by Geri Krotow
But “one of the contestants” was supposed to be Bella. She fingered her hair, which had fallen out of its ponytail. Her red hair was a beacon to the killer. So why hadn’t he tried to grab her in the chaos of the explosion and tear gas? Why did he go after Becky?
It impressed her that Holden was so certain it was tear gas. He’d had in-depth training at Quantico, she knew, but still. Bella wouldn’t know the difference between tear gas and a heavy fog until her eyes began to water.
She’d escaped the effects of the tear gas, as had Holden and Delilah. But Marcie’s eyes were still streaming tears and her skin was a ruddy shade. A fierce sense of protection welled inside her gut. Bella had only known these women, her competition, for two days and yet she felt they were part of a team.
Even Becky, for all her bluster and meddling.
“Look!” Delilah stood beside her, gaze glued to the scene at the open stage doors. EMTs were running across the small field, carrying a board. They disappeared into the building and Bella’s stomach dropped. “They’ve probably found Becky. I hope she’s okay.”
“Me, too.” But while she was concerned about Becky, Bella couldn’t keep from worrying about Holden. What if he’d encountered the killer in the school’s hallways and been hurt, or worse?
And why was she so invested in a man she’d met a little more than twenty-four hours ago?
You already know that answer.
She’d watched friends fall for someone they barely knew. She’d also seen her brother Spencer fall hard for his now-fiancée, Katrina, in a very short amount of time. When it came to finding the person you cared about more deeply than anyone else, time didn’t seem to be a factor. One day or one year could be equal. But she wasn’t falling for Holden.
No, Holden was the agent in charge of a special investigation. She was an undercover reporter hoping to avenge Gio’s too-early death and to advance her career, truth be told.
It wasn’t the time for even a brief fling, much less contemplating whether she’d met her match.
Bella was good at logic. It was all part of being a top-notch blogger and reporter. But logic and common sense blew apart into tiny shards that pierced her heart when she saw the EMTs emerge from the school with a woman, Becky, strapped to their board. At least Becky had color in her cheeks and appeared to be trying to talk, a good sign. Relief began to ease the tightness in her shoulders. Holden walked several steps behind, talking to Spencer as he led Boris to a spot to go to the bathroom.
The sight of Holden behaving completely normally lifted the rest of the tightness in her muscles. Was it normal to be this relieved, this joyous, that Holden was totally fine?
Probably not.
She was in trouble, and not just from a killer.
* * *
“It’s important that we take twenty-four hours off to search the school and clear any remaining explosives.” Spencer spoke in front of the group of pageant officials, contestants and stage techs huddled under the stadium benches. “Seeing that you’ve all already been out here for too long, it’s time to call it a day and go home.”
“Wait a minute.” Selina spoke up, her face flushed but otherwise not showing an iota of stress. Holden hadn’t appreciated how she’d been so rude to Bella but he had to give the woman credit for composure. “You can’t stop the pageant. We’ll just have to move it to another venue until you declare the building safe again.”
“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, either.” Holden stood next to Spencer. They’d already gone over how to handle this expected reaction. “We’ve got the security in place here to monitor the pageant. It will take at least two weeks to find and set up security at another place in Mustang Valley.”
“You’re a security guard. I’ll take direction from MVPD, thank you very much.” Selina was back in full-blown pill mode.
“Mr. St. Clair is a qualified security expert.” Spencer vouched for him, unable to reveal their ties or Holden’s true identity. “He’s right. Either take a full day off and continue the pageant preparations the day after tomorrow, or cancel the whole thing now.”
Grumbles and complaints rolled through the small group but didn’t last. Either they were all wiped from being out in the Arizona heat or frightened enough by the day’s events to go along with whatever Spencer suggested. Holden watched them all carefully, and kept a hand on his phone in case his handler texted or called with information on Selina. Holden had asked him to check where she’d been during the two pageants that involved killings.
“What happened to Becky?” Marcie stood near Bella, in the spot Holden wished he were—close enough to touch her.
“Becky’s got a severe sprain, maybe a broken ankle.” Spencer took his ball cap off and ran his hand over his sweating brow, then replaced it. He wore full protective gear, dressed in a tactical response uniform. Boris, his impressive K-9, was in the air-conditioned MVPD K-9 SUV. “She was regaining consciousness as the EMTs moved her to the ambulance.”
“Fess up, Colton. Did you push her?” Laurel, a woman Holden had noticed seemed to stay quiet until one of the pot-stirrers like Becky spoke up, accused Bella to her face.
“I wasn’t anywhere near the back stage doors all morning, in case you didn’t notice.” Bella held her own.
“Then it had to be you.” Laurel turned to Selina. “You Coltons don’t like being found out. There’s no doubt you’re going to give Bella extra points for being a relative. Becky had the ovaries to call you out.”
“I’ve never been out of your sight all morning. Unless you weren’t paying attention to the choreography?” One hundred and ten degrees in the shade and Selina kept her cool.
“That’s enough.” Mimi stepped in front of the group. “This isn’t about the pageant anymore. It’s about the safety of all of you, and the security of the school building. We’re breaking until eight a.m. the day after tomorrow. I suggest you all practice the two routines Selina has already given you, and use the time to work on your talent portion.”
“I can set us all up on videoconference. Anyone without a personal computer or laptop, talk to me and I’ll have one sent to your home.” Selina finally used her Colton bank for good. “I’ll see you virtually tomorrow morning.” Selina started for her car and a few of the contestants followed.
Bella walked up to Holden and spoke to him and Spencer privately. “I’m going back to my house to cool off. I can take Boris with me if you want, Spencer.”
“You’re going nowhere on your own, Bella.” Holden tried to keep the growl out of his voice but he was working from a primal instinct he couldn’t remember ever feeling before.
Heat flashed in her eyes, the visceral connection between them palpable.
“I can drive myself to the dang police station and wait while you two do whatever you need to here.”
“Bella, go home with Holden. He’s not part of the sweep.” Spencer looked at Holden with understanding. He knew better than anyone how stubborn his sister could be. “We’ve ascertained your house is clear last night, and I’ve had a unit there all day, with two additional officers patrolling your property. Your house is safe as long as Holden is with you. I can’t risk you going anywhere else, Bella. You could lead the killer to innocent people.”
Bella’s eyes widened, her cheeks pink with anger. “Wait a minute. You’re blaming me for the explosion, for Becky’s nasty fall?”
“Of course he’s not.” Holden knew he had to share in the line of fire with Spencer. “There’s a criminal here, possibly a serial killer.”
“You mean probably, don’t you?”
“I can’t confirm anything yet.”
“Give Holden a break, Bella. Now’s not the time to get all reporter on anyone.”
“Oh, that’s rich, Spencer. You telling me how to do my job.”
“I just want you to be safe, sis.” Spencer must have heard t
he hurt in Bella’s tone. Holden wanted to take her away from all of this, to another state, another country. Anywhere but here, where the omnipresent sense of danger lurking wouldn’t shake.
Bella’s posture softened a smidge. “I know. But I have a job to do, too, you know. I can’t do it from my house, no matter how safe. I have to figure out where the files from the Ms. Mustang Valley archive have been taken. I need to go through them, see if any of the suspects I’m looking at have evidence in them.”
“Who are you looking at?” Spencer looked at Bella, then Holden.
Bella told him about Becky, Selina, Hannah Rosenstein, and Ben the lighting guy.
“You’re right, sis—you need the information they contain. Someone on the committee knows where they are, and probably what’s in them.”
“Bella’s already done a lot of the same background research that we did in our field office. But we still don’t have motivation or corroboration on the suspects that are on the Ms. Mustang Valley committee.”
Holden took a step closer to her and placed his arm around Bella’s waist. He saw Spencer’s brow raise. He didn’t care. They were working a life-or-death operation and he suddenly didn’t care what his best friend or anyone else thought about the nature of his relationship with Bella. His grandmother had told him that some connections were visceral, inexplicable. His attraction to—and protective instinct toward—Bella fell into that category.
Bella looked up at him, met his gaze and held it. If he was able to trust that it wasn’t just wishful thinking on his part, he would say he saw a flicker of trust in her eyes. Trust in him.
“Do you think so?”
“I do. And if anyone can get someone to spill, you can. It just won’t be over the next thirty-six hours.” He turned to Spencer. “I’ve got your sister’s back, Spencer.”
Spencer nodded. “I know you do. I’ll make sure the patrol remains in place regardless. For both of your sakes.”
Holden had to fight the urge to keep his arm wrapped around Bella’s waist and pull her to him as they walked across the wide field to the parking lot. He opened the door for her and then got in the driver’s side of his nondescript sedan.
“Please try to see it from my point of view. This is my only chance to get this story right, and I’m coming up against brick walls in every direction.” Bella spoke the moment his butt hit the car seat, and he had no doubt she was hyped up on adrenaline.
He put the car into gear and drove out of the school lot. “There are other pageants in the area, aren’t there?”
“None is as important as this one, from all Gio told me. It’s Ms. Mustang Valley where Gio got her start in the pageant business, and when she said her eating disorders began. I should know, as I tried to get her into a doctor six years ago, after that year’s Ms Mustang Valley. For some reason, Gio’s illness always flared around the time of this pageant.”
“You never noticed she had issues before then?” She’d mentioned that she and Gio had been friends since grade school.
Bella sighed. “Not at the time. We did everything together, from summer camps to sleepovers. I thought Gio never ate differently than the rest of us, and she told me herself that her problems with body image and food began when she entered this pageant for the first time. Looking back, I suppose her problems may have began many years earlier than I originally thought.”
“How many times did she compete in Ms. Mustang Valley?”
“Eight. Until last year, actually, when her physical appearance began to visibly suffer from the bulimia. There was a point when no amount of clothing or cosmetics could hide the toll of the bingeing and purging. It affected her mental health far longer, but it wasn’t as physically visible until it was too late.” He shot a look at Bella’s resolute profile, the passing desert scenery serving as a colorful backdrop. The timelessness of her beauty struck him and he forced his gaze back to the road.
“It had to be incredibly difficult to watch that. When did she tell you she had a problem, or did you figure it out first?”
Bella shook her head. “That’s just it. It was insidious. I had no clue at first, years ago. But gradually her symptoms began to add up to me. Her depression, bouts with anxiety, her obsession with food. Then I noticed her teeth were yellowed. Gio always had a bright smile and I asked her if she was smoking. She laughed and said no, it was from an antibiotic she’d taken as a kid. But I knew that wasn’t true. Her mother spoke to me, as she was worried, too, as was her entire family. They thought I’d be able to convince her to go to the hospital. Gio had blown off their concerns. I begged her to get help, even offered to drive her to a clinic for treatment of eating disorders. Gio refused, said she’d fix it herself. Now I realize that we were both in denial of how lethal her illness was. Her mother called me a couple of months later and asked to meet me. She told me Gio had entered rehab and was in treatment. I couldn’t visit her for the first part, but I did go several times to visit, when allowed.”
“But that rehab time didn’t do it for Gio?”
She let out a bitter laugh. “No. That’s the hard part. Just like a drug addict or alcoholic, it can take several attempts to achieve a level of health that is sustainable. Gio went through treatment five times, and it looked like she was going to make it the last time. She gained weight and went back to work.”
“But?” He turned onto her driveway, nodding at the MVPD officer in the cruiser on the street.
“It didn’t hold. Less than two years later she was gone.”
He turned off the engine and faced her. “You don’t still blame yourself, do you?”
“How can I not? Sure, I’ve read the literature, spoken to my own therapist about it.” She bit her lower lip as if regretting her admission. “I go to a counselor regularly, about once every other month. I used to go weekly after my parents died, and then again when my aunt died and my brothers and I were on our own. Despite our last name, none of the larger-than-life Coltons so much as invited us to dinner.”
“That’s rough. Let’s go inside.” He didn’t want her to get warm again and the AC’s effect was dissipating quickly.
“Sure, but Holden?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for listening. You have a lot on your mind with this case, and I’m sure the last thing you expected was to listen to a sad story.”
“No problem.”
No problem? He got out of the car before he said something equally ridiculous.
Bella was ahead of him and waited while he opened her door, following him only after he’d cleared the house.
As the front door closed she headed for the kitchen. Without preamble she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of water and filled a large tumbler with an Arizona State logo. Bella gulped until it was empty, and immediately refilled it. Only after she’d finished half of the second did she stop and look at him.
“Do you want some?” Her face was flushed and large splotches of wet dotted her white tank top, dirtied from the explosion. Her breasts pressed against the light material and her skin glistened with perspiration. He rued the presence of her sports bra, which prevented him from seeing the outline of what he imagined to be perfectly round, rosy nipples.
He wished her sweat was from a long round of lovemaking, of bringing her to climax, and not from her being dehydrated.
“Yeah.” He wanted “something” all right. But it wasn’t anything he had a right to ask for.
She put the plastic insulated cup down. “Holden.”
“Pour me a glass, Bella.”
“Here you go.” Bella handed him a glass and he carefully accepted it from the bottom, avoiding any physical contact. He was using every skill he possessed to keep an erection from becoming obvious.
But nothing was enough to dowse the fire Bella lit. If he did something stupid, like kiss her, how much would he regret it?
&nbs
p; “I’ve got to get a shower.” With no further preamble, Bella turned and fled toward her room.
Chapter 13
Bella was always mindful of water usage and made her showers short and functional whenever possible. But today had been a zinger and she needed to cool off. It wasn’t from the hot sun, dance practice or running to escape the locker explosion, though.
Her body was on fire for Holden.
“Stay on course.” After shutting off the shower she grabbed a towel and scrubbed herself dry. Nothing was enough of a distraction from her treacherous libido, though. Why hadn’t she taken up with that pro baseball player who’d asked her out twice this past spring?
Because his brains didn’t match his wallet, he didn’t ignite the flame she wanted lit. Instead of regret at the road not taken, she was relieved that she wasn’t attached to anyone. She was free to pursue any man she chose.
And for tonight, she chose Holden. May as well own up to it. Without further thought, she donned her silk robe that barely hit her upper thighs and belted it snugly around her waist, liking how the material provided just the right amount of support for her small breasts. Grabbing a condom from her nightstand, she slipped it into her pocket and went out into the kitchen and great room.
Holden lay on the sofa, stretched out to his full length. She placed him at six-three or six-four, as Spencer was six feet tall and Holden was taller than him. Padding across the wide-planked flooring in bare feet, she stopped no more than a foot from him. His arms were crossed and his head lay to the side, facing the back of the couch. She could make out the curve of his ear and the shadow of his short-cropped hair on the side of his head.
“Holden?” She whispered his name, her belly tightening as she anticipated his touch. Since he’d kissed her literally senseless behind the stage curtain, all Bella thought of when she looked at him was how it would feel to go beyond the kisses and into the full depth of Holden’s lovemaking.
At first she thought she heard wrong, that maybe he’d said an endearment instead of her name. Until she leaned over him, straining to hear, and recognized that Holden wasn’t talking.