Bond, Stephanie - Body Movers 06.5

6 ½ Body Parts

(a BODY MOVERS novella)

by

Stephanie Bond

Copyright 2012 by Stephanie Bond, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cover and eBook design by Andy Brown at clicktwicedesign.com

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Chapter 1

Carlotta Wren jarred awake, her muscles seized in terror. Disoriented, she gulped air, her chest pumping furiously as her gaze darted around the darkened room.

Nothing… Her bedroom was still and quiet, as was the entire townhouse—peacefully silent at 4:34 AM… just as if

everything in the world was fine.

As if.

She closed her eyes until the demons in her dreams retreated to the corners of her mind and her heart rate slowed. The pulse reverberating in her ears sounded bumpy and hesitant, evidence that her heart had taken more than a few hits lately.

She shifted on the warm pillow a millimeter and pain lit up her shoulder, a grim reminder a madman had had her in his clutches only hours before. She and Peter Ashford had been planning to leave for Las Vegas for some much needed alone time to figure out the next step, if any, in their relationship. When she’d zipped up Peter’s suitcase, she’d found the Cartier engagement ring he’d originally given her when she was a senior in high school. She’d kept the ring even after the engagement had been called off after her father’s investment fraud scandal had erupted, an event that had upended her and her younger brother Wesley’s lives. Evicted from their palatial home in the most upscale section of Atlanta, they had moved into the small townhome in Lindbergh (a decidedly
less
upscale section of town) where she and Wesley still lived.

Alone.

Because her father Randolph hadn’t been man enough to face his day in court. Instead he and their mother Valerie had disappeared for over ten years, leaving her to raise her inconsolable little brother and fend for themselves. She’d been ill-prepared for the task, but somehow she and Wesley had muddled through, and their sibling bond was strong.

Last year she’d hocked the engagement ring to pay overdue bills. But Peter, who was single again and inching back into her life, had recovered the ring and told her he would hold it for her. Apparently he’d been planning to propose again while they were in Las Vegas.

Carlotta sighed. Poor Peter… he’d been so patient with her, and now his good intentions had been foiled again, this time by the appearance of a serial murderer intent on ending Carlotta’s life, and the stunning
re
appearance of her long-lost father who’d saved her. But before she could ask Randolph Wren the thousands of questions she’d accumulated over the years (
How
could you leave us? Where have you been? Where’s our mother?
), Detective Jack Terry had placed the fugitive under arrest and hauled him away.

Come and see me, Sweetheart. We have a lot to talk about.

Instead she’d been whisked away to the hospital to have her sliced shoulder stitched and bandaged. And then there’d been the matter of locating Wesley and breaking the news their M.I.A. parent had found his way home. She’d expected Wesley to react explosively, but he’d been strangely quiet, almost catatonic, reminiscent of those awful days after her parents had first left. By then the hour had been late and she was woozy from painkiller and Jack had told her it would be better if she gave herself time to recover and to let the dust settle before she and Wesley visited Randolph in jail.

You’ve waited this long… another day or two won’t change anything. Take your time and get your thoughts together,
then you and Wesley can present a united front. Besides, don’t you think your father deserves to sit and stew for a while
before his family rushes to his side?

Jack was right, damn him. He was always right.

She winced. Her shoulder was throbbing now. The painkiller had definitely worn off. She used her good arm to push up, then swung her legs over the side of the bed. She’d slept in black yoga pants and a white button-up shirt to accommodate her injury. A nightlight provided enough illumination for her to shake a tablet from a prescription bottle. She stood on wobbly legs and made her way to the bathroom for a glass of tepid water to chase it down.

A glance in the mirror made her gasp—she looked like hell, hollow-eyed and sallow. A lump of emotion lodged in her throat. Yesterday she had been happy…ish. The terror reign of The Charmed Killer had been behind her, for once Wesley had seemed to be on the right track, and her personal life was moving in some definable direction. In hindsight, it should have been a red flag, the happiness—a sign something bad was about to happen. She had always envisioned her father’s return as a joyful day… so why did she feel so thoroughly miserable?

She picked up a brush and pulled it through her long, dark hair, enjoying the slightly painful scrape of the boar bristles against her scalp. Her eyes welled until her reflection blurred, and a familiar knot tightened in her stomach—anger and resentment her life had turned out like this. It wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

If her father hadn’t been accused of investment fraud, if he and her mother hadn’t abandoned her and Wesley, she would’ve gone on to college as she’d planned and married Peter when their love was still young and their lives more simple. Instead, Peter had left her and she’d worked her way up the retail ranks at Neiman Marcus to make ends meet while trying to raise her little brother. If her parents hadn’t left, Wesley would’ve grown into a confident genius and now would be tucked away in an Ivy League college instead of being an uneducated, underemployed body mover with gambling debts, questionable friends, and a history of substance abuse.

She set aside the brush and blinked away the tears. For years she’d spun fantasies about what her life might’ve been like if it hadn’t been derailed by her parents’ selfish actions. If she could forgive them for herself, she would never forgive them for what they’d done to Wesley. Their disappearance had left the nine-year-old heartbroken and bewildered. All the games and diversions she’d desperately invented couldn’t fill the void.

Carlotta took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. It was a waste of time to think about what might have been.

She padded back to her bed with the glass of water, then downed the pain pill lying on the nightstand next to the bottle. But now she felt too restless to lie down. She probably should’ve taken Peter up on his offer to stay at his place last night, but on the heels of her father’s return, she’d felt compelled to stay here with Wesley, and to ward off well-meaning interlopers. She and Wes deserved privacy to absorb the latest development, and she wanted to be there for him when and if his emotional dam burst.

She hugged herself and glanced around the room, longing for a safe place to curl up and start to make peace with her past.

The cramped townhome had never felt like a haven to her… it had always represented the place her family had been banished to, where their family had ultimately fallen apart. At this moment, she longed for something familiar, something to remind her of the last time her family had been happy and intact.

Her head turned toward the garage, as if she’d heard her name called. She pushed her feet into flip flops and slipped out of her room. Across the hall, Wesley’s bedroom door was closed because of her perpetual fear his pet python Einstein would escape its tank and find her.

She stopped and listened at the door, then silently turned the knob and peeked inside, as she’d done thousands of times since he was little. Seeing her gangly brother sprawled innocently on his back in his boyhood bed, limbs flung wide, it was hard to imagine all the adult trouble he’d gotten himself into—arrested for hacking into the city courthouse computer, in debt to some of the nastiest loan sharks in town, a brush with oxycontin addiction. Her mouth turned down. And she didn’t even want to think about his relationship to his much older attorney Liz Fischer, alleged friend of the family who, as it turned out, had been having an affair with her father before he left town and who had recently transferred her attention to Randolph’s son.
Ugh.

She only hoped Wesley’s crush on his coworker Meg would drive him from Liz’s clutches. And at least he had Coop back.

Cooper Craft. Just the thought of the man who had taken Wesley under his wing made her smile. The fact that he’d given Wes a job as a body mover for the morgue hadn’t set well with her in the beginning. But that was before she’d gotten to know the gentle, cerebral man and his story. Formerly the Medical Examiner for Fulton County, Georgia, he’d lost his job due to excessive drinking and was relegated to a lowly contract position with the facility he had once overseen. But Coop was so appealing he’d even drawn Carlotta and her friend Hannah into the body moving business. And he’d made no secret he wanted to be more than friends with Carlotta.

But their timing had always been off.

Conversely, she and Jack had amazing chemistry, but the man was an island.

And through it all, Peter had been there, waiting for her to come to her senses, for them to begin the life they should’ve had all along.

From the bed, Wesley made a troubled noise. She started toward him, then stopped herself—he wasn’t a child anymore.

He quieted, and his breathing deepened. Satisfied, she backed out of his room and headed toward the front door.

Her gaze landed on the tarnished metallic fringed Christmas tree in the corner, with its sad, faded little packages underneath. It had stood there since her parents had left—Wesley wouldn’t let her open the gifts. He had imagined one day their parents would come home and they would just pick up where they’d left off.

Her hand tightened on the doorknob—she had to get out of this place.

She unlocked the door quietly and slipped outside by the glow of the dim light over the stoop. Dawn was still at least a couple of hours away, but the city was already beginning to wake. Next door, the light in Mrs. Winningham’s kitchen was on.

Their nosy neighbor would no doubt be over fishing for details about their father’s return as soon as she could throw together a casserole. She was probably at this moment opening a can of condensed cream of chicken soup and cubing Velveeta.

Carlotta descended the steps and made her way to the garage in the low lighting. After a bit of wrestling, she managed to raise the door with her good arm. Inside sat the silver two-door rental car Peter had secured for her since her blue Monte Carlo Super Sport had been blown to Kingdom Come. And next to the rental sat her beloved white Miata convertible.

Just the sight of it made her heart unfurl. Her father had bought her the car when she was still in high school, and she’d felt like a princess. When their charmed life had disintegrated around them, her parents had allowed her to keep the car. When they had disappeared, the little convertible was one of the few souvenirs from the time when she and her family had been happy.

Climbing behind the wheel had always made her feel safe and loved.

She ran her hand over the sloping rear fender. A pang of sadness struck her when her hand came away with a thick coat of dust. The car hadn’t run for some time now—she hadn’t been able to afford repairs, but neither did she have the heart to sell it.