Kansas City Countdown
Julie Miller
A 72 HOUR COUNTDOWN TO SAVE HER LIFEThey may have battled in the courtroom, but KCPD detective Keir Watson wasn’t going to let their turbulent past stop him from protecting attorney Kenna Parker. She’d been attacked, escaping with her life but with no memory of who wanted to end it. And the only person she dared trust was Keir.With the clock ticking, every second grows more precious, each action more important…their feelings more intense. If Keir is going to discover Kenna’s would-be killer, he has to keep his mind on the case. But his attraction to Kenna is making this self-declared bachelor reconsider just what his idea of forever could mean.
A seventy-two-hour countdown to save her life
They may have battled in the courtroom, but KCPD detective Keir Watson isn’t going to let their turbulent past stop him from protecting attorney Kenna Parker. She was attacked, escaping with her life but with no memory of who wanted to end it. And the only person she dares trust is Keir.
With the clock ticking, every second grows more precious, each action more important…their feelings more intense. If Keir is going to discover Kenna’s would-be killer, he has to keep his mind on the case. But his attraction to Kenna is making this self-declared bachelor reconsider just what his idea of forever could mean.
The Precinct: Bachelors in Blue
“Don’t be nice to me right now. I need you to be a detective.”
“Counselor, you’re scaring me.”
“Join the club. The numbers. They’re a countdown.” She told him about the weekly letters she’d stashed away and the caller who seemed to think she ought to be dead. “Today is day zero. Today is when he planned to attack me. I think he’s coming to kill me.”
“Did you report it to the police?”
She hugged her arms around her waist. “Would it have done any good? Aren’t I the enemy? Someone has been threatening me, and maybe…maybe I wasn’t scared enough for him. I’m too stubborn and independent…” Kenna swayed with exhaustion and fell silent.
“Can I be nice to you now?” Keir’s voice was deep pitched, calm.
All she could do was nod. He turned her into his arms.
Kansas City Countdown
Julie Miller
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JULIE MILLER is an award-winning USA TODAY bestselling author of breathtaking romantic suspense—with a National Readers’ Choice Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award, among other prizes. She has also earned an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. For a complete list of her books, monthly newsletter and more, go to juliemiller.org (http://juliemiller.org/).
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Keir Watson—A third-generation cop and the youngest of the Watson brothers, this detective never backs down from a challenge. The last person he expects to stumble out of an alley and into his arms is the attorney who just shredded his latest case.
Kenna Parker—A successful, driven criminal-defense attorney, she has plenty of enemies. When she’s brutally assaulted and left with amnesia, she is dismayed by the frightening number of suspects who might want to hurt her. The only man she trusts is the detective who rescued her, Keir Watson.
Helmut Bond—Good ol’ Hellie was a friend of Kenna’s father, and would like to be an even better friend to her.
Dr. Andrew Colbern—The cosmetic surgeon has been accused of hiring someone to murder his wife.
Devon Colbern—The doctor’s aggrieved wife doesn’t feel justice has been served. Yet.
Marvin Bennett—Is the Parker estate’s gardener about to lose his job? Or his life?
Hudson Kramer—Keir’s partner might be a little jealous of his partner’s luck with the ladies.
B.J.—Who was Kenna planning to meet the evening she was attacked? And why would she keep that meeting a secret?
Hoodie Guy—When you don’t know a name and haven’t seen a face, you give the creepy guy who keeps showing up a nickname.
Thomas Watson—Keir’s father. Someone has targeted his family. Can the threats against the people he loves be related to the woman his son is protecting?
Seamus Watson—Keir’s grandfather. He can’t walk by himself and can barely speak. But he knows how to charm a lady.
To my fellow Whovians.
You know who you are.
(And please don’t ask me to pick a favorite Doctor!)
Contents
Cover (#u9b81d227-8b62-5302-a691-7251b0d2b690)
Back Cover Text (#u238293fc-c8d5-5597-9fc3-929ca53c2c02)
Introduction (#ua511adcc-572d-518d-9968-bcf0c41e09da)
Title Page (#u4f7be68b-671b-5eda-b0a5-9e44589c98d6)
About the Author (#u39eb08d8-0498-5880-a305-953e211f170c)
Cast of Characters (#u9e5257da-85e1-55b5-8498-6ed1dda9d1d9)
Dedication (#ub0eb9e8b-4934-55f3-9e9f-4bfaf3cf9163)
Prologue (#u9810be63-e5d6-58b5-9a10-41b6a0df51fb)
Chapter One (#uac59565d-883e-59b8-be54-f671599b2030)
Chapter Two (#u69e83232-ec8c-5fcf-aa47-f3675dd2d833)
Chapter Three (#u4ac7bfa0-8233-5afa-90cd-03ec0b5e072c)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u8257cc0a-b2e0-5729-9305-ae79b8c31454)
“You’re a bad boy, Detective Watson.”
Keir Watson laughed at the teasing gibe from Natalie Fensom Parker, the bridesmaid he was escorting down the aisle at his sister’s wedding. He adjusted the cherry-red bow tie that matched the vest he wore with his black tuxedo and doffed a salute to Al Junkert as they walked past. Al was an old family friend and KCPD senior officer who’d once partnered with Keir’s father, Thomas, before a shattered leg had forced Thomas into early retirement from the department. “No, ma’am. I’m a truth teller. You are absolutely the prettiest pregnant lady here today. The guests can’t keep their eyes off you.”
Natalie’s bouquet of red and white carnations seemed to rest on her swollen belly as she giggled. “Everyone’s eyes will be on your sister and Gabe today. Nobody is watching me waddle down the aisle.”
“Your husband is.”
“Maybe Jim is watching you.” She beamed a smile to her husband as they walked by. “He and your sister, Olivia, have been partners for some time now. I’ve got the scoop on all three of you Watson boys. Third generation cops like your father and grandfather before you. He knows your reputation around the precinct offices.”
“That I’m a sharp-eyed detective who is as tough as he is resourceful? That I’ll make sergeant detective and be running my own task force before I turn thirty-five?”
“No, that you’re a flirt.” Her fingers squeezed his arm to take the sting out of the accusation. “But Jim assures me you’re harmless.”
“Natalie, you wound me.”
“Well, better me than my husband.”
“The warning is duly noted.” Keir patted Natalie’s hand and grinned. Jim Parker was a lucky man to have this woman love him. His soon-to-be brother-in-law, Gabe Knight, was lucky to have Liv so head over heels for him. And though Keir modestly suspected that there was at least one single woman in the crowded church he could charm into going home with him by the end of the wedding reception, he instead felt a stab of envy that these good people had found their happily-ever-afters. Not that he’d ever admit that little taste of bitterness out loud.
Marriage vows and 2.5 children just weren’t in the cards for the youngest Watson brother.
Once he’d wanted what his father and late mother had had until she’d been torn from their lives by her senseless murder by a doped-up thief. He’d seen how devastated his father had been. Keir had felt the grief just as keenly, though as an eleven-year-old he hadn’t quite understood why his mother wasn’t coming home or why Grandpa Seamus and a new housekeeper/cook were coming to live with them.
Once he’d wanted that goofy smile kind of happiness Natalie and Jim Parker shared. Like them, he’d imagined starting his own family one day. A few years back he’d almost taken the plunge. But patience wasn’t always a virtue. He’d waited too long to put his heart on the line. He’d let the high standard of his mother’s example of what he wanted in a wife and his ambitious career plans with KCPD get in the way of grasping happiness when the opportunity presented itself.
With the engagement ring he’d hoped to give her buried in his pocket, Keir had waited hours for Sophie Collins to meet him at the restaurant where he’d planned to propose, only to find out the next day that she’d eloped with a friend of his from the police academy—the same man who’d introduced them two years earlier. While he’d been busy studying for his detective’s exam and taking extra training courses to be ready for any assignment opportunity, letting the relationship slide to the back burner, the other two had been spending lots of time together. Sophie considered Keir to be the friend, expected him to be happy for her. So he’d kissed her cheek, said all the right words and walked away.
He’d been walking away ever since.
That day, he’d picked his pride up off the floor and closed off his heart to that kind of loss and humiliation ever again. He wasn’t averse to enjoying a woman’s company, and took pride in being a gentleman and showing a lady a good time—whichever she preferred. But let anything get too serious, too close to feeling like he was giving a woman control over his heart, and Keir moved on. He had plenty of friends, and his career at KCPD was taking off. He’d made detective that first year he was eligible and he’d gotten several plum assignments, including his position now with the major case squad.
What more could a man need to have a successful life?
Right. Family. As Keir neared the front of the church, he reached out and squeezed his hand over the shoulder of his grandpa, Seamus Watson. The eighty-year-old retired KCPD desk sergeant laid his bony fingers over Keir’s and smiled, and Keir knew he had all the love a man could need with this close, supportive family. He caught the smile of the plump, silver-haired woman sitting behind Seamus and winked. Grinning at the blush that colored her cheeks, Keir blew a kiss to Millie Leighter, the woman who’d raised him and his brothers and sister after their mother’s death. More aunt or grandmother than housekeeper and cook, Millie was family, too.
Yeah. Keir Watson had enough for his life to be a success. The past was what it was. He was moving on.
He released Natalie as they’d rehearsed the night before and joined his older brothers—Duff, the detective, and Niall, an autopsy doctor at the KCPD Crime Lab—on the top step of the altar. A grin curved his lips as he saw Niall adjusting the dark frames of his glasses and nailing him with a piercing glare.
“Natalie is married to Liv’s partner, you know,” Niall whispered.
“Relax, Charm School Dropout.” Keir clapped his tallest brother on the shoulder of his matching black tuxedo and moved in behind him. “Young or old, married or not—it never hurts to be friendly.”
Olivia must have given Niall a directive about keeping his brothers in line, because the bespectacled medical examiner now turned his attention to Keir’s oldest brother, Duff. “Seriously? Are you packing today?”
Duff’s massive shoulders shifted as he turned to whisper a response. “Hey. You wear your glasses every day, Poindexter. I wear my gun.”
“I wasn’t aware that you knew what the term Poindexter meant.”
“I’m smarter than I look,” was Duff’s terse response.
Keir couldn’t let that straight line go without saying something. “He’d have to be.”
Duff turned his square jaw toward Keir. “So help me, baby brother, if you give me any grief today, I will lay you out flat.”
He probably could. If Niall was the brains of the family, Duff was definitely the brawn. But Keir had vowed from a tender age to never go down without a fight—or at least without a smart-aleck protest or two.
But before he could utter the barb on the tip of his tongue, Niall was shushing them. “Zip it. Both of you. You, mind your manners.” Keir put up a hand, acquiescing to the terse command, while Niall got on Duff’s case, too. “And you stop fidgeting like a little kid.”
Then the organ music coming from the wall of pipes in the church’s balcony changed and all three brothers turned their attention to the archway at the back of the church. Everyone in the congregation stood and watched Olivia Mary Watson and their father, Thomas, pause a moment before heading down the long aisle together.
Keir’s breath caught in his chest as he watched his sister and father approach. They both carried themselves proudly and walked with a purpose, despite Thomas Watson’s limping gait. Good grief! When had his tomboy little sister grown up to be such a beautiful woman? She was a detective like him, for Pete’s sake, and usually sported jeans and leather jackets. But today, sparkles and lace clung to curves sisters weren’t supposed to have. The veil of Irish lace that sat on her dark hair framed blue eyes like his own, and took Keir back several years to the pictures he remembered seeing of their mother and father’s wedding day.
“Dude.” Duff was about to wax poetic, giving voice to a sentiment similar to what Keir was feeling. “Gabe, you are one lucky son of a—”
“Duff.” Leave it to Niall to maintain a necessary sense of decorum.
“You’d better treat her right.” Duff whispered a warning to the groom.
“We’ve already had this conversation, Duff,” Niall pointed out. “I’m convinced he loves her.”
Gabe never took his eyes off Olivia as he leaned back toward his soon-to-be brothers-in-law. “He does.”
This conversation was pointless to Keir’s way of thinking. “Anyway, Liv’s made her choice. You think any one of us could change her mind? I’d be scared to try.”
The minister hushed the lot of them as father and bride approached.
“Ah, hell.” Duff was tearing up. “This is not happening to me.”
Keir blinked rapidly. If he wasn’t careful, he might embarrass himself and do the same thing. “She looks the way I remember Mom.”
Niall slipped Duff a handkerchief while Olivia shared a tight hug with their father. Keir gave her a thumbs-up when she smiled at the three of them, then turned his attention to the exchanging of vows and rings.
By the end of the ceremony, Keir was feeling that sting of envy again, a hollowness that seemed to fill the area of his chest right around his heart.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
But he’d made his choices. He was genuinely happy for his sister. While Liv’s new husband planted an embarrassingly thorough kiss on her lips, the guests applauded and Keir whistled a cheer between his teeth. Then the recessional started and the happy couple proceeded down the aisle to acknowledge all the family, friends and coworkers gathered here. Duff followed with the matron of honor. Niall took the arm of his bridesmaid and Keir extended his arm to walk Natalie back to her husband and get going to the party to find someone who could make him forget, for a little while, at least, that he wasn’t missing a thing by not putting his heart on the line again.
He even danced the first few steps in time with the music until he caught a glimpse of movement up in the balcony. A door opened beside a limestone buttress near the organist. The man who stepped in was dressed in black from head to toe. That was no guest. “What the...?”
By the time Niall shouted, “Gun!” and the recessional ended on an abrupt, dissonant chord, the masked man upstairs had pulled a rifle from beneath his long coat and opened fire down into the church. Keir cursed as he reached for a gun at his waist that wasn’t there and pulled Natalie to the floor behind the front pew.
Gunfire exploded in the air and chips of wood blasted over their heads and rained down as the shooter emptied his rifle into the congregation.
Keir was calling Dispatch for a SWAT unit when he heard Duff yell for everybody to get down and heard more chatter among the many police officers in the crowd—getting guests to safety, pinpointing the shooter’s location, making plans to go after the man. A matter of seconds passed as the shooter emptied his clip. The momentary pause meant he was reloading, pulling another gun or running. Now was the time to move.
“Stay put,” Keir warned Natalie, turning on the camera on his phone. He raised the device over the pew, snapping pictures and getting a position on the shooter before crawling into the aisle. “Damn.” New gun. Keir scrambled toward his father, grandfather and Millie as the man pulled a semiautomatic pistol from his belt and sprayed the church with more bullets. A chunk of marble spit off the floor and smacked into Keir’s leg.
What the hell was the guy aiming at? Was he blind? Going for chaos over accuracy? The minister at the front of the church was crouched behind the pulpit, and though there were children crying and shouts of panic, Keir couldn’t see signs that anyone was hurt or administering first aid. He didn’t intend to give the guy the opportunity to improve his aim. He might only have milliseconds to reach his family before the shooter turned his gun back in this direction. “Dad? Grandpa? Millie?”
Keir reached his family, ducking between the seats as a bullet shredded the lacy bow decorating the pew beside him. He pushed Millie to the floor and reached over the seat to help the others. Seamus’s cane clattered to the floor.
“Grandpa!” Keir felt the spatter of warm blood hit his cheek a split second before the old man crumpled against Thomas. “Ah, hell.”
Seamus Watson had been hit.
Keir shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the marble floor beneath his grandfather as his father lowered him to the floor. The rage of bullets fell silent and he spared a glance up at the door closing in the balcony as the shooter escaped, silently swearing to track down the bastard. He pulled a shocked, weeping Millie into his chest and turned her away from the blood pooling on the floor as his brother Niall worked on their grandfather’s wound.
Keir had already made one call to Dispatch, but he dialed the number a second time and repeated the call for help, making sure an ambulance was en route. “I need a bus. Now. Officer down. I repeat—officer down.”
Chapter One (#u8257cc0a-b2e0-5729-9305-ae79b8c31454)
May
Keir dropped the shot of whiskey into his mug of beer and picked it up before the drink foamed over. “Here’s to the Terminator.”
His partner, Hudson Kramer, dressed in work boots and blue jeans, lowered his bottle of beer to the bar top. “Please tell me that’s sarcasm.”
“Loud and bitter, my friend.” The Shamrock Bar tonight was loud with Irish music, conversation, laughter, the periodic clinks of glassware and the sharp smacks of pool balls caroming off each other. The frenetic, celebratory energy was typical for a Friday night where several denizens from the KCPD and surrounding downtown neighborhood liked to hang out. They’d survived another week of long hours and hard work that could be, at turns, tedious and dangerous. Some of his fellow cops here had broken cases wide-open this week or arrested criminals or even just kept a drunk driver off the streets, where he could be a threat to the citizens they’d all sworn to serve and protect.
But Keir and Hud, yin and yang in both style and background, yet as close as Keir was to his own brothers, had nothing to celebrate. Keir was feeling the need to either get drunk or get laid to ease the tension coiling inside him.
Sure, some of it had to do with his frustration over the slow-moving investigation into the shooting at the church where his grandfather had nearly died—an investigation that he and his two older brothers weren’t allowed to be a part of in any official capacity. Not that departmental restrictions were going to stop Keir and his brothers from pursuing answers for themselves. A masked shooter who threatened a building full of cops on a happy occasion and then disappeared into thin air made every officer in the department an investigator until the perp who’d targeted Keir’s family could be identified and caught.
No, tonight’s extra-special foray into moody sarcasm all had to do with a leggy, ash-blond defense attorney who’d made mincemeat out of the attempted murder-for-hire investigation he and Hud had turned over to the DA’s office on Monday. It had taken Kenna Parker only five days of motions and court appearances to punch holes in their airtight case. The hoity-toity plastic surgeon who’d talked to Keir in an undercover op about hiring him to kill his estranged wife before she could divorce him and cost him a fortune in alimony had gotten off with little more than a slap on the wrist.
Yes, the guy was now under an ethics investigation by the state medical board—a sidebar that could cost him his license or, at the very least, put a dent in his lucrative medical practice. But that wasn’t the same as a judge acknowledging that Detective Keir Watson had done his job right. Kenna “the Terminator” Parker hadn’t even really cleared Dr. Andrew Colbern of conspiracy to commit murder—she’d just raised enough doubts about Keir’s competence and a few seconds of static on the recording he’d made of the conversation that Colbern was walking.
“Did you see how she booked it out of the courtroom right after the judge announced his ruling?” Hud punctuated his condemning tone with a long swallow of his beer. “That’s just rubbing her victory in our faces.”
Keir eyed the foamy amber liquid in his mug. “She probably went off to pop open a magnum of champagne at our expense.”
Hud turned the brown bottle in his hand, then grinned. “Well, then let’s just hope she’s drinkin’ it alone, my friend.”
“You got that right.” Keir clinked his mug against Hud’s bottle, but he couldn’t match his partner’s good humor.
They’d failed to prove Colbern’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, according to the Terminator. Interesting what kind of justice a lot of money and a killer law firm could buy.
Well, reputation meant everything to him, too. Keir Watson didn’t botch cases. When he investigated a crime, he got answers. No matter how long it took, he got the job done.
“I swear that woman is going to make me a better cop,” Keir vowed, remembering the smug smile on her copper-tinted lips as she’d packed up her briefcase and passed him on her way out of the courtroom. “Next time she shows up in court, she won’t be able to raise the issue of entrapment and question technicalities or make her client look more like the victim than the woman he tried to have killed. The next time I’m testifying against one of her clients, I’ll make her look like the idiot.”
Hud raised his bottle again. “Then, to the downfall of the Terminator.”
“Amen.” Keir swallowed a healthy portion of the beer and whiskey, savoring the heat seeping down his gullet. Half a drink later, Keir still couldn’t erase the tension in him and felt himself turning inward, replaying each step of the case he’d put together, and each trick Kenna Parker had used to pull it apart.
He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, only half listening to Hud regale him with a story about his first encounter with an attorney as a teenager, protesting a ticket in his small-town traffic court. Something about the lawyer being the judge’s second cousin’s daughter’s boyfriend, and the judge declaring a conflict of interest and dismissing the speeding ticket because the guy was family, and there wasn’t anyone else in town who wasn’t related who could represent him. Hardly a problem someone with Kenna Parker’s legal eagle pedigree would ever have to face.
Sitting here tonight, fuming over the case that had gotten tossed, Keir knew he wasn’t very good company. Hud, on the other hand, could blow off the tension once he was away from the job in ways that Keir wasn’t able to. Maybe he’d better cut his partner loose to play a game of pool or share a drink with one of the local ladies who had a thing for cops. Keir downed the last of his beer and Bushmill’s and pushed the mug away, intent on heading home where he could stew in silence—or more likely, pull out his case file against Andrew Colbern and reread the transcript of his undercover conversation to figure out exactly where he’d misspoken so he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
He clapped Hud on the shoulder of his plaid flannel shirt and stood. “Hey, buddy, I’m heading home.”
Hud threw up his hands and frowned. “You’re kiddin’ me, right? The night is young and this place is crawlin’ with opportunities.” His brown eyes swept the bar, indicating the disproportionate number of female to male customers. “I need you to be my wingman.”
Chuckling at his partner’s humorous determination, Keir tossed a couple of bills onto the bar to pay for their drinks. “Sorry. Guess I’m lousy company tonight.”
“Tell me about it. I’m givin’ you my best stuff and all I’ve gotten out of you is a smirk.”
Keir conceded the truth with a nod. “It’s not your job to make things right when a case goes wrong.”
“The hell it isn’t.” Hud polished off the last of his beer and swiped his knuckles over his mouth to erase the foamy mustache. “You’ll still be in a mood when you come back to work on Monday, and I’m the guy who has to look at you all day.” He pushed aside the money Keir had put on the bar and set a twenty-dollar bill in its place. “I dare you to stay and have a little fun. I know there’s a lady here tonight who can put a full-blown smile on your face and make you forget all about the Terminator. In fact, I’ll bet you that last round of drinks that I can score some action and be smiling before you.”
“Really?” Hud knew his weakness for refusing to back down from a dare. Keir’s older brothers had given him plenty of practice at holding his own growing up. Still, he was about to tell his partner that he’d take that bet on some other night when he wasn’t quite so tired or distracted, when the Shamrock’s owner, Robbie Nichols, set a beer and shot on the bar in front of him. Keir frowned. “I didn’t order this.”
The bushy-bearded Irishman nodded toward someone behind Keir’s back and winked. “She did. Good luck to you, Detective.”
Keir turned to see a sweet little strawberry blonde smiling at him as she wove her way through the maze of tables to reach him. Maybe he should take a lesson from his laid-back partner and blow off a little steam. Suddenly, spending Friday night at home with work wasn’t as appealing as it had sounded a minute ago. “Are you responsible for this?” he asked the man staring, openmouthed, beside him.
“I wish.” Hud had turned, too, and was shaking his head. “Even on your worst night, the ladies love you. Why don’t I have that kind of luck?”
“Because you’re half hillbilly. And—” Keir buttoned his collar and adjusted his tie as the young woman approached “—a man in a well-tailored suit is like catnip to the ladies.” Keir picked up the drink. “I promise you, my friend—if you’re going to bet me, you’re going to lose.”
Robbie returned, popping the cap off a chilled bottle of beer and setting it in front of Hud. “Not to worry, Detective Kramer. The ladies got you one, too.”
“Ladies? As in plural?” Quickly tucking his shirt into his jeans, Hud stood beside Keir, focusing in on the burgundy-haired woman with glasses trailing after her friend. “Game on, catnip boy.”
The strawberry blonde reached them before Keir could respond to Hud’s challenge. “Hi. I’m Tammy. I hope you’re not leaving. My sister and I took a vote and decided you were the cutest guy here.”
Cute? Well, now, didn’t that make him feel about twice this girl’s age and a little less eager to win the bet? Still, from a very young age, his mama had taught him to have manners, so Keir extended his hand. “I’m flattered. Keir Watson. Thank you for the drink.”
“Keir? That’s an unusual name.”
“It’s Irish. My mother was born in Ireland.”
“Awesome.”
The shy redhead at her shoulder looked a few years older and a little less enthusiastic about picking up a guy in a bar. She nudged her friend and glanced at Hud. “Tammy, it’s getting late. How long is this going to take?”
Poor Hud. He had his work cut out for him if he wanted to win the bet.
Instead of answering, Tammy beamed a smile at Keir’s partner. “This is Gigi. My older sister.” Tammy emphasized the age difference, as if the three or four years that must separate them meant big sis was over the hill and that she was the prime catch. Awkward. Clearly, Tammy was pawning her sister off on Hud, and had eyes only for Keir. “I’ll let Gigi tell you what it’s short for.”
But Hud wasn’t complaining. Once the introductions had been completed, he pulled out the stool Keir had vacated and invited Gigi to sit beside him.
Keir smiled down at the strawberry blonde. Whether her sister was shy about men or genuinely tired, Tammy was determined to hit on him. And Gigi seemed to be sufficiently entertained as Hud launched into his good ol’ boy spiel. “All right, then. Shall we?”
He picked up his drinks and escorted Tammy to a private table while she asked if the gun and badge he wore were real. Feeling older by the minute and wishing he’d trusted his gut and headed home, Keir briefly considered if this woman might be underage. But he was certain Robbie and his staff would have carded both women before selling them alcohol. Something about running a bar frequented by cops kept a man from bending the rules.
Still, the momentary rush of proving to Hud that (a) he always had his game on with the ladies, and (b) his partner didn’t need to worry about his mood, quickly faded. An hour passed and Keir was beginning to feel as though he was watching out for a friend’s kid sister rather than seriously considering extending the evening into something more. True, his thoughts kept straying back to those moments in the courtroom when the judge had chastised his unit for not making sure all their ducks were in a row in their case against Dr. Colbern.
But it seemed Tammy couldn’t sustain a conversation beyond flirty come-on lines, the classes she was taking at UMKC and all the adventures at bars she and her sister were having now that she’d turned twenty-one. Tammy was pretty. She was sweet. And he had a feeling she was sincere in her interest in him. But twenty-one was too young for a man in his early thirties, and Keir wisely kept the evening platonic until the cocktail waitress announced last call and he decided to call it a night.
Hud and the less animated Gigi had moved over to the pool tables, where he was teaching her some tricks of the game. A quick text exchange with Keir’s partner confirmed that they’d hit it off as friends and that Hud was fine giving the young lady a ride home after they finished their last set. Keir conceded the bet and paid for all their drinks.
Tammy was obviously disappointed that Keir decided to call it a night instead of inviting her out on a date or even asking for her number. He tried to soften the blow to her ego. “It’s been a long week for me and I’m tired. Plus, if you’ve got an exam Monday, you’d better try to get a little sleep so you can study this weekend.” He stood and took her hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your car.”
He traded a salute with Hud and led Tammy through the dwindling crowd outside the front door. The days had been warming up with the advent of spring, but the hour was late and there was a chill in the air that elicited an audible shiver from the young woman beside him. Whether her reaction was legit or one last attempt to stir his interest in her, Keir shrugged out of his suit jacket and draped it around her shoulders. “Which way?”
There might be a dozen or more cops inside the bar, but the downtown streets of Kansas City—even in neighborhoods that were being reclaimed like this one—were no place for a woman to be walking alone at night. She pointed past the neon shamrock in the bar’s window to the curb on the next block. Making a brief scan of the street and sidewalks, Keir dropped his hand to the small of Tammy’s back and headed past the bar’s parking lot, the valet stand for a nearby restaurant, past a north-south alley and the sports bar beyond it, then across the intersection to reach her car.
“I’ll wait until you get in and get it started,” he said, taking back his jacket and slipping into it.
“You’re a nice guy, Detective Watson.” Tammy latched on to the lapels of his coat and stretched up on tiptoe as he straightened the collar. “Are you sure I can’t change your mind about coming home with me? It looks like Gigi and your friend will be a while.”
He pried her hands loose and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Good night, Tammy.” He grinned when she slipped a piece of paper into his pocket, suspecting it was the phone number he hadn’t asked for. He closed the door behind her once she’d started the engine, and stepped back onto the curb. “Be safe.”
Waving as she drove away, Keir loosened his tie and collar again. Time to call it a night. He hadn’t gotten drunk. He hadn’t gotten laid. And he sure as hell hadn’t figured out any answers to the unresolved cases weighing on his mind. Deciding that the night wasn’t going to get any better, and his day couldn’t get any worse, he turned and strode back toward the parking lot behind the Shamrock where he’d parked his own car.
He nodded to the trio of college-aged men bemoaning a call in the baseball game they’d been watching inside as they exited the sports bar. Then he stepped around the group of suits and dresses waiting for their ride outside the South American restaurant, shrugging at their fancy outfits in this workingman’s neighborhood. Keir’s attention shifted to a man standing on the sidewalk across the street. Hanging back in the shadows, wearing a dark hoodie, his shoulders hunched over with his hands buried in the pockets of his baggy jeans, the man’s face was unreadable. But his focus was unmistakable. There was something about the restaurant, something about the people walking down the street as the bars and restaurants let out, something or someone on this side of the street he was watching so intently that the hood over his head never even moved.
And that’s why you walk a lady to her car.
His suspicions pinging with an alert, Keir slowed his pace and stopped, discreetly pulling his phone from his pocket and snapping a picture while pretending to text. He doubted he’d get a clear shot, but he could at least record a location and vague description. But Hoodie Guy saw that he’d been noticed, and quickly spun away and shuffled on down the street.
“That’s right, buddy, I’m a cop.” Keir watched the man until he turned at the next intersection and disappeared around the corner of a closed-up building. “You’re not causing any trouble tonight.”
Detouring for a moment, Keir retraced his steps, wondering if there was anything in particular Hoodie Guy had been watching. Maybe he’d been waiting for someone to separate from the pack—someone to mug for drug money or mooch a drink from. Maybe he’d been watching an old girlfriend on a date with someone new. And maybe the guy just had a creepy sense of fashion and poor timing when it came to choosing where he wanted to loiter. There was no way for Keir to get answers unless he wanted to chase the guy down. And, technically, the guy hadn’t done anything to warrant such a response.
Satisfied for the moment that the street was safe, Keir turned around and resumed the walk to his car. Keeping one eye on the cars and empty spaces and drivers and pedestrians to see if Hoodie Guy reappeared, he pulled up his messages. Maybe he’d find a victorious text from Hud or news from his family about Seamus Watson’s shooting or his health as his eighty-year-old grandfather recovered from the brain injury that had left him relearning how to speak and use the left side of his body. Nothing. Not even an update from the detectives working the investigation.
Keir scrolled through the case notes he sent himself as texts on his phone as he stepped over the cable marking off a neighborhood parking area and cut through the public space to reach the Shamrock’s parking lot. He stepped over the cable at the back end of the lot, ignored the retching sounds of a drunk in the alley he passed and climbed a couple of steps over a short concrete wall to reach the lot where his Dodge Charger was parked.
He was considering sending a text to Hud about their failed pickup bet when he heard the scrabble of footsteps and a slurred, feminine voice from the alley behind him.
“One. One. One is the wrong number.”
Keir swung around at the garbled words, leaving the text half-finished and pulling back his jacket to rest his hand on his holstered weapon.
A tall, slender woman stumbled to the edge of the alley. “Three... Two... One isn’t right.”
“Ma’am?” She wasn’t drunk and she wasn’t a threat. She was hurt. Seriously hurt, judging by the blood on her face and clothes.
She tried to raise her head, but she groaned and braced her hand against the brick wall as she swayed. “Please. Help me.”
Keir leaped over the concrete barrier, taking in several details as he ran to assist the injured woman. Dark silvery blond hair bounced against her chin and clung to the bloody hash marks on one side of her face. The skirt of her fancy tan suit was ripped along one seam and there were dirty smudges on both sleeves of her jacket. She wore one ridiculously sexy leather pump on her right foot, and nothing but a torn silky stocking over the scraped-up knee and toes on her left foot.
“Ma’am, are you all right?” Keir slipped his arm behind her waist, taking her weight and guiding her to the concrete wall. Hoodie Guy’s curiosity about something Keir had missed was screaming at him now. Damn it. He should have followed up on his suspicions and stopped the guy for questioning. He helped the lady sit on the edge of the wall, wondering if Hoodie Guy was responsible for this. “What happened?”
“I woke up. I got sick. Everything...spinning.”
“Are you alone? Is anyone else hurt?”
She opened her mouth to answer, turned her chin toward the alley, then looked away. “I don’t remember.”
“Okay.” Clearly, she was a little disoriented. “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”
Once he was certain she wasn’t going to collapse on him, Keir pulled his weapon and darted back into the alley, making a cursory sweep of the trash bins and power poles. He startled a rat from its hiding place. But there was no one else in the alley. No signs of a struggle. Not even the missing shoe. This was a dump site. Whatever had happened to her hadn’t happened here.
Maybe Hoodie Guy hadn’t attacked her, after all. He’d moved away on foot, and it would be impossible to transport an injured woman through this maze of back alleys without a vehicle or someone noticing the two of them together.
Holstering his Glock, Keir jogged back out of the alley to find her on her feet, limping over to meet him. So much for staying put. “Is anyone else hurt?”
Keir caught her by the elbows and turned her back toward the wall and the nearest lamp in the middle of the lot. “Just you. I thought I told you to wait for me.”
“I don’t know where I...” she muttered beside him. “I don’t know how long I was there.” She flattened her hand over her stomach and bent forward, as if she was going to be ill. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Ma’am?” He stopped her beneath the light and waited for her to nod that she could stand straight again before brushing the angled line of bangs off her forehead. Keir swore under his breath as he tilted her face to the yellowish light. He knew this woman. “Kenna Parker? What the hell are you doing—”
“Who are you?” She squinted against the light shining in her eyes and backed away from him, fear making her skin pale.
He raised a placating hand to stop her wobbly retreat and pulled his badge from his belt. “I’m Detective Keir Watson, KCPD. Ms. Parker, how badly are you hurt? Can you tell me what happened?”
She shook her head. But the motion made her dizzy and she grabbed the sides of her head and tumbled.
“Watch out.” Keir caught her before she hit the ground and scooped her up into his arms. Her cheek fell against his shoulder and she curled into him without a protest as he stepped over the short wall and carried her to his car. “What does one mean?” he asked. Maybe her attacker had been wearing a jersey with a number on it, or she’d seen part of a license plate. “Why is it the wrong number?”
“What?” Her fingers curled into the lapel of his jacket. “I don’t understand.”
“You kept saying... Never mind.” Once he got the passenger door open, he set her feet on the pavement and helped her onto the edge of the seat before pulling the first-aid kit out of the glove compartment. “You were mugged. Assaulted. I can’t tell how badly yet. Can you tell me who did this to you? Do you know how you got into that alley? I don’t think the attack happened there.”
He dabbed at the cuts on her face, tried to assess how well her eyes were tracking the movement of his hands as he knelt in front of her. Besides their sensitivity to the light, her pupils were dilated, both signs that she had a concussion. “I should have a purse. Or a briefcase or something. Where are my things? I always carry...” Her voice trailed away and the thought escaped her.
“I didn’t see anything like that in the alley. Is one part of a phone number? If you need to call someone, you can borrow my phone.”
“Who do I need to call?”
He didn’t think she was married. There was no ring, nor any sign that she’d ever worn one, on her left hand. “A boyfriend? Any friend? Your doctor? Someone you work with?”
She touched her finger to the drops of blood staining the knobby silk of her jacket and blouse, as if discovering the spots distracted her from the conversation.
Stay with me, lady. Keir slipped two fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face back to his. “Do you want me to call them for you?”
“I can’t think of names right now.” Her fingertips tickled the back of his wrist as they danced against the skin there. “Aren’t you my boyfriend? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“No, ma’am.” He carefully plucked a stray lock of hair from the wound on her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “Detective Watson, remember? I showed you my badge.”
Instead of answering, she raised her fingers to touch the seeping gash. But Keir ripped open a gauze pad and batted her hand away to stanch the wound. This was more than a mugging or purse snatch. These cuts were fine and deep, made by something with a short, sharp blade. She was damn lucky she still had her eye. Carving up half her face like this indicated a lot of rage, and something very personal. The senseless brutality of this attack wasn’t something he’d wish even on the woman who’d humiliated him in court. “Here. Can you hold that there while I check the rest of your injuries?”
“It hurts.” Her shaking fingers brushed against his as she reached up to apply pressure against the cut. Her eyes were pale gray, almost like starlight, in the dim illumination of the car’s overhead light. But though her voice sounded far less steady and sure than it had in the courtroom that afternoon, she was determined to hold his gaze. “My thoughts aren’t very clear, Detective. I can’t seem to concentrate. I don’t think that’s like me.”
“It’s not.”
“So you do know me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Keir gently tunneled his fingers into the straight, silky curtain of her chin-length hair, probing her scalp until he found the goose egg and oozy warmth of blood at the base of her skull. She winced and he quickly pulled away to open an emergency ice pack and crush the chemicals together between his hands to activate its frosty chill. He placed the ice pack over the knot on her scalp and tried to estimate if he had enough gauze or something else to anchor it into place. He sought out her starlit eyes again. “Looks like you suffered a pretty good blow to the head. Tell me what you can remember.”
Although concentrating on the answer seemed to cause her pain, she bravely came up with an answer. “I was going to a meeting. Dinner. A dinner meeting.”
Dinner would have been hours ago. “Who was your meeting with?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did you eat? Were you walking to your car? Do you remember where you parked? Did a chauffeur or taxi pick you up?”
“I don’t know.” Seeming to grow more agitated, she pulled the gauze pad from her face and saw the scarlet stain on it. “Is all this blood mine?”
“I need to get you to an ER.” She leaned over against the seat, closing her eyes as he placed a call to Dispatch and gave his name, location and badge number. “I need an ambulance...” He dropped the phone into her lap and cupped his palm over the uninjured side of her face. “No, no. Don’t close your eyes. Ms. Parker? Kenna? Kenna, open your eyes.”
Her silvery eyes popped open. “Stop saying that.”
Now, that tone sounded like the Terminator. “Are you kidding me? You’re going to the hospital if I have to drive you myself.”
“What’s happened to me? I don’t understand.”
“Ah, hell.” He swung her legs into the car and buckled her in. “That’s it. We’ll make sense of this later.” He snatched up the phone and relayed the necessary information to complete the call before shrugging out of his jacket and draping it over her like a blanket. “We’re going to the hospital, Kenna.”
She grabbed the front of his shirt as he leaned over her, pulling her injured face close to his. “Why do you keep calling me that?”
“Fine,” he snapped. “You’re Ms. Parker. Don’t suppose I can get away with calling you the Terminator to your face.”
Her pale lips trembled. “Why would you do that?”
He was a sorry SOB for losing his temper for even one moment with this woman. She was probably five or six years older than Keir, and had been his enemy in the courtroom. He had less in common with her than that Tammy Too-Young from the bar. But he couldn’t look at the tragedy that marred her beautiful face or the fear that darted in the corner of her eyes and not feel something. He covered her hands where she still held on to him and eased her back into the seat. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a jackass. But you’re the last person I expected to be helping tonight.”
“You don’t like me, do you?” She gave him a graceful out for that question by asking another. “You know who I am?”
“Yes, ma’am. Kenna Parker. You’re a criminal defense attorney.”
Her fingertips dug into the muscle beneath the cotton of his shirt, holding on when he would have pulled away. “How do you know? You said you couldn’t find my purse.”
She wanted to argue with him? Patience, Watson. The woman is scared. “You shredded a case of mine in court this afternoon. But I’m a cop before anything else. Now something terrible has happened to you tonight. I don’t know what exactly, but I’m going to help you.”
Her posture sagged, although her grip on him barely eased. He couldn’t tell if she was frightened or angry or some combination of both.
“Detective Watson. I don’t remember what happened to me tonight, much less this afternoon. I don’t know how I got into that alley. I don’t know why someone wanted to hurt me like this.
“I don’t even remember my name.”
Chapter Two (#u8257cc0a-b2e0-5729-9305-ae79b8c31454)
Kenna Parker.
Shivering in an immodest gown in the sterile hospital air, she silently worked the name around her tongue and wondered if she was truly remembering her name or if she’d simply heard it said to her so many times over the past few hours that she was now accepting it as fact.
Kenna.
She was Kenna Parker. She’d been named after her late father, Kenneth. She was an only child, a surprise gift to older parents who’d never expected to have children at all. No one had told her that tonight—or make that the early hours of Saturday morning. Kenna breathed a cautious sigh of relief. She was remembering. Some of her life, at least—like the growing-up parts that did her no good answering questions from the clerk at the reception desk or the admitting nurse or the criminologist who’d scraped beneath her fingernails and taken pictures of her injuries before the attending physician went to work.
She couldn’t remember whether or not she was in a relationship. She couldn’t remember where she’d eaten dinner or even if she had eaten. And hard as she tried, she had absolutely no memory of being brutalized and left for dead, no image of her attacker haunting her thoughts. She had no memory of who hated her or something she represented or had done so much that splitting her head open and taking a sharp blade to the left side of her face seemed justifiable. The nicks on her hands, and the scrapes on her knee and foot, indicated she’d put up a fight. Surely she’d eventually remember a face or mask or height or voice or something if she’d done that kind of battle with her assailant.
But there was a black void in place of where any memory of the assault should be. Bits and pieces of her life before whatever had happened to her tonight were coming together like an old film reel being spliced together. Yet Kenna was afraid some parts of the movie would never be recovered. Even the last few hours after the assault were filled with holes. According to the doctor, scrambled brains were a side effect of the head trauma she’d received. Plus, he’d said that the amnesia could be psychological, as well—that whatever she’d been through had been so awful that her mind might be protecting her from the shock of remembering.
That didn’t seem right, though. She wasn’t sure why, but Kenna got the feeling from her defensive injuries, and her inability to relax until she figured out at least some part of what had happened to her, that she had a strong will to survive—that Kenneth Parker or someone in her past had taught her to think and fight, not surrender to a weakness like hysterical amnesia.
A glimpse of something sharp and silver glinted in the corner of her eye and Kenna shrieked. “Stop it!” Throwing up her hands, she snatched the man’s wrist to stop the sharp object coming at her face.
“Nurse.”
“Yes, Doctor.” Small hands tugged at her shoulder and Kenna twisted away. “Easy, Ms. Parker. We’re trying to help you.”
“Get away from me!” Kenna evaded the hands and shoved the weapon away, fighting to sit up.
“Kenna.” A firmer hand clasped her shoulder, refusing to be shrugged off. “You’re safe. I’ve got your back.”
Kenna froze at the deeply articulate male voice. She tilted her gaze to the dark-haired man with the badge and gun on his belt. Blue eyes. She knew those blue eyes. He was Detective...? The name that went with the piercing gaze escaped her for the moment. Still, she appreciated the clip of authority in his tone. If he said so, she believed he would keep her safe.
“The last thing we need is for her to panic. Isn’t that right, Doc?”
The other man chuckled beside her. “It’s never a good thing in the ER.”
Kenna turned to the gentler voice and looked into the black man’s warm brown eyes.
“That’s where you are now. St. Luke’s Hospital emergency room. You have a concussion, several abrasions and some deep cuts I’m in the process of treating now that I know what medications I can use.”
Kenna drew in a deep breath to calm the pulse pounding in her ears and nodded. She dropped her gaze to the plastic ID badge the doctor in the white lab coat wore around his neck. “Dr. McBride.” She realized she still had his forearm clenched between her hands and quickly opened her grip. “I’m sorry. I thought you were... That someone was... I don’t know what I thought.”
“Did you remember something about the attack?” Detective Blue Eyes asked. “Is the syringe significant?”
“There was no evidence of drugs in her preliminary blood work,” the doctor offered.
Keir nodded. “But there are some drugs that leave the system quickly.”
“That’s true. And I estimate these injuries occurred eight to ten hours ago.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” Kenna interrupted. “Something was coming at my face. I could see...” A black void filled the space where the memory should be. She shook her head. A syringe? She eyed the object in the doctor’s hand and frowned. She couldn’t have been cut with a syringe. Her focus narrowed to the tiny hash marks and numbers marking the syringe—3 ml. 2.5 ml. 2 ml. 1.5... A door slammed shut in her head and she wanted to scream.
So what did that mean? She tried to recall what it was that had triggered her panicked reaction. But when she closed her eyes to concentrate, she was greeted by the frightening abyss of her amnesia. Kenna quickly opened her eyes to focus on things she could recognize and shook her head. “Sorry. I’ve still got nothing.”
“Not to worry.” The detective pulled away, retreating to the doorway where he must have been waiting, out of the doctor’s and nurse’s way. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I hope you’re right.”
He winked. “I’m always right.”
His confidence surprised her for a moment before she felt a smile softening her bruised, swollen face. His roguish charm distracted her from her fears and gave her back some of her own confidence. “Then we’d better get to it. I’ll do my best not to freak out on anyone again.”
While the nurse tucked a warm blanket around her, Dr. McBride rolled his stool back to the examination table and pointed to the items on the stainless steel tray beside him as he explained the procedure. She watched him pick up the syringe again, and her chest grew tight. Kenna breathed in deeply to dispel the uneasiness quaking inside her. Maybe she just had a thing about needles. With the nurse’s help, she turned onto her side, looking away from the doctor as he went to work. “Go ahead, Doctor.”
“I need you to relax. This is the same localized numbing agent I used on your scalp when I stitched that up. You’ll feel three little pinches before I’m done.”
Kenna nodded her understanding. If she wasn’t going to have any useful kind of flashback, why bother trying to understand? Forcing her jumbled thoughts to organize themselves was only aggravating the headache throbbing against her skull. Maybe if she stopped fighting so hard to remember and didn’t focus on anything except her present surroundings, the answers would finally come to her.
Dr. McBride seemed blessedly patient with her and competent in his treatment of her wounds. The nurse buzzed around the ER room, setting equipment and medicines on the tray beside the doctor and taking away discarded items. Detective Blue Eyes—no, wait...Keir Watson. His name fell into place and she smiled inside. Finally. A memory that seemed to stick. Detective Watson was either standing guard at the door or waiting to get the full report on her injuries from the doctor. Kenna wasn’t sure why the younger man with the take-charge voice would still be here if it wasn’t for some official reason. He’d explained more than once that they didn’t have a personal connection. Instead, he’d described them as adversaries from work.
It was a shame to have forgotten a compelling face like Keir’s. Chiseled bone structure that was perhaps a bit too sharp to be traditionally handsome was softened by a dusting of tobacco-brown beard stubble and a sexy half-grin. Those impossibly blue eyes narrowed with a question when he caught her studying him and she held his gaze until he folded his arms over his chest. The movement drew her attention lower. He’d put his jacket back on and she acknowledged another memory. Seeing how the dark gray wool hugged his shoulders and biceps, Kenna recalled Keir’s body heat, and how quickly she’d warmed up with his jacket draped over her in his car. She remembered the faint scents of something oakish and bitter that had clung to the material, too, making her think he’d enjoyed some kind of drink before they’d met.
Or met again.
Or something like that.
Oh, how she hated being at such a disadvantage. Why was Keir her enemy? She’d done something to him. Shredded a case of his in court? Just what kind of attorney was she? Not one who worked for the good guys, apparently.
Now, didn’t that conjure up all kinds of possibilities as to who might want to hurt her? A client unsatisfied with her representation? The family member of a criminal who’d been sent to prison despite her best efforts? A victim upset because she’d kept someone out of prison? Was she trying a controversial case? Had she learned a dangerous secret from one of her clients that someone else was anxious to keep silent?
She didn’t think this kind of violence could be random. Maybe the attack had nothing to do with her job. Did she have a jealous ex? A rival at work? It was impossible to evaluate her choices when she couldn’t yet recall all the details of her life.
Kenna winced as the needle pricked the skin near her temple and closed her eyes when she felt a second pinch in her hairline. She gritted her teeth when she felt the third shot sting her jaw, and her breathing grew a little more rapid. How much more would she have to endure tonight?
She’d kept herself as calm and focused as she could, under the extreme circumstances. But the emergency room at St. Luke’s Hospital in downtown Kansas City was a noisy, overwhelming place, especially for a woman who couldn’t answer many of the questions the admitting clerk, attending nurse, emergency room physician or KCPD criminologist who’d left earlier had asked her over the last several hours.
Keir Watson’s badge had gotten her through the red tape of checking in, but without an insurance card or a driver’s license, the staff couldn’t check her medical records. Dr. McBride had refused to give her anything for the pain or even antibiotics until he’d received a fax to back up her shaky assertion that she didn’t think she was allergic to any medications. She was worn out. There wasn’t any part of her that didn’t hurt. And the wound to her memory wasn’t something that Dr. McBride and his nurse could treat.
Were those tears chafing her eyelids? She wasn’t a crier, was she? She’d hate that if she was. Exhaustion and frustration were finally winning the battle against the sheer will to keep it all together.
“Need something to hold on to?”
Kenna’s eyes popped open when she felt a warm hand sliding over hers.
Keir Watson’s grasp was as sure as the hug of his arms around her body had been when he carried her to his car. It was just as warm and reassuring, too, reminding her she wasn’t alone and that someone strong and capable truly did have her back—even if it was only for tonight.
Kenna nodded her thanks and squeezed her fingers around the detective’s solid grip. “Thank you. Again.”
“Don’t worry, Counselor. I’m keeping tabs on what you owe me.”
Kenna hoped that his teasing tone was genuine, because she felt like smiling. Only, the shots had deadened the left side of her face and she couldn’t tell if she’d smiled or not. The stiffness from the swelling and the raw ache of the open wounds finally disappeared with a numbing relief.
She squeezed her eyes shut and held on while the doctor worked on the long, deep cuts. He’d already pulled her hair off her forehead and cheek and anchored it off her face with one of those caps she’d seen doctors wear into surgery. Although she couldn’t actually see what the doctor was doing, she felt the warmth of the sterile solution he squirted over her cuts and tasted miniscule grit and the coppery tang of her own blood at the corner of her lips before someone wiped it away. She felt the tugs on her skin and heard a couple of concerned sighs and quick orders to the nurse while he glued and sutured and applied tiny butterfly bandages to the wounds.
“I think we’re finally done.” The doctor rolled his stool away from the table and stood.
The left side of Kenna’s face was still numb, her eyelid droopy from the anesthetic, when she finally let go of Keir’s hand. He and the nurse helped her sit up and swing her legs over the edge of the table while Dr. McBride rattled off wound-care instructions and washed his hands. He shone a light into her eyes one more time, checking her pupil reaction, before smiling and giving her permission to leave on the proviso that she contact her personal physician Monday morning.
The nurse rolled aside the stainless steel tray piled with bloodied gauze and various tubes of antibiotics and skin glue. After depositing the sharps on the tray in the disposal bin, the nurse handed her several sheets of printed instructions and a package of sterile gauze pads and tape. Meanwhile the doctor reminded her of the symptoms to watch out for that might indicate the injury to her brain was getting worse.
“Thank you, Dr. McBride.” Kenna spoke slowly to articulate around the numbness beside her mouth. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
“You’re lucky you can’t remember what happened to you, Ms. Parker.” He reached out and shook her hand, holding on for a few compassionate seconds. “If the amnesia turns out to be permanent, perhaps that’s a good thing. I can’t imagine how frightening an attack like that would be. You take care.”
After Dr. McBride and the nurse had gone, Kenna tilted her gaze to the detective still standing beside the examination table. “So why don’t I feel lucky?”
“Because you don’t know who did this to you. And you’re afraid he or she might come back to finish the job.”
Exactly. “I think I liked you better when you held my hand and didn’t say anything.”
Keir slid his hands into the pockets of his charcoal slacks and grinned. “And here I thought you didn’t like me at all, Counselor.”
Kenna couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t have found this man charming. True, he seemed to be a few years younger than she was, but not enough to make any awkward difference. She had a feeling his sarcastic sense of humor was very much like her own, and she owed him more than she could repay for rescuing her and standing by her through this whole, tortuous ordeal. She tried to match his smile. “Tell me again why we’re supposed to be enemies? I hurt you, didn’t I? Hurt someone you care about. Oh, God, I didn’t sue you, did I?”
“No. You didn’t sue me.” He reached over to pluck the surgical cap off her head and let her hair fall around her face. “According to the doctor, I’d better not fill in the blanks. He said that in order for your memory to recover you need to figure out the missing details in your brain for yourself.”
That wasn’t all Dr. McBride had cautioned her about. “If it comes back at all.”
“You want to try again?”
“Try what?”
The detective pulled out his phone to show her a picture of a man wearing a black sweatshirt hoodie and blue jeans. “Do you recognize this man?”
Kenna studied the image for a few seconds. “Did he do this to me?”
“I can’t say.”
“Because you don’t know? Or because you want me to tell you who he is.”
Keir’s firm mouth eased into a grin. “Can you identify this guy?”
She looked again. Even if she could remember the attack, there was little to identify in the picture. The man stood in the shadows behind a parked car, beneath a harsh circle of light from a street lamp creating shadows that rendered his face a black void that reminded her of the Grim Reaper.
“No. I don’t know him.” Not even the clothes looked familiar. She tucked the loose hair behind her ears. “What if I never remember what happened to me? How good a detective are you? Can KCPD solve a crime like that? I may not remember clients and faces, but I remember my books and law school and what it takes to make a good case. I can’t imagine getting a conviction if the victim herself isn’t a reliable witness. Any decent defense attorney would fry me in court.”
Keir’s eyes darkened to an unreadable midnight blue, and the grin disappeared. She’d struck a nerve there. Something to do with shredding his case again, she imagined. A fist squeezed around Kenna’s heart. She didn’t want whatever had happened between them in the past to ruin this...what? Friendship? Attraction? Maybe she was the only one imagining a connection between them. What if he was just a good cop following through on an investigation and she could have been any citizen he’d taken an oath to protect? Maybe she was more addled in the head than she knew and she couldn’t tell the difference between being kind and caring.
Kenna dropped her feet to the floor and stood, reaching for Keir when he turned away. “What did I just say? I reminded you of something. What did I do to you?”
His cell phone vibrated, creating an audible buzz in the silence of the room while she waited for him to answer.
“Keir?”
But an explanation wasn’t coming. Keir read the summons on the screen as it buzzed again. “The doc said I couldn’t use my phone in here, but I need to take this.”
An instinctive response to ask a different question—to get him to open up about something else before she steered the conversation back to what she really wanted to know—kicked in. “Who’s calling you before dawn?”
“My partner. I asked him to do a wider search grid around the alley where I found you, see if he could find a primary crime scene or at least where you parked your car. He’s searching to find the guy I showed you, too.”
“He’s a person of interest, isn’t he?”
“I spotted him in the general vicinity where I found you. Don’t know if he was sizing up a mark, if he was watching the alley to see if anyone noticed you or if he just had nothing better to do on a Friday night. I’d sure like to talk to him.” The phone buzzed impatiently, and Keir backed toward the door. “I’ll be out in the lobby.”
Manipulating the conversation to get to the answer she needed was starting to feel like second nature to her. Had she possessed this stubborn streak before the attack? “Tell me why you called me the Terminator earlier. It didn’t sound like a compliment.”
“I’ll ask up front about getting you some clothes, too, since the CSI took your suit and shoe to the lab.”
This conversation wasn’t done. Kenna walked right up to him and fingered the lapel of his gray tweed jacket. She rubbed her thumb over the crimson smear staining the nubby material. “You’d better ask about a change of clothes for you, too. You’ve got blood on your jacket. My blood.”
“I’m coming back.” The gap—both literal and figurative—widened between them as he pulled the material from her fingers. Then he put the phone to his ear and turned away. “Hey, buddy. What’s up?”
Kenna hugged her arms around her weary body and watched the door close behind him. Keir had managed to be supportive and evasive at the same time. “Run, you clever boy.”
Clever boy. Where had that phrase come from? While she’d seen glimpses of a boyish charm, there was certainly nothing immature about Keir Watson. Not in his stature, his tone or his demeanor.
“Clever boy,” she muttered the words again, mentally chasing the blip of a memory that floated through her head. “It’s from a TV show.” She watched TV. She had a hobby. “Blue box. British accents.” One lightbulb, however dim, finally turned on inside her head. “Dr. Who.”
She seemed to be in pretty good shape, so she wasn’t a full-blown couch potato. Who did she watch it with? Family? Friends? A significant other? Why hadn’t whoever she watched that show with come to see her at the hospital? Okay, sure, there was that whole thing with the missing phone and purse and relying on the police to track down where she lived and worked—but wasn’t someone missing her? Alarmed that it was five in the morning and she hadn’t come home?
Or was someone at home the danger she needed to fear? The person who’d gotten so angry that he or she had tried to kill her? How should she handle this? What was her next step? How was she supposed to know who to trust?
“Take a breath,” she warned herself before panic reclaimed her.
Kenna hugged her arms around the thin cotton of her gown and glanced around the room, looking for answers. Looking for someone to talk to. Looking for a friend or sympathetic doctor or polite detective or anyone who could keep this helpless, lonely feeling from seeping in as surely as the air-conditioned chill that dotted her skin with goose bumps.
She had a feeling she wasn’t used to relying on others to take care of her. Kenna eyed the soiled remains from treating her injuries that the nurse had wheeled into the corner. She wasn’t used to being weak like this, forced to put her trust in people she didn’t know. Had she put her trust in the wrong person, making herself a sitting duck who’d had no clue she was about to be attacked?
Fear crawled across her skin as the knowledge she would have to trust someone to help her through this sank in. Where was home? How was she supposed to get there? What was she supposed to do with herself the next morning? And the day after that?
Her gaze drifted over to the ER room’s metal door. She’d put her trust in Keir Watson tonight. Not that he’d left her much choice. He’d allowed her a token argument, then had swept her up into his arms, bundled her into his car and driven her here. But she could have asked him to leave the treatment room at any time, and she hadn’t. She wanted him with her.
Crazy as it seemed, Kenna knew Keir better than anyone else in her life. Once she’d come to and realized her brain had turned into Swiss cheese, it felt as if her whole life had reset. There was the time before the assault where her memory was riddled with empty spaces and vague shadows, and there was the time after—when she’d stumbled into Keir Watson’s arms. He was the person she’d known the longest in the part of her life she was more certain of. And his abrupt departure to chat with his partner left her feeling about as vulnerable and confused and alone as she’d been when she first woke up with her cheek in a puddle of her own blood on the cold, gritty concrete.
Chapter Three (#u8257cc0a-b2e0-5729-9305-ae79b8c31454)
A sharp rap at the exam room door rescued Kenna from the maddening examination of her thoughts. She turned as quickly as the ball bearings inside her skull would allow and smiled, eager to apologize for showing Keir Watson anything but gratitude. “You came back.”
“I haven’t been anywhere yet.”
Not Keir. Not a familiar face. Her smile quickly flatlined and she backed her hip against the examination table as an older man with neatly trimmed hair that held more salt than pepper in it dropped what looked like a carry-on bag on the chair inside the door.
“Kenna, dear. Look at you. How horrible. Does it hurt?” He swallowed her up in a hug and planted a chaste kiss on her numb lips, giving Kenna the chance to do little more than wedge her hands between them and gasp in protest. “Of course it hurts. When I heard you’d been attacked...”
Kenna straight-armed him out of her personal space, pushing the older man back to get a better look at his face, hoping for a ping of recognition as he rattled on.
“...I paged the doctor. Pulled him out of a room down the hall and explained who I was so I could get a report.” He squeezed her shoulders, threatening to hug her again. “He said you could have died.”
“I’m sorry. I...?” Once again, it was disadvantage Kenna. Something kick in. Please.
The older man’s eyebrows, as thick and wild as his hair was neatly cut, arched above his brown eyes like two fuzzy caterpillars. “You’ve forgotten me. The doctor said you had gaps in your memory—that you didn’t even remember what happened to you.” He covered her hand, capturing it against the front of the cashmere sweater he wore. “I’m your emergency contact. I’m the one who faxed your medical history to the hospital. It’s me. Hellie.”
What kind of silly name was that for a man? She tried to place the face, thinking those bushy eyebrows that so desperately needed a trim should look familiar. His skin was perfectly tanned, from too much time spent either on a golf course or in a pricey salon. And his teeth were unnaturally white. He was barely taller than she was in her bare feet, although he seemed reasonably fit for a man his age. “Hellie?” She repeated the odd name.
“Good grief, my dear, I’ve known you for fifteen years.” Known her? How well? “Here. I’ll prove it.” He reached into the pocket of his pressed khaki slacks to pull out his billfold. “Here’s my license, along with a picture of us with your mother and father.”
“No. Wait.” Kenna put a hand on his wrist to stop him. If Dr. McBride had talked to him about her condition, this man must have shown proof of a connection to her. The doctor had said she needed her memories to return to her naturally, that she needed to discover for herself what she knew and what she’d forgotten, or else she’d never be able to trust her own judgment again. “Let me figure it out.”
The pungent scent of cigar smoke clinging to his clothes sparked a glimmer of recognition. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and she’d already noticed she wasn’t, either. Not even an indentation from where one might have been stolen. Good. She hadn’t forgotten a husband. But she had forgotten whatever relationship she shared with this man who thought he had the right to kiss her. Although it hadn’t been much of a kiss. But perhaps the lack of any toe-curling response and spark of recognition had more to do with the anesthetic and swelling around her mouth rather than any innate repulsion. Still, she seriously hoped she could rule out boyfriend as a possibility.
The polished loafers and expensive leisure clothes reminded her of wealth. She’d been wearing a designer suit and one Jimmy Choo heel when Keir brought her to St. Luke’s. So she had money, too. She was an attorney. She worked in a law firm. No, she was one of the owners of a law firm—an inheritance bestowed upon her by her father and earned through her own hard work. Bushy Brows was a partner. She pictured the letterhead on the stationery at an office desk—Kleinschmidt, Drexler, Parker and Bond—and understanding fell into place. He’d kissed her before, and she hadn’t appreciated it then, either. “Helmut. You’re Helmut Bond.”
“Of course I am. I’d be surprised if you could forget old Hellie.” Smiling, he went back to the doorway to pick up the bag. “I brought your overnight bag and insurance information and have already filled out the paperwork for you. I stashed your mail in here, too.”
The man might be older, but he wasn’t what she’d call old. He showed no lack of confidence, and clearly had money. Was this the kind of man she dated? She was feeling nothing like that little sting of awareness she’d felt when Keir held her hand. Was Helmut Bond supposed to mean more to her than a business associate?
Hellie set the bag on the examination table beside her. He pulled out a folder filled with papers and a sheaf of forms on a clipboard from the hospital. “These just need your signature. I took the liberty of canceling the forms you filled out earlier. These will be processed through insurance before you’re billed.”
Kenna took the pen he handed her, clutching it in her left hand while she fingered through the stack of letters and legal briefs bearing her name. Although she felt vaguely resentful that he had the presumption to make those business decisions for her, she supposed she had little choice about trusting that he had her best interests at heart.
Hellie tapped the form he wanted her to sign. “Are you sure you’re okay? You remember how to write your name, don’t you?”
“Sorry.” Kenna switched the pen to her right hand and skimmed through the insurance form to make sure she wasn’t agreeing to anything she shouldn’t before signing her name on the bottom line.
Hellie returned the pen to the shirt pocket beneath his sweater. “Are these holes in your memory going to be permanent?”
“I don’t know.” She opened the file and pulled out a letter with the firm’s letterhead and a space at the bottom awaiting her signature above her typed name. Images of a group of people sitting around a boardroom table flickered in her brain, and the names on the stationery began to match up with faces. A stout older man with snowy white hair—Arthur Kleinschmidt. Her father’s friend and a founding partner. Hellie—regaling everyone with a story. He enjoyed being the center of attention. Stan Drexler, only a couple of years older than Kenna, sat beside her. His gaunt face and receding hairline accentuated his pointy nose, reminding her of a rat. Yes, she was remembering having that amusing observation during the weekly staff meeting. She could see the faces of the other junior partners and personal assistants who sat at the table and moved through the lushly appointed room, although some of their names escaped her.
But that meeting had been when? Last week? Last month? Couldn’t she be certain of anything more recent? Like yesterday and the events leading up to the assault?
“Do you remember what happened to you last night?” her visitor asked, frowning. “Did you give the police a description? Are we going to be able to arrest the SOB and prosecute him?”
She shook her head and pulled an envelope from the file, hoping that something else here would trigger a memory. “My body says that I was in a struggle of some kind. Unfortunately, I don’t remember anything about it.”
“Oh, Kenna.” Hellie’s gaze traveled with unabashed pity over the wounds on her face. But when he reached out to touch one, she turned away to open the envelope and pull out the letter inside. “I’m so sorry. Amnesia on top of being cut up like this? Will you have scars?”
Kenna’s fingers flew to the stiches and glue as she clutched the folded paper to her chest. She hadn’t even thought about disfigurement. Wasn’t the memory loss enough of a burden to bear?
“It’s a good thing you got Dr. Colbern off that murder charge. Maybe he can repay you with a little plastic surgery.” Hellie chuckled at the inside joke Kenna didn’t get. “Oh, come on. Andrew Colbern? Cosmetic surgeon? His wife accused him of hiring someone to have her killed? You proved the woman wrong, of course. Made the firm a tidy sum of money.”
Of course? She’d defended this Dr. Colbern? Did she make a habit of defending would-be murderers? According to a few of Keir’s comments, he thought the doctor was guilty. Yet she’d gotten Colbern off. That sort of history could go a long way toward explaining why a cop like Keir Watson might consider her an enemy.
Curious to ask those questions of Keir and confirm her suspicion, Kenna set aside the papers and unzipped the overnight bag. She dug through underwear, running shoes and yoga pants inside. But as soon as she’d located the cosmetics bag and pulled out a compact, she hesitated. Clutching the small bag to her chest, she turned to face Helmut. But it wasn’t the fear of looking at her reflection that gave her pause, or even his crude remark about needing a plastic surgeon. Why would a coworker be her emergency contact? Didn’t she have a family? Personal friends? A boyfriend? Why had she chosen to rely on this man? Because, frankly, he wouldn’t be her first choice for a confidant if this uncomfortable meeting had been their first. “How do you have access to my personal things? Are we...?”
Hellie laughed. “You and me? Oh, honey, no. It’s not for lack of trying, though. After my divorce, I thought maybe the two of us could hook up...” His good humor faded. “You don’t remember that, either? We’ve served as each other’s escorts to several fund-raising events. But when I suggested we could be something more, you turned me down flat.”
She had? Did he hold that against her? This guy didn’t seem particularly heartbroken.
“No matter how many laughs we’ve shared over the years, how much we have in common, you said, as partners in the same law firm—competing for the same promotions, high-profile cases and so on—that it wasn’t a smart move for your career plan to see each other socially. I’ve accepted that and moved on. And your decision has paid off. Once Arthur retires, it’ll be you or me who takes over as senior partner. Stan hasn’t brought in the big clients and built his reputation the way you and I have.”
Arthur? Stan? From the board meeting. Right. “And we’re not seeing anyone else?” she asked.
“I’ve been dating Carol on and off.”
“Carol?”
“Yes, she’s your...” His voice trailed off and his lips curved into a pitying smile.
“My what?” A sister? Friend?
“I don’t suppose you remember her, either.”
Kenna shook her head.
“You said not to tell you.”
“Hellie.”
“Your executive assistant. Carol Ashton. Petite brunette? Shapely. Snarky. Superefficient? You’re a stronger man than I am.” He laughed at his male-female ribbing. “You’ve always been about the work and putting that first. But I need someone in my life. You don’t complicate your goals with distracting relationships. I admire that about you.”
She’d let the workaholic allusion, and the fact that she apparently defended criminals and had no personal life to speak of, slide for a moment. There was a more pressing clarification she still needed here. “So you can go to my house in the middle of the night and pack my things and greet me with a kiss because...we’re old friends?”
How much of a player was Helmut Bond? Had she ever succumbed to his dubious charms?
“You did get a hard whack in the head, didn’t you?” Hellie put one hand on her bag. “I picked this up at the office. Carol had those files stacked with the messages and mail on your desk. You always keep a bag packed in your closet in case you work late or are running straight to the gym. Your passport was in the safe there, so I pulled that for ID. Once the call to the firm’s answering service was forwarded to me, I gathered the information I thought you’d need and came right to the hospital. We share the same insurance provider, of course.”
“I see.” She might as well ask him to confirm a few other suspicions. “I don’t have any brothers and sisters, and both my parents are dead—Kenneth and...?”
“Gloria. Yes, they’re both gone.” Hellie cupped a hand around her shoulder again. She waited expectantly for him to continue, hearing the seconds ticking loudly from his watch near her ear. “You’re worrying me. Do I need to call a specialist for you? We have several psychiatric consultants on retainer with the firm. I could arrange for one of them to meet with you to go through hypnosis or memory exercises with you. We’d have to keep it hush-hush—out of the media so no one can question any of your recent or upcoming casework and claim incompetence and start filing appeals. I can draft a press release stating you’re taking a leave of absence for your physical health after the assault. But I don’t like seeing you like this.”
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