LITMIR.BIZ

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know the counselor.” Trip had a feeling there was no problem with Charlotte Mayweather’s mental faculties, but he could see her waging a battle to keep the panic she’d shown earlier from swamping her again. He hoped he didn’t say anything that would screw up the tenuous peace between them. “My name’s Trip. Don’t know if you caught that while you were bustin’ up my face and arm.”

      “Joseph Jones, Jr., Triple J or Trip.” If she’d relax just a fraction more, that’d be a real smile. Please let her smile. “Audrey told me. And please, it’s Charlotte. ‘Miss Mayweather’ sounds so spinsterish.” She touched her slim red glasses on her face. “And I’m already battling that stereotype.”

      “Thanks … Charlotte. Audrey mentioned you, too. Look, I’m sorry I scared you. If you’d have just answered me … I had no way of knowing if you were stuck inside that closet with the perp—or if you’d been injured. I had to get to you.”

      She stroked the dog and nodded. “My brain knows that. But sometimes I—”

      A cell phone rang in the closet behind Trip, and Charlotte pushed herself straight up that wall. She hugged her arms tight around her waist. It rang again, and he could see any hope of coaxing a real smile or a little trust out of her had passed.

      When it rang a third time, Trip was on his feet, digging through the mess in the closet to put a stop to the ringing. Cripes. She’d said the killer had her number. That he’d called to torment her somehow.

      He snatched the phone off the floor and answered. “Trip Jones, KCPD. Who is this?”

      “Trip? It’s Audrey.” He could hear the siren on Alex’s truck in the background, heard him on the radio to the other members of their team. “We’re a minute away. Did you find Charlotte?”

      Trip immediately regretted snapping into the phone. No wonder Charlotte was afraid of him. “I found her. She’s …” Unpredictable. Frightened out of her mind. Unexpectedly charming. “… she’s safe.”

      He glanced over to see a woman whose jaw was clenched so tight it trembled. That wasn’t right. No one should have to cope with that kind of fear churning inside her.

      Trip looked her straight in the eye to reassure her. “It’s your friend Audrey.”

      Although Charlotte nodded her understanding, she didn’t say anything until the dog dropped Trip’s hat and stretched up on its hind legs, resting a paw against her thigh. Looking down into the dog’s tilted face, Charlotte’s fingers immediately moved to scratch behind a tattered, scarred-up ear. “Good boy. Mama’s fine. Good boy.”

      What was it about this woman that kept getting under his skin? Guilt that he hadn’t gotten the job done he’d been asked to do tonight? Frustration that he couldn’t make her feel any better, but the dog who’d stolen his hat could?

      Or was it something about those haunted gray eyes that triggered all the protective instincts he possessed?

      As if she was even interested in being protected by him.

      “You can’t get here soon enough,” Trip admitted, turning back to the phone. “I don’t know what to say to her.”

      “I warned you that she’s a little eccentric.”

      “Yeah, well she’s scared enough of me that I don’t know if I’m being much help.”

      The strident sound of a siren, made faint by the building’s thick walls, pierced Trip’s thoughts. The rhythm of the pulsing sound was different from the siren he could hear over the phone. Or was he hearing both sounds over the connection to Audrey’s phone? Wait. He could make out three, five, at least six different siren signals approaching—a lot more than the other members of SWAT Team One could account for.

      Audrey was hearing them, too. “Did you call an ambulance? Oh, my God. It’s like a parade. Alex?”

      Trip tensed, then forced his muscles to relax as he jogged toward the door and pulled it open. “Audrey, put your boyfriend on the phone,” he commanded. “Taylor. What’s going on? What are you seeing?”

      Trip stepped out beneath the awning and spotted the swirls of red and blue lights bouncing off the wall of the building across the alley. Rain pelted his face and streamed down beneath his collar. So much for a low-key response to an eccentric friend’s call for help.

      He recognized Alex’s truck turning into the end of the drive and parking at an angle to block the other vehicles. “Looks like we’ve got more backup than we asked for.”

      Trip hung up as soon as Alex hopped out of his truck. With his gun drawn, he hurried to the museum’s back door, slowing just long enough to catch Audrey by the arm and hurry her on past the limo with the dead driver inside.

      “Talk to me, Taylor.”

      Alex Taylor, wearing the same KCPD SWAT flak vest over jeans and a sweater, shook his head, pushing his auburn-haired fiancée beneath the relative dryness of the awning. “I don’t know, big guy. I called Sergeant Delgado and Captain Cutler and that new gal on the team, Murdock. I didn’t call the army for backup. Word must have gotten out that it was Jackson Mayweather’s daughter who was in trouble. That means the press will be here any minute, too.”

      “How is she?” Audrey asked, her face wreathed with concern.

      Trip felt the heat at his back a split second before he heard the soft husky voice whisper behind him. “What’s wrong?”

      “Charlotte!”

      Trip’s impulse to shield the woman taking shelter behind him was thwarted when Audrey scooted past him and caught Charlotte up in a tight hug. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry about Richard. Are you okay?”

      Charlotte’s denial was a quick shake of her head. “It’s happening again. It’s like before.”

      “Before what?” But Trip’s question went unanswered. Again. Vehicles screeched to a halt out on the street’s wet pavement. Car doors opened and closed. There were shouts and a few choice curses.

      “What’s going on?” Charlotte tipped her chin and blinked against the rain, throwing the question to Trip as if the approaching chaos was all his fault. “Why are all these people here?”

      “I’m guessing it’s the response to your 9-1-1 call.”

      “I didn’t call anyone but Audrey.” Charlotte was hunched over, holding tight to the dog’s collar. “I don’t want to see anyone. I want to go home.” She hid behind Trip as the first uniformed patrol officers dashed around the corner into the alley lot. “I don’t like people.”

      He spun around to keep her in sight. “You don’t like people?”

      “I don’t like strangers. I can’t handle people I don’t know, especially all at once.”

      “They’re here to help.”

      “Like you did?”

      Ouch. The big gray eyes nailed him with the accusation.

       Give it up, Jonesy. You’re not going to win this gal over tonight.

      “I’m sorry.” Apology colored her voice, and she reached out as if she was going to touch him. But she quickly snatched her hand back to her chest. “I shouldn’t have said that. All the rumors you’ve heard about the crazy woman at Mayweather Mansion are true.”

      “I don’t listen to rumors—”

      “It’s not your fault.” The woman was going into panic mode again. “Audrey? What am I going to do?”

      “C’mon.” Audrey wrapped her arm around Charlotte’s shoulders and turned her toward the door. “Let’s get you back inside. Alex, keep them away if you can.”

      “I’ll do my best, sweetheart. I’m gonna need you, big guy.”

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