Love Inspired Suspense June 2015 #1 (10 page)

All Selena saw was a person dressed totally in black, closer than she realized. The biker slowed to a stop and reached out toward her, snatching her work tablet.

“Don't.” She lunged toward her attacker to grab the tablet back.

There was a flash of metal, then something sharp cut into her arm. She was knocked back against a car behind her. Slamming into its bumper, the air swooshing from her lungs, she sank to the pavement as the biker revved the engine.

SEVEN

T
he sound of a motorcycle, Selena crying out “Don't!” and a thud chilled Nicholas to the core. He pressed down on the accelerator. “Selena. Selena, are you okay? What happened?” he shouted, sure she'd dropped her cell phone.

The seconds ticked by agonizingly slow.

Then Selena came on the line. “I was attacked...and stabbed—”

“Are you hurt?”

“My arm's bleeding.”

His heartbeat pounded. “Listen to me. I'm calling Security. I'm four minutes away.” He turned on his siren, “Make that two minutes.”

He called Security, giving details of where Selena had been attacked and asking them to shut down the exit from there and send medical help. Now he was only sixty seconds away. He approached the tunnel to the underground parking, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. He saw a black motorcycle speeding past him, its driver dressed in black, and wanted to give chase. He'd heard what sounded like a motorcycle in the background when talking to Selena, but he didn't know if that was the assailant on the bike. Looking through the rearview mirror, he called local police and reported the license number, though, and where it was headed.

He was the first on the scene, parking his SUV near Selena and hopping from his car. She sat against a vehicle's bumper, looking dazed, a stream of blood oozing between her fingers clasped over the wound. It ran down her arm. As he rounded the front of his Tahoe, several White House security officers jogged toward them.

She looked at him as he knelt next to her. “Selena?”

“I'm okay...a little stunned. Black motorcycle,” she said, trying to take a breath. “Rider all in black.” That was all she could get out before needing to close her eyes for a moment.

If only I'd gone after the bike
, Nicholas thought. But getting to Selena had been more important. “He passed me on the way in—I called in the police. Medical help is on the way.”

She glanced at her arm. “No ambulance...just need...stitches.”

She spoke almost as though she had disassociated herself from the incident, but she was having trouble forming sentences. “Did you hit your head again?”

“No. Just had the—” she blinked “—breath knocked out of me.” She inhaled deeply. “No—cracked ribs.”

“Don't move. I'm talking to the officers then I'll be right back.”

Before he stood, she added, “He took my...work tablet.”

“I'll let security know.”

Please let her be okay
, he thought as adrenaline had him moving when all he wanted was to stay by her side.

* * *

Selena felt shell-shocked more than anything. Her arm barely hurt, but she saw the blood coursing down it in spite of clasping the wound. While Nicholas spoke with the three men in a low voice, she tried to think of something in her car she could use to stop the bleeding. Her mind refused to function properly. She couldn't string a coherent thought together. Probably blood loss affecting her.

One of the men, trained as a paramedic, stooped next to her with a first-aid kit and began working on her wound while Nicholas pointed toward the exit. He moved to a knife on the pavement and instructed an officer to bag it. She'd felt the cut but hadn't seen the knife, just a flash of metal.

After that, Nicholas strode to his SUV and released Max. While a bandage was being wrapped around her arm, Max sniffed the air and set off, following a trail from the direction the motorcycle had come from.

She began to tremble, chills streaking through her. Pain finally leaked into her mind, demanding attention.

* * *

Watching Max come to a stop at a narrow parking spot in the underground garage, Nicholas noted the space would easily fit a motorcycle.

He gave Max a treat. “Good boy. Now all I need to figure out is whose bike was here. Looks like more security video for me.” He tried to think of White House staffers who rode a motorcycle to work. He'd get a list and start questioning them. They usually knew who else was a biker. He checked the camera; the area wasn't in direct line of sight but the approach was. He would find the owner if the local police hadn't caught him already.

His priority now was to get Selena to the ER to have her wound taken care of and to make sure she wasn't injured anywhere else. Adrenaline could be masking something else.

He and Max jogged back to the crime scene. The paramedic-trained security officer had finished bandaging her. Still sitting on the pavement, she turned her head slightly and looked right at him. There was an ashen cast to her skin and she shook. As he neared her, he noticed the pool of blood next to her as though a vein had been cut.

“Open my passenger door,” Nicholas said to the paramedic working on Selena. “I'm taking her to the emergency room.”

Nicholas squatted next to her and lifted her into his arms. Cradled against him, she gave him a weak smile. He carried her to his Tahoe and settled her onto the front passenger seat.

“Thanks,” she said to the paramedic then Nicholas while supporting her arm against her trembling body. Shock was setting in.

Nicholas leaned over and buckled her in then took off his jacket and covered her. Selena reclined back and shut her eyes. “Hold on. It won't be long.” As he rounded the back of the Tahoe and put Max inside, he motioned to another White House security officer. “Take care of the crime scene, and notify Dan Calvert about what happened and that Miss Barrow's work tablet was stolen. Put a rush on the knife. I want to know if there are any fingerprints on it.”

“Will do.”

The security officer with paramedic training looked at Selena then back at Nicholas. “She'll be all right once she gets stitches.”

“Thanks for taking care of her.”

He hurried around the driver's side, slid behind the wheel and started the engine. As he went over a speed bump, he glanced at Selena and found her gaze glued on him.

“Okay?” he asked as he slipped into the flow of traffic.

“I'll live.”

“You scared me back there. Do you remember anything about your attacker?”

“It happened so fast. I'm starting to get my bearings.”

“Good. You need around-the-clock protection.”

“You can't do that and continue to work.”

“Yes, I can, especially when General Meyer hears.”

Selena drew in a deep breath “I'm planning another event for the president. I don't have time to take off. He just told me about it today.”

“I see you're beginning to feel more like yourself. Arguing every detail with me.”

“I'm not arguing. Pointing out the hurdles in your plan. I want you to find the person who took my tablet. I assume the Miss Chick impostor, the person who ransacked my house and the motorcyclist are the same person.”

“Agreed. What was on the tablet?”

“Information pertaining to my job. For instance, most of the plans for the Easter Egg Roll. So I need you working.”

“And I need you alive.” As he spoke, he realized how important Selena was becoming to the case—to him.

As he pulled into the ER, he decided he would talk with the captain about this. He needed another team member to help him. He felt this was all tied to the Jeffries case.
If we find who's after Selena, we may be apprehending Jeffries's murderer.

* * *

Spending most of the night in the ER wasn't Selena's idea of fun, but finally Nicholas pulled into her driveway as dawn began to pinken the sky. She yawned.

“You need to get some rest.” Nicholas opened his door. “Stay there. I'll help you.”

She ignored his instruction and climbed from the Tahoe as he came to the passenger side, frowning. “I tolerated you carrying me to the car at the crime scene and at the ER, but I caught a catnap on the way here and I'm fine.” Actually, she did more than tolerate it. She cherished the strong feel of his arms around her because for a brief moment in the garage, she realized how close she'd come to being seriously injured.

“Twenty minutes isn't sufficient sleep.” Nicholas released Max from the back of the Tahoe.

“About my Mustang. You should have driven me there to pick it up.”

“Not until you've rested like the ER doc said. You lost quite a bit of blood last night. Max was worried.”

She chuckled. “But not you?”

“Yeah, me, too.”

Selena paused and bent to pet Max. “I'll be good as new by tomorrow, boy. Will you tell your partner that?”

Max barked.

She straightened too quickly. The action of leaning over caused the yard to spin. She closed her eyes and got her bearings before she climbed the porch steps. When she looked at Nicholas beside her, she knew he hadn't missed her bout of light-headedness. Slow and easy or he would declare her an invalid. And she did need that sleep.

Inside the house, she placed her purse on the table by the door. Before she went to bed, however, she wanted to know what he'd discovered about her assault. “You haven't said anything about what happened last night. What does White House Security know?”

“There were a couple of fingerprints on the kitchen knife used in the attack. One that they could match.”

“Who?”

“Vincent Geary.”

“Why would he be interested in the Littleton case? That's what the assault has to be about. This all started when I began digging into it.”

“Good question and one I will be asking him. I'm having him brought to headquarters for me to interview.”

She whistled. “You mean business bringing him in.”

“I want to take him out of his comfort zone.”

She thought back to the scene in the underground garage. “I think the biker had on black gloves.”

“I still need to know why Geary's fingerprints are on the knife.”

“So when will you be leaving?” She started for the stairs.

“As soon as my replacement arrives.”

Stopping, she glanced over her shoulder. “Who?”

“Brooke Clark. She's a fellow Capitol K-9 Unit member.”

“Couldn't you just leave Max? He's great company.”

“I called my captain last night, and he'd already heard from General Meyer. You are to have protection. That comes from the president and Senator Eagleton.”

“My uncle?” She slowly rotated toward Nicholas, who covered the space between them.

“Yes. They were both at the same gathering last night, and when they heard about the attack, they insisted you be protected, especially after what happened at the Easter Egg Roll. The president was not happy about your office and the general's being compromised. I have a feeling heads will be rolling if we don't come up with answers. Soon. That's from the general and the head of the Secret Service. Someone in our midst isn't playing nice.”

“My body can attest to that. No cracked ribs, but I'm going to have bruises. In the past week, I've had more physical contact than when I was growing up with gangs all around.”

His eyes twinkled, and one corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you sure I can't help you up the stairs?”

“I'm not even going to answer that.”

As she mounted the steps, Nicholas's chuckles floated to her. If she was truthful with herself, she was glad for the protection. That thought took her by surprise. She would never have admitted that in the past. What was it about Nicholas that made her so easily persuaded?

* * *

“I'm being framed. First the incident with General Meyer's office and now this.” Vincent Geary's face reddened with anger, one hand clenched on the table in the interview room at headquarters.

Nicholas took the chair next to Geary, not the one across from him. He wanted to invade this man's space, make him squirm. “Then explain your fingerprints on this kitchen knife.” He held up the evidence bag with it inside, its carved ivory handle distinctive.

Geary's eyes widened. “My fingerprints are on it because it's mine. I have a whole set of them on my kitchen counter. Where was this found?”

“In the underground parking garage at the White House. Used in an attack on Selena Barrow.”

“The tour director?”

“Yes, and the president has taken a personal interest in this situation.”

The red flushed from the aide's face. “When did the attack happen?”

“Last night at seven. An assailant riding a black motorcycle snatched her tablet from her and stabbed her then fled. The bike was found this morning and your fingerprints were on the gas tank and side of the seat.”

Geary's mouth dropped open. “That's impossible. I have an alibi.”

“What is it?”

“I was meeting with Congressman Jeffries and several other members of Congress, including White and Langford, at his house.”

Nicholas slid a pad toward him. “Write their names down, and I'll check it out.”

“I've never ridden a motorcycle.”

Nicholas rose. “If you want to prove that without any doubt, I would suggest you hand me your cell phone until I return. I wouldn't want you to call your boss and get him to vouch for you.”

Anger flooded his face again. Geary dug into his pocket and slapped the cell phone into Nicholas's outstretched hand. “Congressman Jeffries is above reproach. He has a stellar reputation.”

“Anyway,” he said, hardly agreeing with that assessment, “it's not easy to dispute fingerprint evidence.”

“I don't know how, but someone planted those fingerprints.”

Nicholas exited the interview room and headed for his Tahoe, making a call to Brooke Clark to see how things were going at Selena's. He hoped she was still asleep. “Anything happening there?”

“The grass has grown a millimeter since you left an hour ago.” Laughter filled Brooke's light voice.

“Funny. Is Selena still asleep?”

“Yes. Do you want me to call you when she wakes up?”

He could still hear the smirk in her words. “No. Just keep her safe, but don't tell her I said that.”