Читать книгу That Perfect Moment - Carmen Green - Страница 12

Kim paced her bedroom on the early Tuesday morning, swallowing Zach’s words. I always get my man or woman. Did he really? Who was he? All the super heroes wrapped into one incredibly fit body?

Twenty-four hours had passed and nothing had happened. What if nothing happened at all? What if the attempts to kill her stopped altogether? Would he think she’d made things up despite their conversation yesterday? No. Nobody in their right mind would call her a liar. He’d seen the proof. He’d found it himself.

What was he doing now? Walking to the window, Kim parted the soft silk curtains and spotted Zach patrolling the west end of her property as he’d done all night long, looking like some crazed black ninja. The other Hoods had vanished last night as quickly as they’d appeared. Kim wanted to giggle, but the practical side of her recognized that Zach was suffering through the intense September Georgia heat for her benefit.

She’d had conflicting thoughts on hiring Hood Investigations in the first place. But who else would do what he was doing? At the moment, she had the note and the attack at the ice cream store, but she suspected the police chief would make light of those things. Zach had found the windows in the keeping room. A good lawyer could argue that she’d arranged that also. In a business where credibility was everything, hers could be on the line. Why did Zach believe her?

She’d given him twenty thousand reasons to believe her and to stay on her case. But this was about more than money. Hood Investigations as a corporation was extremely solvent, so in the scheme of things, twenty thousand dollars was of little consequence. Zachary Hood believed her.

Somewhat relieved, Kim turned away from the window when the glass behind her exploded. Instinct took her to the floor as glass showered around her, splintering into her hair. She crawled under her four-poster bed, scared.

For ten agonizing minutes she waited, wishing she’d followed the plan she and Zach had discussed. If anything happened, she was to get into the laundry room, bury herself beneath the dirty clothes and wait for him there. She debated crawling down the hall to the room now, but her hands were rooted to the wooden floor, and she couldn’t move. Her body wouldn’t obey.

Feet thundered on the stairs leading to her bedroom, and she wished she had more than the mace she’d hidden under the bed to defend herself. Reaching for it, Kim held her breath, knowing she’d be found, hoping her captor would be Zach, and not the person who wanted her dead.

Her two-hundred-pound bed frame began to rise off two of its four-poster legs. “Come out from under there.”

“The laundry room is clear,” she heard a man say as she crawled from beneath the bed.

Kim looked up and saw a different version of Zach standing above her. A paw of a hand reached down and pulled her up with no effort. “The threat has been neutralized. What’s that?” he asked, referring to the canister in her hand.

“Defense spray. I keep it under the bed.” The inept spray against his 9 mm looked ridiculous, but she didn’t let it show on her face.

Another man, an identical twin to Ben Hood—Zach’s brother—came into the room, looked at the canister, then at her. He looked a little apprehensive. “You have to have great aim with that, or it’s no good. Rob Hood,” he stated by way of introduction. “Ma’am. You were hit. Sit down.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Two seconds passed, and she realized by his expression that he wouldn’t lie to her. “Where?”

Ben and Rob never touched her, but they crowded her with their bodies until she backed into the bed. She had no choice but to sit down. Though she wasn’t easily intimidated, they did a good job of making her feel small.

“Where am I hurt?” Looking down, she could see no injury.

The air seemed sucked dry when Zach entered the room. He practically tossed his brothers aside, getting to the bed. “Your cheek,” he exhaled. He grabbed her hand before it could reach her face. “Don’t touch it! Dammit, Ben, go in the bathroom and get the cotton balls and antiseptic. Rob, get outside with the cops. Hugh’s out there already.”

Zach cursed some more, his hands moving down her shoulders to her elbows. He looked under her arm, and feeling self-conscious at his lack of decency, she yanked her arm down.

“You hurt anywhere else?” he asked, not knowing why she’d reacted so abruptly. In some things men were so dense. She didn’t want him looking at her armpit.

“No. I didn’t know I was hit. I don’t feel anything. It must have just grazed me. I—I do recall that, but everything was going so fast, honestly, I had no idea—”

His brother returned with the first aid kit, and they went to work in silence. Ben, with slow, careful hands, picking glass from her hair, and Zach dabbing and blowing lightly to soften the sting on her injured cheek where the bullet had grazed her.

Four focused, concerned eyes were studying her, and she couldn’t help but become even more self-conscious. “I’m not accustomed to this much attention. I’m fine. Fellas, please.” Kim squirmed off the bed, but Ben sat her down again.

“Be still. I’m not finished. Zach, we should call Xan. I don’t know how to get the rest of this glass out of her hair.”

“Come on, Ben. Pick it out a piece at a time. I’ll do it.”

“No, man. I got it.”

They were so patient with each other, Kim thought, her heart tender for what she’d missed out on as a child.

“Who’s Xan?” Kim wanted to know.

“Our sister. She’s a doctor,” Zach answered. “I don’t want anyone to know the judge has been hurt.”

“She’s done hair before,” Ben said in his own defense. “I just don’t want to hurt her.”

“Just take your time, B,” Zach said. “You’re getting it out, but you should probably call anyway.”

“Good idea,” Ben said. “Let me see what she’s doing.”

“How’d I get shot?” Kim reached for her cheek, but Zach caught her hand and gently guided it down to her lap. He sectioned her hair and pulled fragments of glass from the strands.

“Your neighbor next door was shooting at the squirrels that were eating from his bird feeder, and he misfired when a squirrel ran at him.”

“Paul shot me?” Incredulous, Kim ran to the window, but Zach didn’t allow her to look out. “I need to talk to him. Has he lost his mind?” Paul, the retired dentist with bad teeth. Paul, who’d scratched his cornea with a piece of mail two months ago. Paul had shot her. She was going to kill him.

Angrily she headed to the hallway and had her foot on the first step, when Zach caught her wrist and wouldn’t let go.

“Where are you going?” he asked calmly.

“To have it out with him.”

“We’re taking care of that.”

She looked between the two Hoods. “You’re standing here with me, doing nothing. I’m trying to stop him from killing me, something you’re obviously incapable of doing.”

“You’d have been shot whether I was here or not. Lucky for you I was here.”

Ben looked around, covered his mouth as he was leaving and coughed stupid into his hand. “I’m going outside to talk to Xan. Stressed,” he said to Zach as he eyed Kim.

They were alone now, and Zach had backed her up to her bedroom doorway. “What’s this really about, Kim? Are you stressed out?”

“I was shot!”

“You were grazed.”

“It doesn’t matter. Maybe he’s the psycho who’s been leaving me notes. Did you interrogate him?”

Zach shook his head. “He’s not our guy.”

Frustrated, Kim crossed her arms over her chest. “How do you know? You only met him for five minutes. He has a gun, and he’s obviously got anger issues.”

“I accused him of trying to kill you, and he wet his shorts.”

Despite her frustration, her anger took a nosedive. She and Zach shared a moment of silence, and she tried hard to hide her smile. So did Zach.

“Yikes.”

“Yeah,” Zach said. “Not our man.”

To keep her smile locked in, Kim curled her lips into her mouth. “Are the police already here?”

“Yeah. They arrived just as the, uh, urine ran from the bottom of his khaki shorts to the top of his knee-high tube socks.”

She nodded. That was Paul’s uniform. The seventy-eight-year-old man wore shorts even in the winter. He claimed he never got cold.

“What will happen to him?” Kim asked.

“We’re going to dissect his life to be sure he doesn’t have any crazy secrets, and then he’ll be cited for firing a weapon without a permit.” Zach no longer looked lethal or concerned. In fact, he looked disappointed. “You weren’t in the laundry room as we discussed.”

Kim shook her head. “I couldn’t make it. I was scared. Like when I was a—I mean—I just couldn’t get there.”

His gaze raced over her. Not like she was a client, either. “Finish your sentence,” he told her. “Like when?”

They were now at the top of the stairs. His brothers were still outside with the police, and he wasn’t letting her slip of the tongue go. She’d never talked about her past to anyone. It was a secret for a reason, though no longer classified. But she liked to keep her past private.

She put on her judge’s face for Zach. “I didn’t make it because I was afraid. Getting under the bed was childish, so what is the big deal? It was Paul. Can I get some coffee now, please?”

“Zach, the police chief just arrived. He wants to talk to the judge. He’s angry,” Rob added from downstairs.

“Hold him for five minutes, then bring him into Kim’s office.”

“Let me check my face.” In the mirror, Kim saw the bruise and knew it would get uglier before it would go away. She’d been lucky. Damn lucky. She did have a lot to thank Zach for. Her hair glittered with the slivers of glass from the window. Today’s mishap would be an all day beauty correction she hadn’t counted on. Again, she reminded herself she’d invited Hood Inc. into her life, and now she needed to cooperate in every way, including controlling her temper.

“Ready?” Zach asked, sticking his head into her dressing room.

A shiver raced over her. She still wasn’t accustomed to having a man in her home, and in her life, but Zach was different in a more masculine, commanding way. She fanned her face, dabbed the wound that was only slightly swollen. “Yes, I’m ready.”

The two headed down the stairs and Kim quickly got her coffee before sitting on her comfortable sofa.

“Kim, don’t tell him too much.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“You know why you chose us.”

She shrugged and nodded. “His office wasn’t taking my concerns seriously.”

“Judge Thurman,” Rob said from behind them to get their attention. “The police chief would like to ask you some questions.”

The chief had just celebrated his fifty-ninth birthday, his balding scalp ringed with what remained of his hair. He wasn’t a blustery man, but he was persistent in a silent, intense way. He made her uncomfortable in his effort to intimidate, only because he annoyed her. She normally excused herself from his circle at cocktail parties, but today she was his focus.

She would make this quick and as pain free as possible. “What can I do for you, Chief Vorhees?”

“Why would you go with Hood and not a law abiding group like, oh, say, the cops?”

“Look here—” Zach started, when Kim reached over and squeezed his hand.

“Hood Investigations is a law abiding group, and they do what your officers didn’t do, which is to believe me. I called your office Friday, the day my assistant and I were attacked and nearly kidnapped, and we were told that someone would take a report. Are you here to do that today?”

He had the audacity to look insulted. “Hardly.”

“Exactly why I chose Hood. They get results. While your officers were on my detail, someone has been trying, and rather successfully, to break into my house—”

“That’s not true.”

Zach nearly spoke and Kim raised her hand a bit, keeping her voice low and controlled.

“—through my keeping room. And your officers, who have been on my security detail, have been sitting around with their thumbs up their asses, doing who knows what, as I’m about to be killed. Excuse me, Rob, for my bad language. But Chief, I’ve all but let the fox into the henhouse. Or are they the foxes?”

“I can assure you that they are not.” He laughed uncomfortably. Alone. “I can guarantee your safety, Judge.”

“Really? Even Hood couldn’t promise me that.”