Chapter 8

“Thank you for the ride,”Kayla said, the moment Ash put his vehicle in park.

Normally, at this point, she would say something to ignite his irritation. Some time ago, and quite by accident, she’d discovered the slight narrowing of his eyes and the clenching of his jaw heated up every one of her woman parts. The man was sexy as hell when peeved.

If only he knew his attempts at intimidation and suppression had such a stimulating effect on her, he’d probably laugh more in her vicinity.

But tonight, on the heels of seeing one of her aunties killed, literally before her eyes, she didn’t have a single provocative thought in her head.

As a matter of fact, not much of anything was moving around upstairs. She couldn’t recall the last time she didn’t have the next dozen steps already mapped out.

This void would have unnerved her under normal circumstances, but Kayla wasn’t unsettled. She was tired. A bone-deep, out-before-your-head-hits-the-pillow exhaustion had consumed her body.

For this reason, she didn’t compute Ash’s continued presence at her side until he closed and locked the front door behind them.

“What are you doing?” she asked, noticing the pistol in his hand.

“Making sure you’re safe.” He nodded toward the alarm panel. “Arm it.”

The intensity carved into his features as he scanned the foyer and the long hallway leading into the interior of her house compelled her to do as instructed. When he grasped her hand and made for the upstairs, the switch from shock to WTF clicked over.

She dug the heels of her Jimmy Choos into the stair runner and disengaged her hand from his. Albeit reluctantly.

“My wits have returned.” She motioned toward his weapon. “Explain yourself.”

His chest rose on a deep inhalation, but he continued to surveil their surroundings. “I’m escorting you to your bedroom, then I’m going to clear this enormous home.”

“Why?” she asked. “If someone was here, they would have tripped the alarm.”

“No security measure is one hundred percent foolproof.” He indicated the stairs.

Lifting the hem of her gown, she followed a half-step behind him. A calico cat sat at the top of the staircase, her yellow-green eyes intent on Ash.

When they reached the top stair, Ash asked, “Which way?”

She took a moment to brush Crispy’s forehead and felt the feline’s answering pressure against her palm. Straightening, she turned to the right, but Ash, with a gentle hand, maneuvered her behind him, again. His protective instincts made the flutter in her stomach intensify, and even more so the closer they got to her bedroom.

Once they entered her suite, he flipped on the overhead light and took a moment to glance around, then motioned for her to stand behind a chair while he cleared the bathroom and walk-in closet.

Kayla felt a little ridiculous, almost as if she were on the set of a Bourne movie. Crispy seemed to agree with how ludicrous her mistress looked hiding behind a chair. The feline limped straight across the middle of the room, tail held high, until she reached her bed, where she curled up and closed her eyes.

Kayla stayed put and allowed Ash to do his job. To be honest, she appreciated the extra caution, even though she hadn’t bought into Detective Morgan’s speculation about her being the killer’s actual target.

Who would want to kill her? No one she could think of.

If she had been the target, why wait for her to reach the gazebo? Why not pick her off on the garden path?

She stilled as another thought struck. Had they both been the shooter’s target? One bullet, two kills. Was that even possible?

A shiver rippled down her spine. Thank God for rhinestones and rugs.

Emotion gripped her throat at the selfish thought. She would give anything—even her own life—for Vicky to still be alive. For her godmother to be able to hold her first grandchild in her arms.

Despite her rocky relationship with Linda, Vicky had set up a baby room in the governor’s mansion, full of toys and books and the most adorable bassinet.

Why would anyone want to kill Vicky? Although some would consider her biased, Kayla truly believed Victoria Stokes was—had been—the best governor for the citizens of North Carolina.

Kayla would wait to see what forensics had to say before she started drawing up a list of Vicky’s potential enemies. And hers.

Ash reemerged and pointed at the balcony doors. “Are they on sensors?”

“Yes. All the exterior doors and windows.”

He whisked the curtains closed. “Got your phone?”

Patting her clutch tucked in the crook of her arm, she nodded. One of the officers had found her phone at the base of a large planter. Other than needing a new screen protector, it had survived its smash-and-slide with the flagstone floor.

He strode to her door. “Lock this behind me and don’t open it to anyone but me. Stay away from the windows and keep the lights off. No sense providing a beacon of your whereabouts.”

“Lights? Wait, where are you going?”

“To clear the rest of the house.”

“But—”

“Lock it.” The door closed quietly, but not before he flipped the light switch off.

Thrown into darkness, Kayla robotic-armed her way to the door, fumbled to engage the lock, then pressed her ear to the wooden barrier between them. Absolute quiet descended on the other side. She backed away from the door and tried to rub warmth back into her cold fingers.

After shrugging off Ash’s coat and folding it over a nearby chair, she slid her phone from her silver clutch and tapped the icon to engage the flashlight. Bright light flooded the darkness, guiding her to the walk-in closet. Once inside, she turned on the light and kicked off her high heels. When the entirety of her foot touched the carpeted floor, a moan escaped her lips, as it always did upon removing her armor.

She shucked off her evening gown, then drew black yoga pants and a long-sleeved tee from one of the many drawers along the wall. In all of her homes, her closets were designed the same way.

She kept her casual clothes, pajamas, and undergarments in the exact same drawers. Her power suits, sundresses, and evening gowns hung in the same alcoves. Her shoes stood in the same slots. Her jewelry nestled in the same protective cases.

Everything was designed in a way that required little thought, little decision-making, other than, which one?Even that took minimal effort. Her schedule dictated style, comfort, and color.

She arranged her homes in this way to reserve all her mental energy for strategizing and executing action plans for her clients.

A lot rode on her ability to convince policymakers that her client’s campaign was in their constituents’ best interests. Or, in many cases these days, their future reelection’s best interest. Political aspirations could fold on a dime after one wrongly backed initiative, one can-I-get-a-selfie-with-you picture, one ill-judged post.

Policymakers had to be convinced over and over and over before agreeing to back an initiative. Lobbying was one part strategy, one part networking, one part patience, one part investigative, and one part rooting out a legislator’s passions and weaknesses.

Kayla’s structured existence helped her be a damned good lobbyist.

What she wasn’t good at was inaction.

She hooked two fingers around a pair of black runners and slid her bare feet into the no-tie shoes with foam insoles. Heaven on rubber.

She stood in the center of her closet, motionless. Every cell in her body shouted at her to move.

But Vicky’s face after kept creeping into her mind like a phantom haunting her. Taunting her, pointing a finger at her.

What if she was wrong and someone really wanted her dead? Had something she’d done, said, not done, not said, caused one of her favorite people to die?

The possibility weakened her knees. Knees that had held her upright when friends deserted her, when clients lost faith in her, when competitors outmaneuvered her.

Marching into the bathroom, she grabbed a hair tie out of the top middle drawer and scooped her blond mass up until she had it secured in a sloppy bun at the back of her head. She would save washing the makeup off of her face until after Ash left.

Speaking of Ash, where the hell was he? With every minute he was gone, her security system lost another percentage point of her trust.

Returning to her closet, she stared at the back corner. The mental ticking clock urging her to do something besides busywork until he returned.

If he returned.

She couldn’t stop thinking about how everything in her life was normal until a single bullet shot her world into an entirely new direction.

What if the shooter had been waiting for her to return home, and Ash had found them.

Another spiral, another direction, another new hell.

“No one will take care of you, but you, Kayla Krowne.” She marched into the depths of her closet, depressed the upper lefthand corner of the tall cabinet, and entered a six-digit passcode. The lock disengaged, and she pulled open the narrow steel door.

Inside the ten-by-ten safe room hung a specially made Kevlar vest with an attached cross-draw pistol holster. She threaded her head and arms into the vest, secured it, then reached for her Glock 43X. Checked the chamber and clip before securing the weapon in her holster.

Every fourth Sunday afternoon for the past five years, she’d gone to the range to train, something Liv had introduced her to after a mugging Kayla survived in Raleigh. A mugging that had left her with a fractured rib.

At the time she’d bought it, she’d thought the body armor was a bit much. But now, she took comfort in its solid weight against her chest and the pistol helped bolster her natural confidence. Something she needed desperately at the moment.

Drawing in a fortifying breath, she fast-walked to her bedroom door, unlocked it, and stepped into the hallway, listening for any signs of Ash.

Something belowstairs clattered, then went silent.

“Ash,” she whispered, her heart galloping in her chest.

An image of him bleeding out on her tile floor burrowed into her mind and, before she knew it, she’d flattened herself against the wall and drawn her handgun. She slid along the wall until she reached the wide staircase. With sloth-like slowness, she eased forward until the first level came into view.

Everything seemed normal. No slinking shadows, no grip of shoe soles against marble tile, no sound of hand-to-hand combat. No crackle of gunfire.

One slow step at a time, she descended the stairs and focused all of her senses outward, scanning her surroundings for the unfamiliar.

She made it all the way to the spacious entryway without dying. Now she had a decision to make—left or right? Left took her to the rooms where she entertained guests and cemented multimillion-dollar promises. Where she was Kayla Krowne, results-driven lobbyist.

The right led to the kitchen. A room that had witnessed catastrophic culinary attempts and masterpieces in equal measure, depending on whether she’d followed a recipe or leaned into her non-award-winning tastebuds and eye-measuring ability.

Mentally tossing a coin in the air, she took the hallway to the right of the stairs.

With the same precision of movement, she inched her way toward the kitchen, keeping her ears alert for any bit of sound that might give away the intruder’s or Ash’s location.

As she passed the downstairs bathroom, she caught a movement out of her peripheral vision. She swung her pistol around, then choked back a gasp when she nearly put a bullet through her reflection in the mirror above the sink.

Lowering her weapon, she released a shaky breath. She didn’t have a chance to feel the full relief of her near mishap.

Something hard and unforgiving slammed into the side of her head. Pain splintered her thoughts and her knees weakened. A blurry image of her attacker’s imposing silhouette filled the mirror, then . . . lights out.

Again.