Deadly Coincidence (Brantley Walker Off the Books #4) - Nicole Edwards Page 0,53
behind her, attempting to find one of the many extra pillows she kept on her bed so she could cover her head. There were half a dozen, she just needed—
It wasn’t a pillow she felt.
Whatever it was was wet.
“Eww. What the hell did I do? Throw up in the bed?” she whispered roughly, thoroughly exasperated with herself.
Because she refused to lie in vomit no matter how bad her head hurt, JJ forced herself to sit up, let the dizziness fade while she breathed through the pain.
“A little better,” she finally said, covering her nose to avoid inhaling the stench.
With every jarring movement, her head hurt worse, so she took a minute. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she swiped a hand over her hair only to find a lump. A painful one.
“What the fuck?”
Then, as though that knot was the button to release her memories, it all came back to her.
Coming home.
Dante. Paranoid.
Making coffee.
Pain.
“Oh, shit.”
JJ was on her feet, but that lasted all of a second when she turned around to find—
She barely managed to stifle the scream as she covered her mouth again and stared in absolute horror at the scene in her bedroom.
Blood everywhere.
Soaking her bed, her pillows. There were bloody handprints and streaks down her walls. It looked like a room right out of a horror flick, one where the serial killer just finished hacking up his twentieth victim.
Slowly she peered down at herself, cringed when she saw she was also doused in blood. It decorated her sweatshirt, her jeans, but oddly enough, it wasn’t on her hands or arms. What had she done? Wash up before she went to bed?
To make sure it wasn’t her blood, she dared to pat her stomach, chest, legs, feeling for some sort of pain that might alert her to an injury.
Nope. Not her blood.
Did that make it better or worse?
The overwhelming coppery stench permeated her nose, made her stomach churn.
She could not be sick. Nope. No way. It would only make things worse. This was a crime scene. It had to be, right? Based on the amount of blood, someone was in need of a hospital. Or maybe a morgue.
Her breaths came in harshly, escaping on broken sobs as she stumbled to get out of the horror show. She made it to the doorway, paused to look at the dried blood that had dripped down the jamb. What the hell had happened?
On to the bathroom door in the hall, but she didn’t stop. She used the wall to keep her upright, her knees threatening to give out as she moved toward the living room.
JJ made it two more steps…
This time the scream escaped, barreling up her throat and piercing the air.
*
After the Uber dropped him at Brantley’s, Baz opted to go into HQ for a minute. Not only did he have to take a piss, he figured some coffee would go a long way to clearing the fog from his brain, allowing him to be a bit more coherent when he got behind the wheel of his truck.
That and he was stalling, he figured. What was there to do at his apartment besides sleep the rest of the day away? That or plant his ass on his couch in front of the television and drown in his own self-loathing. Either way, it was a pretty pathetic way to start the new year.
Then again, a one-night stand with a woman he knew he didn’t have a single thing in common with was pretty pitiful, too.
As was waking up on some stranger’s purple-flowered couch.
Looked like he was still on a roll.
Baz had just made it into the small kitchenette to start the coffee brewing when his cell phone rang.
His heart both leapt and fell when he saw JJ’s name on the screen.
Without hesitation, he tapped the screen to take the call.
“Hey,” he greeted, aiming for chipper despite the overwhelming guilt that swamped him.
“Baz.” She was sobbing, her voice bordering on hysterical. “Oh, my God, Baz.”
Every cell in his body went ice cold at the fear he heard in her voice.
“JJ? What’s wrong?”
He could hardly understand her when she said, “Please. I need… Oh, God, Baz. It’s… I don’t know what happened. I… God … I don’t know what to do. I need you.”
“Don’t know what to do about what?” he asked, although he wasn’t waiting for an answer, already out the door of the barn and making a beeline for his truck. “Are you at home?”