Protecting Plain Jane (3 page)

Perfectly safe. Since that fateful night in high school, perfectly safe had become a foreign concept to her.

The three men who’d abducted her were now in prison, would be for the rest of their lives. But not one of them, not Landon, not the kidnappers, had paid the way she had. Disfigurement. Phobias. Self-imposed isolation.

That night, and the long days that followed, had ended any hope of living a normal life.

Stay in the moment.

This wasn’t high school. This wasn’t a date. She was older, smarter. She had Max and Richard with her. She’d be all right.

“I’m okay,” she insisted, tunneling her fingers into Max’s fur. “Drive away so that Dad will get out of the rain.”

Richard nodded and pulled away. “Why don’t you get out some of those photos and shipping manifests from the museum to distract you while I’m driving?” he suggested. “You’ll get lost in your work soon enough.”

Giving Max one more pet, inhaling one more steadying breath, she nodded and reached for her bag. “Good idea, Richard. Thanks. As always, you’re a calm voice of reason in my life.”

But she crunched the papers in a white-knuckled grip as they drove away from the one place where she
knew
she was safe.

E
VEN INSIDE THE PRISTINE
atmosphere of the museum’s warehouse offices, enough humidity from the rain-soaked air outside had worked its way into Charlotte’s hair, taking it from naturally curly to out of control.

She pushed the expanding kinks off her forehead as she straightened from the worktable where she was documenting the artisan’s crest burned into the iron hilt of the sword she’d been cleaning. Her back ached, her empty stomach grumbled and Max sat in the workroom doorway staring at her—all certain signs that she’d lost track of the time.

If she’d been at home, more certain of the coded locks protecting her, she might have been grateful that she’d so fully engaged her brain with the task of cataloguing artifacts that she’d actually gone for several hours without her obsessive insecurities dogging every thought. But she wasn’t at home. And as she adjusted her glasses at her temple to check her watch, she nearly flew into a panic.

“Why didn’t you say something?” She slammed the book she’d been using, startling Max to his feet.

She’d told her father they’d be home by nine, that it was okay for him to go out to dinner with Laura. It was a rare treat for him to enjoy a night out with his wife. The museum was deserted, locked up tight. Charlotte had been in heaven to have the place and all its treasures to herself,
so yes, Dad, enjoy your evening out.

She slid the sword back into its crate. “It’s eight-thirty.”

Half an hour past the time Richard was supposed to pick her up. True, he’d been parked in the staff parking lot behind the warehouse all day long, working his puzzles, watching the sports channel on his mini satellite TV, napping. And he’d promptly come to the door each time she’d called him. To walk Max. To bring her lunch. Just to check in and assure herself he was there. If she didn’t call him, he knocked on the door. Every hour on the hour.

They hadn’t spoken since 7:00 p.m.

Richard was never late.

In a flurry of scattered activity, Charlotte shut down her computer, plucked her raincoat off the back of a chair and shoved her arm into one sleeve. In a miracle of klutzy coordination, she grabbed her bag, pulled out her phone, tutted to the dog and raced him to the steel door that marked the museum’s rear exit.

And stopped.

A nervous breath skittered from her lungs. She couldn’t go out there. There was no way to know if it was safe. Evil hid in the shadows at night. Men with fists and needles and greed in their hearts lurked in the dark. They’d lie in wait until it was late and she was alone, and then they’d hurt her. And hurt her. And…

Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut.
Stay in the moment. Stay in the freaking moment!

“Richard!” She opened her eyes and shouted at the brick walls, even as she pulled out her phone and punched in his number. She tried to focus on getting the other sleeve of her blouse into her coat instead of counting how many times the cell phone rang.

Richard knew how changes in her routine upset her.

That was the third ring. Maybe he’d fallen asleep.

She shifted anxiously on her feet. Four rings.

Charlotte tugged the belt of her coat around her waist and held on as a flash of lightning flickered through the darkness shrouding the unreachable windows above her. Even though she knew it was coming, she winced at the boom of thunder that followed.

Charlotte blinked when she realized her eyes were drying out from staring so hard at the door. Max danced around her feet. “We need to get a peephole installed.”

She worked her lower lip between her teeth and reached out to touch the door. The steel was cool from the temperature outside, its texture rough beneath her fingertips. Did she dare open it? Did she risk going outside on her own? She leaned closer and tuned her ears to any sounds of movement in the alley way beyond the door. But a blanket of rain continued to fall outside, drumming against the awning over the door, muffling all but the quickened gasps of her own breathing.

And Max’s singsongy growl.

Charlotte’s paranoia wasn’t fair to the dog’s bladder. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Richard?” she called out again, doubting her voice would carry through the steel and bricks and storm to the car parked outside.

The sixth ring.

Max left her side to scratch at the bricks. He whimpered.

What was wrong? Why didn’t Richard answer? Her fears multiplied with every single…

The ringing stopped.

“Charlotte.”

“Richard? Where are—”

Click.

What the…? He hung on up her? A burst of anger surged through her. He knew what that did to her—how she’d received all those calls and hang-ups in the weeks following the kidnapping. It had taken months of therapy afterward before she’d even allow a phone in her rooms, longer than that to carry one with her.

Richard knew that. He knew…“Oh, my God.”

Embarrassment washed away her unkind thoughts, leaving Charlotte’s knees weak and her heart racing with concern. What if Richard was hurt? What if he was having a heart attack and needed her help? What if he hadn’t called her because he couldn’t?

She pocketed the phone and grasped the dead bolt above the doorknob. But her fingers danced over the steel pin, hesitating to grab hold. Could she turn it? Did she dare? Richard had been with her family from the time she was a child. He
was
family. He’d stayed on when he could have retired because she could almost function like a normal person when surrounded by familiar faces, by the handful of staff she trusted. If he’d been driving her the night of her high-school prom, he’d have gotten her safely home. He would never, ever intentionally frighten her.

What if Richard needed her?

Listening to her worries instead of the fear, shutting down her brain and following her heart, Charlotte curled her fingers through Max’s collar and turned the bolt.

She nudged the door open, barely wide enough for the dog to stick his muzzle out. Charlotte leaned into the crack until the moisture in the air splashed against her cheek. Max strained against her grip to squeeze through to the gap. “Hold on.”

She wasn’t ready to do this. She
had
to do this.
Face your fear.

“Okay.” Taking a deep breath and holding it, Charlotte put her left eye to the narrow opening and peeked outside. Her glasses fogged up almost instantly, blinding her. But she pulled the frames away from her face and let the lenses clear. Once she’d readjusted them on her nose, she huffed out a curse at her temerity. She could see the light from the streetlamp at the edge of the parking lot reflected in every rivulet of rain that streaked the polished black fender of Richard’s BMW. The car was right there, parked a couple of feet beyond the edge of the green-and-white awning.

Charlotte pushed the door open a few inches more and let Max run out to sniff the rear tire. “Richard?” she shouted through the downpour.

She hurried out to the car. Rain spotted her glasses, distorting her vision before she got the back door open. But Charlotte never climbed inside.

“Are you okay?”

Reprimand gave way to relief. Then her mind seized up with a whole different kind of fear.

She darted around her door and pulled open the driver’s door. “Richard!” Her beloved friend was slumped over the steering wheel. “Richard?” Charlotte pulled out her phone, punched in a 9. She swiped the rain from her glasses and glanced around, making sure the narrow lot was still empty, before lightly shaking his shoulder. She punched in a 1. When there was no response, she slid her arm across Richard’s chest, her fingers clinging to something warm and sticky at the side of his neck as she pulled him back against the seat. “Oh, my God.”

Richard’s eyes were open, sightless. Blood oozed from the neat round bullet hole at his temple. She couldn’t bear to look at the pulpy mess she’d felt on the other side of his head.

Charlotte.

She jerked her hand away.

Richard never called her anything but “
Miss
Charlotte.”

Charlotte whirled around. “Face your fear,” she chanted. “Face your fear.”

He had her number.

Whoever had done this had taken Richard’s cell phone. She’d called him, and now he could call her back.

She shut off the traitorous phone and stuffed it deep into her pocket. She checked every corner and shadow, marked every movement—a car speeding past on the curiously empty street, a wadded-up fast-food sack skipping across the pavement and Max giving chase. “Max…?”

She put her lips together and tried to whistle.

But any fleeting sense of security sputtered out along with the sound. Was there something moving beyond the Dumpster at the end of the alley?

The rain had finally pummeled its way through her thick hair and crept like chilled fingers over her scalp. There were brick walls on three sides of her—three stories high with shuttered windows and iron bars.

And the Dumpster.

“Face…” How could she face what she couldn’t see? Her heart raced. Her thoughts scattered. The nightmare surged inside her.

Besides the dog and the dead man, she was alone, right? She saw no one, heard nothing but the wind and rain and her own pulse hammering inside her ears.

But she could feel him. A chill ran straight down her spine.

She caught sight of the blood washing from her stained fingers, dripping down into the puddle at her feet. She snatched her fist back to her chest, her feet already moving, retreating from death and horror and
him
.

Whether the eyes watching her were real or imagined didn’t matter. Charlotte’s reaction was intense and immediate. Run. Hide. She clicked her tongue. “Max! Come on, boy. Come on.”

But the scent of trashy cheeseburger wrappers was too enticing.

“Max!” Operating in a panicked haze, she put her fingers to her lips and blew. The shrill sound pierced the heavy air and diverted the dog’s attention. “Get over here!”

Max bounded to her and she scooped him up, yanking open the museum’s back door and dumping him inside. Charlotte slammed the door behind her and twisted the dead bolt into place. Oh, God. She hadn’t imagined a damn thing. Softer than the pounding of her heart, more menacing than the bloody handprints she’d left on her coat—footsteps crunched on the pavement outside. Running footsteps. Coming closer.

Charlotte grabbed Max by the collar, backed away.

“Charlotte!” A man pounded on the door.

She screamed, stumbled over the dog and went down hard on her rump on the concrete floor.

“Charlotte!”

She didn’t know that voice. Didn’t know that man.

How did he know her name?

Flashing between nightmares and reality, between Richard’s murder and her own terror, the pounding fists seemed to beat against her.

“Charlotte! Come on, girlfriend. I know you’re in there!”

They couldn’t take her. She’d die before she’d ever let them take her again.

Scrambling to her feet, she scanned her surroundings.

“Shut up,” she muttered, trying to drown out the pounding on the door as much as she wanted to drown out the hideous memories.

She wiped her glasses clear. Yes. Safety. Survival.

“Max, come!”

She ran back to the workroom, shoved the top off a wooden crate and pulled out the long, ungainly sword from the packing material inside. The weighty blade clanged against the concrete floor and, for a moment, the pounding stopped.

She pulled out her keys and unlocked one of the storage vaults. “Max!” The dog followed her into the long, narrow room, lined with shelves from floor to ceiling.

“Charlotte! I’m coming for you!”

The banging started up again as she turned on the light and locked the door behind her. He was so angry, so menacing, so cruel. Charlotte crouched against the back shelf, holding the sword in front of her. Max trotted back and propped his paws up against her thigh. The smell of wet dog and her own terror intensified in the close confines of the room. “Stay in the moment,” she whispered out loud. She petted her companion, to calm herself, to take control of her scattered thoughts, but stopped when she saw the blood she’d transferred onto the dog’s tan fur.

“It’s okay,” she lied. “It’s okay.”

But she’d chosen the smart, well-trained dog for a reason beyond his scarred ear. Max scratched at Charlotte’s coat, nuzzled her pocket. Call someone. The words were in her head, hiding in some rational corner of her brain.

“I can’t. If I turn on the phone, he’ll call me.”

We need help.

The deep brown eyes reached out to her, calmed her.

Charlotte nodded and pulled out her phone. She couldn’t face the police on her own. Couldn’t handle crowds. She turned it on and immediately dialed the first number her terrified brain could come up with.

The pounding outside continued, beating deep into her head. After three rings, a familiar woman’s voice picked up. “Hello? This is Audrey…Kline,” she whispered in a breathless tone.