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CHAPTER TWO (#u358e2534-8289-5d6e-9913-31b1fcf2139c)
“STAY WHERE YOU ARE.” Kelly fumbled for her phone. How could she have been so stupid as to not ask for identification? She redialed her uncle. “Tell me your name again,” she demanded from the stranger.
“Walsh. Detective Walsh.”
Kelly’s heart was thumping so hard that it was becoming a distraction. Her hand shook so much that she feared she’d trigger the pepper spray before finding out who this guy was for sure. At the same time, she prayed he didn’t attack her before her uncle picked up. “I don’t know any detectives who forget their badge at home.”
“I didn’t forget it.” He sighed as if she was irritating him. “I can show you the piece of paper your uncle wrote your name and address on.”
“I’m not going to argue with you, Kelly,” her uncle said when he answered the phone. “I won’t pull him, so get used to it while I hunt your stalker down.”
“The guy here says his name is Detective Walsh, but he doesn’t have a badge or a cop car. He’s about six-three, has short-cropped brown hair, no facial hair. Built like he could wrestle an alligator and win. He’s wearing navy pants, a pale blue button-down and a green tie. No jacket.”
With his hands on his hips, her possible stalker stared down at his feet. If he wasn’t who he said he was, he didn’t seem very nervous about a real detective showing up.
Uncle Hal gave a little chuckle. “That’s my guy, Kell Bell. He is who he says he is. He’s doing this as a favor to me, so he isn’t carrying his badge.”
Kelly lowered her pepper spray and took a deep breath in hopes her heart would slow down now. “I don’t love this plan, Uncle Hal.”
“I know, sweetheart. But it’s the only one I’ve got right now. If anything happened to you...”
Kelly understood he was only doing what he thought best. She was the daughter of police officers. Her dad had been a homicide detective and her mom was a desk sergeant in Knoxville. Growing up, her curfew was earlier than all of her friends’ because her parents couldn’t bear it if anything bad ever happened to her because they knew exactly what kind of bad things could happen.
“Okay, he says you are who you say you are,” she said as she hung up the phone.
Detective Walsh acted as if this was how he spent every Wednesday. He unlocked his truck, completely unfazed by what had happened. “Pepper spray is a terrible way to protect yourself, by the way.”
“It stopped you cold,” she replied, feeling defensive. She’d spent her life trying to prove she could take care of herself and now another cop was telling her that she couldn’t do it.
“That’s because I had no intent to do you harm. If I had, I could have easily turned your pepper spray against you.”
Who did this guy think he was? “Oh, really? Well, I wouldn’t have hesitated to spray you in the face, and this stuff will incapacitate anyone.”
He shook his head and opened the passenger door for her. “First of all, the wind was blowing away from me and toward you. Secondly, pepper spray is not guaranteed to stop everyone. If your attacker is drunk or on drugs, he might just get angrier.”
Kelly climbed in the truck and put her seat belt on, letting his comments sink in. She hadn’t noticed the wind. It couldn’t have been strong enough to blow it back at her, could it? Detective Walsh got in the driver’s seat.
“And what if that little girl over there was asthmatic or that older lady and her dog walked through the cloud and inhaled it?” he asked. “You could have done serious damage to some innocent people.”
Kelly hadn’t considered how it could affect anyone other than the attacker. She suddenly had the urge to throw her pepper spray in the garbage. “So, what would you suggest I do to keep myself safe?”
“Have you ever taken a self-defense class before? Your body is really the best weapon.”
Her mother had been trying to get her to take one for years, which was probably why she hadn’t. She lived in a safe neighborhood, didn’t run around at night alone and believed people—for the most part—were good. Until yesterday, she had never felt like she needed to protect herself that way. The pepper spray was an emotional impulse buy last night after she dropped her car off at the body shop.
“I’ll have to look into it.”
Their drive continued in silence once she gave him the address of the station to put into his phone’s GPS. The quiet unnerved her. Detective Walsh only seemed to speak when he needed to. Kelly, on the other hand, talked for a living. Silence was dead air.
“I wish I had time to stop for coffee. Everything in my life feels off because of this.” The meeting with Caroline was important and Kelly was so distracted. The impression she wanted to make today was not of some discombobulated airhead. Detective Walsh had nothing to add. He was not helping ease her anxiety in the slightest.
“So what did you do?” she asked as they came to a stop at a busy intersection. His eyebrows pinched together. She clarified, “To lose your badge and gain the responsibility of babysitting me?”
His jaw ticked. “Let’s just say I am not a big fan of drug dealers and they aren’t fans of me, either.”
“Well, I have the opposite problem. I have a fan who thinks he’s in love with me and that I cheated on him with a make-believe boyfriend.”
The line between his brows reappeared. “He thinks you have a make-believe boyfriend?”
“No, he thinks I have a real boyfriend who is really a make-believe boyfriend. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m single. And not dating. Not because I can’t find someone, I just don’t have the time to put into a relationship. My job keeps me busy,” she rambled. Detective Walsh clearly didn’t care if she had a boyfriend or not. “Are you married?”
He glanced at her for a quick second. “How about we keep the personal business sharing to a minimum?”
“Right.” Kelly fidgeted with her hands. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, so chances were he wasn’t married. His brown hair was cut short like they wore in the military. He sure looked a lot like those Navy SEAL guys on the covers of her mom’s old romance novels.
His phone rang just as they neared the station. The caller ID showed it was a high school calling. Detective Walsh groaned and clicked the phone icon on his steering wheel.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Walsh? This is Dean Higgins again. I’m sorry to bother you,” the voice said through the car speakers.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Higgins?”
“Well, I’m sorry to say I have Graham here in my office.”
Detective Walsh pinched the bridge of his nose. “What did he do this time?”
No ring, but he had a kid. Maybe he was divorced. Or didn’t like wearing rings. Either was possible.
“He decided to skip math class again and we found him vandalizing the library.”
“I wasn’t vandalizing,” a new voice shouted in the background. “It’s called art. I was improving the overall aesthetics of this dump you call a school. You should be thanking me, not giving me detention.”
“You’ve surpassed the limit for detentions, young man. Vandalism is a crime. I could have turned this over to the police.”
“You called him, didn’t you? You just turned it over to the police. Thanks a lot. Now I’m dead.”
Oh, boy, could Kelly relate to this poor kid. She knew better than anyone the fear associated with a call home from school when your parents were cops.
“Tell him to stop with the dramatics,” Detective Walsh said, cutting in. “He has no one to blame for this other than himself.”
“We have a lot of concerns about the acting out Graham has been doing lately. We’ve tried to be understanding and compassionate. I know that things have been hard since his mom—”
Detective Walsh didn’t let the man finish. “What’s his punishment? In-school suspension? Saturday school? Does he have to pay to clean up the graffiti?”
“Well, sir, because he not only was truant from class but also vandalized school property, we’re going to issue an out-of-school suspension for the rest of today. We need you to come pick him up.”
Detective Walsh pulled the car over. “Hang on a second.” He pressed the mute button on his phone. “You good getting out right here?” he asked Kelly.
She was still a block and a half from the radio station, but who was she to argue with him? It was obvious he needed to handle this situation with his son. “Um, sure.”
“I’m guessing there are people at work who can watch you until I get back?”
Kelly felt a burning sensation in her chest. She wasn’t a child. She didn’t need to be watched. “I’ll be fine,” she replied, unlatching her seat belt and getting out of the truck. “You don’t have to come back. I’m sure I’ll survive.”
“Your uncle gave me orders. I’ll be back.”
“Sounds like you already have your hands full.”
Detective Walsh scowled. “I’ll be back.”
Kelly shut the door and watched him make a quick U-turn. Some bodyguard he turned out to be. Not that she needed one. Once she was inside the station, no one could get to her. She just needed to get inside the station.
A block and a half never seemed so far. Kelly was suddenly hyperaware of how many people walked along 16th Avenue. Since when did downtown Nashville feel like New York City? Someone rammed his shoulder into hers and didn’t even bother to apologize. Someone else brushed past her in all kinds of a hurry. She clutched the bottle of pepper spray in her pocket. Of course, she’d never be able to use it. What if some innocent person had an asthma attack because she released a cloud of pepper in the middle of this busy sidewalk?
She entered the building that housed the station and paused in the entryway to catch her breath and slow down her racing heart. She made it. Without her bodyguard. Kelly could do this. She didn’t need anyone to babysit her. As she got on the elevator, she made a mental note to look into some self-defense classes at the gym. Couldn’t hurt to be a bit more prepared.
“Kelly!” Stan greeted her. “You made it. I heard about what happened yesterday. You okay?”
“I’m good. My car, on the other hand...”
“I don’t understand what possesses people to do hateful things,” he said, shaking his head. “We really should get some security cameras in the parking garage.”
As much as Kelly appreciated Stan’s sympathy, she had a meeting to get to. Caroline Yates, the station manager, would not accept any excuses for being late.
“I’m actually on my way to talk to Caroline. Maybe I’ll bring that up with her.”
“Oh, didn’t she call you this morning? She decided last-minute to have you be on location at the opening of the new Great Barbecue over on 4th. They’re a huge sponsor of the show and offered to let us do a remote broadcast. Lyle is already over there setting things up and Travis and Holly have been talking about it all morning.”
Kelly had to push down the anger that was building at not being given ample warning about this. She couldn’t let it get back to Caroline that she wasn’t up for anything the woman threw at her. If Caroline asked her to jump out of an airplane while juggling flaming bowling pins, she would have to strap on that parachute and give it her best shot.
She plastered on a smile. “Good thing I skipped breakfast. Sounds like I might get to eat some brisket for lunch.”
* * *
IF GRAHAM KNEW what was good for him, he would not say one word on their ride home.
“I can’t believe they’re dumb enough to send me home for ditching class. Obviously, I didn’t want to be in class. They’re actually giving me exactly what I wanted by suspending me.”
Apparently, he did not.
Dressed in his usual jeans and ’90s band T-shirt, the troubled teen flipped down the visor and checked his reflection in the small mirror. He had blond hair and a narrow nose like his mom but green eyes and a strong, wide jaw like his dad. Their oldest was truly a perfect blend of the two of them. Too bad he didn’t act like either of them.
“I wonder what I have to do to get expelled.”
Donovan gripped the steering wheel tighter. “You do not want to find out what will happen to you if you get expelled. Trust me on that.”
“You gonna beat me up like you beat up the other bad guys in this town? Huh, Uncle Donovan?”
“You’re really working hard to make your mother and father proud, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, well, dead people can’t be proud or disappointed, can they?”
Donovan couldn’t really argue with the kid about that. He understood Graham was angry at the world for taking both his parents way too early. The fifteen-year-old and his little sister, Avery, had been dealt the worst hand life could deal, but that didn’t give Graham permission to make things worse.
“Point is, you should want to act in a way that would have made your parents proud,” Donovan said. “I guess we can talk about why you aren’t when we meet with your guidance counselor tomorrow morning. All this posturing and acting out isn’t getting you anywhere.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It’s getting me out of school, isn’t it? I’d say it’s getting me exactly where I want to be.”
There was no talking to this kid. Why Donovan’s sister would have named him the guardian of her kids after she died, he’d never know. He was not cut out for this parenting stuff. He didn’t have the patience for obnoxious, know-it-all teenagers. The only reason Avery liked him was because she was seven and liked everyone. Kids were still sweet at seven, but give that little girl seven more years and some hormones... Donovan might not survive it.
“Give me your phone,” he demanded when they pulled up to his house a few minutes later. “No phone when you’re grounded. Which you are, by the way.”
“What if there’s a fire and I have to call 9-1-1 for help?”
“Run over to the neighbor’s house and ask them to call for you.”
“But what if I fall down the stairs and break my leg? I can’t run to the neighbor’s house then. I could bleed out because I couldn’t call for help.”
“I guess you better be extra careful walking up and down the stairs.”
Graham let out an exaggerated sigh. “I hate you,” he said before throwing his phone in the back instead of handing it to Donovan. He climbed out of the truck, slamming the door behind him.
This must be some kind of karmic payback for the things Donovan said to his parents in anger growing up. He rolled down the window. “No friends allowed in the house and bring me your video game controller!” If Graham was going to hate him, might as well give him enough reasons.
Graham stormed up the driveway. “Come get it yourself!”
Inhale. Exhale. Days like this made Donovan feel like he was completely in over his head. He had no idea how to get through to his nephew or if he was handling all of these discipline issues the right way or not. He knew he should talk to him, but talking about feelings wasn’t exactly Donovan’s thing.
After retrieving the game controller, Donovan headed back to the radio station. Hopefully, Miss Bonner wouldn’t mention his disappearing act to Captain. Thanks to Graham, she had been unguarded for almost an hour. How much danger could she be in while at work? It wasn’t like anyone could get to her while she was at the station.
He made it to the reception desk and waited patiently for the receptionist to get off the phone. Instead of Muzak, a live stream of the station played in the background. As soon as the receptionist hung up the phone, he stepped up to the desk.
“Hi, I’m Detective Walsh. I’m here for Miss Bonner,” he said, realizing once again how much harder it was to introduce himself without a badge to flash.
“Is this about what happened to her car? It’s terrible someone would do that to someone as sweet as Kelly.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Well, I’m glad the Nashville PD is taking this seriously.”
Donovan was glad she was glad, but he’d be happier if she called Miss Bonner out here so he didn’t have to worry about Captain finding out he had been MIA. “Can I speak with her?”
The woman grimaced. “Oh, she’s not here.”
That was impossible. He had dropped her off almost an hour ago. There was no way she got kidnapped just outside this place. He could feel the sweat begin to bead on his forehead. Donovan couldn’t imagine what the captain would do to him if he had to call and say he lost the man’s niece.
“Are you sure? I actually drove her to work this morning. Maybe she slipped past you?” A guy could hope.
