Knocked Out Page 7

  And Josh had been the one to step up and stay with the little boy who’d had no one.

  She found him in what would one day be a dining room, yanking up the hardwood and ripping each individual nail free with his hammer. His hair, longer than she’d expected from a Mr. Conservative like Josh, was uncombed and shaggy around his face. His glasses were missing, though she knew he really only used them for reading, and sweat trickled down his forehead. He’d yanked his shirt off and wore only a thin tank undershirt.

  He definitely didn’t look all bookish and intellectual without his shirt, muscles flexing as he yanked and ripped. She’d noticed that before whenever she caught him doing something so physical. He didn’t have a football player build, but he wasn’t rail skinny either. And he was strong, extremely so.

  He’d worked his way through college and post-grad doing construction. As smart as he was—he had two PhD’s compared to her one—and he’d still had to pay part of his way with manual labor.

  As she looked at him, she couldn’t help but think how it had definitely paid off. Josh was damned hot, and she wasn’t too blind to see that.

  But he was also one of her best friends and she hated to see him hurting. “Josh?”

  It took her a few tries, but he eventually looked at her. It was then that she realized some of what she’d thought was sweat on his cheeks wasn’t.

  Something about seeing a strong man weeping had her gut clenching and her own eyes watering. He wiped the tears, sweat, dust, all off it off his face with the waistband of his shirt, exposing a very well-defined set of abs. “Kelly Danielle, what the fuck are you doing down here this late? Are you trying to get mugged, or worse?”

  “Hardly.” He was one of the only people on the planet who called her by her full name—something she usually snipped at him about. But not tonight. Josh rarely cursed. And never at a woman. Never at her. And she’d never seen him cry before. He’d always been so strong. She’d been the one to weep and break down in front of him dozens of times before. “Everyone was worried about you. And no one could get a hold of you. I took a chance on a hunch. Figured you were doing exactly what you are doing. It just took a little time to find out the where.”

  “What I’m doing is trying to make this dump turn a profit. How did you get here?” He wiped his hands on a rag then straightened. Kelly looked up at him. Josh was six-four or five and had more than half a foot on her. Long, tall, and beautiful. If someone was smart enough to take a close enough look.

  “I took a magic carpet. Seriously? I took a cab, all three places.”

  “You didn’t have to. I just…needed some time to think.”

  “I know what happened.”

  “Do you? How can anyone?”

  There was so much bitterness in his words. Something she wasn’t used to hearing from him. Josh usually had an almost Zen attitude about the world. A sort of acceptance that there was evil out there, and that evil was balanced by hope. He was such an optimist it had driven her crazy the first few months she’d known him.

  But that attitude had been missing a lot lately.

  And that worried her, just as much as worried the others who cared about him. Like her father. It was his concern that had really set her out looking for Josh. She didn’t like seeing the one parent who she actually loved and respected worried. Her dad had enough on his plate right now. But he’d been genuinely concerned for Josh.

  And his concern had rubbed off on Kelly. “I just wanted to check on you, make sure you were as all right as you could be.”

  “Hell no, I’m not.” He threw the hammer and it imbedded in the plaster wall. Kelly jumped, fighting the instinctive urge to back away. She didn’t deal with such violent emotions very well. And she never had.

  A curl of fear went through her stomach but she ruthlessly pushed it away. She didn’t have to be afraid of this man and she knew that. Deep down where it counted she knew that. It was just the tenseness of the moment causing her anxiety. “Josh…”

  He looked at her, from eyes that were so pain filled she wanted to weep for him. “I held him. I held him on my lap for four hours because he didn’t have anyone else. Not so much as a second-cousin. He wasn’t any older than Ry, Kelly. And I kept seeing Ryan there. And I kept thinking why couldn’t that little boy have had someone there who loved him like we love Ryan. Why did he have to die knowing that the one person on the planet who should have protected him was the one who put him in that hospital bed to begin with? And why didn’t I see what was going on sooner?”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” And it wasn’t. Her father had shared enough of the case specifics for her to know that. But Josh put so much pressure on himself sometimes. Super-hero complex. “You can’t protect everyone; we both know that. You did the best you could. And that little boy at least had you with him to help him not be quite as alone. That matters.”

  Kelly did something she so rarely did, especially with a guy, she hugged him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and she held on. It didn’t matter that he was covered in sweat and grime and heaven only knew what else, she just held him.

  Chapter Two

  He hadn’t always liked the woman hugging him. He’d first thought the purple-streaked redhead with the wild clothes and unprofessional body piercing collection was nothing more than an ungrateful witch who was going to make one of his closest friends’ lives more difficult than it needed to be.

  She’d been rude and foul-tempered and selfish at first appearance. It had taken him a little while—a few weeks, maybe—to realize that wasn’t who she was on the inside at all. All her prickliness had been her way of protecting herself from the blow after blow life had been raining down on her back then. He knew her history, knew about the abuse she’d suffered as a child. And he’d been there front row when she’d been shot. He’d had her blood literally on his hands that night.

  And less than two months later he’d carried her out of the office that had exploded around her. He’d sat with her in the hospital, gun ready to protect her no matter what. And their friendship had grown since then in the just under two years she’d been in St. Louis. He didn’t want her to see him like this. “You need to go.”

  “Not until you stop for tonight. You’ve done enough. This place will still be here tomorrow, waiting for you.”

  Yeah. It would. Seems like all he had lately was some foreclosed buildings and a place on the periphery of his friends’ lives. Even his best friend J.T. was moving in a new direction—one directly involving Kelly’s younger sister, Emma. J.T. and Emma’s wedding was three months away, but things had already changed for them all. His friend was spending most of his free time with Emma, and not Josh like he was used to. Josh knew enough about the human mind to know that he wasn’t reacting well to the changes that had happened lately.

  He was losing his focus, his determination, and though he wasn’t brave enough to say it out loud, he was afraid he was starting to lose his ability to do his job with the Prevention & Analysis of Violent Acts Division of the FBI.

  More. He wasn’t sure he wanted to anymore. Wasn’t certain there was even a point to it all anymore. Every time his team removed a killer, or arsonist, or rapist, or trafficker or whatever the hell else kind of monster they went up against, ten more rose up to replace them.

  He was damned tired of feeling like the hamster on the wheel. Anymore it seemed like they were always just spinning. Pointless. “I’m not fit company tonight.”

  “Are you ever?” She smiled as she said it, flashing the smile he’d always thought was the most perfect one he’d ever seen. Not that anyone ever saw her smile that often. She was usually a serious type of person. Solemn. And sort of sad.

  That always hurt him whenever he thought about it. Kelly had one of the softest hearts of anyone he knew—she didn’t deserve to be sad all the time. That had him sighing inside a bit—she was there because she was worried, wasn’t she? “Maybe not. But tonight’s worse than usual.”

  “I h
eard. There wasn’t anything more you could do.”

  “I did the best I could. Rationally I know that. But emotionally? A twelve year old boy shouldn’t die of radiation poisoning knowing his own father was the one who killed him. That kid knew, Kel. He knew. I don’t understand parents who can do that bullshit to their children.”

  She stepped back from him and turned her head to stare out the window. Josh silently cursed what he’d said.

  “There’s something broken in a parent like that, I think. There certainly was in my mother.” She rubbed her arm, like she always did whenever she spoke about the woman Josh knew had hurt her. “I always knew she hated me—us, really—and I always knew my father loved us. I don’t remember the first time she hurt me, but I remember how much she terrified me. Kids aren’t stupid. I’m sorry for that little boy, Josh. Sorry he didn’t have a good life—but I am glad he had someone like you to be with him there at the end.”

  She surprised him when she turned back to him and hugged him again. It was the longest she’d ever touched him. “Yeah. I’ll never forget him, that’s for sure. I’ve never seen a braver kid. Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

  As he said it, his phone started ringing, the particular ringtone that signaled it was his boss Hellbrook and that it was an urgent call.

  When it was that sound, everything had to stop until he checked in.

  “A case.” She stepped away from him quickly. “I’ll call a cab.”

  “Hell no. There’s no way I’m putting you in a cab this far from home, this late at night, by yourself.”

  “I’m hardly helpless female material.”

  “Humor me. This way your dad won’t kill me.”

  Josh grabbed his bag and locked the door. She didn’t say anything, just followed him quietly.

  He appreciated it. Somehow, just having her there helped a little. He wasn’t ready for that to end just yet. She climbed in the cab of his truck, and said nothing. Kelly rarely said much, especially in times of stress.

  They were halfway to her house when her own phone rang. She answered quickly and listened for a few moments then ended with “I’m not exactly happy about it, but I’ll be there soon. Yeah, I’m with Josh now. He was called in, too.”

  ***

  The PAVAD building was different during the late hours than it was during Kelly’s normal nine to five. Hollow, quiet, subdued. Kind of sad.

  It almost gave Kelly the creeps, even though she loved working with the division.

  She hadn’t spent much time on the upper floors, even the third, where Josh’s unit was located. Her father, the team coordinator for the entire Complex Crime Unit, waited for the two of them.

  Along with the director of the entire PAVAD division Ed Dennis, and Josh’s direct supervisor, founder of the Complex Crimes Unit, Michael Hellbrook.

  Big guns, for sure. Somehow she suspected she so wasn’t going to like what was about to happen.

  “Dad?” It was easier to focus on her father. The other two men intimidated her, though she would never admit it. Guys in authority freaked her out and probably always would. “What’s going on?”

  “A consult in Tennessee. Sorry we had to call you out this late. But you’re the top of the list of available for forensics.” Her dad patted her shoulder and left his arm there.

  She didn’t pull away. Not like she would have even a few months earlier. It had taken her a while to be comfortable with her father’s habit of casually touching the people he cared about.

  Her father touched the ones he loved and it had taken her a while to figure out that it was his way of ensuring they were really there. That they weren’t going to just disappear on him somehow. And the connection was something her father had apparently needed.

  It took Kelly a while to get that. “What do you need?”

  It was Hellbrook who answered. “An old friend of mine has asked us for a favor. And you and Compton are the answer.”

  “What have we got?” Josh asked. He held out a hand, right next to where Kelly stood. Her father placed a file in his palm.

  “Skeletal remains found in the ???? area of Tennessee. At this point, we’re not sure it’s a PAVAD jurisdictional case. Or even if it’s a murder. That’s where you’re needed, Josh. Victimology can go either way,” Hellbrook said. “Dr. Reynolds, this crime scene may come down to forensics only. It’s rather degraded. That’s where you’ll come in. This will be a forty-eight hour assignment, at most. Get in, get out. Make the call whether a CCU team will come in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Josh? I’m sorry about what happened in Philadelphia. You shouldn’t have had to deal with that alone.”

  “I get it, Hell. I did my job.”

  Kelly listened as the men talked, wondering if Josh realized how much respect the older men had for him. She looked at him, next to his boss. Hellbrook was close to forty, but an extremely good looking man with auburn hair and blue eyes. He was the same height as Josh, but he was bulkier. Her father and Ed Dennis were not quite six feet tall but they were both physically fit men in their fifties.

  Josh was the youngest, just getting into his thirties. He was young, but she knew they all respected him. And she knew he’d earned it. He belonged with the CCU. She still felt like an imposter—especially with men like the ones surrounding her.

  All of them wore confidence like it had been sewn into their underwear.

  “You’ve got a drive ahead of you, so you’d best get going,” her dad said. “Take care of each other out there.”

  About Calle J. Brookes

  Calle J. Brookes is first and foremost a fiction writer. She enjoys crafting paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She reads almost every genre except horror. She spends most of her time juggling family life and writing, while reminding herself that she can’t spend all of her time in the worlds found within books. Calle J. loves to be contacted by her readers via email and at www.CalleJBrookes.com.