Serve ‘N’ Protect by Tee O’Fallon
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cassidy sat at the kitchen counter, leaning on her elbows with her chin in her hands. The sun had long since disappeared below the horizon, casting everything in her parents’ backyard in a depressingly gloomy light. Fitting, in a way, because that’s exactly how she felt. Gloomy and depressed.
Mom and Dad, along with every other member of her family, had taken the news of her attempted murder as expected. They’d gone apeshit, which played right into Trooper Collins’s suggestion that she not be alone for a while. Her folks had insisted she stay with them. At first, it had seemed like a reasonable suggestion. Only now she was beginning to feel like a prisoner and her family were the wardens. They’d actually charted out a schedule, rotating in and out of the house so that someone would be with her at all times.
She dug her fingers into her forehead. Giving up her independence was a step in the wrong direction. Backward. Worse, being stuck here left her mind with too much free time to think.
Everyone was still stumped as to who would want to kill her. As he had the night of the burglary, Hugh had another alibi, and there couldn’t possibly be a connection to Markus’s assailant because that man was in jail. She hadn’t even brought it up during questioning by the police.
Trooper Collins and Detective Chang, one of the detectives who’d helped after the burglary, had peppered her with question after question, but no matter how much Cassidy racked her brain, she could think of no reason why anyone would want to hurt her. Let alone kill me. It was still impossible to believe it was really true. Now she knew how Markus must have felt having to hide out from someone trying to murder him.
Her dad had surprised her by bugging her to call Markus to let him know what was going on. Wouldn’t that have just made her day. Nope. A clean break was the only cure for heartbreak.
She shut her eyes tightly. If only her heart would stop squeezing with anguish every time she thought his name, which was pretty much every hour on the hour.
The throbbing numbness she’d felt the night he’d left was still there, just not throbbing quite so much anymore. After that, the most difficult thing had been explaining to her family that she and Markus had broken up. Funny, but her dad had been the most disappointed out of everyone. Reluctantly, and through a running river of tears, she’d somehow managed to succinctly explain to her dad that Markus would never be capable of being what she wanted.
She’d stopped there, not wanting to get into how he was too emotionally scarred to be what she needed. But dammit, she still wanted him.
Stop.
He probably hadn’t been cleared yet by the Secret Service doctor, so where was he, and what was he doing?
Stop it! Stop doing this to yourself!
Argghh. She smacked her hand on the hard granite surface, determined to get him out of her mind and get back to work.
Cassidy sifted through the piles of Teedle Tech documents she’d carefully reorganized. After the dust had settled, her brothers had accompanied her back to her own house so she could pack a large suitcase with enough clothes to last a week, her laptop, and two boxes of documents.
Loud music followed by even louder singing came from the open basement door. Her mom was doing laundry and reorganizing the rows and rows of storage shelves lining the basement walls. Frank Sinatra crooned “The Way You Look Tonight.” Her mom sang, although it was closer to bellowing, right along with him, knowing every word by heart, as she did with most of Frank’s songs. Cassidy was convinced her mother loved Sinatra almost as much as she loved her dad.
Turning back to her laptop, she opened up her email. Excitement coursed through her at the sight of an email from Teedle Tech. She clicked open the message, assuming it had to be the new password she’d requested for the password-protected files. When she read the message, her heart sank. This was merely a courtesy notification that the company was closed for the next three days, until after New Year’s.
Great. Not. That meant yet another delay getting the paycheck she so sorely needed to get her porch steps repaired.
Jimmy had been collecting her mail for her, and she picked up the government check that had arrived yesterday. True to his word, Captain McMurray had sent her a check for $5000. A grand for every week Markus had been living next door to her.
Going to the little desk adjacent to the kitchen, she pulled out a white envelope and stuck a stamp on it. This much money would pay a lot of bills. As much as she wanted to cash the check, it didn’t seem right. What had started out as a job had turned into something else. Something she could never accept money for.
With a heavy sigh, she stuffed the check inside the envelope, addressed it to Captain McMurray at the same address it had been sent from, then sealed it closed.
Back at the kitchen counter, she rifled through one of the boxes, not finding the folder she was looking for. Shouldn’t be a problem, since she had those particular documents backed up on—
Dammit. She’d forgotten the external hard drive back at the house. It was still sitting in the side table drawer where she’d left it.
“Mom!” she shouted down the stairs. Sinatra’s “Love and Marriage”and her mom’s singing blared up the stairs. “Mom!” Still no answer.
Cassidy shook her head. There was no getting between her mom and Frank. She looked down the stairs, of which there were many. With all the dampness in the air today, her leg was aching fiercely.
So her mom wouldn’t worry, Cassidy scribbled a quick note then taped it to the refrigerator. In all likelihood, she’d be back before her mother even knew she’d gone out.
The house was dark as Cassidy pulled into her driveway. When she and her brothers had packed up her things, she hadn’t thought to leave any lights on, but she had remembered to set the alarm on the way out.
Next door at John’s house, a light glowed through the curtained windows on the front door. Her heart beat a little faster because, for one split second, she forgot that Markus was no longer there. But it was only a standing lamp in the living room that had been left on a timer.
Not surprisingly, “New York, New York,” one of Sinatra’s biggest hits, blared from somewhere inside her purse. Her mom must have found the note she’d left on the refrigerator. Taking the call would have been the courteous thing to do but then her mother would launch into a ten-minute tirade about breaking the rules and leaving the house alone.
As if I’m five years old again.
As she let the call go to voicemail, a smidge of guilt took root. She knew her family was only concerned for her safety.
She cued up the last text thread she’d had with her mom and couldn’t keep from smiling. Ever since her mother learned how to paste emojis into messages, there’d been no stopping her. Smiley faces. Frowny faces. Hearts and stars. Cassidy quickly composed a text that should pacify her mother.
Needed fresh air and a little space, running errands, b home soon, luv u.
That and a heart emoji should do it. She hit send and tossed the phone back into her purse.
Once outside, the cold, damp air felt good on her face but not so much in her leg. She grabbed her cane from the SUV, slung her purse over her shoulder, then made her way to the house. She automatically reached for the railing, yanking back her hand in time as she remembered it wasn’t there.
She pulled open the outer door and unlocked the main door. Unaccustomed as she was to it, the loud beeping from the security system was still a bit unnerving but also comforting. It meant that no one else was inside. She punched her code into the keypad and was greeted with blessed silence. After flipping on the light over the door and pushing the door closed, she went directly to the sofa table and pulled open the drawer. She reached for her little blue external hard drive. Only it wasn’t there. Neither was the gun Markus had left there. He must have taken it on the way out.
“Looking for this?”
Cassidy spun, dropping her cane and stumbling backward as she drew in a sharp intake of breath.
A man moved from a shadowy corner of the living room. Every stitch of clothing he wore was black, which probably accounted for why she hadn’t seen him. Dangling from his thick fingers was her external hard drive. “Or this?” In his other hand, he held up Markus’s gun, then shoved it into his waistband.
“Wh-who are you?” Her voice trembled and heart began pounding at an alarming rate. Ridiculously, she looked at his hair, expecting it to be blond, like the man who’d broken into her house and whoever had tried to run her down. This man had brown hair and was as tall as Markus and built like a tank.
Her mouth went dry and she swallowed. As if his size alone weren’t scary enough, his eyes frightened her more. Cold and dark, completely devoid of emotion. Whoever he was, he’d managed to bypass her security system and reset it, which told her something else.
This man was a professional.
Oh, God. A hit man.
He came closer, moving slowly and without the slightest hint of being in a hurry. With every step he took, her fear rose tenfold. She inched farther backward until her ass contacted a corner of the wall at the base of the stairs. Her purse slid off her shoulder, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
“Who I am is irrelevant,” he said calmly and flatly.
She ought to move. To run or scream or something. But she couldn’t. Her body wasn’t responding. All she could do was stare helplessly as the man walked between her sofa and coffee table. The overhead light fully illuminated his face. A hard face without an ounce of concern.
“New York, New York” blasted from somewhere on the floor. The man’s eyes flicked to the purse at her feet.
Now! Move, dammit!
Cassidy pushed from the wall, using the momentum to get her legs going toward the door. Feet—and legs—please, please don’t fail me now.
With her muscles being far stronger than they used to be, she made it to the door all right, but just when she reached for the handle a large hand clamped around her upper arm, yanking her backward.
He hauled her against his Sherman tank–like body, partially knocking the air from her lungs. She curled the fingers of her free hand into a fist then rammed it into his gut.
He loosened his grip on her arm but didn’t release her. “You little bitch.” His fingers dug deeper, painfully, into her flesh, eliciting a very unladylike curse.
No way was she letting this sonofabitch take her down without a fight. “Let. Me. Go.” Using every bit of her newfound strength, she planted one foot behind her then drove her knee up as hard as she could, smashing right into the family jewels.
“Fuck!”
Score!Direct hit.
He released her arms, hunching over so quickly his chin whacked against the top of her head, and she flinched.
Taking full advantage of what she fervently hoped would turn into a royal case of black and blue balls, she spun back to the door. This time, she did get her fingers around the handle, only to have them torn away as he encircled her waist with his beefy arms and threw her face-first to the floor. Her head slammed against the hardwood planking and she cried out. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the pain to diminish and her vision to stop flashing with tiny white lights.
Still on the floor, she turned, bracing her arms. Instantly, her palms began to sweat, and the direness of her situation slammed home.
Unlike the burglar, this man wore no mask. He’d made no attempt whatsoever to hide his face. He didn’t care if she saw him, which could only mean—
Terror lurched in her gut as he reached under his jacket. Something glittered in his hand. A gun. Not Markus’s. This one was silver with an elongated tube attached to the end of the barrel. A silencer.
He’s going to kill me.