.
Staring down at her phone, Kate tried to form a complete thought but one word repeated on a horrible loop over and over. Murdered. And she knew just who the client was too.
The walls began to feel like they were closing in on her. She needed to get out of that tiny apartment. But everything had changed now.
Jonas’s warnings to her about his case raced through her mind, and fear began to take her over. Was she in danger now too?
This case is huge, Kate. This is bigger than anything I’ve ever done, but it’s more dangerous too, so I don’t want you to speak a word about this to anyone. Understand?
She’d nodded her understanding when he made those cryptic statements to her, never giving them much thought as she continued to prepare the brief he needed for later that day for another far less interesting case. She hadn’t even thought he was serious when he claimed it was dangerous. Jonas Flynn handled basic, everyday lawsuits. Everyone knew that. What could be so dangerous about suing someone for workplace injuries?
Whatever he’d been doing with that client, it had gotten him killed, and now Kate wondered if it would get her killed too. She’d been his only legal assistant, so anyone who wanted to get rid of all the people who knew about that case would assume she knew all that he’d been up to.
The truth was, though, that Jonas had kept virtually every detail of this case to himself. Unlike usual, he hadn’t made her do much of the work for this client he at first called Mr. X. He wouldn’t even tell her the foundations of the case. It had taken him months for him to finally even let her know the man’s name.
Not that it would matter now.
She threw a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, a pair of underwear, and her toothbrush in her bag and hurried out of her apartment. Running down the stairs from the second floor of the house she lived in, she ran out to the road and prayed the streetcar would arrive in the next few minutes. As she stood waiting for it, she looked around and worried whoever had killed Jonas and his client could be nearby waiting to kill her.
Stop it! You’re being paranoid. Nobody wants to kill you.
Kate looked off in the distance and saw the streetcar slowly making its way toward where she waited. Damnit, why were they always so slow? Never before had she wished New Orleans had a much faster form of transportation.
; Like a bullet train.
She rummaged through her purse to find her pass just as the streetcar stopped in front of her, and she hurried on and found a seat close to the driver, somehow thinking that might help her. One look at the thin older man guiding them toward the French Quarter told her if something happened she’d likely have to protect him instead of vice versa. The strongest thing about him was the dayglow green safety vest he wore.
A group of drunk tourists in town for Mardi Gras talked loudly at the back of the street car about which stop to use to get back to their hotel, distracting her for a moment from the awful events of the night. When they piled out onto Canal Street, she followed them in the hope of getting lost in the crowd.
The mob of partygoers in the French Quarter provided her with the anonymity she needed, and soon she arrived at Lafayette’s, the bar Eve had said she and her cousin would be at all night. The typical Bourbon Street party spot, it possessed little charm and far too much neon lighting, not to mention the loudest band they could squeeze into the space.
A stunning brunette, Eve towered in four inch heels that made her legs seem like they went on forever in a dress that looked like a metallic gold prom gown that had been cut in half. She stood out from the crowd instantly as she hung out near the end of the bar with a much shorter and plainer woman Kate suspected was her cousin. Not that meeting her and enjoying the festivities mattered much now.
Eve saw her coming toward them and opened her arms wide, a drink in each hand. “Where have you been? We’re at least four drinks ahead of you, honey!” she yelled as she enveloped Kate in a drunken embrace that resulted in at least half of the drink in her right hand spilling down Kate’s back.
Quickly extracting herself from the hug, Kate waved her toward a corner of the bar where she hoped it would be quiet enough to explain what happened. Eve’s cousin stood drunk and confused looking at her, but there was no time to explain or apologize for being rude.
Eve’s heels tripped her as they walked toward the corner, causing more of her drink to spill out of the glass as she grabbed onto the back of Kate’s shirt. “Damn! I’m not going to have anything to share with you at this rate, honey,” she said in her usual chipper voice.
Away from the crowd, Kate could finally hear herself think for the first time since she walked into Lafayette’s. Now all she had to do was explain to Eve all that had happened and figure out what she was going to do.
“You know, my cousin Cherise has been dying to meet you. Why did you drag me all the way over here, for God’s sake? She’s going to think you’re a bitch, Kate,” Eve said as she sat down hard in a wooden chair she took from a nearby table.
Leaning down close to her friend’s face, Kate said, “I need you to listen very carefully to me. Something has happened.”
“You didn’t wear the dress you said you’d wear. What’s going on?” Eve said, completely missing the serious tone in Kate’s voice.
She had to be more obvious and let her worry show. All the better. Hiding it was making her more stressed out.
Kate forcefully held her friend by the shoulders so she had to focus on her. “Pay attention, Eve. Something terrible has happened. I think I’m in real danger. I need you to understand. Do you understand me?”
For a moment, she wondered if Eve understood anything she was saying, but then her friend nodded. “I’m a little buzzed, Kate. I’m not stupid. What’s got you all tied up in knots?”
Looking around, she checked to see if anyone around them was listening and saw not a single person cared one iota about what they were doing in the corner. She leaned in close near the side of Eve’s head, and as the band began blasting some song, she said loudly in her ear, “Someone murdered Jonas tonight. He was found dead in his office.”
Eve leaned away and stared at her in horror. “Jesus Christ! Are you serious? Who would want to kill Jonas Flynn, for God’s sake? He’s a two-bit lawyer who doesn’t pay his employees enough and works twenty-four-seven, but none of that is a reason to kill him. Well, other than his being a lawyer.”
Stunned at her friend’s bad timing for lawyer jokes, Kate’s mouth dropped open for a moment before she said, “Now you think is a good time to crack jokes? I’m in real trouble here.”
“Why? I mean, it’s terrible that someone killed Jonas, but what does that have to do with you? You were just his legal assistant.”
“Someone killed one of his clients tonight too. On a case he said could be dangerous. Something’s very wrong, Eve. What if whoever killed them thinks I know something? I was his assistant, after all. His only assistant.”
Eve stood up and began marching toward the door. “Come on! We need to get you to the police.”
“No! I don’t want to go to the cops,” Kate said, tugging on her friend’s arm to stop her. “Plus, you can’t leave your cousin all alone here.”
That made her stop and she turned around and nodded. “Right. Let me get her and then we’ll all go find a cop. Hang on.”
Before she could stop her, Eve had stumbled over to the bar to get Cherise. Kate had a sense as she watched them talk that her cousin didn’t want to leave, especially since she seemed to like the good looking guy to her left hanging all over her. All the better. Three would be a crowd anyway.
A few moments later, Eve returned to where she stood and announced her cousin had a good reason to stay. “I think she and that guy are going to get together, so she wants to stay. Let’s go find the cops for you.”
Kate shook her head, terrified at the prospect of talking to the police about this. “No way. I don’t know much about this case, but Jonas told me it had something to do with the police. I don’t trust them on this.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said, unsure where to go to find safety. “Maybe if I can just find a place to hunker down for the night I’ll be thinking clearer in the morning. Can you stay with me tonight?”
“Sure. Where do you want to go?” Eve asked as they walked outside into the street still full of partiers celebrating the final few hours of Mardi Gras.
Her mind raced with possibilities, each one quickly dismissed as too easy to figure out for anyone looking for her. The noise from a group of drunk guys singing some song next to them made thinking next to impossible. Fucking tourists!
Finally, she remembered that hotel they stayed in that night in high school after the prom. It wasn’t exactly The Ritz, but at least it would give her one night to get her head straight and figure out what to do.
“The Bayou Motel. Let’s go.”
The shock of hearing that name registered on Eve’s face, and her eyes flew open wide. “The Bayou? That place is a dive. Only cheating spouses and high school kids who can’t afford anything nicer go there. Can’t we find somewhere a little posher to go?”
Kate pushed her down the street through the crowd. “There’s no time to argue about this. One night in The Bayou Motel won’t kill you.”
“Honey, that place is an advertisement for tetanus and probably for at least a half dozen STDs.”
Grabbing hold of her friend’s arm, Kate trudged forward. “I don’t have time for this, Eve. Don’t argue with me tonight. Just move faster.”
Behind her, Eve whined, “Faster where? The Bayou? I don’t want to go there, honey. Let’s just slow down and think about where we could hang out for the night. How about Keaton’s? He’s always happy to let us hang when we need to.”
Kate listened to her but had no plans to go to their friend Keaton’s house. His wife and three kids made that idea impossible. She didn’t want to endanger anyone she didn’t have to. Dragging Eve into this was bad enough.
“Or what about Pigeon? I know we haven’t seen her much since we all graduated high school, but I accepted a friend request from her the other day, so she might be interested in catching up on old times tonight. I can message her right now and we can be hanging out with her in no time.”
Tired of Eve’s c
omplaining, Kate stopped dead in the street and spun around to face her dear friend, who at the moment she wanted to shake to get some sense into her. “We don’t have time for this nonsense. What about that don’t you understand? My boss is dead, and his biggest client is too. That’s not a coincidence, Eve, so just stop trying to think of someplace else to go and move!”
The people around them stopped for a moment at Kate’s yelling, and suddenly she became frightened. Any one of them could be there to find her. She needed to get the hell out of the Quarter now.
Scanning the crowd, she saw a man who looked far too interested in the scene playing out between Eve and her. Was he looking for her? Who was he? Quickly, she tried to think if she’d ever met him, but he looked like every other person in the Quarter that night.
She leaned in close to Eve and said in her ear, “There’s a man about fifty yards behind us. Calmly turn around and look at about two o’clock.”
Eve did as she instructed her to, and the man began walking toward where they stood. Panicked, Kate yanked on her friend’s hand to get her moving again.
“Let’s go! Did you see him? Did you see that man with the blond hair and black t-shirt looking at us? He started walking in our direction as soon as we looked back at him.”
“I think you’re suffering from a little paranoia, honey. I didn’t see anyone who even cared what we were doing. He’s just one of thousands of people in the Quarter tonight. It is Mardi Gras, you know,” Eve said in a breathless voice, struggling to keep up with Kate.
After a few more feet, she became too much of a drag on her, and she had to stop again. Spinning around, she scanned the street for that man but didn’t see him anywhere. Had he ducked into a doorway somewhere and was watching them at that very moment?
“What about talking to that cop over there?” Eve asked, pointing down the street.
Kate swiveled her head to look and saw a man in a police uniform standing on the corner next to a lamppost. She couldn’t tell him what was going on, though. She couldn’t trust anyone, not even a cop.