The place was trashed.
Furniture was overturned. Lamps were busted and lying on their sides. Pictures he remembered seeing on the fireplace mantle had been shattered and tossed aside.
Then, he saw the blood.
A small pool was on the hardwood floor near his foot. The pristine, white couch had a large splatter on the back and there was a trail of small droplets leading back toward the bedroom.
What the fuck?
He sat his bag down silently and raised his weapon. Careful not to step in any of the blood, Derek walked through the mess to check out the rest of the apartment. After clearing the spare room and bathroom, he moved slowly toward the bedroom doors.
Since he was already wearing a pair of leather gloves, he didn’t hesitate to reach for the knob. With a deep breath, he steeled himself for what he thought he was about to find.
Just as he’d been trained, Derek held his gun in front of him while he pushed the door open with his other hand. He checked behind it and gave the room a quick glance before turning on the lights.
Like the entryway and living room, the bedroom showed signs of a struggle.
A chair was tipped over onto its side, a picture on the wall was crooked, and there was a smear of blood on the top of the bed’s white sheet.
After making sure the closet and master bath were empty, Derek shoved his gun into the waistband at his lower back and took a minute to think. Someone had come after Porter. No real surprise, given the company he kept. Question was, where was he now?
Had they killed him and then somehow removed his body from the building? Or was he merely wounded and lying in a hospital bed somewhere?
At the moment, there was no way to know if it was the former. The latter, however, Derek could find out fairly quickly.
Watching his step, he went back to where he’d left his bag and pulled his laptop out. Using the kitchen’s granite countertop, he sat it down and went straight to work.
With expert speed and precision, Derek’s fingers flew across the keyboard as he ran a search of the nearby hospitals and all-night urgent care clinics. He came up empty.
Needing to be sure, he widened his search but still got the same results. Unless he’d checked in under a different name, Caleb Porter was not a registered patient anywhere in the city.
“Fuck.”
With nothing else to go on and nowhere to start, Derek did the only thing he could. He shoved his laptop back into his bag, locked the door behind him, and left.
For the next two hours, he sat in the airport and waited for his flight to be called. After a quick text to Coop letting him know he was headed back home and why, Derek searched the hospital and clinic databases again for a patient registered under Porter’s name. Like before, he came up empty.
The entire first half of the flight home, his mind whirled with possible scenarios that could have led to the bloody scene he’d stumbled into. Could’ve been a disgruntled client or fellow employee. Maybe the guy pissed off one of his mob connections and, like Derek, they’d had enough.
Whatever the case, Caleb Porter was clearly in trouble. Derek couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty over his sense of relief. If the guy was out there somewhere, fighting for his life, his focus was no longer on Charlie.
Karma’s a bitch.
He leaned back in his seat, grateful the passenger next to him was asleep. With his eyes closed and his ball cap tipped down over his forehead, Derek used the rest of the flight to regroup and think about the future.
Charlie may not be ready for what he had planned, but that was okay. She was definitely worth the wait.
Finally back, Derek shuffled into Charlie’s apartment. Exhausted, he closed the door behind him as quietly as he could.
Coop was lying on the couch with his ankles crossed and an arm behind his head. The remote was in his hand, and he was snoring.
“He’s been like that since you texted him,” Mac told him from the chair she was in.
Derek smirked. “Can’t say I blame him. I’m beat.”
He walked over to the kitchen table and sat his bag down. With a quick flick of the wrist, he untied his boots and toed them off, not bothering to put them away.
“Hey, man.” Coop stretched, his voice was scratchy from sleep. “Glad you’re back.”
