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  Lauren popped him in the back of the head. “Get over it. You need to focus on the here and now, my dear brother. And when you get a house, I expect to get full credit for you buying it. Even if you have to lie about it.”

  They were still laughing as they made their way to the next house. He didn’t care for the neighborhood, but he was willing to give it a chance. But the closer they got to the place, the more uncomfortable he felt—like dread or the feeling of impending pain. When he sat in the car, just staring up at the house, Lauren asked him what was wrong.

  “I don’t know. I can feel something here.” She asked if it was just what he’d been thinking, and he turned to her. “You feel it too then?”

  “Yes. Like I’m going to open that door and sixty men with guns and knives are going to come out and fuck up my wonderful day. I hate having to kill someone before dinner. It gives me heartburn.” He asked her what she thought it did to the people she killed. “I never thought of that, not that I care, but I never thought of that. Thanks.”

  Instead of moving on to the next house, they got out to see what was making them feel like that. As soon as they stepped up on the porch, the smell of fresh blood flooded his nose. He looked over at Lauren when she cursed. She pulled out her gun and he stood there as she took her booted foot and slammed it against the doorway.

  The stronger smell hit his nostrils first. Blood and a great deal of it. Then he could feel something akin to sorrow. Boyd stayed by the door when he was told to and waited for her to tell him to move. But before he could reach out to his brothers, not even sure what they were going to be needed for, he saw the movement near the stairs and nearly ran toward it when Lauren stopped him.

  “Do you know what stay here means?” He said that he did and pointed to what had moved. “It had better be something more than a dead rat or I’m kicking your ass all the way to the car. This is not how a person finds them a house.”

  Not only wasn’t it a dead rat, though he had seen it move so that ruled it out right away, but it was a body. A man’s body that was still breathing, though barely so. As he told Lauren to go and get his medical bag out of his car, he started assessing the man for injuries. The blood was everywhere, and he seemed to be bleeding from every part of his body.

  “What’s your name?” The man moaned and pointed to the stairs. Looking up, Boyd could see that he might have come through the railing. He didn’t tell him his name, and Boyd began searching for any kind of identification on him.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” He told her that he was looking for alert bracelets or even a necklace that said maybe he had something else wrong with him. “Another thing I wouldn’t have thought of. But then, I don’t know that many people that I’d care enough about to check on that.”

  He knew that she was kidding around. There were plenty of people in her life that she loved enough to check for things like this. And Boyd was pretty sure that he was one of them. When he found that the man was on a blood thinner, he tried his best to find the biggest source of blood loss. Even small cuts could make him bleed more than usual.

  About the time he got the IV in, the paramedics showed up. Boyd knew that even though they’d gotten to him fast enough, he still might die from his injuries. He had a feeling that the man was lucky they’d not driven off and had stuck around to inspect the house. Boyd rode to the hospital with the man while Lauren talked to the police. The house, it seemed, wasn’t going to be one that he’d buy anytime soon, if ever.

  Chapter 2

  Reilly didn’t want to be bothered, and when someone knocked on her door after she put her phone on mute, she told them to go away. She just knew that it was going to be her boss again, and she didn’t want to deal with his grabby hands and caustic mouth. Not today.

  “You’re to call the hospital.” She looked at Lesley when she opened the door and poked her head in. “Something to do with your dad. I think he’s been taken there.”

  Picking up her phone, she dialed the number to her dad’s cell. When it went to voice mail, she grabbed her things and made her way to the door, asking Lesley what she knew, which was nothing. And just as she was making her way to the door, her boss decided to come out of his office.

  “Where are you going?” She told him that her dad had been hurt. “So? You have reports that I need for a court date tomorrow, and I told you that you weren’t leaving until they were finished. Unless, of course, you want to show me a good time and I’ll have someone else do them.”

  He wasn’t even trying to be discreet anymore. Ross would grab her ass when she walked by him, and no amount of threats about going to his dad helped her. Mr. Dander, the senior, would just wave her off and tell her to keep away from Ross. Like that fucking ever worked.

  “No, I do not want to show you a good time. My father is ill, and I need to go to him.” Ross stood there with his arms over his chest like a small child. Ignoring him for the doorway, she was nearly to it when he called her name.

  “You leave, and I will consider this job abandonment. You know that I can do it too, and fire your ass. Then where will your precious father be with you unemployed?” She thought about it, what her options were, and said fuck it. She was out the door before she could give a thought to what the fuck she was really doing.

  Her car barely started, but when it did, she sat there for several minutes just to get her bearing on what she’d done. Backing out of the parking place, she turned to go forward when something slammed into her rear end. Turning around, she couldn’t believe that Ross was there, his hands beating on her trunk like a madman. She glanced at her video recorder and was glad to see that it was on. No one would believe her if she tried to tell them what he’d done.

  He came to her window then and started pounding on it as well, screaming at her that he wanted her to get back inside, that he was going to kill her. Reilly didn’t roll it down all the way, just an inch, and asked him what he thought he was doing. Ross had become unhinged a great deal lately, and she was sort of afraid of him.

  “You will get your ass back to your desk and leave when I tell you that you can.” She said that she was quitting. “Like you’re going to be able to do that either. I’m serious, Reilly. You aren’t making this easy on yourself. Get in there and do your job, or I swear to you, I’ll kill you. And enjoy it too. Get out of this car.”

  He pounded on the window and she put it in reverse again and started backing up slowly, the entire time yelling at him that she had quit and that she was leaving. By the time she had turned around enough to leave, the entire staff was outside now, watching what he was doing to her and her car. A lot of them had their cell phones out recording it. Reilly could not believe that none of them had come to help her. It showed her just how much she meant to them.

  When she was pulling out of the parking lot and onto the main road, Reilly drove for another few blocks before she had to pull over. Getting out, she almost didn’t make it to the grassy area beside the highway before she was throwing up. Christ. Just going down on her knees in the soft grass made her feel a little better.

  Just as she was headed to her car to go to the hospital, a little black sports car came out of nowhere and rammed her car in the rear. It hit so hard that her car went off the side of the road into oncoming traffic on the freeway that was going at least sixty to seventy miles per hour. As soon as her car slammed into the side of the first car, it was a free for all. The cars kept hitting one another, and there was nothing she could do about it but watch.

  Reilly cringed as car after car slammed into her car. The carnage that was caused had her flinching each time brakes squealed, and horns blared. And the whole time, the little black car sat on the side of the road where it had hit her, and the driver gunned the engine. Taking out her cell phone, she recorded the reactions of the accident as well as the man when he got out of the car. It was Ross.

  He was jumping up and down, laughing. Even as far away as she was, she could hear him shouting about how he’d done
it, he’d killed her. She wondered if he knew that she wasn’t in the car and backed up, careful of where she stepped. She was afraid that he’d come after her, to somehow finish the job.

  He was insane. Something was seriously wrong with him, she thought. And when he started taking pictures of what was going on, she turned and ran to the other side of the road and flagged down the first car that she saw. The limo didn’t just stop, but the woman in the back got out of the car with a gun drawn.

  “He pushed me into the traffic. Like I was nothing more than a.... I don’t know what he thought he was doing, but I could have been killed. He said that, that he’d killed me, like it was the joy of his life.” The woman started forward toward where the accident was still going on, and Reilly had to stop her. No more people needed to be hurt by the madman. “Please. Don’t. If you let him see me then he’ll come after us both. I don’t want you hurt because he’s fucking insane right now.”

  The woman pulled out her phone and called the police, she thought. When she told them who she was, Hutch something, Reilly leaned against the car and watched as people began to get out of their cars and look at the damage. There must have been fifty cars that were in some kind of crumpled mess. And it wasn’t over. There were more cars coming around the small bend in the highway, and none of them had enough time to stop.

  The woman told her to get in the car and to not get out until she told her to. Grabbing for the door, thinking that she was safer hidden away, Reilly nearly sobbed with relief when she finally got the door open and slipped inside.

  There was a man in the car with her, she noticed, and tried very hard not to stare at him. While she had dated some lately, the man sitting on the bench seat looked like he would be the envy of every other male in the world. When he chuckled slightly, she glared at him.

  “My wife, Lauren, she’ll keep you safe.” Nodding, she told him her name. “Hello, Reilly Pratt. I’m Colin McCullough, and my wife’s name is Lauren. We were just headed home from the hospital when our driver saw you. Were you hurt at all in this?”

  “No, I’m okay. Terrified, but…. My father. I completely forgot him. He’s been hurt. I have to go there.” She reached for the door, and he stopped her with his hand over hers. “Look, buddy. While you have the body of an Adonis, I’m not going to have one more man handle me like day old bread again. Let go of me or I’ll have to break your hand.”

  “I’m just going to remind you that you might not have a car right now, and my wife said not to move.” She looked out the darkened window of the car. “If you will just give me a moment, I’ll tell her that you need to go, and I’ll come back for her.”

  “I can walk.” Shaking his head, he told her to wait. “I can. I’m neither hurt nor am I lazy. I have to walk a lot when my car breaks down. I guess it’s beyond broken now. Did you see what he did? He shoved my car into traffic like it was a fun day at the zoo for him.” Reilly knew she was babbling again, and snapped her mouth closed.

  “I’m sure it is, but for now, trust me when I say you’ll be safer if I take you. Not to mention, you’ll get there sooner instead of sometime tomorrow.” Nodding, she waited for him. “Please, don’t leave this car. I don’t want you hurt either.”

  When he opened the door, she could hear the woman speaking to Ross. While she was loud, he was louder, saying that he’d had nothing to do with the car being in the road. The door shut on them when the woman, Lauren, started talking again.

  As she sat there, waiting on the man, Colin, to return, she thought about the last twenty minutes. Ross had tried to kill her. There was no doubt that was what he’d been trying to do. He’d hit her car from the rear and had shoved it into oncoming traffic. She shivered when she thought of what would have happened to her had she been in the car when he’d done that. There was no doubt in her mind that she’d be dead, and he’d be jumping up and down like a fool because of it.

  When Colin got back into the limo, he told the driver to take them to the hospital. She felt bad that he had to leave his wife and told him that. Reilly was terrified out of her mind, but she thought that he might have figured that one out on his own.

  “This man, did the two of you have a fight? Is he a boyfriend?” She shook her head and told him that she’d worked for him until all this happened, then told him what Ross’s name was. “Lauren said that he’s saying that you drove yourself into the traffic, and that he hoped that you were dead.”

  “I wasn’t in the car.” He said he could see that. “I think had I been in the car, it would have killed me, don’t you think?”

  “Oh yeah, you’d be dead. That’s why Lauren is having such a good time with Ross. Anyway, I’m to take you to the hospital and to tell you not to leave there until someone comes to get you. It’ll more than likely be one of my brothers.” Reilly told him she’d be fine there. There were other people around. “Yes, well, having others around didn’t stop him this time from plowing you into a fifty-car pileup. Correct? Please, just do as we ask, and no one will come near you. We all look pretty much alike, so you won’t have any trouble figuring out who we are, okay?”

  Colin asked her some questions that made her think he might be a cop or something. She did tell him that there was a camera on her car, but it was probably smashed to hell by now. He told her that they might be able to get something from it. He also asked her what she did working for Ross.

  “Research staff. I don’t have any idea if there is a title for that or anything, but I’m pretty good at researching things. He wanted me to stay and work on the file he gave me, but my dad’s been hurt. I was leaving when he told me that if I had sex with him, or in his words, gave him a good time, then he could have someone else work on them. Otherwise, I wasn’t leaving.” Colin said he sounded like a charmer. “He’s a fucking dick. And when I went to his dad a while back, who is the actual attorney that I started working for, he waved me off. Like I was a pesky fly or something. He told me to avoid Ross in the future. I can’t do that, he’s my fucking boss. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Reilly. You’re upset, and I can understand that, but Ross is telling Lauren that you were pissed off because he turned down your advances, and that the two of you had had a one-night thing. He said that you were a great disappointment and he didn’t want to see you again. But you persisted.” She looked out the window and said nothing. “Reilly, I’m only telling you what he’s saying, not that we believe him.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” The car came to a smooth stop and she reached for the handle again. Reilly turned to him before getting out of the car. “Thank you for bringing me here, Mr. McCullough. I do appreciate it.”

  “It was a pleasure, Miss Pratt. Remember what I said—don’t leave here unless one of my brothers is with you. This Dander person is off his rocker.” She nodded and told him that she was fine even as she got out of the car.

  Going to the front desk, she asked about her dad. He was still in surgery, so she asked if there was anyone that she could talk to about what had happened. The woman there directed her to the police officer that was standing by the doors.

  “Hello, miss. I’m to understand that you’re here about your father?” She said that she was and told him his name. “I’m Joe Windfall. I’m the acting chief right now. I wanted to talk to you before you got to see your father. He was found in a house that is for sale around here. Did you know anything about that?”

  “Yes. Well, sort of. He does woodworking for homes. Like replacement pieces for gingerbread work trim. Hardwood floors that might have a spot that needs to be replaced as well. Sometimes he’s asked to go to houses and give an estimate on having the floors redone. He told me this morning that he’d been asked to see a house on Winding Row to see if the home was worth the asking price for the amount of work that might need to be done.” Joe nodded at her. “What happened to him? I know only that he was hurt and is now in surgery.”

  “The best we can tell you right now is that a couple of friends of mine w
ere looking at houses and came upon him laying at the bottom of a flight of stairs. We think that he fell over the top and landed there.” She asked him if he was hurt badly. “Boyd, he was there, and he is a doctor. He started helping him right away. And he made sure to tell the surgeon that Mr. Pratt—Ronald, right?—that he was on blood thinners as well.”

  “Yes, that’s his first name. My dad has some clotting issues and has only just started taking them regularly.” Since she had moved in and made him, really. But she didn’t tell the officer that. “Do you think he’ll be all right? He’s all I have in the world.”

  “I will tell you that he’s with the best we have. Mac, the surgeon, is one hell of a doctor.” She nodded and sat down in the chair then, her knees finally giving out on her. “Lauren said that you were to stay here. She said that a Mr. Dander was looking for you.”

  “He tried to kill me.” Joe asked her if she was all right. “Yes. I wasn’t in my car when he hit me. I have a recording on my phone where he danced around after cars started hitting mine. And there is a camera in my car, though I don’t know if it’s going to be usable or not.”

  The radio at his throat started squawking and she listened in while someone told him about the pile-up on the highway. When he said that he was on his way, she told him to be careful. When he left her, Reilly asked the nurses where the surgery floor was so that she could be there for her dad when he was finished up. After going to the basement, where the surgery floor was, she sat down in one of the ugliest chairs she’d ever seen and closed her eyes.

  “What a fucking day.” She was unemployed and had no car. Reilly wondered what more bad news could befall her today, and was almost afraid to think about what else might happen. Then she wondered if Ross really was going to come after her again.

  ~~~

  Boyd was assisting Mac on the surgery. While she was doing her best to get his chest sewn up, he was stitching together all the other places on Mr. Pratt’s body. And there were a great many places that he’d been cut when the wood had splintered as he fell atop it.