The Guardian (Mended Souls Book 1) (3 page)

I
t was
dark by the time Scott managed to get dressed and make his way out of the hospital, careful to keep the hat he’d borrowed from another patient pulled low over his eyes. His hand had already risen to wave down a cab before he remembered he’d need cash. He patted down his pockets, relieved when he felt the welcome bulk of his wallet. It must have been returned to him after the accident.

“Where to?” The driver glanced his way and then focused on the clipboard in his hand.

“West Harrison,” Scott panted, breathing through the pain of bending to slide into the car.

The gray head turned and concerned eyes met his. “You okay?” The cabbie nodded toward the hospital. “Maybe you better head on back and let them check you out.”

One glimpse of the crowd of reporters milling around the entrance and Scott turned away. “I’m fine, just get me outta here.”

The man hesitated, then shrugged and started the meter. “Whatever you say, boss.”

As they pulled from the curb a guy wearing a dark shirt and pants moved away from the group, a cell phone plastered to his ear. Scott’s gaze passed over him, then returned. There was something…

“Car accident?”

He jumped, his gaze snapping to the cabbie’s curious scrutiny in the rear view mirror. “Why do you say that?” he demanded. His pulse throbbed at his temple. Then he realized the man was referring to his cast and bruises. He sighed. “Yeah.”

He leaned his aching head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes. Immediately visions of a white van hurtling toward them filled his mind. Lucas grimly trying to avoid the collision; Natalya screaming as he pushed her head into his shoulder. As though hiding her was going to delay the inevitable. He remembered thinking it was going to be all right. Lucas would fix this, he always did. Then the crash came and the world went black.

When he awoke, their agent, Ray Farrell, was there to inform him he was lucky to be alive. Three others hadn’t survived. And Scott somehow knew his sister and best friend were gone.

The car slowed to a halt.

“We’re here, A.”

Scott’s eyelids flipped open, his heart stuttered, and he sat up too fast, grunting at the ache in his side. “What did you just call me?” he demanded.

A weirdly familiar set of eyes again met his in the mirror. Then the cabbie pointed out the front window at the imposing cement structure of the Medical Examiner’s office.

“I just said we’re here, man. This the place you wanted?” He leaned forward to stop the meter and Scott’s gaze landed on the cross gently swaying from a silk tassel below the mirror. A warm sensation flowed into his belly and washed all his anxieties aside. He must have heard the man wrong.

“This is it. What do I owe ya?” Scott lifted his hip and extracted the wallet from his back pocket, careful not to jar the cast or his ribs.

“Twenty will do. Are you sure you got the right place? This is the morgue, ya know.”

Scott winced. His mouth straightened into a hard line. “I’m well aware of where we are, yes.” He passed the cash over the seat and opened his door. “I’ll be about an hour. Can you come back and pick me up? There’s an extra fifty in it, if you do.”

He climbed out of the car without waiting for a reply and slammed the door. Frustration was eating a hole at his insides. He hated when something was there, skirting the edges of his mind, but not allowing him to figure it out. Lucas had given him a hard time more than once for his lack of patience. He’d always been mercurial though; that’s why the two of them had meshed so well. Lucas was the calming brook, while he’d been more like the raging rapids in their relationship. The whole carefree persona he carefully portrayed for the benefit of the public was just that, a guise.

He watched the taxi until its taillights disappeared around the corner, then reluctantly limped toward the double glass doors lit by a yellowish glow from recessed lighting. The breeze ruffled his hair and snuck past the collar of his jacket to send a chill down his spine. He grimaced and yanked the loose side of the coat closer around his body. He’d been lucky that the t-shirt he’d been wearing at the time of the accident was loose enough to slide his arm through with the cast, but there was no way his coat would fit unless he sliced it, and he’d refused to do that. The Blue Jays jacket came from one of the last baseball games the two friends had attended together. They’d shared a love of the sport and had a friendly rivalry going every year on who would make the finals. Lucas was a White Sox fan all the way, so he’d gone out in left field and chosen the Jays as a sure way to rile his buddy. The game they’d attended; Sox won seven-six, and Lucas had crowed about it all the way home. The asshole.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and tugged on the door, but it didn’t budge. He rattled it a couple more times before he noticed the hours of operation on the side window; eight-thirty to four-thirty, Monday to Friday. Well, that figured. It was—he checked his watch—ten p.m. and Friday night to boot.

He sighed, relieved and frustrated in equal measure. Now he had two more days to wait before he could say a final farewell to his buddy, at least in private. The funeral was sure to bring a crowd, Lucas was—had been—a star. And Natalya… a shudder shook his frame. His little sister… gone. He couldn’t imagine never seeing her sparkling blue eyes as she teased the hell out of him again. He and Lucas had always protected her, kept her safe. They’d never wanted her to go through the same pain they had.

Head suddenly too heavy for his shoulders, he turned away from the darkened building and wandered down the sidewalk. Guess he had some time to kill before the cab came back. At least it was quiet here, away from the downtown core and prying eyes. The tension slowly eased as the meds kicked in and dulled the pain so he could finally breathe without it feeling as though his lungs were getting squashed. He’d had bruised ribs before, but the ache from these two cracked ones made that seem like a holiday. At least he could feel the pain; his buddy was beyond that now.

The sense of loss overwhelmed him and his eyes grew blurry. It was so damn hard to envision a future without Nat and Lucas. They’d come from dysfunctional families; Lucas to an abusive father. Scott and Nat to a set of parents who didn’t even know they were alive half the time. They had become each other’s family. He punched the tree he’d taken shelter beneath, ignoring the sting of freshly scraped knuckles. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t freaking f…

A woman’s scream from somewhere around the corner interrupted his pity party. Scott was on the move before the sound died down. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve as he jogged down the walk as fast as he could, cradling his arm to his side for support. His heart pounded out a staccato beat in his chest and he probably looked like the
Hunchback of Notre Dame
with his weird gait, but it couldn’t be helped.

Rounding the corner he skidded to a halt and frantically searched the area. Where was she? Away from the bright lights of the entrance, this side of the building was darker, more ominous. He edged down the block, keeping to the shadows, his breathing loud and erratic.

Might as well announce yourself
.

He could almost hear Lucas’ voice in his ear and grinned. It got wiped off his face a second later when another gut-wrenching scream split the air. It resounded from the parking complex on his right. He raced for the entrance, pulling up short against the gate blocking the passageway. An overweight man in ill-fitting guard clothes was stepping out of the ticket booth. He jumped at Scott’s sudden arrival.

“Have you called the cops?”

The guy shook his head. “Don’t want no trouble. The boss said to keep things quiet, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Scott swore. “Let me in. Someone needs to help that woman.” And when the guy didn’t move fast enough, “Hurry up, or I’ll make sure your boss knows what an ass you are.”

The guard hesitated, as though debating whether to comply or not, but then he shrugged and hit the remote so the gate would lift. As soon as there was room, Scott ducked through, adrenaline dulling his pain. He ran for the lower floor, praying he was heading in the right direction. At the same time, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed 9-1-1.

“What’s your emergency, please?” A woman’s impersonal voice carried into the garage and Scott hurried to lower the volume.

“I need help. There’s a woman in some kind of trouble. She’s screaming, but I haven’t found her yet to tell you why.”

“Name, please.”

Scott stared at the phone. What the hell? This wasn’t a social call, for crying out loud. “Look, it doesn’t matter who I am,” he whispered, slowing now that he was in the bottom row. “Just hurry up before something bad happens. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. In the garage. Hurry.”

He hung up before she could say anything more and angled his way past a couple of parked cars and a meridian. That’s when he found the woman. She was crouched over something on the ground in front of a gray Honda.

Maybe he shuffled his feet, or she just sensed he was there, either way she turned and looked right at him with the biggest, greenest eyes he’d ever seen. They provided a stark contrast to the sight of her blood-soaked hands.

T
racy stared
up at the stranger a few feet away, on the edge of hyperventilating. Was she going to be the next to die? Every instinct shouted for her to get the heck out of there before she became the next victim, but empathy urged her to stay, defend the dog who had done nothing to deserve this punishment.

The man stood in the shade of the cement pillars, a cap pulled low over his forehead blocking his features. She had very little to protect herself with other than a set of keys she’d dropped in her haste to help the injured beast, and a small can of mace she kept in her jacket at all times. It would have to do.

“Are you all right?” The slightly winded cadence of his voice didn’t inspire confidence. He raised a hand, as though to calm her, and she let out a squeal.

Too late, she was officially freaked out.

Her heart fluttered against the walls of her chest; a butterfly caught in a jar with no chance of escape. She hysterically wondered if Hank would be the one to do her autopsy.

“Miss, I asked if you needed help?”

He sounded harmless, but then, the Boston strangler’s victims probably thought the same thing.

“Who are you? How did you get in here?” Impossible to tell for sure from where he was standing but Tracy didn’t recognize him as one of the many employed in the building. She’d worked here for five years and knew almost everyone—at least by sight.

He moved forward a couple of feet, the shadows casting broad stripes across his torso. The artificial lighting caught in curls at the nape of his neck, turning them an antique gold. Though she crouched, he seemed tall, well over six feet. His frame was lean and lanky, a runner maybe with those strong-looking legs.

G
ood thing with his line of work.

If things weren’t so serious she would have smiled. Nothing like a little gallows humor. A sad little whine tugged her gaze to the mangled pup. He was coming around. Elated, she traced shaking, bloody fingers along the animal’s muzzle in an effort to reassure him she meant no harm.

“Hush, little one. You’re going to be just fine,” she murmured, and hoped she wasn’t lying. Soft brown eyes with absurdly long lashes stared up at her filled with hurt and bewilderment. “I know, you didn’t deserve this, you poor thing.” She’d used her scarf to wrap the wound and staunch the flow of blood, but it was only a temporary fix. The dog needed help, and soon.

The stranger appeared on the other side of the pup, startling both of them. Tracy palmed the mace and held it up, warning him away. “Get back. This stuff burns. I don’t think you want to feel its effect.” The dog growled low in his throat, its body tensed.

He ignored them to crouch with an odd grunt, and run his hand over the mangy coat. The dog snapped, his teeth gleaming a dull yellow.

“Relax, boy. I’m not here to hurt you,” he said. “You, or your master.” He glanced up from beneath that ugly cap and speared her with ice-blue eyes. “Were you injured?”

Tracy pulled herself out of the laser beam intensity of that gaze and realized he meant her bloodied hands. She shook her head. “No, I found him this way. It couldn’t have happened very long ago or he’d be dead. That’s why I thought maybe you were…” She shrugged, feeling a little sheepish now that her nerves were settling. He didn’t look like the serial dog killer type, but that didn’t stop her from keeping the mace at the ready.

He sat back, seemingly offended. “You think I did this?”

Now that he was closer, she noticed his arm was in an Orthopedic cast and that reassured her more than anything else could have. Not very likely a man with a broken arm would be able to attack a dog and deposit him in front of her car without getting any blood on himself.

“I don’t any more,” she muttered, her nervous gaze doing another loop of the area. That meant the real perpetrator was still on the loose.

The blood on her hands was drying now, leaving them covered in a thin film like when she used to use school glue for decoupage and managed to get it on her fingers. As the paste dried she would dig with her nails until the edge lifted and then peeled way from her skin, quite often coming away with an outline of her prints in the cast. Great fun—unlike now.

“You never said; how did you get in here? This is a gated garage.” She kept a wary eye on him while checking the dog’s dressing. “We need to get this guy upstairs so I can help him.”

“You? Are you a vet, then?” He looked her up and down, the doubt obvious in his expressive face. “I called the emergency number when I thought it was you in danger, they should be here soon. Your gate-keeper, who let me in by the way, can show them where to go.”

Her knees were cold from kneeling on the cement. It couldn’t be good for the pup. She worried he might already be going into shock. “Give me your jacket, we need to get him warmed up.” Tracy tugged her own coat off her shoulders and tried to ignore her companion’s appreciative stare. If there was one thing that made her self-conscious it was her over-developed breasts. Men took one look and figured her for a cheerleader—or a stripper. Neither one was acceptable. And it wasn’t that she was a snob, because she wasn’t. Women in those trades were usually more out-going, socially adept. Tracy wasn’t. After what happened to her sister… well, she just wasn’t.

The dog seemed to realize the humans were trying to help him. He gave up struggling and lay quietly when she laid her coat and the stranger’s jacket over his soiled fur. She rubbed his black and white head and glanced curiously at the man watching them.

“Do I know you? You seem familiar?” His angular face reminded her of someone, she just couldn’t put her finger…

“Holy smokes,” she squeaked. “I know who you are.” She was surprised it had taken her so long. “You’re Scott Anderson, aren’t you?” Okay, this was officially the craziest day on record. Heat raced up her neck and made her ears hot with embarrassment. He must think her a raving idiot. Accusing Scott Anderson of animal abuse—nice.

He shook his head, then sighed and removed the cap. “I guess the jig is up.” Then, the weirdest thing happened; his whole demeanor changed from kind and sincere, to loud and obnoxious in two-point-five seconds flat.

“You know how it is, babe. The chicks all want a piece of this.” He waved his hand up and down his body like some kind of a game show host. “Sometimes I prefer to travel incognito, you know?”

Oh, she knew, all right. Suppressing the twinge of disappointment, because she actually kinda liked the other guy more, Tracy nodded. “Yeah, I guess it would be hard having those…
babes
chasing you all the time.” She turned her attention back to the male who held more appeal right now and rubbed his furry ears, smiling a little at his groan of delight. “You don’t need to worry, I won’t tell anyone you were here. I assume you came to say good-bye to your friend, Lucas Carmichael, and your sister?”

He paled and rose awkwardly, to pace a few feet away, his back ramrod straight under a soft looking dark blue cotton t-shirt. Even with the loose fit, Tracy could see the delineation of his muscular shoulders. Something clenched deep inside and it wasn’t fear.

The faint cry of far off sirens told her that their time together was drawing to an end, but instead of relief, Tracy felt a keen sense of loss. Which was silly, she hardly knew the man, after all. But she couldn’t deny her attraction and it didn’t have anything to do with him being a movie star, as he’d intimated.

When Scott turned around his face was inscrutable, all emotion held under a tight wrap. “What do you know about Lucas?” he demanded.

She frowned at his tone, but then she thought about all the nosy reporters they’d been dealing with and realized it must be ten times worse on his end.

“I’m not a journalist, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

H
e snorted
at the polite term she’d used for the soul-stealing scavengers who made their living invading other people’s privacy. They were unavoidable in his line of business—free publicity equals good publicity—but he hated feeling like a bug under a microscope. It wouldn’t surprise him if they knew how often he took a shit, it was that bad.

She seemed too innocent to be a scum-sucker, but then, he’d been wrong before. This could all be some sort of elaborate set-up. The right time, and the right place, to catch him at his worst. He watched as she leaned forward to check on the dog again, her slim fingers running with practiced care over the animal’s head and back. Her chestnut colored hair had fallen out of its topknot and now lay in wild disarray over her shoulders. She looked chilled. Her nipples were pressed against the white fabric of her blouse and a pink blush suffused her skin. Then again, that could be from his staring. He couldn’t help himself; she was seriously hot in a sexy librarian meets rock star kind of way. Scott stifled the urge to wrap her in his arms and warm her from the inside out.

“Okay, say for half a minute I decided to take you at your word, tell me who you are then.” He heard the whine of the sirens and swore under his breath. Their time together was quickly running out and this strange encounter would become a lost moment in his hectic life. He had the crazy urge to ask her to run away with him. Just disappear for a while, get to know one another, forget the past few years. Start over. Except that was impossible.

“Dr. Tracy York, a medical examiner. Your friend’s accident is my case.” She looked him in the eye, hers filled with compassion and he knew she was telling the truth.

Not a librarian then.

Reality came rushing back along with a truckload of pain and anger. Lucas was upstairs in a freaking vault, and here he was, making pansy eyes at a woman, the ME, no less. Self-disgust roiled in his gut and curdled his tone. “Fucking rights, it was an accident. That better be exactly what goes into the report too, Lucas deserves to rest in peace.”

Her brows lowered and her mouth straightened into a tight line, pinching those full lips as though she’d tasted something sour. “Are you telling me to lie?”

His chin rose and his hand fisted at his side. “I’m
telling
you to do your job and let an innocent man have the farewell he deserves. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?”

She could make an issue out of the open liquor in the car, even though Scott knew without a shred of doubt, Lucas was sober when he got behind that wheel. He’d only had a couple drinks all day.

The wail of the sirens almost drowned out her words, but the fire in her emerald eyes carried the message clearly. “I don’t lie.
For anyone
.”

She would be one of the only women who didn’t then.

“Is the guard going to know where to find you?” He lifted his voice to be heard, the noise reverberating off the cement walls now.

“What guard? There is no guard, it’s a keyed entry.”

Well, shit.

The man he’d met at the guardhouse must have been the attacker. And he’d let him go.