Bodyguard Reunion
And JC silently lectured herself not to fill it. She sometimes did that when she was nervous.
“I guess I wasn’t sure you would come,” Charity finally said.
JC tried not to take it personally. Trust had to be earned. Basic tenet of doing business. “I was concerned,” JC said. “May...I come in?” she asked.
Charity shook her head. “We’ve got to get out of here before Bobby comes back.”
“Who’s Bobby?” JC asked, already knowing the answer. The investigator that she’d hired had unearthed the name of the man she was living with. But she couldn’t let Charity know that. She looked over the girl’s shoulder. She was at least three inches shorter than JC’s own five foot six.
Charity tossed her hair. “Just this guy. He can be a real jerk sometimes.”
She turned and that’s when JC saw the open suitcase on the couch. Wadded-up clothes were hanging over the edges of the inexpensive luggage. Two pairs of gladiator sandals, one black, one brown, seemed to be taking up most of the room.
“You said you were in trouble,” JC said. “The kind of trouble where you need to leave?”
“The kind of trouble where I think it’s possible that I’m going to be that poor girl on the ten o’clock news,” Charity said, her voice low. “Bobby’s got some anger issues and I don’t feel safe. It was probably a mistake for me to move in here.”
In the information that had been gathered about Charity, there’d been no mention of violence involving her and Bobby. “How long have the two of you been together?”
Charity ran a hand through her long hair. “Not that long. A few months.”
“Where were you planning to go?”
Charity shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve got a couple hundred bucks. Should get me a place to stay for a week or so until I figure things out.”
Not a nice place. But they could have that discussion once she was safely out of the apartment. “Maybe you better finish packing,” JC said. She looked around. The apartment was very sparsely furnished with just a couch and two folding chairs. A flat-screen television was perched on top of two stacked red plastic crates. A counter separated the kitchen from the living room and it was loaded with dirty dishes, potato chip bags and empty ice-cream-sandwich boxes. There was a big orange cat lying on the far end, its head lifted, perhaps interested in the visitor but not quite enough to be concerned.
Charity wasn’t moving. Just standing there, watching JC.
“Can I...help you with anything?” JC asked.
It took Charity a minute to answer. “I guess I’ll need Hogi’s food,” she said finally, her head moving in the cat’s direction. She walked toward her suitcase.
JC had no idea whether or not the Periwinkle allowed cats. But if not, she suspected that a special damage deposit might take care of the problem. “Do you have a cage for him?”
Charity looked at her as if she might be stupid and used her elbow to point at the top of the fridge.
Well, of course. JC set her teeth. Now wasn’t the time to get into an argument. She wanted to get out of there before Bobby decided to come back.
She found the cat’s food in a bag near a filthy litter box that caused her to breathe through her mouth. She grabbed the small bag of food and backed away. Then she reached for the cat cage on top of the refrigerator.
The cat turned his head, saw what she was doing and, showing more energy than she’d expected, bolted off the counter and down the hallway.
“Oh, my God,” Charity screamed. “Don’t let Hogi see that. He’ll think he’s going to the vet.”
“I’ll get him,” JC said.
Charity held up her hand. “Just wait here. He’ll be under the bed. You’re a stranger. He’ll never come to you.” She picked up a photo album that had been wedged behind the suitcase. “I had these pictures. I thought you might want to see them. Since my mom is in them, you know.”
“Thank you,” she said. She took the album.
Charity ran down the hall, leaving JC alone in the squalid little living room. The cover of the photo album was a brown padded vinyl. JC flipped it open. Inside were ten or twelve plastic sheets, most of the four-by-six slots filled.
Baby pictures. They had to be of Charity. The eyes gave it away. Unable to resist, she flipped a couple pages, looking for the woman who had been Charity’s mother.
There. Holding Charity.
Pretty, with long blond hair. Not as thin as Charity but still slender. She was slumped in a chair, like she might be exhausted.
Had she already realized by that time that she’d be raising Charity alone? Or had she known that from the minute she’d gotten pregnant?
So many questions.
But maybe now she was finally close to getting answers. She could hear Charity calling to the cat. “Come on, Hogi. Come out right now.”
Her sister had a hint of the South in her voice. JC was so intent upon listening to it that it surprised the heck out of her when the apartment door suddenly swung open.
A man, his gut hanging over his belt, wearing a black tank top and gray cargo shorts, stared at her. His hair, long and pulled back into a ponytail, was a dirty blond. He was maybe thirty. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.
When she didn’t answer immediately, he looked beyond her. “Charity,” he yelled.
JC stepped forward. “You must be Bobby. I’m JC.” Instinctively, she extended her hand.
He ignored it. He was staring at the suitcase and she could see red spread up his neck. He turned.
JC moved fast and got in front of him, blocking his way to the hallway. “Hey,” she said, “let’s talk—”
He pushed her and she stumbled backward. But years of staying upright on a soccer field had her quickly back in his face. She kicked his shin, right above the ankle joint, right where she knew it would hurt most.
“You little bitch,” he said, punctuating his remarks with a right hook.
JC managed to duck the first punch. “Help,” she screamed. “Somebody help us.”
But help wasn’t coming. And when he grabbed her and shoved her back, knocking her head against the cheap drywall, she knew she was in terrible trouble.
She kicked and twisted but he was strong enough to fight off her attempts with one hand and keep his other hand around her neck, anchoring her to the wall. And his hand was squeezing, closing her airway.
And she knew that she was going to die.
Far away, she heard Charity yelling. “Stop it. Stop it, Bobby. You’re going to kill her.”
She was right.
“Run,” JC managed.
But Charity didn’t. Instead, she pounded on the man’s back, yanking at his hair, scratching his skin.
But still he hung on.
Until suddenly, his hands were gone. And she sank to the floor, gasping in air. There was a terrific buzzing in her ears and it took her seconds to realize that the sound she heard was someone’s fist pounding into flesh.
If she wasn’t mistaken, Royce intended to beat Bobby to death. “Royce,” she said weakly. She staggered to her feet. Another punch. She lurched toward Royce. “Stop,” she said.
But he didn’t until she fell into him. He turned and caught her before her face hit the floor. Which was good because if not, both she and Bobby would have been out cold.
“Jules,” Royce said, his eyes wild. “Damn, honey. Are you—”
“Las Vegas Police Department. Open up.”
Before they could do that, however, two Vegas cops burst through the door, guns drawn.
Royce kept one arm around her and raised his other. “I’m Royce Morgan of Wingman Security. This is my client Juliana Cambridge, and that—” he looked at Bobby, who was just coming to on the floor “—is the piece of crap that attempted to kill her.”
As far as introductions went, it was one of the most concise that she’d ever heard. She looked around for Charity and realized she’d disappeared back into the bedroom.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
She was confident the responding officers were the same ones she’d seen cruising by. She nodded, not sure her voice was steady yet.
“She needs an ambulance,” Royce said.
She shook her head. “Maybe later,” she said softly.
Royce didn’t look satisfied, but he pressed his lips together.
“Who are you?” the shorter officer asked, pointing at Charity, who was now slowly walking down the hall, holding her cell phone. JC assumed that she’d been the one to call the police.
Even being in the neighborhood, they would have arrived too late. If Royce hadn’t come, she’d be dead. How had he found her?
“I’m Charity. Charity White.”
“Do you know this man?” the same officer asked.
Charity nodded. “Bobby. Bobby Boyd. This is his apartment. I’ve been...living here.”
The cop began writing in the small notepad he’d pulled from his breast pocket.
“And what’s the relationship between you and Ms. Cambridge?” the taller Hispanic officer asked.
“We don’t have a relationship,” Charity said. “This is the first time I ever met her. Her mom was friends with my mom.”
That wasn’t exactly what JC had told Charity. My mother knew your mother. That had been her explanation as to why she’d sought out Charity.
But JC kept her mouth shut. It certainly wasn’t the time to blurt out that she and Charity might be half sisters.
From there, things moved pretty quickly. The cops talked quietly to Bobby, who was coming around. An ambulance arrived. Bobby looked small and nonthreatening on the gurney. His eyes were filled with anger but he stayed quiet, as if he’d maybe been in this situation before and understood the importance of keeping his mouth shut.
After he was gone, Royce guided her over to the couch and made sure she was sitting before talking quietly to the cops in the kitchen.
Then it was Charity’s turn. The heavier, younger cop motioned for Charity to join him in the kitchen. JC twisted her neck, watching, but the cop stood in front of Charity, blocking JC’s view.
The Hispanic officer pulled up a folding chair in front of her, forcing her to turn her back to Charity. It dawned on her that it was not by chance they were doing their best to question them separately in the small apartment. No doubt they wanted to see if their stories matched.
Royce stood behind her, his hands flat on the back of the couch. He did not interrupt or ask any questions, which was probably why the cop let him stay. The questions were easy at first. Full name. Address. Phone where she could be reached.
“Walk me through what happened once you arrived here,” the cop said.
“Charity was in the bedroom, trying to get her cat, when Mr. Boyd arrived home. I tried to engage him in conversation. But he appeared angry and I was concerned for Charity’s safety. She’d already confided in me on the telephone and in person that she was afraid of the man. He pushed me, I kicked him in self-defense and then he took a swing at me. I ducked but then he started choking me.” She kept her voice steady, dispassionate, as if she was reporting revenue figures at a board meeting.
The cop looked up from his report. She could almost see the message that passed from the cop to Royce as the two locked eyes. She’s damn lucky you got here.
Nobody needed to point that out to her.
The officer stood up. “I think I’ve got this.”
It was just a few minutes more before Charity and the other officer completed their quiet conversation in the kitchen. Then the two cops left almost as quickly as they’d arrived.
JC stood in the living room. The space was strangely quiet. She looked at Royce. “This will be inadequate, but thank you.”
Chapter 5
Thank you. She’d probably been less than a minute away from being choked to death and now she was calmly thanking him. “I don’t know what the hell you were thinking,” he said. Better that than tell her she’d taken ten years off his damn life. “I told you to lock the door. I assumed it was understood that you needed to stay behind it, stay locked in, protected.”
He was practically spitting his words. He took a breath, reaching for calm. Charity was watching them closely, obviously listening. The woman looked to be early twenties and she might be very pretty with a little more meat on her bones and those stupid piercings removed.
So their moms had been friends. That was nice, but given that Jules had never actually met Charity, wasn’t it a bit much that she’d immediately dropped everything to come to the woman’s rescue?
Of course it was. If it had been anybody else. But Jules was...a good person. Truly decent. Despite everything, he believed that. Once she’d realized that Charity was in trouble, she’d have wanted to help.
He could easily imagine the convoluted reasoning. Their mothers had been friends. Ergo, Jules’s mom would have wanted her to help Charity.
He knew, from the many conversations they’d had eight years ago, that the summer Jules was fourteen, she and her mother had been in a car accident. Jules had suffered a serious leg injury but survived. Her mother had died. It had been a devastating loss and Jules had confessed that most everything she’d done or accomplished after that had been because it would have made her mom proud.
Graduate at the top of her high school class. Proud mom.
Finish college in three years. Proud mom.
Go to graduate school and get a great job afterward. Proud mom.
So he wasn’t second-guessing her motivation to help Charity. None of that, however, made him any less angry that she hadn’t thought twice about the promise she’d given him to stay at the hotel.
She could have died. He’d blown every red light and totally disregarded any speed limit. But still, he’d almost been too late. She needed to understand that she’d been both foolish and very, very lucky.
So that she never did anything like it again until he could figure out where this threat was coming from and neutralize it.
“How did you know where I was?” she asked.
“Valet remembered the intersection. Once I got here, there was an old woman sweeping her sidewalk.”
“I didn’t think she saw me.”
“Old people watch what’s going on in their neighborhoods. She saw you come into this building. Otherwise, I’d have had no idea where to search.” He’d yelled at the old lady, asking if she’d seen a dark-haired woman in a blue sweater, and she’d pointed at the middle building. He’d wasted precious minutes on the second floor before he’d gotten to the third and heard Jules yelling for help.
He’d come through the door, knowing that he was going to kill whoever was harming her. He supposed he was lucky that he’d had to stop to keep her from dropping like a stone to the floor.
Otherwise, it would likely have gone very differently with the cops.
“Are you sure you don’t want to see a doctor?” he asked. Her neck was still red and he knew the bruising was coming. He’d feel a lot better if she was checked out.
“No,” she said. She looked at Charity. “Get your cat and let’s go.”
“But Bobby’s going to jail,” the young woman said. She reached for one of the half-full chip bags on the counter, as if the last fifteen minutes had solved all her problems.
“If charges are pressed, which I hope they are, he’ll still likely get bail,” Jules said. “He won’t be behind bars for long. I don’t think it’s in your best interest to be here when he comes back.”
“She’s right,” Royce said. He tried to ignore the heat that spread from his gut to his neck when Jules shot him a grateful look. He was mad at her. For so many things. Gratitude wasn’t going to sucker him in, make him forget.
“Who are you again?” Charity asked, likely irritated that it suddenly seemed as if it was two against one.
He glanced at Jules, wondering what she’d shared with Charity. Before he could speak, Jules jumped in.
“His name is Royce Morgan.”
“Okay,” she said dismissively. “But what’s with the two of you?”
Royce realized that the girl had not heard his introduction to the cops. From the corner of his eye, he’d seen her beat feet back to the bedroom and had considered that she was fleeing down the fire escape before she’d reappeared a minute later. He just bet that the girl had some drugs or other illegal contraband in the bedroom that she hadn’t wanted the cops to stumble upon.
“We can get into that later,” Jules said.
Charity shrugged, as if she really didn’t give a damn.
“You said earlier that you would need to find a place to stay,” JC said.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I was wondering if you’d consider staying with me,” Jules said.
Charity chewed on the nail on her right index finger. “Why would I do that?”
“It will give you a chance to think about alternatives. I’m in town for just a few days, so it wouldn’t be for long, but it might save you a few bucks.”
Royce wasn’t happy. He’d known Charity for about ten minutes, but the impressions were forming fast. She didn’t choose her friends well and she had terrible manners. She’d not offered one bit of thanks to Jules for trying to save her ass.
He didn’t relish the idea of her being around. But if the alternative was that Charity would be staying in some dive and Jules would feel the need to visit, that was even more unacceptable.
Charity shoveled in a big handful of chips. “I don’t know. There shouldn’t be any more danger,” she said, talking with her mouth full. “And it’s not like we’re friends.”
“We could be friends,” Jules said. “Please, I’d really like to do this for you.”
Charity shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”
As far as rocking endorsements, it fell a little flat. But there was something not quite right. Charity’s words and tone were mildly accepting but her eyes seemed brighter, as if she might really be excited about the offer.
Maybe the kid was more scared than he’d given her credit for.
Jules smiled at Charity. “Go get your cat. I’ll feel better when we’re out of here.”
When Charity was back in the bedroom, he spoke quickly. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
“I’m grateful for your discretion,” Jules said, her voice low. “I’ll tell her what’s going on but not just yet. But, Royce,” she said, her voice a little sharper, “please understand that while I respect your opinion, I make my own decisions.”
He shook his head. “You might be the CEO, but right now, I’m in charge of your safety. You need to keep your head in the game. This just seems a little hasty.”
“I have the ability to offer her some temporary shelter, to give her a chance to get her act together. I think my mom would have wanted me to do that.”
Bingo. It was always going to come back to that.
“Fine,” he said.
“But for now, I don’t want her to know what’s going on. That I need protection.”
Great. She not only wanted to tie his hands, she wanted to put a bag over them. “That won’t work. If she’s staying with you, she’s going to have to understand the rules.”
She drew in a deep breath. “I’ll tell her that you’re providing security. That’s it. Nothing about the letters, nothing about the car that may or may not have been aiming for me. I don’t want her getting frightened and running away.”
“You seem to be really concerned about a girl you just met. I understand that your mom was friends with her mom, but—”
“Please, can we talk about this later? I just want to get out of here.”
The plea pulled at his gut. Jules looked tired, and he realized that while she had dismissed her need for medical care, the attack had still taken a toll on her. “Fine. Let’s make tracks.”
* * *
Make tracks. That took her back. Way back. To eight years ago. She’d been working and living in Manhattan.
It had been crazy busy at work, where she was already a senior director at Geneseel Drugs after just three years on the job. For weeks, she’d been working day and half the night, too, tying up the loose ends of yet another acquisition of a smaller, less profitable competitor. When friends planned the inevitable Memorial Day get-together, she’d declined. They’d been relentless.
“It’s the first summer holiday,” they’d said. “You have to come.”
She’d finally agreed and walked the six blocks through the financial district. She didn’t need directions. She was as familiar with that part of the city as her own neighborhood. She’d gone to a private high school close by and every day after school, she’d walked to her father’s office, where he’d been an executive vice president at one of the largest banks in the city.
He made a good salary. That was obvious. Maybe not when she’d been a young child, but once she’d gotten into middle school and high school, she’d always known that her dad probably made more money than the dads of her friends.
Music lessons. Dance lessons. Club soccer. European vacations. Whatever she’d needed or wanted, he’d worked hard to provide it for her.
Because he hadn’t wanted her to miss her mother. She had, of course. But she’d tried to never let him know how much. Hadn’t wanted to add to his pain.
By the time she’d arrived at the rooftop bar that warm windy spring night, the party was in full swing. She’d chatted and mingled and downed two glasses of wine on an empty stomach. Almost burped it back up when she caught a glimpse of Royce across the room and he smiled at her.
He was simply the most handsome guy she’d seen in a long time. He had presence. That was the only way to put it. Tall, certainly over six foot, and solid with wide shoulders and a broad chest. He was casually dressed in a gray T-shirt, faded blue jeans and scuffed motorcycle boots. She could see the edge of a tattoo on his right bicep, all swirly lines and irregular shapes. He was drinking a beer.
He totally looked as if he could kick some butt.
And the immediate attraction she felt was hard to ignore. But she did, giving him just a brief smile in return before turning her attention back to the woman she was chatting with. The woman had noticed her interest, however, and confided that he was recently back from serving overseas, and a friend of a friend.
And she’d had a crazy desire to talk to him. But she didn’t. Her breakup with Bryson was too fresh. She wasn’t ready. Intellectually she knew that.
Even though her body was practically humming at his blatant sex appeal.
Forty minutes after arriving, she was on the curb, waiting for a cab to take her back to the office, when the storm broke and pouring rain hit.
Out of nowhere, a big umbrella appeared, held by the man from the party. Up close, he was even better looking. “Tough night to be making tracks,” he said with a wickedly sexy smile as the wind threatened to rip the umbrella out of his grasp.
“You don’t look like the type to carry an umbrella.” It was a stupid thing to say but the only thing she could think of.
He laughed and a shiver of heat had run up her spine. “Belongs to the bar.”
“Don’t you need to give it back?”
“I will. Tomorrow.”
They shared a cab and when he asked her to have dinner with him, she said yes. Maybe it had been the wine, maybe it was the storm. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she didn’t want to go back to her office, she didn’t want to go home to her empty apartment, and she rather desperately wanted to have dinner with him.
A relative stranger. Friend of a friend. Not likely a serial killer.
The thoughts had tumbled upon one another until she’d been nodding yes. She thought dinner might be awkward but it wasn’t. He spoke proudly of his years in the air force and made it seem as if it really wasn’t a huge deal to have served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He talked of the people he’d served with, the people they’d helped, even the enemy. And she ate her pasta and felt like a Lee Greenwood song, simply proud to be an American.
She talked of her work, the intricacies of acquisitions, the theatre she’d seen the previous week, and showed him pictures on her cell phone of her best friend’s little girl, who at eighteen months had her very first tutu.