A dog barked. Loudly. It was followed by the shout of a man’s voice. The sounds were coming toward them.
And then she was free. She heard rustling in the brush to her left—trees that led to the parking lot and grew for miles down the beach.
Reaching to pull her sweater down, she attempted to sit up. She was shaking. Her wrist hurt. She could hardly get herself up on one elbow. Could hardly breathe.
And she was barely conscious when she heard a strange male voice say, “I need an ambulance. There’s a woman on the beach...”
* * *
MIKE WAS STILL at the office when Lacey Bridges’s number flashed on his caller ID. It wasn’t late. Not quite ten.
Why would Kacey’s sister be calling him?
Had she noticed something on her email account?
“Hello?”
“Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“Kacey calls you Michael.”
He shook his head. Frowning. What the heck? “Yes.”
“She’s asking for you. For Michael. That’s you.”
Standing up, he glanced around his office, as though assuring himself that he was where he thought he was. “Asking for me? Where is she?” Lacey was calling? Hand in his pocket, he strode to the other side of the room and stood in front of a loaded bookcase.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but you’re on her recent call list twice and she’s asking for you. I assume it’s something to do with the photo,” Lacey was saying, clearly upset.
There was that she’s asking for you again.
He rubbed his forehead as though he could get rid of the tension, the ache, with the tips of his fingers. Asking for you... Like she couldn’t call him herself...
“Where is she?” He enunciated clearly.
“We’re at the hospital,” Lacey said.
A car accident. It was the only thing it could be. Kacey was in perfect health. But like everything else she did, she got in a car and sped through life. Not that it would have been her fault. She was a great driver. Safe. Just fast...
“How bad is it?” He made himself ask the question. If she’d asked for him, it meant she was at least partially conscious. At least he hoped so. He figured it would be Bo’s name on her lips if she knew what she was saying.
“She mentioned the photo, Mike,” Lacey was saying.
The photo? “How bad is she?” he asked again.
“I’m not sure. They’re in with her now. But I think I’ll be able to bring her home tonight. She... Oh, God...” She started to cry.
Heart in his throat, Mike heard shuffling and then... “Hey, man, it’s Jem. Listen, Kacey was attacked on the beach. Some guy with a dog managed to interrupt things before she was raped, but she’s been badly assaulted. The guy with the dog stayed with her, called 911. Physically, I think she’s going to be fine...a broken wrist, maybe. Some bruises...”
A broken wrist? Bruises?
“Kacey keeps asking for you,” Jem said. So Lacey hadn’t been hearing wrong.
He shut things down as quickly as he could and grabbed his keys.
They’d managed to kill the virus attacking his clients’ computer system within minutes. Tracking the culprit could take days. His top staff could handle the rest of the night’s fallout.