Jane M. Choate - High-Risk Investigation

They always did.

Not last night, she thought. The good guys, in the form of one very appealing man, had saved the day. Nicco Santonni. She tasted the words on her lips, found them intriguing and surprisingly sweet.

Enough. She had a job to do, one which didn’t include mooning over last night’s rescuer, no matter how ruggedly handsome he was.

Not even the memory of the good-looking man, however, could banish the aftereffects of the nightmare, including the sensation that she was choking. She swallowed harshly in an attempt to combat it.

It had been a month since she’d had the nightmare but it had returned last night. With a vengeance. Bitter bile rose in her throat. She willed it down.

Breathe.

In.

Out.

She repeated the breathing exercises, slowly inhaling and exhaling, until she could feel the terrifying panic subside. You’re okay. Her therapist’s voice slid into her mind.

I’m okay. She repeated the words until she started to believe them.

Scout turned to her side where she could gaze at the picture of her parents and herself on the day of her graduation from college. We were all so happy. Four years after the picture had been taken, her world had shattered into pieces and she was left alone.

The memory of the night her parents had been murdered a scant year ago pierced her heart, a lethally-tipped arrow that never failed to hit its mark. Someday, maybe, the pain would lessen, but it remained as poisonous as ever. She squeezed back tears of frustration and anger.

When was she going to be able to put the attack behind her, those toxic reminders that she wasn’t normal? They had burrowed under her skin and into her heart with a tenacity that wouldn’t be shaken. She’d dealt with them before. She’d do it again, but, oh, how she wished she didn’t have to.

Prayer was her first and best defense. Lord, I need Your help. I can’t do it on my own. I know that You and You alone have the power to heal me. I give myself into Your hands.

Within seconds, His love washed over her, and the panic slowly edged away. The Lord had not yet banished the nightmares, but He had given her the precious gift of peace when the memories threatened to overwhelm her.

Gratitude for His goodness filled her, replacing the pain with an acceptance that He worked on His timetable, not hers. Impatient by nature, she needed the occasional reminder of His eternal plan and His wisdom.

When the worst of the nausea was under control, she started to get up. Stopped. Big mistake.

She hurt all over. Being thrown to the floor by a drop-dead-gorgeous man may make for good fiction, but the reality was less fun than what romance novels made it out to be. Maybe the pain would take her mind off the nightmare and the memories it had engendered.

She took a minute, another, before trying to move again. Cautiously, she pushed herself into a sitting position, paused, lifted one leg over the side of the bed, then the other.

When the room stopped spinning, she stood. Assessed. So far, so good. Every fiber of her body ached, but at least she was moving. Sort of. She hobbled to the full-length mirror attached to the back of her bedroom door and surveyed herself.

Her second mistake of the morning.

Bruises bloomed along her shoulders and arms. Angry red now, they’d soon turn blue and purple, then a sickly green and finally a putrid yellow. It could have been worse. She could have a bullet lodged in her shoulder. Or her heart.

Thanks to the quick actions of Nicco Santonni, she was in one piece. More or less.

Her sense of humor got a toehold, nudging a smile out of hiding. Maybe she’d put in for medical leave. At least it would get her out of covering the month of events leading up to the huge ball where Patrice Newtown, the undisputed queen of Savannah society, would present the mayor with a check large enough to build a new shelter for the city’s homeless.

For reasons of her own, Newtown had requested that Scout be assigned to cover a bunch of boring social events. The order had come from the big man himself, Gerald Daniels, the paper’s publisher.

Scout was fighting her way onto the paper’s crime beat one column inch at a time, and, because of a whim of one of the city’s so-called benefactors, she was now relegated once more to the society page. She had as much interest in society doings as she did in learning how to peel an artichoke. Who cared which designer created the dress the mayor’s wife wore to the country club dance or what entrée was served with what wine?

Gingerly, she made her way to the shower, where the hot water temporarily soothed her aches and pains and allowed her to forget, for a few minutes at least, the reason for them. Though she normally skipped makeup, she applied a light dusting of blush and mascara and dabbed concealer beneath her eyes. A critical look at herself in the mirror confirmed what she already knew. She couldn’t erase the shadows under her eyes or the tiny tension lines that bracketed her mouth.

She braced her hands on the bathroom counter, then dropped her gaze to her splayed fingers, staring at them as though they held the secrets to all the world’s questions, but there were no answers there. Within a half hour, she was dressed and out the door, albeit at a slower pace than normal.

After graduating from college and starting at the paper, she promised herself she’d search for the truth. Finding that truth, wherever it lay, had been her compass for the last five years. That quest had taken on special significance with the murder of her parents a year ago. She’d vowed then to find the truth behind the murders and bring down those responsible.

At the office, she did a fast read of her emails, deleted most of them and prepared to write the piece on last night’s gala while the events were still fresh in her mind. Not the warm-fuzzy piece Newtown had probably expected, but, hey, publicity was publicity. Then she planned on tracking down Leonard Crane.

She tuned out the chatter of computers, the good-natured ribbing that went on between colleagues, and the constant grumbling about the swill that passed for coffee and concentrated on writing the piece. An hour later, she read it, decided it would do and pushed the Send key.

“McAdams, special delivery.” The office gofer handed her a large envelope with no return address. Cold brushed the back of her neck as she noted that it was identical to the other letters.

“Thanks.” Scout signed for it, slit open the envelope and looked at the message composed with words cut from a magazine and pasted on a sheet of cheap paper. Another threat. Okay. She’d dealt with threats ever since she’d earned her first byline in the paper’s city section.

This was no different.

She read the words aloud, testing them. “Mind your own business. Or we’ll mind it for you.” She pinched her lips together even as she shook her head, as though the slight movement would dispel the unwanted picture the letter etched in her mind.

Scout prided herself on her independence and self-reliance, but right now she wished she had someone to stand with her.

She’d thought she’d found that with her ex-fiancé, Bradley Middleton, but, after wooing her and even asking her to marry him, he’d left her. The experience had soured her on men for the moment. Maybe forever.

Forget Bradley and concentrate on the letter. Only, she didn’t want to think about the letters she’d received over the last month. She had never been one to stick her head in the sand, so why was she doing just that with the letters that were coming with increasing regularity? Nothing she’d done lately was like her, including wasting time thinking about Nicco Santonni.

Now that she wasn’t so shaken from nearly getting killed, she’d put it together. Nicco Santonni. Brother to Sal Santonni, her best friend Olivia’s husband.