by Julie Miller
And Max’s singsongy growl.
Charlotte’s paranoia wasn’t fair to the dog’s bladder. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Richard?” she called out again, doubting her voice would carry through the steel and bricks and storm to the car parked outside.
The sixth ring.
Max left her side to scratch at the bricks. He whimpered.
What was wrong? Why didn’t Richard answer? Her fears multiplied with every single…
The ringing stopped.
“Charlotte.”
“Richard? Where are—”
Click.
What the…? He hung on up her? A burst of anger surged through her. He knew what that did to her—how she’d received all those calls and hang-ups in the weeks following the kidnapping. It had taken months of therapy afterward before she’d even allow a phone in her rooms, longer than that to carry one with her.
Richard knew that. He knew…“Oh, my God.”
Embarrassment washed away her unkind thoughts, leaving Charlotte’s knees weak and her heart racing with concern. What if Richard was hurt? What if he was having a heart attack and needed her help? What if he hadn’t called her because he couldn’t?
She pocketed the phone and grasped the dead bolt above the doorknob. But her fingers danced over the steel pin, hesitating to grab hold. Could she turn it? Did she dare? Richard had been with her family from the time she was a child. He was family. He’d stayed on when he could have retired because she could almost function like a normal person when surrounded by familiar faces, by the handful of staff she trusted. If he’d been driving her the night of her high-school prom, he’d have gotten her safely home. He would never, ever intentionally frighten her.
What if Richard needed her?
Listening to her worries instead of the fear, shutting down her brain and following her heart, Charlotte curled her fingers through Max’s collar and turned the bolt.
She nudged the door open, barely wide enough for the dog to stick his muzzle out. Charlotte leaned into the crack until the moisture in the air splashed against her cheek. Max strained against her grip to squeeze through to the gap. “Hold on.”
She wasn’t ready to do this. She had to do this. Face your fear.
“Okay.” Taking a deep breath and holding it, Charlotte put her left eye to the narrow opening and peeked outside. Her glasses fogged up almost instantly, blinding her. But she pulled the frames away from her face and let the lenses clear. Once she’d readjusted them on her nose, she huffed out a curse at her temerity. She could see the light from the streetlamp at the edge of the parking lot reflected in every rivulet of rain that streaked the polished black fender of Richard’s BMW. The car was right there, parked a couple of feet beyond the edge of the green-and-white awning.
Charlotte pushed the door open a few inches more and let Max run out to sniff the rear tire. “Richard?” she shouted through the downpour.
She hurried out to the car. Rain spotted her glasses, distorting her vision before she got the back door open. But Charlotte never climbed inside.
“Are you okay?”
Reprimand gave way to relief. Then her mind seized up with a whole different kind of fear.
She darted around her door and pulled open the driver’s door. “Richard!” Her beloved friend was slumped over the steering wheel. “Richard?” Charlotte pulled out her phone, punched in a 9. She swiped the rain from her glasses and glanced around, making sure the narrow lot was still empty, before lightly shaking his shoulder. She punched in a 1. When there was no response, she slid her arm across Richard’s chest, her fingers clinging to something warm and sticky at the side of his neck as she pulled him back against the seat. “Oh, my God.”
Richard’s eyes were open, sightless. Blood oozed from the neat round bullet hole at his temple. She couldn’t bear to look at the pulpy mess she’d felt on the other side of his head.
Charlotte.
She jerked her hand away.
Richard never called her anything but “Miss Charlotte.”
Charlotte whirled around. “Face your fear,” she chanted. “Face your fear.”
He had her number.
Whoever had done this had taken Richard’s cell phone. She’d called him, and now he could call her back.
She shut off the traitorous phone and stuffed it deep into her pocket. She checked every corner and shadow, marked every movement—a car speeding past on the curiously empty street, a wadded-up fast-food sack skipping across the pavement and Max giving chase. “Max…?”
She put her lips together and tried to whistle.
But any fleeting sense of security sputtered out along with the sound. Was there something moving beyond the Dumpster at the end of the alley?
The rain had finally pummeled its way through her thick hair and crept like chilled fingers over her scalp. There were brick walls on three sides of her—three stories high with shuttered windows and iron bars.
And the Dumpster.
“Face…” How could she face what she couldn’t see? Her heart raced. Her thoughts scattered. The nightmare surged inside her.
Besides the dog and the dead man, she was alone, right? She saw no one, heard nothing but the wind and rain and her own pulse hammering inside her ears.
But she could feel him. A chill ran straight down her spine.
She caught sight of the blood washing from her stained fingers, dripping down into the puddle at her feet. She snatched her fist back to her chest, her feet already moving, retreating from death and horror and him.
Whether the eyes watching her were real or imagined didn’t matter. Charlotte’s reaction was intense and immediate. Run. Hide. She clicked her tongue. “Max! Come on, boy. Come on.”
But the scent of trashy cheeseburger wrappers was too enticing.
“Max!” Operating in a panicked haze, she put her fingers to her lips and blew. The shrill sound pierced the heavy air and diverted the dog’s attention. “Get over here!”
Max bounded to her and she scooped him up, yanking open the museum’s back door and dumping him inside. Charlotte slammed the door behind her and twisted the dead bolt into place. Oh, God. She hadn’t imagined a damn thing. Softer than the pounding of her heart, more menacing than the bloody handprints she’d left on her coat—footsteps crunched on the pavement outside. Running footsteps. Coming closer.
Charlotte grabbed Max by the collar, backed away.
“Charlotte!” A man pounded on the door.
She screamed, stumbled over the dog and went down hard on her rump on the concrete floor.
“Charlotte!”
She didn’t know that voice. Didn’t know that man.
How did he know her name?
Flashing between nightmares and reality, between Richard’s murder and her own terror, the pounding fists seemed to beat against her.
“Charlotte! Come on, girlfriend. I know you’re in there!”
They couldn’t take her. She’d die before she’d ever let them take her again.
Scrambling to her feet, she scanned her surroundings.
“Shut up,” she muttered, trying to drown out the pounding on the door as much as she wanted to drown out the hideous memories.
She wiped her glasses clear. Yes. Safety. Survival.
“Max, come!”
She ran back to the workroom, shoved the top off a wooden crate and pulled out the long, ungainly sword from the packing material inside. The weighty blade clanged against the concrete floor and, for a moment, the pounding stopped.
She pulled out her keys and unlocked one of the storage vaults. “Max!” The dog followed her into the long, narrow room, lined with shelves from floor to ceiling.
“Charlotte! I’m coming for you!”
The banging started up again as she turned on the light and locked the door behind her. He was so angry, so menacing, so cruel. Charlotte crouched against the back shelf, holding the sword in front of her. Max trotted back and propped his paws up against her thigh. The smell of wet d
og and her own terror intensified in the close confines of the room. “Stay in the moment,” she whispered out loud. She petted her companion, to calm herself, to take control of her scattered thoughts, but stopped when she saw the blood she’d transferred onto the dog’s tan fur.
“It’s okay,” she lied. “It’s okay.”
But she’d chosen the smart, well-trained dog for a reason beyond his scarred ear. Max scratched at Charlotte’s coat, nuzzled her pocket. Call someone. The words were in her head, hiding in some rational corner of her brain.
“I can’t. If I turn on the phone, he’ll call me.”
We need help.
The deep brown eyes reached out to her, calmed her.
Charlotte nodded and pulled out her phone. She couldn’t face the police on her own. Couldn’t handle crowds. She turned it on and immediately dialed the first number her terrified brain could come up with.
The pounding outside continued, beating deep into her head. After three rings, a familiar woman’s voice picked up. “Hello? This is Audrey…Kline,” she whispered in a breathless tone.
“Audrey?”
Pound. Pound.
“Charlotte?” Her friend’s tone sharpened, grew concerned. “Is that you?” A second voice, a man’s, murmured in the background. “Alex, stop. Charlotte, is something wrong?”
Alex Taylor. Audrey’s fiancé. “I’m sorry. I forget other people have lives. I’ll call Dad at the restaurant—”
“Don’t you dare hang up!”
“What is it?” She could hear a difference in Alex’s voice. He, too, sounded efficient, rational, concerned.
“Talk to me, Char.”
“I’m at the Mayweather Museum. There’s a man at the door. Richard’s dead. I can’t—”
“Richard’s dead?”
The scratch of a dog’s paw reminded her to breathe. “Someone shot him and I’m here by myself. There’s a man…”
“Alex is calling the police now.”
“No.”
“But Charlotte—”
“What if it’s like…?” Before. Swallow that damn irrational fear. Breathe. “I won’t come out unless it’s someone I know. Have Alex come.”
“We’re on our way,” Audrey promised, relaying the information to Alex. “Are you safe?”
Alex must be on his phone, now, too. She could hear his clipped, professional tones in the background. “He’s not calling 9-1-1, is he? I won’t come out for a stranger.”
“Shh.” Audrey was hushing her, talking to her as if she was the paranoid idiot she fought so hard not to be. “He knows.”
“I locked myself inside. Max is with me.” Charlotte needed to hear her voice, needed the lifeline to sanity to keep herself from flinching at every pound on that door. “Audrey?”
“Alex is calling a friend of his. Trip’s apartment is close to the museum. We’re twenty minutes away, but he can be there in two.”
“No. I want you to come.”
“Trip’s a friend. He’s a SWAT cop, like Alex. He helped save my life during the Demetrius Smith trial. He won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“I haven’t met—”
“We’re leaving the house now. I don’t want you alone any longer than you have to be.”
“Wait. How will I know him?”
“Trust me, Char. You can’t miss him. He’ll be the biggest thing in the room.”
The biggest thing in the room? Audrey meant the description to be concise, comforting. But Richard was dead and she was alone, and whoever was banging on the outside door was no small potatoes, either.
The pounding stopped, filling the air with an abrupt silence even more ominous than the deafening noise. Charlotte’s breath locked up in her chest. Was he looking for another way to get in?
“Char?”
She jumped at Audrey’s voice. “Biggest thing in the room. Right.”
“Trip will be right there. The whole SWAT team is on their way.”
The instant Charlotte disconnected the call, it rang again. The name and number lit up with terrifying clarity.
Richard’s number.
“Oh, God.”
It rang. And rang.
“Stop it!”
She pulled her hand back in a fist, intent on hurling the tormenting object against the door. But a paw on her thigh and a glimmer of sanity had her shoving it onto the shelf beside her instead. She’d need it on to know when Audrey got here.
Then she huddled in the darkness with the sword and the ringing and her dog and waited, praying that her friends got to her before whoever had murdered Richard did.
“AUDREY CAN’T RAISE HER on her phone, big guy. You have to go in.”
“Got it.” Trip Jones stuffed his phone into the pocket of his jeans and peered over the Dumpster into the parking lot behind the Mayweather Museum of Natural History. He pulled his black KCPD ball cap farther down across his forehead to keep the rain out of his eyes, but it didn’t make what he was seeing any less unsettling. What have you gotten me into this time, Taylor?
Trip retreated a step after his initial recon, wrinkling his nose at the Dumpster’s foul smell and running through a mental debate on how he should proceed without the rest of his team on the scene yet to back him up. The rain beating down on the brim of his hat and the metallic bang of an unseen door, swinging open and shut in rhythm with the wind, were the only sounds he could make out, indicating that whatever trouble had happened here had most likely moved on.
Alex and Audrey had lost contact with their friend, and that wasn’t good. But he wasn’t taking any unnecessary chances. He had to leave the cover of his hiding place and go into that alley. Alone. But he’d go in smart. Flattening himself against the brick wall, he cinched his Kevlar vest more securely around his damp khaki work shirt and pulled his Glock 9 mil from the holster at his waist. He rolled his neck, taking a deep breath and fine-tuning his senses before edging his way around the Dumpster.
Alex had told him three things when he’d called about the off-duty emergency. Find a woman named Charlotte. Keep her safe. And…don’t go by your first impression of her. Odd though that last admonition had been, the concern had been real enough to pull Trip away from the book he’d been reading and haul ass over to the museum in the block next to his apartment.
You owe me for this one, shrimp. Trip towered over Alex by more than a foot, and while he might not be quite the tallest man on the force, he was damn well the biggest wall of don’t-mess-with-this muscle and specialized training KCPD’s premiere SWAT team had to offer. But even he didn’t like the looks of what he was walking into. A woman alone at night, in these conditions—something about a murder… Trip frowned. This was all kinds of wrong.
The place was desolate, deserted—solid walls on three sides with bricked-up windows. Rain poured down hard enough to muffle all but the loudest cry for help. A skilled hunter wouldn’t have to work hard to isolate and corner his prey here.
And apparently one had.
Trip approached the car at the museum’s rear entrance.
Don’t be her. Don’t be Charlotte. He didn’t want to have to explain showing up a couple of minutes too late to Alex and his fiancée. Or his own conscience.
Gripping his gun between both hands, Trip crept alongside the black BMW. He breathed a sigh of relief and cursed all in the same breath. The driver’s side doors stood open, the interior lights were on, but no one was home. He put two fingers to the side of the slumping chauffeur’s neck. Hard to tell for sure with the cooling temps, but he’d been gone for a couple of hours.
At least the pool of blood was localized. No one else had been hurt at this location. No signs of a struggle in the backseat. But Trip said a quick prayer as he reached in beside the dead man to pop the trunk of the car. After closing the door to preserve what he could of the crime scene, he edged around the back to peek inside. His breath steamed out through his nose.
No body. No Charlotte.
That left the museum’s steel door
, caught by the wind and thumping against the bricks beneath the awning. After pulling a flashlight from the pocket of his jeans, Trip caught the door and quickly inspected the lock. Scratch marks around the keyhole for the dead bolt indicated forced entry.
He hadn’t completed his task yet.
Gritting his teeth and his nerve against whatever he might find on the other side of those bricks, Trip swung the beam of light inside. The museum’s warehouse section was dark, with tall, blocklike shapes forming patterns of opaque blackness amongst the shadows. A second sweep led him to the switch box just inside the door.
The electricity had been switched to the off position. The need to move, to act, to fix something, danced across his skin. Dead man aside, someone had broken in and cut the power.
Alex’s friend was in serious trouble.
To hell with stealth. “Charlotte Mayweather!”
A rustle of sound answered his echoing voice.
That itch kicked into hyperdrive, pricking up the hairs on his arms and at the back of his neck. “Charlotte!”
Thump.
Perp? Or victim?
He wasn’t waiting to find out. “KCPD. Come out with your hands on your head.”
He squinted his eyes and flipped on the power switch, creating a shorter recovery time for his vision to adjust as the cavernous interior flooded with light. The shadows became shelves stacked with crates from floor to ceiling, and tables in aisles where more boxes were stored. He swung the light around toward a shuffle of sound and discovered a row of three closed doors marked…
“Not now.” He focused the light at the sign on the first door—Z3CVP3 ZTOPVÇ3—and let the letters swirl inside his head until they read SECURE STORAGE.
He didn’t have to read the sign on the door to detect the movement behind it. He lowered the beam of light. Another lock. But no signs of entry.