A Good Kind of Trouble (A Trouble in Twin Rivers Novel Book 1) (3 page)

They started walking past the cars, down the sloping garage floor. Lindsey slowed and briefly put her hand on Ben’s arm to steady herself as she slipped her shoes on, then straightened and released her hold on him. He tried to ignore the warmth of her touch.
 

“We should call the police,” Ben said.
 

Lindsey shook her head. “Nothing was taken.”
 

“Still, it seems like that guy is hell bent on mugging you. The police should know about it, get a description out there.”
 

She shrugged, then paused. “Do you hear something?”

He did. It was a whisper, a rhythmic swish, and then a mechanical clicking. The sound was growing louder. They ducked behind a minivan and Ben peeked out from around the corner.
 

The damn messenger was riding up the ramp slowly and looking around the cars.
What was this guy’s problem?

Ben waved Lindsey to get in between the van and the wall and watched as she scrambled to squeeze into the narrow space. He followed her, but quickly realized he wouldn’t fit. Instead, he crouched down behind the SUV parked next to it. Lindsey took off her shoes, looking like she was preparing to run again if necessary.
 

He hoped it wasn’t.

The bike came to a stop on the ramp. The rider had passed by without seeing them in the shadows. Ben heard a zipper, then electronic tones. A cell phone.
 

“Hey, it’s me,” the man said softly. A long pause. “Can you hear me? How about now?”
 

Footsteps echoed, but Ben didn’t dare try to see where the man was walking for fear of exposing his hiding place. “I’m in a garage. Terrible reception.”
 

The man’s voice was louder now as he tried to use the cell phone in the concrete-block building. “Look, I lost her.”
 

A chill ran down Ben’s spine. His eyes met Lindsey’s. Hers were calm, determined. He knew his were not.
 

The man’s footsteps sounded closer, possibly at the end of the SUV. Lindsey’s eyes grew wide and Ben realized she could see the man clearly. She crept slowly over to Ben, staying low and quiet.
 

She leaned in close, her body pushed against his, and nodded toward the end of the line of cars. Ben got the message. The messenger was right there. More footsteps, then the voice became a little more irritated.
 

“I don’t know which way she went,” he said. “Try her house.”

Lindsey gasped and Ben instinctively clapped a hand over her mouth. But not before he heard a word escape in a soft, alarmed whisper.

“Steve.”

I’m saving her ass and she’s worried about her boyfriend?
He kept his hand over her mouth and shushed her. Bikey, the murderous messenger, coasted down the ramp.
 

“I have to get home,” Lindsey said, her voice shaky.
 

“Maybe you should avoid your home, since that’s where your bike-messenger stalker is going,” Ben said, but she was already heading toward the staircase.

He watched Lindsey ease the door open and peer into the stairway, her shoes in one hand. He leaned close to her and pulled a leaf from her tangled hair. Glancing over her shoulder, she didn’t speak, but raised her chin, her eyes determined.
So stubborn
.
 

“Fine, I’ll take you home,” he said. How had he gotten thrust into an action movie? He still wasn’t sure what was going on, but he wasn’t about to abandon Lindsey to fend for herself.

“Thank you,” she said, walking in front of him down the staircase. She stopped and slipped her shoes on, grabbing Ben’s arm as she wobbled on her heels.
 

Keeping an eye out for the bike messenger, Ben led his new client along the busy city streets toward the lot where his Jeep was parked.
 

He helped her into the passenger seat, then tossed her huge leather satchel into the backseat and his thoughts drifted back to the last time they were in this car together. He recalled writhing bodies, limbs intertwined, and oddly placed footprints discovered the next day. Good times. Right up to when the good times hit a wall of sheer terror, pain and humiliation.
 

He snapped back to the present and shut the door firmly. He never thought he’d ever be helping her back into his car. It was just a quick drive to take her home and make sure she was safe, then he’d get back to the office. Back to a wall of boxes filled with documents that needed to be reviewed.
 

The streets around the courthouse were busy, but Ben knew them well after seven years of working as an attorney at a downtown law firm.
 

“Turn right at the stoplight,” Lindsey said.
 

Ben glanced at her. “Right? I thought your apartment was on 14th Street.”

She shook her head. “No, I moved. Take this street down to the school, then turn left on Rosemary Way.”

Ben followed her instructions and soon found himself in a charming neighborhood of small, older houses on a tree-lined street. He pulled into the driveway of a tidy yellow cottage with a white-picket fence surrounding the yard. A creeping wisteria climbed a crisp white-painted post and across the top of the front porch.
 

He helped Lindsey out of the car and up the porch steps. She unlocked the door—a regular lock and a deadbolt—then entered a code into the alarm system on the foyer wall.
 

“Steve,” Lindsey called out, dropping her leather bag on the floor.

She leaned into the hallway that appeared to lead to bedrooms and called again. This time, Ben heard rustling from down the hall, then clicking. Lindsey’s shoulders dropped in relief. She sank to her knees as a mid-sized, short-haired dog trotted down the hall and stretched in front of her, his tail wagging.
 

Lindsey hugged him close and rubbed his ears. “You were sleeping on the bed again, weren’t you?”
 

“This is Steve?” This was not who he had pictured sleeping in Lindsey’s bed.

“Yes,” Lindsey said, glancing up from the floor where she still cuddled the dog, who was now eyeing Ben with what looked like suspicion. “Ben, meet Steve McQueen. I got him when I moved in here a few months ago.”

“What breed is he?” Ben asked. The dog had short hair, a lean body, pointed ears, and a long nose. His long tail wagged, but he was keeping an eye on Ben.

“I don’t know,” Lindsey said. “I got him at the shelter. His vet thinks he’s a mix of terrier, maybe some sort of pointer or hound.” She ruffled his fur again. “I just know that he was the coolest dog in the shelter that day.”

“Hence the name,” Ben said.
 

Lindsey grinned and nodded.
 

“This is a nice place,” Ben said, looking around the house. He was standing in a small living room dominated by a large, overstuffed couch that faced a fireplace and mantle. A dog bed sat next to the hearth.
 

“Thanks. I moved here after my apartment was broken into. I didn’t feel safe there.”
 

“When did that happen?”

“The night we went out,” she said.
 

Ben tilted his head. “I thought the police determined there was no break-in.”

“They did. I determined otherwise,” she said, her chin jutted out.
 

“I see,” Ben said. The police had seemed confident Lindsey’s apartment hadn’t been burglarized. Not that they were always right, but that was their expertise—investigating crime scenes. He had trusted their judgment. But now, after the morning they’d just spent, he was starting to doubt the experts.

She sighed and stood up, heading down the hallway toward a bathroom. He followed her.
 

“You should probably call your boss,” he said. “Let him know you got out of jail. And that you were mugged and need to go to a doctor.”
 

“I don’t need a doctor.” She opened a drawer and rummaged around before pulling out a first-aid kit.
 

Ben squeezed into the tiny room with her and took her gently by the shoulders, easing his hands’ pressure when she winced.
 

“Sit,” he said.
 

“I can do it,” she said, turning the sink faucet on.

He shook his head.
 

“Just let me help you.” He grabbed a washcloth off the towel rack, dunked it into the flow of warm water, then wrung it out.
 

Lindsey paused, that damn stubborn tilt of her chin returning. After a moment, she sat on the bathtub’s edge, seeming resigned to accepting his help. Gently, he wiped the dirt from her face, noting the small scrape and the swelling beginning at her hairline.
 

“You’re going to have a good goose-egg here,” he said.
 

“I’ll be okay.” She twisted her body and stuck her feet into the bathtub. She turned on the water and let it run over her bare legs. As she washed her feet, Ben found antiseptic in the kit and smeared it on the scrape.
 

“You really should report this,” he said.
 

She sighed, turned off the water and reached for the cell phone in her pocket.
 

“Sam, it’s me,” she said. “I’m out of jail, but there was an… incident after court.”

She listened for a few seconds.
 

“This time is different,” she said. “This time, I have a witness.”

Chapter Three

The automatic doors slid open and a chilly blast of conditioned air breezed across Lindsey’s face. She held up her press pass for the
Beacon
’s security guard to inspect, then motioned to Ben who followed her closely.

“He’s with me.”
 

The guard nodded, buzzing her through the gate so they could take the escalator to the second floor. Ben in tow, she headed straight to Sam’s office on the edge of the
Beacon
’s newsroom. She had a bruise the size of a dinner plate forming on her shoulder, a cut on her head, and a witness to the assault. She was not imagining the misfortune that had befallen her lately. This time Sam had to believe her.
 

Sam’s usual scowl was momentarily replaced with shocked concern as Lindsey entered his office. She must look worse than she thought. She had cleaned up and changed clothes, but the knot on her head couldn’t be hidden.
 

Lindsey introduced Ben to her editor. Sam barely glanced at him before turning on her again.
 

“Jesus, Lindsey, I don’t even know where to start,” he said, closing the door to his office. “What were you doing in court today? How did you end up in jail? And what the hell happened to you? You look like hell.”
 

Lindsey hesitated and considered how to approach his barrage of questions. Better to start with the easy question. “I got mugged. Sort of. A bike messenger chased me and tried to steal my bag, but I fell and hit my head. And my shoulder.”
 

Sam’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. She didn’t blame him for being skeptical. So far this year, she’d returned to work with stories of a stolen laptop, burglarized apartment, one mugging (attempted), one mugging (completed), numerous threatening phone messages, more than her share of slashed tires, and approximately a million hang-up calls on her personal phones. She was starting to think she was having the world’s worst run of bad luck. But she suspected her editor just thought she was crazy.

Sam turned his attention to Ben, who had sat silently so far.
 

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

“Judge Kinsey asked me to represent Lindsey on the contempt…” he started.
 

“Cut to the chase—literally,” Sam said, waving an impatient hand. “The mugging.”

“Just as Lindsey said, the messenger tried to steal her bag, pushed her to the ground. Then he chased us down an alley and into a parking garage.”
 

It was hard not to gloat a little, finally having someone back her up when she came to Sam with another tale of woe.
 

Sam nodded. “Lindsey, take the rest of the day off. Did you call the police?”

She shook her head and immediately regretted it. It felt like her brain had come loose from its moorings and was rattling around in her skull.
 

“Well, do it. The police should know they’ve got someone mugging people downtown.”
 

Ben leaned forward in his chair. “This was not some random mugging. Random muggers give up after one pass. They don’t chase their victims down alleys and into parking garages. They don’t make phone calls saying they lost her trail. This guy was targeting Lindsey.”

Sam gave Ben a long inscrutable stare, then focused his attention back on Lindsey.
 

“What were you doing in the courthouse in the first place?” he asked. “As I recall, I assigned you to cover City Hall, not county courts. City Hall, you might remember, is three blocks from the courthouse.”
 

“I was following up on something related to the arena story,” she said.
 

“You’re supposed to come to me with anything related to the arena. You are not covering that story any longer. That’s Jeff’s story.”

Fury boiled inside her. She caught Ben’s confused expression and quickly looked away. She so didn’t want to have this discussion in front of him.
 

“Jeff is a sports writer who might as well be wearing a short skirt and waving pom-poms when it comes to the stadium,” Lindsey said. “He’s not covering the story, he’s just rewriting press releases from the city. He’s not even looking into the issues about the contractor’s legal troubles.”

“The coverage is my call to make. And Jeff’s. It is not yours,” Sam warned, his voice rising. “You still owe me a thousand words on the sewer bond refinancing for the weekend.”
 

Her face warmed, but she didn’t say anything. When she’d started working at the
Beacon
, Sam’s mercurial temper scared the hell out of her. It had taken her a while to learn that the volume and velocity of his angry tirades were never proportional to the problem that set off his mood. He could be as upset about a judge putting his reporter in jail as he was about the lack of fortune cookies in his Chinese take-out. His anger was swift to ignite, but blew over just as quickly. Sam had probably raged earlier, kicked his chair and yelled at an intern after learning some judge threw her in jail, but his anger on that issue was abating. The long stretch of silence following his last bark indicated he was resigned to dealing with his City Hall reporter.