Branded (6 page)

He might be right, but “pretty” didn’t stop people
from treating her as though she was a criminal. 

*        *        *

Nicole snagged a newspaper and stopped by her
mailbox before she climbed the stairs to her apartment.  Loud, angry voices met
her as she reached the landing on the second floor.  She paused, her hand on
the cold, metal railing.  The sounds reverberated from Janie’s apartment.

She cringed, hating that her friend agreed to live
under such conditions.  More than likely, Paul was drunk again.  It didn’t
matter that it was barely past two in the afternoon.  Janie would probably have
bruises again tomorrow.  More yelling, his and hers, reached out to her, and
Nicole left the staircase, heading toward their apartment.  She should mind her
own business, but she couldn’t.

The cursing continued until Nicole knocked on the
door.  Then everything went quiet.

A moment later, Janie opened the door a crack.  “Nicole.”

“Are you okay?” she whispered.

Janie bit her bottom lip and shook her head.  “It’s
Paul again.  He’s…it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Are you sure?  I feel like I should call the
cops.”  She wanted Paul behind bars where he couldn’t hurt anyone.

Janie’s eyes flew wide.  “God, no.  That will only
make everything worse.”

“Who is it?” Paul asked, sounding drunk and irate.

“Come stay with me,” Nicole suggested.  “Give him
time to cool off.”

She nodded.  “I might.  Later.  Really, I’m okay.”

Nicole accepted her statement and backed away.  “Call
me,” she mouthed, holding her hand to her ear as though it was a phone.

Janie closed the door before she could say
anything else.

She waited in the hall for several minutes to make
sure things weren’t going to escalate again.  Between her being accused and
what her friend was going through, it seemed the whole world had gone mad.  Janie
might say everything was all right, but in Nicole’s opinion, it was never okay to
treat the person you supposedly loved in that manner.

When she was satisfied her friend wasn’t in
danger, she continued to her floor.

The moment she reached it, the real bombshell
exploded.  An officer not much older than her stood outside her door with Stormy
restrained by an animal control pole.  Stormy jumped when she spied Nicole, and
the officer subdued her with a jerk.

That pissed her off.  No one had the right to go
into her house and stress her dog.  She marched down the hall.  “What the hell
is going on here?”

The officer straightened, his hand near his
weapon.  “Take a step back, miss.  We have a warrant to search the premises.”

She swallowed, his uniform and weapon intimidating
her, but she wasn’t about to show it.  “I’d like to see that warrant.”  Not
that she’d know what to look for or understand any of the lingo.  But if they
were going to harass her dog, she wasn’t going to make it easy.

He handed an official looking paper to her.  She
glanced over the document, noticing that it had been signed by a judge.

She narrowed her eyes at the officer.  “You might
have a warrant to search my house, but you have no right to hurt my dog.”

Stormy whimpered as though in agreement.

“Sorry, ma’am.  The dog has to be restrained while
the search is conducted.  This protects our officers and your dog.”

“Can you at least take that thing off her?”  Her
voice cracked as she made her request.  “I’ll get her leash and keep her with
me.” 

Her pathetic plea must have appealed to the kinder
side of him.  “Where’s the leash?”

A tiny amount of hope sprang to life.  “Inside
that first closet.”  She pointed toward her door.

“Carlton.  Get the dog leash out of the closet by
the door and bring it here.”

A black officer with a bald head appeared at the
door with Stormy’s leash in hand.  The first cop nodded at Nicole, and the other
officer handed the leash to her. 

“Thank you,” she said to both men as she took it
and hooked it to Stormy’s collar.  Her dog growled as the first officer removed
the restraint from her neck.

Nicole tightened the leash around her hand and
walked to the end of the hall where she sagged to the floor to await the
officers’ rape of her apartment.  Stormy licked her cheek, but it didn’t help
to ease her fears.  Dank smells seeped up from the old carpet, and she wished
she could run away and hide from the misery that had become her life.

She placed a call to her attorney, only to have
Mr. Barton tell her he would complain to the courts that he wasn’t notified,
and that she should let them complete their investigation.  If she was
innocent, there was nothing to fear.

A half hour into her wait, her phone rang.  She
lifted her head off her knees and pulled the phone from her purse.  Aunt
Claire.  She
could not
let her know the police were ransacking her
apartment.

She sucked in and released a ragged breath before
she answered.

“Nicole.”  Her aunt’s voice sounded frantic and
relieved at the same time.  “I haven’t heard from you all afternoon.  You were
supposed to let me know how it went with the attorney.”

She searched for an answer.  “I think it went
well.”  Honestly, the more she thought about it, the less certain she was.  “He
doesn’t seem too worried.”  She glanced down the hall at her open door and the
officer waiting outside.  Boy, had he been wrong.  “He seems to think they won’t
find anything other than circumstantial evidence and that there’s not enough of
that to charge me.”

“What was on the surveillance video?”

“I didn’t get to see it.  My attorney misplaced
it.”

A few seconds of silence hovered between them.  “Are
you sure he’s a good lawyer?”

“Yes, I think so.  It was just a misunderstanding
or something.  He’s supposed to let me know when he has it.”

“Do the police have any other leads?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then I’m not convinced of anything.  It’s an election
year.  Everyone wants arrest and conviction rates up to make them look good.”

Nicole was about to argue with her politically
savvy aunt and say that busting her wouldn’t help anyone’s campaign, but
suddenly she wasn’t so sure.  A conviction of a ten-million dollar thief would
certainly make headlines.

“Have you found a private investigator yet?”

She hadn’t.  As she’d left her attorney’s office,
she’d made a quick phone call to the investigator he’d suggested and inquired
about rates.  The amount was staggering to her.  She supposed if she’d tossed
out Mr. Barton’s name, he might have given her a better rate, but even half the
quoted amount would sink her.  She might have to rely solely on her attorney to
protect her, not that he could do much unless her case reached the legal
system.

Still, one glance down the hall told her she
needed some kind of help.  Already, she felt like she’d lost her grip and was
slowly drowning in the threats against her.  But who would help and how?

An image of Xander Secrist popped into her head. 
She wasn’t sure what exactly, if anything, he could do for her, but the idea of
calling him for help seemed better than doing nothing.  “I think I’ve found
someone.”

“If not, Martha knows somebody.  He’s a little
pricey, but your freedom is the most important thing.”

Her aunt had next to nothing, and she needed
whatever money she did have to take care of herself.

“You’re so good to me, Aunt Claire, but I’ll be
fine.  I was just about to call him.  If it doesn’t work out, I’ll let you
know, but he came highly recommended.”

Like hell.  She knew nothing about him.  First
thing, as soon as she could access her damn computer, she needed to do some
investigating of her own to see what she could learn about Xander before she
let him into her life, but at this point, she might be willing to take a
chance.

She ended her conversation with her aunt as the
group of officers started filing out of her apartment.  She recognized one of
the men as the detective who’d interrogated her the day she’d been arrested. 
He paused outside her doorway, studying her as the rest of the men came out.

When she realized a couple of them carried boxes,
she started forward down the hall.  “Wait.  What are you doing?  You can’t take
my stuff.” 

“It’s part of the investigation, ma’am,” the
familiar detective replied, holding up a hand to keep her at a distance.

She widened her eyes as another carried out her
computer.  “No.  You can’t take my computer.  I need that.”

The detective narrowed his eyes.  “You’ll have it
back as soon as we check it out.”

She wouldn’t be able to research Xander
or
apply for jobs without it.  “How long does that take?”  She couldn’t believe
her bad luck.

He shrugged.  “As long as it takes to do a
thorough investigation.”  He handed her a sheet of paper.  It listed numerous
items that they’d taken, including her computer.

“This is harassment.  I’m innocent.  You don’t
have any right to ruin my life like this.  I’m going to call my attorney.”

“You do that, ma’am.”  He followed the last of the
officers down the hall to the stairs. 

She watched them go, despair inching over her
insides like the roots of one of Aunt Claire’s invasive vines.  She wanted to
scream at the injustice of it all. 

Instead, she slammed the door to her apartment,
and Stormy whined.  This had become so unbelievably out of hand.

A scattered stack of bills caught her attention. 
Then a tipped over glass on the kitchen counter.  With anger pulsing through
her veins, she ran a quick eye over the rest of her apartment finding various
things out of place.  The police had obtained a warrant and had searched her
apartment legally, but if you asked her, it was still a violation.

In essence, they’d looked over, touched and judged
all of her possessions.  Without cause.  Yes, they had their suspicions, but
she was innocent.  Truly, they had no right.

Despair pushed at her again, trying to bring her
to her knees.  She bit her tongue and pushed back.  She would not cry again. 
Not today.

She walked to the counter and set the glass upright
before she moved it to the sink instead.  An overwhelming urge to wash all of
her dishes, all of her clothes consumed her.  She wanted to erase any trace
that anyone had ever been in her personal space.

Xander stared out the tenth floor window of his
office building, his gaze following the Willamette River as it traveled through
his beautiful city.  He’d left his father’s estate in Rainier and moved to
Portland when he was a freshman at Portland State University, and he’d never truly
gone back home. 

His father had preferred to live close to the
pine-filled mountains, but Xander had always loved the high energy that was the
life-blood of his city.  He did like the thought, though, that the river that
flowed near his office connected with the Columbia River that wound past his
dad’s place.

It was a connection, of sorts.

He had to admit he wished he’d made an effort to
visit his dad more often when he was alive.  It wasn’t until his father’s
tragic death that he realized how vitally short life could be.

He’d always regret he hadn’t cancelled his date
and rushed home after the strange phone call he’d received from his dad. 
Instead, he’d convinced himself everything would be fine, and his dad’s
behavior hadn’t been all that odd for a man who’d just lost a fortune.

He’d been wrong.  So wrong.

The ringing of his phone pulled him from painful
memories.  He swiveled in his office chair and lifted his cell from the desk, frowning
at the unknown number. 

“Xander Secrist,” he answered.

“Hello.”  The woman paused a moment.  “It’s Nicole
Camden.  We met at the coffee shop last week.”

He gripped his phone tighter.  “Nicole.”  His
nerves twisted into a hard ball.  “How are you?”

Another pause.  “Not so good.”  Her voice sounded
weary, shaken.  Sam had given him a cryptic heads-up that the police intended
to put pressure on her today.  Apparently, it had been enough to send her in
his direction.

“I’d like to help if you’d let me.”  Please God. 
Let her say yes.

“Could you?  I really don’t know where else to
turn.”

He glanced at the clock.  Three-fifteen.  There
was no reason he couldn’t leave work early.  “I can come to your house right
now, if you’d like.”

“How about the park near the coffee shop instead?”

She didn’t trust him.  Not yet.  But he’d win her
over, and then he’d crack her and put her behind bars.  “Sounds great.  I can
be there in fifteen.”

“Okay.  I’ll have Stormy with me.”

Was that a warning?  He almost laughed.  She must
be pretty desperate if she was willing to meet with a man she didn’t trust. 
Good.  That would definitely play in his favor.  “I’ll see you in a few
minutes.”

*        *        *

Nicole slipped into her favorite brown leather
jacket and hitched Stormy’s leash.  She donned her dark sunglasses, worrying
that she might come back to more detectives who would want to steal her things. 

They’d taken the most random things.  They’d
opened up all of the boxes of stuff she had packed away in her closets, taken
some of her books, some of her journals, not to mention her beloved laptop.  She
felt as though she’d been cut off from the world.  It was bad enough society
had made it hell to leave her apartment.  Now she couldn’t even search her name
on the web to get the latest information and speculation.

She and Stormy descended the staircase, and thankfully,
no angry voices reached out to her from the second floor.  She’d been so caught
up with her problems, she’d completely forgotten about poor Janie.

Clouds had skipped across the sun since she’d been
out earlier in the day and a brisk wind accompanied them.  There was a good
chance they’d see rain before nightfall.  Maybe that would keep a few more people
off the streets and out of her way.