Kilty Secrets
Kilty Romantic Suspense: Book Five
Amy Vansant
©2019 by Amy Vansant. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by any means, without the permission of the author. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Vansant Creations, LLC / Amy Vansant
Annapolis, MD
http://www.AmyVansant.com
Copy editing by Carolyn Steele.
Proofreading by Effrosyni Moschoudi & Connie Leap
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Other Books by Amy Vansant
Chapter One
The message alert popped up at the bottom right corner of Balin’s computer screen.
You’ve got a weird old-time name, Balin. Maybe you weren’t born in this century?
Balin scowled and responded with two capital letters.
FU.
His laptop dinged again.
I saw you were posting about changing the world. Survival of the fittest. Have you been going through a change?
Balin raised his fingers to type the weirdo a scathing retort and then paused. The person sending the messages had to have been cruising some very particular chat boards to be aware of his survival of the fittest posts.
Who is this? he typed instead.
The answer came back immediately, a message too long for someone to have typed it so quickly. Balin imagined the stranger had copy-pasted it, which meant he was being trolled by someone who used the same lines on people again and again, working off some twisted script. Maybe it was even a bot.
Ugh.
He was about to block the pest when another possibility occurred to him.
Maybe this person posts the same thing again and again because there are more people like me. Maybe this person is contacting all of us.
Could it be?
Balin glanced around the coffee shop to make sure no one was watching his reactions and then peered down at the message.
I can tell by your language you’ve been around, if you know what I mean. Different times. I have too. I’ve got a new mission. I’m gathering our people to share this mission. The old times are over. It’s time for us to make the world right. Make it stronger. The weak will perish.
Balin stared at the words, his fingers hovering over the keys.
This was no bot.
There are more of us? he asked.
Many. I’m gathering an army. Will you join?
Balin scanned the room again. A girl sitting at a table across the room stared at him from over her phone. She looked away as their gazes met.
She was holding her phone at an odd angle.
Is she taking a picture of me?
Balin leapt from his seat and ran to the girl to snatch the phone from her hands. She screamed, covering her face with her forearms, as if expecting him to strike her.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Balin glanced at her phone screen. The girl had been chatting, but not with him. Something about slippers being on sale. A text from ‘mom.’
She wasn’t his mysterious stranger.
Feeling eyes, he scanned the room. A pair of girls and two baristas stood gaping at him like landed fish, frozen in their spots.
He tossed the girl’s phone on the booth seat next to her, where it bounced once before settling on the edge. She whimpered and pushed herself against the back of the booth, wincing.
Balin took a moment to make eye contact with everyone in the shop.
“You’re all gonna die.”
One of the baristas was on her phone now. She’d shrunk down behind the counter trying to hide her call.
“You have no idea what’s coming,” he added.
He felt giddy.
Striding back to his seat, Balin typed without sitting down.
Where?
The answer appeared.
Los Angeles. Join us. We have a plan.
Balin smiled.
I’ll be there.
He snapped the laptop shut and skittered out of the store as sirens blared in the distance.
Chapter Two
Two years earlier, Los Angeles
“Hold it, Petrossian, this the place?” Officer Soto shoved the last of his hot dog in his mouth and brushed his hands together to rid himself of crumbs.
His partner scowled. “Yes. Do you have to be such a pig?”
“I’m hungry.” Soto peered through the window of their cruiser at the large, square warehouse building beside them. “You sure this is it? Doesn’t look like much is going on.”
Petrossian shrugged and shifted the car into park. “That’s what the map says. I don’t argue with technology.”
Soto hopped out of the vehicle, pretending to adjust his gun belt as he tugged at his underwear. He’d run out of clean boxer-briefs and had resorted to wearing the Christmas boxers he’d found stuffed in the back of his drawer. The boxers’ bunched leg had a death grip on his thigh. He made a mental note to do laundry when he got home.
“What’s the problem?” he asked.
Petrossian shut his door and walked around the car to watch his partner pull at his underwear. “It looks like your underwear is riding up on you.”
Soto thrust a thumb toward the building. “I mean what’s the problem here.”
“Oh. Possible 207.”
Soto gave his boxers one last jerk before deciding the blood had returned to his right leg. “Okay. I guess, let’s knock and see—”
Before they could take a step toward the entrance, the only door on the side of the metal building burst open, slamming against the outer wall and bouncing back into the
