The Bodyguard. Julie Miller
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Charlotte.
She jerked her hand away.
Richard never called her anything but “Miss Charlotte.”
Charlotte whirled around. “Face your fear,” she chanted. “Face your fear.”
He had her number.
Whoever had done this had taken Richard’s cell phone. She’d called him, and now he could call her back.
She shut off the traitorous phone and stuffed it deep into her pocket. She checked every corner and shadow, marked every movement—a car speeding past on the curiously empty street, a wadded-up fast-food sack skipping across the pavement and Max giving chase. “Max …?”
She put her lips together and tried to whistle.
But any fleeting sense of security sputtered out along with the sound. Was there something moving beyond the Dumpster at the end of the alley?
The rain had finally pummeled its way through her thick hair and crept like chilled fingers over her scalp. There were brick walls on three sides of her—three stories high with shuttered windows and iron bars.
And the Dumpster.
“Face …” How could she face what she couldn’t see? Her heart raced. Her thoughts scattered. The nightmare surged inside her.
Besides the dog and the dead man, she was alone, right? She saw no one, heard nothing but the wind and rain and her own pulse hammering inside her ears.
But she could feel him. A chill ran straight down her spine.
She caught sight of the blood washing from her stained fingers, dripping down into the puddle at her feet. She snatched her fist back to her chest, her feet already moving, retreating from death and horror and him.
Whether the eyes watching her were real or imagined didn’t matter. Charlotte’s reaction was intense and immediate. Run. Hide. She clicked her tongue. “Max! Come on, boy. Come on.”
But the scent of trashy cheeseburger wrappers was too enticing.
“Max!” Operating in a panicked haze, she put her fingers to her lips and blew. The shrill sound pierced the heavy air and diverted the dog’s attention. “Get over here!”
Max bounded to her and she scooped him up, yanking open the museum’s back door and dumping him inside. Charlotte slammed the door behind her and twisted the dead bolt into place. Oh, God. She hadn’t imagined a damn thing. Softer than the pounding of her heart, more menacing than the bloody handprints she’d left on her coat—footsteps crunched on the pavement outside. Running footsteps. Coming closer.
Charlotte grabbed Max by the collar, backed away.
“Charlotte!” A man pounded on the door.
She screamed, stumbled over the dog and went down hard on her rump on the concrete floor.
“Charlotte!”
She didn’t know that voice. Didn’t know that man.
How did he know her name?
Flashing between nightmares and reality, between Richard’s murder and her own terror, the pounding fists seemed to beat against her.
“Charlotte! Come on, girlfriend. I know you’re in there!”
They couldn’t take her. She’d die before she’d ever let them take her again.
Scrambling to her feet, she scanned her surroundings.
“Shut up,” she muttered, trying to drown out the pounding on the door as much as she wanted to drown out the hideous memories.
She wiped her glasses clear. Yes. Safety. Survival.
“Max, come!”
She ran back to the workroom, shoved the top off a wooden crate and pulled out the long, ungainly sword from the packing material inside. The weighty blade clanged against the concrete floor and, for a moment, the pounding stopped.
She pulled out her keys and unlocked one of the storage vaults. “Max!” The dog followed her into the long, narrow room, lined with shelves from floor to ceiling.
“Charlotte! I’m coming for you!”
The banging started up again as she turned on the light and locked the door behind her. He was so angry, so menacing, so cruel. Charlotte crouched against the back shelf, holding the sword in front of her. Max trotted back and propped his paws up against her thigh. The smell of wet dog and her own terror intensified in the close confines of the room. “Stay in the moment,” she whispered out loud. She petted her companion, to calm herself, to take control of her scattered thoughts, but stopped when she saw the blood she’d transferred onto the dog’s tan fur.
“It’s okay,” she lied. “It’s okay.”
But she’d chosen the smart, well-trained dog for a reason beyond his scarred ear. Max scratched at Charlotte’s coat, nuzzled her pocket. Call someone. The words were in her head, hiding in some rational corner of her brain.
“I can’t. If I turn on the phone, he’ll call me.”
We need help.
The deep brown eyes reached out to her, calmed her.
Charlotte nodded and pulled out her phone. She couldn’t face the police on her own. Couldn’t handle crowds. She turned it on and immediately dialed the first number her terrified brain could come up with.
The pounding outside continued, beating deep into her head. After three rings, a familiar woman’s voice picked up. “Hello? This is Audrey … Kline,” she whispered in a breathless tone.
“Audrey?”
Pound. Pound.
“Charlotte?” Her friend’s tone sharpened, grew concerned. “Is that you?” A second voice, a man’s, murmured in the background. “Alex, stop. Charlotte, is something wrong?”
Alex Taylor. Audrey’s fiancé. “I’m sorry. I forget other people have lives. I’ll call Dad at the restaurant—”
“Don’t you dare hang up!”
“What is it?” She could hear a difference in Alex’s voice. He, too, sounded efficient, rational, concerned.
“Talk to me, Char.”
“I’m at the Mayweather Museum. There’s a man at the door. Richard’s dead. I can’t—”
“Richard’s dead?”
The scratch of a dog’s paw reminded her to breathe. “Someone shot him and I’m here by myself. There’s a man …”
“Alex is calling the police now.”
“No.”
“But Charlotte—”
“What if it’s like …?” Before. Swallow that damn irrational fear. Breathe. “I won’t come out unless it’s someone I know. Have Alex come.”
“We’re on our way,” Audrey promised, relaying the information to Alex. “Are you safe?”
Alex must be on his phone, now, too. She could hear his clipped, professional tones in the background. “He’s not calling 9-1-1, is he? I won’t come out for a stranger.”
“Shh.” Audrey was hushing her, talking to her as if she was the paranoid idiot she fought so hard not to be. “He knows.”
“I locked myself inside. Max is with me.” Charlotte needed to hear her voice, needed the lifeline to sanity to keep herself from flinching at every pound on that door. “Audrey?”
“Alex is calling a friend of his. Trip’s apartment is close to the museum. We’re twenty minutes away, but he can be there in two.”
“No.