by Jane Godman
Jordana knew this place like the back of her hand. Before she retired from the Navy and became a cop, as a kid she’d been a regular at this place.
In spite of her mother’s ardent attempts to change her, Jordana had been a straight-up tomboy, more content to spend time running with the boys than hanging out with the girls.
As a precocious twelve-year-old Jordana had come to the conclusion that girls were boring. As opinions went, nothing had changed much since she was twelve. Shocker: Jordana didn’t have many girlfriends. But that suited her just fine. She didn’t have anything in common with most of the women in Braxville and small talk was excruciating.
So, best to avoid it was her motto.
Dr. Cervantes saw her enter and waved her over to a bay. “Sorry to break up your day like this but all he had was this in his hand.” He handed Jordana a slip of paper. Sure enough, her name and cell were scrawled in masculine handwriting, plain as day.
Jordana took a closer look at the guy who remained knocked out, an IV drip feeding fluids into his body, but otherwise he seemed in relatively stable condition. “Head injury?” she surmised.
“Yes, concussion with some minor brain swelling. He should regain consciousness soon but I thought you might want to come down and take a look. I was hoping you might recognize him.”
But Jordana was looking at a stranger.
Older, best guess in his mid-thirties, some salt-and-pepper seasoning in his sideburns but an otherwise strong head of dark hair. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that this man wasn’t from Braxville.
Also, she didn’t have a clue who the hell he was or why he’d been looking for her.
“Sorry, drawing a blank on this end,” Jordana said to Dr. Cervantes, but offered to run his prints. “Something tells me this guy ain’t living off the grid. His prints ought to be in the system.” Jordana pulled her fingerprinting device from her pocket. One of the fancier gadgets the department had purchased with some help from a Homeland Security grant. It was all digital and it went straight to the database.
Jordana gently pressed his fingers against the pad, recording his prints. No messy ink, no cleanup. Sometimes Jordana loved technology. Other times she missed the days when everyone wasn’t so heavily connected.
While the device ran a search, Jordana asked for details about the John Doe. “So, what happened to him?”
“Someone found him out on Range Road, like he’d been dumped. Looks like someone thought they’d done the job with that crack in the head but he’s a lucky bastard because it didn’t fracture the skull, just knocked him around plenty.”
“He ought to run out and buy some scratchers with that kind of luck,” Jordana said. “That blow could’ve killed him.”
Dr. Cervantes agreed. “Like I said, lucky. I wish I had that kind of luck. If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any.”
Jordana chuckled at the doc’s wry humor even if he was full of bologna. Dr. Cervantes seemed to live a charmed life. His wife, Valeria, was a Peruvian beauty and his kids all looked like they were plucked from a magazine photoshoot. On the surface, he had it all.
Jordana knew better than to trust appearances. Still, she hoped that all was as it seemed when it came to Dr. Cervantes because she genuinely liked him.
“Your wife is too pretty for you,” Jordana quipped with a snort. “Take your blessings where you find them.”
Dr. Cervantes chuckled with a nod. “Such wisdom from someone so young,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.
She barked a laugh. “Young? I feel every second of my thirty-one years. Some days I’m pretty sure I might be sixty.”
“Someday someone is going to turn you from a cynic to a romantic,” Dr. Cervantes prophesied. Jordana laughed because it was highly unlikely but the doc was certain of it, saying, “If I were a betting man...you’re too attractive to spend your life chasing criminals.”
Jordana wagged her finger at him. “Ahhh, watch out, Doc, your sexism is showing. I happen to like chasing criminals.”
Dr. Cervantes sighed as if he’d never understand but said, “I stand by my words. I’m never wrong about these things.”
A soft ding alerted Jordana that the search was finished. “Saved by the bell,” she teased, lifting the device to read the results. Oh, damn. She, sort of, did know him. Well, not in person but she’d spoken to him on the phone two weeks ago. “His name is Clint Broderick, thirty-six, from Chicago.”
Clint Broderick was the last living relative of the dead body fished out of the wall of a warehouse scheduled for demo by Colton Construction. The body was identified as Fenton Crane, a private investigator with a shady past, with only one living relative: Clint.
“So you do know him?”
She couldn’t get into specifics, not with the Crane investigation still ongoing. “Yeah, part of a possible murder investigation. Mr. Broderick was supposed to meet with me two weeks ago but then I didn’t hear from him.”
“Seems he must’ve tangled with the wrong people,” Dr. Cervantes said.
“So it would seem.”
Instead of solving the mystery, the mystery had deepened.
If Clint Broderick had been on his way to see Jordana, what happened along the way? The fact that the only living relative of the dead guy walled up in an old warehouse ended up bashed in the head and left for dead didn’t seem like a coincidence.
Did someone want to protect a secret? Did Broderick know something someone wanted to keep quiet?
She had questions only Broderick could answer—but the man was still out cold.
To the doc, she said, “Can you move him to a private, secure room?”
“That can be arranged. Should we post security, too?”
“Might be a good idea. At least until he wakes up.”
Dr. Cervantes nodded. “Consider it done. We need the emergency room bays, anyway.”
Jordana took one last lingering look at Broderick, noting with reluctance that even unconscious the guy had an impressive bulk about him. Those nice rounded shoulders and well-defined, broad chest gave away his dedication to the gym.
The man had discipline.
Everything about him told a story without his mouth saying a word.
The only thing it wasn’t saying was how he’d ended up in a Braxville hospital instead of in her office like he was supposed to.
More questions.
Another damn mystery.
Oh, goody.
* * *
Clint Broderick awoke to dimly light darkness in a place he didn’t recognize, hearing sounds he couldn’t place.
Panic threatened to bloom, tightening his chest as he sat up with a jerk, nearly upsetting the IV cart attached to his wrist by the thin tubing.
What the hell?
Then the pain hit. His head felt as if a badger were trying to gnaw its way free from his skull using nothing but blunt chompers and a will to succeed. He cupped his head gingerly and found a large bandage covering a knot that throbbed like an angry protestor at a political rally. His mind swam as he blinked back the vertigo that threatened to make him puke.
He was in a hospital? How’d he get here?
The night nurse came in to check his vitals and realized with a start that he was awake.
“Oh, goodness, you gave me a fright. How are you feeling? You have quite the nasty bump on your noggin.”
He didn’t know how to answer, admitting gruffly, “Hurts. Can I get some water?”
“Of course.” She filled a cup from the pitcher at the end of the bedside table, handing it to him. “Careful now, you’ve been out for quite a while.”
“How long?”
“Almost twenty-four hours. Are you dizzy? Faint?”
“All of the above.”
“Understandable. Head injuries hurt like the dickens and they do s
ome kooky things to the brain. Lucky for you, you only had minor swelling but only God knows what kind of damage that can do. Do you know your name?”
“Of course I know my name,” he grumbled, but when he tried to produce it from his memory, there was a scary blank spot. “It’s...” He struggled to remember. “My name is, um...”
But the nurse seemed to expect his memory gap. “No worries. Short-term amnesia is also common for a head injury like yours. I can help you out. Your name, according to your fingerprints, is Clint Broderick. Does that ring any bells?”
Clint Broderick. Sounded right but he couldn’t be sure. Still, he took her word for it. Fingerprints don’t lie. “Yeah, sounds about right.”
“Well, you try to get some rest. The doctor will see you in the morning.”
Rest? He’d just been unconscious for nearly a day. Lying in a hospital bed for another couple of hours until the doctor made his rounds wasn’t appealing but what else could he do? He didn’t even know his damn name; he couldn’t exactly check into a hotel room.
“Where am I exactly?” he asked, wincing against the throb in his brain.
“That would be Braxville General, in Braxville, Kansas. Just outside of Wichita and pretty as a picture if I ever saw one. We have a lot of community pride around here.”
He couldn’t muster a polite smile; instead, he took a swallow of water to wet his dry throat, then said, “I’m guessing I didn’t have my wallet or anything when I was found?”
“Nothing but the clothes on your back, sugar. Sorry about that. Someone must’ve been right mad at you to do you like that.”
Yeah, guess so. Too bad he couldn’t remember who the hell he was or who might be so pissed at him that they’d knock him into next week and leave him for dead. Talk about waking up in a nightmare.
He nodded to the nurse. “Thanks. Can I get something for this headache?”
“Sure thing, sugar. Doc has cleared you for light pain meds if you should need them. Be right back.”
The nurse left him and he eased back on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. He had no idea who he was or how he’d gotten here.
But someone had tried to kill him. What if they tried to come back and finish the job?
Yeah, sleep? Not gonna happen.
He lifted his arms to stare at his hands. Smooth, strong and capable but not callused. Something told him manual labor wasn’t in his wheelhouse. So, a desk guy of some sort? Did he push paper all day? Had he discovered some shady dealings and someone thought to clip loose ends?
The throb in his head intensified when he tried to push too hard on the memory button.
Ah, hell. He wasn’t going to find the answers tonight.
Hopefully, tomorrow brought more clarity—or at the very least an end to this vicious stabbing pain in his brain.
One could hope.
Because that was all he had right about now.
Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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ISBN-13: 9781488064159
Colton 911: Suspect Under Siege
Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Jane Godman for her contribution to the Colton 911: Grand Rapids miniseries
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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