Deadly Coincidence (Brantley Walker Off the Books #4) - Nicole Edwards Page 0,55
cheeks did little to comfort him.
“I left the diner, came here,” she said in a barely there whisper. “When I got here, Dante was here.”
“He was here? In the house?”
“No. Outside.” JJ shook her head, her voice growing stronger the more she spoke. “I was on the porch about to come in when he came from the side of the house. He told me we had to hurry and get inside.” She took a deep breath, her gaze swinging to the living room then back to him. “He was paranoid. When he came in, he went through all the rooms like he thought someone was here. I made him sit down while I went to make coffee.”
Baz wanted to touch her, wanted to take her in his arms and console her, but he didn’t. Not yet. She was holding it together by a thread, and he didn’t want to fray it any more than it already was.
JJ reached up, felt the back of her head. “I remember a sharp pain. Someone must’ve hit me on the back of the head. It knocked me out.”
“Did Dante do this?” he asked, feeling rage begin to boil deep within him.
“I… I honestly don’t know.” Her gaze swung to the living room. “He wouldn’t.” When she peered back at him, her eyes were wide. “Would he?”
Since the question was rhetorical—Baz didn’t know Dante—he moved forward with his questioning. “What did he say to you?”
She took a deep breath, looked away. “That’s the thing. He didn’t tell me anything. He was only here for a few minutes. Five, maybe, before someone knocked me out.”
“Then what, JJ?”
“Then I woke up. At eight thirty.” She motioned toward her bedroom. “I was in my own bed. Covered in blood.”
Ignoring that last part, Baz tried to do the math on the timing. “You came here right from the diner?”
“Yes.”
Roughly eight thirty last night. It would’ve only taken her a few minutes to arrive, another few to get Dante into the house, to start coffee. If someone knocked her out, she should’ve come to sometime during the night, not eleven hours later.
If he had to guess, someone had drugged her after they knocked her out. And he didn’t want to think about what they might’ve done to her while she was unconscious.
“How do you feel? Do you think you were drugged?”
She shrugged. “Besides the headache, physically, I feel okay.” Her gaze swung to her bedroom. “It’s a bloodbath in there,” she whispered. “None of the blood’s mine. Not that I can tell, anyway.”
Baz stood tall once more, dared a look in her bedroom. She was right, there was blood everywhere. So much, if it all belonged to one person, he seriously doubted they were still alive.
He scanned the space and was about to return to her when something caught his eye. There was a glint of light off something metal on the bed, and that’s when he noticed the knife there. Not just any knife, either. It was the one from the butcher block in her kitchen, and if he was right, based on the blood on the blade, it was the one someone had used to hack off that finger.
He felt his stomach twist in a knot.
“I didn’t do this, Baz. I swear it.”
Turning back to her, Baz schooled his expression. He had no idea what had happened here last night, but the one thing he knew with absolute certainty: JJ was telling the truth. She hadn’t cut off someone’s finger and played in their blood.
“What do I do?” JJ asked, her green eyes pleading as she stared up at him.
“The first thing we do is call Brantley,” he told her as he squatted down once more.
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes, darlin’. Of course I do. Now we have to figure out who did this. And what message it is they’re trying to send.”
But they were going to need help in doing that.
Chapter Thirteen
“I’m makin’ pancakes,” Reese announced. “Like you requested last night. Unless you want somethin’ else.”
Brantley forced his eyes open, groaned when he realized he’d been dragged out of one hell of a dream. In it, he was having his wicked way with the man who, rather than hovering on the edge of a fantastic orgasm, had been … cooking him breakfast? Seriously?
Figured.
“Up and at ’em,” Reese commanded. “Breakfast’ll be ready in five.”
“Son of a bitch.”
So not the way he’d wanted to kick off the first day of the new year.