“Looks like I’m too late.” Wearing jeans old enough to be faded near white and a dark beard from days without shaving, Joel stepped in the doorway.
Before Ben could make the introductions, Jocelyn bent down and grabbed the other gun. As she aimed it at Joel, the barrel bobbled from the trembling of her arm. “I will shoot you.”
Joel’s eyes widened and his hands went into the air. “Hold on there.”
“Whoa, Jocelyn.” Ben reached around her and lowered her arm with the softest touch he could manage in a crisis. “This is Joel Kidd—he’s with me.”
She glanced at Ben over her shoulder and a haze fell over her eyes. “Joel?”
She should recognize the name from the assignment Ben had been on when he met her. Joel never came to the hospital but Ben had mentioned him. He had talked about him again tonight when he spoke about a friend with a car fetish.
Joel flashed her a smile. “Ma’am.”
If she was impressed with Joel and what most women seemed to find irresistible in him, she didn’t show it. She spun around to face Ben again. All the color had drained from her face. “What is going on?”
That was exactly what he planned to find out.
Chapter Two
There were more than eight men in her apartment. Jocelyn couldn’t give an exact number because she stopped counting when Ben’s friends—he called them his team—arrived and the police showed up. Even a stray neighbor or two poked their heads in before being pushed behind the crime-scene tape.
Officers shifted in and out of her family room. A few took notes and circled every piece of anything left on the floor post-attack. They’d snapped photos and a Detective Willoughby asked her questions until her mind went blank.
Now they trampled over every inch of her floor as Ben talked with them, pointing from the door to the couch and explaining things she couldn’t hear. They must have mattered to him because he kept up a steady stream of talking while two uniformed officers listened and nodded now and then.
Ever since Ben escorted her out of the fray and to the barstool in her kitchen, she hadn’t moved. She didn’t think she could move. Her bare feet balanced on the bottom rung, frozen despite the humid night. Ben had put a sweater over her shoulders but she couldn’t feel the material against her skin.
The sirens had stopped wailing but the rumble of conversations continued all around her. She heard a clatter and creaks and looked up to see a crew in blue jackets file in with a gurney. There were evidence bags and a huge red stain under the head of the unknown man sprawled on her floor.
Something inside her brain started circling, around and around, and she almost fell over.
“Hey.” Ben stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the chaos and holding her steady with hands on her forearms. “You okay?”
If anyone but him, any voice but that soft, reassuring tone, had asked the question, she might have lost it. The calm demeanor only held so long. With the adrenaline rush gone and the shock of what could have happened settling in, her mask slipped. She felt raw, as if someone had flipped her inside out.
She managed a half smile. It was forced, but she tried. “Do you want an honest answer?”
“Probably not.” A policeman tapped Ben on the shoulder and he waved the officer away.