Spaz. Calm down.
Groaning, she leaned over the bed and scooped it up to try again, hoping to prove the Highlander wasn’t psychic. She didn’t want to admit it, but she had a niggling feeling something was wrong, too. Her anxiety had started with Luther’s absence at dinner and had only grown from there. It had taken the resurrection of a serial killer to distract her. Broch sensing Sean was in trouble now brought all her concerns rushing back.
She heard Sean’s voice on the other end of the line and perked for a moment.
“You’ve reached Sean Shaft. Please leave a message. If this is an emergency—”
Damn.
“Okay,” she said, swinging her legs out of bed. “Let’s go.”
They scrambled into their clothes and jogged to the Jeep. Catriona threw Broch her phone.
“Keep trying him.”
She heard the muffled ringing of Sean’s phone again and again as she drove, each time ending in the same voicemail message.
“He willnae answer. Cannae ye drive faster?”
“Not without getting pulled over or blowing the engine on this poor old girl.” Even so, Catriona pushed the pedal a little harder and heard the Jeep moan with reluctance. She was a trusty old machine, but flying down the desert highway at a hundred miles an hour was more than an SUV with its own AARP card should be asked.
Catriona kept her eyes locked on the road and eased to ninety. There were very few cars on the desert stretch of highway so early in the morning. While that was a good thing, it also meant she didn’t have taillights ahead to warn her about potential speed traps that would only slow their progress.
On the upside, she felt amazing. She hadn’t realized it right away, but it was as if all her aches and pains had simply vanished overnight. Falling asleep in Kilty’s arms, she remembered having the passing thought she’d probably awake in even more discomfort.
Quite the opposite.
“How do you feel today?” she asked Broch.
“Eh?”
“How do you feel? Especially good, bad, anything?”
“Ah tellt ye, ah’m worried aboot Sean.”
“No, not that. I mean how do you feel physically?”
He shrugged. “Aboot the same as usual, ah ken. Yer lip looks better.”
“Yeah?”
She touched the spot where her lip had been swollen. It felt smooth. Normal.
Hm. So weird.
Maybe Sean was on to something, sleeping in the desert. Maybe the dry air helped bruises heal. Maybe lizards had licked her split lip back together while she slept.
She touched it again, finding it hard not to think about lizards licking there.
Ew. Why do I think things like that?
Forty-three minutes and fifty phone call attempts later, the glowing Parasol Pictures sign rose into view.
“Hauld yer horses.” Broch reached out to touch her arm as they entered the parking lot.
“What?” Catriona glanced at him, nearly forgetting to brake before the Jeep hit the guard gate. The tires screeched to a halt. The night guard burst from his booth, waggling his hands in the air.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
The guard dropped one hand to rest it on his gun. Catriona pointed at her face, hoping he could see her through the glass.
Easy there, rent-a-cop.
Broch opened his door and jogged away through the outer lot.
Where—
“Where is he going?” she heard the guard ask as she rolled down her window. He’d echoed her own thoughts.
She hopped out. “I don’t know, but you get your hand off your gun right now or you’re fired.”
The guard took a step toward her, his expression a mixture of anger and confusion. It wasn’t Don, whom she’d asked to keep an eye on her sister the night before. Shift change was at midnight. She didn’t know the new guy.
The guard moved his hand from his weapon, but maintained his mean expression. “Who are you? Show me your I.D.”
“I’m your boss.” It was a half-truth. Only Sean and Luther had direct seniority over the guards, but she was pretty tight with them. “How long have you worked here?”
The guard sniffed. “Three weeks.”
Hm. That explained the crappy hours. Catriona supposed she rarely pulled in at three a.m.
“Look, I’m Catriona Phoenix. I’m security for the studio—”
“Catriona! ’Ere! Noo!”
Catriona’s head swiveled away from the guard. Broch had stopped fifty yards down the parking lot and now sat on his heel, crouched over something and beckoning to her.
Is that a person?
Catriona gasped.
Sean.
She broke into a sprint.
“You can’t leave this here!” yelled the guard behind her.
“Call an ambulance!” she screamed back.
Sean. It has to be Sean. Something’s happened.
As she grew closer she saw the sneakers on the body’s feet and knew immediately it wasn’t Sean. It wasn’t until she was nearly on top of Broch that she could see the man’s face. He lay on his stomach, nose peeking out beneath a shock of moppy blond hair.
“Pete?”
Catriona kneeled beside her friend.
“Shuid we turn him ower?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think we should move him. There’s the possibility of spine injuries and head trauma and all sorts of—”
Pete groaned.
“Pete?”
Pete moved his arm to push himself to his side, his tongue darting out to lick at the blood covering his lips.
Broch winced. “Och. His face looks lik’ ground lamb.”
Pete rolled himself to his butt, propping himself up with one arm. His face was a sheet of dark red from his nostrils to his chin. His nose had swollen to twice its usual size and the ridge down the center had relocated itself to the left. He stared up at Catriona and smiled, the blood between his teeth casting a ghastly hue.
“Hey Cat.” He reached up and touched her hair. “I love you.”
Catriona recoiled, embarrassed. “Stop
