Save Me, page 17
She was on the cusp of falling asleep when she heard the sound again.
Her eyes flew open.
A thin beam of light snaked through the blinds on her bedroom window. Her neighbor’s security lights. Maybe Ronnie was out on his back porch. He liked to have a cigarette from time to time and his wife wouldn’t allow him to smoke inside their home.
Alexis focused, listening again for the sound that had awakened her. She heard nothing. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
A minute ticked by. Then another, with each moment increasing the apprehension twisting her stomach into knots.
Creeaak.
She knew that sound. It was a loose floorboard, one of many in the sixty-year-old house she’d bought a year ago with the intention of fixing it up. She’d been too busy with her business as a personal chef to do any renovations other than to the kitchen, which had become her favorite spot in the house.
Alexis bolted out of bed, crouching down in the narrow space between the wall and the bed frame. Her eyes darted over the darkened room for a weapon or a way out. The bedroom was on the second floor, so jumping from the window was a last resort. Unfortunately for her, she liked to keep her space clean and the clutter minimal. No random cutlery sitting around from a midnight snack. Her clothes were hung, by color and season, in her closet or folded neatly in the dresser. The only thing on her nightstand was the hardback she was slowly making her way through. She’d even left her cell phone downstairs to charge rather than plugging it in next to the bed, which was supposed to be the healthier choice according to an article she’d read earlier that week.
Now, she was looking at facing an intruder with nothing but the latest Naomi Hirahara thriller to defend herself with.
But she couldn’t just stay cowering next to the bed. She’d be cornered if the intruder came into the bedroom. Same with hiding in the closet.
Another floorboard creaked down the hall.
She grabbed the book from her bedside table, and as quickly and quietly as she could, hurried toward the bedroom door. Flattening her back against the sliver of space between the doorframe and the dresser, she listened for sounds of the intruder entering the room.
Time felt as if it were moving in slow motion. Sweat beaded on her skin, making it sticky even though she’d turned the thermostat down to sixty-six before she’d gone to bed.
The faintest sound of rustling material came from the hall, followed by the soft fall of footsteps.
Trembling, she held the book against her chest as the bedroom door slid open slowly.
Her chest tightened even as it seemed to her as though every breath rumbled into her lungs with the force of a locomotive.
The intruder, a man based on the build, in dark-colored pants and shirt, crept toward the bed. She wasn’t a small woman, five-seven with ample curves and she worked out regularly, but she could see that the man had several inches and at least thirty pounds on her. And although it didn’t look like he had a weapon on him, there was no way for her to be sure of that. Still, she had to do what she could to protect herself.
She didn’t move until the man’s back was fully to her. Then, lifting the book high above her head, she raced forward with a battle cry she hoped would catch him off guard.
He turned, his eyes wide in the eyelet cutouts of the ski mask he wore over his face.
She slammed the book into his jaw with all her strength, then let it fall to the floor as she turned and ran. Three-hundred-fifty pages might stun, but it wouldn’t incapacitate a man of his size. She had to get out of the house fast.
Her bare feet slapped against the wood floor of the hallway. She made it to the top of the stairs before a hand grabbed her roughly from behind and she was thrown to the floor. She landed on her back and the intruder was on her before she could make any attempt to get to her feet.
His hand clamped down over her mouth, muffling the scream that tore out of her throat. She bucked and thrashed, trying to throw him off or free an arm or leg to lash out with, but she’d been right about his size being no match for her.
Tears leaked from her eyes as he leaned in close. He smelled of whiskey, tobacco and something else. Something foul and more than a little threatening.
Fear ricocheted through her body.
The man smiled maliciously, and she knew that he was getting off on terrorizing her. Was that what he was there for? To terrorize her? Assault her? Worse?
Her heart thudded so hard it felt like it was only seconds away from beating right out of her chest.
The man pressed himself against her, and her entire body shuddered.
His smile grew wider, sending her fear spiking. He brought his face within centimeters of hers. “Stop asking questions about your brother or you’ll end up just like him.”
He lifted his hand from her mouth, but her scream was cut off by his fist connecting with the side of her temple.
She was only vaguely aware of his weight lifting off her before she was plunged into darkness.
Chapter Two
Sitting at his desk at West Security and Investigations in the late afternoon, Thaddeus Jeremiah Roman—TJ to everyone except his mother—put the finishing touches on his report to the wife of a wealthy Manhattan hedge fund manager who suspected her husband of cheating. Mrs. Hedge Fund Manager had good instincts. She was dead on with her suspicions about her husband cheating, but she’d suspected the wrong woman. Her husband wasn’t seeing the twenty-something female associate he worked with but his secretary.
TJ had a feeling Mr. Hedge Fund Manager was about to find out the true meaning of cheaters never prosper. Mrs. Hedge Fund Manager had explained in no uncertain terms when she’d contracted with West Investigations for their services just what she would do to her husband’s nether regions if they found evidence he was cheating. And that was before she took him for everything the courts would allow.
And that was reason number 1,582,392 why TJ was never, ever getting married. Not that he’d ever cheat on his nonexistent wife or any other woman he was seeing. He was always up front with the women he dated. He didn’t want a serious relationship, and he wasn’t looking to have his mind changed at this point. The only woman he’d ever loved had died right as they were on the cusp of building a life together. He hadn’t been sure he was going to make it through the loss. And he wasn’t interested in feeling pain like that ever again. No, it was better to keep his relationships nice and easy. Surface level. If a woman couldn’t deal with that, he wished her well and went on his merry way.
TJ filed his report and sent it off to his boss and co-owner of West Security and Investigations, Shawn West.
West Security and Investigations was one of the best private investigations and personal security firms on the East Coast, and with the recently announced Los Angeles office, the firm was poised to expand its reach nationwide. They’d investigated and gotten to the bottom of cases that included everything from corporate espionage to organized crime. They also provided personal security for some of the wealthiest and most recognizable people in the world, most recently Brianna Baker, one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood at the moment. Most of the investigators who worked for West Security and Investigations preferred to take on the sexier, high-profile assignments, but not TJ. If it was between a case that was likely to see him dodging bullets or a good old-fashioned adultery investigation, he’d take the adultery, please and thank you. A decade in the Army had been more than enough excitement to last him a lifetime.
Now he just wanted to collect a steady paycheck, cheer on the Nets, and make a pretty woman smile from time to time. A simple life.
The sound of the door to the office opening and heels clicking over the tiled floors caught his attention. It was after five. Serena Wells, their receptionist, had already left, and most West employees didn’t keep regular hours, coming and going as needed. He was the only West employee currently occupying a desk in the open floor plan office space.
He peeked over the top of the partition surrounding his desk.
A woman with dark micro braids cut into a swingy bob framing her face swept into the office. The first thing he noticed was her curves. She had them for days, and she apparently knew how to make the most of them. Dark blue jeans stretched over a round behind and a bronze V-neck sweater clung to an ample bosom. She marched to the reception desk wearing brown leather boots that matched her sweater, with a black wool coat thrown over her arm. Smooth, dark caramel skin that looked like it had never seen a blemish covered her heart-shaped face.
Even from several feet away, though, he could read the tension in her body. She paused at the empty reception desk, her eyes glazing over the space.
Her gaze landed on him before he could fall back behind the safety of the partition. He didn’t like engaging with the clients any more than he had to. Generally, he interacted with them just enough to get the information he needed to do the job and to convey his results. But for some inexplicable reason, he found himself rising and moving toward the woman before he fully comprehended that was what he was doing.
The woman’s brown eyes bore into him as he drew closer to her. There was something about her. Something familiar.
“TJ? TJ Roman?” Her gaze shifted over him from head to toe and back in open assessment.
The sound of his name from her lips gave him pause. He knew that voice. Alexis? It couldn’t be and yet it was.
Surprise sent his brow into an arch. “Alexis Douglas?”
She smiled crookedly. “I didn’t know if you’d remember me.”
“Of course.” He started toward her, his arms outstretched to give her a hug. It was awkward.
Alexis was the sister of his best friend. Well, he guessed former best friend now. He hadn’t spoken to Mark Douglas in over two years, although the loss of the friendship that had begun in grade school still stung. It had been even longer since he’d seen Alexis. More than ten years had passed. She was barely legal back then, a fresh-faced eighteen-year-old heart-stopper. But now... He stepped back, letting his gaze roam over her. She’d grown up to be flat-out gorgeous.
Alexis was four years younger than her brother Mark, which made her five years younger than TJ. The distance in their ages and the fact that she was the sister of his best friend had meant he’d barely noticed her as they’d grown up. But he was noticing her now. The attraction he felt for the woman standing in front of him was instant and strong. Strong enough that he had to remind himself that she was still his friend’s sister and still off-limits. That was good for another reason. Based on the anxiety he saw in her dark brown eyes, Alexis hadn’t sought him out for old times’ sake.
“What are you doing here, Alexis?”
She licked her plump lips nervously. “I need your help.”
It took him an extra second to process what she said, given the amount of blood that had moved from his brain to his groin while he’d been looking at her lips.
“Let’s go into the conference room and you can tell me about it.” He finally managed to get out.
He led her into the conference room, offering her coffee or water, both of which she declined before taking a seat. She sank into the black leather chairs at the long conference table, moving her purse from her shoulder to her lap.
There were plugs in the center of the table for laptops and tablets, and he knew a lot of his colleagues liked taking digital notes, but he preferred pen and paper when he had the choice. He grabbed one of the yellow legal pads stacked on the table and a pen.
“Okay,” he said, “start from the beginning.”
Alexis took a shaky breath and let it out slowly. “I guess it began with Mark’s death.”
Chapter Three
Alexis gave TJ a minute to process what she’d just said. She hadn’t been sure if he’d heard about Mark passing. She knew that her brother and TJ had had some sort of falling out a couple of years earlier, but Mark would never talk about exactly what happened. Mark had always seen her as his little sister. Someone he had to protect, no matter how old she’d gotten. That protection had extended to bullies, boys, and any information that he thought she didn’t need to trouble her pretty little head with. But Mark was gone now and he couldn’t protect her from whoever had broken into her house two nights earlier.
“Mark is dead?” TJ cocked his head to one side, saying the words as if he was trying them on for size. Like they didn’t fit.
Because they didn’t. It had been two months, and she was still trying to process living in a world without her brother in it.
She pushed back the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “I didn’t know if you knew. Or if you wanted to know. I’m sorry to spring it on you like this.” This was harder than she’d imagined, but she didn’t know who else to turn to.
“How?” TJ’s voice came out as little more than a whisper.
“Officially? Suicide.” She gripped the strap of her purse so tightly now that her knuckles whitened. But she didn’t think Mark had committed suicide, a belief she suspected was at the root of her current troubles.
TJ’s eyes went hard. “No way. No. Way.”
Buoyed by his categorical rejection of her brother’s official cause of death, she slid closer to TJ. “Mark died two months ago. Before he died, he was under suspicion for several crimes.”
“What kind of crimes?”
“I’m not sure exactly. All I could get out of him was that there had been a theft of some sort at the company where he worked and he’d been suspended pending an investigation.”
TJ frowned. “I don’t believe Mark would steal from anyone.”
Hearing his conviction that her brother was innocent felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off her shoulders. She leaned toward TJ, sitting in the chair next to her. “Me either. Mark wouldn’t tell me much about it. You know how he was about protecting me from anything and everything even remotely unpleasant.”
TJ gave a small smile. “I do remember he was a bit overprotective of you, yes.”
“More than a bit,” she grumbled. “He hadn’t been arrested or anything, but I know he’d hired a lawyer.”
“So it was serious.” TJ rubbed his chin with the hand not holding the pen.
“Very.” She nodded. “And that seems to be the basis for why the authorities believe that Mark committed suicide. He was found in the apartment he rented. It looked like he swallowed a bottle of Valium.” She caught a sob before it bubbled out.
For the first two weeks after she was notified of her brother’s death, she hadn’t stopped crying. She didn’t know if she would be able to stop if she let herself start again. Mark needed her to be strong now. To prove he hadn’t committed the crimes he’d been suspected of and that he hadn’t killed himself.
TJ gave her a moment to collect herself before asking, “Where did Mark work?”
“TalCon Cyber Security. The company is a major government contractor headquartered in Virginia. Most of the work they do is for the US military.”
“I’ve heard of it,” TJ said with a frown.
“Mark did something with computers for them similar to what he did when he was in the Army. I don’t really understand what he did, but I know my brother. Mark was an honorable man. He wouldn’t have done anything to disgrace himself, and he wouldn’t have killed himself. He intended to prove his innocence.”
“That sounds like Mark.”
Alexis sucked in another deep breath. The conversation with TJ was going well, but if it was going to go off the rails, it would be with what she said next. “TJ, I think Mark was murdered.”
He said nothing for a long moment.
“Alexis—”
“Listen, I know what you’re going to say. I’ve already heard it from the cops handling Mark’s supposed suicide. And his lawyer. But I know...” her voice caught, “knew my brother. I’m hoping that because you knew him too, you’ll help me.”
TJ shrank back in his seat away from her.
Damn him, he wasn’t going to help her.
“I don’t know what I can do to help you,” TJ started. “I chase after cheating husbands and people who are trying to defraud their insurance company.”
“You work for one of the best private investigations firms in the city,” she said incredulously.
“I chase after very rich cheating husbands and wives,” he repeated with emphasis. “I don’t investigate theft and potential murder.”
“You could,” she said, hating the desperation in her tone. But she needed help, and she was willing to do whatever it took to get it. “I looked into this firm, and this should be a walk in the park for West Investigations. Didn’t your boss bring down an organized crime syndicate in the city last year?”
“I am not Ryan West,” TJ grumbled.
This had been a waste of her time. He wasn’t going to help her.
Alexis threw her shoulders back and stood. “Fine. I want to talk to him then.”
TJ remained seated. “Sit down, Alexis.”
She sat, the fire suddenly going out of her. She was so tired. Tired of the grief. Tired of the not knowing. She needed to move on, but to do that she had to know the truth, and to get that, she needed help.
“If I’m crazy, if I’m just a grieving sister looking to excuse her brother’s bad decisions, why did someone attack me in my home two nights ago?”
She had his full attention now.
TJ leaned forward in his seat. “Attack you? What are you talking about?”
“Two nights ago, someone broke into my house and attacked me.” Her voice caught again, thinking about the man’s weight pinning her to the floor. “He threatened me, then knocked me out so he could get away.”
