Kilty Secrets Read online

  Kilty Secrets

  Kilty Romantic Suspense: Book Five

  Amy Vansant

  ©2019 by Amy Vansant. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by any means, without the permission of the author. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Vansant Creations, LLC / Amy Vansant

  Annapolis, MD

  http://www.AmyVansant.com

  Copy editing by Carolyn Steele.

  Proofreading by Effrosyni Moschoudi & Connie Leap

  CONTENTS

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Other Books by Amy Vansant

  Chapter One

  The message alert popped up at the bottom right corner of Balin’s computer screen.

  You’ve got a weird old-time name, Balin. Maybe you weren’t born in this century?

  Balin scowled and responded with two capital letters.

  FU.

  His laptop dinged again.

  I saw you were posting about changing the world. Survival of the fittest. Have you been going through a change?

  Balin raised his fingers to type the weirdo a scathing retort and then paused. The person sending the messages had to have been cruising some very particular chat boards to be aware of his survival of the fittest posts.

  Who is this? he typed instead.

  The answer came back immediately, a message too long for someone to have typed it so quickly. Balin imagined the stranger had copy-pasted it, which meant he was being trolled by someone who used the same lines on people again and again, working off some twisted script. Maybe it was even a bot.

  Ugh.

  He was about to block the pest when another possibility occurred to him.

  Maybe this person posts the same thing again and again because there are more people like me. Maybe this person is contacting all of us.

  Could it be?

  Balin glanced around the coffee shop to make sure no one was watching his reactions and then peered down at the message.

  I can tell by your language you’ve been around, if you know what I mean. Different times. I have too. I’ve got a new mission. I’m gathering our people to share this mission. The old times are over. It’s time for us to make the world right. Make it stronger. The weak will perish.

  Balin stared at the words, his fingers hovering over the keys.

  This was no bot.

  There are more of us? he asked.

  Many. I’m gathering an army. Will you join?

  Balin scanned the room again. A girl sitting at a table across the room stared at him from over her phone. She looked away as their gazes met.

  She was holding her phone at an odd angle.

  Is she taking a picture of me?

  Balin leapt from his seat and ran to the girl to snatch the phone from her hands. She screamed, covering her face with her forearms, as if expecting him to strike her.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  Balin glanced at her phone screen. The girl had been chatting, but not with him. Something about slippers being on sale. A text from ‘mom.’

  She wasn’t his mysterious stranger.

  Feeling eyes, he scanned the room. A pair of girls and two baristas stood gaping at him like landed fish, frozen in their spots.

  He tossed the girl’s phone on the booth seat next to her, where it bounced once before settling on the edge. She whimpered and pushed herself against the back of the booth, wincing.

  Balin took a moment to make eye contact with everyone in the shop.

  “You’re all gonna die.”

  One of the baristas was on her phone now. She’d shrunk down behind the counter trying to hide her call.

  “You have no idea what’s coming,” he added.

  He felt giddy.

  Striding back to his seat, Balin typed without sitting down.

  Where?

  The answer appeared.

  Los Angeles. Join us. We have a plan.

  Balin smiled.

  I’ll be there.

  He snapped the laptop shut and skittered out of the store as sirens blared in the distance.

  Chapter Two

  Two years earlier, Los Angeles

  “Hold it, Petrossian, this the place?” Officer Soto shoved the last of his hot dog in his mouth and brushed his hands together to rid himself of crumbs.

  His partner scowled. “Yes. Do you have to be such a pig?”

  “I’m hungry.” Soto peered through the window of their cruiser at the large, square warehouse building beside them. “You sure this is it? Doesn’t look like much is going on.”

  Petrossian shrugged and shifted the car into park. “That’s what the map says. I don’t argue with technology.”

  Soto hopped out of the vehicle, pretending to adjust his gun belt as he tugged at his underwear. He’d run out of clean boxer-briefs and had resorted to wearing the Christmas boxers he’d found stuffed in the back of his drawer. The boxers’ bunched leg had a death grip on his thigh. He made a mental note to do laundry when he got home.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked.

  Petrossian shut his door and walked around the car to watch his partner pull at his underwear. “It looks like your underwear is riding up on you.”

  Soto thrust a thumb toward the building. “I mean what’s the problem here.”

  “Oh. Possible 207.”

  Soto gave his boxers one last jerk before deciding the blood had returned to his right leg. “Okay. I guess, let’s knock and see—”

  Before they could take a step toward the entrance, the only door on the side of the metal building burst open, slamming against the outer wall and bouncing back into the face of a woman stumbling into the setting sun’s rosy light. She raised both arms, one to block the door’s ricochet and one to block the glare. Stumbling toward them, her voice cracked.

  “Help me.”

  For a moment, Petrossian and Soto didn’t move, both of them stunned by the girl’s startling appearance. She wore a billowing white sleeveless shift, stained with what looked like fresh blood. The left shoulder strap of the tank dress had torn and flapped down, exposing her breast. Lacerations covered her chest and arms. Her blonde hair stuck matted to her forehead, stained by the same rusty crimson smears soiling her gown.

  She staggered toward them, arms outstretched like the living dead.

  “Holy shit,” mumbled Soto.

  Petrossian snapped from his daze and leapt forward to catch the girl as she collapsed into his arms.

  “Call an ambulance. Call backup.”

  Soto fumbled with his shoulder mic and called in the requests.
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  “In there.” The girl pointed at the building, her whole body shaking.

  “Who? Who’s in there? Is there someone else in there? Someone with you?”

  She shook her head, her skull lolling on her neck as if the ability to keep her head upright had escaped her.

  “Him.”

  “Miss, help is on the way. What’s your name? Can you tell me your name?”

  “Cleo. Cleo Frye.”

  “She’s that girl,” said Soto, pointing at her. “The one who went missing.”

  Petrossian nodded and used his thumbs to raise the girl’s drooping right eyelid.

  “She’s drugged.”

  “High?”

  “Drugged.”

  “I’m going in to look for more girls.” Soto sprinted toward the door, gun drawn.

  “Wait for backup!”

  Soto pretended not to hear Petrossian’s command. If there were more girls inside he wanted to be the first to find them. If this new girl had been kidnapped by the same guy who killed the others, he wasn’t sure how much time anyone inside had.

  I’m going to catch this bastard.

  Cleo was the latest in a string of pretty young women to go missing over the previous year. They’d found the one before Cleo in an alley, dead, ten pounds lighter than when she’d disappeared—and that didn’t include the weight of her severed fingers, nine of which they found in a bag tied around her neck. As with the girls before her, the pinky from her left hand was never recovered. The press had nicknamed him ‘Pinky’. Although this was one of his lesser sins, it was at least, consistent.

  Soto pulled open the door and peered inside, temporarily sun-blind. He heard Petrossian call again.

  He took a deep breath and stepped into the darkness.

  This stops now. On my watch.

  He paused, listening, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the single bare bulb glowing in the otherwise inky space above him.

  The only sound he could hear was the cavernous space of the warehouse. The very silence of the chamber seemed to hiss in his ears. Though he could feel the emptiness above him, walls flanked his left and right. He shuffled forward, gun held in front of him. A makeshift hallway of black-painted plywood led him toward a dark red curtain.

  Soto groaned.

  I don’t like this.

  In situations like these, nothing good ever waited behind a curtain.

  Heart racing, he slid the heavy fabric aside. More low-watt bulbs hung overhead in this new space, and he could see the hallway continuing forward. If only he could see more—

  Flashlight. Duh.

  Soto jerked his flashlight from his belt and held it beside his gun, pointing the way his bullet would fly should he spot the sick bastard who cut up those girls.

  He crept forward, a step at a time, shining his light along the walls. He didn’t like the feeling of being in a chute. He felt like a beef cow plodding to its death.

  The air sounded different. Closer.

  Shit. Up top.

  He shone the beam skyward and found a black plywood ceiling a foot above his head. A few steps later, the ceiling opened up again. The warehouse’s roof stood much higher than the occasional plywood planks above him, straddling the walls.

  Soto ran his flashlight along the next section of ceiling.

  Anything could be going on up there.

  The planks could be platforms for someone to stand. Checking corners and behind doors wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to watch for attacks from above.

  The flashlight’s beam bounced off something shiny on the wall and Soto felt his finger flex on the trigger of his gun.

  Jumpy.

  A tangle of razor wire ran along the walls, constricting the path further, the network of silver mesh making it difficult to focus.

  How had the girl escaped this hell hole?

  The cuts.

  That was why her dress and skin were torn. She must have run through the razor-wire-lined hall. The idea of it made his mouth dry.

  Maybe I should have waited for backup. I should go back.

  Soto heard a scraping noise and cocked his head to listen for the source.

  Snap!

  The popping sound flooded his veins with dread. Pain seared through the back of his ankle. As his leg collapsed beneath him, he spun on his good heel, roaring, frantic to find the cause of his agony.

  Eyes.

  His flashlight illuminated the face of an older man, staring up at him from the floor. The upper half of the man’s torso protruded from the wall, in a spot the razor wire didn’t cover.

  There hadn’t been a hole in the wall a minute before. Soto was sure of it. It was as if the man had opened a tiny door and slid himself through like a snake.

  Light glinted off the large kitchen knife in the man’s hand and Soto realized the awful truth.

  He sliced my Achilles.

  The man’s eyes widened as Soto’s gun trained on him. Wispy, wild gray hair undulating like seaweed under the shaking glow of the flashlight, Soto’s attacker made a strange grunting sound.

  Soto’s brain processed the man’s problem before his ass even hit the ground as he waved the knife.

  He’s stuck. The bastard slid out to cut me, and he can’t get back in.

  Soto’s finger flexed.

  I got you, you son of a—

  Soto fired as he fell. He landed hard on the ground and a second shot rang out, this one high off the mark.

  Fumbling to find his flashlight, Soto pointed it at the man.

  The first bullet had struck the man in the chest. His eyes were wide and unmoving, the knife still in his hand.

  With his good foot, Soto kicked at the knife. It remained in the man’s hand, and he could see now it was taped there.

  He turned himself into a killing machine.

  Soto’s breath came in short staccato bursts. Even with his foe apparently dead, he could feel panic growing in his chest.

  I have to get out of here.

  Soto tried to hop back down the hall, but each bounce forced a cry of pain from his lips. He gritted through it as far as he could and then collapsed to his belly, crawling like an animal toward the door.

  He pushed open the door and wormed his way into the light, every inch of progress darkened by the prospect of someone grabbing his feet from behind.

  Flashing lights hurt Soto’s eyes as he crawled out. A blonde, ponytailed EMT hovered over the girl in the white dress. Another tech exiting the ambulance spotted Soto and strode in his direction.

  “I got a cop!”

  Time seemed to slow.

  Petrossian stood from his crouched position at the head of the girl, his expression awash with concern, his gaze locked on Soto.

  Soto heard the blonde EMT’s voice before his brain processed the words.

  “There’s something strapped to her leg—”

  Soto watched as Petrossian looked down at the kidnapped girl. His partner’s eyes popped wide and he thrust out a hand, as if to grab the EMT. As if to stop her.

  “Don’t touch—”

  Sensing something was wrong, the second EMT stopped his progress toward Soto and turned.

  Soto covered his head as the world exploded with sound and light.

  Chapter Three

  Present Day

  Catriona opened her eyes and for one sweet second, the day was like any other.

  Then she moved.

  Pain, some sharp, some dull, rippled through her body.

  “Oh no.”

  The words grunted from behind what felt like a football superglued to her face. She raised a hand, discomfort radiating from somewhere in her triceps, and traced the right side of her mouth with a fingertip.

  Swollen.

  She closed her eyes hoping to slip back to sleep for a week or two, but the darkness brought with it the image of the women who hadn’t lived to suffer the aches of their battle wounds. The women lying discarded in the belly of Volkov’s lair. The women she nearly joined. She�
�d escaped. If it hadn’t been for Kilty—

  Catriona’s eyes opened again.

  Nope. No more sleeping.

  Sleep had been sweet, but now the demons in her head were awake. It would take a little time to push them into a closet, lock it and forget them.

  Need to get up.

  She swung a leg over the bed and nearly stepped on what she thought was a pile of clothes. As her eyes adjusted to the morning light filtering through her window, she realized half the pile was flesh-colored and all of it was lightly snoring.

  Speak of the devil.

  Kilty.

  Brochan had apparently spent the night sleeping on the floor beside her bed like a protective dog, one arm tucked under a crushed pillow, the other splayed above his head, his great back muscles spanning farther than she dared try to step.

  Catriona allowed her gaze to run down his spine to the pinch of his waist and his tight, muscular butt wrapped in the plaid boxers she’d bought for him in the hopes they would be enough to satisfy him on his tartan days—the days he insisted on wearing his kilt. That woolen thing was so old and worn she suspected it roamed the halls at night, sentient from the mingling of bacteria it had collected over the years. She’d hoped the nice, new boxers could help him with his homesickness for ancient Scotland and keep her from having to suffer the stares of strangers as she moved around the city with a kilt-wearing giant.

  It’s nae a skirt.

  She could hear his voice in her head and smiled before wincing at the pain in her lip.

  Okay, so smiling hurts. Duly noted.

  Broch’s tush seemed like the best place to cross the moat of a man, and she stepped over him to tiptoe out of the room, every step triggering a dull throb.

  Aspirin. That would be a good place to start.

  She made her way to the kitchen to find the bottle of pain relievers in the cupboard and shook three into her palm. She knew two was the recommended dosage, but if ever there was a three-aspirin day, it was today.

  Catriona eased a bottle of water from her refrigerator and gingerly leaned her backside against the counter as she swallowed the pills. She closed her eyes and took as deep a breath as her aching ribs would allow.

  “Wow. You look like you were hit by a train.”