Kilty Pack One

by Amy Vansant

  Catriona shook her head, unable to wrap her brain around the information provided. Timmy Grey was a cartoonishly-foppish man of about one hundred and sixty pounds, fully dressed. If asked to make a list of people she thought capable of tearing out a woman’s throat, dance judge Timmy Grey would sit near the bottom.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  “They have him pinned over there.” The man nodded his head to the right, his gaze never leaving the pool of blood creeping across the pavement beside him.

  Catriona touched his shoulder. “You’re doing great. Keep that pressure. They’re almost here.”

  The man’s jaw clenched and he nodded.

  Catriona straightened and pushed her way through the onlookers to find Timmy Grey, the alleged attacker, huddled against the wall of another studio building, tearing at his own skin, threads of blood running down his forearms. The crowd had trapped him there, encircling him and holding their arms wide like cowboys cornering a wandering calf.

  Timmy’s eyes were wild. He wore pressed-velvet cranberry-colored trousers and a shredded white shirt with a polka dot cravat still dangling from his throat by a thread.

  Spotting her as she pushed through the crowd, Timmy turned to press his chest against the wall, clawing at the corrugated metal as if he thought he could climb to the roof like a cockroach and escape.

  “Timmy!”

  Timmy’s head spun. His eyes locked on hers, his chest heaving.

  Catriona raised her palms in an attempt to ease him. “Timmy. This isn’t you—”

  The dance judge pushed off the wall like a released pinball and bolted towards her. The crowd loosed a collective yelp and stumbled back, desperate to avoid the blood-splattered maniac.

  Timmy’s fingers curled, clawing the space before him, as if it were necessary to tear through the air to reach her. Though he was a diminutive man, years of dance training had made his body taut and his legs fast.

  Too fast.

  Unwilling to run and endanger the others, Catriona braced herself to catch her attacker, hoping when he hit she could steamroller him back and tackle him to the ground. The closer he grew, the more she doubted her plan. Three feet from her he opened his mouth so wide she thought his jaw might unhinge. He roared, as if a demon sat at the helm of his body.

  He leapt, claws still outstretched before him. Catriona was still calculating the best way to wrap Timmy tight without losing half her face, when an enormous fist buzzed past her shoulder and struck Timmy square in the nose, knocking him back and to the ground like a clattering board.

  Heart still racing, Catriona couldn’t help but flash a smile.

  Kilty.

  Broch pushed her behind him as Timmy sprang from the ground like a rising vampire. The little man lunged again, this time at Broch, who grabbed his child-sized wrists and twisted them behind his back. Timmy hissed like a feral cat, teeth snapping, his arms crisscrossed against his chest and Broch behind him, Timmy tied in his arms like a human gift bow.

  The judge kicked at Broch’s shins until the Highlander knocked the back of Timmy’s knees, folding him. They fell together, Broch on top, to the ground. Timmy’s face hit first and Catriona watched a tooth bounce across the pavement to rest at her feet.

  The crowd released a collective “Ooooh....”

  Timmy continued to struggle until he finally fell limp beneath Broch’s weight.

  “Are you sure he can breathe?” asked Catriona.

  Broch tilted back his head to stare up at her, his brow covered in sweat.

  “Does it maiter? The man’s mad.”

  Blood spotted Broch’s t-shirt in the vicinity of his wound. His bandage beneath had to be soaked through, and Catriona feared the struggle had torn his stitches. She squatted beside him, checking to see if Timmy had been pressed into a pancake.

  “Just ease up on him a little bit. I think you’re crushing him.”

  Broch grunted, shifting his weight. “That wis the point.” He shifted to his knees, pulling Timmy back and holding him like a shield in front of him. The small man’s head head hung like a broken chicken’s neck, but he was breathing. His boney chest exposed where he’d shredded his own shirt, Catriona counted his heart beats at well over one hundred per minute. He had to have been knocked cold by his fall, or she felt confident he’d still be raging. Something had his heart racing, even in his unconscious state.

  She stood. Two ambulances had arrived with several police vehicles in tow. She held her hand above her head, feeling responsible for the gawking crowd of Parasol dancers and employees.

  “Everyone, please back up. We have to make way. You’ll only be hindering our attempts to help these people. If you’re injured, physically or mentally, please stand by that wall.” She pointed to the wall of the dance studio as she shifted into avoid litigation mode, knowing there was little chance of success.

  “He tore out her throat!” screamed someone on the verge of hysteria, but the crowd began to disperse. Those who didn’t leave backed to the outer edges of the scene.

  No one stood against the wall. Catriona took some comfort there, until her gaze began to sweep the scene.

  There was blood everywhere.

  Droplets, footprints and smears stained both the ground. The EMTs fought to save the life of the girl. The man who had been applying pressure to her throat stood nearby, seemingly in shock, more blood than flesh visible on his hands.

  Two officers ran towards Timmy and Broch, guns drawn but held low. Another pair approached the crowd, asking for them to remain calm and gather where the police could begin the interview process.

  “The man who did this is there,” said Catriona, pointing to Timmy as the running officers approached. “He’s unconscious. The man holding him is my—” She wasn’t sure what to call Broch. Partner sounded odd. She changed directions. “He works for me.”

  “Put him down,” said a short, stocky officer, holstering his gun as he approached.

  Broch lowered Timmy to the ground and stood as the officers untangled the unconscious man’s arms and motioned to the EMTs to come forward.

  “If he wakes up, be careful. He’s definitely on something,” warned Catriona.

  One of the officers raised a hand. “We’ve got it from here.”

  Catriona took a step back and motioned for Broch to come stand beside her. The EMTs rolled Timmy on his back, his mouth gaping, a dark gap where his front tooth once sat. His lips and chin, scraped from his fall, had already begun to swell.

  Catriona hung her head and took a deep breath.

  Some fixer I am.

  This one had gotten away from her.

  The girl would be lucky to live. Regardless of what had caused Timmy’s frenzy, he wouldn’t survive with his career intact.

  He’d probably spend the rest of his life in jail.

  Fixer fail.

  Chapter Ten

  Luther arrived at the studio shortly after the ambulance doors shut on Timmy’s victim. Catriona saw him dodge as the wailing vehicle tore toward Southern California Hospital. She waved to him and he broke into a trot, moving with an agility uncommon in such a big man. Luther lumbered when he walked and jogged with the grace of a gazelle.

  “What can I do?” he asked, eyeballing the blood-splattered Highlander at her side.

  “We’re going to be tied up with the police for a while. Broch brought down Timmy, so they’re going to have questions for him.”

  Luther nodded to Broch. “Good job.”

  Broch nodded back using the tight-lipped, manly shorthand that apparently even men from other centuries understood.

  Luther strained to catch a glimpse of Timmy, who lay restrained on the ground, his eyes now open and wide, staring at the sky, his chest heaving. The worst of his frenzy ended, the dancing judge seemed both agitated and dazed. The police pulled him to his feet and walked him toward the second ambulance.

  “Did you get a chance to talk to Timmy?” asked Luther.

  Catriona shook her
head. “Not even close. He was out of his mind. It was all we could do to keep him from shredding his own arms.”

  “Drugs?”

  “No doubt.”

  Luther pulled at his chin. “I’ll take a peek in his dressing room. See if I can find anything.”

  Catriona nodded. Finding drugs before the cops was part of the job she didn’t like, but mission number one was protect the studio’s assets. Not at any cost, but she lived in the grey area.

  This time, revealing instead of hiding the drugs might be their best option. Drugs could be the only way to explain why Timmy had been temporarily insane.

  Luther scanned the area. Catriona could see he was tracking potential witnesses—and potential lawsuits—as they wandered past.

  “This is going to be a tough one,” he said in his lowest baritone.

  She nodded. “Agreed. The rest of the cast are being gathered in the Ballroom Bounce studio. I think they were filming packages for the upcoming show. At least we don’t have to keep tabs on an entire studio audience.”

  Catriona spotted an officer headed in her direction and shooed Luther away before the authorities decided he needed to stick around as well. “Incoming. Disappear. See if you can keep the media coverage to a minimum.”

  “Sure, I’ll take Instagram offline,” drawled Luther.

  His grimace expressed how much he missed the old days, when a story could be squashed by paying off one nosey reporter. Now everyone with a phone had the ability and desire to spread a story to millions.

  He gave her a tap on the arm, nodded to Broch and jogged toward the studio to sniff for whatever substance had driven Timmy to lunacy.

  Catriona turned to eyeball the Highlander. He looked as if he’d walked out of a horror movie. In addition to the mess left from wrestling blood-smeared Timmy, a dark scarlet stain spread across the area of his wound.

  Broch followed her stare and peered down at his tee. “Ah need tae get a shower.”

  “We have to talk to the police first.”

  The officer she’d spotted heading in her direction arrived, having stopped to talk to several other witnesses on his way. He introduced himself and lobbed the usual questions for twenty minutes. It might have gone faster, but he didn’t have an ear for Broch’s thick Scottish brogue and the Highlander had to repeate every other answer. Exasperated, Catriona began acting as translator. She wasn’t sure why, but she’d never had trouble understanding her strapping new intern.

  At the end of their interviews Catriona and Broch headed across the lot to their apartments on the third floor of the payroll building.

  Entering the lower-level office, they waved their hellos to Jean, head of payroll, who sat typing away on her spreadsheets. She pushed her reading glasses up into her nest of auburn curls and beamed upon spotting Broch.

  “Hello, you sexy thing.”

  She tilted her head down to adore him through exaggerated bedroom-eyes. Though she’d attempted to deliver the line in a smoky tone, her cool soon cracked and she devolved into giggles before finishing her sentence.

  Catriona waggled a finger in Jean’s direction. “I’m going to report you to HR.”

  Jean grinned. “It’s not sexual harassment when you’re as old as I am.” She squinted at Brochan, her expression morphing from mirth to concern in one hard shift. “Is that blood all over you? Are you okay?”

  Broch approached the desk, taking Jean’s hand to kiss the back of it. “Ah’m fine. And yer a dear fur askin’, Jeannie.”

  Jean rolled her eyes back to pantomime a swoon. “Say it for me,” she demanded as Catriona pulled him toward the elevator.

  “Tap o' th' mornin' tae ye,” called Brochan over his shoulder.

  Jean whooped with laughter and Catriona couldn’t stop herself from chuckling. Jean knew that iconic phrase was Irish, not Scottish, but she didn’t care. She made Broch say it every time she saw him.

  Broch reached for the third floor button and winced as the movement pulled on his wound.

  Catriona frowned. “I need to check those stitches.”

  He grunted.

  Upon reaching their floor, Broch attempted to walk past her door to his own, but she grabbed his wrist and tugged him back. He yielded to his fate as she unlocked her door and motioned for him to enter.

  “After you.”

  He walked past her into the apartment and turned to face her.

  She closed the door. “Take off your shirt.”

  Broch did as he was told and pulled his tee over his head, grimacing in pain. As the shirt dropped to the ground, she saw his bandage, tucked beneath his arm beside his massive pectoral muscle, glistening with fresh blood.

  “Blech,” she said.

  “Ah need tae get a shower,” he repeated, even more grimly than the first time.

  “I know, I know. Slow your roll. Let me fix this. You shouldn’t even be getting a shower. You can’t get the wound wet. You should take a bath.”

  His eyebrows raised. “We have a bath?”

  “No. We don’t. But maybe I can tape a plastic bag to it so you can shower. Hold on.”

  Catriona strode to her en suite bathroom and pulled the plastic blue basket that stored her medical supplies from beneath the sink. Returning to the main room, she motioned for him to sit on a stool beside her kitchen island.

  Gingerly, she peeled back his bandage.

  The wound didn’t prove as angry as she feared it might be. She wasn’t a doctor, but from what she could tell, the stitches had held. All the movement during his struggle with Timmy had encouraged blood to seep through, though, and the area needed a good cleaning. She dabbed the stitched spot with hydrogen peroxide, stroking a cotton ball across his skin to remove the worst of the mess. She ran it across the muscles rippling along his rib cage, feeling like a sculptor as the crusted blood gave way to smooth flesh.

  I’m da Vinci and he’s my David.

  She giggled and his face suddenly loomed in her vision, their noses nearly touching as he dipped his neck. “Whit’s sae funny?”

  She applied more peroxide to the cotton ball, embarrassed he’d caught her daydreaming. “Nothing. Making myself laugh, as usual.”

  She applied a new bandage, running her hand along his chest to smooth the edges and apply the tape. She probably could have used her fingertips and restrained her strokes to the area immediately surrounding the wound...but why, really. Better to be thorough, right?

  Opening a drawer, she retrieved a gallon freezer bag, snipped away the zip closure and cut the sides to turn the bag into a piece of plastic sheeting. She scissored it to an acceptable size and then taped it over his bandage.

  “This will protect it from the shower. Try not to let the water pound in around the edges.”

  He nodded and she looked up to find him staring at her.

  “What?”

  He smiled. “Yer guid at that.”

  “Bandaging?”

  “Aye.”

  She shrugged. “Thank you. Sean used to get banged up all the time in his younger days. I guess I picked up a few things. I can even do a few stitches if I have to, but I don’t think you need any.”

  Broch reached out with his right hand to stroke her cheek. His feather touch inspired a shiver of pleasure.

  Her eyes fluttered shut. When she forced her lids to open, she found the Highlander’s gaze on her burned with more than lust—lust she might have been able to handle. His desire mingled with a tenderness threatening to unnerve her. She feared if she melted into his arms she’d never solidify again.

  She put a palm against his temple and ran her thumb along the scar that crossed his eye. He closed his own lids and she leaned in to kiss the one once spared by the blow that left the surrounding flesh scarred.

  She pulled away, dropping her hand and turning to the pile of swabs on the island. “I made a mess here,” she mumbled, tossing tape rolls into the blue basket.

  Broch pulled her hands from her fiddling, the long fingers of his left hand
looping around her wrist. He reached around her with his opposite hand to place it on her lower back, sliding it down the curve of her bottom. From his position on the stool, he guided her to stand between his legs.

  She didn’t resist. He released her wrist and cradled her chin in his palm, his thumb tracing her lips as he leaned in to kiss her.

  She returned his kiss, mouth opening as he pressed more deeply. She closed her eyes, her face and arms tingling as her skin flushed, the blood beneath it ignited by his touch.

  Catriona tilted back her head to gasp for air and he kissed her neck, cradling her body against the uninjured side of his chest with his massive arm.

  “We shuid git merit,” he whispered in her ear as his lips brushed there.

  Though Catriona had recently marveled at how well she understood the Highlander’s brogue, she missed the whisper. At first. Perhaps because she didn’t really care what he’d said, as long as he didn’t stop exploring her neck with his tongue.

  He pulled her shirt away from her skin to trace her collarbone with kisses. She moaned with pleasure.

  Somewhere in the back of her head a tiny voice sang.

  What did he say?

  Another section of her brain shouted down that first voice.

  Shut up. Just shut up.

  She recognized the second speaker. That was her pleasure center. The same voice that talked her into having another glass of wine or accepting dates from hot men she knew would be nothing but trouble.

  Usually in that order.

  That dumb, fun voice.

  Though she fought against it, the more logical side of her mind demanded clarity. It tapped into her unusually sharp memory and looped Broch’s mumble over and over until she’d deciphered what he’d said.

  No. That couldn’t be.

  “It sounded like you said we should get married,” she mumbled, the words mushed as she began to kiss him again.

  She dug her nails where his buttocks overlapped the kitchen stool, pulling herself closer to him.

  “Ah did say that.”

  She snorted a little laugh—at least little enough so she wasn’t immediately horrified for snorting in the first place. “I’ll check my schedule for Tuesday.”