Protecting Plain Jane (7 page)

Randy shrugged and joined in. “It’s not like I’ve got a hot date tomorrow.”

Rafe was looking over his shoulder, watching Josie serve a beer and a smile up to one customer before hurrying behind the counter to greet someone new and fetch the next drink. Whatever was troubling him didn’t appear to be a concern for her.

“Sarge?” the captain prompted.

Rafe stood as well. “I’m in.”

Trip grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and shrugged into it. With thoughts of Charlotte distracting him from his normal routine, he hadn’t really been in the mood to celebrate, anyway. As the others headed for the door, he picked up his book and fell into step behind them. Any mental thumbing of the nose as they filed past Spencer Montgomery’s table was a silent bonus.

This was a team he could trust. Just like that drill this afternoon—they’d get the job done. Together.

Sure, maybe he was looking to redeem himself in Charlotte’s eyes. Maybe he couldn’t make her feel safe, or put the woman at ease, but he damn sure could handle a little routine security and crowd control. He could ensure that she found the privacy she needed to deal with her grief.

And maybe that knowledge, at last, would put his guilty conscience to rest.

Chapter Five

Charlotte’s palm was sweaty around the wrapped bouquet of white roses she’d been clinging to for the past twenty minutes.

While Max chewed on his new leash at her feet, she sat at the tinted back window of her father’s limo, secretly watching the mourners huddled around a green tent some fifty yards from where the driver had parked near the beginning of the procession line. Her head ached with a terrible mix of guilt and grief. The sweeping hillside, studded with tall trees and marble markers, was curtained by rain and shadows, giving a twilight cast to the afternoon service.

The event-planning team her father had hired to put together a reception at the house later was to be commended for stepping in to help with the ceremony here, as well. Not only had they taken over the task of coordinating transportation from Mt. Washington Cemetery to the estate, they’d issued umbrellas to any guest who’d shown up for the wet proceedings without one.

Like a sea of black mushrooms sprouting across the hillside, the faceless mourners only added to Charlotte’s unsettled nerves. Logically, she understood there were people here she knew and could trust. But she couldn’t see any of them. Her father and stepmother would be standing beneath the awning with the family and minister. Audrey and Alex were there, too. She’d seen him drive up in his black SWAT uniform earlier, no doubt taking a break from work to attend the service with his fiancée. But without the anchor of a trusted friend or family member to cling to, an illogical sense of isolation was creeping in, making Charlotte question the impulse to pay her personal respects to an old friend.

A flicker of movement at the edge of the crowd caught her attention and she shifted in her seat. Her stepbrother, Kyle Austin, turned away from the ceremony to check his watch. The shoulders of his tailored gray suit lifted with a deep breath and another check of the time before he disappeared beneath his umbrella again. While she’d grown up with Richard Eames, the Austins had been part of the family for less than two years, and Kyle was such a workaholic at her father’s real estate development company that he barely knew the staff’s name. He was here strictly as a courtesy to her father.

Drawn to another ripple of movement, she spotted her stepsister Bailey’s strawberry blond hair. She was standing with her arm linked to a tall blond man. Charlotte squinted. If he bent down from beneath that umbrella and whispered to Bailey just one more time…Harper Pierce? Charlotte smiled as he kissed her stepsister’s cheek, recognizing the society prince she’d once gone to school with.

In the very next breath, she frowned. Harper had proposed to their classmate Gretchen Cosgrove last year. According to her best friend Audrey, within a month after Gretch was murdered, he’d made a play for her. Audrey, of course, an eloquent woman who rarely minced words, told him in no uncertain terms that Alex Taylor was the man she loved and Harper needed to move on.

Now he was spending time with Bailey? They knew each other well enough to hold hands and exchange a kiss? When had that happened? Gretchen had been dead for only four months. A man that desperate for constant female companionship seemed a far cry from the high-school soccer hero she’d once had a major crush on. When she was sixteen, even though he’d never looked at her as anything other than his study buddy, she’d willingly typed Harper’s papers and tutored him in whatever subject he struggled with in order to maintain the academic standards needed to play sports at Sterling Academy.

The notion of high school and longing for a boy of her own turned her memories to the stupid choice she’d made with one of Harper’s teammates the night of the prom. It was a plain girl’s foolish mistake to turn down attending with a friend and accept Landon Turner’s invitation. Finding out he’d issued the invitation on a lousy hundred-dollar dare, and had another girl waiting for him at the dance, had led to a humiliating exit. And to the man waiting in the parking lot. And the speeding van and the…

“Nope.” Charlotte turned away from the window, thinking she could turn away from the memories, as well. “I’m not reliving that nightmare again.”

And yet she was. Right now. Hiding away in a car because she was so damn afraid of some other stranger out there. How was she any less free of her kidnappers now than when they’d held her down and cut off part of her ear as proof of life for her father?

Landon had paid for his unwitting collusion with the kidnappers by being kicked out of Sterling Academy and losing his most prestigious scholarship offers. Once he’d outgrown the need to play pranks on the school’s resident bookworm, he probably had gone on to lead a normal, successful life.

But she was still paying for that night. She was still afraid, still obeying the threat that her kidnappers would find her and hurt her even worse, in any number of ways, if she tried to escape and trust her own decisions and be free again.

With a weighty, sorrowful sigh, she pulled her black trench coat more tightly around the skirt and sweater she wore. She let her fingers slide into her pocket to touch the brand-new phone with the unlisted number that her father had given her. She could call for help anytime she needed to. Too bad there wasn’t a number she could call to make her feel truly warm and confident and normal again.

When the low tones of “Amazing Grace” filtered in through the walls of the limo, Charlotte turned her attention toward the green tent again. The service was winding down and people were moving, probably to lay a flower on the casket or express condolences to Mrs. Eames, her children and grandchildren. Charlotte’s heart rate picked up a notch in anticipation. She wanted to be one of those people trading hugs, holding someone close to share her grief.

But she couldn’t. Even if she could see some faces now, they were all strangers to her. How could she face them, wondering if the man who’d killed Richard and terrorized her was one of them? Was there someone else in that crowd waiting to knock her senseless and take her away from everything she knew and loved in exchange for her father’s money? Was there someone out there who wanted to kill her, too?

Besides, the mourners weren’t the only crowd at Mt. Washington today. Down at the bottom of the hill, at a restricted distance beyond the line of cars, was a gathering of reporters, complete with microphones and television cameras. They might be waiting for a glimpse of Jackson Mayweather or a sound bite from one of his stepchildren or second wife, but there’d be a crazy dash if they knew that, after ten years of hiding from Kansas City society, the Mad Miss Mayweather had ventured out of her ivory tower. And no matter how badly she wanted to pay her respects, she wouldn’t risk the potential media circus of her appearance detracting from the Eames family and the sadness of the day.

So she’d sit right where she was until the crowd cleared and her father came to get her to walk her up to the grave site.

When she realized she was watching the clock as closely as her time-obsessed stepbrother, Charlotte flipped her watch around on her wrist and reached down to scratch Max’s head. “We just need to be patient. After ten years of solitude, you’d think I’d know how to do that, right?”

Max answered with a sniff of her hand and a bored look in his round brown eyes. Leaving him to polish off his chew toy, she returned to the task of spying from her anonymous vantage point. The mourners were spread out across the hillside now, trickling down to their cars—walking in small groups, stopping to chat with old friends. As the crowd thinned, she spotted Alex and Audrey with one of the uniformed guards from Gallagher Security. Two motorcycle cops from KCPD cruised by, pulling into position at the front of the procession.

A tall man climbed out of a police SUV parked up ahead, hunching his shoulders against the rain as he crossed the road to speak to the traffic cops. Charlotte pulled one knee beneath her and sat up taller. She recognized that man in the black SWAT uniform. Salt-and-pepper hair. Air of authority. He was Alex’s captain, one of the men she’d seen him talking to the night of Richard’s murder.

A second man from Alex’s team, lanky, with dark brown hair beneath his black SWAT cap, climbed out from the passenger side of the SUV. He lowered the walkie-talkie he’d been speaking into and pointed up the hill.

Spinning in her seat, Charlotte followed the direction of his arm. She searched higher up the hill, beyond the green tent, and saw the policewoman with the blond ponytail looking through a pair of binoculars.

Charlotte searched the entire crowd, from one tree line to the next. If the rest of Alex’s team was here, did that mean…?

Trip Jones.

Her pulse skipped a beat then drummed into overtime. How had she missed seeing the oversize mountain of a man in the black uniform and boots standing near the media cars and trucks, squinting into the drizzling rain because he had no hat?

The water added nutmeg-colored streaks to his light brown hair. The rain had to be running down the back of his neck, making his crisp uniform damp and sticky. One hand rested on the butt of the gun strapped to his thigh, the other tapped at the tiny microphone clipped to his ear as his lips moved in some sort of terse reply. But she detected no hint of discomfort in his implacable stance, no trace of complaint in the methodical back-and-forth scan of his eyes.

“Maximus, I think we owe the guy a new hat.” And an apology. And maybe an explanation for her odd behavior.

And maybe while she was doing that, she could study those hazel eyes again, to see if she’d only imagined the gentle humor and unflinching support there when he’d handed her Max and told the others at that ambulance to bug off.

Of course, to do that, she’d have to meet him again. She’d have to be close enough to make that eye contact. She’d have to speak. Rationally. But she hadn’t seen any pigs flying around—

A sharp knock on the window beside her made her jump halfway across the seat. Max’s woof matched her startled gasp. Clutching her hand over her thumping heart, Charlotte reminded herself to breathe and called herself twenty kinds of fool once she identified the man with the wire-rimmed glasses waiting patiently outside the car.

Jeffrey Beecher was the executive assistant for the event company handling the memorial reception today. The earbud he wore and corkscrew cord that curled down beneath his suit jacket confirmed that he was the hired help. Her stepmother often employed Jeffrey and his crew to coordinate parties and fundraisers. Charlotte didn’t attend those functions, but her father ran thorough background checks and made sure that she was introduced to any staff who came onto the estate. Just in case she would need to leave her rooms during an event, she would be able to identify the employee and not go into a panic.

She briefly considered staying where she was and not responding to the knock. But Max had barked and she had yelped, and the man with the business suit and umbrella really was standing ever so patiently in the rain, so he had to know she was in here.

Just do it, Charlotte.
She had no place to withdraw to right now.
Engage.

Crawling back across the leather seat, Charlotte pushed the button and lowered the window a few inches—just enough to peek through and smell the green, woodsy dampness in the cool outside air. “Yes?”

Jeffrey’s umbrella blocked the rain as he bent over far enough to line his eyes up with hers. He adjusted his glasses on his nose and smiled. “Miss Mayweather. Sorry to in-trude on your privacy. But I need to tell you there’s been a slight change in plans.”

“Oh?” She didn’t like change. She didn’t like surprises.

Something of her confusion must have read on her face, because he put up a hand and patted the air in a placating gesture. “Don’t worry. We’ll still get you up to lay a flower on the grave and say your goodbyes. But I’ll have to ask you to wait in the car a little bit longer.”

She reached down to stroke Max’s ears. “Is something wrong?”

He quickly shook his head to reassure her. “We weren’t anticipating the numbers of reporters here at the cemetery, so we’re having to improvise. Clarice,” his boss, “actually invited them to attend the reception. As long as they stay outside of the gates, of course.”

Charlotte climbed up onto her knees again, her gaze flitting over to the news vans and photographers and the mountain of a man keeping watch over them. Would they really try to intrude on the family’s privacy with Trip standing guard?

Her father apparently thought so. “Mr. Mayweather is going to send your stepmother and stepsister on to the house so that the press corps will follow them. Then he’ll come back for you to lay the flowers on the grave.”

“What about Kyle?”

“Oh, yes.” His gaze darted over to Kyle Austin, jogging down the hill. Charlotte saw her blond-haired stepbrother collapse his umbrella, climb into his white Jaguar and speed away from the service. She had no time to speculate where he was going in such a hurry because Jeffrey was pulling an envelope from inside his jacket and sliding it through the crack in the window. “Kyle said a man handed this to him, but he needed to get back to the office, so he asked me to deliver it to you.”

Charlotte plucked the envelope from his fingers. “What man?”

“He didn’t know him, but he said he had on a uniform of some kind. Your name is on the envelope.” Jeffrey shrugged. “I’m assuming it’s a condolence?”

She turned it over to see her name neatly typed on the front. But there was no return address, no glimpse of handwriting to give her any clue as to who it might be from. Maybe this was Trip Jones’s idea of sending her an apology? Only,
he
wasn’t the one who needed to apologize.

She pulled the envelope into her lap and tried to be civil. “Thank you, Jeffrey.”

“No problem.” Something buzzed into the earbud he wore and he answered with a “yes, ma’am” before pulling away. “Sorry to intrude on your privacy, Miss Mayweather, but I’d better get to the estate and make sure everyone’s ready when the guests arrive. See you there.”

Probably not. Charlotte rolled the window up and sat back to open the envelope and pull out the neatly folded letter inside, alternately checking out one window and then the other for any sign of her mysterious pen pal. So a man in uniform had given it to Kyle. One of the security guards? Someone on the florists’ staff? A courier? Police officer? Trip?