Except that she was still the primary suspect in her ex-husband’s murder. A chill of foreboding crept down her spine. Everything was definitely not okay.
At the end of the very long workday, Kenzie looked up to see Reese walking toward her.
“So what time am I picking you up?” he asked.
“I...umm...guess you forgot that meeting you have with the mayor and members of the city council. I should have reminded you earlier, but other things came up. They’re expecting you to be there. I don’t see any way around it.”
Reese softly cursed. “All right, if the meeting doesn’t go too late, I’ll call you. Maybe I can stop by for a nightcap.”
The heat in his eyes said a nightcap would lead exactly where Kenzie wanted to go. “Gran goes to bed early. It’s a school night for Griff, so that could work.”
She thought he might lean over and kiss her, but fortunately for both of them, at the last minute he came to his senses.
They left the office anticipating their rendezvous later that night, but fate in the guise of the mayor intervened and Reese’s meeting went past midnight. With their trip to Houston scheduled for the next day, Kenzie was able to squelch her disappointment.
Still, worry about Lee’s murder, and what the police would do when they discovered the money from his life insurance policy, kept her awake. She was shifting restlessly on the mattress, determined to get some sleep, when an odd sound reached her.
When the noise came again, she grabbed her pink cotton robe off the chair and slipped it on. As she stepped into the hall, she recognized the sound as heavy footfalls on carpet and they seemed to be coming from Griff’s bedroom at the end of the hall.
Her pulse kicked up and her mouth went dry. With her pistol gone, she had no weapon to fend off an intruder, and no time to go in search of one. Not when Griff could be in danger.
Hurrying back to her bedroom, she grabbed her keys out of her purse, laced the jagged metal between her fingers as her dad had taught her to do, and stepped back out into the hall. As she approached Griff’s room, she could hear men’s voices, and the taste of fear filled her mouth.
Moving quietly, she turned the knob and silently opened the door. Moonlight steaming in through the open bedroom window illuminated a man lifting her son over a thick shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
“Griff!” She lunged toward him, spotted another man, shorter, with curly black hair, an instant too late. His fist slammed into her jaw, spinning her into the wall, but she kept her grip on the keys.
“Griff!” Struggling to regain her balance, she charged, punching, kicking, raking the keys down his cheek.
“Bitch!” Blood erupted, ran down his face in scarlet rivulets. He reached for her, but she was already racing toward the bigger man holding her son. Griff was unconscious, she realized, his wrists and ankles bound.
Terror struck. “Let him go!” Lashing out with the keys, she fought like a wild thing, screaming for help, praying Gran would hear her in her bedroom downstairs and call the police. Fury and desperation drove her even as the man with the curly black hair jerked her away and punched her in the stomach, then hit her in the face.
Shouting Griff’s name, Kenzie gripped the keys, used them to slice one of his arms, and tried to knee him in the groin.
Still unconscious, Griff never stirred, but the bigger man kept moving, ducking through the bedroom window, descending a ladder propped against the side of the town house.
The man with the curly black hair punched her so hard she hit the wall and slid down to the bedroom floor. Her head spun and her vision dimmed as she flashed in and out of consciousness.
“No cops.” The man grabbed her chin and tilted her head back. “You hear me, lady? You want your kid to live, you keep quiet and do what they tell you. You got it?”
When she didn’t answer soon enough, he slapped her face. “You got it? Say it?”
She swallowed. “No...police.”
“That’s right. You’ll be hearing from us. Till then, keep your mouth shut.”
Kenzie tried to get up, but he hit her again. “And tell your boyfriend he had better keep his fucking brothers out of it.”
Her eyes slid closed. It was the last thing she remembered until Gran opened the door, saw her lying on the floor covered in blood, and screamed.
TWENTY-FOUR
Reese was dead asleep when the phone rang. His meeting had run longer than he’d expected and he’d gotten home late. With a weary sigh, he rolled over to grab his cell phone off the nightstand, read the digital numbers on the clock: 4:01 a.m.
Since nothing good happened at four o’clock in the morning, his heart rate jolted from sluggish into high gear. Recognizing Kenzie’s cell number sent his pulse rate up another notch. “Kenzie?”
“Reese, it...it’s Florence.” Her voice shook. “Kenzie’s hurt. Men took Griff and they told her not to call the police.” Florence sobbed into the phone. “I didn’t know who else to call. Please help us, Reese.”
