Yuletide Protector. Julie Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t know him. Not personally.” Bailey’s gaze darted up to meet the blond woman’s faintly accusatory question. “I identified him by voice. And I did recognize his eyes as soon as I saw them again. Once he was arrested, I picked out his mug shot from a group of several suspects.”

      “You had a head injury, didn’t you? Perhaps your memory isn’t as clear as you’d like it to be.”

      Before Bailey could form the appropriate words to defend her competence as the prosecution’s star witness, Harper Pierce, the family attorney her parents had insisted accompany them down to Precinct headquarters this morning, interrupted.

      “Is that a threat, Kenna?” he challenged.

      The woman smiled up at the attorney in the three-piece suit. “Of course not. I’m good enough I don’t need to make threats.” With a polite nod to everyone in the room, she turned on her Italian leather pumps and headed out the door. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go talk to my client. Chief Taylor?”

      Mitch Taylor, the Precinct commander who blocked the door, folded his arms across his barrel-chest. “My people made a good arrest, Ms. Parker. They pulled a dangerous man off the streets.”

      “Did they?” She waited until he stepped aside to let her pass. “Or did they just find a convenient scapegoat so you could close your investigation and get the press off your back?”

      Everyone in the tiny room turned their heads at the onslaught of voices and bright lights that greeted the lady attorney as soon as she stepped into the hallway. Reporters.

      “Ms. Parker. Is your client a free man?”

      “Will he still be out on bail?”

      “Did the witness identify him as the Rose Red Rapist?”

      “Who is the witness?”

      Bailey clutched her stomach as a wave of nausea churned inside her. They were closing in like vultures. “Oh, my.”

      Dwight Powers braced his hand beneath her elbow. “Mitch,” he warned.

      “I’m on it.” With a curt nod, Mitch stepped into the hallway. With a booming voice that made Bailey tremble, he took charge of the surging crowd. “This is a police station, not gossip central. Kate Kilpatrick, our task force liaison to the press, will answer your questions downstairs.”

      “Is that Brian Elliot?” a woman asked. “Could we talk to him?”

      “My client is being released on bail, and we’ll be making a formal statement later,” Kenna promised.

      “Joe! Sarge!” Bailey ducked behind the D.A.’s broad back as Chief Taylor called for backup. “Get them out of here. I’m not putting on a press conference for that scum. The reporters can talk to Elliott outside, once we get his ankle bracelet back on him.”

      “Yes, sir.” A dutiful voice from the hallway hastened to do his chief’s bidding. “Ms. Owen. Mr. Knight. This way, people. I’ll escort you down to the front door.”

      As soon as Chief Taylor closed the door behind him, Bailey’s mother, Loretta Austin-Mayweather, spoke from the back of the room. “I don’t like that woman. Do you think Kenna Parker staged that harangue of reporters to frighten Bailey?”

      With the reporters’ protesting voices reduced to a murmur, the D.A. released his grip on Bailey. “It’s a possibility. She’ll use every weapon in her arsenal to prove reasonable doubt to the jury. And since a lot of our case rests on your daughter...”

      Bailey’s chin popped up when he turned his eyes on her. Forcing herself to take easy, calming breaths, Bailey nodded. She had to do this. “Don’t worry, Mr. Powers. You can count on me.”

      Loretta glanced up at the distinguished gentleman standing beside her. Her beautiful features were drawn with worry and fatigue. “Jackson, isn’t there something you can do about Ms. Parker to protect Bailey? I’ve already lost Kyle. I don’t think I could stand to see another child get hurt.”

      Too late for that, Bailey thought as a less-than-kind impulse bubbled up. But her sarcasm quickly turned to sympathy. They’d all been devastated by Kyle’s death, her mother to the point that when Bailey had needed her most, Loretta had been incapable of empathizing with her daughter’s pain. Her mother had lost weight from the stress and turned to a nightly glass or two of wine in order to sleep. For months now, Loretta had deflected any conversation more serious than the weather or the family’s social calendar.

      They all had their ways of coping. Bailey just hoped her efforts to take charge of her own life and to confront her attacker would lead to her own healing.

      “We won’t let that happen,” Harper Pierce assured Loretta. “Will we.” Bailey had to look away from the solicitous expression on the attorney’s handsome face.

      He used to look at her that way—before the assault, when they’d been engaged to be married—when she’d been able to tolerate a flirtatious wink or intimate touch, when she would have been satisfied to become his trophy wife and take her place at his side in Kansas City society. Once, that look would have bolstered her courage. Now, that sly wink was just something else she had to deal with.

      “You can’t talk me out of this, Harper,” Bailey stated firmly. She was no longer the wide-eyed Pollyanna who’d doted on his needs and shared so many interests with him. Understandably, she had to put herself—and now her mother—first. She crossed the room to give her mother a gentle hug, then pulled away, smiling into the blue eyes that matched her own. “But I promise I’ll be as careful as I can, Mother. Mr. Powers has assured my anonymity for as long as possible. And you know my counseling sessions with Dr. Kilpatrick have included lots of advice on ways a woman can keep herself safe. I’ve been listening. I won’t take any unnecessary chances.”

      “I wish you hadn’t cut your hair, dear.” Without even acknowledging her daughter’s attempt to reassure her, Loretta reached up to smooth Bailey’s bangs back into the short wisps at her temple. “Those long, blonde waves were so beautiful.”

      Yes, but the short haircut was all about being safe, not making the pages of a fashion magazine. Having a man grab her by the hair and sling her to the floor or into the back of a van had a tendency to make a woman want to remove any “handles” that made it easy for an attacker to latch on. “Mother—”

      “Jackson?” Loretta clung to her husband’s arm, turning to Bailey’s stepfather for the answers she wanted. “Can’t you make this whole mess go away?”

      Bailey’s stepfather wasn’t oblivious to the emotional undercurrents in the room. But his typical response was to try to fix whatever the problem might be. He slid a supportive arm around his wife’s waist. “I’ll do whatever’s necessary to protect this family, dear.” He turned to the D.A. “Do you think Ms. Parker will bring that ugly business with my stepson into the trial?”

      “I had nothing to do with that,” Bailey protested. She wasn’t sure when or where her brother had gotten so caught up with greed that his reckless business dealings had made him desperate enough to kidnap and attempt to murder their half sister, Charlotte. But she knew the devious, violent man who’d been arrested, and subsequently murdered in prison, had no resemblance to the brother she’d once loved and admired. A different sort of character ran through her veins. Something smarter. СКАЧАТЬ