Drained (Edgars Family #6) - Suzanne Ferrell Page 0,11

asked.

“Someone to come stay with Paula, so she won’t leave before she’s better.” When she started to ask another question the person on the other end answered. “Hey, Kirk F. Patrick. I need your help.”

5

“You called Kirk F? I didn’t know you knew him,” Brianna said when Aaron pocketed his phone once more.

She’d met the young man three years ago, just after she’d been rescued by her friend Abby, her family the Edgars, and Aaron. Sure, there was a couple dozen State Highway Patrol and FBI people involved too, but to Brianna, the ones who came after her were personal. The first day she was home from the hospital, her doorbell rang.

“Who’s there?” she asked, coming to the door of her new condo. Abby’s boyfriend, Luke, had seen to it that not only did she have a new place to live, but her entire home’s security had been updated. She could see from a flat screen near the door that a tall, lanky teen with shoulder-length dreadlocks stood on her doorstep with an envelope and a flat square box in his hands.

“Castello sent me, ma’am,” the boy said.

Castello—the Deputy U.S. Marshall who was friends with Abby and the Edgars—one of her rescuers. The code word that this kid could be trusted. Letting out the breath she’d been holding, she punched in the security code, temporarily suspending the alarms, and stepped back to more than an arm’s length away. The kid might be trusted by others, but she still didn’t know him from Adam.

“I’m Kirk Patrick,” he said, stepping inside, sized her up from head to toe—more an assessment of her casted arm and her bandaged left eye from the first of her surgical repairs—then glancing around. “Nice place.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kirkpatrick,” she waited for him to clear the doorway, then she locked it and reset the security code.

“It’s Kirk F. Patrick,” he said with a bit of a grin. “Everyone gets it wrong. Castello calls me Kirk F. You can, too.”

“Okay, Kirk F. Why did Marshal Castello send you?”

“He didn’t tell you I was coming? No, of course he didn’t. That man just issues orders and expects everyone to be able to read his mind. You got somewhere I can set this down?”

She led him into the kitchen area and he slid the box onto the island’s granite countertop. Then he thrust the envelope to her. “This is from Castello.” Then he opened the box to find a cherry pie. “And that’s from my Nana. She says homemade pie is good for healing the soul.”

“That’s very kind of her,” she said, fighting back the tears that someone she’d never met before cared enough to send her something they’d made from scratch.

“Yeah, Nana’s like that,” Kirk F said as he pulled out his phone and punched a number. “Castello, you was supposed to tell Ms. Matthews I was coming.”

He paused, listening to the Marshal, but rolling his eyes and making a face. “You just lucky she didn’t shoot me.”

While he talked, she opened the envelope to find a letter and a file. The letter explained that Castello had hired Kirk F to be her personal escort and driver. He was to help her with heavy lifting while she healed from her wounds and her surgeries. He would also be sleeping in her spare room until the court case against the sex traffickers were completely finished. Kirk F was unarmed and was not a bodyguard, the Marshal’s service would be providing that. However, he would report to Frank any possible suspicious characters he thought might be a threat to her. He would also run errands for her as she needed. Then Castello said, “The kid’s yours until you don’t fear being alone.”

“Castello said the letter explained it all,” he said, pocketing his phone.

“Yes, you’re like my walking security blanket.”

“Yep, except on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.”

She slipped the letter inside the envelope and laid the file on the counter. It was the itinerary for her deposition and the names of the Marshals who were coming to guard her and their rotation schedule. “What happens on Sundays and Wednesdays?”

He shrugged. “I take Nana to church on Sundays and bingo on Wednesdays.”

From that moment on, she trusted the young man. He might try to look like a tough street-smart kid with his black hoodie and baggy clothes, but he worked for Castello, cared for his grandmother and as she learned, had plans to go to college to study criminology. He stayed with her for