Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Carol Ericson (short books to read TXT) 📖

the gun pouch and pulled out her weapon. “That’s why I sleep with this by my side every night.”

The gleam of the shiny metal piece in her hand matched the gleam in her eye, and something told him she’d rather sleep with that gun right now than any man—especially him.

KYRA SHOVED A box of tissues toward Desiree, who’d shared her story for the first time in the rape survivors support group. Kyra didn’t have to say much. The other women and one man in the group had crowded around Desiree at the end of the meeting cooing words of encouragement and petting her.

The petite redhead blossomed under the attention.

Kyra raised her voice above the chatter. “I think we were all so excited to hear Desiree speak, we forgot something.”

Tracy, the mother hen of the group, an upper-middle-class homemaker who’d been brutally assaulted and raped by the pool boy, flapped her arms. “Back in the circle, everyone.”

People returned to the front of their chairs and joined hands. Tracy started the recitation and they all joined in. “We are not victims. We are survivors. We are not our pain. We rise above it.”

Annika, the call girl who’d been beaten and raped by a john, raised her hands and said, “Amen, sistah.”

Kyra repeated the amen in her own head. “See you all next week.”

Kyra waited while everyone stacked their chairs in the corner. She and Candace held group sessions in the roomier outer office, locking the front door during those sessions. The groups ran themselves, and Kyra had never been more thankful for that than today with Jake’s voice mail burning a hole in her phone.

After the last client left the office, Kyra pulled her phone out of the pocket of her sweater. She hesitated before tapping Play for the voice mail. If he was coming at her with more questions, she didn’t want to listen. Last night she’d revealed way more than she’d ever intended.

She hit Play and Speaker, and held her breath as Jake’s low voice rumbled over her phone. “Hello, Kyra. It’s Jake. If you have time today, I’d like you to come with me to Melrose and meet Rachel. I’m heading over to do some follow-up on the video we watched yesterday. I just talked to Rachel, and she’s having a hard time with the fact that a killer stole her phone to call in a dead body. I think the shock hit her last night. Let me know.”

Kyra released her breath in a long stream. Work, not personal. And she could understand Rachel’s uneasiness.

She returned Jake’s call, and he answered from his car. “I wasn’t sure you were available, so I’m on my way out there now.”

“I was leading a group session. I’m heading out the door and can meet you at Rachel’s work. Can you give me the address?”

He rattled off the address on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, all business now, the pity and even the anger stripped from his voice.

In a sick way, her status as the daughter of one of The Player’s victims had given her bona fides in Jake’s eyes to belong to the task force. She could’ve revealed it before to take a seat at the table, but she’d never used her mother’s death to further her agenda and didn’t intend to start now.

For all the freeways in LA, there was no easy access to West Hollywood from Santa Monica, and she sat in her car on Santa Monica Boulevard anxiously tapping her steering wheel in time to the music on the radio.

Forty-five minutes later, she rolled onto Melrose. Even on weekdays, the crowds surged onto this street, tourists and locals shopping, eating, gawking.

Hunting? Did this area have significance for the killer? Her gaze darted around the street, looking for a parking place—or a killer.

She spotted the store where Rachel worked and, a block down, zeroed in on a car pulling away from the curb across the street. She managed an illegal U-turn in the middle of the street and tucked into the space, careful not to bump the fenders of the high-end cars on either side.

She slid from the car and tugged her skirt down to her knees. She swiped her debit card into the parking meter and added time. The Santa Ana winds had dissipated, and with them the wildfire threat and the dry, suffocating heat, but the sun still beat down on the pavement, sending shimmering waves into the air that seemed to pulse with the traffic.

She strode to the corner to catch the signal because even if the LA County Sheriff’s Department hadn’t caught her making that U-turn, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t come down on her for jaywalking.

She joined the hustle and bustle of people as the signal changed and the little green man flashed. When she reached the other side, she noticed Jake’s unmarked sedan parked in the red. Didn’t the guy ever pay for parking?

She charged toward the store with the blue-and-gold awning and stepped inside. The man at the counter, helping another customer, sang out, “Be right with you.”

No sign of Jake, but the low murmurs from the back of the store, behind the shivering beaded curtain, gave him away. She waved to get the clerk’s attention, but when he didn’t look her way she crept toward the rear and parted the strands of beads with two fingers.

Jake glanced up, a look of relief spreading across his face, as he sat across from a sobbing young woman with tats marching up one arm. Being a cop, he’d surely dealt with upset and traumatized people—it didn’t mean he had to like it. The situation with Rachel probably confused him even more, as she’d been a rational human being yesterday. That was yesterday.

“Kyra’s here.” He gave up his seat and hovered by the chair that looked like it belonged in a dentist’s office...or a torture chamber. “I told you she was coming. You can tell her everything you told me...and more.”

Kyra took Rachel’s trembling hand