Page 62 of Deny Me
“Vicky? Hey, this is Saint Solorio.” A pause, and Saint’s mouth pulled into a faint smile. “Glad you remember me. Listen, Wes wouldn’t happen to be available, would he?” Another, longer pause. “Uh-huh. Okay, thank you.” He hung up. “Wes isn’t there. He called in sick this morning.”
“He visited the house right after y’all left,” Dain said. “He was there to see Charlotte.”
And Charlotte had spent the night with King. King knew his woman, and if Wes had come to discuss anything beside the investigation, she would have felt the need to advise him of the change in her relationship with King. “Damn.”
“What?” Saint asked.
“We should check his town house,” King said. “It’s a couple of miles away.”
His teammates nodded grimly. “I’ll get Elliot on the phone with him,” Dain said as they hurried toward the door.
“Excuse me,” the receptionist called behind them. King paused, glanced over his shoulder. “Is Wes all right?” she asked anxiously.
“I’m sure he is,” he reassured her. He wasn’t sure if he believed that himself, but he prayed it was the truth as he followed Saint to the car.
His cousin lived in a high-end gated community not far from his office. King had never been there, but he’d given in to his curiosity and looked it up when he’d seen the address in Wes’s file. Unfortunately for them, it was a gated community that actually took security seriously. The guard at the gate stopped them on their way in.
“Residence?” the man asked.
“We’re here to see Wes Moncrief, 2381 Reeve’s Creek Lane,” King said.
The man frowned. “Let me contact Mr. Moncrief. Please wait.”
The window to the guard shelter closed before King could protest. He let loose a blistering string of curses anyway.
Saint’s hand settled on his bicep. “We’ll get there. It’ll be okay.”
But the urgency in King’s stomach said something was very much not okay. He wasn’t sure what, but that sixth sense that had saved his ass a couple of times in the field was shouting at him now. Wes was in danger. They had to hurry.
The window opened again. “I’m afraid Mr. Moncrief is not answering his telephone. You’ll need to return at a later time.”
King dug out his JCL badge and passed it to the man. “I’m Wes’s cousin, and he’s been helping us with a case at JCL Security. I need a welfare check on his residence right now.”
The guard frowned, but unlike some security personnel who felt the need to throw their weight around, he accepted King’s explanation and reached for his phone. King listened as he contacted one of the members of his security team. It took about five minutes before the phone rang back.
The guard picked it up. “Yes?”
King couldn’t decipher the words from inside the car, but he could hear the voice on the other end—the man was yelling. King’s heart went into overdrive. “Open the gate!” he snapped. “Open it!”
The guard, flustered either by King’s demand or whatever his fellow guard was saying, glanced between King and the security screens for what seemed like forever but was probably mere seconds. Finally he snapped into the phone, “We’re on our way!” He snatched up a walkie-talkie and pinned King with a stare. “Wait right there. I’ll open the gate, then ride with you. I can get you there faster than you can find it.”
King agreed impatiently, barely holding on to his control as the gate began a slow swing away from them. The guard hopped into the back seat, and King had the car in motion before the man slammed his door closed. “Where to?”
“Right at the stop sign,” the man said. In the rearview mirror King could see him dialing numbers on a cell. He didn’t protest as King blew through the intersection, only telling him to take a left before turning his attention back to his phone. “Yes, we need an ambulance to the Millwood Preserve subdivision, 2381 Reeve’s Creek Lane. We have a resident in need of emergency personnel.”
Oh God, oh God, oh God.King gripped the steering wheel hard and begged for help from every deity he thought might listen as Wes’s house came into view. King knew which one it was before the guard told him—the community security vehicle was parked outside. As he squealed to a stop at the curb, another guard flew out the front door, racing toward them.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” King asked as he jumped from the car. The guard stammered, getting out nothing intelligible, and rather than wait, King darted past him. Shouts called him back, but no way in hell was he listening. Wes needed him. King had left him behind ten years ago, but now his cousin needed him, and he wasn’t stopping for anything.
The lower floor was open concept, and King saw at a glance that Wes wasn’t there. The stairs were to his right, and he raced up them three at a time, his footsteps pounding to the same frantic rhythm as his heart. The first room at the top was a guest bedroom if King had to guess—nothing personal, neatly made bed, no sign of life. The next door was a bathroom, then Wes’s master bedroom. Only when one door remained did King slow, and not because it was last. No, it was the footprints he finally noticed on the blond hardwood floor that slowed him down. Red footprints. Bloody footprints heading toward him in the hall.
Wes, oh God, what have you done?
He hadn’t realized he was still jogging until he almost fell rounding the door into what he knew immediately was Wes’s home study. The room was rich with dark wood and colors, lit only by large windows that opened onto a back garden King would’ve envied if he’d had time to take in the details more thoroughly. Instead his focus latched on to the massive oak desk at the opposite end of the room. Wes’s desk. Where Wes sat. His cousin occupied the large leather chair centered behind the desk, his hands resting on the padded armrests, his head tilted to one side, eyes closed as if asleep. “Wes?”
King crept closer.
“Wes?” The word shook, but King tried again. “Wes? Wake up, bro. Wake up.”
