Page 65 of Colton's Secret Weapon
A sudden blow to her back knocked the wind out of Dove, would have thrown her to the ground if she hadn’t been honing her body since she was old enough to walk.
She saw the cloth coming around the side of her face, toward her mouth, in the split second before it stunted her breathing abilities, and threw an elbow straight to the side of her face. Knocking the hand behind the cloth just as she kicked one leg straight up behind her. Landing in a squat facing behind her, knees bent, apart, hand on the ground to steady her, preparing for a throw of her palm to a nose with enough of a lunge to knock her attacker to his back.
Except…no face was there. Winded, stunned, Dove looked up to see an average-size figure dressed all in blue, or black…a hood running around the corner of a wing of the building and disappearing out of sight.
She ran then, too. At a pace fast enough to win races on the high school track field, and hurriedly, with shaking fingers, pushed in the code she’d been given to access the private inpatient wing. Fumbling once. Forcing herself to focus and push again.
Once inside, she walked at a rapid pace past the chairs she and Mitchell had occupied the other day, into the waiting area in view of the nurses’ station.
Seeing two uniformed women and one man behind the desk, all of whom she recognized, she waved and pulled out her phone.
With her finger on the icon she’d set up for Mitchell, she remembered he was in an appointment and, as reality hit, went straight to the officer standing watch outside her father’s door. Someone new, a woman she’d never met before.
Angela Waitesher badge read. A first-year officer who called Peter Welding the second she heard about the near attack.
Apparently, Brad Fletcher hadn’t been satisfied with damage to the St. James Boats ability to earn an income. Or threats. He was hiring thugs to make certain that she didn’t get in the way of his goal.
“I don’t think he was going to hurt me,” she told Peter when, in short order, he was sitting with her in the same seats she and Mitchell had used out in the hallway between the trauma and inpatient units. She’d given him all the details, the minimal description she had, and had answered his questions mostly withI don’t knoworI didn’t notice. “He was definitely planning to knock me out, though,” she added after her last useless response. “Probably just to scare me. A warning to sell my father’s business since, withoutWicked Winnings, I can no longer afford to keep the place.”
Peter’s frown didn’t slow her down at all. Not even when he asked, “That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said. “He’s going to abduct you, get you to sign, and then think he can just walk away?”
He was right. Didn’t make sense. Fear shot through her. A stab at a time. Growing more electrifying with each stab. “He was going to make me sign and then dispose of me, wasn’t he? Just like he tried to dispose of my dad?” And then, before giving him a chance to reply, she said, “Or…” eyes wide with horror, she stared at him “…the serial killer…” She swallowed. Hard.
Struggled to draw in air.
The uniformed officer’s gaze was kind as he looked at her, shrugged and said, “We can only speculate at this point, but I hope you’ve taken your last walk alone until this is resolved?”
He didn’t call her on letting him drop her off at the wrong spot. He’d only been in town a short while, having applied for and taken the job, leaving a smaller force he’d worked for upstate. But he didn’t know she knew that. She wouldn’t have, hadn’t, until Mitchell had mentioned it when the man had first been assigned to check out Brad Fletcher. One of Brad’s boat rental businesses was located in the small seaside town where Peter had last been employed.
Peter likely knew Brad. Maybe even well.
Filling with horror chills again, Dove wondered if she’d just walked into her own demise—leaving the unit to sit out there alone with Welding. Was he on Fletcher’s payroll, too? Like the thug who’d just tried to kidnap her?
And the guy who’d been watching her house?
And had debased the sacredness of her studio?
Glancing at the door into the unit and feeling for her phone in her bag, she was trying to determine her best course of action against an armed and well-trained police officer when Mitchell barged through the door at the opposite end of the hall and came toward her.
Weak with relief, she felt tears fill her eyes.
But didn’t take her gaze off him.
Not even when she saw the flare of his nostrils, the anger glaring from those blue eyes.
He’d come.
His anger didn’t bother her. It was a natural reaction. What mattered was that he’d somehow known she was still in trouble.
And he’d shown up.
And…was shaking Peter’s hand like they were friends.
Mitchell was in on it, then? He was…
The thought hit but only lasted for the split second it took her to slap down the fear that was trying to rob her of her senses.
Mitchell was there to help her. She had to believe that.
