TWELVE
Micah ran through the dark house as if he’d done this a million times. Past the kitchen to the stairs, up to the second floor to the master suite on the right where he found the double doors ajar. His heart hammered hard in his chest as he approached the room, all lights were off. There was no sound to be heard.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught one of the security cameras as it swiveled to follow him down the hallway. He nodded to Kit and the camera nodded back…well, it went up and down…so Micah knew he wasn’t alone up here.
He pushed open Rochfort’s door without knocking and reached for his sidepiece. “Shit.” He really needed to remember he didn’t carry anymore.
The room was in shadow. Much like Kit, Rochfort slept with his television on. But unlike Kit, the sound was muted. Micah went through the outer sitting area following the light from the TV and stopped cold.
The bed was in a secluded corner of the room, the drapes on the rails pulled back. The butler sat perfectly still in the middle of the bed. His mouth covered in silver tape. His hands were spread out to each side of the headboard and taped securely to the wood. A trickle of blood flowed down his face. He didn’t move. He didn’t open his eyes. He sat there, like a doll waiting for a kid to come back to play with it.
“Fuck.” Micah found the light switch and raced to the bed. “Don’t let him be dead. Don’t let him be dead.” He could smell the coppery scent of blood as soon as he neared the bed. It wasn’t a strong odor which relieved Micah. Not much blood meant not much dead. He hoped.
Rochfort had a pulse, and he breathed. “Okay, unconscious. I can deal with unconscious. Kit won’t lose his damned butler…fuck. Kit.” He left Rochfort exactly as he found him and ran back into the hallway to stand in front of the camera. He waved at it and the lens went up and down indicating Kit had seen him. He signed Ambulance. Unconscious. Hurry. And took off back into the room to cut Rochfort down. He wasn’t leaving him like that while they waited for the police and emergency vehicles to show up. Now way in hell.
Arms free of the duct tape bonds, Rochfort slumped forward onto Micah’s shoulder. He was breathing. There was blood matting the back of his head where he’d been struck. Micah eased him into a lying position. His eyes fluttered open.
“It’s okay. Don’t talk if you can’t. Ambulance is on the way. Are you hurt anywhere else?” Micah asked and the butler shook his head. He wasn’t really with Micah, but at least he was responding which was a good thing.
“Kit?” He reached out and snagged Micah’s shirt with shaking fingers. His voice wasn’t much stronger than a whisper at this point.
“Kit is fine. I hear the dogs and—” The bell at the front door rang. “I need to go let the cops in, Sam. Kit is fine. I promise.”
Sam nodded and rested on the pillow. Fuck, he hoped that was the damned paramedics even though he knew they couldn’t have possibly gotten here that fast. “Check on Kit.”
“I will.” He promised and raced down the stairs hoping like hell he didn’t break his fucking neck in the dark. Lights came on as the thought crossed his mind. The front door buzzed right before Micah got to the locks and the front gate guard was waiting outside. One of the German Shepherds sitting obediently by his side. “What the fuck took you so long?”
*
Kit watched everything from his monitors. He took a moment to return to his room to put on a pair of pants and pull his hair back. Five minutes after he returned blue and red lights came into view on the outside monitors. He hit the intercom for the entry way. “Paramedics are here. Is Sam okay?”
Micah looked all around but couldn’t find the speaker box. “I can hear you.” Kit informed his bodyguard.
“Why didn’t you say so upstairs?” Micah sounded exasperated.
“Because there’s no intercom in the hallway.” He wanted to add a ‘duh’ to that but didn’t. How was Micah supposed to know that little detail if he’d never been given a complete tour of the house. “About Sam.”
“Head injury. He’s okay. Probably concussed. Probably going into shock while we stand around chatting.” Micah growled at him and the security guard who was standing there looking as if he didn’t know his head from a hole in the ground.
The medics came in first and Micah led them up the stairs to his grandfather’s former rooms. It seemed only right for Sam to have the rooms seeing as how Kit would never occupy them. The police followed and were questioning the security guard who spent a couple of minutes answering that he had no idea how anyone had gotten onto the property.
What the hell was he paying his security team for if they had no fucking clue?
Kit waited for Micah to come back downstairs to speak. “I have security footage. A male in black clothing and a black ski mask came in the first floor library window. He didn’t take anything. He went straight up stairs. The panic alarm in Sam’s room was triggered. I have him leaving through the same window roughly three minutes after the alarm was triggered. But he stopped to point at each camera along the way. As if he knew exactly where everything in the house was. In the dark.”
“Who is that?” One of the police shouted, and Micah and the security detail took over from there.
Kit pulled up his chair and sat looking at the back of the plywood covering the one non-bulletproof window. He felt exposed but he’d be damned if he was going to let this shit get to him. A buzz came through on the intercom and Kit tuned back in.
“Kit, the police want to come back to speak with you. Is that going to be okay?” It was Micah, he sounded strange. Kit rolled over and flipped up the screen again to catch Micah looking directly at one of the cameras. He focused on Micah’s face and felt his heart give a thump. Maybe he should get the medics to come back to make sure he wasn’t having a heart attack after everything that had happened.
“Is Sam okay?” He didn’t answer that question yet. He wanted to make sure his only damned family wasn’t lying up there dead.
“They’re wheeling him down now.” Micah pointed up the stairs. Kit switched screens and watched as they brought Sam downstairs. Sam’s eyes were open, he was moving and he seemed to be arguing with the medics. “And he’s bitching at them about not going.”
Kit sagged in relief. “I’ll call Gibbs and let her know he’s on his way. She’ll sit on him if that’s what it takes to make sure he cooperates.” Kit felt the sting of tears behind his eyes and stopped typing. It wasn’t like they could hear anything.
Kit felt…funny. In a completely not funny way.
“That sounds like a great plan, Kit. Tell him that.” Micah stopped the medics before they wheeled the older man out the door.
“Hey, Sam, tell me the truth. You okay?” He didn’t know what to ask. Or how to say it. He knew they couldn’t hear any emotion in the electronic voice but he tried.
“It’s a scratch. I’m fine, Kit. I need to stay here.” Micah was standing behind the stretcher shaking his head. And Kit knew he was telling him it was more than a simple scratch. His hands came up and the signs were—incorrect but—concussion, shock, possible fracture. He pointed to the back of his head. Fuck, Sam had been hit in the head.
“Well, I have Gibbs on the way to the ER. She’ll be there when you get there. And Spencer will bring you home as soon as the doctors let you go. Same thing you did with Beastly, remember, he was bitching really loudly just the other day.”
“I’ll ride in with him if that helps,” Micah offered. The thumpa, thumpa in Kit’s chest took off at a rapid pace and became something that made him gasp for breath.
“Absolutely not, Mr. Beasley, I forbid it. You are here for Master Kit and no one else. You will stay here. With him. Locked in the same room together. Whatever it takes. You will keep him safe.” Rochfort tried to sit up but the straps on the stretcher held him down.
Kit smiled at the way Micah winked up at the camera. He was such a manipulator. Almost as good as Rochfort. Kit’s heartrate settled back to normal, but he did notice that it went one last thumpa when Rochfort almost ordered them to sleep together.
“It’s all settled then.” Kit had his cameras following the uniformed officers around his house. He still didn’t have any clue as to why the perimeter alarms hadn’t triggered. Or where the other dogs were. “Sam goes to get his hard head scanned and Beastly stays with me. Gibbs is on her way. Spencer is on call. We’re all good here. Behave, Sam…And come back in one piece.”
Sam reached out for Micah’s hand and the two of them exchanged words that Kit couldn’t hear. The cops were getting impatient. And Kit was about to fall the fuck apart. But what was new about that?