BRIAN (The Callahans Book 1) (92 page)

              It didn’t matter that she had dragged Carter out of the trailer. It didn’t matter that she had let him have it, utterly furious he could’ve betrayed her like this after she’d begged him never to breathe a word of what they’d found in Taylor’s office, much less go to the press with it. And it didn’t matter that she’d scrambled to reach Taylor in the trailer to try to explain. The fact of the matter was that she’d grossly violated his trust, and there would be no telling how this would impact his life.

              Rose sat in Taylor’s living room feeling beside herself. She kept replaying her words and his, kept reliving the anguish in his tone, and the terrible declaration he’d made—that he would be staying at a hotel for awhile to clear his head.

              He had arranged for his driver to take her back to the Escala, but now that she was here it felt so wrong.

              What the hell had Carter been thinking?

              Ruining Taylor was no guarantee of shutting down the Starlight pipeline. It would only serve to tarnish, if not destroy Taylor’s reputation. Ultimately, Rose was responsible. She was the strong-headed one who had insisted they keep working. She was the one who had demanded her team come to the suite. Taylor had been nothing but generous in allowing her into his office. This was entirely her fault, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

              She knew the entertainment den was down the hall, but she couldn’t bring herself to venture in and turn on the TV. When would this terrible secret hit the news? Part of her wanted to know, but she was so disgusted by the fiasco that she knew she wouldn’t be able to bear listening.

              Holding her cell phone in her hand, she felt compelled to call Taylor, but she’d already tried twice—once in the limo ride home and once when she first stepped through the door. Both times her call went straight through to voicemail, but she didn’t know what to say on the recording. To say
I’m sorry
seemed too small.

              She had no choice but to give him time, and hope that he would call. If only she didn’t have to hate herself in the interim.

              Her ears perked up at the sound of a key card swiping in the lock, and she sprang to her feet in response to the door being opened.

              After hearing the footsteps of someone entering, she approached, praying that Taylor was here because he loved her and wanted to work it out, and not to break up with her.

              “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she said in a quavering voice. “I’m not putting off blame, but I couldn’t stop Carter from digging for information when we were in your office, and I told him not to tell a soul. I’m just so sorry.”

              Where she expected some kind of reply, she heard only footfall advancing on her, and she cocked her head when something about the intensity of those steps seemed off.

              Before she understood what was happening, gloved hands wrapped her throat, cutting off her air supply so starkly that she didn’t even have a chance to scream.

              His hands, gloved and unrelenting, clamped tighter around her throat. Rose slammed her fists down onto his forearms, praying she could break his hold, but the impact only incited him and he growled, shuffling sideways until he banged her head back against the glass window.

              Scrambling for a way out of this, Rose tried desperately to visualize the room. Were there any objects nearby she could use as a weapon? Soon her thinking became murky, as she struggled for air that was no longer reaching her lungs.

              Refusing to give up and sensing where his feet were planted, where his legs held firm and met at the apex between his legs, she kneed him hard, driving her leg up and screaming.

              It was a good hit and he keeled over, releasing her, and she sprinted, rushing and tripping around the coffee table then the sofa chair as she made her frantic way to the bedroom.

              She could feel him on her heels, but just as she crossed the threshold and grabbed the edge of the open door to slam it shut, he caught her hair, yanking her back into the living room.

              As she fell to her back, coughing for air, she demanded, “Who are you?” He only growled and pressed his foot to her chest, pinning her. “Why are you doing this?”

              Though he held her down, she jerked up, punching his shin and grasping his shoe to twist his leg away. A terrible dread filled her—one that warned she wasn’t going to make it out of this alive.

              When she grabbed his shoe, struggling to peel the toe end away from her sternum, she noticed the slick, leather texture of the dress shoe, but it wasn’t enough to tell her who was attacking her.

              As she fought to catch her breath, her mind racing for the next tactic to try in order to escape, she sensed he was doing the same, breathing heavily and plotting.

              He removed his foot from her chest in favor of dropping to his knees, and just as he was reaching for her neck to once again begin strangling her, Rose rolled, darting to her side then launching to her feet in an ugly tangle of kicks and punches to get him off of her.

              Sprinting once again, she sensed the furniture and dodged it, as she ran through the living room and then down the hallway where she dove into Taylor’s office and slammed the door shut in the same second her assailant was reaching out for her.

              Pressing her shoulder into the door to ward off her attacker slamming into it over and over, and searching for the lock, she finally found it and prayed it would hold.

              When she rushed to the desk and felt for the landline telephone on the far left corner, she heard him kick hard at the door, which cracked in response.

              Her fingers were trembling from the adrenaline coursing through her, but she did what she could to calm herself, breathing slowly and deliberately, while her fingers found the
9
button on the keypad. She had to visualize the phone, its grid of numbers, to be sure where each digit lay, but she found the
1
button next and pressed it twice.

              “9-1-1. What is your emergency?” said the operator.

              “Someone’s trying to kill me,” she screamed with shaky desperation. “I’m in the penthouse suite of the Escala, please send help!”

              The man on the other side of the door stopping kicking the door and fell eerily quiet.

              “Please!” she said in her most assertive whisper. “Before he gets away!”

              But she sensed he already was. She heard footfall that quieted as he stomped down the hall right as the 9-1-1 operator told her help was on the way and asked if she was hurt.

              “He tried to strangle me, but I fought him,” she explained as she caught the faint click of the suite door opening then closing, which told her the assailant had just slipped out. “Damn it! I think he just left the suite! Please hurry! Tell the cops to look for a man with leather gloves and dress shoes. They might be able to catch him before he leaves the building!”

              “I’ll relay that, ma’am, and when the officers get there you can give them a full description.”

              As the operator went on to explain an ambulance would also be there shortly to make sure she wasn’t seriously injured, Rose winced at the fact that she wouldn’t be able to offer any kind of description.

              She hadn’t seen him.

              Suddenly, she heard pounding on the suite door, and then a man shouted, “Seattle Police!”

              “They're here?” she said into the receiver, but it came across like a question. “How did they get here so fast?”

              “Can you get to the door to let them in?” asked the 9-1-1 operator in a calming tone.

              “Yes,” she said. “I’ll have to set the phone down. It’s a landline.”

              “I’ll wait.”

              Cautiously, she placed the phone on the desk, and kept her fingertips to the hallway wall when she reached it, walking slowly and sliding her hands across the glossily painted wall to guide her. When she reached the door, she was surprised to feel it was locked.

              “Hang on!” she called out when the officers pounded again.

              Her hands were almost trembling too much for her to shift the lock away, but she managed then pulled the door open.

              One of the men said, “I’m Officer O’Malley and this is Sanderson.” His tone came with an edge of surprise at what he saw.

              Quickly, she addressed his confusion by saying, “I recently lost my eyesight. Can I feel your badge?”

              She hated to sound paranoid, but couldn’t deny she was in disbelief that they had arrived so quickly. Who had attacked her? And why? What if these men weren’t who they said they were, but rather the first attacker coming back with an assistant to finish the job?

              O’Malley seemed unfazed and helped her hand touch the cool, metal badge on his chest.

              “We’re with Seattle PD.”

              “Okay,” she said, satisfied and apologetic. “I’ve got 9-1-1 on the line. I’m going to let them go. Come in.”

              The officers entered after her and she heard the door being closed, as she rushed down the hall, grabbed the telephone from the desk, and thanked the operator, telling her that the police had arrived.

              When she returned she sensed the cops had trekked deeper into the living room, and one invited her to sit on the couch.

              “Can you tell us what happened?” he asked as she sat nervously.

              “Yes, I was sitting here on the couch, expecting Taylor Montgomery to come home. We’d gotten in a fight and I’d left several messages. Then I heard someone key into the suite door and assumed it was him. I dove into an apology, then the next thing I knew I felt gloved hands around my neck. A man tried to strangle me.”

              Her voice began trembling, so she choked back the tears that were threatening to sting her eyes, drawing in a deep breath.

              “You didn’t see the man leaving the building as you got here?”

              “The description of dress shoes didn’t exactly narrow it down,” one of them said.

              “What about gloves?” she challenged. “It’s August.”

              The other officer responded, first reminding her that he was Sanderson. “He could’ve easily taken them off. The good news is that there are plenty of security cameras in the Escala, including in the elevator. It could take some time to get the footage, but we’ll make the rounds.”

              Officer O’Malley added, “You’re getting some bruising around your neck. I’d like to take pictures when the medics get here.”

              “Certainly,” she said.

              “So we’re looking for someone with access to this suite, who wears dress shoes,” said Sanderson, pondering. “Did you get any sense of his height?”

              Rose wondered if they’d ever worked with someone blind before.

              “No,” she said, bewildered. How could she have?

              “Any particular smell? Anything distinguishing?”

              She wasn’t sure how they would book a man based on his smell, but she racked her brain anyway.

              “I’m really not sure. I was panicking. He was trying to kill me.”

              “Ma’am, do you have any idea who would’ve done this? Do you have any enemies?”

              “I’m an activist,” she began. “I have an environmentalist organization called One World.”

              Their hesitation to comment was enough of an indication that they had heard of her group and the controversy that One World had managed to stir up in the seven short days they’d been in town.

              “So anyone associated with the Starlight Energy Project might have it in for you,” he concluded.

              “That’s a lot of suspects,” said O’Malley.

              Rose heard knocking at the door, and Officer Sanderson excused himself to let the medics in, greeting them then ushering them over to Rose.

              As soon as the medics introduced themselves, getting situated on the couch beside her and wasting no time to take her blood pressure and examine the bruises that were forming on her neck, Officer Sanderson paced back to the open doorway and stated Taylor’s name.

              Rose stiffened as soon as she heard Taylor was here.

              “Thanks for calling me,” he said. “What happened?”

              Though he hadn’t entered deeper into the living room, Rose could hear the officers explain to Taylor the details of the attack as she’d described it.

              “Considering her line of work,” said O’Malley, speaking discretely, though Rose’s hearing had grown acute ever since she’d lost her sight. “We might have to look at your colleagues, the executives. Her group has been meddling, we’ve seen the news, and it would appear someone in your company took a stab at silencing her.”

              “Jesus.”

              “We’re going to review the security footage.”

              “Yes, please, don’t let me stop you,” he said, thanking them.

              “As she mentioned,” O’Malley added, “whoever did this had a key to this suite. They let themselves in. Can you tell me offhand who has a key to this place?”

              Taylor sighed, and from the sound of it, Rose assumed he was shaking his head in horror.

              “A handful of assistants, my cleaning lady, the building attendant, my father.”

              “Okay, we’ll need all of those names with their contact information as soon as you can get it to us. I’m sure within a few hours our sergeant will assign a detective who will be in direct touch.”

              “I understand,” he said.

              The officers paced back into the living room to let Rose know they’d swing by again once they secured the surveillance footage.

              As the medic helped Rose roll her sleeve down, Rose asked, “I’m not going to have to go to the hospital, am I? I just got out of there.”

              “Not unless you want to. Your vitals are good and nothing’s broken. You don’t have a concussion, but there is some mild swelling at the back of your head.”

              “He slammed me into the window then again to the floor,” she offered.

              “And because of it, you’re going to feel a little goose egg pop up, but it’s nothing pain medication can't help.”

              “I also have some serious painkillers,” she explained, though in the back of her mind she knew she wouldn’t use them. 

              As the medics rose from where they were sitting beside her, Taylor approached.

              “Is she okay?” he asked, directing the question to the medical professionals.

              “She’s lucky,” one of them said. “Nothing is broken and her trachea is bruised, but there is no real damage.”

              Taylor walked them to the door, and as Rose waited for his return, she was suddenly struck by the severity of the fight they’d had and her desperate need for Taylor not to blame her.

              Thanks to the recent attack, it felt like a lifetime ago that Carter and Layla had taken Taylor’s private information and gone to the press. They had been loyal members of One World, and now she couldn’t believe what Carter had done with the information that she had asked him to stay quiet about.

              Years prior, Taylor had behaved erratically at one of his father’s charity events, running and screaming around a pool where he slipped, hit his head, and fell into the water. Poking around in Taylor’s office, Carter had found the emergency-room report, as well as Taylor’s medical records, which appeared to detail the drugs that Taylor had been on that night, and that his subsequent hospitalization had been due to psychosis.